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.
Celebrity Cull: Suzanne Shaw Wields Blade On Dancing On Ice
MORE news on the Dancing On Ice Celebrity Cull.
Followign this and this, the Mail screams: “Drama On Ice: The moment Suzanne Shaw’s skate sliced open her partner’s face.”
Blades…
Posted: 1st, March 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Prince William Already With Royal Navy In Afghanistan: Breaking
PRINCE William is off to war.
With the spare retuned, the heir can now move freely about the enemy, slaughtering them at will. Hurrah!
The Sun says Wills is to serve aboard a Royal Navy warship. More details are not given.
We will need to wait for our allies in the US to pinpoint Wills’ exact location and make it public knowledge.
For any Taliban looking in, Anorak can revels that Afghanistan is a landlocked a country and Wills will be onboard a “frigate” or a “destroyer”.
Posted: 1st, March 2008 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Madeleine McCann: What Shannon Matthews Is Worth, Asda And PR
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews
THE SUN: “£20k reward in Shannon hunt”
THE Sun yesterday offered a £20,000 reward to find missing “little princess” Shannon Matthews.
Good on the paper. But does a reward help? Has it helped Madeleine Mccann? And why £20,000 when Madeleine McCann garnered so much more? Is a reward index linked to the missing child’s age? Or is it because Shannon’s parents are not middle-class – not doctors – and smaller amounts mean more to them?
We also printed posters urging our vast army of readers to help in the hunt for the nine-year-old schoolgirl. And last night her anguished mum Karen, 32, said: “I’m so grateful for all you are doing. It’s a fantastic gesture and means so much to us. We just hope it brings her back.”
Then, hugging Shannon’s stepdad Craig Meehan, 22, she added: “Our message to people is never give up . . . because we won’t until we find her.”
THE TIMES: “Poor little Shannon Matthews. Too poor for us to care that she is lost?”
“Her family may seem feckless. Neighbours can’t afford to run a PR campaign. How the public spotlight faded on missing girl.”
Shannon..?
Sarah Payne, smiling in her school uniform; Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, in their Manchester United shirts; Madeleine McCann, staring inquisitively with her distinctive bleeding iris . . .The names and faces of these girls who have disappeared are etched into the public’s collective memory.
Camera crews camped out in their home towns for weeks or months. Donations totalled thousands — even millions — of pounds. Members of the public, many of them strangers, came in their hundreds to offer help and prayers for their safe return.
Yet the trauma and mystery surrounding the disappearance of one nine-year-old girl almost two weeks ago appeared to drift from public consciousness within days…
She’s not Madeleine McCann. No doctors. No logo. No Maddy Catty. No watching the parents. The media treatment is no fault of the McCanns. But are we bored of missing children stories. Have the press caught Maddy fatigue?
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Posted: 1st, March 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (798)
A 16 Year-Old Girl, Her 36-Year-Old Lover And Mum And Dad
A QUESTION in the Daily Mail: “Your 16-year-old daughter falls for a divorcee of 36 and wants him to move in. Would you let him?”
When Alison Garcia, 16, announced that she was leaving home to be with her 36-year-old lover, her parents could have been forgiven for hitting the roof.
Instead, Sheila and Paul Garcia did something most other parents would find unthinkable.
The lover is a divorced double-glazing fitter and father-of-one called Craig Wright.
Did mum and dad:
a) Sleep with the boyfriend?
b) Move out of their home when the boyfriend moved in?
c) Post the boyfriend to Mali in a box?
d) Tell the police their daughter was 15 and get him arrested?
e) Let him move in and sleep with their daughter?
Answer after the jump…
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Posted: 29th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (8)
Would You Cheat On Cheryl Cole?
“CHERYL,” advertises the Star’s front page. “Well, would you cheat on her?”
Cheryl is Cheryl Cole, wife to vomitous footballer, Ashley Cole. The question is to Star readers. Would you cheat on Cheryl?
The answer is on Page 7, and to get there readers have to make a perilous journey.
On Page three, Scylla and Charybdis, aka Porchia and Hayley, pop up to take off their tops and pull on some stockings. “You’d have to say yes,” runs the headline. It’s a leap year and women can pop the question. And the question is: “Would you cheat on Cheryl?”
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Posted: 29th, February 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comment
Jordan Gives Until It Hurts
KATIE Price and Peter Andre are stood between Daily Express owner Richard Desmond and his wife Janet. The Express has the scoop.
Katie and Peter are handing over five gold discs of their BBC Children in Need song A Whole New World. Such is the charity.
All to the good. And all set off by the Price-Andre’s daughter, Princess Tiaamii “dressed in a tiny Christian Dior jumpsuit”.
Please give generously…
Posted: 29th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
Gordon Brown: Banish The Wind Bag
GORDON Brown is the Mail’s new celebrity columnist.
In “Why Sarah and I know this is right”, Prime Minister Gordon Brown “backs the Daily Mail’s Banish the Bags campaign”.
Anorak’s own campaign urges Britons to boycott the Mail, on account of its exploitation of turtles. Millions of you agree with us.
To the column, and Gordon Brown is every inch the columnist, using the word “I” 19 times, and “we” on 17 occasions. The “we” is split between Gordon and his family, and Gordon and the rest of us. But what the difference?
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Posted: 29th, February 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Prince Harry Plays At Tabloid Soldiers: Matt Drudge Reads New Ideas
WE join the action in the wastes of Helmland Province, Afghanistan. The UK Media Corps is discussing the news that Prince Harry has been fighting the Taliban, something they all knew weeks ago but which was made public by New Ideas magazine in January, an Australian woman’s weekly- and claimed as a scoop in March by the self-serving Matt Drudge:
PSSST! They say Prince Harry is in Afghanistan.
MEDIA CORPS: Hurrah! Tally-ban!
Shhh!
EXPRESS (Lance Corporal): HARRY THE SECRET HERO.
STAR (Private): “WHEN HARRY MET TALI”
Shhhhh!
EXPRESS: “Harry and the Gurkas give the Taliban a pasting.”
Keep it down, lads. Mindless chatter costs lives and..
SUN (Private): “ONE OF OUR BOYS. Frontline prince kills 30 Taliban.
MIRROR (Corporal): MY WAR
It’s Operation Harry. All the lads have pulled on their regulation issue Harry Hair and to the cry “I’m Harry Windsor” attracted the Taliban from their fox holes and caves, so facilitating an easier slaughter?
SUN: WIDOW 67
Keep it down. We can’t have the enemy knowing Harry’s secret call sign…
SUN: “Wills says mum would be so proud.”
Diana was ever one for the Army. And khaki is this year’s black…
MIRROR: “MUM IS LOOKING DOWN ON ME”
Don’t be so hard on yourself, Harry
SUN: Tears on the phone to his Chelsy”
ANDY McNAB (Professional Shoadow): “I’m gutted for Prince Harry. I really feel for the fella as reports from the front line were that he’d been doing a sensational job… but the foreign press who leaked the tour of duty have now blown Harry’s chances out of the water…The leak has now thrown a potential hand-grenade into his career.”
Take cover!
MAIL (Lieutenant): “Harry puts his life on the line”
JON SNOW (Padre): “I never thought I’d find myself saying thank God for Drudge”
Because he broke the secret – the one many in the UK media already knew – that Harry was in Afghanistan? Because Jon Snow was wondering where Harry had got to? Because Jon Snow is a sanctimonies handwringer, the media’s in-house vicar?
(Jon Snow may care to know that the story was not broken by the self-serving Matt Drudge but by weekly women’s magazine New Idea)
MAIL: “Harry calls in an air strike”
4 Horseferry Road, London…
ALL: Incoming!!!!
Posted: 29th, February 2008 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comments (7)
Madeleine McCann, Shannon Matthews, Sniffer Dogs And Leona Lewis
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
THE SUN: “McCann pals to face cop quiz”
Portuguese “cops are to jet to Britain to interview Kate and Gerry McCann and their pals in a last-ditch bid to solve Maddie’s disappearance. They want to quiz David Payne, Jane Tanner and partner Russell O’Brien, it was claimed.”
