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.
Pete Doherty’s ASBO
Pete Doherty’s latest performance
POOR Pete Doherty. He does try so very hard.
Pete’s got the criminal record, the pale, skinny girlfriend and the drugs history but he has yet to receive the ultimate accolade – the Asbo.
News that Pete has been arrested yet again is encouraging. On Saturday morning, the singer was arrested on suspicion of possessing crack cocaine. Police in London saw a car being driven erratically and pulled the driver over. Doherty was retrieved from behind the wheel. And charged.
It’s fingers and eyes crossed that this will be the charge that, if proven, will see Doherty in possession of the must-have accessory.
But is it enough? Time to look at the official definition of anti-social behaviour. As Her Majesty’s Government says: “It is behaviour which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more people who are not in the same household as the perpetrator.”
Does Doherty’s idiocy constitute a menace to the greater public? We say yes – he was recently fined for kicking a woman reporter and is now accused of driving in a way that could result in injury.
Should this not be enough, Pete may care to flick through a copy of How To Get An ASBO, a how-to guide featured in the Sun.
This tome tells the would-be pariah “all you need to be the most anti-social member of you neighbourhood”.
The book is published by Virgin Books, a shoot of Richard Branson’s business tree. Readers are advised to chain up their attack dogs and goad it into barking all day. Readers with homes neighbouring the Branson estate should take note.
Wannabe ASBO-ers should also play music, perhaps by artists signed to the Virgin record label. The music should be played very loud. It should also be very terrible. Anorak recommends anything by Liberty X or Meat Loaf.
Perhaps Doherty should start singing in public. He may even care to sing one of his own hit songs.
This will surely result in an ASBO. And thereby see Doherty win the one trophy his career demands…
Archer’s Last Laugh
Jeffrey Archer’s fragrant sailor
“THE MAN WHO HAS NO SHAME,” says the Express in a headline.
“He’s a convicted liar and cheat who spent two years in prison,” it says. “Yet Jeffrey Archer has just secured his biggest every payday. How does he do it?”
Before readers can answer, they should consider Archer’s life story, laid out over two of the paper’s pages. And they may like to dwell on the bit about Archer’s relationship with the Daily Star, sister paper to the Express.
In 1987, Archer won £500,000 damages when he successfully sued the paper over the story that he’d paid prostitute Monica Coghlan £2,000 to keep quiet about certain matters.
In July 2001, Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice and jailed for four years.
Perhaps now readers can better answer the question as to how Jeffery has signed a 12million book deal. And note that Archer’s first book – he has signed up to write three novels and a collection of short stories – is about a man who believes he has been wrongly convicted and seeks revenge. The Express wonders: “Life imitating art – or vice versa?”
The Mail tells us that the book is about a young sailor falsely accused of treason and murder who is imprisoned on an island fortress.
Is this Archer drawing from his own life experiences? We know all about the Olympian athlete and so forth, but until now even Michael Crick, Archer’s foremost chronicler, has made mention of the storyteller’s heroic life on the ocean waves.
And then there is Archer’s second novel; the Mail says it is likely to be based on George Mallory’s 1924 ill-fated attempt to scale Mount Everest.
Archer was born in 1940. But strange things do happen in fiction…
Beam Me Up, Tommy
Tom Cruise comes down to Earth
TOM Cruise is walking in the air as he poses for the official wedding photograph.
Tom and Katie Holmes, the blushing bride, are, as the Express says, “taking their love to new heights”.
Standing before a scene reminiscent of the Creation, the backdrop lit by the glowing afterburners on a space craft, Tom and Katie stand cheek-to-cheek.
In normal circumstances, the couple stand cheek-to-neck, what with Tom being two inches shorter than his 5ft 9in tall bride. But with the wedding in full swing, Tom is raised up.
The Express says many “experts” will be “baffled” by the picture. And experts at the Mail lead with the photograph and says: “How Tom grew into his role as the groom.”
For purposes of comparison, the Mail produces a picture of a pre-wedding Tom walking with his wife. Readers with a keen eye and monocle can clearly see Katie and realise that the small thing to her right is Tom.
Now back to the official photo of the newlyweds, and speculation as to how Tom managed to grow, or Katie to shrink.
Such is the volume of her lace and silk meringue that Katie could indeed be kneeling behind the petticoats.
Another explanation might be that Tom and Katie have merely placed their heads through a hole in the explosive backdrop, their clothes painted onto boards. There may well be another photo of Tom wearing the white dress and Katie clad in a navy single-breasted Armani tuxedo.
And what of the photographs of the actual wedding. As the Sun says, this was just “Cruise’s wedding STUNT”. This vision before us is no more real than Tom and Katie’s matching heights. The Sun says the couple married last week. This one was for the cameras.
It’s “TOM’S £1M SHAM”, announces the Star’s front page. It’s a “FRAUD”. Tom’s agent Arnold Robinson says Tom and Katie had “officialised” their marriage in Los Angeles last week.
The do at Odescalch Castle in Bracciano, near Rome, was for show. The 150 invited guests may not have realised what they were watching was less than genuine.
They looked on as Tom and Katie exchanged white golf rings. “There was drumming like at an Italian festival,” says an onlooker, “and flag bearers in medieval costume”. Then the clapping began. It went on. Everyone was clapping. And with the intoxicating rhythms pumping in their ears, Tom and Katie kissed. So long did they kiss for that “guests yelled at them to stop”, says the Sun.
