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Anorak News | Nothing To Declare

Nothing To Declare

by | 6th, October 2004

‘COLEEN McLoughlin has nothing to declare but her ignorance.

‘What d’yer mean it’s the wrong kind of bag lady, Wayne?’

Our intention is not to be cruel or judgemental, merely to illustrate how the woman who would be Mrs Wayne Rooney didn’t try to deliberately smuggle £15,000 of imported gear in from the United States via Manchester airport, as the Mail says on its front page.

Nor, for that matter, did she try and bypass the duty on the £13,000 of goods the Sun calculates were in her hold-all.

Nor the £40,000 of goods the Star and Mirror say were in her bags. Nor the £10,000 of stuff the Express spots.

Coleen’s was a simple error based on a gap in her knowledge. She picked the wrong channel, a mistake which led to her being held in customs for three hours as her baggage was searched and her fine totted up at 17.5% per excess item.

As the Sun explains, trippers can only bring back £145 of goods without paying duty, roughly the price of 50 New York street-style hotdogs or a small handgun.

But Coleen broke the rules and paid the price, even if it is a fee that none of the papers can agree upon.

Perhaps they’ll have better luck with seeing what was in the offending bags.

The Sun clearly has no idea and just guesses at what Colleen “could have” had in her luggage.

None of the other papers manages to even have a peek inside the bags, although the Express does hear one of Coleen’s travelling pals say that they didn’t like Tiffany’s, preferring to spend, spend, spend in Bloomingdales.

This lack of insight make us wonder if this is an oversight by the papers or part of their plan to lessen the embarrassment for 18-year-old Coleen and so keep her on side for future interviews?

So we’ve taken the trouble to ask our own investigative journalist, Piers Inside, to jet off to New York and see what Coleen could have bought in Bloomingdales.

And we’ve just received his shopping list. It reads: 500 pairs of surgical support stockings, 15 twin-sets and pearls, 1,000 pairs of Drone brand rubber washing-up gloves, 2,000 housecoats, 750 packets of fake stick-on varicose veins and 150 cans of spray-on cellulite.

Well, if it makes Wayne happy…’



Posted: 6th, October 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink