Reviews Of The Decade In Pictures: 2000 In Showbiz
IN 2000, this is what was hot on showbiz. Anorak’s reviews of the decade - Year 2000 in pictures - with Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Michael Cain, Jude Law, Sir Richard Branson, Billy Bob Thornton, Leonardo Di Caprio, Giselle Bundchen, Dame Shirley Bassey, Victoria Beckham, Model Kelly Brook, Madonna, Sir Bob Geldof, Paula Yates, Big Brother, Robert Downey Jnr, Guy Ritchie and Halle Berry…
Posted: 19th, November 2009 | In: Flashback Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Prudent Kate And Gerry McCann Still Have Two Kids Left
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: In a piece entitled “Madeleine McCann’s Siblings, Sky News’ Colin Brazier delivers an article which blends fact with fiction to produce something opportunistic, hideous that should offer Kate And Gerry McCann no little comfort:
Just over two years ago the release of the film Gone Baby Gone was allegedly postponed because of parallels with the case of Madeleine McCann.
Not alleged. This is what we learnt from Affleck on October 12, 2007:
“Disney UK made the decision to postpone the movie but I absolutely support it and I’m pleased by what I think is erring on the side of good taste. There’s no rush. It’s obviously a sensitive time and if there are any similarities we can wait to distribute the movie in the UK. I was only vaguely aware of the Madeleine case because it wasn’t a big thing here in the United States. Maybe I’m out of it because I don’t read many newspapers, but I didn’t really know much about it until somebody said, ‘Hey, there may be some similarities’.”
Anyone traumatised by Afflecks’s performance in car accident movie Changing Lanes, who is a devout Christian and found Dogma offensive or who fears impending Armageddon can applaud Ben’s actions.
The Times told us:
However, in the wake of the Madeleine McCann case, this adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s 1998 novel was withdrawn from this year’s Times/bfi London Film Festival because of its sensitive subject matter, and may never be released in the UK”
The film was released. Child abuse was delivered as a form of entertainment. And Affleck told us:
Affleck: What has happened to Madeleine McCann is terrible and it was the right decision to wait until now before bringing out the film, as we didn’t want to upset the family.
Affleck: “I worked with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children [which is involved in the search for Madeleine McCann] and I found out about the extent of child abuse internationally. It is horrifying.
Affleck: “Sometimes, abuse is as simple as leaving your kids in front of the TV all day and thinking that it is sufficient parenting.”
Back to Brazier and “Madeleine McCann’s siblings”:
It was felt the movie, which tells the fictional story of the abduction of a four-year-old girl, was too close to real life. Although written before Madeleine McCann’s abduction [sic], Gone Baby Gone contained some inadvertent but nonetheless [sic] extraordinarily coincidental material. The plot focuses on a 4-year-old played by an actress - actually called Madeleine - who shows an uncanny resemblance to the real Madeleine McCann. I watched the film six months ago and was quite staggered by how accidentally art had imitated life.
You mean to say that stories can be based on real life events, and fears? Brazier then introduces readers to more works of fiction:
Child abduction has been dealt with by artists before. In his 1987 novel The Child In Time, Ian McEwan writes about the disappearance of a three year old. The scene where the father loses sight of his daughter in a supermarket, while momentarily distracted, never to see her again, is brilliantly wrought.
How does it end, Colin?
Both stories have different endings. In the film the child is found alive and well. In the book the child is never found and the mystery is never solved. But the book does offer one answer.
And in Maddie’s story? What happens?
Mercifully, such abductions are as rare now as they were fifty years ago (it’s only our paranoia which has increased). But the phenomenon of couples destroyed by the loss of an only-child may be on the rise.
Anyone following his argument. Child abduction in books is rare. But many one-child couples break up. Are these parents in the real world or in books? Is there a difference? Is it all just a form of entertainment?
Think of some recent high-profile cases.
Thinking:
Tragic parents like Neil and Kazumi Puttick. In June, they leapt to their deaths from Beachy Head, clutching the body of their five-year-old son Sam. He had died of meningitis the week before and his parents were crippled with grief. Or parents like 40-year-old Joanna Coombs. Last year, her body was found on the same tracks where her daughter - and only child - had died two months before.
