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.
Heather Mills Snaps
HEATHER Mills is off. And she’s causing a stink.
The Mirror looks on as the woman embroiled in a well-publicised divorce from Paul McCartney arrives at Gatwick Airport.
It is 7am and Mills is keen to make her way to Brussels. The Mirror has a picture of the airport. All looks calm. There are planes on the tarmac.
And then Heather is presented with a wheelchair. She considers the vehicle. “This is vile!” she snaps. “Why are your doing this to me? Don’t you know I have only one leg? Why are you treating me like this?”
First things first. By now, everyone must realise Heather is on one leg, going about like some beardless Long John Silver on the look out for treasure, or at least a favourable divorce settlement.
And secondly, what is wrong with a wheelchair? Sure, it is not the electric buggy Heather is said to prefer, but it has wheels.
Heather wants a buggy. But with no buggy available, she spurns the wheelchair and walks to the plane.
Where she is presented with a winged aircraft. What Heather makes of that is not said…
On Message
FOR those of us who view Her Majesty the Queen as a static figure, appearing in profile on stamps and coins, the chance to see her full face and actually moving is a treat.
The Queen’s Christmas message, that miracle of animatronics and television’s darks arts, is as vital a part of the British Christmas as turkey, mince pies and pantomime.
And in the spirit of panto, we cry “Behind you, ma’am!” Well, not directly behind the Queen but close enough. As Liz speaks on the BBC, over on Channel 4 there is an altogether different kind of message being delivered.
Channel 4’s traditional counterpoint to the Queen’s Christmas Day 3pm broadcast has in the past featured such over-stuffed turkeys as Jamie Oliver, Quentin Crisp, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ali G, Sharon Osbourne and The Simpsons.
And this year, as the Mail reports, the face of Channel 4’s seasonal message will be covered in a veil. The slice of her on view will be covered in glasses.
To pupils at the Al-Aqsa Primary School in Leicester this vision in head-to-toe black cloth and spectacles is instantly recognisable as fourth year geography teacher Mr Harris. No, only joking. It is, of course, their part-time teacher Mrs Khadija Ravat.
Mrs Ravat describes herself as “boring” and a “regular person”. The Zimbabwean-born teacher tells the Sun (“CHRISTMASKED”) that she hopes to deliver a “very positive message”. She adds: “I didn’t realise what I was getting myself into.”
But the broadcaster knows what it is doing. A Channel 4 spokesman tells the Express that it is “not inherently controversial”. And that Mrs Ravat will add to the debate on “British identity and multi-culturalism”.
For sure she will. But doesn’t the Queen already do that, uniting us with the German peoples? The danger is that Mrs Ravat’s presence may serve no useful purpose other than to promote Channel 4.
And to remind us to hire a DVD…
Faces Of Polonium-21
ALEXANDER Litvinenko is still unwell.
Looking at the photograph of the former Russian KGB operative on the Sun’s front page, we see no obvious signs of improvement.
Of course, Litvinenko is not so much stable as he is dead, killed by poison.
The photograph reminds us of another Russian, namely Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum. For Lenin and Moscow’s Red Square read Litvinenko and the Sun’s front page.
That said, it is good of the Sun to keep such a close vigil on the man. But Litvinenko is not the only one in danger and we read that traces of polonium-21 have been found at Arsenal’s Emirate’s Stadium.
It seems that another former KGB spy, one Andrei Lugovoy, was at the football ground to watch the London team play.
Lugovoy, who is said to have been with Litvinenko on the day he was poisoned, is now in hospital.
This is bad news, not least of all for Lugovoy, the Arsenal fans who may have come into contact with him or, indeed, the players on the pitch.
If polonium-210 is to have a new face why not make it that of Arsenal’s photogenic French blade Thierry Henry. The inclusion of a top footballer would surely add some va-va voom to the story.
And while Henry is the celebrity face of radioactive poison, Razorlight, the popular beat combo, provide the theme music. As the Sun reports, the band returned to London from Moscow on a jet contaminated with polonium-210.
The group, minus frontman Johnny Borrell, who flew back on a separate plane, all suffered flu-like symptoms post flight.
“The lads were terrified,” says a source. “They feared the worst and immediately called their management for advice.”
The band’s management do not earn their cut for nothing and knowingly told the band to seek medical help. They did. And the musicians have been given the all clear.
But what of the rest of us? And what about poor Litvinenko…
Clooney’s Pig Out
GEORGE Clooney is in mourning?
No, he has not lost his looks. Pray god that never happens. Hollywood’s finest has lost his pig. And not just any pig but Max, his pet pot-bellied pig.
The Mail (“Grunt in peace”) hears from grief-stricken Clooney. “It has been a bad year for my pets,” says he unscripted. “I had a bulldog that died this year too. It’s strange how animals become a big part of your family.”
And while the women have come and gone Max has stayed – Clooney bought the pig for his then lover Kelly Preston, who went on to marry John Travolta. She left George and Max behind.
In the Express, the news is just as grim. “GEORGE: PIG IS DEAD, NOW FOR THE CRACKLING.”
Sure the Star cannot be suggesting that Clooney eats his dead family member, serving him up with the apple sauce, saving only the squeak as a memento of happier, livelier times?
Clooney is said to be “inconsolable with grief”. But Clooney does mange to say: “He was an old a pig as the vets had seen. He’s been a big part of my life.”
At 300lbs, Clooney’s not kidding.
And it may be that Max is irreplaceable. Unless, of course, Clooney chooses to replace Max with a prize poker of another sort. There may be hope for American womanhood yet…
First Things Last
“BA passengers share first class cabin with a corpse.”
The Mail’s headline is as stark as it is shocking. And reading on we learn what “horrified” passengers aboard a British Airways flight from London to Boston had to endure high in the clouds.
The man is said to have boarded the light in full grasp of his life. But in the course of the flight he suffered a “heart attack”. For 35 minutes a doctor and the crew fought to revive him. But it was for nought. The man was dead.
So the man was placed in a seat. And not just any seat. What many strive for in life this American achieved in death: an upgrade to first class.
As Mission Impossible III played on passengers’ screens, the man was brought to the expensive seats. His body was strapped in and his seat adjusted to the semi-reclined setting. A blanket was placed over him. (Such are the joys of first class.)
As one first-class passenger says: “But his head was exposed and leaning to one side, as if her were asleep. I could see the top of this head throughout the flight.”
Asleep? And that makes us wonder. Was this a ruse, a plot to experience life’s better things? The Mail says the man was “elderly”, at a station in life when risks and should be taken. There is no time to delay. In an instant, the years spent dreaming of what magic lay behind the curtain at the front of the plane were revealed to him. Is this what killed him? He was not ready to see first class. The shock was too much? See first class and die.
We cannot say. And while the man’s death is a warning to they who dare, we fear it will not deter others.
And here goes one spirited passenger now, moving up from economy class and complaining about a “weird tingling sensation” in his legs. He fears he has been contaminated by radiation. His accent alludes to Russian.
And now he’s in first-class. And very soon, he has first class all to himself…
Doherty’s Latest Comeback
PETE DOHERTY: Live!
It’s another day in the life of the hardest working man in pop.
No sooner has the hammer fallen and the judgements pronounced on one of Doherty’s shows than he’s back before an audience of his peers.
“Hello, Thames Magistrates’ Court,” says the singer. Doherty’s back at the scene of his greatest triumphs.
“Today I appear before you on a charge of being in possession of crack cocaine [Yeah!], heroin [Like it is!] and cannabis [Play it, baby, play it!].”
Not for Doherty anything new and confusing. He knows what they have come to see and hear. And like an old stager he just keeps the hits coming.
The crowd goes wild. As does Peter. The Star says “PETE GOES BANANAS”, and spots the singer holding one of the curved yellow fruits.
Doherty and fruit? What madness is this? Next the papers will be telling us that he’s checked into London’s Malmaison hotel and smashed his room up.
Indeed, a source at a hotel of just that name tells us: “The man is an animal [see banana] – he left the room looking worse than a war zone.”
The spokesman goes on: “There’s evidence that he took drugs, the carpet’s wrecked, there are smashed up bottles everywhere and the place is covered in blood.”
It’s less a hotel room than it is a Pete Doherty installation. The man is an artist.
But what do the critics say? Ooer! They’ve fined Doherty £770 and banned him from driving for three months.
But not to worry. He might get another chance to impress should the hoteliers press charges. See you soon, Pete. See you in court…
The Royal Courtney
Courtney Love and Prince Andrew are on the sofa
“THE Duke of York is blissfully ignorant that his affair will outrage the Queen.”
So said a senior courtier in 2002 when stories abounded that Prince Andrew was having a passionate affair with a high-class prostitute and socialite.
The truth of the matter was never proven one way or the other. And while many recalled Randy Andy, the royal lothario who’d dated Koo Stark(ers) and glamour mo-del Vicky Hodge, others pointed to there being little time for romance amid Andrew’s role as the House of Windsor’s roving golf ambassador.
And now we read in the Sun of Andrew’s visit to the Los Angeles home of Courtney Love, singer with the band Hole and former wife of the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
The Sun talks of the “Riddle” of Andrew’s visit to Love’s home. But this riddle is not all that hard to solve, at least not for the Express, which knows more than is decent about matters sexual.
“Night Andrew came ‘looking for chicks’,” says the paper’s headline. “Prince Andrew turns up at my house at one in the morning and he wants to party,” says Love.
But it is late. The cucumber sandwiches are not sliced. Love has no suitable hat. These are the vital ingredients of any royal party, are they not? What to do? What do to?
And you can read all about what Love did do. The Mail says this revelation is available in a hard cover, forming, as it does, part of the singer’s latest book Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love. And note the Mail’s recollection of the time Love stripped before Andrew at a “fundraising” event at London’s Old Vic theatre.
So here’s Love in bunny slippers and a fluffy robe sat on the sofa with the prince. And…
And she puts the kettle on and makes not a cup but a pot of tea. She does not say “C’mon Big Boy, do all the different dirty things to me you ever wanted to do.”
She pours tea.
While the prince, allegedly, wants her to bring him down, to make him filthy, to rid him of his inhibitions and fustiness, she wants him to educate her and raise her up. More tea, Andrew.
And would you like some cookies..?
How To Get Ahead In Hollywood
THERE’S a new Hollywood success story that’s giving new life to an old Hollywood myth- that with enough spunk and talent, anyone can break into the industry – and you don’t even need the Internet to get there (though it helps).
This is very similar to the story of Ed Burns and The Brothers McMullen or the time Harvey Weinstein bought PJ Sloan’s bar for the bartender who wrote Boondock Saints. And it’s got a Tabloid Baby connection.
This one is from the CW network, which is almost Hollywood and is developing a new show to fill the hole left when Melrose Place went off the air.
The Wilton is a one-hour dramedy about the relationships, sex lives, hopes, sex lives, dreams, sex lives, work and sex lives of a group of twenty-somethings who all live in a building in Hollywood.
A couple of young brothers, actors Ben and Dan Newmark, have sold a show to the CW network.
The Wilton is a one-hour dramedy about the relationships, sex lives, hopes, sex lives, dreams, sex lives, work and sex lives of a group of twenty-somethings who all live in a building in Hollywood.
The brothers did it the old-fashioned way. They wrote the script based on their time living in a house off the real Wilton Place (which is about five miles and cranked about five degrees in seediness from Melrose Place in West Hollywood).
They and their friends produced and starred in a homemade pilot called The Wilton Hilton, and then they got more friends who worked in PR to generate some buzz. After they invited junior agents and talent agency assistants to a screening at the Pacific Theatre in Hollywood, CAA moved in, signed up the brothers, hooked them up, and the CW bit.
Of course, before the studios went with the project, the boys were matched with old school heavyweights, including Warner Brothers, CBS Paramount, music kingpin (and Mariah Carey’s ex-husband) Tommy Mottola’s company to produce and, as show runner and executive producer, the legendary Peter Lefcourt.
Lefcourt is no kid, but an acclaimed writer whose TV credits go back as far as Eight Is Enough and Cagney & Lacey. He created and wrote Showtime’s legendary Beggars & Choosers, is author of some very funny books, and a couple of years ago, was attached to the team that’s working to turn Tabloid Baby into a drama series.
Kate Moss Fur-ore
“BRITNEY Spears, Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss all looking pretty shaggy in fur costs,” says the Sun, “but two are faking it.”
Looking at the paper’s pictures of the three, it is hard to tell which coat is made from flayed and stitched animal pelt and which is not.
And this in light of the recent story that Chinese cat farmers are skinning their livestock and passing off the pelts as fake fur. Is that mink on Posh’s back or the family pet?
To help readers decide which of the three is true and which is false the Mirror features some more notable fur wearers.
Glamour mo-del Jordan’s coat is, naturally, fake. Kelly Brook’s jacket is a blend of synthetic fibres. Sienna Miller is wearing dead rabbit about her throat, as is Melanie Griffith.
But pictures do not present the full experience. We need to touch the coats, to smell the costs, to purse our lips and see if the coat comes to heel.
And at the apogee of our struggle, the Mail steps in. “Anti-fur protesters have their claws out for Burberry girl Kate,” reveals the headline.
Yes, it is La Moss who appears to be wearing the real thing. Not for Kate tabby but the softest to-die-for mink.
And it looks good on her. The fur may even look better on Kate than it did on the donor mink.
But not everyone is impressed. Yvonne Taylor, spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says: “We urge her to take a look at one of our DVDs showing foxes being electrocuted, wild animals being trapped in bone crunching traps, minx being gassed and dogs in China being bludgeoned.”
These DVDs sound truly disgusting. And we urge any one reading this, including Kate, not to take PETA up on its offer lest the sight of such video nastiness turns their heads and mutates them into serial fox mutilators and beaver killers.
We should stamp out the trade in such filth before it is too late…
Viennese Whirl
LIFE’s vicissitudes are never more to the fore than on Strictly Come Dancing, right now just about the biggest pro-celebrity dancing show on the magic box.
And where TV leads, Government policy follows, spinning and dipping at the lightest touch. And we read in the Sun that “fatties” are to get free dance classes on the NHS.
“STRICTLY TUM DANCING,” says the paper’s headline. And to reiterate: “Millions of fatties to get classes on NHS.”
“LARD of the dance, continues the Sun inside. “Fat to get lessons.” Get a load of those “Fox trotters”. Make mine a “Rumba and raisin”.
The prospect of the large of stature taking a turn around the surgery to the strains of NHS muzak and synchronised coughing and groaning is a bright one.
In keeping with the show, the fat will be awarded points by the assorted matrons and medics.
“You look like a hippo on ice, dear,” says Sister Tonioli, doing her passable impression of the show’s Craig Revel Horwood. “You looked like you were quickstepping to the toilet after eating your umpteenth curry kebab of the night. Hideous.”
“Never mind,” says Bruce Forsyth, ably played by a willing doctor. “You did burn off nine calories and while you were dancing you weren’t stuffing your face with lard. Good game. Well done.”
And dancing does burn fat. The Sun says Strictly Come Dancing “star” Carole Smilie lost nearly half a stone, dropping from 9st to 8st 7lb. “I didn’t need to lose weight,” says Carole, informatively, “I’ve gained a lot of muscle.”
Her fellow celebrity hoofer, soap actress Claire King, says she too lost pounds, “but I’m especially pleased with my legs, bum and arms.” And someone called Georgina Bouzova adds: “The weight has gone from my bottom and my things and my tummy’s toned.”
If it can work for these celebrities, then why not for the rest of us? It is time to blend the tango with the quango and have us all fit, buffed and ready to dance to the same tune.
Of course, if the waltz or electric boogaloo is not your thing, you can always goose-step. Come on people, get those knees up – you wouldn’t want to be fat and let your country down…
Stars & Gripes
GWYNETH Paltrow, the Oscar-winning actress, has something she’d like to share with us.
“The British are much more intelligent and civilised than the Americans,” says Paltrow.
She is too, too kind. We blush a deep pink and stammer a “thank you”. To further show our appreciation, we bare our chests, flash our knickers, pull up our hoods and run about the shopping precinct with our willies hanging out, as tradition dictates.
The Mirror hears more. Los Angeles-born Gwyneth is in conversation with Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias. Says she: “I don’t fit into the bad side of American psychology.”
It’s is hard to know exactly what Paltrow means by that. What is the bad side of the American psychology? Can you pick and chose the bets bits from each country and make them parts of your own self? Can you have only the good and leave the bad? And is the desire for all cream and no sour milk not the American dream?
It might just be that in dismissing the country of her birth, the country that helped form her and shape her successful career, Paltrow is displaying her essential American nature. Would a Britisher speak of the British psychology? And, if they did, would we allow them to live among us?
Whatever Paltrow does mean, the Mirror says her comments have “triggered a furious backlash in the US”. This use of the word trigger is unfortunate given that Americans are wont to carry firearms.
While Americans plot to bomb Paltrow’s London home, the Mail hears more from the actress. “I love the English lifestyle. It’s not as capitalistic as America,” says she.
Oh? What can the multi-millionairess mean? “People don’t talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner.”
Indeed. We British find the idea of money vulgar and distasteful. Moreover work. The prescribed British dinner party chatter constitutes in-depth conversations on property, reality TV and football.
And whether the American dinner guest will eat the kebab al mode or prefer something more macrobiotic…
Beckham – The Gay Sweeper
IS England cricket captain Andrew Flintoff the new David Beckham?
The Mail lines up the former captain of the England football team alongside Flintoff. It notes the shared penchant for tattoos – Becks has a huge cross and his wife’s name in Hindi (misspelled); Flintoff has three big lions on the top of one arm.
And the paper looks at the children. There’s Brooklyn Beckham sat on his mother’s bony lap, looking on as dad leads England on to the pitch. And there’s young Corey Flintoff with his mum Rachel. Both sons are wearing replica sports kits.
And here’s Becks wearing a frilly blue apron and nothing else. He’s having a kickabout while cleaning. And here’s another one of Becks holding a mop, wearing a cloth utility belt that holds a duster and furniture polish. And here’s another of Becks dusting the mirror with his England top. Dressed in a spotty apron, he looks back over his shoulder in cheeky fashion.
“BECKS FURY OVER NAKED GAY PHOTOS,” screams the Star’s front-page headline. “Football hero David Beckham has been rocked by nude calendar shots being sold on a gay website.”
We have long viewed Becks as a cross-over footballer, the metrosexual in the sarong and shinpads. We have conjured visions of him dressed in his wife’s knickers – knickers, it must be said, far smaller than the national average and so flattering to even the most image-conscious player.
But to be pictured wearing only in an apron and a smile… How did this happen? The Star says it is a look-alike, a Becks double. But is it?
Look again, dear reader. Note the glint of steely determination in this sweeper Beckham’s eye as he gives the kitchen floor a once over.
And pay special interest to the tattoos…
The Big C(hristmas)
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
“Today’s date with danger” – November 27th is the unluckiest day of the year. Unluckier than all the other unlucky days
“Teacher’s cant punctuate”
“Tobacco ‘pushes teens into other addictions’” – US researchers at University of Maryland say smokers “are “priming their brains” for future dug use
“Is this your café culture, Tessa? A year after Labour gave us 24-hour drinking, the lurching, swearing, brawling results on our streets over the weekend” – Photographing young drunks for a reader’s pleasure
TUESDAY
“Shops face bleak Christmas” – Not with all those bright fairy lights, surely…
“Do you have the hidden baby killer? Few know it but one in three mothers-to-be caries a bug which could leave their baby brain damaged – or even kill them. A £10 test, offered widely abroad, could prevent such misery” – StrepB walks among us
“Whiter than white. Millions use them in the quest for the perfect smile, but dentists warn DIY tooth whiteners can do more harm than good. We put them to the test” – Yellow teeth are so much more British, dontyerthink
“Sentenced to death by NICE. It’s the body that decides which drugs are allowed in the NHS, but in this blistering attack , a leading GP argues the organisation set up to improve care is obsessed by costs, discriminates against the elderly – and ultimately is killing patients” – Not to NICE, then
WEDNESDAY
“BAH HUMBUG” – Christmas parties can be bad for your health
“Fantasy-game junkies. The children who ‘show a drug-like addiction to computer role playing” – It’s the `1970s Spaced-out Invaders all over again
“Teenage sunbed users face 75pc higher risk of cancer”
“As police chiefs call for the age of consent to be lowered, one mother tells the haunting story of how her 14-year-old daughter was seduced into living with a man of 45 – and the police told her their was NOTHING she could do…”
“How global warming ‘may wipe out 9pc of mankind’” – Why not 10pc? We demand to know?
“The women who’ll be in debt for ever. It’s a tale of middle-class Britain… Mortgages up to five times their salary. Bankruptcy an ever-present threat. Meet the women who may NEVER clear their debts” – Perhaps they hope to be wiped out early?
THURSDAY
“Feeding child obesity” – Soil Association study finds that some “family restaurants” serve fat, fat and more fat
“Violent anti-social behaviour. Terrifying withdrawal symptoms. Forced into rehab by desperate parents. No, not a junkie, but one of a terrifying new breed of teen addicts whose lives are being literally destroyed by computer games” – Pass the Chardonnay, Camilla, this is too awful to read about sober
“CAN’T COOK” (But I wish I could). It’s one of life’s great mysteries. Why, with so many fashionable cook books, are so few people able to cook?” – Too fat to get close enough to the oven?
FRIDAY
“Like most people, I love a good health scare. But nothing will stop me eating bacon sarnies…” – Tom Utley talks about his packed lunch
“Yes, it’s time to think about moving to the stars” – We are all going to die
“Parenting by shift ‘is harming children’” – Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman says mum working when dad is at home and vice versa is a bad thing. Better they are both unemployed, or get a nanny
Murder Burkas
Ronald McDonald’s halal burkas
THE Express has a picture of a drug dealer being beheaded in Saudi Arabia. And another shot of a women stuck in a pit and making ready to be stoned to death.
Grim? Undoubtedly. And as the Express infers, it’s the kind of thing we may soon see on any High Street, shopping precinct and recreation ground in this land.
The paper says “secret” Islamic courts are dispensing justice in the UK.
A Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of something called the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, has written a report in which he speaks of Muslim girls (and, one supposes, boys) being forced into marriage, honour killings and mutilation.
He might go on to talk of people being strapped into chairs and plugged into the national grid and the campaign for a return to the short, sharp shock, but for now it is Islam and not Christian justice that troubles the doctor.
And there is more. It seems that so growing in power and influence is Islam that McDonald’s, that venerable bastion of two god-fearing beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, is to make a halal murder burger.
“Burka king…” says the paper’s headline. It says the brains at McDonald’s emporium are “seriously” considering trying to entice the Islamic community to its brand of processed fat and sauce.
(Of course, McDonald’s is not Burger King, on whose name the Express constructs its pun, and at least the Sun shows some knowledge of the processed fat business with its headline: “THE BIG MECCA”.)
And, understandably, there are concerns. No, not that religious Muslims will soon be as fat as the rest of us, but that the beef may be inhumanely produced.
The Star spots the Farm Action Welfare Council “bitterly” opposing the technique whereby animals made ready for halal meat are bled to death.
Much better – and dare it go unsaid, much more Christian – to zap the critter in the head with a divine bolt of electricity – see America’s Death Row…
Posted: 1st, December 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Warden Off Evil
A STORY to warm the cockles and bring a smile of rare joy to one and all.
“YESSSS!” says the Mirror, expertly tapping into the zeitgeist. “Traffic warden gives ticket to…”
Well, can you guess. Is it: a) Ken Livingstone; b) Osama bin Laden; c) a traffic warden.
Correct. It is answer ‘c’. And the Mirror has a delicious picture of this righter of wrongs and doer of derring dos penning a ticket for the illegally parked parking enforcement vehicle.
And this warden does not act alone. The Sun (“TRIFFIC WARDEN”) spots Keith Bee, an ex-policeman, also at large in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.
Says Keith: “That morning I had just had a parking ticket in the post so I wasn’t in the best of moods.”
Keith watches as a female “parking professional” (the Star) pulls up into a loading bay and gets out. She walks down the road looking for illegally parkers, you know, cars parked in loading bays.
Keith: “She went into a newsagent’s, then walked down another street. I was furious she could think she was going to get away with it.”
A citizen’s arrest? Better to find another warden, which Keith does. This warden says he has to wait five minutes for the driver to return. He does. Keith stands with him. And counts. Five minutes pass. And the ticket is issued.
Hurrah for Keith, who is now known to the local parking attendants by name.
We fear their retribution will be slow and costly…
Deal Me Out
Noel Edmond’s small deal
“DATE..OR NO DATE?” asks the Mirror’s front page.
But it is not the Mirror doing the asking. It is Noel Edmonds, or “naughty Noel”, as the Mirror dubs the bearded TV host.
For readers not versed in Edmonds’ work, know that he fronts the TV show Deal or No Deal, the programme in which contestants have to guess which box from many contains £250,000 by guessing. It is fairground telly for the greedy and witless.
Noel once presented a TV show call Swap Shop, and perhaps if he still did he’d be “Swinging Noel”, asking men and women if they fancied swapping for a bit?
And so to the story. And it that Noel, 57, has dated at least three contestants on his dire show. We are introduced to one of them, Kelly Napper, 27.
She spent a weekend with Noel in Devon after the rogue trader wrote his phone number on a piece of paper and scribbled: “Deal or no deal?”
Says Kelly: “He flirted with me from the start. I could tell he fancied me. But I obviously wasn’t the first to catch his eye.”
And Kelly’s female intuition was bang on as Noel handed her a card. “Kelly!” it said “…a really happy birthday WHENEVER IT IS?
“BUT IN THE MEANTIME*…
THEATRE?
CINEMA?
MUSEUM?
DINNER?
LUNCH?
OTHER?
* Delete where applicable
Deal or No Deal?”
The handwriting (note the capital letters) indicates a forceful personality. (Kelly says Noel telephoned her boss to arrange some time off.)
The list also indicates that Noel has, possibly, not dated for a while as it lacks the “DOGGING?” and “BINGE DRINKING?” options, although, to be fair, they may fall beneath the Noel’s umbrella-like “OTHER?”.
Whatever the message, Kelly got the idea. “He looks a bit ugly on TV but in real life there was something about him,” says she. And after a few days filming, twice-divorced Noel “pounced”.
In the Devon mansion, Noel dimmed the lights, put on the soft music and popped the cork on a bottle of vino. Says Kelly: “He kissed me. I thought ‘Oh God!’ his beard was itching my chin. I kept thinking how old he was and how small.”
She continues: “He gave me this hang-dog, puppy-eyes look when I told him I’d be sleeping in the next room.”
A spokesman for Noel says the meting was “innocent, romantic fun”. And not in the least bit sleazy, opportunistic and sad…
Radiation Nation
Russian radiation lights up London
THE good news is that the radiation found onboard three British Airways jets means frequent flyers no longer need an overhead light to read by. They can just point their luminous finger at the page and go.
What is more, the Mail spots “the radioactive trail”, reporting that traces of radioactive contamination have been found at 12 London sites.
Sadly, these are not noted tourist landmarks, so negating the need for strip lighting at such places as the London Dungeon (see the now familiar shot of polonium-210–coloured Alexander Litvinenko in his hospital bed).
As listed by the paper, these contaminated locations include a car in Muswell Hill, North London, the infamous Sushi bar where Alexander Litvinenko ate on the day he was poisoned, the hospital he was taken to, offices in Downing Street and the Sheraton hotel, Park Lane.
Security sources are examining the trail by day and brightly lit night. But, as the Mail says, they have yet to find a “smoking gun”. This might be because Litvinenko was murdered by poison and not shot.
Litvinenko was got at in a manner not dissimilar to the case of Yegor Gaidar, a former Russian prime minister who collapsed on a visit to Ireland last week.
The Star (“Ex-RUSSIAN ZAPPED WITH NUKE POISON”), says Gaidar is now undergoing treatment, for what he believes is poisoning, in a Moscow hospital – a precarious place to be if, as the Star says, Gaidar, like Litvinenko, has spoken out against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Now at least with the identity of the poison established the papers can investigate the core element to this story: who murdered Litvinenko and why?
And who has poisoned up to 33,000 passengers and staff aboard those aforesaid jets. The jets used by (gulp!) two of Britain’s leading figures.
As the Sun says on its front page “SPY PLOT SENSATION”, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and Seb Coe (“SEB GLOW”) have flown on one of the affected jets. Both are now facing health checks.
And – cruelty of cruelties – it is in the line of duty that Jowell and Coe might have been contaminated, damaged using a public plane to fly from London to Barcelona on an “Olympic fact-finding mission”.
(Surely now is the time to create Blair Force One, a private jet to be used by the elite politicos, thus negating any need for them to mingle with the infected masses.)
A source close (but not too close) to Mrs Jowell tells the paper: “It is true she was on one of the planes… It is fair to say she is taking this in her stride.”
And there she goes now, striding into a cab in Muswell Hill, striding in and out of Downing Street, striding into the Park Lane Sheraton.
You count her footprints…
Toxic Stunna
ALEXANDER Litvinenko continues to look unwell.
Better, perhaps, to replace the now familiar shot of the former Russian KGB operative with something healthier, more robust, more feminine.
So the Sun has looked at the staff roster at London’s Itsu restaurant, where Litvinenko dined on the day he was poisoned, and spots 22-year-old Ela Malek.
“Stunning” Ela is the brunette who came into contact with Litvinenko that fateful day.
“I feel like I’m caught in the middle of some mad spy movie,” says would-be Bond girl Ela, “terrified” she too has been poisoned. “Friends who know I worked at this restaurant are too scared to touch me in case I contaminate them. It’s horrible.”
To the Sun’s tutored eye, Polish Ela looks fit enough. Her shiny hair is still attached to her pretty head. Her complexion is more peaches and cream than Polonium-210 yellow. But she does have a “strange rash” on the legs she keeps wrapped in a tight pair of jeans.
Along with 19 of her co-workers, Ela is waiting on the results of tests to see if she has been damaged by Polonium-210.
And it’s just as well she has already had her blood checked because the NHS can expect a rush of worried people any moment now.
“Spy nuke poison found on two BA jets,” says the Star’s front page. The Express says that up to 33,000 people may have been exposed to the radiation toxin that killed Litvinenko.
Forensic tests of planes flying the London to Moscow route have revealed traces of a radioactive substance on two Boeing 747s. Each plane can carry up to 252 passengers, two pilots and seven cabin crew. Since October 25 (why this date is selected we are not told), the jets have made 220 flights between Heathrow airport and 10 European destinations.
The Express lists the destinations as Moscow, Madrid, Barcelona, Vienna, Dusseldorf, Istanbul, Athens, Frankfurt, Larnaca and Stockholm.
It says that BA is advising customers who flew with them to these places to contact NHS Direct.
And what if it is Polonium-210? We have already heard Ela say her friends are too scared to even touch her. Did any of the fliers aboard the infected jets touch anyone on their travels?
If you have met anyone who has flown on these jets, the advice is to get along to the NHS for a thorough check-up.
Indeed, if you think you know someone who might have touched a passenger aboard any of these flights, the advice is to see a doctor immediately.
And avoid eating fish…
Madonna’s Band Aid
Madonna thanks Bob Geldof
GOT the rubber bracelet. Got the T–shirt. But when you went to Live 8 last year did you get the small, complementary African?
Madonna did. And, as the Sun reports, the singer was so keen to thank Live 8 organiser Bob Geldof for arranging the do that she “secretly” made a huge donation to his Band Aid charity.
It seems that Madonna would never have visited Malawi had Bob not opened her eyes to the country’s plight.
“She feels that she is forever in Sir Bob’s debt for having introduced her to the country where she eventually met her beloved son,” says a source said to be close to Madonna. Readers are then told that the singer made a “very generous donation” to the Band Aid charity.
And while in the spirit of giving, Madonna sees fit to give Geldof a “huge bundle of photos that she and her husband Guy had taken while they were in Malawi”.
Might this be the start of a new trend, a modern take on the couple inviting their friends over to see a slide show of their wonderfully exotic holiday?
Here’s the photo of Madonna and Guy leaving their home. Here’s a photo of the taxi taking them to the airport. Here’s a photo of the taxi driver. Here’s a photo of the luggage trolley.
Here’s a photo of the Malawi High Court ruling that the group of 67 human rights organisations can pursue their application for a full judicial review of the court order that allowed Madonna to remove David Banda from their country.
And here’s another snap of the groups’ lawyer Justin Dzoniz saying that he hopes the review will allow the court to “make a proper decision on whether to grant Madonna full adoption rights”.
And here’s a photo of Madonna in a bikini…
Britney’s 55
PERHAPS Heather Mills can hook up with Kevin Federline, the most reviled women in Britain with the self-styled America’s Most Hated?
But before that happy day, must come the respective divorces from their popstar partners.
And here is K-Ferret’s spokesman telling the Sun: “While Britney has been out with Paris, Kevin has been thinking about the best interests of his children.”
Let us not forget the children, the two boys Britney and K-Ferret share. Haven’t they suffered enough, exposed to their dad’s merciless murder of music and their mother’s appeal to the payload of sticky-fingered adolescence?
Separation is rarely if ever pleasant. And in search of guidance, the Sun catches up with Britney’s first husband, Jason Alexander, whose marriage to Britney lasted 55 hours.
“When I married her I knew she was rich but I did love her. I wanted her. If she had stuck with me, it would have been so positive,” says Jason.
By positive, Jason refers not to the balance in his post-Britney bank account but to the vibe. Jason and Britney could have had it all. But after the good times, the bad times, the low times and the high times, Britney and Jason’s love was doomed to end.
And instead of a positive life with Jason, Britney went for Kevin. “I never thought she’d marry him,” says Jason. “He always seemed so negative.”
He continues: “I was really shocked at the speed at which they had kids – but it has always been a matter of time.”
Indeed. You can do a lot of things in 55 hours, but having a child is not one of them, unless, of course, you are Madonna.
And just what did occur in that 55-hour marriage will form part of the book Jason is writing about his life with Britney.
Says he: “It’s all the details of the wedding and all the stuff that’s been going on. It talks about everything.”
Two days in the life of Britney Spears. This is Jason Alexander Solzhenitsyn. “There is no holding back,” says he. “It does feature our sex life. It does feature having sex with her and what that was like.”
We’d hazard a guess that it was brief, but positive…
Heather Mills Wants…
“ALL I want for Christmas is access to the marital home,” writes Heather Mills in her open letter to Santa Claus.
Christmas is coming and Heather, like so many of us, has been compiling a list of demands to send the old man.
Only the Express says this is no missive to Santa Claus but a page of requests aimed at an old man closer to Heather’s heart and home.
On a night out in London, the paper sees Heather dining at a vegetarian restaurant. It peers over her shoulder and makes out the words written on her ring-bound pad.
The Mail wonders if this public viewing of her divorce plans is by accident or design. Heather’s words are so visible. And to enable it readers who visit the big print area of the library to read them, the Mail zooms in.
To the Mail, the words reveal that Heather is seeking an “order for occupation of the martial home”. The Mail says this is a request “usually only made in domestic violence cases”.
Readers are then reminded of Heather’s claims that Paul McCartney shoved her into a bath while she was pregnant, pushed her over a table and stuck a broken piece of wine glass into her arm.
Can any of it be true? Look again at the words on Heather’s page and their constituent letters. Study the form of the pen strokes, the rhythm, the content. What elements of Heather’s personality are being revealed to us in her handwriting?
Is the rightward inclination of the downstroke at an angle of approximately 80-85 degrees in relation to the baseline of the writing? And are the red smudge, single curly hair and oily stain telltale signs of a desperate heart and yet more desperate photographic session with a German man armed with strawberries and cream?
The Sun reads it all. And having deciphered the script it concludes that Heather is “heartless”.
An onlooker tells the Sun: “She wanted the world to know her plans. It’s an incredibly low shot.”
And lucky it is that the Sun was there to photograph the page and publish it beneath the headline “MUCCA WANTS PAUL & LINDA’S LOVENEST”, lest McCartney have missed it and be none the wiser.
It seems that Heather wants Paul’s home in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, says a lawyer to the Sun. The Mirror agrees. In “LET ME IN”, “furious” Heather is battling for access to the home she once shared with Paul.
Will she get it? Has she been good this year?
Tis Ever Tiswas
Chris Tarrant’s game show
WELCOME to courtroom news?
Make ready to press your keypads and decide which of Chris Tarrant and Ingrid Tarrant is right and which is wrong. (Fastest finger wins a diploma in divorce law from the Anorak School of Retribution.)
The Mirror hears from each plaintiff in turn. First up is Ingrid, or poor Ingrid as she must forever be known.
“Women’s instinct is so powerful and you should listen to your instinct,” says Ingrid of the feeling that something was not quite right.
“I would say to Chris: ‘Look things aren’t right, is there anybody else?’ And he’d say: ‘Oh, don’t be so silly.’ So I trusted him more than my own instincts.”
Luckily Ingrid is a “need-to-know” person. So she hired a private detective and the rest is so much knicker flashing middle-aged groupies in a Surrey bar and the other woman.
Ingrid confronted Chris with the evidence. She asked him to come clean, to give her the truthful answer. She says he lied. Is that you final answer? Ingrid asked. Chris nodded. A pause. A searching look. Your final answer? Another nod. “You are lying and I know,” said Ingrid. Now give me the cheque and get out of the house.
Ingrid tilts her blonde head and turns to the camera. “The public don’t know me but it’s almost like they’re supporting me whole-heatedly, they’re feeling my pain, they’re feeling my heartbreak.”
And what they are not feeling is Chris, who has this to say of his seven-year affair with a 50-year-old teacher.
“I was naughty boy,” says he, likening his extra-marital affair to a schoolboy pulling a girl’s pigtails or spoiling his appetite with sweets. “I’m deeply ashamed I let her down and I let the family done.”
Shame is good. We like shame. But too much shame and the star can loose their shine forever. Chris pulls back from the brink.
“Still, I hate to break this to you but I’m not the first and I won’t be the last. I mean, I didn’t break the law.” (Although it depends on what laws you are talking about, God’s or mankind’s). “Yes I was a bad boy and yes I went out with another woman. But what is this hysteria.”
Chris’s post-affair confession is sounding more like a rebuttal. Any more of it and he will start asking what is meant by the term “affair” and what exactly are “sexual relations”?
Chris has admitted low-level acceptance of guilt. But he has motive (he is man) and he has an excuse (get a load of that hysterical woman).
But before Chris can say how the affair was a bid to reinvigorate and inject passion into a tired marriage, the judge steps in.
It is time to press your keypads. Who gets the money? Ingrid?
ITV’s Up Grade
THE staff clapped when Michael Grade stepped into the offices at ITV Towers for the first day in his new job.
As the nephew of Lew Grade, one of ITV’s founders, walked through the doors, staff broke into a “rousing round of applause”.
The electronic sign above their heads was switched from “CLAP” to “LAUGH”, “GROAN” and “BEHIND YOU” before the serious business of returning the independent channel’s fortunes could begin in earnest.
Unlike his uncle Lew, Michael Grade is no keen tapdancer – Lew earned his first applause executing an ultra-fast Charleston danced on a small oval table.
But that is not to say Michael is not a good mover. And, as the Sun reports, he left his £110,000 a year job at the BBC for a “whopping” £8million over the next three years.
That’s a considerable jackpot. And the Star says ITV’S new executive chairman will earn his crust by securing more football rights and playing to ITV’s strengths.
So lots more reality TV, soap operas and made-for-TV dramas?
Sorted, as they say on the BBC.
New Super Bugs
War on Terror”s latest weapon
“BEES are being trained to sniff out drugs and terrorist bombs.”
That’s the news in the Mirror, and we kowtow to its knowledge.
And we are happy, relieved even. In this global War on Terror, it is heartening to know that the bees are once again on our side.
It cannot be too long before squadrons of butterflies and ladybirds join the cause and fly into battle against the enemy’s wasps, cockroaches and suicidal midges.
But before the fight for entomological dominance can begin, the bugs must be trained. But how do you train a bee?
The Mail reveals all. In “The sniffer bees”, the paper puts on its apiologists veiled hat and says how bees can be a “small but vital” weapon in the war.
Within a year bees could be stationed at every train station, airport and potential target for terror. We urge readers to pay attention and consider keeping a private contingent of bees in their own homes, cars and trouser pockets. No-one is safe. And bees only take ten minutes to train.
The regime is simple. Three or four bees are placed in a “sniffer box”, of shoebox size. This box is that picked up and waved around a bearded suspicious type.
If the bees detect traces of explosives and facial hair about this person, they will tell the authorities. And until a bee can speak English, they will communicate outrage by unfurling his proboscis. If all the bees in the box stick out their tongues together, then the game is up.
By rewarding them with sugar water for making a correct assessment, bees can be trained to detect anything. Given time, they can detect drugs, bombs, Jews, polonium-210 and pollen.
Old Fools
TO many of us the impending Christmas season affords the chance to spend some quality time with loved ones in front of the telly.
To eat in front of the telly; to drink in front of the telly; to fall asleep in front of the telly; to wake up and begin a new day of drinking, eating and telly watching.
And every year, the British share so much of this spiritual telly watching with David Jason, better known to the greater British public as Del Boy, lead character in the seasonal BBC TV show Only Fools And Horses.
Like the appearance of mistletoe above unattractive people’s desks at work, a sighting of Del Boy heralds the start of the Holiday Season.
“It must have been one Del of a night..” says the Mirror’s front page. And inside, we see Del emerging from a TV do, naturally, and looking for his car. “Where’s the car?” an onlooker hears him ask. “It was here earlier. Someone’s moved it.”
Many of us know this feeling all to well. But Del’s car has not been airlifted by London mayor Ken Livingstone’s goons to a place of safety. Del’s wife Gill (surely Roxanne?) locates the car and helps him into the four-wheel vehicle.
And Del’s not the only one having trouble seeing things straight. While the Mirror says the do was at London’s Curzon cinema, the Star has Del drinking at the Hilton Hotel on the same night.
And (you’re ahead of us here) we wonder if there is more than one Del Boy. Just as there is a Father Christmas on every street corner and in every department store, is there more than one Del? Does Del repeat?
And how much longer can the real Del, the prototype Del, go on. As the Sun says: “DEL OLD BOY!” He’s not getting any younger. He’s 66.
But the Sun tells us that Del will never die. The paper’s telly expert says that Del is to return to the show in a “long-awaited” prequel.
What worked for Star Wars and Batman will work just as well for Del. Who needs repeats when you can just start all over again?
It’s the Only Fool & Horses nativity. Del’s birth is the beginning of it all.
It’s what Christmas is all about…
