Mull It Over - Kate Moss & Pete Split To The Highlands
PETE Doherty and Kate Moss have been arguing.
After so much drugs, drugs and, er drugs, the Star says Kate has told the pop f*ckwit she just wants to be friends.
An “insider” says the Pete is not best pleased with this. We hear he has been calling his ex-lover Lisa Moorish in search of comfort and support.
As ever in such matters of the heart in these post-Diana times, Pete sees Lisa as his “rock”.
And, as ever, in the matter of Moss and Doherty there is news confusion. Countering the Star’s story is the Sun’s tale. The paper’s “close friend” says Kate “cannot leave him”. And: “She feels let down by his constant broken promises but is torn because she absolutely adores him.”
What to do? What to do? Kate has an idea. She will take Pete away from the madness. Kate will buy Pete a Scottish hideaway.
The paper says that Kate has sent her people to scour Scotland for a place where she and Pete can get away from it all. The hope is that isolated from his “junkie mates”, Pete will be at his most creative.
Just how will Pete manage to score some heroin while surrounded by so much wilderness? Can you make a nose straw from a handful of Stone Bracken? Can Sheep’s Fescue grass be rolled into Bible paper and smoked?
But while Pete’s fans look forward to their hero expanding his creative horizons, the Sun dismisses it all as a “fruitless task”.
And then, after some deliberation, the Sun wonders if, all things considered, this might be the best way to cure Pete. Send him to the Highlands and leave him there.
It is a move not without precedent. As the Sun says, Paul and Linda McCartney often retreated to their farm on the Mull Of Kintyre.
Can the same trick work for Pete and Kate. And will Pete write a hit record and form a band with Kate?
Will the mists rolling in be a sign of the clouds lighting or the result of Pete sneezing into a bowl of noxious powders?…
Posted: 12th, February 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Hewn From Rocky - Sylvester Stallone’s Clay Jaw
“I FELT as if Rocky has come from our village, he had to fight to win his place in society.”
Rocky is Rocky Balboa, aging fighter returning to the ring for one more punch in the head. Oh, for a lean, mean grilling machine.
The person being quoted is Bojan Marceta a resident of Zitiste, a town about 30 miles north of Belgrade.
The other notable thing about Zitiste is that it is jinxed. Reports tell of floods and landslides.
What Zitiste needs is an icon, a talisman to turn away evil and make Zitiste mighty. What it needs is Rocky Balboa. And if it can’t have the real thing in an Everton scarf, it will have a stature instead.
As Marceta says: “This is the chance to give a better, more positive image to Zitiste. We have also contacted a sculptor who has designed the statue, asking him whether he would help us.”
Making a statue of Rocky cannot be too tricky. While most statues call for chiseled looks, Rocky’s effigy can be all sloppy jaw and droopy eyelids, and given his advancing years, sagging breasts.
At least the hair remains as pert and youthful as ever.
Posted: 12th, February 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Goody Gracious Me - Jade to India; Beckhams Melt & Oscars Bravo
CHELSY Davy wore a blue-and-white long-sleeved tunic dress on Monday.
It was “Blue Monday”, the unhappiest day of the year. But, as the Mail said, if anyone could cope with the anguish of it all it was the British.
With our stiff upper lips, ingenuity and prescription drugs in handy screw-top containers, we would not be easily undone. In any case, Blue Monday came wrapped in Chelsy blue.
Thanks to Chelsy and her generous flash of tanned thigh all would be right with the world. Not all blondes are Jade Goody. Not all blondes are 18-year-old Lucy Buchanan.
On Tuesday, the Mirror introduced us to “THE NEW JADE”. And, as the paper reported, this new Jade had thrown Channel 4 into a “NEW RACE STORM”.
Lucy Buchanan, for it was she, was elevated from reality TV also-ran to front-page horror when she opined on the broadcaster’s Shipwrecked show: “I just don’t appreciate people coming into our country and taking over our culture. We’ve got too many cultures. Britain’s not really Britain any more.”
That Lucy should have given full throat to her opinions while living it up for weeks on end in the Cook Islands was not without irony. The Shipwrecked show features no locals, only exported Britishers.
