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.
Mooning passenger falls on driver
TO Australia’s Northern Territory. Senior Sergeant Garry Smith tells what occurred when an 18-year-old woman was overtaking a semi-trailer travelling at 100km/h on the Stuart Highway, in Virginia:
“It was a complete act of stupidity. The passenger decided it would be a great idea to ‘moon’ the driver of the semi-trailer.”
WIth his trousers down, the passenger lost his balance as he was trying to get himself into the right position. He fell on the driver. With her view blocked, she lost control of the car.
“She veered off the road and travelled for about 100m through the scrub, hitting a large rock which caused it (the car) to roll over on to its roof… If it wasn’t so dangerous, it could have been quite funny. But under the circumstances, we were lucky we weren’t telling a family of a death.”
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A Good Boy Always Sleeps With His Hands Above The Covers
A GOOD Boys Always Sleeps With His Hands Above The Covers. A Good Boy Never Sleeps:
Fruit truck crash causes jam in LA (America drops jelly for accidental pun)
ARE Americans now au fait with jam? Isn’t it jelly over there? The LA Times reports on an accidental pun:
Big rig carrying fruit crashes on 210 Freeway, creates jam
Newsnight jumps the shark hunt: 99% of Clark County, Ohio, viewers polled say Ian Katz must go
THE new editor of Newsnight, the BBC news show that spiked the Jimmy Savile expose, is the Guardian’s Ian Katz. Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman said in the wake of the Savile debacle that BBC’s news division had been “taken over by radio … Helen Boaden, a radio person. Steve Mitchell, a radio person. Peter Rippon was a radio person. These people belong to a different kind of culture.”
How will a newspaper man with no experience of telly work out, then?
Guido Fawkes notes:
Fair, balanced and impartial Ian Katz will have no trouble fitting in at his new role as Newsnight editor … Katz certainly has top drawer left-wing credentials. Back in 2004, he was editor of the Guardian’s G2 magazine during their infamous ‘Operation Clark County’ plot to swing the state of Ohio in favour of John Kerry and against George W. Bush. Katz organised thousands of letters written by lefty Britons to be sent to individual voters in Ohio, imploring them to cast their ballot for Kerry. The result was uproar, a near diplomatic incident, and victory for Bush.
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Photos: The most miserable brides in the world at a mass marriage held on Akshaya Tritiya in Bhopal
FACES of the day: Indian brides, and bridegrooms, unseen, sit in customized vehicles during a procession held ahead of a mass marriage held on Akshaya Tritiya in Bhopal, India, Monday, May 13, 2013. SMILE! It’s the happiest day of the parents’ life!
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Global warming will boiled us all to death, say Manhattan experts
THIS is a fascinating little example of how the debate of climate change gets very skewed. In fact, the report is more interesting for what it says about that than it is in its intended actual result.
The number of people dying from unbearable heat in big cities could almost double because of climate change, according to new research.
A study in Manhattan found the number of fatalities caused by global warming will far outstrip the reductions in those perishing from the cold.
It follows a report last year by the Health Protection Agency that warned heat related deaths in the UK will increase by more than 10,000 annually – a fivefold rise.
It’s undoubtedly true that if and when global warming happens then more people will die of the heat than happens now. So the finding isn’t all that odd.
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Posted: 20th, May 2013 | In: Money, Reviews | Comments (2)
No News special: Lancaster University students get on a bus
WHAT news from Lancaster University? AlexSiddle tweets:
BONG! “Residents help Lancaster University research roadside particulate pollution”
BONG! “Billion-year-old water could hold clues to life on Earth and Mars”
BONG! “First, carbon footprints… now you can calculate your ‘nitrogen footprint’”
And:
BONG! “Staff and students get on the bus”
The Orthodox Church of Moldova wants gays to expect ‘severe consequences’
GAY Rights are hard won in Moldova. The Orthodox Church of Moldova have issued a statement about a Gay Pride at the “Rainbow Over the Dniester” festival:
His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir addressed a message to General Mayor of Chisinau, Mr. Dorin Chirtoaca, pleading that the authorities do not allow the organization of a gay pride planned for the 19th of May.
It is mentioned in the message: “The Metropolis of Chisinau and All Moldova continues to believe that this is a defying initiative, conflicting with moral values and decency. At the same time, a potential march of sexual minorities on the streets of Chisinau will be nothing else but a strong provocation with severe consequences, taking into account general repulsion of the population towards the deviant behavior of homosexuals and lesbians…”
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Test Your Patriotism: how artists tested their value to the US in 1963
TEST Your Patriotism with the Intelligence Centre Inc., New York, and stand a chance to win a scholarship worth $495!
It’s 1963 and the world in the grip of a Cold War. You need to pick a side.
Americans look like this? They have Presidential hair and clear complexions.
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Madeleine McCann: the couple who heard a child crying at night and went to help
IN “WHO SOOTHED WEEPING MADDIE, the Daily Express leads with a Madeleine McCann “exclusive”. It adds: “Police seek couple who entered McCann apartment when Madeleine was crying.”
This becomes:
Mystery couple seen going into McCanns’ flat on night before sobbing Madeleine disappeared
The night before? A couple of strangers walked into the McCanns’ apartment where a child was crying the night before that child vanished? How does the Express know it was Madeleine who was crying? Three children were in the McCanns’ apartment.
SCOTLAND YARD detectives are trying to find a middle-aged couple said to have entered Madeleine McCann’s holiday apartment to comfort her because she was crying, we can reveal today.
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Posted: 19th, May 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (6)
Amanda Knox and that kiss: Italians weep and wail at death while Americans do the splits and yoga
AMANDA Knox has tapped into the realisation that the media will not leave her in peace. That’s one view. Another is that she’s courting the media to make any conviction for her alleged part in the murder of Meredith Kercher less likely. What we believe boils down to whether or not we in the court of public opinion like her or not.
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Posted: 18th, May 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
1970s: Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks and “FREE DR Who Badges!”
FLASHBACK to the breakfasts of yestedday with Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks and “FREE DR Who Badges!” John Pertwee played the BBC time traveller between 1970 and 1974. He drove a jalopy called Bessie.
UNIT was the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. The Brigadier was its stalwart. Jo Grant was a junior civilian operative for UNIT. The Master was the enemy, naturally.
Posted: 18th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment
How I Killed The Tiger – Being An Account of My Encounter With A Royal Bengal Tiger: pictures from a 1902 hunt
IN the early 20th Century, tiger hunting was all the rage. King George V went looking for them after a good lunch with the Nepalese King. In 1902, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Sheffield went tiger hunting. He recorded his adventures in How I killed the tiger; being an account of my encounter with a royal Bengal tiger.
He tells his readers:
My main purpose in writing this little book, was to place in a permanent form a description of my wonderful preservation from death in a chance encounter with a Royal Bengal Tiger. My life had been adventurous up to that time. I had shot big game of various kinds. But this episode, so marvellous in itself, so important in its influence upon my after life and character, marks the close of my career as a hunter of big game.
These are the plates:
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Posted: 18th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment (1)
20 new Maddie suspects help Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell retire in a blaze of publicity
MADELEINE McCann: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at the missing child in the news: 20 new suspects with Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell:
The Front Pages:
Daily Mail (front page): “20 New Suspects”
The Sun (front page): “Brit Cops List 20 Maddie Suspects”
The Star (front page): “Maddie: Cops Hunt New Suspects
Express (front page): “Police Identify Maddie Suspects”
Daily Mirror (front page): She May Be Alive”
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Posted: 18th, May 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
Mechanic threatened by man wielding large black dildo over ‘lost’ Mercedes-Benz
WE join in the action in Sydney’s Central Local Court. Mr Aaron Sabbah’s is appealing for bail:
Magistrate Eve Wynhausen: “What is the alleged arm?”
Prosecutor Christian Hearn: “It’s a black dildo, your honour.”
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Man set fire to neighbours’ home over refusal to mow lawn
PHILLIP Roger Bennett, 58, was so upset by his neighbours’ apparent reluctance to mow their lawn in Bartow County, Georgia, that he set fire to their house.
Mr Corbitt tells us what happened:
“He kicks my door, tells me I’ve got five seconds to come outside. I turn around and call 911. And while I’m on the phone he comes back with two gas cans in his hand. He walks up to my kitchen door again, takes a gas can, smashes it against the glass, breaks the first pane… Then he turns around and grabs a brick, throws it through the window. And then he grabs a gas can and starts pouring it into the kitchen. And as he’s pouring he takes his lighter and lights it. And flames were everywhere. I ran back to my little girl’s room, grabbed her, ran out the back door over to my neighbor’s and watched the house burn.”
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In photos: Indian Muslim Sufi devotees use sharp objects and self flagellate during the Urs festival
IN photos: Indian Muslim Sufi devotees use sharp objects and self flagellate during the Urs festival procession to mark the death anniversary of Sufi Muslim saint Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, in Ajmer, India. Some of these photos are challenging viewing:
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Posted: 17th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Bigot Pride in photos: Georgian Gay Pride march cut short after violent protest by hatted and hairy straights
IN Georgia, being gay is difficult. Today there was an anti-gay pride rally, in Tbilisi, Georgia. You might call it bigot pride. Thousands of anti-gay protesters, including Orthodox priests, occupied a central street in Georgia’s capital Friday, with some threatening to lash with nettles any participant in a gay pride parade which was to take place there. The gay parade was to feature around 50 marchers. Police in Tbilisi guarded the gay activists and bused them out of the city center shortly after they arrived at the gathering. In other words, they were rounded up and booted out of town.
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In photos: The Hong Kong Bun Festival
THE Hong Kong Bun Festival:
Climbers collect mock buns during the Bun Scrambling contest at the bun festival at midnight in Cheung Chau island, Hong Kong Friday, May 18, 2013. The Bun Festival is the traditional event celebrating the islanders’ deliverance from famine centuries ago and is meant to placate ghosts and restless spirits.
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Watch the video of a stupid deer leaping through a bus window
STUPID animals are rife, but one dim-witted deer had a bloody lucky escape after being hit by a bus. Instead of dying, it ended up going through the window and wobbling around like Bambi.
The deer jumped across the path of the bus in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and smashed through the windscreen and was caught on video.
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1951 manual: How To Use a Dial Telephone
IN 1951: anyone uncertain of how to use a telephone was being educated:
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Posted: 17th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
A man responds to a PR: dear Kacey-Lee…
EACH week, Anorak fields hundreds of PR missives. Most are banal. On Spin Alley, Grey Cardigan replies to one gormless message:
THE CURSE of the over-familiar press release continues unabated. “Hi Grey,” an X Factor reject and probably unpaid intern called Kacey-Lee gushes. “I do hope you and your family had a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend and managed to get out and enjoy yourself in the lovely sunshine. Did you have a barbecue? I just wanted to get in touch regarding a revolutionary new range of homeopathic cures for irritable bowel syndrome…”
Brilliant stuff. And it gets a reply:
“Dear Kacey-Lee. Thank you for your interest in the well-being of myself and my family. Unfortunately I couldn’t get out in the sun to enjoy myself because I am twice-divorced and therefore don’t have enough money to even pay for a Mr Whippy. As for a barbecue, a Lidl sausage toasted over a blow-lamp is about my limit. My children won’t talk to me, my latest ex-wife is shagging an investment banker while still shafting me for every penny she can get, and I can’t go out in the sun because I have red hair and turn bright crimson if I even walk past a microwave oven. Anyway, it was rainy and foggy up here, somewhere north of Kensington, so there was no sun anyway. Oh, and my dog died, which somewhat took the gloss off the weekend…”
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Madeleine McCann detectives identify ‘potential suspects’ but won’t tell us how many or why
MADELEINE McCann vanished six years ago. Another summer of sighting looms, all eagerly reported by newspapers looking for easy news in the shark-spotting season. The Evening Standard reports:
British police identify new leads in hunt for Madeleine McCann and urge Portuguese to act
Go on:
Scotland Yard has identified a number of potential suspects who may have abducted Madeleine McCann, the force’s top detective revealed today.
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Posted: 17th, May 2013 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment (1)
Kai Nicodemus, aka Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, did not murder Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
REMEMBER Kai, the hero who gave TV the greatest interview of 2013 (before charles Ramsey) when he smu-ashed a ne’er-do-well with a hatchet? Well, now police allege that Kai, aka Kai Nicodemus or Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, bludgeoned attorney Joseph Galfy to death in his New Jersey home. The two men had met in New York City and then gone to the house.
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Posted: 17th, May 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Racism map reveals the world’s most and least racist places
SWEDISH researchers were looking at race:
The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races, the economists reasoned, the less racially tolerant you could call that society. (The study concluded that economic freedom had no correlation with racial tolerance, but it does appear to correlate with tolerance toward homosexuals.)…
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)
