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.
Britney Spears & Kevin Federline Duet
BURIED under the story of Coconut Kate Moss – forget cocaine, this new-look Kate is a fan of coconut rubs – is news that should be on the front page.
Were it not for our keen news sense you may well have missed the revelation that Kevin Federline is back in the recording studio.
Having wowed the music world with his efforts to date, K-Ferret plans to boost sales of his debut rap album, Playing With Fire, by recording a duet with his wife, the pregnant Britney Spears.
A source tells the Sun that K-Ferret will “be rapping over the singing”.
Many is the time we have rapped over Kevin’s music. Who has not heard the opening strains to America’s Most Hated and began rapping over it (“Turn it off! Off! Off! Make it stop! I am begging you!”).
Although the paper hears a source say that industry experts are warning Britney that it could be bad career move for her, we are thrilled.
It’s all not a bit unlike Just the Two of Us, the BBC TV show in which someone who can sort of sing is partnered with someone who sort of can’t.
Indeed, Britney and Kevin might well have created a new reality TV music formula in which singers pair up with their non-singing spouses and compete for the approval of Simon Cowell.
It’s a terrific concept. And as soon as we’ve heard Britney and Kevin’s efforts, we’ll get in touch with Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova, Sharon Osbourne and Ozzy Osbourne, Cheryl Tweedy and Ashley Cole…
Mel B & Eddie Murphy Make Plans
DID you know that singer Sean Paul “visited Blighty to celebrate the launch of the new Vauxhall Corsa”?
It’s the kind of news that makes you sit up and pay attention. And it is almost hard to believe. But there it is. The singer was good enough to join us all in a national celebration of the revamped mini hatchback with the sweeping roofline and a stereo compatible with MP3 players.
And this is not all. Because alongside this story is another that makes us sit up and take notice. Mel B, the Scary one from the Spice Girls, is to marry Eddie Murphy, star of Hollywood films.
The pair are to be married in Los Angeles’s “flash” Roosevelt hotel this September.
An insider tells the paper: “Mel just wants her and Eddie’s close family to be there for the simple blessing.” But friends will then get along to the hotel for a wedding reception.
Guests will dine on canapés of seared foie gras, blu-fin sashimi and prime steaks. The party can then dance at the hotel’s Teddy’s nightclub.
Before the happy couple are driven off in a brand new 1.4-litre Corsa with Sean Paul playing on the MP3-compatible stereo, naturally…
Victoria Beckham & David Camp It Up
THE Beckhams’ holiday venue features many rooms with en-suite bathrooms, two dining rooms, a big games room with a full-size snooker table and a cinema.
There are two swimming pools, one with a rocky beach and fountains, and landscaped gardens.
Seen from above in the Star, the place is like a Butlins holiday Park. And indeed it might be. There’s an area of grass large enough for David to teach the children football tricks and the large patio serves as a stage on which Posh could pull on a red coat and do a passable imitation of a Spice Girl.
The extensive parking area could hold, by our estimations, around a dozen coachloads of pensioners.
But this is no holiday camp. This is just one man’s home, namely that of “megarich tycoon” John Magnier.
And it’s not in Prestatyn but Marbella, on Spain’s Costa del Sol. And it’s the Beckhams’ for £14,000 a day.
That’s what the Star says the Beckhams are paying to sing and cavort in so much sunshine. Not that you can see them at play because the compound is surrounded by spy cameras, three-meter-high walls and guards.
In short, it is a home from home for the Beckhams, a Spanish version of their Beckingham Palace mansion in Hertfordshire.
And surely with the weather in Blighty hot enough to spit roast a footballer and his wife, David could have saved his money and stayed at home.
Or gone to Butlins…
Colin Farrell & Vice
“HELLRAISER” is a much abused term. In Hollywood you can raise Hell by smoking a cigarette, even a menthol one.
So we have always been little unsure what to make of Colin Farrell’s epithet. Would a young Irish actor who had a drink and a smoke be a hellraiser in the UK and Ireland, where binge drinking and casual sex are the norm?
We’d probably take more notice of him if he extolled the virtues of veggie burgers and smart juice.
And here is Colin in the Mirror. The “legendary boozer and womaniser” is revealed to be a “bright-eyed clean-living man”.
But he wasn’t always so. “I was burning the candle at both ends and the flames met in the middle,” says Colin dramatically.
