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.
Campbell’s In The Soup
BEFORE Helen Mirren and Victoria Beckham there was Naomi Campbell.
The British are less coming as they are leaving these shores for a new life of opportunity in the US of A.
And the British immigrants will work hard to be accepted, to carve out a new life in the land of the free.
Mirren will pretend to be The Queen for the amusement of the emancipated Americans. Vicky will continue to cheer on husband Dave from the stands at a less-than-salubrious Home Depot Center. And Naomi will work in the community.
Boy George, a star over here, was not too long ago pictured sweeping streets in New York. How long before George Michael, Sting and Noel Edmonds were working as cabbies and doormen, trying to make a new and better life for themselves over there?
And now we see Campbell. Facing a charge that she did assault one Ana Scolavino with a jewel-encrusted mobile phone, Campbell stands before the Beak.
At Manhattan’s Criminal Court, the Mail hears Campbell admit to hitting her maid in the head with said phone “by accident”. Campbell admits a third-degree assault charges.
“I did assault her,” says Campbell. “The cell phone hit her head. It was an accident and I not mean for it to hit her. I understand that Ana is hurt and I am deeply sorry for that.”
The London-born model is ordered to pay £185 in medical costs to Miss Scolavino (a figure rising to £200 in the Express) and attend anger management classes.
And perform five days of community service. But what form will this punishment take? The Star say Campbell will find out in March.
That’s right – Campbell has two more months living in the land where the beautiful people roam. And it could have been better. As the Express notes, Campbell could have been sentenced to seven years in an American jail.
Less the end of her modelling career than a whole new beginning…
Golden Years
“THE award for lifetime achievement goes to…”
So begins the Mail’s encomium to Her Majesty the Queen, saviour of the British film and television industry.
Shout it from the rooftops that British entertainment if not all about thick, freeloading bigots sat in a huge house in the shires. It’s about the Royal Family, too.
Was it not Her Majesty the Queen who inspired Helen Mirren to win a Golden Globe award for her portrayal of Liz in the film The Queen? Mirren, pictured holding her Globes on the Mail’s Page 3, dedicates her achievement to the regent. “I honestly think this award belongs to her,” says Mirren, “because I think you fell in love with her, not with me.”
Of course, Queen Liz is too gracious a person to accept the offer of the gold paint and paste statuette. In any case, as Mirren goes on to say, Queen Elizabeth “already has an orb to go with her sceptre”.
Sharing an award is no easy matter. While one party of the double act gets to house the thing, the other must make do with visitation rights. Better to have one each. And, as luck has it, Helen scoops another gong for her title role in the television drama Elizabeth I.
(To the Sun’s movie critic, the often topless Mirren now boasts a pair of “GGs”.)
As Mirren’s American audience will know, Elizabeth I came before the sequel Elizabeth II. And there must surely be a place for another movie in this Elizabeth franchise.
But before Elizabeth III hits the screens, we should savour the moment. Whenever British stars win gongs in America we are ever so proud.
The Express is “Thrilled to Brits” to see Mirren’s trophies lined up alongside those won by Jeremy Irons, Sacha Baron Cohen and Hugh Laurie.
These are the champions of British entertainment. In spite of a broadcast industry that pumps out bilge, drivel and the best of American imports, talent can shine through and win nine prestigious awards. It truly is incredible.
Britney’s New Musical Wave
BRITNEY Spears sucks on a red lollypop.
Who loves you baby, might read the caption as we learn of lovelorn Britney’s latest exploits.
“Pukes I did it again..on my boyfriend,” says the Mirror’s headline. News is that Britney has thrown up on her lover, Isaac Cohen.
The paper says the singer looked “chunder the weather” as she “romantically ‘yawned’ into his hands as they left a Hollywood club at 3am”.
The Star listens as Britney’s publicist says male model Isaac had “peanut butter” on his hands.
No shot of any vomit is forthcoming. But what if the story is true?
Surely this is only Britney keeping abreast of the latest musical trends. Just last week Anorak reported that Amy Winehouse had given full throat to the new technicolour musical wave by vomiting on stage.
There was talk of a bucket being made ready for Jason Donovan’s performance. Charlotte Church was necking vodka with a pizza chaser.
Gobbing was so 1970s. In the 21st Century we demand the full deal. If she did puke, we congratulate Britney for being brave enough to embrace new musical trends.
The only shock is that her new lover didn’t return the compliment and puke up on her.
Look out for that on Britney’s next live show…
French Bulldog
“ALLO, HELLO,” says the headline.
The Sun wonders what life would have been like had Great Britain and France been united under a common crown.
It could have happened. Records in the National Archive claim that 50 years ago French President Guy Mollet requested that France be allowed to join the Commonwealth.
“Monsieur Mollet raised with the Prime Minister the possibility of a union between the UK and France,” says the document.
And in an instant the Mirror is off in a reverie. It sees Thierry Henry, football’s D’Artagnan, clad in a nylon England football shirt. It’s a vision shared by the Sun.
Why Henry should be in an England short and not the colours of Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland does not concern the Mirror as the country’s finest raises his hand to salute a goal and send the crowds watching on a jumbo monitor town in Auxerre into paroxysm of excitement. “Hoorah!” they cry.
And while the French smash up the town centre and get wasted on industrial strength lager and dayglo alco-vins, the Mirror’s Brain Reade snuggles up to his wife Angelina, “resulting in a mouthful of armpit hair”.
Any union between France and the UK would need to be a two-way street. For Thierry Henry refulgently striking the ball in a German’s onion bag, one anachronistic tabloid writer would have to marry a woman with hairy armpits.
