Thursday, December 21, 2006

At Princess Diana's Centre


DID you know that the human brain is designed to “plan a move from scratch each and every time”?

It seems that we are not lab rats. And it is by thinking anew and not by routine that we kick a football, swing a golf club or write the Daily Mail, the paper in which this story appears.

As the paper says: “This means that, unlike a computer, people cannot just automatically repeat what has gone before.”

For instance, could a computer create the Mail? No, it could not. Each story of imminent doom and horror is addressed on its individual merits.

And so it is that the Express is designed each day from fresh. It is down not to planning that Princess Diana features so prominently, it is down to the truth that she is big news.
And here is Diana taking to people at a Centrepoint hostel in London. Diana is blonde and fair of skin. Her audience is continued

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Jennifer Lopez Is Growing

JENNIER Lopez’s backside sees all. Jennifer Lopez’s backside knows all. Jennifer Lopez’s backside is all. Jennifer Lopez’s backside is the barometer of the times in which we live. Look on, dear reader, as it grows, ebbing and flowing with life’s vicissitudes. “You’ve never had it do good, America,” says Jennifer’s backside as the surplus bulges over the top of her jeans. “Lean times ahead,” says Jennifer Lopez’s backside at it retreats back inside her trousers, a shadow... continued

Monday, December 18, 2006

Tom Cruise Shoots Victoria Beckham


VICTORIA Beckham “opens with the pure fresh notes of bergamot and rose petals”. In the face of much evidence to the contrary, Her Poshness can hit top notes, middle notes and low notes of “sensual orange blossom" leading to "a seductive base of voluptuous vanilla, rich sandalwood and an elegant layer of musk”. Can the same be said of Pavarotti or Emma Bunton? If only Victoria sang as she smelled, she would be a cornucopia of musical nourishment, her range extending beyond the shelves of chemists and department stores - where her perfume Intimately Her is on sale - and wafting on a gossamer web of sensual delights to the Royal Opera House. Those who want to smell like Victoria's intimate parts can buy her perfume. Just as they can buy the scent produced by her husband David Beckham. The unmistakably "intense freshness and sparkle of bergamot, tangy grapefruit zest and zingy cardomom” giving way to “a virile... continues

Robbie Williams - I Wanna Be Gary Barlow

ROBBIE Williams looks wide eyed. He also looks: "Depressed, loveless and without ambition." His is a "tortured soul". So says the Express.Before we go on to peer inside the Williams head, to analyse this and that, we note that this interview with the singer first appeared in the Big Issue, the magazine that enables "homeless people to earn a legal income through opportunities to help themselves". Good that the Express should quote its sources. And so very, very good that its source should be the magazine that gives hope to the homeless, especially at this...

Read more the Anorak

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Vote Girls Aloud


POLITICS and pop music are rarely in harmony. If it’s not light bulb-headed Neil Kinnock popping up in Tracey Ullman’a video, it’s LibDem leader Menzies Campbell and Gordon Brown competing to be the Arctic Monkeys uberfan. As the song says Things Can Only Get Better. At least when popstars get into politics they look good. And, as the Mirror reports, Girls Aloud, the reality TV pop .... Read more on the award winning Anorak

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie Move On


BRAD Pitt and Angelina Jolie are looking at something on the ground on Hello!’s Cover page. The couple, along with their three children, are sat on a patch of green.


All eyes are pointed down. What are they looking at? Brad and Angelina are, unlike their children, wearing sunglasses. Is this something so very bright? A huge diamond? A full set of Hollywood teeth?


Brad wears a strip of cloth wrapped around his head, like Rambo. We wonder if he is surveying a map, looking to invade and rescue somebody from some Asian hellhole? And then it dawns on us. Are they are looking at a colour chart for their home?


Do the Jolie-Pitts go with tones reminiscent of daughter Zahara’s African roots, red, gold and green? Or what about black, in keeping with Maddox’s Cambodian origins? Or something in ginger, nay strawberry blonde, for Shiloh Nouvel (may her name forever... Read on on Anorak

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Sienna Miller - Looking or Love

PROFESSIONAL girlfriend Sienna Miller looks thoughtful.

Many of you will be unaware that Jude Law’s ex is also an actress. Chances are that just as she can do thinking, she can turn her face to laughing, frowning and wondering.

For now, it is thoughtful. And with her face perched on the back of her hand Sienna prepares to tell the Mirror what is on her mind.

“I’ve learned not to rush things, to take things slowly and to follow my instincts,” says Sienna.

Sienna is speaking of her career as a girlfriend, which really took off when she followed up a fling with James Bond actor Daniel Craig to become Jude Law’s fulltime girlfriend, a role Sienna seems to have gained something from.

She says that she loves someone who makes her laugh. She says “friendship and laughter and trust” are the most important things in a relationship.

Perhaps it was the lack of one of these pillars of true love that caused she and Jude to split? We know of his dalliance with Daisy Wright, his children’s nanny.

Not that the Jude performance has put her off. He has just more finely tuned her girlfriend abilities.

Says Sienna: “I’ve always been a kind for relationship girl. I’m not sure why. It’s nice to be young and single as well but I’m more a relationship person. I like the company.” Ah, the actor and their company.

So Sienna is looking for her next move. The Mirror omits to mention any names. So we have taken the liberty of compiling a list to aid Sienna in her next career move.

And we begin with A. A is for Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon, George Clooney...

Monday, December 11, 2006

Princess Diana Reveals All


“OFFICIAL DIANA REPORT SHOCK,” advertises the Mirror’s front page. “BUGGED on night she died.”

The result of the Scotland Yard inquiry into the apparent death of Diana has found “NO murder, NO cover up and NO conspiracy”.

Or course, many expected this, it serving to further their own beliefs that Diana was murdered by a middle-aged woman who smelled of wet horse and tampon. Or the butler.

All is nonsense. This much we now know for certain.

So we can move on. Diana can be allowed to rest in peace, or live out her days on the fabled Sixth Floor of London’s Harvey Nichols department store.

But first let us learn more of that bugging operation. And it’s reached the attention of the Express, for whom conspiracy appears as truth.

“The US spy dossier on Diana’s last movements,” says the headline. Readers learn that Henri Paul, Diana’s driver on the day of that accident, was in the employ of the French secret service.

And, what is more, American agents were listening into Diana’s telephone conversations as she stayed at Paris’s Ritz Hotel.

But why? What could they have hoped to learn from the woman? A call to room service for laxatives? A pet name for Dodi Fayed, her then boyfriend, something like Squidy? Her rendition of Duran Duran’s seminal hit Girls On Film?

Whatever the dossier contains the belief is that the Express, with the assistance of Mohamed Al Fayed, will not rest until each of its “hundreds” of pages comp has been studied.

The truth is out, but questions remain. What will the Express do now Diana is officially dead? Can you take two bottles into the shower?

And was it all just a cry for help?


Read more on the original Ezine - Anorak

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Pricncess Diana Sparkles

"DIANA," announces the Express's front page in familiar fashion.

"Police tried to make me change my evidence says key witness."

And not just a key witness, but a "cricial witness", as the paper goes on to say.

But what kind of witness makes a crucial witness? Is this someone who saw Diana perish in that mundane car accident? Has the Express scored a scoop, unearthing the driver of that battered white Fiat Uno spotted in the vacinity of Paris's Alma Tunnel on the night Diana died?

This witness is Alberto Repossi, a jeweller in Monte Carlo. This is, of course, the Repossi who helped Diana and Dodi Fayed pick out a £230,000 emerald and diamond band. Called Dis-Moi Oiu (Tell Me Yes) the ring has yet to feature in any Diana Love Collection produced by the Franklin Mint or Argos, but it can only be a matter of time before this oversight is seen to.

Says Repossi (rings, necklaces and more): "I have for a long time followed closely the Daily Express's crusade for the truth and I strongly support any attempt to determine exactly what caused this terrible tragedy."

Thus far the cause of Diana's death has been traced back to the moment of her birth and beyond. Each factor of Diana's life - each waking and sleeping moment - forms a cobble in the path that led to her death.

Diana is born. Diana is conceived. Diana's mother makes eyes at her father. The dinosaurs walk the Earth. And so on. All is part of the pattern.

So here is Repossi, a ring-seller, a shiny cobble in Diana's life, telling us: "My real concern is that attempts were certainly made to get me to change what I knew to be the truh."

He continues: "After reading your coverage, and my experiences and those of my wife with the inquiry team, I feel I can no longer trust the authorities to speak the truth."

And the truth is? Why, that Diana and Dodi visited Mr Repossi's jewellers in Monte Carlo (check press for opening times) and picked out the kind of ring that were it not on the hand of a rich socialite would happily pass for a brass's knuckleduster.

Of course, there must be more to this story. And we realise that diamonds, such as those found in Mr Repossi's ring, are generally very old, ranging from under 1 billion to 3.3 billion years old.

And so it the story of what led to Diana's death goes on...

Read Anorak the web's original ezine on www.anorak.co.uk

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Pricne Andrew Teas Up Courtney Love

“THE Duke of York is blissfully ignorant that his affair will outrage the Queen.”

So said a senior coutier 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 recelled Randy Andy, the royal lothario who’d dated Koo Sterk(ers) and glamour mo-del Vicky Hodge, others pointed to there being litle room for romance among Andrew’s role as the House of Windsor’s roving golf ambassador....

Read more about Randy Andy's Love on www.anorak.co.uk

Monday, December 04, 2006

Britney Spears and Kate Moss Pelt It


“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.

Read which celebrity is causing a fur-ore at www.anorak.co.uk

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Spice Girl - Red Alert


IT’S been a while since Geri Halliwell delivered “baby Bluebell” to an appreciative world.

And what looked like bad timing back then - the birth of Geri’s first child coincided with the messianic arrival of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt – now seems like providence.

Bluebell is the slow burner, the proverbial tortoise in the race; Shiloh is the impatient-to-be-noticed hare. Or hair. It is our duty to report that Bluebell is a ginger.


Friday, December 01, 2006

Kevin Federline Dies For Britney Spears


ON the day the British press produce pictures of Britney stepping out with oil heir Brandon Davies, the Enquirer hears Kevin Federline beg: “TAKE ME BACK!”


And that’s not take him back to his black rap roots, but take him back to the bosom of Britney’s love. K-Ferret has learned his lesson and wants to give his marriage to multi-millionairess Britney another go. But perhaps because the feelings are too raw or, being a man’s man he is not ready to emote, K-Ferret tells us nothing.


And beneath that aforesaid front-page headline, the Enquirer adds the qualifier: “– say pals”. The magazine says K-Ferret is “nearly broke”. And like his bank balance, so too his heart. A source says Kevin is hoping to meet Britney for a “heart-to-heart” talk.


Sure, the singing ferret says he is delighted to be rid of Britney in public, so the Enquirer says. But, sources say this is just bravado. Says the source: Kevin’s nearly out of money, his CD is tanking, and his tour dates are getting cancelled. They can’t give away the tickets.”


We learn: “He is ready to go down on one knee and beg if that’s what it takes to get her back.” Meanwhile Britney is said to be “incredibly upset” and “inconsolable” at being asked to appear on stage at the American Music Awards after a sketch in which a Kevin look-alike (or was it?) was nailed into a wooden box and thrown into the ocean.


Did he sink or swim? And will anyone step in to save a drowning man..?

Alexander Litvinenko - London Glows In The Dark

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.... Read more on Anorak

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Tom Crusie - That's Magic!


“INSIDE the magical wedding of TOM and KATIE.” A week on from the joint magical Stag and Hen do, the magical vows and the magical floating Tom, Hello! invites us to marvel at the magical splendour of the entire Cruise-Holmes wedding. “Your exclusive invitation to the wedding of the year,” says the page that begins Hello!’s 34-page album. “Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise. Intimate portraits and memoirs of their special celebrations.” “Tom and Katie’s nuptials were magical in every way,” notes Hello!. And surely they were. Alakazim! The invitation arrives, wrapped in silk ribbon and placed in a raw-silk box of ... read more on Anorak

Heather Mills McCartney's Secret File


“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.... Read more at Anorak

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I'm A Celebrity...Get My T*ts Out Of Here!


“COCAINE BRIBES & SEX”

The front page of the Star promises much. Where other papers just have news and the odd Page 3 stunna, the Star offers the full multi-sensory experience.

Inside the paper, what promised so much is distilled into a picture of I’m A Celebrity... evictee Phina Oruche wearing a blue bikini and jumping into the air.

That’s the sex. What of the cocaine? “I think they were handing out cocaine to some of the stars, because all of a sudden people were laughing and running around doing head-stands,” says Phina. “Being a moral Christian I wouldn’t touch it. I don’t know what the others did, though.”

That’s moral Christians for you. (Perhaps this deep spirituality is why Phina speaks in tongues, switching between any number of accents in a single sentence.)

The show needs spice. And to solicit the contestants do entertain, Phina tells us that the producers offered them bribes.

“Every night they’d promise us a cookie or a chocolate brownie or a cup of coffee if we spilt the beans. They’d sat, ‘Tell us your carer highlights and we’ll give you a scone’.”

For some of the celebrities on the show getting a scone on I’m A Celebrity would be the standout career highlight.

So much for bribes and drugs. Let’s have another go at the sex. And read the Sun’s tale that Jan ‘Screaming’ Leeming will strip for Playboy if they offered her £250,000.

“My skin is not as taut as it used to be otherwise I would wear a bikini for the shoot,” she tells us.

No need. For a few pence Sun readers can see some tight skin in a bikini. It’s Myleene Klass and there are a further six page of the bikini with Myleene in it spread across the paper’s centre pages.

These are the “HIGH POINTS” of the show. “(That’s both of them...)”

Might it be that Myleene’s assets are the show’s true stars? And the cry will soon go out: “We’re The Celebrities...Get Us Out Of Here!”

For £250,000 ono...


Read the the UK's original ezine - www.anorak.co.uk

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Alexander Litvinenko - What's Your Poison


WHEN the TV film of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko comes to be made it will surely be major boon for school science classes.

What secrets the former KGB officer held, why he was murdered and what his killer could hope to gain from his death are stories far less interesting to the press than what killed him.

Last week, we were introduced to thallium. This is a heavy metal and when eaten on a slice of sushi, imbibed in a tincture of green tea or smeared on a rice cracker will cause the Russian diner about town to fall ill.

“Thall-ium,” says the voiceover on TV’s Livinenko: Something Fishy. “Symbol: Tl. Source: from the Greek thallos, meaning "a green shoot or twig". Atomic number: 81. Colour: silvery white: Classification: Metallic. Dangerous: Yes.”

“History: In June 2004, 25 Russian soldiers became ill from thallium exposure when they found a can of mysterious white powder in a rubbish dump added it to tobacco, and used it as a substitute for talcum powder on their feet. Thallium.”

So much for that. And in module 2, the Sun introduces its readers to Plolonium-210, alongside the now familiar picture of Litvinenko lying fatally ill in a hospital.

Readers learn that Polonium-210 is “harmful when ingested into the body by breathing or swallowing it or through a wound”.

Readers might know it by its alernative name Radium F. It is more harmful that crack cocaine and crystal meth.

Anyone approached by a burly man in a thin black leather jacket or a woman wearing heavy blue eyeshadow and a club boot offering white powders and other exotica should politely decline and tell the authorities.

You, along with three others who fear they have been contaminated by Polonium-210, will then be tested for the radioactive toxin.

The Mail says three people thought to have “had contact” with the sushi bar or London hotel Litvinenko visited on the day of his poisoning are being checked.

But we must not panic. Home Secretary John Reid tells us: “If anyone fears on rational grounds for their own safety then I would ask them to get in touch with the authorities.”

Helpfully, the Mail tells readers what to look out for. Symptoms of possible poisoning include: chest pains, headaches, anaemia, vomiting, diarrhoea and shortness of breath.

Of course, it might not be Polonium-210 lying at the root of your condition. It might be a form of barium. Thallium. Or alcohol... Read the Anorak - www.anorak.co.uk

Monday, November 27, 2006

Madonna Supposes

AMONG the advertorials for bunches of silk hankies, of all sizes and patterns, and small boys for sale, the Mirror spots Madonna touting her wares.

Christmas is fast approaching. And Madonna is on TV inducing the great, good and unwashed to buy her things as gifts and keepsakes.

You cannot spend all your money on handkerchiefs, boiled beef and chimney sweeps, and Madonna is extolling the virtues of buying a copy of her latest book. Called The English Roses: Too Good To Be True, Madonna’s timeless homage to growing up tells the edifying story of four good girlfriends fighting over a boy.

Appearing on the Home Shopping Network in America, Madonna says: “I never would have thought about writing children’s books if I didn’t have children.” Continuing the motif, it might be argued that Madonna... Read on www.anorak.co.uk

Borat Must Die Say Gipsies


LOOK out, Sacha Baron Cohen, the Rogarians are coming! In the “Transylvanian gipsies threat to Sacha”, the Sun shines a candle on the villagers of Glod. Struggling to overcome the shock that some Romanians remain in their native locale and are not right now massed at the border gates awaiting their January 1 release when they will invade our gardens, building sites and cashpoints, we read on. And we learn that the village was used to depict Borat’s home town in Kazakhstan. Why Baron Cohen should not use his native Kazakhstan for such purposes or, indeed, a town in East Anglia is a debate for later. That’s if there is a later because the locals are out for blood. “Borat is a son-of-a-bitch who made us look like savages,” says gipsy Gheorgie Pascu. “This is Transylvania, home of Dracula. If he ever returns we will stick a stake in his backside and impale him. Then I would cut his b**s off.” That should teach Borat to portray the locals as a bunch of blood-thirsty loons. And the Sun, which only recently afforded its readers the chance to play hangman with a cut-out of Saddam Hussein, mocks up a picture of what the moustachioed Borat would look like impaled like so much kebab meat. As readers take in that delight, another villager, one ... read on at Anorak

Sunday, November 26, 2006

I'm A Celebrity...Get Kerry Katona Out Of There


IT cannot be too long before Kerry Katona’s children start thinking of the giant Iceland squirrel as their new father.


Kerry is currently starring on the nation’s screens on adverts for the frozen food supermarket. Sandwiched around the I’m A Celebrity show she once won, Kerry extols the virtues of ice-cream, wet-look pizza and the “Boozie Brownie”.


We have little idea what Boozie Brownie is. Although we need to point out that it is, in this instance at least, not a pre-teen girl high on alcopops. Intrepid food explorers might care to note that the Boozie Brownie Kerry offers one of her guests on the telly bears more than a passing resemblance to the kangaroo testicle being fed to Jan Leeming on I’m A Celebrity..., albeit one steeped in Bailey’s and deep fried.


It is not little wonder that Kerry is a fan of I’m A...

Tom Cruise Secret Wedding Photos

See how Tom did it on www.anorak.co.uk


Click:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/pick_of_week.php

Nancy Dell'Olio & Sven Goran Eriksson's Wedding Dress

NANCY Dell’Olio looks into the huge gilt-framed mirror.

Mirror, mirror on the all, who is the fairest of them all?

Before the mirror answers, it must surely consider the Scandinavian blondeness of Ulrika Jonsson and Swedish PR executive Katarina Huss, two women linked with Sven Goran Eriksson, Nancy’s former lover.

The mirror should also reflect on the fairness of Faria Alam, the former FA secretary whose bouts of keepy-uppy and dishwasher-emptying foreplay seduced the former manager of England’s football team.

There is much to consider. And before the mirror can answer, Nancy pulls her tanned and toned body into a wedding dress. Nancy is now sponsored by Elizabeth Emanuel, famous for her work with meringue, lace and Princess Diana.

But does Nancy have any plans to pull on such a dress in a private capacity? Is she going to get married? “I’m going out with various people, giving preference to some,” she answers obtusely.

Chief among Nancy’s suitors is one Michele Cucuzza, 54-year-old star of Italian TV. Nancy met Michele on the set of L’Isola dei Famosi, the Italian version of ...read on

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Tom Cruise, Britney Spears Is into Paris Hilton, Heather Mills & Charles & Camilla's Theme Park...


STANDING before a scene reminiscent of the Creation, the backdrop lit as if by the glowing afterburners of a departing spacecraft, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes stood 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 Tom was walking on air. Or was Katie kneeling?


The Express said many “experts” were “baffled” by the picture. Was it a trick of the light, movie magic at work? Was Tom standing next to his flesh and silk bride or the marzipan figurine that sat atop his five-tier wedding cake?


Beam me up, Tommy, we joked. Prepare for (platform) lift off. But the laughter didn’t last long. This was “Cruise’s wedding STUNT”. This vision before us was no more real than Tom and Katie’s matching heights. The Sun said the couple had married the previous week.


Tom’s agent Arnold Robinson told the Star that Tom and Katie had already “officialised” their marriage in Los Angeles. This was all for show. We wanted our wedding gift returned – his ‘n’ hers adult dummies with matching pointed hat and the entire first series of Battlestar Galactica (on authentic VHS). But had we signed a prenuptial agreement to do so?


While we searched for the documentation, we learned of another Hollywood marriage: Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.


“Britney puts her kinky sex vid on the web,” threatened the Star’s front-page headline. The move came in light of stories that K-Ferret might sell the tape to the highest bidder, earning himself as much as £120million, a rise on the £26million the Star priced the 45-minute recording at just last week.


At the current rate of inflation, Britney may care to hang onto the tape for a few weeks longer and agree to split the £5billion-plus fortune it will earn with her feckless husband.


Britney should seek advice.


And who better to ask than Paris Hilton, a woman whose home sex movie earned her notoriety, fame and her own Paris Hilton Just Me perfume - sparkling top notes of used hotel laundry with an undertone of adolescent bedroom and tissues.


Naturally, Britney and Paris had hooked up.


But it was not supposed to end like this? It’s all so very unpleasant. Why does anyone bother to get married any more? “Marriage?” asked Heather Mills on the Mirror’s front page. “I’d rather someone chopped off all my limbs.”


Heather had been on TV in America. Appearing on the US show Extra, Heather said: “When you’re vilified for doing nothing but falling in love with an icon – I’d rather have all my limbs cut off. That’s the God’s honest truth.”


She went on: “I’m a good mother. I’m a good person. I fell in love for the right reasons. I fell in love unconditionally.” This was Heather on the offensive, vying to rebuild her “tarnished reputation”. She fell in love for the... read on

Friday, November 24, 2006

Noel Gallagher Has A Bullet For Robbie WIlliams


NOEL Gallagher had to stop taking drug when his teeth fell out.

That’s the Star’s front-page news. And to illustrate just what it means, the paper uses a black felt tip pen and no little graphic know how to knock some teeth from a picture of the Oasis singer’s mouth.

Readers may like to take up the challenge, and a pen, and work out what Noel would look like with glasses, a goatee beard or spots.

Inside the paper, Noel is promoting his band’s greatest hits album.

But rather than hearing about the music we get a potted tale of Noel’s drugs life. Readers learn that as a teenager Noel taught himself to play guitar and “also had his first brush with narcotics”.

“To start with we were off the rails before we got a record deal,” says Noel. “We kind of arrived in London hammered.”

Forget listening to the Oasis compilation and just put the mirrored CD on a table and chop up a line of cocaine on it. Roll the insert into a straw.

“I don’t want this to sound like ‘my drugs hell’ because it wasn’t hell is was fantastic and I had some the most monumental nights out and monumental nights in ever,” says Noel.

And while Noel tells the Star about how the way you take drugs is emblematic of your upbringing – “The middle class experiment with drugs and the working class just get stuck in”, unforgivably ignoring the vital role played by the upper classes in the consumption of drugs – the Sun has more news of Noel.

In an article entitled “Robbie will top himself”, Gallagher responds to question as to who he would aim at if he had a gun and only one bullet.


Osama bin Laden? Noel Edmonds? Phil Collins? “I don’t give a f*** about Phil Collins,” says Gallagher. “I wouldn’t shoot him. I do think he’s a bit of a... read more on Anorak

Thursday, November 23, 2006

We Saw The Tom Cruise Marriage


LAST week OK! invited us to the wedding of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

It was unspecified whether or not we should rip the invitation out or take the entire magazine to the do.

Dress code was, again, unspecified. So we played it safe and dressed in a platform shoes, with an adult dummy pushed between out lips and a pointy hat on our heads. And we, like thousands of other OK! readers, arrived in Italy.

There was great excitement as Katie appeared at the window of the black-out van making serene progress to Odescalchi Castle.

As OK! says: “When Katie emerged, she looked simply radiant, and those around her gasped in awe as she shimmered in the early afternoon light.”

Stood in the refreshingly chilly air within waving distance of the castle battlements we too shimmied, or shivered if you will.

Here was Katie dressed in a navy blue dress and boots, clutching her daughter Suri to her chest. The crowd gasped. And then an unearthly silence fell upon the throng before Katie appeared at a window in the castle, “looking a little anxious”.

And then she was gone, off to “set about getting ready for her most exciting moment” – she was having her hair and make-up done.

We could wait. And the results were worth the effort. OK! notes that it wasn’t only Katie’s jewels that sparkled – “Katie’s bright, dazzling smile and twinkling brown eyes were almost bright enough to light up the hallway of thee castle.”


And as Katie’s eyes glowed in the dark the guests arrived: Victoria Beckham with a flying saucer-style hat perched on her head; Jennifer Lopez’s and her ghoulish husband Marc Anthony; Peter Gabriel and his pet... read more on Anorak

Islam's Swan Bake

“HUNGER drove fasting Muslim to kill swan and bite into it raw.”

So says the headline in the Mail, an enticing prelude to a story which, on the face it, unites the paper’s triumvirate of pet themes – mad Muslims, bird flu and iffy food.

Reading on we learn of Shamshu Miah. It is the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and shortly after midnight on September 26 this year hungry Miah is near the boating lake in Llandudno. So too was a swan.

A man observes the goings on. He calls the police. And they apprehend Miah in the company of a dead swan in a carrier bag. The Sun spots white fathers in Miah’s beard.

The postmortem fails to conclude whether the swan has been bitten to death or stabbed with a knife.

Miah does not understand. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” says he. “It was just a bird to eat.”
And while he is sentenced to two months having admitted possession of a knife in public and wilfully killing a ... read on

Wanna Share Prince Charles' Bed?


THErE is much unsaid about the property advertised on the Sun’s front page.

One has no desire to cast aspersions on the estate agency business but it is often what is left unsaid that proves crucial when selecting a suitable residence.

This featured home boasts three bedrooms. It is, as a local estate agent tells readers, “very, very nice, but small if you rent it for a week”. The place features an organic farm, a ruined mansion and the “ghost of a beautiful blonde said to have been mistreated by her husband”. In other words, it’s a pokey, haunted cottage that smells of raw pig. Any takers?

And surely there will be. The home is in Myddfai, Wales, might not be Buckingham Palace, and there is barely enough room to swing a cat, or, indeed a tampon, but this is the holiday home of Prince Charles and the fragrant Camilla. And you can rent it.


In “ROYALTY TOWERS”, the Sun says Charles (The Germans) and Camilla (Is a Hampster) are offering “FAWLTY Towers-style” breaks in their new farmhouse. Holidaymakers can “romp” in their bed, “use” their loo and “soak” in ye olde royale bath.

“Wish you were heir?” asks the Mirror, producing a delightful picture of the 19th century coach house.

The Mail eyes the “lovenest” and estimates its market rate at £300 to £400 a week, although given the royal angle it might go for as much as £600.

But surely it will go for far more. Who is not excited by this rare opportunity to live like Charles, to partake of a themed holiday? You and your significant other can be Charles and Camilla for a time. Even the ghost, the flaxen-haired beauty could pass for the late Princess Diana.

This is no simple holiday, rather the Charles & Camilla theme park.

And it is fun for all the family. See the boy smoking a spliff behind the stables. Look out as a housemate falls down the stairs. Tell the women in your life how you’d like to live on as her tampon. Rehearse for the majesty of kingship with a colander and spatula.

The only proviso is that roles are interchanged, thereby ensuring that the role of Charles official “toothpaste squeezer” is distributed evenly.

And that everyone gets to sleep with everyone else...

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Heather Mills In Pieces


“MARRIAGE?” asks Heather Mills. “I’d rather someone chopped off all my limbs.”

Lest readers forget Heather Mills, the Mirror positions the woman on its front page.

Our divorce from the estranged Mrs Paul McCartney is not yet finalised and we still have to endure her presence at our breakfast table.

And that’s when she’s not popping up on the telly. As the Mirror tells us in “MAD MAC”, Heather has been on TV in America.

Appearing on the US show Extra, Heather says she’d rather someone came up and chopped off all her limbs than go through what she’d gone through with Paul.

And in case you still do not get the picture, Heather returns to her favourite theme: “When you’re vilified for doing nothing but falling in love with an icon – I’d rather have all my limbs cut off. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

Two mention of missing limbs in one interview is impressive even for Heather, who once removed her prosthetic leg and showed it on air to US chat show host Larry King.
And as we begin to reappraise Heather and see her as the damaged girl who dared to love, the Mail’s front page shows a picture of this tanned, smiling blonde and asks: “A gold digger? I was in... read on

President Nazarbayez Meets Borat


LET’S talk about comedy with Sacha Baron Cohen, a Jewish comedian in the mould of Lenny Bruce, The Marx Brothers and the great Jerry Sadowitz.

There are few things more awful than discussing comedy – a night with Hale & Pace being one.

And the chance to listen to Cohen talking about the motivation for his Borat character and what makes a good joke is like listening to the nodding heads that pepper such show as 100 Greatest TV Funny Moments and An Audience With Freddie Starr.

“Borat essentially works as a tool,” says Cohen in the Sun. “By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice.”

That and the galgenhumor are what make the Borat show watchable and laughable for many. Although anti-Semites, not known for their grip on irony, may view Borat’s song Throw The Jew Down The Well as a musical how-to guide.

Of course, Cohen’s remarks coincide with the arrival in the UK of Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayez, the country’s leader since 1991 and re-elected last year for seven more years of fun and laughter with an impressive 90 per cent of the vote.

And having met the Queen and Tony Blair, President Nazarbayev found time to comment on Sacha Cohen’s film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

It cannot be denied that Cohen has raised the profile of this vast central Asian land. And as Nazarbayev says: “There is a saying that any publicity is good publicity.”

There is also saying about Kazakstan having loads of oil and gas reserves. Tony Blair might have heard it... read on Anorak

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Britney Spears' Video Nasty

“BRITNEY puts her kinky sex vid on the web,” promises the Star’s front-page headline.

The move comes in light of stories that Kevin Federline, Britney’s estranged husband, could sell the tape to the highest bidder, earning himself as much as £120million, a rise on the £26million the Star priced the 45-minute recording at just last week.

At the current rate of inflation, Britney may care to hang onto the tape for a few weeks longer and agree to split the £5billion fortune it will earn with the feckless husband.

Britney should seek advice. And who better to ask than Paris Hilton, a woman whose home sex movie earned her notoriety, fame and her own Paris Hilton Just Me perfume - sparkling top notes of used hotel laundry with an undertone of adolescent bedroom and tissues.

The movie of Paris’s bedroom audition – entitled One Night In Paris – has reportedly earned £30million.
David Hans Schmidt, who bought the Hilton sex tape to the greater porn surfing fraternity, says the Spears work could be the biggest thing to come out the porn business since Long Dong met Melody ...read on

Ricky Martin's Vida Limpia


“I HAVE already got all sorts of prizes, but to be recognised for my humanitarian work is something else,” says Risky Martin.

Hello! catches up with Ricky Martin in his impressively neat and tidy Miami mansion.

Everything about the place is just so. Granted it is rare that Hello! pops over for chat on a day when the maid is off and the toilet blow is pebble dashed with last night’s chicken fajita.

But Ricky’s is a home touched by a supernatural neatness.

The grass looks like it been dyed and styled with hair gel. The candles that sit within a feature-sized coffee-table-sized candlestick are burned down just to the right level. The tear is Ricky’s jeans appears as the product of a precision laser. His two dogs match.

But into so much order a little pitter-patter of chaos must some. Ricky says he wants to be a dad. Hello! says he’d like his own “biological” children and to adopt non-bilogical children

Ricky, who says protecting his privacy is “something instinctive to me”, sits back on his wooden sofa and says that when he looks in the mirror of a morning he thinks: “Where’s my coffee?”

But what about behind the coffee? What does he miss? What sacrifices have been made along the way? “The child in me,” says Ricky. “I left him behind. Completely abandoned him...These days, I try to do some of the things children do, to play every day.”

He goes on: “These days when I have to make a decision I think, ‘What would Ricky Martin the child do?’”

Tidy up, probably...


Monday, November 20, 2006

Tom Cruise Comes Back 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…

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Angelina Jolie's Gap Year


HOW to you dress in a refugee camp?

For refugees, the choice is simple – you wear whatever you own, or whatever the charitable organisations have given you: see the elderly man risking ridicule in last year’s Manchester United shirt, the poor lad in marble denim, the girl in a Frankie Says T–shirt and Ugg boots.

But for those among us who visit refugee centres, know that such places are fashion minefields. What does Angelina Jolie, goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission For Refugees, wear when among refugees in a camp in New Delhi.

“I’m grateful to the refugee families who spent their time with me and shared their stories,” says Jolie. “They are remarkable, courageous people.”

Easy words with which to discuss disrupted and displaced lives. We doubt any one of the residents of the camp OK! fails to name – we don’t learn what these refugees are seeking refuge from - think of themselves are courageous or remarkable. They only seek survival. And that is as normal and everyday as it gets.
Angelina is in India to film A Might Heart, the story of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish journalist murdered by All-Qaeda. Jolie is pictured sat in the centre of a group ... read more on Anorak

Britney Spears & K-Ferret fight dirty; striking it rich in Blighty; Michael Jackson inner waxwork; Mike Tyson for rent; and Tom Cruise's close encount

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 ...read The Week on Anorak

Friday, November 17, 2006

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...

F*uck Off Paris Hilton


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 ... read more on Anorak

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 ...read more on Anorak

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Mike Tyson For Rent


“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... read more on Anorak

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Michael Jackson's Top Shop


“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... read more on Anorak

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Desert Orchid's Legacy


IN between stories of how super casinos will do for us all and gambling addiction is waiting to decimate the country like a plague of winged Rogarians, comes some sad news.

Lower your nosebag, throw a tea towel over the revolving kebab and know that a horse is dead. And not just any horse but a light grey horse called Dessert Orchid.

“Dessie takes that final fence”, says the Mail’s front page, looking on as the “Great British icon”, “a flawed genius, and that’s why we loved you”, vaults the pearly gates.

Inside the paper, pages 2 and 3 are given over to Peter Oborne saluting this “sporting hero”.

He compares Dessie to the likes of cricketer Don Bradman, whose brilliance “is so inevitable that it becomes boring”.

Dessie didn’t have that. He was unpredictable. And unlike the legendary Australian cricketer, Dessie was a dumb animal who ran around in circles with a little man with a whip in his hand sat on his back. (Rumours about Bradman and that Adelaide club remain unsubstantiated.)

The Mail gives over an entire page to a picture of Dessie, looking over the gate of his plush stable complex, his tongue tasting the air for victory and carrots.

And there he is again on the front of the Sun. “Dessie 1979-2006” says the horseshow wrapped around the horse’s neck. And inside there’s a tribute.


In “WHAT A GREY DAY”, Claude Duval – “DESSIE’S PAL” – remembers the good times, the hard times, the loves, the losses, the laughter and the ...read more on Anorak

Tom Cruise Exterminates

WHAT’S that buzz you hear?

No, it’s not the noise of Tom Cruise’s spaceship preparing for lift off.

Nor is it the sound of Tom calling Armani and demanding to see the sketches of Katie’s wedding dress.

It’s the excitement surrounding the actor’s marriage to Katie Holmes.

And the Enquirer’s front-page news is: “TOM GOES BESERK...on eve of wedding.”

EXTERMINATE!

Sources say Tom went nuts while talking on phone in New York limo. Reacting to something he’d heard, Tom is said to have flipped out and punched a hole in the backseat with a ...read on at Anorak

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 ...read more on Anorak

Friday, November 10, 2006

Lohan's No Charity Case

Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan has, reportedly, been barred from performing at a charity fundraising event because her image is not in keeping with the tone of the thing.

Organisers of Operation Holiday Spirit 2006, a campaign to bring seasonal cheer and gifts to US soldiers, are said to have been concerned that Lohan would deter other celebs from taking part.

www.anorak.co.uk

Simon Cowell Is Pop's Fagin


IS SIMON Cowell pop music’s Fagin?

OK!’s picture of the celebrity maker shows him being pampered by six little boys and girls.

Collectively the gang are known as Angelis. They are Simon’s little Angelis, bringing him a platter of fruit, his phones and a pot of tea.

OK! says Cowell is not really the “bad boy” of the music industry. For starters, he is well into his forties. The only boy in showbusiness still working at that age and beyond is little Jimmy Krankie, and on closer inspection he turns out to be a geriatric girl.
You see, Simon is not a breaker of wannabes’ hearts. No, he is not. Simon is the “cuddly bear” who has set out to make household names of Moray West, 11, Amy Dow, 11, Joe ...Read on at Anorak

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Paul Gascoigne Attacks


PHEW! Jade Goody has been given the all clear.

It is good of the Sun not to keep us in the dark. And one day on from hearing that lovable Jade punched a grandma in the face, the Sun tells us that she is dong fine.

“Fighting fit” Jade Goody has been given the all-clear from bowel- cancer.

As reported in these pages, Jade was having tummy troubles. And while many feared a rogue kebab had done its damnedest, there was talk of something even worse.

Jade went in for “a barrage” of tests at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex.

Jade was worried. What could be wrong? Did Jade’s troubled mind cause her to lash out at the Edmonton Odeon, the scene of her granny bashing? Can too much curry sauce be bad for belly and brain?
We waited. We fretted. We paced... More on Anorak
REMEMBER when Paul Gascoigne was the cheeky, emotional Geordie who would deliver the World Cup to English hands?

If you can’t recall Gazza in his pomp, then looking at the Star’s cover photo of the pasty former footballer in the company of the local constabulary will not help your memory.

“BOOZY GAZZA’S RACIST BRAWL,” announces the Star’s front page. “Stars nicked after 4am row with ‘black #@*!’ snapper.

It seems that we are not the only ones unable to understand a word that tumbles from mumbling Gazza’s mouth. But looking within the paper we learn that rather than uttering a series of hash marks, asterisks and exclamations, Gazza was heard to call a cameraman a “black c****”. He is then said to have struck another cameraman (identified in the Sun as one Stephen Walters) in a “drunken rage”.

And so to the scene of this latest incident in Gazza’s chequered career. The venue is Boujis nightclub, hangout for royal princes, socialites and chinless wonders.
Gazza stumbles out. It is 3.30am. He, allegedly, punches ... More on Anorak

Britney Falls Out


“BRITNEY’S doomed love,” says the Sun.

Britney Spears, for it is she, has filed for divorce from the man known to her as Kevin Federline and as K-Ferret to you, the greater rap music community.

Over eight pictures, readers see Britney and K-Ferret eating burgers, buried in sand, cuddling and pushing a buggy. There’s Britney sat astride her man. There’s Britney rubbing her man’s shorts and sticking her tongue out. There’s Britney looking miserable. There’s Kevin in a vest.

Of course, this is not Britney’s first doomed love. And the Sun recalls the name Jason Alexander, Britney’s husband of 55 hours, and tells us about “A TALE OF TWO WEDDINGS”.

It was the best of dos, it was the worst of dos, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, it was the epoch of hits, it was the age of flops - respectively. It was Britney’s marriage to Jason, it was Britney’s marriage to Kevin.
It was a time of annulment, it was a time to a text message. Yes, as the Mirror reports, Britney dumped husband No. 2 by text.
The Mirror sees Kev talking about his new album. He is being filmed for Canadian TV. His mobile... More on Anorak

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Michael Jackson's Back


GRAB your crotch and squeal like a girl, it’s Michael Jackson.

The Sun says that “pop weirdo” Jacko has agreed to appear at something called The World Music Awards.

Like you, we have no idea what these awards represent, but we do know that Jackson has agreed to perform at them. And we also know that the show is to be staged in London’s Earl’s Court next week.

This means that Jackson will be placing his feet on our pure British soil. “BEAT IT, JACKO,” says the Sun. We don’t want your sort here. We run a clean house.

But Jackson is not listening. And neither are the event organisers who will present the singer with the Choppard Diamond Award for the artist who has sold more than 100million records.

It thus appears that the World Music Awards is an AGM for global music sellers. And after Jackson receives his bonus for exceeding the group’s sales target, perhaps Phil Collins will he handed a gold clock and Elton John given an award for equal opportunities and best funeral music.
But for now all eyes are on Jackson, making his first public performance since... More on Anorak

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Madonna's Gaps


THERE are only a few things we do not know about Madonna.

And if she would be so good as to tell us a) the number of hairs on her head, b) whether she brushes her teeth at the top first or the bottom, and c) the state of her father’s health, we will be able to complete the pop chameleon’s jigsaw.

And already the Sun is on the case. And we read that Madonna is to meet her sick dad. He’s being treated for cancer. More precisely, Tony Ciccone has been receiving chemotherapy after surgery for colon cancer. He’s staying at the Leelanau County Hospital in Michigan, close to his home.
A source tells the paper that Tony is responding well to treatment. “But,” notes the Sun’s showbiz and medical expert, “clearly, this is a...More on Anorak

Jamie Oliver's Take-Away


ANYONE know what Jamie Oliver’s children eat at their Hampstead school?

And if they do take in packed lunches, how much polenta and halloumi salad you need to buy one stick of KitKat chocolate-coated wafer? And if, indeed, such a playground trade is ever fair on the KitKat owner?

Whatever the rate of exchange at Jamie’s nippers’ school, the Mail tells us that thanks to the cook the take up of KitKats among schoolchildren is on the up.


A survey by the BBC shows that because schools dinners have been so roundly panned by the celebrity cook, school meal take-up has fallen by as much as.... More at Anorak

Anne Hathaway Explains


THERE is more than a hint of Liza Minnelli about Anne Hathaway, the American actress and star of haute predictable fashion movie The Devil Wears Prada.

In the movie Hathaway plays a fashion leper from the region of America known among fashionistas as “The Flyover States”.

Minnelli was nominated for her first Academy Award at age twenty-three for the role of Pookie Adams in The Sterile Cuckoo (1969).

Hathaway is 23 and has as much chance of winning an Oscar for her role in The Devil Wears Prada as she does of marrying William Shakespeare.


But, Like Minnelli, whose heavy kohl-eyed look she shares, Hathaway has a certain simpering charm. And in conversation with Hello!, we can more on Anorak

Monday, November 06, 2006

Wanking For Britain


WHAT did you do in the war?

“Well, son,” says the grandfather as he dandle’s the nipper on his aged knee. “I tuned into Channel 4 news and Sky news. I saw action on both sides, son.”

“I also tuned into the Fantasy Channel and gave and gave again to the cause.”

As the Star reports (“YOUR COUNTRY SEEDS YOU”), “brave” British soldiers are being recruited to alleviate a national sperm crisis.

The story is illustrated with a picture of Lord Kitchener issuing his call to arms from that famous “YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU” First World War recruitment poster.

If that is not enough to get the juices flowing, the Star has pictures of topless Michelle and Emily.

And thanks to the power of the telephone, our squaddies can become still further aroused by dialling a premium rate number and hearing Michelle and Emily say what they do in a typical day. Dreaming of squaddies is bound to feature highly.

Of course, this may not be great news for one and all. In a recent article for the Times, former footballer Tony Cascarino regaled us with news that before a match one seasoned pro would engage in a little tension breaker in the privacy of a toilet cubicle.

On the other hand, there are other sportsmen, notably boxers, who avoid all female involvement until the fight is over.

Where female sportsmen stand or sit on this heated debate is a furrow of sporting endeavour left unploughed.
But why is the soldiers’ sperm needed, you cry? And how will it save... Read on at www.anorak.co.uk

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Madonna Family Advice - www.bbdo.co.uk


Tony Blair Remembers

MONDAY and Tony Blair was writing in the Sun. He was issuing an ultimatum: “Pay up or the planet gets it.”

The madman would destroy us all! Tony’s weather machine can do its damndest but surely in killing the planet he kills everyone, not just criminals, Tories and fat people.

“Today the Government will publish the most important report on the future which I have received since becoming Prime Minister,” wrote Tony.

It was more important than John Prescott’s integrated transport policy and Euan’s school report? It was that important. The Sun’s customary tales of celebrities and telly could wait a while.

“The Stern report should be seen across the globe as the final word on why the world must act now to limit the damage we are doing to our planet,” said Tony.

We were getting a Stern warning from some chap who was once an economist at the ambitious World Bank.

As Tony said, Nicolas Stern’s report was the last word on all things environmental. It will go down in history as the report that led to the resuscitation of planet Earth after years of human abuse. And Tony’s name would feature prominently.

The choice was clear: we could either follow Stern’s advice or else ignore it and move on to our certain doom.

Not a single word more would be said on the matter. No more trees would be pulped for reports. No more hot air would be spouted by tree-hugging politicos. No more would we hear stories about how humanity should be given an Asbo for mugging Mother Nature.

Phew! “Ferdrwch chji ddeud ... www.anorak.co.uk

Read the Anorak

Friday, November 03, 2006

Kate Moss Invades


“TO me, it’s baffling that someone who helps cause so much pain in Colombia is doing better then ever,” says Francisco Santos, Colombia’s vice president.

Indeed. Before Kate Moss was filmed in a London recording studio chopping lines of what might have been cocaine, Colombia was an innocent place.

Sure, Colombia was the world’s foremost cultivator of coca and coca derivatives, but the farmers and cartels had no more links with the trade in drugs than Wernher Von Braun could be blamed for where his World War 2 rockets came down.

Post-Kate, Colombia is embroiled in the trafficking of drugs. Large swathes of the countryside are under guerrilla influence

Kate has much to answer for. And Santos would like an apology. Says he: “I never once heard her says ‘I’m sorry’, when in Colombia people die every day because of cocaine consumption – that hurts.”

It is hard not to feel Senor Santos’ pain. What hopes have new incentives in agriculture and ten year integrated transport policies against the power of Kate Moss? None, we’d wager.
But Kate is too busy to say sorry. As the... read on at www.anorak.co.uk

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Best In Shows


THE National Television Awards, rightly billed in the Mirror as the “telly Oscars”, occupy the Mirror’s front page.

The warning is of a “GLITZ ALERT!” And ready and willing to be bedazzled by the orangey glow we turn the page and note that Noel Edmonds and his Deal or No Deal show have won the award for Most Popular Daytime Programme.

In Oscar terms, this is right up there on the glitz-ometer with the Oscar for best technical lighting in a foreign language drama. And we applaud Noel long and loud into the night.

And we learn that Top Gear has scooped the gong for Most Popular Factual Programme. The show’s presenter Jeremy Clarkson has a few words for Richard Hammond, his co-host. Says Clarkson: “Richard knows we’ve won and he’s absolutely thrilled. Now he’s won he thinks he is Napoleon and can conquer all of Europe.”

In his weakened condition, Hammond may even think he looks good in a sky blue silk negligee. The telly awards are less about who wins what as who wear what, or wears the least.
And the Sun leads with a girl called “Emmerdale’s Roxanne”, who dressed in a sky blue silk negligee would not look out of place more on Anorak

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Heather Mills Attacked

CALL Jonathan Ross.

It is the ongoing matter of UK celebrities versus Heather Mills. And the court summons Jonathan Ross to the dock at the Q Awards.

Before a room of her peers, Ross announced: “Heather Mills McCartney – what a f***ing liar. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found she’s actually got two legs”... more on Anorak

Prince William Loses It


MORE Royal news now as we learn that Prince William has lost his gun.

“Wills loses a machine gun,” says the Mail’s front page. And in case you happen along the lost firearm, the Mail produces a shot of William holding a gun believed to very much like the one he has lost. It is an L86 Light Support Weapon. It can fire 775 rounds a minute.

Many a brave and gallant soldier has lost a firearm in the white heat of battle. But we are more than little concerned to learn that Wills lost his gun “during firing practice”.

In an instant our mind transports us to the Royal Military Academy near Camberley, Surrey. We see the ranks of soldiers lined up to lay waste to the enemy. “Fire!” comes the order. “Bang!” screams William. Or “bang-bang-bang-bang etc”, what with his being a machine gun.
Of course, Wills may be lampooning more on Anorak

Monday, October 30, 2006

Wings & A Prayer


JOHN Lennon has yet to comment. And George Harrison does not wish to take sides. But Linda McCartney is back, and she’s setting out to prove that Heather Mills is a liar.

The Sun, no fan of Lady “Mucca”, says Heather Mills’ “far-fetched claims” that Paul McCartney hit his late wife Linda are “rebutted – in the words of Linda herself”.

Dim the lights. Form a circle. Hold hands. And listen up as Linda wades into the debate.

“Paul’s biggest fault is that he is so sensitive to criticism,” says Linda, perhaps adding a ghostly whoooooo! (It is Halloween).
“It never ceases to amaze me... When Paul dies, the critics will praise him to the heights. Until then, they will ... more on Anorak

Sunday, October 29, 2006

The Tabloid Week


WHEN Richard Hammond attempted to drive from Elvington airfield, near York, to Australia the hard way, the papers looked on with furrowed brows.

Would Richard make it? Would Top Gear, the TV show he presents, be cancelled? Would he add his name to the list of celebrities to have died on camera – Tommy Copper, Steve Irwin, Anthea Turner?

Well, now the questions get answered. And while the Sun talked of Hammond’s new £2million contract with the BBC, his short-term memory loss and how he said the show must go on, the Mirror led its news coverage with “The day I died.”

Hammond’s was a slow near-death experience. It went on for pages. The presenter who had put his life on the line for the noble cause of good telly was in danger of rambling.

Hours past. Then days. Monday turned into Tuesday. And Tuesday brought front-page news of “THE WIFE’S STORY”. Mindy Hammond was filing in the blanks.

Together the Hammonds were taking up a large chunk of the Mirror’s news coverage.

The story of the phantom “poo pest” was easy to miss. A man was wanted in connection with £60,000 worth of damage to trains.

“His modus operandi is to wait until he is alone before defecating in the carriage and smearing seats and walls,” said the paper.
Who was he? The new enfant terrible of the British art scene, taking over from ... more on Anorak

Friday, October 27, 2006


FORGET Paul McCartney versus Heather Mills. If you want to see a marriage really implode, you have to travel back to the time of Henry VIII, or to modern day America.

In what it claims as an exclusive, the Sun takes a look at the divorce of David Hasselhoff and Pamela Bach.

The case against The Hoff can be summed up in the Sun’s teaser: “Star ‘beat wife, gave her herpes and peed his pants.”

We have no shots of this alleged wife beating and herpes, but the Sun does reproduce that picture from last July of Hasselhoff waiting for a flight with a noticeable wet path on the crotch of his jeans.
At the time we believed this wetness had been caused by The Hoff pulling his jeans over his wet swimming trucks. We even advised that in future Hasselhoff may care to wear his trunks on the outside of his trousers in a manner more befitting his status. But now we open our minds to a new more on Anorak

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Crewel Luck

“THE role of the modern Member of Parliament has changed a great deal in recent years,” says Greg Barker, MP for Bexhill and Battle, on his website.

He goes on to say that “I am also very active locally” and invites locals to “get in touch”.

The sticky fingers of adolescence are never far from UK politics, and, as the Mail reports on its front page, Mr Barker has left his wife of 14 years for a decorator.

Inside the paper, the decorator has been elevated to the status of “interior designer”. Perhaps losing her man to a decorator is too hard for Celeste Barker, Barker’s wife and mother to their three children? An interior designer is much more the ticket. Better still if Celeste could lose Barker to a leading light in the British aubusson movement.

But whatever the profession of the mistress, Celeste, described by one source as “your typical, loyal Conservative wife”, will surely find it hard to accept that she has been left for a man.

“She is completely devastated,” says the source. “It came completely out of the blue. Nobody had any idea that Barker was gay.”

Nobody? We can think of at least two people who had a pretty fair idea that the honourable member had gone the gay way.
And the Mail catches up with one of them, namely more on Anorak

Rod Stewart Wallops McCartney


HAVING secured the support of Cilla Black, actor Victor Spinetti and Kate Moss, the Star brings news that other are lining up to stand by Paul McCartney.

“WALLOP HER!” says the headline above the news that Rod Stewart has pinned his tartan colours to Paul’s mast.

Say twice-divorced Rod: “I am sure that Paul is not a wife beater. He may be a drug-taker but is no wife beater.”

Rod goes on: “His name has been slurred [that must be the drugs] and I think he should fight it all the way.”

Rod, spotted in the Sun dressed in a pin-striped suit with matching hat and tartan scarf issues a wake-up call to all but the dead. Now seen in conjunction with his fiancée Penny Lancaster, and her leopard-print coat, McCartney must surely sit up and take notice of Rod.

And if Rod is not enough, there are others. And the Star hears another celebrity state her support for Paul. It’s Billie Piper.

“It’s horrible,” says Billie. “You do start to hate Heather don’t you. It’s awful.”

And truly it is. While Paul can lean... more on Anorak

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

TC Go Holmes


“TOM AND KATIE’S SECRET WEDDING,” announces the front page of the Express.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will marry, in secret, on November 18. They will marry in Italy. Although they may marry in Switzerland, the Express noting that the mention of Italy may be a “decoy”.

We could not possibly say. No, we could not. Invitations to the Cruise-Holmes do were dispatched at the weekend, and having sworn by all the powers in the galaxy (so help us L. Ron) we are unable to divulge any details. It is no exaggeration to say that breaking our oath will place humanity in great peril.

But Giorgio Armani is not known as the most fearless designer of his generation for nothing. And he tells the Express: “When I am asked by a friend to make a wedding wardrobe, it goes straight to my heart.” (Like a spaceman’s death-ray.) “It really is an honour to play small role in that milestone moment.”

And joining Giorgio will be Victoria Beckham. The Mirror tells us that Posh has flown to Los Angeles for a “secret meeting” with Katie.

Not that you will hear about it. And you will know nothing of the wedding. As Tom’s spokesman tells the Sun: “Proper security measures are being taken.”

Indeed. They will be watching you...from space... more on Anorak

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Rock 'n' Sausage Roll

WHEN Pete Doherty and Kate Moss marry and set up home together, one of their showbiz chums should get them a home therapy centre, accessed by 12 big steps.

In this space, Kate and Pete’s showbiz friends could gather to recover from the excesses of the night before. And, as is the way with therapy, they can keep coming back.

Therapy is no one-hit wonder, and we read in the Star of middle-aged rocker Courtney Love, “who has been in and out ...more on Anorak

Davie Banda - The Oprah

RIGHTLY proud to have got her figure back after having a new child, Madonna is to go on the Oprah Winfrey show to tell all.

Oprah’s sofa has been the stage for much celebrity grandstanding, such as Tom Cruise’s sofa-jump moment, and now Madonna is ready to sit on it and tell the talkshow host about her amazing life with Davie Banda.

With three children by three different fathers living on three different continents, Madonna is every inch the more on anorak

Wayne's Parade


WAYNE Rooney’s 21st birthday party promises to be quite some thing.

In readiness for the do, the Sun notes that Wayne’s whale-voiced lover Coleen McLoughlin has been out shopping.

“LOOK WHAT I GOT ROO,” says the headline. It’s “Coleen’s megabucks birthday gift spree”. And sure enough there’s a picture of Coleen pulling out all the credit cards to make Wayne’s coming of age a special day.

And the Sun knows what he’s getting. Look away now Wayne as we spot a wall-clock-sized, diamond–encrusted £30,000 Jacobs & Co Watch, a £15,000 golf simulator and a £5,000 Louis Vuitton man-bag with “lots of gold” on it.

And there will be more. After showing us what the gifts look like and telling us all about them, the Sun says, “but nobody knows for sure what her final choices were.”

But the Sun is wrong. And the Star is proud to announce on its front page that is knows exactly what Wayne will receive.

It’s “ROON’S 21 BUM SALUTE – Robbie flashes B-day boy,” announces the paper As the Star says, Coleen has a “star-studded bash” lined up to celebrate Wayne’s birthday, and chief among the guests in Robbie Williams.
And for a “sneak preview of her raunchy surprise” we turn more on Anorak

Monday, October 23, 2006

Cravats Rule


YOU join us at the haberdashery counter at a major London department store where followers of the Kabbalah movement are demanding their money back.

Clutching their red string and demanding a full cash refund, they move on to the store’s cravat section.

Scientology has arrived in London in a big way and very soon thousands of Britain’s leading celebrities will be sporting cravats in the manner of L Ron, Hubbard, the Church of Scientology’s No. 1 guy.

As the Times reports, the former home of the British and Foreign Bible Society in central London has been converted into the new headquarters of Scientology.

And yesterday the venue opened. Sadly, many of the movement’s leading lights did not attend. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and John Travolta, to name but three believers, were otherwise engaged.

But star spotters who gathered in the rain to see the centre open did get a glimpse of Hollywood actress Anne Archer, who played Michael Douglas's wife in Fatal Attraction. As the Independent says with much knowing, Anne “was raised a Christian Scientist but joined the Church of Scientology in 1976.” The Guardian spots Golden Globe nominee Jenna Elfman.
As the Guardian says, “For two hours yesterday Hollywood glitz supplanted British ... more on Anorak