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.
Madeleine McCann: No Change, A Tourist Site And Entertainment
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
THE GUARDIAN: “Last night’s TV: Madeleine, One Year On: Campaign for Change”
It’s difficult to keep the visuals stimulating, too. We saw the McCanns at home in Leicestershire; Kate and Jerry talking on the sofa. But you can’t have two hours of sofa, so we joined them in a lot of taxis – in Portugal, London, Washington. And there were plenty of lingering tree shots – leafless, winter trees (this is a sad story, after all). And a flying heron … eh, what’s that about? Maybe the heron is an aguido, too. Does Sir Trevor know?
DAILY MAIL: “Madeleine holiday apartment becomes ‘sick tourist attraction’ one year on from her disappearance”
Coachloads of journalists arrive every day. It’s sick.
DAILY MIRROR: “Tourists posing for pictures at McCann tragedy spots”
Pensioner Pamela Fenn, who lives above the McCanns’ holiday apartment, said: “It’s sick.
“They stand outside and then have photographs taken with their children.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (715)
Crocodile Hwyl: There Be Monsters In Wales
THERE be crocodiles in Wales.
“Startled” Steven Jenkins tells the Sun how convinced he is that he spotted a crocodile in a lake by a branch of Morrison’s in Swansea.
Police were called. They dived down – “several times” – but they found nothing. Although the Sun’s picture clearly identifies a shopping trolley and a canister of gas.
Of course the crocodile could be hiding, an idea given added weight by Mr Jenkins’ admission that’s since giving throat to his discovery he is rubbed mercilessly and when people see him they whistle the tune Crocodile Shoes.
And deep in the reeds and the cans and the old boxes, a pair of boots lives in fear…
Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comments (6)
Wave Goodbye To Immigrants
DID you know that “everywhere [is] touched by immigration”.
It is a wonder that the Daily Express, which presents its readers with this fact, doesn’t come with a free pair of rubber gloves in patriotic red, white and blue and a packet of sanitary wipes.
It is what the Mail calls “The great East European tide”.
But here’s Mr Gordon Brown sat on the beaches willing the tide back with a cunning ploy of rising living costs.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Josef Fritzl: Elisabeth The Pensioner, Nazis And Enoch Powell
FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl and assorted Frtizls in the news
DAILY MIRROR (front page): “FACE OF CELLAR MUM”
“Haunted 42-yr-old looks 65” – and not like Lulu, but older.
Elisabeth Fritzl is “haggard and gray-haired”.
Meanwhile mum Elisabeth, 42 – caged for 24 years by her rapist father Josef by who she had seven children – is so lined and drawn from her ordeal she looks like a haggard pensioner.”
BRIAN READE (aka the Mirror’s online “Brian Beade”): “MONSTER ‘TASH”
We’ve been acting pretty smug over the case of Josef Fritzl, who raped his daughter in a cellar for 24 years.
Yeah, there’s nothing like an incestuous rape to make us feel superior to those Austrians.
Oh, those Austrians are always locking their daughters up in dungeons, Fritzl is the most evil dad ever and thank God, it could never happen here, are three sentiments I’ve heard…
Austria is not the common link between men and monsters – it’s moustaches. Fritzl belongs to a line of inadequate powercrazed males who spewed forth evil while being too frightened to put a razor above their top lip. Think Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein.
Let’s put Fritzl in perspective. And wasn’t Hitler Austrian? They say Saddam was Austrian and Stalin wore a green felt hat to bed.
Reade weighs up the evidence before concluding: “Not forgetting Fritzl’s double Enoch Powell. A Brummie. Let’s drop the smugness, eh?”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (12)
Not Spanking ‘Neurotic’ Gordon Brown At The Polls
AN up and at ‘em wake up call from the new improved Daily Sport: “DON’T VOTE! GET LAID!”
For those of you not up with Americanisms, those of you who like your Sport to focus on association football and not soccer, “laid” is explained as: “Don’t bother voting! Get our leg over instead!”
