Paul McCartney Weeps For The Fifth Fifth Beatle

“MACCA WEEPS FOR FIFTH BEATLE,” says the Daily Mirror on its front page.

Says the Mirror: “Grief-stricken Macca was last night mourning childhood friend Neil Aspinall – the man dubbed the Fifth Beatle.”

Mr Aspinall was known to millions as the Fifth Fifth Beatle, having inherited the title from Derek Taylor, who became the Sixth Fifth Beatle, and his predecessor Hank Marvin, the Second Fifth Beatle who became the Third Beatle (II) when Paul McCartney died.

The Mirror hears tributes flood in from Ringo Starr (The Second Fourth Beatle), George Harrison’s widow Olivia (The Twelth Beatle, on the grounds of there being only seven people in the Kidderminster area with greater claim to being the Fifth Beatle) and Beatle No.1 Yoko Ono.

Our thoughts are with the extended family…

Anorak

Posted: 25th, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (2)

Football’s Paris Hilton, Paul Jewell, Shows Managers The Way Forward

PAUL Jewell, manager of Derby County football club, is “football’s Paris Hilton”.

Do not doubt that football needs a Paris Hilton. If football is to be Hollywood in shorts, then it needs to embrace all elements of showbusiness.

One-hit wonder Paul Gascoigne is Britney Spears, and some debate rages over whether Gary Neville or Steve McClaren is Simon Cowell. But Jewell is a shoo-in for Hilton on account of his singing ability, skin tones and allegations of a homemade movie.

Says the Star on Sunday: “The Derby County manager has called in lawyers to stop the DIY porn movie becoming a Paris Hilton style hit. It shows portly Paul in a series of kinky romps with a mystery blonde. The dad-of-two fears the footage could turn him into an unlikely internet sex star like heiress Paris, 27.”

Readers learn that the movie shows “former Bradford manager Jewell strapping his lover to the bed, slapping her bottom and pleasuring her with a sex toy. She wears black suspenders, stockings and boots”.

Forward With Jewell 

While we envisage the boots and studs, and Jewell going in hard with his tackle, some may wonder if this is not Jewel’s preparation for life after football?

A celebrity sex tape never did anyone’s career any harm. Mr Jewell should release the tape and become an internet hit, securing a future in the media.

This will, of course, trigger copycat videos. Very soon other football bosses feeling the pressure – Derby County are bottom of the premier league – will release their sex tapes.

Roy Hodgson, beleaguered manager of Fulham will need to up and ante and produce a video of him romancing a goal post, followed by Wigan Athletic’s Steve Bruce’s antics with a range of gardening tools.

The trend will reach a crescendo when the ultra-competitive Alex Ferguson, contemplating the long dark tunnel of retirement from ‘the game’, produces a film featuring himself, the West Bangkok Manchester Untied Supporters’ Cub and a collection of battery-operated hairdryers…

Sven Goran Erkisson is the manager of Manchester City FC. 

Anorak

Posted: 24th, March 2008 | In: Back pages, Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (6)

Newspapers Are About The Writer And The Web Is About The Editor

IN “Why Old Technologies Are Still Kicking”, the New York Times’ Steve Lohr looks at technical innovation and newspapers:

The demise of the old technology is confidently predicted, and indeed it may lose ground to the insurgent, as mainframes did to the personal computer. But the old technology or business often finds a sustainable, profitable life. Television, for example, was supposed to kill radio, and movies, for that matter. Cars, trucks and planes spelled the death of railways. A current death-knell forecast is that the Web will kill print media.

The web will not kill print media. We buy newspapers for the writers. London’s free newspapers have no good writing and no decent articles. Like the web they are free.

We buy newspapers for the good writing and the decent articles. Those newspapers with the least good writing and the weakest voice will no longer be needed and die out.

The web can scoop newspapers. But the best newspaper writers can put the news in context.

The web works best as an editor – a strong editorial voice linking the news of most interest to the best writing.

The new Anroak will be an online magazine and an editor for the web.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, March 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (3)

Leonid Rozhetskin And How We Hanker For The Cold War

LEONID Rozhetskin is missing.

Says the Mail on Sunday’s front-page headline: “KGB PLOT FEARS AS LONDON OLIGARCH VANISHES.”

Reading on we learn that Leonid Rozhetskin, “an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, vanished from his £1 million home just outside the Latvian capital Riga a week ago”.

Interesting. But why front-page news? The paper says the Russian-born Rozhetskin is a “British media magnate”. His “mysterious disappearance has possible links to the murder of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko”.

Cold Case 

One thing at a time. What media does Mr Rozhetskin own? He is revealed to be one of the co-founders and major shareholders in British business newspaper City AM, the free daily business newspaper business-minded Londoners look to for the horoscopes.

We learn that Mr Rozhetskin’s “six-bedroom mansion, in the most expensive residential area of Latvia, is set in its own gardens and surrounded by thick woods.”

Six bedrooms, you say. In Latvia…

The Mail goes on: “It enjoys views of Riga Bay which, at 25 miles long, boasts the longest white sand beach in the Baltic states.”

Yes, but 6 bedrooms. It’s not very much, is it? And for the cost of the property, Mr Rozhetskin could have invested in a started home in Rhyl.

Or nondescript semi-detached bungalow, in an area of Kilmarnock called Moscow, where the Mail says Mr Rozhetskin is registered as living on the electoral roll.

The paper says the building “appears abandoned, with barely a stick of furniture inside and sheets covering the windows”.

Of course being an oligarch, Mr Rozhetskin can have this and his home in Latvia. Such is the way of the mega-rich.

Sex And War

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, March 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)

The ‘Horrific’ Amy Winehouse Self ‘Arm

AMY Winehouse has “a number of horrific slashes on her arm just below her Daddy’s Girl tattoo.”

So says the News of the World, looking at a few scratches on Winehouse’s left arm.

“Horrific” does not do them justice. Anorak’s medical editor Dr Ivor Coat M.R.S.A., who has never treated Winehouse, suggests the marks are the possible result of an itch, reaching through barbed wire to retrieve a football, or from pet owl (see pciture).

The NOTW speaks with Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s cab driving dad.

Looking back over his shoulder, Mitch says: “I saw the cuts and told Amy that her arm didn’t look good. But she just said, ‘It’s nothing’.”

It’s not nothing. It’s an arm, as the NOTW can exclusively reveal…

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (4)

Lady Heather Mills, Kate McCann and Princess Diana

LADY Heather Mills is on the GMTV sofa. “It’s like what they are doing to the McCanns,” says Mills. “What are they doing persecuting that woman? Look what they did to Diana…

“I’ve had worse press than a paedophile or a murderer, and I’ve done nothing but charity for 20 years.”

The First Beatle, the woman born Miss Penny Lane, has been making news. And we must not believe her rantings. She is no peado; no Kate McCann; no Princess Diana.

To prove “Pornocchio” a liar, yesterday the Sun published on its website a picture of Lady Heather alongside an image of Raymond Horne, a convicted paedophile.
As if Mills is treated like a paedo, or worse. Pah!

No news of “monster” Horne on today’s front page.

Although the Star on Sunday does lead with: “MUCCA SEX SECRETS REVEALED” and the Sunday Mirror with: “HEATHER TRIED TO PULL ME – SHE TARGETS BARMAN AFTER £24M DEAL” – perhaps by offering him sweets and a ride in her shiny car.

And as for being like Kate McCann and Princess Diana…

Well, the Irish Independent has something to say about that:

Writes Eilis O’Hanlon: “The deeper question is: why Kate and why Heather? Why did they get it in the neck from the media?”

Well…

For Kate McCann, however, there’s no chance of closure short of a miracle. Sir Paul’s ex can do a Diana, devote herself to charitable works, and rescue her public image, but there will always be a cloud of suspicion hanging over Kate McCann.

Heather Mills is Diana, is Kate McCann is…

What the Express and its stablemates sought to do was brand her as a child killer, and that’s what she remains in many people’s eyes. Front page apologies and libel payouts can’t undo damage of that magnitude.

… being talked about in the context of an alleged infanticide…

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (6)

Kerry Katona To Star In Jeremy Kyle: The Movie

“KERRY LIE TEST FOR MARK,” announces the News of the World’s front page.

Kerry Katona’s audition for the role of Lead Victim in Jeremy Kyle: The Movie sees the method acting reality TV star plan to make husband Mark Croft take a polygraph test after allegations he had affairs with two women.

Katona and Croft are starring in MTV series Crazy in Love, the world’s foremost mental illness reality TV show, adverts for which feature Kerry and Marc in a straight jacket.

A source close to the couple confirmed: “If Mark’s not telling the truth, he’s out.”
Out if his straight jacket…

That test in full:

KYLE: Name?
CROFT: Trisha Goddard…

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment (1)

The Sun’s Grass, Amy Winehouse And Blaaaaake’s Drug Squeal

THE Sun’s apparent mission to have Blake Fielder Civil locked up for all time and his wife Amy Winehouse stored in some institution moves on apace.

Having broadcast a film of Winehouse “smoking deadly crack during a binge” and then demanded her arrest, the paper has been speaking to a “prison source” about Blaaaaaake.

Says the source: “Blake’s addiction is just as bad as ever and he’s bragging about how he’s been asking Amy to help him get a fix. He showed us the bank details of a known dealer inside Pentonville and said he’d asked Amy to make regular wire transfers to this guy in exchange for heroin.”

“Apparently he wanted each transfer to end in a single pound, so the dealer would know who the money came from.”

Says the Sun: “The asking price for each “wrap” is said to be £100 — four times its street value.” The smart move for any Sun-reading heroin dealer would be to get themselves locked up and make some proper money. And then try to solicit Blaaake for a customer.

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment

Robber Hypnotises Supermarket Staff Into Handing Over Money

TO an Italian supermarket in Ancona where a man is eyeballing the cashier.

Police have released video footage of a man who has been “hypnotizing supermarket checkout staff and getting them to hand over the cash”.

Says the Mail: “In every case, according to reports, the last thing staff remember is a man leaning over and saying ‘Look into my eyes’ before suddenly finding the till is empty.”

The identity of the man is not know, but the Mail says he “bears an uncanny resemblance to Rasputin and Saddam Hussein (both dead – at least we believe they are) and “Matt Lucas”, whose “hypnotist character on Little Britain is also fond of the phrase ‘Look into my eyes’”.

Mr Lucas has yet to be interviewed by Italian police, but a shoplifter apprehended in central Coventry is complaining of being made to do it by Jeremy Beadle…

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, March 2008 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comments (2)

Lady Heather Mills And Fiona’s Paul McCartney Puppet Show

“MACCA’S GAGGING FOR TELLY FORTUNE,” screams the Sun’s front-page headline.

Says Lady Heather Mills, the First Beatle, for it is she: “A person has a right to privacy when they enter a family court and this was taken away from me.”

The Sun notes the words in a statement made by Mills to GMTV, judge and jury for the institutionalised masses and stay-at-home mum on prescription medication: “Publishing this judgment is against the principle of the privacy expected within family courts. This decision appears to have been taken with disregard for my human right to privacy.”

Says the Sun:

“Heather is plotting an all-out assault on the States. Larry King doesn’t pay for interviews, so she’s keeping her powder dry for a big deal with a show like Entertainment Tonight. This time she’ll have Fiona at her side, who isn’t bound by the confidentiality agreement and will give her full opinion about the marriage.”

The plan is, apparently, for Heather to appear on US talk shows and allow her sister Fiona to spill the beans. From being famous for having a spare part, Mills will now be the spare part, with her sister sat on her knee in the manner of Spit the Dog to Mills’ Bob Carolgees.

Better yet, Fiona could sit before her American interlocutor and rub her temples, channelling Heather. To screams of “Dodi, nooooo!” and “She’s gone!” Fiona could cower, contort her hands into a crucifix and scream “Paul is dead!”

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment (1)

John Smeaton: The Mail Sets Out To Get Its Hero

HEADLINES like “John Smeaton Wins War On Terror”, “Great Scot!”, “Gordon Brown: John Smeaton Is Courage Personified” may have created an impression that John Smeaton was some kind of hero.

John Smeaton received the Queen’s Gallantry medal for foiling the attack on Glasgow airport. He picked up an Outstanding Bravery Award at the Pride Of Britain Awards, “before a celebrity audience including Dame Shirley Bassey and Jamie Oliver”. Such is how we treat our heroes.

The Mail recalls the “VIP trips to New York, first in October 2007, for a tour of Ground Zero and an official audience with NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and, earlier this month, to pick up a CNN heroism award”.

Smeaton was invited to the BAFTAs? Says he: “Yeah. They went on for hours – I just made sure I was near to the door so I could nip out for a fag. But I had a nice chat with Viggo Mortensen [The Lord Of The Rings actor].” Thanks to Smeaton’s smoking habit, make believe heroes like Mortenson could rest easy within.

Many see Smeaton’s actions as a triumph for the anti-smoking lobby, who know that had Smeaton been allowed to smoke indoors, the terrorists would have got away.

As such, you may have thought Smeaton was some kind of hero. But today the Mail brings readers: “Super fraud or super hero? Why baggage handler John Smeaton is under fire as a Walter Mitty.”

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, March 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)

The Burka Robber: Police Hunt For 6ft 6in Muslim Woman

TRY not to stare at the 6ft 6in figure in the burka.

She is pushing a pram. She is at the door of Friends Jewellers in Smethwick, West Midlands.

Owner Raj Kumar takes up the story. Says he in the Mail: “We have buzzer entry and he was trying to get my mum to let him in. She thought he looked too tall to be a woman but he had this pushchair with him.”

A 6ft 6in tall transvestite dressed in a burka pushing a buggy. His money is as good as anyone’s. Release the catch.

Continues Mr Kumar: “When she opened the door these men ran in from behind and used hammers to smash through the next door. It took them about five goes to get through the glass.”

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, March 2008 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment

A 55-Year Old Woman’s Cancer Baby And What It Means For You

“MUM TO BE AGE 55 WAS TOLD HER BUMP WAS CANCER.”

The Mail’s front page features Susan Tollefsen, age 57. She “feared the worst when she was sent to hospital for a scan on her growing bump”. And was told by the sonographer: “Congratulations, you’re almost 30 weeks pregnant.”

“I was lying on the examination table thinking, ‘I’m going to die’ when the sonographer turned round to me and said ‘Congratulations’,” says Susan.

“My initial reaction was to think, ‘What a terrible way to tell me I’ve got ovarian cancer’. When he then said, ‘You’re pregnant’ I was literally speechless.

It turns out that the “Easter miracle” is a combination of IVF treatment, luck and perseverance.

Susan we learn is a special needs teacher. She is now with Nick but was married to Bruno, an Italian restaurateur.

Nick’s job is not given. And Mail readers are surely interested to know what it is Nick does. The Mail begins each interview by extending a gloved hand and asking: “So, what is it you do?” How did Nick escape?

In harvesting job titles, the Mail can provide context to stories, coming up with news such as today’s headline maker: “Financial adviser arrested and forced to give DNA sample after spraying neighbour with garden hose.”

Financial advisors can debate if they are more likely to spray a neighbour with a garden hose, just as special needs teachers once married to Italian restauranteurs can wonder if they have ovarian cancer, billed as the “silent killer”?

But statistics rely on facts and until Nick’s job is specified, we fear many 57-year-old women with distended stomachs will be uncertain how they fit into the picture.

And if being married to a sales executive for a biscuit company increases or reduces their chances of conception, or a row with the neighbours?

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, March 2008 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment (1)

Madeleine McCann: Porn, Liverpool For McCanns And Libel

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

THE INDEPENDENT: “Saga of the McCanns is not yet over”

Says Richard Ingrams:

No one can feel too sorry at the thought of Express owner Richmond Desmond, who has made a huge fortune out of pornography, having to shell out a fraction of his profits to the needy McCanns.

No, not climate porn, the Independent’s apocalyptic visions of climate change, but real flesh and hair porn – the porn that has given Richard Demsond “huge profits”; which must mean many not only enjoy porn and are happy to pay for it. Would “no one” feel sorry for Mr Desmond if his fine curtailed his porn output?

The Story of the McCanns and Express Newspaper was broken by Anorak 

All the same, the story is puzzling. The Express was undoubtedly guilty of libel. But the suggestion that the McCanns might have been in one way or another responsible for their daughter’s death did not originate with the newspaper. It was the Portuguese police who long ago branded the McCanns as suspects. And officially they remain so. It has never been explained why they were so convinced of the McCanns’ guilt when all the facts seem to point the other way.

Facts? There is only one fact: Madeleine McCann is missing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, March 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (453)

Lady Heather Mills And The Sun’s Paedophile

WHEN Lady Heather Mills addressed the nation and compared herself to Princess Diana, Kate McCann and a paedophile, there was much scratching of heads.

Said Lady Heather:“They make up such lies. They’ve called me a whore, a golddigger, a fantasist, a liar, the most unbelievably hurtful things – and I’ve stayed quiet for my daughter…

“I’ve had worse press than a paedophile or a murderer, and I’ve done nothing but charity for 20 years.”

Many wondered is she had exaggerated or over-egged the pudding. But today the Sun’s website positions a shot of Lady Mills alongside the image of Raymond Horne, a convicted paedophile.

Look out for footage of Mills, born Penny Lane, lying in a bed with John Lennon and in conversation with Martin Bashir…

Picture: The Spine

Anorak

Posted: 21st, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (3)

Nurse Kim Walker Whips Off Her Killer Primark Knickers

KIM Walker went into severe anaphylactic shock after “squeezing into a pair of tummy-slimming pants”.

The Sun says Walker bought her big knickers in a Primark shop. The near-death experiences keep on coming.

Walker, a nurse, noticed a rash appear while on duty. Says the paper: “Kim whipped the knickers off and tried to control the reaction with anti-histamine tablets.”

She had to be injected with adrenalin as her “throat closed and she gasped for breath”.

Says Walker: “Anaphylactic shock is life-threatening. Luckily, I was in A&E and got adrenalin. I can laugh now but it was very scary when I couldn’t breathe. It will be quite a tale to tell my two-year-old daughter when she’s older – mummy’s mad pants episode.”

Such is the security in our hospitals we imagine the incident was caught on CCTV camera. Should the Sun obtain a copy and feature it on its website, we imagine many readers will appreciate the health and safety message as a nurse removes her knickers.

Anorak

Posted: 21st, March 2008 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comments (2)

Lady Heather Mills Flies Economy With The Actualite

LADY Heather Mills, the First Beatle, has been awarded millions of pounds in royalties by Paul McCartney. Now read on…

Says the Sun’s on its front page: “WHERE THERE’S MUCCA THERE’S FIRST CLASS – but daughter Bea goes economy.”

Having told one and all, “Beatrice only gets £35,000 a year, so obviously she’s meant to travel B class while her father travels A class. But obviously I will pay for that”, Heather is true to her word.

Mills is paying for Bea to fly “B class” while she travels A class. The Sun, however, insists on calling her a “first-class hypocrite”.

But she is sending Bea home early with a minder and nanny in the £409 seats at the back of a Virgin jet. Mucca, 40, will fly to LA the same day for a further three weeks before jetting home alone — in a £3,348 Virgin Upper Class berth.

The Sun says that while Mills flies in luxury, Bea will be “strapped in a cheap seat”, like a terror suspect or a boozed up, aggressive holidaymaker.

It’s so upsetting that “The Sun has decided not to reveal exact details of the flights”.

The paper sensitive to the public mood and concerned that other passengers will be hurt when right-minded Sun readers in possession of surface-to-air missiles take action…

Anorak

Posted: 21st, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (2)

That Kym Marsh Coronation Street Exclusive In Full

“CORRIE’S KYM’S MARRIAGE BREAK-UP,”

It’s the Mirror’s front-page “exclusive” on the break up of Coronation Street actress Kym Ryder and her husband, the former EastEnders actor Jack Ryder.

“CORRIE’S KYM AND HUBBY SPLIT,” says the Star in its front-page “Exclusive”.

Anorak

Posted: 21st, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment

Headline Of The Day: EU Missile Attack On Lord Mayor’s Show

HEADLINE of the day: Carnival “Floats are hit by a Euro torpedo.”

Hurrah!

A bit of detonation will enliven those public shows, as young families, loners and majorette enthusiasts stand on the kerb, mivvi in hand, anorak coated in a light drizzle as the Sea Cadets come marching past playing a brass version of Who Let The Dogs Out.

Come friendly torpedo…

Anorak

Posted: 21st, March 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment

Danielle Lloyd’s Easter Egg Cups

“DANI – Our babe’s opening her eggs early,” says the Star’s front-page headline, words illustrated by Danielle Lloyd in a swimsuit.

Danielle’s fingers are hooked into her bra cups in the manner of the Artful Dodger fingering his braces in readiness for a quick bout of “I’d Do Anything”.

Many words can be used to describe Danielle’s breasts – “unreal”, “box-fresh” and “inflate to 200lbs per square inch” – but Anorak had yet to hear them described as “eggs”.

But eggs are not enough. What kind go eggs are they?

Right Reverend Host: “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Ms. Shetty!”
The Curate: “Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!”

Danielle’s breasts might be chocolate eggs, specifically orange Kinder Eggs, which after a light tapping open up to reveal collectable miniatures of footballers Dani has dated.

Collect the full set of three…

Picture: The Spine

Anorak

Posted: 21st, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (2)

The Lohan Best Silent Sex Tape

“IS ‘Lohan’ sex tape the Best?” asks the Sun.

“Caught in the act … ‘Lindsay Lohan’,” runs the caption beneath the grainy shot of head.

For all the advancements in technology and cinematic know how, today’s actresses can achieve a lasting fame by appearing in images seemingly collected by a pinhole camera.

The image is thought to be of Lohan performing what tabloid newspapers call a “sex act” on Calum Best, blank-faced son to the late George Best.

It’s hard to see who it is, or isn’t. Says the Sun: “At this stage, neither party has confirmed or denied whether this is the real deal.”

It’s all smack of a return to the age of silent cinema. Looking at the image, you half expect a piano to strike up, a saxophone to luxuriate and an onscreen intertitle declare: “Scene 1: Miss Lohan Gives Mr Calum an insight into her muse”…

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment (1)

How to Fight And Win The War On Flu

“FLU ‘bigger threat to UK than terror’.”

It’s the headline that one may respond to by asking: And how big of a threat is terror?

Anorak can assure you that the threat of terror is huge. And that if flu is a bigger threat it is no small wonder that you are not already a victim.

The Express says “ministers fear a global attack” of flu that has the “ability to wipe out more than one in 100 of the total population”.

Gordon Brown has set the wheels is motion to scupper the power of flu, specifically with a 1,000-strong civil defence force, which will scour the coastline for any sign of flu virus.

If you see the virus, you should follow the correct procedure:

A. Wrap a scarf about our face
B. Cover your head and as much of your body as possible with clothing
C. Run screaming about the streets shouting “You are all going to die!”

As a result you will soon be spirited away to a secure room free of germs and all signs of life…

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)

700: Iran Invades Cornwall’s Holy Site

“WHY 700 Iranians have descended on Cornwall.”

The reason is… Well, let’s see if you can guess. And do note that the headline appears in the Daily Express. Is it:

a) To look for blonde children?
b) To act as surprise witnesses at the Princess Diana inquest?
c) Because the Cornwall Tourist Board has twinned the shire with Tehran?
d) Because it reminds them of home?

The answer is d), although we should not discount any of the other options, nor option e) – To slaughter the locals in their beds in a revenge attack for the film 300.

To Cornwall. As the Express says: “Villagers in Porth, Cornwall, usually hear nothing louder than the sound of seagulls or the lap of the waves on the beach.”

Or, indeed, the gentle pssst!-pssssst! of a drug dealer, the soothing hum-hum-thrppp of a jetski race or the uep-eup-eup of young bucks and their lady friends decorating the streets in a lively technociolur yawn.

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)

Famous Five Go To Disney Land

IF the Famous Five are to undergo a successful reinvention they need to reflect the times in which they live, and connect with today’s youth.

The Mail says that Enid Blyton’s gang of five have been transferred to the Disney Empire. Julian, Anne, Dick and George have become Jo, Max, Dylan and Allie.

Only Timmy the dog remains unaltered, although after last summer’s rave (Five Go Off In A Caravan) he often gets a far away look in his eye and barks at 128 beats per minute.

Not everyone is best pleased at the changes, and the Mail manages to find those who are not. Enid Blyton’s biographer Barbara Stanley says: “I don’t think Enid Blyton would have appreciated too much the mucking around with her stuff.”

Lumme!

Tony Summerfield, of the Enid Blyton Society, adds: “The only loose connection is that they are the Famous Five’s offspring.”

The news of the Famous Five procreating is surely a sign of how things have changed. And it is a damning verdict on modern society that parents and children now only hare a loose connection.

Look out for cameo appearances from teenage mum Anne (Five Get Into Trouble), Dick, father to all the new gang, Max’s biological mum George and Julian wrestling an addiction to alcopops brought on by lashings of ginger beer…

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (10)

Gemma Atkinson Is The Old New New Pamela Anderson

“BRIT beauty Gemma Atkinson is… jetting to Los Angeles later this year for a series of auditions to launch her as the new Pamela Anderson,” reports the Star.

Problem is that thanks for Messers Nip ‘n’ Tuck Pamela Anderson is already the new Pamela Anderson…

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (3)