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.
Local News: Portsmouth boy stuck in bedroom
LOCAL news: to Portsmouth, where the story is very local in the Portsmouth News:
Emsworth boy was stuck in bedroom
Whose bedroom?
A crew of firefighters from Havant were called yesterday lunchtime after a young boy got stuck in his bedroom.
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The most pampered pets who travel by jet, gold coach and handbag
SOME people might wonder what kind of person would pay upwards of a thousand pounds for a short flight – and then spend the same amount again to allow their dog to in the set in the seats next to them. Answer: the kind of people who fly with the Victor jet charter company (founded by Clive Jackson, pictured above), which has just launched the service.
Not that there’s anything new about pampered pets of course…
JJ
Speaking of flying, when airlines refused to allow Mariah Carey’s Jack Russell to travel in first class, she had him chauffeur-driven in her own car instead.
Tinkerbell
When not in Paris Hilton’s handbag, this tiny chihuahua resides in the $325,000 dog house at her home in Beverly Hills.
Bubbles
Michael Jackson’s chimpanzee lived cheek by jowl with his in-no-way-peculiar owner, as celebrated in various tasteless jokes at the time. They wore the same clothes and Bibbles had his own bodyguard. Home is now in an animal sanctuary in California.
Royal corgis
Not only is their food is prepared by the royal chefs, but it is claimed that the Queen prepares each one a stocking at Christmas.
Max
George Clooney’s Vietnamese pot-bellied pig lived in his Hollywood Hills mansion for many years until his death. He was said to have caused the break-up of several relationship, because Clooney refused to put him outside.
Posted: 3rd, September 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment
Why are we siding with the armed vigilantes of Welby?
ANDY Ferrie and his wife Tracey Ferrie live in a cottage in deepest Leicestershire. The Sun says he is 35 and she is 43. Two men have been shot there. The men – the victims? – were part of a gang of four intruders. Two people have been arrested and held on suspicion of GBH. Four men aged 27, 23, 31 and 33 have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated burglary.
The Indy reports:
The man and his wife were disturbed by the break-in in the Welby area of Leicestershire, near Melton Mowbray, in the early hours of yesterday morning. It is understood he grabbed a shotgun, which was legally owned, and shot two of the four intruders before calling police. The man, 35, and his 43-year-old wife were arrested in Melton on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. Neither suffered any injuries during the incident.
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Posted: 3rd, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (4)
When pilot whales die on Pittenweem off the coast of Fife (photos)
THE pilot whales died on Pittenweem off the coast of Fife. Thirteen whales have died in the mass stranding. The mammals were part of a group of 26 pilot whales stranded. The remaining whales are being kept alive by vets from British Divers and Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), with help from the emergency services including Fife fire service. You can focus on the dead whales. And you can look at humanity being caring:
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John Smith’s The Girl Chewing Gum – A 1976 film
JOHN Smith directed 32 episodes of Grange Hill between, 1985 and 1990. He also produced Play Away in 1971. In 1976, Smith created The Girl Chewing Gum. In it he directed everyone:
Sub-editing horror: The Orange County WHORE
ORANGE County WHERE magazine has become the Orange County WHORE magazine. The cover’s girl’s price list is not available:
Spotter: @lukelewis
Was Risha Mashir framed by Islamist bigots: Pakistan’s anti-human blasphemy laws
RISHA Mashir is 11. Other reports say she is 14. She’s a Christian girl living in Umara Jaffar, Pakistan. If that were not hard enough, Risha Mashir has Downs Syndrome. She’s an easy target. And she’s under arrest, alleged to have burned pages from an Arabic textbook which contained passages from the Koran. Risha Mashir is in Adiala Jail, a prison in Rawalpindi. Is a court finds her guilty of blasphemy, Risha Mashir will be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Under the law, section 295c of the country’s penal code, those accused of blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed may be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. They are fined in addition.
Was she framed?
Risha’s plight began when someone reported seeing her carrying a shopping bag. They said she threw it away. They said that inside the bag were ten partially-burned pages of the Noorani Qaida, a primer for pupils studying Arabic and the Koran.