But such is life as it might have been. “Sacre bleu!,” screams the Mail in place of the more traditionally British “F*****g hell!”. “What if Britain and France really HAD become a single nation?”
The Mail raises the Union Jacques flag and, as with the Mirror, salutes the Angle-French football team. Again the Scots, Irish and Welsh are left out. No Henry for them. But the Northern Irish can rejoice as the Mail despatches the French Foreign Legion to West Belfast.
Oh, what might have been. But the then British Prime Minister, Antony Eden, declined the offer. Back in 1956 who could have foreseen a Thierry Henry, British sporting failure and, as the Sun notes, one year later France would untie with Germany in the Common Market?
The United Kingdom would not get a French twist. The Queen would not get to be overthrown in a glorious revolution, her head removed and replaced with Tony Blair’s smiling visage.
Regrets? Non, je ne regrette rien…
Beckhams’ Retreat
ON a recent tour of America, Real Madrid players David Beckham and Roberto Carlos, the Brazilian footballer, marvelled at how they could walk about the place unmolested.
Perhaps America would offer Beckham sanctuary from the rigours of fame and fortune? Perhaps in America, Beckham could learn to breathe again, to spend his fortune without fear of offending a sponsor or attracting the attentions of an ambitious PA or model?
And he is prepared to sacrifice much, even his competitive playing career, to get it.
The Mirror has a picture of Beckham gazing into the screen on his mobile phone.
What is he reading? Surely not a message from pig tosser Rebecca Loos? Isn’t this the kind of thing Beckham seeks to escape over in America, the land of the free?
No longer is Dave even parading his talents on a patch of grass in Madrid with “BECKHAM” writ in lettering across his back. Becks sits in the stands at Real Madrid’s stadium. He is removed from the action, just another face in the crowd.
But even a would-be recluse needs a home, a cave with bedrooms, a media room and a waterfall. And while David takes a back seat, Victoria Beckham goes shopping for property.
Dressed in a plain black top, dark grey trousers and black sunglasses, wrapped in a plain black convoy of SUVs and limos, Posh moves with a Ninja-like invisibility across some prime Californian real estate.
The Mirror sees Victoria look over Lionel Richie’s former £7.5million Los Angeles home. There are stunning views over the city to the Pacific Ocean. Too small, says Vicky. David craves the wilderness-feel of acres of floor space.
Vicky has 29 more homes to view (Mirror), or 34 if the Mail and Sun are correct.
So it’s off to inspect the £7.5million home once owned by Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans. And then off to a gated development where Britney Spears has a home. Neighbours include Jack Nicholson, Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Aniston.
Posh, now changed into a furry black poncho, turns to speak. Doubtless shocked at being recognised so far from the shops, Her Poshness tells the Sun: “We’re really excited about moving to America. We can’t wait.”
But you need a home? “I’ve seen some beautiful places, but we want somewhere that looks like a nice home.”
And the search for a home removed from prying eyes continues. Posh looks over a £10million mansion in the Hollywood Hills. The four-bedroom home is set in two-acres, features a basketball court, and an “infinity pool”.
Is this place large enough? Or will the search for peace take the Beckhams away from their former lives, perhaps into the Californian deserts and a remote valley…
Kelly (Osbourne’s) Hero
EVER since The Osbournes vibrated onto our screens, the family has been as exclusive as teenage acne.
But still the Sun boats of an “EXCLUSIVE” interview with Kelly Osbourne.
“Mum said, ‘I don’t care who gets you pregnant, just get me a grandchild,” comes the teaser.
Mum is, of course, pixie-voiced Sharon Osbourne, a shrewd businesswoman who has cultivated a career as a multi-millionaire chav with a house full of dog poo.
Sharon is also the woman whose battle with bulimia and “self-loathing” were watched by the young Kelly.
Says Kelly: “As a child I knew she had a problem and I’d say, ‘Please don’t lose weight because there won’t be enough of you to cuddle. It made me really sad.”
But Kelly has passed through her mother’s gastric band and emerged the other side unscathed and not displeased to be chubby.
Kelly has recorded a hit song with her dad, appeared on reality TV shows and is all set to star on Turning Japanese, a show in which Kelly gets to live in Japan for two months.
Perhaps while in Japan, Kelly will find a boyfriend. Kelly says she has a “terrible track record” when it comes to relationships. “I don’t think I’m picky enough,” says she. “I go for the biggest s**theads. My mum’s like, ‘Where did you find that one?’”
Kelly doesn’t name names. But she does mention the boy who went to Eton she dated on her mum’s advice. Kelly says it was “boring”. He was dull”. “That’s just not me,” says Kelly. “I like a guy who is completely insane.”
But where to find him? Where will Kelly happen upon the institutionalised hunk who spends his days propped up on hillbilly heroin watching the Sharon Osbourne show on the telly?
“The crazier you are, the more I’ll like you, and the more you hate me, the more I’ll like you,” says Kelly, who says she has given up looking for Mr Wrong.
So for now Kelly is concentrating on her career. But might she combine her quests for fame and love two in a single format?
Who would not tune in to watch Kelly touring the world’s leading psychiatric units in a quest for love?
And if Ozzy can come along, so much the more illuminating…
Water Logged
KATE Moss should not be too hard on her lover.
When they’re not ensuring a good night out for young royalty, the boys in blue love to chase a soft target like Doherty.
And like David Hewitt, who is pictured by the Mirror in his back garden.
Hewitt is holding a length of yellow garden hose. His expression is careworn and incredulous. The end of the hose is poking through a gap in a bamboo fence.
The hose may very well be on. If it is, Mr Hewitt should take care to turn it off lest it exceed the stated dose of water.
