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.
Paul McCartney’s Breasts
“EXCLUSIVE: Court documents filed by Heather Mills contain sensational claims of abuse by her husband,” announces the Mail on its front page.
And on reading that we revisit Die Freuden der Liebe (The Lover’s Guide), Heather’s tribute to baby oil and Anglo-German relations, and take a closer look at the picture of the man spanking Heather’s upturned backside.
The man’s hair is as naturally dark and shiny as that owned by Heather’s husband, Sir Paul McCartney, and he appears to be on intimate terms with the blonde mine clearer. But abuse?
Heather says so. And, as the Mail reports, the blonde is accusing Sir Paul of “repeated violence” against her, including an attack in which “he stabbed her in the arm with a broken wine glass”.
If true, this is appalling. And we would like our readers to note that it is Heather’s leg and not her arm that is made of something not quite flesh and bone. This alleged stabbing was not in the mode of Reg Gutteridge, the voice of boxing, who was wont to show his bravery and mettle by sticking sharp implements into his trousered false leg and challenging others to follow suit.
And there is more. Heather says Paul continued to use drink and drugs “excessively” during their marriage. He called her an “ungrateful bitch”.
He tried to prevent her from breastfeeding, saying: “They are my breasts.” (At first, the Mail does not specify whom Heather was breastfeeding, but it is assumed she was offering succour to the couple’s child Beatrice and not, say, to a curly haired German man or Ringo Starr.) Paul is alleged to have told her: “I do not want a mouthful of breast milk.”
And to put the tin lid on this litany of abuse, Heather claims Paul objected “vociferously” to her buying an antique bedpan to save her crawling to the toilet of a night.
That is the case against Sir Paul of McCartney, your honour. And we say that it is case closed and the plaintiff should be shorn of many millions.
Who cannot find it in their hard hearts to condemn Paul and take pity on the poor blonde star of self-help manuals for baby oil enthusiasts?
You sir? Well, you should know the court papers filed by Heather’s lawyer claim that with the marriage “irretrievably broken down”, Miss Mills left the family home “crawling on her hands and knees while dragging her wheelchair, crutches and personal possessions” to her car.
Not since Tiny Tim fell to the cobbles has there been so pathetic and heart-wrenching an image. (Or since forlorn Heather, propped up on a crutch, was spotted dragging a case through Gatwick airport on her way to Slovenia.)
Poor Heather. It is surely time to make her rich…
Haves & Have Nots
“ALL men will have big willies,” announces the Sun.
No, it’s not an election pledge from John Prescott. It’s the findings of Dr Oliver Curry of the Darwin@LSE Research Centre.
Dr Curry has been looking at the development of human beings and has found that in 1,000 years men will no longer be hung like badgers but will resemble ancient Centaurs as with their square jaws and athletic frames they prowl the shopping centres and spaceports for women.
And get a load of those babes. Dr Curry says they will have smooth hairless skin, large clear eyes, glossy hair, pert breasts and symmetrical features.
Dr Curry has seen the future. And it is good. But we will not all be equal. In 100,000 years, humanity will have split into two distinct groups: the haves and have-nots.
The haves we have already glimpsed. And it will not be for all of us. As the Mail reports, the “god-like upper class” will rule a “goblin-like underclass”.
These have-nots will be short, stocky, less intelligent and suffer from ill health. It’s a pattern illustrated in the Express, which sees two tribes.
What then happens is a matter of scientific debate. But it is believed that the meek inherit the earth and the tall play basketball and clean windows…
Jamie Oliver’s Greenies
WHAT do Jamie Oliver’s children eat at school?
We are sure that the catering professionals who sear and flambé for the Oliver children at their private establishment in leafy Hampstead do a wonderful, wholesome job. And that the green blobs in the kids’ jelly are evidence of the freshest kiwi fruit and not manmade oysters a la mode.
But not all dinner ladies are delighted by Jamie’s foul-mouthed take on school dinners. The Mail looks at Theresa Topping, who is pictured in a white mesh hat, checkerboard apron and plastic gloves.
Theresa says she has received abusive phone calls and is now taking a taxi to school out of fear that parents angered at the food she serves up will attack her.
“I got this one call in particular. It was a man who was kind of mumbling…At first I couldn’t make out what he was talking about but he started making threats saying: ‘You’ll get what’s coming to you’, and things like that.”
The mystery caller has yet to be identified. And it might be one of a number of parents at the Derwent Infant and Junior School in York where Theresa cooks.
Some parents have formed a protest group and are lobbying for better meals.
Their leader is one Jim Wallis, father of a nine-year-old pupil at the school. He notes that one of his son’s school meals was a composite blend of fish fingers with bones in (like real fish!), pitta bread and choc ice.
Says he: “That’s not exactly a healthy meal. We would love to get Jamie Oliver here to see what the children are eating.”
Fish! Bread!! Ice-cream!!! It is too, too terrible. The madness must end.
The quicker Jamie can hotfoot it up to York to sort things out, the better. And he should take his own oysters…
Robbie Williams Uncovered
“ROBBIE: Liam is an ugly inbred.”
When they are not making terrible music, taking drugs and drink, staying in rehab or banging on about their self-diagnosed clinical/bi-polar/manic depression, our popstars are calling each other names.
And we read that the Sun’s Victoria Newton has “uncovered a secret track” in which Robbie Williams “slags off” Liam Gallagher, calling him an inbred.
How Victoria came to uncover this amazing, stunning etc. recoding is left unsaid. But she will surely protect her sources to the bitter end, and not flinch when it comes to giving Liam and Robbie the publicity and full-colour exposure they deserve.
And so to the tune. It’s called “Five Pies a Chance”. And on it Robbie is said to refer to Liam’s monobrow and ex-wife Patsy Kensit. Robbie sings: “Your Mrs fancies me – bet she wishes she waited ‘til I was shifting units.”
“Ouch,” says the Sun’s woman in the know. This is brutal stuff. Newton was right to call this “one of the biggest feuds in the history of rock ‘n roll”.
And if Robbie can find a word to rhyme with units he will surely have hit on his hands. And Robbie and Liam will once more rule their charts with their Beatles’s tribute acts and harsh name calling…
Madonna’s Twist
Oliver’s pillow was smoothed by gentle hands that night;
and loveliness and virtue watched him as he slept –
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
IT’S the Dickensian story of the Jew, the orphan and the trip to London Town as Madonna and David Banda fly to London.
“GOT HIM,” says the Mirror’s front page, the words hanging in black ink over a picture of one of the singer’s staff, her PA Siobhan, spiriting the one-year-old Malawi boy to London.
“Fury as Madonna brings her baby David to London,” says the Mirror elsewhere on its front page. “Madonna’s adopted baby is whisked out of Malawi on private jet.”
It’s all so very cloak and dagger. The language suggests that what we are watching is less a woman choosing to give a motherless boy from an impoverished country a new life of splendour and rare opportunity than a kidnap.
“Madonna’s baby is bundled on plane before court fights,” the paper continues. There is another photo, a suitably grainy image of a “Madonna aide”, a kind of Nancy to Madge’s Fagin, carrying David through Johannesburg airport as they head for London.
“Madge Grabs Baby,” says the Star’s headline. And the Mail is appalled. “Cash for babies fury as Madonna flies little David back to Britain in defiance of legal challenge,” says the paper’s front page.
Poor “little” David. He’s been plucked from his homeland like a silk hanky from a rich man’s pocket.
Emmie Chanika, executive director of Civil Liberties Committee, is “very angry”. “There are many people who want to adopt and they go through the proper procedure however long it takes,” says she.
The Express talks of “worldwide condemnation” for Madonna. “Legal challenges” are being drawn up in Malawi to bring baby David back.
But it is too late. The courts in Malawi have granted Madonna and her husband, Guy Ritchie, an interim adoption grant that gives them custody of David for 18 months. During this time, their suitability to care for David will be assessed.
David’s father Yohane tells the Mail he is “ecstatic”. “I appeal to the self-styled lovers of David to leave my baby alone,” he says. “Where were they when David didn’t have milk when his mother died? Do they want him to go back to the orphanage.”
So David is on his way to London. Where he will get more than he can ever dream of…
Dear Elton…
YOU know you’ve made it when…Elton John offers to help you wrestle your demons.
Having waxed lyrical on matters George Michael, Robbie Williams, Pete Doherty, Madonna and Posh ‘n’ Becks, Elton is now said to be counselling Tom Chaplin, lead singer of Keane.
As a friend of the singer tells the Mirror: “Tom’s had so much support after going into rehab but he never expected it would come from someone like Elton John.”
But this is what Elton does. Ever since he sang at Princess Diana’s funeral, Elton has been mutating into Marjorie Proops. Giving advice is what Elton is all about. It can’t be too long before Elton appears on daytime TV, dressed in massive glasses and a huge fright wig telling the lame and depressed that he feels their pain. Speak to Elton, he understands.
For now Elton offers his services to entertainers. And it’s Chaplin’s turn to receive the sage advice from the man the paper dubs the “godfather of pop”.
And we call Dear Marje…
Adopt A F***wit
HEAR, o Pete Doherty, the decrees and laws declared in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them.
Pop f***wit Pete is the subject of the Star’s “KATE GIVES POTTY PETE SIX OF BEST”, an article illustrated by a picture of Pete and Kate Moss and what looks at first glance like a headstone.
But we read closer, and learn that the inscription is not “HERE LIES POP F***WIT, PETE DOHERTY”, and no blue plaque is being put up on the wall at The Priory Clinic. Instead we read “KATE’S COMMANDMENTS”.
Kate Moss wants her man to hear and obey. The rules are:
1. Get rid of his loser friends
2. Start eating properly
3. Spend two hours a day writing poetry and music
4. Call her at least three times a day
4. Stop flirting with groupies
6. Stop taking drugs
In short, Kate wants Pete to stop being Pete Doherty. Or adopt him. Well, it’s less complicated than adopting an African baby. Just ask Madonna…
Prince Harry’s Chedda Cheese
“CHELSY UNCOVERED,” announces the Sun’s front page. “Amazing secrets reveal why Harry loves dizzy blonde.”
Prince Harry Baseball Cap is in Cape Town, South Africa, for his girlfriend Chelsy Davy’s 21st birthday party.
It’s a 20,000 roaring Twenties-themed do in the city’s Beluga restaurant. Harry, dressed Al Capone, is dancing with Chelsy, who’s wearing an emerald green 1920s flapper outfit.
They make a lovely couple do the boy she calls Haz and the girl he calls Chedda. Or it is Dubya? You see Chelsy is not all that bright. So dim is she that Harry compares her to President George ‘Dubya’ Bush.
In a speech to guests, Chelsy’s brother and friends regale the great and good with stories of how Chelsy thought mammoths were still alive and wondered why buffalos didn’t eat deer.
Chelsy’s friends say the blonde has the “memory of a goldfish”, which may be a blessing in Royal circles. She has crashed her car four times in the past year. And she does an impression of Ricky Gervais in The Office that only Harry finds funny.
She also likes a drink. And the Sun looks on as Chelsy and Harry down a few and then make for the toilets – “not for a romp”, says the paper knowingly, “but to care for her as she threw up”.
And we will be seeing more of Chelsy soon enough. As the Mail produces a shot of the blonde looking pale and “fragile” at the morning after the party, the Sun says she is on her way to study a post-graduate course at Bristol University.
Might it be that Chelsy is not so dim, just offering no challenge to the less-than–mega-bright grill-haired Royal?
He’s the one in the T–shirt that carries a picture of Chelsy on the back and on the front the words: “Spike [one of Haz’s nicknames], official bodyguard to miss CD.”
The poor boy doesn’t stand a chance…
Madonna Fights Like A Trojan
HAS Madonna hatched a classic plot to smuggle young David Banda from his native Malawi and into a new life in London?
As the Sun reports, Madonna has spent £5,000 on a rocking horse for her would-be new boy. A worker at Harrods, the Knightsbridge store where the horse was sired, tells the paper: “The rocking horses are hand made and top spec. They are beautiful, traditional toys.”
The paper produces a picture of what a rocking horse might look like. There is a tail, a mane and four legs placed on rockers. And there’s a hatch in the belly through which 13-month-old David can enter, hide and thereby escape Africa for a new life in Marble Arch.
Of course, we may be mistaken. But things are getting tricky and, as the Express says, Madonna faces a court fight to adopt the boy. The paper says human rights groups and child agencies are contesting the singer’s automatic right to adopt.
Malawi’s High Court has granted custody of the boy to Madonna and her husband Guy, a departure from the country’s rule that prevents adoption by non-residents.
And Malawi-based charity Eye of the Child has submitted a request for an injunction. The group’s spokesman, Boniface Mandere, says the government has not “followed the law”. And there are others. The Mail hears from Justin Dzonzi, a lawyer representing Malawi’s Human Rights Consultative Committee. Dzonzi will argue in the country’s High Court that the adoption is illegal. Says he: “We are simply asking that she {Madonna] follows the laws of this country.”
And the law is important. So important that, as the Star announces in a headline: “MADGE JAIL FEAR OVER BABY DAVID.”
It seems that the child’s father, “sad peasant farmer Yohane”, only placed his son in an orphanage temporarily. And that the boy was offered up for adoption without his knowing.
Says Yohane: “The orphanage made me sign a letter to show that I was handing him over to their charge. But I suppose deep in my heart I always imagined that when he was better, or I had another wife [David’s mother died shortly after childbirth] I would go and get him back. I did not think anyone would want to take him away.”
Yohane is in the Mirror, holding aloft a picture of David. Elevated from the ranks of “sad peasant” to maker of wooden handles, the Mirror says it “is easy to imagine how apprehensive Yohane was when he was summoned to her courthouse last Thursday”.
Using our imagination, we see the poor, simple black African, fashioning a shard of wood into a handle for a door, a luxury he will never know. Perhaps he’s naked. What chance does he stand in the presence of men in funny clothes and a woman with hair made from spun gold and skin the colour of a rare white rhino?
“She smiled a lot,” says Yohane. “And later she thanked me for surrendering my child into her care.” He adds: “But in court I did understand I was agreeing to give up my baby for adoption.”
In exchange for a magical wooden horse…
Beckham Is Back
DAVID Beckham is back.
“I’LL be BECK,” says the Star’s front page, and so it will be.
Dave might not be able to run all that fast, beat a decent opponent for skill or take a penalty, but he is the best England player by a mile.
So having been dropped from the England football team after the World Cup, David is now all set to make a triumphant return. No more will England lose to Croatia. No more will they take two bottles into the shower. No more will the lads venture onto the field of play with their faces unmoisturised, untanned skin open to ageing wind, rain and sun.
“Come and get me – I am only a phone call away,” says Dave in the Star.” A source in the Beckham camp says: “He would really love to play for England again and is ready, willing and able to help the side get back to winning ways.”
Hurrah! Sure, England never got beyond the quarter-finals of a competition with Dave in the team, but what looked then like failure now appears as a glorious era of success and adventure.
We need you, Dave. “COME BECK,” pleads the Sun’s front-page headline. “(ALL IS FORGIVEN.”) the paper invites readers to reply to a “YOU THE JURY” phone poll and say “YES” or “no” to Dave’s return.
So come on Dave. Stop hiding behind that veil and get ready to bend it one more time with feeling. Your country calls…
One Sad Day
IS it time we started to love Darren Day?
The man who’s been engaged more times than the toilet at a cystitis convention is broke. As the Sun reports, the “love-rat” has been declared bankrupt.
The performer, who once earned £1million a year, has swapped his home in urbane Hampstead for a life in a rented £200,000 semi in Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire. Darren now lives with actress Stephanie Dooley, who has just given birth to their child.
Darren, who walked out on Suzanne Shaw and the couple’s three-month-old child, offering the cheery farewell “I don’t do family”, is on his uppers.
Having spent £2million on cocaine, Darren has now sold the £800,000 home in Hertfordshire where he and aforesaid Suzanne lived and given his half to creditors.
Now with fiance number six, Darren hopes that he can revive his shattered career. His agent Paul Telford tells the Mail: “We are just trying to concentrate on rejuvenating his career.” So next year Darren is hoping to embark on a concert tour performing Barry Manilow songs.
Darren is at rock bottom and hacking away with a spade. Surely now is the time to support the man in his climb back to the top.
We at Anorak will be buying as many tickets as we can get to see Darren in concert, turned on to his hybrid Cliff Richard- Manilow magic.
And we urge all Darren’s fans and former one-true-loves to join us. Come on, Tracy Shaw. Let’s go, Isla Fisher. How’s about it, Anna Friel? What d’yer say, Adele Vellacott? Come on down, Suzanne Shaw.
See you at the stage door…
Posted: 13th, October 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Faking The Michael
BENEATH the Mirror’s pressing news that the next series of Prime Suspect will feature any one of three filmed endings is an installment from the life and times of Michael Jackson.
News is that Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe has surrendered visitation rights to their two children, Prince Michael, 9, and Paris, 8, in exchange for the sum of £395,000 a year.
Michael’s lawyer Michael Abrams says: “Michael is satisfied with the results, and I believe Ms Rowe is satisfied.” A friend of Rowe’s tells us: “It was hard for her, but she’s broke.”
And while Ms Rowe now struggles by on the kind of wage endured by a third-rate footballer, the Star looks again of those pictures of Jackson wearing a tight pair of jeans and high-heels.
And it concludes that it is not him after all. “”WE NOSE IT WASN’T WACKO JACKO,” says the headline. “Pictures of a Michael Jackson lookalike in drag fooled everyone yesterday, but not us,” trills the paper with no little pride.
Star readers brought up on a diet ot topless stunnas know a real woman when they see one. They knew it wasn’t Jackson in the blouse and figure-hugging trousers. Right it was that “her long legs and shapely female figure rang alarm bells among doubting readers who realised it couldn’t be a man”.
It was a woman. Although the Star does concede that though the body was not Jackson’s, the face was strickingly similar, the “spitting image”.
And while “papers were forced to aplogise” to the singer (something not mentioned in any other paper), we wonder if there is something else going on? Perhaps after so much surgery, Jackson has had cause to find a new body for his much worked-on head? Might this woman be Jackson after all?
And if it is, we can only rejoice in the truth that with Debbie bought off, the star’s children can have both a mother and father in their lives fulltime. And all the better that he and she should be rolled into one…
Angelina Jolie’s Indian Sign
“JOLIE car drama,” says the Sun, and we are gripped.
As reported on Anorak, Angelina Jolie is in India filming a new movie, A Mighty Heart. The film tells the story of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl, and, if Angelina’s work to date is any guide, it surely involves the actress wearing lots of Spandex and kicking people in the face.
Right it is that all of India is a buzz with Angelina’s arrival. This is the event that will put the country on the map. It’s tough luck on Pakistan, where Pearl was actually kidnapped and murdered, but such is life.
And here Angelina comes now in a convoy of cars. And there goes Angelina, followed by her minders in a hulking 4×4. Mittal Rawat, 19, had best watch out. His motorbike is no match for so much metal and muscle. But it’s too late. As Mittal explains: “One vehicle knocked me off my bike but just sped away.”
Mittal is clearly a lucky boy. It is not every day you get knocked down by a Hollywood superstar’s minder and it will be a rich tale for Mittal to tell his children and grandchildren.
And he’s getting his story straight by speaking to the Star. Says Mittal: “There were two other vehicles going in the same direction and they both tried to overtake me. One of the vehicles scraped against the side of my bike and knocked me off. I fell into the road but they both sped away.”
In the fullness of time, it is hoped that Mittal’s story will take on more colour. Perhaps he could be driving past one of those warning signs that litter Indian roads, of the type that proclaim such sage advice as “Overtaking Leads To Undertaking”. Or Angelina could get out of her car and say that since Mittal is now unable to work she will adopt any children he has and spirit them away to the fabled land they call Amerika.
That for later. But for now the Star tells us that Angelina has taken notes and is aware that Indian roads are dangerous places. What with the cows stood in front of speeding traffic, stoned tuk-tuk drivers and her, allegedly, red-light-jumping minders, someone could get hurt. Just get a load of that young Indian chap lying next to his dented bike. For shame.
So to prevent any accident befalling her, Angelina has drafted in soldiers to guard her person. Troops have been assigned to protect Angelina as she makes the hazardous journey from five-star hotel to film set. And not just one or two soldiers but, as the Star says, “truck-loads”.
This will surely make the roads of India a safer place. Once again Angelina has saved the day…
We Can be Great
“TALLY-Ban Harry!” went the cry over Windsor. Into the valley. Once more into the breach!
But on Monday we learnt that Prince Harry Baseball Cap might not get to do any actual fighting with the Army, and certainly not in a dangerous place like Afghanistan.
Having survived Army training and no small amount of polo and lap-dancing, Harry wants to serve. But, as the Express reported, he may be denied.
And to add to his “humiliation”, the Express noted that though Afghanistan might be too dangerous for Harry, it is considered a safe enough place for Princess Anne to tour.
