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.
Fears Over Sienna Miller, The New Princess Diana
TO a courtroom in West London. Professional girlfriend Sienna Miller is addressing the gathered.
The Sun hears Miller recall the moment when Otis Ferry, son to Bryan Ferry, snatched the keys from two photographers’ cars “to stop them chasing his brother Isaac – who she was then dating – last year”.
Why did he do this? Says the Sun: “Ferry told cops he feared they would die like Princess Diana.”
Young Otis is not sent down, nor up, as his name demands, but cleared of criminal damage.
Sienna Miller survives to be blonde another day…
Posted: 12th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment (1)
The Half Pint Brawlers Fight With Cheese Graters
THIS in the Sun: “A bunch of Midget wrestlers are aiming to make it big in Britain.”
Sure enough a pun. But is “bunch” the correct collective noun for midgets? What about a culture of midgets, an Oompa Loompa of midgets or a limbo of midgets?
The Sun does not pause but goes on to describe the show as performed by the Half Pint Brawlers.
These “tiny tough guys” are feisty. They “battle each other in the ring with broken bottles, staple guns and cheese graters”.
Says a spokesman for the Rappaport of Midgets: “These midgets bleed what little blood they have for your enjoyment.”
Their leader is called “Puppet The Psycho Dwarf”. Or Psycho, for short.
Says he: “I can’t wait to get to the UK. Audiences will love us.”
The show if produced by Dopey Entertainment Inc…
Posted: 12th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Mucca V Macca: Home Movies, Hunting Heather And Smiles
BEFORE marrying Heather Mills, Paul McCartney was a popular singer, and a singer of popular songs.
“Is everybody having a good time?” asked McCartney. “I can’t hear you at the back!” was his catchphrase. They went wild for it.
Then Paul recorded the Frog Chorus and married Heather Mills. His separation from her is now front-page news:
DAILY EXPRESS: “SIR PAUL V HEATHER – BATTLE BEGINS OVER HIS £825M FORTUNE”
Mills (“pink blouse, black skirt and high-heeled leather boots”) is at the High Court with her sister Fiona and a make-up artiste.
McCartney (“pink stripe suit, white shirt, black and white knitted scarf and black shoes”) is there, substituting his weeping guitar in favour of Nicholas Mostyn QC (ginger wig, butcher’s coat and killer heels).
DAILY MIRROR: “GET BACK – Macca’s ‘no concessions’ as divorce fights begins”
A blonde lawyer called Vanessa tells us the judge, Sir Hugh Bennett, is “sensible”
DAILY MAIL: “Look whose smiling after Day One in court.”
We looks but the pictures of Mucca (Heather Mills) and Macca reveal the former snarling as if restraining a bout of wind and the latter looking tight-lipped and aged.
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Posted: 12th, February 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (7)
Muslims Benefit In The UK: Daily Express Celebrates
THE Express shines a light on the life of Mohammed Salim, who has retired from his job as a teacher to “make more on benefits”.
While working, Mr Salim earned £27,000-a-year. Not working, Mr Salim is said to pull in £29,096 a year “in handouts doing nothing more than biting the hand that feeds him and planning to father a 12th child for taxpayers to support”.
A voice from the Taxpayers’ Alliance reacts to the Express’ speed dial and calls it “deplorable” and “wrong”.
But it looks like Mr Salim is doing the best by his family. And he’s now at home to help his wife, too. Mr Salim was born in Pakistan and runs an “Islamic political party” called Islam Zinda Baad Platform. He says: “This is what is great about Britain. In Pakistan, the government does not look after you.”
More good news, then. The UK is a great place to live. Equality rules. What’s good for white, Christian working-class familes is good for Muslim familes. Although teachers are undervalued.
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Posted: 11th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (11)
Princes On Wheels: Harry and Wills Do Africa
MONEY is no object for Prince Harry and Prince William.
Young Baseball Cap and Wills can do as they please, go where they like and empty the hotel mini bar – nuts, Pringles, the lot! – with not a care.
As is the way of the very rich, they enjoy experiencing poverty, spending their spare time digging wells in South America, hugging orphans in Lesotho and binge drinking.
Now the Mail reports that Harry and Wills are planning a trip to Africa. They will make the 1,000 miles journey through the dark continent on motorbikes.
The middle classes take coaches and trains, the rich take private jets, and the super rich go it the hard way.
Says the Mail: “They have the added advantage of local knowledge from Prince Harry’s on-off girlfriend Chelsy.”
Who knew Chelsy was a bush tracker? Apologies all round for believing Chelsy found watering holes and a places to lay her head within the pages of Abercrombie and Kent’s Africa brochure.
So now there’s nothing to stop Harry Baseball Cap and Wills from embarking on their adventure. And as soon as the sponsorship forms have gone out, and the locals formed into orderly crowds lining the roads and waving, the sooner the lads can be on their merry way…
Posted: 11th, February 2008 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comments (4)
The Baftas Make A Meal Of It
THE British film industry’s AGM does not take place in a shed or around a table in a Little Chef.
It takes place in at the Royal Opera House, and is televised on BBC1, so allowing the masses to see inside the building.
The do is run by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, billed as The Academy, a title so steeped in pomposity that the great and good are either forced to take it seriously as they wonder if an overweight actress is going to win a statuette of a metal face on a stick, or take it all as some grand joke.
The value of this event is put in context by the newspapers’ coverage which focuses almost exclusively on thin actresses in slinky dresses.
The Sun has Keira Knightley (grey Versace), Sienna Miller (backless black dress), Tilda Swinton (selection box chic) and Kate Hudson (Marbella gold).
More dresses in the Mail, including a shot of Jeffrey Archer’s former mistress Sally Farmiloe (blue puffball) and Myleene Klass (shower), both proving that there is an end to British talent, although it’s too late to reserve that table at the Happy Eater…
Posted: 11th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
Taliban Speak With Birmingham Accents
“SPY planes hear Taliban talk in Midlands accent.” It’s “TALIBRUM”.
Can it be that the listening devices attached to RAF spy-in-the-sky surveillance machines mutate incoming chatter into a flat Birmingham burr?
Does the voiceover artist required to translate goings on in Kabul hail from Washwood Heath? Or is Brummie the spy’s accent of choice, the result of intensive studies proving it the one best suited to international skulduggery, the downward intonation at the end of most sentences acting as a silencer?
“Oy kwoyt loik it steered,” says Birming’am’s James Bond ordering his martini bianco.
The Republic
It turns out that Brummie is not all and the RAF has picked up the sounds of a Yorkshire accent.
This dialect is, we suggest, best served for more forceful exchanges, when a Taliban is making his point vigorously in the manner of a bearded and less aggressive Harvey Smith.
A source, however, tells the Sun that the Taliban are “reverting to English when they couldn’t remember the Afghan Persian or Pashto”. This, says the RAF’s man in the air, is evidence that the fighters are natives of West Bromwich and Bradford, a sign that British citizens are fighting for the enemy.
That is entirely possible. But no proof is given.
And Anorak wonders if what the RAF is listening to is less a plot than it is evidence of the enemy’s limited broadcast entertainment, chiefly episodes of Crossroads and international showjumping from Hickstead..?
A Man Is Arrested Every Four Minutes In The UK
IS this a joke? The front page of the Express announces:
“EVERY FOUR MINUTES A MIGRANT IS ARRESTED IN BRITAIN.”
Then: “Figures show that a foreigner is being arrested every four minutes on the streets of Britain.”
Is Frank Carson working at the Express?
The Express sets them up, you hammer them in…
Posted: 11th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
Myleene Klass’s Baby Shower
“MYLEENE: We made baby in jungle shower.”
Myleene is Myleene Klass, and the Sun’’s Caroline Iggulden has “adapted” extracts from Myleene’s books My Bump & Me.
On first seeing the Sun’s feature, the Anorak wonders at what point the paper became a parody of itself, and how brave it was to do so?
“Getting pregnant was an accident. A gorgeously happy accident,” begins Caroline, channelling Myleene.
“When I decided to go into the Australian rainforest for I’m A Celebrity, the idea of having a baby was the last thing on my mind.”
The likes of Chris Biggins, Janet Street-Porter, Wayne Sleep and other former stars of the reality TV show may well gasp. For this shower having a baby in a jungle clearing was what the I’m A Celebrity jungle promised most.
But with whom would Myleene conceive? Matt Willis and Jason Donovan both had significant others, leaving Myleen faced with breeding with David Gest, Jan Leeming or Lauren Booth.
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Posted: 11th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Je M’Appalled, Mr Rude
MEET Mr Rude. Bonjour, Mr Rude.
Mr Rude is French. Mr Rude is, as the Sun reports, “impolite, ill-mannered and smelly”.
Mr Rude invites people to pull his finger which acts as a trigger for his breaking wind. Mr Rude has a French accent. Mr Rude has large nose.
A spokesman for the French ambassador says Mr Rude is “unlikely to improve Anglo-French relations”.
Happily, Mr Rude is being broadcast on Channel Five, meaning only a few of us will watch it.
Says a spokesman for the UK’s thirty-fifth channel: “The fact Mr Rude has a French accent is meant to be light-hearted and tongue-in cheek and no offence to the French.”
Had offence been intended, Mr Rude would have been set in occupied France in the 1940s…
NOTE: The Mirror is giving its readers a free copy of Mr Nosey, the East German
Posted: 11th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
Kate Moss And The St John’s Wood Drugs War
IN “DEALERS’ HATE FOR KATE”, the Star journeys to St John’s Wood, the Primrose Hill hinterlands inhabited by ambassadors, textile millionaires and a strange tribe of Filipino women called Monica.
The paper says drug dealers “reckon their buyers in London’s St John’s Wood have been scared off since Kate, 34, bought a £10million mansion there. She attracts so much media attention the punters worry they’ll be caught in the spotlight”.
Says a source: “Although it’s only about half a mile from where she was living before, it’s a world away in terms of the people.“At her last place, they were all millionaires. Here it is very mixed.” To wit, the Filipinos…
Posted: 10th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
Flogging A Dead Horse: Del Boy Is Dead
HEADLINE of the day, supplied by the Star On Sunday’s front page:
“DEL BOY IS DEAD”
Drugs? Drink? Fame? What killed the star of Only Fools And Horses? Boredom?
Posted: 10th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Animal Sex On Lily Allen’s Chatshow: Call The Archbishop Of Canterbury
“AUDIENCE walks out on ‘sick Lily Allen BBC chat show debut”.
The Mail on Sunday’s front page promises much.
To the BBC3 studios. Lily Allen is in conversation. It is the “all-important first programme”.
A “live” audience is in place. Cuba Gooding Jnr, comedian David Mitchell and the band Reverend and the Makers are lined up to plug their latest product, blah-blah, talk about their showbiz journey and their enthusiasm for plate tectonics.
Allowing the talent to talk is a job for someone in need of remedial therapy, although a BBC source says: “You have to have a brilliant wit and be a real quick thinker to handle a show like this.”
It’s An Ecumenical Matter
But Allen will aim to be controversial. But if you want real polemic, Channel 4 shold give a chat show to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
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Posted: 10th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Williams Of Canterbury Was Only Teasing: Bash The Bishop
PUTTING the cant in the Archbishop of Canterbury explains:
Dr Rowan Williams hit back on Friday night over criticism of his comments amid growing calls for his resignation.
He made no proposals for sharia, and “certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law”, a statement on his website said.
He was “exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience” and his core aim was “to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state”.
So that’s that. He was teasing. Was his revision too late for the papers? A look at some headlines from today’s press:
DAILY MAIL: “SHARIA UK: NOW THE BACKLASH”
THE TIMES: “Archbishop faces calls to quite over Sahria row”
THE SUN: “BASH THE BISHOP”
DAILY EXPRESS: “MUSLIM COURTS ARE HERE ALREADY”
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Williams faces calls to resign”
And Sky news brings us the mystical: “Silent Archbishop Responds Over Sharia Law Row”
Of course, these headlines are taken out of context and can be revised later…
Posted: 9th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Tabloid Bingo, With Heather Mills McCartney
LET’S play tabloid bingo with Heather Mills:
DAILY MAIL (front page): “EXCLUSIVE – HEATHER’S £55M DIVORCE DEAL”
DAILY MIRROR (front page): “I’LL SETTLE FOR £10M, MACCA”
THE TIMES: “Paul McCartney offers £55m deal if Heather Mills keeps her counsel”
Posted: 9th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comments (4)
Zadie Smith Writes Wrongs In Willesden
ZADIE Smith is writing in the Willesden Herald, one of Anorak’s local papers:
Dear Willesden Herald Readers,
This is a difficult thing to write. Just like everybody, we at The Willesden Herald are concerned about the state of contemporary literature…We created this prize to support unpublished writers, and, with our five grand, we put our money where our mouths are. We have tried to advertise widely across this great internet of ours and to make the conditions of entry as democratic and open as we could manage. There is no entry fee, there are no criteria of age, race, gender or nation. The stories are handed over to the judges stripped of the names of the writers as well as any personal detail concerning them (if only The Booker worked like that!) Our sole criterion is quality. We simply wanted to see some really great stories… But in the end – we have to be honest – we could not find the greatness we’d hoped for. It’s for this reason that we have decided not to give out the prize this year…
She concludes:
So, let’s try again, yes? All the requirements for entry you will find below…
Yours sincerely,
Zadie Smith
Smith could be trying out to win her own prize. Her note runs to 842 words. But Smith should hang about, because some of the replies to her published missive are worthy of reproduction:
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Posted: 8th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (6)
Mr January Catches A Bus In Cornwall: A How To Guide
IN How To Catch A Bus, we learnt how to catch a bus in an urban setting.
Now in Module 2 of the Anorak Academy degree course in Buses In The Media (Studies), we look at how to hail the bus in the countryside.
The two may appear linked, and in some ways they are. But there are key differences that need to be studied.
We open the Mail’s text book and see Mr Alan January stood at a bus stop in Cornwall. He is readying himself for the arrival of the advertised 6.55pm bus to Truro.
The bus approaches. Mr January assumes the position. He waves both hands over his head. He smiles, grins, even.
The bus driver fails to stop.
Mr January has not been passed by the driver on four occasions. It is only his knowledge gleaned from his career as a walking tour guide that has saved Mr January from sitting down on a cow pat and rotting to death.
Mr January has now reached what passes for civilisation in those parts, and written to Truronian buses. He tells us: “Now they have written to me to say there were sorry, but the bus didn’t stop because I wasn’t signalling to the bus in the correct way.”
It turns out that the correct way is to place your left hand an angle of 90-95 degrees perpendicular to your body. You should keep your mouth closed and maintain a conscientious yet unthreatening gaze.
Feet should be at a “10 to 2” position, or, if you are local, “10 to 5”…
Posted: 8th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (7)
That You, Jeremy Beadle?
A MAN in a black balaclava puts a gun to another man’s head. The second figure has his hands behind his head. The second man’s head is covered by a white pillow case.
Tony Sharp is manager of the HSBC bank, Penzance, Devon. He is in a car. He is being driven to Penzance railway station. He is ordered from the car.
Boots on gravel. Boots on tarmac. He hears a clicking sound.
The pillow case is removed. The sound of laughter.
And there before him is a man. He removes his balaclava.
It’s… No. It’s not Jeremy Beadle. Like you, we thought this was going to be the pay off. But we shall have to wait little longer for that.
It’s Les Allen. “The bank prank,” says the Mail. “Manager ‘kidnapped’ in 40th birthday revenge stunt.”
The wait for the Beadle Bounce continues…
Autograph Hunters Denied Thrill Of The Kill
TWO businessmen stand accused of selling merchandise bearing forged autographs.
It is alleged that such items as a signed picture of Ronaldo (the Portuguese version, as opposed to the two Brazilian greats of the same name), an England cap autographed by Steven Gerrard and a rugby jersey personalised by Jonny Wilkinson are fakes.
The accused deny any wrongdoing. The trial continues.
But it is all cheating on the part of the customer. The thrill of seeing a famous face requires proof, and so an autograph. There is also the excitement of meeting the mystery celebrity, the one you see signing autographs freely and invite to sign your piece of paper.
You then spend an age trying work out who he was.
But just buying the picture with the star’s name on it not enough unlike buying passnote books to the full works of literature. It is autograph hunting without the chase.
It’s cheating, fame by association and desperately sad.
Yours, Vanessa Feltz…
Posted: 8th, February 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Dead Lines With Children’s Entertainer Pete Doherty
STEP aside, Mr Merlin, Smartie Artie and Count Backwards, Pete Doherty is here to entertain.
As the Sun reports, Doherty is playing birthday parties for “just £100”.
News is that Doherty is on “hard times”. And a birthday girl’s dad who heard the news seized the moment, offering Pete £100 to play at her party.
Says the source: “Pete was flattered and happy to oblige. He turned up and played his big hits… Some party goers asked him when he was going to start making dogs out of balloons.”
Before that, though, it’s time for a game of Pass The Parcel (and then stash it somewhere the cops can’t find it), musical status and dead lines…
Posted: 8th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
Sticking Two Fingers Up To Rowan Williams’ Islamophilia
THE Archbishop of Canterbury, the bathetic Rowan Williams, makes known his views on Islam and Sharia law.
Williams’ Islamophilia, his obsession with Muslims, allows the Sun’s front-page headline “WHAT A BURKHA”.
This is accompanied by that picture of a veiled Muslim woman walking in a northern street sticking up two fingers to the camera.
If ever the was sign that beneath the religious panoply a common British identity exists we have yet to see it.
Of course, the Sun misses the point. It sees two fingers being put up to the UK. But the news should not get in the way of a decent pun.
Surely the joke should be on Williams and his Church of England, not Islam.
Or are they now beyond a joke?
Posted: 8th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids | Comments (15)
Celebrity Jail Bait, With Big Brother
COULD this be the start of a new Big Brother-style reality TV show?
The Mirror reports that one Cat Le-Huy has been arrested in Dubai, accused of possessing “other pills” and a “tiny trace of hashish”.
Cat, who works for Endemol, producers of the Big Brother show, faces at least four years in a “tough jai” if found guilty, says the Mirror.
A friend of Cat’s tells us: “He doesn’t smoke hashish but recently he lent his bag to friends and doesn’t know what it was used for.”
Cat’s lover, Midred von Hildegear, says: “He was strip searched and forced to do a urine test.”
Unpleasant stuff. But is there opportunity in adversity? All hail Celebrity Jail Bait. It can’t fail. Someone get for Jade Goody. And tell her to put some clothes on…
Posted: 7th, February 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Rogarian Crime On Rise In London
ON the subject of the Rogarians, the Express hears a “stark message” from Tory MP Anthony Steen.
He reveals that “the number of Romanian criminals has soared by a staggering 786 per cent in London alone, while Bulgarian offenders had rockets by about 250 per cent.”
What these figures do not show are the precise numbers. Anorak recalls how in pre-EU days the only Romanian in London was Ilie Năstase, and though on occasion brattish and belligerent, he was never breached any laws.
Of course, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed by poison dart filled with ricin and fired from an umbrella in London in 1978.
But whether or not he was killed by other Bulgarians, Rogarians or the Yellow Peril has never been established…
Holly Willoughby’s Breasts Are Cuffed
“DANCING On Ice bosses are thrashing out a £5million deal to keep their hands on sizzling Holly Willoughby’s boobs.”
The Star goes on to say that a £5million “golden handcuffs” deal is on the table.
Can you be handcuffed to your breasts?
And if so, should Ms Willoughby take to carrying her expensive breasts around in a gold attaché case, attached to her arm by said cuffs?
UPDATE: The Dancing On Ice celebrity cull goes on. The Mirror reports that a “sickness bug” has hit the agonists…
Posted: 7th, February 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Gemma Atkinson Dusts Herself Down
“GEMMA – she’s a real filthy girl,” says the Star’s front-page headline, just one day on from when the Wags were retired from public service.
With Wag no longer an official job, Gemma Atkinson, for it is she, is compelled to seek other means of gainful employment.
So here is Gemma in her knickers and bra, illustrating the news that she’s been asked to sit in a bath of mud (dry or wet?) for the occasion of a GMTV special.
If Gemma can talk about property prices and ‘strapless or strappy?’, she may well yet thrive…
Posted: 7th, February 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids | Comment
