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.
Queen’s Nip & Ruck
FOR days we have guessed.
Her Majesty the Queen’s hand is in plaster. Not a plaster of Paris but a sticking plaster.
For purposes of identification, the Sun shows Her Majesty using her plastered hand to issue a customary wave. The plaster is ringed by a vivid red circle.
And what caused this wound has been troubling us all. But now the “riddle” of the Queen’s plaster has been solved. And the Sun points the finger not at an injection of gin, a fashion accessory but towards one of the royal corgis.
The Queen has been “savaged” by one of her dogs.
And this is not the first time she has been so mistreated. The Sun recalls the incident in 1991 when in trying to stop a scrap between her charges she was bitten. Stitches were needed.
This time blood was once more drawn. So bad was the bite that Her Majesty required a tetanus jab to her person.
We send her our best wishes and urge her to get well soon. And to take care. Her Majesty is not getting any younger and may like to trade in her rampant dogs for something toothless, less threatening, more obsequious.
Or just go out walking with Prince Edward…
Reality Politik
POLITICS and pop music are rarely in harmony.
If it’s not light bulb-headed Neil Kinnock popping up in Tracey Ullman’a video, it’s LibDem leader Menzies Campbell and Gordon Brown competing to be the Arctic Monkeys uberfan.
As the song says Things Can Only Get Better.
At least when popstars get into politics they look good. And, as the Mirror reports, Girls Aloud, the reality TV pop act, have debuted in the New Statesman political magazine.
Cheryl Cole, wife of Thatcherite footballer C-Ashley Cole, says: “Politicians know we get listened to by more young fans then they do.”
Cheryl explains: “That’s why David Cameron said he fancied me. He was just trying to be cool. I bet he can’t name a single one of our songs.”
It’s the kind of challenge that should appeal to Cameron. It is our bet that as he empties the dishwasher and checks the levels in his rainwater butt on his webcameron later today, he croons the opening bars of the band’s socio-political hit Love Machine (“Ladies you’re damn right/ You can’t read a man’s mind/ We’re living in two tribes/ And heading for war”).
But it will take more than that for Cheryl to fancy Dave. “Politicians should stop trying to be cool,” says she. “And get on with running the country.”
We could argue that it is pretty cool to run an entire country, to lead a country into revolution, to become the face of an entire people.
But Cheryl has moved on. Her manifesto is simple: “I only vote Labour because my mam does.”
Which beggars the question: Does your mam fancy David Cameron? What about Tony Blair? Gordon Brown? Menzies Campbell?
At which point bandmate Nicole Roberts says politics is “boring”. Yeah, all that going to war and stuff. Dull. Dull. Dull.
But before she can say how politics should be enlivened – and setting it to music is one idea of many – Cheryl is back. “Footballer’s wives are just as bad as benefits scroungers,” says she, “it’s just a higher class of scrounger.”
While Cheryl shops her fellow Wags, Sarah Harding, the band’s Boris-Johnson-like blonde arrives. Her unapologetically simple message is to dress in a back corset and knickers on the Star’s front page.
She tells the Mirror that politics should be more “user-friendly”. “It isn’t talked about in normal magazines and newspapers”, says she, highlighting the shameful lack of political debate in Pony Friends, Java Pro, Gagging For It and the Daily Star.
“We never get asked who we vote for. It could be a great question in an interview, but it isn’t.”
So, who does Sarah vote for? And how much is her choice influenced by her knickers…
Angelina Jolie Takes Up Crickets
ANGELINA Jolie has a plan.
When she is not kicking people in the throat in a professional capacity (don’t see Tomb Raider), Angelina is saving the world.
It is the role of Hollywood’s A-listers to save us from ourselves.
If it not Tom Cruise making us ready to evacuate the planet he occasional lives on – the Sun says he has recruited Jennifer Lopez and Jim Carey to Scientology – it is Jolie showing us that all creeds and colours can get along, particularly under the roof of her Californian mansion.
And now Angelina Jolie is setting out to feed the world. And she is going to feed it on insects.
Angelina has just returned from a trip to Cambodia, birthplace of her stepson Maddox. Says she: “We took him to a restaurant in the middle of the night and he had his first plate of crickets.”
Jolie fails to say how this dish was presented. And we do not learn if the meal was taken at night because fresh bugs flock to the lit candle on every table and so negate any need for harvesting and a waitress.
While crickets fall on Maddox’s plate, and a moth entree stir fries itself on the candle flame, we digest the news.
The Sun serves up some “cockroach-au-vin” and “egg-fried lice”, and we realise that Angelina may have a point.
She is known to have eaten bee larvae and cockroaches and has clearly suffered no ill effects. Are insects the saviours of mankind?
And just what is that thing creeping thing Maddox is stuffing into young Shiloh’s mouth…
Posted: 14th, December 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Borat’s Mud Sticks
“WE’RE leaving Borat’s village for a dream life in Britain.”
So says the Sun’s headline, a legend based on interviews with villagers living in Moroieni, Romania.
Those gipsies featured in the Borat movie are not local to Kazakhstan but Europeans who will able to legally live in this gilded land when their country joins the European Union on January 1.
Regular readers of Anorak will already have known that, and know too that the town featured in the movie was Glod.
