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.
Fat Actress
“GWYNNIE: I’m too fat.”
It’s Gwyneth Paltrow. And having given birth to son Moses in April she’s now looking at what it has done to her figure.
“My stomach is rippling, my breasts don’t look good,” says Gwyneth in the Sun. “I’ve been trying to work out. I want to do something about it.”
This all sounds like the prelude to some TV advert on a remote cable shopping channel. Any moment Drs Nip ‘n’ Tuck will jump into the frame and say: “And now YOU can! Spread our macrobiotic yoghurt over the problem area BEFORE you undergo a tummy tuck procedure and see a better, tighter, firmer YOU.”
There is no suggestion that the actress is to go under the knife. Indeed, there is no suggestion that she will be doing anything about it.
All we know is that she doesn’t like her stomach. And that her breasts are “sore”. And that she is making these observations while sat in a pub in North London.
And at once we wonder if, like Mel Gibson, this Hollywood star has had a drink and is just saying some silly things.
Although she has yet to blame her stomach on the Jews…
Mel Gibson’s A Victim
“I FEEL bad for Mel, he’s a wonderful human being.”
There is nothing to suggest that Patrick Swayze, who delivers that line, has been drinking. This is his sober view on the Mel Gibson situation.
And the Sun hears him say more. “If anybody dares to pull this crap of messing with his career, it’s wrong,” says Patrick.
And at once Mel becomes the victim. Mel is a great guy. Mel is essentially human. And what human hasn’t had a few drinks and blamed all the wars of the world on Jews and called a policewoman sugartits, as Mel is alleged to have done?
As the Mirror hears Patrick say: “People say stupid things when they have a few.”
Mel’s not a racist. Mel is just stupid. D’oh! Look at the funny man saying the funny things.
Let’s not be too hard on him. And that includes anyone who dares mess with his wonderful career.
To shun Mel would be wrong. Although if the studio owners and producers do blacklist Mel while they’re drunk and call him a bigot and all manner of other names, they could be excused…
Posted: 7th, August 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
He Is Sailing
STICK a blonde fright wig on his head and encase his nappy in some leopard-print spandex and eight-month-old Alastair Wallace Stewart looks just like his dad.
The Mirror has a picture of the boy and his father Rod Stewart (“THE ROD FATHER”) as they pose for the snappers onboard a yacht in the Mediterranean.
The Sun shows Rod and his son peering out to sea. There’s a lot of water out there. Rod and his boy are enjoying the view and perhaps wondering how to desalinate the water and take it back to drought-ravaged Essex.
Rod lives in Essex, and the Mail has an overhead shot of his home. Rod can rest easy on his boat as the Mail’s security services spare no expense in flying over his property to check on things.
The oven is off. The curtains are drawn. No sound of an alarm can be heard shattering the peace over the Essex countryside. There’s just the reassuring sound of the Mail’s aircraft.
And there is good news for Rod. Miracle of miracles, a localised shower means his football pitch is a verdant slab of health.
Nature has been good to Rod, watering his grass and causing the winds to give it a patchwork finish.
But the Mail senses something other. It says Rod’s home has been “absorbing vast quantities of water – despite the ongoing drought”.
The Mail contacts the water company and tells them what it has seen. They are told that Rod faces a fine of up to £1,000 if he “continues” to water his pitch.
Rod just gazes wistfully out to sea. And the Mail’s environmentally conscious spotter plane flies off, looking to save us from ourselves…
No More Countryside
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.
Here is a selection of things that will kill you and yours from last week’s paper of doom…
MONDAY
“Disaster in the post? It’s as big as decimalisation, experts warn, but hardly anyone has a clue how the new mail service will work” – Surely it will work much like the old way: you put a letter in post box; it gets lost/stolen/misplaced; you use the telephone and fax machine.
