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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.

Comic Relief: David Lammy shamed whites into not giving

Comic RElief

Two stories about Comic Relief, the BBC’s tired telethon. What is about the BBC that shows are celebrated chiefly for their longevity? And those presenters who go on for eons – but at least Dr Who gets to regenerate his genitalia every couple of years. Maybe it’s about institutions needing other institutions to make the mob bow to their edifices of permanency and legacy? Or maybe it’s just laziness?

The first Comic Relief story is that some Tory MPs are angry (natch.) that the fundraiser dresses to the Left. The Mail on Sunday calls it an “AD FOR CORBYN”. In which case, hard cheese, Jezza, because the Sunday Times says Comic Relief raised £8m less than last year – £63m compared with £71.3m.

The blame for less cash is apparently rooted in Labour MP David Lammy citing tin rattlers for their “white saviour” complex. When the Beeb’s pro-celeb dance champion and journalist Stacey Dooley, 32, uploaded a photo of herself posing with a young African child in Uganda she captioned it “Obsessed!”, “as if she was plugging a new face cream, not holding an unhappy Ugandan child.” Lammy saw it and tweeted: “The world does not need any more white saviours.”

The Times notes today: “Others said they had decided not to donate this year because they did not want to be accused of acting like a “white saviour”.” Nice one, Dave. Middle-class whites with spare cash will spend it on something else. What does Jess Phillips spend her money on? Farrow & Ball paint, festival tickets and Waitrose, possibly.

So how can we redistribute the world’s wealth and keep narcissistic politicians and celebs happy? Fair trade coffee, au pairs, cocaine and Filipino maids are a start. But this is about giving and who gets to give freely. We don’t tick a box declaring our race when donating money to Comic Relief, but maybe we should. In the current climate of identity politics, the State can use the data to work out which sort of people give the least and which give the most. Much fairer that way, right?

Africa’s poor will be waiting.

Posted: 17th, March 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Money, News, TV & Radio | Comment


College bribery scam: the education system is a game; Hallmark sacks actress; rich kids are just donors-in-waiting

Hallmark Channel has severed business dealings with actress Lori Loughlin. Hallmark dims the lights to a 20watt soft-focus in rose-pink, tilts its head, and says it’s “saddened” by news of the allegations that Lori pays to game the college system.

Who knew? We thought America was a meritocracy. The fact that Ivy League schools take in more children of families in the top 1 per cent of the income distribution than from the bottom 60 per cent was surely just a weird quirk.

Loughlin, previously seen on Full House, the Garage Sale Mysteries films and When Calls the Heart, and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, are accused of bribing college officials to get their children into decent schools. They and others are implicated in a scam to pass their progeny off as bright and able, often as budding athletic stars.

The FT:

The children of the accused parents were presented as nationally ranked athletes in tennis (Georgetown), pole-vaulting and rowing (University of Southern California), women’s soccer (Yale), and sailing (Stanford); but these “sailors” didn’t know a tiller from a toolbox. In some cases, photographs of athletes were Photoshopped to look like the applicants.

I sail therefore I math.

(Has anyone actually seen Prince Edward play real tennis? The Earl of Wessex scored a C and two Ds at A level. He was given a place at Cambridge to read history – a course kids with less hidden talents needed 3 As to attend.)

Investigators claim Loughlin and Giannulli agreed to pay $500,000 in bribes to help their daughters get into the University of Southern California, by pretending they were crew-team recruits… The fallout has also extended to Loughlin’s daughters, Olivia Jade Giannulli and Isabella Rose Giannulli. Sephora dropped its partnership with Olivia, a YouTube star and social media influencer. Critics are now calling for USC to expel both of the young women.

Not their fault, though, right, that their neurotic, vain, insecure and needy parents look like skinflints? Reports suggest Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, got into Harvard after his father made the school a $2.5m donation. Look not at my thicko daughter’s apathy, dead headmaster, but consider instead the state of the taps in your bathroom and how solid gold ones never rust.

The system is flawed. A USA Today writer opines: “As Stanford and Yale and the University of Southern California scramble to distance themselves from these criminal corruptions, perhaps we might all consider all the legal corruptions of the entire college admissions process.”