And we interject. There is no humiliation in being a lesser man than Anne. Aunty Anne is a fearsome fighter, having proved too tough for Mark Phillips, a Captain in the 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards. She is more than a match for the Taliban and though she might not win the war, her presence in foreign parts will certainly cause the enemy to sit up straight at Tiffin and not twirl their beards in a menacing and wholly unhygienic manner.
Better news for Harry is that soldiers are all well and good but when it comes to really settling an argument you can’t beat a massive bomb.
And on Tuesday one went off in North Korea. “The moment that shook the world,” said the Times’s front-page headline, and we shuddered. The paper heard statesmen react with outrage to North Korea’s emergence as the world’s ninth nuclear power.
“World powers ponder North Korea sanctions,” announced the Telegraph. It told of “frenzied diplomatic activity”. And spoke of a draft UN resolution that “calls for a ban on all trade in military and luxury goods with the communist state”.
That will hurt. No designer clothes and pomade for North Korea’s leader number one. Kim Jong-il’s bouffant hair-do will yield under the pressure. And no imported military muscle. Not that the North Korea needs it: it’s got the bomb.
And while we trembled and the Sun asked “How do you solve a problem like Korea?”, the Government was on the case.
The problem was in hand. A plan had been formulated and honed. And on Wednesday Caloline Flint, minister for fitness, told us that everything will be OK. Do not be scared. It’s not a nuclear grenade. It is a kiwi fruit.
“People can’t afford to take a risk with food they’ve never seen before in case their children won’t eat it when they get home,” said Caroline in the Mail.
Caroline went on: “If they can be shown how to prepare it in the supermarket, and their children like it, then they know it won’t be money down the drain.”
So to go with the weekly trawl around the supermarket, the obese drudge will be invited to pop over to see a Government–sponsored fruit carve open a “lemon” or even a “gooseberry”.
The great unwashed will then more fully understand what is meant by a “pear-shaped figure”, “orange-peel thighs” and how to not give a flying “fig” about any of it.
But after oranges for lemons, we all learnt that no matter what you eat, you will die. And, more precisely, you will all die on October 31st 2, 252,006.
The Sun had spotted the work of a team of researchers, led by Dutchman Jan van Dam, of Utrecht University. News was that we have a defined shelf life. And that our demise will follow a “wobble” in the Earth’s orbit.
“Will a wobble wipe us out?” asked the Mail. And we say that it will. The wobble will interfere with the Earth’s orbit and cause the planet to be too far from the sun to support human life.
The Mail said humans are “overdue a wave of extinction”. But why wait? North Korea should do us all a favour. Trick or treat, Kim Jong-il, saviour of planet Earth? Trick or treat?
At least on Friday we realised that the future can still be every bit as rosy as the past. David Beckham was back.
Dave might not be able to run all that fast, beat a decent opponent for skill or take a penalty, but he is the best England footballer by a mile.
So having been dropped from the England football team after the World Cup, David is now all set to make a triumphant return. No more will England lose to Croatia. No more will they take two bottles into the shower. No more will the lads venture onto the field of play with their faces unmoisturised, untanned skin open to ageing wind, rain and sun.
“Come and get me – I am only a phone call away,” said Dave in the Star.” A source in the Beckham camp said: “He would really love to play for England again and is ready, willing and able to help the side get back to winning ways.”
Hurrah! Sure, England never got beyond the quarter-finals of a competition with Dave in the team, but what looked then like failure now appears as a glorious era of success and adventure.
We can be great again…
Picture: bbdo
Posted: 13th, October 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
David Beckham Exposed
LIKE David Beckham, we too smell of “a blend of orange, mandarin and Italian Bergamot, with the middle notes of cardamom, pimento and star anise. Finishing off with vetiver, white amber and patchouli.”
It is, sad to admit, the smell of failure, the stink of unfulfilled ambition and a life on the slide.
It had been so very different. But now, as the Mail reports, Beckham has a whiff of decay about him. Where once his Instinct perfume for men smacked of metrosexuality, an aftershave for the man who depilates his back, sack and crack, it now smells off.
The Mail tells us that Becks is no longer the face of Police sunglasses. The 31-year-old has been dropped, not because of his age – the new face belongs to 46-year-old actor Antonio Banderas – but because no one cares what Dave likes to wear on his chest.
Now he’s no longer in England nylon, Beckham’s days as a fashion icon are at an end.
And this leaves wife Vicky to plough a lonely furrow. There she is in the Mirror, “flying the flag for British fashion.”
She’s wearing a dress, a pair of shoes and sunglasses – all produced by British designers, even if they are most likely made in Taiwan and China.
And around her middle is a wide belt. From a certain angle, Posh seems to have been cut in half, her belt acting as a leather bridge linking her top and bottom halves.
Posh is a marvel of tailored engineering, a head and body supported upon a thin strip of leather.
How does she do it? And how long will she be doing it for?
Trick Or Treat
WHAT you doing on October 31st?
Knocking on doors and extracting money with menaces as you bawl “trick or treat!” through some old lady’s letter box? Wondering what the hell to do with pumpkin flesh? Dying?
You see, as the Sun reports, “THE WORLD ENDS ON..OCTOBER 31.”
But it’s not this October. “Don’t choke on your cornflakes,” says the Sun, you haven’t got just over a fortnight to live. No, the world will end on October 31st 2, 252,006.
Little may have changed in the next two-and-a-quarter million years – Chelsea will still be champions, Tony Blair will still be in charge (Gordon Brown still won’t be) and The Rolling Stones will still be on their last farewell tour.
But on Halloween future we will all be so much rat food. A team of researchers, led by Dutchman Jan van Dam (crazy name, crazy guy), of Utrecht University, has discovered that mammal species have a defined shelf life. And that their demise coincides with a “wobble” in the Earth’s orbit.
“Will a wobble wipe us out?” asks the Mail. And we say that it will. The wobble will interfere with the Earth’s orbit and cause the planet to be too far from the sun to support human life.
The Mail says humans are “overdue a wave of extinction”. Indeed. Not a day passes without some research being produced which tells us how god-awful humanity is, how it is like a cancer on the planet, a destructive force that has to be stopped.
So why wait? North Korea should do us all a favour. Trick or treat, Kim Jong-il, saviour of planet Earth? Trick or treat?…
Madonna’s Into Africa
DOES Africa work on a rota system, each country getting a little time in the limelight before the bell is rung and another takes its place?
We no longer read about Ethiopia, Rwanda or even Zimbabwe. And has anyone seen Nelson Mandela recently?
Their time has passed. And so too has that of Namibia, which briefly shone like a star of wonder, star of light to guide us to the birth of Shiloh Jolie Pitt.
Now it is the turn of Malawi to feature in the British press. And by way of a potted history of the land, the Sun’s man in a pith helmet tells us that the county has a population of 12million, 14.2 per cent of whom are HIV positive. The land is “desperate”.
Things are grim. But they are improving, and not just for little Davie Banda, who is soon to be whisked away from grinding poverty to Madonna’s £5.7million house in Marble Arch, £9million country estate in Wiltshire and £8million mansion in Beverly Hills.
Davie may care to note that all homes are believed to have running water and electricity, unlike Lipunga “a collection of 30 mud huts on a dust-blown Malawian plain where little Davie’s father Yohane still lives”.
Africa is portrayed less a place to save than a place to be rescued from. But it is not only Davie who is feeling better today.
The Mirror has a picture of Madonna teaching the locals to dance. There she is dancing with “delight” among a group of orphans.
“Mama Madge gets into the groove,” says the Sun’s headline. And it too has a picture of Madonna dancing with the poor Africans.
These Africans might not have enough food or medicine, but now they can at least dance. And it is a dance of joy for Davie – the one that got away…
Michael Jackson’s Sex Change
“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS SHOE THIS IS,” challenges the Sun’s front page.
And we wonder if the feminine figure in black trousers, high-heel shoes and floppy dark blue hat is Paul Robinson, England’s “ROOBISH” goalkeeper.
(“No, no, no, no, no!…” pleads the caption beneath the third of three shots of England’s calamitous goalkeeper trying in vain to kick a moving football.)
We look at the picture of this mystery person once more. And with life running short, we turn the pages and see that the woman is none other than “oddball” Michael Jackson. It’s the “pop weirdo” in a “bizarre outfit”.
A passer-by who spotted Jackson walking in St Tropez tells us: “His physique has completely changed. He was wearing tight jeans and had a curvy bottom and thighs.”
While women try to see what make Jackson’s jeans are and wonder if the trousers can do for them what they have done for Jackson, the Mirror looks on.
Its front page is a “SHOWBIX EXCLUSIVE”, and alongside the same shot as the Sun’s lead picture, albeit larger, the Mirror asks: “SEX SWAP JACKO?”
There are “MORE AMAZING PICTURES INSIDE”. And within the paper, beneath the legend “WACKY JACKIE”, we see another picture of the star in a hat and three pictures of him in the company of a young female friend (the Mail says this is one of Jackson’s three children).
And we read all about it. “The leggy creature in figure-hugging jeans, green blouse and high-heels drew plenty of admiring glances as she strolled along,” writes the paper.
But the face is spotted and “men who had been eyeing ‘her’ feminine curves seconds earlier were horrified to find themselves ogling Michael Jackson”.
Horrified? Why? Because they had been leering at a man? Or because they’d been perving at Michael Jackson?
Whatever the reason for the horror, we remind these men that we are living in enlightened times, and as our patron Old Mr Anorak (now away coaching the Thai Ladies’ ping-pong team at their winter training camp) often says: “Boy – that was no lady?”
Oranges For Lemons
“THEY’RE TAKING THE PITH,” screams the Star’s front page. The Government has gone bananas”. It’s “Nanny State madness”. The Government wants “fatties” to eat “scary food…such as peppers and berries.”
And melons, two of which are held by a fruity mod-el. Funnily enough, this blonde is called Malene, which sounds a bit like what would happen if your crossed a pair of melons with a tangerine.
Malene is upset at the Government’s nannying, and shows us that when it comes to eating fruit, she can teach us all we need to know.
Here’s Malene dressed in a bikini to peel and eat a banana. Now she’s squeezing an orange into her mouth. Careful the juice doesn’t spill down your chest, Malene. Not that it will stain her clothes.
And when it comes to eating grapes, Malene is joined by the able-bodied Claire, who gets in very close to pick up any tips, and perhaps the occasional stray pips.
Over the in the Mail, there is no such sage advice. But in a piece telling us that we are the fattest country in Europe, the Mail introduces its own fruity babe, one Caroline Flint.
There’s no picture of Caroline, the minister for fitness (?), but it’s not too hard to imagine her dressed in a bikini to tell us: “People can’t afford to take a risk with food they’ve never seen before in case their children won’t eat it when they get home.”
So she’s teamed up with supermarkets to teach the fat, stupid and docile Britons that a kiwi fruit is not an object of fear but a fruit you can eat.
Caroline goes on: “If they can be shown how to prepare it in the supermarket, and their children like it, then they know it won’t be money down the drain.”
So to go with the weekly trawl around the supermarket, the obese will be invited to pop over to see a Government–sponsored fruit carve open a “lemon” or even a “gooseberry”.
The great unwashed will then more fully understand what is meant by a “pear-shaped figure”, “orange-peel thighs” and how to not give a flying “fig” about any of it…
Beyond The Veil
“THE being who opened the door was like nothing I had ever seen. Swathed from head to toe in black cloth, she looked like a huge crow and had a beak or some kind of metal grille in the place where her face should have been.”
So writes the Mail’s Allison Pearson, who recalls the time when working in a primary school she walked home Hatice, a little Muslim girl with “incredible mischief in her eyes”.
It’s a piece entitled “Here’s why the veil so offends me”, and Allison is unlikely to be wearing one any time soon.
It’s impossible that Allison will not be the only person, or being, offended by reading her input into the veil debate.
And while Mail readers worry about Muslim punks, and farmers wonder if burkas can scare not only a strand of the British population but also crows, the Star hears another writer’s foray into the veil debate.
It’s Salman Rushdie, the man who introduced the term “fatwa” and “naughty but nice” to the greater British consciousness. Alongside a picture of Salman’s wife dressed in a belly-dancer’s two-piece (“Well would YOU want her to cover up?”), the paper hears Salman say that the Muslim veil “sucks”.
“RUSHDIE: VEIL SUCKS,” says the Sun’s front page. The Mail says the “row” over British Muslim women wearing veils “deepened” when Rushdie appeared on Radio 4.
Referring to Jack Straw’s comments, Rushdie says: “He was expressing an important opinion which is that veils suck – which they do.”
He goes on: “Speaking as somebody with three sisters and a very largely female Muslim family, there is not a single woman I know in my family or in their friends who would have accepted the wearing of a veil.”
So not all Muslim women wear the veil, although if the role demanded it than surely Salman’s wife Padma Lakshmi, billed on her website as “the first internationally successful Indian supermodel” and an actress, would put one on.
And not all Muslim men want Muslim women to wear the veil. Which would suggest that this “row” has been going on for longer than Jack Straw has been involved. And it will continue after the tabloids have done with it…
Posted: 11th, October 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
X Ratings
MOVE over Pete Doherty, or just loll the other way, there’s a new cocaine crackpot tearing up the British music scene.
It’s not Justin Hawkins, The Darkness’ frontman, who tells the Sun that he’s spent £150,000 in three years on cocaine. “I became secretive, volatile and verbally abusive, a really unpleasant person to be around.” And at 31-years of age, Justin is no teenager.
No, the new rock ‘n’ roller is Ben Mills. You know Ben? Course you do. Tall-ish. White teeth. Ten fingers. Possibly ten toes.
If you don’t know Ben, you haven’t been watching the X Factor TV show, the event that gives the Mirror a headline each and every day.
Today, the Mirror’s front page is: “I AM COCAINE ADDICT. X FACTOR BEN’S DRUG SHOCKER.”
It is indeed a shock to read of Ben on the front page. But there it is. And inside the paper, we hear Ben (“I WAS ON COCAINE..BUT I’VE CRACKED IT NOW”) admit to having taken ecstasy, cannabis, speed and acid. He also used to snort cocaine up to three times a week.
But not any more. Says Ben: “Rock and roll and the drugs that came with it are my past – but singing is my big passion in life and X Factor is my future.”
Ben, company Director of a marquee company (claim to fame: “putting a marquee up for Jools Holland”), should note that X Factor runs for something less than four score years and ten, and unless he plans to exit early in true rock ‘n’ roll style, his life could be a disappointment.
But, in any case, the X Factor is more than just drugs. As the Sun reports, wannabe star Jermaine Sanderson’s dad has served jail time for manslaughter.
“X FACTOR STAR’S DAD WAS KILLER,” says the headline. It’s “Jermaine’s manslaughter heartache.”
And so it is that a contest that began as a karaoke sing-off is now an insight into so much more. Do we vote for the good boy of a bad man or the reformed druggie?
Or is the winner the performer who gets the most headlines?
Madonna’ Baby David
IT was a long search but after a gruelling selection process Madonna has adopted a year-old child.
He is, as the Sun’s front page announces, “MADONNA’S RAY OF LIGHT.”
Ever since America became fresh out of orphans, would-be parents have been forced to look further a field for new family members.
It had been hoped that Madonna would take on a British child. For some weeks now, girls and boys with chimney soot on their faces have been hooking their fingers into their homemade belts and braces and striding to and fro past Madonna’s London townhouse hoping to be spotted and chosen.
But it was not to be. And the Sun reports that Madonna has selected an African child. Her face “beams with joy” as she carries the tot in a papoose on her back.
Dressed from head to toe in colonial white, Madonna has gone native. No buggies for her lad. “The babies move to the sway of their mothers’ hips, synchronized throughout the day, bending with them as they collect water or sweep the floor and rising again when the women stop to rest,” writes the San Francisco Chronicle of African mothers, like Madonna.
As Madonna dips to collect water in the local supermarket or river, her new child dips. As she twists to look coquettishly over her shoulder, her son twists. The boy rises and falls as Madonna does the splits and performs a downward dog.
With Madonna and child at the authentically African Kumbali country lodge, Malawi (the venue’s website promises: “9 executive rooms, which are enclosed under ethnic thatch, have en-suite bathrooms with both shower and bath. Tea and coffee facilities, TV, Internet”), the Mail also spots David.
Yes, David. It was all looking so promising. After Angelina Jolie’s Maddox and Zahara, we were expecting a more location-themed, Kabbalah-based name, something to make the child stand out, raised up above the ordinary. But instead of Chai, Zohar or Michigan, we get David. It’s baby David.
And he’s not an orphan. Though David’s mother Marita died shortly after childbirth, the boy’s father is alive. And the Sun catches up with David’s father Yohane Banda, who ekes out a living as a potato farmer.
“I’m very happy,” says Yohane, “as you can see there is poverty in my village.” He adds: “I know he will be very happy in America.”
We share Yohane’s hopes. It must be a wrench saying goodbye to first wife and then a son. But we are unsure if David qualifies as an orphan, as the Sun labels him?
Perhaps, like America, there are no orphans left in Africa? And perhaps Madonna, worth £248m, feels that giving Yohane money to raise his boy will break with tradition…
Lady (In Red) Fingers
“I KNOW the tabloids will get excited by this so I try to play it down," says Chris de Burgh.
And we thank him for trying. If there is one thing that we do not need it is Chris de Burgh at full volume. Granted the man is a popular musician, having sold 45million records, but Chris is a dish best served after copious amounts of wine and the best man’s speech.
But even at a whisper, the Mail gets wind of Chris’s claim that he has “heeling hands”.
The Mail was tuned into Gloria Hunniford’s Heaven & Earth show on the BBC. Says Chris: “I have found myself able to cure people with my hands.
“I met someone in the West Indies who was not able to walk. I put my hands on him and he was able to get up.” Eat yer heart out Simon Cowell.
But Chris wants us to know that we can all do it. “I have to stress that I think we all have this facility,” says Chris.
Perhaps. But perhaps, like so much in life, we can all do it but some of us can do it better than others. We can all sing Chris’s hit Lady In Red, but not all of us should.
Terry Sanderson, of the National Secular Society, says Chris is “deluded”. A Dr Shawn Treweek, from the charity Sense About Science, sees “a more worrying potential for harm if it means that people with serious injury will want to see him rather than a doctor.”
Of course, you might have more chance of seeing Chris than a doctor…
Simon Commands
“SIMON FIXED IT FOR ME,” says the front page of the Star.
Now then, now then what do we have here? Simon Cowell has fixed it for someone to walk again.
It’s a miracle!
Or at least it will be when X Factor agonist Kerry McGregor casts off her wheel chair, stands up and in the live final of the TV talent show and belts out a rendition of Stand By Me, These Boots Were Made For Walking or Against All Odds.
And if she does it will be all thanks to Simon. It’s more front-page telly news as the Star says Kerry will cast off her wheelchair and be carried onto the stage in the manner of Cleopatra or else sing on a couch.
Yes, sad to say Simon Cowell will not so much fix it as make it look like he’s fixed it. News is – and someone please tell Simon – that the popstar maker is not God after all.,,
Countdown To Armageddon
WHEN Richard Whitely took one from the top and the big Countdown Clock called time on his career, Des Lynam slipped his feet into some Comfi Slippers and took over the slightly warm seat.
Des realised, correctly, that he did not have to shine or sparkle on the show, merely be a little more alive than the moribund, the students, the drugged, the journalists and the institutionalised who watch the show.
But now Des is leaving. And the Mirror uses its front page to ask: “Who will be Carol’s new Countdown conundrum?”
For those of you with lives, cable telly or no telly, the last round of the world puzzle show features a nine-letter conundrum. And it also features Carol Vorderman, 45, who when she’s not flogging debt consolidation packages does sums.
The Mirror has narrowed the choice down so it is now between any middle-aged man who has ever appeared on TV. But the clear favourite must be Gyles Brandreth, whose surname is nine letters long. For Countdown purists this is all.
With that solved, you might now be wondering why such a parochial event as selecting the next Countdown sandman should be deemed front-page news. The simple answer is that telly is all important; it is the yardstick by which we measure the world and ourselves.
Just look at the Sun’s front page, which brings the nuclear tests in North Korea into the telly fold. The paper’s headline asks: “How do you solve a problem like Korea?” This is a twist on the BBC’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, the show in which pretty-ish, talented-ish performers competed to be the star of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sound of Music.
(The clear answer to Maria’s problem was to hand her over to the Nazis and so give us and the hills soem peace.)
More telly references are provided by the Sun’s caricature of North Korea’s resident loon-in-chief Kim Jong-il as a puppet. The Sun tells us that the puppet is from the cult puppet movie Team America.
So you see how television is all things to all people. Indeed, if the United Nations and whoever else likes to pretend they are in charge of world affairs can shape questions into the form of nine-letter conundrums, Countdown can set about solving them.
How do you solve a problem like Korea? PODILMACY? Or how about with some LICEBRETY?
