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.
It’s Andy being a Royal
‘WE mock Michael Caine’s class paranoia, but then something happens that makes you wonder if there isn’t something in it.
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| Andy on the trail of another birdie |
The Sun recounts how a ‘shocked motorist’ saw Prince Andrew brush off a police officer who had the temerity to stop the Royal heartthrob as he gadded about in his Land Rover.
The hapless officer’s impertinence got short shrift by the man formerly known as Randy Andy.
‘I’m in a hurry,’ he barked. ‘It was only 50,’ he added – referring, presumably, to his speed, and not his David Boon-like intake of tinned beers.
So while other drivers were booked, the Prince drove off in the direction of Heathrow, where he caught a flight to watch the Open golf tournament.
Scotland Yard confirmed that no action will be taken against Andrew. ‘Not everyone stopped for speeding is prosecuted,’ said a spokesman.
Meanwhile Michael Caine lies rotting in a cell, while police complete the paperwork on his damaged windscreen-wiper.
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Suited And Booted (Out)
‘MORE evidence of class bias from the Express. This time, the victims were entirely innocent, as the opening sentence immediately indicates, concerning as it does, ‘three middle-aged consultants and two executives’.
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| He’s got trouble written all over him |
Not only that, but these pillars of society were ‘sharing a drink with a council’s chief executive and a firm’s managing director’.
Pretty impressive, you will agree, but it doesn’t stop there. ‘They arrived at the Curlew pub in West Purley, Dorset, in a Porsche and a Jaguar,’ the paper drools.
This was all too much for the surly landlord, green with jealousy, who promptly barred them under the flimsy pretext that the pub refuses to serve ‘groups of lads’.
Mike Turvey (chief executive of Christchurch Council in Dorset) professed himself ‘absolutely gobsmacked’ by the treatment.
‘I explained to the barman who we were but he said he’d thrown executives out before.’
And he’ll throw them out again if they turn up in the nude. No exceptions – rules is rules.
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Soul Bidder
‘WHEN Faustus sold his soul, he expected 24 years of power and pleasure in return. But all Gareth Malham got for his soul when he auctioned it on an internet site was £11.61.
The impoverished artist from Byker, Newcastle, advertised his soul on eBay and sold it to a man from Oklahoma who had lost his own soul in a bet over a game of air hockey.
Gareth, 26, said he is an atheist and did not believe he would come to any harm from making the deal, despite several warning emails from Christians.
‘I asked the guy who was buying it and he said he wasn’t a Satanist, thank God [sic],’ he said.
He will sign over his soul to the lucky buyer by writing a legal document in his own blood – just as soon as he receives his cheque. ‘
Babe And The Woods
‘HAPPY now, Bob Styles, aged 26, of Eastbourne? Yesterday, readers will recall, you were gutted at Channel 4’s decision not to show a full frontal of Big Brother’s Kate when she whipped her bikini top off. But this morning the Sun rectifies that oversight, publishing a picture of Kate clad only in a wet T-shirt.
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| Meanwhile, the real Elin Nordegren ponders her next move |
However, Bob’s thoughts are probably elsewhere today, specifically on swimsuit model Elin Nordegren, the woman who, the Mail says (with stunning originality), has ‘caught the eye of the Tiger’.
Both the Mail and the Express devote their respective Page 3s to pictures of the 22-year-old Swede wearing only a yellow bikini and what looks like about half a gallon of baby oil. The Mail finds it easy to see why she caught the eye of the world’s best golfer when she was introduced by Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik, whose children she was looking after, last year.
But how Parnevik got away with employing a well-oiled blonde swimsuit model as an au pair is another issue entirely.
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Readers’ Pets
‘IT is just as well for the charms of Miss Nordegren because being a Mail reader is a depressing business. This morning, that misguided bunch learn that a ‘summer of air chaos’ is in the offing. ‘Union militants are back and the next target is your holiday,’ it warns.
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| ‘I look nothing like my cat’ |
Not anyone else’s holiday, you understand, but YOURS. Just as the Government pays for its expensive follies by raiding YOUR piggy bank, gambles with YOUR kids’ futures, sells YOUR kids drugs etc.
But Mail readers are not without blame themselves as this morning’s front page points out. ‘Are we killing our pets with kindness?’ asks the paper next to a picture of a fat Dalmatian. The answer is, of course, yes. The PDSA says more than 50% of pets are now overweight as they pay their price for their owners’ lazy lifestyles.
The Mail is so concerned about this that it has put Science Reporter Tim Utton on the case, who appeals to readers to send in pictures of their colossal cats or paunchy pooches to a special ‘Fat Pets’ address.
You know what they say about owners coming to look like their pets. Let’s see what Mail readers really look like in the next few days…
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Belinda Passes Her MOT
‘Laura decided to take Ian back after he promised her that she could have a baby. But being the lying, two-faced little weasel that he is, he’s also booked himself into a vasectomy clinic without telling her.
As the rest of the world rejoices that they’re won’t be any more little Beales in the world, it’s unlikely Laura’s going to see it that way. Laura is getting more and more deranged with every episode. From deep frying Ian’s business proposal to throwing boiling milk at Janine, she’s now taking to manically staring at Ian with her gooseberry eyes out on stalks and whispering ‘you better not let me down Ian, or you’ll be sorry.’ No wonder he’s looking scared.
And speaking of mentalists, Little Mo has been granted an appeal on the strength of Donna’s testimony. Unfortunately, Kat in her usual caring way has managed to scare her so badly that she’s run away. Kat’s people skills are second to none. She also told her own daughter that she was ‘dirt’ and ‘to keep away forever’. With interpersonal skills like that, it’s only a matter of time before she’s snapped up by Labour’s Spin Doctors.
Can someone please explain who’s bright idea it was to cast Lynne Slater in the role as the modern day Helen of Troy? First it was Beppe, declaring that she was ‘the most perfect woman in the world’, then Gary realised that he ‘couldn’t live wifout ‘er’, and now ex-fiance Jason is back on the scene.
‘I made the biggest mistake of my life, lettin’ you go Lynne,’ he told her. We all know she’s got a great wrist action when it comes to shaking that chip basket, but surely there’s got to be more to it than that?
Lynne has decided to run away with Jason and leave Gary. As Gary spends most of his life comatose on the sofa, he probably won’t realise for a couple of months anyway. Another Slater sister who’s proving that Kat isn’t the only one to put the slapper into Slater is Belinda.
Belinda has turned up again, complete with comedy frightwig ostensibly to support the family in their hour of need over Zoe, but really it’s because her Neville asked her to put on a ‘costume’ (the details of which we were thankfully spared).
Belinda chose to demonstrate her wifely virtues by embarking on a fling with Jamie. ‘I think it needs a good servicing,’ she breathed as Jamie was bent over her car, like something out of ‘Confessions of A Driving Instructor’. It wasn’t long before Jamie had her hood up and was rummaging around under her bonnet.
When Phil told him he needed to strip some old bangers, I’m not sure that’s quite what he had in mind.
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The Spirit Of Free Enterprise
‘YOU’VE insured your house, your car, your cat and your complete collection of The People’s Friend Yearbook. But have you insured your home against ghosts?
Ultraviolet, a Bristol-based insurance company, is happy to do so, and who can blame them? The policy is called Spooksafe policy, and it will pay out up to £100,000 for death, injury or damage to personal affects caused by a ghost or poltergeist. It also includes visitors from outer space.
Ultraviolet will also insure people against being changed into a vampire or werewolf, with a pay-out of £1 million if someone can medically prove they have been transformed.
The firm has already paid out £100,000 on one policy, after a woman who died when she was thrown over the banister in her home. Simon Burgess, chief underwriting officer at the group, said: ‘We had a specialist firm of investigators look into it and they were convinced that a ghost was responsible.’
Most clients have been in the California, not surprisingly.’
Jamie Puckers Up
‘THERE are some headlines guaranteed to make even those of the hardiest disposition nervous. And one such appears on the front page of this morning’s Express. ‘Britain In Germ Terror Threat,’ says the headline – but it is the neighbouring picture and accompanying caption that strikes true fear into any right-thinking reader. ‘Jamie Oliver and wife in nude pictures row,’ says the paper (beneath a picture of the fat-tongued chef and his mo-del wife) and urges us to turn to Page 41.
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| Oliver: All tongue and still no taste |
With trembling hand and beating heart, we turn inside in mortal fear that we might be subjected to a glimpse of the Naked Chef, well, naked. Could the grinning e-gomaniac’s craving for publicity have taken a new and grotesque twist and he and Jools posed in the buff a la John Lennon and Yoko Ono?
Had some sick pervert caught on camera that moment of congress between man and wife that had produced Poppy Holly? Or had Jools been forced to disrobe for a top-shelf magazine to earn the money to send her husband to the US for the tongue-reduction surgery he so urgently requires?
Thankfully, it is none of the above – and it is with a huge sigh of relief that we can report that no nude pictures of the couple exist. But not thanks to Sainsbury’s. The supermarket chain had wanted to film an advert featuring the two in the bath, but had to pull the plug (so to speak) because ‘no-one wants to go ahead with it’. It couldn’t have had anything to do with the lack of responses to the job of Jools’ body double, could it?
After all, what woman wouldn’t have been overjoyed to receive £350 to sit topless in the bath with Jamie?
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Police In Pub
‘WE all know the police weren’t exactly happy about Home Secretary David Blunkett’s plans for reform, but few of us suspected that the Boys In Blue would go this far.
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| Police release picture of Blunkett insider wanted for questioning |
A top-secret dossier outlining police plans for the minister’s protection was ‘accidentally’ left outside a Sheffield pub, providing what the Sun describes as ‘a godsend for terrorists’.
Unfortunately for the coppers, Osama Bin Laden wasn’t having his normal shandy in the pub at the time, and the document was picked up by a public-spirited punter who handed it to the Sun.
‘It was just lying on the pavement by the front door,’ said the former soldier (who is not named, presumably because he is now a terrorist threat). ‘You can’t imagine a policeman taking a report like this with him to a pub – but there can’t be any other explanation.’
Indeed not, mystery man. In fact, we can scarcely imagine a rozzer going into a pub at all unless it was to break a pork scratching smuggling ring or for a half of best bitter to celebrate 25 years of successful thief-catching.
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Dyke Tied Up
‘THE papers seem obsessed this morning with what everyone’s wearing or not wearing. While the Star’s Page 4 is devoted to Kate’s topless back, the Mail’s Page 4 is concerned with far weightier issues, relaying a story about the BBC Director-General under the headline ‘Greg Dyke wears tie shock’.
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| Mail news archive unearthed |
‘Mr Dyke, who usually favours open-necked shirts certainly pulled up his socks when he appeared before MPs yesterday,’ it says. ‘Despite the uncomfortable heat in the Commons select committee room, he teamed a dark suit with a light beige shirt and gold and black-spotted tie.’
Fascinating. And there is more. The paper goes on to quote a BBC spokesman who explained: ‘Mr Dyke has a large selection of ties and he wore one of them.’
The paper neglects to say whether Mr Dyke was wearing underpants and, if so, whether they were his own. We hope they will remedy that oversight tomorrow. ‘
Bring Your Own
‘MARCO Arellano, 34, of Brooklyn, New York was arrested in the Alpine Gourmet Farm on Seventh Avenue for adulterating the food.
He had done the same in various salad bars in the centre of town using a dressing he had prepared earlier and brought along in a bottle, which he used to squirt the liquid.
The owner of the Alpine said no-one had complained about the food that day, which is odd, as the ingredients of Arellano’s dressing were his own urine and faeces.’