Tyler Cowan adds: “First, these bribes only mattered because college itself has become too easy, with a few exceptions. If the bribes allowed for the admission of unqualified students, then those students would find it difficult to finish their degrees. Yet most top schools tolerate rampant grade inflation and gently shepherd their students toward graduation. That’s because they realize that today’s students (and their parents) are future donors (and potential complainers on social media). It is easier for professors and administrators not to rock the boat. What does that say about standards at these august institutions of higher learning?”

It all says one thing: school’s a racket. Learn a trade. Do a job.

Posted: 15th, March 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Money, News | Comment


A plea for mirrors and no more weed from Lee Scratch Perry

Lee Scratch Perry has politely requested his fans relent from giving him weed. He has plenty. If you must give anything, give mirrors. The fabled reggae star tweets:

Lee Scratch Perry

You know what’s coming don’t, you? Yep, mirrors being reclassified as a Class C drugs.

Posted: 15th, March 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Music, The Consumer | Comment


Josh Stone plays North Korea

North Korea Josh Stone

Joss Stone has sang at a bar in North Korea, as part of her Total World Tour. Stone intends to perform in every one of the worlds country’s. She’s ticked off North Korea, Iraq and Syria without problem.

“It was a little scary crossing the border as of course we have absolutely no idea what might transpire,” said Stone to her Instagram followers. “We just have to trust the people on the ground that are advising us and looking after us”. 

In Mr Kim’s kingdom, Stone got to hang out with British ambassador to the country, Colin Crooks. “Amazing to meet @JossStone tonight in #Pyongyang and see her perform,” Mr Crooks wrote on Twitter. Given his usual entertainment diet of mime acts and the glorious leader on the telly boasting about the country’s 8th World Cup victory and moon landings, Stone’s show can only have been a huge relief. Crooks must have clapped loudly, and possibly whopped before sobbing about missing out on the Brazil job.

Posted: 14th, March 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment


Michael Jackson: beat him and burn him but don’t miss the Wacko Jacko exhibition at The Tate

Michael Jackson fan Seany O'Kane displays a message of support
Michael Jackson fan Seany O’Kane displays a message of support

No-one’s dug Michael Jackson up and beaten the corpse with sticks. Nor have they set his remains alight – and given his latter-years’ waxy appearance, stuck a wick in his head and let him burn so that all the living can see what we do to dead stars accused of molesting children and getting away with it. For now we’ll have to make do with burning Wacko Jacko’s memorabilia, which is what anyone who tuned into HBO’s four-hour-long documentary Leaving Neverland saw as the closing credits rolled. Before we got to the burning pyre of branded Jackson merchandises, we heard the harrowing and credible testimonies of Wade Robson and James Safechuck. The two claim that they were abused as children by Michael Jackson.

But unless Jackson begins to speak and justice can grind and arrive at some incorruptible truth, facts are hard to ascertain, and people will take sides and turn hideous, grim alleged crimes into a shouting match.

All we have is a spark of light in the darkness that is soon extinguished, leaving us to flounder in search of its source. Maybe the next spark will alight on a new angle and flash us glimpses of different propositions, thing to stir our hunches and armchair investigations based on prejudice, righteousness, caprice and schadenfreude? After all, as Tim Black notes, “Robson was convincing and credible in 2005, when he took to the stand in defence of Jackson, over allegations of child molestation. And then he was not facing the sympathetic director of Leaving Neverland, Dan Reed, but fearsome prosecution attorney Tom Sneddon.” But that’s child abusers for you: they know their quarry are easily scared.

So what are you going to do with your Michael Jackson clobber and records? It’s not as if he sang about paedophilia and promoted it as a lifestyle choice. The music and videos were wildly entertaining. Can you ignore the man and delight in their product?

Last year, the Tate exhibited the work of English artist Edward Burne-Jones (28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898). The brochure says he “brought imaginary worlds to life in awe-inspiring paintings, stained glass windows and tapestries”. You can see his work at the National Portrait Gallery. When not making worthy art, Eddie was busy being a virulent anti-Semite. His Jew hatred was “blatant and repulsive“. And what of Phil Spector? He murdered a woman. You can hear his records on the radio and buy the house where the crime took place.

Patience, Jackson diehards. Your hero will rise again. The smart investor will be buying up Jackson’s oeuvre and old tour jackets while prices plummet. One day they’ll put on a show at the Tate and that stuff will be worth a bomb.

Posted: 11th, March 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, TV & Radio | Comment


When Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and Barry Gardiner wanted to ban Keith Flint

On 08 December 1997, Jeremy Corbyn wanted to ban us from knowing about a song by The Prodigy. The groups’ frontman Keith Flint has died too soon at the age of just 49. The early day motion to ban the mesmeric, relentless Smack My Bitch Up went:

That this House expresses its disgust and outrage at the advertising billboard campaign to promote a record album entitled Smack my Bitch Up; and urges the recording company to withdraw this advertisement immediately.

Of the 41 people who wanted music banned, the following are notable:

Keith Fint Labour the Prodigy

Where are they now? Yep – ‘Disgusted of Westminster’ are threatening to lead the country.

Spotter: Keith Flint, the last punk

Posted: 4th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, Music, News, Politicians | Comment


Stacey Dooley grandstanding for Comic Relief is celebrity colonialism for a good cause

Stacey Dooley
Stacey Dooley: putting Uganda on the map

Labour MP David Lammy says “the world does not need any more white saviours”. He’s taken offence at the picture Stacey Dooley posted on instagram (see above) of her trip to Uganda with BBC’s Comic Relief.

Think not of the grandstanding, but of the good causes it helps.

Amen.

Lammy says “the image she wants to promote is her as heroine and black child as victim”. When she told him he could always go there himself, he replied: “This isn’t personal and I don’t question your good motives.” Which is precisely the opposite of what he did.

Previously in celebrity colonialism:

Angelina Jolie

Previously at the Labour Party conference:

Fact: The West knows best.

Posted: 28th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Politicians, TV & Radio | Comment


Sleeping Gemma Collins has ‘more rolls than Greggs’ in world’s first sponsored row

Gemma Collins
Rolls

What’s it like to sleep with jobbing celebrity Gemma Collins? Jobbing celebrity James Argent knows – and he apparently wants us to know. So he posted a video of Collins snoring. The couple then had a row, during which Argent told her she has “more rolls than Greggs”. Can this be the world’s first sponsored barney?

It was only in late December that Arg was telling his Instagram followers:

“Happy 1 Year Anniversary to me & my beautiful girlfriend @gemmacollins1 ❤️ This woman deserves a medal 🏅 or at least a #bluepeterbadge for putting up with me! 😆
Many more years to come darling…
Check out our Exclusive Christmas shoot in this weeks @ok_mag.”

Such is their fame and the many accompanying to-deadline stories of undying love.

His more recent message tells Collins: “You are a fat joke of a woman. An absolute car crash! You’re nearly 40 f***ing years old, you embarrassment. You fat horrible lump. Nasty mean woman. Who the f*** do you think you are? You’ve got more rolls than Greggs.”

News is that the pair have now split. Or maybe they can be persuaded to set aside their differences for a Gregg’s Easter treat?

Posted: 26th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment


Danny Dyer rescues Shamima Begum: TV hardman brings home ISIS hardwoman

EastEnders actor Danny Dyer has yet to head to Syria to bring home Shamima Begum in a televised docudrama. But he was invited on to Good Morning Britain to tell us that Begum had “lost her soul” when she joined ISIS and should be allowed to come home. Lest you think it odd that an actor is invited to offer his opinion on world affairs on the mainstream telly, know that Geri Halliwell was (and still might be) a UN international ambassador. Her missions to heal the planet were picked up by OK! magazine, proving that when drought, famine and war strike any would-be refugee should ensure they possess a sympathetic backstory about miracle babies, being bullied at school and answer interrogators with the command “GIRL POWER!”. It’s enough.

