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.
Different Klass
‘COMPLETING our buxom trio this week is Myleene Klass, better known as the one from Hear’Say who used to flash her cleavage at any waiting lens.
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| Thanks for the mammaries |
These days, however, Myleene is a different person – not only has she abandoned the world of pop for a career as a classical musician, but her famous cleavage is a shadow of its former self.
As if to prove the point, Myleene poses for OK! in a succession of low-cut tops and plunging necklines.
‘You used to be known for your cleavage, but things have diminished in that department with your weight loss,’ observes OK! ‘Have you had a breast reduction?’
Myleene laughs and relates how she soared to a EE cup when she was in Hear’Say.
‘When you are bigger up top, people think it must be great – but it’s not,’ she says. ‘I’ve lost weight and now I’m a C/D cup, but at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter what size you are.
‘It’s more about finding a place in life where you are comfortable with yourself.’
And with Vanessa, Jordan and Myleene, that would probably be lying in bed flat on their backs or in a flotation tank…’
Radiation Therapy
‘UMA is ‘radiant’, Jane is ‘beaming’ and Camilla is ‘positively glowing’ in this week’s special radioactive edition of Hello! magazine.
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| Luminous and radiant |
In fact, the 170 celebrity-filled pages register so many clicks on a Geiger counter that the magazine comes in a lead-lined bag and with a free pair of gloves.
However, even the prospect of growing a second head could not deter us from plunging headfirst into the magazine and going straight to the source of all this heat.
First up, we encounter the ‘luminously beautiful’ Uma Thurman as she agrees to have a word with Hello! at the London premiere of Kill Bill.
Then we are whisked off to the beautiful tropical island of Moorea, where Jane Seymour is renewing her wedding vows with husband James Keach in traditional Polynesian fashion.
‘At first I figured this is kind of corny – a couple of pink people wearing coconuts is like some kind of bad movie – but there was actually something kind of wonderful about him wrapped in this ceremonial pareo and headdress,’ says the 52-year-old actress, proving once again that first impressions are often the most accurate.
And finally we look in on Camilla Parker Bowles, who for the first time in all the years of their relationship is living with Prince Charles as husband and wife.
‘If ever anyone deserved a medal for dignity and discretion after decades of insult and injury, it is Camilla Parker Bowles,’ says Hello!
It is a hint we at Anorak are happy to pick up on, and so this week we make Camilla the first recipient of the Jordan Memorial Award For Dignity And Discretion. Hip-hip…’
Hale Sorm
‘THERE is only a certain type of person who can come up with comments like ‘I designed it when I was in Agra last year with by best friend, Zubin Mehta’ and ‘I said to my third husband Prentis, ‘I don’t care if you get rid of all your other houses, as this is the one I love”.
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| Liza beats her stepmum to marriage No.4 |
But Denise Hale is not just that type of person, she is in fact the author of the two comments, as well as many others.
For instance, she tells Hello! how she moved to New York, armed only with a generous settlement from her first husband and knowing only one person there.
‘My ex-husband always said people only liked me because of his money,’ she says. ‘I was determined to prove that not only could I make friends, I could also keep them.’
This she did, collecting another couple of husbands on the way, first Vincente Minelli (Liza’s father) and then Prentis Cobb Hale, ‘the only true love I have ever known’, and propelling herself into the list of America’s 200 most powerful women.
Or at least, judging by Hello!’s reference to her ‘fabled brutally demanding standards’, one of America’s 200 most high maintenance women.
And that’s against some pretty stiff competition.’
A High Old Time
‘WE love artists, creative types, the kind of people who can say with a straight face: ‘Something wonderful must have happened. Somebody must have come with a magic wand and said: ‘Make this a pleasant couple of days’.’
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| The next governor of California |
We would probably have just said something prosaic like: ‘Yeah, it was fun.’
But that (and our total inability to use a camera) explains why Arthur Elgort earns a fortune as a Vogue fashion photographer and we’re stuck in the basement of Anorak Towers working for peanuts. Literally.
And while we spend out days staring blankly at the walls still stained with the blood of the last member of staff to ask for a pay rise, Arthur points his camera at Cindy Crawford and Anna Kournikova as he shoots Omega’s latest advertising campaign.
And Hello! goes behind the scenes to give its readers ‘a fascinating glimpse of some of the world’s biggest stars at work and play’.
For also on the shoot was Brosnan, Pierce Brosnan, who ‘was in his element surrounded by beautiful women’.
‘He made it his business to go up to all the extras and asked me to take pictures of him with them – and the head watch-repairman,’ says Arthur.
‘He knows how to work a room – he could get the votes if he ever decided to run for governor of California!’
Well, if a sexually incontinent beefcake with a fondness for Adolf Hitler can get elected, then so could Grover out of Sesame Street.’
Bog Off, Marsh
‘THE progression from wannabe to has-been is often a very quick one and it is a transition that Kym Marsh seems to be making with barely a backwards glance.
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| Kym was always ready for breast-feeding |
It seems like it was only yesterday that the mother-of-two won her way through the first series of Popstars to take her place in the line-up of the ultimate manufactured band, HearSay.
She managed to desert that sinking ship before the rats had time to put their arm-bands on and embarked on a solo career and marriage to an EastEnders heart-throb.
No sooner had she completed one length of the aisle and back, she was deserting her husband and insisting on a trial separation.
Now, according to reports in the papers, her solo career is going down the pan with her new single Sentimental expected to be massacred when it comes out at the end of the month.
And so it is with great joy that we catch up with Kym and sometime hubby Jack Ryder in the pages of OK! reunited and on the road to recovery.
Of course, we take everything that OK! says about the popular young couple with enough salt to pay the whole of the Roman army.
But we can confirm that the couple were spotted in Harley Street home to the worlds top private doctors and that, as we know, can only mean one thing.
After all, other celebrities have consulted practitioners in the same road for baby-making treatments, it says.
It is not uncommon for the rich and famous take Madonna, for example to consult private specialists when they want to start a family.
Indeed not. Nor is it uncommon for people to walk down Harley Street on their way to, say, Cavendish Square or Regents Park or, as in this case, a friends house.
Like a bad cop, OK! follows the couple to an address in a mews-style property off the famous London street.
After more than an hour at a private address, it says in its report, the couple finally reappeared and jumped back into their racy motor.
However, it should be noted that during the whole of this time, Kym was conspicuously not drinking alcohol and not eating soft cheese or shellfish.
We leave you to draw your own conclusions.’
All The Breast
”WITH her silicone-enhanced breasts, long blonde hair and penchant for kiss-and-tells,’ says OK! ‘it’s easy to categorise Alicia Douvall as your average egocentric airhead on the make.’
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| Alicia’s breasts were worth a fortune at Scrabble |
And, in this case (as in every other case), we at Anorak are happy to take the easy option and categorise the 24-year-old as your average egocentric airhead on the make.
But we’d be wrong. Alicia, as OK! tells us, ‘boasts a private school education, an eight-year-old daughter she keeps hidden from the limelight, a new £3.5m house in Mayfair and a tortured past’.
And, that in anyone’s language, makes her an above-average egocentric airhead on the make.
In fact, so jealous is Alicia of daughter Georgia’s privacy that she only allows her to feature in six of the eight exclusive photos OK! takes inside the aforementioned £3.5m Mayfair house.
And she has had her boobs – those are Alicia’s, not Georgia’s – reduced from a GG to a DD in what was, at the last count, the eighth operation she has had on the offending articles.
As for the kiss-and-tells, those are now behind her, although OK! wants to know whether she did sleep with all the high-profile men she was linked with.
‘Yes,’ replies Alicia, ‘but I was always hoping for a relationship, not a one-night stand.’
Which is rather like the dog who continues to try to walk through a door with a big stick in his mouth, hoping that on one occasion the doorway might have become horizontal.’
Not The Beckhams
‘EVERY time Louise Redknapp is interviewed on one of her many doomed attempts to relaunch a career as a solo singer, she is at pains to stress that she and husband Jamie are nothing like the Beckhams.
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| ‘Who does this remind you of?’ |
They’re not as rich as the Beckhams, they’re not as famous as the Beckhams, Jamie’s not as good at football as David Beckham…
The list of the differences between the two couples goes on and on – but there are also certain similarities.
Chief among them is the fact that both Louise and Victoria are desperate to carve out a career as a solo singer, despite every indication from the British public that they’d prefer to buy condoms from Edward Scissorhands than one of their records.
‘Marrying Jamie has made me even more ambitious and more determined to succeed as a solo star,’ Louise tells OK!
Ambition is all very well but, if Louise had really wanted to succeed as a solo star, she would have followed Mariah Carey’s lead and married the boss of a record company.’
Virgin Berth
‘WE send our best wishes to the 2,656 residents of the historic Louisiana town of Kentwood, famous as the birthplace of one Britney Spears.
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| Britney gets ready for a night out at the rodeo |
The place, we are sure, has many attractions – an indoor rodeo arena, the Camp Moore confederate museum, Inspiration Park and many, many golf courses, according to its website.
There is even a professional bike-racing track, where every fourth Sunday Kentwood residents can watch, or perhaps even take part in, Extreme Moto-X.
But all of that is just as well because there is not a whole lot of action of the other kind going on in the town, if you catch our drift.
Being a virgin in Kentwood is not so much a matter of personal choice as a way of life, it appears.
So, it is no surprise that these good God-fearing folk are outraged by their favourite daughter’s antics, particularly her MTV snog with Madonna.
‘My husband and I don’t even kiss like she did with Madonna,’ one resident harrumphed to the National Enquirer.
Oh, how those long Louisiana nights must just fly by…’
Sin City
‘WHAT Britney Spears’ erstwhile neighbours would make of some of the shenanigans the Hollywood glitterati get up to we shudder to think.
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| ‘Til death or a Canadian model do us part |
The Enquirer, for instance, has a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow brazenly walking out of New York sex shop The Pleasure Chest brandishing her sinful purchases to boyfriend Chris Martin.
It also relates how Ethan Hawke has moved out of the marital home he shared with wife Uma Thurman and checked into a nearby hotel amid reports that he is having an adulterous relationship with Canadian model Jen Perzow.
And finally it tries to get to the bottom of the yo-yo relationship between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez and the ‘stories of shotgun wedding and secret honeymoon’.
Happily, we can report that the reference to a shotgun wedding had nothing to do with J-Lo being in the family way – and all the implications of fornication and sex before marriage that would engender – but a $2,199 Beretta Silver Pigeon gun which Ben has just bought.
As we all know, Thou Shalt Not Fool Around Until You’re Married is one of the Ten Commandments, while Thou Shalt Not Kill doesn’t rate a mention.’
Trouble & Strife
‘COR blimey, guvnor Madonnas love affair with London is apparently on the wane and she is reneging on her promise to spend half of each year over here.
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| Madonna chained herself to a pole in protest |
So says National Enquirer gossip editor Mike Walker, who claims that mockney hubbie Guy Ritchie is furious with his trouble n strife.
Shes way past the deadline for the move back to Blighty because shes lovin LA, reports a jowly Mike.
And she wants to supervise construction of a new Kabbalah Centre shes backing financially.
Guys apparently got his Alan Whickers in a twist, insisting that Madge and the bin lids hop on a David Blaine and come back to the gates of Rome.
But his missus has given him two longers and lingers, preferring to stay Stateside and slip her Brigham Young down Britney Spears nanny goat.
Or something like that…’
Nobs Aplenty
‘SAY what you like about the aristocracy, but they can breed. Cut their heads off, like the Frenchies tried a couple of centuries ago, and they just grow two in its place.
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| ‘If it’s a girl, we’ll call her Tracy and if it’s a boy Daryl’ |
And that is just as well because what the last thing the world needs right now is a shortage of posh people.
Who would ride the polo ponies? Who would call their children names like Tarquin and Arabella? And who would fill the pages of Hello! magazine?
This week Hello! does posh in ways that David Beckham couldn’t dream of – in fact, there are more nobs between its covers than have ever found their way between the covers of Jordan’s bed.
And what better way to kick off than with Ben Goldsmith and Kate Rothschild who have just got married in ‘the society wedding of the year’?
Unfortunately, this means 23-year-old Ben has had to relinquish his title as Britain’s most eligible bachelor bestowed upon him by Tatler magazine.
But in return he gets a 21-year-old bride and, in February, an heir to his colossal fortune.
Baby-faced Ben – or Ben-Ben as he is known (so posh, they named him twice) – is the only one of his eight siblings to have been born in wedlock and he is therefore obviously keen to ensure that his offspring keeps up the tradition.
But to the wedding, which was ‘attended by royalty and prominent public figures’ and plenty of people with silly names.
The bridesmaids, for instance, boasted an Allegra, a Romy, an Isabella, a Violet, a Uma, a Thyra and a Maude. Best man was Ben’s brother Zac, who is married to a Sheherazade,
‘It was the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever seen – it was absolutely staggering,’ said Ben’s half-sister Isabel.
Or Isabel-Isabel, as she is known.’
A Breed Apart
‘IN Europe we are blessed with so many aristocrats that sometimes we have to export them to poor benighted lands like Australia which haven’t got any of their own.
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| Harry is working as a jackaroo – or jackarupert, as it’s known in polite circles |
That’s why Prince Harry has been sent Down Under for three months, purportedly to learn about agriculture and farming but really to introduce our antipodean cousins to a bit of breeding.
If he can slip his minders, Harry will no doubt be keen not only to blow the froth off a couple of coldies but also to try out some of the local weed.
And, if given the chance, to pep up the local gene pool with the kind of chromosomes that come only from centuries of inter-breeding.
There is certainly no shortage of volunteers. Hello! catches up with ‘attractive blondes’ Brook and Jessica Brims, who managed to break the police cordon to give the prince a gift.
‘We were disappointed not to get a kiss,’ Brooke sighs, ‘but at least we got to meet him and we think he’s a good sort.’
Her sister agreed. ‘He’s DDG,’ she said (meaning drop-dead gorgeous). ‘It was obvious that the tall red-headed man stopped him from giving us a kiss.’
Er, hate to spoil your fun, girls, but we think you’ll find that the tall red-headed man was actually the prince.’
Top-Selling Single
‘EVERY now and again, Hello! likes to leaven its diet of kings and queens, princes and princesses and Zacs and Sheherezades with the odd commoner.
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| Phwoar! |
And so it is that we gaze upon the chipmunk-like features of Sarah Brightman, one time wife of Lord Lloyd Webber and veteran of dance groups Pan’s People and Hot Gossip.
Some people might suggest that they don’t come odder, or indeed commoner, than Ms Brightman, but not us.
We are, and always have been, great fans of the 43-year-old, at least ever since she appeared on Top Of The Pops singing I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper all those years ago.
And so it is with some excitement that we hear that she is a single woman again, having recently split up with her partner of 11 years Frank Peterson.
Indeed, out heart starts positively pounding when, in answer to Hello!’s inquiry about whether Sarah would marry for a third time, she replies: ‘I’d never say never.’
Perhaps our dream of raising little chipmunks one day to form a sort of rodent version of the Von Trapp family choir is not a vain one.’
Cathy At Home
‘WE have never heard what Catherine Zeta Jones thinks of her former boyfriend John Leslies brush with the law.
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| Mummy And ‘Daddy’ |
But OK! is never one to shy away from asking the big questions, so when it asks of Catherine Does anything scare you?, we know what its driving at.
The answer is so blindingly obvious to us that we hear the words crystallising in our minds, as if Catherine herself were saying them.
I am scared that I will wake up next to John and it will all have been a dream. There will be no Hollywood career, no Oscar, only an over-tall Scotsman with a fading TV career.
She might even be thinking much the same, but she says something quite unexpected. Im always scared, says she. Im just terrified and star-struck too.
Of course, anyone who has stepped out with the tall former Blue Peter presenter should be used to a sprinkling of star quality in her life.
But she talks of the Hollywood greats who now make up her circle.
Shes delighted to be working with George Clooney, excited by her new project with Ethan and Joel Coen and beside herself with glee that she lives with Michael Douglas.
And its a life shed be happy for her children to enter into. And if one of them says Mummy I want to be like you and Daddy and Grandpa, Id say Absolutely.
And then, perhaps, remind them that the man they call Grandpa is in reality their father and Daddy is just a pet name for one of Mummys former lovers…’
The Devil In Miss Jones
‘EVER thought it funny how life mirrors soap? No, neither had we. But on-screen love often leads to off-screen romance.
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| Lie back and think of Jim |
What went for Phil Mitchell and Lisa Fowler, and Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell now goes for Coronation Streets Karen McDonald and Joe Carter.
The pair, otherwise known as Suranne Jones and Jonathan Wrather, fell in love on the soap opera and are now very much an item in a street near you.
Sure, Suranne got engaged to long-tem boyfriend Jim Phelan on Christmas Day 2002, and spoke at length about undying love, soul mates and so much emotion (see OK Magazine 354 – February 18 2003).
But that was then. As we say, life is no soap opera ’
Sophie’s Choice
‘AT times like this, we in Anorak Towers like to argue about Big Brother contestants past.
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| If you know this woman, keep it to yourself |
Problem is we can never remember their names. There was that bald girl in series one, and the other on with the blonde hair who looked like an emasculated pug dog.
We do know the name Jade Goody, and have seen that Kate Lawler has gone on prove that, whether adlibbing or working to a script, she is every bit as talented as Craig the Scouser, who was on the verge of drowning in his own saliva.
And we today get a gentle reminder about two others who came, saw and went all too quickly. Today OK! gives us Lee Davey and Sophie, er, Davey.
Yes, this pair actually got married after meeting on the reality TV show. And here they are celebrating their honeymoon in the splendour of Cyprus.
We didnt want our wedding day to end, says Sophie, who despite the countless photographs fails to jog any kind of memory as to who she is in all but the most ardent Big Brother watcher.
Lucky that Lee is essentially a very private person, given that fame has not come tapping on his door, although he does confess to struggling with getting recognised in the street.
All Lees neighbours know who he is, and the postman even knows where he lives, as does the paper boy and the stalker who deliver his milk.
The rest of us only know that he is the man who loves Sophie. And thats enough for him and enough from them.’
Friends Of Dorothy
‘WE are loath to give any more coverage to Madonna’s snog with Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards because it will only encourage others to follow suit.
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| ‘Has anyone noticed yet?’ |
Before long, Victoria Beckham will be locking lips with Kym Marsh at the Smash Hits Awards, Jessie Wallace will be sticking her tongue down Jennifer Ellison’s throat at the TV Quick Awards and Ann Widdecombe and Margaret Becket will start making out at the Parliamentarian Of The Year Awards.
But we revert momentarily to the headline-grabbing moment only because the National Enquirer informs us that it has ‘put the spotlight on Hollywood’s infatuation with lesbians’.
In other words, it allows the Enquirer to cast a leery eye over recent instances of girl-on-girl action to make it to the screen.
The first Sapphic snog on American TV was in 1991 when LA Law’s Amanda Donohoe and Michele Greene shared a kiss and a cuddle.
Since then, others have realised that the easiest way to attract the attention of a male-dominated media is to slip on a pair of comfortable shoes.
Ally McBeal, Buffy The Vampire, ER and Friends have all featured lesbian clinches in the past couple of years.
But it’s not just male viewers (and magazine editors) who love this new trend; real-life lesbians are also applauding the exposure.
Columnist Christine Champagne says: ‘Madonna’s kiss with Britney is definitely the best thing that could have happened to us.
‘A lot of people may have written it off as a publicity stunt, but I saw it as a positive expression of sexuality between women.’
Bobbi Brandy, of Oxfame (an organisation set up to help publicity-starved stars) was also supportive.
‘A lot of people may have written it off as an expression of sexuality between women, but I saw it as a publicity stunt,’ she said.
‘When people see a big star like Madonna kissing another woman, they become more comfortable with such shameless displays of showing off.”
Making Up
‘WITH Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez hogging the headlines when it comes to marriage break-ups (and that before they even made it to the altar), we ask ‘Where is Julia Roberts?’
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| ‘Come and taste me – I’m all earthy’ |
Only a couple of months ago, the National Enquirer was confidently predicting that the Pretty Woman star’s marriage to Danny Moder was over.
But it seems that they are dragging their feet on the way to the divorce court because there has been no mention of them for weeks now.
Nor has there been a squeak out of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, another couple who the Enquirer assured us were have relationship difficulties.
Is it that Hollywood can only handle one bust-up at a time? And if so, what does the news that Ben and Jen are back together mean for Julia and Danny and Brad and Jennifer?
What we can tell you is that Justin Trousersnake and his girlfriend Cameron Diaz are very much together.
‘Justin is gaga over Cameron,’ a source tells the Enquirer. ‘He is crazy about her earthiness. He loves it that she’s not flashy.’
So, given the Enquirer’s recent form with its crystal ball, that’ll be the end of that relationship, then.’
A Tall Order
‘ANOTHER couple who have slipped off the cover of the National Enquirer in recent weeks is Demi Moore and toyboy Ashton Kutcher.
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| ‘You’re tall enough to be my son’ |
But don’t read anything into that apart from the fact that the magazine now has other fish to fry.
Indeed, we catch up with the couple on a visit to Las Vegas to watch the big fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Sugar Shane Mosley.
And we can reveal that it is not just a 15-year age difference that separates the couple, but also a 10-inch height difference.
Even after her expensive refurb, Demi is only 5ft 5in, while Ashton is a whopping 6ft 3in.
But the couple cope with the massive difference by employing various ruses. For example, she occasionally wears high heels to reach up to kiss him and he will often bend over to kiss her.
‘Sceptics said the height difference would be too much for the couple, but here they are three months later and they’re still together,’ a source said.
‘Mind you, Ashton’s back has been playing up recently and Demi’s got terrible bunions.”
That’s Andy
”OH, the grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand women, he marched them to his private apartment and the butler marched them down again…’
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| ‘When he was up, he was up…’ |
That nursery rhyme has nothing to do with the present Duke of York, who is not grand and has not had 10,000 women.
He has, however, had many gels – but, having seen his wife of many years, we ask you to consider the quality and forget the length.
But we digress, and to our main thrust, we see the new humble Duke of York attending the christening of ex-girlfriend Aurelia Cecil’s first child, Saskia Elisabeth Jane Amherst Stephenson, at a church in Froxfield, Wiltshire.
We are sure Andrew will love being involved in Sasky’s life, and will certainly enjoy singing her nursery rhymes, such as the one we have brought you.
He’ll also teaching her the alphabet with the aid of his little black book.
As it says therein, ‘A is for Andrew…”
Geri In Wonderland
‘IT was cruel luck that the venue chosen for the meeting of Geri Halliwell and the parents of what seems to be her new lover, actor Jerry O’Connell, should be a restaurant.
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| The horror, the horror |
Better had they met at the gymnasium or yoga studio. At either place Geri would have been in her element. She’d have known how to behave, when to put her legs behind her head, when to breathe, when to Downward Dog.
A restaurant must have been murder. One thinks of Alice entering her Wonderland. What are those metal things with the long prongs? Oysters? Is that large card with the writing on it a list of additives? Drink me? Eat me?
But on this night Geri had eyes only for her man. Who cares that he eats so badly, mixing his carbohydrates with his proteins? It’s the little things that make him so special.
That’s if she can see him. Hello!, the magazine that knows these things, tells us that the actor is 13 inches taller than Geri, standing as he does at 6ft 3in.
That would make her 5ft 2in, and 31 years old. And since we’re on a theme, it would also make her deeply talented, a first-rate singer and a perfect dinner companion.’
LA Confidential
‘AMONG her many achievements is that in 1970 Lesley-Anne Down was voted ‘Most Beautiful Teenager’ in Britain.
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| ‘The worry, the worry’ |
The constraints of those pre-Internet times fail to tell us what organ bestowed that title on the woman Hello! calls ‘an English rose’, but we imagine it was some very great periodical indeed, like Blue Jeans or Eagle.
Nowadays Lesley-Anne is 49 years old and, although no longer a teenager, she is still an ‘English rose’ in Hollywood’s eyes.
By now a few of you will be scratching your heads. You’ve heard the name but can’t place the face.
So here’s a pointer: Lesley-Anne is better known as Jacqueline Payne in The Bold And The Beautiful, the TV soap that is so soft focus it’s recommended viewing for cataract patients.
She did play Stephanie Rogers in Dallas all those moons ago, and then only for a few moons. But if that doesn’t place her, conjure up a picture of Liz Hurley meeting Jackie Collins. And, as with those two, Lesley-Anne’s perfected that cross-Atlantic way of speaking.
The trick here is to pepper the language with words you think Americans think English people say.
As a rough guide to any aspiring English roses out there, the words should of three syllables or more and last used in a spelling test in 1929. It also helps if you load your speech with colloquialisms.
Cue Leslie talking about her son. ‘He’s exhausted me!’ she says. ‘Of all the children he is the most rambunctious.’ Top marks to Leslie there.
And duly softened up by her English charm, Leslie tells us that little George is just as ‘mad as a March hare’ and ‘as tough as old nails’.
Well, smoke me a kipper at ten o’clock old bean! That’s just marvellous. Super-duper, spiffy and fandabidoze on top. Splendiferous!
But to prove that Lesley is no fuddy-duddy old stick in the mud she subscribes to that Californian embalming fluid known as Botox. She has an injection of it between her eyebrows every now and then.
‘I don’t mind happy lines, but I do care about the worry line,’ says she, with an emphasis on the singular.
‘I was worried my whole life about something. Well, not any more.’
Although the worry of worry is something of a worry, as they say in the shires…’
Beach Bunny
‘CAMERON Diaz is your typical Californian surfy chick. She’s blonde, she’s from California and she’s a chick – but has anyone ever seen her actually on a surfboard?
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| ‘Which way’s the sea?’ |
We have seen her carrying a board (in Charlie’s Angels); we have seen her sitting on a board (as she does to snog Justin Timberlake in this week’s edition of OK!); Hell, we’ve even been told that she broke her nose on a surfboard.
But has anyone seen her in the waves, throwing tail or hanging ten or going Richter?
This week’s edition of OK! devotes 10 pages to pictures of Ms Diaz and her toyboy lover on a surfing holiday in Hawaii.
But while we see Justin balancing (albeit precariously) on a board, Cameron it appears prefers to be a landshark and do her surfing on the beach.
Of course, OK! has an excuse for Cameron’s new-found love of terra firma.
‘Just days before these world exclusive photos were taken,’ it says, ‘Cameron was surfing in Hawaii when she had a disagreement with a surfboard that resulted in a fearful whack on her nose.’
Ever the trooper, Cameron was looking forward to getting back on the board again and going to pray in the green cathedral when disaster struck a second time.
‘Cameron was her usual sparky self,’ OK! explains, ‘running around on the sand when she twisted her ankle.’
And so once again we were deprived a picture of her indulging in her favourite pastime…’
Word From Uranus
‘ALSO splashing around in the waves this week is big-bottomed diva Jennifer Lopez, who chose to get over the cancellation of her marriage to Ben Affleck by heading for the sea in Miami.
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| ‘Sorry, Jen. My horoscope told me to go to a strip club tonight’ |
Anorak fans will recall that last week OK! promised its readers world exclusive pictures of the wedding of the century – the romantic service, the dazzling cast of famous guests, the lavish wedding breakfast, the heartfelt speeches and of course the incredible party to celebrate the union.
Instead, they have to make do with yet more column inches of speculation as to why the wedding didn’t take place, including a useful contribution from OK! astrologer Justin Toper.
He says that we should not be surprised that the September 14 wedding didn’t come to pass because Mercury was in retrograde motion on that day, suggesting a lack of communication between the couple.
‘The rebellious planet Uranus reverted back into Aquarius, their opposite sign, on Monday September 15,’ adds Toper, ‘perhaps another indicator of why their marriage was suddenly postponed.’
Of course, like all good astrologers, psychics and other practitioners of the arcane art of mumbo-jumbo, Toper is an expert at predicting the past.
He is a little more sketchy on the future, saying only that both Affleck and Lopez crave being the centre of attention.
‘This,’ he says, ‘is fine – providing both are equally successful, otherwise one of them couple be left stranded, casting a shadow over an otherwise happy union.’
In layman’s language, that means that Bullshit is rising in the constellation, Stating The Bloody Obvious.’
Trading Places
‘WHAT would it like to be Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez for a day?
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| Here’s one we made earlier |
Ladies, stick a cushion down the back of your trousers; gentlemen, repair to the nearest branch of Spearmint Rhino’s. And let OK! take you on a ride.
‘Being bombarded by a swarm of photographers wherever they turn is as normal to Ben and Jennifer as making a cup of tea is to us,’ says OK! as it puts the kettle on.
‘In an effort to understand what kind of pressure they face on a daily basis, we’ve compiled an extraordinary series of pictures that puts you in the shoes of Hollywood’s most sought-after pair.
‘We’ve turned the tables on the paparazzi to show you what it’s like to be in the spotlight as one half of a Hollywood couple.’
And how! In a cunning ruse, OK! has bought dozens of pictures off the paparazzi and splashed them across its magazine to highlight the intrusive nature of their craft.
If that doesn’t serve them right, we don’t know what will.’
