Euro 2008: The News In Full

IT’S Euro2008 and the Sun is celebrating with a cavalcade of footy news:

“I ROO – Wayne & Coleen get ready to wed.”

“SELL RONALDO? I’LL EAT MY HAT” – Manchester United boos Alex Ferguson is on a sun lounger talking on a mobile phone. “Bread devil… boss scoffs toastie.”

“Snore away..Sir Alex nods off”

Anorak

Posted: 10th, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comments (7)

The Miracle Of Cancer Busting Rice Saves Editor

“THE MIRACLE INGREDIENT IN CHINESE FOOD,” promises the Express’s front-page headline.

Readers prepare to order the A for 5,000 set meal of drunken fish, and look on as the wonder of forks parts the sweet and sour sauce to allow the peas to roll through before closing on the armies of spring rolls and swallowing them whole.

And we read of “a cure for cancer and heart disease”.

Consider the Peking duck and know that the extract of red yeast rice, which gives the dish its distinctive colour, “may cut cancer deaths by two-thirds and heart disease by a third”. It may.

And “the compound could now be developed into a new treatment, saving millions of lives.” It could.

Anorak

Posted: 10th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment

What The Daily Mirror Did In The War

WHAT did you do in the war, daddy?

“Well, son,” says the Mirror hack, dandling the child on his knee, “I worked on a paper that had a WMD counter.”

The child looks disappointed. “We got all the way to number one hundred and something.”

Boy: And then what?

Hack: Well, we reached the biggest number in the whole wide world and had to stop counting.

The boy is now wide eyed. He craves more. The hack digs deep.

Hack: We broadcast pictures of Our Boys pissing on an Iraqi, but not really.

Boy: Pissing?

Hack: Widdling, But not really.

And…?

The hack undoes the buttons on his shirt and reveals a medal, on which is scribed “HONOUR THE BRAVE – Daily Mirror.”

Anorak

Posted: 10th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (8)

Johnny Borrell Is The ‘Tour-paedo’

NEWS in the Sun is that one Johnny Borrell, lead singer of the band Razorlight, has been nicknamed ‘Torpedo’ by The Mighty Boosh comedy act.

Why?

The Sun’s Gordon Smart shoots his cuffs and tells Borrell: “The nickname actually refers to your habit of pulling young girls on your – tour-peado, geddit?”

Smart says that it was he who “clocked the 28-year-old’s fondness for the younger ones – earlier this year he was spotted getting close to Harry Potter star Emma Watson, who was just 17 at the time.”

Anorak

Posted: 10th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (6)

Celebrity Quote Of The Day: Amy Winehouse Takes Mother’s Little Helper

THE AMY Winehouse story is one told on drugs. Says Amy’s dad Mitch Winehouse in The People:

“As for the drugs, she will get bored with them because the desire for children will take over. Amy knows that if she and Blake are going to have kids then she has to be in perfect health… I honestly think that in two years she will be fit, healthy and having babies – motherhood will be her drug.”

So what will it be: the tabloids talking about Amy’zzzz drugs or Amy talking about her babiezzzzz (well, if she likes epidurals as much as she seems to like illegal drugs, we should expect lots of little Winehouses and lots of long boring conversations about them…)

Anorak

Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (5)

Thomas Beatie Has It Every Way

YESTERDAY the News of the World, the Sun on Sunday, delivered the front page shocker: “MY BABY JOY – By world’s first pregnant man.”

It was billed as a “WORLD EXCLUSIVE”.

Of course we already heard of Thomas Beatie, who claims to be pregnant. Thomas, born Tracy Lagondino, changed sex ten years ago but kept his ovaries and womb so he could have children. Says Thomas: “I feel on top of the world.

One day on and the Sun’s Jane Moore opines:

ROLL up, roll up, behold one of the modern world’s most extraordinary sights. A pregnant woman with a beard. “Thomas” Beatie may be cashing in on his alleged status as the first ever man to conceive a child but, sorry, I’m just not buying it.

Anorak

Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comments (60)

Gemma Atkinson’s Kebab Fillers

HAS the Sun written the line that best sums up tabloid reporting? Your views please:

BOOZED-UP telly babe Gemma Atkinson has stunned customers in a kebab shop – by bragging she turned down £8MILLION to show off her boobs.

For those of you interested in the full tableau, the Sun journeys to the First Base kebab shop in Bury, Greater Manchester where a lad is asking a surgically enhanced Atkinson: “Get your t*ts out!”

Says Gemma, in the company of her footballer Marcus Bent: “You are being rude. I have turned down showing my breasts for f***ing £8million.”