What Dyer said has been picked up. In a clip posted somewhere on the internet, and picked up by the Sun, a man tells the camera: “This is a message for Danny Dyer, or anyone that f***ing knows him. I’m nearly 58 years old, a scaffolder and used to work for the Royal Marines Commandos… If you’ve got the bollocks to give all the s*** like that on TV and you don’t know anything about the armed forces with kids losing their dads, mums or anything like that then you need to get a grip. You’re making it out like you’re a hard man but you’re as hard as a f***ing lollipop.”

Mate. He’s an actor. But his mum’s up for it, telling us: “To all those w*ers out there slagging off my son for having an opinion. You do realise that he couldn’t give a tuppenny f*** what you think.”

Danny Dyer

Diplomacy reigns – until Jeremy’s Hunt’s aunty breaks ranks.

Posted: 23rd, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment


Watch Bruno Ganz as Hitler

Bruno Ganz

Bruno Ganz (22 March 1941 – Died: 15 February 2019) played Hitler in the 2004 film Downfall. “His depiction of Hitler’s final days in an underground bunker as the Third Reich collapsed around him spawned so many memes that maybe you never saw the original. You should”. So says Jerry Dunleavy. He’s right:

Bruno Ganz as Hitler in Downfall (2004)

Bruno Ganz (22 March 1941 – Died: 15 February 2019) played Hitler in the 2004 film 'Downfall'. "His depiction of Hitler’s final days in an underground bunker as the Third Reich collapsed around him spawned so many memes that maybe you never saw the original. You should" – Jerry Dunleavy

Posted by Flashbak on Sunday, 17 February 2019

Posted: 17th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Film, News | Comment


Paul Hollywood’s sex life: dreams of Summer Lovin’

Paul Hollywood Summer
Summer Lovin’

Paul Hollywood is the subject of a Great British headline in the Great British Sun. Hollywood is a star of The Great British Bake Off, a TV show proving that if you use ‘Great British’ as an epithet, anything can be improved. The shock is that no-one has called it the Great British Brexit and Channel 4 has yet to broadcast 100 Great British murders. But give it time.

Hollywood is newsworthy because a) he dresses like a late middle-aged divorcee on the pull in a provincial nightclub – big cuffs, open neck shirt, diver’s watch, fringed mouth – chasing the kind of women you imagine they couldn’t pull when they were in their twenties; and b) the 52-year-old’s 23-year-old lover has had a run-in with his 54-year-old (estranged) wife.

Alex (wife) is said to have called Summer Monteys-Fullam (lover) a “slut” and a “whore”. Since both are badges of honour, we wonder if Summer thanked Alex? She didn’t. She called the police complaining of harassment.

We then get to see a photo of Summer and her sister Saskia (26) – their mum is called Sabina (48) – giving the world the finger via Instagram – which affords the Sun the chances to appraise the £9,000 ring Hollywood gave Summer and try to fathom the image’s accompanying message: “Got youuuuuuuu.” What to make of that? And what to make of the Sun’s opinion that this was a “bust-up” between “Paul’s women”? This is how you describe the main player in a televised mid-life car-crash. You get on first name terms with the man of whom Summer once stated on Instagram, having first labelled him her “amazing boyfriend”, he “turned me from a girl to a woman, and to a house woman”.

No word of reply to that from ‘Paul’. But it’s not hard to imagine that in his head he’s swaying his hips, tossing his soft leather blouson biker’s jacket over his shoulder and in the manner of John Travolta in Grease telling the Viagra poppers at the country club about his latest bout of ‘Summer lovin’.

Posted: 16th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment


Katy Perry blackface shoes are racist

Katy Perry blackface shoes

You can see your face in Katy Perry’s shoes. Well, you can if you work as a black and White Minstrel. Perry’s shoes are no longer in store on account of them having a blackface design and so being based on racist caricatures.

Katy Perry Collections is not as woke as Katy Perry, and the offending footwear has been removed from sale. Did anyone buy the shoes?

“I’ve made several mistakes,” said Perry in 2017. “I won’t ever understand, but I can educate myself and that’s what I’m trying to do along the way.”

Mind your step as you go.

