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Celebrities

Celebrities Category

Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.

No, But No, But No

‘I DON’T understand people who complain about the BBC showing programmes like Jerry Springer – The Opera.

Bring on the tsunami

If they don’t want to watch it, then don’t. It’s not as if there is a shortage of alternative TV channels these days and, failing that, what about a good book?

Or even, given the nature of most of the protests, The Good Book.

There are plenty of things the BBC broadcasts that I object to – like Songs Of Praise, for example – but I’m with Voltaire in defending their right to show it.

The Daily Mail can huff and puff all it likes, but the BBC is absolutely right to ignore an orchestrated campaign that anyway only managed 40,000 complaints.

Such is the wonder of modern technology that most, if not all, TVs are fitted with an ‘off’ button, which means that all of us can escape what we don’t like.

At least, most of the time. If the Daily Mail wants to jump on a bandwagon, perhaps it should get the BBC to take Little Britain off air.

Not because it’s awful, although it is. If we took all awful shows off air, we would be back watching the Test Card girl’s endless game of noughts and crosses.

But because of all the idiots who think parroting the catchphrases of Vicky Pollard, Andy and Lou and the show’s other characters is funny.

It’s not. Like the show itself, it’s not funny, it’s not witty, it’s certainly not original.

And – worst of all – there is no ‘off’ button.’

Posted: 25th, January 2005 | In: Celebrities | Comment


ZZZZZZZ-Listers

‘WOW! What a fascinating crew our eight housemates on Celebrity Big Brother are!

”Does this count as a lesbian experience?”

Jeremy Edwards, known only as the man who would be and then wouldn’t be Mr Rachel Stevens, sensationally confessed during a game of Spin The Bottle that he would like to have a threesome with Angelina Jolie and Pamela Anderson.

Kenzie, part of the YTS scheme that was Blazin’ Squad, then rocked the house to its very foundations with his revelation that he wants to have a threesome with two Page 3 girls.

And model Caprice applied the coup de grace with her admission that she has thought about having a lesbian experience…but never has done.

You could hardly shock us more if you told us that Germaine Greer sleeps in the nude or that John McCririck is angling to become the new face of Diet Coke.

The one thing that comes through loud and clear from programmes like Celebrity Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! is just how unimaginative, uninspiring and unintelligent the contestants are.

And they don’t come much more unimaginative, uninspiring and unintelligent than Lord Brocket, insurance fraudster, grinning toff and now host of a new Saturday night gameshow, called – wait for it – Scream…If you Want To Get Off.

In it, members of the public camp out in the South African bush, where they undertake a series of tough challenges involving creepy-crawlies and other native wildlife.

We wonder how on earth they came up with that idea…’

Posted: 10th, January 2005 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Celebrity Spares

‘THIS year’s TV promises to be nothing like last year’s or indeed that of any year that has ever gone before.

‘Help!!!!’

A year back, who would have thought that Kenzie from Blazin’ Squad would be in the frame to be a face on Celebrity Big Brother?

Back in 2004, we thought that below the celebrity Z-list there existed nothing but a void, a showbiz dead zone into which only Timmy Mallett has ever dared to venture.

But then some brave TV executive looked down into the hole and saw that there was a life of sorts in the deepest reaches of the agents’ black books. And it was named Kenzie.

So he/she/it is to be to one of the new celebrity faces of 2005.

And for we who witnessed the New Year’s Day cull – when hunting folk chased down and ruthlessly slaughtered Katonas, Turners and Leslies – this new blood must be celebrated.

And the news is encouraging. Already, Holly Valance, Victoria Silvstedt and Lee Chapman have all been cast aside from the Big Brother melting pot.

The reasons given for their absences from the show range from a desire to be a Hollywood star (Valance), the money not being quite right (Chapman) and the producers’ reluctance to allow Victoria Silvstedt to enter the house equipped with a vibrating sex aid.

The realty might be something more macabre. But while anti-hunt protestors slap “missing” posters of said celebrities on country trees, many others will rejoice as the field is cleared.