“It caught up with me. It was a long time coming but I had my arse handed to me on a plate. Now I haven’t had a drink for six months.”
Colin has a rich way with metaphor, and having felt the burn of excess and dined al fresco on his own backside, he has taken a “metaphorical deep breathe” and reassessed his life.
Colin is now father to James, the result of a romance with Kim Bordenave. “I’ve found a new love I never thought I’d find with my son,” says Colin.
That changed him. And at the end of last year Colin looked at his life. “For the first time, I got to step back and have a good look at the life I had created,” says he.
Whether his was a metaphorical step back is unclear, and it was not without danger – while filming Alexander Colin stepped back, fell from a hotel window and broke an ankle.
But even this new Colin can raise Hell. The Mirror says Colin chain-smokes his way through the interview in Beverly Hills.
You can smell the sulphur every time he lights up…
Posted: 19th, July 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Express Yourself
“YOU’LL remember my dad,” says Jon Gaunt in the Sun. Er… “…a former police officer, died eight weeks ago.”
Oh, him. We’re sorry to hear of your loss, Jon… “He collapsed at Heathrow after retuning from Thailand.”
Dad died with £250 of unused Amex travellers’ cheques. And since his death Jon hasn’t heard so much as a peep from the big finance company about getting the cash to his mum. And remember his dad was a copper.
Even Jon’s brother is on the case. “Yesterday my brother finally managed to talk to a human…in Salt Lake City or was it India?”
Dunno. What was it? Salt Lake City – the capital of Utah, USA, home to Mormons and the sighting of the Pioneer Memorial Museum (“noted as the world’s largest collection of artifacts on one particular subject”)?
Or India – second most populated country on the planet, once the jewel in the British Empire and birth place of no less than five Miss World winners?
Jon’s brother is unsure. But he does know that Amex has closed down their office in Brighton (UK or Michigan?). So having already sent the information there, Jon and his family “needed to send everything again – to the States!”.
Imagine that! Having to send off the documents for your dad’s American Express travellers’ cheques to America. Pah!
“American Express should hang their heads in shame…and they should also GIVE MY MUM MY DAD’S CASH,” says Jon.
That they should. And we only ask that Jon tells us all about it when he gets his wish…
Family: Father (deceased), mother, brother
Story: My poor old mum
Tone: Outraged
Rod Stewart & Penny Lancaster’s Matching Hair
DOES rock music make your hair grow? We only wonder because while the face caves in and the body falls down, an ageing rocker’s hair remains as proud and excited as it did when the wearer was in their pomp.
The Star has a picture of Rod Stewart, he of the shaggy-haired highlights.
Rod and girlfriend Penny Lancaster are in open-topped Ferrari making for Nice Airport. (The car is not big enough to take their son Alastair, who brings up the rear in a people carrier.)
In this picture, Rod wears a hat. You might think the wind in his hair would help maintain his tussled look? But you would be mistaken. You see, Rod spends a lot of money on his barnet.
The Mail says that Rod’s coiffure costs him £6,000 a year. That’s 30 times more than the average British man spends on his bonce. But, then, Rod seems to have 30 times more hair than the average British man.
But, even so, it is a lot of money, and time. The paper says a visit to Rod’s London crimper, Steven Carey, takes five hours and costs £340 a go.
Alongside shots of Rod’s head past and present, the paper calculates that over the course of his career, Rod has spent four months of his life in the hairdressers.
A salon insider says that Rod has highlights and lowlights put in his hair every three weeks. And, incidentally, Penny joins him at the hairdressers, and has matching blonde tints added to her own mane.
But might there not be something more than just dye to Rod’s unchanging locks?
Perhaps it’s dried with a blast of one of his soft rock anthems. Or something by the Rolling Stones or from one of those other bands composed of men with hair that never says die..?
Bob Geldof Worries About Pete Doherty
THE Ibiza Rocks festival sounds innocent enough. But when you learn that ‘rock’ is a nickname for crack cocaine and that Pete Doherty is on the bill, you worry.
And if you are Bob Geldof, and your 17-year-old daughter Peaches is planning to head to the island to get her rocks off, you run your hands through your hair and say something like “For f****’s sake!”
The Star says that when Bob heard Peaches and her pal Fiona Ritchie, who together form the DJing ensemble Trash Puppies, were intending to perform at the gig where Doherty’s Babyshambles act is on the card, he forbade her from going.