Posted: 12th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment


Hugh Grant talks about his movies – like a normal bloke

Hugh Grant will one day be recalled as the best British actor of his generation. He stole the show in Paddington 2 – which is terrific, by the way – and has made moderate British rom-coms watchable, and really good British rom-coms better. Oh, and in About A Boy, Grant played an adult man living alone who befriends a teenager but without coming across as predatory and the bloke they warn you about. No easy thing.

Posted: 12th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Film | Comment


Gemma Collins seeks spiritual advice from Kerry Katona

kerryt katona

Who better for Gemma Collins to turn to for spiritual advice than Kerry Katona, former Queen of ITV’s I’m A Celebrity jungle and long billed in the tabloid press as “troubled”? Kerry is the women who had her cosmetic surgery televised and was once so hard up, she was forced to sell her parrot to buy Tampax.

Collins, 38, currently between injuries in ITV’s Dancing On Ice is “seeking help from crystal-loving Kerry Katona”. That’s an unfortunate or conniving play on words by the Mail, given Kerry’s battles with drugs – and crystal is a shorthand for crystal meth. The People reminds readers that Katona is an “ex-addict” whose nadir – or at least one of them – was being filmed taking coke a caper that led to her getting sacked by Iceland (the frozen food store and not the nation). In any case, Collins wants help calming down not speeding up. A source arrives to explain all:

“It sounds a bit woo and wacky, but Kerry’s obsessed with meditating and yoga and it’s helped her so much with her stress and anxiety. Kerry has been choosing crystals she thinks will help Gemma cope with the pressures of Dancing on Ice and all the diva accusations she’s had.”

Anorak advices Collins choose the homophonous Krsytle Carrington, who was always ice cool in a crisis, save for when Alexis pushed her too far and she resorted to fisticuffs.

PS: Cynics will point out that Katona and Collins have have the same agent. This in no way diminishes from the truth of this story.

Posted: 10th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment


Jeff Bezos dick photos and Trump’s Pecker

Jeff Bezos penis

PSST! Wanna see what Jeff Bezos’s penis looks like? American Media Inc. (AMI), the National Enquirer’s parent company, thinks you might. Mr Bezos, who owns Amazon and the Washington Post, isn’t keen on you seeing photos of his bellend. “Of course I don’t want personal photos published,” Mr Bezos wrote in a blog post before adding: “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.” He’s accusing AMI of trying to blackmail him over the dick pics.

Bezos posted an email he claims was sent to his intermediaries by AMI lawyer Jon Fine. The alleged email contains threats to publish photos of Bezos and his lover, former TV host Lauren Sanchez. “Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail,” writes Mr Bezos, “I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.” Bezos says AIM wanted him to go on the record, to make a “false public statement” that the National Enquirer’s story was not politically motivated. But there are allegedly “strong leads” to suspect political reasons. Bezos says President Trump is mates with AMI’s boss – get this! – David Pecker.

AIM says it “acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr Bezos”. It is “in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him”. The board “convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims”.

God bless America, where billionaires hire lawyers over photos of their peckers.

The BBC:

AMI recently admitted in court that it had co-ordinated with the Trump presidential campaign to pay a Playboy model $150,000 (£115,000) in hush money to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Mr Trump. Mr Bezos noted in his blog post how the publisher had confessed to a “catch and kill” deal to bury Karen McDougal’s politically embarrassing story. AMI’s agreement to co-operate with federal authorities means it will not face criminal charges over the payments, Manhattan prosecutors announced in December. Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen – who facilitated the hush money at the direction, he says, of Mr Trump – has already admitted violating campaign finance laws.

As for the Enquirer, well, remember John Edwards. It should have won a Pulitzer.

Posted: 8th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, National Enquirer, News, Politicians | Comment


Rolf Harris is alive and coming to a school near you

rolf harris wood

Convicted child abuser Rolf Harris is alive. Who knew? This week the man once famous for asking kids “Can you tell what it is yet?” as he panted his way through a TV show and now known as a sexual deviant who persistently abused minors is reported to have entered the grounds of a primary school near his home and “waved at pupils”. The Mirror doesn’t tell us if the pupils waved back as they waited in the school hall for their lunch nor what part of his body Rolf waved. The BBC adds – and try not to gag: “He was talking to sculptor Nick Garnett, who was working in the school’s ‘Kiss and Drop’ area.”

