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.
A Law Unto Himself
JUDE Law is talking. He’s telling us about his relationship with the nanny and how he came to split with Sienna Miller.
“Man sleeps with nanny” is not an original story. And in keeping with the clichéd theme Jude says: “You have to take it on the chin and learn somehow to hold your head up high and face up to it.”
Indeed. And Jude may care to add that you have to look it in the eye, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and realise that two birds in the hand can spoil the broth.
“You can’t spend your life apologising,” says Jude. “You can hold you hands up and say ‘I fucked up’. You can do everything in your power to make your pain better.”
He says “the cards are settling” in his life. “He’s learnt to be more “bulletproof”.
He goes on: “I see myself for what I am – a dad and an actor. These are two very harsh big truths.”
We’re sure Jude’s children will love knowing that their father considers it a “harsh truth” to be their dad.
And how dad and the nanny, one Daisy Wright, had sex on a pool table.
More clichés to follow…
Jack The Bad
JADE Goody doesn’t live on a council estate. At least not any more. Jade lives in a four-bedroom house in Ongar, Essex.
But still the Sun spots Jade popping to the shops for a sliced loaf and a tin of beans. You can take the girl out of the estate but you can’t take the hydrogenated fats out of the girl.
But Jade is not thinking straight. The Big Brother product is upset at seeing photos of her live-in-lover Jack Tweedy, 18, in bed with a naked blonde.
The Sun says it is to thank for exposing “love rat” Tweedy, having shown Jade pictures of her man with this other woman.
Jade saw the pictures and reacted badly. “Is she wearing a bra?” she asked Jack. “She’s on top of you! What are you gonna says to that, Jack?” Jack thought about it. Thought some more. And replied: “I was drunk.”
And now the police are on their way. Jack has called them. But they do not stay long. It’s all been a mistake. And to prove it, her paper produces a shot of a forlorn looking Jack sporting a scratched cheek.
And Jade wants to know who the unnamed women is. A source says: “She suspects she knows who it is but she wants to be sure. If she ever finds out, that woman had best run for cover.”
But who says it is a woman? We only see the back of a head of blond-ish hair and some bare back. Might it be a man? And might it be Jamie Oliver?
We are sure it isn’t but to be on the safe side, and escape Jade’s wrath, Jamie should think about running while he can. Run, Jamie! Run! And don’t stop running…
Jamie Oliver – Young Conservative
JAMIE OLIVER is getting ready to speak. The would–be Young Conservative is talking about family matters.
In conversation with Good Housekeeping magazine, a chat picked up by the Mail, Jamie says: “As far as holding a family or a nation’s food culture together, it’s always been women.” Until the Second World War. “Women went to work and stayed in work,” says Jamie, now wearing his historical chef’s hat. “To my mind that’s why we’ve lost our food culture.”
Who would have thought that the murderous loon Adolf Hitler and his evil regime would enable women to escape the kitchen and carve out lives for themselves as models, TV presenters and writers of books on mothering, like Jamie’s wife Jools?
Because of Hitler we have women working, ready meals and, very possibly, McDonald’s.
But while we await Jamie’s historical tome “Hitler & The Death Of The Jam Roly Poly”, we note that he has also been in conversation with Jonathan Ross.
In “WOSSY TALKS OUT OF HIS RS”, the Sun focuses on the TV chat show host. On the subject of Jamie’s school dinners project, says Ross: “Part of the problem then would be education of some parents.” He adds: “Do you think we should put something in the water to stop some people having children in the future?”
Oliver: What, you mean like lead.
Ross: You know the kind of people I’m taking about. Council estates.
In the Star, this is “Wossy’s rant at estate kids”. “It’s downright disrespectful,” says one viewer. And the Sun is besieged by “furious readers”. Joe from Birmingham tells the paper: “It’s downright disrespectful.”
And Anorak’s in-house benefits claimant finishes pouring coke into her baby’s bottle, and says: “It’s downright disrespectful.”
And so it is. Council estates! Or “f****** council estates”, as Jamie may be wont to say, skilfully using language that people who live in such places can comprehend. Pah! That Hitler has much to answer for…
The Slow Motion Tour
JUST one week into his world tour, and George Michael has made it about a mile from his Highgate home.
“GEORGE IN 999 DOPE DASH,” announces the front page of the Sun. “Singer slumped at wheel again.”
We join the Sun at the junction of Cricklewood Lane and Hendon Way, North London, a busy thoroughfare.
At his current rate of progress, George might not make it to Milan for his performance this Thursday. But it is thought he is on schedule to arrive in Wembley, North London, in time for his November show. Good luck with that, George.
But right now he’s not going anywhere. George is sat at the traffic lights. Look at them. Here’s a green one. Then an orange one. Now a red one. Then orange. Green. Red. Orange. Green. And so on. It’s just so awesome.
