Tabloids Category
The news as told by the UK’s tabloid press – The Sun, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and News of the World.
England Underwater And The Republic Of Tewkesbury
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
THE Mail uses the words on its front page, resisting the urge to replace “boards” with “floorboards” as Tirley, Gloucester become an underwater reef. The Mirror just repeats the Rime, so too the Sun.
“Looting, panic buying and a water shortage” have stripped the shelves bare, says the Times’ front-page headline.
But there is water in parts of the West Country. Loadsa water. Fill your boots. Fill your houses, your garages and your cars.
“FLOODS CHAOS” says the Express, its long grey beard and glittering eye looking at the £2bn-worth of damage. “IT WILL GET EVEN WORSE.” Egads!” And: “Thousands more face heartbreak in floods.”
This is a disaster. This is Britain’s war on weather. This is Britain’s ‘Nham – Cheltenham. The shelves of the local Sainsbury’s store have been shorn of provisions – even the Jamie Oliver range selling out. Harry Potter books have long gone.
Gloucester and Oxford are on “red alert”. Tewkesbury is cut off from the rest of the country. The Mail speaks of a feeding station offering soup and sandwiches (pukka chicken and couscous) to the stranded.
This is the Republic of Tewkesbury, an island peoples. A woman is pictured walking through the surf with two children. The children are identically dressed in nationalistic pinks and whites. The madness is talking hold in the New Republic. The western wave is aflame with talk of outsiders across the seas with two heads and a thousand, thousand slimy things.
We need to make sense of this weary time; we need a voice to shout. A slimy thing, with slimy legs to tell us what we see.
And here is the Mail’s Quentin Letts to tell us: “My panic rose as fast as the river. Water gushed from the floorboards through every pore in our house.”
There is talk of a “mad, foaming force of brown water”; “little sign of the miseries to come”; “fingers of water;” and “retribution.”
An act of God to punish us all? We should repent and pray that we can swim to Tesco’s…
Posted: 23rd, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (7)
Victoria Beckham Reveals All
“WHAT I’m really like is always in a pair of jeans and tracksuit bottoms running around after my kids,” says Victoria Beckham.
Yes, this is the same Vitoria Beckham who commented on LA womanhood: “They dress down quite a lot here, don’t they? It seems to be in keeping to go to Starbucks in tracksuit bottoms and Ugg boots.”
Branded snooty and arrogant by her new neighbours, Posh went on: “I have one pair [of tracksuit bottoms] for non-photographic opportunities only.”
That opening first comment may be an attempt at damage limitation.
Although it all might mean that Victoria has only one tracksuit which she is always in. That may well be unhygienic, but Posh has offered the caveat that she only wears it when there is no photo opportunity. But because her life is one long to-camera pout, it might be that she never wears a tracksuit. Or that what we call heels and skin-tight trousers, Posh calls a tracksuit.
There is, as ever, much to debate and discuss about Posh, hers a life in contradictions. And from her definition of a tracksuit we move to her legs.
Posh is walking to a video shoot in Beverly Hills.
And Sun readers get to see the Posh legs looking less than perfect. As the paper says: “Mum-of-three Victoria, 33, is helping soccer star hubby David conquer the States after he switched to Loa Angeles team LA Galaxy.”
The impression we had is of the opposite, and that David has given up a glorious career at the apogee of world football with Real Madrid to sell Posh’s jeans and Brand Beckham to badly dressed and football-ignorant Americans.
But we stand corrected. And refocus on Posh’s legs which in close up resemble the skin atop tripe.
“Nice dimples, Posh” says the Mail, which boasts a rich history of highlighting the great and good’s body parts. “Shame they’re on your sun-kissed legs.”
Anorak suggests less sun-kissed and more sun–ravished. The Mail sees “puckered skin” and cellulite.
Although look again. Might it be that this is not Posh’s naked skin on show, rather her baggy tracksuit pants?
Posted: 20th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (23)
Paul McCartney Pays To Silence Heather Mills
“McCARTNEY ‘will pay £70million to silence Heather.” (Pic: The Spine)
So says the Mail’s headline. And we marvel at how inflated the cost of a hit has become since Britain expelled four Russian diplomats.
On further reading, it turns out that Sir Paul McCartney is to pay Heather Mills the money to go away. It is to be a divorce settlement.
Mills gets a £15milion lump sum and £3.5million every year until their daughter Beatrice, 4, turns 18.
This will be the largest divorce settlement in UK history. But we will not hear much about it because one clause stipulates that Heather must not mention their marriage publicly.
Although if she did, the papers would revel in watching Sir Paul return to court and fight for a rebate on the funds used to keep his former wife and daughter in the style to which they have become accustomed…
Posted: 20th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (12)
Britney Spears Strips
BRITNEY Spears is in the sea.
Anorak is tempted to end the story there, it being the entire event encapsulated in a nutshell of hard fact. Brevity is the soul of good reporting.
But this is the Sun’s front page and the paper is keen to place the event in context, giving it a back story and meaning.
Britney took to the water dressed in her underwear. And not just any underwear but white knickers and pink bra.
The Mirror says this is what you gt for being spontaneous. Extra TV says Britney will shoot a music video for her new single “Get Back” today. Just as soon as her moment of carefree joy is captured by a passing camera crew.
The facts just keep on coming. And to answer your questions, the Sun says Britney made her way to the sea off the cost of Malibu in the arms of her bodyguard. Yes, yes, patience, dear reader. He is dressed in blue jeans and black T-shirt. He has facial hair, possibly a goatee beard.
The Mirror has the same “sensational pictures” trailed on its front page. But there is no shot of the bodyguard, just of Britney paddling in the sea up to her knees.
And wearing sunglasses.And hair…
Posted: 20th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Muslim Women Are Vitamin Deficient In The Sun
MUSLIM women should take care.
It’s the sun. While the rest of us burn and curse the ball of fire that brings life but so too global warming, a killer tan and Al Gore concerts, religious Muslim women shun it.
And this abstinence is doing them harm.
In “THE VEIL HARMS HEALTH”, the Mirror says wearing a hijab can make women ill. They might not get enough sunlight. This means their bodies cannot absorb enough Vitamin D.
The Mirror says Vitamin D is crucial for developing strong bones.
The paper cites doctors in Bradford who have treated Muslim children for rickets, undernourished because their mother’s milk is low in calcium.
To combat this, the Government has begun a Healthy Start campaign. Poor women and families are to get free vitamins.
Good stuff. But it might not be enough. The Sun advises removal of all clothes save for a heat rash-saving thong.
The paper’s news in burkas page swears by it…
Posted: 19th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (6)
Behead Those Who Insult Britain: Islamists Lose Again
JAVED shouted “bomb the UK”. Saleem “stirred up race hate”. Muhid “led the crowd”. Rahman “wanted ‘blood’”.
No, not the Key Stage 2 text book Learn England With Hamas but words used to describe the actions of four men ranting and raving outside the Danish Embassy in London.
The four have been demonstrating against cartoons published in Denmark of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist.
“Bomb, bomb the UK,” yells Muhid. “Bomb, bomb Denmark,” adds Javed, joining in the game of terror sans frontières. He is handing out leaflets on which it is writ: “My name is terrorist, my aim is terrorism.”
Rahman says of British soldiers in Iraq: “We want to see their blood running in the streets of Baghdad.”
These men are all British. Javed, Muhid and Rahman are now residing in a British jail, sentenced to six years each for soliciting murder and three years concurrently for stirring up race hate.” Saleem got four years for inciting race hate.
Outside the Old Bailey, London, the Express sees a female policewoman standing guard. Behind her are five Muslim women dressed head to toe in black. The carry a message: “British police go to hell.”
The Express calls this “OUTRAGEOUS”. Perhaps. But it cannot be the first time such words have been uttered near the court. Indeed, in light of all the chants for beheadings and the bloodlust outside the Danish embassy, these words appear sober and measured.
“How these Muslims are repaying our hospitality,” says the Express. But these Muslims might be British.
The paper should know that Muslim and British are not mutually exclusive terms. If they are British, these women have every right to protest. They are not here because they have been invited. They are here because this is their country.
The extremists’ message is one of death, nihilism and hate. The British message is of tolerance and fairness. And if our message is adhered to it wins.
One law for all. Send the men down…
Posted: 19th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (16)
George Galloway Is Abu Hamza
GEORGE Galloway is suspended from the House of Commons.
Or as the Sun puts it: “COMMONS BAN FOR SLEAZY GALLOWAY.”
This is “treacherous” George Galloway who has been thrown out the commons for “concealing” payments.
Galloway failed to register his full interests in the Miriam Appeal. The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee concludes:
“We believe he was complicit in the concealment of the true source of the funds for the Miriam Appeal. Mr Galloway’s political activities conducted through the appeal were thus, in part, funded by the regime and Mr Galloway at best turned a blind eye to what has happened and, on balance, was likely to have known and been complicit in what was going on.”
A blind eye. A crooked hand? A hideous beard. Galloway of Bagdad Central becomes Abu Hamza, the one-eyed, no-handed, purple people eater.
“THAT’S ENOUGH ABU-SE, GEORGE,” says the Sun above five pictures of Galloway morphing into Hamza.
Miriam – The Wished For Child
Not Miriam Hamza, who lent her name to the appeal. Miriam had leukaemia. She needed help. But the hard-hearted West had imposed sanctions on good Saddam’s Iraq. Miriam was suffering because of them.
Galloway helped raise money for her treatment. She was moved to the Children’s Hospital in Baghdad in 1988. Her family were forcibly moved there too. “We were puppets of Saddam,” says Miriam’s father in the Mail.
The suspicion is that the girl was being used to score political points. The charity had a “political element”. Save her and hurt the West. Galloway the Good Samaritan with an eye for a photo opportunity.
“I will miss you sneers Galloway,” says the Mail’s headline. Readers learn that the “maverick” has been banned from the Commons for one month. It’s 18-days in the Sun, which may be a month in politics where nothing is black and white. It may even be a treat given the routine level of boredom and apathy in the debating chamber.
“This is a Parliament that is full of party donors, some of whom are convicted fraudsters, convicted thieves,” says Galloway.
It’s not Saddam’s Iraq, the man to whom Galloway gushed: “Sir, I salute your courage, strength, your indefatigability.”
One wonders what words will be used to surmise Galloway’s career, a man famous for wearing a red leotard and meowing into Rula Lenska’s hand.
It’s over to Rhina in the Sun, who whips off her top to tell us: “He’s a stain on British politics – his constituents deserve better.”
But they voted for him. You make your choices and take your chances. And few take their chances as well as Galloway…
Posted: 18th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)
Homer Erectus: The Simpsons Come To Dorset
“BE careful where you throw that doungnut, Homer…”
So says the Mirror which comes equipped with a picture of Homer Simpson in his Y-fronts holding up a doughnut. He is standing to the left of the chalk giant and his erect penis.
The new Simpsons film is coming out. And before that shark jump moment, some marketing is required. There is no little hoopla. Take aim…
But we live in enlightened times. And Homer has not been etched by an old crone’s tooth into the hillside at Cerne Abbas. He has been painted on with water-based biodegradable paint that will wash away when it rains.
But it’s not rained hard enough yet.
“We were hoping for some dry weather but I think I have changed my mind. We’ll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away,” says Ann Bryn-Evans, joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation. “I’m amazed they got permission to do something so ridiculous. It’s an area of scientific interest,” she adds.
Scientific interest? From the makers of Viagra, no doubt?
The Cerne Abbas giant has been stood proudly on the hillside since the 17th century, as the Mirror notes. He’s an ancient fertility symbol, readers are told. He helps the childless conceive, a kind of Sir Robert Winston of his time.
Posted: 17th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
The Silver Ring Thing Courts Lydia Playfoot
PERVERTS, suicide-minded Islamists and the sexually pure can tell you’re a virgin by checking out your “purity ring”.
Good to remain chaste and virginal. If that’s what you want to do. Others are into bondage, promiscuity and Margaret Beckett. You are into virginity. Ours is a tolerant society. Live and let live.
Member of the Silver Ring Thing are fine by us. As the group’s website teaches: “It is specially designed to train young people using DVD clips, group discussion and bible studies to communicate the risks associated with teen sexual activity, social pressures and the blessings of sexual abstinence.”
There are dangers is yielding to social pressure. Join the society of Silver Ring Thing and find out more.
And here is one girl who did join. She’s 16-year-old Lydia Playfoot (even her name stops short of full sex).
Lydia wears a purity ring. Her school, the Millais School, Horsham, West Sussex (start rubbing that ring, kids) says the ring is in breach of health and safety guidelines. Lydia believes is deciding things for herself and in freedom of choice.
Lydia’s dad Phil is programme director at the UK branch of Silver Ring Thing and her mother, Heather, the company secretary.
So Lydia takes her school to the High Court. She says her Ring Thing (no sniggering, kids) is a symbol of her Christian faith. But she loses.
And she tells us in a statement picked up in the Express that the ruling “will mean that slowly people such a school governors, employers, political organisations and others will be allowed to stop Christian from expressing and practising their faith”.
Miss Playfoot goes on: “The wearing of the ring was, to me, a demonstration of my Christian faith and values, which are based on the Bible, which clearly teaches that sex outside marriage is wrong and therefore not God’s best for us.”
She could wear a cross. But Miss Playfoot (get it out your system) wants to wear a ring. A cross says she is a Christian. A Silver Ring Thing says she is a virgin and waiting for Mr Right and, vitally, Mr Right’s penis.
This is God’s will. Just as it is God’s will that High Court judge Michael Superstone rules against the campaigner and says: “The school was fully justified in acting as it did.”
Which is bad news for Lydia, who must return home to talk with her mum and dad about not having sex and wonder what to do next…
Posted: 17th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (35)
Beckham Versus Beckham. Spin V. Bend. Simon Fuller’s American Idol
“WE could have stayed at Real Madrid and done another three years, but David has already won everything in club football in Europe.”
No, not Victoria Beckham but the more important force in creating Brand Beckham, Simon Fuller.
“So he wins another league title,” says the man who has formed David and Victoria’s careers through his 19 management company. “So what? I am not downplaying that as an achievement, but people need to realise what has brought him out here.”
Money? Fame? Money? The need to avoid the pressure of winning again? Quitting while you are ahead?
“If you have a dream, you have to have the bottle to chase it, otherwise it will haunt you for the rest of your life,” says Fuller.
He goes on: “I never look at my feet. Some people do, but I look to the horizon.” For the long diagonal ball? “Really, what is the worst thing that can happen for David’s career.”
Well, invited to respond we say the worst thing would be if Americans come to realise Beckham is no Pele and though a star for a poor England side he is unable to score in every game and is as likely to bend the ball into the net as he is to smash a penalty into Row Z.
Beckham the brand versus Beckham the reality. It will be exciting to see who wins.
But the LA Galaxy shirts are selling well. The Express says Beckham’s new team have flogged 250,000 jerseys on day one of his arrival. Wow! That’s the spin. The truth, as reported in the Times, is that 250,00 shirts have been “distributed by adidas”. 1-0 to spin. Or bend.
But Beckham does not play alone. Here’s Victoria Beckham in the Express. She’s holding a baseball bat. There is every chance that with the mighty weapon hooked over her shoulder Vicky is set to topple backwards.
Here’s Posh in the supermarket. The Mail spots her with a trolleyload of goods. “I get quite bored with the way people look the same all the time with the same make-up and the same outfit, and the same kind of hair.” To say nothing of the same kind of expression.
LA will be good for Vicky, then. Over there people can change their entire heads, chests and buttocks. Hair comes with Velcro fasteners. Breasts are box fresh. Although teeth are only available in a uniformly brilliant white.
And houses are huge. The Beckham’s new home made David, who had not chosen it, exclaim “Wow!”
Says Vicky: “I felt really bad about doing the house hunt alone, buying such an expensive place without my husband seeing it. I felt, ‘I’m making this huge decision about our future on my own’.”
But she is never on her own. We are together. We are Simon Fuller…
Posted: 16th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)
Bin Laden’s Jewish Relatives And Satan’s Slaves
IF they can’t be at the wedding in person, a father of the bride or groom might send a telegram.
And here’s Osama bin Laden sending his boy Omar bin Laden a goodwill video message. The Bin Ladens embrace technology, they move with the times.
“The happy [man] is the one that god has chosen to be his martyr,” says Osama. Omar and his bride Jane Felix-Browne exchange knowing glances.
The clip is less then 60 seconds long. The tape continues for 40 minutes, the remainder made up of footage of dad’s pals on the Stag do to the Hindu Kush. There is shooting, slitting throats and inspirational songs about girls from Kandahar.
Omar bin Laden, a scrap metal dealer, says his new bride is just great. The Sun says Jane Felix-Browne had a Jewish grandfather. Omar says: “Her nationality is not an issue. What is important is her religion and manner.”
“Polygamy is not strange in our Arab Islamic society,” says Omar, who lives in Saudi Arabia with another wife.
“I have never been unfaithful to any of my husbands,” says five-times married Jane.
“Lay off my British wife says son of bin Laden,” writes the Mail. Omar is “stunned and outraged” over criticism of Jane. Says Jane: “I am proud Muslim and I never told Omar I had Jewish blood. I was very worried he would divorce me.”
But now she has told him. He has seen all. He knows of her past husbands, including an RAC patrolman and a member of a biker gang called Satan’s Slaves.
Jane Felix-Bowne will be OK. “My father’s business is not my business,” says Omar. “I don’t care if he is the most wanted terrorist in the world. He is my father and I love him.”
While Trisha and other presenters of daytime TV confessionals try to get Omar on the sofa before the baying crowd (“He wants shootin’”; “The apple don’t fall far from the tree”; “Paedo!”) , we see Jane.
She is showing some skin. She has tattoos, including one of a black widow spider.
Osama bin Laden praises the happy martyr…
Posted: 16th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
News Week: Wimbledon, Live Earth, 21/7, La Beckhams And Bin Laden
MONDAY
HOORAY for Murray (J)!!
A “BRIT WINS WIMBLEDON,” said the front of Monday’s Mirror. (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
Hooray. Our plan to have Roger Federer repatriated worked. Well, down Roger. The golden cup is yours, so too the “Federer Facilities” portable male and female conveniences by mighty Henman Hill. (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
But this good news was accompanied by more good news that Murray (J) had taken top spot in the mixed doubles.
Partnered by migrant worker Jelena Jankovic (Serb), 21-year-old Jamie Murray said: “It was destiny.”
A good Monday not just for we Britishers but for the world, too. People from Congo to Bolivia and aboard private jets rejoiced to the news that the world had been saved.
Madonna had successfully coerced every “motherfucker” to watch their telly, buy her album and save the planet. Madonna was a forced of sustainable and renewable energy (she’s in her 40s) creating no little static in her skin tight Spandex suit as she dry humped a stereo and proved that wind and so much hot air can power an entire stadium.
“If you want to save the planet, let me see you jump,” said Madonna. So we jumped and over in Greenland the vibration caused a lump of ice to works itself loose. There was a mudslide in Bolivia. The Wembley groundsman winced. This was joined-up geography. No-one was safe from climate change.
TUESDAY
On Tuesday the world became that bit safer still when four refugees were guilty of trying to bomb the London Underground and the No. 26 bus.
Muktar Said Ibrahim, Ramzi Mohammed, Yassin Omar and Hussain Osman wanted to kill and maim indiscriminately. They failed because Ibrahim made one error in producing the hydrogen peroxide explosives.
“MORON TERROR,” said the Sun. The words a comment on Ibrahim, the ringleader. He was a “dunce”. He was “simple-minded”. He was “buck-toothed”. “CHEMICAL WALLY,” said the Mirror.
The picture showed Ibrahim to be overweight, dull of eye and unable to breathe with his mouth closed. If he wasn’t an Islamist he’d be drinking alcopops in the precinct and moving his lips as he read the Daily Star in the park. He was the one who made the bombs that failed.
WEDNESDAY
But there can be peace, a coming together. On Wednesday we celebrated the news that Jane Felix-Browne, 51, a five-time married mother of three, had married Omar Osama Bin Laden, son to Osama bin Laden, harbinger of death. What she wore – something borrowed, something, blue up (sic) – was not reported. And the wedding video has yet to be revealed in grainy footage on Al Jazeera. We saw only love.
“Cheshire housewife marries Bin Laden,” announced the Sun’s front-page headline.
How long before the world’s most wanted man joined the Cheshire set, dressed in Ugg boots, drove an immaculate 4×4 and hung out with footballers?
“You should see that Bin Laden,” the neighbours will say. “He’s got the new 900 Jihad convertible in tope. He knows the Nevilles.”
More religious ceremony in Northern Ireland. On the eve of the Battle of the Boyne, at which the Protestant King William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James, locals on the Ballycraig estate set a beacon alight, possibly with a flaming Vauxhall Nova.
Twice the height of nearby houses, this toxic cake of wooden pallets interlaced with rubber tyres dominated the skyline. On its top sat an Irish tricolour, ready to burn.
Hard line Islamists could only look on in envy – while they burn the Union Jack with handheld lighters and matches, Northern Ireland’s loyalists construct a towering inferno and cover it in petrol.
THURSDAY
It’s all for Her Majesty the Queen. Regal and grand she sits before Annie Leibovitz, American snapper of renown.
Queen Liz was dressed in “full Royal regalia”, not her pastel two-piece with matching hat and pistol holster, rather the trappings of the Order of The Garter.
Leibovitz considered the ensemble. “I think it will look better without the crown because the garter robe is so…”
The American never finished. Her words were not punctuated by the thud as her severed head hit the carpet. Nothing so light.
Her Majesty is no fool. “ANNIE HORRIBILIS,” said the Mirror. She would be aware of the snapper’s work and realise that where the crown goes the cape, blouse and bra are likely to follow. Before too long, Liz will be naked and curled up on Philip’s lap, or naked with her outfit reapplied in emulsion paint.
She flounces out. Or not. As the BBC, which filmed this seminal moment, said, it was all a mistake and Her Majesty had not thrown a hissy fit. The footage of her mobbing was of her coming not going.
FRIDAY
Not going like David Beckham and his fragrant wife. They were off to Los Angeles.
Reborn in the USA, David Beckham was telling the world that he had come to bring football to the masses, a soccer missionary to deliver the light of goalless draws, jumpers for goalposts and a new kits retailing at $49.99 to the non believers.
“Go Dave!” yelled the British hacks massed in sunny LA. “We lurve, you Day-vid,” they chimed as one. “We love you for getting us out of watching Wigan reserves take on Melton Mowbray FC in pre-season jog about. Hallelujah!”
And Dave smiled. He read his autocue. He paraded his three sons into the rosy-fingered dawn, the boys identically dressed in red-and-white striped tops, beige shorts and shaved heads. “Soccer it to ’em, Becks!” said the Mirror’s front-page headline.
And here was Rebecca Loos to see him off. She taken off her bra and was waving it above her head.
“There are plenty of gorgeous girls in LA,” said Loos, “I don’t know whether he’s going to be a good boy.”
And Ms Loos is going to LA. She spends one week a year there. What if Loos should happen upon Dave? “I don’t know what I’d say if I bumped into the Beckhams,” said she. “But I’m sure Victoria would talk to me.”
After all, Loos and Posh are kindred spirits. She told us that “he is the only one to blame. He knew what he was doing when he seduced me… It was all down to him.”
David Beckham scores and gets the assist(ant). Who says you can’t have it all? Not David Beckham. Go Dave! And don’t turn around lest you lock eyes with Rebecca’s naked chest. So long, Golden Balls.
What ho, Murray. New balls please…
LA Beckhams: Rebecca Loos On David Beckham And Meeting Victoria
REBORN in the USA, David Beckham is touched down in Los Angeles. He is telling the world that he has come to bring football to the masses, a soccer missionary to deliver the light of goalless draws, jumpers for goalposts and a new kits retailing at £49.99 to the non believers.
“Go Dave!” yell the British hacks massed in sunny LA. “We lurve, you Day-vid,” they chime as one. “We love you for getting us out of watching Wigan reserves take on Melton Mowbray FC in pre-season jog about. Hallelujah!”
And Dave smiles. He reads his autocue. He leads his three sons into the rosy-fingered dawn, the boys identically dressed in red-and-white striped tops, beige shorts and shaved heads. “Soccer it to ’em, Becks!” says the Mirror’s front-page headline.
He Loves his Wife
And there is Posh. David loves his wife. He loves his wife. He loves his wife.
He does not love Rebecca Loos, who tells the Star: “I saved the Beckhams’ marriage.”
So he should love her? He shoots. Rebecca saves. Everyone scores a magazine deal. It’s the perfect goal.
And here in the Star to explain all is Ms Loos, cupping her hands over her breasts and digging her thumbs lightly into her enhanced nipples.
“In a way they should be glad it happened,” says Loos, “it’s made them stronger. They even went on to have another kid. Everything happens for a reason, even bad things.”
And: “No one knows what goes on between two people. But if they are happy – and they seem to be – then it’s worth it.”
Rebecca is too modest. We can know what goes on between two people so long as one party records conversations in the form of a Bext message, stores it on her mobile phone and shows it to Sky news in a one-on-one interview spectacular.
What Next?
“There are plenty of gorgeous girls in LA,” says Loos, “I don’t know whether he’s going to be a good boy.”
And she is going to LA. She spends one week a year there. What if Loos should happen upon Dave? “I don’t know what I’d say if I bumped into the Beckhams,” says she. “But I’m sure Victoria would talk to me.”
After all, Loos and Posh are kindred spirits. She tells us that “he is the only one to blame. He knew what he was doing when he seduced me… It was all down to him.”
David Beckham scores and gets the assist(ant). Who says you can’t have it all. Not David Beckham. Go Dave! And don’t turn around lest you lock eyes with Rebecca’s naked chest…
Posted: 13th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (14)
Show And Tell: David And Victoria Beckham Revealed
CENTRE stage and central midfield for David Beckham in Los Angeles.
Beckham has been handed his No. 23 shirt. Tonight he will be in the city of angels kissing the badge and saying how when growing up in London he dreamed of playing for the LA Nachos.
Of course he won’t. Beckham will say just the right thing. He will read his autocue and says how he can take “soccer” to a higher level in the US.
“The expectations are the only thing I’m worried about because people probably do think they’re going to see me turn out and we’ll win our first game 10-0.”
Surely, Day-vid means 25-0, then 30-0 in the next game and so on. With David scoring all the goals with bendy shots. We fear the disappointment when the game ends 0-0 and Day-vid lashes a penalty kick into orbit. The crowd’s reaction will make the new Chelsea fans look knowing.
But the move is not all about football, if any of it is. Day-vid says he speaks to Tom Cruise “most days of the week”. Nothing weird in that. It’s not as if Beckham’s going to have an affair with the actor and Scientologist missionary.
Show And Tell
Becks loves his wife. He loves his wife. He loves his wife. And here she is on the front page of the Mirror, David’s cheerleader-in-chief, the tick on his tock telling us about her life.
Sat in her knickers, legs akimbo, Her Poshness is in W magazine. Posh recalls the allegations that Day-vid had employed Rebecca Loos to model kickers that may suit his wife.
“I’m not going to lie,” says Posh, “I did not have sex with that woman.” Only joking. It’s just that if David is accused of playing away again he can always learn from his adopted land and argue the toss as to what constitutes sexual relations.
Says Posh: “I’m not going to lie. It was a really tough time. It was a hard time for our entire families. David and I got through it together. No one said marriage was going to be easy.”
Posh says she and David and now “stronger and happier”.
And if you don’t believe her take a look at the pictures of them kissing. Hear of them locking the doors and walking around naked.
The Mail sees all and says the Beckhams look like a “couple of Essex chavs on day trip to Southend”. They are the apogee of fashion.
Dave lies face down on a mattress with a sheet pulled down to show his backside. Eat your heart out the Nashville Metros soccer team. This is David Beckham, LA Galaxy’s Metrosexual.
Says Posh: “I think they have this impression that I’m this miserable cow who doesn’t smile [see pictures]. But I’m actually quite the opposite. I’m going to try and smile more for America.”
And not look moody and cheated when David fails to score…
Pic: Dlisted
Posted: 12th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
Kate Moss Burns For Pete Doherty
VERY wise. The Sun says Kate Moss is burning everything Pete Doherty gave her during their chemical romance. (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
For sure, the impact on the environment cannot be overlooked. By our calculations to offset the carbon emissions, Kate should now plant two acacia trees, a mid-sized hydrangea and a recording of Madonna singing La Isla Bonita.
But burning is all. Pete never looked the most hygienic lover. News that he managed to pull another girl and, allegedly, cheat on Moss comes as a testament to his drug-proof libido and the girl’s bravery.
But before the bedding and the rugs make it to the bonfire, Moss is torching Doherty’s letters do her.
Not overlooking the chance they are written in Doherty’s blood, we advise clean-living Moss to stand upwind lest the dried tincture contain traces of illicit narcotics and render her more stoned than a Iranian adulterer.
Moss is also said to be During Doherty’s works of art. Or rolling them and smoking them…
Posted: 12th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Heather Mills Reaches For The Skies
FRESH from pogoing on America’s Dancing With The Stars, Heather Mills is turning her foot to pro-celebrity ice-skating. (Pic: The Spine)
Much was made of whether Mill’s prosthetic leg would become detached from the greater Heather as she executed a Cha-cha-cha.
Cameras followed Heather to the leg shop. Heather was fitted with a new, “special” leg. There were adjustments and tightening. This leg would now allow her to dance and bounce with ease. In scenes reminiscent of Reach for the Skies, Heather learned to dance again.
Like a sequinned Long John Silver, Heather took to the floor. It was a sensation. Not for Heather the simple yet memorable Love Me Do dance where she would tie her legs to a turntable and spin at 45rpm.
Heather gave it her all. Judge Bruno Tonioli called her “the incredible Heather Mills”. Said he: “One, two, three legs, I don’t care how many – you did a fantastic job.”
Now, as the Sun reports, Mills “hopes to shake off her frosty image” by pulling on some skates.
And melting hearts…
Posted: 12th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Annie Horribilis: Queen Snaps At Leibovitz
SHOULD the Queen remove her crown will the Empire fall?
In “THRONE A WOBBLER”, the Sun leads with news of Her Majesty’s meeting with Annie Leibovitz, a portrait photographer from what Elizabeth may well refer to as the “American colonies”.
Queen Liz is dressed in “full Royal regalia”, not her pastel two-piece with matching hat and pistol holster, rather the trappings of the Order of The Garter.
Leibovitz considers the ensemble. “I think it will look better without the crown because the garter robe is so…”
The American never finished. Her words were not punctuated by the thud as her severed head hit the carpet. Nothing so light.
Her Majesty is no fool. “ANNIE HORRIBILIS,” says the Mirror. She would be aware of the snapper’s work and realise that where the crown goes the cape, blouse and bra are likely to follow. Before too long, Liz will be naked and curled up on Philip’s lap, or naked with her outfit reapplied in emulsion paint.
Leibovitz’s motif has not truck with her Majesty, who does not do nudity. What is more is that the crown is a tiara.
She engages Leibovitz with an “icy stare”. “Less dressy?” she muses. “What do you think this is.”
At which point Leibovitz possibly checked herself and cancels the bathtub full of milk and the bed of red roses (some thorns removed) and aroused unicorn.
No answer is forthcoming. The Queen’s question is rhetorical. And she leaves in what the Sun calls “a huff”.
“I’m not changing anything,” Liz tells one of her ladies. “I’ve had enough dressing like this, thank you every much. “
The session is at an end. But the “pushy” American (Mail) does produce four shots.
And a video. The meeting is captured by camera as part of the TV series A Year With The Queen.
Or five minutes and a how d’yer do, if you’re Ms Leibovitz…
Posted: 12th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
I Was O. Bin Laden’s Wife: Jane Felix-Browne Remembers
“CHESHIRE housewife marries Bin Laden,” announces the Sun’s front-page headline.
How long before the world’s most wanted man is joining the Cheshire set, dressed in mustard coloured moleskin trousers and Ugg boots, driving an immaculate 4×4 and hanging out with footballers?
“You should see that Bin Laden,” the neighbours will say. “He’s got the new 900 Jihad convertible in tope. He knows the Nevilles.”
And here is Bin Laden, or at least his son Omar Bin Laden. Security experts looking in may kick their heels to have missed the do, to have missed their chance to arrest Bin Laden as the crabsticks were doing the rounds.
But the Sun says Omar Osama Bin Laden has not heard from his father for seven years. He married Jane in Cairo. Now, Omar lives in Saudi Arabia with his second wife (not Jane) and their one child.
His new missus is Jane Felix-Browne, 51, a five-time married mother of three. She suffers from multiple-sclerosis.
Says Jane, who met her husband last year when they were both on holiday in Egypt: “Because my husband’s name is Bin Laden he finds it very difficult to travel anywhere. He rarely leaves Saudi Arabia because of the problems he runs into at airports.”
But this Bin Laden is not a member of the al-Qaeda death cult. Jane says her man is “pure and pious – a true gentleman.”
Once met, they kept in touch. The love bloomed. And even though Jane lives in Cheshire and Omar in Jeddah, they talk for “up to 15 hours a day” over the phone or internet. This is all the more intriguing when Jane confides that Omar has little command over the English language.
This Bin Laden is nothing like his dad, who hardly ever speaks these days. His name is all they share. But there is much in a name, you say. The Sun says Jane also uses the name Zaina Mohamed Al-Sabah. Before falling ill, Jane worked as an interior designer – “specialising in plane cabins.”
“Omar had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks,” says Jane, “and was as shocked as everyone else when it happened.”
We hear, you Jane. But we don’t hear Omar. Will we be having the pleasure of his company in Cheshire? Jane thinks not. “There’s no reason why he should not come here to live,” says Jane, “but I don’t think he would like the weather.”
Although he could keep his tan alive with the local fake bake…
Posted: 11th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (23)
Smoke On Trent: It’s Legal To Puff In Stoke Pubs
“SMOKE on TRENT”, says the Mirror’s front-page headline. And we cheer.
News is that council officials failed to secure enforcement powers for the smoking ban in time for the July 1st stub out.
This means smokers can light up in Stoke pubs without fear of being approached by a masked man with a clipboard and told to put it out. They will not be issued with an on-the-spot £50 fines. They will not take their lighter and set fire to said penalty notice. Local police will not enact a lighter amnesty.
“Pub regular” Mark Evans says: “It’s wonderful. We can get away with smoking inside for few more weeks.”
Joy indeed to escape the cancer–giving sun for the more ambient joys of the cancer-giving smoky pub.
The Mirror’s man on the scene gives in to peer pressure and like a good social smoker lights up a small cigar.
Readers hear of ashtrays overflowing with butts. They’re lighting up with gay abandon. Passport to Stoke. Where can we apply? All aboard the smokers’ charabanc to the Potteries kiln for a weekend break.
But what if the council has not erred? What if the good smokers of Stoke are guineas pigs, the benchmarks against which the success of the smoking ban can be gauged?
Will Stoke residents die younger than other Britons? Or will they live just as long, or longer if the intense smoking process can act as a preservative.
Pic: Chichi Parish
Posted: 11th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Four Nothing: Why 21/7 Bombers Failed
FOUR refugees are guilty of trying to bomb the London Underground and the No. 26 bus
Muktar Said Ibrahim, Ramzi Mohammed, Yassin Omar and Hussain Osman wanted to kill and maim indiscriminately. They failed because Ibrahim made one error in producing the hydrogen peroxide explosives.
All four are now facing life sentences. “TO THINK WE GAVE THEM SANCTUARY,” says the Mail’s front-page headline. They came from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Blasted Fools
“MORON TERROR,” says the Sun. The words a comment on Ibrahim, the ringleader. He’s a “Dunce”. He’s “simple-minded”. He’s “buck-toothed”.
The picture shows Ibrahim to be overweight, dull of eye and unable to breathe with his mouth closed. If he wasn’t an Islamist he’d be drinking alcopops in the precinct and moving his lips as he read the Daily Star in the park. He was the one who made the bombs that failed.
Of course, Ibrahim might be what passes for a brain surgeon in Islamist circles. Last week we saw how tricky jihad is when two car bombs in London failed to detonate. The alleged mastermind of that plot was a brain surgeon. Perhaps the nihilists will have more luck if they turn to rocket science? It’s not like they care where the things come done. As the great Nazi rocketeer put it: “’Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down That’s not my department,’ says Wernher von Braun.”
More on the “Blasted fools” (Sun) in the Mail, where readers see the 14-year-old Ibrahim settle in a council house in Stanmore, north London. He is obsessed by sex with blonde women. He smokes cannabis. He indecently assaults a 15-year-old girl. He fails his maths GCSE. He miscalculates the ingredients for the 21/7 bombs.
The Victims
Ibrahim’s bombs fail to blow up Nadia Baro, 26, and her baby Marc. In the Mirror’s front-page story (“They tried to blow up my baby”), readers hear from one intended victim.
Nadia is on the train when Mohammed strikes. “He turned his back to me, intentionally directing the bomb towards Marc,” says she. “Then he detonated his rucksack. It was as if he was aiming the bomb at us.”
She goes on: “As I was pulled to safety I stared Mohammed directly in the eye. His face had a bizarre look of surprise on it.”
With Ibrahim as the ringleader, such an expression may be Mohammed’s customary and unchangeable look. “CHEMICAL WALLY,” says the Mirror’s headline.
It was an expression witnessed by Angus Campbell. He is on the same train. There is big bang. Mohammed’s bomb fails to detonate. And Campbell holds him for two minutes. Brave is a word bandied about in the tabloid press. But this is brave.
The carriage is full of smoke. It is two weeks after the 7/7 bombs have killed 52 people and injured many more.
Campbell shouts at Mohammed: “What’s that? What the fucking hell is that? You tell me know hat the fuck that is?
Mohammed: “This is flour, this is fucking flour… hah, hah
The driver comes on the speaker
Campbell: Keep the doors shut
An inadequate drop out and drifter. A fireman. And more panic on the Tube triggered by sad, dislocated men who can’t get enough sex and can’t think of anything to do other then die and kill…
Posted: 10th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
3am With Paris Hilton
PARIS Hilton is on a night out with the Mirror’s 3AM Girls, so called because they are three in number and 3am is when the Wags, wannabes and wasters stumble out of Chinawhites into the arms of the waiting paparazzi.
“I’m so happy to be out and back with my friends,” says Paris. “I feel amazing.”
Resisting all urge to cop a feel and see if Paris does feel “amazing” or slightly clammy and waxy, as she appears, the girls head off.
First stop is LA’s “exclusive” Arena nightclub. Paris drinks vodka. Paris shows everyone her knickers. Paris smokes a cigarette.
The DJ plays Toxic by Britney Spears. Paris dances on a chair.
(Note: dancing on a chair or on its relative the table is exactly what you do when you can’t dance. With limited space the chair offers an explanation as to why your feet are hardly moving. The night before Paris had “danced seductively against a wall”.)
A waiter “whispers”: “We were all saying it won’t be long before she was back to her old self but even we’re surprised it’s been so soon. Nothing’s gonna stop her – not even jail.”
“Eh?” says 3AM girl Caroline. “The music’s too loud. I’ll have cran-berry juice and some chips? And any dirt you want to serve up.”
At 1:3am, mad party animal Paris leaves the club and goes to a friend’s house.
There is no suggestion the 3AM girls go too. It is not yet 3am…
Posted: 10th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Quiet Please: Venus Williams And The Hajib
ALONGSIDE a picture of Wimbledon champion Venus Williams falling “Out!” of her dress the Mirror brings news of female fashion.
Williams has been playing tennis in her underwear. And now she is experiencing a wardrobe malfunction, executing a “drop shot” at the champions’ dinner in the Savoy, London.
To her right is story entitled”: JUROR HID HER iPOD IN HER HAJIB.”
We live in a relatively free and tolerant society where female athletes can show us their nipples, Becky, 24, from London, can stand in her knickers and talk politics to Sun readers, and a woman in her 20s can wear a headscarf at a murder trial.
But there is a problem. There is a noise coming from the woman’s ensemble. Judge Roger Chapple says he can hear “tinny music”.
Sat at Blackfriars Court, London, judge and jury are listening to the case of the crown versus Alan Wicks. He is accused to killing his wife of 50 years. (Mrs Wicks’ outfit at the time of her demise is not reported; but Wicks will soon be wearing Government-issue blue having been found guilty of her murder.)
Jurors notice the woman in the midst. She appears to be doodling. Officials claim she is in a “world of her own”.
And now she faces jail after an MP3 player was found secreted about her person.
Only yesterday we learnt how one of the 21/7 bombers fled the country dressed in a burka. And now this.
If Islam is to be sold to the British masses this seems like a sensible ploy. Wear the hijab and avoid having your face photographed by the cameras that study our every move. Wear the hijab and listen to what you want to, when you want to.
Wear the hijab and strike a blow for individuality and freedom. If not justice…
Posted: 10th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Madonna Does Preach At Live Earth
HAD only Princess Diana been around to enliven Live Earth, music fans wouldn’t have had to endure Madonna coercing every “motherfucker” to watch their telly, buy her album and save the planet. (Spinal Tap Pic: The Spine)
Madonna is not a hypocrite, creating no little static in her skin tight Spandex suit and proving that wind and so much hot air can power an entire stadium.
“If you want to save the planet, let me see you jump,” says Madonna. So we jump and over in Greenland the vibration cause a lump of ice to works itself loose. There’s a mudslide in Bolivia. The Wembley groundsman winces. This is joined-up geography. No-one is safe from climate change.
And certainly not Madonna’s staff. In “Madonna’s bizarre look-at-me order”, the Mirror sees pop’s Gaia address her minions.
They are instructed to maintain eye contact with Madonna “at all times”, no small thing as Madge bends over and dry humps a stereo.
Interviewers should “never look down or check notes – all questions must be memorised or the interview will be terminated”.
This is easy. The Mirror’s 3am Girls laugh at such challenges, having got their questions – “Wow?”; “Amazing?; and “Congratulations, that was brilliant, you must be happy?” committed to memory.
Presenters were ordered not to ask about Madonna’s husband Guy Ritchie, her religious beliefs and her adopted son David Banda Twist.
All questions had to be about Live Earth. Such as: Do they have television in Malawi? Can you and Guy’s collaboration Swept Away be seen as an instructional video for when the world drowns? Can red string stop global warming?
Is the global warming diet for everyone?
Posted: 9th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (15)
Blue On Blue: Al-Qaeda In The Police
“AL QAEDA FANTATICS WORKING IN POLICE.” (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
So says the Mail’s front-page headline. And there is a whispered aside: “(but they don’t dare sack them).”
Having learnt how inadequate NHS equipment scuppered the bombers’ murderous plans in London – the syringes failed – can we now expect the police to be issued with dud goods?
Gordon Brown’s patriotic and lives-first last act as chancellor was to apparently slash the NHS hospital building and equipment budget in England by almost a third, from £6.2 billion to £4.2 billion.
Will police funds now be cut to save us all?
In case the paraphenalia of law and order falls into the wrongs hands, all police will be issued with foam truncheons and their pepper spray replaced by Eau Du Bovver, a lively fragrance with top notes of calming St John’s wort and Prozac.
The Mail talks of eight suspected Islamic militants working for the boys in blue. There is talk of them attending terror training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals. One “suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq.”
Makes a change form the usual police emails of naked women and jokes about the Irish. But it is no less worrying.
All the information is in a police dossier, drawn up with the help of MI5. Of course, we should not overlook the likelihood that the security services are riddled with double agents and the MI5 document is a ruse to deflect attention from the real enemy within.
We are invited to wonder why the second device parked near Haymarket was left at a designated “evacuation assembly point”, where civilians and the emergency services would have gathered had the first bomb gone off. Was this known to the bombers?
As the Mail rightly notes, in November last year, it was revealed that a leading member of an extremist Islamic group was working as a senior official at the Home Office.
They are among us. So why are they not sacked?
The Mail has an answer. It says they are protected by “political correctness”. And maybe – just maybe – because they haven’t broken any laws…
Posted: 7th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Prevention Better Than Cure For Fighting NHS Islamicists
IT was ever a cunning plan. Should the Taliban ever seize our supplies, they would be undone by melting boots and non-firing guns.
And should they ever invade Blighty, they would find our democratic institutions antiquated, our palaces crumbling and our NHS in thrall of pen pushers and equipment not seen Torquemada was in his pomp.
As the Express’s front-page headline thunders: “BOMB DOCTORS FOILED BY DUD NHS SYRINGES.”
More fool the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and whatever other umbrella terms nihilism calls itself. Like the Falashas who arrived in Israel expecting to see a land flowing in milk and honey, Al-Qaeda’s Mengele Unit arrives in UK hospitals looking for bleeding edge technology and finds nothing of the sort.
The suggestion is that the NHS issue plastic syringes, “a vital part in the firing mechanism” of cars bombs, failed.
As the Express tells us, an electrical circuit links the syringes, a nine-volt battery and a mobile phone. The villain dials 0800 EDMONDS. The circuit is made. The liquid in the syringe is ignited and explodes. The main charge is detonated. Human beings are incinerated. And the world is made a much worse place to be.
But it failed. The terrorists made “multiple calls” to the mobiles. But the syringes did not work.
As a security source says: “The fact that the remote mobile detonator was being rung continuously highlights the bravery of these extraordinary men. As far as they are concerned, that bomb could have gone off at any moment.” Another security source tells the Sun the bomb expert deserves the George Cross.
“Car bombs would have killed dozens…but for a faulty NHS syringe,” says the Express.
Congratulations to the NHS for being prepared. Prevention is better than cure and all that…
Posted: 6th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
