Fritzl Watch: Big Brother 9, Love Letters And Nazis

FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl, Nazis and assorted Frtizls in the news

BRIAN Reade: “AUSTRIAN doctors trying to make the Fritzl kids feel better about themselves. Why not feed them 24-hour footage of Big Brother 9 to show them there are worse holes they could have been trapped in?”

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: “Fritzl, who locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, has received over 200 letters from lonely women offering him romance”

DIGITAL JOURNAL: A Canadian site championing “Citizen journalism”

So far, Fritzl has received about 5,000 love letters. But, it has been revealed that Fritzl has received hundreds of love letters from lonely women looking for love. Yes, there are lonely women looking to receive love from Josef Fritzl.

HARD NEWS (India): Painful memories of Nazi Germany

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Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (8)

Gazza 2008: Sheryl’s Shoulder, Tough Love, And George Best

WITH no British teams in Euro 2008, the tabloids’ summer of football focuses on Paul Gascoigne’s troubles.

It’s early days in Gazza 2008, and over in the Sun, Alex Best, ex-wife of resting footballer George Best, is invited to say: “It’s a mirror image of George.” (Best ended his days looking like the mirror image of television’s Grandpa Simpson.)

Ever since George Best died the Sun has been looking for a new famous footballer to pity and plead with not to die lest it have one less thing to write about.

But can Gazza last the summer? The Mirror hopes so and watches “SAVIOUR SHERYL – Gazza ex-wife rushes to help him beat crisis.”

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Holidays, Médecins Sans Frontières And Media Wars

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

DAILY MAIL (front page): “McCanns first holiday since Maddie vanished”

This is the first time the story has featured on a tabloid front page since May 11.

The parents of Madeleine McCann are to take their first holiday since her disappearance 13 months ago. Gerry and Kate McCann, both 40, refused to say where they were going. But they confirmed it would not be Portugal.

Any more facts in this story, now 14-months old?

The McCanns are “both doctors”. Indeed.

Says McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell: ‘It will be incredibly painful to contemplate going away without Madeleine, but this is the reality they are faced with. Nothing has been booked yet. But one thing’s certain – they won’t be going to Portugal.”

Although it might be ruse, and tabloid editors looking to detail staff to cover the McCanns’ trip should not discount any resort just yet.

DAILY TELEGRAPH (Aus): “Parents of missing Madeleine McCann to go on first holiday.”

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (547)

Big Brother 9: Sex Is Blind

FOR those of you not rutting under a pier or shagging on the sangria, there’s the Big Brother live sex show.

Turn off that internet feed to a porn shop in Eastern Europe, lower the volume on that CCTV back-of the-bike-sheds-feed, and know that you can watch two wannabes dry humping the sofa on the telly.

Says the Star: “Big Brother is back tonight with a nympho, a pervert, a blind man…” All we need now is a punchline, something smutty, like which came first the pervert, the nympho or the blind man?

And what is a nympho but a more attractive pervert?

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (6)

Sienna Miller’s Thumbs Down To Rhys Ifans

SIENNA Miller, professional girlfriend, And Rhys Ifans, jobbing Welshman, are no longer a photoshoot.

Says the Sun:

“Sienna broke the news at the weekend in a call from Prague. Things have been awkward for a while after she caught Rhys going through her text messages.

“She went bananas and Rhys said he was looking for what he called ‘incriminating evidence’.”

As the Mirror once out it way back on March 31, 2008: “Sienna Miller turns into text addict whilst pining for Rhys Ifans.”

“Sienna’s started trying to use alternate hands to give her thumbs a bit of a break,” says our spy.

A text message is a long time in celebrity romance…

Anorak

Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment (1)

That Britney Spears Sex Tape: The Brum Rushes

“BRITNEY SEX TAPE DEATH THREAT,” screams the Star’s front-page. It’s the headline that’s got the lot: celebrity, sex and suicide.

Inside and “love rat Adnan Ghalib has received death threats after revelations he planned to sell a sex-tape of Britney Spears”.

