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.
The Treatment’s Not Working
“IF I hadn’t f***ed things up we’d be married by now. I thought you were going to leave me,” says Pete Doherty.
That’s Peter Doherty talking on the phone to Kate Moss. It’s a conversation a source in the Mirror calls “very lovey-dovey”.
Just as being called “W******!” by Big Brother winner Pete Bennett is now a term of endearment, being sworn at by your boyfriend is akin to being called a “sweet baboo”.
And while Pete and Kate exchange touching and tender “f*** yous” via satellite, the Sun sees Pete giving cocaine to a teenager.
This is the Sun’s front-page news. And when the story continues inside the paper, readers learn that Pete was spotted by a security guard at The Priory handing the drug to an inmate at the centre’s adolescent addiction unit.
The drugs were seized. And Pete was returned to his celebrity cell. Later he was brought before the clinic’s governor and told that if he re-offended he would be banned from “EVERY” Priory in the UK.
This would be novel. A drug addict banned from a place that specialises in curing drug addiction. Would not this be an admittance of failure by The Priory?
And a massive boon to the Doherty brand. No longer just pop’s premier f***wit and Kate Moss’s lover, we’d love Pete – the man who broke the therapy game.
Victoria Beckham’s New Show
AS soon as Victoria Beckham put a bag on her head we knew it could not be long before her name would feature again in the news.
How long could it be before we read the Mail’s expose on the bag-hat industry? “Bag-Hat of Death” would highlight the dangers of placing bags over heads and warn the millions of us doing just that to stop.
But before that, we read other news. The Sun, having missed the Mirror’s scoop on the new bag-hat sensation that’s sweeping the land (the paper’s editor had gone native and been at the same party as Posh when her new look was unveiled), says that Posh has secured a fashion-themed contract.
Her Poshness is to star in a fashion reality TV show in America. The Sun says the show is being billed as a cross between TV Project Catwalk and Britain’s Next Top Model.
Since only the institutionalised and wannabe models called Armani and Bianca have seen either show, it’s left to TV mogul Simon Fuller to explain. Says Simon, who is backing the venture: “She has found her niche. She can walk into any room in the fashion world and she knows as much, if not more, than anyone.”
While Filipino sweatshop workers stitching new bag-hats nod in agreement, the Sun brings more news of life in the Beckham household.
And this time it is Day-vid who is setting trends. Having got fans from Basildon to Kabul shaving their faces, Dave seems to have forgotten to remove the shaving cream from his upper lip. The result is a Cab Calloway-style moustache in lightest white.
Bur reading on we learn that this substance is milk. What’s this? Dave has been shaving in milk. These Beckhams just will not conform. Bags that turn into hats! Milk you can shave with! What next? A pair of knickers that can be worn by both man and woman? The male tampon? What’s the limit? Is there a limit?
While we ponder that, we learn that Day-vid is appearing in an American advert for milk. The drink served in bags…
The Bag Lady
VERY soon everybody will be doing it. As soon as Victoria Beckham used her handbag as a hat, we knew we were witnessing the birth of a trend.
Of course not everyone can carry the look off, and for every successful bag-hat adopter, there will be many failures.
Coleen McLoughlin may seek to get the look at Asda, for whom she works, but we warn her that supermarket bags are fashioned from plastic and liable to cause suffocation if worn on the head.
Wise would be the Wags and women who study the picture of Posh wearing her bag (made from breathable leather and diamante) as she makes her exit from a London casino.
It may also help to be completely wasted. As the Mirror’s front page says (“I’M POSHED AS A NEWT”), the bag-hat was executed as the climax to Victoria’s six-hour bender.
On the Star’s front page, she’s “SLOSH SPICE”, looking like a Wag in Baden-Baden as she joins the party to celebrate the 31st birthday of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s wife Tana. (In the Star it’s her 32nd birthday.)
Other notables present are designer Kelly Hoppen, actor Ross Kemp and his wife Rebekah Wade, who just so happens to edit the Sun. (Does this explain that why the Sun ignores Posh’s sorry state and focuses utterly on her outfit? On the Sun’s front page, Vicky’s the “Lace of clubs” and inside she’s “POSH JUST ACE IN LACE”.)
Posh is “on a bender like Beckham” (Star). The Mail notes that the evening begins at Mayfair’s Nobu restaurant. The group then moves to a private members club and casino called Fifty.
Champagne is drunk. And after an hour of chat, the friends wander downstairs to the venue’s underground nightclub Fifty Below.
And some time later Victoria emerges. We have seen the bag-hat. And now the Star gawks at her thin arms (“Yuk”) and the absence of her wedding ring.
She’s “WIDE-EYED AND BECKLESS!”. Whatever can it all mean? Did Vicky lose the ring in a wager at the casino? Is she hinting towards a possible split from husband Day-vid.
We hope not. And pray that she gets that wedding ring back on her finger and sticks with her man.
And if the Beckhams want to put the magic back in their love life, why, Vicky can always put a bag on her head. She’s done it before…
Pete Doherty Is Band
LAYDEES and gent-all-men. Please give it up for the band.
On smack, Pete Do-her-ty! In need of a rest and feeling tired and emotional, The Darkness frontman Jus-tin Haw-knessss! And on cocaine it’s Keane lead vocalist Tom Cha-a-plin!
As the Sun reports, all three popstars are right now checking out the rooms at The Priory clinic and rest home for the weary celebrity.
And the bigger news is that the trio have struck up a relationship, bonding in group therapy classes. And they are writing music.
The Priory operates like a Big Brother-style celebrity workshop. And we the punters should be able to vote the players in and out.
And this band needs our help. We cannot help but notice that all three are singers, and while a cappella is due a comeback, some background noise is useful.
Sure, other patients at The Priory could moan like the finest Gregorian monks and so provide atmosphere, but we call for something a little more upbeat.
And wonder if alumni of The Priory, like Ronnie Wood (guitar), Tara Palmer-Tomkinson (nose flute) and the Marquess of Blandford (silver spoons) can be persuaded to re-enter the venue and give us the band we crave?
Tom Cruise Is Out There
THERE was a time when the worst thing a Hollywood superstar could be was gay or a communist.
Now they’re being outed for being anti-Semitic (or outing themselves, as is alleged with Mel Gibson), and for wearing pointy hats.
The latest news from Tinseltown is that Scientologist Tom Cruise has been dropped by Paramount Pictures. After 14 years of working together, a period that has taken in such hit movies as Top Gun and Mission: Impossible, studio and star have parted company.
Sumner Redstone, the chairman of the studio’s parent company Viacom, explains. “As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew the deal. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to paramount.”
Redstone continues: “It’s nothing to do with his acting ability. He’s a terrific actor. But we don’t think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot.”
Redstone does not mince his words. There is no talk of “creative defences” and how it is wrench to let Tom go.
The story is that Tom has cost the studio money. The Mail hears Redstone estimate that Tom’s antics lost Mission: Impossible III between £50million and £75million at the box office.
Tinseltown does not make trends, it merely reflects them. If we all loved Tom for his couch jump moment on Oprah Winfrey and his belief that humans are an alien race of Thetans, he’d probably still be with the studio.
But we don’t. Tom is embarrassing and creepy. The Mirror remembers the £20,000 Tom spent on a sonogram machine so that he could perform scans on younger girlfriend and mum-to-be Katie Holmes’ womb.
He is, as the Sun’s headline says, “MISTER IMPOSSIBLE”. Money was counted. Tom had to go.
Although, on the upside, Tom is now a free agent to make any movie he wants. And he’s worth an estimated £250million. So look out for Holmes: The Birth Of A Suri, The Last Scientologist and Far And Away…With the Fairies…
Dons & Dont’s
“IF you thought the hallowed quadrangles of Cambridge University echoed to nothing louder than earnest debate, think again.”
Sadly, we do not think that. For as long as Anorak can remember we have laboured under the impression that the university is a haven for Russian spies, luvvies and Prince Edward.
The Mail’s news that the Cambridge should be viewed by anyone as a bastion of earnest debate is the real shock.
But the story makes its pitch and sticks with it. And readers learn that the university is a sink of “high jinks – including brawling, theft and indecent exposure”.
The catalogue of crimes – the paper calls them “misdeeds” – features such heinous felonies as “being drunk in the library, food-throwing, stealing wine, flooding a study and rudeness to porters”.
Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, the paper has discovered the levels to which this once great institution of learning has sunk.
At Trinity Hall three post-graduate students (social security for over-achievers) were fined £40 each for being under the influence in the library. Another was “ticked off” for “pinching” wine from the dons’ dining table.
The language might be arcane and not heard in public since Old Mr Anorak was rusticated for his part in the great suet pudding caper of 1927, but it is no less shocking for it.
The list of crimes goes on. And we advise anyone going up to Cambridge this September to think on. College is not all binge drinking, shagging and vandalism.
It’s quaffing, japes and mischief-making. Hurrah!
The Scouse House
SHOCK news. Scousers have been seen doing a Cockney accent.
Just as Londoners believe that Harry Enfield’s Scousers skit was a fly-on-the-wall documentary on life by the Mersey, Scousers view Only Fools And Horses as study of life in the great metropolis.
The Mirror brings news of the life in the ultimate Scouse house that belongs to Wayne Rooney and his wagtastic girlfriend Coleen McLoughlin.
Often conversations between two Liverpudlians are audible to only dolphins and basking whales but the Mirror, ever mindful of its London readers’ limitation, translates.