A source tells the paper that though Bob supports his daughter’s career as a DJ he does not want her hanging out in foreign nightclubs.
Says the source: “He’s drawn the line at Ibiza though she will be out of the country and hanging around people like Doherty.”
And rocks…
Prince Harry’s Royal Wee
SHOULD the next war be settled by a game of polo, Britain will surely fair well.
Barely a week goes by without news of how Officer Prince Harry Wales has been sitting on a horse getting ready for any ensuing battle by slapping a mallet into a ball.
This week, Harry is on manoeuvres at the inter-regimental polo finals in Windsor, Berkshire.
The Mirror’s war correspondent pops along to see the war games, and watch Harry making his way to a horsebox.
There, Harry unbuttons his Royal flies on his Royal jodhpurs and urinates in one corner. A small crowd has gathered to watch, including Harry’s lover Chelsy Davy.
They look on as Harry re-buttons himself and make his way back to the fray.
But while the Sun hears laughter, the Mirror hears an eyewitness moan about it being bad enough mucking out the horses without cleaning up after non-toilet trained royals.
But surely this is all part and parcel of war. War is ugly and brutal. There is no time to go to the toilet when the battle rages.
Although, there is a break for tea…
Hot Off The Press
HOT isn’t it. It’s so hot that the weather is front page news.
The Star had wanted to tell its readers about the troubles in the Middle East but it is so hot that it goes with a shot of mo-del Zuzana in a pink bikini instead.
“We’re in for hottest day in 100 years,” says the front page. And inside readers are told how to “beat heat”. Top tips include freezing your underwear, sticking packets of frozen peas on your head and drinking a lot of lager.
And you can go to the beach. The Mirror looks at “A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BEACH”. For reasons unexplained the job of watching Brighton beach from 5am to 10am goes to the paper’s “science editor”.
Perhaps he fancies himself as bit of a David Attenborough, and we imagine him peering at the goings on from behind a huge plastic rubber fern he’s brought along to help him blend in.
In hushed whispers, he tells us that temperatures could reach and even exceed 100 degrees. It’s a “TON IN THE SUN,” says the Sun.
The Sun says that yesterday, 15,000 people were on the beach of Bournemouth frolicking in the sea, sunbathing on the sands and behaving recklessly. You see, they are all going to suffer.
“DON’T RUB IN SUNCREAM,” commands the Mail’s front-page headline. A charity called RAFT, the website of which says it deals with skin cancer, reconstructive, plastic and burns surgery, has issued some advice.
Although suncream stops the skin burning, rubbing the lotion in encourages people to lie in the sun for longer and expose themselves to more “dangerous radiation”.
The advice is to apply the cream in a “thick ‘buttery ‘layer’”. You might look like an open sandwich, but you will live to see another summer.
And you might even bump into, and slide off, Zuzana…
Cheryl Tweedy Marries Ashley Cole
HARD cheese, a harder bed and bullet-hard breakfast rolls to all you who rocked up at the Chieveley Travelodge for Cheryl Tweedy’s wedding to her footballer.
As the Mirror reports, the real do was held at Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire.
The 500 close friends and family who did make it to the do had a jolly time of it. Pink champagne flowed, Wags wagged their jewellery and Cheryl’s Girls Aloud bandmates wore burnt orange dresses with a zebra print hem.
And Cheryl, who had arrived in a horse and carriage with blacked out windows, was just delighted.
She then changed from her £110,000 wedding dress into a black and silver-mesh outfit which showed off her body and black knickers. Good taste was in abundance.
It was time to dance. And then the Star sees “gobsmacked” guests treated to surprise performance from groom Ashley Cole’s favourite singer John Legend.
And the newlyweds began to dream about their life together and settling down in the pages of showbiz magazines…
Naomi Campbell Goes Overboard
IN a departure from the norm, Naomi Campbell has been lashing out at furniture.
While news of the model’s fit aboard her lover’s new yacht is unappetising, it suggests Naomi has got her anger under control and is no longer, allegedly, attacking her human staff.
(Last week Naomi’s assistant Amada Brack sued the model for false imprisonment, assault and distress. Her former housekeeper, Ana Scolavino, claims Naomi attacked her. Another maid, one Gaby Gibson, alleges Naomi assaulted her. Investigations into an alleged fight with model Yvonne Scio are ongoing.)