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Posted: 2nd, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (3)
September 1 1939: Germany invades Poland
ON September 1 1939 Germany invaded Poland and set the ball rolling for World War 2. Hundreds of thousands of German troops invaded from Slovakia, East Prussia and Pomerania. We know of the horrors that followed. Could the Poles have imagined a worse fate?
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In photos: Brighton Gay Pride 2012
SATURDAY meant gay pride in Brighton – the 20th anniversary of the city’s Pride celebrations. There were no earthquakes. God made the sun shine:
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RIP Hervé Vilard: Capri c’est fini
RIP Hervé Vilard (nee René Villard, 24 July 1946 in Paris, France). He sang Capri c’est fini in 1965:
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Posted: 1st, September 2012 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Mitcham landlord seeks tenant “not from India, Africa or Pakistan”: racism in action
THE advert in the window of Bineet Newsagent’s on Upper Green East, Mitcham, advertises a room for rent. The offer is open to anyone who is not from “India, Pakistan, Africa and Etc.” The room is only available to “clean” East Europeans who are “hard working”.So says the advert in the window of a shop owned by Asians. Business is business – the advert pulls in £1 for a one week display. The shop’s owners are not bothered by it.
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Posted: 1st, September 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (3)
125 Government students caught cheating at Harvard: law students laugh
DID 125 students at Harvard cheat in a take-home exam? The number marks almost half of the scholars in a – get this – introductory government class. There is evidence of collaboration between students, with allegations of plagiarism rife. They are accused of breaking this rule:
“The exam is completely open book, open note, open internet, etc. However, in all other regards, this should fall under similar guidelines that apply to in-class exams. More specifically, students may not discuss the exam with others—this includes resident tutors, writing centers, etc.”
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Smiling Chinese official in the mire over his expensive watch collection
TO China, where official Yang Dacai is said to own at least 11 watches worth between £3,000 and £40,000 each. Mr Yang is the chief of the Quality Supervision Bureau in the central Chinese city of Xi’an. He earns around £6,000 a year.
Mr Yang and his watches were spotted after he was seen smiling at a disaster. A coach had crashed, killing 36 people. Mr YAng was caught on camera smiling. Netizens erupted in disgust. They targeted Mr Yang. Searching for images of him smiling at other disaster sites, they began to notice his watches. Users of China’s Sina Weibo site pointed to a Rolex worth RMB65,000 (about £6,470), an Omega valued at RMB40,000 and a tasty Vacheron Constantin thought to be worth as much as RMB400,000 (£39,800).
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Is Iran really seeking to marry girls as young as 10?
ROBERT Tait reports in the Daily Telegraph of children getting married in Iran.
…A fundamentalist MP, Mohammad Ali Asfenani, has said Iran has a religious obligation to legally recognise the weddings of girls as young as nine.
“As some people may not comply with our current Islamic legal system, we must regard nine as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married,” Mr Asfenani, chairman of the parliamentary legal and judiciary committee, told Khabar Online. “To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law.”
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Posted: 31st, August 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (4)
The Greenwich tunnel skunk mystery
SOMETHING stinks in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, the walkway below the River Thames connecting Cutty Sark Gardens and Island Gardens, Tower Hamlets. The tunnel is being renovated.
Last Friday seven people were taken sick:
Fire engines, ambulances and police response vehicles were in Cutty Sark Gardens as an “unusual smell” was reported in the tunnel. Six fire engines were joined by a Scientific Support Unit… Seven people were treated at the scene, reported the BBC, but none required hospital treatment.
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Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to his pregnant wife
THE author Kurt Vonnegut wrote his wife a letter. It’s dated January 26, 1947.
They had been married for 16 months. She was pregnant. It appears in Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, a book:
I, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., that is, do hereby swear that I will be faithful to the commitments hereunder listed:
I. With the agreement that my wife will not nag, heckle, or otherwise disturb me on the subject, I promise to scrub the bathroom and kitchen floors once a week, on a day and hour of my own choosing. Not only that, but I will do a good and thorough job, and by that she means that I will get under the bathtub, behind the toilet, under the sink, under the icebox, into the corners; and I will pick up and put in some other location whatever movable objects happen to be on said floors at the time so as to get under them too, and not just around them. Furthermore, while I am undertaking these tasks I will refrain from indulging in such remarks as “Shit,” “Goddamn sonofabitch,” and similar vulgarities, as such language is nerve-wracking to have around the house when nothing more drastic is taking place than the facing of Necessity. If I do not live up to this agreement, my wife is to feel free to nag, heckle, and otherwise disturb me until I am driven to scrub the floors anyway—no matter how busy I am.
II. I furthermore swear that I will observe the following minor amenities:
a. I will hang up my clothes and put my shoes in the closet when I am not wearing them;
b. I will not track dirt into the house needlessly, by such means as not wiping my feet on the mat outside and wearing my bedroom slippers to take out the garbage;
c. I will throw such things as used-up match folders, empty cigarette packages, the piece of cardboard that comes in shirt collars, etc., into a wastebasket instead of leaving them around on chairs or the floor;
d. After shaving I will put my shaving equipment back in the medicine closet;
e. In case I should be the direct cause of a ring around the bathtub after taking a bath, I will, with the aid of Swift’s Cleanser and a brush, not my washcloth, remove said ring;
f. With the agreement that my wife collects the laundry, places it in a laundry bag, and leaves the laundry bag in plain sight in the hall, I will take said laundry to the Laundry not more than three days after said laundry has made its appearance in the hall; I will furthermore bring the laundry back from the Laundry within two weeks after I have taken it;
g. When smoking I will make every effort to keep the ashtray I am using at the time upon a surface that does not slant, sag, slope, dip, wrinkle, or give way upon the slightest provocation; such surfaces may be understood to include stacks of books precariously mounted on the edge of a chair, the arms of the chair that has arms, and my own knees;
h. I will not put out cigarettes upon the sides of, or throw ashes into, either the red leather wastebasket or the stamp wastebasket that my loving wife made me for Christmas, 1945, as such practice noticeably impairs the beauty and ultimate practicability of said wastebaskets;
i. In the event that my wife makes a request of me, and that request cannot be regarded as other than reasonable and wholly within the province of a man’s work (when his wife is pregnant, that is), I will comply with said request within three days after my wife has presented it. It is understood that my wife will make no reference to the subject, other than saying thank you, of course, within these three days; if, however, I fail to comply with said request after a more substantial length of time has elapsed, my wife shall be completely justified in nagging, heckling, or otherwise disturbing me until I am driven to do that which I should have done;
j. An exception to the above three-day time limit is the taking out of the garbage, which, as any fool knows, had better not wait that long; I will take out the garbage within three hours after the need for disposal has been pointed out to me by my wife. It would be nice, however, if, upon observing the need for disposal with my own two eyes, I should perform this particular task upon my own initiative, and thus not make it necessary for my wife to bring up a subject that is moderately distasteful to her;
k. It is understood that, should I find these commitments in any way unreasonable or too binding upon my freedom, I will take steps to amend them by counterproposals, constitutionally presented and politely discussed, instead of unlawfully terminating my obligations with a simple burst of obscenity, or something like that, and the subsequent persistent neglect of said obligations;
l. The terms of this contract are understood to be binding up until that time after the arrival of our child (to be specified by the doctor) when my wife will once again be in full possession of all her faculties, and able to undertake more arduous pursuits than are now advisable.
Spotter: Harpers
Posted: 30th, August 2012 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
A history of bystanders injured watching sports (videos)
THE tragic death of a German athletics referee this week – speared through the throat with a javelin – was a terrible and highly unusual accident. Yet he was by no means the first unfortunate bystander to find himself in precisely the wrong place at precisely the wrong time…
When Yorkshire’s Jacques Rudolph threw a routine ball back to his bowler in a Twenty20 match against Lancashire last May, he joined an exclusive club of bird-killing cricketers…
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Posted: 30th, August 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Matt Bissonnette reveals Osama bin Laden’s last words: ‘I was born this way’
DO we care how Osama bin Laden died at his home in Abbottabad, Pakistan? US Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette has written a book about the killing.
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The Ghost in the Stereoscope: Faking it before Photoshop
FAKING It – “Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop” – runs at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art October 11, 2012–January 27, 2013:
While Photoshop and other digital editing programs have brought about an increased awareness of the degree to which photographs can be manipulated, photographers—including such major artists as Gustave Le Gray, Henry Peach Robinson, Edward Steichen, and John Baldessari—have been fabricating, modifying, and otherwise manipulating camera images since the medium was first invented.
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Exposed: Citizen Khan and the Daily Mail’s anti-Muslim bias
THE Daily Mail never misses the chance to attack the BBC. Today, Paul Revoir write of a new BBC sit-com beneath the headline:
BBC accused of insulting Muslims with new sitcom Citizen Khan as 200 complain about first episode
Revoir notes:
It was probably unlikely that a TV comedy series about a Muslim community leader would pass without comment.
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Posted: 29th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (10)
Sun hack Matt Bendoris writes interview in drool: Nicola Benedetti might worry
GOOD journalism is about show and not tell. Mindful of that, let’s meet Matt Bendoris, the Scottish Sun’s scribe interviewing “Scots violin queen Nicola Benedetti”. The story seems to have been written entirely in drool:
STUNNING violinist Nicola Benedetti becomes as tightly strung as a Stradivarius when pop babe Rihanna’s name crops up. I must have hit a bum note after asking why the sexy Scot doesn’t make more of her fabulous figure — when she suddenly flies off on one.
Nicola fumes…
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Posted: 28th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
In 1954 Dr Vladimir Demikhov created a two-headed dog (video)
HERE’S a cute Russian video about making two-headed dogs:
In 1954 Vladimir Demikhov shocked the world by unveiling a surgically created monstrosity: A two-headed dog. He created the creature in a lab on the outskirts of Moscow by grafting the head, shoulders, and front legs of a puppy onto the neck of a mature German shepherd.Demikhov paraded the dog before reporters from around the world. Journalists gasped as both heads simultaneously lapped at bowls of milk, and then cringed as the milk from the puppy’s head dribbled out the unconnected stump of its esophageal tube.
He was a pioneer:
Vladimir Demikhov, a veteran of the Red Army hospitals in World War 2, believed it was possible to transplant organs like the heart and lungs in human beings.
He was the father of heart bypass surgery.
Posted: 28th, August 2012 | In: Flashback, Strange But True, Technology | Comment
RIP Malcolm Browne – he captured Quang Duc burning to death in Vietnam (photos)
RIP Malcolm Browne, Associated Press correspondent in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Browne was the photographer who took the picture of Buddhist monk Quang Duc’s self-immolation on a Saigon street June 11, 1963. The image shocked the Kennedy White House into a re-evaluation of its Vietnam policy. Browne’s photo shone a light on human suffering. Today, 24/7 rolling news is the obsession. But a single well-made photograph endures. These pictures are shocking:
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FILE - In this Dec. 14, 1963 file photo, Malcolm Browne, Saigon correspondent for the Associated Press, poses in front of his photo of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk's fiery suicide after the image was selected as the worldÂs best news picture of the year at the Seventh World Press Photo contest in The Hague, Netherlands. Browne, acclaimed for his trenchant reporting of the Vietnam War and the famous photo that shocked the Kennedy White House into a critical policy re-evaluation, has died. He was 81. (AP Photo, File)
Local news: Brighton female scout rescued from huge bush at midnight
LOCAL news of the day feature the Brighton Argus and its story headlined:
Girl Scout rescued from giant bush
The story:
A female Scout got stuck in undergrowth. The schoolgirl could notfight her way free of the bush on Wednesday at 11.25am so called on firefighters for help.
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The best policeman grinding photos at the Notting Hill Carnival
ONE key aspect of the Noting Hill carnival is dancers dry humping – winding and grinding – uniformed police officers. The dancers are lithesome and sexed up. The police are stiff and helpless. We’ve compiled a gallery of the best photos of the secret policeman and policewoman’s ball. Truncheons are officers’ own:
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Posted: 27th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
