Birds Of Passage

‘TWO swallows may not make a summer, but a picture of Anna Kournikova on the front page of one of the tabloids is proof positive that warmer weather is on its way.

So tie a knot in your handkerchief and break out the factor 30 because the woman who put the Phwoar in Phwoar-nikova graces the front-page of this morning’s Express.

But wait: could that slightly dishevelled Russian blonde really be the one-time tennis smasher or is she one of the “hundreds of thousands of extra East European workers set to flood into Britain”?

“Britain is opening the door to more migrants,” screams the paper’s headline, but news is that Anna is now so shockingly thin that she can fit through a crack in the doorframe.

Gone, says the paper, is her famously athletic build – the wide tennis player’s shoulders, six pack and toned musclature.

In its place are a frighteningly gaunt frame, jutting collarbones and the bony knees of a prepubescent supermodel.

Her stick-thin arms look unable to support the weight of the glittering rocks hanging loosely off her fingers, let alone deliver a powerful serve of wind-whistling velocity.

Indeed, all that remains of the old Anna are hundreds of thousands of pictures that can mark the start of summer for years to come…’

Posted: 2nd, May 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Office Angels

‘“PRESCOTT: THE ABUSE OF OFFICE,” screams the Mail’s front-page headline, and we are gripped.

It takes a story of major importance to knock news of bird flu on our doorstep, paedophiles under the bed and Noel Edmonds on our TV from the Mail’s cover; and the story of how the Deputy Prime Minister had sex in his Whitehall Office is just that thing.

The Mail has paid a reported £250,000 for an interview with Tracey Temple, the woman show worked under Prescott with such dedication to duty.

It says the story is similar to that of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. Only it is not. While we can argue that just about the best thing Slick Willy did well was chase women, Prescott’s pursuit of females flesh conjures up images of a sweaty Benny Hill chasing his angels.

The Mail says that Tracey and Prezza would regularly “grope and grapple” during the working day. They engaged in “sordid” phone sex. They enjoyed “sexual banter”.

“We were very lucky we were never caught – as we never shut the door,” says Tracey. “…Seven civil servants worked right outside the office.”

And what of Tracey the temptress? Like Lewinsky and her twanging thong, here is Tracey and her red leather trousers. No man can resist.

Tracey says otherwise: “I feel I have been used and am being used as a scapegoat,” says she. She says the Government have “abandoned” her. “I am not the siren that has been painted – I have only had eight lovers in my life.”

Sure, she was flirty; but so was John- the pair used to rub each others arms. But then things took a turn for the more sleazy when she had to deliver ministerial boxes to Prezza’s flat in Admiralty Arch.

“It was the first time I had been there,” says Tracey, “and he leaned forward and cupped my face in his hands. I froze.” That broke the ice and over the next few weeks the couple grew closer and closer.

“When I went into his office for diary meetings, if I was wearing a skirt he would slide his hand up my leg, under it,” says Tracey. “Sometimes the touch would start something, we would kiss and things would go on from there.”

It all sounds less than pleasant. And while our mind is infected with images of Prescott and his secretary hard at it, Tracey tells us of her fears. Sure, they could get caught – this was risky; and Prezza could overdo it.

“He was a lot older than me and I used to worry about his health…that something would happen to me.”

That he would perish in the throes of passion? And that Tracey would be trapped under his slumped frame? But Tracey survived the full force of Prezza’s passion to tell us about it in lurid details.

Whether he will he survive in office is yet to be determined…’

Posted: 30th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Bloody Hell

‘“AT 0800 this morning a man aged 27 years old was arrested on a street in an east London borough on suspicion of administering a noxious substance recklessly,’ says a police spokesman.

But Pete Doherty, for it is he, naturally, is said to be “very angry and upset” about this latest brush with the law.

The Sun’s pictures of pop “f***wit” apparently injecting a fan with heroin have caused him to be pinched. (See Anorak: “Brown & Out.”) Forensic teams have been all over Pete’s flat, where the incident is said to have taken place.

Pete’s been questioned about the picture, which shows him, allegedly, pushing a needle into a girl’s arm. The Sun mentioned that the needle contained heroin; we were unsure.

And Pete says it was all so innocent. His manager, James Mullord, tells us: “I know it sounds bizarre but what Pete was actually doing was drawing blood from the girl to use in his painting.” Pete uses blood as other people might use ink.

But still Pete is in custody, where he might like to pass the time by drawing pictures, either in blood or some other homemade substance that epitomises his career to date…’

Posted: 30th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

After The Flood

‘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

“POLICEMEN BEHAVING BADLY – This former detective spent seven months investigating her own colleagues. Now she has exposed a world of rampant sexism, endemic skiving and a shocking nonchalance towards serious crime” – Nina Hobson uncovers the amazing truth that the police are not that fantastic. Wow!