Anorak is uncertain of the going rate for breasts, but believes a pair can be bought for less than that sum, although what with the add-ons and optional extras, costs can mount up…

Anorak

Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comments (4)

Barack Obama Death Cult: Change In White Supremacy

MORE news on the Barack Obama death cult in the Star, which says that the US presidential contender is being “shielded by a £50million security operation after death threats from twisted racist groups”.

How many untwisted, straight-down-the-line racist groups also wish death on Obama remains to be seen, but it could be more or less then three.

Says the Star: “FBI chiefs believe at least three white supremacist organisations want to assassinate the Democrat aiming to become America’s first black president.

The Star identifies the last bastions of white US Nazism as the National Socialist Vanguard, the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan. No mention of Golf Clubs of America, the Skull & Bones society or the Baltimore Country Club.

Which may be evidence of the change Barack Obama promises in action…

Anorak

Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (5)

The Sun Never Gets Its Celebrity: Mills, Winehouse And Burrell At Large

THE SUN never gets its man. It did once get the ARA General Belgrano and 323 lives, and it did “Wot won” an election for Margret Thatcher, but these days the paper misses its target with aplomb.

Take Amy Winehouse, the chanteuse the Sun grassed up to the cops for her apparent talcum powder inhaling. Winehouse remains at liberty, but the Sun says there’s a new video of the singer “taking drugs, having public sex with Blake, 26, and making racist chants”.

But no-one’s listening, not really, and were it not for our Celebrity Police Force’s (CPF) mission to be pictured with our celebs the Sun could be charged with wasting police time.

(Picture: Beau Bo D’Or Website)

And here’s Paul Burrell, another of the Sun’s designated villains. The paper had a video of Burrell “confessing he lied to the [Diana] inquest and wanted him prosecuted for perjury confessing he lied to the inquest.” It showed the tape to the CPF.

Anorak

Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment (1)

Big Brother 9: Stephanie McMichael’s Sex Secrets And Free Bet

BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…

IT’S Big Bro Steph, or to give her her full front-page title, it’s Big Brother Stephanie McMichael.

“I’LL TELL CLEBS SEX SECRETS,” says Steph, the Wag-Alike assisted blonde Liverpudlian.

You’d suppose that any over-eight would know that if you are going to make your fame and fortune in shag ‘n’ tell stories you’d best not advertise the fact before the deed.

Free £10 Bet

Says the Star: “SHOWBIZ stars are terrified that Big Brother babe Stephanie McMichael will reveal the secrets of her sex and drugs diary.”

Anorak

Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)

Rupert Everett’s War

“CONTROVERSIAL” actor Rupert Everett says British working in Iraq and Afghanistan are “whining wimps”.

The Mail says the 49-year-old’s father is a “retired major and has relatives who earned Victoria Crosses”. Everett served one year in the Army Cadets while at the Ampleforth public school. Everett knows.

Says he: “The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed.”

Coincidentally, Everett is fronting the Channel 4 documentary The Victorian Sex Explorer, a star vehicle based on the exploits of 19th Century soldier and adventurer Sir Richard Burton.

That show’s title suggests Everett is wrong and that as well as dying, soldiering is about sticking something pole-shaped in something foreign. Andf if you must die, let it be from an STD.

Anorak

Posted: 8th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (14)

Big Brother: The Daily Mail’s Racism Row

 BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media… 

BIG Brother is upon us and the Mail screams from its front page: “C4 PAID CHIEF OVER SHILPA ROW.”

The Mail would never comment on the actual show – why bother when it has already has such a rich stock of pictures of drunken young women in short skirts to shock and appal its readers with?

The paper introduces readers to Trevor Phillips, “the Government’s equality chief, who is responsible for making businesses and public bodies obey anti-discrimination laws, was paid by Channel 4 for giving advice following the Big Brother racism scandal.”

Obey.

Read the rest of this entry »

Anorak

Posted: 8th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (6)

Madeleine McCann: Fact Checking The Truth About Maddie McCann And Ben Affleck’s Fiction As Fact

MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

Ben Affleck has a new panic film – Gone Baby Gone – in which the lead child is blonde enough to remind all reviewers of Madeleine McCann. The film – a work of fiction – cannot be mentioned without also making mention of missing Madeleine.

It is the 12th Rule of Journalism.

THE OBSERVER: “The cruellest crime of all -Delayed by the McCann case, Ben Affleck’s intense and gripping thriller is well worth the wait”

Crimes involving children touch on our deepest emotions and though we’ve seen numerous films about infant abduction over the past 50 years, ranging in tone from Seance on a Wet Afternoon to Murder on the Orient Express, the subject is peculiarly affecting at the moment in the light of the publicity given to the cases of Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury and Madeleine McCann in Portugal… To add to the anxiety, there is an uncanny physical resemblance between Madeleine McCann and the film’s four-year-old Amanda McCready.

