NEWS over the wires that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s new album of Neapolitan love songs may not come out in time for Christmas.
Early impressions of Senor Berlusconi had him marked down as an inter-course crooner at a smallish eatery in Turin, Marbella or Northampton. Perhaps as a Paul Anka impersonator. Heeeeeeere’s Silvio in action at Lorenzo’s Grill And Bandana, Melton Mowbray:
When he later pulled on a bandana and some white linen, most notably in the company of Tony Blair, Little Silvio took on the look of a nut-brown Steven Van Zandt, aka Little Steven in a collision with Andrew Ridgley’s wardrobe.
The look was altogether tragic. If politics is showbiz for ugly people, then it’s shock news for Oasis, Queen and The Pogues. Berlusconi is no Tommy Steel, but then neither is Eric Clapton.
RUSSIAN teenager Anna Ivanov has had plastic surgery to look just like Paris Hilton.
As the Mirror reports, she told surgeon Zurab Meladze: “They already call me Paris Hilton. So now I want to be her. Everything. Lips, breasts and all the rest.”
BARACK Obama and his disciples have a new salute, or they might have:
George Bushhad his three-fingered W salute that supporters flashed when greeting him at presidential campaign events in 2000. And now, if a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above.
“Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama’s nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future,” says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc.
It looks a little familiar. Ed Morrissey thinks so:
NEWS reaches Anorak that German lawmakers want to ban Kinder surprise eggs.
“Children cannot tell the difference between a toy and food,” the Welt newspaper cites Miriam Gruss from the commission as saying.
This is a sure sign on how stupid German children now are, especially the fat ones like Augustus Gloop. The time is ripe for an invasion. But there is more:
Says a spokeswoman for Ferrero, who make the device: “There is absolutely no evidence that there is an increased danger from the combination of food and toys.”
Oh no. Anorak hears that anti-paedo campaigners have long believed the combination of pocket-sized chocolate and toy a clear and present danger.
These egg-shaped lures should be banned before it is too late. We must act now!
As announced in the National Security Strategy, the Government has published a National Risk Register which sets out our assessment of the likelihood and potential impact of a range of different risks that may directly affect the UK.
On today’s Los Angeles Times Readers’ Representative Journal try to find it blog:
Handling the John Edwards Story
Times readers and others since late July have sent notes by the dozens to the readers’ representative office, asking if The Times was looking into a story published by the National Enquirer containing allegations about John Edwards.
While the world was watching Beijing and the Olympic opening ceremonies yesterday a war broke out in the former USSR.
It tempting to call it a Civil War but the nations have been neighbours after the break up of the Soviets states.
The Independent’s view of the Georgia flare-up. As different as ever, it shows the true horror of war. As tanks roll in, women and children flee on foot. Already 1,400 are dead and the toll is rising.
The outbreak has already driven the Olympics from the Page One Lead slots in many of the UK newspapers and the happenings are likely to overshadow Beijing in the same way as the murder and cross-fire killings of the Israelis ruined Munich’s Olympic bash.
It was a calculated and vicious manoeuvre to quell the South Georgian breakaway state of of South Ossetia, while world leaders were distracted elsewhere and has brought Russia and Georgia to the brink of of all-out war.
As Georgia launched a major offensive to retake the region, Russian tanks rolled south towards the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. The BBC’s chartlet of the region
Over 1,400 are thought to have been killed in the worst hostilities since the province won a shaky and disputed independence in a war during 1992. Tskhinvali is said to be devastated.
The fighting broke out as much of the world’s attention was focused on the start of the Olympic Games and many leaders, including Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and US President George Bush, were in Beijing.
The 41-year-old Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, above, may have been counting on surprise to fulfil a pledge to win back control of South Ossetia – a key to his hold on power. He was swept into office after street fighting and chaos in the Georgian State.
Mr Saakashvili agreed the timing was deliberate but accused Russia of being the aggressor. He says the countries are at war.
I report this coverage here because some Anorakians were seeking a diversion away from the Olympics…well you’ve got it.
Russia does not take kindly to having its beard pulled and it would be as well to remember the national heritage, nature, and character-set of the Georgians…the Soviet State which produced one Joseph Stalin, apart from the Spanish ‘flu pandemic, probably the most prolific killer the world has ever known.
Just one mean-minded thought… if you think gas is expensive now…wait till Russia cuts the gas supply lines to get the Western European nations on message and on-side.
Gordon Brown will no doubt feel their (and our) pain.
JAHANGIR Hanif, 46, a Scottish National Party councillor, has been shooting an AK47, in Pakistan:
A millionaire politician was suspended by his party yesterday after photographs were published of him apparently taking his family — including his five-year-old daughter — to fire an AK47 assault rifle at a military-style camp in Pakistan.
Photographs of Jahangir Hanif, 46, a Scottish National Party councillor in Glasgow who has campaigned against violent crime, were published yesterday by a newspaper beneath the headline: “Councillor Kalashnikov”. He admitted last night that his behaviour had been “foolish and inappropriate”.
His 17-year-old daughter, Noor, described how she and four of her siblings were driven in a blacked-out vehicle to an alleged training base in mountains near the Kashmir border and encouraged to fire the powerful weapon.
Video footage passed to the Glasgow Evening Times showed Mr Hanif’s youngest daughter, Sana, aged 5 at the time, being helped to fire the gun, the newspaper said. His son Ameer, now 14, also fired the Russian-designed rifle — the weapon of choice for Taleban insurgents in Afghanistan, with a firing rate of 600 rounds a minute — as did his daughters Zainab, 13, and Amina, 10, the paper added.
…
When contacted about the video, Mr Hanif said “What?” before the line went dead, the Evening Times reported.
Stupid? Is this any differnt to an American shooting AK47s for fun?
IT’S not a jolly, honest. Being a sports minister is serious stuff. If anyone can pull of supporting two teams, it’s our Gerry Sutcliffe:
A pair of leading political figures have dragged Anglo-Australian hostilities back into the sporting limelight with a bet and a boast in Beijing. Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, and Kate Ellis, his counterpart Down Under, indulged in a spate of sledging that reopened old wounds and led to a string of gibes.
The sparring moved from the sporting fields to the corridors of power as the pair agreed that the minister of the country that finishes lower in the Olympic medal table will have to wear its rival’s national colours at the next big sporting event between the two countries. Sutcliffe, a Manchester United season ticket-holder, said: “It might mean me having to wear an Australian rugby league shirt at Old Trafford, which could be dangerous, but it’s all healthy fun.”
Note: No United fan will give a sh*t what some plonker in the expensive seats is wearing…
TIMOTHY Noah sees racism in Obama’s barn. To be called skinny is to be victim of racism. Barack Obama needs to be fat. We like a fat politician.
When Gordon Brown was fatter, we trusted him. Now he has a personal trianer and we can’t want for him to go. He’s a disaster.
In the Aug. 1 Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick asked, “[C]ould Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability?” Most Americans, Chozick points out, aren’t skinny. Fully 66 percent of all citizens who’ve reached voting age are overweight, and 32 percent are obese.
To be thin is to be different physically. Not that there’s anything wrong, mind you, with being a skinny person. But would you want your sister to marry one?
JOHN Edwards, the former Presidential hopeful, is the subject of the biggest non-story in the US. The National Enquirer broke it. But no other big US media player wants to give the tabloid credit. Says John Edwards:
I think every single candidate for president, Republican and Democratic have lives, personal lives, that indicate something about what kind of human being they are. And I think it is a fair evaluation for America to engage in to look at what kind of human beings each of us are, and what kind of president we’d make.
AS The Croydonian points out: “From the wonderful people who had a fire sale of gold reserves, this:
[Sports minister Gerry] Sutcliffe, in Macao to visit the Team GB preparation camp, said competitors needed to come home with 41 medals and show the British public that the country’s £500 million investment into elite sport was “value for money
HAVE you seen the video footage of Gordon Brown on the spanking new Downing Street website?
The site will feature exclusive video coverage of the prime minister’s speechezzzzzzz, press conferencezzzzzz, media appearancezzzzzzzzz and a newzzzzzzzz of Gordon’s thoughtzzzz and choices of jacketzzz and Comfi-slacks.
It’s called No.10 TV. And Anorak went to pay it a visit. Knock. Knock.
A new era in political communication is born as Uncle Go’ welcomes you to Downing Street’s all new television channel Number10TV, which will connect your front room directly to the very heart of power. Watch PM Brown as he dithers over the most pressing issues of the day!
TYRA Banks. mod-el, is talking Obama and all things Obama:
“When Barack won the nomination, I just started bawling. I started calling all these people, and everybody was talking to me like I was crazy. They’re like, ‘Well, he hasn’t won yet,’ but I’m like, ‘Yes, he has, because he’s gotten this far.” – Tyra Banks, Harper’s Bazaar
Banks loves Obama so much she pretends to be Michelle Obama, posing in a fake Oval office with an Obama-alike.
After the Cheeky Girls, comes Indiggo, two Romanian identical twins who wear very little clothes, sound like a cat being backcombed by Anthea Turner’s teeth and want to be fay-mooose.
One’s called Gabriella and the other’s called Michaela.
BREAKING news in the National Enquirer of “OBAMA LOVE CHILD SCANDAL”.
Cynics and afficiandos of tabloid news, such as we are, wonder if the story is:
“Goat born out of wedlock in Japanese city of Obama”
“Barack Obama is Not a love child”
“Claude Obama III, of Wisconsin, has had love child and named it…BARACK”
Inside the magazine, and the news is: “HUNT FOR OBAMA’S SECRET LOVE CHILD.”
After yesterday’s news that children will be taught how to be fat, and given a school report to prove the fact, comes an update.
Ministers do not want the word “obese” to be used in the letters home.
For one thing, it is harder to spell than “fat” and, secondly, research shows that people find it “highly offensive”.
How this research was conducted the Government does not care to say, but it is believed that a representative mix of schoolchildren were stood in line and called names. Tears were collected in a bucket.
NEWS in the Sun that Gordon Brown is giving No.10 Downing Street “a makeover”.
He’s “ordered in the builders” as “part of massive relaunch of the Premiership”.
Anorak feels the time is right for a revamp. With the economy in a mess, if Brown can do up No. 10 and attract the right hedge fund manager, Russian oligarch, Saudi Prince or Blair scion, he can sell it for a pretty penny and move on.
SAYS Michael Gove, the Conservative’s education spokesman, and Times hack:
“Titles such as Nuts and Zoo paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available.
“The images they use and project reinforce a very narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women. They celebrate thrill-seeking and instant gratification without ever allowing any thought of responsibility towards others, or commitment, to intrude.”
Nuts and Zoo, the Argos jewellery section of the magazine shop.
Here’s a thought, Mr Gove: boys who buy Nuts and Zoo do so because they can’t reach the topshelf magazines.
Mr Gove’s thoughts are published in the Guardian. (The words hereunder are scored through because of the comments below, and a note to Anorak from Simon Waldman, Director of Digital Strategy and Development, Guardian Media Group):
In March 2008 Emap plc was acquired by Eden Bidco Ltd, a joint venture between Apax and Guardian Media Group plc.
Emap publishes Zoo. The Guardian is run by The Scott Trust –“As the sole shareholder in Guardian Media Group the Scott Trust measures the return on its investment in terms broader than pure financial performance.”
We put these principles into action and fulfil our responsibilities primarily through our day-to-day business conduct and the editorial content of our newspapers, websites and other media.
Cleanness – all the girls on Zoo are scrubbed ready for your inspection.
Michael Gove writes for The Times, owned by New Corp, publishers of How to Make Love Like a Porn Star (Jenna Jameson), The Sun (Page 3 Girls) and the News of The World, which contains adverts for readers to call dirty college girls live.
SAYS the glutinous Keith Vaz on the matter of Batman:
“The BBFC should realise there are scenes of gratuitous violence in The Dark Knight to which I certainly would not take my 11-year-old daughter. It should be a 15 certificate.”
Oh, the embarrassment of being the younger Vaz, daughter to the oleaginous chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. Oh, to presume that your 11-year-old daughter would want to go to the cinema with her dad, a man once censored for a “serious breaches of the Code of Conduct and a contempt of the House”.