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TUESDAY

“Immigrants ‘are costing taxpayer £200m a year” – So suggests a reports by Migrationwatch think-tank

“Sorry, Ms Hewitt, the NHS can’t go on like this – In a devastating critique, one of this country’s most respected doctors calls for a radical rethink of Britain’s health service” – Professor Karol Sikora talks of “crisis”, job cuts” and “budget deficits”

“Avoiding milk in pregnancy could lead to a smaller baby” – So says a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal

“Wide awake with the top of my skull sawn off, I watched as the surgeon cut a deadly tumour from my brain…” – Simon Hicks talks us through his ordeal

“THE FAKE MEDICINE SCANDAL – We all trust the drugs we get on prescription. But as this chilling report reveals, ruthless counterfeiters are flooding the system with pills that are useless or downright dangerous”

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WEDNESDAY

“WHAT CRIMINAL INCOMPETENCE – “killers, rapists, paedophiles…1,000 convicted foreign criminals who should have been deported are at large – and the Home Office hasn’t a clue where they are.” (Have they looked under your bed?)

“It’s not only the foreign criminals who’ve vanished, but also any pretence that Britain controls its borders or, indeed, its very destiny” – So says Melanie Phillips

“Foreigners flooding our jails” – 10,000 foreigners languish in British jails; before being released into the community, no doubt

“Passports Are Us – underworld trade in fake documents is so lucrative the villains offer franchises”

“THE MOTHER WHO GAVE BIRTH AT 62 – She’s blind, a grandmother of 20 and now, thanks to IVF, one of the oldest women ever to give birth. But is her story inspirational – or a terrible corruption of nature?” – The story of American Janise Wulf

“Coffee is in the clear over links to heart disease” Phew! But does it give you cancer?

“10,000 new nurses ‘can’t find a job’ in cash-strapped NHS” – Nurses warn that they are leaving college unable to find a job in the Health Service; “some are so desperate they are applying to work at Tesco and McDonald’s”

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THURSDAY

“British bluebell ‘will be wiped out in ten years’” – John Everitt, of the Wildlife Trust’s conservation charity, warns against the “Spanish invader”; the “scentless” Spanish bluebell is “creeping” out of the flowerbeds and into woodlands

“Vodka lolly ‘peril to children’” – Lemon-flavoured Chiller lolly aimed at young adults (4.8 per cent alcohol) could be licked by children

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FRIDAY

“£360,000 bill for the healthy women in hospital since 2004” – Two elderly women have been in hospital since April 2004 despite having nothing wrong with them – a miracle given the apparent prevalence of MRSA

“The Disneyphone – Health fears over mobile that will appeal to the youngest children” – Disney introduces family mobile phone package that gives handsets to children

“Will cull be too late to halt bird flu epidemic” – Outbreak of bird flu in Norfolk “could” have spread throughout the country’

Posted: 29th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Down The Pan

‘DAVID Hasselhoff turns round. A gorilla is standing on his right toe.

On his other side a strange horse is doing a sand dance and asking if it can go to the ball. An ugly woman with a beard upbraids him for being late.

It is all like some kind of alcohol-induced nightmare. Indeed it is. It is the nightmare we call pantomime.

Hasselhoff can rest assured that he is not writhing on some sweat-soaked bed but appearing in the New Wimbledon theatre’s production of Captain Hook.

This December, Hasselhoff will make his panto debut as the hook-handed scourge of Peter Pan.

We just love Hasselhoff. While appearing in the hit musical Chicago, Londoners got used to the sight of Hasselhoff standing on the spare plinth on Trafalgar Square, manfully clad in a pair of red seeming trucks on the look out for anyone stuck in the nearby fountain.

No-one drowned in Trafalgar Square when Dave was last here. And we wager that his next visit will herald a similar period of water safety. Oh, yes it will…’

Posted: 28th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Brown & Out

‘“SHOCK drug photos that prove Doherty should be locked up,” says the Sun on its front page.

So shocking are these front-page snapshots of pop f***wit Pete Doherty that the Sun has seductively obscured one picture behind the word “CENSORED”.

Inside the paper, the bar has been removed and readers get to see Pete doing something outrageous. These are the “MOST SHOCKING KATE & DOHERTY PICTURES EVER”. What can they have been up to?

Is Pete canvassing on behalf of the BNP for the upcoming local elections? Is he auditioning for the Cliff Richard part in a remake of Summer Holiday? Or is he taking drugs?

Given Pete’s track record, we’d be more shocked if the pictures showed the singer not taking illicit substances. But here he is shocking the world by sticking a hypodermic needle in his arm.

But there is new twist. And in another shot Pete “injects heroin into an unconscious fan”. The scene is Doherty’s East London flat sometime in the past five weeks, and the unnamed girl is from a “middle-class background”.

The shocks are coming thick and fast. Pete Doherty takes drugs! Middle class girls take drugs!

And there’s a picture of Kate Moss, who has been seeing the singer despite claims that she and he are over for good.

“Dishevelled,” says the Sun’s caption beneath a photo of the model in bed. She is “bleary-eyed”. And she is. But she was not in Pete’s flat when he jabbed a needle in the arm of a prone fan. It’s a shot of a tired looking Kate Moss in bed. Shocked? You betcha.

“I thought I’d seen it all,” says the Sun’s Sean Hamilton, billed as “the journalist who knows him best”. Sean says he knew Pete injected heroin. He has seen Pete smoke crack.