Britney is not on tabloid suicide watch, not today.

Says Birmingham-born Ghalib: “I have had many calls about it from all over the world. In light of the constant calls about the sex tape and threats, I’m taking a break from the industry and keeping a low profile.”

What better way of keeping a low profile than telling the media about it and making mention of that SEX TAPE? Answers on the side of loudhailer to the usual address.

But before Ghalib can take showbiz industrial action (one out, get them both out), Star readers learn that he has been “stabbed”.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (3)

Don’t Die Paul Gascoigne

PAUL Gascoigne, don’t die!

That’s the tabloids’ cri de coeur this morning as the Mirror (“GAZZA LOCKED UP FOR HIS WON SAFETY”), Sun (“QUIT BOOZE OR YOU’LL DIE GAZZA”) and Star (“GAZZA LOCKED UP IN ASYLUM FOR 3 MONTHS”), lead with news of the “troubled” (all papers) former England footballer.

It’s usually the job of columnists to lament the tragic decline of the footballing “genius” who rarely if ever spoke a sentient word, but life after the game is tough, and there is no shortage of former players lining up to kick start their media careers with a few words about poor Gazza.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comments (5)

Madeleine McCann: Blame It On Portugal And Announcing A Holiday

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

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Madeleine McCann’s family to go on holiday a year after disappearance”

Somewhere nice?

Says the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “It will be incredibly painful to contemplate going away without Madeleine but this is the reality they are faced with.

“Nothing has been booked yet, but one thing’s certain – they won’t be going to Portugal.”

Obviously. Well, who would?

Anorak

Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (199)

Yangtse Evening Post Writes About Yangtse Evening Post

ASKS Joel Martinsen: “What’s today’s top news story? According to the Yangtse Evening Post, it’s the fact that the Yangtse Evening Post is one of China’s top 500 brands.”

The stop-the-presses excitement conveyed by the front-page headline (and the title of the story inside: “The words ‘Yangtse Evening Post’ are worth 4.755 billion’) would be understandable if this were a major accomplishment for the newspaper, but in this case, the story’s not even news: according to the subhead text, the Yangtse Evening Post brand sits at #154 overall, up 13 from last year. In fact, the paper has been ranked in the top 500 for each of the past five years, ever since the World Brand Lab rankings were first issued.

Such is the news…

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Kim Kardashian’s Foaming Outrage

THE Sun says Kim Kardashian, “the Playboy favourite “has been accused of bolstering her booty with the help of foam pants”.

The paper dispatches its reporter to investigate (aka surf the web) and finds that maybe Kardashian is “rear-ly” telling the truth.

Anorak defers to Dr David Holmes, a psychology lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, and his formula for the perfect bottom:

(S+C) X (B+F)/ T-V – S (shape), B (bounce), F (firmness), V (symmetry) and T (texture).

At the time of the original study in April 2006, Kardashian was in the shadow of Jennifer Lopez and Kylie Minogue – Dr Holmes said the Austrian chanteuse would “almost certainly” score a perfect 80, ahead of Max Wall (79), the female baboon (78) and an evening with Lembit Opik and the Cheeky Girls (77, 76 and 38, respectively).

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (4)

Big Brother 9 Contestants Revealed: Julie Birchill And Caitlin Moran:

BIG Brother 9 is casting a shadow over the Club 18-30 toilet bowl and the columnists are coughing up their opinions as what lies in store.

Caitlin Moran in the Times, spends 740 words explaining why Big Brother is rubbish and she will not be watching it.

Of the show’s tabloid, and broadsheet, fodder, Moran says: “To me, in 2008, they are dead.”

“’It’s such a bloody relief,’ said my friend Mark, who gave up BB last year. ‘I felt as if I’d been released from a cellar.'” Austrians can only nod.

Over in the Sun, Julie Birchill tells readers: “REALITY TV was recently listed alongside capital punishment as one of the worst inventions of all time. Which really tells you all you need to know about the kind of airy-fairy seat-sniffers who hate it.”