It’s tabloid bingo, in the broadsheet Observer! Can anyone mention Fritzl and get the prize?

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “It’s a film that examines the media hysteria and prurience that happens when children are abducted — especially pertinent themes in our post-Madeleine post-Austrian crazies times.”

Anorak

Posted: 8th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (164)

Daily Wail: Anarchy In The UK And 2p Bangers

DAILY WAIL – headline news from the paper of doom

“NINE MEALS FROM ANARCHY” – That’s the phrase used to describe how looting and riots over food would grip Britain if our oil supplies were suddenly stopped. Apocalyptic nonsense? Or a chilling insight into a country that produces hardly any of its own food – or energy?”

It’s Rosie Boycott’s “Sunday Essay”.

A few pages on…

“BATTLE OF THE BANGERS”

Bang! Bang! War?

Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)

Gordon Brown Ignore Daily Express Petrol Crusade

“BROWN BLOCKS OUR FUEL PETITION,” announces the Express on its front page.

“Gordon Brown yesterday banned our petition – demanding an immediate cut in fuel duty – from the No10 website.”

To the No.10 website and a hunt through rejected petitions for the Express’s cri de couer that so irked Gordon Brown.

Is it this one?

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure that the 2p-a-litre fuel duty rise planned for October 1 is scrapped and that instead fuel duty is substantially cut – Submitted by Geoff Marsh of Daily Express

If so, Anorak notes that it was rejected not because the Express threatens the fabric of the country and makes Brown uneasy, but because: “It was similar to and/or overlaps with an existing petition or petitions.”

Or was it this petition, one rejected because “It contained false or incomplete name or address information:

Read the rest of this entry »

Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Money, Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (3)

The Polish Tabloids Are Coming

THE Sun is in Polish but does Poland need the Sun?

To the pages of Poland’s Express newspaper and its pictures of Poland’s Dutch coach, Leo Beenhakker, clutching the bloodied heads of German footballers Michael Ballack and Joachim Löw.

Katarzyna Kopacz, editor of UK Polish website goniec.com, says: “They’ve taken the journalist who ran our internet portal and they also have three journalists from Polish Express.”

Might the Polski Sun be a belated attempt to compete with Polish organs which show signs of beating the British tablids at their own game?

Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Photojournalism, Tabloids | Comment

Euro 2008: Geoff Hurst’s Guide To German Fans

EURO 2008 kicks off today and having sportingly stepped aside to allow the lesser nations get used to our game, Britishers are being encouraged to teach the foreigners how to be a fan.

Today the Sun focuses on Geoff Hurst, that tabloid totem who appears at each international tournament to show us his World Cup winner’s medal.

Make that Geoff Herrst, who is pictured wearing the black, red and yellow of Germany and saying who he vill be cheering on zer Hun this zummer.

“Come on you Germans,” says Geoff. “A few people may raise their eyebrows, but you’ve got to fancy them, haven’t you? Their record in World Cups and European Championships is fantastic.”

Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comment

How To Have A Big Brother Threesome

BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media… 

“THREESOME secret of BB Babes,” announces the Star’s front-page headline.

Readers learn that “Big Brother hunk Mario Marconi is at the centre of a raunchy love triangle in the TV house”.

Mario, who looks like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story: The Tanning Bed Years, is 42. He is said to have “wooed and won hot blonde” Stephanie McMichael, a pouty blonde 19-year-old Wag-a-like. That’s two parts of the threesome, and now in steps Lisa Appleton.

Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)

The Polski Sun In English

THE Sun has published an issue in Polish. The Polski Sun’s arrival coincides with Euro2008.

The Sun will win over the Polish community with tales of Page 3 stunskis, Skyski satellite dishes and Germans.

The front page features a blonde woman draped in red and white and a headline that surely translates to “COME ON YOU POLES”.

All is written in Polish, but what with it being the Sun English readers may not realise and think Sun columnists like Jeremy Clarkson and John Gaunt are being ironic…

Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comments (2)

Specials Investigation: The Mail Points The Finger At Nisha Patel

A PICTURE of “MURDERED WPC” Nisha Patel and the question: “Why wasn’t she fired for running vice girl agency?”

Murdered on her husband’s orders, this WPC [a special constable] was lauded by Met boss Ian Blair. But as a chilling Mail investigation reveals, she was a vice madam with a criminal record. Worse, the police knew all about it. So why WAS Nisha Patel unsackable?

Let’s investigate. Exchanging participation in sexual activities for money or other goods in the UK is not illegal, so even if she was a “vice madam” why should she have been sacked?
Her younger brother, Katen, tells us: “There is no evidence whatsoever that Nisha was directly involved in the escort agency.”

Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Those Madeleine McCann Jokes

MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “Much has been made of Tommy Tiernan mentioning Madeleine McCann on Friday night.”

Much has been made of it in the Irish Independent, here and here.

Both Sean Hughes [“You’ve got kids? What’d you do, tell them you were off to a tapas bar?”] and Patrick Kielty [“If the McCanns wanted to dispose of the body of their daughter, they should have checked her in as luggage on a Ryanair flight”] have already gone down this road, making the subsequent tabloid frenzy rather ridiculous. Tiernan made no mention of the offensive gag at the show I caught on the Saturday.

Want to know what the joke was? Want to use one to get publicity for your act? The Irish Independent will not dignify it with a mention. But on the paper’s message boards, we learn:

Read the rest of this entry »

Anorak

Posted: 6th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (175)

Sir Ian Blair Teaches Amy Winehouse To Dry Out

A LOOK up Amy Winehouse’s nose on the Evening Standard’s cover page, and the headline: “PUT COCAINE STARS ON TRAIL SAYS MET CHIEF.”

Sir Ian Blair, commissioner for London’s Celebrity Police Force, is calling for celebrities filmed taking drugs to be put on trial.

The Mirror, which broadcast pictures of Kate Moss snorting talcum/cocaine/anthrax/ground virgin’s bones, and the Sun, which campaigns to have all celebs locked away so making them easier to track and saving on expenses, should be all ears.

Says Sir Ian: “My position is that a sensible jury would not expect people to be sniffing talcum powder.”

Talc and the sniffing of may be just the trick to get rid of a runny nose, possibly brought on by cocaine abuse.

He continues: “At the moment the law says you must be in possession of a Class A or a Class B to be prosecuted. If you are seen on film then nobody can tell what the substance is.”

Anorak

Posted: 6th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (4)

Big Brother Watch: Freak 16 And This Summer’s News

BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…

DAILY MIRROR (front page): “BB AFRAID.. BB VERY AFRAID.”

Is this an in-house memo to Mirror hacks, notice that their jobs are threatened by the Big Brother housemates, who write their own news?

“THE BIG BROTHER WANNABES ARE BACK”

And they’re kicking off their media career by appearing on the front page of a national newspaper. That’s not too shabby. The Mirror’s front page is usually given over to tales of Gordon Brown successes and football. So thank f*** then for Big Brother.

THE SUN: (front page): “BB FREAK S16”

The Sun has the 16 housemates in details. They are, in no special order:

ALBINO, BLIND, SEX-MAD, SWOT, TREE-HUGGER, DOZY, BEAKY, MICK, PADDY, PRODDY, TORY, HORNY, HONKY and a few more…

Anorak

Posted: 6th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)

Little Wedding Booster: Rolling Stones’ Dwarves Wedding

ROLLING Stone father RONNIE WOOD is hiring DWARFS to perform at his ROLLING Stone daughter Leah’s daughter’s wedding.

The Sun reports that Wood wants “five actors dressed as elves to play pranks at the reception”. That the paper chooses to announce this happening in BIG capital letters only adds to the sense of this being a meeting of high and low persons.

Wedding planners are looking for male and female “mischievous, giggling little imps” as short as 4ft. “They will leap out of bushes to surprise guests with stunts such as stealing ladies’ hats.”

A wedding source says: “The idea is to have little people in costume popping up. It’s going to be a fabulous do with no expense spared and the elves will make it even more fun.”

The elves are required to hold a little pen and put their little names to a confidentiality agreement. Although, what with them being little people and so mischievous and untrustworthy, the document may not be worth the paper it’s written.

Wood may require Ant ‘n’ Dec or find it necessary to hire taller actors and for the guest to maintain the theme by wearing stilts…

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (6)

King Barack Obama Is The Tabloid Dream

“HE HAS a dream,” says the Sun’s front-page headline, words illustrated by a picture of Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama, mouth agape and right hand raised to the heavens.

News is that a man called Barack Obama has been chosen to contest the leadership of a foreign country, namely the United States of America.

The Sun sees this as big news, bigger than the Express’s front-page news of “PETROL STRIKE CHAOS”, the Star’s screamer that “BIG BRO: WE WILL SCREEN LIVE SEX” and the Mirror’s news of Gazza 2008. It’s that big.

The details are that over in the US, racism – Obama is of mixed race – has given way to misogyny – Hillary Clinton is defeated. Now the fight is between Obama and the aged John McCain, and we will see if racism can be undone by ageism. The race to the White House is the ultimate equal opportunities reality TV show.

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (7)