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.
In 1981 STASH cologne for men attracted women as well as police and their dogs
DRIVING home I was stopped by the police. One copper leaned in the window and said he could smell marijuana. I told him was mistaken, which he must have been: there was never any weed in the Peugeot, officer. He ordered me from my car and the usual nonsense followed before I was sent on my way. Which all leads to this question: can the smell of marijuana attract member of the opposite sex as well as the police? In 1981, the makers of Stash perfume thought so:
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Posted: 10th, October 2013 | In: Flashback, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Hitler worked as a chef, a professor and a Nazi-next-door in Western Canada
WOULD you know Hitler is he were living in Canada? In November 1944, the Free Press Weekly Prairie Farmer asked is readers:
“Would You Know Der Fuehrer’s Face If He Settled In Western Canada?”
It’s all about the facial hair. In 1940s’ Western Canada, chef’s were buttoned-up, militaristic and waxed-tipped; all men of letters wore glasses and went for a centre-parting; the Hobos dress like Slavs; and the guy next door looks like a Nazi.
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Posted: 10th, October 2013 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
Naked easyJet passenger who challenged captain to a fight tasered at Manchester airport
“HE must have been drunk because when he came off the plane, he took his top off and shouted ‘come on then’ in a Manchester accent and was trying to get the captain to fight him,” Says an eyewitness to events on an easyJet flight arrived at Manchester Airport from Malta. “Then he carried on taking all his clothes off. I have no idea why. The woman he was with gave him a slap for it. He’d had an altercation with other passengers and the captain had come down the plane to calm him down.”
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Posted: 10th, October 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comments (3)
Shake Your Booty Club dancer stabbed boyfriend in the eye after he refused her offer of a threesome
Posted: 10th, October 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Great records: Praise-R-Cise is your musical Christian Aerobics weight-loss plan
CHRISTIAN Aerobics was not like other aerobics (notably Muslim aerobics, Jewish aerobics and the Sikh aerobic, which is, as we know, glorified rhythmic gymnastics).
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Drunk Jack Kerouac debates ‘hippie” and its meaning with a pompous William F. Buckley – Fernanda Pivano just gets it
JACK Kerouac, author of the classic, On the Road liked a drink or three.
In this video, Kerouac talks with writer Fernanda Pivano. He is three sheets to the wind:
In 1965, Kerouac was on the magic box again. William F. Buckley was in the chair, whose pomposity and self-regard is hilarious.
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Posted: 9th, October 2013 | In: Books, Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment
The TV adverts schoolchildren loved to quote
THE Associated Press journeys to Vernon Center Middle School Connecticut middle school. Students are screaming “HUMP DAY”. It’s distracting the teachers.
The news report is here:
It’s all a remarkable non-news story. But it got us wondering what adverts we quoted in our youth. A poll of Anorak Towers revealed these gems:
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Posted: 9th, October 2013 | In: Flashback, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Dewsbury man ordered to remove ‘Polite Notice’to burglars from outside home
“Polite Notice: There is nothing of value left on our premises… It’s already been taken… By Thieving F*cking Bastards.”
Madeleine McCann: an entertaining libel and Danie Krugel
MADELEINE McCann: a look at today’s media coverage of the missing child.
The Star (front page): “MADDIE: Mums begs court: Let me clear my name.”
“Mum” is, of course, Kate McCann. That she should have to prove her innocence is absurd.
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Posted: 9th, October 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
Kevin Pietersen wins libel damages against Specsavers after they implied he was a cheat
ENGLAND batsman and general talented poser, Kevin Pietersen, has accepted a large but undisclosed amount of money for libel damages after a Specsavers advert implied he may have tampered with his bat during this summer’s Ashes series against Australia.
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Over 40% of Americans don’t know Carbon Dioxide warms the planet
THE Pew Research Center wanted to establish how much American adults know about science.
Question 1. “What gas do most scientists believe causes temperatures in the atmosphere to rise?”
Correct answer: Carbon Dioxide.
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Are you a lady driver? Careful of your ovaries in Saudi Arabia
WOMEN drivers come in for a lot of flack, mainly because they accidentally inspired that awful Sheila’s Wheels advert. However, someone more deserving of the mockery is Saudi cleric, Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaydan.
He’s warned, with a completely straight face, that driving will affect women’s ovaries and bring “clinical disorders” upon their poor unfortunate children.
Yes, you read that correctly.
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Tommy Robinson is not the first EDL member to join Quilliam
TOMMY Robinson has quit the English Defence League to join the Quilliam Foundation. Who are they?
In 2009, the Maajid Nawaz, Director of the Quilliam Foundation, said of the UK’s ban on Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP:
“Banning Geert Wilders from the UK is not the solution. Just as the ideas of non-violent Islamist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir should be tackled through debate and argument, so should those of Wilders and others. Freedom of speech should be protected – so long as people do not use this freedom to call for violence against others.
“Wilders has evidently been convinced by the words and actions of Islamists and jihadists that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant. We therefore challenge him to an open debate in which we will argue that Islam is not an inherently violent religion and that, contrary to what he apparently believes, Muslims are not a threat to Europe and its values.”
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Posted: 8th, October 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (9)
Madeleine McCann stars in the least surprising tabloid headline ever
EVER since innocent child Madeleine McCann went missing, we’ve been kept up to date with the story’s key points:
The investigation: the police have not proven what crime befell her, if any. But kidnap is the favourite theory.
The facts: she went missing
The revelations: she is still missing
The court cases: Robert Murat and the parents were libelled in a torrent of media speculation.
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Posted: 8th, October 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
The ‘Daily Mail Hates Britain’ protest in photos
DID you go to the anti-Daily Mail protest? The ‘Daily Mail Hates Britain’ protest, organised by the People’s Asssembly, took place outside the Daily Mail newspaper headquarters, in London on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013. The newspaper ran a story that smeared the reputation of Ralph Miliband, the father of Britain’s Labour party leader, Ed. Ralph Miliband – a noted Marxist academic – appeared under the headline: “The man who hated Britain”. It was revolting:
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Samantha Lewthwaite: no link to al-Qaeda chief Abu Anas nor Westgate mall massacre
SAMANTHA Lewthwaite: a look at the wanted Briton in the news. To recap: the Daily Mail said a white woman had backed out commands to the Westgate shopping mall killers. The Belfast Telegraph a white woman had smeared blood on her face and fled the massacre.
The Sun: “America’s war on 200 terror Brits”
Simon Hughes:
WHITE Widow Samantha Lewthwaite is on a hit list of more than 200 British fanatics as America ramps up the war on terror. The US vowed to catch Lewthwaite and her fellow extremists as it was confirmed two raids had already been mounted on al-Qaeda-linked warlords.
Catch her and try her with crime. What crimes?
On Saturday Delta Force commandos snatched Libyan al-Qaeda chief Abu Anas [above], 49, one of the world’s most wanted men who once lived in England. He was allowed to stay in the UK after fleeing Sudan in 1995.
He was nicked in 1999 — a year after al-Qaeda bombs killed 200 at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania — but fled after being freed for lack of evidence. His capture — and a US Navy Seal raid in Somalia — was prompted by last month’s al-Shabaab siege at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in which at least 67 people died.
US Secretary of State John Kerry warned: “We hope this makes clear we will never stop in the effort to hold those accountable who conduct acts of terror.”
Daily Mirror: “White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite: Net closing in as hit squads hunt down ‘world’s most wanted terrorists'”
Security agencies have a dozen extremists in their sights and British fugitive Samantha Lewthwaite is believed to be “high on the list”.
We are not who believes this to be the case.
MI6, the CIA and Israeli security service Mossad – have since been working “round the clock” to find her .
Wow. All three agencies spending 24-hours a day looking for one woman .
UtV: “Police in Kenya have confirmed they do not believe British woman Samantha Lewthwaite was involved last month’s deadly terrorist attack.”
Fact!
Michigan Chronicle: “While it is not believed that Lewthwaite was among the terrorists who took part in the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi in which at least 67 people were killed, an Al Shabaab spokesperson said she was involved in the attack.”
Fact!
MacLeans: “At least one witness told the press of a ‘pale-skinned woman’ with long dark hair opening fire from a balcony. There were other reports of a white, English-speaking woman giving commands in English that were then translated into Swahili for the gunmen to carry out…. If Lewthwaite was killed in the attack, she will have achieved the same radical Islamic martyrdom sought by her late husband. But if she remains at large—as seems to be the case—she will be watching her back very carefully.”
In the Telegraph, police chief David Kimaiyo said, “On Samantha we have also established that she was not part of the attackers in the building. There was no woman.”
Who was there?
Four men believed to have been involved in the deadly shopping centre attack in Nairobi last month have been named. The Kenyan military said Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Kene and Umayr – shown in new CCTV footage – were killed during the standoff.
James Brown teaches us to dance like Mr Bo Jangles’ Funky Chicken
WHO taught you how to dance? Clearly, no-one.
The aim of most dancers is to get into the middle of a large group already at it and hope no-one notices them. Either that or do The Madness dance. We cannot all be Yorkshire TV dancing champions. So. Where disco dancing Dick Blake failed, James Brown can only help. He’s here to teach us The Funky Chicken, The Boogaloo and The Camel Walk.
The trick is… Well, there is no tick. You either can do it well or you can’t do it well. But anyone can have fun trying. If you have no natural ability you just need lots of space, socks, good knees and a lack of self-awareness bordering on the criminal. James, of course, makes it look easy and fun:
Surrey police threaten to arrest ‘annoying’ children playing sport in the street
“Playing football or other sports in the street is a criminal offence, particularly if someone is affected, such as being involved in an accident, or where the activity has caused them annoyance, alarm or distress.”
An Insp Hollingsworth then spoke:
“The main purpose of the flyer was to identify the concerns and emphasise the obvious dangers involved in playing in the road.”
“Please accept my apologies for the way in which the leaflet put this message across and for any offence it may have caused.”
Local News: Hackney man dies in fireball (again)
THE Hackney Gazette supplies out local news story of the day: “Man Dies In Human Fireball AGAIN”:
Abraham Lincoln’s wold-be killer Lewis Powell was a Shoreditch hipster
LEWIS Powell (who conspired with John Wilkes Booth to kill Abraham Lincoln) wouldn’t have looked out of place in modern-day Shoreditch.
This picture is one of a set of the American Civil War by Jordan Lloyd, 27, and Mads Madsen, 19.
Lewis Powell is photographed in the clothes he wore on the day of the assassination, which are surprisingly clean for a brutal knife murder gone wrong – the photograph is taken by Alexander Gardner while Powell is in custody on a naval vessel.
More at Photo Chopshop and Colorized History.
Spotter: Brendan O’Neil
Irony Overload: The Guardian says the Daily Mail is anti-Semitic
WHEN it comes to talking of anti-Semitism in newspapers, who better than the Guardian to bring the Daily Mail to order over its Ralph Miliband hatchet job? The Guardian is the paper in which Richard Imgram told readers:
I have developed a habit when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I tend not to read it.
The Guardian is subtle in its bigotry, doing down the Jews claims to a homeland.
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Posted: 6th, October 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Barrister says he knows where Maddie is (road sweepers scoff)
MADELEINE McCann: Anorak’s look at the missing child in the news. As the McCanns pursue Goncalo Amaral for libel damages in Portugal, the British press publishes a welter of new Maddie news. Yesterday, the police told us that the child could have been stolen by a burglar. The Met offered no proof to support its theory. No evidence. She she could have been stolen by a burglar who seems to have taken nothing else from that holiday apartment, right?
Today the Mirror has more amazing news. Yesterday, it said Maddie had been taken by paedos. Today it thunders from its front page:
New Madeleine McCann sensation: Witness tells barrister he saw girl ALIVE just weeks ago
And he waited this long to tell us? Maybe this man of law was studying the evidence?
A shaken barrister has told police how a man boasted to him that he had seen missing Madeleine McCann just weeks ago.
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Posted: 6th, October 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
