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.
Less Than Zero
MODERN nursery rhymes: Jake Sprat would eat only fat; his sister Armani would only eat on the third Tuesday of the month.
More news on food as the Mail looks to London Fashion Week and sees the “size zero freak show”.
The paper says the British Fashion Council has been “under pressure” to end the use of skinny models. But not under that much presser as the Council’s chairman, M&S leader Stuart Rose, says regulating a model’s size is “neither desirable nor enforceable”.
“YOU HYPOCRITES!” screams the Mail. This is “all part of a sickening self-interested fashion conspiracy”.
Cynics might argue that fashion is all a sham. And there is a strong argument for showing outfits off on skinny models, those androgynous mobile hangers.
Would the Mail rather designers employed the fat and obese to show off clothes? Might this encourage fatness? Or are models to comply to the paper’s ideal size a, weight and head circumference?
We ask as the Mail tells us: “Our children at the most junk in Europe.”
The figures are in and news is that our 10 to 13-year-olds consume an average of £128.40 of confectionary a year. This works out to 1,167 two-finger KitKat bars or almost 400 Cadbury Cream Eggs.
And to wash that lot down, Britain’s children are drinking £149 worth of fizzy drinks each. The Mail says this is the equivalent of 677 litres or seven and a half bathfuls of supermarket cola.
And the effect of so much sugar is not only to make the youth sweet but to make them fat. “Fizzy drinks and treat fuel obesity,” says the Star.
And the roly-poly Bunters, Brownings and Goodys spend double the amount on sweets and pop as the Germans. In Spain, the figure is £45 a head and in Italy just £31.
We are number 1! How envious those Mediterranean children must be. “In Blighty they have baths filled with cola,” they tell their mamas. “In the UK they have Dime bars, Toffee Crisps and gum balls as big as the moon. We have Kinder Eggs and Toblerone.”
Of course, on the upside, the universally slim foreign youth have access to cheaper booze and cigarettes.
Which may, all things considered and being equal etcetera, be better…
One Night In Paris II: Let’s Make A Weekend Of It
“PARIS: The sequel.”
So begins the Sun, which goes on to say: “NEW SEX VIDEO OF HEIRESS HITS WEBSITE.”
Sticky fingered adolescents and journalists who may otherwise be scouring the Internet for footage from One Night In Paris II: Let’s Make A Weekend Of It can just turn to the Sun.
The paper has four stills from Paris’s “racy” new video. Paris is on a yacht. She bares her boobs”. “Paris shows her cheeky side” in a bubble bath. “Clean breast”: Paris spritzes herself with the hose of a shower. And Paris shares a “smooch” with a brunette.
Of course, many have seen Paris expose before. The 2003 video
Paris and ex-lover Rick Salomon propelled the heiress to great fame.
Since those heady times, Paris has moved into perfume (“Paris Hilton Just Me: sparkling top notes of used tissue and linen that epitomize the high society girl).
Paris has conquered the music world. Sing along to Screwed:
“There will come a day
A hazy day in May
Or a storm in mid-December
When you need someone
Just to have a little fun
Then I could be the perfect girl for you to run.”
And Paris has dipped her quill in ink to give us Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose. Confessions include: Paris’s hair is naturally curly; “I’m really bad about washing my face and using skin products”; and the golden rule that “Public displays of affection are okay, in limited amounts”.
There are some rules for the rich and some rules for the rest of us. But Paris’s latest public show of affection arrives not by design but by accident.
As the Star reports, footage of Paris “frolicking” with former fiancé Jason Shaw was found on a disc kept in a storage locker. But when Paris failed to pay a £106 bill for storing her stuff, the disc found its way into the hands of America’s “Sultan of Sleaze” David Hans Schmitt.
Other items in Paris’s security box include bottles of painkillers, sleeping pills and a medical bill made out to Amber Taylor, who has the same birthday as Paris.
Paris’s agent Eliot Mintz says his client is “incredibly upset and angry” at this leak. Paris is said to be “devastated”.
Paris is also said to be famous…
Big Boned Brother
THE Beckhams are in the Sun.
In itself, this is no big news. In time to come, when David is married to a pig inseminator and Posh has been rendered down to two dimensions, they can turn to the Sun’s archives and on any given day find out what they doing.
Today’s instalment in the paper’s quotidian look at the Beckhams is headlined: “POSH FROCKS ‘EM DEAD.”
Victoria is in Paris. It is, naturally, Paris Fashion Week, a time when Parisians throw off their shell suits and football shirts in favour of velour and glamour.
And British-born Posh is in town to fly the flag. Here she comes “putting catwalk stars in the shade”. That’s no mean feat, say you, until you realise that catwalk models can be placed in the shade by a well-placed rake.
“Posh looked a millions dollars,” say the Sun, a comment that again needs a qualifier, given that a million dollars is what husband David is set to earn in a week when he moves to Los Angeles Galaxy.
Whatever the look there is no doubting Posh’s value. The Sun would be far emptier place without her.
But there is hope. Might it be possible to have more than one Posh ‘n’ Becks? Thoughts turn to this ponderable when the Mail visits Madam Tussauds.
There, draped in the Stars and Stripes, are David and Victoria Beckham. They are immersed in American culture. They are dipped in wax.
News is that these waxworks have been transported from London to New York. For the next two weeks, the Americans can get an idea of what it is to be close to the couple.
And the Sun will be following the Beckhams’ every move. It might not be the real Posh ‘n’ Becks, but if you change her dress a few times a day, it could be…
Beckhams Wax Lyrical
THE Beckhams are in the Sun.
In itself, this is no big news. In time to come, when David is married to a pig inseminator and Posh has been rendered down to two dimensions, they can turn to the Sun’s archives and on any given day find out what they doing.
Today’s instalment in the paper’s quotidian look at the Beckhams is headlined: “POSH FROCKS ‘EM DEAD.”
Victoria is in Paris. It is, naturally, Paris Fashion Week, a time when Parisians throw off their shell suits and football shirts in favour of velour and glamour.
And British-born Posh is in town to fly the flag. Here she comes “putting catwalk stars in the shade”. That’s no mean feat, say you, until you realise that catwalk models can be placed in the shade by a well-placed rake.
“Posh looked a millions dollars,” say the Sun, a comment that again needs a qualifier, given that a million dollars is what husband David is set to earn in a week when he moves to Los Angeles Galaxy.
Whatever the look there is no doubting Posh’s value. The Sun would be far emptier place without her.
But there is hope. Might it be possible to have more than one Posh ‘n’ Becks? Thoughts turn to this ponderable when the Mail visits Madam Tussauds.
There, draped in the Stars and Stripes, are David and Victoria Beckham. They are immersed in American culture. They are dipped in wax.
News is that these waxworks have been transported from London to New York. For the next two weeks, the Americans can get an idea of what it is to be close to the couple.
And the Sun will be following the Beckhams’ every move. It might not be the real Posh ‘n’ Becks, but if you change her dress a few times a day, it could be…
Brits & Oscars
HELEN Mirren. Judi Dench. Kate Winslet.
Which of these three will bring home an Oscar, the epitome of acting excellence, the award that as much guarantees box office success as rewards it?
The Mail looks at the three British stars vying for the Best Actress award at the annual schmooze fest.
Of course, there are Oscar films, those overtly worthy gems that tap into the prevailing mood, the films that cause the 6,000 members of the Academy who vote for the winners to sit up and take note.
For this reason, it unlikely Meryl Streep will win a gong for her role in The Devil Wears Prada, a film imbibed with less poignancy and meaning than Paris Hilton’s breadboard.
The only other female who can prevent British success is Penelope Cruz for her role in Volver, a beautifully intense melodrama.
Beating Cruz presents no small challenge. Not only is her film very good, but Cruz is a looker who would grace any stage.
There is no picture of Penelope. There is no picture of Streep. At Oscar time, the papers grow patriotic. The announcement of three British women up for the same going is, as the Star says, “A BRITS SPECIAL”.
These three women “head our Oscar assault.” The “great Britons” are cheered on by the Mirror. “I’m incredibly proud for myself and for the film,” says The Queen star Helen Mirren, who would surely add that she is proud for her country and it peoples.
These are out “British hopes” for Oscar glossy, as the Mail says. “Britain’s best-loved stars are set to steal the show at the 79th annual Oscars ceremony next month,” says the Express. These are the player who will “be flying the flag”.
The British contingent includes Peter O’Toole (nominated for Best Actor for his performance in Venus), Sacha Baron Cohen (up for Best Screenplay with Borat), Stephen Frears (Best Picture for The Queen) and Paul Greengrass (Best Director for United 93).
John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council, tells the Express: “This is a really great start to the year for the British film industry. Our 15 nominations come on the back of a number of wins at the Golden Globes and high hopes for the forthcoming Baftas.”
And this from Buckingham Palace: “It is a very positive day for the British film industry. We are delighted for all those who have been nominated.”
Surely not all those. Surely just the British ones…
Ganging Up On Music
THEY are watching. They are listening.
Caroline Bishop is in the bath. The 39-year-old mother of two is giving full throat to a medley of hits. Gary Glitter hits.
And this will not do. Neighbours are uneasy. Neighbours are sickened. Glitter. Leader. Gang. Pervert.
Police are called. Mrs Bishop is hauled before the Beak and handed an Asbo. She must not sing in a way that causes her voice to be heard outside her home for a period of two years.
“Asbo for singing Glitter in the bath,” says the Sun’s headline. Neighbours complain of harassment. Says Mrs Kerry Law: “You could hear it from my kitchen with the window shut.”
There is talk of Bishop making false claims about her neighbour to the police and RSPCA. She is said to have made “rude gestures”.
“Should the Glitter mum be silenced?” ask the Sun. Readers are invited to respond.
There are children present. Caroline is a mother. Gary Glitter presents himself as “The Leader”.
“I want people to know I haven’t done anything wrong,” says Bishop. “We are being victimised.”
The court and the neighbours think otherwise.
But is Mrs Bishop right? Is she the victim of the backlash against Glitter, a man placed on the sex offenders register, a man sentenced to three years in a Vietnamese jail, a man found guilty of sexually abusing two young girls?
Is Bishop lucky to have escape jail and worse?
The Smell Of Victory
SMELL that, America?
Forget waking up and smelling the coffee and so much frying fat, meat and petrol, this is the smell of victory. British victory.
The British are coming. And it is a multi-sensory happening. The invasion “opens with the pure fresh notes of bergamot and rose petals”.
In the face of much evidence to the contrary, Her Poshness can hit top notes, middle notes and low notes of “sensual orange blossom” leading to “a seductive base of voluptuous vanilla, rich sandalwood and an elegant layer of musk”. Can the same be said of Lionel Richie or Meatloaf?
In “Dough de Cologne”, the Mirror spots Her Poshness wearing a black dress. Around its middle is a wide black belt. Her hands hold the hem, her legs band at the knee. It’s as if Posh is about to curtsy to her cameras.
But Victoria need not be so demure. The smell hits us long before the outfit. And it is the smell of new money, a back note fresh green notes.
News is that Victoria and David are all set to sign a £7million deal which will see their his ‘n’ hers perfumes hit the American shelves.
In Paris to secure the deal, Her Poshness hooks up with Karl Lagerfeld. Looking like a cross between Michael Jackson and a Gerry Anderson puppet, the fashion designer is pictured in dark grey suit, with matching metal-style gloves and equally shiny black boots of the type favoured by more fashion-conscious members of the Gestapo’s golf team.
This is the Mail’s front-page news.
Look out America. The British are coming. And they’ve got German friends…
Keep Britain Tidy
PSST! Anyone want a dolphin?
If you go down to Branscombe beach, Devon, you may just arrive in time to get your hands on one.
The Mirror has a picture of the creature, its beak open in a rictus grin. Dolphins even look fun when they’ve been killed by oil leaking from a boat, in this instance the MSC Napoli, which lies stricken off the Devon coast.
And if dolphin is not your thing, there is more. With the flotsam and jetsam from the grounded ship being washed onto the beach, a massive clean-up operation has begun.
The Mail (“And still the scavengers come”) looks on as three men each clean up a huge barrel of wine. A man and woman load goods, believed to be car parts, onto a wheelbarrow and selflessly pull it over the stone and shingle.
A gang of five men, one of whom is wearing a hoodie, hold aloft a number of items incongruous to their setting. “Look what we got,” says the Mail’s caption. “This group of youths celebrated finding some washed–up car steering wheels.”
Over in the Star, more men, more women, more friends of the environment clean up. And the Star is inspired. It dispatches Ross Kaniuk to the scene.
Amazingly, Ross manages to lay his hands on a £6,000 BMW 650 GX motorbike. Incredible stuff. With all these gangs at work, it truly is impressive how Ross managed to score something so big and valuable. “Starman” by name, star man by nature.
But that is not all. Ross also finds 27 odd shoes. He finds “Arabic nappies”, rolls of wool, smashed wing mirrors and broken toys”.
“I’m due to become a dad soon,” says Ross by way of a background story, “so the nappies would be useful.”
And if Ross has a garden, Colin Standerwick, another of nature’s friends, points to an empty French oak barrel and advises: “Just cut it in half and it will make two nice flower pots.” This is recycling in action.
Ross walks past a tractor, a stack of windscreens, a pile of anti-ageing cream, pet food and a car gear box. Hands up if you know how he moves the heavy car part? In the tractor? No. In the dolphin? No. In that versatile barrel. Recycling. The possibilities are endless.
Jade Goody – Hoodie
YOU know you’ve made it when…your name is rhyming slag.
So here’s Alan Whicker (knickers) telling the Mail: “Why I hate today’s TV dimwits.”
No mention is made of Big Brother or Jade Goody (hoodie) specifically. Whicker concerns himself with the more generalised “curse of so-called reality television”.
Whicker, the preternaturally aged travel show presenter who always looked like a brigadier on leave as he toured the exotic colonies, says the end of his career coincided with the “twilight of TV’s glory days”.
That’s some coincidence. But Whicker is wrong. TV is now front-page news. Jade Goody is front-page news. TV sets the agenda. Foreign TV crews study Jade as Whicker once chatted to Papa Doc.
But what would life be like without telly, without Jade? Would we be free to do more travelling and experience more cultures first hand rather then eyeing them through the magic box?
For an insight into what a world free of TV would be like, the Mail travels to Zhengzhou Zoo in southern China. This is the “Circus of horrors.”
With no Big Brother, the Chinese make do with laughing at talented animals. Can Jade ride a motorbike over a hire wire with a girl balancing beneath on a chair? The brown bear can.
Can Jade ride a bicycle? Not, an exercise bike but a real bicycle like they ride in, well, China? The bears can.
Has anyone ever seen Jade on a horse? The bears can ride horses at the circus. What is more, they ride side saddle. Would Jade adopt so dignified a position or sit legs akimbo?
But rather than applaud these bears and marvel at their genius, the Mail wants us to pity them.
We hear from David Neale, UK director of the Animals Asia Foundation. He says the bears are beaten, declawed, threatened and forced to perform.
Says he: “Unfortunately it is happening across China. People do seem to enjoy the spectacle. There is a lack of awareness of the needs of animals across the whole country.”
It is a terrible thing. This is something Alan Whicker could have highlighted on one of his TV shows.
But there is hope if the Chinese can be turned on to the delights of watching an overweight bigot team up with a half-inflated painted balloon and a midget singer.
If the Chinese can be retrained, the bears can be put out to pasture.
And then eaten…
Big Brother Is Shipwrecked
“THE NEW JADE.”
That Jade Goody is contrite is beyond doubt. No-one likes to be exposed as a pig-thick bully on national telly. But this new Jade is not the old Jade given a make over.
This new Jade is 18-year-old Lucy Buchanan. Unlike Jade Goody, this new Jade is educated, having been tutored in public school.
And, as the Mirror reports, this new Jade has thrown Channel 4 into a “NEW RACE STORM”.
Lucy was elevated from reality TV also-ran to front-page horror when she opined on the broadcaster’s Shipwrecked show: “I just don’t appreciate people coming into our country and taking over our culture. We’ve got too many cultures. Britain’s not really Britain any more.”
That Lucy should give full throat to her opinions while living it up for weeks on end in the Cook Islands is not without irony. The Shipwrecked show features no locals, only imported Britishers.
But educated Lucy would probably point out that the Islands are named after the British navigator Captain James Cook and Queen Elizabeth II remains head of State.
So far, so very UKIP. But Lucy has more to say. “I’m for the British Empire and things. I’m for slavery, but that’s never going to come back.”
As Jade Goody’s agent jets out to the Cook Islands and signs Lucy to a binding deal, Channel 4 gets ready to lock Jade and Lucy into a suburban house and film the results in “No Class”.
And the script for the show writes itself. Listen up as Lucy says of fat people: “They’re offensive. They can help it – eat less, exercise more, get their stomachs stitched.”
You can see Jade nodding her head and holding up a DVD for Jade’s Shape Challenge. “I can’t stand fat and ugly people. They really bring you done,” says Lucy. Jade nods – once to the left, twice to the right and back again to the centre.
Jade points to her new breasts. She shakes her hair-do. She squeezes a blackhead.
The world watches…
Jay Walking
TACKLE the cancer of crime at its source, before it can fester. Prevention not cure. That’s the way.
And so we study of the case of the “HOODLUM”. For reasons that become apparent on further reading, the Mirror ends its headline with a question mark.
The grammar invites debate. And when presented with a picture of Jay Cowper’s head wrapped in a grey hoodie, we begin to form opinions.
But wait. Jay has not broken any law. But he is wearing that hood. And when he wears his hood into Monkton Road Stores in York, the shopkeeper senses trouble.
“Could you ask the little boy to remove his hood?” asks the shopkeeper. Jay’s grandfather replies: “He’s only two-and-a-half. I don’t think he’s going to rob you!” Grandpa refuses to lower the hood. It is what grandma calls “a matter of principle”.
“SHOP BANS HOODIE…AGED 2,” says the Sun. “And there’s a picture of Jay wearing a lambswool cardigan with hood raised.
Jay did not lower his hood. And, as the Mirror says, his grandfather left the shops, choosing to buy his cigarettes elsewhere.
Yes, cigarettes. Can this be right? Perhaps it should be grandpa who moves about with a hood masking his features from CCTV cameras?
As for Jay… Well, he’s now part of the debate: does the hood make the criminal or the criminal choose the hood? Is Jay’s lambswool sweater a gateway garment to more dubious gear?
Posted: 23rd, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Loony For George Clooney
“IS the world ready for another Clinton in the White House?”
The Express asks the questions. And it presses on: “Unlike her husband, Hillary’s only lust is for power. But Bill’s past still threatens to scupper the dream she has harboured all her life.”
Hillary is to seek election as the President of the US of A. And the Express looks over the career of the woman whose appearance and manner less damn husband Bill’s sexual waywardness as explain it.
It’s Hillary in that yellow jacket, white shirt and pearls. It’s Hillary with her perfect teeth and no glasses. It’s Hillary with flawless skin.
Hillary pops up again in the Mirror. And while the Express asks the question – and over two pages of text gets no closer to answering it – the Mirror nails its colours to the mast.
“Why the world needs Hillary,” says the headline. This article is penned by Gavin Esler, the BBC’s Newsnight presenter, the man known to millions as “Not Jeremy Paxman – The Other One”.
Esler likes Hillary. He says she is “good for America, good for Britain and good for the world.”
But Clinton is about scandal to some. Clinton is about Monica Lewinsky. There are concerned voices. “What would Bill be like, they say, prowling the White House corridors, chatting up the female staff, as an under-employed ‘First Man’ to Hillary’s president?”
It’s another question. And another: Would Hillary’s quest for power, the mission to become the most powerful figure in the Free World, be undone as quickly as Bill can lower the zip on his trousers?
Perhaps the real question is how something so trivial and personal as Bill’s private member can be so important when what is good for America, Britain and the world is at stake?
Do we like our politicians scandalous and sexual? Do we want them to care about how they look and if they are fancied? Or do we want something clean, untarnished, free of vice and the seedier side of humanity?
Do we want Hillary? Or George Clooney? Fancy him? Would America vote for Clooney?
The Express asks Clooney why he has given so much of his attention to highlighting the abuse in Dafur.
Says Clooney: “My Dad taught me that I have to give back to people and that’s what this is all about.”
You want the folksy, homespun simplicity of Bill Clinton with ironing filing hair and a mischievous glint? Vote Clooney.
So will he stand? “Run for office?” asks Clooney. “No. I’ve slept with too many women and I’ve done too many drugs. And I’ve been to too many parties.”
So instead of President Clooney, the world gets President Dubya, a man who appears as an advert to highlight the dangers of recreational drug use and frat house parties.
Instead of President Clooney, the world gets a joke to which the punchline is always Dubya’s America.
Or America can have Clinton. But not Bill.
Hillary Clinton has desire. But not much; for power not interns. Hillary Clinton has lust. But not much; for power not sex. Hillary Clinton has a presence. But not much; of force not charisma.
But Hillary Clinton wants it. Question is: will enough voters want to give it to her?
Lucky Heather
HEATHER Mills McCartney has won. Or lost.
Heather can put on her leg, which she wields about our hearts and minds like a prosthetic claymore. The War of Mills v McCartney is at an end.
As the Star reports, Heather is “delighted” to have agreed a £32million divorce settlement with Sir Paul McCartney.
There, almost lost on page 19, is the news that Mills and McCartney is over.
Heather is happy. The Star says it works out at £1,000 an hour for Lady Mucca’s marriage to McCartney.
And that is all. Case closed. The big news story ends with a whimper. No £200million for Heather. No news of rows, stabbing and crawling to the toilet.
The case will be heard in private. No public day in court for Paul’s daughters Stella and Mary. No public day in court for Heather. No public day in court for Paul. The private affair ends in private.
And as the couple divorce, we divorce from them. The papers free to pursue other targets.
Model Children
“GUESS whose little girl’s on the catwalk?”
That question to you, dear Mail readers.
Given the truth that Keith Richards’ daughter is now working as a model, and so too are the daughters of Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, we think the mystery parent must be famous.
Is the parent of the girl making her way in the cutthroat world of walking and clothes wearing Jaws from the Bond movies? Is this Jade’s Goody’s child?
But this is no challenge. Not really. This vision in black cardigan with silver piping, black shirt and boots, this explosion of dress-up box horror, has orange hair, white eyelashes and a steely-eyed look.
This is Anna Becker, daughter to Boris Becker, Britain’s favourite German.
The look is diabolical, the epitome of the painted mini-me favoured by the American pageant system and stage-school mums.
But perhaps the black and silver creation and the later cape with white bow with silver edging and fur trimmed boots are products of Anna’s environment. Not the place where she lives, rather the venue of Anna’s conception. As the Mail says, this is Anna, the child created by a three-minute tryst in a cupboard at London restaurant Nobu.
Did Boris and Anna’s mum, Miss Angela Ermakowa, joust with so much piping and boot when they made magic?
And if we are the products of our environment – results of what was passing through the minds of parents as they strove to create life – might it explain the fashion for football shirts?
And lager..?
Chelsy Blue
CHELSY Davy wears a blue-and-white long-sleeved tunic dress.
This is “Blue Monday”, the unhappiest day of the year. But, as the Mail says, if anyone can cope with the anguish of it all it is the British.
With our stiff upper lips, ingenuity and prescription drugs in handy screw-top containers, we will not be undone. In any case, Blue Monday comes wrapped in Chelsy blue.
And you too can get the look with some retail therapy. “Chelsy joins the Topshop brigade,” says the Mail’s front-page.
Prince Harry’s blonde lover is in a dress. This dress costs £38 in the aforesaid high street outfitters, and, judging by the length of its hem and the amount of leg on show, that works out at a frugal £5 an inch.
But before you rush out and buy one, know that you run the risk of being seen as a copycat. No-one wants to be an imitator, unless you’re Hale & Pace; no-one wants to be the Dannielle Lloyd to Jade Goody’s mould-breaking reality; no-one wants to be Princess Diana’s stunt double.
And the Mirror notes that Chelsy’s dress is not all that dissimilar to one worn recently by Kate Middleton.
Kate is, of course, Prince William’s, girlfriend. And Kate was seen out and about in a £40 black and white tunic.
Middleton’s dress is also available in Topshop. At least it was until, as the Mirror says, “wannabes” snapped it up online and it sold out.
So for Kate’s dress with its five-pronged leaf design, a look seemingly inspired by a marijuana leaf, we have Chelsy in swirls.
And perhaps we have Chelsy in tears as she waves goodbye to her prince. Harry is on a two-day course to prepare him for life in Iraq.
Harry may not be heading to the frontline, as the Star reports, but he is set to be dispatched to a war zone.
Over there Harry will don his uniform of khaki with flecks of black, or, perhaps, a more desert-themed beige outfit, as he once favoured.
But inside, Harry, like the rest of us, will be feeling blue…
Ticking Towards Doomesday
EVERY day of every week the Mail thinks up imaginative ways to remind you that life is cruel and you are going to experience pain and die.
And if it can’t think any up, it looks at the latest scientific research.
Here is a selection of things that will kill you and yours from last week’s paper of doom…
MONDAY
“DON’T YOU BET ON IT! Doctors warn supercasinos will increase young addicts. Police say they will encourage organised crime. But will ministers listen?” – I’ll take tens on “no”
“More crime less punishment – why our faith in justice is in mortal danger” – Melanie Phillips writes
“Widow horrified as she finds husband’s grace is too small for his coffin” – Are we getting fatter?
“Worries that keep the one in five of us wide awake at 3am” – Mail readers stay up late
TUESDAY
“Half-term chaos threat as BA cabin crew to strike” – Or: Less global warming as planes grounded
“Doctors fear a surge in young gamblers” – But would they bet on it?
“Doom clock is ticking”
The numbers:
30 – The percentage of women who gain more than 5lbs in two years
3,000 – The number of people who die from asbestos disease each year in the UK
“Father’s nightmare scandal of how consultants withhold bad news. Doctors knew I had MS – but hid the truth from me for 11 years” – Time to demand a second opinion
“Strokes linked to depression” – Why me?
“I thought my heavy periods were just bad luck. Then I discovered I was seriously ill and might never have a baby” – Watchdog presenter Julia Bradbury tells us about her endometriosis
“MRSA – IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK. There are 14 times more cases than the NHS admits. Deaths are up by at least 22%. And simple solutions are being ignored by health chiefs. No wonder Labour’s trying to spin its way out of trouble”
WENESDAY
“HOMEOWNERS’ TRIPLE WHAMMY – MORTGAGES set to go up again; INFLATION at a 15-year high; DEBT trap for young buyers” – Time to enter the Big Brother house
“80mph storms roar in – and blizzards won’t be far behind” – Snow. Yippeee!
“Forget global warming [insert picture of mushroom-shaped cloud] THIS is why the Doomesday Clock’s ticking” – Max Hastings sees nuclear war
THURSDAY
“Five minutes from doom” – The Doomsday Clock. Tick. Tock. For whom does it tick? It ticks for ye. Tick…
“Clever girls are more likely to binge drink” – So says researchers at Institute of Child Health
“Boy of 13 choked to death on the top of his pen”
“Why fat drivers are in greater danger” – RAC Foundation says a fat driver is a sleepy driver
“THE BIG ISSUE? Prisons full…NHS in crisis…more soldiers dying…inflation and bank rates up. So what was obsessing our political leaders yesterday? This Big Brother ‘racism’ row” – Good job the Mail is here to expose this rubbish on its, er, front page
“Personal debt is growing by £1m every four minutes” – Not to worry, Ashley Cole can afford it
“Bird flu targets young adults” – So says Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin
“Fashion bags are a pain in the neck” – The fashion for big bags can cause you pain if you put too many things in one and it becomes very heavy, say experts at the American Chiropractic Association
FRIDAY
“Students too dim for media studies” – Headline of the decade!
“High-pressure washers ‘can turn a tyre into a killer’” – Tyresafe, formerly known as the Tyre Industry Council, hears drivers complain of low tyre pressure after having their cars washed by hand
“OK, so I dumped my French girlfriend on Dartmoor – but at last I’ve found something we could agree on” – Tom Utley’s girlfriend
Big-ot Brother; Prince Harry’s Army; Scrambled Doherty; and Beckham’s Break Down
ROBBERS, burglars and Pete Doherty take note – if you want to avoid arrest best check the Royals’ social diary before going out.
Having already spotted Prince William’s paramour Kate Middleton moving about town in the centre of a cauldron of ten officers of the law, on Monday we caught up with Prince Harry’s lover Chelsy Davy.
“Overstretched police assign eight officers (plus two minders) so Harry and Chelsy can go nightclubbing till 4am in peace,” said the Mail’s headline.
Add to his this phalanx Prince Harry, a young man muddied up and trained to kill by his grandmother the Queen, and Chelsy looked quite safe.
As the Sun noted, Harry, a 2nd Lieutenant in the Blues and Royals, would soon learn if he is to be dispatched to Iraq. If he can handle a night out at London’s Cuckoo Club and run the gauntlet of paparazzi, the frontline should hold no fears.
Harry was not in his Army fatigues; seen dressed “unusually smartly” in pink shirt and jacket. Miss Davy wore a white patterned dress and black stockings. Their entourage wore navy blue jackets, black leather gloves and clip-on ties.
Burglars in smarter parts of central London wore smiles.
Who would take on Harry’s thin-lipped police, with their leather-gloved hands and narrowed eyes? What fool? They look intimidating enough. But what if these guards were armed with guns and gas? What if they were the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité?
It might have happened. Records in the National Archive claimed that 50 years ago French President Guy Mollet requested that France be allowed to join the Commonwealth. Our Queen could have been their Queen. Our Prince Harry, their prince. Their police, our police.
“Monsieur Mollet raised with the Prime Minister the possibility of a union between the UK and France,” said the document, as reported by the Sun. The paper then went on mazy dribble though what might have been.
It saw Thierry Henry, football’s D’Artagnan, clad in a nylon England football shirt. It was a vision shared by the Mirror.
Why Henry should be in an England short and not the colours of Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland did not concern the Mirror as the country’s finest footballer raised his hand to salute a goal and send the crowds watching on a jumbo monitor town in Auxerre into paroxysm of excitement. “Hoorah!” they cried.
And while the French smashed up the town centre and got wasted on industrial strength lager and dayglo alco-vins, the Mirror’s Brain Reade snuggled up to his wife Angelina, “resulting in a mouthful of armpit hair”.
Any union between France and the UK would need to be a two-way street. For Thierry Henry refulgently striking the ball in a German’s onion bag, one anachronistic tabloid writer would have to marry a woman with hairy armpits.
And David Beckham… Always David Beckham. But David is on his way. Beckham’s trasnferred from the bench to the stands at Real Madrid. And wife Victoria was in Los Angeles, hunting for a house for the family to live in.
And Posh was at the Golden Globe Awards. Golden Balls. Golden Globes. The Beckhams’ life is a gilded trophy in the Californian sunshine.
But Posh eschewed the ceremony for the after-show do. Posh has not escaped the British paparazzi to be hounded by foreign snappers. To avoid standing out, Posh accessorised her look with some genuine A-list company. Who would look at Vicky with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes by her side?
But the car carrying Cruise, Holmes and their émigré friend broke down. So Posh got a lift with Jennifer Lopez. If anyone could shield Vicky from prying eyes it was J-Lo, and her backside.
Posh was hiding out in Los Angeles. Helen Mirren was in Los Angeles. Naomi Campbell was in a New York courtroom pleading guilty to an assault charge. The best of British talent was all overseas.
Back here we scratched around for entertainment. And on Thursday we got some.
“This may be the biggest accident you have ever seen,” promised the Mirror. This was the “TV CRASH” you would never forget.
In terms of career-ending moments caught on camera this surpassed the corporate video of Gerald Ratner telling the world the merchandise on sale at his eponymous stores was “crap”.
This exceeded Jade Goody telling Indian babe Shilpa Shetty to “go back to the slums”.
And that video of Saddam Hussein’s final moments… Well, let’s just say it’s a close second.
So massive was this car crash that the Sun featured it on its front page. Above the news of a race war triggered by the aforesaid Goody, readers trembled at: “My hell at 280mph.”
These were the first pictures of Richard ‘Hamster’ Hammond’s car crash. This was what counted for entertainment on British telly – a man nearly dying in a car. And Big Brother.
Goody and her repulsive, bullying little gang of nth-rate singer and painted-face Wag were abusing Shilpa Shetty, all round Asian babe and talent, the embodiment of class, grace and elegance. It was a non-contest.
Three against one was nothing to Shilpa – four if Jade’s drippy lover Jack Tweed (or Tweedy if you read the Sun) waded in.
Shilpa never looked like losing, Jade was out of her depth, a hippo in deep-sea waters. The kindest thing was to put Jade out of her misery.
But how? “Burn the pig,” they chanted when Jade left the Big Brother house in 2004. The funeral pyre was lit. The crowd stood well back.
This was entertainment. Remember, remember the 19th of January, gunpowder, racism and rot.
The Filthy Rich
“WE’RE all dirty and idle,” says Princess Anne.
The Princess is on an “official” visit to Antarctica.
Anne has been staying at the British Antarctic Survey’s Rothera Research station.
As the Mail reports, Anne is now on HSM Endurance, the Royal Navy’s ice patrol ship. Anne will remain on the boat for eight days to visit other sites.
And the purpose of this trip? No, not to ski on some virgin snow. No, not to stick a flag in Antarctica and claim it for Queen and country. There is only one reason to travel to Antarctica in these environmentally conscious times and that is to highlight the effects of global warming.
Everyone’s at it. How long before Easyjet and other budget airlines begin a Green Dream flight to the unchartered continent?
The Mail has a shot of the Princess surveying the snow and ice. On her head she wears a furry hat. Real fur made from skinned animals? Or fake fur made from chemicals and toxic waste?
It is clear that Anne is taking the climate change issue seriously. But is everyone? “No,” says Anne, “we’re probably rather dirty and idle because we’ve produced things that make our life easier but, at the same time, we’re rather dirty.”
Anne names no names. But the Mail has an idea as to what Royal “we” Anne thinks idle and dirty. The paper makes mention of Prince Charles’s use of the Royal Flight and charter planes.
Not that the Prince will be travelling by private jet when he accepts the Global Environment Citizen Award from Al Gore. The award is in New York. Charles is in Blighty. But rather than post the gong over here, Charles, Camilla and their 18-strong entourage will make the flight to collect it in person.
But, as noted, they will not be flying on a private jet. That would be environmentally costly. Instead, Charles and his team have booked the entire first class section and rows of business class seats on a commercial airliner.
Meanwhile, Anne is still talking. “We accumulate more and more and we’re less good at using waste,” says she. “We’ve got to tidy up our act because we are filthy.”
The time to act is now. With Anne at the helm we can make the place spick and span.
The sailors aboard HMS Endeavour just need to pull together. Dip those oars in the water lads (wooden oars made from sustainable forest and old bits of furniture).
Pull! Pull! Pull!
The Full Robbie Williams
“ELTON JOHN ON THE RUN.”
What’s this? Elton John, patron saint of Funeral Rock, is on the run. Why? Has some fool seen John’s snub nose, fringe and foul mouth and mistaken him for Big Brother’s Jade Goody?
But reading on, we learn of another Elton John. This one’s criminal career has earned him the epithet “VIOLENT.”
Having been released on licence from a top security jail after serving 11 years of a 17 years sentence for armed robbery, Elton John has scarpered.
A prison officer calls him a “ticking time bomb”. An internal police report warns that John is a “real, imminent, danger” to the public and police.
If you see Elton John, call the police. And if you see the other Elton John, tell him that Robbie Williams pans to take all his clothes off.
The Star says John has asked Williams to give him something special to unwrap on his 60th birthday this March.
So Robbie is offering himself as a gift. Williams will strip at John’s Madison Square Garden do on March 25.
Elton will perform his show. And for a finale, Williams will remove his clothes to the strains of Tom Jones singing You Can Leave Your Hat On.
Meanwhile, Elton John starts to run faster…
21/7 – Eyes Down
MORE Jihad Bingo, anyone?
After 9/11 and 7/7, the Mail focuses on what, allegedly, would have been 21/7 had a gang of suspected bombers detonated devices on British public transport.
The Mail is in court. It spots Yassin Omar, 26, one of the accused. The picture is of him being “caught on camera” at London’s Warren Street station.
It is alleged that Omar did try to detonate an explosive device at the Tube stop.
And this device was something he, allegedly, learned to make on a GVNQ course in intermediate science. “21/7 suspect ‘learned about bombs on college course’,” comes the headline.
Over in the Sun, we see another suspect. He’s Manfo Asiedu. And he, allegedly, also knows how to make a bomb.
What you need is – and you have promised not to tell anyone – hydrogen peroxide. It is claimed that Asiedu bought five lots of the liquid from a shop in Finchley, North London.
And Asiedu is nothing if not prudent. Sandra Sealey, who owned the store, says Asiedu got a discount on his purchases. Thanks to his friend’s discount card, the accused only paid 84p a litre when the substance normally retails at £2.98 a litre.
This is some saving. And it is all the more impressive when you hear prosecutor Nigel Sweeney, QC, tell the jury that Asiedu spent £550 on 443 litres of hydrogen peroxide from three suppliers.
But hydrogen peroxide does not work alone. And, while would-be bombers bleach their fringes and dream of so many virgins, the Sun says the peroxide was, allegedly, mixed with chipati flour to make explosives.
Interesting stuff, not least of all for the aforesaid Omar who might curse his luck at having to have attended boring chemistry classes in school when he cold have leaned so much from the Sun.
The case continues…
33’s A Crowd
KATE Moss is 33. And she has had a row with boyfriend Pete Doherty.
So reports the Star.
Were Doherty of Asian extraction, chances are high that this spat would have led the day’s news coverage, or at least challenged Jade Goody’s sparking of “Word War III” for prominence.
But while Moss’s PRs look into Pete’s ancestry, the Mirror sees the couple arriving at London’s China Tang eatery.
“A happy birthday to LOO!” chimes the Mirror as it watches Moss make many trips to the toilets.
Why Moss should go to the toilets is something the paper does not investigate. But the Star does note that Moss does not make these trips alone.
So often is Moss in the cubicles that some of her guests, including billionaire Sir Philip Green, the venue’s owner David Tang and professional pal Sadie Frost, follow her in.
The paper says that all parties end up in the toilet singing happy birthday to Kate.
No shots of this toilet party are forthcoming, and the Mail instead makes do with pictures of Moss dressed in a cream dress, white fur coat and strappy heels.
The First Rule of Kate says that all stories of her being must be accompanied by a full look at her outfit. There should also be space given over to her alleged dalliance with cocaine (see Second Rule of Kate). And while the Mail overlooks this, the Mirror sticks to the rules.
And after making mention of cocaine Kate, the paper sees Kate’s pals hand her a present.
In the style of an ITV phone-in quiz show, we ask is it: a) a toilet roll; B) a bucket; or C) a pink 50 watt bulb? Take your time.
That’s right. Well done, you. It is a bound book of pictures spanning Moss’s modelling career. The tome may even be a shot of Kate chopping those lines in a London recording studio. Wasn’t that that image that cemented Moss’s legend?
And until we get a shot of Moss dancing/crying/puking in the toilet, it will have to do…
Nuclear War Looms
“WE stand on the brink of second nuclear age.”
It should not go unmentioned that both the UK and India have nuclear weapons.
And before any missiles are fired in what the Star’s front page calls “BB: IT’S WORLD WAR III”, we sue for peace.
Is it too late for both sides to come together and agree that Jade Goody should be shot at dawn, her remains burnt and served in a small, soft roll?
The clock is ticking. “2 MINUTES CLOSER TO DOOM,” says the Mirror’s headline.
A spokesman for the keepers of the so-called Doomsday Clock tells the paper: “Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices.”
We call upon each and every one of you to vote Jade Goody out of Big Brother before it’s too late. The clock is ticking. The hands draw ever closer together, a moment in prayer before the kaboom of midnight.
But we still have five minutes. Admittedly we have had seven minutes to live since the clock was established in 1947.
Back then a group of physicists concerned about the prospect of imminent Armageddon, constructed their clock. The Mirror says the Doomsday Clock serves as a “barometer” of man-made danger. And the hands have just been edged forward by full two minutes.
This is just too awful. Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society, tells the paper that the threat of nuclear holocaust is now at its highest.
Says Rees: “Even a single technician… will soon have the ability to cause massive disruption through error or terror.” He warns: “The global village will have its village idiots.”
We give you Jade Goody…
Street-Porter House News
JANET Street–Porter is innocent. Or not.
In matters of a criminal nature, we try not to take sides. And instead deliver the facts that the journalist and reality TV star emeritus stands accused of racially abusing a neighbour.
Tales of TV stars and racial abuse are commonplace just now. But this is a story with a twist.
The Mail gives space to the claim of Congolese-born Julie Mbmemba that Street-Porter did call her a “black bitch”.
Miss Street-Porter has been arrested by police over the claims. And, as the Mail tells us, a file is being prepared for the Crown Prosecution Service to look over. Street-Porter has been released on bail.
For her part, the accused has issued a celebrity denial. Delivered in her customary tones of a demented macaw, Street-Porter says: “Anyone who is aware of my track record in journalism and the media knows my strong anti-racist views.”
Indeed. The Mail investigates and recalls how Street-Porter once dated the black TV presenter Normski. If this nugget is part of any defence, it should be known that Street-Porter and Normski did not last the course.
But what of some other supposed facts in this unpleasant matter? There is the sympathetic background story that sees Street-Porter parking her Chrysler PT Cruiser outside her £2million after her sister’s funeral.
The Mail says Street-Porter then begins to remove items from the vehicle’s boot. This is when Mrs Mbemba arrives in a Fiat Brava and “motioned” for Street-Porter to get out of the way.
An exchange follows. It is alleged that Mrs Street-Porter rants and raves and commits what a police spokesman terms an “allegedly racially aggravated public order offence”.
And let us now review this evidence. See Mrs Mbemba’s zippy hatchback. Recognise the central London location. Observe Street-Porter massive people carrier.
And wonder how things ever came to this. Forget the language, and consider the undisputable crime: Street-Porter’s carbon footprint.
Can it be right in these modern times to operate such a vehicle in central London, within Mayor Ken Livingstone’s congestion charging zone?
Is this not the greater crime?
Aunty Big Brother’s Car Crash Telly
IT’S car crash telly.
“ you have ever seen,” promises the Mirror. This is the “TV CRASH” you will never forget.
In terms of career-ending moments caught on camera this surpasses the corporate video of Gerald Ratner telling the world the merchandise on sale at his eponymous stores is “crap”.
This exceeds Jade Goody telling Indian babe Shilpa Shetty to “go back to the slums”.
And that video of Saddam Hussein’s final moments… Well, let’s just says it’s a close second.
So massive is this car crash that the Sun features it on its front page. Above the news of a race war triggered by the aforesaid Goody, readers tremble at: “My hell at 280mph.”
These are the first pictures of Richard ‘Hamster’ Hammond’s car crash.
Hammond is the presenter of BBC TV’s Top Gear TV show. In trying to set a new British landspeed record for a celebrity in a fast car, Hammond crashed.
This is shocking. How can it be that Hammond, who writes for the Mirror, can feature so prominently in the rival Sun? The answer arrives quicker than, well, Hammond. “How did he survive?” asks Sun writer Jeremy Clarkson, Hammond’s co-presenter on Top Gear.
Over three pictures, readers get to see a man nearly dying in a car. With captions:
1. “Big bang… dragster tyre explodes as Hammond leaves vapour trail from jet”
2. “Heading for disaster…smoke pours from the tyres as car veers off airfield runway”
3. “Dirty business… barrel-rolling hamster sends up clouds of soil as car disintegrates”.
These pictures of a man nearly dying and suffering head injuries do not come from a camera phone, covert shots taken by one of the Hamster’s rivals in the hectic world of media car driving. These are images supplied by that bastion of decency and good taste that is the BBC.
For those of you unable to decipher the pictures, the Sun solicits the help of an expert, chiefly the aforesaid Clarkson. He tells us the tyres “started to come apart”. The car “hit something which made it go upside down”. The car “flipped over”.
For what we imagine to be contractual reasons, Mirror readers have to make do with Hammond’s version of the event. He has seen the tape of his headline-making crash.
“Watching the moment that could have left my wife Mindy a widow, brining up our kids alone, took my breath away,” writes Hammond.
Happily this is no permanent condition, and the man who risked life and limb in the noble pursuit of good telly breathes again.
As do we…
Keeley Over There
SO long, Keeley Hazell.
You came, you showed us your breasts and you went to…America.
Posh gone. Beckham going. Mirren feted. And Campbell embarking on a new career as a New York hospital cleaner or street sweeper.
Such is the outflow of talent from these shores that very soon star-starved Britishers will have to make their own entertainment.
But before we are forced to replace the actors, singers and players with a spiteful Scouse Wag, a hard faced cabaret act singer (was Big Brother’s Jo ever in Bad Girls?) and a lumpy vindictive cow, we wave a fond adieu to Keeley.
As the Sun says, Keeley – our Keeley – is about to spray on the famous red Baywatch swimsuit. Keeley is in talks to star in Baywatch: The Movie.
Pictured stretching her legs, and so much red spandex, on a Los Angeles beach, Keeley says: “Before I won the Sun’s Page 3 Idol competition in 2004 I was just a girl from Kent working in a hairdressing salon. Now I am here in Hollywood.”
Keeley is in Tinsel Town to meet the film’s producers. And they told they hadn’t seen “a similar look [“32E] emerge from the UK for a long time”. This is Keeley “conquering Hollywood”.
Says she: “It would be a great opportunity to try some acting and I’ll see where it takes me,” says Keeley.
We wish her well. And with another star gone we turn our attention to what we are left with.
And weep…