Andrea Bocelli sang, and, as the Sun says, refused to sing Ave Maria because it was not a Catholic service. The bells rang out as Catholic priest Nicola Fiorentini vented his anger. “A pope once stayed at the castle, now we have this,” he says. “It’s shameful and an offence.”
And Bracciano’s mayor Patrizia Riccioni is said to be considering rescinding the honorary citizenship she gave Tom and Katie before their wedding.
Which might just being Tom back down to Earth with a bump…
OJ Simpson – Truth Or Dare
What if OJ Simpson…
IS the OJ Simpson If I Did It book a scam cooked up by Judith Regan and her lover from her days in the tabloid business?
Back in March, we passed on The New York Post’s Page Six report that writer Pablo Fenjves had written a parody of James Frey’s phony memoir, A Million Little Pieces, for Judith Regan’s imprint at Harper Collins.
We’d mentioned that Fenjves was Nicole Simpson’s neighbor in 1994, and that he testified on February 7, 1995, in the OJ Simpson murder trial about hearing the “plaintive wail” of Nicole’s Akita dog… Kato… the night Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman were murdered. We also passed on the tidbit that Fenjves and Regan were thisclose (romantically involved) back in the Seventies, when they worked together at The National Enquirer.
Now it turns out that Fenjves has been unmasked as OJ Simpson’s “ghostwriter” for the book in which Simpson allegedly “confesses” to the murders— “if” he had committed them. It’s obvious Simpson didn’t sit at a word processor and write his own book. But Fenjves is obviously a very creative sort and has written many thriller TV movie scripts in the past decade.
Could If I Did It have been another “parody” or fiction written by Fenjves, bought up by his close friend and ex-lover Judith Regan?
Consider the “evidence”:
Fenjves has made a living by using his imagination and, he was involved in the Simpson case, he works in the imaginary crime genre, he conjures crime scenes for the small screen, and he writes in other people’s voices. This sounds to be right up his alley. And Regan, the genius packager, could have seen this as a way to right all those wrongs she wrote about in her own very disturbing Drudge Report “confession.”
What came first? OJ Simpson or the manuscript?
If I Did It could turn out to be a literary hoax right up there with James Frey’s work.
Posted: 20th, November 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
American Beauty
Britney Spears & K-Ferret fight dirty; striking it rich in Blighty; Michael Jackson’s inner waxwork; Mike Tyson for rent; and Tom Cruise’s close encounters of the third kind…
PSSST! Wanna buy a video. This one’s got the lot – nudity, famous faces, white rap and even a ferret. It’s yours for £26million ono.
On Monday, the story was that the divorce of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline was getting dirty – just how dirty may one day be revealed on the video of K-Ferret and his wife engaging in “sex acts”.
The Star had heard that K-Ferret had been offered £26million for just such a tape. Why the rapping ferret would film his wife cavorting about the place naked when he can see her in the flesh every day or watch one of her sticky-fingered music videos is a moot point.
Perhaps K-Ferret saw a video as his insurance policy, a bartering tool to wield should his marriage fail and his version of Roland Rat’s Rat Rap not make him an international megastar.
Of course if Kevin really wasn’t to make it big, all he need do it head for the Blighty. “COME TO BRITAIN AND GET RICH,” advertised the front page of Tuesday’s Express.
On the face of it, this was no little change of direction for the paper that has been warning of Rogarians at the gates for some time now.
Of course, telling Bulgarians and Romanians that the UK is a land paved in the finest oak-style laminate and gilded in gold-plated Argos jewelry might be a cunning ploy. Build up the expectations and when the immigrant sees the grimy streets and grey complexions, the Rogarian will be on the first lorry back home.
That was the impression. The truth was somewhat different as the Express introduced its reader to a guide that tells Bulgarians how to get rich working here illegally.
While Britishers eagerly await the guide’s English translation, all eyes were gawking at another foreigner in our midst.
There is an entire cottage industry given over to gawping at Michael Jackson’s face. The Mail was ogling the scarring caused by numerous cosmetic operations on his nose”, deep “craters” on either sides of his nostrils” and the “stitched-on appearance of his hair”.
But it was still hard to spot Jackson. Jackson was in London for a performance at the World Music Awards. And with time to kill he went along to Green’s Topshop store on London’s Oxford Street. It was midnight and the store had been opened specially for him.
Walking among the plastic dummies and assorted moulded mannequins, Jackson must have felt right at home. Squint at the yellowy strip lighting and it could just another shopping trip among the beautiful people of Beverly Hills.
And while Jackson went to Madame Tussaud’s to reconnect with his inner waxwork, the Star brought news of another American returned to the fore.
TYSON THE RENT BOY.” The Star wafted its front-page headline beneath its readers’ noses like a vial of smelling salts.
Tyson, whose Iron Mike porn name gives him a running start on most newcomers to his new profession, will be a star trick at ex-Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss’s legal brothel.
For his part, Tyson says he cannot wait. “I don’t care what any man says, it’s every man’s dream to please every woman – and get paid for it.”
Indeed, it is the dream for many men. And it will only ever remain a fantasy for Tyson, who in 1992 was convicted on rape and other charges, and jailed for six years.
And, in any case, who is to say that Tyson will only get to have sex with gaggles of gorgeous women?
It is our belief that it is men who make up a large part of a rent boy’s client list.
It’s a belief that invites us to revisit Tyson’s former conquests. What could Tyson have meant when he told Lennox Lewis “I’m coming for you man” and said to Razor Ruddock: “You’re sweet. I’m going to make sure you kiss me good with those big lips. I’m gonna make you my girlfriend.” And then there was the nibble on Evander Holyfield’s ear.