The Star has a picture of Naomi talking with her new lover, Dubai-born Prince Jafar (“Naomi feud ‘n drink!”). And the Sun looks on as Naomi goes on a “rampage”.
The story goes that while staying on her man’s £1.5million yacht Nasma on Italy’s Tuscan riviera, Naomi asked an Italian chef to create a meal for she and her man.
So he made a tomato, mozzarella and dried ham starter. He chilled a bottle of local Italian wine. And that went down like a crabstick salad and a warm flat pint of Asti Spumante.
Reports are that Naomi went nuts. “All hell seemed to break loose,” says an eyewitness. “All you could hear was shouting and screaming in English, there was the sound of plates being broken.”
The witness hears the crew tell of the kitchen being a complete mess and of curtains and cushions “ripped apart”.
Shocking? For sure. But, as we say, this is an improvement on Naomi’s, alleged, previous behaviour. And the sooner she sticks faces of her staff on punch bags, lampposts and parking meters, the better…
Wayne Rooney Tells All
“FORSOOTH! I eyed him narrowly…”
The opening line to Wayne Rooney’s autobiography The Story So Far promises to show us the real Wayne.
Of course, Wayne is only 20 years of age, and as is the way with footballers, many more autobiographies are planned.
A footballer’s life moves on at great pace, and already this vital tome fails to take in Wayne’s recent holiday to St Tropez, his new T–shirt (with blue stripes!) and his use of the word “nugatory”.
But the book is thorough to a point, and the Sun takes us “Inside Wayne’s World”.
We learn that Wayne can only get to sleep if there is noise. “I not only have to have the TV and light on to help me sleep but also a vacuum cleaner. Failing to do that, a fan or a hairdryer will do.”
By “fan” we are pretty sure Wayne means a device for moving air around, but he could mean a football fan, and so much the better if this fan has a rattle and a foghorn voice by which to urge Wayne to “Come and get to sleep if you think you’re tired enough”.
Wayne concedes that Coleen hates his need for bedtime noise. But, then, Coleen McLoughlin has had to put up with so much more.
For the first time in public, Wayne talks about his moment of madness with a woman trading under the name Auld Slapper.
“Yes, I had been to a brothel, a massage parlour, call it anything you like, when I was 16,” says Wayne. It was not long after he’d met Coleen. “I felt so ashamed that I’d let her down so much,” he adds. He asks himself why he’d done such a “shameful thing”.
And he wonders how he can make things right. And if showering his lover with two engagement rings and assorted other gifts can heal the wound. The Star says Wayne told Coleen: “Spend, spend, spend!”
Not that Wayne doesn’t benefit from buying his lover so many rocks and jewels. If his hairdryer burns out and the fan stops screaming, he can always get Coleen to jangle her jewellery and so get him to sleep.
Princess Beatrice Parties And Prince Harry Pulls
“WHAT really went on at Beatrice’s ball?”
That’s the burning question on the front page of the Mail. And that it is illustrated with a shot of Princess Beatrice looking toothy and haughty in a blue silk taffeta gown makes it no less vital.
It was Beatrice’s 18th birthday party at Windsor Castle, a do based on an 1888 masked ball.
Inside the paper there are more questions. “A £10,000 dress flown in from New York, the model who captivated Andrew, rap music until 3am and bacon butties at dawn. But where were Wills and senior royals?”
Let us consider each issue in turn. We have already noted the dress, a hard-to-miss creation of tent-like dimensions.
And now we deal with the mo-del. She goes by the name of Angie Everhart, and she’s an American. And she’s an ex-model, having turned her back on the catwalk and become an actress. The Sun (“Andrew had a ball with the actress”) says Angie and Andy have become close in the past nine months. We should also note that, like his former wife Sarah – who can be seen wearing a dress not dissimilar enough to her daughter’s – Angie has red hair.
As for the rap music, well, that only kicked in once the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra had played a “medley of classic tunes”, or ‘Musak Live!’ as it is known to the masses.
Then a DJ turned up the dials and played tracks by 50 Cent and other rap artistes. Very possibly the Orchestra kept time on stings and oboe, but we cannot be certain.
The bacon speaks for itself. And Wills and Harry? Wills we hear nothing of. But the Star says Harry has been sighted with a mum of two in her thirties.
She’s called Catherine Davies, 34, and Harry is said to have lifted her off her feet and planted a kiss on her lips in a London bar.
