Tabloids Category
The news as told by the UK’s tabloid press – The Sun, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and News of the World.
Anorak’s Tabloid Week: Hard Men, Malcolm X Factor, Winehouse And This Year’s Breasts
SUNDAY: “REAL WOMEN…REAL PANTIES!” & TV’s Hard Men
It usually takes a few years for former Big Brother housemates to percolate from the Sun’s front page to the Daily Sport and niche top-shelf magazines for enthusiasts.
But even since Heather Mills McCartney’s works with baby oil were pulled from beneath a German adolescent’s bed, fame’s entry levels position has been contorted and expanded.
And thanks to the Internet we can appreciate Amy on the panty Maniacs Site. And Amy on video. Said the Big Brother starlet on Sunday: “I’ve had sex on the top of a multi-storey car park, but I’m hoping to add quite a few more to that list of strangest places I’ve done it.”
A fake house in a field in Elstree with CCTV cameras tracking your moves, the footage broadcast to mum and dad back home would be a challenge to most.
But Amy is pushing back fame’s gusset. And as she develops, she rock the celebrity established, shaking them from the comfort zone.
And the result is the NOTW’s headline “OFF HER HEAD AND ON MY BED”. Readers are introduced to Leighton Ogden and the story: “Ogden’s first sexual encounter with Kerry[Katona] had happened four months earlier, shortly after her engagement to Croft—behind a Tesco in Warrington last Valentine’s Day.”
What could we make of this? It was career suicide for Kerry, known to millions of own-brand ketchup-eating mums as the face of Iceland supermarket.
News that she had coitus behind a rival’s store will not go down well. And the clear and present dangers of exposing tender parts by a store specialising in frozen goods cannot be over-egged. “Mum’s gone to Iceland,” says Kerry as she offers us a “boozy brownie” – and she’s gone equipped with a thermal G-string and pre-warmed chest.
But she was trying something new. And Katona was not alone in taking it outside. Steve McFadden, a hard man who plays hard man in EastEnders and One Man And His Doggers.com, was attracting other hard men in a naval town. Something snapped. And the hard men wrestled.
Monday: The (Malcolm) X Factor
On Monday, Dannii Minogue, showbiz’s Lauren Booth to Kylie Minogue’s Cherie Blair, was looking over auditions for the TV talent show.
“One girl, a Muslim, was shaking,” said Daniiiii. “We said, ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, ‘My parents don’t know I’m here. If they find out they’ll throw me out and never speak to me again.”
Is this because she was a Muslim, Dani? Does anyone know what percentage of X Factor contestants are Muslim? Is this girl the first, the rebel who leads the way? And be assured that a contestant’s religious beliefs are relevant to Dannnniiiiiiii.
It cannot be long before the creators of reality TV talent shows create a Malcolm X Factor for Muslims, featuring a veiled Dannnniiiii in a skin-tight, peek-a-boo PVC burka? It cannot come soon enough.
Tuesday: Freaky Cheeky Girls
Are the freaky Cheeky Girls muslim? One imagines they will do whatever the job demands. And on Tuesday we wished them well as the fright-show twins jetted back to their native Romania.
Gabriela and Monica were not returning home to open a language school – “I touch my bum, you touch my bum, we toucharamus our bums etc. – but to be remodelled.
The twins said that the £12,000 boob jobs they had in London had left them with different size lumpy breasts.
With hindsight, getting one pair each would have been best. But now the twins have taken their “asymmetrical assets” to Romania’s Artis 3 clinic.
This was a shame to we who have now seen so many breasts that the idea of celebrities adapting them into interesting shapes would renew our interest. It would herald a new wave in talent.
See the Cheeky Girls build a human pyramid …from their chests!
Watch Jordan as she scales her own right breast and in scenes reminiscent of Edmund Hillary’s famous ascent of Everest, plant a flag on the nipple – at half-mast for Diana!
Wednesday’s Model: Living The Dream
Amy Alexandra should seize the nettle. But on Wednesday she was on the Star’s Page 3, a lifetime’s dream achieved.
The paper says Amy is a “brainbox” with three A-levels and 10 GCSEs. Since the average haul is now seven A-levels and 39 GCSEs, we beg to differ.
But Amy is upbeat. “I wasn’t too bad at school,” says she. “I did all my work and kept mostly out of trouble, although I did have a bit of fun along the way.”
And now all that study has paid off as Amy is handed her official Star bra and knickers and then, as custom dictates, invited to return the top.
No more “promotional work” for Amy, standing at a conference centre picking the thong out of her backside and “making love” to car parts. She’s made it!
Thursday: the Compliant’s Causeway
Amy is now as famous as…well, any other famous person. She’s as famous as Amy Winehouse, who has dispensed with breasts altogether and chosen another route to stardom: rehab.
Winehouse goes to rehab. And then “Amy quits rehabs,” says the Sun’s front-page headline. And readers note that the singer remained in The Causeway for 48 hours.
Anorak has no idea how long it takes for a celebrity addict to exorcise their demons. This may be long enough.
Rehab appears less of a medical centre than a rite of passage for any starlet.
One imagines the halls of Clouds are bedecked with pictures of the great and good. “It was mental,” says a signed photo of Michael Barrymore. “I often get mistaken for that b***h Lohan,” says a picture of Lindsay Lohan. “Is me turn for a penalty yet?” go the words on Paul Gascoigne’s framed portrait.
Until Celebrity Squares is restored to our TV screens and Dancing On Ice calls, agents will deliver their charges into rehab and so into the pages of the popular press.
Friday: Prayers For Diana
Fame is trickle, unless you have died to greatness like Princess Diana. It’s been ten years since her passing. And each day has brought with it new pain, new theory and a new Daily Express headline.
On Friday, the Express was bemoaning the fact that the Royal Family will not flutter their flag at half-past to mark a decade of Princess Diana memorabilia.
It’s was a tragedy and a disgrace.
But we say move with the times. Forget the flag. Fly Diana’s bra from the roof of Buckingham Palace and from your car’s window and strike a blow for women, celebrity and the new tradition…
Amy Winehouse’s Brain Is A (Bee) Hive Of Activity
AMY Winehouse is having a brain scan. Her life is a (bee) hive of activity. And once the medics have penetrated her hair, we will bring you the results of those tests.
For now, the singer is going back to rehab. It’s the sequel to her earlier visit, and such is the way of rehab’s revolving door policy, we expect all manner of versions, cover versions and tributes.
So grab your medication and shake it like you mean it as Amy, addicted to cocaine and heroin, climbs in a cab and head for the “state-of-the-art” Causeway clinic for tired and emotional stars.
A scour of the web reveals: “The programme adopts a holistic approach and can include personal training, yoga, acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, massage, extensive 1-1 sessions as well as delicious home cooked country food.”
But before you book yourself into this luxury rehab spa, know that Amy has cancelled her tour of Europe to “fight her demons” (Mail) and that her husband Blake is “NOT THE BAD GUY” (Mirror).
“Everyone thinks that everything that’s happened to Amy is my fault and I’m portrayed as the bad guy,” says Blake.
“She’s so precious to me, she’s my wife and I want to take care of her, that’s why I’m taking her back to rehab. We only came to London to get a guitar and then we’re going straight back.”
Readers may wonder if this “guitar” is a euphemism for drugs or a new drug. Indeed, given the expense of rehab and the chopper that took Winehouse and her man to London, we wonder if said instrument could not have been delivered by a lackey?
But what matter? Winehouse is in therapy. And medics have nearly reached her scalp…
Amy Winehouse Flies In Her Chopper
Posted: 17th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
Raising Children With Britney Spears: A Study
IT cannot be denied that Britney Spears’ halcyon days were had at school.
Those magical times dressed in knee-high white socks, plaid skirt and pigtails marked the apogee of the Spears oeuvre.
It was much the same for many of us, and Anorak can recall striking a fine boundary for the First XI and retiring to the club house to the gentle applause of the team and the offer of ‘Opening Buns’. Great days.
But now Britney is bigger in reputation but so much less in ability and schoolgirl glee. Dressed in a pair of fishnet tights and a stripy bra and knickers twin-set, with pearl necklace, Spears illustrates the headline: “LESBIAN BRITNEY TRIED TO BED US TOO.”
Readers learn that Britney “lusted” after two nannies at her Beverley Hills mansion.
Inside and the headline trumpets: “BRIT STRUTS AROUND HER HOME NAKED LUSTING FOR LESBIAN SEX.”
Yesterday, readers learnt that Britney was caught “fondling” her former PA Shannon Funk in a “topless pool romp”.
And now these two nannies. We aren’t told their names, and Ms Funk is a hard act to follow.
All we get is the claims that Britney tells her sons they were “mistakes”, has tried to have Sean Preston’s teeth whitened, pumps them with fizzy drinks and coffee with cream and keeps them up late so they will lie in.
This all sounds less than organic but not so shocking, not given that the children have nannies on tap.
At least when they are not talking to the press…
Pic: 14
Posted: 16th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
Amy Winehouse Flies In Her Chopper
NO small irony that Amy Winehouse should end up in rehab. But she went of her own accord. And now she has left in a helicopter.
“Amy quits rehabs,” says the Sun’s front-page headline. And readers note that the singer remained in The Causeway for 48 hours.
Anorak has no idea how long it takes for a celebrity addict to exorcise their demons. This may be long enough.
And does rehab work? Reading though our notes we are hard pressed to find a success story. Pete Doherty’s rehab centre has a revolving door, so too that of Kerry Katona, Jade Goody and many, many more.
Rehab appears less of a medical centre than a rite of passage for any starlet.
One imagines the halls of Clouds are bedecked with pictures of the great and good. “It was mental,” says a signed photo of Michael Barrymore. “I often get mistaken for that b***h Lohan,” says a picture of Lindsay Lohan. “Is me turn for a penalty yet?” go the words on Paul Gascoigne’s framed portrait.
Until Celebrity Squares is restored to our TV screens and Dancing On Ice calls, agents will deliver their charges into rehab and so into the pages of the popular press.
So Winehouse has done rehab, something she said her daddy would never make her do.
But now, as the Sun says, father Mitch is considering having his bundle of wire-hair sectioned. He is said to have talked over seeking a restraining order against Amy’s husband Blake.
But here is Winehouse travelling by helicopter to Camden Town. She’s going for drink with her in-laws. Amy and Blake are off to another pub.
They’re having a drink. For therapeutic reasons…
Amy Winehouse Exhausts James Brown’s Stagecraft
Posted: 16th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)
Paul McCartney Takes Over The London Eye Pod
THE Mirror reports that the London Eye is to be renamed the McCartney Eye, in honour of celebrity divorcee Paul McCartney.
Sir Paul is competing the McCartney years, a DVD tribute to the man’s work with frogs, Michael Jackson and Linda.
In a cryptic move, Macca has devised a stage set that will have his fans’ heads wobbling in bafflement.
Macca will deliver an ironic rebuke to critics who have described his records as “coffee table music”, by performing on a stage resembling a giant coffee table.
And then there’s the Eye. As an insider says: “The artwork for the DVD cover is a stylised close-up of Sir Paul’s eye – and that got the team thinking.” (Brainstorming, surely?)
Eye Pod
“It occurred to them that the other most famous eye in the world was, of course, the London Eye and they immediately tried to work together.”
The Madeleine McCann campaign may well disagree. But plans are afoot to rename a London landmark after a Liverpudlian hero.
A source says Sir Paul may even perform a “one-off” show in an Eye pod to make it “even more special”.
Each capsule has a capacity for 25 people. Taking in Paul, that leaves room for 24 fans. In the competitive world of unplugged, exclusive gigs, this is right up there with Phil Collins Rocks Bridlington Bus Shelter in 2003.
And it gets us thinking. If Sir Paul can have a landmark renamed in his honour, what other acts can?
A few suggestions:
Saint Cliff Cathedral
Westlife Abbey
Bucks Fizz Palace
Eric Clapton Ponds
The T’Pau Of London
Westminster Abba
St Marti Pellow In The Field
And many, many more…
Posted: 15th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (8)
Great Western’s Platform Poet. Sally Crabtree’s ‘Handbag Of Happiness’
YOU turn to the commuter on your right. You make eye contact. Oh dear. She asks what you do. You can’t remember. It’s been so long since the First Great Western service from Penzance to London set off you have all but forgotten your purpose. Did you have one? Is there one?
Numb with commuting, you repeat the question. She seizes upon it. “Sally Crabtree is an established writer and the creative force behind many successful novelty projects,” says the person with the pink hair. “As well as writing, Sally is a talented singer, songwriter and performer. She lives in Cornwall and is much in demand for literary festivals and children’s events.”
Just when you thought commuting could get no worse, here’s Sally Crabtree. She’s the “pink-wigged pocket Venus from Cornwall”.
Sally will sing and recite over sounds of the passing trains, reports the Mail. Miss Crabtree, 42, has worked in schools and libraries.
“Sally has been delighting audiences at festivals both here and abroad with her colourful performances of the ‘Poetree’ – a magical copper tree whose fruits are the most strange and wonderful imaginable! Pick something off the tree and listen to the song or poem it inspires. Dip your hand into the Handbag of Happiness, taste edible words, create a poetic objet d’art or take a peek into Sally’s poetry bazaar and discover a world of words you never knew existed!”
Whose Lines Is It Anyway?
“Who wants a poem?” she asks. “Pick a word, any word and I’ll give yer a poem.” Words are suggested. There are suggestions as to what Sally can do with them if her talents extend to contortion and invasive medical procedures.
“To be the first official poet on the platform is a dream come true,” says Sally. “I am inspired by the reasons for our rail journeys – the human connection and stories involved. “
And while Sally brings joy to the journeyman humans, we learn that she is not to be paid but will receive free travel.
And we understand. And we realise that this might be a pilot scheme allowing passengers to barter for their tickets.
So here’s the office drone helping the ticket office with its filing system, the broker offering life assurance advice and the therapist holding hands and saying that if you picture your goal you will get there…
The Gift Of Time: Bishop of Reading Tells Commuters To Bake Bread
Posted: 14th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (8)
The Rogarians Are Here: Busman’s Holiday For Eastern Bloc Tourists
“MORE than 8,000 East Europeans are coming every day,” says the Mail.
Says the Express: “650 arrive each day from EU states.” (Pic: Beau Do D’Or)
Happily, around 800,000 British households now own a second home abroad and the nation’s rain-soaked seaside boarding houses will be happy to take the new arrivals in.
But not all are here to stay. As the Mail reports, although around 600,000 East Europeans have moved to Blighty permanently since the EU expanded in May 2004, many of the arrivals are tourists and relatives en vacance.
“But no accurate record exists of how many of the visitors actually go home,” says the Mail. The fear is that the Poles are like the fabled Scots who went to Argentina in 1978 in search of glory and an experience and never returned.
The Mail looks at the Government’s £1.2billion electronic borders project (a Ken Bates-inspired electric fence). But it won’t be ready until 2014.
By then it may be too late and the number of Poles working here may exceed the number of Britishers lying in the sun over in Spain and Portugal.
And then there are the Rogarians, the Romanians and Bulgarians. The number of work permits handed out to Rogarians is limited to 20,000. But in the 12 months to June, around 210,000 people from Rogaria rolled into the UK.
Do they all stay? “One possibility is they are already investigating the jobs market ahead of any decision by the Government” to relax the quota, notes the Mail.
Looking for work? The swine!
One other possibility is that they are buying timeshare apartments in Tewkesbury – Where the Sea Comes to You!
Come to the UK – It’s bracing!
Posted: 14th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)
Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt Adopt Again: It Could Be You
GOOD news, kids is that Angelina Jolie is on the look out for another child to adopt.
This is your chance to start a new life high in the Hollywood Hills. One day you too can have a perfect nose, white teeth and hair that comes with a Velcro tab and washing instructions in English and Spanish.
Live the dream of rehab, an addiction to vicodin and indoor plumbing.
As the Mail reports, Angelina is preparing to step on a plane and get herself a new kiddie.
As the Mail notes, Jolie has one child from Cambodia (Maddox), one from Africa (Zahara), Pax Thien from Vietnam and their own Namibian-born Messiah Shiloh. The time is ripe for a European child.
As a source tells us: “Both Brad and Angelina are incredibly excited about the latest addiction to their Jolie-Pitts and if anything will bring them closer together, then this is it.”
So here’s your chance to reunite a reportedly warring family and get yourself a gilded life among the beautiful people.
Parents and guardians should nail a board with the words “Adoption Home” to their front doors. Small, child-sized adults may like to wear a bonnet and shake a rattle.
And the rest of us should form an orderly line on the tarmac. The Jolie-Pitts want more children. “More!” you cry. Never before has a star wanted more.
Tis glorious…
Your Chance To Be Adopted By Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt
Pic: 14
Posted: 14th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (7)
Lebit Opik To Follow Cheeky Girls To Romania
GOD speed the Cheeky Girls. As the Sun reports, the fright-show twins are jetting back to their native Romania.
But Gabriela and Monica are not returning home to open a language school – “I touch my bum, you touch my bum, we toucharamus our bums etc. – but to be remodelled.
The twins say that the £12,000 boob jobs they had in London left them with different size lumpy breasts.
With hindsight, getting one pair each would have been best. But now the twins are taking their “asymmetrical assets” to Romania’s Artis 3 clinic.
“Monica’s implants are really bad,” says plastic surgeon Ovidiu Iva. “The surgery she had last year was completely unsuccessful.”
Says the girls’ mum Margareta: “We have no idea how much it will cost but the important thing is the result.”
Gabriela’s lover, Lembit Opik MP (aka Beaker), is reported to be joining her shortly.
Posted: 14th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
The Malcolm X Factor
“X-FACTOR Muslim’s Torment,” says the Mirror.
Dannii Minogue, showbiz’s Lauren Booth to Kylie Minogue’s Cherie Blair, is looking over auditions for the TV talent show.
“One girl, a Muslim, was shaking,” says Daniiiii. “We said, ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, ‘My parents don’t know I’m here. If they find out they’ll throw me out and never speak to me again.”
Is this because she is a Muslim, Dani? Does anyone know what percentage of X Factor contestants are Muslim? Is this girl the first, the rebel who leads the way? And be assured that a contestant’s religious beliefs are relevant.
It cannot be long before the creators of reality TV talent shows create a Malcolm X Factor for Muslims, featuring a veiled Dannnniiiii in a skin-tight, peek-a-boo PVC burka?
That for later. For now, Danii is compassionate.
“We said, ‘Well, is that what you want?’ she said it’s my dream to be a singer. I’ve got to do it even if it means I’ll never speak to them.”
Without a thought, Dannnni, says: “So we said, ‘OK, let’s go ahead with the audition.”
What’s a parent’s judgement compared to the views and opinions of Simon Cowell?
And we can look forward to seeing the wannabe singer on our screens. Says a show “insider”: “She did have talent but don’t expect to see her in the final stages as her voice wasn’t strong enough.”
Even if she has spoken up for an entire religion…
Posted: 13th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
A Clockwork Police Force: 16-Year-Old PCSOs
IT’S an appy polly loggy of a police force. “Babies on the beat,” says the Mail’s front-page headline.
Here’s the young millicent in his blue shlem and matching jumper and trousers. He’s only 16, but he’s already got his own pad and pencil.
He uses the trappings of power to issue fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for cycling on the pavement, dog fouling, graffiti and fly posting.
He’s not a baby, of course. The mail exaggerates. Babies would make poor policemen, what with their being unable to decipher right from wrong, black from white and are unable to work out pockets.
These two 16-year-olds are newly recruited police community support officers. They have joined the rank and file at Thames Valley Police.
The teenagers are two years too young to join the full police force. But they are not without power.
In addition to the FPN, these Nadsats can detain a suspect for up to 30 minutes, using “reasonable force” if necessary, until an 18-year-old fulltime copper arrives, possibly in his own car with a flashing blue light.
The droogs can make under-18s drinking in a public area “surrender” alcohol. They can seize drugs. They can search for alcohol and tobacco and seize baccy from under 16s.
The Mail is unimpressed. Shadow Home Secretary David Davis calls it a “reckless approach to public safety”.
But these youth are being paid between £17,000-£20,000 a year, depending on hours.
And if they bag a successful haul, they will be able to spend their cash on useful things like a pension and innersoles, rather than drinks and drugs, of which they will have tapped into a plentiful and legitimate supply…
Posted: 13th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (6)
EastEnders’ Hard Man Steve McFadden Attracts Other Hard Man
STEVE McFadden is EastEnders’ hard man. He is very hard. If you like your men hard, you will like Steve.
McFadden, who has operated as a dogger in the north London carpark region, is as hard as they come.
“I’m only human, I snapped,” he tells the News Of The World. You can only get so hard before something breaks.
Hard Steve is in the pub. It is 10pm on Sunday, July 29. Steve is in Falmouth, Cornwall.
“I was in the Legion which is known as a club for members where you can go and have a quiet drink to avoid any trouble. I was there with my friend Tim and this geezer Michael attached himself to us. I’d never met this guy before,” says Steve.
Hard men attract other hard men.
“He was banging on and on and on and on. After about three-quarters of an hour we’d had a couple of beers and it was driving us mad. I didn’t want to go anywhere else but he was driving us mad so we left.”
And Michael followed.
“Suddenly we were walking in the doors of a pub opposite and he’s tagging along again, banging on and boring me rigid. He was talking complete rubbish and was p***ed,” says Steve.
“My friend Tim told him politely, ‘Do us a favour and leave us alone.’ He was being really polite and trying to calm him down. That’s what brought the worst out in me. I said, ‘Look he’s told ya to go away so just go away’. Suddenly I’m a human being who’s suddenly got an opinion. Previously I’d avoided any contact or talking to him and had just been nodding my head.”
And now: “Michael responded, ‘Who do you think you are? Coming down here and giving it the big ‘un’… You think you’re something special — a big hard man and all that. Come outside.’ I said, ‘Alright then’.”