The story is that while hosing down decking at his home in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, Hewitt was court on the horns of a dilemma.
It was 8:30am, m’lud, and, as noted, Hewitt, an IC1 male, is hosing off his decking. All is going to plan. But Hewitt realises that the dustmen are due. He has not yet put the bins out. The approved procedure is to wheel the bins to the roadside in the late evening before collection. But Hewitt has strayed from the official line.
Says Hewitt: “I hung the running hose on the fence and meant to come back to finish the job. Then I found out I was late for work, left the house and completely forgot about the hose.”
A neighbour whose garage is being made wet alerts the police. Officers arrive at 12:30pm. There are three officers in two vehicles. A scene-of-crime van arrives. An officer strides into the garden to take official photographs.
Hewitt says that someone called “Wendy” tries to let the family dog out but is informed that the animal will be entering a crime scene. This could spoil the investigation and very possibly incriminate the dog.
The police leave a note advising Hewitt to attend a police station or face arrest at home. Hewitt visits the offices of Southend constabulary. He is arrested. His possessions are seized. He spends around 40 minutes in a cell. He is interviewed on tape and under caution. He is then released under police bail.
Hewitt says he is “disgusted”.
The clear message is that anyone watering their garden should synchronise their hose work with Prince Harry’s social life and check if Pete Doherty is in the country.
And put their bins out on time.
Posted: 15th, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comments (2)
Ugly Truths
EVERY day of every week the Mail thinks up imaginative ways to remind you that life is cruel and you are going to experience pain and die.
And if it can’t think any up, it looks at the latest scientific research.
Here is a selection of things that will kill you and yours from last week’s paper of doom…
MONDAY
Get ready…
TUESDAY
“THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT BETTY-LAND. She’s the ugly but loveable PA tormented by her fashion bosses in TV’s latest hit. But Betty should be glad she doesn’t work on a REAL magazine, says this ex-editor” – The Mail’s Liz Jones says magazine only hire the young, lithe and gorgeous. And Liz…
“My son was just two when he had testicular cancer – and iff that didn’t kill him, the cure could” – Amanda and Alastair’s liven up a rainy winter’s morning
“First it was the nightmare of tinnitus. Then the Bill’s Graham Cole was told: You’ll go totally deaf” – Hello… Hello… Hello…
“Surgeons made me new tongue using pieces of my arms” – Me
and my operation
“IVF OVERLOAD. Desperate women are flocking to IVF doctors who use high doses of drugs to increase their chances of a baby. But at what price?” – Free on the NHS
“Could ME be caused by too much adrenaline?” – Could it? Try not to get overexcited
“Poison peril could put £100 on cost of cremation” – Experts try to prevent mercury in the deceased’s fillings from polluting the air. Breathe in Aunt Agatha’s fumes and it could be your funeral next…
“Cold snap will raise bird flu risk warns vet” – Bird flu is back!
WEDNESDAY
“Britain is leading the world…on inflation” – We’re on the up
“The NHS I knew is slowly going to the dogs” – A reader writes
“Created in a US lab. Born here. The calf that signals…CLONE FARMING HAS ARRIVED” – Cows and sheep that look the same are among us
THURSDAY
“Moment 600 years ago that terror came to Mummies of the Amazon. Hands clasped over her eyes and her face gripped with terror, this woman’s fear of death is all too obvious” – Embalming skills of the Chachapoyas tribe let us experience the horrors of life for Daily Mails readers 600 years ago
“Fifty families ‘to lose their homes every day’” – Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors says debts are mounting
“Thursday DON’T FALL SICK TODAY! – The bizarre and fascinating facts to help you make the most of every day of the week. If you checked into hospital today you’ll probable have to stay a while as consultants don’t work weekends
“Student died from malaria after doctors diagnosed flu” – Was it a Thursday?
FRIDAY
“Can planting a tree REALLY repair the environmental damage of a transatlantic flight? THE CARBON COP-OUT” – Doesn’t carbon turn to diamond? Just wondering…
“We’ve got one year to save NHS, says doctors’ leader” – James Johnson, chairman of the British Medical Association gives us the diagnosis
Britney & Beckham
DAVID Beckham confessed that he sought advice from his girlfriend, Tom Cruise, before accepting the $1 million a week to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Becks said, “I was on the phone to him for about an hour last night and an hour the night before. He is a very wise man and a very good friend of mine. It’s going to be a big help for us to have friends when we arrive in L.A.”
Phone sex anyone? Poor Becks has no idea what he’s getting into…..Tom Cruise’s manpuss!
Dlisted.com
BRITNEY Spears’ new model boyfriend has removed his MySpace due to thousands upon thousands of friend requests and attention. Isaac Cohen called himself “Eyezik” on his page and described himself as a 25-year-old from Encino, CA. He also lists the bible as his favorite book, because his uses the pages from Leviticus 4:20 to roll “sweet, sweet chiba” joints.
Methinks this one isn’t operating on a full tank. I’m sure Britney and him have “awesome and deep” conversations. Hey, who needs brains when you have a bod like that? Too bad her stupid ass will probably marry him like this weekend.
Pete Doherty’s Scrambled Eggs
PETE Doherty is no longer under arrest. But he has been.
With Prince Harry and his blonde safely restored to the palace, police are able to turn their attention to the usual business in hand: arresting Pete Doherty.
As the man in blue tells us: “Police arrested three males aged 35, 22 and 27 in the early hours of Saturday morning.” One of them is believed to have been Doherty.
But now Doherty is at large. There is no fun in arresting Doherty if you are going to keep him in a cell. The suspicion is that Doherty works in tandem with the police, periodically offering himself up to be captured. Doherty is less helping the police with their enquiries than he is securing their funding from central Government.
