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.
The Lady Is A Vamp
‘IF you want to get your picture in the papers, you have two main options.
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| ‘And it’s all done in the best possible taste’ |
Dress yourself up as a soldier and pose for pictures torturing a waiter at your local Lebanese restaurant. Or take your clothes off.
Of course, the latter option presupposes you look like Kate Beckinsale…which, luckily for Kate Beckinsale, she does.
(If you dont, we suggest that you contact Extreme Makeovers at Nip n Tuck House, Silicon Valley, California 675902.)
The star of Van Helsing manages to dominate the front pages of both the Sun and Star this morning, simply by posing in a variety of skimpy outfits for GQ.
Even the Mail devotes its Page 3 to the vampish pictures of the 30-year-old actress on the rather feeble excuse that she is getting married to American director Len Wiseman on Sunday.
Any suggestion that the impending nuptials might cramp her style, it says, is swiftly dispelled as she exchanges her English rose image for that of a sexy siren.
And with not a surgeons knife in sight…’
Getting Wood
‘SAMUEL Pepys apparently gave up writing his famous diary while still a comparatively young man because he was terrified of losing his eyesight.
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| Elizabethan fashion |
And well we might have worried because the Sun reveals today that Pepys was the proud owner of one of the country’s most impressive collections of 17th Century porn.
The diarist collected 2,000 ballads – bawdy songs, often accompanied by an illustrative woodcut.
‘Pictures of buxom women could be a selling point for a male audience,’ Professor Angela McShane Jones explains, ‘and a female one too if they described the latest fashions.
‘It is noticeable that there are more busty ballads in the large collection made by Samuel Pepys than any other collection.
‘It is hard not to suspect that there may have been a certain preference in his ballad buying.’
Professor McShane revealed that in the 17th Century every night was TV Awards night and it was fairly common for women to reveal their breasts in public.
Charles I’s wife Henrietta Maria, for instance, had a nipple-revealing dress created for her by celebrity architect Inigo Jones. And Mary II (as in William and Mary) was often shown topless.
Thankfully, the tradition of the Queen baring her breasts has long since lapsed, although a picture of a bare-chested Prince Philip was unveiled last week.
The Sun is delighted to find that its Page 3 has got such a long and illustrious history – and dresses up 21-year-old Nicola T as an Elizabethan stunna.
‘Of course, the camera had not been invented,’ the paper explains to its readers.
‘But in early-day versions of Ye Soaraway Sun, craftsmen carved wooden print blocks showing Page 3 wenches baring their breasts.’
Readers were then invited to chop these print blocks into three and glue them together again to create their perfect Page 3 wench.
The face of Mary II, the breasts of Henrietta Maria and the bum of Nell Gwynn… Phwoar!’
Get Off My Land!
‘SAMUEL Pepys may have blown the proceeds from his diaries on pornography, but it is a small drop in the ocean compared with the amount we spend today.
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| Madonna has reinvented herself as a part of the English landed gentry |
In 50 Facts That Should Change The World, the Mirror reveals that Americans spend the equivalent of £5.6bn every year on porn – more than their government spends on foreign aid.
It is a lucrative business – just ask Madonna, whose career graduated from the soft porn flick A Certain Sacrifice to soft porn books, soft porn song videos…
Suddenly, however, the singer has come over all shy and is trying to stop ramblers being allowed to roam on 100 acres of land around the Ashcombe House estate she shares with Guy Ritchie.
The Mail says Mrs G Ritchie, as she is referred to, is using the European Convention on Human Rights to argue against a decision allowing access to the land under the Government’s ‘right to roam’ initiative.
The Express says the 45-year-old superstar is the nation’s Queen NIMBY, having referred in the past to ramblers as ‘Satan’s children’ or ‘those fuckers’.
And it says that she has written to Tony Blair, complaining that the right to roam legislation amounts to a stalker’s charter.
(Of course, were John Major still in power, we would probably have a stalker’s charter by now to go with the citizen’s charter, patient’s charter, passenger’ charter…)
But the Countryside Agency said that the legislation applied to everyone equally.
‘Despite sympathy we have for the appellant’s privacy,’ said Stephen Pasterfield, ‘there is no exception for those who, because of their special talents, became famous.’
Or indeed for those many more who became famous despite a conspicuous absence of special talents…’
The King Of Text
‘DAVID Beckham is one example of a man who has become famous because of his special talents.
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| Beckham celebrates regaining his text crown |
He is, for instance, favourite to be named Dad Of The Year, the Star says, despite cheating on the mother of his two children.
However, it’s just as well for Victoria Beckham that she isn’t married to James Trusler, a man who is also blessed with special talents – in this case, the ability to text faster than any other man alive.
The Express says the Vodafone network engineer from Shoreham in East Sussex knocked almost a minute off his previous record of two minutes six seconds in front of a live TV audience.
It took him only 67 seconds to text the message, ‘The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human’.
The 30-year-old explained that he sends 4,000 texts a month – more than 100 a day and more even than Beckham managed at the height of his affair with Rebecca Loos.
However, before we start celebrating the presence of a world champion in Britain, the Express explains that Trusler now lives in Australia.
No doubt, their facilities are better, with an academy already bringing through the next generation of texters…’
More Dirt On Den
‘OH no, he didn’t! Oh yes, kids, he did. And dressed as Captain Hook as well.
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| ‘Look what I’ve got for you, Tinkerbell!’ |
This morning, Leslie Grantham’s professional future is again said to be in jeopardy after he was unmasked by the Sun as a ‘panto perv’.
A 31-year-old mother-of-three claims that she watched as the 57-year-old actor pleasured himself in front of a webcam while dressed as the pantomime villain.
Indulging in sex play over the internet, slagging off his co-stars and using licence fee payers’ money to indulge his fantasies is one thing.
But bringing shame on the noblest British tradition of all – the pantomime – is quite another.
It’s like finding out that Widow Twanky’s husband died with an orange in his mouth, stockings on his legs and a belt round his neck.
The Sun faithfully records all the gory details, helpfully supplied by a woman who wants only to be known as Emily.
We hear how Grantham THRUST his manhood towards the camera lens he had attached to his laptop computer; HAD sex fantasies about animals; ASKED her to send him a worn pair of knickers; SWAMPED her with X-rated e-mails; and RUBBISHED the rest of the EastEnders cast as ‘brown-nosers’ and ‘back-stabbers’.
‘He usually did it in his dressing room while he was in panto,’ explains Emily, who had a three-year online relationship with the Dirty Den actor.
‘He would have just come off stage and get his willy out while still in costume. To be honest it was difficult not to laugh, but he took it all very seriously and was very theatrical.’
It does at least explain why Captain Hook wears his hook on his left hand…’
Life On Mars
‘IF a Mars a day helps you work rest and play, then an unnamed woman is set up for the next 30 years after buying up every bar in a London store.
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| Breakfast |
The chocoholic, described as smartly dressed and thought to be Middle Eastern, sent a driver to pick up the 10,656 bars from Woolworths on Edgware Road.
According to the Mirror, she then paid the £2,131 bill with used £50 notes.
Eaten at the rate of one a day, the Mars bars would keep the woman going until July 2033, during which time she could watch more than 65,000 acts of violence on TV.
The Star says TV clean-up campaigners counted 2,300 acts of violence in 205 films they analysed last year – up 20% on 2002.
In the films, all shown on the five terrestrial channels, there were apparently 1,121 incidents with guns, 765 assaults, 103 explosions and arson attacks, 277 scenes with offensive weapons and 17 scenes showing illegal drug use.
The channel formerly known as Channel 5 was the worst offender and Gun Men, which included 31 scenes of violence, the worst film.
Rather unsurprisingly given its name, it showed 21 incidents with guns, as well as one with a knife, seven separate attacks and two explosions.
One of the explosions was believed to have involved a smartly-dressed woman of Middle Eastern appearance whose remains were found in a room surrounded by 10,656 Mars bar wrappers…’
Three Times A Lady
‘WOMEN, if your husband starts acting a bit secretively this morning and you hear a lot of banging coming from the garage, you’re either married to Leslie Grantham or the old boy’s got a new DIY project.
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| And here’s one we made earlier… |
But this is a DIY project with a difference as the Sun explains how readers can build their very own Page 3 girl.
As ever, the instructions are a bit vague, but the basic steps seem clear enough.
Saw the head off one of the six stunnas in today’s paper – Krystle, Corina, Nikkala, Ruth, Zoe and Michelle. Attach it to the boobs of another one of the stunnas and glue on the arse of a third.
As is the way with these things, you’ll probably find you have a nipple or two left over, which you can either throw away or keep as a spare.
A word of advice, gentlemen. If you’re planning to raise a family of mini-stunnas with this composite woman, choose the one with the curviest hips.
The Mail publishes research which claims that women with a narrow waist and big bust are significantly more fertile than others.
The science, such as it is, is too complicated to go into, except to say that women with curvy figures are up to three times as likely to get pregnant as other woman.
And it gives the paper a chance to publish a picture of a very scantily clad Kelly Brook…’
Brahms And Liszt
‘IT’S not a good day for EastEnders present or past, with Martine McCutcheon’s career seemingly also on a downward spiral.
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| ‘Oops! I sheem to have losht my bra’ |
The Mail reports that the woman who boasted that she was ‘England’s answer to Jennifer Lopez’ has been dumped by her agent in the United States.
And the reason was not because she was homesick, as she claimed, but because she got drunk and offended Hollywood’s movers and shakers.
The paper says that Martine was so desperate at one point to get invited to some of the Oscar parties that she was crying down the phone to her agent.
Eventually, she got a pass to Sir Elton John’s party, where she apparently got drunk and – literally – bumped into the wrong people.
‘They thought she was being really loud and obnoxious,’ a source said.
‘It’s just not the done thing to go to those sorts of places and get drunk – but clearly Martine didn’t know it.’
Martine, however, claims she left Los Angeles because it was not what she expected.
‘People were shallow,’ she said. ‘They pretend they are interested in you and then they forget you.’
Anyway, who were we talking about again..?’
Den Of Iniquity
‘IN the tabloid lexicon, the word ‘pervert’ goes with internet sex, in the way that ‘bogus’ goes with asylum seeker.
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| ‘And this year’s Supreme Champion, the top dog of 2004 is…’ |
Had EastEnders star Leslie Grantham, for instance, cheated on his wife in time-honoured fashion in a hotel room, the papers’ show of moral outrage would have been shrill but short-lived.
The fact, however, that he used a laptop computer to indulge in sex play over the internet with a 23-year-old model called Amanda (otherwise known as a 49-year-old cabbie called Graham) could mean the end of his career on the BBC soap.
The Sun describes the sex sessions, in which 57-year-old Grantham filmed himself naked, aroused and sucking his finger during an internet exchange with the woman, as ‘sordid’.
The Star calls the actor, who plays Dirty Den in the soap, an ‘internet pervert’ – and says 81% of its readers think he should lose his job because of the incident.
And the Mirror thinks his encounters with the internet blonde, who styles herself ‘the Halo Polisher’, are ‘sleazy’.
But it’s not so much the internet sex sessions – perverted or not – that are the problem, nor even the fact that, because the computer was plugged into a BBC phone socket, licence fee payers were footing the bill.
It’s what Grantham is alleged to have said about his EastEnders co-stars that could spell disaster for the actor.
He apparently called Jessie Wallace ‘a dog’ and ‘vile’, said Shane Richie was ‘big-headed and self-infatuated’, described Kim Metcalf as ‘thick’ and ‘a block of wood’ and – with heavy irony – called Wendy Richard ‘a wanker’.
And the Sun says the quartet are said to be so furious that they are demanding the soap veteran be axed from his £300,000-a-year job.
‘Many cast members cannot stand Lesley because he walks around with such arrogance,’ a show insider tells the paper. ‘He thinks he is top dog and likes to think people are scared of him.’
Whereas we all know that Jessie Wallace is actually top dog…’
A New Low?
‘IF pictures of Lesley Grantham in his boxer shorts were not upsetting enough, they’re as nothing compared with the pictures of British soldiers allegedly torturing Iraqi prisoners.
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| Piers Morgan takes his punishment after the photos are shown to be fakes |
But are the pictures published by the Mirror real?
The paper this morning stands by its story that they are genuine shots of members of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment.
But editor Piers Morgan knows that he will be joining Lesley Grantham in the dole queue if it turns out that the pictures are in fact as genuine as a GQ spread of Kate Winslet.
The Sun stops short of calling the photos fake, instead showing how easy it would have been to stage them.
But the Desmond papers – the Star and the Express – have no such qualms and claim that it is inevitable that British soldiers will now be killed in revenge attacks.
Certainly, the photos look staged – the presence of what appears to be a working rifle in the hands of a British soldier is, for instance, highly suspicious.
But the Express is not waiting for the official verdict – it accuses the Mirror of being completely irresponsible and resorting to all types of sensationalism to boost sales.
‘Its latest actions will endanger British lives both at home and broad,’ it says, ‘and represents a new low of recklessness.’
The old low was, of course, held by the Daily Express and its daily diet of stories about how immigrants were on their way over to Britain to eat our children.’
Walking Back To Happiness
‘AND so it begins. Our drive to get you to leave the country ahead of tomorrows enlargement of the European Union has won some celebrity help.
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| ‘Last one to the Chunnel’s a lemon’ |
The Star has shots of two Coronation actresses wearing tracksuits on which the words BRITAIN ON THE MOVE have been printed.
Nikki Sanderson and Samia Ghadie plan to walk all the way to Minsk, where they will star in a new soap about a family of Scousers who hanker for the return of communism.
And even the Government has responded to our rallying call to get up and move, to relocate Britain.
The Sun hears from Sir Liam Donaldson, the Governments Chief Medical Officer, who says: People need to say active and starve off obesity and killer diseases.
Two pages on, we hear that the British are all unfit and should exercise at least FIVE times a week for around half an hour a time for adults and an hour for children.
We need to combat the couch potato culture and build moderate everyday physical activity into our lives, says the doctor. People shouldnt be daunted, it can be built up in chunks.
Reading between the lines, the message clearly says: GET UP AND GET OUT – NOW!
But how do you move the unmovable?
Helpfully for the immobile many, the Sun issues its five-point plan for getting fit.
This includes a walk to the paper shop to buy a certain rag, a cold, bone-density boosting shower and stretching for top shelf foods in the supermarket…and even top-shelf magazines in the sweet shop.
Try to ensure that you are always five minutes late and so have to run for the bus although, since its routinely half-an-hour late, you can exercise your discretion and your arse on this one.
And lastly, remember that boozing can pile on the pounds. So choose a bar that plays cheesy tunes. Strut your funky stuff to the Birdy Song.
You will then, most likely, become embroiled in a calorie-busting fight with a gang of lads from Oldham.
Indeed, the Mirror says that just about the only physical activity the British enjoy is raising a glass to our faces before shoving it into the mush of anyone within reaching distance.
But even though the levels of serous violent crime have risen by 13% in a year, taking the number of attacks on the person to above a million for the first time ever, it is not enough.
Much better to walk away from a fight, or even run. And remember, dont stop until your reach the glorious east, or New Britannia as it will soon be known.’
Progress In Lotion
‘TRUCK drivers stumble across many things in the course of their working lives.
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| Truck drivers do it with hand cream |
Many stumble upon groups of desperate Chinese immigrants among the palettes of pak choi.
Others stumble into Spanish jails when their load of novelty donkeys is found to contain bags of primo cocaine.
But trucker Brain Bennett has stumbled across something else entirely – the Sun says that the 64-year-old from Nuneaton has discovered a lotion that destroys the MRSA hospital superbug.
Besides being a self-confessed Sun crossword nut, Brian is no genius, just a simple man with a hobby of trying to make his wife the perfect hand cream.
It was during his experiments that he created the cure for his wifes dermatitis and a way of protecting doctors from the bug.
It seems that once applied, Brians formula cannot be washed off, staying active for around four hours.
I have no medical training, says Brian, I didnt even pass biology at school. But Ive always liked finding solutions to problems. It was just hit and miss, but after a couple of years, I found the perfect formula.
And as any truck driver knows, the recipe for success is two parts bacon fat and one part tobacco stain to three parts sweet tea with, perhaps, a soupcon of amphetamine.’
Busman’s Holiday
‘ENTERPRISING truck drivers, the various uses of a pint glass, vomit in the street and sitting on our fat arses these are a few of our favourite things.
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| Cliff greets an east European woman |
They are the elements of British life that we who are about to pack up and leave will need to take with us if we are to recreate New Britannia on the undulating ground of the Russian Steppes.
We are going on an extended summer holiday. Therell be no more worries about immigrants taking our jobs and eating our children, since theyll all be here and well all be there.
Sadly, however, some of us cannot make it. A few of us will have to stay behind, acting as greeters to help the new arrivals settle in.
One of these refuseniks is Cliff Richard. Although he will be terribly missed, Carol Barton will be periodically popping back to old Blighty to see hows hes getting along.
To date, the Mail reports, Carol has spent around £40,000 travelling the world to see Cliff perform.
I work hard, says Carol, a founder member of the Cliffettes. I dont drink or smoke. Going to see Cliff is one of the pleasures of my life.
His voice is like fine wine – it gets better with age, says Carol of her idol. He is lovely he has real charm and nothings too much trouble.
We can only agree, and heartily thank Cliff for agreeing to remain behind while the rest of us hop aboard the No. 63 bus to Bratislava and flee for our lives.’
Little Sumo
‘SUMO wrestling came to the BBC this week as Janine and Laura finally settled their differences with a good, old-fashioned East End cat fight.
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| ‘I want that lard sandwich!’ |
Janine has made it her mission to destroy Lauras life, as pay-back for when Laura beat her up for sleeping with Ian when she was a prostitute. Janine discovered that Alfie had hired Laura as a cleaner and promptly reported her to the benefits agency.
Then, when Laura got a job at the Minute Mart, she told the manager that Laura was unstable and had a history of violence. The manager promptly fired her – hed already had his doubts about the amount of stock Laura would eat.
Im lovin this, Janine taunted Laura in The Vic, and this is only the beginning. Laura managed to get her own back, however, when she let slip to a wealthy customer Janine was chatting up at the car lot that Janine used to be a prostitute called The Blond Bombshell (does Trading Standards know?).
The customer decided to pull out (surely not the first time thats happened to her) and Janine went seeking Laura. You bitch! she screamed as she set on her, pulling out chunks of her ginger hair.
Unless youve been in a coma for the past month, you cant fail to know that Laura is shortly to shuffle off this mortal coil or rather get shoved off, when Janine pushes her and she falls down some stairs.
The bad news, however, is that Janine is set to go to prison for her murder which means the one good character left in EastEnders will be no more and well be left with the excitement of such story lines as will the Ferrerias make their monthly mortgage payments?
In a desperate bid to introduce another strong female character, Dirty Dens secret wife has just turned up.
The Watts family were celebrating the re-opening of Angies Den after the fire now that theyre all one big happy family again, with Sharon and Dennis creepily referring to each other as brother and sister days after sleeping together.
Arent you going to introduce your wife to your family? asked a tall, curly haired woman who walked into the pub, leaving everyone more than a little taken aback.
God knows why heres a man who faked his own death for 14 years. Why would he bother to tell his family a little thing like the fact hes got a wife?’
Desperation, Desperation, Desperation
‘IN this week’s edition of Location, Location, Location, Phil and Kirsty try to find a disused basement for Osman, his wife and their 17 children.
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| ‘To vote for Khalid, phone…’ |
Osman is keen to be near his work at a large London hotel, so able to pop in and out at a moment’s notice without being seen. Something directly linked to the hotel’s air conditioning system would be ideal.
But first the Sun has caught up with a Romanian asylum seeker, who wants to move into a new house in Elstree, on the outskirts of London.
The man, who is known to the authorities, plans to move in just as soon as workmen have finished constructing the king-size shower room, an outdoor Jacuzzi and a mudbath.
But if he is lucky enough to relocate into this dream home, rest assured that Big Brother will be watching his every move, and broadcasting his antics on Channel 4.
But the Sun has no clue to the identity of the man with what a Channel 4 source calls an ‘unusual sense of humour’ and invites anyone who does know him to call a number.
Meanwhile, the Star speaks to another Channel 4 insider. He says: ‘There is no reason why he couldn’t appear on the show… He is here legally and is having a genuine application considered.’
That sounds fine and dandy. And it gets us thinking. Why not replace the holding centres with huge Big Brother-style houses?
We would get to watch the applicants/refugees change, eat, sleep and, hey, who knows, maybe have sex.
We’d then vote for which of them we wanted to remain or be thrown back into the Channel.
Wonder what the Romanian is for ‘I’m mad, me’?’
Grin And Share It
‘THE Mail’s cunning editorial plot to make out our country is on its knees and so put off foreigners from coming here was ever ambitious.
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| A typical day in Britain |
For years, the men and women at the Mail have been hoping that Johnny and Jane Foreigner would read their stories and believe the message that Britons can get cancer from voting Labour, running over hedgehogs and watching EastEnders.
The paper hoped the outsiders would be deterred from coming once they’d heard of the shameful decision to scrub this year’s three-legged race at a Midlands primary school for fear of upsetting tripeds.
But it was always a forlorn hope. The real Britain of giving, sharing and love would always shine through the grime and disease, and so it has today.
