Reviews Category
We don’t just report off-beat news, breaking news and digest the best and worst of the news media analysis and commentary. We give an original take on what happened and why. We add lols, satire, news photos and original content.
Gumby Creator Art Clokey Describes His Experience On LSD
ART Clokey creator of Gumby describes his experience on LSD, as prescribed by his psychiatrist. The medics said his therapy would go better if he took LSD and mescaline. He had visions. The world fade out to black. He saw a new world. He told the psychiatrist: “You’ve got the put his on television. This is fabulous.”
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Posted: 17th, October 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment
Police Warn EDL Convert Tommy Robinson To Leave Luton For His Own Safety
HOW’S life treating Tommy Robinson since he left the EDL for the Quilliam Foundation? Well, he’s tweeted this letter from Bedfordshire Police.
He adds:
Tommy Robinson @TRobinsonNewEra
Police advice,take your family and leave Luton,we cannot protect u.After I’m on terrorist Al-Shababs latest video
Posted: 17th, October 2013 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Iowa Debates Issuing Guns To The Blind
“IT seems a little strange, but the way the law reads we can’t deny them (a permit) just based on that one thing,” says Sgt. Jana Abens, a spokeswoman for the Polk County Sheriff’s Department, Iowa, referring to blind person’s right to own and carry a gun. “In the past year, Polk County has issued permits to at least three people who were legally blind, or were unable to read the application form due to visual impairment.”
Delaware County Sheriff John LeClere adds:
“I’m not an expert in vision. At what point do vision problems have a detrimental effect to fire a firearm? If you see nothing but a blurry mass in front of you, then I would say you probably shouldn’t be shooting something.”
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Posted: 16th, October 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Me and David Miliband: Once upon a time the the Daily Mail loved ‘evil’ Ralph Miliband
FUNNY how newspapers work. The Daily Mail called Ralph Miliband “the man who hated Britain”. The paper used the world “evil” in a hatchet job on Ed Miliband’s dad. But when in 2008, high-flying Mail staffer Ted Verity wrote about David Miliband, Ed’s big brother, Ralph got a different billing. (Only two Mail online articles are linked to Verity and both are about his mate David):
First impressions were underlined later that evening when David and I – who were both studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) – went for our first Oxford drink together. We headed for The Turf pub off Holywell Street, a favourite of Hardy’s Jude The Obscure, and I led the way to the bar. ‘I’ll have a half of bitter,’ said David…
But there was something else, too. David, although thoroughly middle-class, was the heir-apparent to a Labour dynasty…
Despite his self-confidence, his academic qualifications were distinctly underwhelming – two grade Bs and a D at A-level. David, it turned out, was one of three Corpus PPE students who had arrived on an Inner London Education Authority scheme to get pupils from the capital’s comprehensives to Oxford. A worthy scheme, no doubt, but it’s hard to imagine that David Miliband was the kind of deprived inner-city pupil the founders had in mind. His father was the eminent Marxist historian Ralph Miliband, whose work loomed large on our syllabus.
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Posted: 16th, October 2013 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
All Hail The Corporate Content Sherpa Making Mountains Out Of Molehills
WOULD you like to be a Sherpa? No, not a Himalayan Sherpa, who risk life and limb for glory. A man or woman (surely guy? ed) who can do the jobs the gofer did before they got a YouTube Channel and stock:
The job title shows up as a branding tool: strategy sherpa and ideas sherpas; on Twitter and LinkedIn there’s the Gym Sherpa, the Human Resources Sherpa, the Tech Sherpa, and a startup sherpa or two, as well as quite a few social media sherpas. The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development has two staff members with sherpa in their titles, including its chief of staff Gabriela Ramos. Hannah Morgan has been known as the Career Sherpa since 2008. “One reason the sherpa term has become hip is because it sounds less arrogant than expert or guru. And it sounds more unique than ‘guide,’” said Morgan.
Only, Morgan, it can make you sounds like a otherworldly dick. Tread carefully…
Madeleine McCann: Sarah Vine’s Maddie and Me – a Daily Mail horror story
MADELEINE McCann: a look at the missing child in the news.
Daily Express:
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Posted: 16th, October 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (7)
Fukuppy is the Fukushima mascot and fridge magnet
MEET Fukuppy, the Japanese cartoon egg using his “strong sense of justice” to fight for Fukushima Industries and better fridge magnets. Founded by Mr Fukushima, the company does have an office in the Fukushima region, where failed nuclear reactors caused the world to tremble. there.
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Posted: 16th, October 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)
Man refused Dunkin’ Donuts home upgrade puts toilets on his lawn
TO Augusta, Maine, to see David Labbe’s garden of loos. Mr Labbe hoped to sell his property to Dunkin’ Donuts, who would have erected a drive-through eatery for people too lazy to get out of their cars to buy deep-fried sugar and fat.
But with the deal agreed, Augusta officials blocked the sale. Mr Labbes’ neighbours were pleased.
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Posted: 16th, October 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Florida State turns condemend man William Happ into a lab rat
IN 1986, William Happ raped and murdered Angela Crowley, 21, in a parking lot. He tossed her body in a canal. Three years later he was sentenced to die.
We know he was guilty, because Happ confessed on all on his death bed, stretched out on the executer’s gurney. He confessed with some eloquence:
“For 27 years, the horrible murder of Angela Crowley has been clouded by circumstantial evidence and uncertainty. For the sake of her family, loved ones and all concerned, it is to my agonizing shame that I must confess to this terrible crime. I wish to offer my most sincere and heartfelt apologies not only to those concerned for Angela Crowley but also to those I deceived and allowed to believe in my innocence”.
There would be no clemency. Florida state would have justice. And to administer it there was a new untried lethal chemical mix: midazolam hydrochloride. Happ would be the lab rat to test its effectiveness.
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Posted: 16th, October 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
London Zoo’s new tiger cub has drowned but it wasn’t the first to die there (photos)
THE baby tiger born at London Zoo has died. The Sumatran tiger drowned in a pool in the zoo’s new enclosure, which opened in March this year. Tiger Territory is a specialist breeding centre for tigers.
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Posted: 16th, October 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
1984: Bruce McCandless takes man’s first untethered flight in space
ON 12 February 1984, Bruce McCandless waved farewell to the Challenger Space Shuttle and floated off into space. His only power was his Manned Maneuvering Unit or MMU, a nitrogen jet-propelled backpack. It was humankind’s first untethered flight in space.
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Posted: 15th, October 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
Northumberland school writes to parents of boy who defecated in the sink
SO. Why did the student get in trouble at his Northumberland school?
In praise of ‘like’: Why banning the word goes against-Shakespeare and good English
A LONDON academy wants to ban use of the world “like”. The fools. Jay Henrichs explain their idiocy:
Let’s use a figure of speech to make up new words. This is dangerous in high school or a government agency, where verbal originality often gets duly punished. You might also face condemnation from people who consider novel usage a linguistic impurity. But the words will come, whether we want them to or not. Better you and I should invent them than some adolescent on the street or, worse, some adolescent behind a computer.
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Posted: 15th, October 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comments (2)
Croydon school issues list of banned words: Coz they are like well dickish, innit
TO Upper Norwood’s Harris Academy, where the language police are in full cry. The Croydon Guardian reports that any students using any number of these offending terms will be “corrected”. We’d suppose correction will be a shot to the back of the head but with austerity budgets such as they are a hoe should suffice.
Banned words are: COZ, Aint, Like, Bare, Extra, Innit, Uou Woz. We Woz and ending sentences with Yeah. Literally, You get me and sayin’ are well safe.
The school’s mouthpiece says:.
“In addition to giving students the teaching they need to thrive academically, we want them to develop the soft skills they will need to compete for jobs and university places. This particular initiative is just one of the many ways in which we are building the vocabulary of our students and giving them the skills they need to express themselves confidently and appropriately for a variety of audiences.”
Nothing builds a vocab faster than banning words.
Drugs cop on Irish TV show exposed as an undercover drugs cop in real life
VIEWERS tuning into Irish TV’s crime drama Love/Hate got to watch Garda Kieran Madden in action. And so did the country’s villains. You see, Madden is played by Kieran O’Reilly – a copper who works undercover on the drugs squad for six years.
O’Reilly, 35, is attached to the Garda National Drug Unit in Dublin Castle.
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Posted: 15th, October 2013 | In: Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment
Plymouth lollipop man ‘suspended’ for high-fiving the kids
There is No Such Thing as a Free Press: the Press can never be too free
IF you want to know about the importance of Press Regulation in the UK – and why it must be fought – then read Anorak pal Mick Hume’s There is No Such Thing as a Free Press and We Need One More Than Ever. Yesterday he wrote in the Times:
Three hundred years of freedom quietly ended last week, when Britain’s three main political parties agreed to underpin a new system of press regulation by statute and Royal Charter. This is the first attempt to impose state-backed regulation since Crown licensing of the press ended in the 1690s. Perhaps we should be grateful that there are no immediate plans to reintroduce sending insolent writers to the gallows.
The Conservative Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, dismissed the newspapers’ proposal to retain an element of self-regulation as “unable to comply with some fundamental Leveson principles and government policy”. To which the considered answer should be: so what? Since when did a free press have to comply with the whims of government ministers or judges such as Lord Justice Leveson? The hardest thing for some to swallow about press freedom is the F-word.
In all the legalistic debate, the true “fundamental principle” of press freedom has been lost. That freedom is not a gift to be handed down like charity, only to those deemed deserving or well-behaved by the authorities. It is an indivisible liberty that applies to all or to none at all.
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Private Eye tackles press regulation with Hugh Grant’s tame kittens
PRIVATE Eye tackles the Leveson Report and Press regulation:
Spotter: @JoeWatts
If you buy the magazine do read our Ed’s From The Message Boards.
Madeleine McCann: what Martin and Mary Smith saw and the cynical Sun brands Our Maddie
MADELEINE McCann: Last night BBC’s Crimewatch staged a reconstruction of the night the innocent child vanished. It was odd. The reconstruction was very thin. We saw a happy family. Happy friends. And then an empty bed.The media reacts:
Sky News: “Kate McCann may have been just moments away from catching Madeleine’s abductor, according to new details released by officers.”
Is a thing that “may” have happened worthy of being Sky’s lead news story? Yes. Because for six years Our Maddie has been entertaining the armchair detectives. Sky wants you to watch its show:
Sky News will show a special investigation tonight at 8.30pm on Sky Channel 501, Virgin Media 602 and Freeview 82
It needs a fact, a hook to seduce the viewers by:
Ian Woods writes:
A man thought to be a key suspect in the abduction of three-year-old Madeleine McCann has been identified – and ruled out of the inquiry. For six years, detectives believed that a sighting of a man carrying a child close to her apartment was one of their best leads. But a review of the evidence has concluded that it was an innocent British holidaymaker carrying his daughter home from a creche.
And it was was a good one. The man Jane Tanner saw was not an abductor.
Police said they were “very pleased” with a response that has seen nearly 500 people contacted them with fresh information since last night’s show. Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann appeared live in the studio and said they were “feeling hopeful and optimistic”.
“These cases can get solved and that’s what the public need to think about tonight,” said Mr McCann. “We don’t know what’s happened to Madeleine, we don’t know who’s taken her. The best chance of finding her is by identifying (the person who took her).”
But we don’t know she was taken. All this time and we still do not know what or if any crime befell her. It’s just probable or less probable.
Mrs McCann said: “It doesn’t matter how much heartache we put ourselves through as long as we get the result that we need.” She appealed to viewers to have “the courage and confidence to come forward”, adding they could hold the key to “unlock” the case.
And then this:
And police have refocused their attention on a second witness statement which had been considered of less importance. An Irish family on holiday in Praia da Luz had told investigators that they saw a man carrying a child at around 10pm.
But is it relevant?
DCI Redwood said:
“If this is you, and you are nothing to do with Madeleine’s disappearance, then we really need to speak to you. It’s so important for us to eliminate innocent sightings. But equally if anybody is looking at those e-fits and recognises the person, for whatever reason, then please have the courage to call in and tell us.”
But what about that headline that Kate McCann nearly caught the crook?
The Express also leads with this fact:
Moments has become minutes.
The potential prime suspect is described as white, in his 30s, of medium build and height, clean shaven with short brown hair. He was carrying a child aged three or four who had blonde hair and was wearing pyjamas similar to Madeleine’s.
Any more facts?
He was heading for the beach but detectives say suggestions that Madeleine may have been taken from Praia da Luz by boat are speculation.
Indeed. Get a load of that headline.
Can anyone get a new scoop? Over to the Sun, we go:L
Two name suspect – Dramatic twists in hunt for missing Maddie
TWO Crimewatch viewers last night sensationally named the SAME man from two police e-fits of the prime suspect in the hunt for Madeleine.
And..? Nothing. B ut better than this is the enws that teh Sun has now adopted Our Maddie as its own. As is ever the way the paper slaps its logo on the missing and dead. How utterly revolting:
But what about the Irish Family who might have spotted something of interest?
The Irish Times: “Drogheda family’s evidence key to new Madeleine McCann appeal”
Drogheda couple Martin and Mary Smith were holidaying on the Algarve at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance with their daughter Aoife, son Peter and other family members. The man police now want to contact was spotted by the Smiths at about 10pm walking down the hill from the Ocean Club complex towards either the beach or the town centre, carrying a blond child aged about three or four, who was most probably wearing pyjamas.
The Smith family gave a statement to police soon after their holiday. The efits were compiled by private detectives in September 2008. However, Det Chief Insp Redwood said that for years the sighting was seen as “wrong place, wrong time” and thus unimportant.
Adding:
Officers do not consider the McCanns as suspects.
Martin Smith and his family left Portugal the day after the disappearance and only later realised the significance of the man walking towards the ocean with the young girl wearing pyjamas in his arms.
In 2009, the Belfast Telegraph noted:
Mr Smith, from Drogheda , was also on holiday in Praia da Luz at the time.
At about 9.50pm on May 3 he and his family were walking up a road less than half a mile from the McCanns’ apartment when he saw a man carrying a blonde girl of about four.
Mr Smith said in his police statement: “I thought they were father and daughter so I wasn’t so suspicious… The man didn’t look like a tourist. I can’t explain why — it was probably from his clothes.”
Such are the facts…
Posted: 15th, October 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (6)
Madeleine McCann: we know only know one thing for sure – an innocent child vanished
MADELEINE McCann: the news of the missing child is high on the cycle. One thing has changed which she went missing in 2007. Social media means people can talk more freely than they can in the UK. But Twitter would not make pleasant reading for the child’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann. The armchair detectives are having a field day. What was once “every parents worst nightmare” has become everyone’s game of Cluedo.
One thing unchanged is that the story has a single fact: the innocent child vanished.
Fleet Street Fox gets it:
Six years ago a little girl disappeared. And that’s it – that’s pretty much all we know for sure.
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Posted: 14th, October 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
‘In Memory of Little Joe. Died November 3rd 1875′: the canary in the mine
THE Canary in the mine:
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Posted: 14th, October 2013 | In: Flashback, Strange But True | Comment
Stanley Kubrick explains the meaning of 2001: A Space Odyssey
STANLEY Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was a film about… Well, what is about? In 1969, Kubrick told Joseph Gelmis:
You begin with an artifact left on earth four million years ago by extraterrestrial explorers who observed the behavior of the man-apes of the time and decided to influence their evolutionary progression. Then you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man’s first baby steps into the universe—a kind of cosmic burglar alarm. And finally there’s a third artifact placed in orbit around Jupiter and waiting for the time when man has reached the outer rim of his own solar system.
When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he’s placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man’s evolutionary destiny.
That is what happens on the film’s simplest level. Since an encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our present earthbound frames of reference, reactions to it will have elements of philosophy and metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself.
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Posted: 14th, October 2013 | In: Books, Film, Flashback | Comment