These are real parents whose tragedies are placed in the context of works of fiction. And what do they have to do with Madeleine McCann or her siblings, the twin or which there are, er, two?
It stands to reason that when parents put all their eggs in one all-too-fragile basket, the loss of that child may prove insupportable. Previous generations understood that a larger family provided a shield against the loss of a singleton. In the words of Churchill’s famous, if callous, dictum: “One for mother, one for father, one for increase and one for accidents“.
Anyone else feeling sick? Lucky the McCanns had a couple of children left over, then. Good news. How prudent of them to bring three children into the world. It might well be what has kept them going, and alive. You want more from Brazier? Here goes:
When tragedy strikes a multi-child family, parents are more likely to carry on for those who remain, no matter how grief-stricken they are.
How much more likely? More likely than the McCanns or less likely than the cast of Schindler’s List?
Some social scientists already fret about how the rise of the only child is changing society. One talks about the ‘Saving Private Ryan’ effect. The fictional Private Ryan was the only one of four brothers to survive the battle for Normandy in 1944. Would a modern parent be so sanguine about an only-child fighting for his or her country?
Answers in the form of a work of fiction.
That’s a choice few will have to make. But many will make much more quotidian decisions about danger. It is one reason why so many modern children are not permitted to take risks of almost any description.
Fact and fiction. Can you spot the difference?
Posted: 11th, November 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (7) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
X Factor: Jedward Line Up Hollywood Movie Deal
ON the betting markets Jedward are fancied only less than amnesiac yodeller Lloyd Daniels. But Hollywood waits.
If Jedward go, what will Closer magazine do for news? This week, readers get a welter of Jedward shockers. There’s TV funnyman Alan Carr saying:
“The way I feel about John and Edward is the way I feel about anthrax. They’re awful.”
On the letter’s pages, a reader cheers Jedward for “giving it a go”.
But the pick of the news is the story featuring Sam and Amanda Marchant - who they? – dressing up as Jedward and saying that they will double-date the twins.
Posted: 11th, November 2009 | In: Closer Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
X Factor: Bon Jovi Sign Jamie Archer, Alexandra Burke Urinates And Jedward Fix
IT’S Saturday and that means it’s X Factor Day in the tabloids. Well, it’s always X Factor Day in the tabloids but today they get to spice our quotidian offerings with the thought that it might be the last time we see John And Edward Grimes perform like fame’s singing testicles wired up to the car battery.
That news:
Sun (front page): “It’s the X Factor Bust Up”
It’s “JAMIE AGGRO”
Jamie is “Livid On A Prayer”
X FACTOR star Jamie Archer is threatening to QUIT after his relationship with mentor Simon Cowell hit a new low. The singer, who calls himself Jamie Afro, fears he is being stitched up by judges on the ITV talent show. It comes after he was BANNED from going on tour with rockers Bon Jovi - whose hits include Living On A Prayer.
Posted: 7th, November 2009 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
US Forced Fort Hood Murderer Nidal Hasan To Join The Army
A READER writes on Nidal Hasan, who murdered 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base, Texas.
MY brother Joe, out in Oregon, and called me this morning to talk about the shooting. A quick background on Joe, career military officer in the Army, served in Vietnam, and retired after 25 years in.
He said ‘to use your favouite expression this was a royal fuck up by the Military and Military Intelligence!’
1) Hasan joined the military to get his education paid for and thus owed them years of service. He had made it very plain in writing many times to the military he was a conscientious objector and speaking out very much against the war and and had fear of going over. He even offered to pay back the military what his education cost them.
They refused to release him, Paul, even knowing his claim of being a CO and very much against the War.
2) He had several bad reviews - what did they do? Promote him!
3) He was being harrassedby other military personnel re being a Muslim and reported that - they did nothing.