But injecting with young fans has sickened him. “That we cannot forgive,” he says.

Pete the popstar is now Pete the predatory pusher. It is all very grim, but in what way do these photos “prove” that Pete should be jailed?

Remember those photos of Kate snorting something in a recording studio. She was never charged with any crime. In what do these photos prove anything? Other than that the papers are addicted to Pete…’

Posted: 28th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Phone Home

‘HERE is news that Brad Pitt might like to consider as he makes his way by huge metal bird from Namibia to Los Angeles: the telephone has been invented.

The Star says that Pitt has left his pregnant lover Angelina Jolie and her two adopted children in Africa while he dashes home to speak with the family doctor.

The story goes that the couple’s adopted daughter Zahara suffers from rickets, a condition she developed in an Ethiopian orphanage.

Worried that the one-year-old could fall ill, Brad has hopped aboard a private flight to consult with Zahara’s “main doctor”.

A source explains further. “When he mentioned Zahara had a cold he was shocked to be told that in Namibia she was more susceptible to diseases like malaria and yellow fever as her immune system would have been weakened by rickets.”

Who could have imagined that sub-Saharan Africa held such dangers? Not Brad, it seems. Whatever next? Huge reptiles with long snapping jaws and smiling eyes? Massive cats with manes? Flies?

Such horrors and more must surely be swirling around Brad’s head as he seeks urgent medical advice. And if the doctor says the Jolie-Pitts must return home, then Angelina, son Maddox and Zahara will head for the States.

But how will Brad be able to deliver his family the medical verdict? We fear the actor will need to make yet another intrepid trip into the heart of darkness…’

Posted: 28th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Racy Tracey

‘“SHE was a maneater and Whitehall was her hunting ground.” So says a pal of Tracey Temple, the woman who works under John Prescott.

And so begins the ham-fisted attempt to make John Prescott the victim. While Prezza tells anyone and everyone about his moment of madness – a moment that lasted two years – the papers look at the other woman.

“Prezza girl’s 9 lovers,” says the Sun’s front page. “Never mind 2 shags..my Tracey was 9 SHAGS”, says another of the paper’s headlines.

Readers hear from Tracey’s live-in lover Barrie Williams. He says that Tracey kept details of her love life in “SIX” diaries. It was only when he asked her about Prescott that she confessed to eight other affairs.

Barrie was devastated. So much so that he discussed his heartache with a golfing buddy, who now unburdens himself in the Sun.

“Tracey’s diaries knocked him for six,” says the man in the plus fours. “Barrie said the diaries were packed full of explicit details about what had gone on between her and John Prescott.”

Has this woman no shame? The papers hope not, and it’s not overly hard to believe that right now Fleet Street’s finest are knocking on the door of the French villa where Tracey is holed up offering her loadsa cash for a peek at her jottings.

And she may oblige. This is Tracey Temple, a woman partial to red leather trousers. Prezza used to tease her about her “seductive gear”, says the Sun. A guest at a Barbados hotel Tracey stayed in recalls her laughter at seeing Tracey wearing her hot pants even in the searing heat.

Surely no man can resist such temptation? Poor John is only human.

Over in the Mail, Tracey is the “pushy girl with a taste for older men”. The wife of Clive Bolden, who had an affair with Tracey in the 1990s, calls the woman “ruthless”. “She will stop at nothing to get what she wants.”

And what she wanted was John Prescott, or “PRECIOUS PREZZA”, as the Mirror calls him. He’s an “unsung hero”.

“People forget about John and the Kyoto Treaty,” says Tony Blair in an interview. “And the reason we have the Channel Tunnel rail link is because he brokered the deal out of a complete mess,” says Tony.

John played a pivotal role in solving the fire dispute, says Tony. John is of “great value”. John is “vital” to the Labour Party.

“People don’t know the true value of what he does because it is so often behind the scenes,” says Tony.

Not to mention what Prezza does on the table, in his flat, in the kitchen, on the sofa…’

Posted: 28th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)

Pigging Out

‘ANYONE interested in bidding for the gown Keira Knightly wore to the Oscars – proceeds from the auction go to drought-ravaged east Africa – should know that it is wafer-thin size 6.

The only people who might actually fit into the thing are other skinny actresses and mo-dels, the pre-pubescent and, ironically, anyone trying to scratch a meal together in east Africa.

Of course, this will not stop women hankering for the Vera Wang original. It is not the dress that is too small, they will tell themselves, it is they who are too big.

Such are the pressures to be slim that a Dr Rudolf Uher and colleagues at Kling’s College London Institute of Psychiatry have found that women “have a complicated reaction to food because of social pressure”. They are conditioned to feel guilty about eating.

And so to the news that Big Brother star, occasional marathon runner and kebab enthusiast extraordinaire Jade Goody is, as the Star reports, “hooked” on slimming pills.

She took one just before her London Marathon debut and once mixed them with absinthe at a children’s party.

Jade says she is upset by the “Miss Piggy” jibes and has become concerned that she is losing out to slimmer celebs, like Chantelle Houghton.

And Jade may not be worrying for nothing. A look in the Sun shows that in FHM magazine’s list of the world’s 100 sexiest women, Chantelle romps home in 50th place. Jade is nowhere.

But Jade, and women like her, can take comfort from the news that while the aforesaid said Keira Knightly is top of the pile, Keeley Hazell is second.

Keeley is the buxom babe from Bromley who won the Sun’s Page 3 Idol competition. And the burgeoning news is that Keeley is getting bigger. “My breasts are still growing,” she tells the paper, “…they could end up the size of Jordan’s.”

And the rest of her could end up like Jade Goody. As Keeley says: “I live on takeaways – Indian food, pizza, greasy chicken and chips.”

What 21-year-old Keira lives on is anyone’s guess…’

Posted: 27th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

In Her Jeans

‘“SHE said ‘I’m going to call 911, you b**ch!’. As I was bending down to look for the lost jeans she suddenly hit me from behind.”

Just another day in the life of Naomi Campbell, humanitarian, mo-del and all round good egg.

The latest news is that Naomi has, allegedly, attacked one of her maids, and accused her of stealing her jeans.

We have been here before. It was only last month that one Ana Scolavino claimed Naomi hit her over the head with a mobile phone in another row over jeans. The case will be heard on June 27.

These stories suggest to us that Naomi may be too involved with her jeans. Sure, they are Stella McCartney originals, but what would 49-year-old maid Gaby Gibson want with them? A photo of the Romanian-born mother of one does not suggest a woman able to get an arm let alone two legs and an entire backside into Campbell’s clothes.

And while we speculate on that, we return to Campbell’s New York apartment, the scene of this alleged fight.

Says Gibson: “I grabbed my head and said ‘Ow, why did you do that?’ She replied ‘Just to teach you a lesson.’”

No formal complaint has been made. This matter will not get Naomi arrested. But, as a police spokesman tells the Sun, it is relevant in the light of the other complaint.

Meanwhile, the maid is painting a picture of her former employee. “When Naomi goes off she’s like a volcano,” says Gaby. “She turns from a beautiful supermodel into a raging animal. She looks like one of those mythical creatures that breathes fire.”

And looks great in jeans…’

Posted: 27th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Idiot Box

‘IF you saw a box with nails sticking out of it on the ground by London’s Shepherd’s Bush Tube station, what would you think?

Would you scream “Bomb!” and run away from the suspect package as quick as your wobbling legs would carry you? Or would you rub your chin and marvel at the intricate workmanship, reminiscent, as it surely is, of Syria’s Arts and Crafts movement?

As the Sun reports, when five suspect packages were spotted in West London, locals and police failed to appreciate the items’ artistic merits.

The area was cordoned off, public transport was stopped and emergency services called.

Meanwhile, while the bomb experts defuse a nail-studded cardboard box full of teddies, a woman walks into a police station and says that the packages are part of her performance art project. It is believed that she was making a “statement” about terrorism.

She is now making a statement to the police, who arrested her on suspicion of causing a public nuisance. And bad art.’

Posted: 27th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

The Untouchable

‘NOT everything Kevin Costner does flops. The wooden actor who always manages to be Kevin Costner in every performance, has been accused of performing a lewd sex act in front of a hotel masseuse.

Costner is the Sun’s front-page “massage perv”. The star of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Untouchables is alleged to have openly pleasured himself while staying at the Old Course Hotel, St Andrews, Fife.

During his trip – part of his honeymoon with bride Christine Baumgartner – Costner visited the hotel’s spa.

It is there that he, allegedly, became “RUBBIN’ HOOD”. The masseuse, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claims Costner whipped off his towel and, as the Star puts it, “played with his untouchables”.

“It was disgusting,” said the 34-year-old therapist. “And even though he was a Hollywood film star I can’t believe he thought he could get away with it. He abused me and I considered that a criminal act.”

The alleged victim also says how when she was giving his new wife a massage later she wanted to tell her everything.

She chose not to. But now at least Christine can read all about her husband’s alleged antics at the golf hotel where not every kind of swinger is welcome.

But the masseuse did tell her bosses who responded by, allegedly, sacking her. (The Mail says the hotel is owned by American Herb Kohler, a friend of the accused.)

So she took the matter to an employment tribunal and it was during the course of the hearing that Costner’s name popped out.

The Oscar-winning actor was not in Dundee for the case, but his publicist Paul Bloch did have this to say. “We find it unfortunate that Mr Coster’s name has been brought into what is essentially a dispute between a company owned by a good friend of his and a former employee, and that it would tarnish a wonderful time spent with his wife.”

Not the hotel owner’s wife, you understand, but his own.’

Posted: 26th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Away From Holmes

‘WHEN we stop the clock, we realise that Tom Cruise has been pressing flesh for three hours.

Usually when Hollywood stars arrive in London’s Leicester Square for a film premier they remain in the open for as long as it takes to be photographed and not shat on by a pigeon or approached by some mad old crone selling ‘lucky’ heather.

But Cruise, in London to promote the movie Mission Impossible 3, seems intent on meeting each of the 3,000 crowd personally.

The Mail looks on as Cruise poses for photos, talks to fans and their friends on mobile phones and even takes hold of a child thrust eagerly into his arms by a female admirer.

That child is soon retuned, but Tom’s arms are aching for more and he soon picks up another tot and cradles her to his chest.

And then there are the gifts to harvest. Cruise is handed toys, flowers, balloons and cards. The Mirror looks on as actor Jamie Foxx dashes over to give Tom a Harrods hamper of goodies.

Inside the basket are baby towels, bath salts, a baby throw, a Paddington bear and a chavtastic array of Burberry goods, including a skirt and matching top.

“Your movie is going to do amazing,” says Jamie, “but don’t forget you’ve got something more amazing back home.”

Indeed, that adult-sized dummy is a wonder to behold, so too the home delivery room and the gallery of signs urging quiet during the birth.

And then there are Katie Holmes and young Suri. They are back in Los Angeles waiting for dad. But dad is taking a long time with his people. Does he really love the fans so much or is he just delaying a return home?

Of course we are wrong. Tom is enraptured by his new family. How can we even suppose for a moment that he is taking a breather from the strains of fatherhood. It’s not as if he’s taken up golf. Not yet…’

Posted: 26th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Name Your Price

‘“I LOVE the name Lucas,” says Coleen McLoughlin, “which comes from the Latin word for light.”

And that is not all. Coleen is equally expert in Old English and Persian, noting how Ava, her favourite name for a girl, means “breath of life and waterfall”, respectively.

Doubtless Coleen could tell us that Wayne is an occupational surname meaning ‘wagon maker” in Old English and “scorer of goals and older women” in Scouse. Coleen means “she who shops” or “a shopper”.

Coleen also means money – lots of it. As the Mail reports, Coleen’s earning potential is considerable. The paper says that over the course of 2006, Coleen has earned almost as much as her pugnacious lover, pulling in around £6million.

Coleen has lent her face and frame to mobile phones, sporting goods, supermarkets, fitness videos, magazine columns and is soon to have her first book published.

But she will have to go some to match the world’s top celebrity endorsers. Top of the heap is Catherine Zeta Jones, raking in £11.5m for her contract with T-Mobile. Angelina Jolie get £7m for promoting St John, Nicole Kidman earns £7m for using Chanel No5 and Jessica Simpson gets £4.3m for Guthy-Renker.

This is far more than the £1.5 million his ‘n’ hers deal Coleen and Wayne get for promoting Asda – but then they do get to wear complimentary matching shell suits…’

Posted: 26th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Playing With Fire

‘WITH the commemorative plaque not yet in place, many pilgrims to Leicester Square have failed to locate the exact spot where Euan Blair vomited.

Happily, pinpointing the precise spot of Tony and Cherie’s eldest child’s latest experiment with booze is not nearly so tricky. Waitresses at Madam’s Organ can show you the table that young Euan is said to have tried to burn.

Before we go on, let us say that Madam’s Organ is no meat market for human flesh. It is a respectable establishment, a blues bar located in Washington DC.

The story, as told by the Mirror, is that while in the US on his three-month internship with Republican staff at the US House of Representatives, the Prime Minister’s first born drank beer in said club. He then ordered candles.

Waitress Becky Brasch explains. “I saw him holding the candle under the table but he said he didn’t do anything.” Becky says that she asked him not to burn the table. She says Euan ignored her. He was “rude and dismissive”.

Says Becky: “I’ve had people drunk and playing with the wax but no one has done what he did.”

Indeed, it is odd. And we are concerned. Euan’s fascination with fire is unsettling, a state of mind not reduced by the Mirror’s picture of the young lad sporting a goatee bear – like the very Devil himself…’

Posted: 26th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Talking Crap

‘MAKING the huge leap from the career of Kevin Federline to the contents of a nappy, we read that Tom Cruise loves changing his newborn daughter.

“I changed her first,” says Tom in the Star. “I change diapers all the time. I have to tell you, I love it.”

This is all very new man. But where does Katie Holmes fit into the picture?

Over the past months, we have heard Tom dictate where his lover should have the baby, that she should remain silent and take no painkillers during labour and how he was going to eat the placenta.

The story that he is now changing nappies might not be as lovely as it first seems. Does Katie get a look in? Is Tom breastfeeding?

It would seem our concerns are unfounded. “We have a whole system worked out,” says Tom, who is just the kind of person to have a system. “It’s the ‘B and B’ – she does the breast feeding and I do the burping and changing the diapers. It’s teamwork. It’s fun.”

This is great news. But what happens when Tom is away? Right now Tom is in Europe promoting his new movie, Mission Impossible III. With Tom out of the picture how does the system work? Who changes the nappy?

We fear that Tom has not thought this one out and could be in for a stinking shock when he returns home, unless he has dressed her in an oversized adult nappy. No, not Katie, you dummy – his daughter…’

Posted: 25th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Clever Trevor Izzadeen

‘IT has been a while and we have at times feared that we would never get a new domestic face of militant Islam.

But now we have found someone. Step forward and wave your fists at passers by, Sheikh Omar Brooks.

Also known as Abu Izzadeen – and Trevor to those who knew him in his formative years in Hackney, east London – Brooks has taken over from Omar Bakri, the so-called Tottenham Taliban, as leader of the Saviour Sect, a group established 10 months ago when Bakri’s Al-Muhajiroun was disbanded.

At 31 years of age, Brooks has a big future ahead of him as extreme Islam’s resident raving lunatic. Though he lacks Abu Hamza’s hooks and Bakri’s Ford Galaxy and prescription glasses, Brooks delivers a familiar line in jihad and vengeance.

He says the July 7 attacks on London were “completely praiseworthy”. He says “all Jews ands Christians are going to hell fire”.

Of course, this is all nothing new; we have heard these things many times before. But still Brooks must spout the usual vitriol if he is to be our resident mad mullah.

He is also a big fan to the benefits system. An undercover reporter who spent two months with the Saviours tells the Times how a member of the group told him that getting a job would be contributing to the kuffar (non-Muslim) system. It is permissible to “live off benefits”.

Back to Brooks, who has realised that he is being listened to and gives it the full throat. The Times hears of his mission to “instil terror into the hearts of the kuffar”.

“I am a terrorist,” he says. And: “I want to be blown into pieces with my hands in one place and my feet in another.”

An ambition that should put him in line for a generous disability allowance…’

Posted: 25th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

“For her to think ‘I’m just going to walk around’ and not even be able to do that shows she’s done nothing and isn’t in good shape,” says Bedford.

Jade has, of course, done plenty. Jade has been on Big Brother and starred in two fitness videos. How many marathon runners can say that?

Granted, Jade is not possessed of the runner’s classic lithe form and is shaped like a kebab spit but is this any time to comment on her looks? Can it be right to talk of suicide then attack Jade’s shape and career?

We think not and, as Jade tells the Star, “Bearing in mind I’m eating takeaways, I did all right.”

And she did no worse than some other athletes, like GMTV presenter Andrew Castle.

Whereas Jade just trotted up to the marathon start line and made a decent fist of completing the course, former tennis pro Andrew Castle trained like a good ‘un.

As Andrew said on the GMTV website before his big run: “It is my first marathon. I feel there may be more in me because I have enjoyed the challenge of training, the solitude of running and the fact that I have a sporting goal.”

Now fast forward to the Sun where Andrew is seen being held upright by two policemen. Andrew’s crime is to have broken down after 24 miles.

The Sun says that he weaved and staggered into other runners before police took him to the side of the road for medical treatment.

“The blood pressure was very low,” says Andrew, “and they couldn’t find a heartbeat – I was being sick everywhere.” He tells of his “tunnel-vision” and an “out-of-body experience”.

He recalls seeing people looking at him. A voice says: “‘It’s Andrew from GMTV!’ I fell at their feet.”

Andrew really does appreciate his fans. But some of us are surely concerned. Do we dare believe that, like Jade, Andrew’s efforts to complete the gruelling race were also suicidal?

The Sun says it was meant as a joke, but when Andrew says he was texting his pals and asking “Which organ would you like when I’m finished” we hear a more worrying message.

Was Andrew’s race a cry for help? Are we embarking on a sorry quest to see which of our celebrities can occupy that place in our hearts reserved for the plucky British loser?’

Posted: 25th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Upstage Girl

‘“I’M not your brother, I’m not your uncle, I’m Daddy do/ Steppin’ in this game and y’all ain’t got a clue…” Booyakasha!

Lyrics there from Kevin Federline, aka F-Fed, aka America’s answer to Roland Rat.

While we look at the words and thrill to the message that Kevin is the daddy of all badass doggy dos, the Star sees the man himself in action at Las Vegas’s Pure nightclub.

While Kevin sings about being the man with a plan in a head ban(d), we scan the crowd for a sight of his wife, the fragrant Britney Spears, the woman who brought him to the world’s attention.

But we cannot see her. And we should bother to carry on looking because, as the Star says, Britney is not there. Kevin has banned her from attending his gig.

Cocking an ear to the table at Caesar’s Palace where Kevin and Britney are sharing a pre-show meal, the Star hears the musical ferret tell his wife that he is worried about being upstaged.

At which point Britney may well have cast her eyes down to the dead prawn on her plate and found good reason to sympathise with her husband’s insecurities.

But Kevin was not concerned about being upstaged by his lunch – he was fearful that his wife would steal his thunder.

Given the glaring truth that without Britney’s patronage we’d have no more interest in Kevin than we would in that aforementioned prawn, his telling her to keep away grates.

And it hit a nerve with Britney. As an onlooker says: “It was a full-blown war of words that got louder and more heated as the dinner went on.”

This “huge fight” ended when Britney, “shaking and in tears”, fled the restaurant and dashed up to her suite.

That left Kevin to perform alone – and the assembled crowd to realise that without Britney, Kevin really is a grade A daddy doggy do…’

Posted: 25th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

TB Or Not TB

‘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

Bank Holiday – bird flu, aggressive Iranians with nuclear ambitions, Noel Edmonds, BNP on every doorstep, Angela Merkel’s swimsuit, Tony Blair’s weather machine and more…

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TUESDAY

“Children’s hospitals warn over cuts in lifesaving surgery” – the London hospital and Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, want more money or they may have to cut the number of operations they perform

“THE FIRST GOUND ZERO – This was San Francisco 100 years ago today, after a cataclysmic earthquake which killed more people than 9/11. And what terrifies America is the knowledge that it will happen again” – Natural disaster and mass murder; it’s all the same to the Mail

“I begged for a Caesarean, but the medics knew better. Then they told me they’d lost my baby’s heartbeat” – Mother Sadie Nicholas and her healthy sons know best

“The brain surgery was painless. But the cage they screwed onto my head was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me” – Micha Hardin talks about her Gamma Knife Surgery

“Now gun city is also the burglary capital” – Nottingham has its new hoods

“Allergy prescriptions soar by 600pc – The number of people developing life-threatening allergies is accelerating dramatically”

“Sorry, sir, but that’s enough self-medication for one night” – Mental Health Foundation report says “excessive drinking can change the chemistry of the brain and lead to mental health problems”

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WEDNESDAY

“NHS bungle puts GPs on £1/4m a year…but it can’t afford to give diabetics inhalers” – Family doctors are earning up to £250,000 a year and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence says it does not think insulin inhalers – an alternative to injections – are worth the money

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THURSDAY

“NHS ‘wastes millions overpaying for drugs’” – London School of Economics research says Health Service overpaying for prescription drugs, including insulin

“Too weak to move but Bupa hospital ordered me home” – Martin Fennemore tells us what happened when his medical insurance ran out after an operation. Only it hadn’t…

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FRIDAY

“A kick in the teeth – My dentist pulled out six of my teeth on the NHS and then said he was going private…now it’ll cost £3,000 to put in a new set” – Darren Wheeler can whistle for his free teeth

“DRIPPING SCANDAL – Victims say they have been left scarred, crippled and diseased…but it seems that for 20 years the true scale of the Camelford water scandal has been covered up. Only now is the poisonous truth emerging” – News on Britain’s worst drinking water pollution incident

“90,000 migrants from TB zone enter Britain without a medical test” – Immigrants might have tuberculosis. Watch out!’

Posted: 24th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Take Her Away

‘“I’M dying, I’m dying,” says the runner in the London Marathon, her yellowy brow caked in sweat. For the next 50 minutes paramedics try to regulate the athlete’s breathing. She is then taken to hospital for emergency treatment.

And it looks bad. Jade Goody, for it is she – who prepared for the marathon by taking onboard Chinese meals, curries and beer – is going a funny colour. “Jade looked like she was turning blue,” says an eyewitness. “She was clearly overheating and you could see lots of steam coming off her.”

Pictured in the Sun draped in a foil sheet like some kind of hot takeaway kebab, Jade is seen receiving treatment from a member of the St John’s Ambulance.

While we speculate on the odds of runner 42684 falling in love with her knight in an ill-fitting, blue cable knit jumper, marathon watcher and Jade Goody enthusiast Tim Harper sees Jade crying and clutching her stomach. Says Tim: “I’ve been coming to watch the marathon for years and I’ve never seen anyone in such a state.”

And that must be a result. Watching marathons is surely not too unlike watching a Formula 1 Grand Prix – the only interesting bits, breaks in the procession, are when someone hits the wall. Unless, of course, you have a fetish for vests.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of watching marathons live!, the Sun tells us that Jade is now fine. She’s now got enough puff inside her to speak. “I was just so exhausted – I couldn’t carry on – but the doctors say I’m OK,” says Jade from her Essex home. “I’m gutted I didn’t get my medal.”

Jade then says she has only herself to blame for doing just four proper training sessions in preparation for over 26 miles of slog, and flying back from a holiday in Spain the day before the race.

But she did not do all that badly. As the Mirror reports, Jade, who ran the race with a Gucci bum-bag tethered to her curry-steeped stomach, lasted 21 miles.

Encouraged by that, or just high on liquid oxygen, Jade tells the Mirror that next time she will train harder.

And fill her bum-bag with reinvigorating prawn crackers and a refreshing chicken madras…’

Posted: 24th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

She Who Must Be Obeyed

‘TO celebrate the Queen’s 80th birthday, the Mail is giving its readers the chance to own a Royal Worcester figurine of Her Majesty. It’s 23cm tall.

And that is not all. While you dream of cementing the patriotic object d’art to the bonnet of your car or gold coach, the Mail is also offering something more portable. For the right combination of tokens and cash you can own replicas of six items of the Queen’s own jewellery collection.

But if such works are not to your taste, there are other ways to mark the Queen’s birthday. You could do as Prince Harry is pleading to do and demand to be sent to a war zone.

“It is what serving Queen and country is all about and I just couldn’t face my men otherwise,” the Mail hears Harry tell a pal.

A trip abroad is surely a great way to mark such an auspicious occasion as Her Majesty’s birthday. And you need not always take a gun. As The Mirror says, Princess Michael of Kent has been celebrating in Italy with a man.

Appearing, apparently, unarmed and dressed in a camel-coloured coat, Princess Pushy is seen in the company of a 40-year-old Russian by the name of Mikhail Kravchenko.

The Mail has a picture of the two ambling about in the Venice sunshine and riding on a gondola like “young lovers”.