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (5)

Jordan Cosies Up With Fred West

WHAT news of Jordan, Gordon Smart, the Sun’s celebrity hanger outer?

Smart says Jordan is “hooked on bedtime reading — about killers Fred and Rose West.”

Says Jordan: “I like curling up in bed with a book. I love reading about serial killers. My favourite is one about Fred and Rose West.”

Smart notes that “the couple were responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen young women between 1967 and 1987 in Gloucester.”

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (2)

Watching Paul Gascoigne

SO concerned is the Star for Paul Gascoigne that once more it shines a flash light on his “troubled” head and hints that he might be dead before too long.

“GAZZA: THE END,” says the headline, words writ in funereal jet black ink. “Sectioned yet again & drunk for a month. Yesterday he gives up.”

“Save our Gazza,” says the Mirror, the Sun’s “troubled England clown”.

“PLEASE SAVE HIM,” pleads the Sun’s front-page headline. “Dazed and confused … Paul Gascoigne slumps in chair,” says the caption to a picture of Gascoigne sitting in a hairdresser’s chair.

Were this chair a dentist’s chair Gazza would be tipped back and liquor poured down his neck by a bevy of topless footballers.

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comments (5)

Robert Mugabe Meets Agriculture Jihad

SAYS the Mirror: “Cabinet minister Douglas Alexander will snub Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe at an international summit on food shortages.”

Good of the Mirror to announce this snubbing lest the Zimbabwean despot not realise that it’s happening.

And if that’s not enough to learn him, the Sun says Britain may strip Mugabe of his honorary knighthood. Mugabe is no match for British spite (surely, might?).

Mr. Mugabe is in Rome, at the invitation of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, which is holding a conference to discuss the international food crisis.

Also in town is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who’s taken along the Minister of Agriculture Jihad Mohammad-Reza Eskandari.

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (2)

Critics Review Fern Britton Weight Loss DVD

FERN Britton weight loss DVD in hand, we flip the over and cover see what the reviewers are saying about it.

Mirror reader T. Blair: “”This is the most sickening act of deception I think I have come across.”

Fern Britton: “So anything you’ve read that has anything I’ve said about image, diet, bla bla bla, I haven’t said.

Britton, Fern: Who wants to be a slave to all the fads and put your body through stresses and strains it doesn’t need?

Message boards: “Gastric band!….Wot no 100% commitment to dieting?….She sort of cheated big time didn’t she!…. Whats the title of her her next book/fitness DVD ‘How To Do The London Marathon On A Moped’?”

Soaraway Sun: Fern: I’m not a big fat fibber

Amanda Platell: “Yes, technically speaking, she never lied. But, sometimes, hiding the truth can be as bad as lying. Isn’t her omission a bit like the husband who says he never lied to his wife about his mistress because she never asked?”

Shocked n Dismayed: “Fern has diminished not just in size but also in stature.”

Wendy Sloane: “I’m paying for the operation myself, about £7,000. I look at it this way: if I lose the weight, I can get back into all my clothes, so I won’t need to buy any new ones.”

Slim Whiteman: Gastric band?…. That should really drastically reduce the stomachs capacity for food intake!….They’ll only be enough daily room to eat one whole Victoria Beckham!

Alternative Therapy: “Why not do it the cheaper way? Ditch the surgery and just wrap a gastric band a few times around around the biscuit tin until it’s too tight to open?”

And many, many more…

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)

Immigrants And Poles Are Eurovision’s New Seekers

BAD news for Eurovision fans is that the 2.3 million immigrants the Mail says have come to the UK in the past 15 years are not all from Eastern Europe.

Or as the Express’ front-page screamer puts it: “IMMIGRATION IS OUT OF CONTROL.”

The Mail says “most migrants” have arrived from the Third World and not Eastern Europe, so reducing hopes of a naturalised Pole winning the big sing off for the UK, and of unnatural Poles voting for their former brethren.

Terry Wogan, who gives voice to Eurovision from an uneven wooden stool in a snow-blown corner of the BBC complex, is said by the Express to have blasted those “Eastern European racists”.

The paper reminds us that no eastern European country voted for Andy Abraham, who on top of singing a rubbish song suffered the double whammy of being a black man with a Jewish-sounding name. Had the finale to his act involved his admitting to eating little blonde children and shagging their mums, he might have scored big. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Like Wogan, Daily Express readers are outraged that the voting should be skewered towards the Russians. Taking time out from voting on today’s phone poll (“Should MPS have their expenses slashed” – make that “GREEDY MPs”) a “massive 98 per cent of readers” called the Express – irony of ironies – to complain of “rigged voting”.

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment (1)

Fritzl Watch: Global Warming Is Like Child Rape

FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl, Nazis and assorted Frtizls in the news

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Global warming inertia ‘as bad’ as Josef Fritzl, says Bishop of Stafford”

People who fail to act over global warming are “as guilty” as Josef Fritzl – denying our children a future, a senior Anglican bishop has warned.

The Bishop of Stafford, the Rt Rev Gordon Mursell, said a refusal to face the truth about climate change was akin to locking up future generations and “throwing away the key”.

But with global warming, won’t the cellars flood?

Writing in his local parish magazine delivered across the Diocese of Lichfield, the bishop says: “Josef Fritzl represents merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck.

“In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is – we are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key.”

He tells the paper:

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Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (5)

Gordon Ramsay Vegies Out

SAYS Gordon Brown to his ten-year-old daughter Meg: “You’ve got to eat your lettuce, otherwise your boobies aren’t going to grow.”

Says Ramsay: “It works — she’s eating whole heads of lettuce, saying, ‘Dad, look!’”

It’s a charming tableau as Cos muncher Meg rips into her veg. Although, if fame pursues her, young Meg may in time care to shove two romaines up her top and save dad a whole lot of expense…

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (5)

Daily Mail Exposes Drunk Women

THE Daily Mail is appalled and disgusted by Britain’s young women cavorting about the precinct wearing pelmet skirts, getting pissed out their heads on day-glo booze and engaging in revolting acts of bestial depravity in the toilets.

In the paper’s comment (“Posturing won’t end the scourge of drink”), readers learn of a “glaring problem with the Government’s Youth Alcohol Action Plan to combat the scourge of teenage drunkenness: it’s long on posturing but pitifully short on effective action.”

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)

Fern Briton’s New Weight Loss DVD

THIS MORNING hostess Fern Britton’s new weight loss DVD comes in a slimline 16 collectable instalments.

In Episode 1, viewers will learn how to eat Ryvita crackers (in private), and listen up as “chubby” (Sun) Fern tells them: “I just ate a bit healthier and took up cycling to work … It’s taken me two years and a lot of hard work.”

Episode 2 comes with a complementary bottle of ether, a pad of cotton wool and instructions how to puncture a wound in a stomach and insert a bicycle inner tube.

Episode 3 and Fern’s celebrity chef husband Phil Vickery is fingering his Sabatiers, drawing lines on Fern’s naked tum-tum and opining: “Fern has lost a lot of weight through cycling, walking the dog and not eating too much – simple as that.”

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (22)

Celebrity Headline Of The Day: The Crisp Cheryl Cole

CELEBRITY HEADLINE of the day: “Cheryl Cole rubbishes weight worries and tucks into crisps”

The Mirror brings news of Cheryl Cole, wife to vomitous footballer Ashley Cole and singer with the Girls Aloud cabaret act:

Finally. Cheryl Cole proves Girls are Aloud to eat – by tucking into a big bag of Doritos all on her own.

Surely dipping in? – Ed…

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Back pages, Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Tommy Tiernan’s Material And Leeds Business Week

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

DAILY MIRROR: “McCANN POLICE ARE GUILTY OF CRUELTY”

The Portuguese police are guilty of cruelty? Hunter becomes hunted:

Kate and Gerry McCann could still face charges of neglect, according to the first published court ruling on the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.

Official documents in Portugal show that the police there have not yet ruled out bringing such charges. This hardly feels like a positive step in either finding Madeleine, or discovering what happened to her.

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “Catty and Batty it sure is a funny old game for Tommy”

FOOTBALL can be a funny old game, especially when it’s played by a bunch of madcap comedians from around the world.

Comedy is funny old game – geddit?

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Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (632)

Britain’s Got Sentiment: George Sampson’s Sympathetic Back Story

WHILE Austria looks at the usual suspects, and Europe dances to Russia’s tune, Britain revels in the news that it has George Sampson.

There’s George, 14-year-old winner of Britain’s Got Talent TV show, on the cover of the Mail.

In the Sun, Master Sampson is wrapped in the Union flag, which given his Dancin’ In The Rain routine – and that he was “sobbing his little heart out” (Mail’s Jaci Stephen) – might be Sun “TV Biz” writer Sara Nathan’s beach towel or else a giant Britain’s Got Sentiment Tissue.

George’s Edward Scissor Hands meets Gene Kelly routine enabled him to win £100,000 – which, as is the tabloid way, translates to “could earn £1million within a year, say industry experts (Mirror) – or even more if his talents are showcased globally.”

Surely much depends on George’s background story. Talented George can’t sing and record a hit album the word can hear over and over and over again. So his handlers need to create something else portable, either a little nodding George that sits on the dashboard of cars, or a sympathetic backstory we can carry in our hearts.

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (191)

Austria’s Got Talent: Natascha Kampusch Meets…

WELCOME to Austria’s Got Talent, and say hello to Elisabeth Fritzl, who spent years living in a cellar, skiier Michaela Dorfmeister and…

Oh for those halcyon days when the names of internationally known Austrians tripped off the tongue like ack-ack fire.

Natascha Kampusch, a post-war Austrian famous not for skiing, so therefore chiefly known for living in a cellar – eight years, folks! – has her work cut out finding notable Austrians to talk to on her new TV chat show.

In ‘Natascha Kampusch meets…’ the show’s producers discount those elderly gentlemen living in Paraguay and see the star of the show chew the fat with Niki Lauder, the former Austrian F1 racing champion best known for being horribly burnt in an accident at the 1976 German Grand Prix.

Anorak

Posted: 1st, June 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)

Big Brother 9: Vanessa’s Arse About Face And Davina’s Dead Mum

BIG Brother 9 Watch – Anorak’s look at Big Brother in the news…

The show is almost upon us, and tabloid hacks prepare for lazy days at the keyboard, hitting F6 and letting the news write itself.

With days until the opening of Big Brother 9 – the show looms like a holidaymaker over a Faliraki toilet bowl – the papers are building to the drama. Look out for Chanelle’s arse and Davina McCall’s dead relatives…

DAILY STAR (front page): “BIG BRO – CHANELLE BIG BRO’S SEXIEST BABE EVER”

The Star resits all urges to add an “OFFICAL” tag to this headline news, but who can argue with the view of Vanessa Feltz, who observes: “A pair of peaches? No, it’s Chanelle Hayes’ pert bum cheeks, silky smooth, peeking out of the side of some tiny lace pants and pointing right at me.”

Rude in some cultures, but poking your arse in Vanessa’s face is just what she likes best.

Posing, pouting, thrusting her bottom towards the lens, Chanelle looks every bit the consummate professional. She’s cool, calm and in control.

Vanessa wonders:

Was she prepared for the public’s reaction when she quit the house early? “I thought I’d be so hated, I’d have to leave the country. I was thinking of fleeing to Spain. I was dreading facing the world.

“It’s a terrible feeling when you’re only 19 and you imagine you’re the most despised woman in the United Kingdom.”

Instead of hatred, she found a career.

THE SUN: “Chanelle’s breast BB babe”

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Anorak

Posted: 31st, May 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (5)