(In June 2014 Rolf Harris was convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault. The crimes were committed against four girls – one of who was aged just seven or eight. He was released from prison 2017. That same year, an appeal saw one conviction overturned, but the other 11 remain.)

Mr Garnett tells the BBC: “I turned round and there was Rolf Harris, which was a strange moment.” Fight or flight? “He asked for a piece of timber. Apparently he’s interested in making some carvings, so I gave him a couple of pieces.”

The headteacher at Oldfield Primary School in Bray, Maidenhead, goes on the record, telling us: “We’ve got a wood sculptor working close to the road at the moment and Rolf Harris lives about three doors down from the school. He must have seen him (the sculptor) and come into the school area. He had no access to the children whatsoever. I went over and shook his hand and introduced myself. He explained what he was doing – that he was getting some wood from the sculptor. I said, ‘You need to go’.”

Was it a crime? Harris has no offspring at the school, one assumes. A copper is quoted: “A report was made that a man was on the site of the school. An officer attended the scene but no offence was committed. No arrests were made.”

A non-story, then? The Mail says Harris “was handed a police warning”. The Mail includes a few words from a local man: “One elderly male neighbour said: ‘He’s an asset to the area, he’s been a tremendous supporter of any charity we’ve been part of… We know he had sex with a 15-year-old but we find it terribly sad that the end of his life has been marred by continual investigation into what happened 30 or 40 years ago.”

People, eh, some really do believe in rehabilitation for paedophiles. Others believe in buying your own wood.

Posted: 7th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment


Scum: Liam Neeson uses rape and racism to promote a movie

liam neeson black bastard

Actor Liam Neeson reacted to the rape of a friend by asking her what colour skin the perpetrator had. Funny question, no? He then armed himself with a cosh and spent a week of his life hoping a “black bastard” would “have a go at me about something so that I could kill him”.

Neeson said this in an Press junket interview to promote his latest movie, Cold Pursuit, a revenge thriller in which the 66-year-old embarks on a revenge mission to right wrongs with extreme violence.

Yep, that’s what I thought: what kind of a c**t uses rape and racism to promote a movie? Frederick Joseph makes a sound point when he tweets: “Even him telling the story demonstrates a level of privilege and understanding that there may not be repercussions.”

Neeson uses the same interview to voice regret at his odious behaviour. He is “ashamed”. He says his behaviour was “awful”.

But that phrase, “black bastard” rolls so neatly from his tongue. “Rub some coal dust on those wounds you fuckin’ black bastard!” bellows Ray Winstone’s Carlin in the 1979 movie Scum. The phrase is bald, hard and horribly familiar. Some words go tougher, their use combined into a manta we all know: fuck off; Jew-boy; Paki-basher; stupid bitch; silly cow; black bastard.

Those are the words of adolescent ignorance and wilful adult malice. Neeson didn’t use them then. He’s using them now.

Posted: 5th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment


Love Island winner Jack Fincham: being famous gets you drugs and booze

Jack Fincham, winner of TV’s Love Island, and Mr Dani Dayer, wants to talk about “My coke shame”. But before the shame, the sympathetic back story. The Sun, which leads with the news of Fincham’s drug taking, tells us he “caved in” to the “temptation” of “regularly being offered drugs in the wake of his TV triumph”. Other reality TV shows offer less mind-blowing prizes. But that’s showbiz.

Jack, 27, tells us: “I’ve made a terrible error.” And ..? Well, why are you telling us, Jack? Are you getting in first before an expose hits the papers? Is the Sun now an extension of the therapy industries – “If you want a sympathetic ear and a chance to talk, call 0800 Snort ‘n’ Tell (You’re amongst friends!”)?

There are two more pages of Fincham to browse. And we note that he’s “dreading telling hardman Danny Dyer about his cocaine shame”. Danny is, of course, Dani’s homophonous dad, the EastEnders actor.

But surely Danny will understand how “dangerous elements of the showbiz scenes” can pull young noses towards an incidental table in an Kent hotel. Says Jack: “Since winning the show I’ve been offered cocaine a lot”, plus “free drinks” and a chance to appear in another reality TV show. Yes, that’s right, Jack’s shame trails the TV show The Full Monty, named in honour of the film in which a group of down-on-their-luck men from the impoverished provinces turn to the skin trade to earn a few quid and fame. Showbiz, eh. The top prize used to be car.

Posted: 5th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment


Maltipoo proves Ant McPartlin is not a shit

Ant Mcpartlin the sun bgt multipoo

The Sun doesn’t bother to hire a dog whisperer to translate what the pair of Mulitpoo dogs hooked in Ant McPartlin’s paws think of their new ‘owner’. But we do know that Ant (pedigree: Geordie) “kept them warm in his cosy jacket”. what else Ant keeps in his anorak is also left unsaid, and the pooches are advised to avid licking the ‘tic-tacs’.

Two more pages of Ant (not a shit) and his “2 poos” follow. We hear from a source (unnamed – pedigree: house-trained PR firm mutt), who tells us that Ant and his new love Anne-Marie (pedigree: a cross between Anne of Green Gables and Marie Antoinette) are in a “positive place”. No, not bed, you cynical sluts. Ant is taking a stroll on Wimbledon Common, and showing not the slightest hint of being affected by the man with camera tracking his every move. “Ant has never been so happy.” So there, Lisa (pedigree: ex-wife and former employee of aforesaid Anne-Marie).

By the way, the Sun lets it be know that Ant is now clean of booze and drugs (and Anne-Marie) and gainfully employed. You can keep track of his movements in your role as Ant Mentors as he treads the boards on TV show Britain’s Got Talent. First up is a man who says he can spin gold from a piece of shit. He works in PR and performs as ‘anonymous source’…

Posted: 4th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment


Rapper Murs breaks it down: ‘Beastie Boys is the Greatest Hip Hop Group of All Time’

I saw the Beastie Boys play live. They were fabulous.

Rapper MURS considers The Beastie Boys to be the greatest hip hop group of all time.

Do I think the Beastie Boys are the best? No. Are they my favorite of all time? No, but they are close. Did they have an unfair advantage? Yes. Do I feel like they show love and respect for the culture throughout their career? Yes. Their staying power, their dope live shows, their innovations, their philanthropy, their numbers. When I sit back and look at the facts objectively, I have to say at this point in hip-hop history the Beastie Boys are the greatest rap group of all time.

He’s right:

Beastie Boys VHS 1987 Licensed to Ill FULL from nutri871 on Vimeo.

Posted: 2nd, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comment


A look around Roald Dahl’s Dylan Thomas-themed writing shed

In 1982 Roald Dahl, showed us inside his writing shed at his home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England. The shed was relocated to the Roald Dahl Museum. The desk – a board balanced on the arms of a tatty chair – we knew about. Dahl called the 6ft x 7ft hut his “little nest, my womb”. One thing we didn’t know: Dahl modelled his shed on Dylan Thomas’s own writing shed in Carmarthenshire, Wales. The BBC:

Although Dahl based the design of his hut on Thomas’s shed, there was one major difference – the lack of natural light. He often kept his curtains drawn (10) to block out the outside world and was dependant on an angle-poise lamp for light….

Dahl’s widow Felicity said: “He realised he had to have a space of his own in the garden away from the children and the noise and the general domesticity and he remembered that Dylan had felt the same.

“And so he went down to Wales to look at Dylan’s writing hut and, like everybody, fell in love with it.”

Built to the same proportions, with the same angled roof – the similarities could be a coincidence. But according to his widow it was built in a similar design by Dahl’s builder friend Wally Saunders, who the BFG was based on.

“He built it exactly to the same proportions as Dylan’s hut, the same roof, one skin of brick,” said Mrs Dahl. “Of course Dylan’s hut was a garage originally, whereas Roald had nothing, it was an empty space that he built on.”

