Broadsheets Category
Top news from The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Indepedent and The Guardian newspapers
Madeleine McCann: Antoinette McGuckin, Drunk Parents In Portugal And Three Maddies
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY MIRROR: “DRUNK HOLIDAY BRITS’ CHILDREN TAKEN INTO CARE”
A British couple on holiday in Portugal got so drunk their three children were taken into care. Hotel staff called the authorities when the pair seemed unable to look after the two boys, aged six and one, and a girl of two.
Bit judgemental?
Sources said the parents came back in a “drunken stupor” from a “euro-apint” bar in Vilamoura.
But what has it to do with Madeleine McCann?
The town is a 45-minute drive from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann vanished a year ago.
DAILY EXPRESS: “DRUNKEN HOLIDAY BRITONS HAVE CHILDREN PUT IN CARE”
The alleged incident took place on Friday evening at the Mourabel Apartments in the resort of Vilamoura, 40 miles away from where Madeleine McCann disappeared last May.
THE HERALD: “British children taken into custody in Portugal as parents too drunk”
Hotel staff in Vilamoura, in the Algarve, called police after Eamon McGuckin, 34, and his wife Antoinette, 32, collapsed while on holiday on Friday night. The couple, believed to be from Magherafelt, Northern Ireland, were taken to a health centre in nearby Loule while their children, one-year-old Adam, two-year-old Amy and Aaron, six, were taken to the Refugio Aboim Ascensao children’s home in Faro.
Allegedly, of course. It’s shocking. And worse:
The incident happened on the eve of the first anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her family’s Algarve holiday flat while her parents dined nearby.
DAILY MAIL: “Three British children taken into care after parents ‘drank themselves into a stupor’ on Algarve holiday”
The manager of the Mourabel hotel in Vilamoura, where the family were staying, said: “Fortunately the children were safe – otherwise it might have been not one Maddie, but three Maddies.”
THE SCOTSMAN: “Family in care after parents collapse drunk”
The incident happened on the eve of the first anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her family’s Algarve holiday flat while her parents dined nearby. Referring to the McCann case, Dr Villas-Boas said: “The press were not around – they were very fortunate in that there was very heavy news from Great Britain that day.”
THE SUN: “McCanns in legal boost”
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Posted: 5th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (621)
Madeleine McCann: Liddle Things, Her Digital Age And The Sop Opera
: THE COLUMNISTS:
ROD LIDDLE (Times): “Madeleine, the incidental onlooker”
Come on, be honest. When Kate McCann appears before you on your television screen, do you sink your head low and remember poor Madeleine, somehow spirited out of that Praia da Luz apartment, or are you overwhelmed with a sense of irritation, annoyance and ennui?
Or like me, is it a little bit of both, callous pig that I am?…
The weird thing is the way the story has taken on a life of its own, with Madeleine as a terribly absent onlooker, almost incidental to the whole charade.
ANDREW ANTHONY (The Observer): “For a variety of reasons, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann seems to hold an enduring, not to say unhealthy, hold on the nation’s imagination. The first and most obvious is that it exemplifies every parent’s deepest fear.
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Posted: 4th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann | Comments (402)
Trusting Boris Johnson On Education
SAYS the sire Arabella Weir, on Boris Johnson in The Guardian’s desperate chrestomathy of leftyluvviedom for Ken:
How do we trust a guy who says he knows about London, when he’s just taken three of his kids out of state school and put them into private schools?
Question asked, question answered…
Posted: 4th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (17)
More Farting Please, We’re French
FRENCH medic Frédéric Saldmann wants a “May ’68” of the body.
In his work Le Grand Ménage (Spring cleaning), Saldmann says his countrymen should “dare to fart”.
This is not because M,. Saldmann wants to preserve the French national identity – well, not only that – but because dating, belching and burping can prevent cancer.
Dr Saldmann also recommends throwing out anti-perspirants. “To block sweat not only stops the elimination of toxins,” he writes, “but also a certain number of messages that are potentially very attractive to the opposite sex.”
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Posted: 4th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (11)
Madeleine McCann: ‘Pray Like Mad’, Seeing The Light And McCanns’ ‘Cleared’
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCannTHE OBSERVER (front page): “One year on, Kate McCann’s please: ‘Please stay with us. Pray like mad.’”
DAILY MIRROR (front page): “MADDIE: KATE’S PLEA: ‘KEEP WITH US..KEEP PRAYING’”
MAIL ON SUNDAY: “Kate McCann’s pulpit plea: stay with us and pray like mad”
The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “It’s an intensely private and very difficult day for them.”
SUNDAY PEOPLE: “’PUBLIC KEEP US STRONG’ – MISSING FOR A YEAR: BRITAIN, PORTUGAL AND WORLD UNITED IN HOPE”
The world unites.
“LIGHT HER WAY HOME – MISSING FOR A YEAR: BRITAIN, PORTUGAL AND WORLD UNITED IN HOPE ‘You are a light that shines in the darkest times. Guide all who search for Madeleine’ – By Rachael Bletchley In Praia Da Luz”
The sunrise over Praia da Luz was as beautiful as ever yesterday. A warm, orange glow spread up from the horizon then burst into the dazzling rays that give the resort its name – Beach of Light.
A rosy-fingered dawn…
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Posted: 4th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (101)
The Telegraph Budget Cut Start To Bite
THE SELL-O-GRAPH:
What’s more, I couldn’t even use my carefully hoarded “5p off petrol” vouchers from Sainsbury and Tesco, as there was no such filling station nearby and I needed petrol urgently because, tomorrow, we are off to visit friends in Oxford.
Even with a Family Railcard, it has to be cheaper to drive than to let the train take the financial strain of transporting the seven of us (two parents included) 100 miles.
Which broadsheet will die first?
Posted: 3rd, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
Fritzl Watch: Josef Fritzl’s Hitler Youth, Running Of the Jews And Burgenland Bombs
FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl, Nazis and assorted Frtizls in the news
THE SUN (front page): “Dungeon kids are suffering like POWs”
Do mention the war.
DAILY RECORD: “JOSEF Fritzl’s cellar children are afraid of the colour blue, rustling leaves and noisy traffic after spending their entire lives underground.”
Zees are ein few of zeer (least) favourite things. Blue? Surely brown, black and feldgrau?
THE GUARDIAN: “How many more of our missing are stuck in some underground prison?”
There’s also the curious case of a town mayor poisoned by a praline filled with strychnine, and the case of Franz Fuchs, a neo-nazi who hid bombs in bilingual schools and blew up four Roma from the Burgenland region in 1995.
Initially, it might look as if there is no common basis to these cases, beyond the first two. But these crimes reveal much about Austrian society.
Just when you thought it vas safe to go into ze woods…
Austrians are worried that on their next holiday, someone might ask them if everyone in Austria has sex with relatives. They feel guilty – something they didn’t do after the last war nor after the Burgenland bombs.
THE INDEPENDENT: “Josef Fritzl: The making of a monster”
Fritzl was born in 1935 and would have been four years old at the start of the Second World War. It was not clear whether he lost his father during the war, but, when the war ended, he would, as a nine-year-old, have experienced first hand the invasion of Austria by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. Reports in the Austrian media have claimed that as a child he “suffered badly” during this post-war occupation which was notorious for the high incidence of rape perpetrated by Russian soldiers on civilian German and Austrian women.
The haus ist ein pill box:
However the back of the house which was extended out to include Fritzl’s notorious cellar, looks not unlike the kind of massive Second World War above-ground bunkers that were built by the Nazis to withstand air raids.
DAILY TELEGRPAH – Simon Heffer: “What else does Austria have up its sleeve?”
Or on them?
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Posted: 3rd, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (27)
Fritzl Watch: Josef Fritzl’s Nazi Youth, Hitler Jumpers And Der Weisse Engel
FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl, Nazis and assorted Frtizls in the news
The similarity between the drab old three-storey apartment house in Amstetten where Josef Fritzl raped and imprisoned his daughter for 24 years, and the one 90 minutes’ drive away where Adolf Hitler was born is a coincidence – but not a comfortable one.
Nazis! Is Josef Fritzl a Nazi?
Natasha Kampusch, who for eight years was held in a similar dungeon to the one where Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter, opened a Pandora’s box when she linked both horror stories to the country’s ‘authoritarian education’ and ‘the suppression of women’ under the Nazis. Her implication was that Fritzl, at 73 a child of the Nazi era, belongs to a generation that thought it could get away with anything.
After 1945 redefinition started all over again, as Austria revelled in the ‘victim’ status, pretending Nazism was something that happened to Austria rather than in it.
Fritzl. Austria. Nazis. Was Harald Shipman a Nazi? Fredrick West?
A wave of collective amnesia was hypocritically cloaked in Catholic morality, folksy loden coats and winter sportswear.
Hitler Knits for all the family.
Not many today boast that Hitler was a fellow Austrian, born in the border town of Braunau-am-Inn, spent his youth in Vienna, and that the resentful bitterness of a great cosmopolitan city stripped of its empire rubbed off on him.
Best not mentioned in public, that. Best kept quiet, like Fritzl’s other family in the basement.
DAILY EXPRESS (front page): “It was let him rape me or starve, says the cellar daughter”
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Posted: 2nd, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (11)
Nazis In The Austrian Cellar: Simon Wiesenthal Centre Wants Aribert Heim
HUNTING down the last Nazis – it’s never too late:
The top target is Aribert Heim, now 93. Jewish prisoners at Mauthausen concentration camp probably knew better him as “Doctor Death”. The Austrian medic would inject petrol and an array of different poisons straight into the hearts of his so-called patients to see which killed them fastest. He once removed the tattooed flesh of a prisoner and turned it into soft furnishings for his commandant’s flat.
An 18-year-old Jewish footballer and swimmer who was sent to Heim with an inflammation of the foot was knocked out, castrated and then decapitated. His head was boiled to remove the flesh and his skull was put on display. “[Heim] needed the head because of its perfect teeth,” testified one hospital worker at the camp, according to an arrest warrant uncovered by the Associated Press news agency.
Look in the cellar…
Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
The End Of Global Warming Until 2015
START your engines:
Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said.
Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
Madeleine McCann: No Change, A Tourist Site And Entertainment
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
THE GUARDIAN: “Last night’s TV: Madeleine, One Year On: Campaign for Change”
It’s difficult to keep the visuals stimulating, too. We saw the McCanns at home in Leicestershire; Kate and Jerry talking on the sofa. But you can’t have two hours of sofa, so we joined them in a lot of taxis – in Portugal, London, Washington. And there were plenty of lingering tree shots – leafless, winter trees (this is a sad story, after all). And a flying heron … eh, what’s that about? Maybe the heron is an aguido, too. Does Sir Trevor know?
DAILY MAIL: “Madeleine holiday apartment becomes ‘sick tourist attraction’ one year on from her disappearance”
Coachloads of journalists arrive every day. It’s sick.
DAILY MIRROR: “Tourists posing for pictures at McCann tragedy spots”
Pensioner Pamela Fenn, who lives above the McCanns’ holiday apartment, said: “It’s sick.
“They stand outside and then have photographs taken with their children.”
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Posted: 1st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (715)
Fritzl Watch: Incest Proven, Thai Holidays And Updates
FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl and assorted Frtizls in the news
SKY NEWS: “Often at the scene of crimes like this, people are open and welcoming to the media, willing to talk.But after a day or two they start to get suspicious and hostile and worry how they and their community are being portrayed.”
ELLEE SEYMOUR: “How could Rosemarie Fritzl know nothing?”
I wonder what would have happened to those pitiful, helpless prisoners if their wicked captor had died suddenly, would they simply have been left to rot in the cellar?
DAILY EXPRESS“Austrian police today revealed that DNA taken from the six children of caged Elisabeth Fritzl proved sick Josef was the biological father.”
THE TIMES: “The (DNA test) result… shows that the six children, which the unfortunate Elisabeth Fritzl gave birth to in the basement, have all been undoubtedly fathered by her own father, the now 73-year-old Josef Fritzl,” says Colonel Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigation unit in Lower Austria.
THE INDEPENDENT: “Prosecutors said they were investigating Fritzl over the death of the seventh child and that he could face a charge of killing the child through neglect.”
“Josef F. is being investigated for murder by failing to render assistance,” local chief public prosecutor Peter Ficenc told Reuters.
THIS IS LONDON: “Pictured: Incest father on ‘boys holiday’ to Thailand as his captives languish in his secret dungeon thousands of miles away”
The evil father who locked up his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered her seven children was pictured on a ‘boys holiday’ to Thailand in the 1990s, it has been revealed. Josep Friztl is believed to have stockpiled food in the dungeon where Elisabeth and her three children were being held.
The four were expected to survive alone for up to two weeks until Fritzl returned. Snaps of the electrical engineer enjoying himself were made public for the first time today…
They come as it was revealed that Fritzl has told police he acted alone. He has told detectives he was not helped to keep his Elisabeth and their children hidden in his cramped basement.
But police are not yet convinced he is telling the truth and are investigating how he could have bought food and clothes for them without anyone suspecting.
And Elisabeth Fritzl?
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Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (17)
Josef Fritzl And Austria’s House Of Horrors: Blame The Nazis
JOSEF FRITZL has admitted to keeping his family – daughter Elisabeth and their children – in the cellar of his Austrian house. But how Germanic is the crime? And what does it say about us?
Now read on…
DAILY MIRROR: “THE WORLD’S MOST EVIL DAD”
Says police chief Franz Polzer: “We’re not talking about a prison designed to hurt its prisoners, but something built to fulfil their basic human needs. He got planning permission and gradually built the various rooms in which the children were born and lived.”
The Oesterreich newspaper wrote in an editorial: “The community of Amstetten should drown in shame.”
DAILY MAIL: “Austria: Secrecy, shame and the land of the lost children”
Like many Britons whose image of Austria was defined by school history lessons and The Sound Of Music, whenever this landlocked Alpine nation is mentioned certain stereotypes spring to my mind.
And the Nazis. And Hitler. And little cakes with pictures of Mozart on them..
Or at least they did, until this week. One would think of mountain vistas shimmering with snow-white swathes of edelweiss, and apple strudels accompanied by cream-topped mugs of hot chocolate.
And one would remember that, although modern Austria is little more than a stepping-stone on the road to Eastern Europe, it was once the rock on which the mighty Hapsburg Empire was built, and dominated the civilised world for centuries.
What about the Nazis..?
As anyone who remembers the plot to The Sound Of Music will recall, during the late Thirties and Forties, Austrian society was riven with fear and mistrust, as some connived with the annexing Nazis and others (like the film’s defiant naval captain Georg von Trapp) sought to remain free of their malign influence.
Fact and fiction. The camps are alive with the sound of…
The Germans encouraged collaborators to spy on their neighbours and report any dissent, and – much as the Austrians now dislike admitting it – this has produced the sort of insular mentality which underpins its towns and villages to this day.
THE GUARDIAN: “’This monstrous crime raises pressing questions for a rich, self-satisfied society’”
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Posted: 29th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (17)
Elisabeth Fritzl, Natascha Kampusch And Austria
ELISABETH Fritzl was locked in a cellar for 24 years by her father, by whom she gave birth to seven children.
DAILY MIRROR (front page): “SLAVE IN CELLAR FOR 24 YEARS”
Say neighbours of Josef in Amstetten, Austria: “It’s incredible. He seemed such a harmless old man.”
That’s Josef. Or Joseph, as she soon becomes.
Astonishingly Elisabeth, 42, lived with three of the youngsters in the 1.7metre-high dungeon reached through a garage and accessible only by an electronic lock with a special code.
THE SUN: “7 kids by my dungeon dad”
The horror was only revealed after the 19-year-old fell critically ill — and evil Josef was forced to take the girl to hospital.
Doctors found a handwritten note in unconscious Kerstin’s pocket. It was from her mum — begging medics to save her daughter.
DAILY EXPRESS (front page): “Ordeal of girl held in cellar for 24 years”
Elisabeth Fritzl is 42.
Police say she appeared “greatly disturbed”
DAILY MAIL (front page): “GIRL LOCKED IN A CELLAR FOR 24 YEARS”
In the case of Miss Fritzl, she was kept locked in a series of narrow, windowless rooms with ceilings about 5ft 6in high that were accessed by a door hidden behind a cupboard with a security code that only the father knew.
The Mail will not go metric, unlike the compliant Mirror.
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Posted: 28th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (48)
Snowdon’s Snowcap Peaks As Global Warming Bites
IN “Snowdon ‘to lose its snowcap by 2020’, says study”, Telegraph readers learnt that “Measurements taken at the University of Wales in Bangor show that snow levels have decreased by about 35 per cent over the past 10 years.”
That was back in December 2004.
Simon Bareham, the senior pollution and climate change adviser for the Countryside Council for Wales, which is also involved in the study, said the changing climate pattern could mean snow will disappear from Snowdon as soon as the 2020s.
We recall how Welsh environment minister Jane Davidson saw picures of Snowdown taken ten years apart and lamented:
“I was shocked when I saw these two photographs. It has been suggested Snowdon may have to be renamed but like other parts of the world it stands as a reminder of what is happening to our planet.” She went on to tell the launch: “We must act now to reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change and respond to the impacts of the changes already underway as a result of previous emissions.”
Now the BBC reports: “Snow hampers Snowdon cafe build.”
Work on the Snowdon summit building is being hampered by snow, says the Snowdonia National Park Authority.
Workers on the project have had to dig snow off the railway track just to get to work every day.
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Posted: 25th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (8)
Gordon Brown Has The Strength Of Ten Lunatics
SIMON Carr on Gordon Brown’s formidable strength:
They are amazing, in their way. Admirable, even. The sheer intestinal fortitude it must take to appear in public after all that international humiliation. And then to come back and be humiliated at home. How to go through all that humiliation without being humbled! What a package of qualities you need for public life at this highest level. Of course, lunacy helps and, yesterday, Gordon Brown displayed the strength of 10 lunatics. It is his greatest asset.
Posted: 25th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment (1)
Madleine McCann: Rachel Oldfield Knows, Doctors And Gerry McCann
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY MAIL: “Stop the carnival”
It’s Richard Littlejohn:
I’ve always been uneasy about the media carnival, but figured if that’s what got her parents through the night, what business was it of mine.
However, one year on, there’s something distasteful about the continuing round of claim and counter-claim, blame and counter-blame.
Gerry and Kate McCann should be left alone with their demons, with our sympathy, and not live out their guilt in public any longer. The police and the private detectives should be left to get on with their job.
The Tapas Seven, the McCanns’ PR man, the professional ghouls should all keep their theories to themselves.
And their opinions?
DAILY MIRROR: “Rachael Oldfield of the Tapas Seven breaks her silence over McCann’s torment”
Tapas Seven? And why speak now?
Rachael Oldfield, a 36-year-old recruitment consultant, said: “I was there on the night. I spent time with Gerry and Kate during the week before May 3 and after.
What happened?
“Their emotions and their reactions were just agonising. There’s just no way they were involved in anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.
“If you take the common sense approach and look at timings and the fact they are medics and there are four other medics in the group, they would know what to do to resuscitate a child.
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Posted: 25th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (1,828)
Madeleine McCann: Anne Enright, Mark Warner And Goncarlo Amaral
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY MIRROR: “Maddy’s cop quits”
Madeleine McCann has her own private policeman?
The detective sacked as head of the Madeleine McCann inquiry is quitting the force on full pension. It is thought Goncalo Amaral may talk about the case after telling colleagues he quit partly to recover his “freedom of speech”.
THE SUN: “Kate: We all checked kids”
MADELEINE McCann’s parents have told how they devised their own baby-listening service because the complex they were staying in had none. Kate and Gerry McCann reveal in a new TV documentary how they and seven friends took it in turns to look in on all their kids at the Ocean Club.
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Posted: 24th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (342)
DisneyStan: Building Baghdad’s Disneyland
IF you wanted to attract Islamic terrorists you would:
a) Send a Royal to Iraq to flush out the enemy and so facilitate an easier slaughter (Done)
b) Be Jewish
c) Sell Anorak’s Ez-Wire beard trimming kits at a discount to virgins
d) Form Al Qaeda
Or e) Build a Disney-style them part in downtown Baghdad.
Llewellyn Werner and his private equity associates plan to bring you The Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a sprawling American-style amusement park.
As the Times reports, the terrorist magnet will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the same firm that developed Disneyland.
Says Mr Werner: “The people of Iraq need this kind of positive influence. It’s going to have a huge psychological impact.”
Indeed it is. But the plan is clearly a ruse to attract the enemy and as they step aboard the Magic Carpet Ride screaming “Death to Amerika” blow them to smithereens.
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Posted: 23rd, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (3)
John Prescott: Second Helpings: What The Columnists Say
THE Story so far: John Prescott has written an autobiographical menu (surely book) and revels that he is a victim of an eating disorder.
In “My name is John Prescott and I do condensed milk,” Prescott says that stress of work caused him to “stuff my face with chips, crisps, trifle, chocs.” What with the biscuits and the secretary it’s a wonder he found room on his desk for any work.
Had that egg famously tossed at him been made of chocolate, Prezza would have opened his mouth and swallowed it whole. He’d then have sued the egg thrower for abusing his eating condition and causing him distress.
Now Prescott has had his say, the columnists are having theirs. Before we read of Prescott: My Addiction To Jags and Prezza: My Red Leather Trauma know:
FERGUS SHANAHAN (The Sun): “PREZZA STILL MAKES ME SICK”
“In a confession designed to flog his memoirs, the lardy old fraud says stress made him develop bulimia. He would stuff himself then nip down to the gents and stick his fingers down his throat. It must have been tricky when his trotters were up his mistress’s skirt.”
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Posted: 22nd, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (12)
Britain’s Least Talented People
THE Telegraph has a list of Britain’s Least Talented people.
Can you spot your favourite:
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Posted: 18th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities | Comments (14)
Rachel Cook Meets Robert Fisk, Aka Mr Bob
The Guardian’s Rachel Cooke meets Robert Fisk:
We are talking – or, rather, he is talking. Luckily he has a loud, uncompromising kind of a voice and the balcony is tiny, so he is close to me, both of which ensure that I can hear him above the roar of cruising Mercedes below. It is the end of a long day – he picked me up at nine this morning for a drive south to the border with Israel, and I’ve been with him every minute since – but, if anything, Fisk’s energy, unlike my own, increases with every word he utters. On he goes: unrelenting, furious, pernickety and labyrinthine in argument. Every anecdote involves three dusty side alleys, every explanation three historical examples.
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Posted: 17th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
Poker Pros Jailed For Vegas Scam
WOULD you steal from a bank? And is a bank a legitimate target, more so than, say, a casino, an orphanage or a blind man’s purse?
This is a hypothetical question and in no way suggests that you are a chancer on the look out for an easy buck.
It’s just that two “poker kings” who stole £150,000 to fund a Vegas spree have been jailed for 18 months.
The Scotsman newspaper reports on Brothers Mohammed Imran, 33, and Mohammed Irfan, professional poker players who stole more than £150,000 from cash machines over three days.
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Posted: 17th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (3)
Alex Singleton On Wealth
SAYS ALEX Singleton:
It is not the level of wealth that makes us happy. Instead, it is the process of betterment – the pursuit of it – that makes us happy. Whether we are twice as rich today as in 1971 has little bearing on our happiness, because it is in the past. Whether people can see their lives improving in the future is what counts. That is why economic growth remains a key component in happiness, despite what the happiness researchers might tell us.
Posted: 16th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Money | Comments (2)
Wilby’s Lament: The Trouble With Modern Journalism
I STARTED Anorak beause I was bored of the press and of reading the same stuff by the same type of braying people. Writes Peter Wilby’s:
“Walk through our corridors,” a lecturer at one university journalism school told me, “and you will hear that homogeneous public school accent.” …In effect, the costs of training, once borne by employers, have been transferred to the prospective journalists…Before they can dream of a salary, many will do several months of “work experience”, possibly for a succession of employers. Some of them will make the tea, as wannabes did half-a-century ago, with the difference that they won’t get paid for it.
For entry to national newspapers and the main broadcasting and magazine companies, the result is geographical as well as social and ethnic bias… With most jobs unadvertised, families living in the right neighbourhoods, socialising in the right circles and working in the right jobs may provide introductions to those “pals at court” that [Nicholas] Tomalin thought so important.
You work for free and the paid job goes to a writer’s friend. More here.
Posted: 16th, April 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comment
