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.
Eviction Night
‘OUT of pity for the dire tripe it is, we now turn our attention to Big Brother news.
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| Ray was desperate to keep the mental imgae of Vanessa Feltz stuck fast in his head |
And the unsurprising story is that at least one of the housemates is an onanist.
This news is brought to you not by the Sport but by the Sun, which claims to have uncovered ”proof that randy Ray has been keeping his hand in”.
The claim is based on footage of ”hunky” Ray wandering to the toilet in the dead of night with his head and quivering flesh swathed in a duvet.
Keeping the duvet on while seated on the pot, Ray ”bobbed up and down” and indulged in some ”deep breathing”.
That Ray enacts his own nightly eviction is neither here nor there, but, having watched the show, we suggest that Ray has been gripped by the full fist of constipation.
Happily, the steady streams of verbal diarrhoea press on…’
The Menace
‘DIRTY Den was always going to be a hard act to follow: a ten-year affair that made his wife take an overdose and a one-night stand with his daughter’s best mate being two of his finest moments, but producers are doing their hardest with new boy Dennis.
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| ”You want some?!” |
Not content with bedding three of Walford’s regulars in a week, it now transpires that he’s slept with Kate and he’s trying to sleep with his ‘sister’ Sharon.
Dennis decided that the Pig In A Wig would be his next conquest and set about charming her. Luckily for Sharon, his attempts at charm consisted of walking around the flat topless, with his Watts belly hanging out, and leaning against walls, leering at her.
Dennis wasn’t downhearted at Sharon’s rejection for long though as he quickly moved onto Kate. Apparently, Kate had taken Dennis’ particulars down on more than one occasion and he was keen to be taken into custody again.
Phil was in Brazil, visiting Grant after his car crash so Kate invited Dennis over for a drink. It must have been a very big drink though as he was still there the next morning.
In what must be the shortest recorded trip to Brazil ever, Phil returned about three days after he left and found Dennis in his home and Kate in a towelling dressing gown.
”What was he doin’ here?” Phil growled. ”And what are you doin’, dressing as a tart?” Which leads me to believe that Phil really needs to start visiting a better class of tart.
Phil’s decided to give Kate the benefit of the doubt. ”Nothing happened,” pleaded Kate, ”Joanne will back us up.” As Joanne has just been dumped by Dennis for being ”fat, frumpy and boring” that seems very unlikely indeed.
New family, the Ferreiras have opened up a stall in the market – selling exactly the same stock as the Slaters. Who knew the demand for ill-fitting Lycra boob tubes was so high in Walford?
Little sister Kareena is already being blackmailed by Martin, who saw her kissing her secret boyfriend Tariq. Martin took a leather bomber jacket off her stall and demanded six more to keep quiet. In his new leather jacket and recently acquired criminal tendencies, Martin is turning into Nick Cotton.
And on the subject of teen delinquents, Sharon has decided to send Vicki back to America. Vicki’s determined not to go though and hatches up a plan to pretend she’s pregnant.
Unfortunately for Vicki though, it turns out that she actually is. What are the chances of that happening, eh?
‘
Posted: 16th, June 2003 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
A Serious Blow
‘ALAN Milburn’s departure from the Cabinet may have had nothing to do with sex, but ex-Welsh MP Dr Phil Williams’ departure had everything to do with it.
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| Will you still love her, will your still want it when you’re 64? |
The married father-of-two, who was once Plaid Cymru’s shadow economics ministers, collapsed and died in a massage parlour in Cardiff.
And this morning a 19-year-old masseuse, called Hayley, explains why.
”I stripped down to my G-string and gave him oral sex,” she explains to the Mirror.
”Afterwards, he said ‘You really got me excited there’ and was smiling at himself in the mirror.
”He asked me ‘Do you want to have full sex with me now?’ but I said no and started to get dressed with my back to him.
”Within a couple of seconds I heard a thump and turned round to see that he had fallen off the couch and was lying face down on the floor.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the end of that for the 64-year-old university professor.
The Sun takes the opportunity to remind us of five other kinky politicians, including John Profumo, Stephen Milligan and our badger-loving friend Ron Davies.
Meanwhile, the tributes to Dr Williams have been pouring in.
Former Plaid Cymru president Dafydd Wigley tells the Sun: ”This is very tragic. It’s a terrible loss of someone who still had so much to give.”
It sounds like he did – which is no mean feat for a man of 64.
‘
Barmy Army
”’JOIN the army, see the world, meet different people…and kill them.”
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| ”I want you – to cook my dinner, mop my brow and warm my bunk” |
In the old days, persuading people to join up used to be a simple affair, but these days people are not so keen to be shot at by 13-year-old boys in countries they’ve never heard of.
And why should they when the Army itself seems to spend most of the time shooting itself in the foot.
Ask Karen Harris, the 19-year-old who became the face of the Army when she was chosen to front a recruitment drive designed to show how the military has modernised.
This morning, we learn that after just 30 months with the 14 Signal Regiment in south Wales, she has quit – fed-up with the bullying and sexual harassment.
And she has made a formal complaint against an officer who, she says, tormented her.
”He had started verbally abusing me and giving me hassle and he kept saying he would put a poster of me above his bed,” she tells the Express.
”As we walked back to the barracks, he came up to me, grabbed my waist and pulled me towards him. He then tried to kiss me and grabbed my breasts.”
All of which should do wonders for the Army’s recruitment drive.
‘
Friday 13th – Lucky For Some
‘IT’S Friday 13th today, which – as the Mail kindly reminds us – is a harbinger of bad luck.
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| A good day for being unlucky, unlucky, unlucky |
Having said that, Mail-readers probably think that every day is Friday 13th as their paper of choice regales them with one scare story after another.
But not only do some people apparently have a morbid fear of Friday 13th, but that fear actually has a name – paraskevidekatriaphobia.
And with a long Greek name comes a cheque from some daft research institute for some chancer to study whether Friday 13th really is unlucky.
And the result? The chancer in question was mauled to death by a black cat as he crossed the road to post his results…
Not quite. According to the Mail, there are statistically more accidents on the roads on Friday 13th, despite there being fewer people driving.
Psychologist Richard Wiseman stays out of the massage parlour long enough to explain to the paper: ”Superstitions give us a feeling of control over uncertainty.
”It doesn’t cost anything and, who knows, the benefit could be massive.”
Touch wood.
‘
A New Jordan
‘HAVE you ever thought what we would do if – God forbid – something were to happen to Jordan?
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| The pride of Essex |
Who would step into her white stilettos if, say, one of her pneumatic breasts developed a slow puncture?
It is a question that has been troubling the editors of the nation’s red-tops – until now.
Even the newly serious Mirror is quick to hail the arrival of Jodie Marsh, splashing a picture of the scantily-clad ex-lapdancer on its front page.
”Jodie: The New Jordan (Without The Brains),” it says, before going on to award her an unprecedented 11/10 on the sleazometer.
Jordan, by contrast, only gets 10/10 – comfortably more than Alicia Douvall or Emma Jones, but no longer is she the undisputed Queen Of Sleaze.
As if to rub it in, the Star devotes its centre pages to 24-year-old Jodie, who has clearly learnt all Jordan’s tricks and added a few more of her own.
There is the array of almost famous boyfriends – Kian from Westlife, Callum Best and current squeeze, Adee from The Salon.
There are, of course, the skimpy outfits, and the obligatory flash of her knickers to the waiting photographers.
The Star is impressed – ”Jodie, who first hit our screens in the hit reality TV show, Essex Wives, has even managed to out-raunch Jordan in the dress to impress stakes,” it says.
As is the Mirror, which salutes the latest graduate from the college of how to get famous without talent.
”With her peroxide hair and ability to flash loads of flesh, former pole dancer Jodie Marsh was clearly an excellent pupil,” it says.
It’s good to see that she will have something to fall back on if her career as the new Jordan doesn’t work out…
‘
Waxing Lyrical
‘JODIE has got someway to go before she is immortalised in wax in Madame Tussaud’s.
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| Britney shows off her new inflatable boobs |
Even Jordan hasn’t yet secured a place in London’s famous museum, although that is apparently mainly due to a shortage of wax to recreate her famous FF breasts.
But when, as she surely will, Jodie does earn her place among the great icons of our age, she won’t feel out of place.
Because the Sun has a story this morning that museum bosses are to give Britney Spears’ waxwork a complete transformation – as ”a raunchy pole dancer with boobs that THROB”.
”Millions will see the blonde beauty in her sexiest pose ever – with her back arched and her chest puffed out,” it says.
”And for good measure, she is being given heaving bosoms which inflate.”
A museum insider promised that Britney would be ”our raunchiest model to date”.
”She is hanging upside-down in the pose and, when the waxwork is unveiled, it will give our male visitors one hell of a treat,” he said.
But there is a serious purpose behind the new waxwork – education.
A museum spokeswoman explained: ”We will have a couple of real pole dancers on call to offer tips to the public.”
And who better than that recent graduate of the college of how to get famous without talent, Jodie Marsh?
‘
Nell Of Parting Day
‘A COMPLETE absence of talent is not enough on its own, even with a college education. It takes a lot of hard work to become famous.
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| Warning: This is a lot harder than it looks |
As Linda Grant said, fame costs – and right here is where you start paying in sweat…and topless shots.
Ask Nell McAndrew. For years, she whipped her top off at every passing camera to little avail.
But an appearance on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here changed all that – and Nell is now busier (or should that be bustier) than ever.
”I’ve read stories that I am going to make a million,” the 29-year-old tells the Sun, ”but all I can say is it’s not quite that much.
”But all the hard work is paying off.”
What hard work, you may wonder. Well, Nell has just got back from the Gulf where she has been performing that most strenuous of tasks – boosting morale.
She has released a fitness video, is filming a new ITV motoring series, Racing Rivals, and of course recently married Dale Winton in the saddest showbiz stunt of them all.
With all that on her plate, it’s amazing she still finds time to take her clothes off.
‘
We’re All Screwed
‘FOR a nation that is supposed to prefer a cup of tea to sex, we’re doing a pretty good job of catching syphilis and gonorrhoea from a pot of Earl Gray.
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| Page 3 girl Michelle says ‘no’ to syphilis |
According to the Sun, ”sex is killing Britain”, with the country in the grip of ”a terrifying explosion in sexual diseases”.
VD clinics are apparently so snowed under that thousand seeking treatment are being turned away, with MPs blaming increased promiscuity for the situation.
Cases of syphilis are up 500% in the past six years, although admittedly it is still very rare.
AIDS cases have jumped by 203%, chlamydia by 108% and gonorrhoea by 86% – meaning there are now more people in the country with the disease than there are who can spell it.
So where does this leave the Sun, the paper that has promised a £50,000 bounty to the first (heterosexual) couple to have sex on Big Brother?
Appalled, that’s what. Appalled that in 2000 women boasted of having an average of 6.5 sexual partners, compared with 3.7 in 1990.
Appalled that in 2000 men claimed to have slept with an average of 12.7 different women, compared with 8.6 in 1990.
Appalled that the average age for losing one’s virginity has fallen from 17 to 16.
Appalled that the number of men paying for sex more than doubled between 1990 and 2000.
Appalled that 9% of women and 14.6% of men were seeing two sexual partners at the same time during 2000 – a rise from 5.4% and 11.4% in 1990.
And appalled that they can’t find an excuse to use a picture of a naked woman to illustrate the story.
‘
Church Goer
‘THE rest of the country may be dropping like a teenager’s flies from diseases they cannot spell, but Charlotte Church is determined to carry on bonking for Britain.
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| Voice of an angel, body of a devil |
The Star reports that the 17-year-old singer enjoyed ”a sizzling 14-hour sex session” with her bad-boy lover, Steven Johnson.
That at least was the time that elapsed between the lovebirds slipping off from the party at the premiere of Charlotte’s film, I’ll Be There, and them re-emerging from their penthouse suite the next afternoon.
And the Star is in no doubt about what they were up to. ”They came out of the hotel hand-in-hand looking very much like young lovers,” a source reveals.
”She was wearing the same jeans and low-cut black top outfit from the previous night and they both looked like they had not had much sleep.
”You could say the Voice Of An Angel is no angel herself.”
Or perhaps, she and her boyfriend were engaged in a marathon game of Scrabble.
How many points for GONORRHOEA on a triple word score?
‘
Keeping Up With The Joneses
‘CHARLOTTE Church claims she turned down a plum film role after she was told she would have to lose weight.
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| ”Is that you, Ms Feltz?” |
It’s just a pity for her that she was not being auditioned to play the title role in the follow-up to the 2001 film, Bridget Jones’s Diary.
According to the Mail, Renee Zellwegger has agreed to reprise her role as the plump, lovelorn Londoner for a reported £15m fee.
But most of that money looks set to disappear down the actress’s throat as she tries to pile on the pounds for the part.
The paper says her daily diet includes 20 doughnuts, pizza, a Big Mac and chips, spaghetti with meat sauce and potatoes swimming in butter.
”It’s easier for me this time round because I know what I have to do and how to do it,” she says.
”I have to stick to it because I found out last time that one doughnut doesn’t do a thing. You’ve got to at 20 a day for five weeks before you get results.”
In this day and age, when every Hollywood actress has a slimming coach, do we spot a large gap in the market here through which Vanessa Feltz might squeeze her bulky frame?
Who better to pass on the secrets of a lifetime of overeating?
‘
Roll Over Beethoven
‘ROD Stewart may only be as old as the woman he feels (27 – at last count), but he is ancient history as far as today’s youth are concerned.
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| Penny for your thoughts, Rod |
Asked to name a classical composer, nearly half the 1,000 children polled drew a blank, but three in ten went for a wrong name including 58-year-old Rod.
However, according to the Star, Rod was in pretty good company.
Others named by the 10 to 19-year-olds include Elvis Presley, Charlotte Church, Frank Sinatra, painter Claude Monet and fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Only two in ten managed correctly to name a composer, with Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and Tchaikovsky the favourites.
However, only five per cent of those questioned knew that Beethoven went deaf – 15% thought he was blind and 12% thought he’d cut his ear off.
How ignorant can you get – everyone knows that that was Simon Le Bon.
‘
Secret Match
‘IT is all the rage in showbiz circles at the moment – getting married in secret and seeing how long you can last before blurting out the happy news.
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| ”And this time it really is for ever…” |
So, congratulations to Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes who announced yesterday that they have been man and wife for the past fortnight.
The luvvie couple got hitched while on holiday in the West Indies – in the garden of a sun-kissed villa with only three friends and Kate’s daughter Mia in attendance.
The Mail calls it ”the best-kept secret in showbusiness”, which it clearly isn’t as it is in all the papers this morning.
”We hadn’t been planning to do it,” 27-year-old Kate told the paper, ”but we thought it was rather a good idea, so we just did it.”
Just as five years ago Kate thought it was rather a good idea to marry Jim Threapleton.
Both sets of parents were told only when the couple returned to England.
Kate’s father Roger said: ”We are very, very pleased for Kate and Mia. I am very happy to have Jim, er, Sam as a son-in-law and, more importantly, Kate is over the moon.”
Kate and Sam are by no means the only couple to have been married in secret in recent years – actress Halle Berry and musician Eric Benet’s wedding was so secret the groom doesn’t seem to have realised he’s married two years later.
Both Luciano Pavarotti and Kenneth Branagh tied the knot in secret earlier this year, only telling the papers after the job was done.
But these are only the ones we know about. Rumour has it that Dale Winton and Cilla Black have secretly been man and wife for the past five years.
And there are those who claim to have witnessed the bizarre ceremony in which Fern Britton pledged her eternal love to a giant cream cake.
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Bums On Seats
‘BRITISH Airways are very sensitive about their tail fins – last time they messed around with them, they created a storm from which the airline has never fully recovered.
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| Kylie models the new BA stewardess uniform |
So it comes as little surprise that the woman chosen as the new face of what can no longer call itself the world’s favourite airline is the owner of the most famous tail-fin of all – Kylie Minogue.
”The pop princess, famed for her perfect rear, has a six-figure deal to put bottoms on seats for the airline,” says the Sun.
Kylie’s job, adds the paper, includes wearing skimpy outfits to promote BA’s long-haul destinations and tropical beach holidays.
A spokesman for her record company confirmed: ”They have got her on board to persuade more British people to go on long-haul holidays because the industry has been struggling.
”She will launch the new brochure and her face will appear in campaigns for the airline.”
As for her bum, look out for the specially shaped tail-fins next time you take to the skies in a British Airways plane.
‘
Harry & The Thong Bird
‘THERE are some newspaper stories that immediately suggest a headline; but there are others where you just know the headline was written first.
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| Trying to hold on, Harry conjured up a mental image of a naked uncle Eddie |
An example of the latter was the story about the lawyer who was late for court after a condom machine fell off the back of a lorry and hit his car – under the headline, ”Johnny Come Lately”.
Another is this morning’s lead story in the Sun, which tells how Prince Harry cringed with embarrassment as he dropped a lacy pink thong while tidying his room for an official photo.
The headline, for those who haven’t already guessed, is ”Heir ‘N’ A G-String”.
The paper claims that the 18-year-old was gathering together his clothes in his Eton room in front of his housemaster and a female photographer when the sexy undies slipped out.
”He went beetroot red,” a source said. ”What made it even more embarrassing was the fact that the photographer was an extremely attractive young lady.”
Why that should make it more embarrassing we’re not sure – unless, of course, the pink G-string was not a ”trophy” (as the Sun claims) but Harry’s own choice of underwear.
Pink is, after all, a good choice of colour for red-heads like Harry and, since Victoria Beckham revealed that husband David wore her knickers, we’re sure they’re all the rage.
Needless to say, however, hot-blooded Harry is claiming otherwise.
A source tells the Sun: ”He is certainly one for the ladies and it didn’t surprise any of us.
”Harry said he had been to a party where he got lucky with a pretty young thing and took her knickers as a trophy.”
It beats having her head chopped off, stuffed and mounted over his bed, we suppose…
‘
Bum Notes
‘IF you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them now – One True Voice are no more.
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| ”Does my bum look like Kylie’s in this?” |
Singer Daniel Pearce (the one true voice in the band) will tell the other four wannabes that he is quitting after their second single only just limped into the Top 10.
It is only six months since the band was formed on last year’s Popstars II as rivals to Girls Aloud.
But, while the boys lick their wounds and go back to flipping burgers in the local McDonalds, Girls Aloud are going from strength to strength.
The Star has a picture of them performing at yesterday’s mini-Party In The Park in Southampton, alongside the likes of Jennifer Ellison, Cheeky Girls and Lisa Scott Lee.
The ex-Steps star is so desperate to become the new British Kylie that she has been sticking her bum at the lens of any available camera.
Now she has even had her hair done a la Kylie, is wearing the same clothes as Kylie and has started dancing like her as well.
If she suddenly reveals that she has a less talented and less attractive sister clinging to her coat-tails, we will start to get really worried…
‘
Happenin’ All Over Again
‘THINGS weren’t always this bad for Tracy Shaw – five years ago, she was embarking on a pop career with a cover of Lonnie Gordon’s Happenin’ All Over Again.
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| ”Three bottles of wine and a packet of crisps please, love” |
It narrowly failed to make it into the Top 40, peaking at No.46 in July 1998, but it was a prophetic choice of song.
This morning, the 29-year-old actress admits that she needs help and has booked in to see the same psychiatrist who helped her when she was suffering from anorexia eight years ago.
At the weekend, Tracy’s dad Karl spoke of his fears about his daughter’s drinking, claiming she was surviving on three bottles of wine and a packet of crisps a day.
And observers have become increasingly worried after Tracy unprecedentedly appeared in two photo-shoots in a row WITHOUT taking her clothes off.
But the former Coronation Street actress tells the Mirror today: ”I’m not anorexic and I’m not a big drinker.”
Tracy was returning from a two-week holiday in Malaga without her husband – and without her wedding or engagement rings.
But that doesn’t mean the two-year marriage is over, with Tracy telling the Mirror: ”I love him to bits.”
As for the rings, the oft-engaged star said they were in a safe at home because they were too valuable to take to Spain.
Must be a big safe…
‘
Two Fingers
‘WITH the crowd still rolling in the aisles from his last gag – ”The Prime Minister doesn’t tell lies” – John Prescott knew he had the audience where he wanted them.
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| Prezza just manages to count up to two… |
But one coherent sentence in a career does not an act make, and Prezza, a man best known for his ”gaffes and gobbledegook” (Mail), needed a trusty visual gag.
Without breaking stride as he sauntered into No.10, without appearing even to think, the genius of comedy reached behind his back and stuck up two fingers to the watching press.
The Mail has the front-page picture of Two Jags giving it the Two Fingers, using a headline to reply: ”The same to you John, with euros on!”
The inside of the paper is typically full of shock and awe at the burly one’s actions.
There are even a few words from Romford’s Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, who says that standards throughout the land will ”slip down the gutter” following the Deputy PM’s example.
And surely they will. It’s a sorry state when a once brave man of action, the famous and highly respected Two Jabs, is forced to kowtow to the touchy-feely sensibilities of a nanny state gone mad and resort to finger-waving.
Next thing you know, he’ll be calling Tony names – like liar, hypocrite, warmonger, sycophant, toady…
And that can’t be right. Can it?
‘
Seeing Red Over Yellow
‘BOMBARDED with videos of the police chasing villains with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing and Crimewatch re-enactments of criminal acts, we the people have learned two things.
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| ‘Would the owner of S675 LYG please move their car? I want to park there.’ |
Firstly, the police car giving chase is every bit as much of a menace to the general public as the fleeing joyrider.
Secondly, no crime reconstruction necessitates an actor dressing up as a cop – because the police arrive too late or not at all.
And so to today’s story in the Sun, where one view of the incident shows an unnamed traffic warden issuing a ticket to a car illegally parked on double yellow lines.
The people of Barbourne, Worcestershire, are as used to such scenes of highway robbery as the rest of us.
It is only when the camera belonging to local resident Sandra Ash pans back that we see the full picture, the one that puts the law in the frame.
In front of the ticketed car sits a large, blue four-door Mercedes, also stopped illegally.
Our camerawoman asked the warden why he wasn’t giving that car a ticket as well. ‘Oh, because that’s mine!’ he answered.
He then drove off with what the Sun calls ‘a cheery wave’.
Cue Sandra to fetch her husband Andrew from indoors. ‘I realise wardens have a job to do,’ says he, ‘but talk about one law for them and another for us. It made my blood boil.’
He continues: ‘It seems these people are given a uniform and think it gives them the God-given right to bend the rules.’
Of course, he is wrong. The power to bend the rules is given by a far higher power than God – it’s granted by the local council.
‘
Must We Carry On?
‘YOU join us on the set of Carry On Flogging A Dead Horse, where Danniella Westbrook is ready to clamber into a bikini last worn by Barbara Windsor many moons ago.
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| Carry On Crying…And Moaning…And Whining |
The working title to the picture, revealed by the Sun as Carry On London, will see Danniella taking on the role of saucy cockney Delia Goodhand.
Just before you think that it couldn’t get any more dire, the Sun says that the woman whose CV reads ”reformed cocaine addict”, will be joined on film by Lady Isabella Hervey, Shaun Williamson and Gary Wilmot.
The only good thing to say about that cast list is that we thought Gary Wilmot was dead.
But fear not, intrepid cast, because the Sun goes on to say that the classic Carry Ons are a hit in Romania, where they are being shown for the first time.
And there is no higher praise than that.
‘
Calm Down
‘THIS morning Liverpudlians peel back the net curtains and present a new face to the world.
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| Liverpool City Council’s arts and culture committee |
The bushy moustache is waxed at the ends, the hair has taken on a softer perm and the shell suit has a French label. Liverpool is European Capital of Culture 2008.
And if you think that’s no big deal, cock an ear to the Sun, where Mike Storey, leader of the infamous Liverpool City Council, is beside himself.
”This is like Liverpool winning the Champions’ League, Everton winning the double and the Beatles reforming all on the same day, then Steven Spielberg coming to the city to make a Hollywood blockbuster about it,” he says.
But when the other runners and riders in the race for cultural superiority are seen, the news is less sensational than a footballing miracle and the reawakening of two dead Beatles.
Liverpool topped a poll of only British cities, a list that included Newcastle-Gateshead, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and Oxford – so no Rome, Paris, Moscow or Budapest.
But no matter, because winners are grinners and the Scousers are all queuing up to tell the Mirror how chuffed to bits they are.
”Its time has come,” says Les Dennis. ”Rock on Liverpool.” ”We can show the world how great we are,” promises former Spice Girl Mel C. And Cherie Blair is said to be ”delighted”.
It’s just a shame that they can’t be there to join in the fun – what with them living in London and all…
‘
Twinned With Baghdad
‘THEY must have intended it to have been Liverpool, but the Sun says that Saddam Hussein’s daughters Raghad and Rana are planning to set up home in Leeds.
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| ”Our kid’s a right divvy…” |
It seems that Saddam’s cousin, a Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid, is already living in the Yorkshire city, after claiming asylum. He now expects his relatives to join him.
”Saddam’s daughters had British schools and hospitals in mind when they decided to ask for asylum – especially the schools,” says Izzi-Din.
What with the depravation and stench, it’ll be like home from home.
And, if the Mail is right, dearest mummy, Mrs Saddam Hussein, a woman who could pass for one of her husband’s doubles, is set to join them.
So with most of the family set up in Leeds, the only question to be answered is what happened to dad?
Is he already here? Or is he in Liverpool – after all, with that moustache and accent, he’ll lose himself in the crowd in minutes…
‘
What A Blow!
‘BARRY Manilow is finding it hard to smile ever since he broke his nose in a night-time prang.
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| ”And I’m flying without wings…” |
”I got up thinking I was still in my holiday home in Malibu and veered to the left instead of the right and slammed into the wall,” says Barry in the Star.
”I may have to have my nose fixed – and, with this nose, it’s going to be major surgery!”
So a donor is need. The Express lines up a few likely hooters, spotting a lying Pinocchio, Cyrano de Bergerac and Barry’s longstanding showbiz pal Gonzo Muppet.
Of course, Concorde is coming to the end of its shelf life and with glue and balance, Barry could be whole again.
Let the in-flight music begin…
‘
Brought To Heel
‘HAVING been mauled by Vanessa Feltz, Ulrika Jonsson is today on the receiving end of Nancy Dell’Olio’s spiky Italian tongue.
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| Memoirs of an Italian Geisha |
The woman who still shares the bed of England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson – even after his affair with the Swedish former weathergirl – has ”let rip” in the Express.
”I have never thought of any woman as my rival for a single second,” says Nancy. ”It is not even worth discussing.”
Dismissive of Ulrika’s allure, Nancy is, however, keen to tell more about what she and Sven like to get up to of an evening.
To give readers a clue what to expect, the Express punctuates its story with a question, to which readers can reply via two phone numbers: ”Do women exist to please men?”
Clearly the answer to that is…well, let’s first see what Nancy thinks, her views transcribed by the Mail.
”My priority is to please my man and that gives me more pleasure than anything else,” she says.
”I would describe myself more like a geisha than the one wearing the trousers.”
And like a typical Japanese prostitute, she is not married to the man she serves, although she is committed to Sven.
”It is important to believe in your relationship,” she adds. ”You can’t walk away when things get difficult.”
Especially not if you’ve left your Cuban heels outside your Swedish lover’s bedroom door…
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A Van Damme Shame
‘PITY the poor Big Brother reporter at the Sun who must gamefuly try each day to whip up enthusiasm for a show that looks like a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a reunited cub-scout troop.
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| ”That Federico – he’s a dead man…” |
Today’s effort is the ”Save Our Jon” campaign. Note there the ”our,” a sign that Jon has been taken to very bosom of the organ, and so the country.
Jon, of course, the losers’ loser, has wrapped himself in the mattered and tatty coat of the underdog.
But if you think it’s a poor lot over here, the Express take a look at what’s going in the French version, where the show’s producers have called in help to enliven a dying show.
Responding to an advert – which could have run something like ”Show-off needed. Actors need not apply” – Jean-Claude Van Damme, the infamous Muscles From Brussels, is to be the newest housemate.
This development make the Express question who we would like to be sent to the Big Brother house.
The list on offer includes the likes of Phil Tufnell, Tracy Shaw, Clare Short and John Prescott – all fine candidates to be shut away from the eyes of all but the Sun’s impoverished reporter for a few months.
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