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.
The cycling sewing machine of 1939
CYCLING. CYCLING! That’s good, Olympic champions Bradley Wiggins, Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton. But can you cycle and sew your own knees up..? In 1939, he could:
Spotter: PopSci’s Most Impractical Inventions
Posted: 3rd, August 2012 | In: Flashback | 0 Comments
A history of British cycling in brilliant photos – 1895 to the present
ITS as easy as riding a bike. So they say. It turns out that the British are rather good at riding bicycles. We’ve trawled the archives and can bring you the history of British cycling in photos – 1895 to the present:
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Posted: 3rd, August 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | 0 Comments
A Ride of Death – The scary 1940s cycling safety pamphlet
SIR Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins have got us all on our bikes. But a word of warning. “A RIDE OF DEATH” is a brochure from the 1940s, produced by the police Safety Council. Children were taught that just looking at a bicycle would you killed. It’s not just the sharp bits of exploding metal that slice your skin. It’s the cars. The buses. The lights. The night. The transport plane. The pavements that “suddenly appear” and causes death…
Spotter: Gene Gable
Posted: 3rd, August 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | 0 Comments
Wilmslow man sought for falling though bus stop roof (video)
YouTube link.A pal took a vieeo and posted in on YouTube.
Posted: 2nd, August 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
The best and worst Olympic protests
WHEN the Spanish water polo coach considered ordering his team to stay in the pool, and South Korean fencer Shin Lam’s refused to leave the platform in protest over the circumstances of her defeat to Germany’s Britta Heidemann, they was following in a long, and sometimes noble Olympic tradition of protest…
1968: Vera Cavlaska
Vera was the gymnastic superstar of her day, and on course for another gold medal until the judges got together for a mysterious conflab, after which they elevated the Soviet silver medalist to joint-gold.
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Posted: 2nd, August 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | 0 Comments
The greatest moment ever – what’s yours?
BEFORE we bring you “OH MY GOD. I JUST WITNESSED THE SINGLE GREATEST MOMENT IN HUMAN HISTORY”, a personal recollection of a trip down the Jubilee Line on the London Underground. The train stopped for too long at Willesden Green station. Two knobs sat on the platform’s seats by an open door began to point and laugh at fellow passengers. The lads swore loudly, offered insults aplenty and discussed how they might rush the carriage and batter us all. This went on for minutes. Then it happened. A man a few seats to my right had been reading. He put down his book. Put down his reading glasses. Stepped from the train. And before the lads could finish their address – “Look at this cun…” – had smacked them both in their heads. Hard. He then stepped back onto the carriage. The doors shut and we headed off.
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Posted: 2nd, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | 3 Comments
How Luka Magnotta was captured by amateur detectives
WE will know soon enough if Luka Rocco Magnotta murdered. We will know if Magnotta filmed the killing in Montreal and the published it online as the film 1 Lunatic, 1 Icepick. We will know if Magnotta posted body parts around Canada.
Thomas McGrath has written about how Magnotta was captured. We spotted Magnotta a while back. Now we meet David Kerekes, co-author of Killing for Culture, “a unique, definitive investigation into images of death – both real and staged – which have been captured on film either for cinematic, or more sinister, purposes: the complete history of the so-called ‘snuff-movie’ aesthetic.”
Born and raised in Manchester, DAVID KEREKES is a co-founder of Headpress and co-author of the books See No Evil and Killing for Culture. He is also author of Sex Murder Art and more recentlyMezzogiorno, a meditation on life, death and southern Italy.
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Edinburgh teen tweets picture of dying man who fell asleep in a bus lane
WHEN Ikram Choudhury, 17, spotted a man lying in a bus lane in Leith, Edinburgh, at 1:56am he reacted. He did not dial 999. He did not offer assistance. He just stopped in the car he was a passenger in, took a photo and tweeted it with the words:
“Eeeehm wtf? Some guy just casually lying outside Ocean Terminal.”
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Posted: 31st, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Bob Dylan takes a shower with Jonah Lehrer, who gets an early bath
THE Johann Hari School of Journalism calls New Yorker staff writer Jonah Lehrer. He’s the author of Imagine: How Creativity Works. In that book, Bob Dylan takes a shower and tells Lehrer:
“‘It’s a hard thing to describe. ‘It’s just this sense that you got something to say.’”
Lehrer analysed it:
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Posted: 31st, July 2012 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | 0 Comments
Intruders – a history of unwelcome guests at big events
WHO was the mystery woman in red top and jeans, marching proudly at the front of the Indian delegation during the athletes’ parade at the Olympics ceremony? Madhura Nagendra, a member of the Danny Boyle cast, as it turned out.
Red faces all round, but no harm done.
In the end, the whole business was a storm in a teacup – one of the few British pastimes, incidentally, to NOT get a name-check in Boyle’s eccentric celebration.
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Posted: 31st, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | 0 Comments
1950s boys advertise underwear for an appreciative man
AS Old Mr Anorak knows, you can always trust man who tucks his vest into his Y-fronts. The young lads in this 1950s advert are on-message. The man on the left, however, is most likely wearing a bikini briefs and knee socks…
Posted: 29th, July 2012 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | 0 Comments
Madeleine McCann is dead like Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman says Soham dad
TEN years ago. Ian Huntley murdered schoolgirls Holly Well and Jessica Chapman. The murders in Soham were massive news. The ghoulish media is keen to relive the story. Soham: A Parents’ Tale will be broadcast on ITV1 on Friday at 9pm. Goodbye, Dearest Holly – Ten Years On by Kevin Wells can be purchased on all internet bookshops. The Daily Mail tells its readers:
“We can only conclude with heavy hearts that there will not be a happy ending for the McCanns”: Holly Wells’ parents on Madeleine and why they will never get over the death of their own daughter.”
Given that the parents of Madeleine McCann have stated their desire for one and all to believe their child is alive, Mr Wells’ comments will surely be deemed unhelpful. Kate and Gerry McCann may even be “disgusted“. Looking for a dead child was pretty much the crux of the original Portuguese police investigation, the one slammed by the McCanns.
Wells goes on to say that Madeleine McCann’s vanishing helped him, in a way:
The media spotlight on Soham has thankfully diminished over the years. I believe the principle reason for Soham’s retreat from centre stage is the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The search for Madeleine dominated tabloid coverage for a long time.
It was a desperate story for Nicola and me to follow, but follow it we did, praying for a positive outcome throughout. We were constantly asked for media interviews but chose not to intrude on someone else’s tragedy.
Until…
Despite many leads, Madeleine remains missing. As outsiders to this tragedy, we can only conclude with heavy hearts that there will not be a happy ending. Please do not think about criticising the McCann family.
Why would anyone think that?
They have been forced to use the media of the world solely to raise awareness of their missing daughter. Some of the media comment and speculation they have had to endure, on top of dealing with their private grief, is nothing less than shameful.
See a man whose daughter was murdered by a deviant opining that the child is dead. Mr Wells has suffered greatly. It’s odd that he would invoke Our Maddie in his anniversary piece for the Mail. It’s almost as if – as if! – the Mail has encouraged him to mention that bemchmark of misisng children. “Any views on Madeleine McCann, Mr Wells?” asks the Mail’s hack.
Wells adds:
My wife Nicola and I believed, but more importantly hoped, that the ten-year anniversary of the ‘Soham Murders’ would somehow slip under the radar.
Says Mr Wells in the Daily Mail.
This industry in mourn porn continues in the Sun, wherein we meet Reece Jarvis:
Holly was very girly and Jessica helped me spell… I’ll never forget
Highlights include:
Jessica: “She was really sporty. I think of the Olympics and wonder whether she could have been there. Both of them were really clever.”
Holly: “Holly was a girly girl. I’m sure she would have been really pretty and broken a lot of hearts.”
Funeral: “I asked my parents if I could go to the funeral. I remember those two coffins and crying throughout.”
Huntley: “Reece, now a qualified joiner, refers to the man who haunted his dreams for years only as ‘him’ or ‘he’.”
Maxine Carr (Huntley’s former lover and accomplice): …a “nice, friendly person who used to bring us chocolates”.
We then met a woman in Soham:
One woman said: “We don’t ever talk about him, no one does. Only strangers mention his name.”
And:
Another friend still belongs to the Soham Fenland Majorettes where Holly was a keen member. Leader Nikki Richards revealed: “Their parents gave us a ‘Holly and Jessica Commemorative Cup’ which is presented every year.”
And then the Sun talks about gardening:
…a pearl pink rose — called the Soham rose — was later created in Holly and Jessica’s memory. As you walk along the quiet streets of this small Cambridgeshire village you can see it growing in people’s gardens, a fitting tribute to two beautiful girls.
Madeleine McCann is missing. She is not yet a flower…
Posted: 29th, July 2012 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Reviews | 4 Comments
Local News: man trapped in Watford porch
LOCAL news matters. Local news story of the is found in the Watford Observer. Adam Binnie writes:
A man who had become locked inside the porch of a house in Rickmansworth had to be rescued by fire fighters.
A crew from Rickmansworth was called to Harefield Road at 1.30pm today after the man, who was looking after a house for a friend, became trapped between in porch and front doors.
Luckily the man had a key for the back door, and after posting it through the letterbox to a waiting fire fighter, he was released.
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Posted: 28th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
A history of Olympics cock-ups
THE Olymics got off to a jittery start this week, when the North Korean women’s football team walked off in protest after the South Korean flag was mistakenly displayed at Hampden Park.
The organisers apologised, explaining that the faux pas was a case of human error rather than deliberate snub, and David Cameron was swift to step in and smooth ruffled feathers. But it will come as some consolation to know that it is a rare Olympics indeed that passes off without some kind of cock-up…
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Posted: 27th, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | 0 Comments
Corporate song of the day: when Burnley Building Society gave savings a disco soundtrack
CORPORATE song of the day – It’s the late 1970s and Burnley Building Society are advertising their wares with a free 45 for customers.
With lyrics by Ronnie Bond and Salman Rushdie, and vocals from George Chandler, the dancing only ended in 1984, when Burnley BS and Provincial Building Society merged to become National & Provincial Building Society.
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Posted: 27th, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Money | 3 Comments
Kiaran Stapleton murdered Anuj Bidve to look hard
KIARAN Stapleton is not psychotic. Stapleton is the self-styled ‘Psycho’ who murdered Anuj Bidve. The 23-year-old Indian student was shot at point-blank range in Salford on Boxing Day 2011.
At Manchester Crown Court Stapleton, 21, from Ordsall, in Salford, admitted to killing Bidve. Stapleton claimed diminished responsibility. But the jury rejected it. They said he was just a thug who wanted to his area’s “hard man”.
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Posted: 26th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 2 Comments
Liam Cocoran-Fort, 11, took a cheap flight to Rome (no hidden extras)
FOR a few hours Liam Cocoran-Fort was the coolest kid in Manchester. The Cock of the North had, at just 11 years of age, given his mum, Mary, the slip as she shopped in Asda Wythenshawe, headed to Manchester Airport and boarded a flight to Rome. He had done this with no ticket, no passport, no money and no great plan.
And then the Sun showed us that the 11-year-old boy wonder had made the journey without his big teddy. Rather than being a hero to adolescents and adults who hanker for halcyon carefree says of their youth and demand that children watch less telly, Liam Corcoran-Fort is “little Liam Corcoran-Fort”, a smiling child in a Ben Ten T-shirt cuddling his teddy bear.
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Posted: 26th, July 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | 3 Comments
James Holmes: Possessed by the Devil and what Tiffany the prostitute knew
JAMES Holmes: Killing Christian Bale, confessing to a mental doctor, evil and other media facts…
Did anyone know if James Holmes was dangerous? The Daily Telegraph reports:
James Holmes, the Colorado cinema shooting suspect, sent a notebook detailing his chilling plans for the massacre to a psychiatrist at his university up to a week before carrying it out.
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Posted: 25th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Eight who ‘killed’ the News of The World charged over Milly Dowler hacking
GOTCHA! Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson have been charged in relation to the alleged illegal hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s mobile phone messages. Both have enjoyed close relationship with David Cameron, the Prime Minister.
Also charged are: Glenn Mulcaire, Stuart Kuttner, Greg Miskiw, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup.
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Posted: 24th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 4 Comments
Summer of the fox: Urban vermin ‘scalps’ for garlic bread
THE fox is back! The Sun introduces readers to “shaken mum” Lisa Pearce. When she felt a tug on her hair as she lay in her garden in Cannock, Staffs, Lisa thought it was her cat Puss. It was a fox. She tried to “shoo it” away.
But it became aggressive and sank its teeth into her head as she shielded daughter Holly, three, from the attack.
Lisa “whacked it in the face”. But her hands became “drenched in blood”.
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Posted: 24th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
James Holmes: Arlene Holmes explains her thickhead’ son as Romney excuses murder
JAMES Holmes: The alleged mass murderer has appeared in a courtroom in Centennial, Colorado. Holmes was told that he is to be charged with first degree murder for shooting dead 12 people in a cinema. He also allegedly shot 58 others in Aurora at the midnight screening of the Batman film,The Dark Knight Rises.
What else do we know? The media rounds-up:
How did he look in court?
The Times:
With orange hair and wearing a red prison jumpsuit , Holmes sat quietly and glum-faced, opening and closing his eyes repeatedly in a bizarre fashion.
James Holmes made his first public appearance as an alleged killer on Monday, shambling into a Colorado courtroom with a bearing more like that of a teenage delinquent than the comic-book supervillain he reportedly fancied himself to be.
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Ambush advertising in sport – a history
AMBUSH!
Olympic boss Lord Coe put his well-shod foot in it this week by announcing that people wearing the wrong logos would not be permitted access to the Games.
He was referring to Pepsi t-shirts rather than ordinary punters wearing non-adidas trainers, and the real subject of his concern was ‘guerrilla’ or ‘ambush’ marketing – the attempt by non-sponsors to invade the cordon sanitaire that is placed around venues to protect companies that pay millions of pounds to endorse sporting events. All the same, he has been accused of overreaction in many quarters. (Others, of course, argue that protecting sponsors allows the games to thrive.)
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Posted: 23rd, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | 0 Comments
Denver Post advertises guns demo above Batman massacre story
THE Denver Post delivers an unfortunate juxtaposition with an advert for a “Shotgun Demo” above the story of James Holmes and the massacre at the Aurora,Colorado, cinema screening of Batman:
Posted: 23rd, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
James Holmes: Veronica Moser-Sullivan’s unborn sibling, heroic Matthew McQuinn and God
AS James Holmes awaits his moment in court, the media looks for ray of hope amid the carnage at the The Dark Knight Rises showing in Aurora, Colorado.
The media works on weaving a narrative.
It finds a “miracle”, an unborn baby who has survived the Colorado cinema massacre. Ashley Moser is alive. Her daughter, six-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, was murdered in the attack.
Pregnant Ashley Moser was shot in the stomach.
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Dog gives birth to a cat in hungry South Korea
TO South Korea, where Jeong Pyong-bong, 63, says his dog has given birth to a cat. As he says:“It is unbelievable. People from all over the town are coming over after hearing the news.”
Anorak suspects Mr Pyong-bong has mistaken his pets for his lunch.
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