It is an invitation no big hard man get refuse on a quiet night out in a seaside town.
What follows is unsuitable for a family newspaper, much less Anorak’s Sunday supplement.
And we leave it to your imagination as to what two hard men get up to in an alleyway outside a pub frequented by seafaring folk…
Any Port In A Storm
Shaggy Dogger Story
Phil Her Up
Posted: 12th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Kerry Katona’s Gone Round The Back Of Tesco’s
“OFF HER HEAD AND ON MY BED,” runs the News of the World’s headline.
The “HER” is Kerry Katona. The “BED” belongs to drugs dealer Leighton Ogden.
Says the NOTW: “Ogden’s first sexual encounter with Kerry had happened four months earlier, shortly after her engagement to Croft—behind a Tesco in Warrington last Valentine’s Day.”
What can we make of this? It’s career suicide for Kerry, known to millions of own-brand ketchup-eating mums as the face of Iceland supermarket.
News that she had coitus behind a rival’s store will not go down well. Although the clear and present dangers of exposing tender parts by a store specialising in frozen goods cannot be over-egged. “Mum’s gone to Iceland,” says Kerry as she offers us a “boozy brownie” – and she’s gone equipped with a thermal G-string and pre-warmed chest.
Says Ogden: “Kerry dragged me round the back of the supermarket. She was kissing me really passionately and ripping off my clothes. It was all a bit of a blur.” (Every little helps.)
A few months later and Kerry is back at Ogden’s flat. Kerry was engaged and pregnant. Ogden confides in us: “It was the early stages of her pregnancy but I’m definitely not the father.
“Although Kerry used to come round all the time to take drugs we only had sex the once.”
No shock indeed that this revelation should come days after Kerry’s husband Mark Croft was accused of cheating on her with two other women.
Kerry is also fighting with former husband, Westlife singer emeritus Brian McPadding, over the custody of their two children.
Says Ogden: “She’s a terrible mother and a terrible wife. Once Mark rang and had a go at me and said, ‘How do you think I feel having to tell the kids Kerry’s working when really she’s on a bender?'”
But things are on the up. As the paper says: “Astonishingly, the couple are said to be still pressing ahead with a glitzy renewal of their wedding vows in Marbella on Spain’s Costa del Sol later this month—in return for a big-money payday from a glossy mag.”
We can’t wait. And will be covering the do and post-stage party from the rear of Benitez’s hipermercado…
Croft Original – Kerry Katona’s Wedding
Frozen Nuts
Kerry Katona’s Frozen Out
Posted: 12th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (4)
Lord Lucan Found: Now For Madeleine And Diana
LORD Lucan has been found alive and well and living in a Land Rover in New Zealand.
The country’s most famous fugitive can now shed light on the 1974 murder of his children’s nanny, and while he’s at it let us know what happened to Shergar, Madeleine McCann and reveal his part in the murder of Princess Diana.
This is one in the eye for those who thought the Express only dealt in speculation and conspiracy. Here is a wanted man.
As the paper reports, Lord Lucan, aka the Rt hon Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, now goes under the name Roger Woodgate. He owns a pet possum (possibly called Barrymore). He resides in Marton, North Island. The town is now overrun by film crews.
The mayor of region says there is “quite a resemblance” between the earl and this photographer who once worked for the Ministry of Defence.
Lucan is, as the Express says, “the man of legend and mystery”. He was officially declared dead by the High Court in 1999. He has been spotted in South Africa, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands.
In 1974, the Australian police arrested a man they believed was Lucan. It turned out to be John Stonehouse, the lively MP who had faked his suicide a month earlier.
And now we have Mr Woodgate. “I’m five inches shorter than Richard Bingham,” says he. He is also 10 years younger than the missing peer.
“As with all unsolved murders, the case remains open,” says a Scotland Yard spokesman.
And the Express is on hand to help. It will continue to profile the wanted and the missing. It will not stop until it has found a link between Lucan and Princess Diana…
Posted: 10th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (19)
Scouts Prepared To Seek Asylum In London
HOW did you celebrate 100 years of Scouting? By rolling your tie into a woggle, sitting on the knee of an old man wearing shorts and blistering your skin in the making of stinging nettle tea?
Perhaps you were one of the thousands of uniformed youth from 162 nations who arrived at Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex, for the mother of all jamborees?
You might even be one of the nine Bangladesh and Ugandan Scouts who set about earning what the Mail calls an “illegal immigrant badge”? Five male Bangladeshis – one is 12, two are 15, one is 16 and one 24 – two girls and a boy from Uganda aged 16 and 17, a 17-year-old Sri Lankan boy and a 15-year-old Nigerian have gone orienteering.
“They left of their own accord and while some are quite young they appear to be quite prepared and are primarily in a group,” says an Essex police spokesman.
Be prepared. It is, is it not, the motto of the Scout movement. And we can imagine that in a bid to fit in with their new surroundings, the youngsters are piling on weight, smoking fags and experimenting with drugs. Some might even have fashioned a baby from straw and applied for a single-parent maintenance grant.
Says the police spokesman: “We cannot rule out the fact they might have come here to stat a new life and want to stay… It’s not unusual to get missing people at this type of event, especially given there were 40,000 people – which is the size of small town.”
Or, as the Mail would have it, the size of typical immigrant family…
Scary Stuff: Mel B Husband Charged With Abuse
“MEL B NEW HUBBY IS WIFE BEATER.”
So says the Mirror’s front-page headline. And readers are drawn into the story of the woman who for fear of reprisals goes under an assumed name.
This Mel B is a singer of popular music songs who has not been so popular since she split from Posh, Mel C, Baby and Ginger. All women are believed to be in hiding and their true names known to the authorities.
Says the Mirror: “Mel B’s new husband Stephen Belafonte battered an ex-lover during a drink-fuelled frenzy that court papers described as ‘malicious and unlawful’.
Film producer Belafonte admitted lashing out at Nicole Contreras, the mum of his young daughter, at her Beverly Hills home.”
The name Belafonte invokes gentler scenes than those of domestic abuse, although Harry Belafonte did record the album Swing The Hammer and sing of working in the day and drinking rum all night. Says Stephen Belafonte, not believed to be related to the singer: “This happened crazily, one drunk, retarded night.”
The Mirror’s report goes on: “Nicole was left with visible injuries – and Belafonte was so overcome with rage he was accused of spitting in her mobile phone.”
Odd, indeed. And there is more. “Three years before his arrest for attacking Nicole, Belafonte had a brush with the law after he was accused of assaulting two men.
“According to the initial charges, he threw a missile at their car on the highway. The charge was reduced after he agreed to plead guilty to vandalism and pay for the damage to the car. He was sentenced to community service at a children’s home.”
Mel B and Belafonte are now married. As the Express reports, they tied the knot at The Special Memory Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas.
This is Mel B’s second marriage, having been briefly tethered to dancer Jimmy Gulzar, with whom she has a daughter. She has also endured a relationship with Eddie Murphy, a Hollywood player, whom DNA tests confirmed fathered Mel B’s latest child.
It’s a confusing picture. And we wish Mel B luck. Domestic abuse is a serious issue. But a friend says Mel has entered into her new marriage “with her eyes wide open”. And the aforesaid Nicole says: “The past is the past. He’s a changed person now.”
Belafonte is a TV worker, working as executive producer on “I Pity the Fool” (2006) TV Series and The Mutant Chronicles.
Mel B also goes by the name Scary…
Off The Radar: Prince Harry’s Drug Shame
“PRINCE HARRY NEW DRUGS SHAME.” (Pic: The Spine)
Prince Charles may well clack his marmalade-coated tongue, turn to his pet begonia and bemoan his ills but the Daily Sport’s front page will not be quiet.
News is that Prince Harry Baseball Cap is “at the centre of a drugs storm”.
It has been claimed that Royal police turned a “blind eye” to drug taking among Harry’s friends.
The allegations are made in Radar magazine – “Radar investigates the louche life of Prince Harry, England’s skirt-chasing, hard-partying royal pain.”
Anorak learns: “On the night his regiment flew to Iraq, a dejected Harry partied at the Syndicate, a Bristol club renowned for its Ecstasy-fueled fetes. In the following excerpt, Radar examines Harry’s party-boy antics.”
That it should come to this. Not so long ago, Harry was to lead the British troops in certain victory. As Anorak wrote, Harry would go to Iraq as planned. Our boys would be equipped with ginger Harry frightwigs and so confuse the enemy who, eager to dispatch Harry, would rush from their holes and bunkers and be slaughtered.
But now hooray for Harry is Hooray Henry, the braying, partying, decadent parasite.
A Scotland Yard spokesman tells the Sport: “We never discuss matters of royal security.”
But Radar knows. As it says:
Indeed, according to a source with contacts in the royal protection forces, Harry’s bodyguards spend much of their time intercepting bar patrons they suspect of trying to push ecstasy on the prince. In an attempt to prevent embarrassing incidents from turning up in the papers, the boys’ minders have been instructed not to inform police of drug use among the princes’ friends.
Radar rightly notes that Williams and Harry are involved in Operation Normal, the plan to show them as ordinary lads. Of course, they are nothing of the sort. Soldiers are expendable, princes less so. Prince Harry does not go to Iraq. Lads do.
A British squaddie gets killed in Iraq. Most us don’t know his name. Harry dies and there are newspaper supplements, special TV shows and questions in the house. Harry is not the same. But he is being offered ecstasy at a club, so in some ways he is like the proles.
Radar writes:
In June, Harverson arranged for both boys to appear on Dateline in a much-hyped interview with Matt Lauer, their first major appearance on U.S. television. Despite their awkward, halting performance, the episode drew high ratings. In the palace, it was seen as a huge success. Over and over, both boys emphasized their normal, unregal values. Asked by Lauer what he’d do if he weren’t a prince, Harry replied that he dreamed of being a safari guide in Africa.
Dream on. The big game is appearing normal and being minted, feted and lauded. And Harry has no chance of success…
We’re All Harry Now: Prince Harry Wins War In Iraq
Prince Harry Leads The Ronald McDonald Army To Victory in Iraq
Operation Enduring Prince Harry In Afghanistan
Amy Winehouse Exhausts James Brown’s Stagecraft
AMY Winehouse. Nice Yiddisher girl from north London. She loves to cook for her friends. Amy is the country’s foremost female solo popist. And she’s making news in the Sun.
“Skeletal Amy was dragged into casualty and fell down with a shriek,” runs the headline.
Readers versed in the performance arts will tune their minds to Amy’s look and see traces of the late James Brown. Staged became stagecraft as Brown would push his tiny frame to the limit and drop down into the splits. A yelp. The medics. A stumble from stage. A cape around the shoulders.
And then the miracle recovery as touched by an unseen hand James would explode into life with a vigour reserved for a man who had seen the light at an evangelical exorcism.
And here is Amy Winehouse. Is this shriek her moment of catharsis? “We are praying this is the wake-up call she needs,” says a close friend in the Sun.
If so, Amy has been seeking God in a vial of drugs. As the Sun’s front page screams: “AMY IN DRUGS COLLAPSE.” Oh… “Wild pop star has adrenaline jab and stomach pumped.”
Her career is going well. Amy is up for three gongs at the MTV Video Music Awards. She has cracked America. And she is OK. As her record company Island tells us, Amy is suffering from “exhaustion”.
For any tired readers out there, an eyewitness notes the telltale signs to look for when exhaustion is about to strike. “She was falling over and stumbling around,” says the source. “She didn’t look at all well.”
Amy is with her husband Blake Fielder-Civil. “The bloke was holding her up because she couldn’t really stand on her own… That’s when I realised Amy must have been really ill because although there was a big crowd of people in the waiting area she was rushed straight through.”
Such is the scene at London’s University College Hospital. Such is the drama.
And such is that way of showbusiness that Amy is in a private room. And Amy is being discharged, leaving the hospital by a back entrance, possibly with a cape around her shoulders and the rattle of a tambourine punctuating her every painful step.
The original:
Posted: 9th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Sharking For Tourists
A SHARK is spotted off the cost of Cornwall. And, as the Mail reports, “the beaches started emptying within hours”.
That this mass exodus should coincide with flood and last-minute deals to the sun is less important than the massive beast in our costal waters.
The Star has journeyed to Cornwall’s shark alley and today exposes the “Great White Lie”. The “killer fish” is a “monster myth”. No Jaws. No teeth.
The 20ft fish is a basking shark, a harmless creature that allows children to pet it as it swims around a dingy.
Residents of Britain’s flooded zones can rest easy. But just when we think it is safe to go back in the water, we look again. Experts see a photograph produced by Kevin Keeble, 52, a keen angler. They see a Great White.
Mr Keeble sends his picture to the Newquay Guardian. The picture is published on the paper’s front page. Copies have “flown off the shelves”.
And Mr Keeble tells us: “I took the picture while I was on a fishing trip in Cape Town and just sent it in as a joke… I can’t believe the story went so big in the first place.”
The shark was front-page news in the Sun. Britain was going shark crazy, we were told.
But it was all a hoax.
And the Mail says the trick has upset locals who earn their living from the tourist trade. They are also upset by the rain, the clouds and those cheap flights to Miami.
And the man-eating tigers…
Posted: 9th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
TV’s Chris Tarrant Is A Flop Says Cuckholded Wife Ingrid
“TARRANT beat me up and he needed Viagra in bed,” says “WIFE INGRID”.
The Sun’s front-page headline is rooted in the failed marriage of Chris Tarrant, TV personality, and Ingrid, his cuckolded wife.
The Sun hears Ingrid say that Chris “THUMPED” her in the face, was a “FLOP” in bed and needed “VIAGRA”.
In case readers have not grasped the nettle, a headline within the paper says: “Tarrant was a clumsy lover who couldn’t get it up and reeked of fish”.
Ingrid says Tarrant “went out of his way” to make himself repulsive in bed after he went off sex.
These are the facts. And we are in no place to refute them. What goes on behind closed doors in the family domicile is a private matter. Although what goes on when off-sex Chris is cheating on his wife with another woman is the stuff of public record.
Says Ingrid: “The biggest reason our sex life slowed in our last few years was because of Chris’s erectile dysfunction. It sounds vulgar but he had problems getting it up,” say Ingrid. Is this true? Should we ask the Tarrant mistress for her view? Did Chris just struggle with Ingrid?
The wronged wife’s right about one thing: it does sound vulgar. But facts are facts. Chris has had an affair with one Fiona McKenchie. And Ingrid may wonder how. “But the truth is I didn’t go off sex. He did,” says Ingrid.
Oh, there was that time when she had an “ovary problem”. For a few months, ten years into their marriage, she was unable to have “full sex”. Says Ingrid: “It was almost as if you massaged Chris’s willy, you massaged his ego. They went hand in glove.”
Enough! Make it stop! It is not just Chris who is being put off sex.
And we scurry to the Sun’s Page 3 to learn that Nicola (pink knickers, no bra) is “really pleased” to learn that veteran entertainer Bobby Davro has landed a part in EastEnders.
That’s better. Cancel the Viagra. Have Ingrid and Chris Tarrant removed to a more private area. And scrubbed down…
More Nicola…
Enemies At The Gates: Spoon Feeding Chris Tarrant’s ‘Pilau Fight’
Who Wants To Be Mrs Tarrant?
A Wronged Wife Rubs Out Chris Tarrant
Posted: 8th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (3)
Argos Worker’s Facebook Doesn’t Fit
ARE you in employment or bonded labour? Can you speak freely of your employers in your spare time or must you always be on message?
That question to readers of the Sun who learn that “dozy” Argos worker Tom Beech has been sacked for criticising the company on his Facebook website.
Tom’s site – I Work At Argos And Can’t Wait to Leave Because It’s Shit – was created in a fit of pique.
And it was found by his “bosses” in just half an hour. They were displeased with Tom. He has been suspended from his £6.55-an-hour job in Wokingham, Bucks.
He was later summoned to a disciplinary hearing and sacked.
Says Tom: “I’m stunned they fired me for this. I had a really bad day and was feeling overworked and under-paid. My mistake was to sound off on Facebook.”
An Argos overseer tells the Sun that Tom was sacked for “placing inappropriate entries on Facebook”.
Indeed, dear reader, Tom was censored. The inference is that Tom would not have been sacked had he said good things about Argos, such as how the company’s jewellery does not engender the wearer with all the guile of a Russian sex worker and so forth.
The advice to the downtrodden worker is to stick to the tried and tested and unwind by getting smashed on alcohol and rowing with a phone box…
He Wears It Badly: Rod Stewart’s Big Print Pants
SOMETHING for the ladies in the Mail. And the men.
There Rod Stewart is taking in the sun and, one imagines, a sharp intake of breath. Rod is dressed in a pair of blue swimmers.
Rod is on a fact finding mission in St Tropez. And the Mail, which specialises in celebrity bodies, is there to watch all and give full and frank appraisal.
Has Rod got it? Says Rod in the form of a speech bubble: “Think I’d pass for 007 in MY budgie smugglers?”
We look. And we see that Rod’s shorts are indeed like those sported by Daniel Craig in the most recent Bond franchise. Like Bond, Rod’s chest is bare of hair, with two nipples.
And there is a navel. Unlike so many men in their beige years, and Simon Cowell, Rod’s shorts are not pulled high to a point just beneath the armpits. These are short shorts.
The Mail concludes that Rod has let the sunshine go to his head – a head, let is not go unsaid, covered in a chick-like pelt of yellowy feather-cut hair.
Rod, 62, is with his 36-year-old wife Penny. She wears a white string bikini with the words “Mrs Stewart” embroidered on the bottom.
In large print…
Posted: 8th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
BBC Bargain Hunt Accused Of Fix
NOT Bargain Hunt! Not the show that, along with Songs of Praise and the Antiques Roadshow, has beamed wholesome entertainment into the chintzy living rooms of middle England.
Not the show that, from its low-budget, daytime-TV loins, gave birth to the orange icon that is David Dickenson? Surely it couldn’t be the latest show to be found guilty of deceiving its loyal viewers? Well, yes, it could.
That’s according to former contestant Jim Samuels, who was seen on the show last month. The 70-year-old Samuels claims that the contestants’ ‘bargains’ are agreed before the cameras roll and that the experts even tell them what to buy, rather than just help them. He also said he saw a BBC crew member loading one of his bargains into their van after it was auctioned.
Says Samuels in the Mail: “We went off and had a look at the stuff as they were filming other couples, thought what we wanted to buy and were introduced to our adviser. He then told us what we were going to buy. Then they came round with a cameraman where we were pretending to buy the stuff. It had already been bought. It became obvious that they had all fixed the prices.”
However, the Beeb have refuted the allegations that he contestants are told what to buy or that prices are fixed in advance, although they did admit that the scenes where the contestants negotiate the price of goods are reconstructed. Rather like Dickenson’s skin tones.
Cheap as chips.
Smell Yer Later, Kate Moss
A FEMALE celebrity without her own perfume is like Peter Stringfellow without a thong. (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)
According to the Sun, who are expert in such things, Kate Moss, now free of pop fuckwit Pete Doherty, is to go head to head with Kylie Minogue, who has just released her own ‘Sweet Darling’ scent.
Moss’s new fragrance, entitled ‘Kate’, is expected to bring in a whopping £65million over the next couple of years. With top notes of basement studio and bottom notes of baby talc and sherbet dib-dab, all dressed in a bottle shaped to look like an elongated finger nail, Kate will be an explosive hit.
One wonders how much Doherty’s odour would make? And if punters would buy something they could create themselves?
Anorak’s branding exercise can be seen in picture form…
Opium and Charlie are available from branches of Boots and Matt ‘the Talc’ Urban Solutions..
Posted: 6th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Great Whites Hunt The British
THE Great White shark hunt goes on.
Anyone who sees such a creature should contact the Sun’s shark hotline and Southern Water.
On the each in St Ives, Cornwall, the Sun is educating locals as to what to look for. Inflated Page 3 babes Peta and Sam are handing out 450 inflatable sharks. And 1,000 T-shirts, mostly wet.
The sharks are out there. And they are hunting down the British.
The Sun says British tourists have been warden to beware of a 10ft shark. Thought to be Great White, the beast has been spotted off the coast of Tarragona, Spain.
The suspicion is that these wily sharks are deliberately targeting we British. Raised on fables of flooded farms, drowned and plentiful livestock and children fatter than seal pups, the sharks are honing on Britishers home and abroad.
And they are getting ever closer. In the front-page news “I CAME FACE TO FACE WITH JAWS”.
The Star has pictures of “razor-toothed killing machine” washed up in front of “stunned” tourists. They are “stalking Spanish waters”.
And the Star’s man in a boat, Ian Burchell in Puerto Banus, a notorious venue for sharking middle-aged men, footballers and, naturally, sharks.
Ian ‘Fin-faced’ Burchell sees a fin. His feet turn to “lead”. He cannot speak. He can only point. He is returned to land and shows a photograph to an “expert” who confirms that it might well have been the fin of a Great White.
Britishers in Spain are aghast. Dad–of-two Mick Shaw calls it terrifying”. Rebecca Callaghan says it is “quieter than usual”. Victoria Bell says: “I’ve had nightmares about it and now it seems it is for real.”
The Star says there are fears more sharks could be making to the Mediterranean as the water temperature rises.
The Express (“Beach shut in new Great White scare”) sees the sands of Tarragona closed. Swimmers are in a state of “panic”.
Can we escape? The Star is offering hope. It’s offering readers the chance to save the many by sacrificing themselves.
The paper poses a question. Correct answers will go into the hat and the winner will be on a trip to South Africa for a live baiting in Shark Alley.
The question:
Where in Britain is it claimed that a Great White shark is lurking?
a) The coast of Cornwall
b) Gill-ford, Surrey.
c) Fins-bury Park, London
The answer: all of the above and more. The sharks are among us. Head for the high ground!
Posted: 6th, August 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (5)
