Key Posts Category
Baby Peter Connelly: A Shabby Tale Of Self-Serving Politicians, Greedy Tabloids And Orchestrated Care
BABY P: Why did Peter Connelly died a horrific and barbaric death? Two detailed serious case reviews, once secret, have been published.
The errors that contributed to Peter Connelly being in the hands of Steven Barker, his brother Jason Owen and Peter’s mother Tracey Connelly.
Peter mother Tracey Connelly named her lover as her next-of-kin on an official form. But the powers that be did not know and not bother to find out that he was living with her.
Injuries to the child could, therefore, be more easily passed off as the result of accidents. But it needs saying that Barker had no previous convictions.
What can be learnt from these reports? That mistakes must not be repeated? Well, why then sack the social workers who failed the child? Are they not now best placed to advise other cases?
Sharon Shoesmith was sacked from her £130,000-a-year job as director of children’s services at Haringey Council in north London in December 2008 for her part in the death of a child. The first report, one she chaired, found “numerous examples of good practice” and that “many factors” contributed to the death.
That seemed less than full. Only it wasn’t that blinkered. Michael Gove, then in opposition, opined:
“Anyone reading that document can draw appropriate lessons about how social workers, lawyers, policemen and doctors should do their job better. It is a manual for how to improve children’s services in a case like this.”
The current children’s minister Tim Loughton says the very thing his colleague Gove called brilliant is a “complacent” piece of work, that is “insufficiently critical”.
Funny what being in power can do to your view of things. After Gove spoke, Ed Balls ordered the second review. This time we were told:
“In this case the practice of the majority, both individually and collectively expressed as the culture of safeguarding and child protection at the time, was incompetent and their approach was completely inadequate to meet the challenge presented by the case of child A (Peter).”
So. The system and its officials all failed.
Patrick Butler puts it well:
Today’s headlines tell us that “every agency” involved in the case messed up, which is actually not news to anyone who has taken a close interest in the case over the past two years. It may be a surprise, however, to anyone who had been led to believe by the reports of the Sun newspaper or the actions of former children’s secretary Ed Balls that the blame for the tragedy lay solely at the feet of hapless social workers and the sacked former Haringey children’s director, Sharon Shoesmith.
The Sun’s campaign to sack the social workers and Ed Balls’ mawkish bleating that “as a dad” he was uniquely placed to understand that a child’s torture was wrong all fed a voracious media and its need to make readers feel.
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Posted: 26th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Top UK Journalists On Twitter: The Media Brands Worth Following
WHO are the Top journalists to follow on Twitter? Which of those hacks who build up a following by telling you about their lives as they sit in their pyjamas watching daytime telly – much like the institutionalised but with less good drugs and almost no routine – are worth following?
Journalists can be brands on Twitter. And they can debate away from their corporate employers. The Washington Post has told its hacks:
No branded Post accounts should be used to answer critics and speak on behalf of the Post, just as you should follow our normal journalistic guidelines in not using your personal social media accounts to speak on behalf of the Post.”
The hack is independent. The organs they write for are just vehicles that pay for their louche lifestyles. Stick a load of like-minded hacks together with a newsfeed to make a newspaper or magazine. But who to get?
Name: Charlie Brooker
Location: London
Bio Foul-mouthed college dropout
Followers: 196,537
Would have been interesting to see how Brooker covered pap TV now he’s married to Konnie Huq, the former Blue Peter presenter now jobbing for the X Factor. But not long after marrying the kind of person his fans expect him to mock and deride, Brooker gave up his job as a TV reviewer for the Guardian. He then appeared on the telly as one legless gagmeister on a witless, formulaic panel-based game show featuring – again – the kind of people fans of his expect him to hate. Brooker is in danger of going native.
Name: Boris Johnson
Location: London
Bio: City Government for Greater London under the auspices of the Mayor of London
Followers: 105,718
Gonzo journalist working on a story about way it’s like to be Mayor of London.
Name: Caitlin Moran
Location: iPhone: 0.000000,0.000000
Bio: A woman, yes, but still funny.
Followers: 45,157
Bitchy. Funny. Can come across as being too happy to be part of the established media and on the inside, but always entertaining and lively.
Name: Grace Dent
Location: East London
Bio Diary of a Snob. TV-OD. i am circling you in a roflcopter powered on solid gold lolz.
Followers: 28,941
Dent is a journalist who shares Anorak’s pet hates and likes. Always a comfort to realise you are not alone and that your nascent spite, sarcasm and loves are fitt for public consumption. Also pretty fit.
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Posted: 26th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Baby Worship In Florida Revival Fire (Video)
TO the Ignited Church in Lakeland Florida, where the baby/toddler is feeling the force. Pasto Stephen Strader is the leading light:
Pastor Stephen and his family began traveling across the United States & internationally spreading the revival fires in 1994. Signs and wonders, and unusual manifestations of the Holy Spirit confirm the Word preached. His mission: spread this revival fire everywhere…
Particularly noted is the number of children and young people that are being touched by the anointing of God. Signs and Wonders are following the Word of God being preached!
Posted: 26th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Hunt For Woolwich Dog Owner Caught Kicked Dog In Knee Hill Park? 4Chan: We Need You (Update)
WHO is the man in Knee Hill Park, Woolwich, South London, filmed kicking a dog, thought to be brown lurcher cross? Can we add him to the Mary Bale List of Legends? Can 4chan sleuths help?
UPDATE: Reader Kevin Lomax says the puppy is with the RSPCA.
Previously:
Says RSPCA inspector Vicky Dawe:
“Poor thing, it looks so sad and terrified. We are hoping someone will recognise the man and dog from the film. Please get in touch with us if you recognise this person, it will prevent this dog from suffering like this again.”
Do you know who he is? Tell us and we will see if he, Mary Bale and that Bosnian girl who tossed her into a river want to hook up as an act in Anorak’s New Circus Maximus…
Cat Killed In Reclining Electric Lounge Chair – Mrs Willis:You Legend
Posted: 25th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comments (32)
Jennifer Lopez Introduces Her Gucci Kids Then Drives Off Without Them (Video)
JENNIFER Lopez and Marc Anthony want to show you their children in a Gucci project in conjunction with UNICEF.
Can Max & Emme save the children – and mum’s career?
The family is on the beach filming a campaign for Gucci.
As our pal Rumor Rat notices, at the photo-shoot, the happy couple leave in their sports car, sans twins.
Mummmm! Daaaaaaaaaad!! We’ll always have the video, right?
Image: 14
Posted: 25th, October 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Dragons’ Den’s James Caan Will Buy Your Baby (Dr Barnardo, Mr Pied Piper And Lindy Chamberlain’s Dingo Are Out)
JAMES Caan will buy your baby. For ca$$$$H. Caan is one fire-breathing reptile on TV’s Dragons’ Dean, that merciless show in which people climb a steep staircase to be confronted with a bench of five vain, smirking, sardonic celebrity moneymen who will take your imagination and ingenuity and mock you for a big slice of the pie.
Caan the one who wants to be liked, the earnest smoothy who will place his heart-worn-arm about your shoulder and tell you that your idea cannot be efficiently exploited to make him richer.
He will buy your baby! He will also buy their image rights. Caan’s first nest egg is a baby he’s met in Pakistan. He’s on the telly looking at the effects of the recent flood. Because what Pakistan needs is a celebrity element to help it get noticed on the news. Caan is with a film crew. He’s in a village offering the parents 100,000 rupees (£725) for their baby. He wants 100% of their produce.
Caan says his brother has need of a baby. So. The money’s there. Take it or leave it. But best hurry. There are no other offers on the table. Dr Barnardo, Mr Pied Piper and that dingo are all out.
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Posted: 24th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
The Iraq War Logs Digested: Wikileaks, Assange And Torture Photos
WIKILEAKS has released more files on US military actions in the Iraq war. They have been called, rather grandly, ‘The Iraq War Logs’. They aren’t. These are just the ones that have been leaked. Millions more documents remain the property of the US military and her allies. They help us to form a clearer picture of what has gone on in Iraq. They are only part of the story.
The Pentagon says the 392,000 files are a danger to US national security. We learn that up until December 2009, 66,081 civilians died among a total of 109,000 war fatalities.
The Wikileaker
Julian Assange is the face and fonder of Wikileaks. He’s in London. Says he:
“This organization does not let anyone hang out to dry. We always expect tremendous criticism. It is my role to be the lightning rod … to attract the attacks against the organization for our work, and that is a difficult role. On the other hand. I get undue credit.”
His Legacy?
Where is Assange’s respect for service? And where is his respect for those with more information than he will ever amass, even given the variety, and perhaps honest instincts, of his sources? We do not know. And it will not matter. The collateral damage of his actions makes folly of what he says is ethical. – Lea Carpenter
How Cheese Got Wikileak’s Julian Assange Laid And Accused Of Rape
The Chosen Organs
The files were released to these organisations: the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Al Jazeera and Der Spiegel.
The NY Times says it will not publish any information that will “put lives in danger or jeopardize continuing military operations.” The names of informants have been redacted. But, still, the documents have been widely distributed. Will all news organs keep the names of the informants secret?
Bias
The Guardian leads its coverage with photos of three Iraqi men handcuffed and blindfolded being led away by US forces.
What impression does this form?
The Telegraph leads its coverage with smoke rising from a building in Baghdad and a helicopter flying overhead. No human life is in view. We are told:
The files also detail how US Apache helicopters killed insurgents who were trying to surrender.
But with no human faces the human cost is no all that evident.
The Guardian picsk out a few highlights, ones all new organs go with:
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
But it’s not Iraqi police in the photos.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The New York Times revealed that:
The grisly abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Iraqis may have been even worse than the shocking mistreatment of detainees by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison.
The Iraqi military, which has provided the United States with an exit strategy as it took over security duties from U.S. troops, intervened aggressively on the side of Shiite militias during the height of the Shiite-Sunni civil war — and in some instances directly engaged U.S. forces.
Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Does Irony As Smear Campaign Targets His Son Daniel
The Spectre of Abu Ghraib
The public image of detainees in Iraq was defined by the photographs, now infamous, of American abuse at Abu Ghraib, like the hooded prisoner and the snarling attack dog. While the documents disclosed by WikiLeaks offer few glimpses of what was happening inside American detention facilities, they do contain indelible details of abuse carried out by Iraq’s army and police… Even when Americans found abuse and reported it, Iraqis often did not act. NYT
The Pentagon
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, says:
“We deplore WikiLeaks for inducing individuals to break the law, leak classified documents and then cavalierly share that secret information with the world, including our enemies. We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us, and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us.”
Julian Assange Loses His Cool To ‘Rape Victim’ Anna Ardin – Wikileaks Is Scooped
Hillary Clinton
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says government “should condemn in the most clear terms the disclosure of any information by individuals and or organizations which puts the lives of United States and its partners’ service members and civilians at risk.“
The Dead In Numbers
How many people have died in the Iraq war? Thomas Joscelyn, write in the right-wing Weekly Standard:
Early Friday evening I received a link, via email, to this story at ABC News’s website by Russell Goldman and Luis Martinez. The opening sentences read (emphasis added):
In what is being described as the largest release of secret U.S. military documents ever, whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks has published a trove of classified reports about the war in Iraq, including a secret U.S. government tally that put the Iraqi death toll at 285,000, according to news sources that received advanced copies of the documents.
A little while later I clicked on the link again, but now the opening sentences had been changed to read (emphasis added):
In what is being described as the largest release of secret U.S. military documents ever, the whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks has released a trove of classified reports about the war in Iraq, including a secret U.S. government tally that puts the Iraqi death toll between 109,000 and 285,000, according to news sources that received advanced copies of the documents.
And then a little later again (emphasis added):
The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks today released a trove of classified reports about the war in Iraq that it said documented at least 109,000 deaths in the war, a higher number than the United States previously has acknowledged, as well as what it described as cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces.
This strikes me as indicative of the media’s overall reporting on the Iraq War. Media outlets initially jumped on the claim that WikiLeaks had released a previously secret study showing that 285,000 Iraqis had perished in Iraq. ABC News hadn’t even seen the study at the time of its initial report. Instead, it summarized other “news sources” that reportedly had.
The Torture
“It was one of the stated aims of the war to end the torture chambers. But the secret files reveal a very different story. In graphic detail they record extensive abuse at Iraqi police stations, Army bases, and prisons.”
Wikileaks And Julian Assange Caught In Bias Storm Over Reuter’s Iraqi Journalists ‘Slaughter’
And the US?
US troops reported the abuse to their superiors on more than 100 occasions, according to the documents, but the military – at the highest levels – ordered troops not to intervene.
The Monitor has detailed the alleged torture and abuses that have continued in Iraqi prisons since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
“What I consider humane treatment of prisoners, is not what [Iraqi prison guards] would consider humane treatment,” Lt. Col. Shaun Reed, commander of a Baquba-based US infantry unit, whose work with Iraqi security forces has exposed him to Iraqi prison conditions, told the Monitor in 2009. He said it’s hard to change prison workers accustomed to brutality. “If you ask Iraqis what they think – it’s completely different.”
The Torture Victims
The archive contains extensive, often rambling accounts of American abuse from Iraqi prisoners, but few were substantiated. The most serious came during arrests, which were often violent when people resisted. In those cases, investigations were opened. In a case reminiscent of Abu Ghraib, in which guards photographed themselves with Iraqis whom they had posed in humiliating positions, a soldier was censured for writing a derogatory slur with a marker on the forehead of a crying detainee.
Frago 242
The Guardian reports that a military order called Frago 242 ordered coalition troops not to investigate abuse “unless it directly involves members of the coalition.” Repeat after us: “Frago 242”.
The Hikers
In July 2009 Iran’s national police force in July 2009 cross the border into northern Iraq to apprehend Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal. Shourd has since been released. Bauer and Fattal remain jailed in Tehran’s Evin prison.
The hikers described themselves as tourists. Tehran contends they are spies…
A drone aircraft was sent to look for the missing Americans, and two F-16s jet fighters were alerted…
The military dispatch ended with an assessment.
“The lack of coordination on the part of these hikers, particularly after being forewarned, indicates an intent to agitate and create publicity regarding international policies on [Iran].”
Iran
In Dec. 22, 2006, US military officials in Baghdad issued a secret warning: The Shi’ite militia commander who had orchestrated the kidnapping of officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education was now hatching plans to take US soldiers hostage.
What made the warning especially worrying were intelligence reports saying that the Iraqi militant, Azhar al-Dulaimi, had been trained by the Middle East’s masters of the dark arts of paramilitary operations: the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally.
“Dulaymi reportedly obtained his training from Hizballah operatives near Qum, Iran, who were under the supervision of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) officers in July 2006,’’ the report noted, using alternative spellings. Five months later, Dulaimi was killed in a US raid in the Shi’ite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad, but not before four US soldiers had been abducted from an Iraqi headquarters in Karbala and killed in an operation that US officials say bore Dulaimi’s fingerprints.
The Surrender
In one such case, in February 2007, the crew of an Apache helicopter shot and killed two Iraqi men believed to have been firing mortars, even though they made surrendering motions, because, according to a military lawyer cited in the report, “they cannot surrender to aircraft, and are still valid targets”…
The Checkpoint:
Checkpoints could also be hazardous. At one Marine checkpoint, sunlight glare on a windshield prevented a female driver from seeing Marines signaling for her to stop. The mother was killed, and her three daughters and husband were wounded. Without interpreters, the Marines were unable to speak to the survivors…
The Brutality:
Americans suspected Iraqi army officers of cutting off a detainee’s fingers and burning him with acid. In two other cases, bound detainees were executed. And while some abuse cases were investigated by the Americans, “most seemed to have been ignored, with the equivalent of an institutional shrug: soldiers told their officers and asked the Iraqis to investigate,” the Times said.
In other cases, Americans intervened. In August 2006, for example, an American sergeant in Ramadi heard whipping noises in a military police station and walked in on an Iraqi lieutenant using an electrical cable to slash the bottom of a detainee’s feet. The American stopped him, but later he found the same Iraqi officer whipping a detainee’s back.One beaten detainee said in 2005 that “when the Marines finally took him, he was treated very well, and he was thankful and happy to see them.” – Politics Daily
China Wikileaks
Attempts to create a “Chinese WikiLeaks” project could result in lengthy jail sentences for internet users who send sensitive materials, critics warned today.
So says the Guardian. What will happen to Assange – already smeared in a ludicrous rape story – is unclear…
Posted: 23rd, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
The Top 10 Near Death Gifs: Animated Close Calls
THE animated gif (graphics interchange formats) is a great way to showing something in a very fast way. Only the internet can do this. In the collection of gifs you will see people have a near death experience. No sound. No words. Just the gif…
Posted: 22nd, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment (1)
Michael Jackson And Elvis: Lisa Marie Presley Tells Oprah What Happened
LISA Marie Presley, Elvis’s daughter, lives in Tunbridge Wells, England. It’s more private over here than in LA, a place obsessed with the vapid Weltschmerz of the ‘Me’.
England is just more free and easy. Sure Lisa, reportedly, asked staff at her mansion to sign a privacy document – an agreement not to talk about their work. One source told the Sun:
“It was like they were being asked to sign the Official Secrets Act. It was way over the top and they felt it was a total infringement of their human rights. “Staff could not speak to their husbands, wives or even their grandchildren about what they did.”
Said Lisa Marie of her family’s move:
“We have found the quality of life so much more enriching and fulfilling. The civility, the culture, the people and its beauty have reawakened me and have smoothed out some of my bleak and jagged views about people and life.”
So. Here’s Lisa Marie on the deep and meaningful Oprah Winfrey show, an interview conducted at here English idyll. Kent is not LA, but you can always bring some over.
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Posted: 22nd, October 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (2)
Uganda Newspaper Orders 100 Gay ‘HOMOS’ To Be Hanged
UGANDA Rolling Stone newspaper features photos, names and addresses of the country’s “TOP HOMOS” and orders them to be “HANGED”.
Rolling Stone’s editor, Giles Muhame, tells the AP:
“Some [homosexuals] recruit young children into homosexuality, which is bad and need to be exposed.”
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Posted: 21st, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Anti-Muslim Bias: Mail Says Muslims Ban Stockport Beverley From Cooking Bacon In Cafe
TODAY’S anti-Muslim story arrives via the Daily Mail, wherein we learn about Stockport friar Beverley Akciecek’s predicament at Beverley’s Snack Shack takeaway in the Shaw Heath area:
Cafe owner ordered to remove extractor fan ‘because smell of frying bacon offends Muslims‘
We learn:
A hard-working cafe owner has been ordered to tear down an extractor fan – because the smell of her frying bacon ‘offends’ Muslims.
That is the hard-worker who put up an extractor fan without planning permission? She applied retrospectively. It was refused.
Anorak has polled Muslims here at the Towers can say that 9 out of ten Muslims are offended by the smell of frying bacon because it seems so bloody delicious. The other Muslim – the 10% – says he has no idea what bacon is but is interested in new cultures and learning more about it.
Planning bosses acted against Beverley Akciecek, 49, after being told her next-door neighbour’s Muslim friends had felt ‘physically sick’ due to the ‘foul odour’.
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Posted: 21st, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (12)
Was Football Team Drugged By Rival’s Poisoned Water?
WERE Hijos de Acosvinchos’ players drugged before their game with promotion rivals Sport Ancash in the Peruvian league?
Having supped from water bottle made available by Ancash staff, Hijos defender Andy Salinas collapsed. The water bottle had been passed around. Juan Luna, Martin Reategui and Luis Coello also all collapsed.
Tests revealed that all players affected had traces of benzodiazepine – a sleeping drug – in their blood.
Sport Ancash went on to win 3-0 and secured promotion to Peru´s first division.
All affected players had traces of benzodiazepine, a class of drug used to treat insomia, in their blood.
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Posted: 21st, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
MOBO 2010: Winners, Photos And Gamu’s JLS Duet
MOBO Awards 2010 In Photos: all eyes on X Factor deportee Gamu Nhengu, who stole the limelight from raisin-haired Jermaine Jackson, N-Dubz and their surly mascot Dappy, Mark Ronson’s No.1 fan (meet your people) and someone who used to be white women called Natasha Hamilton (now a cocoa dusted figurine with a face like Qwerty keyboard – picture 4). JLS scooped a gong and the talk was that Gamu and the lads are to duet. Enjoy the photos…
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7/7 Bombers Wanted To Be In The A Team: Life Copies Four Lions
THE 7/7 inquest is underway and what we are learning is that suicide bombers that murdered 52 people are needy, vain, nihilists who craved fame and inhabited a world of fantasy in which Mohammad Sidique Khan played Face from the A Team to Germaine Lindsay’s BA Baracus. (Chris Morris’s Four Lions was close to the knuckle.)
Yep, the mass murderers wanted to be American soldiers of fortune living in LA.
4 July 2005:
Mohammad Sidique Khan to Germaine Lindsay: “Face you mutha fucker il rearange ya face if ya stab me wiv dat needle cos i said i aint getting on no plain fool.”
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Posted: 20th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Get ‘Em Off! The Nostalgia-Proof British Sex Comedy
WE British are scorned by the world for our attitude to sex. Unsophisticated, unromantic, unimaginative, unattractive, unhygienic, inhibited and generally inept – these are the characteristics that spring to the foreign mind when forced to think of our men as potential partners.
And judging by the evidence of the Great British Sex Comedy, you can see why.
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Posted: 20th, October 2010 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Photojournalism | Comments (3)
The PR Plot To Make X Factor’s Katie Waissel Hated And Loved, Like Marmite
X FACTOR agonist Katie Waissel continues to earn front-page news, today in the Star where she has sent “X-RATED kinky photos” to Simon Cowell.
And we know this how?
Waissel, billed as “ruthless” and dubbed “weasel” (because the tabloids hate ambitious women) is pictured sat on a man’s arms with his face turned towards her crotch. Both are fully clothed.
If this is what the Star, sister organ to Channel X, thinks is X rated, then anyone calling those XXX-rated phone lines in the paper’s classified section might be disappointed.
Read: How The X Factor And Sony BMG Fixed It For Katie Waissel, aka Katie Vogel.
This makes Katie the “reality TV’s most hated ever star”.
Yep, Katie Waissel is now so hated that every soon she will be loved. She will have a fan base where only apathy might have been, Thanks to a concerted PR-driven ploy to get her noticed full of lies, half-truths the refreshingly dishonest non-denial denial, Waissel – that connected sometime professional singer – is a star.
She is already being billed as “Marmite” – something you either love or hate – like Jade Goody. In the PR onslaught, indifference is not an option.
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Posted: 20th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment
Wallaby On Ecstasy Dies On An Irish Dance Floor: What Really Happened?
WHAT happened to the wallaby that was allegedly plied with ecstasy and drink before it took to the dance floor at the Clarion Hotel in Liffey Valley, Ireland, when the DJ spun Skippy the Bush Kangaroo?
It was a 30th birthday party and about 150 guests were there. The wallaby had, reportedly, been hired for the occasion. Rumours are that the wallaby died.
“There is no evidence at this stage of a body, or evidence to suggest it is dead,” says a garda source.
Hotel manager Garret Marrinan has handed CCTV footage of the incident to the police. He says a duty manager became suspicious:
“He actually had to climb up on to the stage to look in, and when he looked in he noticed a box and out of it came what he described as something like a large dog. By the time he got down through the crowd, the animal and the box were gone. We had no idea where it came in or how it got out of the hotel. The whole thing was all a bit upsetting to be honest with you.”
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Posted: 19th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment (1)
Chile Sells San Jose Mine Rock At $50 A Pebble: Queen And Cameron Get Theirs Free (Photos)
THE President of Chile, Mr Sebastian Pinera, was given a rock star’s welcome at Downing Street, enjoying a ‘clap in‘ by Downing Street staff, a privilege normally only afforded to incoming British Prime Minister. Pinera then gave David Cameron a rock from the bottom of the San Jose mine, from where 33 minsters were rescued.
Chile has lots of rocks. It also has lots of copper and gold, the extraction of which was the driver for that mine being built. But now the rock might be worth more than the shiny stuff.
Pinera later gave a rock to Her Majesty The Queen at Buckingham Palace. Both Cameron and Liz’s rocks were small. This makes them look more precious. Stick the rock in a cardboard box with a bit of velvet and a certificate and – bish-bosh! – job done. Chile can palm these out at £50 a time and be rich.
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Posted: 19th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Royal Family | Comment
The Top 10 BBC Radio Fails
RADIO Fails on the BBC – the Top Ten. Anorak has compiled a list of the Top Ten Radio Fails ion the BBC – those moments in broadcasting when you cringe, laugh and turn off. And do know that BBC has producers that vet the calls and the show. Russell Brand’s fail (which got him lots of press and boosted his career) is over here. Enjoy them all – they open in a new window – go back with your browser navigation:
JEREMY VINE: jeremy vine fail
NO NEWS: owl (our favourite)
BLOODY TRUMPET: stanley clark
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Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston Covers: The Content Factory Exposed
BRAD PITT, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston are immersed in a tabloid maelstrom of news, no news, denials, non-denials and outright lies that make up the Brangelina Anison content factory. We’ve pulled together a collection of magazine covers from the past few years that are short on facts but big on sensation.
Enjoy the news that Knox and Shiloh had Downs; Brad breaking up with Angelina a few times; Jen kissing Brad; and a baby that never was…
Posted: 19th, October 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (2)
Monumental Parenting Fails: A Gallery Of Of The Stupid
PARENTAL fails are all around us. One day all children will blame their parents for something, or everything. The fail is sometimes glaring. The couple who taped their child to a wall are arrested and charged. But not all parents fall foul of the law. Some just get away with it. Here’s a gallery of monumental parenting fails. You need to see them all – they get better and better…
Posted: 18th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comments (9)
Among The Pussy People: A Short Film For Cat Lovers And Comedy Seekers
DO not mess with cat people, or Pussy People, as they call themselves in Andrew Lang’s short film. In this video we go in amongst the Cat Show people, meeting Dorothy Woodhouse, president of the show:
“I don’t call them cats they’re little people. They’re little people,that live with us. OK, they’re four legged and they’ve got fur and they meow instead of speak but they’re little people.”
We then meet the cat woman, one Ros Hamilton, who says:
“Music with melody – because I think that really calms them.”
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Posted: 18th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts | Comments (2)
X Factor 2010: Stephen Fry’s Video Tribute To Wagner Fiuza Carrilho
X FACTOR 2010: Stephen Fry has made a video tribute to Wagner Fiuza Carrilho.
Rumours were that Wagner was being kept on the show by a neo-Nazi voting cartel based on the Austro-Swiss border.
But when Storm (Trooper) Lee was voted off, we wondered about the validity of those stories. And then it became clear. Stephen Fry – King of Twitter – is backing Wagner to win.
Here’s the video:
X Factor 2010: Wagner Fiuza Carrilho Is The Cheryl Cole Antidote We Crave
The X Factor 2010: Where You’ve Seen The Fix Factor Finalists Before
Posted: 17th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment
Susan Boyle The Woman I Was Born To Be Extracts: Kisses, God And Photos
SUSAN Boyle has been signing copies of her autobiography, The Woman I Was Born to Be at Waterstone’s in Piccadilly, London. Who or what that woman is remains a moot point in the media, who have presented Boyle as the Hairy Angel, a sign of God’s love and a lumpen dolt.
Here’s La Boyle:
I knew what they were thinking. ‘Just look at her! She’s got a bum like a garage, a head like a mop, I’m not too sure if her teeth are her own and she’s claiming to be a singer! She cannae sing. She cannae! Well come on, let’s hear you then. . .’
So I opened my mouth and sang. ‘I dreamed a dream in time gone by . . .’
The O2
During my birth in 1961 it was touch and go for her as well as me but, eventually, I was delivered by emergency caesarean section. When my mother came round from the anaesthetic, the doctor looked at her seriously.
‘You have a girl,’ he told her. ‘She’s very small and she needs help with her respiration, so we have her in an incubator.’
When my father Patrick appeared at my mother’s bedside, she knew something was wrong. ‘She was starved of oxygen for a wee while,’ he said. My mother was an intelligent woman and knew what that meant.
Judges
One day we went to hospital for something called an assessment. ‘What’s an assessment?’ I asked.
‘It’s a test to see what sort of school you can go to,’ she told me. The test involved putting shapes through holes in a box. I wasn’t helped by a bald-headed man staring at me. Afterwards, I listened to him talking to my mother. The word he kept using was ‘borderline’.
Angels Move Me
The first song I can remember performing on my own at school was the hymn Child In The Manger in a Nativity play. I sang it to the tune of Morning Has Broken and I was nervous. When I opened my mouth to sing, however, the trembling stopped. As I finished, there was silence. The children looked at me with their mouths hanging open. Then the teachers and parents started clapping and smiling at me
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Posted: 16th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts | Comment (1)
Daily Star Duped By Spoof Website Into Chile Mine Theme Park Story
THE Chile Miners are free. And the mine they escaped from is to be turned into a theme park. Well, so says the Daily Star, one day on from when the story was broken on a website called… The Spoof.
The clue is in the title of that site, something that may have passed by Star hack Steve Hughes.
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Posted: 15th, October 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (4)
