Reviews Category
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False Black Widow Demands Chance To Eat A Celebrity Or Real Black Widow Dies
THE autumn has been marked by a series of panicky stories about spiders. The tabloid terror news runs in cycles: autumn: spiders; summer: sharks and foxes; winter: lice; and spring: Bill Oddie. Much has been written about the False Black Widow, a big spider that if you’re brave enough to look it in the eyes, pretends to be killer Black Widow, but is in actual fact just a domestic bug playing dress-up.
The location of the real Black Widow spider is not known. She’s missing. In the meantime, the impostor runs amuck, breaking into homes and giving the grieving Black Widow a bad name.
Adding to the spider panic, we read the story of the woman who spotted a gang of spiders in her Sainsbury’s Fair Trade bananas. Consi Taylor, 29, husband Richard and their two young children were forced to abandon their house in Hampton, south-west London. She says the beasts were Brazilian Wandering Spiders, but we’d wager they were False Widows up to their usual tricks.
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Posted: 4th, November 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Wind Turbine Plot To Murder Bald Eagles
HAVING killed the bird of the century, sliced golden eagles and made bats explode, the US bald eagle is getting the silent treatment:
More than four decades ago the golden eagle was awarded the same protections under US law as the country’s national bird, the bald eagle. Even disturbing their nests is a criminal offence.
The raptor is not considered to be under threat but scientists are worried about a recent increase in the number of golden eagles killed by wind turbines. Eagles in flight tend to focus on the ground below as they look for prey, unaware of the fast-spinning blades in their paths until it’s too late.
Madeleine McCann: Finally We Get A Black Suspect (And He’s Dead)
MADELEINE McCann: Having rounded up and let the gypsies go (for now) the Daily Mirror tells readers that the latest “suspect” is an African-born black man.
The headline yells: “Madeleine McCann prime suspect pictured: Heroin addict who worked at hotel club”
The prime suspect” is Portuguese immigrant Euclides Monteiro. David Collins writes:
A key suspect in the abduction of Madeleine McCann was fired from the holiday complex where she vanished after police warned staff: “You can’t trust this man.”
A key suspect? But he was the “prime suspect” just one line earlier? And weren’t gypsy abductors giving us hope?
Says the Mirror:
Junkie and ex-jailbird Euclides Monteiro was sacked by the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, Portugal, the year before the blonde three-year-old disappeared on May 3, 2007.
Because her hair colour is of vital importance.
Yesterday, as the first picture of the 6ft 2in ex-waiter emerged, detectives were investigating the possibility that he kidnapped Madeleine after being disturbed as he broke into her family’s apartment.
Menteiro, known as Toni, died aged 40 in a tractor accident four years ago.
He’s dead. He died in 2009. Let’s dig him up and beat him with sticks. And then arrest him:
But phone records have placed him near the flats at the time she vanished. It is believed he may have been raiding guests’ rooms to feed his heroin habit.
Yeah. Or maybe he wasn’t.
His picture looks nothing like two e-fit images issued by Scotland Yard – but police stress they are still exploring every line of inquiry.
No sh*t. You remember those e-fits? The Mirror shows us them and declared that the man in the picture was “vital” to solving the case.
Is there a witness?
Nelson Rodrigues, 32, a barman and waiter at the Ocean Club for two years, worked alongside Monteiro in 2006. He said yesterday: “On the surface he was a nice guy but there was something not right with him. He would turn up to work with bleary eyes, sometimes he didn’t seem like he was all there. And things were going missing about that time – laptops, jewellery, mobile phones, anything that was lying around.”
A suspected thief in life becomes a child kidnapper in death.
Mr Rodrigues said police were called after Monteiro was accused of stealing tips. He was searched, but nothing was found and he protested his innocence.
Later an officer for Portugal’s national guard took the staff to one side and warned them about Monteiro. Mr Rodrigues recalled: “The officer told us, ‘We know him, you can’t trust that man’. They said he’d been in trouble in the past for drug offences. “That’s the last time he worked at the Ocean Club. I never saw him again.”
Until now…
What other evidence?
He was living in Lagos, a 15-minute drive from Praia da Luz, when Madeleine disappeared. British expat, George Burke, from Liverpool, reported a possible sighting in Lagos.
He said he saw a girl “remarkably like Madeleine” being dragged along a road to Lagos marina at 6am the day after she went missing.
But Monteiro’s relatives claim police are just looking for a “scapegoat”.
His sister Paula said: “It’s ridiculous – the e-fit they released is a white man and my brother was black. He loved kids. He had a son and daughter and would never have harmed a young girl.”
Such are the facts…
Posted: 4th, November 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Collyer And Daughter Marjorie Recall How They Survived The Titanic Sinking
TITANIC survivors Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Collyer and daughter Marjorie It was on a Wednesday we took the train to Southampton. Some of our friends were at the station to see us go, and some of them saw us off on the boat, I didn’t think there was any boat in the world as big as the Titanic. (named Marjery in one report), 8, had a story to tell of that terrible night. Marjorie’s account of the night was reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. She and her mother became famous.
Marjorie’s tale formed part of Charlotte’s story. She had spoken to the San Francisco Call.
I don’t remember very much about the first few days of the voyage. I was a bit seasick, and kept to my cabin mod of the time. But on Sunday, April 14, I was up and about. At dinnertime, I was at my place in the saloon, and enjoyed the meal, though I thought it too heavy and rich. No effort had been spared to serve even to the second cabin passengers on that Sunday the best dinner that money could buy. After I had eaten, I listened to the orchestra for awhile; then, at perhaps nine o’clock, or half-past nine, I went to my cabin. I had just climbed into my berth when a stewardess came in. She was a sweet woman, who had been very kind to me. I take this opportunity to thank her; for I shall never see her again. She went down with the Titanic. “Do you know where we are?” she said pleasantly. “We are in what is called The Devil’s Hole.” “What does that mean?” I asked. “That it is a dangerous pert of the ocean,” she answered. “Many accidents have happened near here. They say that icebergs drift down as far as this. It’s getting to be very cold on deck, so perhaps there’s ice around us now!” She left the cabin, and I soon dropped off to sleep. Her talk about icebergs had not frightened me; but it shows that the crew were awake to the danger. As far as I can tell, we had not slackened our speed in the least. It must have been a little after ten o’clock when my husband came in and woke me up. He sat about and talked to me, for how long I do not know, before he began to make ready to go to bed. And then, the crash!
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Posted: 3rd, November 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment
William S. Burroughs Sings Songs Of Poets From The Beatnik Book
WILLIAM S. Burroughs is known for his collaboration with rock musicians in the 1990s. But he had previous.
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Posted: 3rd, November 2013 | In: Books, Flashback, Music | Comments (2)
The World’s Worst Likenesses Of Celebrities And Persons Of Note
WE name the mystery men.
The campaign to put Jane Austen on English banknotes appears to have achieved a somewhat hollow victory, if responses to the proposed portrait are anything to go by.
Austen biographer Dr Paula Byrne describes the proposed picture as resembling a doll, and making Jane appear “dim-witted”. She even goes so far as to compere it to “a Katie Price makeover”.
However, Elizabeth Proudman of the Jane Austen Society begs to differ. While conceding that the eyes are too big, and the face is ‘prettified’ she appears happy with the overall appearance – including the bonnet, which she says Austen always wore.
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Posted: 2nd, November 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Was German Gestapo Head Heinrich Mueller Buried In A Jewish Cemetery?
WHAT ever happened to German Gestapo head Heinrich Mueller? For decades there were alleged sightings of Mueller in Cuba, Argentina and elsewhere. But Johannes Tuchel, director of Berlin’s German Resistance Memorial Centre, says he’s uncovered evidence Mueller didn’t make it out of Berlin. He says several documents, including a 1945 death certificate and a grave digger’s testimony to police in 1963, make it “clear-cut” to him that Mueller died and was buried near the Luftwaffe headquarters in the final days of the war. He says Mueller was later disinterred and buried with thousands others in a common grave in a Jewish cemetery destroyed by the Nazis.
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Exploiting Baby P: Sharon Shoesmith Gets Ed Balls’ Goat And Jeremy Kyle Baits The Underclass
WHO better than Jeremy Kyle, baiter of the poor and slack-jawed, to tell us what we should think of news that Peter Connelly’s mother, Tracey Connelly, has been released from prison?
In Kyle’s hands the story of Peter Connelley is another chance to fix his gaze on the underclass, who have taken a kicking over this exceptional horror. Here’s what few papers said:
The Daily Mail: ‘[Baby P’s death] casts light on a section of society that gives the lie to Labour’s claim that British society is not ‘broken’ – the country’s ever-burgeoning underclass of welfare junkies, drug addicts and single mothers.”
Evening Standard: “Baby P’s background, of which we are now reminded, constitutes an unlovely picture of the British underclass.”
The Times: “The living hell of Britain’s underclass has forced its way into our consciousness several times in the past few weeks.”
NoTW: “…this underclass, this group, of deviants who’ve been allowed to take root in this country and who kill, maim and torture without guilt…this underclass will become even more savage, more feral – and more innocents will die.”
Here’s Kyle:
Now the system is wiping its feet on Baby Peter’s grave
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In Full: Edward Snowden’s Letter To Opposition Greens Lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele
TODAY, Opposition Greens lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele showed a letter to the media, he claims he received from Edward Snowden, prior to a press conference in Berlin, Germany. Stroebele said he met Edward Snowden in Moscow on Thursday, and that the National Security Agency leaker is prepared to help Germany investigate allegations of surveillance by U.S. intelligence. Snowden was granted asylum in Russia in August after being stuck at a Moscow airport for more than a month following his arrival there from Hong Kong. The 30-year-old faces espionage charges in the U.S.
The Letter.
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Posted: 1st, November 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (4)
Peru Day of the Dead: Losing A Loved One At Nueva Esperanza Cemetery
PERU Day of the Dead: Domitia Alaca, 77, stands amid tombs unable to locate her father’s grave in the Nueva Esperanza cemetery, during the Day of the Dead celebrations in Lima, Peru, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013. According to local authorities, Nueva Esperanza cemetery is the second largest cemetery in the world. Alaca eventually gave up her search.
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Classic Toys: The 1960s Swing Wing Mars Communicator And Neck Muscle Developizer
DID you have a Swing Wing in the 1960s? Did you dream of rotating your head so hard that you’d take off like a space boy? Did you develop chronic neck ache in later life? Is your next three times wider than your face? Then you DID have a Swing Wing.
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Posted: 1st, November 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Educating Yorkshire And Refusing To Be Filtered By Hugh Grant And His Thought Censors
Educating Yorkshire: teacher Matthew Burton reads to his class
THE British press is dominated not by truth tellers and the brave but by the privileged, the prickish, the petulant and the pestilent. I chose that last one carefully. The worst of our commentator class are like rats with bubonic plague, the nastiness they spread is ignorance, intolerance and hate. They want to persuade you that your fellow humans are heartless, that benefits are only paid to the pathetic and villainous. They want you to believe that no one besides you and a few acceptable rich people should have money. Bad news sells and if they can’t find it they simply make it up.
You might think that new legislation and rules following Leveson will make a difference. They won’t. People like Hugh Grant – once caught in a car with a hooker – and Steve Coogan – who wants us to forget about his former love of cocaine – are on the side of state legislation of the press. They want me to sign up for a special badge to exercise my freedom of expression. If celebrity arseholes like them win, I will move offshore and continue to write what I want, when I want, for who I want with impunity.
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Posted: 1st, November 2013 | In: Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
I Love New York: Graffiti Orders ‘Banksy Go Home’
IN New York, signs are the locals have had enough of Banksy’s stunts:
Spotter: Brendan O’Neill
Local News: Bottle Of Wine Stolen In Buckinghamshire
LOCAL News: The Bucks Free Press has news.
A BOTTLE of wine was stolen from a Tylers Green house at the weekend, police said.
Burglars gained entry to the property in Ashley Drive by forcing open a rear window between 6pm on Saturday and 4.30pm on Sunday.
They stole a bottle of wine and fled the scene, police said in a press statement.
Which the press reported on.
Charlene Downes And Paige Chivers: Finally Lancashire Police Take Action
WHAT did happen to Charlene Downes, the Blackpool teenager let down by police who weren’t bothered by rebellious, working-class teenage girls?
The Times says she was murdered. But there’s no body.
Charlene Downes was 14 when she was murdered in Blackpool and her body turned into kebabs. So they say. There is no proof of this. There is no proof that the teenager is dead.
Andrew Norfolk reports:
A new police inquiry is to be launched into the unsolved murder of a 14-year-old girl who vanished from a seaside town where dozens of men were using her for sex. The move, to be announced today on the tenth anniversary of Charlene Downes’s disappearance in Blackpool, comes as The Times reveals evidence of the horrific scale of the sexual crimes to which social workers and police believe the child fell victim.
Others have gone missing in the Lancashire resort, failed by police incompetence and lies. Paige Chivers is also missing. The girls’ parents wants the police used. The man wrongly accused of murdering her does, too.
Her mother said:
“I could not understand why the police did not put out information about Charlene on TV, and why only the local paper was interested in her disappearance,” said Downes. “I often wonder, if she had been from a posh family, and was having piano lessons, would they have tried harder to find her?”
Photo: The mother of Charlene Downes talks to members of the English Defence League during an EDL demonstration in Blackburn, Lancashire. Picture date: Saturday April 2, 2011
Andrew Norfolk has been pounding a seedy beat:
Inquiries by this newspaper have established that so many adults were thought to have been having sex with the girl [Charlene] that police initially drew up a list of 100 “people of interest”. New information also exposes the falsity of claims by far-Right groups that she was abused solely by Muslims. The case was adopted by the British National Party after it emerged that Charlene, whose body has never been found, was among dozens of Blackpool girls lured to a cluster of Asian food outlets where sex was swapped for food and alcohol.
True enough. Not all abusers are Asian.
Her parents, Robert and Karen Downes, have joined the BNP in blaming “Muslim paedophile gangs” for their daughter’s exploitation. Mrs Downes, 48, an “avid fan” of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, used a social media site to suggest in 2011 that all Muslims should be burnt “with petrol and explosives”. She has said that her “beautiful, clever” daughter was 13 when she “started going off the rails” after coming into contact with Asian takeaway staff.
Norfolk has damning claims:
The documents contain evidence from child protection professionals that Charlene was exposed to sex offenders almost from birth and that a succession of older white men, most of them invited into the family home by her father, were known or suspected to have abused her. They included:
• A 40-year-old friend of Mr Downes who admitted paying Charlene to perform a sex act on him.
• A man in his 60s, a “good friend” of Mr and Mrs Downes, who was found in the family home lying on a bed with Charlene, then aged 12 and wearing a “skimpy nightie”. The child scooped pound coins off the bed while the man pulled up his zip and fastened his belt.
• A 34-year-old man, living with the Downes family while on bail for sexual offences, who within a week of Charlene’s disappearance was jailed for indecent assaults against three girls aged under 10.
If true, Charlene Downes lived a horrible, brutal life.
Mr Downes, 52, told The Times that he did not realise, at the time, that any of the men he befriended was a paedophile. One of them did “terrible things to kids” but seemed “a genuine guy”. His wife this week described the adult found lying on a bed with her daughter as “a harmless old man”.
The couple insisted that they would never have knowingly exposed Charlene to a risk of sexual abuse. Mr Downes said that after her disappearance he was questioned by the police for 16 hours because “they believed I had something to do with it”, but “they let me go”.
His wife said she would continue to “fight against grooming gangs with the BNP”, claiming that Islam was “a vile religion of hate” but that she did not hate all Muslims.
So. Is she dead, the child used by adults?
Lancashire Constabulary said that after conducting a series of reviews it was launching a new murder inquiry into both the Downes case and that of 15-year-old Paige Chivers, another Blackpool sex-grooming victim, who vanished in 2007 and has never been found.
Finally.
Charlene’s mother, Karen Downes, says:
“I’m still as devastated as I was 10 years ago, and I still live in hope that one day she will be found. I will never give up until justice is done for her, and I’m very disappointed that nothing has been done by now. I want the police to do more, they have done nothing in the past five years since the case collapsed, they have just brushed it under the carpet or put it in a dusty cupboard somewhere.”
It’s an interesting family:
A young man struggling to come to terms with the tragic loss of his sister has been jailed over an attack with an iron bar. Robert Downes, whose teenage sister Charlene vanished aged 14 without trace almost 10 years ago, landed himself back in trouble for throwing the weapon outside the home of his former partner, hitting a woman.
His lawyer told Preston Crown Court how his problems all flowed from his inability to cope with the tragedy concerning his sister…
Today his mum Karen who now faces the 10th anniversary of Charlene’s disappearance without another of her children, spoke of her heartbreak.
She said: “I do not condone violence especially against women but not against anyone. Robert should not have done it. He is very sorry for what he has done.
“His head is all screwed up over what happened to his sister. He was 12 at the time and it is like he never had a normal teenage life. I am not making excuses because what he did was wrong, but I can fully understand why he was so angry.
“It is going to be terrible for the family when Charlene’s anniversary comes up. It will be like I have lost two children.”
And:
The mother of a missing schoolgirl was attacked by another one of her daughters, a court was told. Karen Downes, mother of missing Charlene, was punched, slapped and spat at by daughter Rebecca Downes.
The court heard Rebecca lost her temper because she thought her mother was deceiving her father and seeing someone else… Rebecca, 26, of Healey Street, Blackpool, pleaded guilty to assault.
Such are the facts…
How The Sun And News of The World Reported The Rebekah Brooks And Andy Coulson Affair Story
SO. How has the Sun reported the news that former News of the World editor was shagging former Sun and News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks when they worked together, as is alleged? Well, it leads with news of a trial. Yeah, Brooklyn Beckham has had a trial for Manchester United: It’s a “TRIAL SENSATION“.
In other news you won’t read in the Sun:
RANDY ANDY’S AFFAIR WITH EASTENDERS’ STAR’S GINGA NINJA
![[2GM - 1] NOW/NEWS/RESTRICTED ... 05/06/11](http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/giggs-affair.jpg)
BONKING BROOKS’ SECRET AFFAIR
ANDY COULSON ATE MY ‘HAMSTER’
UP YOURS, HER INDOORS
WOULD THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE THE OFFICE PLEASE DIM THE LIGHTS
NOTHING TO CHANGE HERE. LEAVE AS IS.
AT LEAST THEY’RE NOT GAY
Where’s the News of the World when you need it?
Posted: 31st, October 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Ladies Room Graffiti: A Video Exposé Of What Happens When Women Leave The Table
LADIES Room is a flies-on-the-wall look at what goes on on the ladies’ room.
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Posted: 31st, October 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Maybe It’s Just Because The NHS Is Rubbish? Obamacare, Listen Up
ANOTHER report out, another report insisting that it’s the inequality that’s killing people:
Women and children in the UK would have longer and healthier lives if they lived in Cyprus, Italy or Spain, and Britain is facing “a public health timebomb”, according to a study by an expert on inequality and health.
Sir Michael Marmot, who is known worldwide for his work on the social determinants of health, says much of the rest of Europe takes better care of its families. Life expectancy for women and death rates among the under-fives are worse in the UK, where there is also more child poverty.
The public health time bomb Marmot describes is caused by the large number of so-called Neets – young adults who are not in education, employment or training.
Well, it could be that. But there is a problem with Marmot and his research. He just never does look properly for all of the various things that could be causing the problems he notes.
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News Of The Screws: Did Brooks And Coulson Have Six Year Romp?
NEWS of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were bonking fir six years, alleges a brief at the Old Bailey.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis shows a letter from Rampant Rebekah to Randy Andy:
You are my very best friend. I tell you everything, I confide in you, I love you, I care about you. We laugh and cry together. In fact without our relationship in my life I am not sure I will cope. The thought of finding out anything about you or your life from anyone else fills me with absolute dread.
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The Amen Break: The History Of The Six-Second Burst Of Brilliance
THE Amen Break Beat. You’ve heard it. It’s been played on pretty much everything. It’s six seconds of music history. You heard it on Public Enemy’s Bring the Noise, N.W.A.’s awesome Straight Outta Compton and lost of sounds from the rave scene.
Writer Nate Harrison will explain its use after this blast of godly goodness from The Winstons, who filled a gap in the tune Amen, Brother, a B-side makeweight to the Grammy-winning 1969 hit Color Him Father. You might not know the song, but listen for drummer G.C. Coleman beating out the Amen Break. And, no, they got no royalties for their short blast of magic:
Indonesia Continues To Shackle Mental Health Patients
DON’T be ill in Indonesia. In these picrures, mental health patients are chained to the floor at a mental rehabilitation centre run by an Islamic boarding school in Tulungagung, East Java. Thousands of Indonesians with mental health issues are spending their lives in shackles or chain due to the lack of psychiatric services for the poor.
Would you shackle cancer patients?
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Police Say Fight At Council Awards For Safe Wigan Pubs Never Happened
TO Wigan for the Best Bar None awards at the DW Stadium. Run by Wigan Council and the emergency services, the awards seek to make Wigan safer with awards:
Best Bar None is a national award scheme for licensed premises – rewarding pubs, bars and nightclubs that provide good management, a safe and enjoyable environment for customers…
It encourages licensees to act responsibly and take pride in their premises and surroundings and, in doing so, put something back into the town and their local community.
The biggest winners are residents and visitors to Wigan, who are able to reap the rewards of a town centre and borough that is more welcoming, attractive, lively and above all safe.
Inevitably, a fight broke out. There was not an award for the best fighting pub.
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Posted: 31st, October 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