When overseas, we are The Others. And we are leaving in droves. Jade Goody was on her way to India. And Victoria Beckham was invading the USA.
The British were going to America. And it was a multi-sensory happening. Britain’s invasion of America opened with the pure fresh notes of bergamot and rose petals.
In the face of much evidence to the contrary, Her Poshness can hit top notes, middle notes and low notes of sensual orange blossom leading to “a seductive base of voluptuous vanilla, rich sandalwood and an elegant layer of musk”. Has the same been said of Eminem or Meatloaf?
In “Dough de Cologne”, the Mirror’s news was that Victoria and David were all set to sign a £7million deal which would see their his ‘n’ hers perfumes hit the American shelves.
Ah, the smell of it. And the sights. This invasion was a multi-sensory experience. Helen Mirren. Judi Dench. Kate Winslet.
Which of these three will bring home an Oscar, the epitome of acting excellence, the award that as much guarantees box office success as rewards it?
On Wednesday, the Mail looked at the three British stars vying for the Best Actress award at the annual schmooze fest.
Of course, there are Oscar films, those overtly worthy gems that tap into the prevailing mood, those films that cause the 6,000 members of the Academy who vote for the winners to sit up and take note.
For this reason, it is unlikely Meryl Streep will win a gong for her role in The Devil Wears Prada, a film imbibed with less poignancy and meaning than Paris Hilton’s bubble bath.
The only other female who can prevent British success is Penelope Cruz for her role in Volver, a beautifully intense melodrama.
Beating Cruz presents no small challenge. Not only is her film very good, but Cruz is a looker who would grace any stage.
There was no picture of Penelope. There was no picture of Streep. At Oscar time, the papers grow patriotic. The announcement of three British women up for the same going was, as the Star said, “A BRITS SPECIAL”.
The “great Britons” were cheered on by the Mirror. “I’m incredibly proud for myself and for the film,” said The Queen star Helen Mirren, who would surely go on to add that she was proud for her country and its peoples.
Everyone who was anyone was leaving this country. Even the Beckhams’ waxworks had been moved to Madame Tussaud’s in New York.
The exodus continues…
Posted: 27th, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
“INCREASED journey times on our railways don’t have to be a bad thing – it’s all a matter of perspective,” writes a Times reader.
“Five years ago my daily commute from Reading to London was costing me approximately 25 pence per minute. Now, despite the price of my season ticket having increased by around 20 per cent, it only costs 22 per cent per minute.”
The writer ends with a challenge: “Who says First Great Western doesn’t provide value for money?”
Life aboard the trains looks even more delightful when the Times focuses on the entertainment on offer.
Yesterday, passengers at Bath Spa station were handed 2,500 fake tickets. They were invited to hand these jumbo-sized tickets to regulation-sized inspectors. Issued by “Worst Late Western”, the tickets guaranteed the bearer to a berth in “cattle class” on the journey to “Hell and back”.
This is passenger power. This is the consumer in action. This is Britain, and the protestors took their novelty tickets and queued up to buy a smaller more expensive one at the ticket window.
Cometh the revolution, the British will be looking to the heavens for signs of rain and hoping it will all be over by tea time.
Sharon Williams, a office worker, sums up the sentiment when she tells the paper: “I want to make a statement but I’ve still got to get to work.”
The Telegraph says that not everyone bought a ticket. About 20 passengers refused. The paper says that First Great Western has decided against prosecuting these rebels – who faced fines of up to £1,000 – “to avoid unnecessary confrontation”.
It really is not so very bad. And in “Trains where you travel in the toilet”, the Telegraph tells of the services where passengers stand in the toilet.
One passenger tells the paper: “Two weeks ago, I had to travel from Bath to Bristol in the toilet, with two other people.”
Whether these two others were known to the passenger before he boarded or not, it is clear that trains offer a unique mingling service.
And with property prices rising by the day, our trains might be small but when priced per square foot, they offer accommodation at a reasonable rate.
Posted: 23rd, January 2007 | In: Uncategorized | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
YOU know you’ve made it when…your name is rhyming slag.
So here’s Alan Whicker (knickers) telling the Mail: “Why I hate today’s TV dimwits.”
No mention is made of Big Brother or Jade Goody (hoodie) specifically. Whicker concerns himself with the more generalised “curse of so-called reality television”.
Whicker, the preternaturally aged travel show presenter who always looked like a brigadier on leave as he toured the exotic colonies, says the end of his career coincided with the “twilight of TV’s glory days”.
That’s some coincidence. But Whicker is wrong. TV is now front-page news. Jade Goody is front-page news. TV sets the agenda. Foreign TV crews study Jade as Whicker once chatted to Papa Doc.
But what would life be like without telly, without Jade? Would we be free to do more travelling and experience more cultures first hand rather then eyeing them through the magic box?
For an insight into what a world free of TV would be like, the Mail travels to Zhengzhou Zoo in southern China. This is the “Circus of horrors.”
With no Big Brother, the Chinese make do with laughing at talented animals. Can Jade ride a motorbike over a hire wire with a girl balancing beneath on a chair? The brown bear can.
Can Jade ride a bicycle? Not, an exercise bike but a real bicycle like they ride in, well, China? The bears can.
Has anyone ever seen Jade on a horse? The bears can ride horses at the circus. What is more, they ride side saddle. Would Jade adopt so dignified a position or sit legs akimbo?
But rather than applaud these bears and marvel at their genius, the Mail wants us to pity them.
We hear from David Neale, UK director of the Animals Asia Foundation. He says the bears are beaten, declawed, threatened and forced to perform.
Says he: “Unfortunately it is happening across China. People do seem to enjoy the spectacle. There is a lack of awareness of the needs of animals across the whole country.”
It is a terrible thing. This is something Alan Whicker could have highlighted on one of his TV shows.
But there is hope if the Chinese can be turned on to the delights of watching an overweight bigot team up with a half-inflated painted balloon and a midget singer.
If the Chinese can be retrained, the bears can be put out to pasture.
And then eaten…
Posted: 23rd, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Big-ot Brother; Prince Harry’s Army; Scrambled Doherty; and Beckham’s Break Down
ROBBERS, burglars and Pete Doherty take note – if you want to avoid arrest best check the Royals’ social diary before going out.
Having already spotted Prince William’s paramour Kate Middleton moving about town in the centre of a cauldron of ten officers of the law, on Monday we caught up with Prince Harry’s lover Chelsy Davy.
“Overstretched police assign eight officers (plus two minders) so Harry and Chelsy can go nightclubbing till 4am in peace,” said the Mail’s headline.
Add to his this phalanx Prince Harry, a young man muddied up and trained to kill by his grandmother the Queen, and Chelsy looked quite safe.
As the Sun noted, Harry, a 2nd Lieutenant in the Blues and Royals, would soon learn if he is to be dispatched to Iraq. If he can handle a night out at London’s Cuckoo Club and run the gauntlet of paparazzi, the frontline should hold no fears.
Harry was not in his Army fatigues; seen dressed “unusually smartly” in pink shirt and jacket. Miss Davy wore a white patterned dress and black stockings. Their entourage wore navy blue jackets, black leather gloves and clip-on ties.
Burglars in smarter parts of central London wore smiles.
Who would take on Harry’s thin-lipped police, with their leather-gloved hands and narrowed eyes? What fool? They look intimidating enough. But what if these guards were armed with guns and gas? What if they were the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité?
It might have happened. Records in the National Archive claimed that 50 years ago French President Guy Mollet requested that France be allowed to join the Commonwealth. Our Queen could have been their Queen. Our Prince Harry, their prince. Their police, our police.
“Monsieur Mollet raised with the Prime Minister the possibility of a union between the UK and France,” said the document, as reported by the Sun. The paper then went on mazy dribble though what might have been.
It saw Thierry Henry, football’s D’Artagnan, clad in a nylon England football shirt. It was a vision shared by the Mirror.
Why Henry should be in an England short and not the colours of Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland did not concern the Mirror as the country’s finest footballer raised his hand to salute a goal and send the crowds watching on a jumbo monitor town in Auxerre into paroxysm of excitement. “Hoorah!” they cried.
And while the French smashed up the town centre and got wasted on industrial strength lager and dayglo alco-vins, the Mirror’s Brain Reade snuggled up to his wife Angelina, “resulting in a mouthful of armpit hair”.
Any union between France and the UK would need to be a two-way street. For Thierry Henry refulgently striking the ball in a German’s onion bag, one anachronistic tabloid writer would have to marry a woman with hairy armpits.
And David Beckham… Always David Beckham. But David is on his way. Beckham’s trasnferred from the bench to the stands at Real Madrid. And wife Victoria was in Los Angeles, hunting for a house for the family to live in.
And Posh was at the Golden Globe Awards. Golden Balls. Golden Globes. The Beckhams’ life is a gilded trophy in the Californian sunshine.
But Posh eschewed the ceremony for the after-show do. Posh has not escaped the British paparazzi to be hounded by foreign snappers. To avoid standing out, Posh accessorised her look with some genuine A-list company. Who would look at Vicky with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes by her side?
But the car carrying Cruise, Holmes and their émigré friend broke down. So Posh got a lift with Jennifer Lopez. If anyone could shield Vicky from prying eyes it was J-Lo, and her backside.
Posh was hiding out in Los Angeles. Helen Mirren was in Los Angeles. Naomi Campbell was in a New York courtroom pleading guilty to an assault charge. The best of British talent was all overseas.
Back here we scratched around for entertainment. And on Thursday we got some.
“This may be the biggest accident you have ever seen,” promised the Mirror. This was the “TV CRASH” you would never forget.
In terms of career-ending moments caught on camera this surpassed the corporate video of Gerald Ratner telling the world the merchandise on sale at his eponymous stores was “crap”.
This exceeded Jade Goody telling Indian babe Shilpa Shetty to “go back to the slums”.
And that video of Saddam Hussein’s final moments… Well, let’s just say it’s a close second.
So massive was this car crash that the Sun featured it on its front page. Above the news of a race war triggered by the aforesaid Goody, readers trembled at: “My hell at 280mph.”
These were the first pictures of Richard ‘Hamster’ Hammond’s car crash. This was what counted for entertainment on British telly – a man nearly dying in a car. And Big Brother.
Goody and her repulsive, bullying little gang of nth-rate singer and painted-face Wag were abusing Shilpa Shetty, all round Asian babe and talent, the embodiment of class, grace and elegance. It was a non-contest.
Three against one was nothing to Shilpa – four if Jade’s drippy lover Jack Tweed (or Tweedy if you read the Sun) waded in.
Shilpa never looked like losing, Jade was out of her depth, a hippo in deep-sea waters. The kindest thing was to put Jade out of her misery.
But how? “Burn the pig,” they chanted when Jade left the Big Brother house in 2004. The funeral pyre was lit. The crowd stood well back.
This was entertainment. Remember, remember the 19th of January, gunpowder, racism and rot.
Posted: 20th, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
“BRITNEY - $30,000 PLASTIC SURGERY SHOCKER!”
K-Ferret, Britney would look worse?
Might it have been that hanging around with rat-faced Kevin Federline made Britney look prettier, cleaner, better?
The Enquirer’s front page features Britney’s rhomboid features. She looks bloated, pale and plain.
But reading on, we realise that Britney is not without hope. Having cut K-Ferret from her life, can Britney now add some nip and tuck to the rest of her self?
Should Britney be considering going under the surgeon’s blade, the Enquirer offers a handy snip-out-and-keep guide to what procedures she must consider.
The magazine calls DR Dennis Hurwitz, a “board-certified cosmetic surgeon”. Hurwitz is the author of Total Body Lift. But for reasons of space and time, the doctor is only invited to lift Britney’s face. Bum, tum and legs are for another time.
To begin, Hurwitz would conduct an ultra-sound liposuction on Britney’s face. This is Fantasy Celebrity Surgery and Hurwitz has been given a budget of £30,000.
“She’s too young to have a total face lift,” says Hurwitz. So it will be the face lipo, followed by an upper and lower lid blepharoplasty.
And then, while we are at it, Hurwitz might as well take off some excess nose. And set back Britney’s ears. And plump out her thin lips with an injection of fat from other parts of her body. What parts? Take your pick.
And to crown this new face, the Enquirer invites John Ottavino, a “New York hair stylist”, to work through the tresses.
It will take $2,500 to save Britney’s locks.
And at $30,000 for the lot – 5% per cent off for cash and use of Britney’s off-cuts in promotional material - it would be money well spent.
That’s if Kevin leaves her with any…
Posted: 18th, January 2007 | In: Money | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
QUOTE: “If the Oscars are the senior prom, the Golden Globes are a Spring Break kegger.” Washington Post.
Figure of Speech: metaphorical analogy, the comparison of representational imagery. Often a form of hyperbole.
The Golden Globes ceremony took place last night, allowing movie aristocrats to go slumming with the TV proles. The Post describes the occasion in a metaphorically rich if-then analogy. It’s great for topping one funny image with another for maximum hyperbolic effect.
The awardees themselves were not so amusingly rhetorical. Helen Mirren (“Elizabeth I” and The Queen) and Hugh Laurie (“House”) gave the best aporial anti-speeches. Mirren: “Elizabeth the First would have an amazing speech. I have nothing to say except thank you very much.” Laurie: “I am speechless. I am literally without a speech.” (We made up the term “aporial,” but it’s a useful anthimeria.)
Figaro loved them nonetheless. Forgive his salacious figuring, but he thinks that in surgery-enhanced Hollywood, the very name “Golden Globes” makes a super metonymy.
Snappy Answer: “And just made for the boob tube.”
Posted: 18th, January 2007 | In: Media | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
So says the Independent’s front page.
Above this legend are two eyes. It’s like that Conservative Party advert of 1997. “NEW LABOUR NEW DANGER” ran the message back then. Tony Blair’s red eyes were demonic.
The message today needs to be whispered. Tony is all eyes and ears. Tony Blair’s eyes are no longer red but shine with the enlightenment of an evangelist.
“What it really means in Britain today as Tony Blair unveils his latest assault on civil liberties,” says the Indy.
The paper talks of a “super-computer” on which the records of each Briton will be stored. This is augmented by the DNA database housing the genetic makeup of each and very one of us. Medical records will be made available to hospital managers, high street pharmacists and civil servants. Information will be carried by the individual in the form of a card. Fifty-two items of information will appear on this card, including iris scans and fingerprints.
And all the while Tony will be watching. There is now one CCTV camera for every 14 people in the UK. And the Department of Transport and movement is looking at a system where every vehicles exact movements can be tracked.
Tony’s eyes look out from the page. Tony is watching.
Of course, this might not all be bad news. The adage goes that only the guilty need to fear the rule of law. The innocent will be protected.
And then there is the Indy’s use of “Big Brother”. The Times echoes this in “Big Brother database fears”.
Big Brother no longer turns minds to hellish visions the State in total control, as in the Orwellian vision of the future. Big Brother is a chance to pull down our trousers and scream “I’m mad me”. Geordies wandering around the Bigg Market on a Saturday night may well applaud the arrival of a Big Brother state and get ‘em out for the lads.
Of course, the message that only the guilty need be worried works up until the point the powers that be outlaw your hitherto legal activities. Was that you smoking a cigarette on the street corner? Forensics say the puddle of spittle found on the roadside belongs to you. Are you now or have your ever been a Jew? Black? French?
Shami Chakrabrati, the ubiquitous voice of civil liberties in the UK, is unafraid to speak out. “This is an accumulation of our Government’s contempt for our privacy,” says the director of Liberty. “This half-baked proposal would allow an information free-for-all within government – ripe for disastrous errors and ripe for corruption and fraud.”
Indeed, while the cops are watching us, who is watching them. Or will a pair of Tony’s all-seeing eyes appear in every room, in every house and office?
But isn’t an open pool of information that can shared across Government departments a step towards stamping out fraud? Won’t the police be better able to do their jobs by having access to information?
“Step by step, the Government is logging details of every man, woman and child in ‘Big Brother’ computers,” says Oliver Head, the Shadow Constitutional Affairs Secretary in the Times.
But no decision on the super database has been made. And, as the Times reports, the proposal will be put to a panel of citizens before Downing Street makes a final decision.
Although which citizens and how they will be selected has yet to be ruled upon…
Posted: 15th, January 2007 | In: Uncategorized | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
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