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In photos: Full kit hero John Terry and his kids win the Europa Cup for Chelsea

HE did it gain. Full-kit man John Terry came down from the stands to celebrate Chelsea’s Europa Cup win, and just as he did when the Blues won the Champions’ League last season, changed from casual clothes into full Chelsea kit. For added hilarity, he positioned his daughter at the very centre of the team photo. In years to come, when memories have faded, JT will be the family man who with his team of Terrios conquered Europe.

 

Terry’s kits during the match, in which he played no part.

Netherlands Soccer Europa League Final

 

 

 

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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment


As a Syrian rebel is filmed cutting out a soldier’s heart we wonder who the hell the Free Syrian Army are?

Syria heart

WHO are Syria’s Freedom fighters? And should we back them? The internet is alive with a video of a Syrian rebel cutting out the heart and liver of a Government soldier. Having removed the organs the rebel looks as if he is about to eat them.

The Syrian opposition National Coalition says it is  “a horrific and inhumane act”. Who is the National Coalition? Is it the same as the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces? The Syrian National Council? The National Co-ordination Committee? Is it in control of the Free Syrian Army? It’s all a bit murky.

Human Rights Watch says the video appears to have been made by a rebel brigade in Homs. It is alleged that the man in the video is Abu Sakkar, the alleged leader of Omar al-Farouq al-Mustakila brigade. The man says:

“We swear to God we will eat your hearts and livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog. We are the heroes of Baba Amr.”

You wonder what the purpose of the video is? When Syrian president Bashar al-Assad used some sort of chemical weapon against rebels, the West did nothing. Will a grisly video of one man’s mutilation prick the West into action where 70,000 other deaths in the war have failed? Is the one hideous wrong worse than the big faceless number?

Barack Obama thinks so. He said:

‘There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical-weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.”

Being shot in the face is not as demanding of enormous consequences as being gassed oor chopped up is. We like our murders to be neat.

The Guardian’s editorial agreed:

‘The use of chemical weapons is a war crime. It is a war crime even if it is committed by a state which, like Syria (or North Korea), is not a signatory to the international chemical weapons convention… [B]ut the evidence needs to be examined. There undoubtedly needs to be a proper investigation, authorised by the international community, of the sarin allegations.”

Use chemical weapons and the righteous will get you. Guns. Meh.

Now what? Do we support the rebels, who look a lot like the jihadis the US has been fighting in Iraq? Does the US send in the big guns that would allow the rebels to win? Or does it just allow the rebels to get enough weapons to keep the civil  war going?

The West has already taken sides. NATO plonked Patriot anti-missile batteries along its member Turkey’s border with Syria. Then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said this showed that “Turkey is backed by its allies.” No. It showed that the West is against the Syrian Government.

Turkey’s  prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his views clear:

“The massacres in Syria that gain strength from the international community’s indifference are continuing to increase. The regime in Syria has now become a terrorist state. We do not have the luxury to be indifferent to what is happening there.”

He is demanding intervention. Turkey could do with a more Sunni-slanted Islamist ally in Syria.

CNN say Obama has agreed to supply the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Although the US doesn’t know all that much about the FSA. It’s the latest group the West has decided to back. The people – the Syrians on the ground – had no say in their representatives. The West just told them who was in charge.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain was supplying the rebels because it was acting as the conscience of humanity. The rebellion is no longer a local affair. The rebels leaders been picked by the West and interested foreigners.

Meanwhile, the rebels are fighting for their place on the world stage. The FT reported on one incident:

A statement posted on the internet in the name of the militant Islamist group the Al-Nasra Front said they carried out Wednesday’s assault, using two waves of suicide attackers. The group has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Damascus but has also denied one claim issued in its name in May. Shortly after explosions rocked the capital on Wednesday, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is trying to act as an umbrella group for the various units fighting on the ground, claimed responsibility for them. A group called Tajamo Ansar al-Islam also claimed responsibility. The group’s relationship with the FSA is not clear.

The West is trying to create the official face of the rebellion. They are the good who will take over when the bad are routed.

And then we see the video of a man having his heart removed, you realise that Syria is complicated. There is no coherent rebellion. There is sectarianism, vengeance, and religionism mixed into that struggle to defeat Assad’s out-of-date regime…

 

Posted: 14th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)


ObamaGate: How Obama became Tricky Dicky Nixon

Boston Herald ObamaGate copy

EMBROILED in scandal over BenghaziHilary Chabot writes in the Boston Herald:

President Obama’s angry dismissal of the growing outcry over the handling of last year’s Benghazi terrorist attack that left a U.S. ambassador dead shows all the signs of a White House in “damage control” mode, critics say.

“They are in damage control, and this story is now gaining traction because people are now talking about it even more,” said Richard Benedetto, an American University political science professor and former White House correspondent for USA Today. “This story to me has all the makings of a Watergate kind of story. What did they know and when did they know it, and what did people in the White House do to cover it up?”

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Posted: 14th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment


Ahmed Angel might be the world’s greatest male model (epic photos)

AHMED Angel might be the world’s greatest male model. An international icon, Ahmed speaks Arabic, English, Russian and French.

ahmed angel 11

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Posted: 13th, May 2013 | In: Fashion, Key Posts | Comment


11 photos that explain Ireland to the world

IRELAND: 11 snapshots of life in the Emerald Isle:

ireland 11

 

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Posted: 13th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment


The top ten FA Cup Final Songs ever (plus rosettes, goal action flick books and Super-8 films)

ONCE upon a time, we are always told, the FA Cup Final was one of only two games shown live on television each year. (The other being the England v Scotland fixture in the late and unlamented Home International tournament.)

And in the days before video recorders, there were few opportunities to relive those magical moments.

You could look at your rosette, with its odd-looking cup.

burley FA cup final

 

You could read your official match programme, with its pages of Double Diamond ads (and in the case of the 1946 final, the news that, along with their “stockings”, Charlton Athletic wore white knickers, and Derby black).

Cup3

 

 

Cup4

 

You could watch a goal again and again by flicking the pages of a flip-book.

Cup5

 

You could buy Super-8 films – if you had a projector, and weren’t too bothered about burning the living room curtains as the celluloid caught light.

Cup6

 

Or more timid souls might have opted for a souvenir LP of the match commentary.

For most, however, the gift that kept giving was the Cup Final Song, usually sung by the lads themselves and carefully mixed to hide the vocal shortcomings therein. Some made the pop charts; others disappeared into oblivion. Here’s ten of the best.

10. Liverpool

The Anfield Rap came from left-field before the 1988 FA Cup final against Wimbledon and the only fond memory of that occasion for Reds fans.



9. Stoke City

The Potters’ ponderous We’ll Be With You was the soundtrack for their far-from-ponderous League Cup victory in 1972.

8. Arsenal

Good Old Arsenal is a strange hybrid. The tune is ‘Rule Britannia’ and the lyrics (such as they are) were penned by Jimmy Hill – a man with no connection to the club.

7. Everton

Plenty of club songs in their locker, including this effort from the sixties.

But their representative here is Here We Go – an interesting take on the theme song from the miners’ strike. In another interesting twist, it was recorded after their 1984 FA Cup win.

6. Leeds United

A-side Leeds United made the charts, but like a Beatles single, it was the B-side (Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! commonly known as Marching On Together) that endured.

5. Chelsea

The Pensioners’ anthem Blue Is The Colour was recorded not for the famous 1970 FA Cup Final, but for the 1972 League Cup Final, which they lost to Stoke. This video shows the recording session, including a very drunk Alan Hudson, who probably hadn’t recovered in time for the final.

4. West Ham United

A valiant, if somewhat dated, reggae version of the Hammers standard, performed by Bonzo, Sir Trev and pals for the 1975 FA Cup Final against Fulham.

3 Crystal Palace

The Dave Clark Five’s Glad All Over became the Palace anthem during the 1960s, so it was the obvious choice for the team to record for the Wembley debut in the 1990 FA Cup Final.

2 Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs had plenty of cup form in the studio. The Cockerel Chorus hit the carts in the early 1970s with Nice One Cyril, and a decade later came Ossie’s Dream, recorded by Chas & Dave with the ‘Tottingham’ squad. The duo would go on to pen two more cup final tunes: Hot Shot Tottenham in 1987 and, best of the lot, Tottenham, Tottenham in 1982. Here it is on Top of the Pops.

1 Millwall

Not an obvious choice, perhaps, but a classic nonetheless. Recorded decades before the club’s first FA Cup Final in 2004, Let ’Em Come was the theme tune for the road to Wembley. A rousing tune with pleasingly menacing undertones.

Posted: 12th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment


Ryan Gosling won’t eat his cereal (in 8 Gifs)

RYAN Gosling won’t eat his cereal:

tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao8_250 tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao2_250 tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao3_250 tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao6_250 tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao1_250 tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao4_250 tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao5_250 tumblr_mmkk82IVm61qm44gao7_250

 

Spotter

Posted: 10th, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Gifs, Key Posts | Comment


Charles Ramsey becomes the victim of a media hatchet job – gutter press turn on black hero

charles-ramsey rap

CHARLES Ramsey is a hero. He did the right thing when he heard Amanda Berry hollering and broke down the door to save her, a young child, Michele Knight and Gina DeJesus.

Connor Simpson told his readers:

No one is saying that Charles Ramsey isn’t worthy of the “hero” mantle.

Two days on and they are. Katherine Bindley writes in the HuffPost:

Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland man who has been hailed as a hero for his role in helping to free three women from the house where police say they were held, has a criminal record that includes a history of domestic violence.

So what? He’s not on trial. The women’s kidnappers and rapists soon will be. Ramsey was just the right man in the right place at the right time. The media made him a star and the internet made him a meme. He’s just being himself.

Bindley adds:

As praise for Ramsey’s actions continue to surface from media outlets, it remains to be seen how his past will affect the public’s perceptions of his character.

Nice, eh. Mr Ramsey rescues three women from sexual slavery and gets his character questioned by a hack. He’s not standing for public office. He’s not pontificating on the lives of others. He’s a  man who did the right thing.

The media has praised Ramsey in recent days in part because he said he thought kidnapping victim Amanda Berry, whom he heard screaming from a neighbour’s house, was a victim of domestic violence when he went to help her.