Doherty’s routine arrests enable the police to keep their hand in and prepare for the day when each of us will have a team of coppers assigned to observe our every move.
With crime detection figures low and the police struggling to meet targets, Doherty gets in a car – this latest one is said to have been stolen. The vehicle moves about the quiet streets in an erratic manner.
The police get a tug. Doherty gets a headline. And everyone is happy.
Well, not everyone. The Star hears that Kate Moss is “furious” with her lover for being in trouble with the law again.
An unnamed source talks of a “fuming Kate”. And tells the Star: “It will take more than half-a-dozen eggs to make up for it.”
Half a dozen eggs, eh? After the Star’s recent headline – “KATE ‘N’ PETE’S 3-IN-BED ROMP WITH TOM CAT” – are we now to toss some eggs into the blend?
The Sun has a picture of Doherty and Moss walking by her Cotswold home. In one hand, Doherty holds Moss’s hand. In the other hand, Doherty holds a small bottle of beer. No cat is seen.
But both model’s hand and beer are soon replaced by eggs. The Star says these eggs are Doherty’s attempt to get Kate Moss back on side. For the purposes of historical accuracy, the eggs are six in number and come wrapped in a cardboard box.
How the eggs work their magic is not revealed. But the thinking is that on quiet news days, Doherty juggles them to his beloved’s amusement and then tosses them at passing police cars…
Chelsy Davy – We Have You Surrounded
ROBBERS, burglars and Pete Doherty take note – if you want to avoid arrest best check the Royals’ social diary before going out.
Having already spotted Prince William’s paramour Kate Middleton moving about town in the centre of a cauldron of ten officers of the law, we catch up with Prince Harry’s lover Chelsy Davy.
“Overstretched police assign eight officers (plus two minders) so Harry and Chelsy can go nightclubbing till 4am in peace,” says the Mail’s headline.
Add to his this phalanx Prince Harry, a young man muddied up and trained to kill by his grandmother the Queen, and Chelsy looks quite safe.
As the Sun notes, Harry, a 2nd Lieutenant in the Blues and Royals, will learn this week if he is to be dispatched to Iraq. If he can handle a night out at London’s Cuckoo Club and run the gauntlet of paparazzi, the frontline should hold no fears.
And so it is that with the area immediately around Harry and Chelsy secured, the couple can relax. The Sun spots Chelsy flash a stoking-clad knee as she sits in a car, possible armoured.
Just one day earlier, the Mirror had seen the couple smiling. This was “HARRY’S HAPPY HOUR”. Young Prince Harry Baseball Cap and his lover were polishing off a pitcher of Treasure Chest, a £100 cocktail “meant for eight”. The venue was Mayfair’s Mahiki Club.
For anyone keen to make the brew, the Mirror reveals the ingredients to be champagne, rum, brandy and peach liqueur. Drinkers should take care to have a chauffeur-driven 4×4 on standby to take you home should you become intoxicated.
And get some police to help out. The Mail risks life, limb and liberty in taking a shot of a bevy of thin-lipped coppers idling around the Cuckoo Club’s main door.
Harry is seen dressed “unusually smartly” in pink shirt and jacket. Miss Davy wears a white patterned dress and black stockings. Their entourage wears navy blue jackets, black leather gloves and clip-on ties.
Burglars in smarter parts of central London wear smiles…
Posted: 13th, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Blairs Set Sights On America
WHAT odds that Tony Blair and their Blairios will be the next Britishers heading off for a new life in the United States?
Perhaps Tony will make politics “higher than anyone can probably believe in America”, the Senate’s answer to David Beckham, only with spin in place of bend?
Of course, of Tony does go, then he should go armed. America loves the gun. Champion democracy with a loud and fearless voice – but best do it with small firearm tucked in the glove compartment or handbag.
And Tony would be advised to get his private army in order before making any move.
As the Mirror reports, the “crack gun cops" who guard Tony Blair, the men "ready to respond with a precision shot to rub out anyone deemed a threat to his life” – mad mullahs, hired assassins, Brazilian electricians etc – are to get their eyes seen to.
These hotshots may not have 20/20 vision. Tony should not yet place young Leo before a tree, stick an apple upon the lads head and invite the mob to “fire!”.
As the paper tells us, five of Tony’s Swiss guard are in need of laser eye surgery to correct their imperfect vision.
The Metropolitan Police, which oversees the Diplomatic Protection Group to which the shooters belong, denies that the hired guns are blind.
The coppers will be given the surgery to enable them to remain in their jobs for longer, comes the official explanation.
Professor Dan Reinstein, who approached the Met with the offer of free laser eye surgery, supports this view. He tells us: “Some workers will become more productive following their operation.”
Good news for Tony and his family. But, perhaps, less than good news for the rest of us on the wrong end of the gun sight…
Balance Of Payments
AS David and the Beckhams head to the United States, their departure creates some space in the UK.
Not that the Beckhams are the only Brits seeking their fortunes out West. The Mail looks at “the ultimate life swop” as Mark and Judith Stephens exchange their £200,000 Gloucester home for a £258,000 mansion in Dexter, Maine.
For just £58,000 more, the couple get a big wooden house covered in snow. A look at the town’s official website, and we learn that Dexter has a nine-hole municipal golf course and driving range, a public beach and picnic areas, and “boasts one of Maine’s best small municipal regional airport’s which offers 3,000 feet of lighted paved runway”.
Who could not be turned onto a new life in America, where the dear and the antelope roam?
Well, not the Poles, who the Mail sees arriving in the UK. And the Mail says this “surge” in arrivals from Eastern Europe “is changing British society”.
Just as residents of Dexter, Maine, will adapt to their British neighbours and start downing alcopops at Tiffin, and the Beckhams will turn America onto football and chants of “Does she take it up the a***”, Britain will take to Polish tripe and cheap vodka.
The Mail says that some local newspapers have brought out special Polish editions. Supermarkets are stocking pickled cabbage. And banks are opening branches for Polish speakers.
“The Bank of Poland,” announces the Mail, and readers learn of Lloyds-TSB’s new retail services for Poles.
These new branches will have signs, brochures and forms in Polish. Foreigners interested in opening an account will need only to show one form of ID and no evidence of a fixed postal address.
But, of course, these banks are still in Britain. And the Mail says they will serve native customers and operate as normal.
It is a cultural exchange, a mutual learning programme. While the British learn the Polish for “final demand” and “overdraft facility”, the Poles learn how to form an orderly queue.
Britney Spears Mistakes Her Son For A Dog
BRITNEY Spears has yet to be pictured with David or Victoria Beckham.
But this is surely no oversight in Brand Beckham’s plan for inter-galactic domination. Might it be that Britney is not a fit and proper showbiz pal?
The Star catches up with Britney as she tours a pet store in Bel Air, California. The paper spots an animal dressed in jeans and a light brown hoodie.
Britney is buying a new cost for her dog. But the Star reveals the denim-clad creature to be one Sean Preston Federline-Spears, Britney’s son. At 15-months old, the “impossibly cute” child is standing on his own two feet.
Such is the excitement caused by Sean’s walking that Britney, dressed in back boots, executes a goosestep, a walk popularised by Basil Fawlty and the Nazis. Why she should do this, we are unsure. But parents can by pushy and Britney may have big plans for her son – first ze pet store, then ze vorld!
Indeed, so excited is Britney, she seems to have become caught up in the moment and made an error. Wrapped up in the thrill of so much walking, Britney has scooped up not her sandy-haired son but a small beige dog.
“BRIT PUPS TO SHOP,” says the Sun. The paper tells us that Britney is sending out a “disturbing message here – that she prefers her dog to her son.”
We are certain that Britney loves the boy she made with bits of Kevin Federline, the boy who fleshed out her figure and turned her from pop tart to frump.
That Britney loves her boy is clear for all to see. She’s even employed a minder to carry him. Given Britney’s past exploits with young Sean in her arms the boy may be safer perched on her minder’s hip.
Or walking on his hind legs.
Distend It Like Beckham
DAVID Beckham explains why he has signed a £128million deal that will see him end his playing days in the United States.
Says Day-vid in the Sun: “Soccer in America is the biggest played sport up to a certain age, and that’s where I want to take it to another level.”
As British football fans wince at the mention of “soccer” – the public schoolboy version of the game’s name that Americans insist on calling it – Beckham goes on.
“Eventually it can go higher than anyone can probably believe in America,” says he.
For the record, Beckham’s words are not rooted in a translation from his adopted Spanish. This really is what he said. And it is hard to know what he means. As with Day-vid’s famed metrosexuality, so it is with his ambiguous language.
Dave wants to take you higher, American soccer. Football is on the up and up in the US of A. David has signed for the Los Angeles Galaxy, an ambitious team whose name alone dwarfs the plans of some of Europe’s clubs to merely dominate planet Earth.
Pictured dressed in a pair of black sunglasses, Dave is ready to go to infinity and beyond. It’s up and up and away for David. And for David’s bank balance.
Following the front-page story that interest rate rises mean £600 on your mortgage (“and there could be worse to come”), the Mail reveals that Beckham is to earn £500,000 a week in a five-year deal.
Anyone who has seen Beckham’s performances in recent weeks – those times when he has been invited off the Real Madrid substitutes’ bench – will wonder at the business acumen behind the transfer. Who will pay Beckham a fortune to play when he is 36 years old? “Distend it like Beckham” will come the headline as an older Beckham, grown wider on the American diet, trots up to take a freekick.
This is “Beckham’s US goldrush,” says the Mail. The paper employs one of its writers to provide an epitaph to the former England captain’s European career: “A TRUE GENIUS RUINED BY HIS GREED.” Beckham is the superstar with “more style than substance”.
But it is not about the money. David has told us that. Forget “Posh & Bucks” (Mirror) and what the paper says is Beckham’s £1million-a-week deal in America (any advances on that?).
As 31-year-old Becks tells us: “I didn’t want to go out there at 34 years old and for people to turn around and say: ‘He’s only going there for the money.’ It’s not what I’m going there to do.”
Not a chance. Dave is going there to make the game “higher” and to “build a club and a team that has a lot of potential”.
Dave is off to California. He’s playing for the Galaxy. He’s reaching for the stars…
War With The Birds
“I WAS CRIPPLED BY A PARROT.”
It was never going to be easy following “KATE ‘N’ PETE’S 3-IN-BED ROMP WITH TOM CAT”, the Star’s front-runner in Headline Of The Year. But the Star has tried.
The paper’s headline furnishes the story of Glyn Atherton. A 35-year-old employee at the Bulwell, Nottingham, outpost of the Do It All chain of shops.
All was well. And then Glyn met Jack, an African grey parrot who lived in the store’s pet department. Jack was carrying psittacocis, a disease transmitted through bird droppings.
Glyn is now in wheelchair. He is also, thanks to a settlement, £700,000 better off. Jack is as dead as a dead parrot.
So much for Jack. But what about you? What should you look out for? Have you been infected by a parrot? It is easily done – Glyn never worked with Jack and contracted the disease by walking past the parrot’s cage.