The Sun’s source is newspaper 24 horas. It reports: “We are finalising the last few details. Within ten days’ a team of investigators will travel to the UK.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Last night on television: The Girls Who Were Found Alive (C4) – Empty (BBC2)”
It was impossible not to think of other “disappearance” cases while watching The Girls Who Were Found Alive (C4). This fine Cutting Edge documentary told the story of two youngsters whose abduction, a decade ago, by a predatory paedophile ended against the odds in rescue. It could serve as a beacon of hope for any parent facing their worst nightmare. But in the context of the search for nine-year-old Shannon Matthews, who went missing last week in Dewsbury, and the ongoing tragedy of Madeleine McCann, it had extra poignancy.
SHANNON MATTHEWS: “LEONA IN PLEA TO ‘NUMBER 1 FAN’ SHANNON”
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Posted: 29th, February 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (1,054)
No Teddy Bear’s Picnic For Keith Richards And Vernon Coaker
WOOD. Chocolate biscuits. Keith Chegwin. You can find anything washed up on Britain’s beaches.
Frank Partridge is walking on a beach on the Lizard Peninsular, Cornwall. He spots a package.
The package is 2ft square. Frank drags it off the beach and uses a wheelbarrow to take it home.
The bag is full cocaine. In all there are five packages of the drug. Much excitement, although the Mail says it is uncertain if the drug can be used.
Partridge tells the police.
“Lay off the dope,” says Keith Richards in Uncut magazine. “That’s my advice to all younger, uh, members who are into this sort of thing. I knooow the fascination, but it ain’t worth it.”
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Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Britney Spears’ New Baby Shows Mums Can Have It All
“BRITNEY Baby One More Time,” says the Star on news that Britney Spears is pregnant by “Brum lover” Adnan Ghalib.
Spears is going to be a “BRUMMY MUMMY”.
Nothing has been confirmed, but it is so, the baby cannot appear fast enough.
As the Mail reports, two thirds of British mums think celebrities are putting them under pressure to “live up to an unrealistic ideal”.
You may not be as thin as Posh, as sinewy as Madonna, but you can aspire to be a mother in the mould of Britney Spears.
The Britney Spears Muvva ‘n’ Bay-bee Traning Programme can be studied each morning on the Jeremy Kyle show…
Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Cliff Richard Keep A Single Breast Of The Arctic Monkeys
SAYS Cliff Richard: “When I first started out in showbiz, I didn’t want to look like everyone else. So I went out and bought a pink jacket which made me different.
“I just don’t understand why the young artists all want to look the same. They all wear the same baggy trousers and the same baggy tops.” And not a pink jacket in sight.
Pink jackets are not for every man.
Cliff’s point is well made, coming as it does one page on from the Express’ piece “Why putting on proper shoes is a step forward” – a story on the return of sartorial elegance in the young ones illustrated by popular beat combo The Arctic Monkeys dressed in plus fours…
Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (3)
Polar Bear Watch: Heating The Chukchi Sea
POLAR Bear Watch: Anorak’s look at polar bears in the news.
“The lust for profit that may doom these cubs,” says the Express. The cubs are polar bears cubs, three in number; reduced to two in anther shot.
The Express says the polar bears are emerging from their winter hibernation. “Global warming means they have woken weeks earlier than normal.”
And Washington is to blame. The Express says the US is auctioning off nearly 30million acres of “prime polar bar habitat in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. The land is not being used for starter homes, rather oil and gas exploration.”
And the last thing polar bears needs is more heat…
Coleen And Wayne Are OK
NEWS in the Daily Express that the organ’s sister title, OK! magazine, has secured the rights to broadcast highlights of the wedding of Wayne Rooney to Coleen McLoughlin. “OK! in a KO blow for Hello,” says the Star, the Express’s sluttier sister paper. Mroe news to follow…
Faggots And Poofs Back On The Great British Menu
A GAY car salesman claims he was called “faggot” and “bender Ben” by his workmates.
As the Sun notes, Ben Hamilton walked away from his job and brought about an industrial tribunal case for sexual discrimination.
The judge ruled that it was not so, and Hamilton was the victim of “banter”.
Anorak is appalled and relieved. Faggot is an unwelcome Americanism, and as mainstay of the Anorak canteen.
If Old Mr Anorak cannot demand his faggots hot and covered in a cream sauce and enjoy them while sat astride his gigantic leather-clad poof without fear of causing offence then so very much the right and proper…
Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Paul Gascoinge Poetry Writing Contest
PAUL Gascoigne has been writing poetry.
So reports the Sun, as it watches Gascoigne sat in a Malta eatery writing on serviette:
“There are no rules for loving and sharing. But hearts beat faster when someone is caring. Love Gazza. Xxx.”
The message is slid across the table to a bodyguard.
Should Gascoigne ever be in need of work, he can find a job writing the messages in greeting cards.
Gascoigne has always been the subject of literary review. Professor Karl Miller, the founder of the London Review of Books, wrote during the 1990 World Cup that Paul Gascoigne was “a priapic monolith”.
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Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comment
Amy Winehouse And Smart Drugs
“AMY back on E coke and dope,” says the Sun, words used to caption a picture of Amy Winehouse.
The headline might well read: “Amy Winehouse not back on crack.” But the Sun believes in tough love and accentuates the negatives.
Inside and the snapper’s flashbulb explodes in Winehouse’s face. Eyes widen. Pupils dilate. Evidence of drugs?
“FEARS that without drugs she is just a ZOMBIE,” says the Sun. Who? What? When? The Sun speaks as if in a trance.
A “friend” tells the Sun that Winehouse “deliberately burnt her hand with a lighter”, and told them: “My life is a shell of what it was. People talk to me and I just zone out. It’s like the whole world is now still born. Colours aren’t as bright, love doesn’t feel real. I don’t know who I am and I just feel numb.”
Stick a slow double bass in the background and you have Winehouse’s next hit song. But the Sun is upset, worried, even.
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Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
Banish The Bag And Boycott The Daily Mail
DAY 2 of the Mail’s Banish the Plastic Bag campaign and the turtle is still in dire straits.
Anorak calls upon readers to boycott the Mail until the turtle is freed from its plastic bag hell.
“The image that shows the urgent need to act,” says the caption beneath the picture of the wretched beast. “A giant turtle is draped in deadly plastic in what should be pure deep ocean.”
And, yes, that would be pure, deep ocean with a cameraman in it taking pictures of a turtle ensnared in carrier bags? No human helps; that’s a pity.
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Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
Plane Stupid Smoking On Parliament
IS it a bird? Is it a disgruntled dad dressed up as Superman? No, it’s a paper plane being lobbed by Olivia Chessell and her band of protestors stood on the roofs of Parliament.
There are five protestors in all, but the Mail and Telegraph both focus on the youngest female of the group, a 20-year-old blonde-ish woman in a tight pencil skirt and burgundy blouse.
The protestors are demonstrating against plans to expand Heathrow Airport. They are on the roof for three hours.
Says Gordon Brown: “Decisions in the country should be made in the chamber of the House and not on the roof of the Hosue.” This may have been an attempt at humour.
As for the protestors, they are from a group called Plane Stupid, which has a history of telling anyone who flies abroad for their holidays in search of sun and fun that they are stupid.
As such, they have little chance of success. People, in general, do not respond kindly to being called thickos for spending their money as they choose.
And, in any case, their protest is overshadowed by the news that they made it on to the roof “via a spot where Westminster workers go for a cigarette”.
Does health and safety know? And can Gordon Brown be wrong? Is the roof at Westminster the new smoke-filled corridor where business used to be conducted and meaningful allegiances formed.
We should be told!
Posted: 28th, February 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Tabloid Or Fictoid:Gnomeo And Juliet
TABLOID or Fictoid. Is this a real story in today’s papers? Play along:
“Sir Elton John’s film-making civil partner, David Furnish, says he’s producing a film based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It’ll be called Gnomeo and Juliet, an animated work featuring the world’s greatest love story and garden gnomes.”
Tabloid or Fictoid? Answer after the jump…
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Posted: 27th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (2)
The Nubrella Is This Year’s Bowler Hat And Brolly Combo
FOLLOWING on from the Mail’s news that plastic bags are dangerous and should not be placed on turtle’s heads, the Express showcases the Nubrella.
The paper says the makers of the “plastic bubble…claim it will let you sip your coffee or chat on your mobile while walking down the street on a wet and windy day”. It may be just what the City gent is looking for, a plasticated bowler hat and brolly combo.
That said, on wet and windy days it is often best to remain indoors. But if you must go out, and must buy a coffee, and must drink it while walking, the Nubrella could be just the thing.
It is all the work of former American tennis pro Alan Kaufman, who tells us: “We all know the problem with umbrellas is that they invert. That’s why I came up with the idea, because I saud umbrellas are not great in the wind.”
The mention of Kaufman’s sporting history may not be important, and readers should look forward to Cliff Richard wearing a Nubrella when he serenades a captive and damp crowd at Wimbledon this summer.
But Anorak cannot help but think the Nubrella is tantamount to putting a plastic bag on your head, which is advisable for neither man nor turtle. Unless doing so is part of a prolonged cry for help, in which case the advice is to go for it…
Posted: 27th, February 2008 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comments (6)
Lily Allen Quote Of The Day: Asleep On The Job
LILY Allen Quote of the day, as told by the Mirror’s Jenna Sloan.
Over two pages, Ms Sloan says no-one is watching Lily Allen’s BBC3 chat show.
Heeeeeerrre’s Lily.
“Seventeen per cent of us have fallen asleep during sex,” says Lily, “I certainly have.”
More Lily Allen thoughts soon…
Posted: 27th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment (1)
A Free Daily Express For Every Immigrant
ANOTHER day and with it another chance for the Daily Express to deter immigrants and Rogarians from settling in the UK.
“SHOPPING BILL UP £18 A WEEK,” announces the front-page headline. “Food crisis is new blow for families.”
This on top of the soaring gas and electricity prices. “To make matters worse, council tax bills will rise by an average 4.5 percent in April,” says the paper.
The clear advice is to remain as you are, Mr Foreigner. The Express says the price of grain from Kazakhstan is “soaring” to a “record high”. Peoples of the East have never had it so good.
But still they come.
“Yet another coachload of migrants setting out from Poland to look for jobs in Britain,” says the Express, words hung below a a shot of a coachload of young men and women holding gigantic sausages with menace. “The scale of the influx of foreigners into Britian is breathtaking,” says the paper.
But we are not a thriving, vibrant and confident nation that values hard workers and their desire. We are a country of soaring food prices, where a loaf of bread costs a week’s wages.
Turn back, says the Express. Haven’t you hear, the UK is over.
From today, a free copy of the Daily Express will appear on every coach seat leaving Poland, Romania and Bulgaria!
Posted: 27th, February 2008 | In: Money, Tabloids | Comments (4)
The Prince Of Wales Chews The Fat On Foie Gras
CONTINUING the ocassional series “The Royals – They’re Just Like You And Me”.
A Clarence House spokesman tells us, via the Express: “The Prince of Wales has a policy that the chefs do not pcrchase foie gras.”
We urge all readers to follow his lead…
Posted: 27th, February 2008 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comments (6)
3am Girls Enjoy Sienna Miller And Rhys Ifans In-Flight Entertainment
PROFESSIONAL girlfriend Sienna Miller is pictured on the cover of the Mirror in the company of a grinning Rhys Ifans.
“IN BED AT 37,000FT,” comes the headline. “Sienna and Rhys’s amazing jet antics.”
Inside and: “Sienna revels in a flight of passion. WE SEE HER FROLIC IN 33in BED ON PLANE WITH RHYS.”
And so we find ourselves aboard a flight from Los Angeles to London. The paper’s 3am Girls, Clemmie Moodie and Danielle Lawler, are sat a few seats away from Miller and Ifans. The voyeurs look on as Ifans removes his top and jumps “giggling” into Miller’s bed.
A few seats to one side is James McAvoy. He is reading a sudoku book, possibly researching a new film on the life and times of Chris Sudoku, the Most Boring Man In London (1822-1898). Or else he is trying to fall asleep.
The 3am Girls are all eyes and ears. They hear “slurping and squelching”. They see “tongues a go-go”. There is “hair-stroking”, “nibbling” and whispers. Dinner is a “tomato and mozzarella soup, beef stroganoff and roast chicken”.
Such is the of things among the new “Upper Class”…
Posted: 27th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (9)
