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.
Dress To Impress
‘WHAT Duncan Roy is forgetting is that Hurley is so very much more than an accomplished actress and a ravishing beauty she is a woman in a dress.
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| ‘And the winner for best use of a dead rabbit goes to…’ |
And if the papers like anything more than photographing such a vision, we have yet to find it, although a vicar in a dress can come close.
So its with little surprise that the Express was at the Baftas to see the winners get their gongs and the women wear their gowns.
Alicia Silverstone (leggy) is wearing a red dress; Joely Richardson (slinky) is clad in an orange number; Renee Zellweger (radiant) is in black; and Emma Thomson (stunning) is enshrined in a vision of ivory.
The Express even remembers to say who won what, heaping praise on Scarlett Johansson (dazzling in a white dress), who won the best actress award for her performance – and dress wearing – in Lost In Translation.
But hang the acting winners, because the Mirrors 3am Girls were near enough to the action to spot they who came dressed like last years Christmas turkey.
And the winner of the worst dress goes to…Helena Bonham Carter, who can be seen doing a passable impression of a depressed emu.
No speech was forthcoming from Helena, but we know she would have most likely thanked her stylist and commiserated with her agonists, who provided some pretty tough competition.’
A Pinch Of Salt
‘ITS a true enough fact that todays dish of the day is tomorrows leftovers.
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| Nell is also available for work with pickled eggs |
And while Liz Hurley is riding high now, if she cocks a glance over her bare shoulder, shell notice Nell McAndrew coming up hard on the rails.
And Nell is armed not with a dress held together with safety pins or a famous boyfriend but a batch of chips rolled up in a copy of the Star.
And its in the Star that Nell is launching National Chip Week 2004.
To reinforce this important date, Nell is wearing a bikini top on which is printed a pair of red lips and the message: LOVE CHIPS.
I cant resist chips, says Nell, Im their No. 1 fan. I will eat them in any way fat, skinny, from the chippy, in a restaurant or even cook them myself.
Nell truly is a rising, multifaceted star. Move over Hurley, theres a new pair of knickers in town and its eating chips!’
Kerry’s Sex Shame
‘DIRTY Tricks Claim Over Kerry, Fonda And A Mystery Girl.
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| Now with even more realistic lips |
So reports this mornings Mail and it is with a sinking heart that we get ready for the backlash against Queen Of The Jungle and everyones favourite ex-Atomic Kitten (at least until the other three break up), Kerry McPadding.
We all know about Kerrys husband Bryan and his little indiscretion with lapdancer Amy Barker on his stag night, but has Kerry also erred and strayed?
With another woman while listening to a Jane Fonda aerobics tape? No wonder she never got the flat stomach all those sweaty hours in her bedroom demanded.
But, fear not, dear reader, for its all a case of mistaken identity the Kerry in question is an altogether more minor character in lifes pageant, Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry.
The Mail says President Bushs supporters have been accused of trying to run a dirty tricks campaign against Kerry, releasing photographs of him sharing an anti-war platform with Hanoi Jane Fonda in 1970 and making suggestions of an affair with an intern.
The Drudge Report, the right-wing website that broke the Clinton-Lewinsky story, claims that a mystery woman recently left the US at the behest of Kerry, a married father of two, because the two had a relationship.
The Mail is quick to point out that Matt Drudge has a chequered record of accuracy, but Anorak can confirm not only is the story true but we know the identity of the mystery woman.
Step out of the shadows, Intern Barbie…’
Beyond Her Ken
‘THERE are some couples who are just meant to be together Jack and Vera, Simon Groom and Goldie, George and Mildred, George and Tony, George and Asda and, of course, Barbie and Ken.
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| The bed was an emptier place without Ken |
But appearances can be deceptive and this morning the Mail announces the sad news that Barbie and Ken are to go their separate ways after 43 years together.
The paper suggests that the split may have been instituted by the worlds most popular blonde because of commitment issues she had been waiting since 1961 for Ken top pop the question.
However, there has been speculation that there may be a new man in Barbies life an Australian boogie-boarder by the name of Blaine.
The couples business manager Russell Arons would only say: Like other celebrity couples, their Hollywood romance has come to an end.
But we at Anorak hear that the couple have been drifting apart for years and the relationship has been a sham for the past decade.
Some sources say that the trigger for most of the couples rows has been Barbies drinking and addiction to prescription drugs, although others blame Kens faltering career.
However, it could be purely a question of numbers. American psychologist Professor John Gottman says he can predict the outcome of relationships with 94% accuracy.
He calculates that couples who argue more than 20% of the time have not got a hope of making things work.