The media praised him. Does he give a toss what the media thinks of him? Did he give toss what the media would think of him when he kicked in that front door? He did the right thing and then, when questioned by the TV news, spoke candidly. But Bindley sits in judgement in the court of popular opinion. She continues:

However, that fact — coupled with Ramsey’s remarks about how he had been raised to help women in distress — now seems to stand in contrast to his past behavior.

What a hideous, cowardly hatchet job.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart updated a flattering article about Ramsey to reflect the new information, but he said it did nothing to change his mind about the man’s status as a hero.

Having questioned Mr Ramsey’s character, Bindley now defers to another writer who made an opinion. Bindley is inviting her readers to debate Ramsey. Revolting.

And then the aforesaid Simpson gets wind of Ramsey’s rap sheet.

Charles Ramsey is still a hero for the good he did. He undeniably helped save three women from a horrific situation that’s straight out of the worst, most exploitive horror movie you can imagine.

But…

But that doesn’t change the reality that he has a history of violence himself.

Send the man down!

Posted: 9th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)


CNN’s Asleigh Banfield talks LIVE on split screen satellite link up to CNN’s Nancy Grace (TV news shark jumps)

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WE go live! to a car park in  Phoenix , Arizona. Asleigh Banfield is live! for CNN’s CNN Newsroom. Also there live! is Nancy Grace, of CNN Headline News.

They are both in the same parking lot. They are talking to each other over a satellite link. They are around 30 feet apart.

If you look closely you can see live! TV news jumping the shark.

nancy grace 2

nancy grace 1

nancy grace

ashleigh banfield nancy grace

Posted: 8th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment


Margaret Ruth Groening (née Wiggum) the Inspiration for Marge Simpson dies

Marge Simpson dies

MATT Groening based many of his The Simpson’s characters on members of his family. His dad’ called Homer. His sisters are Maggie and Lisa. His mother was Margaret Ruth Groening (née Wiggum) . She died in April.

You feel like you knew her, don’t you?

Spotter Reddit

Posted: 7th, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment


In 2004, TV psychic Sylvia Browne told Louwana Miller that her daughter Amanda Berry was dead

Missing Women Found

IN 2002, Michele Knight vanished. She was 21. In 2003, Amanda Berry was working at a branch of Burger King in Cleveland, Ohio. She was 16. Tomorrow would be her 17th birthday. She disappeared. In April 2004, Georgina “Gina” DeJesus vanished on her way home from school. She was just 14.

What happened to them was a mystery.

On November 17, 2004, Amanda’s mother, Louwana Miller, appealed for help on the Montel Williams show. Psychic Sylvia Browne told Miller that Amanda was dead. She saw her “in water“. Miller will see her daughter “on the other side, in Heaven”. Said Browne:

“She’s not alive, honey. Your daughter’s not the kind who wouldn’t call.”

The transcript (not in full):

Montel Williams: My next guest needs to know what happened to her missing daughter. Now, this has been crazy, Sylvia…

Williams: On April 21st, 2003, 16-year-old Amanda Berry left her part-time job never to be seen again.

Louwana Miller: It was the day before her 17th birthday. She had just got off of work, and she was walking home. Then she said, `I got a ride. I’ll call you right back.’

Williams: Amanda never made it home that night. She was last seen getting into a vehicle with three men. Local law enforcement and FBI were immediately called in. The FBI, who had tapped the family’s home phone, discovered that the stranger had called from Amanda’s cell.

Miller: I got a phone call four or five days later, and they said, `Amanda’s with me. She’s fine, and I’ll have her home in a few days.’ And then a few days never came. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve heard anything from my daughter. I need to speak with Sylvia to see if she can help me find out where my daughter is.

Williams: To this day, Amanda Berry has never been found.

Sylvia Browne: Did she know of anybody by the name of…(censored).

Miller: I don’t–I don’t know. That don’t sound familiar.

Browne: Now, what I don’t understand is her jacket was in a dumpster. Because she’s wearing a jacket.

Williams: Was she wearing a jacket?

Miller: She had on a black, hooded jacket, yes.

Williams: Would that give a clue to who–I mean, obviously…

Browne: Oh, yeah.

Williams: …the last witness who saw her said three people?

Browne: Because with the–the “CSI” and everything else we have on now, the forensics–and I’m not trying to knock the police department, because I know they’re overloaded, and I work with a lot of them.

Williams: But did she not say, `I have a ride home,’ as if it was one person?

Miller: Right, she said, `I have a ride.’

Browne: There was only one person.

Miller: Can you tell me if they’ll ever find her? Is she out there?

Browne: She’s–see, I hate this when they’re in water. I just hate this. She’s not alive, honey. And I’ll tell you why, here we go again. Your daughter was not the type that would not have called you.

Browne: Well, there’s got to be somebody that you could track or the police could track.

Miller: He was a young kid? Or…

Browne: He was maybe 21, something like that, 21, 22.

Miller: Does he have…

Browne: Always wore his pants very low, you know?

Miller: So you don’t think I’ll ever get to see her again?

Browne: Yeah, in heaven, on the other side.

Williams: Let me take a little break. We’ll be right back after this.

Miller told the press:

“Please don’t misunderstand me. I still don’t want to believe it. I want to have hope but, after a year and a half, what else is there? It seems like the God-honest truth. My daughter would always call home.”

In 2006, Louwana Miller died. She was just 46.

Here’s Sylvia Browne:

And then Amanda Berry was found.

Charles Ramsey heard shouting from house in Cleveland:

“[I] heard screaming. I’m eating my McDonalds, I come outside, I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of her house, so I go on the porch and she says: ‘Help me get out, I’ve been here a long time’.” So I figured it was a domestic violence dispute.”

He kicked down the door. The woman told him she was Amanda Berry.

“When she told me it didn’t register. Until I got to call 911. I thought: ‘I’m calling 911 for Amanda Berry? I thought this girl was dead.’ And then she gets on the phone and she says: ‘Yes this is me’…. That girl Amanda told the police: ‘I ain’t just the only one. There’s some more girls up in that house. So they go up there 30 or 40 deep, and when they came out it was just astonishing.”

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Posted: 7th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (4)


The 10 worst Star Wars adverts of all time

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY - 27/12/1977

HAPPY Star Wars Day! In honour of May the Fourth, we’ve got a Star Wars tattoo, sent out Star Wars cards, created some homemade outfits, mashed-up Withnail & I, remembered Bob Anderson, checked out the working of George Lucas’s robots, mashed-up Disney, flicked through the great Japanese movie posters, rolled a joint with Darth, rocked out to the Droids, gone looking for work with an Ewok, dressed in a saucy R2D2 outfit, got a glow-in-the-dark Yoda tattootriggered a race war, bought the 1977 empty box and watched the Stars Wars crew flog us all manner of crap:

 

Chewbacca goes nutzoid for chicken of the sea

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Posted: 3rd, May 2013 | In: Film, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment


Stuart Hall: the newspapers and the victims speak out on the BBC’s pet pervert

HOW do the newspapers report on Stuart Hall, the TV and radion presenter who sexually abused 13 children – the youngest was nine?

What the BBC new?

Linda McDougall, a producer at BBC Manchester in the late Sixties and Seventies, says Hall put his hands “all over you and all over anyone female who came in”. She claims Hall had his own room at the BBC where he entertained “lady friends”. She says “everyone knew” about his “amazing set up”. Women were “not coming in for cups of tea”.

Alan Collins, a solicitor who is representing Jimmy Savile child abuse victims, said:

“The BBC has questions to answer, I would be concerned that this turning a blind eye is part of a pattern. These people are given a veneer of respectability that gives them the ability to get away with things.”

 

stuart hall sex attack bbc telly

 

 

The Victims

Someone sent a letter to the paper’s Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. It claims to be from one of Stuart Hall’s victims.

I write to tell you that Stuart Hall is another television presenter who you can investigate. I speak from personal experience; he groomed and then sexually exploited me when I was a young teenager in the 1970s.

As he did it to me so I would imagine that he did it to others.

Stuart was a presenter on Look North, a local BBC news programme. He was invited by the head of my school to come and present the prizes one year, and presented to me, among others. He exchanged a few words with me on the stage, at a microphone. I took my prize and left the hall. A while later a message came from the head teacher; would I go back to the hall, as Stuart had asked to see me. He had told the head that he was impressed by me and wondered if I would have permission to visit the local BBC studios; he thought that a girl like me could have a future in television journalism. My head teacher was naïve enough to agree, after consulting with my mother. I, of course, was thrilled and flattered.

And that is how it starts. What drew him to me? Later he told me it was my voice and manner. (I was a shy, intelligent, studious, pretty girl, destined for university and a professional career.) I was young for my years and easy meat for a man like him. To have a man of my father’s age take a benevolent interest in me seemed wonderful.

Why haven’t I written about this before? For several reasons – the first of which is shame. A girl who is groomed and then sexually exploited does not consider herself raped. Stuart made me complicit in my own abuse. He seemed kind and interested in me, while sexually exploiting a girl more than 25 years younger than he. It’s a story as old as the hills; girls go back and then feel themselves to be as guilty as the man.

As old as the hills, indeed. So. Who’s abusing children now?

Why didn’t I report it years ago? I was afraid for my reputation, my family and career. Stuart was well known and popular, particularly in that sport bloke-ish milieu which is not thoughtful about sexual predation. He appeared protected by being well known and well connected. I saw what the gutter press was like, and didn’t want strangers going through my bins cross-questioning and photographing my family and friends, demonising me, traumatising my family…

Stuart told me laughingly that there were a number of middle-aged women locally who gave him filthy looks when they saw him as they knew the things he did, but they weren’t prepared (as my mother and I later weren’t) to go public with their knowledge.

stuart hall sex attack indy

 

 

The Establishment

That’s Stuart Hall OBE.

stuart hall sex guardian

 

 

 

The Simple Facts

stuart hall girls

 

 

The simple facts in blunter terms

He’s the “Beeb’s Hall”. The Daily Star is owned by Channel 5 boss Richard Desmond. Is it all the BBC’s problem?

stuart hall girl

 

 

The BBC

Later in his career, Hall also worked for ITV.

staurt hall beast

 

 

The Police & Press Fredom

The Times moves the story to fit its agenda:

Lancashire Constabulary said yesterday that publicity surrounding the initial arrest of the 83-year-old broadcaster led to the majority of his sexual assault victims coming forward. It prompted renewed criticism of plans by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) to ban forces from revealing the names of people who have been arrested…Lawyers told The Times that the naming of arrested suspects was essential not only for open justice, but because it could result in victims or witnesses coming forward.

Fresh concerns over policing secrecy were voiced after a force refused to name a retired officer who was charged with stealing £113,000 from its former headquarters. Warwickshire Police was forced to climb down after the Crown Prosecution Service revealed that the subject of the allegations was Paul Greaves, 54. The force had cited the Leveson inquiry as a reason for its lack of transparency.

Lawyers for Hall had also cited the Leveson report. After his arrest last December, a statement from his solicitor said: “Stuart Hall is innocent of these charges. It is a matter of concern that in the week following publication of the Leveson report there appears to have been systematic, measured leaks to the media which have given a misleading impression of what this case is about.”

But a spokeswoman for Lancashire Constabulary acknowledged that the publicity led to other victims of Hall coming forward and providing crucial corroboration.

stuart hall times

 

 

 

The Girls

Susan Harrison: “Susan Harrison said she was 16 when the It’s a Knockout presenter lured her to BBC premises on the false pretext of helping her record a song. He attacked her in his car while driving her home.”

Kim Wright “was 17 when Hall fondled her breasts at a show in Blackpool”.

Susan Melville met Stuart Hall after he was hired for her school prizegiving.

The TV personality who was trusted by her family lured her to BBC premises on a pretext and molested her while driving her home after plying her with alcohol.  Susan, Hall’s first known victim, said she was riddled with guilt for not making an immediate complaint about the TV star as he went on to abuse numerous other young girls after her. She said that when she returned home in tears her father told her: ‘He is famous and we are nobody. Nobody is going to believe you.’..

Back in the car she felt ‘incredibly nervous’ but Hall tried to relax her by making light conversation about his daughter, Francesca, who was seven at the time.

‘All of a sudden he brought his left hand over my right leg and then moved his hand up my skirt and started touching me,’ said Mrs Harrison. ‘I was so shocked and terrified. I couldn’t do anything as I had frozen – it went on for a couple of minutes. ‘But then I quickly moved to the left of the car away from him, squashing my legs together and just sort of curling away from him. I developed a nervous cough and he kept saying, “Wouldn’t you like me to stop the car and rub your chest with something because it’s quite bad, that cough, isn’t it?” But realising the sort of things he was doing now I said “No” and just kept away from him. I was panicking that he wasn’t going to take me home.

 

daily mail stuart hall sex

 

 

But They’re All Old

Why are all the accused so old? Why do they all work in showbiz? Sure, Operation Yewtree is an investigation into historial sex abuse. The accused are bound to be a certain age. But why are there no lawyers, peers, politicians, sportsmen and others in the dock? Why is it just showbiz? Is it all for show, the police doing a spot of PR?

(Apologies for the poor image quality.)

The Sun

 

 

Posted: 3rd, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment


Willard Wigan’s Golden Journey: artist makes a gold motorbike sculpted inside a hollowed out speck of stubble

WILLARD Wigan MBE creates small works of art.

Willard’s micro-sculptures are now so minute that they are only visible through a microscope. Each piece commonly sits within the eye of a needle, or on a pin head. 

He’s just created his smallest work to date: a golden motorbike inside a spot of his stubble.

WILLARD Wigan bike

 

 

“I made the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in the eye of a needle”

WILLARD Wigan bike 1

 

 

“This time I’ve taken it a million steps further. I wanted to challenge myself to see how small I could really go.”

WILLARD Wigan bike 2

 

 

“I put my finger beneath the microscope. And I had a look. And I saw the finest hairs – stubble – in between my finger print.”

WILLARD Wigan bike 3

 

 

“So. I took the hair out. I used very fine tools and some gold. And I drilled a hole in the middle of the hair and hollowed out the hair, which is painstaking… Well, it drove me insane… I made the hole transparent. And inside it I made a golden motorbike. “

WILLARD Wigan bike 5

 

It’s called The Golden Journey.

Posted: 2nd, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment


Reginald D Hunter lampoons the PFA after the ‘nigger’ race row (the photos)

HOW did Reginald D Hunter react to the overblown race row about his appearance at the PFA awards? He mocked it. He called his Facebook gallery “The PFA Awards – the horrible aftermath”. Pictures of the race riot to follow:

Reginald D Hunter showing off his son at the PFA after show party.

reginald d hunter pfa 24

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Posted: 1st, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Sports | Comment


Reginald D Hunter’s ‘nigga’ show upset ‘the Manchester United of people’

Soccer - PFA Player of the Year Awards 2013 - Grosvenor House Hotel

THE Professional Footballers’ Association (|PFA) booked American-born Royal Academy of Dramatic Art alumnus Reginald D Hunter to entertain footballers at their AGM. His performance was peppered with the word nigger. He called Liverpool’s Luise Suarez a nigger. Although is most newspaper that is written as “n******”. That’s to avoid being offensive. The Telegraph says he made potentially offensive jokes about Jews and women.” Isn’t everything potentially offensive? The dread buzzword is “inappropriate“. Was Hunter being inappropriate?

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Posted: 1st, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment


UKIP Watch: trawling for ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ standing in the local elections

dick delingpole

DAVID Cameron called UKIP “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”. In another age, he might have called them prospective voters. As the local elections loom, sections of the press are focusing on UKIP. The coerage is not always fair. They are looking beyond UKIP leader Nigel Farage, the head-shaking politician whose incredulity at life is evidenced in his way of speaking in lists, a man who could describe cup of coffee as “It’s brown, it’s foreign, it’s bad for you and it has no place on British life.”

Let’s see what the press has come up with so far:

 

The Telegraph produced this:

Sushil Patel

Gis daughter is Priti Patel, the Conservative MP. Mr Patel is  standing in the Bushey South division of the Hertfordshire County Council.

Priti Patel told the Daily Telegraph:

“No matter what, whatever the outcome of this, he is still my Dad and I still love him. Nothing will change that, not even Ukip.”

Dick Delingpole

 

James Delingpiole writes about his brother:

Though I had no intention of writing again about the absurdity of the anti-Ukip stories being circulated in the media, this one is too funny not to mention. For the full story you must visit my brother Dick’s blog post...

Dick writes in the Telegraph:

It’s no secret that I’m currently standing as a Ukip candidate for the forthcoming council elections. What was a secret until now is my Nazi past. As the photo above proves beyond doubt, I was present at one of Hitler’s rallies. I was also clearly part of an early cloning experient. And in case you hadn’t yet worked it out, this is all utter nonsense. But it has been seized upon by my Tory opponent in Thursday’s local election.

Moments after tweeting the above image with the words “I’d better get rid of this old Facebook photo before the Tories get hold of it” I received a phone call from a local hack. It went something like this:
Hack: “Simon [my Tory opponent, and incumbent councillor] is afraid that you’re a Nazi.”
Me: “But it’s a parody of Conservative Central Office trawling through Ukip candidates’ Facebook pages. Why do you suppose they’re doing that?”
Hack: “To dig up dirt.”
Me: “So Simon’s just doing what he’s been told by head office.”
Hack: “No, he seems genuinely upset. You see, he doesn’t do Twitter, so he might not understand. I think he really believes the photo.”
Me: “But I wasn’t even around in 1940! And… there are three of me.”
So in a bit of a sweat I hastily deleted the tweet. Then thought about all the other pictures I have on Facebook. Were there any of me with guns or knives?

Anna-Marie Crampton

She’s standing for council election in East Sussex.

Crampton was suspended by the eurosceptic party ahead of next week’s local elections after comments attributed to her were posted on a conspiracy theory website questioning who was responsible for the Holocaust during the Second World War.

“Holocaust means a sacrifice by fire. Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers,” Crampton allegedly wrote.

“The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist Jews and financed by the banksters to make the general public all over the world feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.”

UKIP said:

While she will still be on the ballot paper as a Ukip candidate we want voters in her district to realise that she is not representing the party and the people of east Sussex,” said a spokesperson.

“Rest assured that her views are not held by the party and do not reflect the views of our other excellent candidates.”

She tweeted:

“I’m NOT antisemitic. I NEVER said I do not believe in the holocaust. I’ve clearly been trolled. I do post on Zionism as a political movement”

Political Scrapbook alleges:

Contrary to reports elsewhere, no evidence has emerged of Crampton denying the holocaust — but her Facebook account was indeed used to blame it on a Jewish conspiracy.

Crampton has yet to explain away apparent praise for forged The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — arguably the most notorious anti-semitic tract ever produced — as containing “all you need to know”.

Chris Scrotton 

The Daily Mail wrote:

Mr Scotton, backs a number of controversial groups on his Facebook page.

This includes him ‘liking’ the official page for the controversial far-right organisation English Defence League.

He has also ‘liked’ Facebook groups which include ‘Racism? No mate it’s just ethnic banter’, ‘No more mosques in Britain’ and ‘I hate it when I lose my black friend in the dark.’

John Sullivan

John Sullivan, the party’s candidate for the Newent division in Thursday’s county council elections, was alleged to have made anti-gay comments on Facebook. Gay Star News addressed his remarks after one of its readers spotted them online. Gay Star News accused Mr Sullivan of claiming in a post that regular physical exercise ‘prevents’ children from ‘becoming’ gay and the Victorian method of physical exercise ‘released tension and thus avoided homosexuality’.

Harry’s Place spots a few more problems for UKIP:

The Times reported on Saturday that Alan Ryall who was the party’s candidate in Wickham (he quit after the story broke) admitted to membership of the BNP for “one or two years” but now “found it too extreme”. The Times also uncovered Peter Lucas in Devon who was listed as a “student member of the BNP” but he denies this. As does Chris Byrne standing in leafy Surrey; “That wasn’t me” he claims.

Tommy Robinson

The Backbencher reports:

Backebencher: There is a quote on the EDL’s Facebook page which states: “I think all nationalist parties should stand aside in areas that UKIP have a good chance of winning. Lets not split their vote. We might take a couple or a few hundred votes of them, we don’t come no where and we’ve cost UKIP the win because they come 50,60 votes behind Labour.” Is that the EDL endorsing UKIP?

Robinson: ‘Yeah. What parties are there? I always get asked this about why the EDL got into politics. It is all set against you – it is impossible to do without millions of pounds funding, etc etc. Now who is going to change what is happening is this country from the point of immigration and Islam? I remember a speech Lord Pearson done 2 years ago, he was the ex leader of UKIP…(Google dialogue)…where he questioned about the EDL, and everything he said in his speech about what is happening to this country about the demographics of Islam, and the Muslim birth rate, and the threat to the nation – I remember watching that and thinking “bang he has got it on the head; he’s hitting every nail on the head, I agree with everything he is saying.” But to hear a well educated; say for example my own mother doesn’t agree with what I stand for; but when I show like Lord Pearson saying what we are saying, because they are saying exactly what we say, just in a different way – do you know what I mean?’

And then the barrel was scraped.

Bradley Monk

A UKIP candidate has posted snaps of himself online as shamed pervert Jimmy Savile, The Sun can reveal. Bradley Monk, 19, wore a Savile mask to a Halloween party as the scandal over the DJ’s paedophile past raged last year.

The politics student is standing in Hampshire County Council seat Winchester Eastgate tomorrow.

Our revelation of the Facebook photos fuels the growing furore over who UKIP is allowing to stand…

Confronted by The Sun, Monk grovelled last night: “It was meant as a harmless joke. I’m in no way endorsing Savile — what he did was disgusting.”

On the positive side for UKIP, we can now name other party members other than the ubiquitous Farage…

Posted: 1st, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comments (4)


Chernobyl: the word’s worst nuclear accident in photos – then and now

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL FOREVER

AT 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, an engineer flicked the power switch on the control panel in the Chernobyl plant 4th reactor’s control room and triggered the world’s nuclear accident. The above picture show the missing power switch which was stolen by souvenir-hunters.

 

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL FOREVER

The old control room, with its damaged machinery, inside Reactor No. 4 in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is seen in this Nov. 10, 2000 file photo. Geiger counter registered about 80,000 microroentgens an hour _ 16,000 times the safe limit.

 

Chernobyl and Its Impact

Satellite view of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in USSR, as made by U.S. Geographic Survey EROS satellite, April 29, 1986, a day after a violent nuclear explosion at the plant.

 

Chernobyl and Impact

Experts said that a radioactive cloud from the Soviet nuclear accident at the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine would probably pass over the polar ice cap, move across Canada and into the northwestern United States shown April 29, 1986. However, the experts say the amounts of fall-out would be so small they would not present a health hazard.

 

Disasters - Chernobyl Nuclear Accident 1986The British tabloids reported.

 

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL

 

An aerial view of the Chernobyl nucler power plant.

 

Chernobyl and Its Impact

An unidentified student one of a party of students who returned to London from Kiev passes through the arrival lounge at London?s Heathrow Airport, Thursday, May 2, 1986 carrying some possessions in plastic bags. The students from Kiev near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident were screened by the National Radiological Protection Board and were reported to be in no danger whatsoever.

 

PA-8632482

On April 21, 1990, young children on a collective farm are patients on a ward in Syekovo, a village not far from the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Four years after the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl accident, these children were suffering intestinal problems from exposure to radiation. A Soviet newspaper has said scientists still expect thousands of deaths from radiation released in the Chernobyl explosion and fire

The 20-mile exclusion zone around the plant is now overgrown and Pripyat, where the plant workers used to live, is a ghost town.

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL

Children’s toys and gas masks, covered by the radioactive dust are seen on bed frameworks in an abandoned kindergarten in the ghost town of Pripyat on March 10, 2006, in Ukraine. Pripyat was built nearly a mile from the plant to house the Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s workers.

Immediately after the two explosions in Chernobyl, while firefighters were still trying to come to grips with the enormity of the meltdown, the people of Pripyat went about their normal business. Then they started suffering powerful headaches and vomiting. When they were eventually resettled they left behind their kitchenware, their children’s toys, food in cupboards.Now, with its abandoned funfair and nursery school untouched for more than two decades, the town resembles a modern-day Pompeii.

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL FOREVER

Ivan Kalenda turns away to wipe his tears as he visits his three-year-old grandson Vitya, right, in the children’s cancer ward at a hospital in Gomel, 300 kms, 186 miles southwest of Minsk, Belarus, March 19, 1996.

 

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL

Ukrainian children suffering from cancer, listen to music at the children’s hospital in Kiev Tuesday, April 18, 2006. Greenpeace said Tuesday in a new report that more than 90,000 people were likely to die of cancers caused by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, countering a United Nations report that predicted the death toll would be around 4,000.

 

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL WIDOWS

Natalya Lopatyuk, 41, left, and her daughter Yulia, 19, hold a portrait of Natalya’s husband and Yulia’s father Viktor in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, April 15, 2006. Viktor Lopatyuk, an electrician at the station died from acute radiation poisoning 22 days after the explosion at Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

 

Chernobyl Nuclear Plant

Reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant stands encased in lead and concrete following the accident.

The sarcophagus encasing Chernobyl was built in haste and is crumbling. Despite strengthening work there are fears it could collapse, leading to the release of tonnes of radioactive dust. Work is due to begin on a £600m replacement shelter designed to last 100 years. This New Safe Confinement will be built on site and then slid over the sarcophagus.

 

APTOPIX UKRAINE CHERNOBYL PHOTO ESSAY 3

School children wear gasmasks during nuclear safety training lessong in Rudo near an isolated zone around Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Monday, April 3, 2006.  About 600,000 people were mobilized to fight the effects of the explosion, and more than 116,000 evacuated from their homes. The ex-Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are stilling coping with the aftermath of the accident today, from skyrocketing rates of thyroid cancer to a marked increase in health concerns among the 5 million people whose land was dusted with radioactive particles.

 

CHERNOBYL GOING BACK

A warning sign installed in a forest in Gomel region, Belarus, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006. The warning reads “Radiation contamination! Mushroom and berries gathered must be subjected to radiation checks.”

 

Chernobyl after effects

 

Lasting legacy of Chernobyl for dozens of British farms is the restrictions placed on the movement of their sheep and lambs from within the affected areas which are still in place today 10 years after the disaster. Farms like those of John Harrison at Ulpha in the Lake District.

 

UKRAINE CHERNOBYL

 

A woman who fears she has thyroid cancer is waiting to have her throat checked in a hospital in Ivankov town at Ukraine’s contaminated zone Friday, April 7,2006.

 

Ukraine Chernobyl Anniversary

Ukrainians dressed in the uniform of the Chernobyl nuclear station workers light candles to commemorate those who died after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, during a ceremony at the memorial to Chernobyl firefighters in the city of Slavutich, Ukraine, Friday, April 26, 2013.

 

Posted: 30th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment


Modern football cliches: ten imports we DON’T want in our game

FOOTBALL phrases: Ten imports we DON’T want in our game

Spitting, biting, diving, shirt-pulling, feigning injury, waving imaginary cards… All of them rightly condemned, and all at various times accused of being ‘foreign’ practices that are creeping into ‘our game’. Now add to the list the insidious importing of heinous phrases, some from other sports and some, heaven forfend, from another country – namely the US of A.

OFFense and DEE-fense

Just plain wrong – and to add to the ignominy, there’s the ridiculous American emphasis on the first syllable. What’s wrong with good old attack and defence?

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Posted: 30th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment


Boston Bomber’s ex Nadine Ascencao says Tamerlan Tsarnaev heard the Devil taking through his TV

Boston Marathon Washington

IN today’s episode of Why Tamerlan Tsarnaev detonated a bomb at the Boston Marathon murdering innocent woman and children, we hear from Nadine Ascencao, 24, who claims to have dated the killer.

In “My boyfriend the bomber”, we meet the “fanatic’s ex”.

What was he fanatic of? Islam? Tamerlan Tsarnaev left no jihadi suicide video behind. We’ve seen no messages of hate and vengeance.

They couple dated in 2006. The Sun says she was 17. The Sun does not say how old he was, just that he was 26 when he died. The impression is of an older controlling male. But he’s have been 17 or 18 at the time.

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Posted: 29th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment


Boston bombers fail to trigger race war: bigots use Islam to get whitey

WHO to blame for the Boston bombings? Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26? There’s a whole list of reasons here. Writing in the New York Times, Marcello Suarez-Orozco and Carola Suarez-Orozco, both  of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies know:

The alleged involvement of two ethnic Chechen brothers in the deadly attack at the Boston Marathon last week should prompt Americans to reflect on whether we do an adequate job assimilating immigrants who arrive in the United States as children or teenagers.

Blame America? The NY Times has reported:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted to playing a role in the marathon bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 260, and told federal agents that he and his brother were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs, when he was interviewed Sunday at the hospital, law enforcement officials said.

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Posted: 28th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment


Daily Mail perverts Occupy London rape case to damn all protestors

Britain Occupy London

MALCOLM Blackman, 45, is accused of raping a woman in her 40s at the Occupy London Stock Exchange champ outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The alleged victim – who gets to remain anonymous – was allegedly attacked in her tent on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. She further alleges that Blackman tied her hands behind her back with cable ties and on another occasion assaulted her in her sleep.

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Posted: 26th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment


Hyundai make staggeringly stupid advert where a bloke tries to kill himself with clean emissions

hyundai suicide copy

HYUNDAI have made a staggeringly stupid advert where a bloke tries to kill himself via “pipe job” locked inside one of their cars but fails because the emissions are too clean. Maybe the faceless Hyundai drove him to it?

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Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comments (2)


The Biters: sportsmen who sank their teeth into their opponents

WITH Downing Street intervening to suggest that Luis Suarez should receive a sentence that reflects his position as a role model, it’s clear that the feisty Uruguayan’s crime has transcended the world of football and become a matter of national importance. But how exceptional were his antics? After all, it’s not the first time this kind of thing has happened. In fact, it’s not even the first time it has happened to Suarez himself. As recently as 2010 he was banned for seven matches after biting PSV Eindhoven midfielder Otman Bakkal…

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Posted: 23rd, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment