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.
Use the Flintshire Doggy Do app to harvest the turds and feed them to slack owners
HAPPY days for John Waters fans and other dog poo enthusiasts. Councils in Blaenau Gwent and Vale of Glamorgan have taken up the free Flintshire Doggy Do app. Thanks to Flintshire council’s technology, every time locals see a dog turd on the street, users press the app. and the map is updated.
Kevin Jones, Flintshire council cabinet member for public protection, waste and recycling, said:
“This app is just one of the methods we are using to address the issue of dog fouling in the county. It means that residents can report incidents to us any time of the day, any day in the week at a time that suits them. It’s restricted for use in the county of Flintshire, and is free to download.”
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Posted: 8th, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Lake Annecy murders: the double-tap, nuclear fuel and pointing the finger
THE murders of Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 49 (many news sources say she was 47), and her 77-year-old mother in a clearing above Lake Annecy, near Chevaline in the French Alps, are big news. Mr al-Hilli was born in Baghdad. He lived in Claygate, near Esher in Surrey. He worked as a mechanical engineer. He was an “aviation expert“.
Iqbal was dentist.
The mother-in-law barely gets a mention in reports.
The Times says the victims had been shot three times, at least once in the head.
The Daily Mail counts the shots differently:
Was there more than one hitman? Each of British victims was shot TWICE and cyclist witness FIVE times, police reveal – as search continues for killers’ 4×4
Twice? The talk if of assassins. But you know who always shoots twice – the so-called double-tap? The British police and the SAS.
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Posted: 7th, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (5)
Daily Mail scare week: sleep apnea gives you cancer
SCARE stories of the week. Each week the Daily Mail scours research papers and press releases for things that will kill you and /or give you cancer. This week:
Monday:
* “New couples who delay sex longest are happiest”
Ergo: Couples you shag from the off are the unhappiest
* “Killer virus warning for British tourists to Yosemite”
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Face of the day: the Smoking ban hits Lebanon
FACE of the day: A Lebanese man smokes a cigarette while firefighter, unseen, try to extinguish a fire in southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. A huge fire that erupted in Sidon’s landfill on Thursday, which was caused by methane gas leakage, forced the industrial sector to shutdown due to plumes of smoke and toxic fumes that will require at least 48 hours to extinguish, a source at the Civil Defence Department said. PS – they’re trying to ban public smoking in Lebanon. No-one told the mountain…
What is the cure for asthma? Soup, of course!
MEDICINE is a modern miracle, but everyone knows that soup is better. It may seem odd to compare the two, but the two will now be in direct competition as bowls of gloopy vegetables are being investigated as a solution to childhood asthma.
Presumably, you won’t have to fire it into your throat with an inhaler (saying that, that sounds like it’d be much more fun that slurping it from a spoon).
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The greatest local news photo ever” woman ‘put off men and sausages for life’
THE greatest local news photo of all time featured on the Get Reading website in 2009.
Beneath the headline “Naked neighbour ‘put me off men’“, Anna Roberts told of Denise Woodage (yep, really), who had been “put off men and sausages for life”, having seen “garden pervert Paul Darlow… pleasuring himself in his back garden in Churchwood Walk, Calcot, and frequently spotted him going about his chores naked – save for a pair of boots.”
Darlow was jailed. Mrs Woodage was upset. And the world got the photograph that once seen cannot be forgotten…
Posted: 6th, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Richmond Magazine editor Richard Nye says ‘the only good cyclist is a dead one’
RICHARD Nye, editor of Middlesex listing organ The Richmond Magazine, writes: “…as a daily driver on busy roads, I tend towards the temperate view that the only good cyclist is a dead one.”
The Richmond Magazine contains a half-page display advert from Moore’s Cycles. Will they continue to advertise?
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Posted: 6th, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (4)
1948: the Hard Skin Club convenes in Japan
FLASHBACK to August 29, 1948: The first meeting in nine years of the Hard Skin Club of tattooed men and women. Japan after the war:
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Coroner implicates Call of Duty in Teenager’s suicide
THE inquest into the death of Callum Jordan Green, 14, is a bit odd. The teenager from Stockport took his own life.
The Manchester Evening News looks at the words of Coroner John Pollard. The paper notes that before he died, Callum Green had played Call of Duty. The MEN says that the Coroner “did not blame the game for the fact that Callum, of Keston Crescent, Brinnington, Stockport, hanged himself”.
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Posted: 6th, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Crete rounds up Mandolin players
SNAPSHOT: Musicians play mandolins in a bid to be the world’s largest mandolin ensemble in the city of Iraklio on the Greek island of Crete, late Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012. Organizers said they hope the 412 mandolin players who played is expected to be certified as a Guinness World Record. Anyone care to guess what song they played? Yep, Agadoo.
Round up the Mandolin players. Then tell everyone who plays the penny whistle in shopping precincts to meet at Land’s End for a big record push:
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Posted: 6th, September 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Naked Royals: Czar Nicholas II and Courtiers bathe in the nude at Tsarskoye Selo
PRINCE Harry wasn’t the first Royal to go naked. He won’t be the last. In this photo we see Czar Nicholas II and Courtiers bathing in the nude at Tsarskoye Selo. The photo is undated. Unlike Czar Nichaolas. On 17 July 1918, as anti-Bolsheviks murdered Nicholas on the orders of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. Come the revolution…
Posted: 5th, September 2012 | In: Flashback, Royal Family | Comment
Juxtaposed headline of the day: The Killers and a ‘Clubland Murder’ in Liverpool
JUXTAPOSED headline of the day from the Liverpool Echo:
Spotter: liz_buckley
The Times uses interns to write in as the paper’s readers
WHAT do readers think of The Times? You can find out in the paper’s You The Editor section, which “invites readers to pass judgement on the previous day’s newspaper”.
Readers like James Rothwell, “a student at Wadham College, Oxford.”
Yet another Times souvenir edition yesterday, but their frequency of these special issues is justified because public enthusiasm for the Games is far from flagging….Ben Macintyre’s article on Osama Bin Laden’s death in Opinion cleverly opposed commercial and political interests in filmmaking… a fantastic cut out of Lady Gaga on a motorbike, that really stood out….Finally Helen Rumshaw’s TV cops piece was a hidden gem, but it deserved more prominence.
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Posted: 5th, September 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
1953: The wife of an Ainu chief displays tattoo around her lips
FLASHBACK to 27/2/1953 – The wife of an Ainu chief displays tattoo around her lips in Hokkaido. (A modern look is here. The Joker first appeared in Batman #1 – Spring 1940).
1992: The Sun said the internet would never work
THE Sun, the declining tabloid that gets its news from the internet, wrote in 1992: “COMPUTER “WEB’ TO CHANGE BILLIONS OF LIVES (YEAH RIGHT).” The paper’s “Dot Comme” compared Tim Berners Lee’s invention – the world wide web – to Sir Clive Sinclair’s C5:
Spotter: Old_Holborn; more
Posted: 5th, September 2012 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comments (5)
The horrific Miss Glitz Sparkle puts Lincolnshire on the global map
LOOK out Honey Boo (see left), the British are coming. Ocean Orrey is the four-year-old voted “Most Beautiful” in the toddler and under-12 beauty Miss Glitz Sparkle pageant staged at the Pride of Lincoln Hotel.
We don’t hear enough of Lincolnshire on the news cycle, do we? Outsiders wonder what goes on there. A place that spawns Margaret Thatcher, The Acid Bath Murderer John George Haigh and Ocean must be worth a look. Maybe it’s the lack of exposure on the international stage that has resulted in Ocean being called Ocean and not North Sea or Spurn Head. And then there are her two brothers, the 18-month-old twins Milan and Madrid.
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Posted: 4th, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Face of the day: decorating Mr Mexico
FACE of the day: Heriberto Pacheco stands still as someone rolls suntan oil on his skin before competing in the Mr. Mexico and Miss Perfection bodybuilding contest in Mexico City, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2012. The body building competition attracts more than 500 participants from around the country for the three day event. The winner gets the Ronseal contract.
Victims of Batang Kali denied answers: murder in the name of war
THERE will no enquiry into the shooting at Batang Kali, Malaya, on December 11 and 12, 1948. Twenty-four unarmed Chinese workers on a Scottish-owned plantation rubber plantation were killed by a 16-strong platoon of Scots Guards in the so-called “Malayan Emergency”.
Every man in the village of Batang Kali was killed. The women and children were placed in a truck and driven away. Then the shooting started.
Lim Ah Yin was 11:
“We found my father’s body by the riverbank. The smell was terrible. They were lying face down, in small groups of four or five.”
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The best and worst political campaign slogan ever
IS this the best politcal campaign slogan ever? It might be the worst. It looks like it needs of an elipse:
“Senator AD Stephen does things…” …with dogs; …with lace; …with home furnishings that will knock you bandy; …with love; …badly..
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Posted: 4th, September 2012 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
The wife of a soldier’s story
WHEN a soldier dies we hear their name and see their faces on the news. We see the Wootton Bassett funeral on the telly. The enemy’s foreign victims are realled only in numbers. The enemy is invisible. Have you seen an Afghan or Iraqi on the news recently? Have you seen the political debate on the news – the debate about the wars’ objectives? We could see anything on the TV – we could see what the enemy sees, the proganda and news thay tell their suporters. But we don’t. We get brave soldiers, damaged soldiers and dead soldiers. The grief is unbearable.
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The man who wore a vest to the Swaziland Reed dance (photo)
VEST of the day: Swaziland’s King, Mswati III warriors sing as they arrive at the Queen Mother’s Royal Palace in Mbabane, Swaziland, Monday, Sept. 3, 2012. The annual event brings unmarried girls from all over Swaziland to pay homage to the Swazi Queen Mother, Ntombi Thwala. In recent years Swazi King, Mswati III, has also used the occasion to select a new wife.
Local News: Essex man plans shed
LOCAL News special: Esses Man wants…50 Sheds of Grays, reports ThisIsEssex:
A North Weald man has applied for planning permission to erect a shed in his garden. John Reynolds wants to build the timber structure at Marconi Bungalows in Epping Road.
Are local newspapers wise to our game of spotting the most local (pushes nose up) stories?
Posted: 3rd, September 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
Wanted dead or alive in 1899: Reward offered for escaped prisoner Winston Churchill
FLASHBACK to 01/01/1899: A wanted notice put out for Winston Churchill after he escaped from a prisoner of war camp in South Africa during the Boer War. Twenty five pounds was offered to anyone who brought the escaped prisoner dead or alive to the office:
Daily Mail says Anders Breivik has escaped jail
WHEN the Daily Mail told us that Amanda Knox had lost an appeal against her conviction for the murder Meredith Kercher, we wondered how the paper could have gotten it so wrong? Then Anders Breivik was sentenced to 21 years prison time for the murders of 77 people and the Mail told us the killer had avoided jail because the court had ruled him insane.
Where does the Mail gets its information from? It’s almost as if the paper makes it up in the drive to be first on the web…
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Isle of Wight riot police hit Newport – photos
TO the Isle of Wight, where riot police are in full cry:
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