A lot of couples dont know how to connect or how to build a sense of humour, he tells the Express, and this means a lot of fighting that couples engage in is a failure to make emotional connections.
That is an explanation that will no doubt satisfy all of you who are partial to psychobabble, but not we suspect those of you looking for more concrete answers.
Instead, we take you back to 1973. The place is London and Ken, on a promotional tour of Europe without Barbie, is photographed out on the town in the company of rising young British star Sindy.
Gossip at the time suggested that the two were more than just friends, but both parties strenuously denied it. News of Barbie and Kens split can only fuel the rumours.
A spokesman for Sindy would only say yesterday: Its a long time ago and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. We have no wish to reopen old wounds.
But Anorak can reveal that a source close to Ken claims that the reason he would never fully commit to Barbie was because he never got over Sindy.
Barbie and Ken are known to millions, the source added, but what the public doesnt know is that Kens heart has belonged to Sindy for the past 30 years.’
Double Take
‘THERE are some couples that are even more famous than Barbie and Ken the two zeppelins that form Jordans chest, for instance, and indeed Im A Celebrity presenters Ant and Dec.
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| Ant and Dec x 10 |
But could you tell them apart? Do you know which ones Ant and which ones Dec?
If you do, youre in the minority, as the Mirror reports that an amazing 70% cant distinguish one cheeky Geordie chappie from another cheeky Geordie chappie.
Its impossible to tell them apart, says 65-year-old Irene Murrell, of Rugby. Its like theyre joined at the hip.
I love Ant and Dec, says Nicole Cumberbatch, aged 10, of London. Theyre great, but I cant tell which ones which.
Claire Baldwin, aged 22, from Cheshire, was one of very few people to get it right. Ants the tall one, she said.
The tall one? Well, relative to weeny Dec perhaps. But the tall one? Its like identifying the Elephant Man as the one with blue eyes.
Ants the one with a forehead the size of Australia. Got it?’
Frozen In Time
‘EVEN in this multimedia age, this has to be a first the Star this morning offers its readers exclusive live pics from Oz of Im A Celebrity winner Kerry McPudding and husband Bryan.
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| LIVE! Watch the McPuddings in action |
Luckily for us, the pair have decided not to make up for the fortnight they have spent apart by trying to add a Billy to their collection of Lilys and Mollys.
[Indeed, the very thought of catching a glimpse of Kerrys lettuce is enough to turn even a hardened vegetarian into a carnivore.]
Instead, the two seem happy simply to gaze into the camera lens for hours and hours and hours on end.
After two hours of watching for even a glimmer of movement from the pair, there are those of us in Anorak Towers who suspect that these pictures may not be as live as the Star boasts.
Either that or the screen has frozen on our copy of the paper.
So we turn our attention to Kerrys fellow contestant, Jordan, and yet more live pics from Oz as she and Peter Andre finally do it.
Jordan, as many will know, is no stranger to performing for the camera, but even she comes across all shy today.
However, we havent missed anything as the it that they did appears to be no more than a bit of phone sex after show bosses banned them from flying back to the UK together in case they indulged in a naughty mile-high romp.
Yeah, right.
The truth appears to be that, while Peter is flying to Europe to try to breathe some life into the corpse that is his pop career, Jordan is heading for Hollywood.
She is ditching her hell-raising image, says the paper, to launch a career as the next Pamela Anderson.
Yeah, right again.
Im meeting up with a top Los Angeles agent to look at work over there and I am having a meeting with an Australian management company about representing me over here, she said.
There are going to be changes.
One day she will wear a gold bikini, the next it will be pink. Sometimes shell have her top on, sometimes shell have her top off.’
Rabble Rouser
‘A FOURTH series of I’m A Celebrity is apparently already in the planning stage with Bryan McPudding and Kelly Brook two names who have already expressed an interest in taking part.
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| LIVE! Anorak’s exclusive new Beck-cam |
But producers might want to step a couple of rungs up the celebrity ladder and ask a certain Mr David Beckham whether he fancies a fortnight in the jungle.
Not only would it allow him legitimately to get away from Victoria for a few days, but he could also escape the crowds that dog his every move.
The Star has news this morning of how Beckham ‘was crushed by a mob of 800 screaming fans in a terrifying security bungle’ as he arrived for a match in Seville.
The reality, as captured in a front-page picture in the Sun, is somewhat different, but the paper has no doubt that a fan – a bespectacled woman in her twenties – who jumped on the England captain’s back and clung to his neck was ‘crazed’.
‘She could easily have been armed with a knife,’ one onlooker said. ‘It was just luck that she wasn’t.’
The Sun says that even after the players boarded the team bus there was another breach of security – and Beckham is said to be ‘furious’ with Real Madrid.
A girl of ten apparently climbed on board and sat in the seat beside Beckham before she was ejected.
After all, everyone knows that Becks always sits at the back next to Ronaldo.
‘She could easily have been armed with a book or even a puzzle magazine,’ one onlooker said. ‘It was just luck that she wasn’t.”
The Prince & The Poppy
‘PRINCE Harry is more of a rugger man himself, but he would surely share David Beckham’s alarm if ever a bespectacled woman jumped on his back.
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| LIVE & EXCLUSIVE! Clarence House Shower-cam |
If ordinary men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses, then Princes certainly shouldn’t have to get saddled with any four-eyed monsters.
Harry is more at home with a Page 3 stunna by his side or, failing that, a pretty young filly like 21-year-old Camilla Simon.
The Mail says Harry ‘has yet again demonstrated an audacious disregard for the proprieties of royal romance’ by partying with Camilla, whose mother Kate was a sometime mistress of James Hewitt.
There is no evidence to suggest that Harry did more than share a VIP booth with Camilla at London club Boujis, but they are now practically married in the eyes of Fleet Street.
As for Camilla, ‘insiders say she is one of a close-knit group of ‘poppy young things’ who are regulars at the bars which are Harry’s favourites’.
A Boujis source tells the Mail: ‘Harry and his group went straight to one of the booths near the back and joined with another set of poppy types, a lot of them girls.’
Poppy types?! Someone at the Mail’s been smoking too much of it, wethinks.’
The Fatkins Diet
‘IMAGINE if on her death bed Mary Whitehouse had been discovered with a stash of hard-core German porn, if Barbara Woodhouse had had convictions for animal cruelty, if Alan Carr had secretly been smoking 20 a day for the past 20 years.
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| Beware the ice in March! |
Sadly, none of the above are true (although we still have our doubts about the exact contents of Mrs Whitehouse’s home movie entitled ‘Ron & I, Cromer June 1971’).
But yesterday spud-dodgers everywhere received a similarly shattering piece of news – diet guru Dr Robert Atkins was clinically obese when he died and was also suffering from severe heart disease.
‘FATKINS,’ says the Mirror triumphantly on its front page, adding that the 72-year-old ‘suffered the sort of ill-health critics of his high-fat food plan warned followers about’.
At his death last year (caused by a fall on an icy street), Atkins weighed 18st6lb and was classified as ‘morbidly obese’, a category of being overweight only one below ‘Feltz’.
All of this has come out after a medical report was leaked to the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, which opposes the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet.
And Dr Atkins’ widow Veronica last night hit out at the vegetarian doctors who leaked the report.
‘It is deplorable that unscrupulous individuals should try to use his history of heart disease to discredit his ideas about healthy eating,’ she tells the Mail.
It is, indeed. And even more deplorable that they should seek to undermine a multi-million dollar industry.
No wonder Colette Heimowitz, vice-president of education and research for Atkins, is telling Mirror readers this morning that they should stick with the programme.
‘Thirty years of clinical practice and 18 studies published in the last two years have proven,’ she says, ‘that, when followed properly, his diet lowers the risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and insulin resistance.’
Sadly, it doesn’t make you any steadier on your feet when walking over ice.’
Read All About It
‘WHEN the celebrities abandoned the Australian jungle that has been their home for the past fortnight, they ran straight into the open arms of their families and the open cheque books of Fleet Street’s finest.
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| A good catch |
But the battle over which paper would get which celebrity was rather like the way they used to pick the football teams back at school.
The Star and the Express have first pick, opting for those twin strikers (with their twin strikers) Kerry McPadding and Jordan.
Next up was the Sun, which this morning hears Peter Andre – in ‘the interview they all wanted’ – banging on about how he wants to bed Jordan and how his ‘acorn’ is in fact a mighty oak.
Behind the Sun, as ever, comes the Mirror, which chats to Kerry’s porky husband Bryan McPudding and her mother Susan about the former Atomic Kitten’s ‘tormented childhood’.
And bringing up the rear – the boy with NHS glasses, two left feet and the wrong size gym kit – is the Mail, which this morning trumpets its exclusive: ‘Jennie Bond – What I Really Thought Of The Others.’
Never mind the Sun and Peter Andre, this is actually the interview they all wanted, as the Mail proves by awarding Jennie 9/10 for entertainment value in the jungle, second only to John Lydon.
Sadly, Jennie (who reputedly stands to make a million pounds as a result of her new-found celebrity) has not got anything really nasty, or indeed interesting, to say about any of her fellow contestants.
For that, you will have to get a copy of the Wolverhampton Express & Star, which has managed to snap up Diane Modahl from under the very noses of its richer rivals.
Or read Alex Best in the new edition of Insomniacs Monthly, which goes on sale at 3am tomorrow morning.’
Taking The Bait
‘WE leave the sound of Jordan droning on about how David Beckham made a play for her and how Victoria Beckham is a ‘hard-faced little bitch’ to listen in to howls of outrage from elsewhere.
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| A death trap |
They come, we need hardly tell you, from the Mail, more specifically from the mouths of Melanie Phillips and Neil Lyndon.
‘What have we come to when a girl barely out of childhood can have an abortion while her parents are deliberately kept in the dark by doctors?’ asks the former.
‘Damn this namby-pamby prissiness and pettifogging interference,’ demands the latter.
What has got on Lyndon’s goat is not only the news, reported in yesterday’s Anorak, that the Three Wise Men may not have been wise or indeed men, but a ruling by Suffolk County Council outlawing hanging baskets in Bury St Edmunds because they might be dangerous.
It is clearly such an absurd ruling, as there has never been a single problem in the 18 years the baskets have been on display, that one can think of only one reason for it – to annoy the Daily Mail.
And that is a good enough excuse for all manner of namby-pamby prissiness and pettifogging interference in our book.
However, we’ll leave the last word to Lyndon, who describes his Dream Britain – ‘one in which the Church of England would have the bottle to tell its irritating feminists that it couldn’t care less whether they are offended by the fact that the Magi were men’.
And a big Amen to that.’
The British Dream
”IN America,’ says Tory leader Michael Howard, ‘they talk about the American Dream – the ability of someone born in a log cabin to make it to the White House.
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| Just desserts for Mrs McPudding |
‘As it happens, in America this is the exception, not the rule. In Britain, it does actually happen. We should embrace it. We should celebrate it. I want everyone to live the British Dream.’
And so it is this morning that we ask you to join us at Anorak and whole of the tabloid press in celebrating the rise of a little blonde girl from a care home in Liverpool to become Queen Of The Jungle.
[We would happily embrace her as well but such is the size of her chest that we couldn’t get near enough.]
Of course, Mr Howard is only partially right – we can’t all make it to the White House, although if he got his hands on the NHS it’s quite possible that we would all be born in log cabins.
And for every Bill Clinton, there has to be a Michael Dukakis or a Barry Goldwater. For every Kerry McPadding, there’s a Jennie Bond and a Peter Andre.
But who, apart from Linda Barker’s bank manager, cares who came second? Yesterday was about Kerry – or ‘Special K’, as the Mirror’s headline calls her.
‘Kerry, the honest sweet singer who loves her husband and adores her kids, was neglected as a child and was nice to everyone, wins,’ the paper coos.
‘In this increasingly nasty world, we say: Good on you girl.’
It is a sentiment we at Anorak wholeheartedly endorse – in fact, Kerry’s ability to last 10 days in a prefab jungle calls to mind the achievements of some great explorers of yesteryear.
Sir Francis Drake, Captain James Cook, Dr David Livingstone, Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, George Mallory, Kerry McFadden…
Kerry’s face may look as blank as President Bush’s most recent brain scan when she surveys the other names on the list (although she thinks she remembers seeing Robert Falcon Scott on Top Of The Pops when she was a kid), but winners they are to a man…and a woman.
[Apart, of course, from Scott, who got beaten to the South Pole by a Norwegian. And Mallory, who never made it to the top of Everest. And Drake, who lost three years in a row to David Bryant in the final of the World Bowls Championship.]
‘Never in a million years did I think I’d win,’ an excited McPudding exploded after the result was announced. ‘I’m numb. It feels like a fantasy.’
And it is a fantasy that, according to the Sun, will earn the mother-of-two millions of pounds, with a flood of offers expected for TV work.
Anyone who has seen Elimidate might ask why TV bosses expect Big Mc to be any better in front of camera second time round, just because she’s eaten a couple of maggots.
But that only shows how little you understand TV. Kerry’s a bona fide celebrity now – and it doesn’t matter that she’s the most wooden thing on the screen since Muffin The Mule.’
Price Is Right
‘NO-ONE remembers who came second, but they do remember who came fifth – especially if that person has Jordans as big as Katie Price.
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| ‘You know what they say, ‘From little acorns…” |
And in column inches (or acorns, as they are known in the jungle), there is no doubt that Brighton’s most famous amusement ride is the real winner.
She dumped boyfriend Scott Sullivan by text message after leaving the jungle camp before admitting that she had did bed Aussie hunk Peter Andre on the show.
‘Yes, Peter and I did get very intimate,’ she tells the Star. ‘The sexual tension between us was mind-blowing. I fought against it every single minute I was in there, but it was impossible to resist. I wanted him so much, it physically hurt. He’s devastatingly sexy and I had to give in to my urges.’
As we give in to our urges to throw up at this point, Jordan reveals how the two romped under her waterproof blanket, but stopped just before things got too steamy.
‘I’m a mum,’ she said, ‘and wouldn’t want to do anything that would make Harvey ashamed of me when he grows up.’
In which case, if ever a baby was glad to be born blind, it’s Harvey…’
I’m A Celebrity…Let Me In Here!
‘NOW that the third series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! is but a distant memory, our thoughts turn to other celebrity gameshow ideas.
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| ‘Get off, Grant. I’m having my picture taken.’ |
And one is immediately suggested to us by a story in this morning’s star, which reports on how ‘Wife Swap scrounger’ Lizzy Bardsley was refused entry to The Living Room in Manchester.
The ‘hand-out queen’ turned up in a huge white stretch limo, but was refused entry by the doorman.
‘Don’t you know who I fucking am?’ she yelled. ‘I’m a fucking celebrity, me. Let me in!’
But the doorman was unmoved, telling her to come back when she was famous.
All of which leads us to our new gameshow, I’m A Celebrity…Let Me In Here!
The concept is simple – we watch 10 minor celebrities and their increasingly desperate attempts to blag their way into the country’s top restaurants and nightspots.
‘Don’t you know who I am? I’m former ITV weather girl Sian Lloyd!’
We especially look forward to the look on Anthea Turner’s face when she is even turned away from her local Pitcher & Piano…’
Gypsy Rosy Lee
‘FEW of us have much interaction with gypsies. No, not travellers, who hug trees and plunge themselves into holes to prevent woods from being concreted over nor even the women at the end of the pier who read palms, but bona fide Roma gypsies.
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| Another foreign-type taking from the public purse |
However, the Express has news that soon we will not be able to move for fear of tripping over them, because we are in the shadow of a GYPSY CRISIS.
Tens of thousands of what the Express calls poor, unskilled workers are on their way, and our Government is powerless to stop them from coming.
And whats worse is that some of the possible immigrants are gypsies.
Having used its front-page headline to conjure up images of mile-long trains of highly-painted wagons heading our way, full to the rafters with grasping hands, the Express concedes only that these hypothetical new arrivals might include gypsies.
And, whats more, this GYPSY CRISIS only could become a burden on the benefits system.
Its an opinion espoused by Tory home affairs spokesman Humfrey Malins, who might like to consider the fact that the leader of his own party, one Michael Howard, is hewn from immigrant wood.
And realising that, Malins (and the Express, which takes up his views with a rare gusto) might ponder why immigrants will just sponge and try not to work hard and so emulate Howard and other successful arrivals.
Even the Star deigns to report that some of these foreign spongers are prepared to work for around £1 for a nine-hour shift stuck up to their ankles in Morecambe Bay mud.
But we must add that none of the bodies of the 19 who died performing such a job were gypsies.
Although, they might have been. And if they arrive, they might yet be. So watch out!’
A Few Bad Apples
‘RESEARCH has told us that Abu Hamza is not a gypsy, has never been a gypsy and is therefore anything but a threat to the nation.
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| Abu’s retractabel claw made him the best apple-picker in town |
The editors at the Express must be wondering why then the Sun wants the hook-handed (surely disabled) Muslim preacher evicted from his house and sent back whence he originated?
Has Hamza been a gypsy in another life, had his palm read by a gypsy or knowingly consorted with gypsies at, say, a fairground, circus or travelling fair?
If he has, his lawyer is certain to get to the bottom of things, since she, says the Sun, is a highly-paid professional who raked in more than £200,000 of taxpayers cash last year.
She is Muddassar Arani, and among the shocking facts about her are that she defends the rights of Abu Hamza and drives a Mercedes motor car.
Whats more, she once produced a booklet in which she advised potential clients to state to the officer you need to seek legal advice.
This is clearly a terrible woman who must be done down and shown up for the lawyer she is.
Is it any wonder how with people like her around this country is going the way of so many dogs? Make no mistake, things are not what they used to be.
The Mail agrees, and says that the disintegration of this countrys fabric is even affecting our good old English apple.
In why an apple a day is not as good as it used to be, the Mail notices how domestic fruit and vegetables are being stripped of their natural goodness.
They are becoming rotten apples, so to speak, infected by the atmosphere in which they grow, an air thick with foreign accents, disabled extremists and lawyers.
To speak nothing of the foreign hands and hooks that pluck them from trees at a rate of so many pence per hour.’
Buy British
‘IF you doubt that the Mail is right to suggest that things are not as good as they were 50 years ago, take a look at the Sun and its story of the continuing erosion of the family unit.
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| Fifty years ago, this look was all the rage |
Tom Smith, 17, was forced by changing circumstances and mores to take his fathers credit card and spend £12,000 on the necessities of life.
Having bought a ticket from Stansted Airport to Rome, Tom proceeded to forge his fathers signature and buy a variety of compulsory goods, the type without which no teenager should be forced to make do.
The list of purchases includes: Versace silk trousers, belts shoes, T-shirts and trainers (£1,900); Prada boots and more trousers (£800); a couple of nights at the five star Hassler Roma hotel (£340 per night); a Louis Vuitton suitcase (1,632) and a pair of Armani sunglasses (£163).
And why did Tom do it? We know the answer, but the ever-thorough Sun likes to hear Tom speak for himself.
If Dad had got me these things in the first place, I wouldnt have had to steal his card, says Tom.
We could not agree more – 50 years ago we are pretty sure that any self-respecting father would have bowed to his sons humble demands and worked hard to kit him out in the panoply of youth.
And hed have bought British goods into the bargain and not forced his boy to buy Italian stuff…even if it was made in Asia.’
Harry’s Game
‘THERE can be little denying that Prince Harry is, like his dad, something of a ladys man.
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| Lauren recreates the pose that made Diana a household name |
On second thoughts, best make that ladies man in the plural, since the Sun has it on sound advice that many a woman wants the little ginger rascal.
The Suns Official Page 3 Royal Poll finds that of nine topless stunnas questioned as to which Royal they fancied, more plumped for young Hal than any other.
Alana did go for a corgi, saying how she could be sure it would be faithful, Sarina courted controversy by opting for Princess Anne, but three said they preferred the Harry option.
And the good news is that they are all just Harrys type, since the Sun uses its front page to report on how hes been seen canoodling with one of their number, namely Lauren Pope.
Blonde Lauren is said to have met Harry at Londons Chinawhites club, where she sat on his knee and whispered into his ear until the small hours.
The Sun caught up with Lauren, from Torquay, and asked her for the full details. I dont want to kiss and tell, says Lauren.
However, she does make clean a breast of things on the papers Page 3, baring her chest and getting the Suns By Royal Appointment stamp of approval.
But when the next appointment will be, she and he are not saying.’
O Brother, Who Art Thou?
‘AS predicted by anyone whos ever watched a single episode of a soap in their lives, Ronnie does need a kidney transplant and – what a surprise secret long-lost brother Tariq is his only chance.
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| Barry enacts another crime of passion |
In a plot that a Christmas cracker joke-writer would be ashamed of, Ronnie was stabbed in a street fight and rushed to hospital where doctors discovered that he only had one kidney and that had packed up.
We need to test all members of the family to see if theyre a match, an extra from Holby City told Adi, Kareena and Ash. And, of course, none of them were.
So with both their mother and father conveniently away, it looked like there was no hope for Ronnie. Until what a surprise! Mickey told Kareena that Tariq was their half brother.
Thursday nights episode featured the Ferreiras trying to come to terms with the news that their father had had a seven-year affair and that Kareena had dated her brother.
Youre sick! she screamed at him. How could you? I just wanted to feel like I belonged, he told her. Belonged to what? An incest ring?
Tariq is refusing to go for tests to see if hes a suitable donor. Why should I? he shouted. From the moment you lot found out, youve been looking at me like Im a piece of rotten meat. Rotten ham, one suspects.
Elsewhere in The Square, Ricky packed up son Liam and his overalls and left Walford for good. Janine told Ricky the truth about what happened in Scotland. Yes! All right! I killed him, she screamed. I couldnt bear another moment of that fat git pawing me.
Ricky may only have half a brain, but even he realised that murder is murder. Youre sick, Janine, get away from me!
Ricky agreed not to tell the police, but decided to leave the Square – please God, not for another attempt at the singles chart.
Before he left, however, he gave Pat plenty of clues as to the real reason why he was going. Will Pat turn detective (Hercule Poirot in big earrings) and take on Janine?
With actress Charlie Brooks set to leave Walford this year, its a pretty safe bet her days of – literally – getting away with murder, are numbered.’
Television’s Soft Centre
‘WHEN the BBC gets round to making its film of the Hutton Inquiry, we who still have faith in the corporation know what a good job it will do.
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| In this scene, Tony sees the irony in having once been in a band called Ugly Rumours |
With Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen cast in the role of Tony Blair, David Jason as Greg Dyke, Ross Kemp reprising the role of Andrew Gilligan and Kelsey Grammer as the misunderstood Dr Kelly, the nation will sit glued as the cast takes it in turns to call each other plonkers.
And dont worry if you miss it because, what with this being the BBC, Hutton Dressed As Lamb will be shown again very soon…and then again…and again.
The cast will then be reunited for a Christmas special, written by Carla Lane and set on a housing estate in Liverpool.
The show, however, remains only at the planning stage, since the Express has learnt that staff at the BBC are too busy recreating their finest moment and walking out in protest again.
Having garnered some impressive viewing figures for The Short Walkout, the paper sees around 200 of the Beebs most loyal extras demonstrate against what they see as attacks on their employer.
And what with this being a major news event, the BBC had protestors outside its offices in London, Newcastle, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow.
Its not hard to imagine a breathless Andrew Marr (Davina McCall) gushing with a rare enthusiasm about the story that shook a nation.
And then right after Jonathan Ross has hosted The 100 Greatest Hutton Moments, dont doubt that Greg Dyke might return to his job in the sequel.
Obviously, in certain circumstances, if I was asked to go back of course I would go back. But I think its very unlikely, says Dyke in the Express, before adding a luverly jubberly and handing back to Huw Edwards (Jordan) for the rest of the days news…’
The Roads To Ruin
‘IF you have been affected by issues raised in story one, then call us on 0800 UpInArms to discuss the matter in a strictly one-on-one highly confidential way with our special advisers, Andrew Gilligan and Alastair Campbell.
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| ‘No loitering’ |
In the meanwhile, be assured that you are not alone. There are many who are stuck in a rut, forced to repeat the same things over and over.
Take our friends at the Bristol parking warden depot, who having just yesterday parked illegally to hand out tickets, today repeat the trick by leaving their motor on zig-zag lines at a pedestrian crossing.
Thanks to Conrad Purvis, one motorist whose car was ticketed by the nefarious wardens, the Sun can carry yet more photographic evidence of the double standards that exist among the parking fraternity.
The Sun reproduces Purvis snap of the wardens illegally parked car and hears the fuming motorist relive his encounter with those who makes up the law as they go along.
Purvis says when confronted, one warden, who remains nameless, admitted that his parking on a zig-zag constituted an offence but since there were no police around it did not matter.
Not for no reason does the Express label this traffic warden and his ilk hypocrites.
But what is to be done? Well, the Express has heard from a spokeswoman for Bristol city council, which employs the wardens, and she says that an investigation is underway.
Lord Hutton will head the inquiry, and is likely to call all interested parties to give evidence as well subpoenaing local Bristol residents, like Euan Blair, to paint a fuller picture of life in thrall to terror.
The inquirys report is scheduled to be made public around 2005, at which time all traces of zig-zags, yellow lines and even cars may well have disappeared from view.
At which juncture, the whole matter will be handed over to Hans Blix.’
The Flying Squab
‘JUST as you never see a baby pigeon, you never see one that’s lost.
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| ‘Did he say the B4156 or the B1456?’ |
For a long while it was believed that pigeons relied wholly on in-built sensors that ensured they always returned home.
But now a study by scientists at Oxford University has found that these rats with wings merely do as drivers do and follow roads.
Professor Guildford, who headed the ten-year study that’s been seen by the Sun, was surprised at the findings.
‘By matching their routes to detailed maps of the country it is striking to see the pigeons fly straight down the A34 Oxford bypass, and then sharply curve off at the traffic lights.’
Speaking to the Mirror, Peter Brian, the Royal Pigeon Racing Association’s general manager, says the findings are ‘spot on’.
‘We are based in Cheltenham,’ says he, ‘and every Saturday you can see whole flocks of pigeons flying up the M5’.
But our preferred explanation is that pigeons actually follow cars, which can be far more easily bombed from above if sat in heavy traffic on one the country’s many congested arterial roads.
And if any pigeon reading this wants to have a really good laugh, they should be over Whitehall at 12:25pm, at which time John Prescott will be taking his Jaguar the full two yards from his desk to his lunch.’
Double Standards
‘THERE are few things more satisfying than reading exposes about double standards, or more specifically double yellow line standards.
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| ‘You say traffic jam; I say illegally parked’ |
Sticking with travel and cars, we move to the Sun’s story of the traffic warden who parked his motor not only on double yellow lines but also partly over a junction in order to hand out parking tickets in Bristol.
The accompanying picture marks the story out as irrefutable fact. No need for dossiers, reports into dossiers and questions in the House when the evidence is so very clear.
The warden did wrong.
Well, he did and, then again, he didn’t. He remains blameless because he apparently called into somewhere called ‘HQ’ to tell someone or other how he planned to park on the double yellow lines. So he’s in the clear.
Who he is, we don’t yet know since his name has not been announced, leaked or included on a list of potential terror suspects.
But we are confident Andrew Gilligan, our new freelancer, will let us know just as soon as he finds out…’
Jackson Bollocks
‘THE only thing more challenging than trying to ‘sex up’ Government dossiers is getting anyone who weighs less than 300lbs, has a neck narrower than their head and is not called Brad to watch the Superbowl.
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| Wardobe malfunction, wardobe malfunction |
But the bespectacled marketing executives who sit around interestingly shaped tables talking about ‘sexy’ things all day long could not have done better than Janet Jackson.
Few outside the US of A could say who won American football’s biggest prize, but we all know how Janet Jackson’s nipple was exposed in the half-time interval.
Such has been the hoopla and hype around this incident that, according to the Express, Janet’s nipple is now the most searched for item on the Internet, edging out Anorak and the picture of Tony Blair in bed with Cliff Richard.
But why bother looking on the web when both the Express and Sun trot out the shot of the nipple flash today, as they have been doing all week?
We are now so used to looking at Janet’s nipple that the image barely registers on our minds. If she wants to shock us again, she’ll have to do better.
Perhaps next time she or Justin Timberlake, who claims a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ was responsible for the flash, could just swear a lot.
And by way of guide, the Express gives all publicity hungry Janets and Justins a potted history of swearing on the telly, a practice the paper says is ‘vile’.
‘John Lydon’s vile four-letter outburst in the jungle highlights how low TV has sunk – and why it’s time to silence the swearing,’ says the paper whose owner operates cable TV porn channels and retains the services of Robert Kilroy-Silk.
And so bad is this swearing that shocked and stunned Express reporter Laura Kibby replays all those great moments of TV swearing in an addendum to her main piece called: ‘Foul-mouthed celebrities who have left viewers speechless down the decades.’
But we are not apoplectic in rage and disbelief, since we’ve heard it all before.
If Janet Jackson and the PR and marketing types who advise her are considering telling their client to swear they should note: it’s been done to death.
If Janet wants to truly shock she should either appear at the same time and place as her brother Michael or flash us something that will really get tongues wagging – like her penis.’
Reality Check
‘IT is one of those oddities that the queen of reality television should be anything but real.
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| ‘Don’t ask me, ask my Jordans’ |
For if there is one thing we can say with any degree of certainty about Katie Price, it’s that her gigantic Jordans are not of God’s making.
After this, things get a little murkier and truth merges with falsehood. For instance, how convinced are we that she really did have an affair with David Beckham?
Not that she actually has said she did, as the Sun merely reports that Katie simply shook her Jordans up and down in a manner that suggested the affirmative when asked by her camp colleagues if she had bedded the footballer.
‘That’s going to be front-page news every day for weeks,’ screamed Kerry McPadding.
‘He’s not going to be known as Goldenballs any more,’ chipped in Neil Ruddock. ‘I see him as Rustyballs.’
If Ruddock’s right, Katie and her Jordans would do well to get a tetanus jab and see a doctor about life Down Under in what the Sun terms her ‘Jordangate’.
But while we ponder whether or not the model did or did not dally with England’s most famous son, the woman herself has moved on.
And as if we needed reminding that the only way after bedding a Beckham is down, Katie reveals that she has the hots for Peter Andre.
The Star heard her tell the wombats and snakes that sit (literally) glued to her every move in the Australian jungle how she and Peter have come within ‘a millimetre’ of having sex with each other.
Not that size is all that matters in this story – well, not unless you are Katie’s Jordans or poor Peter’s Acorn – since Jordan’s brother Danny Price is upset by what he’s seen so far.
He says that his sister is playing Peter for a fool and that the one Australian singer never to have appeared in Neighbours is behaving like a leech.
Which pretty much guarantees that Jordan will be popping little Pete in her mouth, chewing him up and either swallowing him whole or spitting him out.
After all, after being on the receiving end of cockroaches, worms and a football’s rusty balls, what’s one titchy leech?’