And that’s the lot. All questions have been answered. Although the identities of the aged man and woman doing the electric boogaloo to Get Rich or Die Tryin’ in D Major remain something of a mystery…
Drought To Worry About
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
“Turning grannies into mothers should make us all profoundly uneasy” – This week the “profoundly uneasy” Melanie Phillips is “profoundly uneasy” about the birth of a baby boy by IVF to 62-year-old Patti Farrant
“Why middle-class girls are more likely to binge drink” – Well, they do have more money and a mum with a car to pick them up
“Why Thailand and Mexico are hotspots for holiday horror” – So says research by Norwich Union insurance firm. Oh, and try to avoid Iraq and Afghanistan too.
TUESDAY
“Passport fiasco could force thousands to miss holidays” – Why anyone should want to leave this gilded land, heaven only know
WEDNESDAY
“Sorry chaps, but you’re utterly redundant (That’s what feminists and scientists believe – and humanity can go to hell)” – Less women and more football and pubs for men. Terrible.
“Population ‘could hit 70m unless we get a grip on immigration’” – Government advisor Lord Turner is right. And it could go to 80m, 90m 100m and so on.
“We were mugged by hoodies, Mr Cameron, so PLEASE don’t ask us to hug them – As David Cameron flaunts his compassion, seven horrifying stories that should make him think again”
THURSDAY
“Squabbling parents ‘send their children off the rails’” – Researchers at the Australian University say rowing can turn children on to drugs and delinquency
“Public ‘not warned’ on peril of cannabis” – Professor Murray of the Institute of Psychiatry obviously doesn’t think enough of the public read the Mail
One in five takeaways is a threat to your health” – The other four in five are rendered harmless by lashings of alcohol
“Morning sickness cold be a sign mum is eating badly” – Or Liverpool University researchers may be wrong
“Year of the mozzie” – More foreign invaders
“Goodbye Orion and the Great Bear. Hello Big Brother and Kylie…how London’s world famous attraction dumbed down star gazing. What on earth have they done to the Planitarium” – Robert Hardman visits the tourist attraction that no Londoner over the age of eight ever goes to
“Women pay a health price for working long hours” – So say researchers, who will never die out
FRIDAY
“Quack malaria potions endanger lives” – Take the drugs
DROUGHT? WHAT DROUGHT? Worried about water shortages? We revisited some of the most parched places in Britain during the 1976 drought – and found them deep UNDER water today” – see Wednesday’s Mail: “How the long, dry spell is shrinking our greatest river [the Thames] to a trickle”
“We asked Joan Bakewell to go undercover in a teenage chatroom. She found a world that lets youngsters live out their dreams – but also leaves them at the mercy of sinister predators – THE CHATROOM MINEFIELD” – Aged Mail writer pretends to a young girl on the web. For shame!
Robbie Williams’ Guide To Sex
GOOD news girls. When in years to come you dandle your grandchildren on your knee and say “I shagged Robbie Williams”, you will able to back up your claim with hard evidence.
As the Star says, Robbie is keeping a “SECRET” sex diary of all his conquests. And he’s giving each of his one-night stands a rating.
Robbie may then make his study available to other pop stars, who can consult Robbie’s handy guide and decide which groupie to take back to their trailer.
Robbie may also care to include the girl’s own comments, like those made by Marie Annerstedt, the trainee doctor who got together with Robbie in Gothenburg.
Here she is in the Star. “We were up until five in the morning,” she says. “Robbie asked me if I’d ever dressed up as a naughty nurse for a man.”
Says Robbie: “It’s a running joke how hard it is for me to pull. But my luck seems to have finally changed.”
And it can only get better. What girl would not want to play a small part in so grand a project? Especially if she gets to dress up…
Angelina Jolie Takes It All
“IT can’t get much worse for Jennifer Aniston,” says the Sun.
Well, her fabled hair could fall out while starring in a live advert for shampoo. That would be pretty bad.
So what terrible ill has befallen Jennifer? The nearby picture of Angelina Jolie provides an invaluable clue.
“Now Jolie nicks Jen’s dream job,” says the headline. And reading on we learn that Angelina is to star as Marianne, the wife of murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and beheaded in Pakistan in 2002.
The film is to be called A Mighty Heart, and the lead role was to be have been Jen’s.