It’s just after 3.20am and an eyewitness explains what they see. “An officer saw George slumped in his seat in a semi-conscious state,” says the source. “He was helped out of the car and an ambulance was called because there were real concerns for him.”
Police discovered a small quantity of cannabis at the scene and, having taken George to a hospital in Hampstead for checks, arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs.
“George 3am drink and drugs bust,” says the Mirror’s front page, illustrating the story with a file picture of startled George caught in the headlights. “COPS RUSH HIM TO HOSPITAL AFTER HE COLLAPSES IN CAR.”
We learn that he failed a breath test, and hear a source say: “There was concern a mix of drugs and alcohol may have had a bad effect on him.”
This is, as the Star reports, George’s fourth “nightmare” driving incident. Although it is believed that he had less a nightmare than ruby dreams…
Gorilla Roasts Jamie Oliver
IT’S the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and the papers have the pictures.
But we’ve seen them all before. Back in the Victorian era when everyone was a collector of animal pelts, heads and skins, when no home was complete without a dried swordfish blade in the trophy room, such pictures would have been exciting.
But a picture of a leopard looking at the camera is not exotic. Neither are the Express’s shots of a turtle or an eagle.
The exotic has become the mundane. We’ve seen these things before. Perhaps if the baby gorilla was being roasted by Rwanda’s answer to Jamie Oliver, we’d be more interested. Or, better yet, if the gorilla was roasting Jamie Oliver.
But the Sun isn’t concerned. It also shows its readers the animal snapshots. Look there’s that leopard looking into the camera. And that huge, great thing is an elephant.
And it doesn’t get any more thrilling in the Mirror. It’s the “awesome and sometimes savage beauty of nature”, as the Mirror says, carefully using words that reflect the hackneyed pictures.
We want something more. Something to excite us. And the Mail has it.
It’s “CHINA’S CRUELTY OLYMPICS”, says the headline. And the Mail is appalled. Look at the boxing kangaroo. Isn’t it awful. And the monkey riding a bicycle. Terrible
It’s “sickening” says the Mail. The pictures seem “barbaric” to we British animal lovers. The Shanghai Animal Olympics, now in its fourth year, would never happen here.
It’s “degrading” to the animals says a spokesman for Born Free. It’s about “domination and manipulation”.
It’s just too dreadful. And not the kind of things we expect from our wild animal life. Bring back the shots of that cuddly leopard. That brainy elephant. The lion ripping the hind legs off a struggling zebra. You know, the stuff, we like…
Little Tom Cruise
TOM Cruise is short.
He’s “Tiny Tom” in the Mirror. He’s a real-life Tom Thumb. Look at his little legs. His little fingers. His little feet.
Randy Newman was right, as ever. Tom’s got “little baby legs that stand so low you got to pick ’em up just to say hello”.
It’s not easy to understand short people, what with their little voices and little minds. So the Mail taps Tom on the head, ruffles his hair and says: “Can you hear me up there, Katie? Wear flat shoes!!!”
And we see Tom’s point. Not only is Tom short, but he is shorter then his lover, the taller Katie Holmes. And to make the difference in height all the clearer, Katie has chosen to wear heels for a night out with her little man.
Viewed from the back, Tom and Katie resemble a boy out with his mum, or big sister. It’s not Tom who is older than Katie, it’s the other way around.
But still, she is 5ft 9in and Tom is just 5ft 7in. And if anyone is going to wear 4in heels it should to Tom.
But looking down to his little feet, we see that his little shoes have only little heels.
Which means he has to confront headlines like: “Katie makes Top Gun star look a titch” (Mirror) and “It’s Tom Thumb” (Star).
Poor Tom. But there is hope. Perhaps he can be beamed up?
Hamming It Up
RICHARD Hammond is not dead. The TV presenter who crashed while trying to drive a car from Yorkshire to Australia the hard way is very much alive.
Hammond looks healthy enough as he sits on a trolley, ready to make a helicopter ride to a hospital closer to his Gloucestershire home.
The Express leads with a picture of Hammond going one better and making it to his feet. And the Mail’s front page talks of a “Smile that says Top Gear star is on the road to recovery”.
“The Hamster laughs,” says a headline one page in. And he’s got a joke. Beneath the splash “HAMSTER: FIRST PICTURE”, the Sun has Hammond, back on that trolley, asking “CAN’T THIS THING GO ANY FASTER?”
It’s all fun and games, and the impression is that things are just fine. The injuries only hurt when Hammond laughs. He gives a “cheeky wave”. The Star says he had the paramedics “in stitches with his quips”. The paper hears helicopter pilot Steve Cobb tell Hammond: “Last time I saw you I thought you were dead!” The humour is as infectious as MRSA.
But surely this is no joking matter. Hammond had a bit of his hair shaved off and a hole drilled in his head. It is not only Hammond’s co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson whose head is an area of special scientific interest.
The Mail hears neurosurgeon Stuart Rose say the recovery will be “slow and difficult”. It will take six months.
But this information is buried in the text, far away from the pictures of smiling happy faces. Surely there is a risk that others will see Hammond and laugh in the face of danger.
And our fears are not salved when we read that Jude Law has crashed his top-of-the-range Audi. We learn that the day after his accident, Jude experienced neck pain and was heard telling friends he was going to get girlfriend Sienna Miller to give him a massage.
And get a load of Noel Edmonds. Perhaps sensing his chance to take Hammond’s place on Top Gear, Noel thinks the time is ripe to tell us that he once drove his car at 186mph.
It was 20 years ago and Edmonds was on the Tring bypass in a Ford GT40. “I remember arriving at the roundabout horrendously fast,” says Noel. “I almost didn’t stop.”
But Edmonds did stop. And now he adds his name to a growing list of celebrities who have driven cars and experienced rare drama. And found themselves in the papers.
Court In The Act
“HOW can His Honour, unmasked in the sex, drugs and blackmail trial of his illegal-immigrant cleaner, keep his job…deciding immigration cases?”
That is what’s known as a rhetorical question, as the answer clearly lies in Judge Mohammed Ilyas Khan’s association with sex, drugs and the Mail’s front-page headline: “SHAMING OF A JUDGE.” And inside the Mail, there is talk of “home-made sex videos, cocaine, X-rated emails, adultery, a love triangle and ‘hot chilli stuff’…”
(In an email sent from Judge Khan to one Roselane Driza, and read aloud to an amused court, he wrote: “Anyway you are really chilli hot stuff and I love you very much.” He also called her a lovely shag.)
And we ask the Mail’s question in a spirit of genuine enquiry. If any readers care to make a fist at solving this problem we would like to hear from you. Although first you may care to be furnished with the facts, such as they are.
To begin at the end, Brazilian-born Driza is looking at a “substantial” jail sentence for her part in a plot to blackmail 60-year-old Judge Khan (Judge K).
He employed Driza while she was working here illegally. So too did Judge J, K’s ex-lover.
For added interest, Judge J was at the time of her relationship with Judge K seeing a Judge N. And that’s the Judge J who, as reported, appears with Judge K in a “blue movie” while “apparently high on drugs”.
And then there’s Driza’s ex-husband, Mane Driza. Although not involved in this case, the Mirror (“MARRIED TO THE MOB”) profiles the Albanian wanted in connection with the killing of his countryman Mone Bledar in London in 1999. It should not be hard to locate Mane because he is currently residing in a Sicilian jail, having been found guilty of murdering another two Albanians.
Back to the main plot. And Judge J sacks Driza. The cleaner, still sleeping with Judge K, who is also sleeping with Judge J, finds two tapes of Judge K sleeping with two different women, one an unnamed younger blonde, the other Judge J.
Driza writes a note to Jude J: “If you are prepared to compensate me for any loss of earnings and monies owed to me for holidays etc. I would be prepared to drop the case.” She is looking for £20,000. Driza also claims that Judge J knew she was working in Britain illegally.
Judge K and Judge J go to the police. And now you can read all about it on the Sun’s front page and beneath the headline: “TAKE ‘EM DOWN – Exposed: The Judge who bedded Brazilian cleaner.”
And there you have it. You are now free to deliberate the matter and return with an answer to our question: should Judge K be allowed to keep his job?
Answers in a plain brown envelope, and in code, to the usual address…
Adora Infinitum
GET ready for Adora – you’ll just adore her.
The Mirror profiles Adora the mind explora, the “WORLD’S CLEVEREST KID”.
Excuse our rhymes, but we’ve been learning to read with Adora.
Adora’s achievements are summed up in headline form. Here goes: “Adora Svitak likes French philosophy, reads three novels a day, has written 400 short stories and champions feminism and world peace. She is 8.”
She’s got a website. On it, she describes herself as “writer, poet and humanitarian”. The young American has appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America and Montel Williams’s radio show.
She’s written a book. It’s called Flying Fingers, a collection of short stories. And wishing to share her knowledge with other children, and adults, the book also features advice on how others can be writers just like her. Adora – we adore yer.
Of course, other children may be too busy playing with their friends, using their fast fingers to turn skipping ropes and pick their noses to read Adora’s guide to being like Adora.
But no matter. Armani and Brad can always read Adora’s next book. As she says: “I’m writing a political satire about him [George Bush] at the moment, actually. It’s called Yang in Disguise.”
But home-educated Adora is not all about books. That would make her appear dull and odd. Adora is on a mission: “If I had my way I’d end all wars and poverty.” Not that you can always get your own way.
Wasn’t it Plato who said: “You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters”?
Adora would know if it was. Her dad, John, read her Plato before she was old enough to read herself.
As Adora may have heard: “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
And just as soon as Adora has written How To Play With Other Children And Be Popular, we’ll get it for yer…
Off Yer Bike
USUALLY it takes time for a newspaper campaign to achieve results.
The Sun’s anti-global warming campaign has yet to refreeze the melting icecaps, and the Mirror’s campaign to get a picture of Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan on every page is only nearly there.
But the Mail has achieved results in quick time. It can report that just two days on from its expose into the crazy world of Viscount Linley, it is victorious.
The Queen’s nephew has removed his daughter from the parcel shelf at the rear of his foldaway push bike and made her walk to school.
“Good lord!” says the paper. “…look who’s decided it’s safer if you walk to school.”
But what with newspapers being competitive beasts, the Mirror makes no mention of the Mail’s part in this. It prefers to attribute the un-biking of Linley to his “angry wife”.
As a pal tells the paper: “Serena made it clear to David she thought it was irresponsible to put their daughter in such danger.”
For sure. And while we wonder if Serena Linley reads the Mail with her breakfast muffin, we note that Linley still disappoints certain sections of the Mail’s readership.
And we await the paper’s next campaign – to get our royals off the street and back in a horse-drawn gold carriage where they belong…
The Needle & The Record
“PETE BUYS 2 SYRINGES AT CHEMIST.”
Another day and another Pete Doherty story in the Sun. And we read that Pete has written a terrifically catchy tune – it promises to do for syringes what Rolf Harris did for Two Little Boys, and then some.
But the Sun is unimpressed. The paper’s Victoria Newton says Pete “sneaked out” of his Dublin hotel to buy his “secret package”.
“At 12.05 he walked into Health Express chemist in Millennium Ways, Dublin, on his own.”
You may have seen him. He was, as Victoria tells us, wearing a “scruffy white T-shirt and black suit”. When he left the chemist he had the bag of needles in “his top pocket”.
For reasons of identification, the Sun produces a shot of the bloated shopper sitting in the back of car, the colour and make of which is not reported, although the interior is grey.
But when Pete is not shopping, he is receiving therapy. And his name is doing wonders for The Priory. The Sun reports that Pete’s fans have been checking in to the exclusive celebrity club in the hope of seeing their idol.
The source says: “The girls turn up complaining of suffering from anxiety and start asking about Pete.
“Pete has even visited some of the girls and helped them write poems… They think being in rehab is cool…it’s not.”
Of course it is not. Sure they can hang out with pop stars – Pete was in the clinic at the same time as Justin Hawkins (The Darkness) and Tom Chaplin (Keane).
And, granted, you can read about the stars’ battles with drugs and drink in the papers. But therapy is not cool. Even if the Mirror hears Pete say: “My new addiction is rehab.”
Better he stick to collecting syringes…
Sienna Cuts It
SIENNA Miller is at it again.
Being blonde is what Sienna does so very well, and today she is being blonde on the cover of the Express.
Inside the paper, Sienna is still being blonde. And what’s more, she’s wearing a dress.
But what’s this? A wardrobe malfunction? No shots of Sienna’s nipples are forthcoming (you have to search the internet for those). All we get is a big tear in the side of Sienna’s latest gown.
Sienna is on the red carpet in New York for the opening of the Puccini Opera Madam Butterfly, or a bag of crisps – or chips as our American cousins call them.
But horror struck. The dress tore. Who makes this flimsy rubbish, we ask?
The Express checks the label on the silk and organza teabag and sees a brand owned by Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman, who just happens to be the lover of Harvey Weinstein, controller of the Miramax film company.
This link between fashion and film makes us wonder if Sienna’s clothes are not real clothes at all but stage clothes. That’s no rip, just a break in the Velcro. And any second Sienna will strip off her outfit to rapturous applause, revealing another outfit beneath.
The performance will only end when Sienna is naked or someone shouts: “Cut!”
It’s Christmas Time
“EVERY day is Christmas,” says the Express.
And so it is. Every day we fail to get what we really want, binge drink and wonder if it’s going to snow.
And over in St Austell, locals can look to the heavens and see “MERRY CHRISTMAS” written in the sky.
They can see stars, like the one that guided the three wise Santas to little Jermaine’s table all those years ago.
And the Christmas spirit is filling the people’s hearts with glee. “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” says grocery shop worker Shirley Johnston. “It makes St Austell look like a laughing stock.”
It is a certainly a place to put a cheer in even the stoniest heart. “A lot of residents won’t be happy about it,” says one local, joyously. “Summer hasn’t even ended.”
And it’s all thanks to one man. No, not Jesus. Not even Santa. It’s Chamber of Commerce chairman Paul Scott. He says that the decorations had to go up because the building where they were being stored is about to be demolished.
With nowhere else to put the lights, the decision was made to tie them to lampposts and place them on high. “As Chairman Scott explains: “They’re not doing anyone any harm. It saves you a job later, when the weather is more inclement.”
It’s too true. And we wonder about the dangers of playing with electricity when the winds are high and the pavements slippery with ice.
It is surely time to move Christmas to the warmer and wetter summer months. And while organising that, it might be an idea to get the gritting trucks out.
Kate Moss’s White Stuff
WHAT’S that under Kate Moss’s nose?
It’s the questions everyone is asking, including the Sun, which wonders: “What’s got up Kate’s nose?”
To aid readers not trained in the finer points of nostril identification, the Sun shows a picture of Kate and uses a black arrow to lead the uncertain to her nose, and then up it.
And looking on, the Sun tells us that while watching her lover, Pete Doherty, perform, Kate sported a smattering of “mystery white blobs up her nose”.
And the questions begin. What is it? The Sun hears “fans” suggest that it could be “talc”, “zitcream” or “toothpaste”.
Whatever it is, it is not cocaine. As the Sun says: “Of course, there’s no suggestion that Kate, who went into rehab after being filmed hoovering up cocaine, took drugs at the gig.”
Indeed not. And we would like to add that we have not seen any footage of Kate hoovering so much as a small mat, much less a line of cocaine.
But, like cocaine, mud sticks. And the Star says “MOSS IS A MESS”. It says while at the gig in Ireland, Kate seemed “overwhelmed by the music, atmosphere and beer”.
She gave the show a “boozy karaoke feel” by joining Pete on stage, holding a microphone just below her nose. And was spotted by the Mirror, which hears a fan say that Kate looked “sensational – and she sounded great”.
That’s the same Kate who, according to the Express’ fan in the know, “certainly didn’t look like a supermodel”, what with her “blotchy” skin.
And with her cigarette, which was smoked in a flagrant breach of Ireland’s stiff anti-smoking laws. As the Express, says, this leaves them open to prosecution.
It might be an idea to destroy the evidence. And Kate can start by snorting the ash…
Rogarian Dawn
“ON the day 30 citizens of Bulgaria and Romania were given the right to come to Britain, this was the queue for visas in Bucharest.”
So says the Mail’s front page. And sure enough there is a picture of a number of Rogarians forming a disorderly line somewhere.
But before you start counting heads – we estimate there to be no more than 50 – the Mail invites its readers to turn inside the paper, where they read: “Thousands join queue for a new life here.”
Thousands? Where? Are these Rogarians typically two-feet high and lost among the legs of their taller countrymen?
Or are we being shown a skewed image? Like those shots of angry men in dusty Middle-Eastern marketplaces burning the Union flag, can we mentally pan back and see them in isolation, a small knot of loons in an everyday scene. While the flag burns and Gaza ignites, the locals go about their business not looking at the men burning things in public, the Palestinian equivalent of shouting at pigeons.
But before we can draw our own conclusions, the Mail tells us what’s what. It senses a “stampede for passports to a new life in Britain”. Our borders have been “thrown open to Bulgaria and Romania”.
The Rogarians aren’t hiding, they’re massed high on the ridge. It’s Rogarian Dawn. You can hear the regular thump of rubber stamp on passport.
“Thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians get green light to invade Britain,” says the Express’s front page. “60,000 could quit Romania,” says the Express. “Guess where they will go?”
Spain? Greece? Israel? No, says the Express. They are coming to Blighty. And so keen are they to blend in, nay infiltrate, that one of them is wearing an England football top and a white baseball cap. He’s a Romanian chav.
Could it get worse? We’ll know soon enough. “SEE YOU IN JANUARY,” says the Sun’s headline above a picture of as many as nine Romanians standing in a “long queue” to Britain…
Posted: 27th, September 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
House Plants
IS it clemaytis or clematis?
It’s the kind of thorny debate the Mail think nothing of addressing. And it very probably lies at the heart of the paper’s story on how a “rampant clematis proves the final straw” in a dispute between Brenda Hart (clematis owner) and her neighbour Nicholas Turner.
Turner’s friend Clive Senior was filmed by Mrs Hart breaking off a part of said clematis and taken to court. Senior was found guilty of criminal damage and given a £100 fine with a 12-month conditional discharge.
This is the news. But it lacks the vital element – is it clemaytis and clematis? Sadly, the magistrate’s summing up is not available via a podcast and Mail readers are left in the dark.
And surely there will be more rows like the one between Mrs Hart, 55 – she is alleged to have responded to 22-year-old Mr Turner’s complaint about her clematis with the phrase: “It’s my ******g garden and I’ll have whatever I want.”
If Mrs Hart wants to carve her clematis into the form of an aroused mule or a huge “V” sign, she can. Topiary is all the rage. And the Mail has responded to popular demand and given over two pages to hedge cutting.
“Coo!” says the caption alongside a shot of Alan Webb’s six-feet tall dove bush. “Tally ho!” to David Edwards’s life-size horse in a hunting scene tableau. “Oh dear” it’s Colin Hayward’s deer-shaped pyracantha.
But if that’s not your thing, you can always take your garden indoors. In a day for green-fingered news, the Mail introduces its readers to the “Suburban pot farm”.
And “how to tell if one opens in your street.” Look out for South-East Asian crime syndicates operating in the cul-de-sac.
Is a neighbour’s house making your close smell of potpourri? Is you neighbour looking flush with cash – “a domestic factory can produce £500,000 of drugs a year but cost as little as £20,000 to set up.”
If the answer to those questions is “no” then this is your chance to cash in. And the Mail helpfully produces five key points in how to set up your own cash crop.
Advice centres on how to obtain “free” electricity, keeping the place hot and stopping intruders from peeking in (the Mail advocates the use of “curtains”).
Now all that remains is for you to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your toil. And debate into the small hours whether its clemaytis or clematis…
Out For The Viscount
“IT is for a single adult cyclist,” says Richard Cross, operations director for Strida UK Ltd.
“The bike rack is not deigned for carrying anything more than a folded up jacket, a small box or a light bag. It is certainly not to carry a child.”
We could go on to add that the bike rack aboard the Strida foldaway bike (RRP £219.95) could carry a folded up pair of Comfi Slax, an ironed pink shirt and a pressed copy to the Daily Express.
But as we muse on the multiple benefits of this bike – which for another £85 can be equipped with mud flaps, folding pedals and a “fancy saddle” – we become too shocked to think.
“That’s lunacy, Linley,” says the Express’s headline. “With his four-year-old daughter clinging precariously to his coat, crazy royal pedals to school through London traffic.”
This madcap royal is Viscount Lindley, carpenter to plutocrats and fellow bluebloods. The daughter is Margarita Elizabeth Rose Alleyne Armstrong-Jones. And the pair, and their bike, are on their way through Chelsea to Margarita Elizabeth Rose’s etc. school.
He’s “VISCOUNT LOONY (Mirror). He’s the “reckless royal”. Margarita Elizabeth etc. “is left dangling just inches from the road” as her dad pedals onwards.
Roger Vincent, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accident, says “the child could easily fall off…she could be run over”.
He’s not wrong. And while Roger sees a steam roller trundling forwards and Margarita Lizzy etc. trying to pull her little foot free from a patch of newly laid Tarmac, the Mail sticks up for her dad.
“Just because a child is born into the Royal Family, it doesn’t mean she has to be mollycoddled,” says the Mail.
Indeed. And, in any case, a passer-by tells the paper, “I could hear him saying to his daughter, ‘Hold on tightly, hold on tightly’ all the way.”
All is well. And the Mail hears Linley’s spokesman say: “This is a short-term measure until he gets a new bicycle.” And a new machine is on order. It’s a Pashley Sovereign bicycle.
Made entirely from wood from sustainable forests, the Pashley boasts a larger rack and a sturdy wicker front basket.
Avalable in “regency green” the Pashley comes with hand-lined enamelled mudguards, tyre driven dynamo lighting, skirtguards – and a “ding-dong” bell.
It’s just the thing…
It’s A Craic-er
“SO WHAT ARE THEY UP TO?” asks the Mirror on its front page, the question hanging beside a picture of Pete Doherty and Kate Moss in a clinch.
Inside the paper, we get to find out. And, as that lead picture suggests, Pete and Kate are clinching. Or frisking.
When they disengage, the Mirror’s man on the spot take another shot and captures Kate gazing up at Pete’s “ugly shiner”.
We don’t hear how Pete got his bruise. And while we guess, the Stars spots “BLACKEYED PETE” checking out of The Priory clinic and being driven over to Kate’s house.
And then the happy couple are off to Heathrow Airport, where they catch a jet to Ireland. But the Mirror is concerned. Says it: “Let’s hope the singer’s not going to Ireland just because he’s heard it’s a great place for the craic.”
That’s a joke – although not a craic-er.
Music To Watch The Crash Go By
THE good news is that a cheque for £250 is on its way to Richard Hammond.
TV outtake shows pay good money for videos of bloopers and burps, and it’s good to know that something positive can come of the Top Gear presenter’s accident.
Richard’s crash will slot in neatly between shots of grandma getting her wig caught in an electric saw and a drunk wedding guest falling hard and hilariously on his spine as he break dances to The Lady In Red.
And do not doubt that Richard’s crash will be shown on the magic box. As the Star’s front page says – “SHOW MY CRASH ON TV” – it’s the injured party’s wish.
Indeed, keen news followers will hear echoes of another TV presenter’s tragic mishap. And we recall the Star’s headline in honour of Steve Irwin. It went: “Show my death on TV.”
Richard is not dead. But he still wants the world to see him almost achieve a death like state as he hurtles along at 300mph in a jet-propelled car.
And it’s hard to deny that we would want to see it. Hammond’s survival makes the crash palatable. And, in truth, who doesn’t watch any kind of car racing without wondering when the next spectacular cash will enliven things?
And what’s more, Richard will talk us through the crash. He’ll present from his hospital bed if it means the Top Gear show will be saved. The Star hears the man at the BBC says the new series of Top Gear will only be broadcast if Richard is well enough to appear on it.
It is a race against time. Can the medics get Richard well? Will the grapes work? Can the Sugababes get to his bedside in time?
Yes, as the Sun reports, the three-girl act has offered to sing to Richard at his bedside.
“If our singing can do any good we’re happy to perform,” says the band’s Keisha. Bandmate Heidi hopes Richard’s two daughters can convince him it’s a good idea. And girl number three Amelle says: “Richard is a cute bloke with a great smile.”
It’s a terrific offer, adding still more celebrity to what was already a star-studded almost fatal injury. An earful of Sugababes to make the medicine go down. And a neat soundtrack to watch that crash by.
A Living ‘Ell
“I’M ready to start living again, says Sir Paul McCartney.
“I’ve been to Hell and now I’m ready to start living again…and I mean living with a capital L.”
So it’s on with the good suit. A dash of dye in the hair. And out to a party with Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow and his daughters Mary and Stella.
So onto the party. An eyewitness sees Paul tapping his feet, and, perchance, wobbling his head. “There were a lot of attractive young women there and a lot of the girls were trying to chat him up,” says an eyewitness.
Is this Paul’s chance to live – Live – again? All is well. But then, as the Mirror says, the subject of Heather Mills McCartney, Lady Mucca, comes up. “He started shaking and there were tears in his eyes,” says a source.
The Mirror looks on as Paul puts on a “brave face” to pose for a picture with his daughters.
And it hears Paul say: “It’s been the most terrible time for me and my family. Having to come to terms with this… It’s been horrible, so horrible. I don’t know how to deal with it.”
But he has already told us, he plans to start living. He wants to have fun. Although wasn’t it the pursuit of Love, Life and Lust that got him into trouble in the first place…
Lindsay Lohan’s Pain
LINDSAY Lohan’s dad has plenty of time on his hands.
And having sent Lindsay a pictorial message, he has now written her a note, which has been delivered to the Sun.
Serving a four-year sentence for drink-driving, attempted assault, aggravated harassment and criminal contempt, Michael Lohan writes: “It pains me to have to write to you like this, but it’s evident that my letters never reach you. My messages never get to you and ‘people’ continue to build walls between us.”
Some of these walls can be found at the Collins Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, where Michael is being kept.
He continues: “I hold you absolutely blameless for all that’s been said and portrayed, as I know it has been under the advice of others, to sway both the court and public opinion.”
Michael who has found a pen and God in prison, writes on. He talks of the “pain that comes with love, especially when two hearts are divided”.
And then: “I trust you. I believe in you and I will love and protect you until my dying breath and if that’s what it takes so be it.”
It is all so very dramatic. But Michael should rest easy. He need not lay down his life. The papers are keeping a firm eye on Lindsay.
Whether it’s “falling drunk out of clubs, hitting town knickerless, taking drugs and an eating disorder”, the Sun will cover it in minute detail.
And if in the course of its duty the Sun finds cause to look up Lindsay’s skirt, then so be it. It will not flinch in its task.
As the paper concludes: “Who knows if the letter will prompt Lindsay to get in touch? But a reunion might be the only way to stop the pain in her life.”
Or get him to quit writing to her…
Gordon Ramsay’s Tonic
POLITICS should be made to be more like TV cooking shows.
Tony Blair would have one minute to explain to a daytime TV audience – typically made up old people on day release from care homes, the hospitalised and journalists – why he should be allowed to lead.
David Cameron would come on to say how he plans to make some jam tomorrow. And Menzies Campbell would hand out some Werther’s Originals.
And then Gordon would bound onto the stage and tell everyone to “f*** off” because he was in charge.
No, not Gordon Brown, who causes the Mail to deliver the front-page headline: “COMETH THE HOUR, GORDON.” Not the Gordon who gets the Mirror banging on about “Gorducation, Gorducation, Gorducation”.
This is Gordon Ramsay. Well, if Jamie Oliver can make a (ham) fist at politics, why not Ramsay? And this Gordon knows all about life. He’s written a book about his own.
Having removed all the expletives and personal insults, the Sun, which is serialising the chef’s book, manages to get the remaining text down to a page and a half.
And readers learn that Gordon once paid for heroin for his drug-addict brother Ronnie. It was the only way Gordon could be sure his bother would get to their father’s funeral, a man, conveniently, also called Gordon.
Of the funeral, Gordon says: “It was horrible. It was organised by my dad’s partner Annie in a Margate crematorium. It was so characterless it might as well have been a branch of Tesco.”
Having deftly worked a slight on supermarkets into his father’s death (and given the ubiquitous Tesco a new trade to invest in and a recycling use for its old boxes (burial) and carrier bags (cremation)) Gordon talks to the Sun.
Dressed in a Brazil football kit bearing the legend “All Time Greatest”, Gordon says: “For me, doing the book was important. I just wanted a proper understanding of what I’m about.”