So what is it: Glod or Moroieni? We imagine that very soon Romania will be full of places claiming to be Borat’s hometown.
Just as visitors to Cuba find it impossible to avoid stepping into a bar, hotel or cafe where Earnest Hemmingway did not enjoy a restorative mojito, visitors to Romania will see where Borat was born, wet nursed, graduated form college and wet nursed some more. They will then be shown the tennis racket Ilie Nãstase wielded on his way to defeat in the 1976 Wimbledon final and where The Cheeky Girls bought their first hotpants.
But reading on we learn that Glod is Romanian for “Mud” and that it is part of the greater Moroieni municipality.
And life is different there. Toilets are holes in the ground. Water is collected from standpipes or the stream. Transport is horse and cart.
It’s the kind of place many stressed-out British executives would call a retreat, a place to escape the daily hustle and grind of their own lives. In Glod you go to bed dog tired and wake up refreshed. In Glod you eat organic produce cooked on wood burning stove. In Glod you are at one with the earth, it being stuck to your Birkenstocks, clothes and hair. The British dream about living in somewhere like Glod.
But Glod is not for everyone. And local Dan Nelu wants to leave. “It’s my dream to work in Britain,” says he. “I want to go for one reason only – the money.”
Villager Stan Nino says he has four Romanian friends already working in London. He says the two working in restaurants earn £1,200 a month. For that money they are truly living it up, enjoying the delights of the public transport system, processed food and a communal bathroom.
But we cannot deter this army or workers with tales of how London is a city of contrasts, a larger version of Moroieni. The Sun says they have Britain “in their sights”. They and the Bulgarians are raring to go.
And we get the message. Rather then being a story about how the EU is bringing hope to many and creating wealth and opportunity, we are eyeing the Rogarians at the gates.
“So will there be another Eastern European exodus to these shores?” asks the Sun, claiming that 510,000 workers have arrived in Britain from Poland since 2004.
The paper concedes that it is impossible to know for sure. Just as it impossible to work out how many Britishers will move to Romania, to take advantage of the cheap property and land.
That’s the thing with the EU – it’s hard to keep an eye on everyone. Too much freedom of movement…
Peter Pipes Up
PETER McKay is in New York.
Or at least he has been. Perhaps the Mail’s columnist has been taking advantage of the falling dollar and strong pound to buy Christmas presents.
And to purchase a ticket to watch Mel Gibson’s latest movie, Apocalyto, the star’s follow up to Hey, Jewboy, You Killed Our Lord Jesus, or some such thing.
McKay has been in the cinema in New York. And he’d rather be there than dining with American Gwyneth Paltrow.
Considering the actress’s comment that Britons are more civilised and intelligent than her countrymen and don’t talk about work or money at table, McKay thinks “dining with Gwyneth might be an ordeal – more scary than watching a Mel Gibson movie”.
A movie which, incidentally, is sold out in the Manhattan cinema McKay frequents. Given the option of no seat at the show or dinner with an Oscar-winning star, perhaps McKay would feel brave enough to reconsider?
And McKay is civilised company. At table, he may well talk not about money and work but of the “technically-minded man who, aged 14, removed the broken half shaft from the differential of an Austin 14 car, welded it back together and replaced it (with the help of the even more technically-minded boyhood chum, Reggie Watt) so that we might continue our practice of giving favoured girlfriends a nightmare (for them) drive through Morayshire forestry roads”.
That is how intelligent British men are. Now, let’s get back to Gibson…
Mind Your Language
“SHOULD all immigrants be forced to learn English?”
The Express wants its readers to respond to this question by phone.
There is number for “YES” and a number for “NO”. All non-English speaking immigrants, those unable to read the Express’s burning question, let alone ask for the use of a telephone, may care to grunt and stick out their tongues for “yes please, sah” or shake their heads in a side-to-side motion and bow for “no thank you, bwass”.
Before lifting the receiver, English speaking Express readers may care to read the paper’s story that the Government spends £110million a year on translation services for immigrants.
“Foreign murderers, a surge in migrant workers and large numbers of asylum seekers have been blamed by [police] forces for rising bills,” observes the paper. Curse those foreign murderers, meurtriers étrangers, ÷óæèå äóøåãóáû, buitenlandse moordenaars etc.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK says: “These are some of the cost of political correctness.” Matthew Elliott, of Taxpayers’ Alliance, says it “undermines social cohesion”. And cosmopolitan Peterborough council reminds locals in no fewer than fifteen languages to depose of their Express in the correct recycling bin.
So it is time for the immigrant to learn how to speaka da Ingleesh. And the good news is that it is well easy, innit.
The Mail sees the work of linguists at Lancaster University. And it notes that while the over-25s use 21,391 words in daily conversation, the teenagers use just 12,682.
This seems impressive, until you realise that no less than 11,216 of those teen words are for chips. The teenage vocabulary, to which any immigrant should aspire, is pared down to 20 key words.
In order of use, these words are: “You, I, the, and, it, a, to, yeah, that, what, no, in, know, he, of, it’s, oh, but, like, on.”
Put these words together and you have a language. Sure, it might not be understood by the older generation, but foreigners and teenagers swear by it…
The Suffolk Ripper
A MANHUNT is on.
Police are loathe to use terms like serial killer, but evidence points to one man being responsible for the murder of five women in Suffolk, all prostitutes.
The Express leads with news of this “serial killer”, a “RIPPER” at large. And its sister paper, the Star, agrees, adding that the “River Ripper” is being actively pursued.
The bodies of two victims were found in water – Gemma Adam in a brook, Tania Nicol in the same stretch of water almost two miles away.
“Pervert, psycho, sicko,” announces the Star. The “River Ripper” must be stopped. The “River Ripper’s trail of horror spreads”.
And it is spreading fast. This Star’s River Ripper moves like the Colorado rapids. The Star has seen five bodies found in ten days. It consults the record books. It very possibly calls up Guinness. And it announces: “FASTEST SERIAL KILLER IN HISTORY.”
So the hunt is on for the Rapid River Ripper.
Of course, you may not know him by this name. And the Mail introduces its reader to “the Suffolk Strangler”. Less fearsome sounding than the Ripper, at first mention the Suffolk Strangler appears like a wrestler taking on Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks on Saturday afternoon television.
The Suffolk Strangler is “the most brazen serial killer in history”. “SUFFOLK STRAINGLER,” announces the Mail once more, heralding seven pages of “reports and pictures”.
But before we get to read the potted life stories of the victims, “All someone’s daughter”, the Sun warns us to look out for the “SUFFOLK RIPPER”.
Hang the Mail and Star’s fancy alliteration, here’s the Sun doing away with frippery and getting to the heart of things. The victims have all been killed in Suffolk. And Ripper is a word familiar to all, it usually proceeded by the word “Yorkshire”. Were they all strangled, like the Mail says? We do not know. And the victims were not all killed or found in a River, as the Star alludes to.
The Sun goes on: “He kills them, stores them and dumps them in the dark.” At once the workings and modus operandi of the Suffolk Ripper are turned into something graspable.
But the killer needs a face. So here is the Yorkshire Ripper, also known as Peter Sutcliffe. The Sun says that Sutcliffe took six years to kill the first five of his victims. This Suffolk Ripper has done this inside six weeks.
The Suffolk Ripper is fast.
Only the newspapers are quicker as they search for a nickname for the killer, a name that at once mythologies him and makes him into something other than human, the Sun’s “monster”, the Mirror’s “killing machine”.
But if it is the work on one man, he is all too real. He is human, like us. And that is the most chilling thing of all…
Nicole Richie Does Mel Gibson
Nicole Richie beats Paris Hilton
ALL of 85 pounds, whacked out on Vicodin and pot, Nicole Richie cheated death and vehicular homicide – while besting fellow celebutard Paris Hilton’s measly “erratic driving” DUI charge back in September – with her arrest for driving the wrong way down Highway 134 in Burbank in the middle of the night.
Though the California Highway Patrol (whose former officer Francis Poncherello is now filming his own law & order reality series) has now released 911 tapes from alarmed motorists, they’ve yet to accuse her of calling any of her jailers “sugar tits.”
Even so, with the sheepish look, slight smile and oh-so tousled hair, it looks like our girl’s learned the newest rule of celebrity: Live fast, maybe die young, but always take a beautiful mugshot.
www.tabloidbaby.com
France Invades
“THE woman who woke up thinking she was French.”
It is hard to imagine a headline that will instil more horror in the Mail reader. And reading on we learn the hideous tale of Louise Walker.
Miss Clarke lives in Bristol. She works in Bath. She is as British as warm beer, hoodies and kebabs in curry sauce. And one day she work up and started talking in French.
She called around her pals and invited them to visit her in Paris.
But she was in the West Country. And suspecting something amiss, Louise’s sister took her to see he doctor. This being France, the doctor saw Louise quickly and she was soon on her way to the Royal United Hospital, Bath.
There, the finest French medical minds realised she was suffering from Susac’s syndrome, a condition that causes the immune to system to attack healthy tissue. And so it was that healthy British flesh was under siege from the French.
The Mail delivers a brief history of Susac’s syndrome. We learn it was named after Dr John Susac. We learn that the condition can cause the sufferer to develop “bizarre and paranoid behaviour.”
And what is being French to Mail readers but that?
Christmas Din
“THE CHRISTMAS toys that are as loud as a road drill.”
So says the Mail, which notes that the recommended safe level for continuous noise is 85 decibels.
The fear is that so loud are the likes of Dance Baby Dance Building Band (88.4 decibels), Jasman’s laser command (100.2), and Smiffy’s Toy Gangster Tommy Gun (110.1) that children will be rendered stone deaf.
This view, brought to light by Deafness Research, which tested these objects, is given added weight by the knowledge that the sound of aforesaid road drill is 100 decibels.
However, while the toys are awarded a “close to ears decibels” reading, the drill, Harley Davidson (95-110) and car horn (120) are not. Indeed, holding a helicopter (120) to a children’s ear may result in something more acute than hearing loss, namely loss of ears and head.
Also unmentioned is the noise created by the child wielding the top-of-the-charts Smiffy’s AR-18 Toy Assault Rifle (114), which can clear room of insurgent grandparents in seconds.
If the gun is that loud, then how load is the child brandishing it? The Mirror, in it piece on gifts that operate above the “safe noise limit”, fails to mention this. Although the Mail does clock a screaming child at 90 dBC.
These figures do not add up. What use a gun unaccompanied by a gut-wrenching cry from the toddler warrior?
And then how loud the explosion made by the mother who in an effort to make herself heard produces the same noise as thunder (120)?
It can’t be too long until Christmas comes with a Government health warning…
Sienna Miller’s Tale
PROFESSIONAL girlfriend Sienna Miller looks thoughtful.
Many of you will be unaware that Jude Law’s ex is also an actress. Chances are that just as she can do thinking, she can turn her face to laughing, frowning and wondering.
For now, it is thoughtful. And with her face perched on the back of her hand Sienna prepares to tell the Mirror what is on her mind.
“I’ve learned not to rush things, to take things slowly and to follow my instincts,” says Sienna.
Sienna is speaking of her career as a girlfriend, which really took off when she followed up a fling with James Bond actor Daniel Craig to become Jude Law’s fulltime girlfriend, a role Sienna seems to have gained something from.
She says that she loves someone who makes her laugh. She says “friendship and laughter and trust” are the most important things in a relationship.
Perhaps it was the lack of one of these pillars of true love that caused she and Jude to split? We know of his dalliance with Daisy Wright, his children’s nanny.
Not that the Jude performance has put her off. He has just more finely tuned her girlfriend abilities.
Says Sienna: “I’ve always been a kind for relationship girl. I’m not sure why. It’s nice to be young and single as well but I’m more a relationship person. I like the company.” Ah, the actor and their company.
So Sienna is looking for her next move. The Mirror omits to mention any names. So we have taken the liberty of compiling a list to aid Sienna in her next career move.
And we begin with A. A is for Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon,
George Clooney…
Nicked Richie
NICOLE Richie stares out from the page.
Richie is the American famous for being the adopted daughter of singer Lionel Richie, 5ft 1in small and so light she can fall to the ground like a autumn leaf.
The Mirror says Nicole has a body mass index of 16.1. What this means we have no idea, and we can only speculate on its legality and how it impairs her driving.
As the paper reports, this vision of skin, bone and hair has been pinched by the police for driving the wrong way down a motorway in Los Angeles.
Since even moving your hands from the proscribed “ten-to-two” position in California is an offence punishable by a police bullet to the throat, Richie is in trouble.
And it gets worse for her. The Mirror says having been apprehended, Richie admitted smoking cannabis and taking the prescription painkiller Viocodin, aka hillbilly heroin.
For this, the Star brandishes Ritchie a “hellraiser.” She is a “wildchild”.
It also labels her a former heroin addict and notes that she had been also speaking on her mobile phone while driving.
This it the kind of multi-skilling that has made Richie a star. And now, having been arrested and charged with driving under the influence, she has another achievement to propel her career to still loftier heights.
We wish Nicole well with it. But we are shocked to learn that her arrest passed “without incident” and she was “cooperative”, as a police spokesman tells us.
Is this the work of a wildchild, a hellraiser? We have our doubts. Surely if Richie is to pursue her chosen career path of spoilt rich kind she needs to achieve something unique – like blaming her arrest and all wars on the Calvinists or having wrists too thin be handcuffed.
Fit For Purpose
AS Cherie Blair despatches her private Christmas cards, each wrapped in a plain brown envelope and then secreted between the covers of Barrister’s Husbands, the Mail sees some other seasonal missives from on high.
“The ministers not wishing you a ‘Merry Christmas’”, says the Mail. It reproduces a picture of Home Secretary John Reid’s card.
Mr Reid is believed to be delivering each card personally and you are reminded not to be alarmed should the stalwart of law and order find cause to peer though your letter box as he makes his rounds.
Recipients of Reid’s good cheer see a Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. A smattering of people mill around the landmark. Their faces are unclear. Do you know them? Look again. Study the image, seemingly taken from CCTV footage. If you recognise any of the people call John. He’d like to know their names, passport numbers and religious persuasion.
And while we study the cards, and swab the envelope for Reid’s DNA – no-one is above suspicion – a second card arrives.
This one is from Des Browne. He’s the secretary of state for defence, successor to John Reid. Browne’s card features a photograph, a picture of a blonde, white British solider talking to two small brown-skinned Pakistani children.
We can only guess at what he is telling them? Readers with knowledge of defence procedures may like to insert a suitable caption, something like “It’ll all be over by Christmas”, “Don’t talk to strangers”.
While Browne salutes his friends with that, Patricia Hewitt delivers her seasonal greeting. Like Reid, her picture features a London attraction, in this instance a view of the Houses of Westminster reflected in the River Thames.
Hewitt is the Health Secretary, the nanny state’s live-in nanny who rarely if ever knows best. Hewitt, the champion of the Government’s cloying, manipulative and moralistic anti-smoking propaganda, has a card that should carry a Government health warning.
“Danger,” begins the advice from the Secretary General beneath that picture of Parliament. “Declaring war on a pretext seriously harms you and others around you.”
If you need help quitting, call a general election…
Picture:bbdo
No Self-Control
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
“Violent video games ‘harm self–control’” – Indiana University School of Medicine says so. And now they must surely die!
“IVF drugs ‘harm pregnancy chance by damaging eggs’”
“Why organic chicken ‘isn’t good for you and fails the taste test’” – So says Researcher Dr Alistair Paterson of Strathclyde University
“Forget the killers’ rights. What about protection for the innocent public?” – Melanie Philips asks
“December, so Scrooge must be here again” – Keith Waterhouse taps his stick along memory lane
TUESDAY
"HOUSE OF TOADIES. The more we pay MPs, the more useless and idle they become, says this veteran political commentator" – Thankfully we have David Seymour and the Mail to uphold democracy and value for money
"Forget those faddy diets. Never mind the gym. A new book claims the key to losing weight is just a good night’s rest… CAN YOU SLEEP YOURSELF SLIM?" – Well, if you’re asleep you can’t eat, so…
"Singer Jamelia ignored her tummy pains for months…then discovered she has a potentially deadly hernia"- Singing WAG tells all about her illnezzzzzz
"My bowel cancer was removed without a single incision or anesthetic"- ME AND MY OPERATION” – It could be you
"Too much stress at work could give you diabetes" – But try not to worry
WEDNESDAY
“Peril as slimmers take laxatives to keep weight down"- Sales of laxatives up a third in five years
"Loss of taste ‘could be a sign of depression’"- Or you might think Ugg boots are cool
"TANNOYED? I’M FURIOUS! One writer says Tannoys on trains, planes and in supermarkets are driving him to distraction" – Hear, yea! Hear ye! Read all about it!
"Our illiteracy crisis ‘spells catastrophe’" – spells catastrophe with a silent ‘k’
THURSDAY
"How TV toy ads ‘brainwash children’" – Listen to the voice of the Mail. Listen… Listen…
FRIDAY
“The idea of Blair blowing £20billion on an NHS computer database is almost as painful as my ingrowing toenails” – Tom Utley’s feet
“Leaving a baby asleep in a car seat ‘may cut off breathing’” – Auckland Cot Monitoring Service says pull over
“Feminism was supposed to liberate both sexes. Instead it’s destroyed a generation of men…” – Rosie Boycott looks at hen-pecked, emasculated men
Bishop’s Bish
“BISHED AS A NEWT,” announced the front-page headline in the Sunday Mirror.
And with that readers were introduced to the Bishop of Southwark. Today he is back. And he’s sporting a nasty bruise below his left eye.
We fear the worst. Knowing that the appearance of a man of the cloth in the tabloid press is too often a prelude to a story of sex with parishioners, sex change operations and choir boys, we wonder if the Bishop’s shiner is the result of an act of less-than-diving retribution from a disgruntled spouse or parent.
But no. This Bishop’s sex life is his own affair. It seems the Bishop has been mugged.
The Mirror sees the Bishop, the Rt Rev Tom Butler, enjoying the bar at a Christmas reception at the Irish Embassy in London.
Clad in his dog collar and cassock, the Bishop drinks. And, as a source says, he drinks a lot. He then makes it outside and into the car of Nicole Sumpta. The alarm is triggered. Nicola’s boyfriend Paul runs outside and is confronted by the Bishop sat in the back of the silver Mercedes “throwing toys about”.
Christmas is a fine time for opportunistic criminality, and looking for presents in a car is a favoured tactic. But the Bishop was not taking things. Indeed, he was very possibly leaving items of value behind.
Says Paul: “He was roaring drunk. When we could get him out the car he fell and banged his head. He was claiming, ‘I’m the Bishop of Southwark. This is what I do’.”
He then made off into the night. Three days later Nicole and Paul, both strangers to the Bishop, found the would-be carjacker’s silver cross in their vehicle.
A gift? Is the Bishop some modern day Saint Nicholas, going about the place leaving trinkets and gifts for all? Was he less throwing the toys about than seeing what was needed, adding more to the pile?
We may never know. The Mail says this doer of good deed has no memory of the incident, or so he claims.
Described by his flock as a “very righteous man”, and as “a great spiritual leader”, the bishop makes his way to the pulpit to dispense advice, guidance and maybe, just maybe, a Barbie doll with realistic blonde hair and retractable toe nails…
Santa Or Satan?
SANTA or Satan?
He’s making a list and checking it twice. Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice… He sees you when you’re sleeping! He knows when you’re awake!
It is truly terrifying time of year. But the nightmarish childhood vision of a fat, bearded man with a forked tail watching your every move (yes, he saw that too) and getting into your bedroom, bypassing so much security, is no more.
While the BBC trails the holiday season with Christmas With The Devil, the track by “mock rockers” Spinal Tap (Lyrics: “There’s someone up the chimney and Satan is his name”), the Sun talks of goings on at Boldmere Junior School, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.
A supply teacher stands before class. She is telling the little ones they need not be afraid. Santa Claus is not real. He is a fantasy, a lie cooked up by parents and marketing types to fleece children of their very souls. Santa is no more real than a Bratz doll.
Says Miss: “You are old enough to know there is no Santa… If you ask your parents they will also say there is no such thing.”
But while the children sigh with relief and sob with gratitude, mums are outraged. One mum tells the Mirror: “I am upset because it has taken away a magic part of Christmas. A teacher should not have the right to do that.”
But magic does still exist. What of that guiding star, the virgin birth and – hey presto! – the baby who gets given a box of gold as a Christmas present?
Not enough, say the mums. And the teacher who dared speak the truth has had her contract terminated. She is, as the Mirror says, “Father ex-miss”.
Who she was is not reported, her name not revealed. But rumours are that she has a head covered in horns and breaths fire when she speaks.
You’d best be good lest she come to get you…
Cherie Blair’s Blue Period
CHERIE BLAIR stands with her dress unbuttoned. She wears no underwear. It is Monday. It is cold and it is raining.
But this is no revolution. Cherie has not been stripped and thrown into the street, naked save for her barrister’s hairpiece and commemorative mirkin. She and Tony remain very much with No. 10.
This is a portrait of Cherie created 25 years go by artist Euan Uglow. It took him two years. And, as the Mail notes, it is unfinished.
Entitled Striding Nude, Blue Dress, there is something oddly familiar about the work created in 1981, the year Margaret Thatcher, that most strident woman in shades of blue, took command.
Indeed, picking up a pen we set about finishing the work and with a squint here and the prolific use of a hard, corn-coloured pencil we manage to transform Cherie into something else.
It is a strong look. It is the look of a woman destined for power. The look of woman who would go on to meet Tony Blair, name her first-born child Euan and have her study in oil and canvas hidden from public view, until now.
Politicians are notoriously careful about how they are portrayed in art. And while we wonder why it now that this picture of a softer, less pragmatic, sexed-up Cherie should come to the fore with her husband’s career hung, drawn and ready to be quartered, the Mail brings more new of art in politics.
It is a study of Tory leader David Cameron as appears on the website of Bob Piper, a Labour member of Sandwell Council in the West Midlands.
Cameron’s face is black. His lips are red and ringed in white. Alongside this face, and beneath the headline “There’s votes in them thar ethics”, appear the words: “Take the homeboy test. Yo niggahs. Is it because I’s black?”
No, it seems that it is because Cameron is white, what Piper calls “a wealthy, right-wing, reactionary Etonian trying to fool people into thinking he feels their pain.”
It seems a little odd that in trying to stave off criticism that he is bigoted – Piper has been reported to the Commission for Racial Equality – he makes judgements about a man on the basis of his schooling.
For his part, white, middle-aged Piper (education and bank balance unstated) has taken down the image. Says he: “If the image and words on my site have offended black people, no matter how unintentional, then I apologise unreservedly to them.”
Very good, we’re sure. But why should a picture of a white man blacked up offend only blacks? Why doesn’t Mr Piper apologise to the many whites, Muslims, Christians, Jews, hoodies (hugged and unhugged) Hindus, Liberals Democrats and Jedi Knights who may well take offence at what is either a heavy-handed and pathetic attempt at comedy or some shade of racism?
Meanwhile, the Mirror spots Cameron on his way to a Morrissey concert. And – opps! – he lost his Tube ticket. Maybe he’ll have to pay a penalty fair like the £10 Cherie was forced to stump up for failing to produce a ticket on demand in 2000.
Or maybe he’ll just take his clothes off…
Picture – Does anyone want to take credit for it?
Posted: 11th, December 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Outfit For A Prince
KATE Middleton looks like such a nice gel. And then the Star tells us that Prince’s Willy’s lover has gone and bought a batch of “adult toys”.
As the Royal Family tuck into Kentucky Fried Grouse and wear crowns (real ones or paper?), Kate will be in her chambers pulling on her naughty Santa outfit, featuring a red, fur-trimmed strapless dress, elbow-length gloves and a white fur hat.
This ensemble is not to be confused with the outfit Her Majesty wears for the Order of the Garter parade, nor that sported by members of the House of Lords.
This outfit is kinky; that worn by Elizabeth Regina and the a-leaping lords is part of the rich fabric of British culture.
For your information, Kate also invested in a Cone sex toy made from “strokeably soft silicone”, willy-shaped drinking straws and penis pasta.
Meanwhile, over in barracks, the Sun spots Officer Cadet Angela Laycock (it’s true) up against William. “Girl grabs Will sword,” comes the headline.
And the news is that Miss Laycock (it’s still true) will carry the ceremonial “Top Blade” at the passing–out parade before Her Majesty. The sword is awarded to the most promising cadet from the class of 248.
Wills came close to winning, but not cigar. And no, Wills, that is not a cigar – it’s a love wand E-Z vibrator in khaki…
Going To Ground
HAD Alexander Litvinenko been cremated would so much of London now be destroyed, less a tombstone marking the spot where the Russian was laid to rest than the root of a large mushroom-shaped cloud?
Luckily, Litvinenko’s last wish was not to be turned into ash and dust.
Not that his last wishes counted for much. As the Star says, the former KGB operative killed by poison wanted to be buried in a Muslim funeral.
But authorities at Regent’s Park mosque, London, say they would not have accepted the deceased’s “radiation-ravaged body”, even though it was in a lead-lined coffin.
And Vladimir Bukovsky, Litvinenko’s friend (but who can you trust?), says his pal’s dying wish was to be buried in Chechnya when the war there is over.
For now, though, the Sun spots the Russian being placed in the ground in Highgate Cemetery, the London spot where Karl Marx resides.
“LEAK-PROOF COFFIN FOR THE NUKE SPY,” says the Sun. And we look on as a posse of burly men in long coats prepare to lower the body many feet below the London soil.
More pictures of the solemn event in the Mirror, the paper zooming in on the face of Litvinenko’s widow Maria.
In dark glasses, she looks on as her husband is lowered into the ground. She holds aloft an umbrella as the rain and fallout tumbles down about her…
Urban Myths
“DO you believe in urban myths and old wives’ tales?”
This question appears in the Express, a paper that talks of Rogarians under our beds and a squad of Cliff Richard fans being responsible for the death of Princess Diana.
So do you believe?
And would you believe us if we told you that you can knit a miniature version of your pet dog from its own hair?
It’s a new “craze”, says the Mail. There’s a picture of Roy Hattersley, former deputy leader of the Labour Party, with a little dog called Buster sat on his shoulder.
Hattersley says the thing is made from clippings and combings from his own dog, also called Buster.
But the word on the street is that this is not so and these whimsical creatures are the actual dogs that have been shrunk by an al-Qaeda terror cell operating out of Vauxhall Viva in Melton Mowbray.
Knowing that, can we believe TV presenter Emma Forbes, who lives with her children Lily and Sam and a shih-tzu called Alfi, or is that children Alfie and Sam and a pampered pet called Lily?
And what of the Mail’s own Quentin Letts, the precocious Harry Potter look-alike who poses for the camera with a mongrel called Cinders on his palm?
And what of the Mirror’s story that Darryl Bullock (yeah, right) and Mark Godfrey, a gay couple among the first to marry in Britain, are now the country’s first married gay couple to divorce?
“We were completely committed but things change in any relationship,” says Darryl.
Should we believe? Or is it all urban myth.
And what about the Sun’s story of a whirlwind in north-west London? It’s rubbish, isn’t it? Even they couldn’t make that one up…
Madonna – Material Girl
FORMER England footballer Graeme Le Saux peers out from the African undergrowth.
With David Attenborough otherwise engaged, it is Le Saux’s chance to play TV’s voice of God. Le Saux wants viewers of ITV’s Extinct to dial the phone number and thereby save the gorillas that appear in the bushes to his rear.
“When you discover that these animals are balancing on the window ledge of extinction, it just kills you,” says Graeme, nearly moved to tears.
We hear his lament. It’s not every day you hear a footballer warning about defenestrated gorillas. More often it’s an animal rights group showing you pictures of gorillas being wired up to the National Grid or skinned for their fur and meat.
In any case, gorillas get a good press. Like dolphins and panda bears, they are popular. Not so the fire ant? Who will save the wasp? What of rats? And rats need our protection.
While Le Saux throws himself to the ground and pleads with poachers to spare the gorilla and flay him instead, the Star leads with Madonna in a fur coat.
“LIKE A VERMIN,” says the headline. And here is Madonna wearing 40 chinchillas about her famous person. For the non-chinchilla expert, the Star says these creatures are rat-like.
Yes, Madonna is wearing the pelts of 40 skinned rats. Each to her own, we say. And we are unsure whether to lambaste her or pull on a mink-lined glove and pat her on her soft back. Aren’t we constantly being told that there are more rats than people in Blighty? Won’t rats outlast humanity when nuclear Armageddon and global meltdown come? Offing 40 of the biting, gnawing sewer-dwellers can only send out a warning to their kin.
But there are some among us who would defend the rat from being skinned and put to some use. The Mail spots the £35,000 chinchilla coat and sees the fur fly.
The paper says that Madonna, “wrapped in the fluffiest fur”, could not have looked “cosier”. Indeed, she does look as snug as a bug, or, indeed, an extended family of chinchillas.
But Karen Chisholm is not pleased. She works for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Says she: “Wearing a coat made of dozens of animas who were strangled or electrocuted got Madonna the attention she so desperately craves.”
And: “But it also brought painful deaths to small, gentle animals who died for her vanity.”
Yes, the chinchilla is small. But were it large would it need our protection less or more? And if it were a big animal, would Madonna be better off going out with a gun and shooting the thing?
Or should she stick to wearing leather..?
Rocky Horrors
FORGET getting your two front teeth for Christmas. What you need is a new face.
The Mail invites its readers to take a long hard look at Lulu, the Sixties singer. For someone who has made a career out of shouting, Lulu is remarkably free of worry lines.
The Mail says that Lulu is a "botox veteran".
But before you dash out to buy mum a vial of neuro-toxin and invite her to pour it into the turkey baister and then inject the concotion into her aged head, the Express delivers a word of warning.
Well, its more of a picture than a word. Or two pictures. One picture is of Jackie Stallone, the woman whose face appears to grow before your very eyes. The other picture is of Jackie’s famous son, Sylvester Stallone. Both shots are overhung by the question: "Is Sylvester Stallone turning into his mum?"
The same question is posed by the Star. And looking at the pictures we must conclude that Sly is NOT turning into a woman who claims to be 73 years old.
But there are similarities between the two. We note the sloppy mouth, the paunchy face and the interestingly fibred hair.
As for the boobs, we will have to wait until Sly gets them out in his latest movies, Rocky Six and Rambo: The Serpent’s eye – althogh, like everything, that can be seen to with a quick procedure…
Ron Out Of Town
RONALD McDonald – Rest In Pieces (six pieces with a sweet & sour dipping sauce).
It is our proud duty to announce that the man in the fright wig, oversized shoes and terrifying make-up is dead. Or at least he is in Tavistok, Devon.
As the Mail notes, the market town has had its fill of processed chips and styrofoam burgers. Tavistock, named Best Food Town in the south west, has shunned Ronald and his day-glo food. McDonald’s is closing its store in the town.
John Taylor, chairman of ther Tavistock EatWise campaign, is delighted. "I think it’s tremendous," says he. And many will agree. "Because of the quality of our local food McDoanld’s has not been able to compete."
So Ronald is to pack up his chemistry set and move out of town. But before he goes, his spokesman has this to say: "As part of our ongoing review of our restaurant sites, it has become clear that the location of McDonald’s in Tavistock is no longer suitable."
And that is it.
David and Goliath, Wimbledon winning the FA Cup and www.anorak.co.uk being voted website of the year, this is another story of the little guy triumphing over the machine.
Hurrah for Tavistock. The town that dared to dream…
Aniston Goes On
JENNIFER Aniston smiles out at the world from the front page of the Express. Will you be her friend?
You see, the actress is "FRIENDLESS". Harsh, perhaps, but the Express has never been a paper to shirk from the truth, however painful. Whether it’s highlighting the dangers of Rogarian gipsies in your garden, weather (the front-page headline warns of "100MPG STORMS THEN BLIZZARDS") or speculating on just how gangantuan Jordan’s breasts are, it holds a firm line.
So Jen is friendless, ironic given that she made her reputation in the hit TV show Friends.
And Aniston is also boyfriendless, having ended her relationship with Vince Vaughn, her tall co-star on the movie – irony of ironies – The Break Up.
The Express looks back over what must be the most sexless and wholesome relationship between two Hollywood stars since Grandma and Grandpa Walton fell off their godforsaken mountain.
Not that Jen and Vince are prudes. As ther Mail reports, they have split amid reports that he dallied with a 20-year-old student. A spokesman for the couple says: "Jennifer and Vince mutually agreed to end their relationship but continue to be good friends today."
No mention is made of this young woman in official depatches. It is left to the Mail to sniff out Vaughn in Budapest. There he is said to have encountered university student Laura Mallory Lane in a cocktail bar.
So much for him. But what of Jen. "JEN’S SINGLE AGAIN, LADS," announces the Sun. And surely she is.
And she is also, as we have learned, friendless. And having been once divorced and now involed in a high-profile split, we urge would-be suitors to tread carefully.
Indeed, before going out with Jen, interested males may care to see what movie she’s working on. If Aniston’s life does mirror her art, as the Express notes, than her role in High Maintenance should not be taken lightly…
Have A Merry Islamas
CHRISTMAS is coming, the goose is full of hydrogenated fat…
Isn’t Christmas just so great. Just get a load of that massive tree. It’s amazing how it manages to grow inside Dubai’s air-conditioned and brightly lit Wafi shopping mall. But where there is a will there is a way, and if the protectors of the Arab state can build a resort in the ocean and think it can withstand rising sea levels, then they can sure as heck make a fir tree grow indoors.
We could learn a lot from Dubai. "Ding dong merrily Dubai," chimes the Sun. "MUSLIMS GET IT RIGHT."
They surely do. Christians just haven’t a clue about Christmas. And to prove it the Sun positions its picture of Dubai alongside a snap of the Burnley concrete-scape. The Lancashire town was to have a tree in its own shopping mecca, the Charter Walk market, but the anti-vandal box it was to sit in was prohibitively expensive.
The poor folk of Burnley will have to make do with praying and all manner of other chilly Christmas customs. Not for them a gigantic severed tree shoved in a pot. For shame.
You’d hardly know it’s Christmas at all – which it isn’t. It’s especially hard to spot the holiday if you tune into the BBC’s Breakfast Show. Unlike the view on rival broadcaster GMTV, where there is so much tinsel and bauble, the BBC’s set is as spartan as a Bethlehem barn.
It will not do. And the Mail looks on as readers fire off a volley of emails, text messages and phone calls. No, not to GMTV complaining about the commercialisation of Christmas but to the BBC. The viewers want more glitz. Save the bleak stuff for Easter.
And the BBC has bowed to the public’s campaign. Instead of decking its halls with bells and holly on December 18, as planned, the BBC will spice up the set on Monday.
A BBC spokesman explains: "Breakfast is very responsive to audience feedback and the audience asked for us to bring the date forward and we listened to them."
This is fair. And, as viewers, we humbly request that Breakfast presenter Dermot Murnaghan read the news while dressed in a smock and holding a long wooden stick. Better yet if he refuses to shave and wears a Jewish yamulka.
His co-host Kate Silverton should wear a blue shawl and have a baby live on air. In front of a goat, a donkey and three strange men.
It is Christmas after all..