As the paper says, Jennifer and Brad Pitt founded their Plan B production company specifically to make this movie.
But in the divorce settlement he got ownership of it. And now he has chosen Angelina and not Jen for the part.
And Jen is less than delighted. A source tells us that what with the movie being about serious things and weighty issues, Jen hoped the part in it would win her an Oscar. Now the chance goes to Angelina.
And so long as the role demands lots of Lycra, pouting and kicking people in the face, we’re sure she’ll do just great.
Victoria Beckham’s Club
“ROMEO’S a better singer than I am.” So says Victoria Beckham.
Having seen Victoria perform, we’d wager that her son is also a better dancer than his mother. He may also look better in fake bake and massive sunglasses. That for later. His is a fledgling career and he should leave the fans wanting more.
For now, the Sun tells us that while in Germany with the Wags, young Romeo treated all and sundry to a precocious rendition of Abba’s Money Money Money.
While he did that, his older brother Brooklyn passed among the assembled Wags with an empty baseball cap in his hands ready to be filled with cash.
Young Romeo really is a chip off the old block. And while we look forward to Romeo one day stepping into his mother’s micro mini and leading his band the Wannabe Spice Girls in song and dance, Victoria has her eyes on those Wags.
The Mirror has seen extracts from Vicky’s fashion tips book The Extra Half An Inch.
“The problems is with skinny jeans is if you wear them with flat shoes, like flip-flops or trainers, you end up looking like a golf club,” says she. We nod our lollipop heads in agreement.
“I hate those silly lacy bras with all those bits poking out beneath your top,” says she. “You end up looking like you have four breasts.” Posh has two breasts, although rumours persist that she has had more.
More observations will surely surface in her book – a study in how to look like Posh, if not sound like her…
Sleeping Beauty
THE sixth law of tabloid journalism states that any article that does not say Princess Diana was an angel made of flesh and silk is a “devastating blow” to Princes William and Harry.
And having assured us cameraman Sebastian Rich’s recent claim that he had sex with the princess was a “devastating blow” to the princes, the boys get another, er, “devastating blow”.
“OUTRAGE OF PICTURE OF DIANA DYING IN MAGAZINE,” says the front page of the Express.
“DYING DIANA PHOTO FURY,” echoes the Mirror on its cover. “SHAME ON YOU,” says the Sun on its front page.
And the news is a little grim. The Sun says that “worldwide fury” has erupted over the decision by an Italian magazine and newspaper to publish photographs of Diana after the Paris car crash.
These photos do not show Diana hailing a taxi, as conspiracy theorists suggest, but lying prone and broken. Another picture shows “harrowing autopsy drawings detailing her wounds”.
The Sun reproduces the offending page from Chi magazine but blocks out the “sickening” picture of Diana.
No paper chooses to reproduce the picture, but they have all seen it. And they want to tell us what they have seen.
The Mirror notices the shot of Diana slumped in her mangled car as a medic puts an oxygen mask over her face. The paper shows its readers a picture of the wrecked car.
The Star also has a big picture of the car. It speaks of the “gruesome” image of Diana. It hears from a source who says, “It’s morbid, sick and a massive insult to Di’s family.”
And the Star has seen those autopsy drawings. It says they indicate “serious impact to her head and chest”.
And we learn that the magazine has printed a list of what Diana had in her possession at the time. The Star dutifully tells us that Diana had a Jaeger watch, a pearl bracelet, black Versace shoes, a mobile phone and an earring.
How sick it is of the Italian magazine to dwell on such macabre detail. For shame!
But they want to explain. And we hear from the editor of Chi, Umberto Brindani. He says he published the pictures because they had never been seen before. “I found it rather tender and touching,” says he. “She is not dead in the picture but looks as if she is sleeping.”
Sleeping? Why what’s wrong with that. Perhaps we should see this picture? Just as we should see the Mail’s picture – published today – of one Petar Sutovic dying in mysterious circumstances in Belgrade.
Is he sleeping?
Rich Pickings
“DIANA, the cameraman and another squalid kiss and tell.”
That’s what the Mail says about the matter of Sebastian Rich’s “lurid, money-making revelation” that he had sex with Princess Diana, our Princess Diana.
The Mail is right to be appalled – over two pages of tight text, featuring a picture of Diana standing alongside Sebastian and anther shot of the cad in pair of shorts.
The Mail can barely control its anger as it tells its readers how Rich and others like him are just muckrakers and lowlifes.
The paper remembers Lady Colin Campbell. She said Diana had an abortion. Therapist Simone Simmons claimed Diana tried cocaine. Her former police bodyguard Inspector Ken Wharfe wrote that Diana told him Oliver Hoare was the “first person who had aroused her physically”.
How truly good it is of the Mail to tell its readers about these scandalous books, thus saving them the trouble of buying the tome and enriching the rapscallions who wrote them.
And you really can’t believe a word of it. Over in the Sun, a former lover of Rich’s says that she’s amazed at the story of how the cameraman shared 12½ minutes of lust with Diana.
Says Angie Forder: “He was never that good with me. We had a brief on/off fling and he was absolutely hopeless in the sack. Two and a half minutes? He was lucky if he could go for a minute.”
Sure, Diana could arouse strange passion in a man, exciting them to heights of ardour never before thought possible.
But we have just heard testimony that Rich may be stretching the truth. And we should all spend even less time listening to him than he, allegedly, did with Diana.
Wazza Does A Gazza
“WAZZA HAZZA WOBBLA,” says the Sun’s front page. And, as is the way with things football, the story has a vital lip reading element.
Pictured on a boat in St Tropez, Wayne Rooney looks like he is all ready to cry. To his left sits the dutiful Coleen McLoughlin.
We cannot hear what’s being said, but lip readers at the Sun tells us that Coleen is telling her footballer: “Don’t worry darling, he’s only got four years left on his contract.”
The he is Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese winker and Wayne’s Manchester United team-mate. Reports are that rather than fleeing the country, Ronaldo will remain at United. And the suggestion is that Wayne is less then pleased.
But Coleen (yellow floral bikini) thinks she knows how to cheer up her man. As an onlooker says: “Coleen tried to perk him up by tweaking his ear and stroking his head, yet he remained down it the dumps.”
Coleen’s magic is not working. But she does not give up on her man. And the Mirror looks on as she rubs soothing sunblock into his reddish face.
But still we don’t see Wayne smile. And we begin to wonder what can be troubling England’s tyro. You don’t suppose someone’s said something about his mum, do you?
Je Regrette
“I’M a man first,” says Zinedine Zidane. “I would rather have taken a punch in the jaw than be insulted in that way.”
And in what way was he insulted? Why, Macro Materazzi, the scumbag, insulted ZZ’s dear old mum. He called her all manner of names and what with her feeling proper poorly it was too much for the player to bear.
“I can’t regret what I did because it would mean he was right to say what he said…He said some very nasty words about my mother and my sister,” says ZZ in the Mirror.
Fair enough. But what did the Italian say to excite Zidane’s inner martial artist?
(We are informed that rather than missing the Italian’s jaw, as some writers have suggested, Zidane was displaying his working knowledge of the French savate martial art, as seen in the film Les Enfants du Paradis and on the streets of his native Marseilles.)
Zidane does not tell the world what Materazzi called his mum and sister – “not once, twice, but three times.” So leaving us at the mercy of the lip reading profession, for whom these are heady times.
But they can’t seem to agree. He called him “the son of a terrorist whore,” says one. “I wish an ugly death to you and your sister,” says another. The Sun says “top lip-reader” Marianne Fere sees Materazzi tell Zidane, a high ball is “not for feccia [scum] like you”.
Another sees a fat little bloke in a Crystal Palace kit dash down the terraces and call Zidane a “French w****r”.
The next instalment of Lip Readers Monthly promises to be a bumper issue.
But until we get a definitive reading, or Zidane tells us what went on, we may never know what was said.
But at least we can now hear the players talking. And while Zidane says “The guilty man was the man who provoked what I did”, the Sun hears Materazzi answer his critics.
“I didn’t insult his mother,” says he. “I lost my mother when I was 15 years old and still get emotional about it.” He continues: “Zidane is my hero and I have always admired him a lot” – which may suggest there was more to that tweaked nipple than mere male bonding.
But while the protagonists make claim and counterclaim, and France and Italy make ready for war, Zidane says he has one regret: “It was watched by two billion people and by millions of kids. I’m sorry for that.”
To say nothing of the kids’ dear old mums…
Cop A Load Of That
AFTER Closer, heat, OK! and Now, the world of celebrity magazine gives a big airy kiss to safe!.
As the Star reports, the magazine is the work of those top hacks at Suffolk police. The organ features fashion tips, hair and beauty guidelines and a problem page.
And there’s some sound advice on how to dress for a night of binge drinking and cat fighting in the country’s shopping precincts.
As fashion editor W. K. Dee says: “For those of you intent on getting ratted this weekend, think. If you fall over or pass out, your skirt may ride up.
“You could show off more than you intended – for all our sakes, please make sure you’re wearing nice pants and that you’ve recently had a wax.”
Quite so. The last thing any copper wants at the end of a busy shift is to be confronted with an untamed gusset. There should be a law against it.
And besides keeping women in trim, the magazine is intended to keep them safe!. Chief Inspector David McDonnell, of Suffolk Police, flicks past the magazine’s picture of a girl in a mini skirt flashing her backside and says: “The message is simple – have a good time, don’t overdo it, friends stick together and get home safe.”
In short, don’t be like Jade Goody, whose knicker-encased backside is used to illustrate the story.
Sure, flashing her knickers helped get Jade to a hammock in the Caribbean – the Sun has a shot of the hammock collapsing under the combined weight of Jade, her skinny lover Jack Tweedy and her knickers – but it will only get you in trouble.
Think on.
Half Nelson’s Column
TODAY Britons walk a little shorter.
It is our painful duty to report that Nelson’s Column is 16ft shorter than it was yesterday.
We had thought the Trafalgar Square landmark stood at an impressive 185ft. But now we learn in the Mail that it is a mere 169ft high.
This is cruel indeed. And may be a sign of how far Britain has slipped since the monument to the country’s great military leader was erected 163 years ago.
As the Express says, the new measurement comes as “blow to national pride and identity”. Surely it does.
And we wonder how such a mistake could have been made. The Mail says it’s to do with including the height of the supporting plinth on which the column stands.
But we suspect something else. Might it be that Nelson rises and falls with the country’s fortunes?
When designed al those moons ago, in those years of expanding empire, the Column was intended to stand 203ft high.
In times of War, when Britain stood alone against the Germans, the Column shrunk to 185ft.
But now with an empire gone, Nelson is sinking fast. How long before all that we can see of Nelson above the ground is the rosette on his hat? Not very, we’d wager.
Bird Brain
WILL Jessica Simpson give Nick Lachey another chance?
The toothsome twosome who turned their marriage into a TV show (or was it their TV show into a marriage?) – and who divorced in November – could be getting back together for another series.
The Star says that Nick, a singer with the looks and voice of a first division footballer, and, if the paper’s picture is any guide, the wardrobe of a provincial estate agent, is keen to get back with the actress.
So for Jessica’s 26th birthday Nick sent her a dozen white doves.
And when Jessica opened her front door in they flew. And they proceeded to poo all over her home.
“The doves got very nervous when anybody approached them,” says a source. “Poor Jess had to have her entire house disinfected on her birthday.”
And worst of all – no-one was there to film it.
Golden Balls
ZINEDINE Zidane should not have down what he did.
Having butted Italian footballer Marco Materazzi in the chest, the Frenchman should not have just walked past the World Cup trophy but picked it up and taken it with him, or headbutted it.
We all have our ideas of what Zidane should have done in the World Cup final, including his mum Malika. “ZZ CHOP,” says the Mirror’s front-page headline. Malika says her boy should have produced a knife from his sock and chopped Materazzi’s balls off.
This would have been a sensation, especially on a football pitch. And though not in the least bit pleasant it would have made a point, and memorable telly.
Having heard the suggestion that Materazzi called her a “terrorist whore”, Algerian Malika tells the paper: “No one should be subjected to such foul insults. I’m disgusted.
She goes on: “I have nothing but contempt for Materazzi and, if what he said is true, then I want his balls on a platter.”
Malika may well get her wish when Italy play France in September – unless the game is called off on account of the two counties being at war with one another.
As the Star reports, right-wing Italian Senator, one Roberto Calderoli, says Italy’s win was a “political victory”. He has branded the France team a group of “blacks, Muslims and Communists”.
France’s ambassador to Italy says such comments are “unacceptable and despicable”.
And so it goes. And we sit in the pub and wonder what Zidane should have done. Taken the trophy with him? Tipped the trophy over? Castrated Materazzi? Declared war on Italy?
The debate goes on.