The paper says Wayne is a “master mimic” and is always taking off Del Boy and Rodney Plonker from the Only Fools And Horses TV show.
“Wayne is really funny, he has a great sense of humour,” says Coleen. Indeed, repeating verbatim ‘funny’ scenes and lines from TV comedy shows and movies is guaranteed a laugh in certain circles.
And we do not doubt that young Wayne can say “a bomb” in the manner of Peter Sellers and narrate entire scenes from Monty Python to the delight of his many doubled-up mates.
“He is constantly mimicking Del Boy and Rodney,” says Coleen. “He is 10 times funnier at home than anywhere else.”
And that’s very funny. Who has failed to smile at Wayne’s slapstick comedy when he stuck his fake rubber boot into Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho’s groin at the World Cup, or chuckled as Wayne delivered his trademark riposte “f*** off” to everybody and anybody?
Wayne’s a laugh. Hell, he might be a bigger wag than his wife…
La Caprice
“I COULD see a white female of scrawny build with bare shoulders in her late 30s wearing heavy make-up and she had a reddened spot on the right centre of her cheek.” Yer honour.
Of course what PC Paul Flashman meant to say was that at 3:45am on December 10 2005 he was had reason to pull over a flawless beauty with to-die-for blonde tresses and skin made of a lustre not seen since the days of Aphrodite in her pomp. Yer honour.
But this man’s name is Flashman, and as with his namesake Sir Harry Paget Flashman V.C. K.C.B he will play the cad to the fullest.
And here is PC Flashman consulting his documents and relating the story of his meeting with said painted woman to a courtroom at Highbury magistrates. London.
The woman listens intently. We shall not comment on the accuracy of Flashman’s description of the accused, only say that her name is Caprice; and it was the one she gave to the officer.
Indeed, as the Mail reports (“Caprice who?”), when Flashman pulled her over for driving in the clear with her fog lights on, he asked for her name. (Caprice’s skin may suggest a woman travelling forward at high velocity but she was not stopped for speeding.) The driver replied: “Caprice.” PC Flashman’s response was curt: “Caprice who?”
Need there be a “who?”? Does the constable’s probing not smack of prejudice of some sort? Show us the rule that says all men, woman and beast need have a “who?” after their name. And we will show you a Prince, a Shep, a Noddy and, indeed, a Flashman.
As PC Flashman recalls from his notes: “I asked again. ‘Caprice who?’ It did seem to annoy her somewhat that I didn’t recognise her and she replied in a stern tone ‘Caprice.’”
Caprice was then presented with a device for testing the alcohol content of her system. She blew into it. And was arrested on suspicion of driving while over the limit – almost 50 per cent over, according to the Star’s report.
And the Star knows why? Sure, Caprice had downed a bottle and a half of wine with lunch and quaffed a few glasses in the evening, but it was the medication what done it, occifer.
In “CAPRICE: SEX PUT ME OVER THE LIMIT”, the “scrawny” model says that at the time of her brush with the law she had been taking antibiotics for her cystitis. And, as the Star says, this is “commonly caused by having sex”.
The case will reach its conclusion on Friday when verdicts are read aloud. And we hear what else was said. And that PC Flashman is not Jewish, and is not related to the Fleisman’s of Malibu, California…
Smells Like Beckham
“BOT A LOT SHE’S GOT,” announces the Mirror’s front page. “Victoria gets a sexy bum.”
Day-vid Beckham may no longer be captain of the England football team, but we assure the Mirror that he is no bum. David is always neatly turned out. He keeps his nails short and his beard clean. David has been a loyal servant for his country and turning on him now shows the paper in a bad light.
But inside we learn more. David is not the bum to whom the paper refers. One page in and there’s another shot of the pair and an arrow pointing to Posh’s backside.
The Beckhams have launched a new range of scents and the advertising shot is causing the Mirror to sit up and take notice.
It quotes Posh as saying that she has “no bum at all”. And: “I have to stick it out and pretend.”
And she seems to be really good at pretending, a borderline fantasist. In normal circumstance Posh in a dress minds us of the later scenes of Tenko, the prisoner of war epic. But here she is boasting a real backside, hips and buttocks that would not be out of place in the Aintree paddock.
Rightly this is front-page news. And right it is of the Sun to say that Posh’s backside is every bit as curvy as J-Lo’s. It is. And to prove it the Mail positions a shot of the big-arsed American (left) next to that of the padded Posh (right).
While the Sun tells us about the couple’s new his ‘n’ hers scents – a heady blend of grapefruit zest, bergamot and new money – the Mail says this bigger Posh look has been achieved by airbrushing.
And Posh has been standing in a hurricane. Her backside has been given weight and shape. The “Tina Turner-style thunderthighs” are tighter than Cliff Richard’s brow, far removed from her usual “spindly legs”. Her skin is a uniform veneer of honey tones.
Dave looks pleased as he snakes a finger under her knicker elastic and smoulders into the camera. He seems to be saying “You too can have me”, or else trying to watch Match of the Day on the telly as his wife presses him for affection.
But maybe the Mail is wrong. Computer wizardry may well have played a part in this portrait, but not how it supposes. Might it be that it is the Posh’s head that has been airbrushed onto another woman’s body?
And might it be that this is no advertising shot but a doctored picture of how David once looked in the company of another woman?
Fanciful, yes. And surely very wrong. Dave and Vicky are madly in love and he’d never cheat. But it’s the kind of strange photograph that gets you asking questions…
The Other Woman
WHEN she discovered her boy was taking drugs, Jackie Doherty “wanted to be sick, to be deaf, to be struck down, to hold him, to cry out to God”.
If Jackie ever tires to being pop f***wit Pete Doherty’s long-suffering mum she should have a crack at being his lyricist.
Not that Pete needs help. Speaking in the Star for the “first time” about her wayward son (see the Times), Jackie recalls how he won a prize for “Cough, cough, cough”, a poem about smoking. She could never have believed he’d grow up to be smoker and a pop star. Who could?
Or believe that he would date a supermodel. As with every story on Pete, there must be a tale of Kate Moss, his paramour. And. as usual, the Sun carries one.
“SPOTS THE DIFFERENCE,” says the headline. “Why does Kate’s complexion change when she’s with Pete?” Readers might well expect to see a shot of a pastry looking single Kate alongside a picture of a loved up Kate with schoolgirlish rosy cheeks and eyes that sparkle.
But Kate seems to be a social chameleon. And while fresh and clean in the company of her mum and the world at large, with Pete she is grey and limp.
To illustrate this, the Sun produces no less than six pictures of Kate. And by way of an explanation, relates the potted history of Kate and Pete’s love life.
It is fascinating stuff, a story that never loses its sparkle no matter how many times we hear it. Unlike Kate…
Jennifer Aniston’s On Top
AFTER the debate, its turns out that Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn are an item.
They have just scooped the prestigious Teen Choice Movie Chemistry Award (it says here) for their performance in the Break Up.
There are 77 awards up for grabs, including prizes for Choice Movie Scream Scene (Paris Hilton, House of Wax), Choice Movie Blush Scene (Hilary Duff, A Cinderella Story) and the creepy Choice Movie Love Scene (Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, The Notebook) in which teens vote on the best on-screen shag.
Films are now broken into their constituent parts – and how great it would be if all these best bits could be put together in one movie; it’d be like Oceans 12 with more plot.
And here are two movie parts, Jen and Vince. The Mirror spots them accepting their award, and the chemistry is evident.
Too busy being madly in love to attend the ceremony, Jen and Vince sat on a sofa in a studio somewhere in California and delivered their acceptance speech.
Vince kicked things off by saying: “When you are dealing with on screen chemistry, it isn’t an equitable kind of thing.” Few things are.
For those of you looking in at home, Vince has just used the word “equitable”. It’s the first recorded use of the word in a Hollywood award setting since the days of Ben Hur and an award is on its way to Vince. If he can follow it up with the word “ecumenical”, Tinseltown is his for the taking.
But he does not. Jen interjects (in your face, Vince). “It’s not something that happens” says she. “It’s just something you know…?
Know… Know what? That the publicist demands? That the script calls for? That… Vince: “I guess part of having chemistry is having someone cutting in the middle of yours sentence.”
And so it goes. Jen and Vince are enacting one of those tired vaudeville acceptance speech routines. They arrive in harmony and then begin to splinter.
George Burns and his wife Gracie Allen were experts in this. And in memory of them, we recall a line of Burns’s: “Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
And a Teen Choice Award…
Osama And Whitney
“IN his briefcase, I’d come across photos of the star, as well as copies of soft-porn magazines.”
The words of Kola Boof, who claims to have been Osama bin Laden’s mistress in the 1990s.
Kola has written a book called ‘I’ve Been Laid-en’, or something, and in it she tells us about her life with the world’s most wanted man.
It all sounds very normal. As with most Western men, Osama’s briefcase contained pornography and, possibly, an egg and cress sandwich, a pair of Marks & Spencer black woollen socks and a picture of Whitney Houston.
Kola says Osama was besotted with Whitney. “He said he had a paramount desire for Whitney, and, although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of one day spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar,” says Kola.
Might it be that right now Osama is making his way to the Great Satan, where he plans to shave his beard, dye his robes purple and sing in the New Hope Baptist Junior Choir, the group with which Whitney began her career?
And there is worse. Kola says Osama told her Whitney has been “brainwashed” by American culture and by her husband. The chilling news is that Osama has talked about killing Bobby Brown.
And do not doubt that he knows how. Kola says Osama was prone to “ramble on” about his favourite TV shows – The Wonder Years, Miami Vice and MacGyver.
So if you’re reading this Bobby Brown – and we hope to God you are – look out for a bearded fundamentalist dressed in a pastel pink jacket with rolled up sleeves, driving a fortified Ferrari Daytona Spyder and muttering about “Winnie” and death to all…
Booze & Boobs
MY name is Katie Andre and “I’m no alcoholic”.
You join us at the Sun drop-in centre where the glamour mo-del is telling the world that she NOT addicted to booze.
Very soon we expect Katie to tell us she is NOT addicted to gambling, NOT addicted to drugs and NOT addicted to acorns. But for now it is alcohol.
And Katie is telling us this because the other day her husband, pop acorn Peter Andre, chose to reveal that he fears his wife may cheat on him when she is drunk.
Writing in his autobiography, Pete says: “She knows she can’t handle it. It turns her into someone I don’t recognise and don’t like.”
But Katie is no alchy. Her gargantuan Jordans are not kept full to busting with gin and mixers.
This is what Katie tells the Sun: “I haven’t got a drink problem. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not a drunk. I hardly ever drink.”
She continues: “I’ve been drunk no more than four times this year and will often go for weeks without a drop of alcohol.”
Katie is like a celebrity camel. Especially if you look her at from a certain angel…
Madonna Don’t Preach
“IT was like a crank call . . . the scientific mechanisms and principles were just bollocks, basically,” says one official at British Nuclear Fuels.
That might be so. But this is Madonna talking and if science is to reach out to the masses and engage the youth she should be listened to.
As she tells us: “I can write the greatest songs and make the most fabulous films and be a fashion icon and conquer the world, but if there isn’t a world to conquer, what’s the point?”
We could bang on about art for art’s sake, and how Swept Away was a movie that made us all think about the end of the world and how soon it would come. But this is the time to sit up and listen. Madonna is talking. And she is talking science.
The Star (“NUCLEAR WASTER. Cult star Madonna talks load of Kabballocks”) would rather see Madonna in a conical bra. And if she could decorate her nipples in the fashion of nuclear warheads the paper would pay more heed to her message.
But she has yet to grab the nettle and for now is intent on pushing her “wonder fluid” via phone calls to BFNL. These are backed up by letters written by her husband Guy Ritchie. Both are followers in the Jewish-themed spiritual movement Kabbalah. And both know the truth.
As Madonna said a few years ago: “I mean, one of the biggest problems that exists right now in the world is nuclear waste. That’s something I’ve been involved with for a while with a group of scientists – finding a way to neutralise radiation, believe it or not."
We believe it. And having consulted a pocket compass we do as Madonna and Guy are said to have done at a Kabbalah Centre dinner in London – we turn our faces to the East and begin chanting “Chernobyl”.
This will “heal the problem of nuclear waste". And it works for other nuclear power plants too. “Kewaunee, Kewaunee, Kewaunee.”
But not everyone is convinced. “Sizewell A, Sizewell A, Sizewell A.” A team at BFNL led by Sue Ion (real name?) – a woman said to have a “brain the size of a planet” – “rubbished” the claims.
She could be wrong. Even planets can make mistakes.
And it’s over to Madonna for her response. But we do not get to hear from her. She is busy on tour in Germany. “Brokdorf, Brokdorf, Brokdorf.”
But her husband is talking, albeit through a spokeswoman: “I’ve spoken to Guy’s office and I don’t think he is going to be available to talk about this . . . I don’t think it’s top of the list of things they are working on at the moment.”
“Plogoff! Plogoff! Plogoff!”
Marry In Waste
THE special souvenir edition had been planned.
Each copy of the Star was to come with a free syringe-shaped kazoo on which readers could play “Here Comes The Bride” and the theme tune from Disney’s Beauty & The Beast. Angela Lansbury would weep.
But things did not go to plan. The Star says Kate Moss and Pete Doherty were to get married this weekend in a “spiritual ceremony on the beach”.
The paper says Kate had flown friends and her daughter Lily Grace to Bali in the expectation of marrying Pete. Everything was in place. All that was missing was the groom.
On Friday Pete was appearing before the Beak. He had been charged with possessing heroine, marijuana and cocaine. The paraphernalia for a typical Stag night out or a Pete Doherty night in, we could not say. All we know is that the accused pleaded guilty. Pete was bailed.
The Mail says he was given a strict curfew and “ordered” to spend his nights at the Priory clinic for the tired and emotional celebrity.
Indeed, we note that Kate has spent time in the Priory and had things been better planned she could surely have stayed the night and taken part in the first celebrity rehab wedding.
But she did not. Kate was in Bali. And the Mail has a shot of her “visage dotted with spots” as she leaves a local club. She is “sweaty and spotty” in the Mirror. She has a “haunted appearance”. She is “tired, sweaty – and with crop of pimples” in the Sun. The Express says her “anguish” is visible to all.
It could have been so different. If only Pete had not gone into rehab, Kate could have looked spotty, tired and haunted in the company of her true love.
And he could have looked the same. Mind, body and complexions as one…
Keeping Mums
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
“Middle-aged mothers ‘are as much of a burden as teen births’” – Dr Susan Bewley, from Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospital, “is calling for the growing number of middle-aged pregnancies to be treated as a major public health issue”
TUESDAY
“Teachers fail the test. Fifth of trainees can’t master basic maths or spelling” – Well, they are only trainees
“As bad as boys, the foul-mouthed girls who think school is uncool” – Hurrah for woman’s lib!
“Prison Service down to its last 439 cells” – Time to use real holiday camps, perhaps
“They’re the latest health craze – specially enriched foods, from breads to breakfast cereals that feed the bacteria in your gut to aid digestion. But do they really work?”
“Pregnancy drugs linked to early menopause” – So suggest researchers at Boston University who continue to look into DES
“Syphilis is back – not just among reckless teenagers but also their mothers. What IS going on?” – A return to Victorian values?
WEDNESDAY
“Alert over 4million laptops that could burst into flames” – That’ll teach you to look at such filth
“The great cellulite lottery. Dieting can improve dimpled thighs, but it can also make them worse say doctors”
“Police cells may overflow as prison warders vote to strike”
“East Europeans help take jobless to a six-year high” – More time off for us
THURSDAY
“Believe me, you can’t trust a word teenagers tell you about sex…” Carol Sandler knows this and more
“Forget gloomy, pale-faced and self-obsessed Goths, there’s another darker cult for parents to worry about… EMOs” – They’re worse than Mail readers
FRIDAY
“Video games ‘harm you in 20 minutes’” – Professor Nicholas Carnagey of Iowa State University says playing video games desensitises you to violence
“Neighbourhood blight. Youths hanging around the street top list of complaints about where we live” – Say bored youths?
An Ulrika Moment
“CHILDREN, even tiny ones, have an uncanny ability to tune into bad atmospheres.”
If Professor Robert Winston ever thinks about giving up his job as the media face of science, Ulrika Jonsson is a shoo-in for his moustache.
News of the World columnist Ulrika knows about children. And she is worried that Beatrice Mills-McCartney will suffer in her parents’ divorce.
“Their very survival depends on their parents’ ability to care for them – and when something is wrong they sense it, trust me.”
We do. And here’s why. “I know only too well that my children have suffered as a direct result of the heartbreak I’ve endured,” says Ulrika.
“And the anxiety they can’t find the words to express comes out in other ways – tantrums, eating problems and bed–wetting.”
And in time – with luck and Ulrika’s guiding hand – a showbiz column.
Family: Ex-Husbands (2), Children (3)
Story: I know pain
Tone: Pitiful
One In The Eye
“BUT the eyewear shows she still retains her sense of humour.” The Mail continues its pursuit of Heather Mills McCartney, following her as she steps out in Beverly Hills.
And it is very much on her side. The Mail seems eager to show its support for Heather as she battles for custody of a chunk of Paul McCartney’s many millions.
And it spots her wearing fun eyewear. Half expecting to see Heather wearing a pair of Groucho Marx-style glasses with attached nose, or frames through which veiny eyeballs that spring forward, we are disappointed to note that she wears a pair of ordinary spectacles.
Perhaps she is having a joke at out expense and these are X-Ray specs that can see right through our clothes. In Heather’s eyes we are all naked – just as she will always be in so many of ours.
But the Mail is quick to end the speculation and tells us that Heather’s glasses are sunglasses designed by Stella McCartney, her stepdaughter. The women do not get along.
A source tells us that there is a message in these glasses and “this is her way of saying to Stella… ‘You have won the battle, but you haven’t won the war.’”
But it is a mixed message. And while the Mail sees humour, the Sun says the glasses are Heather sticking two fingers up to the McCartneys. And the Mirror says the glasses show that Heather has “no hard feelings” towards her estranged husband’s family.
Who ever imagined that glasses could say so much? And we look forward to Heather from now on communicating exclusively through her frames.
Here she comes now in pair of Yoko Ono round ones. Ooer. Things could turn ugly…
Boy About Town
“IT’S ALL GOOD CLEANER FUN,” says the Star’s headline. And we see a picture of Boy George having a jolly on his community service.
He cavorts with a woman in an orange bib like his own. He sits down and sips a restorative milkshake. It looks like fun.
But at least those of us who like our justice swift and painful get to see the Sun’s picture of George examining the calluses on his hands.
“Did they really want to hurt me?” asks the Sun’s headline, the words hanging above George’s bare head, and a pun on one of the star’s hits. And we say that they did. If the streets are to be truly cleaned up, the likes of George need to be taught what’s what.
And then there are his other crimes for which, sadly, no punishment is fitting.
We are shocked that George has gone native in New York. As George’s fellow British crooner Sting sang in his travel guide An Englishman In New York, the Englishman on foreign soil drinks tea and not coffee, or milkshakes.
Neither should he embrace another in public and encourage the receiving of “high fives”, as appears to be the case in one of the Star’s photographs.
The solitary good point about George’s appearance is that he appears to have avoided the elephant trap of wearing flip-flops over naked feet in the city and stuck with woolly and reliable black ankle socks. Although we are pained to note that his shoes are not trainers.
We advise that he return pronto lest he start wishing people a “nice day” and carrying a firearm about his person…
Gently Rock & Roll
THOSE who are about to rock gently to and fro on shaky legs and mumble to yourselves, we salute you.
The Mail reports that tickets for the UK leg of The Rolling Stones world tour are being offered through Saga, the company the deals exclusively with the over 50s.
And mindful of the restraints imposed on the aged by the basic pension, tickets are being offered at a discount.
Saga spokesman Paul Green tells the Mail: “It’s an indication of what a lively bunch of today’s older people are that we can encourage them to go to stadium rock concerts.”
Yes, “encourage”. You can encourage the aged to play the castanets, watch Holby City and buy a timeshare by a golf course in Portugal, but it don’t mean they will.
At a time when most big bands from the Sixties are being remembered in tribute bands formed by younger people, the Stones are playing on. (There is no tribute band for the Stones as they are now. Just as Elvis Presley acts are always based on Vegas Elvis, tribute bands aim to emulate their idols in their heyday, and for the Stones that was long ago.)
Having grown into their faces, Stones are still standing. (How drummer Charlie Watts must laugh as he sits on a stool and crashes the cymbals like a sherry-raddled Val Doonican.
You’d need encouragement to watch this lot play. Indeed, adverts for the concerts might care to emphasise the stadiums’ plus points, like warmth, dryness and paramedics on stand by.
But even as the Stones struggle to sell all tickets to their gigs, the promoters have discontinued the scheme. As a spokesman for the band says: “When we found out what was happening, we put a stop to it. Saga members will have to pay the same price as everyone else.”
The Mail says the promoters grew concerned that the crowd may become “embarrassingly” full of pensioners.
And old people at rock concerts is just so very wrong…
Sink Of Despair
“ABC News reported that at one point, the woman threatened to urinate in a sink,” reports the Sun.
And we say about time. The fight for sexual equality needs people like the 59-year-old passenger on board a United Airlines flight from Heathrow to Denver via Washington.
While men urinate freely over toilet, floor and bin, women onboard planes are chained to the seat. It is time someone made a stand – literally.
But to have made her bid for freedom in a period of heightened security was, in hindsight, less than wise. And, as the Sun reports, the woman was “OVERPOWERED” and “TIED UP” at the back of the plane.
And had things only ended there the unnamed woman from Vermont would have advanced the woman’s suffrage movement. But she went further.
There were “rumours” that she was carrying notes in Arabic and English referring to Al-Qaeda. Police searched her bags and found she had in her possession a quantity of “hand cream”.
Two F15 fighter jets were scrambled and the plane was diverted to Boston’s Logan airport.
The Sun hears from Nenette Day, a spokesman for the FBI: “This isn’t just an ‘I want another drink’ thing. It was a disruption that caused them to divert the plane.”
So the airplane landed. Dogs sniffed luggage for bombs. The jet was scanned for explosives. And the toilet was flushed…
Careers In Therapy
YOUR celebrity credentials are looking good. You’ve been interviewed by OK!, done a stint on Celebrity Big Brother and your dog has been shortlisted for the British version of America’s Cutest Pup.
But there remains a gap. You have yet to enter rehab. And without therapy you cannot be taken to the hearts of the people who like nothing more than seeing a star on their downers getting back on their uppers.
Everyone who wants to be anyone does therapy. And if you have designs on living in the North London celebrity enclave of Primrose Hill and really belong you’d best get yourself checked in.
The Mirror lists the great and good from that locale who have found themselves feeling tired and emotional and in need to treatment.
Kate Moss has been to Arizona’s Meadows Clinic. Sadie Frost has attended AA meetings. Ex-Hollyoaks actress Davina Taylor has sought help for “depression”.
And now Meg Matthews, “troubled” ex-wife of Oasis droner-in-chief Noel Gallagher has checked into rehab to treat her “depression”.
Meg is trying out the Charter Nightingale Clinic in North London. She’s been there for 10 days. And when she leaves we would like to hear all about it.
The great problem with private clinics is that there is no league table. Anorak intends to put this right by making our own. We want the facts. Is there adequate car parking? How many other celebs were there? Can you get a group discounts if you’re in a band or clique?
Meg has already tested the Priory Clinic, where she was treated for “depression” in 2000. And we want to know how the Charter Nightingale compares.
And we’ll watch to see how her career develops – and thereby learn if therapy really works…
Paris Hilton & Other Nightmares
“DO you wake in a cold sweat after dreams of being hunted by Sir Cliff Richard – or shouted at by Davina McCall?” asks the Sun.
Tony Blair might well nod. But he and others like him should not worry. The Sun’s nightmare expert tells us that 3 per cent of Britons have bad dreams every night. And dreaming of celebrities is not uncommon.
And to test the research the Sun has issued its readers with a challenge: can you read the paper and make it through the night without dreaming of Keira Knightley suffocating you with a tiny gold dress or being trapped in a lift with only a guitar and James Blunt for company?
There is page upon page of celebrity news in the Sun. And because we at Anorak never sleep we are able to read on and learn that Paris Hilton is to star in a new TV show called America’s Cutest Pup.
The Sun delivers the news about American TV listings that other papers do not dare to approach. And the story is that Paris and her “beloved” chihuahua Tinkerbell are to front a new show in which owners parade their dogs on the telly.
A source explains: “It will be a bit like the new Liza Tarbuck TV show – Britain’s Top Dog – except the emphasis will be on cute little dogs rather than daft mutts.”
Perhaps now we see the relevance of this news. These dog shows reveal much about a nation’s psyche. American dogs are cute, British dogs are eccentric, and Malaysian dogs are delicious and come served on a bed of noodles.
And for pudding there’s a shot of Bruce Willis surfing, P Diddy illustrating a City story on how the new rules on airline hand baggage could hit sales of cosmetics, and news on how Heather Mills McCartney has been wearing an orange hairband.
It’s the stuff of nightmares.
Selling The Navy
WITH constant talk of cutbacks and downsizing, the Royal Navy has been going through a lean period of late.
So we are delighted to read in the Daily Mail that the senior service plans to re-launch itself with a series of branded merchandise. Not full-strength unfiltered cigarettes, but underpants and toys.
The famous White Ensign is one off a dozen Naval logos that have been registered as trademarks, as part of the Ministry of Defence Wider Market initiative.
The move has brought predictable complaints about “dumbing down”, but officials insist that it will all be in the best possible taste, “not tacky items that go out of fashion after a few weeks”.
“It’s absolutely paramount that the Navy’s reputation is not damaged in any way,” said publicity director Captain Barry Warren. There will be no tobacco, weapons or violent computer games. “We’re not into blood and guts,” added the Captain.
The paper says that the Navy hopes to boost public awareness of the service, which is “almost invisible to the public while the Army makes headlines in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
Time to rethink that zero tolerance policy about blood and guts, perhaps.
No Lady
WE know from the Sun that Prince Harry is every girl’s dream date, but what about a dream date for the “fellas”.
For the answer we turn to the Mirror. No (tee hee!) we’re not suggesting that we turn our own pallid faces to the looking glass and see a row of gay clones winking back at us.
We simply mean that if one turns to page 7 of the Daily Mirror, one will find the story of the man who won a “dream date” with Lady Isabella Hervey, and how this dream turned, with tabloid inevitability, into a “nightmare”.
Dave Holland from Wigan won a meal with “posh” lady Isabella at a restaurant on the French Riviera. But the disgruntled prize-winner claims that she ignored him, and preferred to chat to the TV crew and have phone conversations with her posh pals.
In the end Dave got so annoyed that he “stripped down to his pants at the table”.
Hmm. Without wishing to be too judgmental, we suspect that there might be another side to this story. Perhaps the phone calls were along the lines of “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”.
Still, let’s give Dave the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he merely acted as any reasonable man would have done in the circumstances.
We have to admit that Lady Isabella doesn’t sound much like a dream date. Dave says she ignored him all day, ordered a drink for herself and said, “Oh, do you want one?” She then told him that she isn’t like normal people and isn’t used to being around them.
“She’s not nasty, she just isn’t on the same planet,” says Dave, who reckons that “you get women who are 10 times prettier out in Wigan on a Friday night”.
Not a fair comparison, of course, as even old Mr Anorak looks pretty in Wigan on a Friday night, providing you’ve got the beer goggles on. We’re sure that Lady Isabella would also prove acceptable providing one had taken enough strong drink to overlook her appalling manners.
A spokeswoman said that Lady Isabella’s “had a great time” and “really enjoyed the date”.
All right for some.