“Teaching right and wrong is scrapped…and so is anything to do with British heritage” – Good job the righteous Mail is here to educate us all
“Drought. Power cut. Our crops withering. Why can’t we cope with a hot summer?” – Melanie Phillips curses Tony Blair’s weather machine
“Next migrants surge could tip us into chaos, says minister” – Home Office Minister John Ryan’s leaked memo
TUESDAY
“Why isn’t the new prostate surgery which reduces the risk of incontinence and impotence more widely available?” – Singer Vince Hill tells us about his Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy, and poses with a tennis racket
“Why being fat may not be so bad for you after all” – More chips and crisps all round
“HIDDEN PERILS IN OUR FOOD.” Three ingredients used in tens of thousands of everyday foods are being linked with serious health risks” – Chuck out the soya, the high fructose corn syrup and the trans fats. Eat more chips
“Just what can happen when you fall ill on board a plane. My husband was dumped on a remote African runway – and our ordeal was only just beginning” – Should have stayed in Cleethorpes
WEDNESDAY
“Beware the bedbugs biting again” – “Pest control expert Clive J Boase, author of Bedbugs: Reclaiming Our Cities, said: ‘This is a serious problem we have in Britain” – Buy his book and hit the bedbugs with it
“He writes songs you can actually sing, doesn’t do drugs and has fought for his country. So why am I the only person who doesn’t hate James Blunt” – Sarah Sands must be a rebel at heart
THURSDAY
“Homes will ‘wipe out rural England’” – So says the, er, campaign to protect rural England from a cricket pitch on the M6
“VITAMIN TABLETS ‘MAY DO MORE HARM, THAN GOOD’” – Don’t worry, take some St John’s Wort, a tincture of hamster urine and some desiccated ylang ylang and try to relax
“Nurseries ‘threaten to produce a generation of illiterate Vicky Pollards’” – No! Yes! No! Yes!!
“Foreigners put price of cottages through the thatched roof” – It’s the Mail’s headline of the week
FRIDAY
“BINGE BRITAIN – Britain is addicted to alcohol”. The Mail has seen a report by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moore’s University
“They have no TVs in their rooms, eat home-cooked food and walk everywhere. That’s why teenagers in impoverished Romania are fitter and healthier” – How jealous our teenagers must be
“Will you get dementia? – Swedish neurologist Dr Miia Kivipelto has developed a scorecard to see how likely you are to get dementia in the next 20 years. Problem is that you might forget your results
Speaka Da English?
LEARN to speak Spanish like the Spanish should speak it.
All next week the Star is giving away(!) CDs that will get its foreign readers speaking da lingo in a way Britons can understand.
After correcting the Spanish, the Star’s CDs will be distributed to the French, Italians, Germans and Greeks.
To keep costs down it’s very possibly the same CD each time.
Having got the Europeans to all use the same currency, so we Brits don’t have to change up our great British pound into lira, peseta and franc, the Star calls upon them to adopt a uniform idiom.
The world is a changing place and it is not only we British who need to adapt.
The Star is, of course, only continuing the work begun by the Mail a couple of weeks ago. And already there are reports of French farmers leaning on their gate and endlessly repeating the phrase: “My barn is for sale. It can convert into a lovely summer home. Merci for the war.”
But while the Mail’s course aimed to teach foreigners the correct way to speak their language in a week, the Star aims to do the job in just one day.
“Bon luck with that, mush,” as they’ll soon be saying over there…
Fur From Home
“AFTER the hottest July on record it’s autumn in August.”
The Mirror has proof to back up its headline news. And here it comes in the shape of dog walker Phil Compton now.
The Mirror does not tell its readers the name of Phil’s dog, but they can see that Phil is wearing walking boots, jeans and a green anorak reassuringly zipped up from waist to neck.
The message is that Phil is trussed up to keep out the autumnal winds as he strolls along a country lane. But might there be another reason for the outfit?
The Mail’s headline offers a clue. There are “Invaders in the wild”. “Foreign pests laying waste to our countryside.”
The Mail says the Environment Agency has drawn up a list of Most Wanted Foreign Species. Anyone seeing one of the organisms on the list should catch it and kill it.
Look out for the American signal crayfish (”Signal crayfish can climb and walk considerable distances,” says the Environment Agency’s website), the Japanese knotweed, the floating pennywort and the giant hogweed.
And take special care to spot the American mink. It and all the others must be stamped out. And to do that you need big boots. And, if your aim is true, they can soon be fur lined to keep out the chilly air…
Oops! He Did It Again
THE drive to make politicians popular moves on apace.
Having seen two Tory MPs handing out free lollies from an ice-cream van earlier in the week, the Sun spots another of their number wooing votes.
It’s the blond fop Boris Johnson, showing us that he is uniquely in tune with the yoof as she drives along the motorway.
Boris is not a customised hot-hatch, a massive base speaker hanging from the car’s open boot as he races through Slough, nor is he turning doughnuts in a supermarket car park.
For now, the Sun spots Boris driving in the manner of Britney Spears. There’s Boris in his Lamborghini Gallardo motoring up the M6 motorway near Rugby, Warwickshire.
And there on the front seat of his car are sat two of his children. Granted Britney had a child on her lap as she drove along, but Boris is trying and he has doubled up on the child count.
An RAC safety consultant says this is “grossly irresponsible”. And that’s just terrific. So much for fuddy-duddy Tories and jam making. They live life on the edge these boys.
And they laugh in the face of danger. As Boris tells the paper: “The boys had a seatbelt on and I didn’t think they were in any danger.”
And from here there can be so much more. Look out for Ann Widdecombe and David Cameron performing their new single at the Tory Party conference in the manner of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.
And pay special attention to that wardrobe malfunction…
The Un-Fallen Madonna
LOOKING at the photographs of Madonna there seems to be little of the Billy Connolly about her?
The Mirror watches the singer begin the UK leg of her Confessions world tour with a performance at London’s Wembley Arena.
And, specifically, is takes a long lingering look at her backside. The Express invites its readers to do likewise and, like the Mirror, produces two shots of the singer’s rear.
Madonna turns 48 later this month and the Express says her figure shows that “work-outs really work”.
The Mail agrees. And for reasons of instruction tells its readers that to get the Madonna look you need to spend up to three hours a day in the gym (short for gymnasium).
In this gym you should do yoga (short for yoghurt), “Pilates” and “weight training”. Madonna uses the Gyrotonic Expansion System, in which “the body is stretched and manipulated for maximum muscles definition”. Ask for it by name, or its nickname: the rack.
But you need more than just a conical-shaped backside to be a top star these days. You need audience participation. And when Madonna saw that not everyone was dancing to her music she issued a challenge.
This was Madge’s Connolly moment. (The comedian is known to tell anyone leaving one of his performances to use the toilet that he will wait for them to get back before carrying on. He waits. A spotlight tracks their progress from and back to their seat while Connolly highlights their failings.)
“Hey, you, why aren’t you dancing?” asked Madonna. “Come on.” The target was Duncan James, an ex-boyband singer. “I couldn’t believe she was pointing at me,” says he. “I was so embarrassed.”
Madonna fans have been duly warned. To avoid embarrassment you must dance. And if you do so while wearing an unforgiving leotard, then so much the better.
Sexy Football
“THIS was a superhuman effort against all the odds. If you were writing a Hollywood film, this would be rejected as a fairytale.”
And because we are writing a Hollywood blockbuster (isn’t everyone) we read on.
With our English-Aramaic dictionary close to hand and the number of Mel Gibson’s agent on speed dial, we pay attention.
And the story is pretty much just what you’d expect from a Hollywood film, although the actors wouldn’t be gay and the Americans would win.
The news is that England are world champions. As the Sun reports (“IT’S COMING HOMO”), England have won the World Cup…“of GAY football”.
Gay football? What’s all this then. We have long laboured under the impression that football is football, but now we learn of gay football, and that the English are the best in the world at it.
Team manager Eric Armanazi, who we’ve heard compare his Stonewall FC’s side’s 3-1 win over America’s Florida Storm Soccer in Chicago to a fairytale, delivers the killer plot.
“We hardly had a touch in the first 20 minutes,” says he with a possible nod and a wink, “and it was very tight in the second half.”
He goes on: “We snatched the lead four minutes into extra time…At half time we changed to a 3-4-3 formation. It proved to be a masterstoke.”
So this is gay football. And England are talking a good game…
Prayer Booked
“I KNOW that praying can make a difference in my work, but it’s all a question of faith,” says Inspector Andy McManus, of Lincolnshire Christian Police Association.
Amen to that. What we need is more faith in the system. “We believe faith can move mountains,” says he.
And faith can solve crimes. As the Mail reports, the local Lincolnshire police have introduced the Prayer Watch scheme, a “spiritual twist” on the more secular Neighbourhood Watch programme.
The new scheme will not supersede other anti-crime measures, and locals should still keep ‘em peeled, possibly praying with their eyes open lest someone creep up behind them and steal their wallet, spectacles or hymn book.
The routine for Prayer Watch is simple. Churches in the area will be sent regular emails about crimes committed in their area.
The preacher will possibly include these misdemeanours in his address to the congregation, who will in turn pray for wrongs to be righted.
“Let the man who stole Mrs Miggins’ pension book be struck down by a mighty thunderbolt from high.” Amen. “Let the Earth open up and verily I say swallow up whole the woman who illegally parked on the crossing and necessitated my going about.” Amen.
“Let all villains burn in Hell for all eternity, and the insurance claim for last week’s burglary at my struggling family run wool and knitting shop be generous and munificent.”
Amen.
Dogg Of War
“AS Mr Blair sips cocktails with rap stars on Sunset Strip and schmoozes America’s rich, Beirut burns, 70 die in Iraq and 4 British soldiers are killed – including this father of two.”
The front page of the Mail illustrates its headline with a shot of Corporal Matthew Cornish, 29. He poses with his children Libby and Ethan. He was killed in action while “Tony Blair was networking among the rich and famous in Los Angeles”.
The Mail has seen the banner – “Tony Blair he don’t care” – and got its subs to work on it.
But though this is a tragic tale of death and a family wrenched apart by violence, we can’t help but wonder what Tony is up to in Tinseltown.
And the Sun is happy to tell us. While the Mail presents a picture of Tony braying like some demented Nero fiddling with his guitar while the world burns, the Sun has him wearing a baseball cap and sucking on a massive reefer.
The Sun spots Tony “scoffing” canapes and boozing at Hollywood’s Skybar. It’s a Monday night and Tony is hanging out with his homey, the rapper, convicted felon and pornographer Snoop Dogg.
“Yo Blair! Yo Dogg,” says the headline. And reading on we see that Tony was also in the company of a host of footballers from Chelsea FC.
As the Sun says, “Not quite the average night out for a Newcastle United fan who likes Genesis, cream–coloured slacks and naff denim shirts.”
But these are changing times for Tony. It can’t be too long before he’s looking for a new job, and good on him for researching new careers, like being a rap star or a professional footballer.
Is this not life long learning. Indeed it is. And we look forward to Tony researching other jobs – solider, reality TV contestant and religious fundamentalist…
Spawn Chorus
SIR Paul McCartney would be well advised to hang on to as much cash as he can in his impending divorce from Heather Mills McCartney.
Though some monks and nuns will love it, his new album, sung partially in Latin, may not be a mega-hit.
The Express says Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart) is an oratorio in four movements, one of which may involve Paul standing on the spot and shaking his head from side to side.
Happily, as the Mirror says, Macca has £825million and can well afford to dip a wrinkly toe in different musical styles.
Although, he may well be worth less should his estranged wife Lady “Mucca” McCartney get her hands on a substantial part of his fortune.
But there is good news for the former Beatle in the Mirror. We learn that his daughter Stella is expecting her second child.
And in the Sun, Paul and readers learn that Heather may well drop her married name when the divorce is finalised. And that will mean she is no longer able to call herself Lady McCartney.
Paul should be happy. And feel free to make a return to popular music. And he will – just so long as Heather lets him keep the china frog chorus…
Hacked Off
“GOSH! LOOK AT POSH.” We read the Mirror’s front-page headline and follow the instructions. We look at Her Poshness.
There are more “AMAZING” pictures inside. So we move within the paper.
But we can find no sign of her. It is only by reading another headline (“SHORT BECKHAM SIDES”) that we realise the woman with the tatty hair on page 3 is Vicky.
But even then we are unsure. So the Mirror, in the finest traditions of photojournalism, produces shots of Vicky from “THE FRONT” and “THE SIDE”.
And the conclusion is that it must be her. But why has her hair been butchered?
The story is that she was “talked into” having her hair cut by photographer Thiemo Sander. And, in any case, she was bored with her hair extensions and seeing so many people “inspired” by her.
But might there by another reason? Not too long ago, the Mail showed us a shot of what appeared to be bald patch on Vicky’s crown. Even fashion leaders like Vicky would be hard pressed to make tonsures fashionable.
And then there is the Star’s front-page news. “MY SEX TEXTS WITH BECKS,” it says. And readers learn that “busty Love Island babe” Emma Ryan says Vicky’s husband David was “gagging for it”.
“Glamour girl” Emma says: “He wanted to see me naked and couldn’t wait to play a game of strip Scrabble.”
Though we admire Becks’ abilities with a ball, chances are a game of strip Scrabble will see him naked long before Emma has even removed her mittens.
But the suggestion is that he soon saw it all. Emma says she and Becks shared a “love affair”. The Star says that Becks is said to have sent her “filthy text messages” and “treated her like a princess”.
Might this story be the catalyst for Posh’s new look, a frenzied hack with pair of shears. And might Emma be soon sporting a similar hairstyle to Posh?
Can’t Pin Her Down
LIZ Hurley has worn all manner of dresses in a career that has spanned parties, premieres and personal appearances.
And now she is preparing to wear some more clothes, adding maternity gowns to a CV that already includes dresses with safety pins, white jeans and bikinis.
The Mirror says that Liz plans to have a baby with boyfriend Arun Nayar. And what’s more she and he are to marry.
“I cannot reveal to you the exact date but it is very close,” says Liz in Italian Vanity Fair magazine.
And what can she expect form married life? “I was with Hugh Grant for 13 years and we were like husband and wife so I don’t think there will be any great difference,” says Liz.
But we feel she is playing things down. Marriage will surely bring about seismic changes in Liz’s life. A wedding means a wedding dress.
Wearing such a garment for the first time will be real challenge for Liz. But if anyone can pull it off, then surely Liz can…
Hot Spots
FOR more bikini shots turn to the Star where a picture of Dannii Minogue in a two-piece swimsuit has been chosen to illustrate a story entitled “3 BRITS SHOT IN IBIZA GUN FIGHT”.
“Holidaymakers fled in panic as bullets flew” in a shootout between rival British drugs gangs, says the paper.
Thankfully, Kylie Minogue’s pneumatic younger sister is not so easily scared off and can be seen soaking up the sun on the Spanish island.
The paper’s “The goss” girls tell us that Dannniiiiii did not spend all day in the pool but went off house hunting in the hills around Santa Aulalia.
Ibiza is so much more than guns and swimsuits – it’s got some decent property and a buoyant summer rental market.
And it’s got Channel 4’s gauche V presenter Russell Brand.
And that means it will not have Peaches Geldof, Bob Geldof’s daughter. A couple of weeks ago the Star told us that Bob had banned Peaches from travelling to Ibiza because Pete Doherty was going to be there.
Now the Star says Peaches has been “banned” from travelling to the holiday stop because she may come into contact with Russell (who, like Pete, has been romantically linked with Kate Moss).
The Star says Russell has a “reputation for wild ways with women and boasts about being addicted to sex”.
Although it is not believed he owns a gun or a bikini…
Exhausting Excuses
WHEN the Mirror says Lindsay Lohan is “attention seeking” it knows what it is talking about.
The paper had wanted to bring back its WMD counter which told its readers how many days had passed without any sign of Weapons of Mass Destruction being found in Iraq. But up popped attention seeking Lindsay in a blue bikini and everything changed.
So now there are two pages dedicated to the attention seeker. She’s “the baddest girl in showbiz”. So bad is Lindsay that she can count Kate Moss among her friends. They’ve been pole-dancing together. That’s as bad as bad can be.
And now Lindsay is suffering from “exhaustion”. But James G Robinson, producer of Lindsay’s latest movie, Georgia Rules, is less certain.
He says Lindsay’s excuses are “bogus”. In a letter to the star, he calls her a “spoiled child” who has “alienated” co-workers and “endangered” the quality of the picture.
That’s the picture called Georgina Rules. That’s G. E.O. etc. Such are the wiles of Hollywood that we are forced to question if Lindsay’s now famed badness is not a neat way to promote a movie?
And one day after the missive from her boss, the Mirror says Lindsay has been back to her old ways – “shopping”, “frolicking” in the surf with lover Harry Morton and “wearing” a skimpy blue bikini.
The Sun’s Victoria Newton says, “I caught her hard at work the next day…surfing in Malibu with her boyfriend.”
Bravely the Sun’s showbiz writer uses the full range of her telephoto lens and peering out a window in the Sun’s London offices towards California takes six photographs of the star at play.
The pictures of “Lazy Lohan” are shocking. And looking at them will most possibly rot your mind…
Tequila Sunset
“F*****G Jews,” says the motorist as police pull over a speeding car in Malibu, California.
“The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” he continues. The driver of a car caught travelling at 87mph in a 45mph zone then turns to Officer James Mee. “Are you a Jew?” he asks.
The driver does not remove a tape measure from his trousers and measure the circumference of the officer’s head, nor does he check for signs of gentile blood on the cop’s yellowy teeth – two things that would have helped confirm his suspicions.
How much simpler life would be if Jews could be made to wear yellow stars stitched onto their clothes, then there’d be no need for uncertainty.
But until that day comes, the car driver, one Mel Gibson, has some more to say, allegedly. “What do you think you are looking at Sugartits?” he asks another officer, a female.
Mel goes on to say that he “owned Malibu” and would spare no expense to “get even”.
But before Mel can get to work on his righteous vengeful new movie “Pigs And Jews”, he remembers that he is a really nice guy and not in the least bit anti-Semitic, arrogant and vain.
It is not him talking. It is the spirit talking through him – the spirit of tequila, an opened bottle of which is said to have been on the backseat of his car. Mel is over the limit.
As the Mail hears him say: “After drinking alcohol, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed.
“I drove a car when I should not have and was stopped by the Los Angeles County Sheriff…I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable.”
As he says, he “acted” like a bigot. And we suspect it is all part of Mel’s acting method. And excitedly await his next motion picture…
The Wedding Show
CONGRATULATIONS to Pamela Anderson who has just been married.
And there are three more weddings to go as she and husband Kid Rock (nee Bob Ritchie) plan to follow their wedding St Tropez with dos in Malibu, Detroit and Nashville.
And why stop there? Looking at the wedding in the South of France – fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger tells the Star it was pure “rock and roll” – we call for The Pam & Kid Wedding Experience to go on and on.
And only minimal set-up costs are required. The entire France event required a white bikini with “Just Married” printed on the rear of the lower section (Pam), a pair of jeans and a hat (Kid).
The party boat is an optional extra, being as it is part of what you’d expect to see in St Tropez. And in London the reception could just as easily be held in a red phone box, in Dublin a pub and in Munich a pair of leather and felt lederhosen.
Pinky & Perky
PINK socks. What do pink socks say about the wearer?
The Sun takes a look at Prince Harry, wearer of such socks (matching pair of) as he limbers up for another testing day of Army polo manoeuvres.
Harry is soon spotted taking a breather from the fray at Windsor Great Park. He is cosying up to his lover, the blonde Chelsy Davy.
The Sun studies the scene and says they “snogged”. The Mail shows the pair sharing a “tender kiss” in a “touching moment”. And in the Mirror, Harry is the “pucker prince”.
It’s all desperately romantic, and looking on we cannot help but wonder what part the prince’s socks have played in the grand seduction.
While many in Harry’s social set would be expected to sport pennyloafers with no socks, Harry has opted for a pair of shocking pink socks and no shoes.
In more sober times a young buck of Harry’s standing would have wooed the gels by twanging the suspenders on his regulation Harris Tweed socks. Now he flaunts pink ones like some of tropical bird of paradise.
And there is the sock dance. The Express shows Harry over two pictures employing his pink socks in a “bizarre” routine.
The paper says Harry had onlookers in “fits of laughter” as he “wiggled his toes” and “waved his legs around”.
“It certainly looked very odd, especially with the bright pink socks,” says an onlooker.” Everyone was in hysterics.”
Well, they say laughter is the best aphrodisiac. And with defences down, Harry gets the girl…
Performance Art
IS it a train or is it art?
Having experienced Simon Starling’s Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No 2), Damien Hirst’s pickled animals and Anorak’s very own Vomit In Sock, we suspect Virgin Trains are engaging in the world of conceptual art.
Just take a step back from the edge and get a look at their new work. It looks like a train. When you book the ticket to travel on it, you are told it is a train. And you are charged a train price.
But then at the time of boarding the train it is magically transformed into a bus.
And those who boarded the Trainbus from Birmingham to Rugby last Saturday were met not by a train diver but by a Polish mime artists who had no idea about the area.
The train will not be running along the track but travelling by road. And what road it uses is up to you.
A supervisor boards the Trainbus and addresses the passengers in cryptic tones. Says he: “It will really help you as your driver is Polish, doesn’t speak much English and he doesn’t know the route.”
A woman who knows the way volunteers to sit by the diver and give him instructions.
This is art in the making, and in the community. And it might well be coming to a street near you. All aboard the Trainbus!
Not The Last Noel
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.
Here is a selection of things that will kill you and yours from last week’s paper of doom…
MONDAY
“45,000 criminals bound for Britain. We can’t keep out Romanian and Bulgarian thugs, minister admits” – Junior Home Office Minister Joan Ryan may like to consider exchanging these foreign thugs for some of our own?
“HOW TO BE POSITIVELY HAPPY. His TV career seemed over and his private life was in turmoil. But Noel Edmonds transformed his fortunes by putting his trust in positive thinking. In this inspirational new series, he shows how YOU can do the same” – Yes! You can be just like Noel Edmonds! Glory be! Hallelujah! Shoot me now!
WEDNESDAY
“The flag of surrender. EU’s banner is put on a legal par with the Union flag and Cross of St George” – The blue flag with gold stars will now “count as a national flag”
“For God’s sake, can’t my children be taught their own religion? A furious mother on how her children have been bombarded with teaching about Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism but nothing about their own culture” – Why is there no Satan worship workshop at school? Why?
“’No room’ to hold captured illegal immigrants” – Some illegal immigrants are not locked up because there are not enough places to lock them in
“In a provocative crie de coeur that’ll enrage thousands of women – but strike a chord with others – one mother of two says the unsayable. SORRY. BUT MY CHIDLREN BORE ME TO DEATH”” – No need to apologies, Notting Hill resident Helen Kirwan-Taylor, your kids Ivan and Constantine look they could bore anyone to death. You’ve just been unlucky. Try again.
“A weighty challenge for the NHS” – Fat patients mean the NHS is spending money on reinforced beds
“TV AND FRIDGE PRICES TO RISE” – Front-page horror – and it’s all to do with EU recycling laws
THURSDAY
“Pilots in threat to disrupt Bank Holiday flights” – That’ll learn yer for trying to leave this benighted land
“Why Labour despises the family” – Not just any family, but your family, says Melania Phillips
“As cruel months go, I will go for August” – Keith Waterhouse sees evil under the sun
“Britain 2006: The to place to be a criminal” – We’re No. 1!
“The asthma drugs ‘that are putting lives at risk’” – Dr Vassilis Vassiliou and Dr Christos Zipitis, from Addenbrooke Hospital, Cambridge, says using salmeterol might be bad for asthmatics
FRIDAY
“Why do the BBC’s war reporters refuse to wear ties?” – Michael Cole enters the war debate
“Is it any wonder Britons are leaving in droves (After all, their country deserted them year ago”)? – Richard Littlejohn is still here
“DIY painkillers ‘could double risk of impotence’” – So suggest scientists at the University of Tampere, in Finland
“FROM Mr RIGHT – You thought he was our ideal man and lived with him for years, but always put off having children. Then, with your biological clock ticking madly, he dumps you to have a child with a younger woman. Meet a new – and worrying – social species – To Mr WRITE OFF”
“The Dairlylea slice that’s saltier than the sea” – But not as salty as crisps
Fully Loaded
LINDSAY Lohan is suffering from exhaustion.
The Mirror says that after going on a six hour “bender” the night before filming her new movie, Lindsay felt exhausted.
We look on is horror as Lindsay is taken at speed to the emergency room of a Los Angeles hospital.
“She was overheated and dehydrated,” says her spokeswoman. “She was filming in 105F weather for 12 hours.”
And this is not the first time Lindsay has been hospitalised for exhaustion.
Looking past the pictures of Lindsay on a night out in LA nightclub Guy’s Bar – Lindsay is dancing and singing with pal Nicole Richie, who is wearing her knickers over her jeans – the Mirror looks at Lindsay’s medical notes.
We learn that Lindsay was treated for exhaustion while filming on the set of Herbie: Fully Loaded back in October 2004.
And now she’s exhausted again. At the hospital doctors gave Lindsay injections and told her to go home. So, as the paper says, she went to Il Sole’s restaurant – where she may or may not live.
Soap Boiler
GERI Halliwell was always an exceptional talent.
Geri broke the mould of popular entertainers. While they who have gone before her have been able to sing and not dance or dance and not sing, groundbreaking Geri could do neither. She was new and she was exciting.
But now Geri is a mother and an ex-Spice Girl. As such, she needs a new direction for her career and, as the Star reports, she is to be an actress.
What with this being Geri, chances are high that she will bring her unique ability to the job and be a non-acting actress.
And what better place for someone blessed with such talents than the cobbled and bloodstained streets of EastEnders?
And even better news is that rather then getting Geri to play a part the show’s producers will create a part especially for Geri.
And just as soon as they’ve found how to incorporate a red-haired unmarried mother of one in a Union Jack dresses and matching knickers into the plot, she may well be in…
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Bone
FOR every one Drew Barrymore, there are many Macaulay Culkins who fail to grow with their audience.
The tiny frame, clean complexion and sassy mouth that looked engaging on a six-year-old looks creepy and unnerving on the face of a thirty year old man.
And mindful of that we turn to the Sun and read “Hairy Botter – STAR DANIEL NAKED FOR STAGE ROLE.”
News is that Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the class swot in the Harry Potter films, is now 17 years old. That is shock enough, but there is more. He is to star in a stage play in which he will be seen “simulating a sex act while riding on a horse”.
There is a temptation to applaud Daniel’s versatility and agility. But his stagecraft is overshadowed by something else, something almost morbid.
Daniel is to star in Equus, in which he will play Alan Strang who enjoys an “erotic relationship with horses”.
For fans of the Harry Potter movies who have wondered when the boy wizard will get it on with Hermione Granger (she’s the Debbie McGee to Potter’s Paul Daniels), this seems unfair. Potter has not even kissed his paramour and now he’s off frotting horses.
But there it is. People who have been mentally undressing Daniel for years can now get a load of his magic wand when the production opens in 2007.
And Harry Potter is finally put to bed…
Jehovah Kill
“YOU don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps.” So goes the sign behind the bar at the Ferret & Chav public house.
And what if it’s right? What if madness is the only way you can really enjoy working there? And what if the light at the end of the tunnel is a train heading straight for you? Rather than adverts for the bar staffs’ lack of humour, what if these signs are simple statements of fact?
And what if the sign outside the home of 77-year-old Jean Gove is correct? What if: “OUR DOGS ARE FED ON JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES.”
Mrs Gove poses alongside the sign that features on the fence outside her home at Burlesdon, near Southampton. The sign has advertised its apparent truth for 30 years.
But now it must go. In “Jehovah the top!” the Sun says police arrived at Jean’s home and told her remove the sign. It has been deemed “distressing, offensive and inappropriate”.
“It’s only a lark,” says Jean, “and it’s staying there. I don’t see what the fuss is about. Don’t people have a sense of humour anymore?” she asks.
While we debate that, the Mail spots a dog. It’s a small brown and black Jack Russell. It’s called Rabbit, which may be funny or just cruel.
Jean scoops up this dog named Sue and smiling for the cameras tells the Express that it was her late husband who put the sign up.
And her son, Richard tells the Mail: “After he put the sign up we never had a single visit from Jehovah’s Witnesses for years, so I suppose it did the job.”
He then tells us that “mum and dad have had about five Alsatians and Jack Russells over the years.”
And we look again at Rabbit. And we wonder…
