Keeping Up With The Blondes
IT was a lucky break. With an alleged plot to blow up ten airliners foiled, the Mirror reported that the “teenage girlfriend” of one of the suspects was blonde.
This meant her picture had to appear on the front of Monday’s paper (it did). It was a far more inviting proposition for readers tired to shots of swarthy, wire-haired men.
This blonde was called Faith Wall. She was just 17. And she said that when she heard Muslim convert Donald Stewart-Whyte had been arrested in connection with the alleged plot she “was shaking and crying. I kept saying ‘They must have made a mistake’.”
He had written her poems. The Mirror reproduced one. It went: “…Take life seriously/ And live well not die young as I will/ If I follow this path/ This lonely/ dark/ off-road path.”
It didn’t rhyme – Faith never said he was good at writing poems. But “he was very cheeky”. He was “very nice”. And “you felt you could trust him”. And that’s better than “Faith, your love is better than an eighth…of hash” – the Sun said Donald was once hooked on dope.
It was your usual tale of blonde meets drug-raddled brunette. Drug–raddled brunette lets down blonde. Blonde gets her picture in the papers. Drug-addled brunette helps the police with their enquiries. It was Pete Doherty and Kate Moss all over.
And on Monday we read that they were back together. As the Mail said (“I’m still hooked on Pete”), Pete and Kate were an item once more. And it may be a permanent reunion.
In “I’m with the band”, the Sun spotted a big silvery ring on Kate’s finger. This, it said, was an engagement ring. The band, and the Mail’s news that Kate had told newlywed friends “It’s going to be me next”, pointed to a wedding.
But Kate should not make plans just yet. On Tuesday, the Sun said Pete had lost his passport; the Star said it had expired when he had been in rehab. Whatever the reason, Pete needed a new one.
But in the race to get the paperwork completed in time, Pete had failed to read the rules and submitted photographs of himself in the incorrect mode.
A source who saw the pictures said: “Pete’s head was leaning forward. It looked like he was nodding off.”
This was clearly pickiness on the part of the border guards. Rather than lowering the rules Pete was raising the bar, producing photographs that not only showed his face but explained his character and general demeanour, too.
For his pictures, Pete could dress up in a tuxedo and sit with back erect, steely eyes staring straight ahead, but the snaps would fail to capture the essence of the person. They would be less than useless.
For instance, if Prince Harry had a passport – and maybe he does – the picture should do the lad justice. It should show him smoking something, quaffing some booze and shoving his hand onto a girl’s breast.
And he would be all the more popular for it. On Wednesday, the Sun claimed that “his popularity had sky-rocketed” and “he is now being hailed as the greatest playboy prince”. Furthermore, “Girls dream of a date while guys list Harry as the person they’d most like a beer with.”
A survey of the Anorak offices revealed a slightly different result. The “girls” put Harry below Tony Blair, Julian Barnes and Fred West on their list of dream dates, and he failed to make the “guys’” list of drinking companions at all.
Indeed, in interview with Ed Barrett, old Mr Anorak said he would rather be tied to a radiator and forced to drink Terry Waite’s urine. But no matter, we accepted that the Sun was more in tune with contemporary Britain than we were.
If the Sun said Harry was a playboy prince, then we would not argue. If the Sun said Paris Hilton was to star in a new TV show called America’s Cutest Pup (and it said just that on Thursday), we bowed to its esoteric knowledge of the American TV listings.
All we asked was that the star of the feature was blonde. But it was always so. And not just in the Sun. On Friday the A-level results were published and they were many shocks. Nine out of ten students FAILED to get an A grade!
This was awful. So to soften the blow the paper produced a comforting shot of a blonde girl celebrating being one of the worrying minority.
And, no, since you ask, she has never dated a terrorist suspect – at least we think not…
Posted: 19th, August 2006 | In: Broadsheets Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
