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.
OAPs Stolen: Lookout For Geriatrophiles
WHAT do you call someone who hangs about old people’s homes?
Burglar? Maybe. But the tabloid press would certainly call them geriatrophiles.
Minds turn to this perversion in light of the Sun’s news that an elderly couple have been stolen.
The story begins as Stephen Hardy, 53, pops into a shop to buy provisions, specifically one chocolate bar.
Inside the car are dad Joe, 89, and mum Iris, 86. Neither are in the good health.
Stephen is gone but moment when a youth approaches the vehicle. He gets in. He starts the engine on the Citroen C5. He speeds off.
“I left the key in the ignition,” says Stephen, “but I was only gone for a moment.”
Has Stephen learned nothing? You can never be too careful. Geriatrophiles are everywhere, on every street corner, on every charabanc to Bognor.
The thief drives for about a mile. He steals Iris’s money. He dumps the car.
Says Stephen: “If I could just have a few minutes with that scumbag on my own.”
But that will not be allowed. A man has been arrested. And inquires are pending.
But this is surely a cautionary tale to one and all. Do not leave your OAPs unattended…
A Group Of Gangs And Other Collectives
AS Arsenal fans know, whereas their old ground at Highbury was a library, the new Gunners’ new Emirates Stadium is an adult learning centre.
The language changes. And we learn via the Mail that ‘gangs’ are to be replaced by ‘groups’. Gang crime should now be labelled “group-related” misdemeanour.
The Youth Justice Board busies itself with such things, its bejewelled ear pressed to the street.
It has penned a report. It says: “Many young people interviewed for this study resented the way in which the term has come to be used to describe any group of young people involved in anti-social behaviour…
“In fact the label conjured up an image with which they might not want to be associated, even where they were involved in offending.”
Victims of such gangs, or passive respondent experiencers, as they are now known, are believed to dislike the term ‘gangs’, preferring the terms “little bastards” “scumbags” and “c***s”.
But the accepted term is “group”, as in “group rape” ,” chain-group” “group land” and Group of four, the shadowy Social Democrats Massive who launched their new political party pledging to “reconcile the nation” and “heal divisions between classes”.
They really were scum…
A Windsor Is Decapitated And Prince Harry Lights Up
NEWS that Barbara Windsor has been decapitated both saddens and sickens us in Anorak Towers.
And the Sun’s story that this lopping off was enacted by a squaddie from the same regiment as Princes William and Harry sends a chill down our spine.
Can it be that Windsor’s executioner became upset at the realisation that all soldiers are not that same? Has the news that soldiers Harry and Wills are not required to do any actual fighting caused one of their legion to react against the perceived injustice and attack the nearest Windsor in the most awful way?
We journey to a marquee in Thorpe Park Surrey. Wills and Harry are not in attendance, what with their being too senior.
Drinks are poured. Spirits are high. Barbara Windsor arrives. There is much groping of the acting Windsor and photos are taken. “But one of them took it a bit too far and snapped poor old Barbara’s head off,” says a witness.
But as we make ready for the inquiry and fret over Army brutality, and how our boys have picked up some unfortunate habits from the Islamicist enemy, we learn that Babs is fine.
This is not the EastEnders actress at all but a waxwork effigy supplied by Madame Tussauds.
Lucky indeed for the vengeful squaddie.
And an idea – why not despatch the waxwork Harry to Iraq? To instil fear in the enemy we suggest sticking a wick in Harry’s copper crown and in the dead of night, with the fighting at its fiercest, place him on casters, set him ablaze and send him out into the fray.
If the theme song to EastEnders could be blared out at the same time, then so much the more terrifying…
Madeleine McCann: The Great War On Paedos
“SURROUNDED by a mass of yellow ribbons, he kneels alone with his thoughts and reads the countless messages from well-wishers.”
Of course, Gerry McCann is not alone, not even in the Mail. Amid the teddy bears, yellow ribbons and cards are the gentlemen of the press, massed in the McCanns’ home village of Rothley, Leicestershire. McCann is at the midst of swarm of media workers, well-wishers and the ghoulish who want to see the poor man. “FATHER’S PAIN,” says the Mirror’s front-page headline. “DAD FIGHTS BACK TEARS.”
The Mail says that local traders have supplied an estimated 14miles of yellow ribbon, to tie around old oak trees, a bench and a sign hand-painted by local children that reads: “Maddie. Please bring her back.”
Gerry McCann spends 15 minutes at the “shrine”. Says he: “The support is fantastic. It really does help us. The incredible support gives us strength.”
Madeleine McCann is now a public figure. The McCann family’s pain has been transmuted to our collective suffering. “Every parent’s worst nightmare” is the nightmare for all of us.
Lest We Forget
This shrine to a missing girl is founded on the village’s old war memorial, that memory to they who gave their lives in battle.
But Madeleine is not dead, is she? She did not die in a brutal war. The call to have Madeleine McCann brought back echoes the call for our boys to return from the dangers of Iraq. Who knew that one missing child was symbolic of so much? One tragedy becomes indistinguishable from another.
“BRING MADDIE HOME,” says a banner held up by the Liverpool football team. Madeleine, renamed Maddie by the press, is pictured. There are two numbers for anyone with information to ring.
But look at the cards and the flowers and the ribbons. And wonder if any information will amount to more than well-wishers keen to inform the world of their concern and anxiety.
In The Frame
If you want to help, the Sun says British police want anyone in the area at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance to check their holiday snaps.
Have you taken a picture of Madeleine McCann? Are you the kind of person who takes pictures of other people’s children on holiday? Are you a paedophile?
These photographs will be analysed by a computer programme that can pick out “600 facial features”. Detectives say they only want photographs that include strangers.
So look over your holiday snaps. And see if you can spot Madeline McCann. And then work out how you can get the shots to the police without giving the speculation-happy press a new name to talk about – yours…
Posted: 22nd, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (76)
Robert Murat: The New OJ Simpson
ROBERT Murat remains suspect No.1 in the case of Madeleine McCann. The story with tears, mystery and suspense is on the Express’s front page.
And the paper has a question: “Madeleine: Will the suspect cash in by selling his story?”
In “Maddy suspect’s PR deal” the paper says “oddball” Robert Murat has contacted Max Clifford, the ubiquitous PR guru without whom no story is complete.
Clifford represented OJ Simpson when he was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman, says the Express. It’s an interesting example given that Simpson was found innocent in court and then found liable for the deaths in a civil trial and ordered to pay $33.5m in damages – money that has never been collected.
It should also not be overlooked that Clifford took charge of Freddie Starr when the comedian was accused to eating a hamster. Like Simpson, he was found not guilty.
So will Clifford take the client? “When I spoke to Robert, he was in tears and said: ‘I’m innocent and I will prove I am innocent’, and thanked me for listening to him. I told him that provided he is cleared I will be happy to talk to him.”
How Murat will prove his innocent is not said, just as readers have not learned why Murat is the mystery’s only suspect nor why Murat has not been charged with committing any crime.
The Star says detectives are awaiting the results of forensic tests on Murat’s clothes.
And readers hear more from Clifford: “The bloke has been hung, drawn and quartered without any shred of evidence being revealed to anyone. I think it’s totally wrong that a man is condemned as guilty when there’s been no trial and nobody knows anything at all.”
Clifford seems to be already at work…
Posted: 22nd, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (12)
Madeleine McCann: Silence And Losing Interest
MADELEINE McCann is missing. And the papers are losing interest.
This is not to say there is no news. Far from it. The Sun tells us on its front page that whenever Madeleine McCann’s face appears on the television, her twin siblings Amelie and Sean blow kisses at the screen.
It’s a tug at the heartstrings. Emotional stuff. Who cannot sympathise with the family’s loss?
But there is no news on the criminal case. The Sun says the McCanns may hire private detectives to search for their missing daughter.
Hidden Clues
There have been 97million hits on the http://www.findmadeleine.com/ website, says the Sun. But what does this number tell us? That we are a caring nation? That the internet is more popular than ever, and not everyone is using it to look for porn?
But not one email says where Madeleine is, a clue to her whereabouts. There is no-one claiming responsibility for the crime.
But there are messages of good will. Messages of love. Message of support. All valuable messages we are told in keeping the McCanns’ spirits up and their faith in the human spirit intact. But they serve little purpose, do no good in the search for Madeleine.
Who can even read so many millions of messages put up on so many websites? Might it be that among them is a clue? But who has the time to find it? Amid the feeding frenzy, clues to crack the crime could be lost amid the public spectacle, the display of grief.
The only other tabloid front page with news of Madeleine is the Mirror. As predicted by Anorak, the Mirror will stick with Madeleine McCann when others have moved on.
The Mirror – which weeks after the troops had been deployed in Iraq, continued to count the days without sightings of Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction – will not turn away. How long will the paper stick with Madeleine McCann?
Can it get keep our interest in the case?
More Silence
There will a minute’s silence for Madeleine McCann at noon today. Her theft is a national event. There will be a minute’s silence for Madeleine, just as we have a minute’s silence to remember the victims of the Great War.
But why not two minutes? No, make it three. Five. Or ten – Carmelite nuns from northern Portugal are calling for people to stop at 10pm tomorrow and pray for 10 minutes.
The hope is that in this period of quiet reflection the newspapers can consider their campaigns.
Have you seen Madeleine McCann? And does any criminal involved in her theft want a big reward..?
Posted: 21st, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (89)
Live Earth: Turn Global Warming Up To 11
LIVE Earth! Rock the, er, rock! All the great and good will be plugging into the sound system to sing for Mother Earth. (Picture: The Spine)
Al Gore, a man undone by hanging chads, has a plan. So it has to work. Right!
But not everyone agrees with the soothsayer. Anorak has long championed the approach that if we are all going to die in massive natural disasters we might as well stop worrying about things and just burn all the fuel we can, and fast.
Stop fretting about generations to come and worry about today’s generation in charge having a good time.
The Who’s Roger Daltry, 85 – “Hope I die before I get old – enlarges on this in the Sun:
“Bo***cks to that! The last thing the planet needs is a rock concert.
“I can’t believe it. Let’s burn even more fuel.
“We have problems with global warming, but the questions and the answers are so huge I don’t know what a rock concert’s ever going to do to help.
“Everybody on this planet at the moment, unless they are living in the deepest rainforest in Brazil, knows about climate change.”
The rocker, who used to sing about my g-generation, added: “My answer is to burn all the f***ing oil as quick as possible and then the politicians will have to find a solution.”
Hurrah! Who wants to fade away? Live Earth! Kill the planet in a T-shirt! Turn the pollution up to 11!
Posted: 19th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Madeleine McCann: Introducing Amelie And The Maddie Catty
WITH Madeleine McCann missing – still missing – the papers discover a new angle of investigation: her sister.
“MADDIE COME HOME,” says the Sun’s headline. “Tot hugs Maddie’s cuddle cat.” And there is Amelie McCann holding on to her sister’s comforter.
What purpose this serves, Anorak is unsure. We have tired of looking at the faces of Madeleine McCann’s parents but are we so desperate for a new face in the narrative that we need Amelie? No new suspect. No arrests. No sign of Madeleine. So here’s Amelie. She can keep the story alive, justify its place on the front pages?
While readers wonder why it’s newsworthy to publish a picture of Madeleine McCann’s little sister, while the faces of media shy David Beckham and his tick-like wife’s children are pixelated to preserve their privacy, the Mirror spots Amalie.
More Amelie on the Mirror’s front page. “A cuddle from her little sis,” reads the headline above the shot of Amelia hugging Madeleine’s toy. And on the Express’s front page, more Amelie. And on the Mail’s.
Is this a cynical manipulation of the news? It tugs the heart strings. It cannot fail to. But for what ends? To make us feel more a part of a story turned into public spectacle? Can it be too long before the Mirror is offering readers a chance to buy the “Maddie Cattie”, replica cuddle cloths, with a percentage of profits going to establish a fighting fund?
“Little Amelie McCann clutches her big sister Madeleine’s favourite “Cuddle Cat” soft toy yesterday — and wishes the missing tot was back with her,” says the Sun’s reporter in Praia da Luz.
Touching stuff. Or just creepy…
Posted: 19th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (70)
Looking For Madeleine McCann: All Show And No Punch (Murat’s Car And Malinka’s Release)
MADELEINE McCann is missing. Still missing. But Madeline McCann is not missing on the front page of the Mail.
The Mail has news on how readers can learn Spanish in a week, or at least learn to speak Spanish the way Spaniards should speak it. There’s the offer of a The Darling Buds of May DVD. And the news that Nigel Havers is getting married for the third time.
But no Madeleine McCann.
Murat’s Motors
Madeleine McCann does gets a mention on the Sun’s front page. But there’s no picture of the missing four-year-old. The image if of Kelly Brook’s bra.
We do learn, however, that Robert Murat ordered a hire car two days before Lori Campbell of the Sunday Mirror told the local police she found him “creepy” and he was taken in for questioning. Before being released without charge.
Readers can get more on this story via the Sun’s page 7. After stories about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s money (he made £122million last year), swimming pools in five jails, Emma Thomason loading up her boyfriend’s van with her boyfriend’s clothes and driving it into the sea, there is news of Madeleine McCann.
Maria Rocio, of Auto Renta111 (number on application), fielded the call from one-eyed Murat. “I didn’t understand why he wanted another car when he had one of his own already,” says Rocio. “I could tell in his voice he was in a real hurry.”
Oh? “He wanted it then and there. It was lunchtime last Saturday and Madeleine had already been missing for eight days.”
Murat did not want this “car fast” in the moments immediately preceding or following the theft of Madeleine McCann. It was eight days later.
Says Rocio: “He said the English couple who were looking for the little girl needed his car and wanted to put posters on it.” Did they? Were posters put on Murat’s car? The Sun fails to say, but it does tell readers that Kate and Gerry McCann “ALREADY had a hire car”.
Watching Madeleine
While Sun readers wonder about Robert Murat, and everyone else wonders what good knowing about such things can do, the Mirror sticks to the story.
The paper that kept its weapons of mass destruction counter going well into the Second Iraq War knows how to stick to a story.
“25 MILLION hearts go out to you,” says the front-page headline. There’s a picture of Madeleine McCann’s mother. And another of Madeleine.
News is that millions of you have logged onto the website created by the family to aid the search for Madeleine. Tributes have been flooding in to www.findmadeleine.com. Readers learn that the family has been “overwhelmed” by the support shown.
The campaign is designed to raise Madeleine’s profile. (Not to spread anxiety about child kidnap. That’s the tabloids’ job.) And it is working. Many know the name Madeleine McCann. Many know what she looks like.
Everyone’s A Potential Suspect
But no leads have come from the site. And buried in the story of the traffic attracted to the website is news that Russian “web geek” Sergey Malinka has been released without charge. He is not a suspect. He is being treated as a “witness”. Lead detective Olegario Sousa tells us: “It’s a very dramatic investigation. A witness could be in the future a suspect. There may be more suspects for all we know.”
Yes, there may be. They may be tens, hundreds, thousands of suspects. Robert Murat may be the first of many. Robert Murat, he of the bouncy castle “fixation”, may be innocent. Robert Murat’s family may come out of hiding.
Maybe. And maybe. And maybe.
The case goes on. But things are staring drift. Many want to look at Madeleine. Many want to find her. But where she is remains a mystery that no-one appears any closer to solving.
And there are signs of the media becoming tired of the story…
Posted: 18th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (66)
Madeleine McCann: Sergey Malinka And Robert Murat
MADELEINE McCann is still missing. And readers are introduced to Sergey Malinka.
In “RUSSIAN WEB GEEK QUIZZED”, the Mirror looks beyond Robert Murat and sees 22-year-old Malinka. His parents’ flat is two minutes walk from where Madeleine was stolen.
Malinka knows Murat, having helped him to set up a website. Malinka has a computer shop in the area. Setting up websites is what he does for a living.
The Mirror sees computer equipment being removed by police from the Malinka apartment. There is mention made of emails on his laptop from Murat, the “one-eyed Briton”.
Is this now a story that embraces paedophilia and the internet? Is this what the Mirror is hinting at?
Says Malinka: “It’s definitely not me. I’ve just had my residency papers approved and checks are always made for criminal convictions. I’ve none whatsoever. I did do some work for Robert. He wanted a website created and I got it together.”
But the Sun hears Portuguese TV report that Malinka has convictions for “sex crimes.” Does he have any criminal convictions? “Not as far as I know,” says Moscow-born Malinka.
And the Express sees more. It hears reports that “several links to paedophile sites, encrypted emails and messages” were found on three computers removed by police from Murat’s home. It hears of removed tapes featuring “depraved sexual acts” and bestiality.
And there‘s a cellar beneath Murat’s home. Or a “secret chamber”, as the Mirror has it. The Sun says this “void” measures nine yard by five yards. “I’m totally, totally innocent,” says Murat.
At Murat’s home, police are tearing down a garden shed. Police are searching a water tank. Police are demolishing an interior wall. From operating in secret, the Portuguese police are now making a lot of noise.
People are being questioned. This faces are being seen. Lives are being investigated.
And Madeleine McCann is still missing…
Posted: 17th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (30)
Enemies At The Gates: Spoon Feeding Chris Tarrant’s ‘Pilau Fight’
THE eleventh rule of tabloid journalism states that all investigations of suspected wrong doing must feature the word ‘gate’. Now this pseudosuffixation brings us the words “SPOONGATE” and “CURRYGATE”. (Pic: The Spine)
Chris Tarrant, wattled quiz show host and celebrity estranged husband, is said to have thrown a piece of cutlery at one John Trussler.
In the Star’s “SPOONGATE”, the paper’s man with an eating implement looks at the matter.
While dining at Memsaab eatery, Nottingham, it is alleged that Tarrant did engage in a “pilau fight” with said Trussler.
Having been engaged in frank conversation with Trussler, Tarrant is said to have hurled an item. Says Tarrant: “I lobbed, I stress lobbed, a spoon or a fork or napkin, whatever, and that was it.”
Tarrant’s testimony reveals a man confused by napkin and fork, but a man certain above all else that what he “lobbed” was not a knife.
A staff member at Memsaab is summoned over by the Star’s man. Was it a spoon? “This is a top quality restaurant. We don’t lay spoons out on the tables – just knives and forks.” And tellingly: “The only spoons we have are to serve meals – and our waiter are in control of those.”
It would seem, yer honour, that spoons have something of a currency in the Memsaab eatery, operating as instruments of trust and privilege. Interestingly, our man on the inside tells us: “Customers only get spoons at the Sunday night buffet.” A time when égalité is the byword and a diner can live out his fantasises of being a fully-armed Memsaab waiter.
But Tarrant was not eating there on a Sunday. And the spoon becomes the heel on which the case pivots.
And over in the Sun’s “CURRYGATE”, Trussler is showing the world his wound. “He could have taken my eye out,” says Trussler. And we are back to spoons, surely the cutlery of choice when it comes to eye removal.
Says John: “I wasn’t drunk. I’d had four pints of cider, an alcopop and me and Nina shared a bottle of wine with the meal.”
But what of the spoon?
Says John: “He [Tarrrant] put his plate down, picked up a knife and threw it at me. He was about 20ft away.”
For his part Tarrant remains confident he will be cleared. In which eventuality he will surely vow to leave spoon and spooncraft to the experts at Memsaab, and Clive Dunn…
Posted: 16th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (6)
Flash Katie: Middleton Prepares To Bare All
WHO knew Kate Middleton would see the light and embrace her fame?
The Star (“QUEEN OF FLASHIN’…”) spots Prince William’s old flame out at jeweller’s Asprey for the launch of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s new book.
As the Star says, Middleton has done away with her frumpy tweeds and “loosened up her dress style”.
And it’s loose enough for the Star to see a bra poking out the top of her mini dress.
There is more. Middelton climbs into a waiting cab and executes the celebrity move du jour and shows the world a view of what lies up her skirt.
Readers have not seen the like since the Great Queen Victoria ankle flash of 1876. But we who dare to look realise that Kate’s Home County is encased in knickers, white ones.
No words appear on Kate’s private quarters. But the message is both loud and clear…
Posted: 16th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
I’ll Be: Prince Edward Meets Arnold Schwazenegger
PANIC over. Prince Edward is alive and as well as can be expected.
As the Sun reports Eddie the TWIT (The Weed in Tweed) has been to an awards do.
Eddie has been handing out medals to teenagers who have completed the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Young Americans Challenge.
Details of the scheme are not given. But, as the official website tells us, the aim is for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award “to be universally recognised and widely adopted as the best programme for the personal development of young people”.
To those American tuning in, the scheme is not dissimilar to those boot camps peopled by renegade American children. One key difference is that in this British version the nippers do not have to be stoned, drunk or massively overweight. They remain an option but not compulsory.
Other than it is all about so much team building and bonding and learning to be a better person. And getting to meet Eddie.
A highlight indeed.
It’s not everyone who gets to see the elusive royal. And we are not shocked to see that Eddie’s presence has attracted Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Arnie and Eddie look quite the team as they hand our awards in Calabasas, California.
There’s Arnie, who pretended to be soldier. And there’s Eddie, who… Well, let’s just say he joined up and failed to be back.
Posted: 15th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
Best In Show: Lindsay Lohan’s Splash & Grab
LINDSAY Lohan and Calum best are in the seas off the Bahamas.
Lohan, who has undergone a period of intensive ginger therapy in a California clinic, and Best, famous for being the son of drying out footballer George Best, are together.
So together are Lohan and Best that they appear to be merging into one splashy mess. Lohan is in front. Best is behind. Lohan’s bikini has slipped off to reveal a Lohan nipple.
An eyewitness tells the Mirror: “They looked totally smitten with each other.”
And soon we will see them both on our TV screens. In “We’re in love” the Star says Lohan and Best are to get their own TV show.
The Star says American network NBC wants the actress and the reality TV star to “host a new Oprah-style chat show”.
With even more nipples…
Posted: 14th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Madeleine McCann: Increasing The Fear
MADELEINE McCann is missing. Still missing.
Today is Madeleine’s fourth birthday. And the newspapers are leading with pictures of Madeleine’s mother, Kate.
The Sun says “We share your pain”. There is nothing more terrible than this. The awfulness is all too apparent.
But what is to be gained from the Sun’s desire to turn it into a national experience? “Maddie – saddest birthday ever,” says the Sun. It invites readers to
post messages.
The Sun wants readers to place its poster in a window. “HELP FIND MADELEINE,” it says. “WEAR YELLOW FOR MADDIE.”
On the Internet the poster can be printed out in A4 or the bigger A3 size. It can be emailed: “The Sun today urges Britain to show support for the anguished family of snatched tot Madeleine McCann — by wearing yellow clothing in her honour.”
Says the Sun: “We want our army of readers to show they are shoulder-to-shoulder with Kate and Gerry McCann during the agonising wait for news of their missing four-year-old.”
The crime, the theft of little girl, is now an emotional experience for all right-minded people, and Sun readers.
But how does it help Madeleine to have a poster of her face in your car or shop window?
It keeps her name in the public consciousness? But who cannot think of the child having seen her parents?
What the poster does is to spread the fear, tap parents on the shoulder and say “That could be your child.” Take care. The paedophiles are out there. They are watching. It could be you. The McCanns’ nightmare – every parent’s worst nightmare – could be yours.
But the theft of a child is a rare crime. All the more so when the thief is a stranger. Paedophiles are not lurking on every street corner. The poster creates an environment of anxiety.
But one paper is getting it right. The Independent leads with not the face of Madeleine’s mother, who, in public at least, appears a woman of admirable strength, but with Madeleine.
“A stolen child. A missed birthday. A baffling mystery,” says the headline.
The paper reviews the evidence so far. That blonde woman and two men seen with little girl in petrol station: “Would abductors really stop at the first petrol station just out of the resort?” The man taking photographs of children on the beach: “And would suspects stay at Ocean Village, under the noses of police?”
Stella Cash was staying on the Mark Warner resort from where Madeleine was taken. “She was working at the Duke of Holland bar, 100 metres from the place where Kate McCann, Madeleine’s mother, walked from the bar past the swimming pool, up her apartment’s 10 stone steps and through the child gate to look in on her daughter at 10pm,” says the paper.
“Several Mark Warner guests dined at Ms Cash’s restaurant that night and she later drove home past the McCanns’ corner apartment at 10.50pm but no police officer has questioned her about what she saw. ‘I don’t think I saw anything suspicious but then I don’t know what they might call suspicious,’ she said.”
The police have not questioned everyone who was on the complex that night.
And now the police operation is being scaled down. “Does the decision to stop the ground search reflect a disastrous investigation?” asks the Indy. “No, says David Hill, a former area commander of the National Crime Squad. ‘There’s nothing alarming about scaling it down,’ he said. ‘If they have done the search thoroughly, there’s no point going over the same ground. You must scale that side of it down and concentrate your resources.”
This is a criminal case. It is the theft of child. The police are looking for a criminal or a criminal gang.
Things are bad enough. There is no need to increase the fear…
Posted: 12th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (62)
Clueless In Portugal: Madeleine McCann
MADELEINE McCann is missing.
Someone knows where Madeleine McCann is. But they are not telling. They will not end the agony. They will not end the nightmares for Madeleine and her parents.
Perhaps the Express can help? Perhaps not. “PARENTS’ AGONY: POLICE CALL OFF HUNT FOR MADDY,” says the headline.
But the story is not quite so. The hunt is not over. And over in the Mail, beside a picture of smiling Madeleine, another headline: “Madeleine: Are the Portuguese police about to give up the hunt?”
The Express says they already have. It’s on the papers front page.
“The searches are coming to an end,” detectives say in a statement. “The places being checked – the results are zero.”
The British papers wanted facts. These are the facts delivered in blank verse.
But it is not over. The hunt continues elsewhere. And the people are looking out for smiling Madeleine, who will be four tomorrow.
Nuno Lourenco is in Sagres, 16 miles from Praia da Luz. He sees a man taking pictures of blonde children.
Lourenco takes a picture of the photographer. But reports are that he that he obscured the image with his thumb.
Claus Montex sees the same man. “When the man was challenged he ran off, but he came back a bit later went back to the beach and carried on taking photographs.”
And there is a woman. “MADDIE SEEN WITH BLONDE,” says the Sun’s front-page headline. A blonde girl has been spotted with three adults.
The adults are believed to be British. One is a blonde woman. The other two are men. Caught on CCTV the three are seen at a Galp petrol station on the motorway heading out of Praia da Luz.
Is this Madeleine McCann? Are these the devils? What does the Mirror think? “DID A BRIT WOMAN TAKE HER?” asks the front-page headline.
The paper boasts of having two journalists in Praia da Luz. Same as the Mail. Same as the Sun. Same as the Express.
That’s eight tabloid journalists, all well-versed in door-stepping techniques and getting people to talk. But none has an insight. All they have are the same quotes from the same people. And questions.
No new leads. No reward offered. No new angle. No new clue. Just stories of Madeleine’s parents’ suffering. Comments on Madeleine’s parents. Pictures of smiling Madeleine. Pictures of Madeleine’s parents. Slights at the Portuguese.
All addding up to what Mick Hume in the Times call “a British public spectacle, an emtional national experience”.
And nothing…
Posted: 11th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (70)
Melon-Knees: Melanie Griffith Gathers Herself
MELANIE Griffith’s knees follow you around the room.
Having spent what the Express calls a “fortune” on facial surgery, the paper says the Hollywood actress’s lower half is letting her down.
Griffith, a veteran of collagen injections and breast implants, is pictured wearing white shorts and trainers. “A shame about the knees,” says the Express.
“Cut-offs reveal the crinkles in Miss G’s knees,” says the Mail’s headline.
Melanie’s spare and movable upper portions have trickled like down to her knees. From there, we imagine them running down to her ankles. Finally, they mass around her toes, where the skin can be pulled tight, coloured and fashioned into a snug pair of thigh-high boots.
The paper hears from plastic surgeon Apostolos Gaitanis. Says he: “The knees are a huge problem area for women because the skin is thin and so ages badly.”
Readers are introduced to the knee lift. And the liposculpture, in which fat is sucked out from around the knees.
But the Mirror operates at the cutting-edge of knee know-how and in a piece entitled “Whose knees are these?” allows knee enthusiasts to look over a bevy of knees.
And we advise Griffith to take knees number ‘2’. We have little idea to whom these knees belong but urge Melanie to get them at any price. They should then be grafted onto her own legs.
And in the spirit of recycling, we suggest Griffith employs her own elephantine knees as a hat stand or cheek implants…
Take Him Up, Ginger: Prince Harry’s Red Army In Iraq
ANORAK’S plan for all British soldiers in Iraq to be in Prince Harry’s Ronald McDonald Army is developing well.
In “WE’RE WIG YOU, SIR,” the Sun says that members of Harry’s troop are equipping themselves with red fright wigs.
To the command “Bacardi!” the troop will don the wigs and so distract enemy fire. The insurgents will not know which is the real Harry and become confused.
Of course, the enemy may well just seek to kidnap or shoot all our boys and work out who is who later. But this is not the time to make reply, theirs is not to reason why.
And what with this being a military operation, the Army denies the story. The Sun says that in line with military regulations the boys will not be allowed to wear the ginger wigs on manoeuvres. Sure thing. Wouldn’t want the enemy to suspect, would we?
Whisper it – the boys will wear the wigs. And seduced by the chance to seize Harry, the enemy will emerge from their holes to be slaughtered.
And now we look forward to the Army taking up the second part of our plan and deploy all other ginger royals on the frontline.
Sarah Ferguson, your country needs you.
Tally-ban!
Posted: 11th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Sid Snot: Kate Moss Bans Pete Doherty’s Sex Pistols
“THINK of it less as snot and more as ectoplasm,” says Pete Doherty to Kate Moss as she returns to her newly decorated home.
As the Star reports, with Moss away promoting her fashion line in New York, Doherty intended to throw a party at her London home to celebrate what would have been Sid Vicious’s 50th birthday party.
(Anorak recalls Vicious with mixed feelings, he having been involved in the acquisition of Hackney schoolmate Sharon Knight’s eraser. The years have been hard on brave Sharon.)
And so to the celebration, which we are old was to feature blood painting and a séance.
The plan was for half-dead Doherty to make contact with the resting Vicious, who died from heroin overdose aged 21.
We close our eyes and see Doherty conjuring the Vicious spirit. “Are you there, Sidney Vicious? Tap a big vein on your arm twice for yes and once for no.
Tap… Tap… Tap.
Doherty has questions for the legendary music star.
“How much smack is too much smack?; “Can you have too much smack?”; “Have you got any smack?”
But it now seems that Sid’s spirit can remain at ease. Moss has kyboshed the macabre party.
And, as the report goes, Doherty threw a hissy fit. But it was for nought and instead of a night of rock ‘n’ roll excess, Doherty and chums will be marking Vicious remembrance day with a barbecue in the garden.
Here’s for Doherty putting the organic sausage in rock ‘n’ roll!
Posted: 10th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (9)
Running Scared: Paris Hilton Should Mexico Go
PARIS Hilton is scared. “I’m very scared,” says Paris Hilton.
Pending an appeal, Paris is heading to jail. And the fear is that One Night in Paris will become 45 Nights In Paris as the video gets nasty.
As a friend tells us: “One person wrote she is going to steal Paris’s shoes and if she argues, she’ll be beaten to a pulp. It’s horrifying.”
For sure. The idea of villains wandering about jails in towering handmade heels is worrying and questions what kind of punishment jail really is.
One way round this terror would be for the jail to issue all prisoners with Christian Louboutin Collier Montee sandals, in all shades of orange.
Some may suppose Paris should circumvent this danger by entering jail in bare feet or else wearing a pair of £1.99 espadrilles. But to do so would be to inflict a truly damaging blow to the Paris story from which she may never recover.
Paris will have to arrive in jail dressed in killer hells. And if they are sawn from her feet by a woman with tattooed breasts and full beard, then so be it. No pain, no gain.
And so too for jail, which already seems to be working for Paris.
In “Paris in tears,” the Sun hears her say: “I am ready to face the consequences.”
And: “No one is above the law. I surely am not. I do not expect to be treated better than everyone else. However, my hope is that I will not be treated worse.”
But as the prison tailor hand stitches Paris’s blue jumpsuit, the Mirror watches her take a “U-turn”. In all Paris executes three U-turns in a dead–end in Century City.
The Star says Paris is a menace. It notes that Paris appears to be lost. Paris also seems to be sending text messages as she pilots her £120,000 convertible Rolls Royce.
Using a mobile while driving is not against the law in California, which is no small shock to we who believe all our laws stem from over there.
And neither is getting lost a crime. Unless, of course, Paris is a noddle head with a dire sense of direction and manages to get lost all the way across the Mexican border…
Show’s Over: Madeleine McCann And Entertainment
MADELEINE McCann is missing and there are ramifications back home in Blighty.
No Portuguese restaurants have been firebombed by caring parents. Prominent Portuguese in Briton have not been targeted by lynch mobs. A swarthy doctor in Portsmouth or Gwent has not been labelled a paedo.
The grim news is that the “Maddy horror” has sparked “storyline chaos” in Coronation Street. As the Star’s front page screams: “CORRIE AXES KIDDIE SNATCH PLOT.”
The soap opera was to feature a plot in which Claire Peacock’s baby was abducted.
Claire is seen holding a picture of her baby. It’s not an E-fit. It’s a real picture. She wants her son Freddie found.
But now it will not be. Coronation Street’s producers had filmed “identical scenes” to those being played out in Portugal.
Claire and husband Ashley Peacock appeal for help. Just like Madeleine’s parents. Claire holds her child’s security blanket. Just like Madeleine’s mother. Claire hands out pictures of her child. Just like Madeleine’s mum.
So the story has been shelved.
But why? Are the producers upset that Madeleine and her parents have stolen their thunder? In soapland life mirrors art and not the other way around.
In light of that soap law, is Coronation Street concerned that viewers will copy the scenes and Britain will be overrun by baby snatchers?
Is there concern that a foaming-at-the-mouth mob will see any ginger child who looks like Freddie Peacock and instantly attack the nearest adult to him, screaming “Paedo!” and setting about them with sticks and placards?
A spokesman for the show explains: “We are aware that there are some similarities in future storylines to the events surrounding the disappearance if Madeleine McCann. We would not wish to add to the family’s anguish at this terrible time.”
Nor to see the abduction of a child as source of entertainment…
Posted: 9th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (26)
Britney Spears Does Marilyn Monroe
BRITNEY Spears, now known a “Troubled Britney Spears” in the British media, is ready to make a comeback.
As the Star reports, Britney is to sign a duet with…Marilyn Monroe.
Britney’s moribund performances of late suggest that Monroe will be the livelier and more tuneful of the pair.
But whatever the result, “BRITNEY TO DUET WITH MARILYN,” says the Star’s headline.
But how so? To facilitate this happening, either Monroe will be brought back to life or else she will emerge from the White House annex she calls home.
The truth is something else, but no less sensational. For her rendering of Down Boy, a song Monroe is said to have recorded, Spears will wear a platinum blonde wig and a 50s style white dress.
And, er, that’s it. Other than to say, Britney might sing her vocals over Monroe’s voice, a woman whose singing was less music than an orgasmic exhalation.
The result will be interesting.
As Monroe once said: “Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.”
And when you’ve shaved your head, out on weight and flashed your crotch…
Having An E-fit Over Madeleine McCann
MADELEINE McCann in missing in Portugal.
Madeline McCann’s mother is appealing for help.
“Her face is frozen with grief and fear. She smells her Madeleine’s favourite cuddly toy. And never out of her grasp is a mobile phone which she wills to ring. The wait never ends.”
So says the Mirror’s Sue Carroll on the Mirror’s front page.
“Maddy’s mother shows the strain,” says the Mail. The Sun offers hope in “MADDIE COPS HAVE E-FIT”. And more headlines inside:
“SCRUFFY WEIRDO HUNTED OVER BRIT TOT”
“PROWLER SPOTTED BEFORE MADDIE TAKEN”
“Brit police send two paedo hunters”
The investigation is ongoing. But the Sun says Portuguese police refuse to show the E-fit image of the wanted man because it breaks the law. It’s an “E-fit farce”.
Only it doesn’t seem to be. Reading on we learn that Portuguese police have shown the image in Praia da Luz, the area near to where Madeleine went missing.
The Sun’s farce is the police’s decision not to let it see the picture and broadcast it back to readers many miles removed from the crime scene.
And the Sun is not alone in its criticism of Portuguese law. In “TEN BLUNDERS”, the Mirror lists the errors. It includes the decision not to show it this E-fit picture of the wanted man. Portuguese police have only shown it to locals, to those people who might have seen the man and seen what he did.
But concerned of Leicester wants to see, so too Bianca of Waltham Forest and Gwen of Plymouth. They want to see the face of the devil. They want to know.
And here comes Dep Supt Alan Ladley, the man who caught Sarah Payne’s killer, Roy Whiting. Ladley says that “basic coppering” might have found Madeleine’s abductor by now.
Like Madeleine, Sarah went missing on a family holiday. Sarah was found dead.
Madeline McCann is missing and we are led to believe it would have been better for mum and dad and Madeleine McCann had she been taken in Britain, preferably on Ladley’s patch. But not in Soham. Not there.
But whatever the paedo panic, instances remain rare, all the more so when a stranger is involved, as appears to be the case with Madeleine McCann.
The story features what the tabloids call “every parent’s worst nightmare”.
But this is an awful reality for Madeline McCann and Madeline McCann’s parents…
Posted: 9th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (123)
Taxi For Doherty: F*ckwit Offers Cabbie Kate Moss’s Stuff
YOU join us on Camden Road, a bleak stretch of North London tarmac. Pete Doherty, lover to Kate Moss, is in the company of a stricken MG BGT car.
He calls a cab. Taxi driver Roland Andrews, perhaps unaware of Doherty’s reputation, and unconcerned for his seat covers’ wellbeing, agrees to pick Doherty up.
He takes Doherty to Moss’ home in nearby St John’s Wood.
Roland: He was up there for five minutes and comes rushing out with some belongings including a battered suitcase, an empty picture frame and his guitar.”
Is Doherty heading for an interview on Desert Island Discs, these the belongings he would like to be stranded with?
Roland: “Then all of a sudden Kate comes running out in her skimpy nightdress and hurls a glass at my cab.”
Had Doherty forgotten it?
Roland drives off. Doherty is now in the back.
Roland: “As I started driving he tried to explain the ruckus, saying ‘Women trouble. I’ve messed up my life… Then he stared going on about getting another implant to stop the drugs having an effect on him and turn his life around.”
Indeed, if the implant can stop the drugs having an effect, imagine how many drugs Doherty can take. The mind boggles.
On Roland and Doherty press. It is 4:30 am when they arrive at Moss’s Cotsworlds home. The fare is £250. Doherty reaches into his pockets – guitar, picture frame, suitcase, broken glass. He finds £100.
Roland: “He asked me to help him unload his stuff into Kate’s house and then he said, ‘If there’s anything here you want then help yourself to it. The missus won’t mind.”
But Roland resisted. “I was hardly going to take someone’s belongings so of course I said no.”
And apologetic Doherty gave Roland his accountant’s number and told him to call and the difference would be made good. Roland called. The accountant knew nothing about it.
“It was an experience,” says Roland. “Although I’ve lost out on £150.”
And get a load of those seat covers…
Phil Mitchell Is Our Greatest Living Briton
“VOTE for the Greatest living Briton,” calls the Sun.
Is it Julie Andrews, David Beckham, Billy Connolly, Stephen Hawking, Trevor McDonald, Kate Moss, the Queen or Margaret Thatcher (she’s alive!)?
It is a tough call, the list a composite blend of statesmen, pioneers, cross-dressers and perennial guest on Michael Parkinson’s TV shows.
And now another name to conjure with. As the Mirror reports over two pages, in a piece entitled “PHIL THE ‘ERO”, EastEnders “hardman” Phil Mitchell should not be overlooked.
“WATER GUY”, says the Mirror as Phil dives into the waters to rescue his son Ben, Ian Beale and Ian’s son Peter.
Phil might move with all the grace of an obese penguin on dry land but immersed in a lake, he moves with all the grace of, well, an obese penguin.
The Mirror is not “No 1 on soap EXCLUSIVES” for nothing, leaving the Star in the No.2 spot, forced to make do with a “PICTURE EXCLUSIVE” of Phil dipped in the icy waters.
“This is the dramatic moment Phil Mitchell dives to the bottom of a lake to rescue his terrified son from a sinking car,” coos the Star.
With the Sun’s vote already underway, we cannot wait to tell you than Phil saves the day. He rescues Ian. He plucks Ben from the car. He blows air and bits of salt and vinegar crisps into Pete’s mouth.
What happens next is not revealed. But with this being Phil Mitchell, aka Steve McFadden, readers cannot rule out the hero slinking dog like into the woods and ending up in a car park…