This is Gordon. Gordon the family man – he has four children. Gordon the driver – he plans to buy himself a £170,000 Ferrari for his 40th. Gordon the farmer – he reared and killed pigs in his garden.
Gordon speaks our language. He has the common touch. Vote for Gordon. Or “f*** off”.
No Bum Notes
“I’VE forgotten what that feels like and I’m really excited,” says George Michael.
We shudder. No-one likes to think of themselves as a prude. And we remain to hear more.
“You’re beautiful…thanks for coming,” adds George.
Say what you like about the singer, but you can’t fault his manners.
George is giving a public performance before a crowd of 18,000 fans in Barcelona. It’s George’s 25th anniversary gig, and, as the Sun says, it’s his first “proper” live show for 15 years.
This is perhaps a slight on George’s recent improper shows, notably the George Michael unplugged concert on Hampstead Heath, his mystery performance in a balaclava at a London hotel and the conzzzzzert in his Range Rover.
Now George is back. And he stands alone on stage. The Mirror sees no backing singers or musicians sharing the platform with George. Even his old Wham! cheerleader Andrew Ridgley has been replaced by a 50ft blow-up doll.
The Mirror looks at the doll, which bears a resemblance to President George Bush. George opens the President’s fly. We are introduced to a bulldog wearing a Union Jack waistcoat.
As the Sun notes, the President is being “pleasured” by this pocket pooch.
The crowd goes crazy. But how much crazier they would have gone had George brought on an inflatable Osama bin Laden and shoved a Persian cat down his Y-fronts. We can only imagine.
For now George is having fun. “As much as I’m going to disappoint those people who want to see more of my bottom,” says he, “I’m going to be less of a showman and more of a singer.”
So he sings. And if you want to see the back of George you’ll just have to wait until he turns around, or lampoons someone who might actually take violent offence…
Too Poor To Push
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 scientific research.
Here is a selection of things that will kill you and yours from last week’s paper of doom…
MONDAY
“THE FORSAKEN CHILDREN. A leading writer spent a year investigating the lives of children in care. Her devastating report reveals shambolic care homes, failing foster families, blighted education and a downward spiral into drugs and crime. Why does modern Britain callously betray the most vulnerable young people?” – Answers on a Rizla paper to the usual address
TUESDAY
“Working mothers can harm families warns Archbishop” – Lucky for his family the Archbishop of Canterbury is a man. Phew!
“England’s overheating” – It’s hot! Hot! Hot!
“Father died in agony after GP failed to spot cancer” – Yes! He got an appointment!
“I seemed the life and soul of the party. In fact, I was mentally ill” – Is everybody LAUGHING?!!!
WEDNESDAY
“Models are blamed for the anorexics aged seven – But who’s to blame for mo-dels?
“PROUD TO SMACK OUR CHILDREN. Smacking is the new taboo but these parents insist it is the best form of discipline for their family” – Martyn Ayres and wife Amanda a tells us how they give their children a smack
“Elderly at risk from bad financial advice” – Story illustrated by a picture of Coronation Street killer Richard Hillman, IFA, about to suffocate aged client Emily
“Student debt is crippling Britain’s future” – As opposed to adult debt?
“Half of us will sell homes to fund care” – Hurrah! New housing stock!
THURSDAY
"Why won’t the state lift a finger to help families look after their own elderly" – Is Carol Sandler asking trick questions?
"Hot news! Experts say global warming will cool us down" – Researchers the University of Colorado says so
"Cancer-causing pollutants in our bread, milk and eggs" – But not in our burgers and chips…
FRIDAY
“Labour ready to surrender more power to Brussels” – Surrender?
“Why am I a sceptic about global warming? Simple. The answer is in my gin and tonic” – Tom Utley watches ice melt in his evening restorative and see the world in his glass
“Needless caesareans blamed on labour wards staff crisis” – Too poor to push
“Why do women STILL enjoy being doormats? In this provocative cri de Coeur, one writer asks why – despite being better educate, more affluent and more successful in their careers than ever – so many modern women still want to play the mindless, subservient little woman role in their relationships” – Carol Sandler risks alienating most of her readers
David Hasselhoff: The Musical
DAVID Hasselhoff is the man with the “HIT ME” sticker on his back.
Everyone just loves slapping The Hoff on his back; and The Hoff just adores being so warmly greeted by his millions of fans.
So when we read in the Mail that The Hoff has written a musical – David Hasselhoff: The Musical – we know it will be a hit.
Says the Hoff: “I am also doing a heart-rendering [?] set on my life and the mistakes I have made. It sounds like a bad joke, but it is really going to be a good show.”
And, as the Mail reports, the show is to include a key scene. As The Hoff says: “We’re going to have a baby being born on stage and we’re going to toss it into the audience.”
Like so much of The Hoff’s career, the production is pantomime with a twist. Although the Mail is quick to point out that the baby will be played by a little helium balloon.
One of pair of balloons which once starred alongside Hasselhoff in Baywatch…