Today Britons go to the polls and select which retired dentists, overgrown schoolboys and patty canvassers they want to sit on the 4,023 council seats up for grabs. Or not.
The Sun’s George Pasco-Watson prefers voting to sex and thinks Gordon Brown “faces a beating”, a “hammering”. This is “Judgement Day”. (Picture: Beau Bo D’Or Website)
The Mirror’s Bob Roberts hears Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the Fabian Society, a “key Labour thinktank”, accuse Brown of “neurotic under-confidence”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Amy Winehouse To Launch Own Record Label
AMY Winehouse is plotting to start her own record label.
It’s the Amy Winehouse exclusive of the day.
And just as soon as Amy’s deal with Island Records expires in a year’s time, and so long as she can be bothered, and so long as no other record label has singed her up, and so long as this story is not superseded by “Amy Denies Label Shocker”, she WILL launcher her own record label, very possibly.
The Sun says so.
And the Sun’s Gordon Smart says that all things considered, “It doesn’t sound like a good idea to me”. Smart says Winehouse doesn’t look like a “self starter” and new man Alex Haines “doesn’t looks like a business mastermind”.
Sun readers get to see a picture of Smart, who looks like a mating between a provincial estate agent and a 1950s menswear shop employee. Some would say he doesn’t look like a journalist. But times change, and stereotypes must adapt.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
Helping Princess Beatrice With Her Self-Esteem
THE story so far: Princess Beatrice has been pictured on the beach in a bikini.
The Mail’s Allison Pearson says: “I fear Bea is in danger of combining her mother’s to-curling excesses with her dad’s physique.”
Surely she means her dad’s toe-curling excesses with her mother’s physique? But we should not interrupt, Pearson is delivering her piece in the spirit of united womanhood.
She issues an appeal for help: “Can someone please have a kindly word with her before it all goes pear-shaped?”
So here’s Amanda Platell, also writing in the Mail. In “Bea, beach bodies and the thorny problem of the Mummy gene” advises Beatrice to get some better genes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comments (7)
Times And Snide: The Daily Express And Daily Mail
GOOD news for Daily Express readers is that the paper still costs 40 pence and is still 10 pence cheaper than the Daily Mail.
And despite the Mail’s best efforts to be nine or even eight times worse than the Express, the Express stubbornly remains “TEN TIMES BETTER” than its rival.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
How To Avoid Soaring Fuel Prices
“SOARING PRICE OF FUEL HITS HOLIDAYS,” announces the Express on its cover.
Fuel is now so pricey that it is cheaper to stay at home, albeit with the heating switched off and your lounge given over to arable farming.
The alternative is to book a trip on a budget airline and hope that it behaves like one of the “several” airlines of its type that have gone bust, including three in the US.
With any luck you’ll be stranded in hotter climes, and so reduce your heating and petrol bills and qualify for a rebate on your council tax…
How To Be Common With Royals: Zara Phillips
MORE efforts to show the world how common the Royal Family are.
Zara Phillips, daughter of a stable lad, tells GQ Sport magazine of life with rugby player Mike Tindall.
Michael, sorry, Mike, lives with Zara in a starter home, a “former gardener’s cottage” (Express), in the grounds of a rich person’s house, namely one Princess Anne.
“Everyone’s like ‘Wow, two World Cup winners in one house’ and that is quite funny I suppose.” And refreshingly normal.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Albert Hoffman Trips Out: RIP
ALBERT Hofmann, the father of LSD, has died at his home in Basel, Switzerland.
Switzerland – that land ideally suited to dreams of other things and escape:
The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in1938 while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm (which later merged with Ciba-Geigy to become Novartis).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
The First Ronaldo is Three Times No Lady
AT the time of writing there are three famous footballers called Ronaldo.
There’s the one with the pony tail, oiled Ian Botham-style finger perm and the buck teeth.