Posted: 7th, November 2009 | In: Media Comments (7) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Cross-Dressing John Kenley Is A Life Ignored
RIP John Kenley. Anorak’s Man In LA remembers the cross-dressing, hermaphroditic theatre star being ignored by the big media:
ADD the Los Angeles Times to the mainstream media outlets that leave the most colorful part of a great person’s life out of the story. The LA Times is a couple of days behind the New York Times in reporting the death at 103 of John Kenley, the Ohio summer stock theatre impresario known for casting television and movie stars including Burt Reynolds, Mae West, William Shatner and Joe Namath in popular plays and musicals.
We were doing a bit of quick research Sunday morning to see if he’d brought The Hudson Brothers to Ohio, when we discovered that the famously-closeted Merv Griffin had outed the beloved Mr. Kenley as an alleged “registered” hermaphrodite, and that the producer lived half the year in Florida as “Joan”.
Posted: 4th, November 2009 | In: Celebrities Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Jedward Do The X Factor: The Most Amazing Things About John & Edward Mania
X FACTOR Watch - Jedward special: Simon Cowell fixed it for Jedward, Halloween and bust, swine flu, Robbie Williams supports, Noel Gallagher cheers, JLS are on message, Danyl Johnson votes John & Edward, the look-alikes and Jedward sing YMCA…
ON the front pages of the Mirror, Sun and Star, each time dressed as vampires ready to administer a love bite to anyone close enough, and so create another Jedward clone, the brothers Grimes introduce Halloween.
The Mirror: “X Factor twins John and Edward Grimes may be too sick to perform”
The sick so-and-sos. What they gone and done now?
Simon Cowell’s prayers could be answered – terrible twins John and Edward have been SILENCED by raging sore throats.
If they can’t sing, John & Edward get a pass through to the next round. Happily, Queen’s We Will Rock You is along with YMCA the world’s big semaphore hit and John & Edward can still perform with camping and foot stamping while stood on a large rock.
But the Brothers Grimes are now bona fide celebrities and a sore throat is not enough. As stars they demands more:
THE X Factor twins have been struck down with “flu-like” symptoms - just 24 hours after The Sun revealed the pair were at risk from swine flu.
Belfast Telegraph: “X Factor: Would you vote for the Grimes brothers?”
At his BBC Electric Proms performance last week Robbie stunned the crowd when he told them: “Go for the twins. John and Edward all the way.”
Well, if you can’t stun the crowd with your singing your new song that sounds like a composite blend of your own song with lyrics penned by an angst-riddled teenager, knock them bandy with something else.
And it’s not only Robbie Williams who likes Jedward:
Last year’s X Factor runners-up JLS have also given them the thumbs up, and even Noel Gallagher is reported to be behind them.
You imagine X Factor runners-up JLS like them because it reflects well on them to support a special needs act, and Noel Gallagher likes them because it’s pretty much what Simon Cowell’s pop factory deserves.
X Factor favourite Danyl Johnson, who is being mentored by their nemesis Simon Cowell, has revealed that he’s been voting to keep the twins in.
Danyl Johnson is so desperate to be likes he votes for John & Edward and then let’s this fact be know to the world at large. Others need John & Edward to remind the rest of us that they exist:
And John and Edward have also won the support of Big Brother reject Becky Shiner, who waited outside the X Factor house for hours to see them.
And to be seen.
The Guardian: “X Factor twins John and Edward pin victory hope on talent for publicity”
Simon Cowell described them as “vile little creatures who would step on their mother’s head to have a hit” and vowed to leave the country and sulk for six months if they won. Cheryl Cole said they could neither sing nor dance (”fact”) and more than 181,000 people joined a Facebook hate group in their name.
Hundreds of journalists quite about them.
“It’s been Jedward mania this week,” said Sam Delaney, the editor of Heat. “We’ve hit the tipping point. It’s up there with Bros mania, or Take That at their peak.” Delaney said the rise of JedwoodJohn and Edward mirrored the ascent of another upwardly mobile public figure. “There are parallels here with David Cameron,” he said. “People started off loathing him, then they started mocking him and then one day we woke up and thought: ‘Jesus Christ, he could actually win this.’”
Surely he thought, “Simon Cowell, he could actually win this.” Cowell is bigger. Right, Max:
Publicist Max Clifford believed people were voting to wind up Cowell. “The more Simon speaks out about them the way he does, the better it gets for them.”
The more media space they get the more people are familiar with them and the more likely they are to vote for them. Simon Cowell! John & Edward are Nick Griffin set to music!
But wait a moment. What’s this?
The Sun: “Simon loves Jedward”
SIMON Cowell secretly loves X Factor twins John and Edward Grimes and hatched a plot to turn them into megastars FOUR MONTHS ago, The Sun can reveal.
What’s this? The voting public is being duped? Louis and Simon are in this together!
Westlife’s Shane Filan said Simon and Louis showed footage of the boys to him and his bandmates in June, declaring: “They’re going to be massive.” And he said Simon knows the duo will have a big TV career even if they flop as pop stars.
Shane, 30, whose band is managed by Louis, the twins’ mentor, said: “We went with Louis to Simon’s house in LA and they took us to a room with a cinema and said, ‘We want to play you something.’ They played us John and Edward and Simon said, ‘They’re going to be massive.’ We were like, ‘Oh my god, they’ve gone crazy!’ It was when they did their first audition and they were asked where they’d be in ten years’ time and they were like, ‘We’re gonna be a bit older.’ And Simon said, ‘These are going to make it in the final 12.’
So it’s a fix. Cowell and Walsh are in an elite club of two that sets the agenda as to who wins their TV show. And you trust the Sun to bring you the facts:
The Sun told this week how the twins scored the highest vote on last weekend’s show, while Simon’s act Danyl finished in the bottom two.
Only they didn’t. Rachel did. John & Edward came nearer the bottom than the top. Is the Sun in on this conspiracy to promote Jedward?
Irish Times: “The public’s guilty pleasure”
You can hear the editor screaming: “Get me a few hundred words on Jedward fast. A writer gets to work:
WE ARE ALWAYS more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess than to be praised for the 15 which we do possess.” Clearly, Mark Twain wasn’t an X Factor devotee, but his words are cannily spot-on when it comes to Dublin twins John and Edward Grimes. Talent – in musical terms anyway – doesn’t ooze from their collective pores, and some critics question whether they have any skills at all, let alone 15 of them.
Spot on, then. One thing we can agree on, and the writer can agree with himself on is this:
Cringey? Yes. Camp? Certainly. But it was so damn watchable, even if you had to peek through your fingers.
To win the show, Jedward need to be as awful as possible. Anorak has produced their playlist to ensure success. And do look at their look-alike gallery – your suggestions please…
Posted: 31st, October 2009 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
X Factor: John & Edward Perform Live Duet With Miming Britney Spears
X FACTOR Watch: Anorak’s at-a-glance looks at X Factor in the news: Louis Walsh mocks Cheryl Cole’s singing, Simon Cowell vows to spend more time in the sun, and John & Edward do Britney Spears too well.
Daily Mirror (front page): “YOU’RE TWIN FREAKS – Cowell savage John & Ed”
Savages? He’d never risk his teeth.
“This X Factor is the hardest one to call,” he says, still reeling from Danyl deffo-not-a-bully-deffo-still-would Johnson being in the bottom two last weekend. “The twins are completely deluded and live in fantasy land but they are lovely. They thought Britney would watch their performance and wanted to invite Robbie to their party.”
John & Edward performed a live version of a Britney Spears song. The performance was every bit as good as the original, save for the boys failing to dry hump the stage, not miming and omitting the Max Wall tribute.
Posted: 30th, October 2009 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The Madeleine McCann GPS Locator For Your Potentially Missing Kids
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: Madeleine McCann’s name is being used in the context of a bit of kit that tags your kids.
Anna Maxted tests a new device that enables parents to track their child via satellite from a computer or mobile phone.
Anna Maxted is the Telegraph’s jobbing mum, which in the media makes her ideally placed to spread the panic about missing kidzzz. Because mums know best (in pictures).
The last time I mislaid a child – my four-year old, in the park, for 15 endless minutes – I wished unashamedly that he could be chipped, like the cat.
You mislaid a child? Surely you lose a child. You mislay your keys. Can you mislay a cat? Interestingly, one of Maxted’s kids – she has three boys - is called Oscar, which is a name ideally suited to a dog.
When Steve Salmon’s young daughter vanished during a family pub lunch (later found petting a pony in the adjacent field), he doubtless wished the same thing. Two years on, Salmon, chief executive of communications firm Lok8u, has launched the equally tongue-twisting NuM8, the world’s first GPS locator for children.
It’s not. A little research on the internet and Anorak finds this – and it is, like Maxted, beyond parody:
Child Locator as Featured in Duracell BrickHouse Child Locator Commercial; Distance Alerts help you keep a watchful eye on your wandering children, in a way that hasn’t been possible before. It’s Not You, All Children Wander; 2,185 Go Missing Every Day. Locate anything or anyone from 600 ft to an inch away. Get a warning from the custom distance alert or via included panic button tag.
It’s brought to you by Brickhouse Security. Brickhouse is a word usually joined to the word “shit”. You may also recall this warning from Anorak:
“New laws to regulate the use of high-tech child-tracking devices are being called for by MPs amid fears they could be used by paedophiles and stalkers. The technology is aimed at parents wanting to keep tabs on their children after a series of high-profile child murders and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann”
And there was this pair who rented out child tracking devices at the airport. While your stick your locator on the nose on your face, Maxted reviews her gadget:
To all appearances, it’s a chunky, child-friendly wristwatch, worn by the subject, that enables the fond parent to track their darling via satellite from a computer or mobile phone. But this is not a gadget for the morally squeamish. Behind the bright colours – choose from aqua blue, hot pink and lime green, or neutral black – the rubber strap contains a “web of reinforced steel”. If anyone – rebellious child or dastardly adult – attempts to remove the locator from its assigned wrist, Mummy or Daddy is alerted from their cappuccino via text…
Better if the in-built blowers began to shape the froth on the cappuccino to form the word “PAEDO” in chocolate.
According to the charity Missing Persons, formerly National Missing Persons Helpline, an estimated 140,000 children and young people run away or go missing every year in the United Kingdom. This, coupled with mothering three boys, has eroded my principles. I cannot wait to tag my kids.
That many, eh? How many are found alive and well? Maxted does not care to say.We do:
Tarling and Burrows’ 2004 study of Metropolitan Police missing person cases found that 99 per cent of cases were resolved within one year.
Any other facts?
A 2004 Home Office study (Newiss and Fairbrother, 2004: 1-6) found that, of the 798 police reports of child abduction and attempted child abduction in England and Wales that year:
• 56 per cent or all reports involved a stranger
• 47 per cent of all reports were ‘attempted child abductions by a stranger’
• 9 per cent of all reports were successful child abductions by a stranger
And…
…of the 798 police reports of child abduction and attempted child abduction in England and Wales that year, 23 per cent involved abduction by a parent.
Back to Maxted of the cappuccino:
Guilt forces me to opt for full disclosure. I tell the seven-year-old, “This is like a Ben 10 watch. You wear it, and I track you, like the police track baddies who try to escape from prison.”
He can but try…
I hunch over my phone in the park café, compulsively following the blue balloon on the screen’s Googlemap that proves that Oscar is safe beyond the trees, racing down the hill on his scooter without a helmet.
No helmet? WTF??!!!
It’s a luxury to sit for five minutes and know that one’s offspring has not been dragged out of the park by a predator.
Mums, eh. Always on the go.
I know he is fine, because my husband has marked a “safe zone” on the map – if Oscar breaches the park perimeter, I receive a warning text, and ‘live tracking’ will commence.
What if your husband’s taken him? What then?
Yet, as the locator doesn’t record heights, there’s always the chance that he might climb a tree – and, sipping espresso while staring at the screen balloon on my phone, if he fell out, I’d be none the wiser until the ambulance arrived.
Cappuccino. Espresso. We’re not medical experts, but we’d consider cutting down on the caffeine.
Suddenly, I feel NuM8’s reassurance is insufficient. I’m ready to step surveillance up a level. Might I suggest the next generation wristwatch comes with a hidden micro-camera, angled at my child’s face?
Then you can watch him being assaulted, smashing his head open or sobbing in real time?
This may be why, when I describe my new toy to Honor Rhodes, director of development at the Family and Parenting Institute, she is unimpressed. “Is this,” she says, “a symptom of panic-stricken but lazy parenting? I wonder what it is that we are trying to guard against, and I think it is that we don’t want our child to be Madeleine McCann. While that was so terrible, the worst thing that could possibly occur, it happens incredibly rarely. Your child is more likely to be struck by lightning.”
Was the media’s Our Maddie struck by lightning?
My resolve is tested when the three-year-old disappears into a school playground. He eventually turns up, happy and breathless, after a game of chase with the big children. I say sternly: “I didn’t know where you were, and I was frightened. Do not run off again!”
At which point he sobs and the big kids point and laugh heartily?
Meanwhile, Over in New Zealand, the tragic death of young child is the subject of the big debate: Aisling Symes was not abducted.
It is “Every parent’s secret dread“.
The tragic story of Aisling Symes captured so many hearts because it was a “lightning rod of dread” for all parents.
And then this:
The spectre of international cases, such as James Bulger, JonBenet Ramsey, and Madeleine McCann are buried deep in parental psyches, she says. However, when these cases are international, we can register but ignore them, she says. Suddenly, a child was missing in New Zealand and all those demons emerged.
And the global media reacts…
Madeleine McCann is missing - still missing. There are no suspects. there is no evidence of what happened to her. Her parents are innocent. Her name is being used to sell goods and services…
Posted: 20th, October 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (10) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Cheryl Cole’s X Factor Lap Dance Undoes Whitney Houston’s Dress
HURRAH for the X Factor’s Cheryl Cole, whose singing over a backing tape of her, er, singing was a sensation on the show that still presents itself as a singing contest.
“It’s the “X Factor Babe’s Triumph”, screams the Daily Star’s front page. “CHERYL STEALS THE SHOW”. Cheryl has the “THE SEX FACTOR” (Mail) and the “WOW Factor” (Mirror) as she performs in an outfit from Kandy Rain’s bottomless draw.
Also singing on the X Factor was Whitney Houston, dressed in an elegant long gown. The Sun says she suffered an “embarrassing wardrobe malfunction with her frock”:
The six-time Grammy winner, backed by a troupe of male dancers, pulled a face when she realised the [dress] strap was sticking out.
Someone should have told Houston that you don’t need a wardrobe malfunction to be British pop star, you just need to come on stage dressed as a lap dancer and get mum, dad and the kids to clap along.
Get this from the Mail:
She was dreading performing on the same night as music legend Whitney Houston, but at least Cheryl Cole managed to keep her clothes on.
Cheryl had less clothes to keep on. But, of course, the difference is that while Cheryl Cole is declared a national treasure (did you vote on that decision?), Whitney Houston is a woman with a past. The Sun explains:
Judges Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue gave her a standing ovation when she finished - but Sun readers phoned in to call the performance “appalling”… And when Dermot asked Whitney about the standard of this year’s X Factor contestants she paused for several seconds, before saying: “They are young. They have room to grow. Practice, practice, practice.”
She paused because a) she was thinking of something positive to say about a gaggle of end-of the-pier acts (the pier at Weston –Super-Mare); or b) “Whitney admitted to US talk show host Oprah Winfrey last month that she used to smoke marijuana and crack cocaine. She got clean of drugs after going to rehab”?
Cole got clean from assaulting a toilet attendant. And she never paused because she’s got a backing tape.
Posted: 19th, October 2009 | In: Celebrities Comments (9) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
IS Balloon Boy Falcon Heene a hoax? Here’s what Richard Heene said:
“Brad (Falcon’s brother) said he saw it, then he said he videotaped it and we watched it back and sure enough he got in,” said Richard. “But obviously he got out, so I had to re-track back in my mind, did he fall out? It was supposed to be tethered down. It wasn’t tethered properly and it took off.”
Now enjoy the video the big countdown launch.
And we love the Heenes - anyone who can get the mainstream media that excited over a balloon has to be admired:
Grounded Balloon Boy Falcon Heene’s Rap Video
How Falcon The Balloon Boy Advertised Pappa John’s Pizzas On The TV News
How Falcon The Balloon Boy Advertised Pappa John’s Pizzas On The TV News
Posted: 16th, October 2009 | In: Media Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Panic Face King Turns Mass Murder Into Entertainment
IN Japan, the local have fond a way to hasten the celebrity cull. While the UK and US boast Dancing On Ice, Comic Relief, live theatre, Big Brother, Dancing With The Stars, airport scanners, America’s Got Talent, Ashley Cole and the Tony Awards, the Japanese have “Panic Face King”.
The would-be TV star told he is to star in a documentary about telephone scammers. Just after the interview begins, a sniper attacks, shooting dead everyone else in the room and giving the nascent telly star a heart attack and morbid fear of going out in public.
Posted: 14th, October 2009 | In: Terrible TV Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Michael Jackson Opens Paul Anka Home For Resting Singers
MICHAEL Jackson’s new song “This Is It” is breathing life not only into Jackson, the Jackson Five, who sing backing vocals and papa Joe Jackson who can be heard playing the cash register, but also Paul Anka.
Anka is still very much alive, a singing conker who we learn co-wrote Jackson’s first post-reality hit yet remains un-credited on the record sleeve.
Anka says he has been promised 50 percent of the song’s profits:
“They did the right thing. I don’t think that anybody tried to do the wrong thing. It was an honest mistake.”
Posted: 13th, October 2009 | In: Celebrities Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Sophie Reade Pulls A Bus, In Pictures
BIG Brother Sophie Reade has put her topless modelling past behind her by wearing a bra as she poses on London’s Oxford Street, not so much stopping traffic in her undies but trying to stop a bus.
And do not doubt that Sophie is a growing talent:
And onlookers were treated to a glimpse of her 30FF boobs as she frolicked around in the bra, knickers and stockings and suspenders set - Sun
And Sophie, who boasts whopping 30GG boobs, is likely to see her assets get even bigger as she fronts Ann Summers’ new line for women with larger breasts – Star
Or as the Mail puts it:
Sophie Reade strips to her underwear in the street but hasn’t quite lost her Big Brother blubber
Sophie meanwhile is doing her own talking:
“You don’t have to be a celebrity to date me. I’m looking for someone who will make me laugh. My ideal date would be going for a Happy Meal and then having a chat over a pint. Oh, and I want someone who can drink as much as I can!”
It’s challenge – as these pictures how, Sophie is part camel…
Posted: 9th, October 2009 | In: Celebrities, Gallery Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann’s Parents To Make Private Trip To Praia Da Luz
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann - The Spanish news agency reports that Kate McCann and Gerry McCann could return to Praia da Luz before the end of the year.
The parents of the girl Madeleine McCann, Gerry and Kate, could return on a private visit to the Portuguese town of Praia da Luz, where their daughter disappeared before the end of the year.
Says Gerry McCann:
“Kate was like to return to Praia da Luz when things are less intense, but we would like it to be a private visit, probably before year-end.”
Posted: 6th, October 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (12) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Separated At Birth: Jade Goody And Kelly Clarkson
REALITY TV show winner Kelly Clarkson (American Idol), seen here modelling her new fashion inspiration is channelling the late reality tv show winner Jade Goody (Big Brother)…
Posted: 6th, October 2009 | In: Celebrities Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Jo Wood Markets Her Home In Hello!
JO Wood, of the BBC’s Stritcly Come Dancing, hopes her estranged husband Ronnie Wood will “come over for Sunday lunch”.
Hello! records the invitation on its front page, alongside a picture of Jo looking as if the fuse has just blown on her lights. Jo is so in the dark she that she could pass for Ekaterina Ivanova, Ron’s current flame, or pretty much anyone else.
Inside the magazine, and inside Jo’s gigantic home in Kingston Vale, which is big enough to suggest that she’s not only expecting Ronnie but so too his lover, her family, the rest of the Rolling Stones, their families, any of the 70,000 or so fans who saw the Stones last play at Wembley and her next door neighbours, plus pets.
“If the walls of Holmwood House could talk, what stories they could tell,” says Hello!.
Well, they can’t talk. But they can echo. If they could talk, the place may be more homely and be filled with noise. The house is vast and empty of life. In it, Jo cuts a rather lonely, small figure. Hello! calls it “idyllic”, and it is if you want to be alone, save for a few figures of reclining and seated Buddhas by the pool and a suit of armour. And Jo.
Hello! calls it a “cosy nest”, in much the same way Hitler’s nest was cosy, or a barn is cosy to a mouse. It’s so cosy that Jo’s daughter Leah, lives next door in a cottage with her husband Jack and her baby. Tom, a friend of Leah’s brother Tyrone is living in the gatehouse.
Jo is opening the doors of her home this November for a “re-run of the successful ‘pop-up’ organic restaurant, Mrs Paisley’s Lashings“.
Jo is using her home as an eatery. Do come over. There is plenty of room. There are tens of chairs and tables. Do come. Say you will…
And then we learn that Jo is selling the property. Why? “It’s too big for me.”
And it becomes clear that his is not an ‘at home with Jo’ but ‘Buy my home”, an estate agent’s viewing organised by Hello!, in which prospective purchasers get to see the immaculate pile and learn a little of its history.
And if you pop over, you might see Jo, and get to talk to her…
Posted: 6th, October 2009 | In: Gallery, Hello! Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Katie Price’s Chicken Nuggets, Sex And Dwight Yorke’s Ring
HIGH time to hear from former Katie Price squeezer Dwight Yorke, Harvey’s daddy.
In “DWIGHT YORKE EXCLUSIVE”, the NoTW hears Dwight “reveal sensational details on his relationship with Katie Price”.
Ready for the sensation? Go:
DWIGHT YORKE: Jordan is wild in bed, Katie Price is tender
Dwight has bought into that marketing plot in which Jordan, the pneumatic aide to masturbation is different to Kate Pie, the pneumatic aide to masturbation in an apron. That’s Katie Price flashing her bra in an interview with Piers Morgan. That’s Jordan flashing her bra in the papers. See the difference?
PULLING Katie Price was like winning the double for soccer star Dwight Yorke - he quickly discovered she had TWO bedroom personas.
Posted: 27th, September 2009 | In: Celebrities, Gallery, Key Posts Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Jack Tweed’s Suicide Watch With Jade Goody
JACK Tweed says he wants to kill himself. In “JACK: I WANT TO KILL MYSELF”, the News of The World places Mr Jade Goody on suicide watch – “nor death shall us part”.
Beneath a picture of Tweed, readers are told:
QUIET NIGHT IN: Prison beans and orange squash is far from Jack Tweed’s usual Champagne style
One would venture that Tweed is sipping on “prison orange squash”. But we should not interrupt the facts as Jack’s mum, Mary Tweed, tells her story to the tabloids, and so – finally! – welcomes a bona fide outlet of Jade Goody Industries.
THE distraught mum of rape charge widower Jack Tweed told yesterday of her torment at seeing her “baby” in prison and hearing him threaten to take his own life.
Posted: 27th, September 2009 | In: Celebrities, Gallery, Key Posts Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Celebrity Swine Flu, With Marilyn Manson
ASHEN-faced popstar Marilyn Manson has celebrity swine flu. As he says on his blog:
“So I have officially been diagnosed, by a real doctor, with THE SWINE FLU.”
“I know everyone will suggest that f**king a pig is how this disease was obtained. However, the doctor said, my past choices in women have, in ‘no way’ contributed to… me acquiring this mysterious sickness. Unfortunately, I am going to survive. M.”
Posted: 24th, September 2009 | In: Celebrities Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0




