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.
London violinist ‘destroyed’ by being named ‘pube’ on Brick Lane music festival posters
EVER wonder what the ‘bal’ in ‘balti’ stands for? Abdul Shahid, a Bengali musician from London’s Stepney Green is suing Tower Hamlets for “destroying” his life. Mr Shahid claims to have suffered “immense ridicule and humiliation” after he was billed on the Brick Lane Baishakhi Mela Festival as “bal” — that’s “pubic hair” in Bengali.
The poster advertised Mr Shahid as “Bal Shahid”.
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Posted: 15th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland publishes Rebekah Brooks private texts as news – oh, the irony
REBEKAH Brooks and a sensation of her former News of The World colleagues and associates – Daryl Jorsling, Mark Hanna, Paul Edwards, Cheryl Carter, and her husband Charlie Brooks – and in the dock at Westminster Magistrates Court, London, answering charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
The bigger story was that Rupert Murdoch’s News of The World invaded people’s private lives, listening into the phone conversations and publishing the gossip as news.
So. How does the hacker busting Guardian cover the story?
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Daily Telegraph irony typo of the day
ONCE upon a time the Daily Telegraph was a great newspaper. Then it began to compete with the web and the Daily Mail and fell to bits. The paper’s typo of the day is loaded with irony:
Rat runs up woman’s leg on New York Subway – she drops trousers
ANA Vargas, 40, says that whilst riding the A train New York City a rat ran up her trouier leg. She tells the NY Daily News: “I thought it was my pants moving.”“I said, ‘Oh, my God — it’s an animal on my leg!’ He was very big. I was shaking, but nothing was coming out . . . I had to pull my pants down in front of everyone on the train.”
Mystery solved: a dingo did kill Azaria Chamberlain and ruin Lindy Chamberlain’s world
A DINGO killed Azaria Chamberlain on August 17 1980. The dingo took Azaria Chamberlain from a campsite in Uluru, Australia. She was nine weeks old. Yesterday, Azaria would have been 32. Her parents, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain, had no part in her disappearance and death. Linday, who yelled “a dingo’s got my baby”, was jailed for the child’s death.
On October 29 1982, Lindy Chamberlain was found guilty of murder. Michael Chamberlain was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder. Both were tried by jury.
Their marriage fell apart.
On 2 February 1986, a matinee jacket worn by Azaria was found in a dingo’s lair at Uluru. Five says later, Lindy was released.
For 32 years Lindy and Michael Chamberlain’s life has been scared by suspicion and rumour.
Today, Elizabeth Morris, a Northern Territory coroner, said dingoes do take human babies and that she was happy that her ruling was “adequate, clear, cogent and exact and excluded all other reasons possible”. Azaria Chamberlain died because she was “attacked and taken by a dingo”.
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Posted: 12th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Nathan Rao predicts – Daily Express weather expert’s May review
MORE weather according to the Daily Express’s Nathan Rao:
Britain is facing the coldest May for a century with winter poised to return, bringing snow and bitter winds.
Said the Met Office:
In all, it has been the longest warm spell in May since 1992.
More facts from Roe of the open window every week…
Posted: 12th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
How to be cool – kill the sunglasses
HOW cool are you? Do you wear sunglasses indoors? Do you tuck your vest into your Y-fronts? Dr Thorsten Botz-Bornstein notes: “In a phrase: the cool person lives in a constant state of alienation.”
And you should see his sweaters. Wowza!
Ilan Dar-Nimrod has another view, expressed in “Coolness: An Empirical Investigation”:
“James Dean is no longer the epitome of cool,” Dar-Nimrod said. “The much darker version of what coolness is still there, but it is not the main focus. The main thing is: Do I like this person? Is this person nice to people, attractive, confident and successful? That’s cool today, at least among young mainstream individuals.” …
“I got my first sunglasses when I was about 13,” said Dar-Nimrod. “There wasn’t a cooler kid on the block for the next few days. I was looking cool because I was distant from people. My emotions were not something they could read. I put a filter between me and everyone else. That, in my mind, made me cool. Today, that doesn’t seem to be supported. If anything, sociability is considered to be cool, being nice is considered to be cool. And in an oxymoron, being passionate is considered to be cool—at least, it is part of the dominant perception of what coolness is. How can you combine the idea of cool—emotionally controlled and distant—with passionate?”
So. What’s cool? And if you need yo ask…
Liverpool goes mad for pigeon meat
LIVERPOOL council says “pigeon feeding was often undertaken by people with mental health needs”. The council stops short of saying if pigeon feeding should be available on the NHS. The council does, however, refer to a survey that proves its statement, although the data cannot be located.
Liverpool adds that scraping pigeon poo from pavements and buildings costs £160,000 a year. As such, pigeon feeders as discouraged from climbing atop the Liver building to satisfy their sick urges.
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Posted: 11th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Sir Oswald Mosley and the ‘Blackshirts’ British Union of Fascists – in photos
MUCH talk of the rise of extremism in mainland Europe. In the 1930s, Great Britain had its own racists. Sir Oswald Mosley was the leader of the ‘Blackshirts’,the British Union of Fascists. His wife, Lady Diana Mosley was deemed more dangerous than her husband according to secret documents published by the Public Record Office in Kew, west London. These are photos of Mosely and his gang in action. It looks laughable now, but once upon time had the Nazis won these people would have been the country’s pre-eminent murderers…
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Sir Oswald Mosley is surfboard riding, astern of a speed boat, one of the many delights to be enjoyed at Cap D'Antibes, France in 1930. Those members of society who are not grouse shooting are pretty sure of being found here, bathing in the lovely Southern sun, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Sir Oswald Mosley, who is holidaying at the cap with his family, enjoys a thrill in surf riding here. (AP Photo)
Posted: 10th, June 2012 | In: Flashback, Politicians | 0 Comments
Ice cream wars erupt in Blackburn Lancashire – Video
THE Ice Cream wars (insert joke about Cold War here) are back as battles commences in Blackburn, Lancashire. Sugary foods pusher Zeheer Ramzan – Mr Whippy of Blackburn – has smashed the window of Mr Softy enabler Mohammed Mulla – Mr Yummy of Tubzee in Halifax – on Palatine Road. Mulla then thinks it a good idea to drive his van into the back of Ramzan’s mobile shop.
Says Ahmed Chaka, 16:
“My little sister came out to grab an ice cream and that’s when it all just kicked off. One of the ice cream men was saying come and buy it from me, ‘I’ll sell it cheaper’. That’s when the trouble started. They were swearing and everything. My little sister was upset. To be honest it all seemed very silly.”
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Posted: 10th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 2 Comments
Luka Magnotta fed Jun Lin to his pet rabbit and worked as a detective
LUKE Magnotta, born Eric Newman, is the international tabloid star. The Daily Mirror leads with the headline:
“MY BABY-FACED CANNIBAL”
Magnotta is accused of murdered Justin (Jun) Lin in Montreal, chopping up his body – and posting a foot and a hand to political parties in Canada. He’s not been convicted. He’s had not trial. But still the Mirror yells:
“He was a time bomb waiting to explode”: Aunt of ‘cannibal killer’ tells of his weird childhood – Investigators are trying to unravel his sick fantasy world, which began in the Toronto suburbs where he grew up – and spread to London
This is how it is. The British tabloids will stop prejudicing domestic trails and turn their attention to foreigners. The Mirror realises that a Canadian suspect might not travel, so it reminds readers that Magnotta lived for while in London. And, no, he was not arrested in the UK, and never did murder anyone.
Back then, in 1993, he was a painfully shy 11-year-old who retreated into a fantasy world to forget his nightmarish home life. In a bid to impress his disbelieving classmates, he spun incredibly outlandish tales – something he continued to do long after leaving school. As an adult, he’d lie about being the lover of Canada’s most notorious female killer.
That killer is Karla Homolka. And as Magnotta said in 2007:
“I am not dating Karla Homolka.”
Undeterred by that fact, the Mirror ploughs on:
According to police, he killed and mutilated gay lover Lin Jun, then ate his flesh with a knife and fork. He also filmed it all and later posted the sick video online.
This site says:
He allegedly ate pieces of flesh with a knife and fork similar to a scene from Silence of the Lambs.
Has any hack seen the video 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick, the tape purporting to show Lin’s murder and that cannibalism?
This blogger says he has:
His flesh was not eaten with a knife and fork. ****** takes a knife and fork to the man’s ass (in a pathetically inept manner, I might add) and, when he finally succeeds in obtaining a chunk of fat, he goes off screen with it and shortly returns with his pet (possibly a puppy, it is hard to tell because of the video quality). He lets it nibble at the stump of the right leg. This brings me to my most blog-relevant point. It was a large piece of ass-fat. I mean…really. If the dude succeeded in eating that without gagging, I’d be very surprised. I would be similarly surprised if he even tried. It has been noted in many articles that the man got his start by posting videos on the internet such videos as Christmas Python (in which a python consumes a kitten). The man obviously enjoys the attention he gets from feeding his pets. I am 99.999999999% certain he was merely cutting off a piece to feed another pet, not so that he himself could eat it.
Another writers on a site called The Secualarity offers:
When I say those crazy Canadians are at it again, this time I mean it. Luka Magnotta [allegedly] murdered Justin Lin, a student, with an ice-pick, a knife and fork, had intercourse with the stump, let his rabbit lick it, then preceded to shove a wine bottle up the corpse’s orifice. Mind you, he did this all on tape and uploaded it to the internet. The video was pulled so quick from most major sites, that some speculate it doesn’t exist. Believe me it does.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail finds something to blame for Jun Lin ‘s murder. No, not the killer:
Canadian ‘Cannibal killer’ suspect Luka Magnotta is believed to have been inspired by a violent video game starring Christopher Walken as a futuristic serial killer called Vince Magnotta who is addicted to butchering his victims.
Believed by whom?
Hollywood actor Walken starred in the 1996 video game Ripper, a gruesome adventure which sees a brutal serial killer terrorising New York in the year 2040.
And this would be the game in which Christopher Walken plays not the killer, rather Detective Vince Magnotta? It would be, yes. Luka Magnotta is 29. In 1996, when the game came out he would have been aged 13.
Techdirt picks up on news that without the internet, Magnotta would not have committed his crimes. An expert knows:
Without the web, “the butcher of Montreal would not exist,” Mr. de Boni concludes. “This killer character is a narcissistic and deviant avatar, one of many virtual identities he invented in order to create celebrity.”
An ex-lover tells the Ottawa Citizen:
“I didn’t trust him, cause there was something about him that gave me the creeps. I’m glad I broke up with him, ‘cause he could have killed me, and chopped me up in pieces,” she said.
Meanwhile, MSBN asks:
Did Canada’s alleged cannibal killer Luka Magnotta strike in LA?
The remains of Hervey Medellin, 66, were found by the famous Hollywood sign. Says Los Angeles police spokesman Officer Lyle Knight:
“The body parts are the common denominator here. That’s why our investigators want to talk to the Canadians. We want to know if his whereabouts included Hollywood because we understand he was in the acting field and Hollywood being the acting and movie mecca, we want to know.”
As Magnotta is linked to every unsolved murder in the Western hemisphere, Canada’s Star newspaper asks:
Luka Rocco Magnotta: Is accused killer a ‘psychopath?’
Experts arrive to state:
“They can be very nice guys and powerfully persuasive, the kind of guy you want to have a beer with,” says Gregg McCrary, a former FBI agent…
Michael Woodworth, associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, said it’s not yet clear whether Magnotta is a psychopath…
“Saying he has narcissistic personality disorder, that would not be a stretch,” he said. “That’s as clear as water.”…
The paper concludes:
What experts can agree on is that more information is needed, especially about Magnotta’s childhood…
Back, then, to the Daily Mirror:
His upbringing was certainly brutal – and at least one of his relatives always suspected there was something seriously wrong. An aunt, who asked not to be identified, said: “He is a nut job – he was a time bomb waiting to explode.” His parents – Anna Yourkin and Donald Newman – were just teenagers when he was born and they split up soon after. Eric was then brought up mainly by his domineering granny Phyllis Yourkin. Beatings were common and Eric – the eldest of three – took the brunt of his grandmother’s temper.
What else do we know?
…at 12 he hurled a chair at a teacher.
And… Nothing. That’s it. The aunt adds:
“He is mentally ill. He has delusions of grandeur. He concocts stories and they, in turn, become fact in his mind. This family, from the head down, is very dysfunctional. The essence of this whole story is parenting – or the lack of it. The grandmother is very controlling, and if you have a submissive personality, she will do what she wants.”
Good to know that Magnotta has a caring aunt to watch his back.
The last word is with another expert:
Criminal profiler Lee Mellor has written a book on 60 Canadian serial killers. He says the alleged Cannibal Killer is a text-book example of a child starved of affection, who goes from making up stories to harming helpless animals to murder. And he said it was likely there were other victims waiting to be discovered. He warned: “I would not be surprised to find that Magnotta was responsible for at least one or two previous homicides.”
Or three or four. Or why not five or six. Or why not wait until the trial starts and the facts emerge..?
Full story here.
Store owners snares robbers with bear spray and spanking (video)
HERO of the day is Zhen Yang, owner of Dépanneur J A C Line store in Gatineau. QC, who saw off two would-be armed robbers with bear spray and spanking.
Mr Yang’s wife and children live upstairs. You can see his wife arrive at about the 30 second mark.
Spanking enthusiasts will agree with the words of one commentator who says:
just love watching this video! While they are in Jail, give those two thugs, a good hard spanking everyday. Discipline has obviously not been taught at home, so haul in those parents and give them good hard spankings in the public square too. For that matter, lets start spanking every damn criminal in jail, and start teaching them how to behave. They cross the line, they get a hard spanking.
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Posted: 9th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Flashback photo: 1926 – St Kilda goes without
FLASHBACK photo of the day: September ,3, 1926 – St Kilda, the island in the outer Hebrides, whose inhabitants are short of stores owing to storms. Click to photo to make it huge to see teh feet and the woman…
Posted: 8th, June 2012 | In: Flashback | 2 Comments
Trent Barton driver refused to let woman on bus for 20p fare – then she was raped
WHEN a driver for Trent Barton buses refused to let a 22-year-old woman board the bus because she was 20p short of ther £5 fare he could not have known she would soon after be raped. The papers are full of the fact that at the time she was a law student. Why share that? Were she unemployed would we view the crime differently?
At Nottingham Crown Court, juriors saw CCTV footage of the women beseeching the driver to let her travel. She pleads with him for eight minutes. She said she would dash to a cash machine close by and get the money. If only he would wait.
It was December 2011. It was 3am. It was freezing cold.
The bus drove off without her. The woman called her mother for help. She bagan to walk towards the meeting place. Then Joseph Moran, 19, saw her. He dragged her into a park and raped her.
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Posted: 8th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 7 Comments
Juxtaposition of the day: the Sun’s paedo paradise goes Disney
THE Juxtaposition of the day: features the Sun’s June 3rd story on a “Paedo Paradise”. Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse are innocent…
Spotter: PopBitch
Posted: 8th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
The Daily Express parties likes its 1936 – Germany must be stopped!
THE Daily Express has news – news it has waited years to write: The Germany must be stopped!
Posted: 7th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 4 Comments
Nurse Xiao Shiyu posts photos of her mocking and mishandling newborn babies
WHAT happens to your newborn baby when its in the care of the hospital workers? In Eastern China, at the Children’s Hospital linked to Zhejiang University’s medical school, senior intern Xiao Shiyu, 22, has been taking photos of the babies and uploading their photos of a website.
In to photos, caring Shiyu holds the babies and lets their heads loll about. She quips on the Sina Weibo site:
“What’s wrong, baby? Wake up. Are you still alive? This makes me laugh my head off. You even know how to mimic the dead.”
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Posted: 7th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Flashback: Anti-German demos break out in London
FLASHBACK: May 13, 1915 – Anti-German demonstrations in Chrisp Street, Poplar, London in response to the sinking, on the 7th May of the liner ‘RMS Lusitania’ by a German submarine. Throughout the war, riots directed against those of German nationality or ancestry frequently broke out in crowded urban areas. Anti-German sentiment ran so high that in 1917, Prince Louis of Battenberg, a minor German Prince and a former British Sea Lord after 40 years service in the Royal Navy, was forced to change the family name to Mountbatten…
The owner of the store in the photo was Adolph Shoenfeld. He changed his name to Adolph Sheffield. Yep, he kept the name Adolph…
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The Invisible Mother – how loving mums got the perfect photo (gallery)
THE burka took off because the loving mum wanted the focus of attention to be on her beautiful children. So as not to distract the admirer’s gaze, the mother became invisible. It was all the rage in the 1800s, as these photos prove. ‘This was a practice where the mother, often disguised or hiding, often under a spread, holds her baby tightly for the photographer to insure a sharply focused image,” says The Hidden Mother. Stop stealing the limelight, mum, and grab a burka:
Posted: 7th, June 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | 0 Comments
Yovanka Bryant is here to milk the zombie cannibal crisis – Rudy Eugene was a saint
MEET Yovanka Bryant and her lawyer, the ubiquitous Gloria Allred. Bryant’s claim to fame is that she dated Rudy Eugene, the man killed by police as she chewed the face off Ronald Poppo in Miami (photos NSFW).
Allred is there to “help her have a voice”.
And what do we learn? Well, we hear that Bryant says that Eugene, whom she dated for four months, would have been a great dad to her kids. Bryant says the happy couple studied the Bible and the Koran, and watched religious TV programs. She says she never saw him use drugs. She says if he was on drugs, he was tricked into taking them. Reports are that Eugene had marijuana in his system, and had form for possession.
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Luka Magnotta: dead eyes, three feet and the chance to see a snuff video
LUKA Magnotta: Anorak’s look at the alleged kitten killer and Lin Jun murderer in the news:
The Daily Mail has already labelled Magnotta a cannibal, but the Telegraph says the “Canadian psycho” “may have eaten part of victim”. And, then again, he may not have. Magnotta is being held in Germany, awaiting extradition to Canada. German police say he’s a”model prisoner”. Given his vanity. Magnotta would be pleased with that description.
One other title Magnotta has earned is the ‘Butcher of Montreal’. Only, he’s not been convicted of butchering anyone or anything.
So. What is he like? Nina Arsenault is a Toronto transsexual performer who dated Magnotta around 2002 ago. She says he told her:
“I’m afraid that when you look into my eyes… that you’ll see that there’s nothing inside of me.”
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Posted: 6th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
How police get a confession in the Ukraine
WHAT are you looking at? From lensculture:
This work stopped me cold the first time I saw it. It looked terrifyingly real, but how could it be? Are some of these people being forced to write confessions while loaded guns are pressed into their heads? It must have been staged. But soon I came to realize that these are indeed real photographs of real interrogations of suspected criminals in Ukraine. Canadian photojournalist Donald Weber first went to Ukraine during the Orange Revolution of 2004, on assignment. Following that first trip, he soon returned, and spent the next six years in Russia and Ukraine trying to photograph contemporary life, and its hardships, as well as the vestiges of a still-powerful, hidden system.
Interrogations is the result of his personal quest to uncover the hidden meaning of private, unpleasant encounters with unrestricted Power. It is a simple, elegant book that sears itself into your memory.
More here.
Posted: 6th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
How much alcohol should you drink a day? The Daily Mail knows
THE Daily Mail is here to help with your alcohol content:
On 7 September 2011, thee news was that two drinks a day was great. Then on May 31, 2012, the Mail told readers that three glasses a week was the limit.
Posted: 6th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
The missing finger meth users plead guilty
MUG SHOTS of the day feature the mugs of Ashley Marie Brooker and Nicholas Thomas Doyle, guilty of driving under the influence of a controlled substance and fifth-degree possession of methamphetamine (her) and fifth-degree possession of a controlled substance (him).
When arrested by Stillwater police, Brooker said she was looking for a finger.
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Posted: 6th, June 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