There’s the one who takes an holistic approach to tackling, clutching his entire body when touched by an opposition player.
And there’s Ronaldo, the original Ronaldo, the chubby one with the chipmunk grin who froze in the Paris World Cup final.
News on the Star’s front page is that this Ronaldo has been caught in the company of three transvestites. No, not the AC Milan backline, but Andrea (Andre), Carla and a nameless other we’ll call Nesta.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comments (5)
Blobby Williams: Robbie Does Elvis
IS that Robbie Williams, singer of Let Meeeee Entartaiynnnyoo?
“You ain’t nothing but a round hog,” says the Sun, comparing the new chubbier Williams to Elvis Presley.
Indeed, with darker hair, a few more inches in height, a different profile, an altered face and more talent, Williams could be dead ringer for Elvis.
Perhaps this is why the paper’s picture of Williams is grainer than sand rat’s poo.
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (6)
Grand Theft Auto: Knives And Losing Your Legs With Andy McNab
GRAND Theft Auto IV is on the streets.
It’s the game that will turn everyone into a car thief, and car thieves into stay-at-home video game players.
The Sun journeys to Croydon, where game fans, driven mad by the flashing images and far-out sounds, are standing in a disorderly queue waiting for their chance to seize the item in exchange for money.
Something is said. A boy lies bleeding. Says Marcus Henderson: “It seemed like a scene straight form the game itself.”
Another witness says he thought it was promotional trick. And it might be. But the Sun sees a “huge gash” and a “victim…covered in blood”.
The paper sees the victim taken to hospital, leaving hospital and “refusing to make a complaint”.
The Sun is left with little option other than to put away knives, steer clear of Croydon and play the game for itself. Will it be driven mad?
Says our intrepid writer: “Last night I stole 3 cars, outran the police in a high-speed chase, dealt drugs, shot a crimelord and picked up a prostitute.”
Who now dares say that investigative journalism isn’t what it used to be? But what about the game?
For an insight, we need Andy McNab, the Sun’s Security Advisor, the “SAS Hero” whose two-dimensional silhouette lends him all the qualities of a fantasy figure.
Says he: “If you kill someone you can see the look in their eyes, you can even smell their breath.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Shannon Matthews: Michael Donovan Looks A Picture
SHANNON Watch: Anorak’s look at the case of Shannon Matthews in the mediaWANT to see a picture of Michael Donovan, the “bug-eyed man” who “snatched Shannon Matthews”?
The Sun has the image of the man who, on closer examination, is only “accused” of kidnapping the girl.
Says a “family friend”: “No one bothered taking pictures of him. He’s a bit of a loner and he is not one of the most photogenic of people.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews, Tabloids | Comments (6)
Fritzl Watch: Austrian Nazis, Fritz, Puns And Nuclear War
FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl and assorted Frtizls in the news
THE SUN (front page): “AS HIS CHILDREN COWERED IN DARKNESS, HE WAS THE.. Beast beside the seaside”
Not easy to find humour in incest and rape, but the Sun makes a decent stab of it, using a pun to accompany a shot of Josef Fritzl in his “tight-fitting trunks” on a boys’ trip to Thailand.
There’s another picture of Josef Fritzl on a deckchair in Cyprus. “Wish you were here?” comes the headline pun.
“Monster’s 6yrs on sex-hell pit”
TWISTED Josef Fritzl spent SIX years building his monstrous sex dungeon for “favourite daughter” Elisabeth, investigators revealed yesterday. It is believed that the 73-year-old hatched the plan to trap Elisabeth “forever” only months after he started to abuse her at the age of just 11. Council chiefs in Amstetten TWICE granted Fritzl planning permission for his den – after he told them he needed a “Cold War bunker” to protect his family in case Austria was hit by a nuclear bomb.
DAILY MAIL: “A nation in haunting denial”
Says Allison Pearson: “The case makes you wonder what darkness lies in the basement of the Austrian imagination.”
Not sure. Maybe she should ask Rosemary West’s children?
DAILY EXPRESS: “A COUNTRY IN CRISIS”
“Still scarred by the war, Hitler and Nazism, the terrible stories of kidnap and abuse may now force Austrians finally to ask the question they’ve feared for so long – are we a damaged people?”
The war. What war? Fritz?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (31)
Madeleine McCann: Tabloid Columnists On Harry Potter, Frtizl And Bile
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to the columnists’ views on Madeleine McCann and family:
JANE MOORE (Sun): “Silence is not an option for the McCanns”
“Just suppose little Madeleine is trapped in a cellar somewhere, hidden from view while her warped captor conducts a seemingly normal life upstairs.”
Like Elisabeth Frtizl? It’s Tabloid Bingo. Eye down…
LORRAINE KELLY (Sun): “They deserve sympathy, not condemnation”
Since my daughter Rosie was a baby, she has always come everywhere with us when we go on holiday, especially to child-friendly countries such as Portugal, Spain and Greece. We wouldn’t have dreamed about leaving her behind to go for a meal because we go away to spend as much time as possible together as a family.
JON GAUNT (Sun): “I have little support for them”
Do you remember when you put your first baby to bed with a listening monitor and sat downstairs watching the box almost with subtitles on so you could hear every heartbeat?
If you heard an unexpected cough or belch you would sprint up the stairs faster than druggy Dwain Chambers on steroids to check on your little angel. That’s called parenting, isn’t it?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th, April 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (544)
Fritzl Watch: Incest Proven, Thai Holidays And Updates
FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl and assorted Frtizls in the news
SKY NEWS: “Often at the scene of crimes like this, people are open and welcoming to the media, willing to talk.But after a day or two they start to get suspicious and hostile and worry how they and their community are being portrayed.”
ELLEE SEYMOUR: “How could Rosemarie Fritzl know nothing?”
I wonder what would have happened to those pitiful, helpless prisoners if their wicked captor had died suddenly, would they simply have been left to rot in the cellar?
DAILY EXPRESS“Austrian police today revealed that DNA taken from the six children of caged Elisabeth Fritzl proved sick Josef was the biological father.”
THE TIMES: “The (DNA test) result… shows that the six children, which the unfortunate Elisabeth Fritzl gave birth to in the basement, have all been undoubtedly fathered by her own father, the now 73-year-old Josef Fritzl,” says Colonel Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigation unit in Lower Austria.
THE INDEPENDENT: “Prosecutors said they were investigating Fritzl over the death of the seventh child and that he could face a charge of killing the child through neglect.”
“Josef F. is being investigated for murder by failing to render assistance,” local chief public prosecutor Peter Ficenc told Reuters.
THIS IS LONDON: “Pictured: Incest father on ‘boys holiday’ to Thailand as his captives languish in his secret dungeon thousands of miles away”
The evil father who locked up his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered her seven children was pictured on a ‘boys holiday’ to Thailand in the 1990s, it has been revealed. Josep Friztl is believed to have stockpiled food in the dungeon where Elisabeth and her three children were being held.
The four were expected to survive alone for up to two weeks until Fritzl returned. Snaps of the electrical engineer enjoying himself were made public for the first time today…
They come as it was revealed that Fritzl has told police he acted alone. He has told detectives he was not helped to keep his Elisabeth and their children hidden in his cramped basement.
But police are not yet convinced he is telling the truth and are investigating how he could have bought food and clothes for them without anyone suspecting.
And Elisabeth Fritzl?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (17)
Amy Winehouse: Blake’s Divorce Settlement And Amy’s True Love
AMY Winehouse Watch: A life in headlines and fact:
The Star: “ME & BLAKE WILL BE TOGETHER FOR EVER”
The Mirror: “Amy: I still love Blake”
“Says Winehouse: “Me and Blake are meant for each other, he’s my man.”
The Sun: “Blake tells Amy: Give me £3m – DIVORCE DEMAND IN JAIL”
In Amy’s Camden Town den, her dad Mitch Winehouse “gave her new love [Alex Haynes] his blessing.”
The facts.
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (9)
Princess Beatrice Toes The Family Line
WITH no toes visible, readers are left to guess what is going on beneath the waves as Princess Beatrice and boyfriend Dave Clarke take the waters in St Bart’s.
The Express recalls those heady days when Bea’s mum, Sarah Ferguson, was pictured having moisture sucked from her toes by financial advisor John Byran in the south of France.
Now Bea, dressed in her “Bea-kini” (sun) is striding purposefully in “Mummy’s twosteps (Mail).
While the Mail and Express get an atlas, Bea is “wiggling those little piggies” on the sand.
It’s all good exercise, of course. And part of Bea’s gap year, in which to date she has sampled Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, America, Egypt, Abu Dhabi and Switzerland.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Richard Barnbrook Is The Stereotypical Far Right Leader
THE Mail is looking at the BNP’s London mayoral candidate Richard Barnbrook, pictured dressed in brown, his short hair parted neatly:
“With a distinctive sartorial style which worries even his most extremist supporters, and a background as a ‘visionary’ artist whose most notable work was a homo-erotic film, Richard Barnbrook is an unusual Far Right leader, to say the least.”
Is he? He sounds pretty much bang on, a stereotype…
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Kicking The Daily Express Habit
THE Daily Express is ever the paper of habit.
Addicted to Madeleine McCann and Princess Diana, it has now kicked both only to replace them with the quotidian exclusive that its costs 40p.
The Express has what psychologists and editors call an addictive personality, either that or a monkey with a finger on the f9 button.
The paper’s other daily news is that the Express cost 10p less than the Mail. But unlike the Mail, the Express does not offer its readers a “FREE ROYAL WORCESTER DINNER SERVICE” and a “FREE CLASSIC WAR MOVIE”.
(Picture: Beau Bo D’Or Website)
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
The Kate McCann Calendar, Elisabeth Fritzl And A Suspect Strike Again
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY MIRROR (front page): “KATE: I need to know Madeleine is alive..or dead”
The Mirror says Madeleine McCann went missing on “May 3 2007 9:15pm.”
Or not. Such are the facts.
THE SUN (front page): “MASDDIE – Part Two of our harrowing series”
How does it end? First read the “12-PAGE SPECIAL”.
“Maddie – A YEAR IN THE DARKNESS”
A case told in headlines:
“’Do a year in jail and you can all go home.’ NO!’”
“Tears of relief and sadness as McCanns come home”
It’s the Kate McCann calendar – 12 pictures of Kate McCann, one for each month Madeleine’s been gone. A straw poll in the Anorak office says Kate makes a decent Miss September and blooms in April. May is not her best month…
“Theory after theory..but not a single proper lead”
“So many Maddies, and wild goose chases”
“The life of torment they now endure”
“’Maddie suspect’ bid to grab girl”
Robert Murat?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (429)
Body Building From The Front: Page 3 Girls On Site
THE STAR has always been the builders’ friend, and was for a time the official paper of the UK construction industry.
Now the Star wants its readers to save “The great British builder”, by winning a Great British Page 3 Girl to visit your Great British building site.
All builders need do to get some free labour – not hat, no boots, not stockings: no work – is to tell the paper in 20 words of less why their site in the Best of British.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
Ronaldo Fails To Overshadow Nereida Gallardo’s Achievements
MORE insights into Cristiano Ronaldo’s latest keepy-uppy lover Nereida Gallardo, Spain’s foremost Bobby Charlton tribute acts.
She’s Ron’s Bronze Goddess in the Sun, and in the sun, as Nereida poses in a pair of tan knickers, tan breasts and tan buttocks.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comments (3)