Sure, in years to come this fresh blood will be ritually hounded to the termination of their celebrity contracts (and look out for next year’s televised cull!), but the risks are outweighed by the rewards fame brings.

Like photo spreads in OK! magazine, an addiction to a class A drug, a night with Jodie Marsh, a presenting job on QVC, panto in Bridlington…’

Posted: 4th, January 2005 | In: Celebrities | Comment


And Trotters Might Fly

‘ANOTHER Christmas season of telly looms and it’s time once more for us to stock up on some Trevor Francis tracksuits…

Here to save Christmas

Sure, some people like seeing the same thing repeated over and over. They can often be found watching motor racing.

And we’ve heard the argument that it’s all just cultural snobbery and that, if it’s okay to repeat Shakespeare, then it’s fine to show Del Boy falling on his Filofax every year, too.

Only, it is not. Classical works stand up to scrutiny – that is why they are classics.

What’s more, the likes of Shakespeare’s plays are rarely if ever broadcast on mainstream TV, especially at a time when someone not on hospital medication might be watching.

And, as yet – and we mean yet – Channel 4 have not come up with The 100 Greatest Shakespeare one-liners. That for next year.

This year, we’ve got The 100 Greatest Christmas Moments. And you know what that means, don’t you?

Yes, Morecambe and Wise, Slade, It’s A Wonderful Life and that brilliant moment when Del Boy falls on his Filofax.

But if you want something new, what is there? Well, don’t look at Eyes Down, one of the worst conceived, worst written, least funny comedy shows ever to appear on British TV.

Anyone who watches this show will end up eyes down as they fall into their Christmas dinner and are speared in the eyeballs by a two-pronged wishbone. Ah, the blessed relief.

Other than that, TV executives have dressed up the schedules to look like the boss at the work’s Christmas party: they’ve stuck a Santa hat on the usual flabby mess.

The only laugh is one born of derision.

But there is one show that’s at least a twist on an old theme. The cast of Shameless will be starring in a panto-style Christmas special.

Looking at it will makes anyone who watches it feel better – as they survey the lounge, taking in the snoring, brooding loners who make up their own family and think how much worse it could have been.

You could have lived with Uncle Albert…’

Posted: 21st, December 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Addictive TV

‘IF we were the owners of The Priory, we would be getting worried. The celebrity rehab hang-out appears to be in serious danger of losing all its best customers…to reality TV.

”My name’s Sophie and I’ve forgotten to put my pants on”

Recent evidence suggests that the 12-step programme to sobriety now includes an obligatory appearance in the Australian jungle – somewhere between making a list of all the people you have harmed and selling your story to OK! magazine.

So far, I’m A Cocaine Addict…Get Me On TV has featured the running celebrity noses of Tara Palmer Tomkinson, Danniella Westbrook and Sophie Anderton.

And now we hear that Celebrity Big Brother is looking to offer its services to Anderton’s former beau Mark Bosnich and Adrien Mutu, both Chelsea footballers until spending too much time with the Bolivian coaching staff.

An insider explained: ”Mark has had a rough time – but celebs who have found things hard on the outside often get a lot out of going on the show. There is time to think about things and take stock.”

There is also time to do what recovering addicts do best – namely, bleat endlessly about the only subject that concerns them, themselves.

But the Priory need not despair of this shameless poaching of its regular clientele – on the grounds that if you can’t beat them, join them, it can just connect its CCTV cameras up to a live feed.

Celebrity Big Brother goes on air on January 6th. The Priory Live will no doubt follow a couple of weeks later…’

Posted: 15th, December 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Tiara For Now

‘MILLIONS of us have seen Paul Burrell eat a testicle.

A butler among men

He didn’t lick around the edges. He did not play with his food. He dived right in.

What he was thinking about as he munched on the ball is the stuff of one-man stage shows.

Perhaps he thought about the late Princess, his old boss. Perhaps he thought about the young princes, William and Harry.

Perhaps he thought about the votes his bravura performance would earn him and so bestow upon him the tiara that would sit so rightly on his head.

We will only know when Burrell tells all and sundry on various day-time TV shows.