The story goes that the 61-year-old spent a weekend in the Cipriani Hotel’s £2,200-a-night presidential suite under the name Mrs Green. For good measure, the princess also booked a neighbouring bedroom, accessible from her own chambers by a connecting door.

The princess denies any affair, but onlookers recall seeing she and Mikhail holding hands and linking arms. The twosome were very “touchy-feely” says one onlooker.

“Of course Mikhail finds me attractive and beguiling,” says the wife of the Queen’s cousin. “Men are charmed by me and in return I am a very tactile woman.”

She then asks why it is that people can’t show her some respect. “In the old days they would have been hung drawn and quartered for this type of journalism – and I know that is something the Queen will support me on.”

Fair enough, we say. It is the Queen’s birthday, and if she wants us to disembowel a hack then so be it…’

Posted: 24th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Could It Be Tragic

‘COULD it be tragic? As Take That reform on a stage in Newcastle, we wonder if the boys can still hack it as singing, dancing heartthrobs.

As the Star reports, Robbie Williams, who appears in the comeback shows as a hologram, has hurt his groin.

The Star says that after performing at Dubai’s Nad Al Sheba stadium, Robbie fell down a flight of stairs.

While this is not necessarily a sign that Robbie’s ageing limbs are giving way, nor that his tour rider should include a stair lift, it is, nonetheless, a worrying development.

And so it is we turn to the Sun and learn what the rest of the boys are now like. The Sun joins us in worrying if the boys’ legs can carry them through the dance routines.

But the show is a hit. Sure, this is only the first leg of a gruelling tour but the boys are moving and singing.

And so too are the fans. As the Suns says, some of the massed 9,000 Take Thatters are making a dash for it, grabbing at their idols as they run through the audience on a platform.

The boys have got their female fans exactly where they want them – groins permitting, naturally…’

Posted: 24th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Rocket Man

‘“GEORGE was in a bad place.” No doubt about that. Slumped in the front seat of a jeep by the side of the road is no place for an international pop star like George Michael to be.

Not that Elton John, who uttered that line about his fellow performer, was talking about any place in the physical sense.

We live in the new age of therapy speak, when a place is a state of mind, a staging post on the journey of life.

George Michael is no more wandering the corridors of a London hotel dressed in a balaclava looking for sex than he is parked up by London’s Hyde Park, asleep at the wheel and in the company of bondage gear and illicit drugs.

What Elton meant in 2004 was that: “There appears to be a deep-rooted unhappiness in his [George’s] life.”

Only there wasn’t – well, not until George heard Elton’s comments and took them to heart. “I WENT TO POT OVER ELTON,” runs the Star’s front-page headline.

As George tells Michael Parkinson in a TV interview: “My soap opera launched from that. Elton said I was miserable and from that point I’ve been trying to prove I’m not.”

He goes on: “From that point I’ve suffered an almost kind of wishful thinking from the press. It’s made me incredibly vulnerable.”

Don’t worry about not fully understanding what George is saying and just be happy that he is talking. Remember what we said about this being the age of therapy. Here, it seems, is George using Parkinson as his counsellor.

The last time George was on the show, he talked about drugs and his 1998 arrest for a lewd act with an undercover American cop. Now here he is telling Parky about why he has been the subject of other salacious stories.

Of his nap in Hyde Park, George says: “It’s easy to fall asleep there.” And on the matter of, allegedly, damaging three cars, George says: “I only pulled out of a parking space badly.” The parking space was “tight”. He was on a “steep hill”. Honestly occifer, that’s the truth.

But while Parkinson replaces the leatherette chairs on which his guests sit with couches, the Star tells us that – shock of shocks – George is all set to tour for the fist time in 15 years.

George is going back on the road. And, maybe, even sleeping by the side of it…’

Posted: 21st, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Taking Libertines

‘BACK for another performance at Thames Magistrates’ Court, Pete Doherty assumes his usual place in the dock and prepares to give the crowd what they want.

He duly pleads guilty to charges of drug possession – heroin, cannabis and crack cocaine. Judge Jane McIver drums her fingers on her plinth and taps a toe in time to the beat.

“It is going to be a long and slow process but you are showing significant signs of compliance and effort,” says Judge McIvor in a departure from the usual clapping, cheering and even whooping that follows one of Doherty’s gigs.

Judge McIver may be a critic, but she is no killjoy and spares Doherty a prison sentence, sentencing him to a community order with two years’ supervision and 18 months’ drug rehabilitation. She also bans him from driving for six months.

Doherty has escaped prison. This is a verdict all the more remarkable considering that in February the former Libertines singer was given a 12-month community order for drug possession.

And Judge McIvor may not have to wait long for another front-row seat at a Doherty performance. As the Sun reports, not long after escaping jail, Doherty was nicked for suspected drugs offences by plain-clothes police officers.

The paper say that the pop “f***wit” was nabbed in Spitalfields, East London. Substances were found on his person and sent for tests.

If these are proven to be class A drugs, Doherty could once again be set to utter his time-honoured phrase: “Hello, Thames Magistrates’ Court. It’s good to be back. Whooh!”

Take him away, your honour…’

Posted: 21st, April 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment