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.
Anorak’s News Week: Diana’s Life, Paris Hilton’s iPad, Paul Potts On Manning, Glastonbury & Killer Spice Girls
IT’S been ten years since Princess Diana forgot to put on her seatbelt, and the celebration to mark the auspicious occasion are progressing well. (Pic: Glastonbury rescue – The Spine)
In “DIANA’S LIFE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED SAYS DOCTOR,” the Express brings readers the “death crash sensation”, what Tina Brown didn’t tell you.
Monday’s Diana & The iPad Hilton
Monday, and the paper hears from Dr James Colthurst, an independent medical man. Colthurst, 50, may not be around to mark Diana’s silver jubilee and the time is ripe for him to tell us: “My belief is that had Diana been moved more quickly, the surgeons may have had a better chance.”
Dr Colthurst was not at the crash scene. He was not at the hospital. He did not operate on Diana. But he knows. And he tells us: “Her injuries of course were very serious, but there were delays in addressing those injuries that, to my mind, could have been critical.”
Always good to get a second opinion; better, of course, to get it while the patient is still alive. But things do not always go to plan. And not every doctor has a decade to cogitate and deliberate the facts.
A decade of Express headlines, Al Fayed vomit ‘n’ cuff shirts and conspiracy theories have only burnished Diana’s legend. But will prison work wonders for today’s top celebrity, Paris Hilton?
Also on Monday, Al Gore was talking with the Sun’s showbiz editor: “The G8 have been meeting in Germany and the United States is throwing a monkey wrench in the effort to get a consensus. The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton, we have to ask ourselves what is going on here?”
Can it be that the G8 leaders have been talking about Paris Hilton? Good that they have their fingers on the pulse of popular debate. But the G8 summit goes on for just so long and the worry seems to be that talk of Paris comes in place of other topics, like Big Brother, a European superstate and David Beckham’s hair. Or is Paris’s prison cell is a prototype for greener living – she doesn’t even go to the toilet, let alone flush the thing. One day we will all live like Paris. All hail the new iPad.
Going To Potts & Manning The Stations
We need a voice to make sense of it all. Paul Potts. No. Maybe. More someone who cuts to the heart of the matter and plunges the knife in; someone who will not stand on ceremony; someone like Bernard Manning. But on Tuesday Manning, the People’s Pundit, was dead.
The Times’ obituary surmises Manning’s career: “Comedian whose brutal disregard for ‘normal’ sensibilities fell out of fashion but remained popular on the club circuit.”
As Anorak’s Ed Barrett put it: “Contrary to popular misconception, Bernard Manning could be very funny without being ‘blue’ or otherwise offensive. Fortunately, he preferred to be offensive and was downright hilarious when he was. His view of clean gags was simple: ‘They’re childish, aren’t they?’”
Manning would have known what to say at Princess Diana’s funeral rock concert. At a recent charity dinner, he approached a friend of the late Queen Mother and said: “One corgi turns to another and says, ‘Thank fuck the Queen Mum’s dead, now we won’t be blamed for the smell of piss.”’
Hill & Bill Do Glasto
Make what you will of that. The message is that we need to see the funny side, nothing is taboo. And on Wednesday we saw Hillary Clinton and her fragrant husband Bill pretending to be The Sopranos.
In a brilliant parody of the Sopranos finale that America has been debating for over a week, a new campaign video from Hillary Clinton places the Presidential hopeful and her husband in a nondescript diner discussing the outcome of her campaign song contest. According to the New York Daily News News, the contest and video were meant to show the lighter side of a candidate that many voters find “calculating and aloof”.
How long before the Clintons turn up at Glastonbury on the politics sound stage, with Tony and the Blairios on bongos and humus? The act will have to ait for next year, because this year’s Glastonbury has already kicked off.
And the aim is to get through it and say, “I was there. I did Gasto.” In “HOW TO SURVIVE GLASTONBURY – BY ANDY McNAB,” the Sun’s shadowy security expert issues advise to festival goers.
First up, don’t panic. Unlike McNab, you cannot get lost behind enemy lines at the country’s biggest music festival. Although the perils of wandering into the Spiritual Support tent are self-evident.
As is reading Pete Doherty’s diary.
How Music Killed The Earth
Or listening to the reformed Spice Girls who want to say goodbye.
They could just wave, write us a letter or with the scream “Girl Power” kick us in the genitals and run. But instead thery’re emabarking on a world tour. The group will travel in no little luxury. As the Mirror says, to keep the girls happy they will traverse the globe in five private jets.
That’s right, reader, the Spices have taken our advice and set about using up all the world’s resources as quickly as possible. Only when all the oil is gone will we take the subject of energy efficiency seriously.
Of course, in keeping with fashion – and what are five thirty-something women with children various if not at the apogee of fashion? – the Spice Girls will have to offset their carbon emission with so much wood.
So look out for a rerun of Spice World the movie and pay special attention to single mum Scary’s performance, a mighty willow among the swaying bamboo…
Posted: 24th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Who Would Wannabe Mel B’s Lover?
“EDDIE IS THE DADDY,” announces the front page of the Mirror. To remove any doubt, the Sun echoes the headline. “EDDIE IS THE DADDY,” it says.
On the face of it this answers the playground question “Who’s the daddy?” and point at what Prince Edward Windsor has been up to of late.
But the story’s real worth becomes apparent as we learn that Eddie is Hollywood actor Eddie Murphy and he is father to former Spice Girl Mel B’s baby daughter Angel Iris Murphy Brown.
Anorak readers suspected as much. Back in April, when Mel was pushing her new child in hospital and to OK!, she was telling us that her time with Eddie was “amazing”, “beautiful”, and “perfect”.
Eddie and Mel got his ‘n’ hers tattoos – his name on her; her name on him. If they ever got lost, passers-by could read Eddie and Mel and know to whom they each belonged.
They shared the same sense of humour. Said Mel: “We used to do things like go for coffee in his Rolls-Royce.” Mel would run around his pool yelling, “Look, I’m a mermaid.” Eddie would say that if anybody could see Mel they could think she was mad.
And now the happy group have been swabbed and it turns out that Eddie is the father. A “friend” of the singer’s tells us: “Mel is immensely pleased that the whole saga is over and she is looking forward to moving on with her life with her new baby.”
And she can move in no little style as the Mirror mentions Murphy paying out £10million in child support.
But it’s all more than a little sordid and desperate. And makes us wonder what attracted Mel to multimillionaire Eddie in the first place…
Posted: 23rd, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (7)
Madeleine McCann, Malta Fever And Seeing Is Believing
MADELEINE McCann has been seen.
“MADELEINE IS SPOTTED 5 TIMES IN MALTA,” says the Express’s front-page headline.
It’s a sighting confirmed by the Star (“MADDIE’S SPOTTED 5 TIMES IN MALTA”), and heralded by the front pages of the Sun (“5 ‘MADDIE’ SIGHTINGS IN MALTA”) and the Mirror (“MADELEINE ‘SPOTTED 5 TIMES’ IN MALTA”).
Look And See
The only differences between the papers are grammatical. While the Express reports the sightings as a statement of fact and the Sun continues to use its pet name for the missing girl, the Mirror is more circumspect.
It knows that any news of Madeleine is of interest to its readers but recognises that it is all far from being established truth. The Mirror also knows that it was one its journalists who told the Portuguese police that she found Robert Murat, suspect number one, creepy.
Said Lori Campbell of the Sunday Mirror: “When he was talking to me he was vague about his background.”
Campbell did the right thing in going to the police. But in telling the world she put herself in the story and exposed Murat. He and not the search for Madeleine became news.
The Night Jar
Over in Malta, a series of witnesses claim to have seen Madeleine in the company of two adults. A police source on the island tells us of a “full-scale inquiry us taking place”. The Sun calls it a “HUGE SEARCH”.
All the island’s policeman have been equipped with posters of Madeleine. Posters have been stuck to buildings. Questions are being asked of locals and tourists.
The Sun hears from Ray Roberts, a British tourist. It is late at night. He sees a girl with an Arabic-looking man in his 40s and a younger women. The child appears to be wearing a black wig. She trips. “Get up, little girl,” says the man in broken English. “They were strange,” says Roberts, “it just jarred.”
This was not the first sighting. That was back last weekend, when another British couple were certain they had seen the blonde child in the island’s capital Valletta. They agreed to make a sworn statement to a magistrate, thus allowing an official investigation.
The Mail says the story made it to front page of a Maltese newspaper, triggering another four people to call the police and say they had seen Madeleine.
Seeing Things
So was it her? As the Mail notes, sighting of the girl have been made in Spain, Morocco and even Wales. The Star talks of “hundreds of reports of sightings”.
But are any of them her? All of them? Only last week, we were reading that Madeleine’s body was located a few miles from Praia da Luz, the resort from where she had gone missing. A Spanish journalist was telling us how he knew who had taken her. Robert Murat was talking on the phone late at night. He was using a rented car and bouncing on bouncy castles. Sergey Malinka was a Russian geek.
But for all the talk and the sightings and the finger pointing, there has been no confirmed report of Madeleine. There remains only one suspect.
Everyone wants Madeleine found. Some will want to find her themselves, to claim the reward and achieve no little fame. Some may even fabricate sightings to keep Madeleine’s name in the news. They are on the parents’ side, doing their bit.
But knowing all this serves no purpose. It will not help to solve the crime. In reading of such things, any criminal able to smuggle a child from Portugal to Malta would have moved the girl or worse.
In the mystery of Madeleine McCann, the story has become the news…
Posted: 22nd, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (108)
Glastonbury’s Henmanics And Tents
WITH mum’s credit card tossed capriciously into a rucksack, and mum tossed into the driver’s seat of the family saloon, music lovers head to Glastonbury.
The Express produces a picture of a field of tents, all relatively sturdy structures, making the scene looks less like a giant music festival of than the queue for tickets at Wimbledon. Keen eyes pick out gazebos and picnic hampers among the nylon.
The Mail is at a Glastonbury – which a sign that any rebellious teenager or astral surfer worth their salt should not be. It spots the rain and a toddler splashed with mud.
Two clean-cut white girls sit in matching navy blue cagoules and green wellies. “RAIN? I DON’T MIND!!” says the sign on a wheelie bin being dragged along by a blonde man. A woman in a flowery pink raincoat pushes along a buggy alongside a man in a yellow anorak.
This is “Glug-stonbury” and the British are taking the test and passing it with customary fortitude and good humour.
So much for ravers and crusties getting off their faces on crack, black and whack. You’ll find more drugs on the Henmaniacs.
And here to put the tin lid on the Glastonbury Experience is Prince William. As the Star says, Wills is planning to fly himself and four pals to the show in a private helicopter.
“William will laugh his head off because the lads thought it would be hilarious to give him some pink and orange wellies. They’re a hoot, all flowery and bright, very feminine,” says a source.
Wills will land his chopper and then stay in a Winnebago. There is talk of Vienetta ice cream being delivered under cover of darkness.
Great stuff. Daring even. It’s rock ‘n’ roll, kids. If you want to know more about it, ask your mum and buy a guide book from the information kiosk…
Posted: 22nd, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (6)
The Spice Girls Say Goodbye With A Global Message
THE Spice Girls want to say goodbye.
They could just wave, write us a letter or with the scream “Girl Power” kick us in the genitals and run.
But the Spice Girls want to do it properly. They want to say goodbye in a series of concerts, give the fans a hint of what they will miss when the girls finally hang up their surgical support bras and miracle suits.
And the good news for them is that the fans will pay them each a £10million golden handshake.
Details of this farewell “extravaganza”, and how you can pay, will be made next Friday from a rostrum in the Millennium Dome.
“No expense is being spared to make this an unrivalled spectacular,” says a “highly-placed source in Team Spice”.
Good news indeed that a tribe of singers and danger will be hired to enliven the stage, adding rhythm to Geri’s lead-boot dancing and a context for Victoria’s individual fork-in-a-blender voice.
The group will travel in no little luxury. As the Mirror says, to keep the girls happy they will traverse the globe in five private jets.
That’s right, reader, the Spices have taken our advice and set about using up all the world’s resources as quickly as possible. Only when all the oil is gone will we take the subject of energy efficiency seriously.
Of course, in keeping with fashion – and what are five thirty-something women with children various if not at the apogee of fashion? – the Spice Girls will have to offset their carbon emission with so much wood.
So look out for a rerun of Spice World the movie and pay special attention to Scary’s performance, a mighty oak among the bamboo…
Posted: 22nd, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (7)
Another Crime Floats Madeleine McCann In The War On The Terror
“MADDIE PHOTOS STOLEN FROM DAD.”
So says the Sun’s front page. “FAMILY BLAST ‘ANIMAL’.”
The paper says that Madeleine McCann’s father is “distraught” that a “vile pickpocket” has stolen his wallet containing two photographs of his missing daughter.
The crime occurred in London while Gerry McCann was using a cashpoint machine at Waterloo station. Madeleine’s aunt calls the thief a “dirty animal”. The Sun is more specific and calls the crook a “rat”.
Madeleine McCann has been absent from the front pages of late, he space taken over by Big Brother revelations, Michael Barrymore and Paul Potts. It has taken yet another apparent crime to return her to prominence.
The Sink Of Humanity
And the Sun is on the trail of the culprit. It wants readers to shop the thief. The paper publishes a phone number readers can call and help Gerry McCann get his photographs back.
“How can you do that to someone whose been through what he has?” asks Gerry’s sister Philomena.
Hard to believe that the opportunistic thief who removed the wallet from Gerry McCann’s back pocket wanted these pictures and saw the victim as anything other than easy money. “He’s already demoralised enough and to be put on the back foot like this – you can’t believe some people can stoop so low,” continues Philomena.
We hear her. It’s a knock. But amid the talk of paedo gangs, white slavers and murder, a pickpocket appears pretty high up the humanity scale.
Finding A Just Cause
Readers hear Madeleine’s grandmother call it “another kick in the teeth”. We learn that the crime meant Mr McCann had to cancel his credit cards which resulted in a delay in meeting candidates to head the Madeleine campaign.
Which turns our attention to the Find Madeleine official website. A click on it and helpers, the curious, voyeurs and grief mongers get Bryan Adams singing Everything I Do I Do It For You.
And Gerry McCann saying:
“Another busy day of meetings this time in Leicester. No mishaps thankfully. The main meeting was that of Madeleine’s fund where we discussed implementing a strategy to maintain our campaign to find Madeleine.It was agreed in principle to appoint a family spokesperson who will act, not just for Kate and I, but also on behalf of the extended family who have been liaising with the media. This appointment will take a lot of strain off family members who have been putting in such massive efforts to help find Madeleine.
We are delighted with the response to the 50th day balloon launch which will truly be a global event. There will be a few variations to the release of balloons however. In Ventura, Southern California, 50 white doves will be released and in Afghanistan kite racing, an activity banned under the Taliban, will be the order of the day.
Arrived back in Praia da Luz this evening and it was great to see Kate and the Kids, even though I was only away for a day and a half.”
Yes, kite racing, an activity banned by the Taliban. The case of a missing girl is now emblematic of much more.
It’s as if the McCanns are caught between looking for their daughter and creating a cause. Only the nature of the cause has yet to be decided upon.
And the search just goes on and on…
Posted: 21st, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (154)
The Glastonbury Diaries Of Pete Doherty And Kate Moss
IF any further proof were needed that Glastonbury is now just Wembley Stadium with a bigger playing surface, the Star looks at Kate Moss and Pete Doherty’s camp. (Pic: The Spine)
The pair, described as “arty”, are keen to take their bed onto the middle of the acoustic stage. Their plan is to recreate the peace protest staged by Yoko Ono and John Lennon.
Doherty is the popstar who won’t let the lack of a good tune stand in his way. He has the drugs. He has the model lover. And now he wants the protest and the just cause.
A source tells us: “Both he and Kate were frustrated about the G8 talks and started writing some political lyrics.”
For a hint at what these statements may be, the Times looks at “The Pete Doherty Diaries”.
The first instalment is dated 10th February 1999: “Southbound on the Northern Line towards the inaugural Paradigm Poets parade down at the Poetry Palace in Covent Garden.”
Those of you not already banging your hand against a desk, mouthing “twat” or wondering if Doherty is less Lennon than a fourth former at St Custard’s who has found all the rude words in the dictionary and moved onto “paradigm” and alliteration, read on.
At its peak, Doherty’s Diary reads like an advert for Calvin Klein’s newest range of body spray: “Hold me in your arms and I want for nothing… but your sweet scent, your soft, supple body & skin & I in disorder.”
Opium for women and men. Obsession. Smack…
Posted: 21st, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (25)
Paul Potts The Movie: Boyz Of Harlech
THEY said they couldn’t be done. But now the Sun says plans are advanced to bring the world Jaws – The Opera, starring Paul Potts in all leading roles.
In “SOME LIKE IT POTTS”, readers learn that Britain’s Got Talent winner, “roly-poly” Paul, is to have his “rags-to-riches” life story told in film. Paul is an alumnus of Hard-knocks Comprehensive.
The Sun says Paul has raked up £30,000 debt. He once broke his collar bone and was signed off work for two year. He was, as we have learned, bullied at school, enduring being called “Smelly”, “Potty” and Wee-Wee.”
If the story is told we suggest it is one scripted less by Hollywood writers than by the likes of Simon Pegg, who will embrace Paul’s ordinariness.
A little Hollywood artistic licence and Paul is millions of dollars in debt. His life-threatening injuries are inflicted by a vicious close harmony male voice choir (Boyz of Harlech) hell bent on violence.
Paul is shifted from his post as manger of a Carphone Warehouse manager in South Wales to the frontline in Iraq.
A source tells the Mirror that Pava-Potty is to meet Hollywood moguls while on his trip to the USA.
“I don’t quite know what the future will hold but I’m just me, Paul Potts, and I’ll stay that way,” says Paul Potts.
Readers may spot the beginning of the brand. Paul is talking about himself in the third person, ensuring readers know who he is. Paul Potts will do what is right for Paul Potts.
Paul will not so much loose himself as have a team of stylists, producers and dentists redefine what he is. He will be Paul Pots with new veneers.
He will be Paul Potts: The Movie, and Paul Potts Goes To Hollywood the sequel, the story of one Briton’s quest for better teeth. The Briton who dared.
Anorak has acquired exclusive footage of Paul Potts’ home movie as the Carphone Warehouse opens its doors for the mid-season sale:
Posted: 21st, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)
Paris Hilton Road Tests The New iPad
PARIS Hilton is testing out the new iPad.
Because Hollywood starlets are never guilty of anything, they need a background story to make the audience understand and support them in their hour of need.
So Paris is living not in a prison cell but investigating energy efficient living for the 22nd century. One day all Hilton hotel rooms will have a lights out time, a big lock on the door in place of electronic key cards and group showers in lukewarm water and spittle. Al Gore approves.
We have already learnt that Paris is not using the toilet, having selflessly cut down her eating and drinking to prevent excessive water use.
And the other benefit of this elite and fashionable lifestyle choice is that it helps you lose weight. The Sun says Paris’s weight has fallen from 110lbs to 100lbs.
A source says Paris looks “very thin with her bones poking out”. She is described as being “weak and lethargic.”
Of course, the source knows as well as we do that you can never be too thin, and listless is the look of choice for the vapid girls immersed in the weltschmerz of Hollywood living.
Pic: 14
Posted: 20th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (6)
Big Brother Rider Gets Them Off At Royal Ascot
“I SAW more cleavage than at a lap dancing club,” says the Express’ man at Royal Ascot.
The reporter is not Prince Harry Baseball Cap but fashion expert and lap dancing connoisseur Hilary Alexander. Fashion commentators are not unlike football pundits, being able to talk a good game but lacking the ability to put their advice into action. Alexander’s style is O-Level art teacher collides with Kajagoogoo.
And then there are no cleavages on show, at least not in the Express, which fails to look down the Queen’s top or ogle Princess Anne and the game Camilla.
At least over in Sun, readers learn that Big Brother bully and Ascot runner and rider Danielle Lloyd has “great tips”. Two of them. And a few more in storage at home.
“THEY’RE OFF!” says the Sun’s front page. Dani points to the words with an orangey finger. “…AND THEY’RE OUT TOO!”
But they’re not. Dani might well be wearing bikini bottoms and no bra beneath her dress, but “they” are not out.
But they might be. The Sun says Dani scooped £2,576 on six races. And she might just see fit to invest her good fortune in yet larger saddle bags. And a novelty hat…
Spelling Out Madeleine McCann To Bungling Police
THE Star says “bungling” Portuguese police are to search “Maddie” villa again.
Forensic scientists are to revisit the apartment from where Madeleine McCann went missing and look for clues.
But the place has, readers learn, been stripped and cleaned. So what will they find?
A British detective, described as “stunned”, says this is a sign of how “desperate the police are becoming”.
So they should not look over the apartment again, in case a clue was overlooked?
While the Star lists the bungles (“INSPECTOR CLUELESS”), the Sun looks at the apartment, a compact and bijou two-bed flat on the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz.
The apartment is on the market at a bargain £74,000, much less than the going rate of £150,000.
At least it was – it’s just been sold. As an “insider” tells the paper: “It was quite a surprise that it went on the market for such a low price and sold so quickly.”
While the new owners get ready to welcome the forensic team, voyeurs and tabloid hacks, the Sun shows children at Bishop Ellis Catholic Primary school in Thurmaston, Leicester, lining up to spell out the words “Find Madeleine”.
How this will help find the missing girl is not specified, but head teacher Gail Neill tells the Mirror: “All the children are aware of what’s happened to Madeleine and we pray regularly for her return.”
Indeed, we would all wish for a happy ending.
But one wonders what these children know, and if the youngsters could pass on their information to the Portuguese police…
Posted: 19th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (33)
Paul Potts Is The UK’s Pava-Spotty: Bully For Him
PAUL Potts is the winner of TV’s Britain’s Got Talent.
Good news for opera singer Paul; better news for Big Brother which will now not have to compete with the superior show.
Potts is famous. His face is on the Mirror’s front page. And Potts has a dream. In “THE POTTER OF TINY FEET”, readers learn of Paul’s “baby dream”.
Paul talks of how he and his Julie can now, thanks to his £100,000 winnings, afford a baby. At least they will able to get whatever’s on the market once they’ve knocked off a few grand for Paul’s new teeth, which will, as the Star says, make Britain’s newest star feel “SMILES BETTER”.
But above all that Paul is a reality TV personality. And in tune with his people, he wants to tell us about how he was bullied.
It is now a rule of reality that all winners and contestants must have at some point been bullied, even those like Danielle Lloyd and Jade Good who appear as bullies themselves.
Paul has been called “Smelly”, “Potty” and Wee-Wee.”
Doubtless, in the bowels of a Neapolitan ice-cram shop, Pavarotti is nodding, recalling how being called “Pava-spotty”, “Pava-botty” and “Fatso” caused him to find his voice and achieve fame and fortune.
Now Paul is called, as the Mirror says, “Pavapotty” by “the nation”. The hope is that this ribbing will propel him to strive all the more and reach greater heights.
And that the ‘Bully A Winner’ programme will then be used to create a new generation of talent.
So, come on kids, get name calling. That Speccy Four Eyes is tomorrow’s Big Brother winner; the ginger minger in the corner is the new Strictly Come Dancing hard man; and Spack-Man is on his way to represent the land in the Eurovison Song Contest…
Posted: 19th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (25)
Bernard Manning Is Resting: Anti-PC Madness Gone Mad
BERNARD Manning is dead.
“RACIST IN PEACE,” says the Sun’s front page. “Scourge of PC brigade dead at 76.”
“I’m not racist,” says Manning from beyond the grave. “I slag everyone off.”
He was an “unfunny bigot,” says the Sun’s Anila Baig, the paper’s resident Asian female who stands in for every ethnic group, the Sun’s enlightened credentials and sound mind made flesh and blood. No non-white, non-Christian, non working class person would ever tell a racist, sexist gag. And certainly not one who works at the Sun. Says Baig grandly: “I for one won’t be grieving over the passing of Manning’s bigoted sense of humour.”
At which point we should discuss the 500lb elephant in the room, or the body of the 300lb Manchester City fan who said than when he’s cremated, they’ll have “to scatter six tons of lard”.
“I had a distant German relative who died at Auschwitz. He fell out of one of the watchtowers.”
Manning, a descendant of Jewish immigrants from Sevastopol, told the jokes and people wept with laughter. “To me there’s nothing amusing about picking on people because of their colour or sex,” continues Baig. “You never take a joke seriously,” said Manning. “We have to tell jokes about everything and everyone.”
Make something a taboo and wait until the new wave of edgy comedians come along to shock and amaze by saying the unsayable. Watch ‘em roll in the aisles.
The Times’ obituary surmises Manning’s career: “Comedian whose brutal disregard for ‘normal’ sensibilities fell out of fashion but remained popular on the club circuit.”
I’ll never forget the day I took my own mother-in-law to the Chamber of Horrors in Madame Tussauds. Suddenly, one of the attendants whispered to me: “Please keep her moving. We’re trying to do a stock take.”
In short, Manning stopped appearing on the television but people still paid to watch him. Whereas the alternative comedians, who replaced Manning’s type, routinely appear on TV – talking about restoring buildings and saving animals or, god help us, acting. They would be booed out of any club that didn’t state the word “COMEDY” on the door lest people mistake it for a social services focus group.
A Manning joke:
Man says to his wife: Pack your bags, I’ve won the pools.
She says: What should I pack? Something light, something warm? Where are we going?
He says: We’re going nowhere. Just pack your bags and fuck off.
Manning wrote his own obituary. Read it in the Mail. It’s anti-PC madness gone mad!
Posted: 19th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (8)
Al Gore Has 24 Hours To Save The World (from Paris Hilton)
AL GORE, a man undone by perforated bits of paper, is here to save the world.
Gore has given himself ten years to accomplish his mission. (A decade is pretty much the norm for any political revolution, it being the length of time it has taken the Labour Party to deliver an integrated transport system.)
To kickstart this decade of green initiatives, Gore talks to the Sun.
Sat in an office, wearing a pair of cowboy boots (how much methane gas did Gore spare the world in slaughtering those livestock and turning it into footwear?), Gore is in conversation with the Sun’s showbiz columnist, Victoria Newton.
Celebrity Squares
That’s right, Gore is no longer a politician. He is a celebrity. He is Neil Kinnock in that Tracey Ullman video, Tony Blair talking with Catherine Tate, Ronald Regan winning an Oscar for looking after a monkey.
But Al is not our favourite celebrity. Just as he is not America’s favourite leader – George Bush beat him; and everyone is supposed to loathe George Bush, view him as a corrupter of the American ideal and the English language, a man who can’t eat a Pretzel without strategic advice and an exit policy.
Says Al: “The G8 have been meeting in Germany and the United States is throwing a monkey wrench in the effort to get a consensus. The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton, we have to ask ourselves what is going on here?”
Can it be that the G8 leaders have been talking about Paris Hilton? Good that they have their fingers on the pulse of popular debate. But the G8 summit goes on for just so long and the worry seems to be that talk of Paris comes in place of other topics, like Big Brother, a European superstate and David Beckham’s hair. Or is Paris’s prison cell is a prototype for greener living – she doesn’t even go to the toilet, let alone flush the thing. One day we will all live like Paris.
Maybe Paris will be singing at Live Earth, Al’s unplugged rock concert, featuring Madonna shouting into a police cone, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on clockwork instruments and James Blunt pretending to be made of wood.
The Future’s Orange
So here’s Gore – you can call me Al – wearing “orange make-up, looking not enough unlike the “ghastly Donatella Versace, a woman sporting skin so leathery when she opens her mouth people throw their keys in.
So what will the concerts do, other than use up the planet’s resources faster? “We will have specific goals that will be very significant and hard-hitting,” says Gore. “We will announce those before the concert then emphasise them heavily during the concert.”
You buy your tickets, you take your chances.
24
Says Al: “This one day, 24 hours long, will not only be a wake-up call for the world but the beginning of a multi-year campaign to organise an effective response to the climate crisizzzzzz…”
Little wonder Gore needs Madonna in a bra to help get his point across. Although useful to know that the day is 24-hours long, a time span that would fit neatly into a TV series.
What d’yer say, Al? What about having just 24 hours to save the world? And, no, you can’t use a jet…
Posted: 18th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)
Michael Barrymore’s Bolero
MICHAEL Barrymore is “troubled”. And “baffled”. And “amazed”.
Barrymore is singing theatrical duets with Jenny Seagrove. He is gardening at Bill Kenwright’s house. He is playing with a fold-up bike. Little wonder he is troubled, baffled and amazed.
But some thing other than how to peddle a Brompton bike round the biggest aspidistras in the word while singing I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair is bothering Barrymore.
As a “close friend” tells the Mirror: “He’s amazed he was arrested… He was by the canal smoking a cigarette and the next thing he knew he was bundled into the back of a police car… He cannot understand it all. It’s just extraordinary.”
The source tells us that Barrymore is innocent and has not gone to pieces. A neighbour tells the Mail, “He looked really stressed out, like he was about to cry.”
People Do The Funniest Things
Of course, Barrymore will do whatever the script demands. And the Sun tells us that his career is to be revived by Caroline Aherne. The “funnygirl” is writing a quiz show for Channel 4 which Barrymore will host.
Called Bolero, the show will offer a star prize to which contestant can best explain how Stuart Lubbock, who was found dead at Barrymore’s home, came to suffer severe injuries to his rectum.
To get the ball rolling, Barrymore has already suggested a necrophiliac at the mortuary and an “anal thermometer”.
While Anorak lubes up Jane Torvill’s ice skate, Aherne tells us: “I’ve written Bolero for Barrymore. And I’ve never seen him in better health.”
The show will also feature former Page 3 stunna Melinda Messenger. Possibly wearing a swimsuit and rubber gloves…
Posted: 18th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
Madeleine McCann And Blaming the Parents
NEWS from the Madeleine McCann crime scene: no news.
Nothing other than the obvious – Madeleine is missing – has been established in weeks of investigating, speculating and empathising.
And now the Express says that Portuguese police are blaming Madeleine’s parents for destroying evidence.
Chief inspector Olegario Sousa tells us that more than 20 people – friends, family, tourists, voyeurs – visited the McCanns’ apartment in the first hour after Madeleine’s disappearance.
Says Sousa: “The presence of so many people in the room where the little girl slept with her brother and sister could have complicated the work of the forensic team.
“At the worst, they could have destroyed all the evidence. This could prove fatal for the investigation.”
Sousa makes a valid point. Best that all possible crime scenes are preserved at the moment of impact. No-one should move or breathe.
Help Where You Can Get It
But this is not likely. Contamination occurs. Voices on the Anorak comment pages say that when a child goes missing parents will accept any help on offer; the more people who know of the situation, the greater the chance of finding the girl.
And then there are the police, who may not consider it an urgent matter. Children do wander off.
Recently, Anorak learnt of a girl who strayed from her apartment while staying on a Mark Warner complex in Greece. The parents were dining elsewhere. They were informed by baby listeners that their five-year-old was not in the room. A search found the child playing by the swimming pool.
Should police have been called? Should police have attended? Should police have sealed off the area?
Pointing The Finger
The Sun thinks they should. It thinks it shameful that Sousa has “blamed” the McCanns for “his bungled investigation”.
Insensitive, perhaps. But Sousa has not blamed anyone. Indeed, back on the Anorak comment pages some readers blame the parents for so much more.
Sousa is stating the obvious. With no leads, no clues, no-one stepping forward to claim the Sun’s reward (did they offer enough?) or respond to the Sun’s posters (are they too tame?), there is no news of Madeleine McCann. Perhaps if the local police had confided in the Sun things would be better?
All we do is to watch the parents, examine their snapshots and point fingers. We hear the Sun say how Sousa has “sunk to a new depth in his amateurish investigation”. He is a “buffoon”. His words are “craven”.
Keystone Kops
He has not found Madeleine. But he is right. And, if the Sun is right, then all British police who have an unsolved murder, abduction, missing person or paedophile case on their books are stupid and inept. And what of the British police helping to find Madeleine?
Is this what the Sun has learned after weeks of covering the story: police don’t always solve a crime; the Portuguese police are no different to our own; criminals are cunning and try to avoid detection; the McCanns are upset?
Posted: 18th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (98)
Britain’s Got Talent…For Hire: Kit-Kat Sex
IT’S the “KIT-KAT SEX SCANDAL”. “Dolls booted off Britain’s Got Talent after we expose vice secret.”
Tales of confectionary and sex just one day after George Formby impressionist and organ fiddler Richard Bates’ names was spotted on the Sex Offenders’ Register. Shock indeed in Simon Cowell’s talent show. Read about that here.
Who would have guessed that the search for plate spinners, little children pining for Two Front Teeth and the next Hale & Pace would expose the underbelly of British life?
How long before police set up similar stings the length and breadth of the land? Lured by the promise of public ridicule, paedos, sickos and weirdos will line up to be captured on stage. If we can tutor Cowell in the ways of the magistrate’s court, so much the better.
Vanilla With A Flake
Today, we learn that Drag queen act The Kit-Kate dolls were on course to win the show’s £100,000 first prize and with it an appearance on the Royal Variety Performance.
But no more. The troupe has been removed from the programme. As the News of the World reports: “But that went up the spout on Friday night when transvestite lead singer Vanilla Lush — whose hooker name is Cindy — invited our reporter to visit him for a sordid SEX SESSION in his room at the hotel where the ITV show’s contestants are staying.”
Shock of shocks to learn that someone operating under the pornstar name Vanilla Lush should ever need a pseudonym for sex. And that he was foolish enough to ask a NOTW reporter if they wanted to pay for sex.
“I can only see you for a short time. It’s going to cost you £1,000 in cash if you want to f*** me tonight darling,” says the 29-year-old cross-dresser, as reported.
“I have to be up early because I’m performing live tomorrow, you’ll see me on TV, I’m in the semis of Britain’s Got Talent.”
Four-Fingered Handshake
We could begin to wonder how the reporter came to be in a position where a six-foot plus drag queen was showing him the rate card.
And how we know that the group’s Alekssandra, a 27-year-old Brazilian transvestite, can turn his hand to “spanking and whipping sessions” and vows to be “that gorgeous T-girl you have been looking for”; or that 24-yar-old Toni “sells sex under the name of Eva” and is an “active pre-op transsexual with very soft skin and natural pert breasts”.
Of course, the arcane rituals of investigative reporting cannot be revealed so readily. And we move to hear from the show’s spokesman, who tells us: “We’d like to thank the News of the World for bringing this gross abuse of our trust to our attention.
“We have removed the group from the show. As a consequence of this incident the whole band has had to be punished. We feel let down as do their fellow bandmates.”
Quite so. It chills us to the bone to think how close TV viewers came to experiencing this sickness. And that the Kit-Kate Dolls could ever suppose to shake hands with the Queen with their cripsy four fingers, and a thumb…
Posted: 17th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (14)
Big Brother’s Jade Goody Goes To Jail – Like Paris Hilton
JADE Goody is facing jail.
So says The People: “EXCLUSIVE – No licence, no insurance, no L plates, yet SHE drives an Audi Mystery of ONE car with TWO reg nos Land Rover tax disc is for a JAGUAR.”
Readers may well read that and think Jade is writing her own headlines. But the garbled mix of mangled English and shouty counting leads to a story of “outrageous motoring offence”.
No, Jade has not turned her 4×4 into a kebab van, converted it to run on curry sauce or been caught shagging in the ashtray.
As the People says, Jade has driven her new Audi “WITHOUT” insurance or a full licence; “THE NUMBER plate on her Range Rover mysteriously CHANGES”; Jade’s teenaged lover Jack Tweedy drove Jade’s Audi last week – “less than three months after he was BANNED for a year for drink-driving”; and “THE TAX disc on the Range Rover was for a DIFFERENT car and was OUT OF DATE”.
And this on top of Jade being arrested last month for allegedly driving her BMW X5 without insurance or a full licence. On Wednesday Goody fans can catch her appearance at a court in Milton Keynes, Bucks.
A police source tells the paper: “If someone is found guilty of offences such as these they may face a prison sentence.”
So Goody is in trouble. The evidence seems compelling. And makes us wonder if she wanted to be caught? It’s not Jade Goody – it’s Britain’s Paris Hilton.
The similarities are uncanny:
Both have performed sex acts on our screens
Both are assisted blonde
Both star in reality TV shows
Both have produced an eponymous perfume – Paris Hilton: Just Me – sparkling top notes of porridge with the chilled fresh burst of Sicilian Bergamot and used adolescent tissue; Shh…by Jade Goody – top notes of raw chicken infused over a base note of Patchouli, Oxo Cube, urine and Indian slum.
Now if Paris can just put on a bit of weight and improve her English…
Posted: 17th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (7)
Britain’s Got Talent And A Brass Eye For Ricky Bates
“BRITAIN’S GOT PERVERT,” says the Mirror’s headline featuring a picture not of a freed and innocent-until-proven–otherwise Michael Barrymore nor of Madeleine McCann’s latest suspect but of Britain’s Got Talent star Ricky Bates.
Master Bates is a 27-year-old “organist”. Bates is no longer on the show because he claims he has hurt his hand.
We need not tell you that this is no joking matter. And, as the paper reports, the wannabe has “a court conviction for indecently assaulting a boy of 14… Bates was in court three years ago in the Manchester area for tickling the youngster’s feet.” He is on the sex offenders’ register.
Once again this is Not Britain’s Got Brass Eye, a reality show based on the spoof news programme that once featured a campaign to raise paedophile awareness. Celebrities were invited to talk about how Internet paedophiles can project poison gas through a child’s keyboard using the new HOECS3 system and that paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than humans.
As we say, paedophiles and the tabloid treatment of them are beyond satire. Police recognised Bates last Wednesday when close to eight million viewers saw him take off George Formby and Louis Armstrong while playing his organ.
“TALENT SINGER IS A PAEDO,” says the Star’s front-page headline.
Lancashire Police inform us: “One of our officers contacted the programme as a result of seeing this man on television as we thought it prudent to do so.”
Bates, who had thought himself safe from having his “sordid” secret exposed on a national TV show, confesses: “I was taken to hospital where an X-ray revealed a possible fracture. I cannot play. I am shattered. However I have already had a lot of offers of work so the appearance has worked.”
You can read the headline now: “PAEDO ORGANIST ‘PETER FILE’ LYNCHED AT JUNIOR DISCO.”
The horror…
Posted: 16th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (14)
Michael Barrymore On Suicide Watch And Not Al-wight
MICHAEL Barrymore is back in the news. This is the “BARRYMORE TAPE SENSATION”.
Michael is sitting down with Tony Cowell, brother to talent show TV impresario Simon Cowell. Tony is interviewing Barrymore for the TV star’s autobiography, possibly entitled ‘Top, Middle & Bottom’.
But things do not go well. As the Mirror says a row scuppers the project. So Tony hands the tapes over to the police. Not in any way to get revenge or to whip up interest in the book, but in the interests of justice.
The Bottom
Stuart Lubbock has been found dead at Barrymore’s mansion. It is 2001 and Barrymore is TV’s cheeky chappie. Barrymore is arrested. He is bailed. He is cautioned for possessing cannabis. “You can call me a lousy entertainer but you can’t call me a killer,” says Barrymore.
He should have said “You can call me a killer, you can call me what you like, so long as you call”. ITV scraps Barrymore’s TV show. Barrymore goes to live in New Zealand among the sheep. He then returns to live in the Celebrity Big Brother house among Jodie Marsh.
The Middle
Tony Cowell explains that he met a certain DC Darren Jones in a restaurant in Soho. He handed over the tapes. Says he: “I told him there was nothing new on them.”
So why then is Barrymore “ON SUICIDE WATCH,” as the Sun’s front page announces? Why is he in a police cell following an arrest over allegations of sexual assault and murder?
And if the tapes are, as the Sun says, “confidential”, how can it that the paper is able to transcribe them, affording its reader such details as: “It was his eyes that I was fixed on. They for some reason gave the illusion of being wider than they should be and staring through the water at the night sky.”
And: “Two girls emerged form the lower end of the garden and immediately let out the kind of scream that only girls can make.” Girls and light entertainers dressed in a tutu and dancing round the stage on their hands. Barrymore was ever modest.
Lubbock’s body is removed. The Mail notes that three of four pathologists who examined the cadaver found “sever internal injuries” caused by a large object being forced up the deceased’s rectum. Barrymore says the injuries were caused by a rectal thermometer used by doctors trying to revive his guest, or “a necrophiliac attack in the mortuary”.
And now we have the “secret tapes”. But a “source” within Essex police tells the Sun that the arrests of Barrymore and two other men were planned a week before the tapes were handed over.
Which suggest the tapes are less than the sensation the Mirror makes them out to be.
Barrymore is till talking. He says: “Stuart was taking drugs and drinking, which he did on a regular basis. He wasn’t tricked or forced into it. He went in the pool when nobody else wanted to go in.”
The Top
A man is dead.
But the Sun is keen to not overlook another victim in this sorry tale. A person said to be close to Barrymore tells the paper: “He is filming a pilot show in which a contestant become a millionaire playing a bingo game. He will be devastated.”
Settle down people – a man’s TV career is at stake here…
Posted: 15th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (43)
Cornish Nationalists Want To Bomb Jamie Oliver And Rick Stein
PY eur yw hi, mate?
You consult Henry Jenner’s Handbook of the Cornish Language. You smile and walk away. Seconds later your holiday home is ablaze. The Cornish National Liberation Army has spoken. The time is for you, Rick Stein and Jamie Oliver to get out of town.
In “the Cornish nasties”, the Express reads a message emailed by the CNLA to its members.
“One of our activist was a member of the Free Wales Army who were responsible for burning of English holiday homes in that country, creating for the imperialists another ‘rosy glow’ from the heat of the fires.
“At an unspecified date, Rick Stein will himself feel a ‘rosy glow’ in our Cornish port of Padstow.” This is a corruption of TV chef Stein’s comment that locals have benefited from the “rosy glow” of publicity his shows and restaurants have generated.
The threat seems serious. British police would so well to create buffer zone along the Devon–Cornwall border.
The email was sent via a website based in Egypt. The threat that the CNLA will be backed by Islamic fundamentalists and create a rogue state cannot be overlooked.
The CNLA, as the Sun reports, is an amalgamated body comprising the Cornish Liberation Army and An Gof, Cornish for blacksmith. It should not be confused with the Liberation Army of Cornwall, Mrs Anne Goff or 19 Acacia Avenue, Truro, Mebyon Kernow (“Sons of Cornwall”) nor the Liberal Democrats which represent the people in Parliament and are generally believed to favour appeasement over armed conflict.
Stein should look out. So too Jamie Oliver, who is labelled “another incomer who has caused the inflation of houses and other living costs at Cornish expense.”
A spokesman for Oliver, who operates a restaurant in the region, says: “We are very surprised and disappointed by the statement because every thing about us is Cornish.”
But what is Cornish? There is no stereotype to call upon. Perhaps this is what irks the CNLA, whose bemoaning of rising property prices suggests a group of working class stock, members of the white working class that, as Anorak’s Ed Barrett writes, has neither political power nor cultural cachet.
Rather than protesting, they should perhaps, set about affirming their identity. Which, if a recent visit to Truro is any guide, presently consists of talking in Estuary English and pretending to be Cockney.
Much like Jamie Oliver…
Posted: 14th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (14)
Big Brother Jodie Marsh’s Barnyard
BIG Brother evictee Jodie Marsh is telling sport readers:” Why I need sex FIVE times a day.”
At once we begin guessing why. Is it because:
A) It says ‘stir’ on the bottle of wood varnish Jodie dips herself in each morning and it’s easier finding a man than a stick?
B) Five times complies with tabloid law – ‘It should never be less and never be more’ (Halpern’s Law Section 32-26-32DD)?
C) She has nothing else to do?
The answer soon becomes apparent as Jodie tells us: “I crave lots and get frustrated when I don’t get it.”
Jodie might well be having sex as she talks with the Sport about her show Totally Jodie Marsh: Who Will Take Her Up The Aisle? in which dipsticks, sorry, men, audition to be her husband.
But before that, Jodie does as her fellow Big Brother evictee Orlaith McAllister did a few weeks back and tells us about her sexual pecadlios.
In no particular order, Jodie tell us about her “five-some in a barn”, “quite a few threesomes”, how she would like to have sex with Eminem and her dates with Calum Best.
“I’m so horny all the time,” says Jodie. “So pretty much everything turns me on.
Sometime I only have to look at myself in naked in the mirror, or I’ll be walking around in my knickers, and I’ll feel hot.”
A hot flush? Jodie’s pores blocked by that wood stain? Nothing of it. Jodie is in the full tangerine-glow of womanhood.
And when she’s not naked, she’s dressing up. She has a wardrobe full of outfits. “There is everything from a police woman to a pilot to a cow girl to a ballerina. You name it. I’ve got it.”
Chances are that if guaranteed Jodie some exposure, we could vote on which outfit we’d like Jodie to dress up as; something like a pantomime donkey, a crab or an outpatient at the school of tropical diseases.
And Jodie needs help. It is not uncommon for Jodie to leave the house dressed with a pair of crossed belts pulled over her naked chest, an orangey Emiliano Zapata bigger guns.
If jodies sonds like your idea woman, you can try out at being her ideal man. And answer the tie-breaker: “Complete this sentence: I want my relationship with my future wife to be…”
Extra marks awarded for using any of all of the words: hideous, orange, stained, deranged, dog hair, barnyard and Bin Laden…
Posted: 14th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (17)
Mind Over Matter: Chemical Castration For Paedophiles
“PAEDOS TO BE CHEMICALLY CASTRATED.” So says the Mirror’s front-page headline.
“Reid plans to give perverts jabs that stop stick desires.” (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
Nothing like bit of direct action to please the voters. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. And what’s tougher than the Home Secretary fit for purpose and armed with a rusty needle?
But does chemical castration work? Does it alter the criminal’s mind so they no longer lust after minors? Will it stop recidivism? Does one injection do the job or will the criminal need a lifetime course of the stuff?
On that last point, the Mirror says paedophiles will need a large dose of drugs at the start of their treatment and then weekly and monthly top-up injections.
This is treatment rather than punishment. This is a chance for the paedophile to curb their criminal desires and not return to prison.
And the Mirror says it works. Readers learn of “studies” that show rates of reoffending by those who have undergone the treatment in Scandinavia and the US have fallen from 43 percent to just five per cent.
Make it a mandatory condition of parole and chemical castration may curtail the crime. A Home Office spokesman says those who volunteer for the scheme will have to continue the treatment if they want to avoid a return to jail.
But what happens when the jail term is served and they are free? Will the criminal still be injected? And if they are not, will their desire, inhibited by drugs, return with a vengeance?
In the US, the drug of choice is Depo-Provera. It contains progesterone which acts on the brain to inhibit hormones that stimulate the testicles to produce testosterone. Sexual desire is lessoned. The man can still have sex but will not want to. He may still fantasise about molesting children but will not feel inclined to do so.
There is a good argument in a favour of chemical castration. But we routinely hear how devious paedophiles are. The castration alters the body but not the mind. And how many will want to take the drug? Not all those convicted of the crime will…
Posted: 13th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (15)
Getting Morocco And Children To Empathise With Madeleine McCann
YESTERDAY, the ferry from Spain to Morocco was full of tabloid journalists on the Madeleine McCann trail.
The Mirror and Sun were amazed at how easy it was to travel by car from Portugal via Spain to North Africa.
Valuable information for geographers, people smuggles and hacks on limited expense accounts, but overlooked by the McCanns who made the trip by jet plane.
Now in Morocco, the McCanns are greeted by 100 Moroccan children carrying posters of Madeleine.
The Express watches Kate McCann and sees a “huge smile spread-across her angst-ridden face”. She sees the posters. She reads the messages: “All Moroccan children are with you, Madeleine” and “Madeleine: Back home.”
She hears the chants. The Sun says that for an entire hour the children chanted Madeleine’s name.
Nothing creepy here. Nothing to upset and disarm parents looking at so many pictures of their missing daughter. Nothing to make the young children at the National Observatory for the rights of Children wary of strangers.
Good that children know of a missing girl. As Gerry McCann says: “Children are more likely to notice a child that is out of place or they don’t recognise.” Mr McCann means the blonde English-speaking girl in Africa, stood among a sea of swarthy faces. Who but a world-wise child could spot the difference between brown and white?
“Our Maddie” (Mirror) is now the world’s Maddie. We are all personally affected by Madeleine McCann. But we are not. This is the public spectacle that will run longer than Big Brother. We’re all voyeurs tuning into the show.
The Sun says the McCanns are “overwhelmed”. Kate McCann says: “It highlights how beautiful and special children are.”
And how they can be coerced into doing just about anything…
Posted: 12th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (37)
Paris Hilton Tunnels Into Prison: Barbara Walters’ Constipation Blues
“PARIS is on hunger strike,” says the Sun’s headline. Fearful of being photographed on the toilet, Paris is not eating anything.
Of course, Paris is now an old hand in jail. Says a source: “She cried the entire time and that didn’t help the hydration.”
Soon, of course, we will hear all about what life was like for Paris inside. As reported, before her frist stint in prison, Paris spoke with American TV interviewer Barbara Walters
Says Walters: “I talked to her mother and I talked to Paris. She went to the MTV Awards and then she stayed a while and then she left. Everyone thought she was gonna go to parties (but) she went to her grandfather’s house.”
And: ““She was taken to an underground tunnel.”
Paris tunnels into prison!? Of course, it might have been a sewer. Which would explain why Paris doesn’t need the toilet.
And now Paris is said to have spoken with Walters again last Sunday, the 10th.
“I used to act dumb,” she tells Walters in a phone conversation. “That act is no longer cute. Now, I would like to make a difference. … God has given me this new chance.”
The interview may have gone like this (Constipation Blues):
Posted: 11th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
