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.
Ian Brady’s letter: Keith Bennett’s peace, a TV show and what Emma Chalk knows
DID Ian Brady, 74, the Moors murderer, reveal to Jackie Powell, his legal advocate, where he and Myra Hindley buried 12-year-old Keith Bennett, who went missing in June 1964? The pair tortured and murdered five children before burying their bodies on Saddleworth Moor. Powell, is under arrest, suspected of preventing the burial of a body without lawful exercise. Powell told the Channel 4 documentary Ian Brady: Endgames of a Psychopath that Brady had handed her an envelope. She says that Brady told her to give the envelope to Winnie Johnson, Keith Bennett’s mother, who is currently in a hospice. Powell says he never opened it.
Brady is in Ashworth hospital in Maghull, Merseyside, where he has been tube-fed for 12 years. He is sectioned under Mental Health Act following his diagnosis as a psychopath. He refuses to eat. He wants to be sent to a prison to die. If he can appear healthy of mind that has more chance of happening. So. The letter to the heartbroken mother…
The hospital has been searched, so too has Powell’s home in South Wales.
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Posted: 17th, August 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (6)
How media turned Julian Assange into a blameless Saint – the best quotes
WHY is Julian Assange big news? Why does Julian Assange feel no need to talk to the Swedish authorities about an alleged rape? It’s because big news decided that they loved him. They loved him because he game them the leaked cables and good copy. They built him into a Messiah, the embodiment of truth and light:
Raffi Khatchadourian in the New Yorker: “Under the studio lights, he can seem – with his spectral white hair, pallid skin, cool eyes and expansive forehead – like a rail-thin being who has rocketed to earth to deliver humanity some hidden truth”.
Nick Davies in the Guardian: “We are going to put you on the moral high ground, so high that you’ll need an oxygen mask. You’ll be up there with Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa…They won’t be able to arrest you”
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Posted: 17th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
Taxi for Julian Assange: Wikileaks’ Ronnie Biggs heads to South America
TAXI for Julian Assange. The man wanted in connection with alleged rape in Sweden has been granted political asylum by Ecuador. Assange is seeking to avoid extradition from Britain to Sweden, a country he used to love. Ecuador’s foreign minister Ricardo Patiño believes their is risk that Wikileaks founder Assange will be sent from Sweden to The United States. He says:
“Asylum is a fundamental human right. The Ecuadorean Government is defending its right to protect Assange and we have decided to grant him political asylum.”
A Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman is unhappy with the Ecuadoreans:
“We want to tell them that it’s unacceptable that Ecuador is trying to stop the Swedish judicial process.”
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Posted: 16th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Local News: Missing plaque not missing
LOCAL News: The Maidenhead Advertiser has news:
‘Missing’ Altwood memorial plaque has not been stolen
Know that:
A memorial plaque commemorating four Altwood schoolboys who died on a ski trip in 1988 has not been stolen.
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Sexy A-Levels blog: A round up of 2012 results (with bonus jumping)
SEXY A-levels. A look at successful, photogenic young women in the press. Because only fit girls celebrating their attractiveness and thinness do well at school. Boys – unless they get five A-grades or more; are very young; are a refugee – are invisible (until they enter the job market at which point the young women become less noticable then the young men.) Enjoy your moment in the sun, ladies, this might be as good as it gets.
(It’s what the schools want. The rules are here.):
DID You get rubbish A-levels? DO good A-levels fail to set you up for a life of disappointment? DID you do badly and then do well in life? Let us know.
PS – Look out for the jumping.
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Posted: 16th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Newspaper correction of the year: Rowan Atkinson for Archbishop
NEWSPAPER correction of the year: Aberdeen’s Press & Journal regrets the error on Rowans:
Spotter: Martyn McLaughlin@
Local News: police find nothing in Coventry
LOCAL News Story of the day arrives in the Coventry Telegraph where the story is that police have found nothing:
Police hunt in Tile Hill woodland “turns up nothing of interest”
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Posted: 16th, August 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Pussy Riot: Peaches sings, Femen strip, Jamie Reid paints and Madonna prays
PUSSY RIOT – a round-up of protest in support of Maria Alelchina, Nadezhda, Nadeezhda Tokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich. The three women have been in jail for more than five months after performing a “punk prayer” in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral, in Moscow. They are accused of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred . The judge will begin reading her verdict this week. Prosecutors want the women each jailed for three years.
Will Vladimir Putin’s regime jail three women for an act of political dissent?
Peaches has recorded Free Pussy Riot. As she says:
Peaches, Simonne Jones, and tons of musicians, artists, activists, and free-thinkers are came together to make a video for this song in support of the russian punk feminist band PUSSY RIOT! Now that you have heard about the song and video, we want you to take action! Here is why:
In March 2012 three members of Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevitch, were taken into custody by Russian authorities for their participation as part of a protest at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. Their punk prayer is and was an act of free speech and the charges of “hooliganism” and detainment of the three women are seen by the world as a cruel heavy handed act of oppression, are being carried out to discourage free thought and speech in Russia.
If Russia wishes to be a part of the modern globalized world it must adhere to the standards and principles of a free nation where its people have the right to have a free and open dialogue about all subjects. Discussion, debate, and action are the basic building blocks of a free society. By following through with the prosecution of these women Russian political bullies are currently making a mockery of free speech, free thought, and Russia’s own country’s constitution.
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Posted: 16th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Tia Sharp: a victim of the New Addington ‘ghetto’?
TIA Sharp. With Stuart Hazell is custody accused of her murder, the tabloids’ reporting on the case is curtailed by law. So. The Sun does what it always does, cocks and ear to the prison cells and hears that lags want to murder Hazell. He’s to appear in the Old Bailey via videolink today.
The headline thunders:
Inmates vow to kill Tia accused
What inmates. And why are they in prison? The Sun does not say:
Stuart Hazell, 37, is in isolation on a wing with paedo-philes and rapists at high security Belmarsh prison.
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Posted: 15th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (5)
Max Factor showcases the Beauty Micrometer
FLASHBACK to January 1935: Max Factor showcases the Beauty Micrometer, a device “perfected” by the make-up maestro for highlighting imperfections, such a slightly crooked nose that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye:
Blackpool moves to ban smoking in parks
THEY’RE banning smoking in public parks in Blackpool. One day on from news that the seaside town is host to a Hitler crazy golf game, this. Hitler never did smoke. He also didn’t like ballroom dancing, magicians and donkeys. Blackpool should worry when the council seizes control of the air.
The sign on Blackpool’s 13 parks reads: “To protect children this is a designated smokefree site.”
Coun. Ivan Taylor, chairman of Blackpool’s Health and Wellbeing Board, adds: “Smoking is a killer and we need to do all we can to discourage it.”
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The Hitler pin cushion (photos of Roosevelt’s desk toy)
IT’S 1941 and for just $1.49 you can own an Adolf Hitler pin cushion. As seen on President Roosevelt’s desk! Comes with Prussian boots. Pins not supplied.
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Presumably it is a pleasure for President Roosevelt to use the pin cushion which is on the posterior position of Hitler statuette (arrow in left photo) – one of numerous do-dads that adorn the chief executive’s desk in Washington, as shown May 16, 1942. The President is said to have taken a special liking to the Hitler gadget, right). (AP Photo)
Spotter: Flapper Days, American Memorabilia
Posted: 14th, August 2012 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
Daily Mail says before Cosmopolitan mag women reproduced by parthenogenesis
THE Daily Mail has an incredible front page. The headline: “Bittersweet legacy of the Cosmo Queen who invented sex.”
As Helen Lewis tweets:
Apparently before women’s magazines the human race reproduced by parthenogenesis:
Phwoar! Not ‘alf!
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Indonesia jihadis says Assad is Hitler – praise indeed
YESTERDAY supporters of the Indonesia’s Islamist Prosperous and Justice Party (PKS) protested in Jakarta against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s use of violence. At the protest, party members carried a banner proclaims Assad to be like Adolf Hitler. Is this a good thing? The PKS have links to Indonesia’s Hizbut Tahrir:
Ata Abu-Rishta, the global leader of Hizb ut Tahrir…called for the “destruction” of Hindus living in Kashmir, Russians in Chechnya and Jews in Israel. “The Caliphate (global Islamic government) will liberate the countries and the people from the influence of the Kafer (non-believer) and its allies and the tyranny of its men and followers,” he said. Rishta also spoke recently at its annual conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, where, as video footage in the Panorama exposé shows, he whipped the 100,000-strong crowd into a frenzy by calling for a war on Jews
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Who says Mars Bars can Cure Alzheimer’s?
DID you know that chocolate can stop dementia? The Daily Express leads with Jo Willey’s report. We are told:
A daily does of cocoa could be the secret to halting Alzheimer’s, researchers claim.
That front-page headline looks a little shaky, no?
Scientists have found that the potent ingredient in chocolate can dramatically improve cognitive impairment. Experts say pensioners should have some cocoa every day in a bid to keep dementia and Alzheimer’s at bay.The key lies in health-boosting flavanols which are abundant in the sweet treat.
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Tia Sharp: Daily Mail blames police failure on Muslims, working women and the white working class
TIA SHARP: The allegedly murdered 12-year-old New Addington girl is back on the front pages:
The Sun: “GRAN’S LOVER IN CUFFS”
Stuart Hazell has been charged with her murder. The headline tells us how police and prosecutors think Tia Sharp died:
“TRAGIC TIA “SMOTHERED’ – Body wrapped in bed sheet inside bin bags”
The Daily Mirror prefers to further reduce the child’s treatment, leading with:
“DUMPED IN BIN BAG”
The Daily Star’s front-page headline says Tia was “stuffed” in a bin bag; the Daily Express says “Murdered Tia” was “put” in a bin bag; and the ‘i‘ says “Tia Sharp was found wrapped in a bin liner”.
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Posted: 14th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (4)
In photos: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin
HOW does Germany mark the Holocaust? A memorial is one way. The memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in Europe under the Nazis was created by U.S. architect Peter Eisenman and consists of an undulating field of 2,711 blocks through which visitors can wander. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was opened to the public in 2005:
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Posted: 13th, August 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (16)
Pussy Riot are now a Russian Doll
PUSSY Riot are now immortalised as a Russian doll set. Hey, doll face…
The Super Size Series Of Celebrity Sex Dolls: The J-Ho
Dakota Rose is KotaKoti – photos of the living doll
One Man’s Holiday With A Sex Doll (Photos)
The Most Bizarre And Worst Celebrity Dolls Ever Made
The Ninth Annual Baba Challenge Sex Doll River Race: Photos
Photos Of The Day: The Awkward Inflatable Sex Doll Family Picture
Racism fears see author endorsed by Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck dropped by publisher
DO you do what Mike Huckabee tells you to? When the former presidential candidate orchestrated a Chick-fil Appreciation Day, did you pop along to the fastfood outlet add help make it a “record-breaking” business for freedom of expression? When Mike Huckbee told you to heed the words of David Barton, did you sit avidly before the great speaker of truth to power?
Michelle Goldberg writes:
At the Rediscovering God in America conference in 2011, Mike Huckabee gave an impassioned introduction to David Barton, the religious right’s favorite revisionist historian. “I almost wish that there would be something like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced—at gunpoint, no less—to listen to every David Barton message,” he said. “And I think our country would be better for it.”
…In 2010, Glenn Beck called him called him ”the most important man in America right now.”…
But now, suddenly, Barton’s reputation is in freefall… Earlier this week, the evangelical World magazine published a piece about the growing number of conservative Christian scholars questioning his work. Then, on Thursday, Thomas Nelson, the world’s largest Christian publisher, recalled Barton’s most recent book, the bestselling The Jefferson Lies, saying it had “lost confidence in the book’s details.”
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Posted: 13th, August 2012 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Flashback: The Indoor League – 81 pints and the Terry Yorath table-football fight
THE Indoor League was broadcast live from the Leeds Irish Centre. Your host was Fred Trueman, proud Yorkshireman and cricket great from the period when only men born in the northern Republic could represent it at bat and ball. Your commentator was Sid Waddell, the erudite Geordie with the common touch. (Read his great quotes here.) In the early 1970s, The Indoor League made it onto the ITV network. It was serious business.
Sid Waddell recalled one infamous bout as he surveyed the room:
“Fred Trueman used to stand up there, on the stage, giving it large in a cardigan. The shove ha’penny was over there … here would have been the bar billiards. And that’s the door out of which I had to smuggle Terry Yorath when the fight broke out at the table football.”
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Posted: 13th, August 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports, TV & Radio | Comment
A modern history of Vandals: why do they do it?
VANDALS: why do they do it?
No sooner had the first golden post box been unveiled to honour Britain’s Olympic champion, than it was duly vandalised. Is this a new British record? Not at all – this massive Olympics billboard was defaced within hours of its unveiling, and the flowers in the Olympic Park were swiftly trampled underfoot by the destructive forces of the Great British Public.
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Posted: 13th, August 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment (1)
Is Studland Beach a haven for pervs, paedos and public masturbators?
GRIM news that police in Dorset and hunting a man who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl on Studland beach. I know the beach. It’s part of a lovely walk from the Sandbanks Chain Ferry to Old Harry Rocks. It’s beautiful. It is also the nudist / naturist beach where if you’re not careful you can see a man – nearly alway a naked man – masturbating behind a windbreak, bending over in front of you or stood proud and erect on a dune.
Are the two things linked? It’s tempting to link the deviant to the location. Was this man attracted to the beach by the prospect of seeing naked flesh? My own prejudices and experiences mean that when I heard about this crime I linked it to the nudists. There is no evidence at all that it was.
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Posted: 12th, August 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Daily Mirror uses Pedobear to illustrate ‘vast network of child perverts’ on Twitter
AS the papers salute Mo Farah, the Somalia-born double gold meal winner for Team GB, the Daily Mirror readies its readers to the post-Olympic descent. The paper choses the morning of the final day of the London 2012 Games to leads with the news that paedos are out to get your children:
“TWITTER PAEDOS EXPOSED – Police swoop as we reveals vast network of child perverts”
After sport and bonking, drugs-taking celebs, what tabloid readers next like to look at is a story on paedophiles, especially in the summer months. The number of child rapists is not high. The number of readers who like reading about them – and politicians and hacks who like to talk about them – is huge. What better story than one of peados to illustrate all our fears? Is this interest in paedophiles healthy? No. Is the Mirror just tapping into a subject that it feels will unite its readers in a common revulsion? Yes. Does that story foster mistrust, telling us all that it’s not only strangers you need to be fearful of but every adult, even those in a virtual world behind your computer screen? Yes. From being a nation of winners the Mirror reminds us that we are locked in fear of one another, insular and suspicious. The paper says:
“Vile perverts using social networking site to find victims and trade intelligence”
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Posted: 12th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Technology | Comment
In photos: Faizrakhman Sattarov and his Muslim messengers from God
IN Photos: This is Faizrakhman Sattarov, leader of an Islamic sect that has since 2000 lived in a compound near Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Volga River province of Tatarstan. His age is given as being anything from 80 to 85 years. Faizrakhman Sattarov says he is a “messenger of God”. He might be. Until God speaks out, all options remain open. The Russian state is also keeping a keen eye on Faizrakhman Satarov, after around 70 members of his group – including 27 children aged between one and 17 – were found living underground. It is thought they’d been living underground for almost a decade.
ABC says Faizrakhman Sattarov “would build an Islamic caliphate under the earth.”
In a 2008 interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily, he said that he had fallen out with other clerics and authorities in the communist era, when he said the KGB sent him to Muslim nations with stories about religious freedom in the officially atheist Soviet Union. Government-approved Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Jewish clerics routinely travelled abroad on Soviet publicity trips.
“That’s how I became Satan’s servant, a traitor,” Satarov was quoted as saying. “When I understood that, I repented and started preaching.”
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