And the symptoms to look out for? “Flu-like,” says the Mail. Or bird flu-like?
The War With The Birds is back. A dead parrot. A stricken human. Flu. And now the Mail announces: “Dead birds rain down on towns half a world apart.”
“It could be the plot of a horror film,” says the paper, referring not to its quotidian diet of doom and gloom but news of dead birds dropping from the sky.
Three weeks ago, thousands of pigeons, crows, honeyeaters and wattles “fell out of the sky” in Esperance, Western Australia.
Then last week, dozens of grackles, sparrows and pigeons fell dead upon two streets in Austin, Texas.
Autopsies are being carried out on the dead birds. What killed them? A storm? Toxic poisoning, as Dr Fiona Sutherland, of Australia’s Department of Agriculture and Food, suspects? Or was it suicide? Are we being dive-bombed by kamikaze birds? Is this just part of the ongoing war?
Adolfo Valadez, medial director of Austin and Travis County health and human services, says: “We certainly take these kinds of thing seriously, especially following 9/11.”
Wise words. The War With The Birds is on…
Posted: 11th, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Walking Ugly
IF David Beckham is to end it in the United States of America he will need to learn the language.
Britain and the States are countries divided by a common language. And to help Day-vid make the transition, the Mirror produces a “Beckham-American phrasebook”.
This is a twist on the Beckham-English phrasebook that has been a long time in the making. And while the Mirror finds the American equivalent for “Hi I’m David” (“Yo. I’d like y’all to meet my gal [ho?] Victoria”), we look at cultural differences.
Take Ashley Jenson, the British actress who from playing a watery character in Ricky Gervais’s Extras is now starring in the hit US sitcom Ugly Betty.
In Los Angeles, Ashley feels like a “fish out of water”, the Mirror notes. “I do find it quite isolating,” says Ashley. “I’m not stumbling across people because people never walk anywhere.”
Ashley does walk. “I got picked up because people thought I was a hooker ‘cos I was walking.”
Ashley calls herself a “British person who likes walking, getting on public transport, speaking to people on the Tube and hailing a taxi on the street”.
The joys of standing on an overpriced train, being frotted on the Tube as it idles in the fifth layer of Hell (aka the Northern Line) and conversing with a cabbie cannot be overstated.
We’d also like to remind our American audience that passengers who talk to strangers on the Tube are either: a) drunk; b) extracting money and valuables with menaces; or c) American’s looking for Harrod’s. With Ashley overseas, the Tube may be a better place.
But the clear message is that the British should take car when walking in America.
It is Anorak’s belief that people should be equipped with a licence to walk. Walking has too long been taken as a right. Waling crimes include: emerging from a shop without looking; walking more than two abreast; being in a party of pubescent French schoolchildren.
And while Ashley says Americans do not walk, we note that when they do they are liable to walk slowly and block the pavement. Better they take the car. Experience shapes the nation’s habits.
Beckhams’ Real United
David & Victoria Beckham saddle up…
IF David Beckham went to Los Angeles would others follow?
It might happen.
“ADIOS?” asks the Mirror’s front-page headline. “Beckham to decide TODAY if he’ll quit Spain for America.”
“I PLAY OR IT’S L.A.,” echoes the Sun’s front-page “exclusive”. This is “David’s threat to Real chiefs”. Or, rather, David’s threat to the accountants at Real Madrid, who will surely miss the revenue Becks brings in from shirt sales, if not the money earned from his bringing home the silverware – Real have won nothing while Beckham has been at the club.
The Sun hears a “source” close to Beckham say: “The challenge in America is to get American kids to fall in love with football. No other player – even greats like Pele and George Best – have managed it. It would be an incredible achievement.”
(Clive Toye, former president of the New York Cosmos, Pele’s team, has said: “Then, Pele was the greatest player in the game. The difference now is that Beckham is the greatest hype in the game… I’d still sign him, though, for the shirt sales and the occasional free-kick.")
So if Beckham, who struggles to get into the Real Madrid team, goes to America would others follow? Would more American youth and men start to play the rest of the world’s version of football and tune into the country’s Major League Soccer (think the Scottish Premier League with tans, better teeth and no Sash)?
The stage is set for Beckham to make his move. Just recently Major League Soccer passed a rule allowing clubs to circumvent the wage cap. Brand Beckham may not need just to rely on shirt sales to make ends meet.
Although clothes are important. As the Sun notes, Victoria Beckham is keen on a move to California, even if she runs the risk of looking fat and pale in her new setting.
Vicky has been house-hunting in Los Angeles. Her range of jeans is available in some American shops. And, as a source tells the Sun, “Victoria met J-Lo at a party in New York last year and they hit it off instantly.” We learn that David “gets on well” with J-Lo’s husband Marc Anthony.
These are the considerations in the choice the Beckhams might be facing. Throw in Tom Cruise, whom Becks “considers to be one of his closest friends”, and the choice becomes a little clearer.
“HOWDY,” says the Mirror’s headline. “Beam me up,” says Dave…
Ugly Betty Meets Minging Liz
“TOMORROW: THE REAL-LIFE UGLY BETTIES.”
The Sun has noticed that with Celebrity Big Brother failing in the ratings it is time to focus on another TV show.
So here is Ugly Betty, the Cinderella story of a girl who despite being ugly still gets to live the American dream. With luck and pluck she will rise to the top to the fashion world and earn enough money for some liposuction, a facelift and regular sessions with a hair removal practitioner.
It can also not fail to escape anyone’s notice that Ugly Betty wears braces on her teeth. These braces are both massive and terrifying.
But the braces will make Betty’s smile engaging and straight. You cannot help but think that had Ugly Betty been Minging Liz in a UK version of the show, she would have crooked, stained and missing teeth.
And tomorrow the Sun will show the world some real life ugly women. Fed on a diet of Page 3 stunnas, Wags and soap babes, Sun readers may find it hard to believe that people are less then perfect.
Tomorrow the Sun will dismantle the myth. You want ugly women? The Sun will give you some pug ugly women, no matter how long the search takes.
And the things we can expect are highlighted in this story. “Nerdy,” says a sub-heading. “Pimples,” comes another. “Ugly” is the watchword.
But beneath that panoply of manmade fibres, glasses and face metal, Betty is really not that bad looking. The Sun says America Ferrera (even her name is part of the dream) is a 22-year-old “beauty”.
She is not. She is 22, of that there is little doubt. But beauty is not the word many would choose. America is not bad looking. She is what may be termed a handsome woman.
And, in any case, if she were a ravishing beauty, would America have got to play Ugly Betty? Or would this talented actress have been forced to try her luck as the screen heroine, the siren of major films?
And then what her chance of success?
Golden Earrings
YOU’VE journeyed to Valhalla, turned your guts over on Avalanche and marvelled at the illuminations. Blackpool has so much to offer.
And now come with us indoors. Pass the Bowladrome, the vendors selling candy gloss and machine-formed sunset orange colouring and enter the Blackpool Pleasure Beach museum.
This attraction is not yet open. Indeed, it is left unmentioned in dispatches. But it should be.
As the paper reports, a manmade lake has been drained as part of building work for a new white-knuckle ride. And what wonders emerged from this watery treasure box?
The Mail looks on. It sees three sets of false teeth, a glass eye, a toupee, three dolls, a bra an £85 in small change. The Mirror counts eight mobiles phones, 13 pairs of glasses and sunglasses, several wallets and 35 keys.
It is an impressive haul. Together the collection will form an attraction to grace any museum. As a spokesman tells the Mail: “It has been a real eye opener as to what people lose when they are having fun.”
The Blackpool Pleasure Beach Museum will rival other repositories of learning, notably the Crewe Museum of Train Timetables, the British Lawnmower Museum (“It’s mower interesting”) and Germany’s Deutsches Currywurst Museum (museum of the curried sausage)
But – get this! – there is more.
The Blackpool Pleasure Beach museum will feature a top attraction. Feast your eyes upon an earring worn by Marlene Dietrich – “one of Hollywood’s greatest stars.”
The Mail produces some background to this showbiz gem. The earring is made of pearl and gold. It is thought the earring matches the earring Lili Marlene wore when she visited Blackpool in 1934.
It was during that visit Marlene became separated from her earring. Might his trinket be the one retrieved from the depths of the lake?
A spokesman for the resort tells the Mirror: “The earring had more sentimental value to the actress then cash.”
Such is the blurb etched in the plinth of hardened candy floss atop which this attraction will sit.
Many will flock to see it. If this museum is not being planned, we urge that it is…
30 Carrot-Plated
HAYLEY Davison, a “wacky student”, wants to be as orange as David Dickinson.
For those of you not au fait with daytime TV (and we are sorry for that), Dickinson is the whipped haired wonder, the real life Lovejoy who fronts antiques programmes.
Dickinson’s claims to fame are using the phrase “Cheap as chips”, the aforesaid hair and having skin the colour and very possibly the texture or stained mahogany.
And Dickinson’s patina has caught the eye of Hayley Davison.
Having been labelled “whacky” in print – a euphemism as damaging as your partner calling you “cuddly” – Hayley is ready to face her future. And her future is, naturally, orange.
Hayley is preparing to eat carrots at every meal for the next 30 days.
Hayley’s diet is in response to an argument she had with her student housemates. Peculiarly, this row was not about who does the washing up, who pebbled dashed the toilet or who smells worse, but if you can turn orange by eating carrots.
Anorak knows that you can. As does the Star, which makes mention of the condition carotenemia, when the skin turns orange.
But Hayley’s six housemates in Benwell, Newcastle, do not believe. “I was laughed at and nobody believed me,” says Hayley. “I hope those who laughed feel very silly.” And surely they will when Hayley turns orange and begins to glow like the sun. How can the last laugh belong to anyone but her?
Hayley can teach her housemates much.
And we hope that if David Dickinson is looking in, he takes note. A glass of carrot juice for breakfast, lunch and dinner will give David that all year round gloss with no need for varnish and sun.
And if he can pass the message on to Dale Winton, “Marmalade” Kat Deeley, the atomic Satsuma that is Judith Chalmers, Nancy Dell’Olio, Jodie Marsh, Jordan and Robert Kilroy-Silk then so much the better…
Angelina Jolie – Hands Off Brad
ANGELINA Jolie. Brad Pitt. Nicole Kidman. Can you guess which celebrity owns the hand?
The Star publishes a picture a hand holding a glass of beer. The glass is half empty, or half full. And the pinky-white hand, judging by the arrangement of the fingers, is a right one.
The Star brings news from the new movie God Grew Tired of Us. Nothing is said of the film with the unprepossessing title. The Star prefers to focus on the great and good in attendance at the premiere party.
There is Angelina Jolie in full relief, her face looming from the page. And there she is again, standing before the film’s star Nicole Kidman. Kidman has her arms crossed about her chest, thus preventing us from seeing her right hand.
Angelina Jolie’s hands are also out of shot. But, thankfully, the Mail does spot them. Like the Star, it produces a picture of a disembodied hand. The hand is “gnarled” and covered in thick chords of veins.
The Mail assures us that this is Angelina Jolie’s hand. It is not Madonna’s hand. By way of a compare and contrast, the Mail produces a picture of Madonna’s claw-like hand clutched around the top of a bottle of water in the manner of a vulture’s talons curled about the neck of a young gnu. It is different to Jolie’s. But not that different.
To explain, the Mail asks Steve Mongey to assess what he sees. Steve is not a hand surgeon, palmist or nail technician but the head trainer at a London gym.
Says Steve: “If you don’t keep your eating up and do lots of exercise the fat gets stripped away and the veins become exposed.” (See Jolie and Madonna.)
More informed about hands, we return to the Star’s hand. We see no bulging veins. This hand is almost smooth. The nails are short. It may well be the hand of a man. It may well be Brad Pitt’s hand.
And here comes the actor now. He’s walking over to speak with Kidman. An onlooker explains: “Brad spoke briefly with Nicole and then Angelina intervened. But Nicole looked far from impressed and folded her aims, almost defensively.”
Kidman’s body language suggests something is amiss. But the scene tells us nothing about the hand. Is it Brad’s? And is that Brad Pitt nuzzling Nicole Kidman’s cheek?
Again we cannot be certain. All we see is a choppy mop of brownish hair and a right ear. This ear is neither decorated with an earring nor holding a glass of lager.
It may be Brad’s ear. The Star doesn’t know, or isn’t telling…
Posted: 10th, January 2007 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Anyone Seen Suri?
SINCE Suri Cruise’s birth we have hardly seen her.
She did do a photospread for Vanity Fair and was a familiar face when the couple wed in Italy, but she has rarely been shown when Katie Holmes has been out and about in Los Angeles.
What’s the reason for this? Tom Cruise and Katie are apparently scared that Suri could be in danger if they bring her out too much.
A source tells Star Magazine: “That child is growing up inside a bubble. I think both dad [Tom Cruise] and Katie are so worried that if Suri is exposed to the public, her life could be in danger.”
Sources say that Suri Cruise could be the target of kidnapping plots to extort money out of TomKat.
I believe it. Tom is crazy. He thinks everyone is after him some way or another. Seriously, who wants to steal Suri? She’s not even real!
If you’re going to steal a baby make sure it doesn’t operate with AAs.
Dlisted.com
Up In Smoke
“YOU COULDN’T LIGHT IT UP.”
So says the Sun’s front-page headline. And the news is that a “fuming” couple have been warned about smoking in their own home.
The paper champions the cause of Jeanette Gordon–Crawley and her husband Gavin, who both live in a council house in Caenarfon, North Wales.
A letter had dropped through their letterbox. It is from the council. It is headed “Alleged Odour Nuisance”.
The letter, written by Moira Duell, an environmental health officer with Gwynedd County Council, North Wales, reads as follows: “I recently received a complaint concerning the above. Although at the present time the complaint has not been investigated, the complainant(s) have been informed to keep records of the alleged nuisance.
“Your neighbour alleges cigarette smoke is permeating into her living room from your property. To enable further investigation I would like to visit your property to discuss the matter further.”
Gavin calls the missive “pathetic”. Jeanette is “angry”. She is pictured defiantly smoking a cigarette. Gavin says “You couldn’t make it up”. He wonders is it might be “some sort of joke”.
Says Jeanette: “We can’t see how smoke from our house could possibly get into the house next door.”
But we can. Just as we can realise how driving a 4×4 vehicle into central London can causes penguins to drown. Just as we can see how blowing your nose in Bridlington brings about a hurricane in New Orleans.
Just as we can see how our political leaders’ windmilling arms and flights to Florida and Norway will keep the icecaps hard and the world pure.
It’s the way of the world. It’s the environment.
Right is it that their neighbours should report Jeanette and Gavin. There is something bigger at stake here than liberty and choice.
Isn’t there…
Morrissey’s Eurovision
HELLO HELSINKI!
It’s Manchester’s favourite musical miserabilist Morrissey. And he’s making ready to sing his entry in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
And Morrissey is certainly capable of creating a song for Europe. Was it not he who sang “Now I know how Joan of Arc felt/ As the flames rose to her roman nose/ And her Walkman started to melt”? Joan of Arc was French, her nose Italian. Such tributes to foreign nations and their notables will surely impress judges and score easy points.
Although Morrissey should note that the contest represents a two-tier Europe. The likes of Albania, Belarus and Switzerland are put through the rigours of a semi-final before they get the chance to take on the more established singing states. The danger is that a lyrical tribute to Albanian hero Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg will be wasted and play badly with the Turks.
But if anyone can restore a sense of musical pride to a nation beaten down by Simon Cowell, last year’s UK entrant Daz Simpson and the previous year’s entrants Gemini – “nil points” – it is Morrissey.
The genius behind Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Know, who trilled “Armageddon – come Armageddon! Come, Armageddon! Come!”, will be an antidote to the usual Eurovision fare.
Morrissey will scratch away the veneer of Eurovision happy-clappy unity and expose the deep tribal divisions and bigotry beneath.
The only wonder is that it has taken this long for Morrissey to be called upon to serve his country. Recalling last year’s dire UK entry, Morrissey says: “I was horrified but not surprised to see the UK fail again. There’s a question I keep asking myself – why didn’t they ask me? It keeps going round in my head.”
Even Morrissey’s questions are catchy. And we begin to wonder if the man can bring home the trophy that has eluded the UK since Katrina And The Waves were walking on sunshine back in 1997?
Come on, Morrissey. Sing! Sing! Sing!
“Come, Come, Come – nuclear bomb…”
