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.
Nick Knowles built the pyramids
HISTORY, as you know, is a difficult subject, thanks to the sheer breadth of things that have happened. However, certain things have happened in the past that are so wonderful that you should probably know the basics of them all.
However, when you ask teenagers about anything, a rollercoaster of answers may come your way. For example, did you know that one in ten teens think that Nick Knowles built the pyramids?
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Dorset shops bans ‘foreingers’ (anyone who lives 30 miles or more away)
TO Dorset, where Mark Galpin, owner of the Aladdin’s Cave shop in Christchurch has banned tourists from entering.
Mr Galpin displays “clear and polite” signs outside the shop banning anyone living further than a 30-mile radius of the store. His shop is close to a bus depot, and he says the tourists waiting for a ride walk in and kill time. They don’t buy.
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Posted: 25th, March 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Boris Berezovsky commits suicide just like Gareth Williams did
HOW do you report on the death of exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky? The 67-year-old was fond in his Berkshire pile. His body was found by his bodyguard. It was in the bath. You know, the place where fibres get washed down life’s plughole.
(Gareth Williams died in the bath at his London flat. There was a Russian connection. The MI6 worker committed suicide, so they say. Looks like The billionaire exile might have down the same. PS: Robert Maxwell died at sea. No need to wait for the tycoon to take a batch when when he’s onboard a big boat.)
Call us suspicious, but if we see a puppy sat next to small mountain of poo, we jump to conclusions.
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Posted: 24th, March 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
Cat show billboard breaks pedestrian’s nose
THE advert for the cat show in Slovakia has surprised local woman Veronika Citatelka. She walked into it, breaking her nose. She says:
“What a stupid place to put a pole – right in the middle of the pavement. It almost knocked me out.”
That’s cats fo you. Anything for a cheap laugh at humanity’s expense…
Woman jailed for hitting boyfriend with plastic spoon
TO Florida, where Caroline Hunter, 50, has been jailed for hitting her boyfriend over the head with a plastic spoon. The spoon broke.
The romance blossomed when the boyfriend arrived home. Hunter a nurse by trade, was preparing dinner whilst drunk.
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Finnish passports works as a flick book
THE new Finnish passport works as a flick book. Flick the pages quickly and see the elk run.
Nice touch. But could it work in other countries? What animal running would best sum up life in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
A badger running from the cull? A child running from a fox? An adult running for the bus?
Daily Star weather reporting: ‘March is the hottest on record’
THE Daily Express claims to be Number 1 for weather news. But can its sister organ the Daily Star compete?
On 6th March 2013, Steve Hughes told us:
BRITS will bask in glorious sunshine this month as March 2013 is tipped to be the hottest on record.
The temperature soared past 17.5C yesterday, 7C warmer than average.
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The Hiroshima atomic bomb: the story in photos
HIROSHIMA: the bomb that ended a war:
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The 105th Archbishop of Canterbury enthroned and picked apart by the Red Nose liberal elite
THE 105th Archbishop of Canterbury has been sat on the Diocesan Throne and the Cathedral Chair. At the Cathedral, the Christian child, played by Evangeline Kanagasooriam, answered his knock at the oak doors.
“Who are you and why do you request entry?”
“I am Justin, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in his service together.”
The Archbishop does not do balconies. His message is of One Nation togetherness.
I, Justin Portal Welby, do so affirm, and accordingly declare my belief in the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness; and in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, I will use only the forms of service which are authorised or allowed by Canon.
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Is Iraq worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
WHAT will be the West’s legacy in Iraq? Democracy Now has shown us images of Iraqi babies born with defects.
Dahr Jamail, of Al Jazeera, makes a link:
Dr. Samira Alani actually visited with doctors in Japan, comparing statistics, and found that the amount of congenital malformations in Fallujah is 14 times greater than the same rate measured in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in the aftermath of the nuclear bombings.
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If James Holmes won’t confide in Allah will narcoanalysis succeed?
WHAT to do with James Holmes, the lone gunman who shot to kill in an Aurora, Colorado, cinema? The Washington Times reports that Holmes has turned to God:
The man who shot up an Aurora, Colo., movie theater during a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” last summer has reportedly converted to Islam and prays up to five times a day.
That was first reported in the National Enquirer, which attributes news of Holmes’ spiritual bent to an unnamed source. “He has brainwashed himself into believing he was on his own personal jihad and that his victims were infidels,” a prison source told the National Enquirer.
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Robbie Williams versus Britpop
REMEMBER when Robbie Williams left Take That and promptly went all ‘indie’ in a bid to be taken seriously while he stuck all manner of drugs up his conk? Well, The Fat Dancer From Take That has decided he doesn’t like indie anymore and gone mental telling everyone about it.
In a CAPScentric blog rant, Robbie lashed out at Suede’s Brett Anderson who took a swipe at pop music.
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Posted: 22nd, March 2013 | In: Music, Reviews | Comment (1)
Amazingly, fracking is less polltuing than normal drilling for gas
WELL, along one dimension it is, fracking producing much less waste water (and polluted waste water) than normal drilling for gas does. It isn’t quite how we normally think of it of course, but it does seem to be true:
There is a perception that the hydraulic fracturing of rock to discharge natural gas produces inordinate volumes of wastewater. After all, millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals are pumped at high pressure into the ground and a considerable portion of this fluid rushes back to the surface when the pressure is released.
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Posted: 22nd, March 2013 | In: Money, Reviews | Comments (2)
Pope Francis’ first tweet: ‘Pray for me’
WHEN Pope Francis took the Holy Knot he also took charge of the Vatican’s main Twitter account. So. What was his first tweet?
“Pray for me.”
To which the first thought must be, “Why. What you been up to?”
Giant asbestos tarantula found in Welsh attic
WHAT is worse than a tarantula? Finding a giant asbestos tarantula in your attic, which is on the loose and probably laying eggs in your mouth while you’re asleep!
AARGH!
Asbestos specialists Kusten Vorland were carrying out a survey in a 19th-century house in Cardiff when they made a truly disgusting discovery.
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Nibbles the hamster goes looking for help on Spey Street in Leith
IF Skippy, Slipper and Lassie taught us one thing it is that animals will do anything to save a human life. To Edinburgh, then, where a Syrian hamster was spotted “wandering along the pavement in the severe weather by a member of the public on Spey Street in Leith”.
What did the citizen do? Did they asks Nibbles what was up? Did Nibbles respond to probing questions about things being stuck down wells and rustlers? No. They called the Scottish SPCA who called Nibbles Poppy and too her to an Edinburgh rehoming centre.
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Destination Freedom: Richard Durham’s radio show educated with stories of ‘negro’ life
DESTINATION Freedom was a politically driven half-hour radio drama that gave a voice to African Americans. The blacks were portrayed on TV and radio as one dimensional dullards, slackers, idiots, criminals and simpletons with no history. This radio series would show America’s tens of millions of black people the blacks they recognised. Storytelling would do more than any number of lectures to show the real face of America’s underclass.
Destination Freedom began in 1948, and ran for two years. African American dramatist Richard Durham wrote all 91 episodes. His characters were rounded. They were “rebellious, biting, scornful, angry, and cocky, as the occasion calls for”.
Photo: The cast of Destination Freedom at a rehearsal, 1949.
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Posted: 21st, March 2013 | In: Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment
Tadpole fancier drank pets to smuggle them onboard plane
Posted: 21st, March 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment (1)
Donny & Marie sing Reelin’ In The Years
DONNY Osmond, 1970s Poster Boy for the lovelorn (literally), once teamed up with the lovely Marie to sing a version of steely Dan’s Reelin’ In The Years. On ice! Back then hey knew how to entertain the folks back home:
Posted: 20th, March 2013 | In: Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Instructions on how to get a girl’s phone number, guaranteed (*video)
LOOK at you. Just sat there, all on your own thinking about the beige food you’ll horse into yourself before you slope away and fumble around in your grotty undercrackers, dreaming of attractive humans.
It doesn’t have to be like that though. You could be out there, getting the phone numbers of attractive women before embarking on a glorious, lusty voyage.
All you have to do is not speak.
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1905: Portraits of Bulldogs in Fancy Dress
FLASHBACK to 1905: Portraits of Bulldogs in Fancy Dress. My, how fashions change. Back then, a lady never smoked in public:
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Posted: 20th, March 2013 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment
Ten years ago today we invaded Iraq: 4,573 Iraqi citizens were killed in 2012
TEN years ago today, the US led the invasion of Iraq. The war lasted 21 days. The legacy continues:
Tuesday marks the ten-year anniversary of the Iraq War, and while that war officially ended for the United States in December of 2011, life for Iraqi civilians — while better than it was at the bloody height of the insurgency — is still something short of peace. 4,573 Iraqi citizens were killed in 2012, up from 4,147 in 2011.
Insurgents sent a bloody message on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, carrying out a wave of bombings across the country Tuesday that killed at least 65 people in the deadliest day in Iraq this year. The nearly 20 attacks, most of them in and around Baghdad, demonstrated in stark terms how dangerously divided Iraq remains more than a year after American troops withdrew. More than 240 people were reported wounded. It was Iraq’s bloodiest day since Sept. 9, when an onslaught of bombings and shootings killed 92.
Who controls Iraq?
It was the last major non-military project of the war of choice the U.S. launched 10 years ago: an ambitious, expensive post-withdrawal effort to strengthen the Iraqi police. But quietly, the Obama administration has pulled the plug on the much-criticized training program, leaving some 400,000 Iraqi cops without U.S. mentorship.
The State Department confirms to Danger Room that it pulled its final adviser out of the project, called the Police Development Program, on March 1. The move kills the training effort less than two years after the Pentagon handed it over, and after State spent at least $700 million on it.
Photo 1: Lance Coprporal Graeme Church 27 from Middlesborough celebrates the fall of Saddam Hussien as a 17 foot tall statue of Saddam Hussien which was toppeled and beheaded by Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers 25 Armourded Engineer squadron, 2 RTR (Royal Tank Regiment) battle group in Az Zubaya, Iraq. March 20 marks 10 years since British troops helped invade Iraq as part of a multi-national task force. At the peak of the operation, some 46,000 British servicemen and women are deployed.
Photo 2: People gather at the scene of a car bomb attack close to one of the main gates to the heavily-fortified Green Zone, which houses major government offices and the embassies of several countries, including the United States and Britain in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 19, 2013.
Photo 3: A photograph is attached to the back of the tombstone of Army 1st Lt. Thomas J. Brown in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery Tuesday, March 19, 2013, in Arlington, Va. Brown was a casualty of the Iraq war.
Posted: 20th, March 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
‘I was a ‘Hitchhiker On the Highway of Love’: 1938 sexism
IN 1938, Listerine featured the woman who was a ‘Hitchhiker On the Highway of Love’. Could she be helped before the trucker with the axe pulled over?
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Posted: 19th, March 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