But even with his selfless acts of dedication to the duty to self-promotion, the nut-munching former butler failed to win the glittering prize.

And no, Burrell did not take the winner’s crown back to his tent for safe keeping. The crown was rapidly installed atop the bonce of Joe Pasquale, the squeaky-voiced comedian.

Well, done Joe. He looks good in foil.

Although, if anyone knows what has happened to his old hat, his jungle outfit and the tapes of his jungle hut one-on-ones, will they please own up.

The world has a right to know what was said. A duty to know…’

Posted: 7th, December 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Barber Shop Of Horrors

‘THERE truly is no experience in this whole wide world as unpleasant as having to listen to a barber shop quartet in full voice.

If this is barber shop, it’s time to bring back Sweeny Todd

Drag your fingernails down a blackboard, nail a cat’s tail to the floorboards, put The Political Wit & Wisdom of Robert Kilroy Silk CD on loop, but never make us listen to a barber shop quartet.

And please, please, please never make us listen to G4 ever again.

As musical experiences go, G4 occupy the lowest place in Hell – below even novelty records, Sir Cliff Richard and Westlife’s cover of Seasons In The Sun.

They are an aberration, a genetic monster, the Frankenstein-like result of the inter-breeding of opera, karaoke and pop.

If the US army is looking for new ways to torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, then they could surely do no better than to get the X-Factor foursome over to Baghdad.

If the producers of I’m A Celebrity… are searching for a truly horrendous Bushtucker Trial, then make one of the remaining celebrities listen to G4 in action.

But if ITV really want us ever to feel safe turning the telly on again, then please, please, please never let them pollute our airwaves again.’

Posted: 6th, December 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Nat’s Chuffed

‘IN fame’s great game, Natalie Appleton will doubtless return to Blighty and be just delighted that more people that ever know who she is.

An artist’s impression of Natalie – Xmas 2005

Hang that fact that she’s a complete waste of space, a woman with a talent for nothing but vacuous self-aggrandisement, she is famous in so much as she is known by the masses.

And she must not worry herself that’s she’s been a failure in every Bushtucker Trial she’s faced on I’m A Celebrity.

Nothing will endear her to the underdog loving British public surer than a bout of public humiliation.

But Natalie must be warned that this is where she can go wrong. She is too unapologetic when faced with her miserable limitations.

She needs to be contrite, she needs to show that she is deeply upset and moved by this chastening experience of being exposed as all mouth and no trousers in public.

She needs to show that her time in the jungle has been cathartic and she is now a better person for it.

Perhaps her agent can help her to get in touch with the inner loser and express it to the public via a series of articles in some of the tattier sections of the press.

Better yet if the trauma of not being able to swallow a whole live ferret and then have a rat nest in your womb should lead her to the fridge and so to fatness.

Natalie could balloon to heroic proportions and complain in a further series of articles that her cure for pain is to lie face down in tin of custard creams.

She might then appear on a Celebrity Diet Club and lose 19 stone to the sound of rapturous applause.

This diet would then be discussed through a new book to be serialised in one of the middle-brow tabloids.

Fame is hers already.

But if she’s prepared to sacrifice her marriage, her figure and her health, Natalie can have so much more – she can have a stand-in spot presenting This Morning when Fern Britton is injured…’

Posted: 29th, November 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


After The Jungle

‘THERE is an advert in this morning’s Star beside its coverage of events in the Australian jungle for Joe Pasquale’s new live DVD featuring footage of his ‘The Everything I Have Ever Done’ tour. Underneath, there is an advert for “£9,560 PAIN RELIEF”.

A new series of Supermarket Sweep?

This is obviously a coincidence – nearly ten grand seems a lot even for the pain of having to sit through the whole of a Joe Pasquale gig.

However, if the C-list celebrities have already started trying to use their short-lived TV fame to boost their failing careers, what are we in for when they get out of the jungle?

It’s still barely safe to switch on the TV without seeing Linda Barker trying to flog us a washing machine or some incredibly ugly furniture – and that’s two years after she appeared on the programme.

And you can’t pick up a magazine without being confronted by the sight of pint-sized Aussie popster Peter Andre and his top-heavy fiancée Jordan.

We’re already hearing rumours about Nancy Sorrell forming a band with husband Vic Reeves or linking up with Jeff Beck to release a single.

We have a feeling that a Sophie Anderton autobiography is on the way, a chance for the underwear model to write about the one person in the world she’s interested in.

Paul Burrell will no doubt be going back into print on leaving the programme – Paul Burrell’s Guide To Jungle Camp, perhaps.

And we truly dread to think what the likes of Fran Cosgrave and Antonio Fargas have got up their sleeve. But we’re not hanging around to find out – we know a nice little clearing in the Aussie jungle that should be empty for the next 11½ months…’

Posted: 25th, November 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


And They’re Off

‘SO, they’re off…and the tears are already running, pouring down the cheeks of first Natalie Appleton and then Nancy Sorrel.

A Nat in Hell’s chance of winning

“I can’t do it,” sobs Natalie within hours of getting into the camp. “I can’t be Super Nat. I haven’t got the strength.”

Yes, what fortitude it must take to get paid more than most people do in a year to travel to Australia to sit on your arse for a fortnight.

“I miss him so much,” blubs Nancy about husband Vic Reeves. “I haven’t seen him for ages.”

Why, it must be all of a few hours…

Welcome to the cosseted world of the self-obsessed C-list celebrity, a world where the wrong tog rating on a hotel duvet can provoke a hissy fit.

It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating. If Natalie and Nancy can’t handle being away from their loved ones, they shouldn’t have volunteered to go on I’m A Celebrity… in the first place.

Trying to kick-start a failing career comes at a price – and the price is not just measured in the number of buckets of insects you have emptied into your underpants.’

Posted: 22nd, November 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Seven Degrees Of Vegetation

‘ALL of you too shy to pick up an Ann Summers catalogue will have to wait until Sunday for the chance to see what Vic Reeves saw in the blonde underwear model who became his wife.

As advertised by Linda Barker

Nancy Sorrel will, however, have some competition for dad’s attention in the shape of Sophie Anderton, who is perhaps looking for love in red trousers and a bikini top.

But the real thrill will be in seeing which of the contestants – inspired by the (lucrative) example Jordan and her “insania” affair with pop acorn Peter Andre – bunk up together.

Two of this year’s batch have already expressed a keenness for a fumble in the jungle, namely Three Degrees singer Shelia Ferguson and Fran Cosgrove.

Having previously fathered a child by ex-Atomic Kitten Natasha Hamilton and dated uber-strumpet Jodie Marsh, Cosgrove appears to be less than choosy. Shelia could be in.

But then so could Brian Harvey, the former East 17 singer, who, like Andre before him, has been overlooked in celebritydom because of changing popular tastes and his lack of inches.

And looking at him, we remember that he did indeed once date Danniella Westbrook, who has previously appeared on the show.

And at once we see some kind of pattern emerging. Forget Three Degrees’ Sheila, this is seven degrees of (jungle) vegetation.

Consider that Cosgrove dated an ex-Atomic Kitten, who once sang with reigning jungle queen Kerry McPudding, who, just possibly, has bought one of the delightful leatherette and wood-style chairs advertised by past jungle favourite Linda Barker.

There are, we are sure, many other links between the celebrities who have graced the show and are yet to appear – notably through Darren Day – and we leave them for you to ponder.

And while you do, try to stick to the task in hand and not be distracted by trouser snakes, crawling Paul Burrell–shaped things and that poor unfortunate creature fighting to avoid being placed in Janet Street-Porter’s mouth…’

Posted: 17th, November 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


A Savage Indictment

‘PAUL O’Grady may aspire to be part Dale Winton, part Cilla Black and part Claire Rayner – but he is destined always to be Lily Savage.

Are you Bamber Gascoigne in disguise?

And his new chatshow is making afternoons drag by.

This week, O’Grady’s eponymous show pivots on Wednesday when it’s his dog Buster’s birthday.

On O’Grady’s official website there’s an invitation for watchers of daytime TV to join in the fun.

If you’d like to help Paul celebrate while you’re waiting for that claim for damages at work to be processed and the broken neck to heal, you can send your cards and presents for Buster to a given address.

You can then look on with no little pride as Paul sticks a dress knitted by “Suicidal of Luton” on his pooch, makes some awful gag about “doggy style” and then give one of Buster’s celebratory dog-boned shaped balloons a “little prick”.

Meanwhile, Melanie Sykes, a woman with a head for dandruff and a body for ironing, and Todd Carty, an actor who every boy of his generation wanted to be and now feels delighted that they are not, join in the fun, and then sack their agents.

This is awful television. But it’s worse on the other side, where the masterstroke is to have allowed Judy Finnigan of Richard & Judy repute to operate a wine club.

To paraphrase the O’Grady show’s tagline, this seems very much like Judy’s tea-time treat.

And here is the equivalent of TV’s second opinion. If having seen O’Grady you were in any doubt you were wasting your life watching TV, along comes Judy to put the final nail in your headboard.

And, yes, that is Richard Madeley at the end of your bed…’

Posted: 15th, November 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Into The Unknown

‘THINGS have moved on from when we last reported on the possible line-up for the forthcoming series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!

”D’oh! Forgotten my name again!”

This list of celebrities tipped to be on the plane to Australia now includes…drum roll…Three Degrees star Sheila Ferguson and comic Joe Pasquale.

Wow! What a coup that must be for ITV bosses! How they must have scoured Butlins camps up and down the country to land those two!

With stars of that calibre and just a couple of weeks to go before the start of the new series, it is little wonder the show’s producers are doing whatever they can to keep the full line-up a secret. We might have even heard of a couple of them…

In the meantime, we read in the Star that security guards at the jungle camp have had to throw out a former commando who was trying to get some pictures of the camp to sell to the newspapers.

“The dimwit,” it sniggers, “failed to realise that the camp has already been seen on the German version of the TV show, which has just finished broadcasting.”

So that would explain its headline – “Exclusive – First Pics Of Celeb Jungle”…’

Posted: 9th, November 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Blue Rinse Movies

‘AS one viewer upset by the levels of violence and sex broadcast on TV told Anorak just the other day: “If Mary Whitehouse was alive today she’d be spinning in her grave.”

”What channel’s Red Hot Dutch on again?”

But the blue-rinsed woman whose Clean Up TV Campaign became the powerful National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association is not alive, for she is dead.

And when she passed, we feared that that no-one would even pick up her baton of righteous indignation.

And then along came pensioners Barbara, Jill and Brenda. From Barbara’s cottage, the three crusaders against sexually explicit material in the media fight the good fight.

And you can watch them hard at it on Channel 4’s Don’t Look Now…as the trio hunt out all the upcoming week’s filth and tell you how best to avoid it.

And for anyone venturing abroad – or overseas, as it was known when dear Mary was among us – these three compile a DVD chart giving a rundown of the latest Hollywood and European filth to avoid.

And in an instant you see the wheeze. This is TV produced by the boy in the fourth form who borrowed the school’s video tape of Roman Polanski’s Macbeth and returned it with a fuzzy bit where Lady Macbeth’s breasts used to be.

Here is the show produced by the boy who wore out dad’s copy of Carry On Camping.

But now the lad’s grown up, got a job in telly and produced a show he’d have paid with his lung to see.

Only, he’s too late – his target audience are busy hunched over their PCs “doing their homework”.

And the only people watching are “outraged of Wolverhampton” and her good gentleman husband…’

Posted: 2nd, November 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Christmas Turkey

‘WHEN Ben Affleck dies (which we sincerely hope is many years after his career goes the same way), he should have the famous line from Gigli, the film he made with then girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, inscribed on his tombstone.

”No two ways about it, son. You stink!”

“Gobble! Gobble! Gobble! It’s turkey time!”

There are some stars whose name alone can sell a film, whose on-screen presence can pretty well carry a film. There are some who can sink it – and Affleck is as effective in the latter category as any number of icebergs.

His latest film Surviving Christmas – a film about a lonely rich guy who hires a pretend family for the Christmas holidays – is unlikely to live up to its name, taking a paltry $3m in its first weekend – less even than Gigli’s disastrous opening.

And critics have been queuing up to tell readers what Anorak has been saying for years – Affleck cannot act his way out of a torn paper bag.

As the man himself, as the San Antonio Express-News notes, remains convinced that he is a leading man “despite mounting evidence to the contrary”, we’ll share a couple of those reviews with you.

The Boston Globe, for instance, says: “Surviving Christmas is exactly what’s wrong with Hollywood.” The Philadelphia Inquirer says: “It is, from conception to execution, an unalloyed, unmitigated, unqualified disaster.”

And finally, Jessica Winter in the Village Voice: “This ghastly comedy emits the subliminal whine of a sucking chest wound.”

Enough is enough. We’re sure, with the generosity of Anorak readers, we can get together enough money to send Affleck back to college to retrain in a job he can do. Because acting sure ain’t it…’

Posted: 26th, October 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Hugh And Cry

‘TV corrupts, and a TV series corrupts absolutely.

”These mushrooms are magic!”

The power of the magic box to transform is no more in evidence than in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the old Etonian who lived a Good Life-style existence in River Cottage.

It was all so bucolic and romantic when tousle-haired Hugh began planting his own vegetables and rearing his own livestock.

He entered his veg in a competition at the local meeting hall and bottle-fed a pig.

He ate stinging nettles in an effort to blend in and show the watching townies how fun country life could be – so long as you had an income from the media.

But then he got another series and, a few cook books later, he’s now sold his small holding in favour of a 44-acre farm in Dorset.

He’s added a load of livestock to what was a menagerie which the show’s watchers could get to know by name. And he plans to flog his produce in a new restaurant.

He wants to add value. He wants to turn a profit. He wants to bring in the punters. Hell, he may even want to make faggots sexy.

Farming you see can be fun. It can be rewarding and enriching.

Unless, of course, you grew up on a working farm and have a view of the country that’s not provided by the Guardian newspaper, for whom Hugh writes.

In which case, it’s full of burning sheep, rampant foxes and TV crews…’

Posted: 21st, October 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Jungle Drums

‘GIVEN the number of people whose names have been mentioned in connection with the new series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, the population of Australia looks set to double at the beginning of next year.

Never knowingly dressed

Where once we transported our criminals, we now send our C-list celebs Down Under to endure hunger, boredom and various forms of torture for our delectation.

But the fun starts well before the plane leaves for Oz as the celebs’ agents desperately try to put their clients name forward in the hope that the programme will do the same for their career as it did for, say, Linda Barker’s.

And the papers are happy to go along with it, claiming that so-and-so is considering an offer to appear or old whatsisname is top of the programme maker’s wish-list.

With the likes of Danniella Westbrook and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, the programme has doubled in recent years as a kind of rehab clinic – and it’s likely to do so again this time with Gazza and Sophie Anderton rumoured to be appearing.

Another person strongly touted is Gail Porter, one-time TV presenter with an allergy to clothes and now wife to Toploader’s Dan Hipgrave and mother of his child.

Other names bandied about include the likes of Torville and Dean, Brian Harvey and his girlfriend Emma B and racing driver Damon Hill, but by far the most interesting of them all is that of Sarah Ferguson.

She has experience, as viewers of It’s A Royal Knockout will remember only too well, and were one of the other contestants to be bitten on the toe, for instance, by a venomous snake, then who better than Fergie to suck out the poison..?’

Posted: 15th, October 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Tossing The Pig

‘REBECCA Loos masturbates a pig on national TV and suddenly there’s a flood of complaints.

‘Cop a load of this, Babe’

“It’s cruelty to animals,” some cry. “Why the pig, why not me,” ask others. “I thought it was supposed to be a corkscrew shape,” still others complain.

Fret not, dear viewer. It’s just TV – and the only two questions you need to ask is why the woman who shagged David Beckham didn’t go all the way with her porcine lover and what next.

For the answer to the first we hear from Rebecca herself. “I’m not that kind of girl,” she protests. “I never put out on a first date.”

For the answer to the second, we look to next year’s TV schedules and the new ITV series, When Animals Come!

Presented by Cat Deeley, the show will every week feature eight celebrities competing to see who can wank off their chosen animal the fastest.

“Get ready for some serious thrills and spills,” it says here on the press release. “Anyone who sees the incident with Anna Walker and the llama will never forget it as long as they live.”

We wait with bated breath…’

Posted: 7th, October 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Words To The Wise

‘TV reviewers love to hear their own voices.

Going straight…to a second series

Watching TV with one of this square-eyed bunch must be as charming as listening to next door’s Drum ‘n’ Base fans crank up the volume just as Gardener’s World is about to start.

How they must go on.

Better than listening to them is to just read the words that appear beneath each show in the listings.

Too Posh To Wash, lists the Guardian. “Aggie MacKenzie and Kim Woodburn attempt to improve the hygiene of a scenic artist.”

After that, there’s Going Straight: “Series in which six ex-prisoners attempt to set up a florist business in London.”

If that were not enough, the Sun’s listing says of the show: “The six former prisoners are short-handed in their florist’s shop when two of their number suddenly go down with food poisoning.”

If these shows did not look awful in the pitch and pre-production stages then they at least appear ludicrous when distilled into a few words.

Over in the Times, they’re watching Location, Location, Location – the demise of which will surely herald the end of the property boom.

“Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer visit a couple in Farnham.”

If that sounds entertaining to you, you are either the lucky couple living in Farnham, eagerly awaiting your debut on TV, Kirstie or Phil, or unaware that you are alive.

Or a commissioning editor…’

Posted: 28th, September 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Pure Filth

‘THERE truly is no depths which TV will not plumb, no crevice that it won’t explore, no barrel that it won’t scrape in its quest to find just how low viewers are prepared to go.

”Bend over!”

And the depths don’t come much darker, the crevices more disgusting and the barrels more caked in grime than those in Too Posh To Wash, a new series from the people who tried to turn housework into entertainment in How Clean Is Your House.

The idea is self-explanatory – instead of people who are too lazy to clean their houses, Kim and Aggie come face to dirty face with those who are too lazy to clean themselves.

The “posh” part of the title is provided in the first episode by Osla, 23 years old and apparently an aristocrat – although you know that’s just a handy excuse for the programme title.

She owns just two bras, one of which has not been washed since she bought it a year ago; her mouth contains 80 times more bacteria than the average mouth and she has an attractive habit of wiping her bogies on whatever’s around.

What is more she’s sufficiently proud of her lack of hygiene that she volunteers to have it broadcast on national television.

And to think it is only two years since Anorak’s How Clean Is Your Arse (Celebrity Edition) was knocked back by Channel 4’s commissioning editors.

They said the British public weren’t ready to see Vanessa Feltz’s backside in extreme close-up…’

Posted: 21st, September 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Simon Sues

‘NEWS reaches us that pop mogul Simon Fuller is suing Simon Cowell, claiming that the latter’s new programme, X Factor, is a rip-off of the former’s Pop Idol show.

‘Make it stop, daddy! Make it stop!’

What’s the expression about two bald men fighting over a comb?

Of course, X Factor is a rip-off of Pop Idol, which was itself a rip-off of Popstars, which was a rip-off of shows like Opportunity Knocks and New Faces.

Will Changing Rooms now start trying to sue House Invaders, Mi Casa, Su Casa, Honey, I’ve Bulldozed Your House and all the other execrable make-over shows that it spawned?

In an industry that hasn’t had an original thought for the past three decades, the mind boggles at what would happen if TV programmes start suing copycats.

Fuller is the man responsible for saddling the world with the Spice Girls and S Club; Simon Cowell gave us Westlife.

If anyone’s going to be doing any suing, it should be us…’

Posted: 15th, September 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Cutting-Edge TV

‘HAD only Anthea Turner known, she could have returned to our screens tonight.

Before…and after

Reunited with her old Celebrity Big Brother mucker Vanessa Feltz, our Anthea could have reminded us that TV’s golden girl is still as blonde as she ever was.

But whether her agent got the dates got mixed up or not, Anthea went had her boobs upturned and inflated before Vanessa could introduce us to Cosmetic Surgery Live.

So instead of seeing Anthea get knocked out and cut open in the name of TV entertainment, we have to make do with some lesser lights.

People like British super slimmer Bernadette – who lost 11 stone in as many months – and then noticed that her skin was the last to find out.

And a mother and daughter who treat themselves to bigger chests live on air.

Of course, it’s all absolutely disgusting, but it is highly informative.

It’s easy to scoff at Nessie and to look down our noses at her co-host, Danniella Westbrook, but be in no doubt that this is cutting-edge TV.

Or an infomercial for any budding Ed Gein types out there. After all, what do you do with all the spare bits and off-cuts if not make a natty suit?’

Posted: 6th, September 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Soap Lather

‘IN a piece of brazen vote-rigging that would make even the Bush brothers blush, EastEnders is going to be named Best Soap at the Inside Soap awards in a couple of weeks’ time.

The sexiest woman in soaps?

The BBC soap may be more of a turn-off than Vanessa Feltz in her sexiest lingerie, but that won’t stop the residents of Walford lording it over their Coronation Street rivals.

And to cap it all Albert Square’s Kat Slater (aka Jessie Wallace) will probably be named Sexiest Woman In Soaps, evidence of why our ancestors resisted the universal franchise for so long.

It is the equivalent of George Bush winning Mastermind, King Alfred winning Masterchef and Ben Affleck winning a Best Actor Oscar – all rolled into one.

If there was a Watching Paint Dry award, we can understand why EastEnders would be in with a good shout, but unless the purpose of a soap is to put its dwindling audience into a coma, then how come it is the best?

Even Emmerdale can feel aggrieved – and they’ll be positively spitting on Hollyoaks.’

Posted: 27th, August 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Mob Rules

‘JUST when you are about to despair of ever watching another decent television programme in your life, along comes the Sopranos for a fifth and penultimate series.

Shrink not rapt

It’s not just that there is no home-produced TV that is as good as this multi-award-winning mafia drama, it’s that there is nothing that even gets close.

The series opener was a relatively tame affair – Tony has moved out of his house and a brown bear has moved in. How anyone could tell the difference we don’t know.

Paul and Christopher fell out and made up by shooting a waiter in Atlantic City who complained about the tip they’d left – a response with which many people who have spend much time in the Land Of The Free will sympathise.

Tony turned on all his charm for Dr Melfi, his strangely attractive shrink, but got turned down and called her a ‘cunt’ – which is not a word that is probably he learned at Charm School.

But the background to the whole series is that a number of old mob bosses have just been released from prison…and some of them want their old jobs back. It’s going to be bloody…’

Posted: 17th, August 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Big Futures

‘WHAT can we expect from Nadia in the coming days and weeks?

The perfect arse

An anti-smoking campaign can’t be far off, in which our favourite Portuguese (or Portu-geezer) puffer will – for charity – give up her favourite hobby.

She will go onto appear in an official capacity to talk about Big Brother 6 and become the face of Madeira.

As for the rest, time will tell. But we confidently predict the following:

Ahmed: Deported

Bekki: Headline billing in a Faliraki strip club

Dan: “Pubic hair expert to the stars”

Emma: A prison-based reality TV show

Jason: Many years telling everyone that he was once a big star; back-combing his thick and luxuriant arse hair

Kitten: Walk-on part as Rik in the Young Ones musical

Marco: Dale Winton’s best friend

Michelle: Newspaper porn. Top-shelf porn. Under the counter porn.

Shell: We watched it and can say that no-one called Shell was on the show

Stuart: Adverts for chicken stuffing

Vanessa: Bar work; something with ponies in Pretoria

Victor: Yoof TV presenter on local TV station; genie of the magic lamp in Channel 4’s Christmas panto.

Jade Goody, eat yer heart out…’

Posted: 9th, August 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment