Anorak

Broadsheets

Broadsheets Category

Top news from The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Indepedent and The Guardian newspapers

Fat: England’s Brave New World Of Libertarian Paternalism

“UNVEILED: radical prescription for our health crisis,” says the Independent’s front-page headline.

“LETTERS TO PARENTS OF OBESE KIDS.” As ever, the accompanying picture of the fat child is of a fat ginger child with pale skin.

“EXERCISE HOUR FOR EMPLOYEES”; “SEPARATE QUEUES TO BUY ALCOHOL”; ZERO TOLERANCE ON SALT IN FOOD”; FREE FRUIT FOR OFFICES”; “FAT KIDS BANNED FROM SCHOOL PHOTOS.”

The last point was made up. Fat kids will not be banned, just placed at the rear behind the taller blonder children and tweaked by computers to resemble decent people. It is a process known as ‘Conditioning’.

The plan is the work of Julian Le Grand, chair of Health England. (England has the highest proportion of heavyweight adults in the European Union – 24.2 per cent obese.) Professor Le Grand has delivered a speech to the Royal Statistical Society in which he trumpets “libertarian paternalism”.

On his Defence Of Paradise-Engineering, the professor says: “It’s not like banning something. It is not prohibition. It is a softer form of paternalism.” And in a land of absentee fathers and an overbearing nanny state, we English need our Dad.

Oh Brave New World…

Posted: 23rd, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (12)


I Should Coca Cola: Man Gets Chinese Tattoo Translated

“I THOUGHT it was a joke then I fond out what it said,” says “proud” Vince Mattingley. “The restaurant staff must have had a good laugh about it.” Chances are that 26 years after having Chinese characters inked onto his chest, waiters at Mr Mattingley’s favourite eatery are still laughing. Vince, who works as a tattoo artiest, wanted Chinese symbols to spell out his name. So Chinese waters wrote it down – “Coca Cola”.

Says walking advert Vince: “I’m going to have something Japanese this time,” says Mr Wax On-Wax Off…

Posted: 23rd, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (4)


Hillary Clinton Socks It To Pets

HILLARY Clinton used Socks, the White House cat, to show that “chilly” Hillary had a “caring, maternal side”. And then…

Says the Times: “Clinton’s treatment of Socks cuts to the heart of the questions about her candidacy. Is she too cold and calculating to win the presidency? Or does it signify political invincibility by showing she is willing to deploy every weapon to get what she wants?”

“So where is Socks today?” asks the Times. Stolen to order? Replaced by a younger, chubbier model? Used as a makeweight batering tool in the Sino-American trade wars? No, no and no. As the paper reports, Socks was “dumped” on Betty Currie, Bill Clinton’s personal secretary, “who also had an embarrassing clean-up role in the saga of his relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky”.

Is there a message in this gesture? A cat. A pussy. Does Hillary do irony? If she did, would we warm to her?

Or, as the Times says: “Some believe the abandoned pet could now come between Hillary Clinton and her ambition to return to the White House as America’s first woman president.”

This is the Clinton who wrote the book Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets, in which she said that it was the arrival of Socks and his “toy mouse” that made the White House “become a home”.

Readers learn that Buddy Clinton, the family’s chocolate labrador, was struck and killed by Halie Ritterman’s Ford Explorer on Route 117, a busy two-lane road at the end of Old House Lane where the ex-president and family now live.

One gone. One dead. “Ouch! Hillary Clinton’s softer image is clawed over dumped cat,” says the Times.

And Hillary bares her teeth…

Incidentally, Mr. Clinton’s dog Zeke, was run over by a car some years ago in Arkansas…

Posted: 21st, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (3)


Love Is Nicolas Sarkozy And…

THE Sunday Times sees “French tongues wag” as Nicolas Sarkozy separates from Cécilia, his glamorous wife, and plays the field.

As reported: “He was seen frolicking in a Paris nightclub recently with friends, among them Maud Fontenoy, an attractive yachts-woman whom he presented with France’s highest award, the Légion d’Honneur, in July in recognition of exploits that included a solo circumnavigation of the Antarctic”. The print edition includes a photo of La Fontenoy, noting: “[she] is just one of the glamorous women now being linked to Sarkozy.”

Where do they get their ideas from..? (See picure)

Posted: 21st, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment (1)


Here’s To Swallowing Government Guidelines On Alcohol Consumption

“GUIDELINES on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were ‘plucked out of the air’ as an ‘intelligent guess’,” reports the Times.

We’ll drink to that. But this comes as no small shock to we who live our lives by official diktat. That the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, has “no firm scientific basis whatsoever”, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

For we who believed in the pickling process of alcohol (and more on salt later), more was always the recipe to a longer-lasting shelf life. Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced the advice, now says the recommendation was prompted by “a feeling that you had to say something”. The committee’s epidemiologist had said that ‘it’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t’ because ‘we don’t really have any data whatsoever’”.

Says Smith: “Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee.”

Here’s to the pink elephant. Make that the pink middle-class camel. It was only last week that Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health Minister, noted that the middle-classes drink more than the poor and offered: “Most of these are not young people, they are ‘everyday’ drinkers who have drunk too much for too long. This has to change.”

The middle-classes sighed long and deep. It would have to be more prescription drugs from now on. Less booze in the suburbs. Less slow death. More suicides. Without the anaesthetic of gin and tonic Surrey (top of the drinking scores) would be emptied, a land of lost souls and mass graves.

But now you and we all can drink. Raise a glass to the boys in Paris and the girls on Strictly Come Dancing – it’ll help you swallow the Government line…

Posted: 20th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (5)


Global Warming: Polar Bear Watch On Arctic Report Card

GLOBAL warming is good news for polar bars. At least it would be if they had agents. As ever the Independent illustrates its story that ice (cold) melts under sun (hot) with a picture of polar bears.

The rule of global warming reporting dictates that one polar bear must be large and the other small, preferably not being eaten by the larger. The bears should not be seen eating a seal, because while less polar bears may be good news for seals, the mantra of Arctic melt permits no positives.

Today’s polar bears are walking on a patch of ice and being employed to illustrate the “Artic Report Card”.

The lesson we should take home is that there has been a “stabilisation in warming” but warming as a whole continued in 2007.

A Richard Spinard, assistant administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (nation unspecified), which produced the report, says: “The bottom line is we are seeing some rapid changes in the Arctic.”

Yes, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Not to be confused with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, the US Army’s Cold Region Research and Engineering Laboratory or the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme, all of which are mentioned in the article.

No picture of any scientist is supplied, and it thought that until one endangered by extinction can be found – and this is highly unlikely (see above) – readers will have to make do…

More Polar bears here

Posted: 19th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (10)


I Was There When Gordon Brown Signed The EU Treaty

“10 MYTHS ABOUT THE EU TREATY,” announces the Independent’s front page. “FOR TRUTH ABOUT THE EU TREATY, SEE PAGES 2 &3.”

It takes a brave newspaper to begin with not one, not two but three pages of European newzzzzz…

The EU Summit is upon the people of Lisbon. They will sit enraptured before their television sets, ears pressed to radios and hands clutching at newssheets, marking the time when Gordon Brown signed the EU treaty.

In years to come, we and they will turn to one another and say “Where were you when IT happened?” And eyes will grow misty…

Pic: Beau Bo D’Or 

Posted: 18th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment


Liz Hurley Unveils Her Church And Home Range

WHAT fabulous motif adorns the new kneelers at St Mary’s chapel, in the grounds of Sudeley Castle, is not given, but they are from the Liz Hurley atelier and we expert much.

But we expect less than the venue’s parishoners, who expected so many pieces of silver.

As the Telegraph reports, St Mary’s was the venue for Stage 1 of the Liz Hurley wedding to Leeds’ very own Arun Nayar. And, as reported, the worshippers had expected to receive riches for Hurley’s use of the facilities. They are “upset”.

A Sue Williams, parish treasure, tells us: “We do normally charge a fee before a wedding blessing. There are a number of costs to cover, for the choir, the organist and vicar to attend, the bill normally would be in the region of £1,000.”

She adds: “Even the not well off make a financial donation.”

A spokesman for Hurley Home and Mr Liz says: “They’re hoping they’ll be finished in time for Christmas.”

We too. The thrill of kneeling on an actual Hurley Heeler as you give thanks and scrape blood and curry sauce from the carpet after the family dinner cannot be overstated…

Posted: 17th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities | Comment


Global Warming: Joanna Lumley Says Meat Will Murder Us All In The Times

GLOBAL warming is killing us all. Killing the polar bears. We need help. And who does the Times turn to? Why actress Joanna Lumley, naturally.

“I prefer not to eat food that has a face,” says Joanna, turning away from our proffered packet of Jelly Babies.

“But many of my nearest and dearest love their meat, and who am I to ask them not to eat so much of it? Until now, that is?”

What changed, Joanna? Says she: “Studies in Europe, America and Japan have shown that the more meat in your diet, the greater the global warming potential and the lower its energy efficiency in your body.”

A fact! And another fact: “Producing your average Sunday joint of roast beef results in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to driving from London to Manchester.”

Lumley advocates a “couple of meat free days a week” and suggests eating one lamb chop not two; never driving to Manchester on an empty stomach; and “maybe substituting daily milk and cream with equivalents made from soya beans or oats”.

As a vegetarian, Lumley is well placed to speak about how the rest of us should eat meat.

(For future reference, though, Lumley should also know that lamb chops do not have a face but are made of meat taken from the animal’s sides. Although an arrangement of carrots batons (lips), peas (eyes) and broccoli (hair) can produce a face-like tableau.)

Posted: 16th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (17)


Jesus is My Girlfreind: Tales of Glory And Bible Toys

ANORAK’S Christmas panto – JESUS Is My Girlfriend” – is sure to be a hit with one and all. And if this year’s must-have gift is any guide, the merchandise will shift faster than Gordon Brown’s buck.

As the Guardian reports, this year’s top toy is talking Jesus action figure. From the same stable as a talking Mary and a Daniel complete with lion and den, the Tales of Glory range brings you Jesus.

Says company spokesman Josh Livingston: “The UK market is important to us because we want to reach children with the Gospel whether they live in the US or Europe or elsewhere.”

Let’s activate Jesus by the power of prayer and two AA size batteries:

Mark 12:30: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” says Jesus.

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” says Jesus.

Jesus is made of a sturdy plastic. Use Jesus in your Toy Smackdown, pitting Bible toys in a tag-team Wrestlerama with Spiderman and Transformers. Jesus may lose an eye and an arm but he will always turn the other cheek.

Says Anorak’s man in dog collar: “Jesus is not just for Christmas, with any luck kids can change his clothes and make him look like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon.”

Press the hand and hear Jesus: “Do you wanna hear that sometimes I think about eatin’ a bullet? Huh? Well, I do! I even got a special bullet for the occasion with a hollow point, look! Make sure it blows the back of my goddamned head out and do the job right! Every single day I wake up and I think of a reason not to do it! Every single day! You know why I don’t do it? This is gonna make you laugh! You know why I don’t do it? The job! Doin’ the job! Now that’s the reason!”

The job. Always the job…

Posted: 16th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (5)


Global Warming: Defra Wants To Snatch Our Milk

IN “Stop using fresh milk,” the Times notes that officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs propose that we stop buying fresh milk and use UHT (Utterly Horrible Taste) long-life milk.

This is part of a Government strategy to ensure that 90 per cent of milk on sale does not require refrigeration. Fresh milk needs refrigeration but refrigeration is bad.

And know that this is part of the “dairy road map”. Politics loves a road map. Tony Blair’s administration produced a “detailed road map” to the legalisation of drugs in Britain.

The Middle East has a road map. According to the US State Department it is a “performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates and benchmarks aimed at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian and institution-building fields”. It is a triumph of democracy imposed from overseas with a goal already established.

Over in the barn, the dairy industry will deliver a tangible quid pro quo that dairy farmers will go the way of the Belgians, where 96.7 per cent of all milk sold is UHT.

Of course, market forces may yet prevail and we will hunt out fresh milk, paying a premium for it, making it an exclusive drink for the landed gentry and non-doms.

And Gordon Brown will tuly be the heir to Margaret Thatcher – milk snatcher.

Oh, brave new world…

Pic: The Spine 

Posted: 15th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (4)


Rugby World Cup: Kenny Rogers Buy Me A Rose

IT’S the game everyone’s talking about. No, not England v Estonia. It’s the Rugby World Cup, and Kenny Rogers is cheering on the boys in white with red flashing, a red swoosh and an advert for a mobile phone company.

“There’s a fight song for you,” says Rogers in the Telegraph. He’s wearing the replica England kit. “You have got to love my shirt. I am so excited for you guys. I understand that was a real big win for you guys over [checks notes] Australia.” He adds: “If you guys can’t beat those French bastards then it is a waste of time for us all.”

There is a reason for Rogers’ enthusiasm. And it’s not just that the French are bastards. It is that England have taken to playing and giving full throat to Rogers’ The Gambler in the dressing room.

As Kenny says: “You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em. Know when to walk away and know when to run.”

Got to know when to stick your finger in their orifices, gouge their eyes and smash the Estonian scum into the ground in time for England’s match against (who was it again, Kenny?)… Oh yes, the French bastards…

Posted: 12th, October 2007 | In: Back pages, Broadsheets | Comments (4)


The Greater (London) Boris Johnson Is Taken Back

BORIS Johnson is standing for London Mayor. He is MP for Henley, which in estate agent speak is to the west of Fulham.

Says Boris in his Telegraph column: “And I had a flashback, and I rememberer-London school…”

Boris is listening to Green Jade, featuring Wizdom, entertaining the kidz with a rendition of Brah-kah-kah, an anti-drugs tribute. But Boris is miles away…

“When we had morning assembly in 1970s Camden, we didn’t have songs…all about what happens when someone starts firing a sub-machine gun – and nor, I bet, did any other pupils across the Greater London area.”

That’s London for you. That’s Boris for you – the old Etonian MP for Henley…

Pic: Beau Bo D’Or 

Posted: 11th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (3)


Front–Page Scoop of the Day

Front–Page Scoop of the Day – The Independent’s: “The best scales”.

The weight is over (geddit?)

Posted: 11th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment


Bedfordshire Police Force Suspected Of Portuguese Links

IT’S off to Bedfordshire for the country’s criminals as the local police force is voted the worst in the land.

As the Telegraph reports, the survey by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary employed seven forensic criteria, including “tackling crime”; “local priorities”; “resources and efficiency”; and satisfaction and fairness”.

The chief inspector of constabulary, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, says: “Bedfordshire has issues.”

As such, Bedfordshire should attend a group meeting and expose itself in a therapeutic arena. The remedy will be holistic.

Bedfordshire’s chief constable, Gillian Parker, says: “I am disappointed with this report and puzzled by some of the headline results that in no way reflect the hard work that has been done”.

Indeed. The survey omits as much as it embraces and we wonder how many of Bedfordshire’s police complement are of Portuguese extraction.

If we have learnt one thing about policing from reading this nation’s press, it is that Portuguese police are inherently useless and contaminate crime scenes from the Algarve to Bedford and beyond with coffee stains and bits of cake…

Posted: 10th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (7)


Global Warming: Plane Stupid Make Hot Air At Manchester Airport

PLANE Stupid have been on a day out to Manchester Airport. The enlightened group who call people stupid for going on holiday and taking advantage of cheap flights “handcuffed themselves”.

The Independent does not say to what the seven protestors handcuffed themselves, but being far from stupid they probably chose a static object and not a landing gear of a jet or a revolving door.

But mistakes were made. A spokesman for the airport says the protestors missed the main peak travel time, arriving at 7:30am, half and hour after the rush. Says the source: “I think they think this is a domestic terminal but it is not at all.”

One of the protestors was Vanessa Hall, who sits as a Green Party representative on Manchester City council.

The Indy says that just one flight between London and Manchester produces an estimated 0.87 tonnes of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Says Ms Hall: “The ration we need is about two tonnes per year, but one flight is producing almost half your ration of carbon.”

Indeed. It is time to ration air. Think before breathing. Breathe less. Don’t be stupid…

Posted: 9th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment


Jamie Oliver’s Italian Meat Balls

JAMIE Oliver, native of Essex, is to launch “’authentic’ Italian restaurant chain”.
Anorak has been to Italy and noted that the successful restaurant chains are called L’Insalata Ricca, Brek and McDonalds.

As the Guardian reports, Jamie’s Italian will be your neighbourhood Italian restaurant. Jamie says the food will be “prepared with love”. Or “wiv larv”, as they say in Jamie’s Italy…

Posted: 8th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities | Comments (3)


Richard Dawkins On Jews And Power

THE Guardian announces: “Atheists arise: Dawkins spreads the A-word among America’s unbelievers.”

Dawkins is Ricahrd Dawkins, “Britain’s leading atheist”. Dawkins wants to take atheism to the downtrodden American masses. It’s a challenge. “Maybe David and Goliath would be a better analogy,” says the Guardian with no hint of irony.

Because who is Goliath? Says Dawkins:

When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told – religious Jews anyway – than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.

This statement, delivered as scientific fact and presented as sensible debate is left unchallenged. Worried?

Spotter: Comment Central

Posted: 7th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (17)


Global Warming: Holding A Mirror Up To Humanity

GLOBAL warming. And the Guardian has a question: “Can science really save the world?”

We who believe in the power of mankind over nature know that science can conquer all. With science we have a prayer. We can take on the sun and we can beat it!

Says the Guardian: “Today many engineers and researchers – fearful of the rate at which our planet is warming – say geo-engineering projects are now mankind’s only hope of saving itself from the impact of climate change.”

Interesting that researchers and engineers posit the argument that science and engineering can save us all.

We learn: “The only hope, say geo-engineers, is to change the planet, alter its oceans and reshape its cloud cover.”

Indeed. It is not that humanity has meddled with nature that has created global warming, climate change etc. but that we have not meddled enough.

The Guardian senses the irony. It says “distinguished ecologist” James Lovelock notes: “There may be all sorts of ecological consequences. But then the stakes are terribly high.”

So we should try to save the world as we know it, or die trying.

The Guardian duly looks at the options put forward by the G-Team (“It’s a crazy plan but it just might kill us all). And to help scientists decide which one to use, the Guardian gives each plan a score based on the direction of the prevailing wind and the .

As with all statistics, Anorak invites readers to invert the numbers and find the alternative headline. (* Figures provided by Anorak Institute of Climate Research And Finger–In-Wind Studies.)

Ocean pumps – “Vertical pipes could pump deep cold water to the sea surface. Cold ocean water is considered to be more ‘productive’ than warmer water because it contains more lifeforms. And these lifeforms are vital for absorbing CO2.”
Chance of success: 3/5
Chance of bathers catching hypothermia: 2/5

Sulphur blanket
“A ‘blanket’ of sulphur that would block the Sun’s rays from reaching Earth; to do this, he [Professor Paul Crutzen] envisages hundreds of rockets filled with sulphur being blasted into the stratosphere.”
Chance of success: 1/5
Chance of rocket landing in garden: 4/5

Mirrors
“Physicist Lowell Wood, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, has put forward the idea of using a mesh of aluminium threads, a millionth of an inch in diameter. ‘It would be like a window screen made of exceedingly fine metal wire,’ he explains. The screen wouldn’t completely block sunlight but would filter infra-red radiation.”
Chance of success: 1/5
Chance of mirrors turning Melton Mowbray into the new Costa del Midlands: 4/5

Cloud shield
“John Latham, at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, and Stephen Salter, of Edinburgh University estimate that increasing cloud cover using a seawater spray ‘seeding’ process could increase cloud cover by 4 per cent – enough to counter a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by shielding Earth from solar radiation.
Chance of success: 2/5
Chance of China using dense cloud cover to invade America: 3/5

Synthetic trees
Planting trees that absorb carbon dioxide has become a major eco-industry. But now scientists are proposing a surprise technological variant: synthetic trees. These trees would not grow or flower or leaf – but they would absorb carbon dioxide.”
Chance of success: 4/5
Chance of office workers sitting next to fake cheese plant: 5/5

Forests of the seas
“Blooms of plankton and algae are the grasslands and prairies of the oceans. They absorb carbon dioxide, die and then sink to the seabed carrying the carbon dioxide they absorbed during their lifetimes. Increase such blooms and you could take out more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”
Chance of success: 2/5
Chance of massive creatures form the deep rising up and killing us all 4/5

More research grants to follow…

Posted: 7th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (8)


Presidential Race 2008: Fred Thomson’s Dawdles, Hillary Clinton Races Ahead

IS Fred Thompson’s campaign bus driver in danger of falling asleep at the wheel?

Last month Matt Taibbi, writing in Rolling Stone, called the former Law and Order star “a human snooze button, campaigning baldly for the head-in-the-sand vote by asking Americans not to think but to change the channel.”

Today, the New York Times described his lacklustre campaign tour through Iowa, where voters were surprised at his lack of energy and passion.

The Times reporter described Thompson as “a subdued, laconic candidate who spoke in a soft monotone, threw few elbows and displayed little drive to distinguish himself from his opponents.”

So underwhelming was Thompson’s performance that his reference to Russia as the Soviet Union in a radio interview warranted little attention.

If Thompson was being lambasted for his views or his relative lack of experience he could at least fire back. But how do you retaliate when people accuse you of being boring?

Meanwhile, over at Camp Democrat, Hillary looks to be pulling further ahead of the pack.

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll gives Clinton a 33-point lead over Barack Obama, with 38% support among black voters compared to Obama’s 40%.

If Obama is going to pull something out of the hat, he’d better do it soon.

Posted: 4th, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment (1)


Global Warming: Winter Sun Get-Aways To The Arctic

GLOBAL warming has many guises. And now the Express reports that it has done for David Bowman’s pumpkins.

“I’ve never known a year like this one in 35 years of growing pumpkins,” says farmer Bowman. “It rained and rained and they hated it.”

Bowman’s pumpkins need heat. He’s got them indoors in a bid to make them turn orange, the vegetables sat on sunbeds getting fake bake in time for Halloween.

But there is another remedy. As the Independent reports on its front page: “RECORD TEMPERATURES IN ARCTIC HEATWAVE 22 DEGREES C.”

Steady on Stelios. The runway has yet to be rolled out on the melting tundra. But the hope is that the Arctic can be the breadbasket of the world, and rival Tenerife for winter sun.

True enough it will be the only part of planet Earth above the waterline, but think of the pumpkins.

“’Exceptional’ heat demonstrates scale of global warming in Arctic,” says the Indy’s headline.

That’s the good news. And it gets better as the Indy notes that the North-West passage is finally clearing.

On August 21 this year, the North-West Passage around the top of Canada was “opened to ships not armed with icebreakers for the first time since records began”.

An easy journey means less power needed and less oil burned. And the chance to get goods Made in China direct from source delivered on a slow boat to Leeds-on-sea.

Anchors away!

Posted: 3rd, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (6)


The Daily Telegraph’s 100 Ugliest People In Showbiz

IF politics is showbiz for ugly people, the Telegraph is OK! magazine without the gloss and orangey glow. (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)

On Sunday last, the paper began its “influential 100” section, in which it would tell readers who are the movers and the awakers in the Tory Party and on the Right of politics.

We have yet to arrive at Number 1 in the hit list, and the thinking is that maybe it will be David Cameron, maybe not.

It won’t be former Tory leader Michael Howard (41), former foreign secretary Lord Hurd of Westwell (32) nor shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley MP (42).

The excitement is almost worth waking up for. But this is not for all readers, just 100 of them, and their significant others. The suspicion is that the list is to boost egos and let the likes of Robert Edmiston (26), a Conservative party donor, know that he is more of an influencer than former first minister of Northern Ireland Lord Trimble.

Indeed, the top ten is very likely to be a composite blend of donors, tax advisors and those wonderfully powerful people who may not have realised just how influential they could be if they helped the cause…

Posted: 2nd, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (2)


The Tabloid Times: When Piercings Attack

FURTHER signs that The Times has ambitions to be a tabloid on the paper’s front page: “Body art – it can seriously damage your health.”

On page 13, it’s unlucky for Jessica Collins who “was almost killed when her belly-button stud tore through her stomach ‘like a bullet’ during a car accident”.

Readers are invited to wince as the seatbelt forces the metal stud through Collins’ body.

Yes, the seatbelt. Had she not been wearing one, the 19-year-old from Cardiff would not have been punctured. The dangers are all too apparent.

Amanda Beadle, Jessica’s mother, tells the Times: “She told me, ‘All my friends have got belly button piercings. Please let everyone know what has happened.’”

We are at the beginnings of a camping. The Times hears Jessica’s step-dad say how she is “determined to make others aware of the possible risks”.

Says Mr Beadle, “for a decorative bit of jewellery, it’s not worth the risk.”

The Time hears him. “Tattoos and flying pens can also be dangerous,” it says. A Dr Thomas Stuttaford notes “people involved in crush accidents that have had pens, lipstick holders and even coins driven into their chests or abdomens”.

We urge Anorak readers to take care on the roads, to remove all piercings, belts, buckles, anything with throttling elastic, coins, pens, pencils (HB and propelling), shoe laces, wigs, glasses, contact lenses, hearing aides and drive as nature intended – with a winter-weight cloth cap on your head and pair of sensible snug-fitting gloves over your trembling hands…

Posted: 2nd, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (3)


Sven Goran Eriksson Bowls Over Manchester City’s Blue Rinsers

WE join the action in the seventieth minute as Manchester City manager Sven Goran Eriksson surveys the biscuit formation and the massed talent.

The gramophone kicks into life. The dulcet tones of The Mavericks fill the municipal hall with noise. And Sven moves among the ladies.
Blue moon, you saw me standing alone…

As the Sun reports, Sven has had no little success with the ladies, playing both home and away, mingling foreign talent with some homegrown players.

“It is different and I have never been to a tea dance before,” says Sven. “I got kisses from the ladies too.” He’s up for the cuppa, is Sven.

Without a dream in my heart Without a love of my own…

A source enlarges: “Sven has enjoyed himself and is natural at bowls. There’s a queue at the end of the evening with the old dears wanting his autograph.”

And so it is that the ladies are benefiting from Manchester City’s City in the Community: Active Blues campaign.

Not only is there a man in the room, and one able to move, but that nice Mr Monkhouse is signing autographs and, as his catchphrase goes, meeting “You lucky people just like that”.

Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own

Posted: 2nd, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets | Comment


Buy To Let Market Falls Into The Brown Stuff

LOOKS  like the buy to let market in the UK is in freefall:

The buy-to-let market is in crisis as 40 per cent has been wiped off the value of new purpose-built investment properties in the past year, a survey by The Daily Telegraph has found. (…)

A study of nearly all the new-build flats that have come up for auction in recent weeks shows they are selling for, on average, just 60 per cent of what property investors paid for them.

While official figures suggest that the UK property market – including buy-to-let – is in fair health, there are growing numbers of new-build flats being repossessed in cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Norwich and Nottingham.

This isn’t, actually, quite what it looks like. Would you believe that it’s the Government at fault here (although those losing money shouldn’t be looking for any compensation of course)?

There’s been an insistence from Whitehall that new housing must be built (as far as possible) on brownfield land and to a high density. This has translated into local councils happily giving planning permission of developments of flats, and not so much, if at all, for houses. We’re thus seeing an excess of flats appearing on the market as opposed to the houses which we Brits traditionally prefer to live in.

Now whether it’s a good thing or not that we should all go and live in flats like Continentals is something quite different from the fact that if the new housing going up is the stuff that people don’t actually want to live in then the relative prices need to change.

This isn’t the housing market falling by 40%, nor is it the buy to let market falling by that much. It’s that the planners have approved more flats (and fewer houses) than the buyers actually want. So the price of flats is going down relative to the price of houses.

Posted: 1st, October 2007 | In: Broadsheets, Money | Comments (3)