News is that a cash machine embedded into the wall at the Urmston branch of the Halifax bank has been giving out an additional £20 with every transaction.
A taxi driver, one of the many who dropped their work to queue up at the machine, claims to have hauled in £1,000 in just two hours.
‘I just couldn’t believe my luck,’ says he. ‘There was a real street-party atmosphere with everyone walking around with massive grins.’
Not that this is out of the ordinary in a country such as ours. Strolling about the place with a massive grin plastered across our faces is our stock in trade.
Just take a look at Tony Blair…’
What Lies Beneath
‘AFTER lifting the lid on what the real Britain is like, it now seems only fair to tell all would-be asylum seekers, refugees, economic migrants and boat-people that not all British girls look like Michelle McManus.
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| Kirsty models the national dress of Britain |
Earlier this week, the papers splashed pictures of the big-boned Pop Idol winner on their pages. Michelle was passed off as the epitome of British womanhood.
But it was a trick. And so today, the Sun, Star and Mirror show the foreigners who buy their rags from Ruza to Yalta what Michelle – the typical British woman – really looks like.
Michelle is now called Kirsty Gallacher. Her black swimsuit is now a white bikini. Her frown has been replaced by a pout. Her short legs are now long. Her white skin is now sun-kissed pink.
This is the real Michelle McManus, the one we Brits have been distorting with all manner of computer wizardry in a bid to keep foreign men at bay.
But the jig is up. And soon you can buy a calendar of Michelle (Kirsty) at your local farmers’ collective.
And, if you like, you can pay for it with the free cash British banks routinely hand out.’
Out With The Old
‘WHEN you go on your summer holidays, can you try not to come back?
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| ‘Last one to England’s a tourist’ |
You see, the Express is of the mind that Britain is in the grip of an ‘IMMIGRATION CRISIS’, and that means there is just no room for everyone.
Come on, be fair, you’ve had your chance to make a go of things, now it’s time to let others have theirs. You’ll learn to love Faliraki in the winter.
And no need to bother packing – the new arrivals will need your clothes and stuff.
You see, they’ll be arriving with just what fits by their feet and in the overhead lockers of the budget aircraft winging them over, while all you need is one half of a bikini.
And hurry up. The paper says that flights to London from the 10 new European Union member counties are already sold out, and many of the seats onboard the twice-daily Bratislava-to-UK bus service have also been filled…sometimes by gypsies.
These gypsies ‘say they can’t wait to arrive in [the] land of dole and benefits’, according to the headline in the Express.
And they are Slovakian gypsies like Martinf, his wife Monica and their children Martina and Garoslava.
They’ve been here before, but last time the family was forced to return home because daughter Garoslava fell homesick.
This time things will be different, since they’ll be living in your home and, if they do get sick, the NHS will tend to their every need.
Which is a neat fit, since the family will probably be working in the hospital anyhow…’
Best Of British
‘WHILE the Caravan Club of Great Britain trills at the prospect of so many new gypsy members, the Star wonders what else our new neighbours can do to be British.
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| Haute cuisine |
Helpfully, it’s seen a survey conducted by pollsters TNS RSGB, which asked 1,000 Britons what they considered to be the most quintessentially British items from a list of 100 candidates.
What with the effects of immigration, most answered goulash, cross-Channel ferries and citizenship ceremonies. But among the other answers, there were few shocks.
Top of the tree is the sight of a Page 3 girl posing with a rolled-up copy of the Star into which have been placed a chunk of battered cod and some chips.
The cheeky lass could just as easily be sporting a roast beef and Yorkshire pudding meal, which shared top spot with the take-away special.
Other items that make up the list are The Queen (3rd), Carry-On films (38th), black cabs (57th), pubs (63rd) and being no good at foreign languages (65th).
But, oddly, there is no mention of what the Mirror finds to be a vital element in the make-up of a modern Briton: shirking.
Our gypsy neighbours Martinf and Monica can sit in all the pubs they like, stuff their faces with chips and ride around in their Aston Martins (63rd on the list) but, until they learn to do so on what passes for a working day, their attempts to integrate into British society will be for nought.
A survey by Norwich Union Healthcare discovered that four in ten sicknotes requested by patients from their GPs are probably fraudulent.
This, according to the Mirror’s calculator, means that of the 22 million sick notes issued each year – an average of 577-a-year for each family doctor – nine million are bogus.
And if Martinf really wants to learn how to skive off, he should go to Scotland, where the number of sick notes issued is double the UK average.
The healthiest, or least work-shy Britons, are those living in East Anglia, with just under half the UK average.
These are important regional differences for Martinf and Monica to bear in mind when they arrive.
How embarrassing would it be to set up home on a Glasgow sink estate and find themselves to be the only people working in the entire street!’
Moshe Buller’s Day Off
‘THE chances of David Beckham returning to Britain to play for a domestic football club recede with each new gypsy arrival.
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| A mistake |
Beckingham Palace would make a lovely home for Martinf, Monica and their children, and it’s not exactly as if it’s being used that much, what with Dave in Madrid and Posh in denial.
Of course, some of us might miss seeing David around the place.
And if the video of him asleep at the National Portrait Gallery is not enough for you, then Moshe Buller can be hired to fill in the gaps in the footballer’s day.
The Star says that Moshe, who used to work for Mossad, the Israeli espionage organisation, was recently employed by Jackie Adams to spy on her son-in-law.
Posh’s mum used Moshe as a private detective to uncover the truth about what Day-vid got up to when her daughter was out of town.
He concluded: ‘Beckham is not the gigolo that Rebecca Loos wants us to believe. Beckham is not a bad man. He made a mistake with Rebecca Loos, but not as big a mistake as she’d have us believe.’
Whatever can he mean? Surely he’s not making some cheap and underhand remark about Day-vid’s manhood?
But we should not be surprised at these comments – such tawdriness is just one more thing Martinf and Monica will have to get used to if they want to be fully British.’
The Fat Of The Land
‘YESTERDAY a bathing Michelle McManus was single-handedly responsible for the rise in the level of the world’s oceans and the flooding of large parts of Holland and the Norfolk coast.
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| What Fern’s neighbour saw |
But today Michelle is no longer making tidal waves in being seen in a swimsuit – she is now standing up for womanhood.
And, in a U-turn that would make Tony Blair blanch, the Sun is proud of her.
‘Michelle might be massive,’ writes the paper, ‘but, as yesterday’s pictures showed, she’s mightily proud of her body.
‘But somehow Michelle, who is a very welcome antidote to the airbrushed anorexics we are used to seeing, still looked great.’
Of course, she did not look great. She looked huge, or massive as the Sun puts it. Michelle, now on first terms with the paper, looked enormous and very overweight.
And given the welter of comment and anti-comment written about her girth, she is less an antidote to the obsession with thinness and more of a freak, an oddity to be pored over and debated.
But things are set to change. The big-of-bone are on the march and the stick-thin rakes had best walk briskly for their lives.
Staying with the Sun, we learn that there is something yet bigger than the Pop Idol winner, and her name is Fern Britton.
The Sun yesterday tuned into This Morning, the show Britton (since she’s fat and therefore deemed to be friendly and unthreatening, let’s call her Fern) presents .
During the broadcast, Fern regaled the watching bed-bound with a tale of how, when employed in the duty of washing her child, she went to close a window and inadvertently flashed her neighbour.
‘She saw me and waved. You have never seen someone move so fast behind a curtain,’ says Fern.
Given Fern’s size, we imagine that we have seen people move quicker – and that might include Phil Jupitus, the larger-than-life comedian who has vowed to lose weight.
From Fern’s breasts, it’s a short grope to Phil’s and the news in the Express that he is now wearing a jacket he couldn’t have fitted into just six weeks ago.
Way to go, Phil! And what’s more, Phil says he is off carbohydrates right now, and only has fruit for breakfast, which he claims gives him so much energy.
That’ll be the carbohydrates in the fruit, then…’
Dumb And Dumber
‘FETCH the black drapes, mother. Move the ornamental china fish off the top of the telly, and prepare to cover it up for all eternity.
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| ‘Who are you calling stupid?’ |
Yes, folks, TV is dead, or at least it is being read the last rites by Rolf Harris and Kate Humble this coming Saturday.
The Mail says that BBC1’s Test Your Pet will seek to discover once and for all which pet is the smartest.
Dr Tim Guilford, an expert in animal behaviour, has devised a set of tests to see just how dumb your dumb animal is.
Says Guilford: ‘From testing whether your pet is left or right pawed, to its ability to solve problems, its understanding of words and commands, and its awareness of the world, there is a wealth of information just waiting to be analysed and gathered.’
For those who can’t until Saturday, the Sun produces five tests that will tell how smart your pet is.
But first consider a few points to see how smart you are.
1. You take delivery of an animal and let it walk around your house with impunity, crap on the carpet, wee in the flower beds, sleep whenever it likes and eat food bought and paid for by yourself.
2. You watch shows like Test Your Pet and find them stimulating and challenging.
Conclusion: Your dog is smarter than you. Seek help immediately from a sympathetic vet with a large hypodermic needle. Then sleep…’
Driving Madness
‘SOMETHING even more incomprehensible than producing a shot of Michelle McManus in her swimmers can be found in the Sun.
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| ‘He’s not eaten a thing since the accident, doctor’ |
There, readers are invited to read about Beverly Clare and her 15-year-old son Michael.
The words Do Not Try This At Home that often follow a TV moment in which a man has just nailed his eyelids to a race horses haunches were wasted on this pair.
They tried to replicate what they had seen on the hit TV show Jackass, which meant Beverly driving her hatchback car deliberately at her boy while his friend filmed it.
I was going about 5mph and he jumped on the bonnet, says Beverly. People probably think I did 30mph but its a camera trick.
Next week, Michaels going to pretend to be like that nice Mr Hamza off the telly and saw his hand off. Under parental supervision, of course…’
Death Becomes Them
‘FOR the first time ever, EastEnders failed even to get nominated in the Best Soap category in this years Baftas.
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| ‘Ruddy copper!’ |
Hopefully this will be the wake-up call producers need and they will realise that theres only so long loyal viewers will continue tuning in to watch paint dry or rather watch varnish dry on the wooden acting of most of the current cast.
I cant go on! sobbed Martin Fowler to Derek. Tell us about it! This week Mark Fowler was buried in a traditional EastEnders funeral which meant plenty of milling extras in black lining the market and Doctor Legg making his annual appearance.
Michelle wisely decided to stay away, so it was left to Pauline, Vicky and Martin to emote for England. Hes gone to a better place, said Derek, trying to comfort Pauline. Indeed he has -hes gone to The Bill.
Elsewhere in The Square, Alfies debts continue to spiral out of control (a case of art imitating life?). Andy sent Dennis to beat him up as a warning for getting behind with his repayments.
Pulling on a very disturbing pair of black leather gloves, Dennis went to the Vic and shoved Alfie up against a wall. Instead of going in for the kill, Dennis broke down into tears, in despair at what hed become (someone who voluntarily wears gimps gloves).
Alfie begged Dennis to beat him up a bit on the grounds that whoever Andy sent next wouldnt be so understanding/useless.
Kat discovered where Alfie had got the money from to pay Charlies fine and went to confront Andy. You make me sick! she spat at him when the gangster offered to wipe out Alfies debt if she slept with him.
Who do you think I am? she shouted. Well, certainly not Rebecca Loos – her rates are slightly higher.’
The Doorstep Challenge
‘BRITS: Throw out this racist rabble-rouser, orders the Express on its front page.
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| ‘Where is that Cliff Richard, the one they call Peter Pan?’ |
And we could not agree more. But hold on there a moment. You can release the chains from around Ron Atkinsons sun-kissed shoulders and theres no need to picket the Express itself and demand the immediate deportation of its owner Richard Desmond.
This story is not about either of those non-racists. Its about one Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French politico who has been socialising with our own British National Party in Manchester.
Le Pen was in town to support the BNP in its bid to win some votes at the upcoming European elections.
The irony of the BNP relying on of all people a Frenchman to drum home its message of division and white British supremacy is probably lost of those who wrap themselves in the flag.
But if those Brits who dont vote BNP want to kick a racist out, they should put their other boot up the rear end of Abu Hamza, who has, apparently, urged his supporters to become suicide bombers.
This is a story worthy of the Mails front-page. And, indeed, there it is, the words hanging besides the by-now-familiar shot of Hamza, open-mouthed and brandishing his hook like an out-of-season pantomime villain.
To date, Hamza has done little other than scream invective and remind the able-bodied that the disabled can hate just as much as the next maniac.
But he wants to take things on, and the Mail has heard what it claims to be extracts from secret tapes sent to his followers.
You do not have to travel thousands of miles to be a martyr, says Hamza. You can become one on your own doorstep.
And if you blow up your front door, your house and your wheelie bin in the process, so many more virgins in paradise for you…’