While Tyson’s love is for hire, the course of true love took Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on a magical flying machine to Rome.
Tom and Katie were to be married. Happy days.
But before the wedding must come the stag and hen dos. Few would miss the chance to see Holmes tottering along the streets of Rome, a giant pink foam Stetson on her head, a massive plastic phallus tied around her waist and a song about a man from Chorlton-cum-Hardy playing on her lips.
The eels were jellied. The vol-au-vents defrosted. The crabsticks would keep.
And so to the wedding…
Paul Sorene
Anorak
Picture by: www.galleryoftheabsurd.com
Posted: 19th, November 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Prince William Marries
THE one thing that remains unbroken from Princess Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles is our £1.20 mug bearing the smiling images of the newlyweds.
What hopes and dreams we had back then. But the complementary silver jubilee and golden jubilee wedding cups would not complete an enviable set.
That was then. And today we read with no little excitement that a range of Prince William and Kate Middleton mugs are in a warehouse.
As the Express reports, Woolworths has produced a range of 100,000 Wills and Kate wedding souvenirs. The collection features mugs, thimbles, tea towels, spoons, slippers, computer mouse mats and mobile phone covers.
The 12,000 plates bearing the couple’s united image carry the legend: “Celebrating the Royal Marriage of William and Kate.”
The only thing left to do is to get the couple married. “JUST GIVE US A DATE KATE,” says the Mirror’s headline.
When will it be? Stephen Robertson, marketing director at Woolworths, thinks it could be any day. “There was a massive demand for products when Charles and Camilla got married. But because of their short engagement we didn’t have enough time to design, manufacture and retail our products. This time we’ll be ready.”
Seems a sensible move. Of course, should Wills and Kate break up, these item will become yet more valuable, reminders of what might he been as Wills steps down the aisle with a Bulgarian-born lap-dancer and Kate marries Mohamed Al Fayed…
Tom & Katie’s Close Encounters
LIKE Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, we are not alone.
Anorak is in Rome for the wedding of the year. With 500 other guests massed in the Italian capital for the do, there is no space to be alone.
The Mail watches the great and good arrive. Jim Carey, Jennifer Lopez and Brooke Shields are already in town. Up in the skies, John Travolta is jetting in on his private Boeing 747.
Tomorrow, Her Poshness and her footballer are arriving.
But before the wedding must come the stag and hen dos. Few would miss the chance to see Holmes tottering along the streets of Rome, a pink Stetson on her head, a massive plastic phallus tied around her waist and a song about a man from Chorlton-cum-Hardy playing on her lips.
Or of seeing Tom enjoying a round of golf with the lads, before all the gang (dressed in matching orange T-shirts: “Tom’s wedding – it’s out of this world”) hit Rome’s lap-dancing clubs and the local curry house.
But this is a joint hen and stag do. And, as the Mail says, 60 guests are being driven in blacked-out mini vans to restaurant Nino by the city’s Spanish Steps. There they enjoy champagne and a three-course meal.
What goes on next, we are not at liberty to divulge. But the Express looks at “Tom’s wacky wedding”. It sees the Castello Odescalchi in Bracciano, the venue, decked out in six thousand scented candles smelling of roses and coffee.
The bride, dressed in white, will approach her true love. The room will be bathed in a brilliant, ethereal white light. The wedding march (re – mi – do – do (octave lower) – sol) will punctuate the air.
And Tom Cruise marries for the third time…
Posted: 17th, November 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Having Paris
AS Michael Jackson (or was it?) flops on stage, and Paris Hilton get offered out by Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri (“F**k off, I’m not scared of you,” says Spiteri to Hilton, her fingers pulled tight into a fist), Lindsay Lohan makes ready to present an award.
Staying with the World Music Awards, the Mirror sees Lohan appear on stage. She is booed. She falls down some stairs. She abandons her role as host.
The Mirror says singer Katie Melua had to be “hauled” from her dressing room to take over from Lohan. And, yes, this is the same Lohan of whom the Star writes: “Lindsay impressed music fans with her role as host.”
While music fans are impressed by Lindsay’s apparent inability to talk and walk properly – very rock and roll – the Mail looks at “the riddle of her wrist”.
A photograph shows Lindsay talking on a mobile phone. She is sat in a car. She is wearing black. One her right wrist Lindsay wears three bangles. On the left wrist she sports “livid red marks”. The Mail says these marks are “alarming”.
“Feeling Lo, Lindsay?” asks the Sun. It zooms in on these marks and speaks of fears that Lohan has “fallen victim to self harm”.
Worried, the Sun books an appointment with its doctor. The medical expert tells us that, yes, they are marks. And they are on her arm.
Another expert in such matters surveys the wounds and says: “It would be difficult to argue this is an accident as there are just too many scars.”
But the Sun’s duty of care does not extend to hearing what Lohan has to say. And she is allowed to drive off.
But try not to worry, dear readers, if Lindsay is suffering from anxiety and reacting badly to her life in the limelight, the Sun will bring news and photographs of her struggle and pain…
Michael Jackson’s Boo Boys
WAS it really Michael Jackson stood on stage at the World Music Awards?
The Express watches as a Jackson-like being sings along to a backing track of We Are The World. A group of children are on stage with him, and they issue the accepted rejoiner: “We are the children.”
But it’s not going to plan. Jackson’s first performance since his acquittal on child molesting charges last year is a “public relations disaster”.
Punters had expected to see Michael singing a live version of his hit song Thriller. The song is performed but by a young American singer whose name we are not told.
The length and breadth of Jackson’s show stretches to four lines of his charity hit. And even then he fails to hit the right notes.
The result is that, as the Mirror says, Jackson is booed from the stage. The Express hears the booing and notes that the chorus of disapproval comes from Jackson’s fans.
But now there is confusion. Having told us that Jackson was “booed off”, the Mirror’s dire 3am Girls tell their readers Jackson’s mic was turned off. And this was not because he was awful, which he was, but because the show had run past its 11pm curfew.
The mystery thickens. Julius Just, the awards spokesman, tells the Express: “Michael was pumped up, on form and keen to get back up and perform his music. But they just cut the mic and the sound went dead.”
But the spokesman for Earl’s Court, the show’s venue, tells the Mirror: “From our understanding, Michael had stopped singing.” They tell the Star: “It was the organiser or promoter who would have had control of the microphones.”
“JACKSON WON’T SING AGAIN,” promises the Star’s front page. “Career and face in meltdown.” Inside: “JACKO VOICE AS RAVAGED AS HIS FACE.”
The paper tells of Jackson locked in his dressing room before his “pathetic comeback”. He only emerges after the singer Beyonce tells him: “Don’t let your fans down.” But the show flops. And back at his hotel the Star tells of crying and much pain.
But, as we say, perhaps it is not really Jackson up on stage. Anyone can be Jackson. And the Mirror produces a guide to being Michael. For the look, you need “Liz Taylor’s hair,”, “The Mask’s chin”, “Pete Pan’s nose” and “The Joker’s mouth”.
Or to be Diana Ross…
EastEnders Plot Found
PSST! Wanna know what happens next in EastEnders?
The Sun says Jonathan Ross’s mum, “veteran extra” Martha Ross, knows. And she has leaked the “top secret” storyline.
Martha has told her son, the ubiquitous media nodding head Paul Ross, and he has told listeners to his LBC radio show.
This triggered a “furious” senior production worker to call Martha’s agent and say: “She’ll never work for EastEnders again – her son Paul has ruined her career.”
Martha, known to millions as Woman On Stall 1, Woman On Stall 2, Women In Pub, Woman In Laundrette and Woman, has been an indispensable part of the EastEnders fabric, a character as tightly woven into the slice-of-life drama as Pauline’s cardigan and Pat’s earrings.
But it seems that nothing is forever. And having been sacked, it is claimed Martha was then asked to lend another thespian her coat to add continuity to a scene.
A friend of Martha’s tells the paper: “It’s a disgrace. She’s worked on EastEnders for 21 years and has only been a loyal actress… Besides, Paul only has about 100,000 listeners.”
Anyone who has ever heard mealy-mouthed Paul speak will be amazed he has gathered such a crowd. But if he is going to reveal to the world the secrets of the EastEnders plot, surely many will tune in.
And while Paul, allegedly, telephones the BBC and tells the person who answers his call to “Drop dead”, those of you not up to speed with plotlines get to learn what happens next.
After lots of rows and promises to “sort it”, a German World War II bomb explodes. Those who die go on to appear on The Bill. Those who live appear in pantomime and on the Paul Ross radio show.
And the only bit of London’s East End not already turned into executive glass boxes is redeveloped…
Posted: 16th, November 2006 | In: Tabloids | Comment (1)
Gran Theft
STOP thief!
They went that way. What did they look like? Well, one of them was wearing a plastic hood. The other one had blue hair.
The Mirror’s front page carries CCTV footage of the suspected felons. “ARTFUL CODGERS,” says the headline. “Caught on CCTV: Grannies wanted for nicking a wallet.”
Do you know the two women suspected of stealing from a 20-year-old Malaysian woman’s handbag at Sunderland Central Station? Cash, the woman’s student ID and a driving licence were taken.
PC Gavin Alcorn of the British Transport Police says: “We would like to speak to these ladies regarding the incident… It is a very unusual case but I don’t think it is the start of a campaign by older members of the public.”
Although the Mail does recall the recent case of the elderly gent seen at the Royal Hospital in London, home to the Chelsea Pensioners. He nicked the poppy day collection box. He later repeated the trick at the Homebase DIY store in Brentford. Police are looking for an elderly man in glasses.
It seems that PC Alcorn might be wrong. What better disguise than the beige of old age. What Chairman Mao did with pyjamas, nature accomplishes with grey hair, stooped back and wrinkles.
The Sun (“OLD BLAGS”) produces a “Wanted” poster. The suspects are described as “old, grey hair, warm coats, comfy shoes. Last seen making slow getaway. May be carrying walking sticks.”
“Do you know these grannies?” asks the Mirror. If you do it wants you to call the paper’s news desk. The Star also wants to know who they are. “IT’S GRAN LARCENY.” No travel blanket will be left unturned.
And we join the call. Anyone approached by two aged women called themselves Lillian B Ting should take a firm hold on their dentures and contact the authorities…
War With The Birds
"THEY’RE coming! They’re coming!" The birds are coming. And they will surely do for us all.
The Sun announces: “MUTANT FLU – Bird virus ‘will kill 50 million’”. The 60 million of us shoe-horned into this gilded island, a complement that once looked so many, now seems perilously few.
The news is grim, although the darkness is lifted by knowing that of these 50 million dead many will perish overseas. But still, “at least” 300,000 Britishers sill die – “mainly kids, mums and the elderly.”
Dr Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the University of Winconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, says: “We are watching this virus turn itself into a human pathogen.”
But what can we do? Should we slaughter all birds? It would seem sensible.
But the birds are cunning. The Mail’s front-page tells us that if the flu doesn’t get us, the salmonella in birds’ eggs will.
The paper says that millions of eggs imported from Spain are laced with salmonella. A study by the Government’s Food Standards Agency found the proportion of contaminated eggs “uncomfortably high”.
The paper tells us that most of these eggs go to bakers, caterers and restaurants. The birds’ distribution network is advanced and complex. It is a network that makes al-Qaeda look small time and hopeless.
And then there is the problem over food labelling. You can no longer believe what you read. The propaganda war has begun and the Mail says eggs labelled free range might not be so.
Defra, the Government’s food and farming department, says it is investigating instances of mislabelling in this country. Perhaps have been arrested. Wings have been clipped.
And all the while the vultures circle. The Mail sees one of these scavenger birds hanging in the grey skies over Britain. The Sun spots another perched in Richmond Park, South West London.
They watch. They wait. The war with the birds is back!
Mike Tyson For Hire
“TYSON THE RENT BOY.”
The Star wafts its front-page headline beneath its readers’ noses like a vial of smelling salts.
The news is that Mike Tyson is for hire. The Baddest Man On the Planet is yours for the right fee.
Tyson, whose Iron Mike porn name gives him a running start on most newcomers to his new profession, will be a star trick at ex-Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss’s legal brothel.
Fleiss has invested her money in a 60-acre plot in Nevada, upon which she plans to erect Heidi’s Stud Farm. Says Fleiss: “I told him: ‘You’re going to be my big stallion.’”
For his part, Tyson says he cannot wait. “I don’t care what any man says, it’s every man’s dream to please every woman – and get paid for it.”
Indeed, it is the dream for many men. And it will only ever remain a fantasy for Tyson, who in 1992 was convicted on rape and other charges, and jailed for six years.
And, in any case, who is to say that Tyson will only get to have sex with gaggles of gorgeous women?
It is our belief that it is men who make up a large part of a rent boy’s client list.
It’s a belief that invites us to revisit Tyson’s former conquests. What could Tyson have meant when he told Lennox Lewis “I’m coming for you man” and said to Razor Ruddock: “You’re sweet. I’m going to make sure you kiss me good with those big lips. I’m gonna make you my girlfriend.”
Were these bouts of machismo pride, Tyson seeking to dominate his adversary in any way possible? Or is there something more to this?
It would take far bigger and braver men than we to confront the full payload of Iron Mike’s sexuality. We only wish to highlight the realities of his career.
It just might be that Tyson does not get to devour tasty women in a flesh pit.
Instead, Mike might have to make do with sinking his teeth into some man meat, like Evander Holyfield, whose ear he famously nibbled…
Reid & Rights
IN October we read the Sun’s front-page headline: “LUNATIC GETS INTO No 10”. Today the Mail tells us: “FANTATIC AT THE HOME OFFICE.”
Just as the lunatic turned out not to be Tony Blair but an intruder carrying “quite a large” knife (and no, it was not Gordon Brown flashing his ceremonial claymore), this fanatic is not John Reid, the Home Secretary.
The fanatic is one Abid Javaid, by day a senior executive in the IT department at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, and at weekends an activist in the fundamentalist Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group Tony Blair has vowed to outlaw.
As the Mail tells its readers, the group believes in a worldwide Islamic state and, as is the way with such things, for Jews to be killed.
The Mail has a picture of Javaid looking dishevelled as he opens his front door and peers through a narrow gap.
The Mail also has a picture of John Reid. The headline states: “I will evict yobs even if they own their own home say Reid.”
He’s a tough nut is Reid. You cannot get past him. He’s on to you. Although not you, Abid Javaid. You were exposed by a joint investigation between the BBC and Channel 4.
But, of course, Reid knew that. Didn’t he…
Picture: bbdo
Pete Doherty & Liam Gallagher’s Big Idea
PETE Doherty and Liam Gallagher are planning to open a pub.
The Star says it is sure that at the venue “there will be Cigarettes and Alcohol all round”. This is a pun on the title of an Oasis song.
And it is, of course, only partly right – very soon there will no cigarettes at any drinking hole in the country. Smoking is to be banned from pubs and clubs, including those with a celebrity theme.
But let us not be too hard on the Star. Surely it would have adapted a title of one of Doherty’s hit songs to fit the story, but since no one can name any, it makes do.
And so to the story. And the paper says that while sat at a pub, Gallagher and Doherty had a moment of catharsis. Why not open their own pub?
This was a rare meeting or minds, not witnessed in the world of popular music since Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson started finishing each other’s sentences on the hit song I Know him So Well.
And this is not all Pete and Liam have in common. As a source tells the paper, Peter knows Liam through a certain Lisa Moorish. And it’s Moorish by name and moorish by nature as Lisa is mother to a child by each of the singers.
So the idea for a pub was hatched. And the concept is for a traditional pub, with traditional ales, lagers and spirits. There is good old fashioned pub grub – pies.
Sounds great. And not unlike the Woolpack Public House, the pub in the soap opera Emmerdale, formerly Emmerdale Farm.
As you may recall, the Woolpack was run by two men, Amos Brearley and Mr Wilkes. Many an episode of the soap was given a full stop by Mr Brearley and Mr Wilkes switching off the lights and saying: “Goodnight, Mr Wilkes”, “Goodnight Mr Brearley.”
Incidentally, until recently Emmerdale featured Patsy Kensit, Liam’s former wife.
She has a child by Gallagher, but not by Doherty…
Posh’s Chip Shape
WHO is Sarah Harding?
Why, she is a singer in the popular reality-TV-made cabaret act Girls Aloud.
There’s blonde Sarah wearing a leopard-print dress at the royal gala performance of the latest James Bond film, a remake of Casino Royale.
And here’s Sarah again. She’s in the Sun having a “bitchy dig at Victoria”. Of course, Victoria is Her Poshness, clothes wearer of international repute and friend to Sun editor Rebekah Wade.
The paper says that Sarah has launched an “astonishing attack” on Posh. Before we get to what Sarah says, a friend of Vicky’s tells the paper: “People are always using her name to generate some publicity.”
So here is in Sarah on the front page of the Mirror. Admittedly, since Sarah is not all that well known, her picture does not appear, although one of Vicky does.
And we read the headline: “OUCH! ‘Posh looks anorexic. David can’t like it..it’s sick’”
Inside (“POSH LOOKS SICK”), Sarah, still dressed in her now trademark animal-print dress, tells all. Says she: “I feel for Victoria. She’s always in the press and wears child sizes even though she’s a grown woman. It’s sick. Have some food.”
And not just any food. In case Vicky is not au fait with food or up to speed with what constitutes a “meal”, Sarah tells her: “She could certainly afford to eat a chip but she’d probably have one and want the plateful.”
Or go straight to the source and eat a raw potato…
Michael Jackson’s No Dummy
“AGE has not yet caught up with Michael Jackson,” says the Mail. “Cosmetic surgery unfortunately has.”
As ever, readers are treated to a shot of Jackson’s face. And it is hard to put an age to the ensemble. The inky-black sunglasses that bravely sit on Jackson’s nose might be the oldest thing on show.
There is an entire cottage industry given over to gawping at Jackson’s face. And the Mail sees “scarring caused by numerous cosmetic operations on his nose”, deep “craters” on either sides of his nostrils” and the “stitched-on appearance of his hair”.
It’s pretty much the kind of face we’re used to seeing atop Jackson’s lithe body. Indeed, it’s no longer all that unusual a look.
Cosmetic surgery is all the rage in California, where Jackson has spent much of his life. In California, many people look as if they have faces made of putty. Over there it is we pasty Brits who get stared at and cause children to run screaming into their nanny’s magnificent, gravity-defying bosom.
Philip Green, the billionaire businesses tycoon, is one worldly-wise Britisher who is sensitive to Jackson’s needs.
Jackson is in London for a performance at the World Music Awards. And with time to kill he went along to Green’s Topshop store on London’s Oxford Street. It was midnight and the store had been opened specially for him.
Walking among the plastic dummies and assorted moulded mannequins, Jackson must have felt right at home. Squint at the yellowy strip lighting and it could be Beverly Hills.
Here was Jackson getting close to the beautiful people he is used to mingling with in deepest Los Angeles. They are supercilious, aloof and ageless. So too the mannequins.
The Star has a picture of Jackson blending in among his kind of people, and sees him browsing through the ladieswear section, menswear and accessories. The Sun sees him test lip-gloss, blusher and lacy bras and pants.
It is all quite normal. But this is “Wacko Jacko”, and what we need is moments of madness. Not genius. Madness.
So Jackson has spent £500,000 on hiring a London hotel, the five-star Hempel Hotel near Hyde Park.
No-one else is staying at the hotel while Jackson is in residence. Naturally enough, this means he will not be affronted by unsightly pale British flesh and bad teeth.
And this is Jackson, who as the Mirror reports, before going to see the mannequins in Topshop took a pilgrimage to Madame Tussaud’s.
Our guess is that Jackson was keen to be reconnected with his waxy kind of people. And avoid those British freaks…
OJ Simpson To Star
WHEN the tabloids reported a couple of weeks ago that OJ Simpson was getting $3.5 million to put his name to a book called If I Did it, Here’s How It Happened, many people shrugged off the notion as being too distasteful and outrageous to be anything more than fabrication from the National Enquirer.
Ah, but they forgot about Rupert Murdoch!
As it turns out, the book, in which Simpson supposedly describes how he might have gone about slaughtering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman back in 1994– if he did it– is the real thing, and it’s about to turn into a two-night sweeps special on Fox.
One night for each victim?
The book is being published by none other than Murdoch’s editrix Judith Regan, who has her own division within his Harper Collins publishing company, and has starred in more than one failed Fox television project.
The lady described as the “angriest woman in the media” will now costar with OJ Simpson in what should be the most notorious of Fox programming gambit since they had Maury Povich host Michael Jackson’s rebuttal to the damning ABC Primetime exposé– or at least since they aired When Good Pets Go Bad 2.
Fox calls the interview “wide-ranging and no-holds-barred.” But don’t count on that. The special airs Monday, Nov. 27 at 9 p.m, then skips Tuesday night– why pre-empt an episode of House when it could be as gruesome as Simpson’s “imagination”?– and concludes Wednesday, Nov. 29. Then, the book goes on sale November 30. How’s that for synergy?
Regan left New York City and set up shop in Los Angeles last year. It was shortly after she received national attention when former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik withdrew his acceptance as Secretary of Homeland Security, amid allegations that he and Regan had carried on an extramarital affair in a lower Manhattan apartment reserved for World Trade Center cleanup workers.
Simpson, as you may know, was acquitted of the murders (read a definitive account of the crime and trial in Tabloid Baby), but later was found “responsible” for both in a civil suit.
He was ordered to pay $33.5 million in restitution to the families of the victims. The families say he hasn’t paid anyone a penny. Don’t expect them to get any of the money
Fox forks over.
Who Wants To Hug A Millionaire?
“THE night Chris Tarrant learned to laugh again.”
It’s the Mail’s front-page news. And reading on we learn that the presenter has been to a charity bash.
Tarrant is no charity case but that does not stop the assembled and assorted women from stepping up to offer their bodily warmth to the soon-to-be divorcee.
“There were 500 women there and they all wanted to put a smile back on his face,” says an onlooker. “They were queuing up to have their pictures taken with him and he loved every minute.”
The story is supported by a front-page picture of Chris in the company of a blonde middle-aged woman. Chris is smiling. The woman, sporting the kind of white teeth you could play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor on, is also smiling.
We can see no evidence of cuddling, but neither can we see Chris’s hands, which may or may not be in contact with the blonde.
To add yet another layer of interest to this picture, the Mail notes the blonde looks not unlike Chris’s estranged wife Ingrid.
What else we don’t see we can only make an educated guess at. As we have heard before, many women throw themselves at millionaire Chris. It was the aforesaid Ingrid who told us about dispirit Surrey housewives flashing her husband.
Mail readers might care to study the picture some more…
Nursery State
“POSTMAN Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his black and white cat/ Early in the evening/ Just as the pub is opening/ He picks up all the post bags in his van…”
Who has not looked on with a smile as everyone’s favourite postman delivers his sack of credit card bills, final demands and death threats to the people of Greendale?
Not we at Anorak. That is why we are saddened by the Expess’s news that Pat has been given another kind of sack.
“Now Postman Pat is banned,” says the Express. “Zealots brand toddlers’ ride a safety threat.”
Right it is that no child should get into a vehicle with a stranger. And though we know Pat to be a good man, not everyone is convinced. Pat has been removed from his post in a shopping precinct in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.
While a criminal check in run on the Postman and his shifty cat, the Express speaks with Sherryl Granger, outside whose shoe repair shop Pat has been sat in his van for an age.
“It’s been there for years,” says Sherryl of the 30p ride. “I have never known anything so petty. For crying out loud, it’s only a little van that children ride in, it’s just ridiculous.”
Is it? We cannot be too careful in how we raise our children. And while Postman Pat helps the authorities with their enquiries, the Mail leads with: “THE NUSERY RHYME POLICE.”
The paper has heard from Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister. Campaigning on the message “nursery rhymes for all”, Hughes speaks of a “parenting workforce”, part of the “national parenting academy”.
Hughes says that for parents who were never sung to by their parents, “simple techniques are a mystery and likely to remain so – unless we act and draw them to their attention.”
Mrs Hughes (married with three children who are rumoured to sing like the Von Trapps) wants us to sing from the same hymn sheet.
Cultural diversity is all well and good but the poor must be made to be aspirational and sing, sing, sing. So let’s all join it:
Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat – rob his van, eat his cat/ We are poor people/ under Tony’s steeple/ singing a happy-clappy song…”
Amen!
Britain’s Golden Melting Pot
“COME TO BRITAIN AND GET RICH,” advertises the front page of the Express.
On the face of it, this is no little change of direction for the paper that has been warning of Rogarians at the gates for some time now.
Of course, telling Bulgarians and Romanians that the UK is a land paved in the finest oak-style laminate and gilded in gold-plated Argos jewellery might be a cunning ploy. Build up the expectations and when the immigrant sees the grimy streets and grey complexions, the Rogarian will be on the first lorry back home.
Just as the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia cried when they saw Israel was not a land flowing with milk and honey as the Bible brochure had promised, the Rogarians will weep as they dine al fresco on Tennessee Fried Pigeon and wash in a water-filled pothole in the road.
That’s the impression. The truth is somewhat different as the Express introduces its reader to a guide that tells Bulgarians how to get rich working here illegally.
The Express speaks of “new fears over national security” as it hears of illegal workers being employed on a site close to Aldgate Tube station in east London, “the scene of one of last year’s terror attacks in London last July.”
While we look back over events of that terrible day and see if any of the Muslim fundamentalist who murdered so many had ever been to Bulgaria or planned to create a new Sofia on the outskirts of Leeds, the Mail announces: “A third of people living in London were born abroad.”
Figures produced by the Government’s Office of National Statistics can be flawed, notes the Mail. So news that 31.1 per cent of Londoners were born overseas should not be taken as gospel. The Labour Force Survey, from which the headline figure emerges, might be wrong.
As the Mail says, around 53,000 homes are surveyed (what with statistics being as they are, the Mail cannot be certain how many) of which 5,000 are in London.
The results are then recorded and reviewed by the Government which then produces a document inviting foreigners to come to “Multicultural Britain – land of immigrants”.
The Star says just such a pamphlet has been produced by the Foreign Office and is being distributed by UK embassies.
So come one and come all. Come and get rich…
Model Wags
WITH Wag Danielle Lloyd sacked from her post as Miss GB for alleged vote rigging, a replacement is needed.
Time is pressing. Britain needs a champion of planet-saving beauty. But rather than just hand the dislodged crown to the show’s runner up, Louise White (Miss Basildon), the Sun reopens the contest.
“You pick the next Miss GB,” invites the paper’s headline.
A phone number appears beneath the picture of each mo-del, suitably attired in a Union Jack bikini, and a brief biography and election manifesto.
In the interests of fairness, the contest is only open to the agonists of old, and we begin our review with the robbed Miss White.
“I’ve received so much support on MySpace from fellow Essex people,” says Louise. “My ambition is to be a TV presenter on something like Love Island.”
Louise fails to make it clear whether she wants to present the reality TV show or appear on it as celebrity TV presenter. We imagine she’d take either job.
Natalie Weston, 23, (Miss Wolverhampton) has a degree in law, which she might use in later life – perhaps to sue the event organisers if the voting is again mired in controversy.
Natalie is not the only one with brains and beauty.
Holly Hughes (Miss Lincoln) is studying for a degree in fashion and design, “but I won I’d commit myself to modelling.”
Louise Cole (Miss Chichester) has a degree in psychology, which she hopes to use to help disadvantaged children. How is unclear, but Louise does not rule out presenting a TV show on the psychological impact of being a contestant on Love island, or mental disorders associated with watching the show.
Or she cold investigate the behaviour of Big Brother contestants.
And here is one of that number. It’s Orlaith McAllister (Miss Belfast), a former Big Brother contestant whose claim to fame was having breasts that appeared to be on the point of melting into the house’s Jacuzzi.
Orlaith hates “self-obsessed people” and thinks it’s been “a fantastic competition”.
Results to follow…
Reach For The Wheel
“I’M BACK!” says the Mirror’s front page. “The Hamster drives again.”
Britain’s latest loveable loser is back behind the wheel of his car. The Mirror says “The Hamster chose his classic Morgan sports car over his Porsche and Mustang for his first drive since the 288mph crash”.
The good news is that Hammond failed to break the British land speed record. The record rests with Engineer Colin Farrows, who earlier in the year drove his jet-propelled car at just over 300mph.
And it is good news for Hammond because given the choice between championing the lovable loser or the winner, the British peoples choose the failure every time.
So while Farrows and Andy Green, the RAF pilot Andy Green who broke the sound barrier in Thrust SSC, achieving a speed of 763mph in the Nevada desert in 1997, live in relative obscurity, the Mirror leads with Hammond pootling along in his British sports car.
“I will remember this day for the rest of my life,” say Hammond. And if Hammond does forget, he can always ask his wife Mindy to fill in the blanks. She’s pictures alongside her husband, sat in the passenger seat.
“I was never worried that I wouldn’t get back my driving licence,” says Hammond. “It was just when. “
Such is the fortitude of the man. Eat your heart out Douglas Bader. There’s a new patched-up ace behind the wheel. Hammond is back. Reach for the sky.
And take care when crossing the road…
Christian Soldiers
“LET very ill newborns die, declares Church,” says the Mail’s headline.
It’s the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, and he says that financial costs should form part of the discussion when it comes to deciding whether or not a desperately ill baby should be kept alive.
The headline is more severe than the Bishop’s considered words – “For a Christian, death is not the end, and is not to be avoided at all costs.”
The Bishop’s view draws attention to the ethical debate about patient care, modern medicine, technology and the right to life. Such are the moral dilemmas created by scientific advance.
This could be the big debate. But taking precedence in the Mail is another religious matter. Pray silence for Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York. Again this primate’s words can be distilled into a handy headline: “Muslim women shouldn’t wear veils in public, says Archbishop.”
The Mail has interviewed the eminent Christian and managed to distil the entire interview into an easy headline.
For those who want to get the fuller sermon, there’s the double-page interview with the “VERY UNORTHODOX BISHOP”. He’s the man “brave enough to challenge the ‘chattering classes’ and their contempt for Britain’s Christian values”.
It has fallen to a Ugandan-born man educated by Christian missionaries to “take up the sword” writes the Mail.
While we work out how well Christian values sit with a sword, Dr Sentamu talks of Muslims and anti-Christian BBC bias.
“We get more knocks,” says the Archbishop. “They can do to us what they dare not do to the Muslims. We are fair game because they can get away with it. We don’t go down there and say: ‘We are going to bomb your place.’ It’s not within our nature.”
Christians can put away their trusty swords, for now.
Although some Christian fundamentalists, notably in the United States, may like to keep a bomb handy for the Bishop of Southwark should he refute their “pro-life” message…
Britney & Kevin Get Dirty
AS Hollywood rules dictate, after the wedding must come the divorce. And before the first kiss, there must be a pre-nuptial agreement signed by all parties and witness by Messers Skimpole & Gonif.
The Mail has seen this legal document, and notes that at the time of its signing in 2004, Britney expected to earn £75million over the next five years.
But Britney’s forecasts are off track, and her lawyers estimate that in the past two years she has lost between £10.5million and £24million of income.
How much, if any, of this reversal of fortunes can be attributed to her marriage to K-Ferret is a moot point.
And what of the rapping ferret? The Mirror spots him buying a pair of underpants in Walmart. K-Ferret is said to be touring in a ten-year-old van and staying in $60-a-night motels.
Readers learn that Kevin owes over $6,000 on his credit cards and pays child support to his ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson, mother of his four -year-old girl, Kori, and a two-year-old boy, Kaleb.
Kevin had best find money fast if he wants to maintain his luxurious lifestyle. Perhaps his singing career will take off. Perhaps he and his wealthy wife (estimated to be worth $65million) will patch things up. Perhaps he will grow wings and lay a golden egg.
Kevin needs a Plan B. And, as the Star reports, he may just have one.
It turns out that Kevin was so much in love and lust with Britney that he made tapes of them engaging in “sex acts”. Did Kevin plan to tune into these home videos when in later life he wanted to show his children how they were conceived? Why would any man film his wife cavorting about the place naked when he can see her in the flesh every day or watch one of her sticky-fingered music videos?
Such questions are for others to debate. All we can do is tell you that Kevin is thought to have been offered £26million for the footage.
As a source said to be close to Britney tells the paper: “Britney has contacted her lawyers to see how she can stop him but it is going to be a hard one.”
For now, we shall say no more…