Roald dahl writing shed

Spotter: Boing Boing

Posted: 1st, February 2019 | In: Books, Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment


Ariana Grande: new Japanese tattoo spells ‘Japanese barbecue finger’

Ariana Grande: new Japanese tattoo spells 'Japanese barbecue finger'

Into the ever popular realm of crap tattoos steps elfin singer Ariana Grande who invested in a new hand tattoo written in Japanese kanji characters to mark her new single 7 Rings (Hard cheese – Zsa Zsa Gabor had nine). It turns out that the tattoo actually promises not 7 rings but “small barbecue grill”.

Grande tweeted that she “left out ‘つの指’ which should have gone in between” the symbols, but “it hurt like fuck”. She “wouldn’t have lasted another symbol lmao”. The tweet is now deleted. And the tattoo has been updated:

Still, as BuzzFeed notes, it doesn’t read exactly right: Her tutor said that her original tattoo, 七輪, reads “seven circles” — or, as we have heard, “Japanese barbecue grill” — and suggested Grande add 指— the kanji for “finger” — between and above the characters, so it would read as 七指輪, or seven rings. But it seems there wasn’t room for that, so Grande had it added below. And since Japanese is mostly read from left to right, her solution means that the new one roughly translates to … “Japanese barbecue finger”.

Right now some Z-lister is kicking themselves that they didn’t get in their first with the barbecue finger tattoo and get some much-needed career exposure in TV Quick and the Argos catalogue. Stick to the A-list stuff, Ari, and leave the idiocy to those who need it.

Posted: 1st, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment


Gemma Collins is bigger than The Beatles – two or four of them?

Gemma Collins Towie Dancing on ice

Ice-skating Essex postcode Gemma Collins bursts onto the Daily Star’s cover and declares: “I’m Bigger Than the Beatles.” And what does the TV celebrity mean by “bigger”. Gemma – “whose recent notable achievements include falling over on ITV’s Dancing on Ice” (BBC) and sharing: “I actually pride myself. I’m mega-confident because I know I’ve got a designer vagina. It looks like something you’d see in a movie” (Raiders of the Lost Ark?) – says she is “as big as the Beatles”, because many people who meet her are left “shaking and sobbing”.

She sets them up – you nail them in.

Posted: 30th, January 2019 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment


Victoria Wood remembered in hilarious statue

Victoria Wood statue

BBC Radio Manchester alerts us to the statue which Bury Council have approved to honour Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016). It will stand on Silver Street next to the Library Gardens in the comedian’s home town.

You’ll know it’s her by the plaque and sounds of laughter.

Posted: 28th, January 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment


Ant McPartlin: Britain’s Got Talent seeks new role model

Ant Mcpartlin

Having heard Ant McPartlin hook up with the sympathetic Sun to trail the new season of Britain’s Got Talent as part of the star’s rehab programme, more papers lead with the celebrity who in less PR-driven times could be termed a love rat, troubled and drink-drive maniac.

The Express, Sun and Metro all lead not with Ant’s new partner, the rock-like Anne–Marie, rather Dec, the second part of the presenter’s double act. Dec was “angry” when Ant as arrested for drink-driving (Sun). Dec is laughing now he’s back on the telly with Ant (Metro). Ant is terrified that Holly Willoughby, who stepped in to present I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! will replace him. She may even be more liked by the public, what with her being vivacious, witty, not shagging her partner’s now former PA, not driving drunk into a car carrying a couple and their young child, and not taking drugs. Willoughby was a stop up in evolutionary terms.

Ant’s rehabilitation is all well and good – and good for him for finding a blonde fossil on which to build an empire. But this is surely about Simon Cowell, without whom Britain would be virtually talent free. What should have happened is that this series was made all about the presenters, a talent show for who can partner Dec or replace him and Ant entirely. If you’ve a dying granny, are a single dad with hair on the list of UNESCO sites of special scientific interest and/ or once shagged the aforesaid Cowell and are looking for a return favour, get in touch. Criminal records and failed blood tests are no barrier. Cowell missed a trick.

Posted: 21st, January 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment