Archive for the ‘Celebs in the 'hood’ Category
Whitby’s catch: Ant and Dec
Once again to Whitby, where there’s nothing quite like the visit of two smug Geordies off the telly to get the locals excited.
Whitby Gazette, 10 January 2013 (story):
Whitby goes celebrity spotting
WHITBY went celeb-spotting this week as the nation’s favourite TV presenters turned up in town to film a new advert.
As word spread that Ant and Dec were in Whitby on Wednesday, crowds gathered outside the fish market to catch a glimpse of the duo who were shooting an advert for Morrison’s after teaming up with the supermarket last week.
The trip down the coast from their native Newcastle brought back memories for Dec who had been to Whitby before.
He added: “It was years ago when I came.”
That’s clearly a lie, you randy thing.
The visit of this so-called ‘Ant’ and his so-called friend, the so-called ‘Dec’ (real names PJ and Duncan), will be solely responsible for plummeting levels of educational attainment in the Whitby area.
Just before they headed off home they spent time posing for photographs and signing autographs for the waiting crowds.
They included Whitby Community College students Adam Clarkson, Ben Lawson-Green and Marc Butler who had ‘bunked off’ to go to see Ant and Dec.
Adam said: “We just caught him going to the toilet as we went to get a bacon sandwich.
“He told us to wait and then he shook our hands and I said I enjoyed the mullet joke but he said it got boring after the 50th time.”
Never meet your heroes: they’ll only disappoint you by shaking your hand immediately after urinating. Typical Geordies.
Bastard pensioner targets bastard aristocrats
It’s excellent to see the sophisticated OAPs of the north-east beginning to take direct action where it matters.
The Northern Echo, 21 February 2011 (story):
Water supply feud leads to pensioner’s threat to Percy family
POLICE have been alerted after a pensioner who changed his name to Bastard threatened to ruin the wedding of a North-East aristocrat.
Michael McNamara, 71, has vowed to disrupt the wedding service of Lady Katie Percy, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.
The pensioner wrote to Lady Katie – a friend of Prince William and Kate Middleton – to say he and a gang of relatives would turn up at the event.
Mr McNamara, who in recent years changed his name by Deed Poll to Michael ”Bastard” McNamara, said he was warned he faced arrest if he caused trouble.
What on earth could have led to this Bastard developing such a grudge against his rich and privileged bastard neighbours? A water supply, of course.
It is believed Mr McNamara developed a grudge against the Percy family following a dispute over the water supply at his home.
He has bombarded the Duke and Duchess, and Northumbria Police, with foul-mouthed and insulting postcards for many years.
He told The Journal in Newcastle: ”I’ve sent postcards to the police all my life. The Duchess used to get one every year but I sent one to her and her daughter last Friday.
”The police just said ‘How would you like it if they sent it to me?’
”I told them I was going to the wedding and they said that if I went I was going to get arrested. I said, ‘I will see you at the wedding’.”
No messin’. Hats off. Go on you Bastard!
Thanks to Nick Henegan.
Not really cardboard cut-out for a career in sales
This is a very sad episode in the life of Middlesbrough’s Evening Gazette.
It’s all very well that local newspapers publish classified adverts so the locals can wheel and deal in household appliances and the like, but when such adverts become the story it’s a different matter, and surely the lowest form of regional media coverage.
Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, 26 November 2010 (story):
Billingham hubby says goodbye to Angelina
A DIE-HARD Angelina Jolie fan is parting company with his beloved Lara Croft life-sized cut-out after his wife took a disliking to her.
Michael Coleman has decided to go his separate ways from the imitation Tomb Raider heroine after nine happy years together.
Michael said: “Angelina used to get quite a bit of attention from my mates. They used to think she was mint but Julie didn’t like her.”
But the couple are now planning a move to the Stevenage area, where Julie’s brother lives, and Michael has decided it’s time to say goodbye to Angelina.
Michael, of Evesham Way, Billingham, said: “Apart from my wife, Angelina is the perfect woman. I want her to go to a good home.” The unemployed kitchen and bathroom fitter, who recently qualified after completing a college course, has put the figure, his “pride and joy”, up for sale.
Is it a requirement of being a qualified kitchen and bathroom fitter that you wear a jumper which advertises your tiling skills?
Clearly, the Evening Gazette doesn’t quite command the consumer pulling power everybody thought it did:
Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, 4 January 2011 (story):
Teessiders snub Billingham ‘Angelina Jolie’ sale
ONE of the world’s most beautiful Hollywood stars has been snubbed by Teessiders.
Despite attracting a flurry of attention on the Gazette’s website after featuring in our paper, few prospective buyers put their money where their mouth was to bid for the beauty. Disappointed by the reaction, Michael, 35, and his wife Julie, of Evesham Way, have now decided she can stay put.
The unemployed kitchen and bathroom fitter said: “I thought she would have been in popular demand but we did not really get that many offers.
“She folds in half and she is on top of the wardrobe. I don’t know if we will have her on display again, if we get a games room maybe.”
The mum of seven, whose children range in age from 13 to 25, said: “When we got burgled it put the wind up me seeing her there.”
But she said: “I’m quite happy to keep hold of her. In a few years she could be worth a bit more and we can pass her down through the family.”
Julie said her grandaughter Kelsie Willans, three, even has a look of the star. She said: “The cut-out might even go to Kelsie. She will probably look like her because she is gorgeous. She has the same lips.”
Yeah, your grandaughter probably will look like Angelina Jolie, obviously.
And no doubt one day you’re going to try and flog her in the local newspaper too, are you, are you? Shameful stuff.
Forget ASBO Britain, it’s ASBO Britney
It’s been a while since The Nether Regions tackled the subject of harmless old men bearing their thighs for lucky members of the public. Dirty old men, how we have missed you.
Northampton Chronicle, 2 February 2010 (story):
‘Britney Spears’ cross-dresser charged with breaking ASBO banning him from wearing schoolgirl outfit in public
A cross-dresser has appeared in court charged with breaching an anti-social behaviour order which bans him from loitering outside primary schools in Northampton wearing a Britney Spears-style schoolgirl uniform.
Peter Trigger, aged 60, of Farndon Close in Thorplands, was barred from baring his legs in public during the school run under the terms of his five-year ASBO, which was imposed by magistrates in December 2008.
Parents walking with their children to nearby Woodvale Primary School had claimed Trigger had bent over, shown his bare thighs and indicated he was wearing no underwear.
He is banned from wearing a skirt or showing bare legs on a school day between 8.30am and 10am and between 2.45pm and 4pm.
When the initial order was made, Northampton Borough Council said he was entitled to wear whatever he wanted, but not if it caused “alarm or distress” to the public.
My alarm or distress is killing me… and I, I must confess…
He’s definitely still more sane than the real Britney, mind you.
Parrotting on
Be careful if you’re out and about in the Manchester area: you could be accosted and taught naughty diction at any moment.
Who’s a fucking pretty boy then, knobhead?
Manchester Evening News, 30 June 2010 (story):
Oh ****! Charlie the swearing parrot takes off
Charlie the foul-mouthed parrot has embraced an f-word which has got his owner in a real flap – flying.
Melissa Todd was warned about the African Grey’s industrial language – which has made him an internet hit – when she bought him from a pet shop a year ago.
But she was assured that one talent he did not have was flying.
Now pub worker Melissa, 29, is hunting for her pet after he took off from his perch in the garden of her Bury home. She is even offering a reward for his safe return.
It turns out the parrot in question is something of a celebrity, meaning the Manchester Evening News has been able to combine three of the most successful themes of great regional news:
- domestic pet-based happenings;
- home-grown celebrity status; and
- silly season frivolity.
As combos go, these equal regional news dreamland.
Melissa said the family had taken Charlie, who has distinctive red tail feathers, into the garden at about 1pm on Monday. But he took fright after hearing a sudden noise and has not been seen since.
Thousands of fans have logged on to YouTube to hear Charlie’s catchphrases, which include phrases like ‘shut up’ – as well as a range of four-letter word insults.
Next week he comes up before the beak in a documentary called My Pet Shame about embarrassing animals.
Experts try to break Charlie’s swearing habit in the show, presented by Gavin And Stacey actress Joanna Page. The parrot is supposed to be appearing in a follow-up programme to test whether his behaviour has improved.
Melissa said she had no idea whether Charlie could ever be cured.
Fish and loaves-ing in, er, Durham’s Millennium Place
Thank you to Michael Laverick for this story which proves adults will go to great lengths to find excuses to eat food aimed at children.
Sunderland Echo, 24 May 2010 (story):
The miracle of the fish-finger sandwiches
Hungry shoppers were treated to fish-finger sandwiches in an unusual recreation of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand.
The 21st-century take on the Biblical loaves and fishes miracle took place to promote Durham Mysteries, a series of plays starting this week.
Five hundred fish-finger sandwiches were handed out to passers-by in Durham’s Millennium Place by Jesus lookalike Edward Davies.
Next week they’ll be turning water into Schloer, no doubt.
If only Jesus himself had been fortunate enough to have access to sliced white bread and a fan oven. No miracle required, and the five thousand would have gone home with the spring in the step that comes with having breadcrumbs in one’s stomach.
And there’s no way that girl’s fitting all of that in her mouth.
Nappy flash
Never underestimate the power of a good e-fit.
Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, 4 April 2008 (story):
Efit released of ‘flasher’ nappy man who dropped his trousers
THIS is the face of a ‘flasher’ who dropped his trousers to reveal a nappy to two young girls.
The girls were walking near Levendale Primary School in Yarm just after 9pm on Thursday, February 28, when a man came out of nearby bushes and dropped his tracksuit bottoms.
He was wearing a nappy and asked the girls if they would change it for him. He then ran off.
At least three reports have been made to police about a nappy-wearing man who has struck in the Eaglescliffe, Yarm and Ingleby Barwick areas.
Now Cleveland Police have spoken with at least one school in the area and are appealing for help.
Onlookers will be delighted to note that, since the publication of this story and e-fit two years ago, the culprit was quickly caught and sentenced to four years running London.
The man is a disgrace. Even more so than anyone thought.
Christ! Ee bah gum
Jesus seems to be popping up everywhere these days; he gets where water doesn’t.
Plymouth Herald, 5 April 2010 (story):
Family says ‘face of Jesus’ appeared in Mum’s gum
A FAMILY have told of their wonder at finding ‘Jesus staring at us’ from a piece of chewing gum on Good Friday.
Nelly Noden had been chewing her gum but left it on the mantelpiece while she ate some crisps.
When she returned, the gum had turned into an image she believes resembles Christ.
“The second I put my eye on it, I could see it,” said the mother-of-two, from Beacon Park.
“I’d just got back from going the shops to buy a few things to eat when, as usual, I put my gum on the mantelpiece to have some Pringles,” she said.
“I went to pick it up again and Jesus was just there, staring at me.
“We couldn’t believe it – especially as it was Good Friday.”
I suppose it’s reasonable that, if anyone was likely to be chosen for a little divine intervention, it would be someone with a ritual of sticking their gum to a mantelpiece in order to eat Pringles.
But does it really look like Jesus? You be the judge:
Jesus Christ can also be found on the underside of school classroom desks up and down the land. Typical – always the last place you bloody look…
Daughter Charni, 16, excitedly called The Herald to relate the story.
She said: “We can’t believe how much it looks like Jesus; we’ve been telling everyone about it.”
Nelly said: “Me and my daughters were jumping around the room.”
The family say they are not religious, but thought it was special that it happened at Easter time, and also on the day before Nelly’s birthday. She said: “It was a real moment.”
The Nodens say they have kept the piece of gum as a memento.
Stop the world – I want to get off.
Immortalised in Lego
Troubled singer Amy Winehouse has enough on her plate without this.
Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, 9 April 2010 (story):
Darlington student makes Lego Amy Winehouse
SINGER Amy Winehouse has been immortalised in Lego thanks to a budding artist. Justin Ramsden has been fascinated by Lego since he discovered the joy of destroying his brother’s models as a boy.
Now as an art and design student at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, in Darlington, Justin believes Lego is more than a children’s toy – it can be used as a powerful art form.
As part of his BTEC course in art and design Justin chose to design a full-sized bust of a British icon out of 3,000 pieces of Lego.
He said: “I’ve been a fan for a while and she is quite cult British even though she does mess her life around so I decided to build Amy”, said Justin, 19, from Darlington.
The article’s dubious claim that it’s possible to be ‘immortalised in Lego’ is further discredited towards the end of the report:
Justin can’t afford to keep the models he has made and has to destroy them so he has enough Lego for his next project.
This is just typical of Britain’s ‘build them up to knock them down’ attitude towards celebrity.
And this online comment is wonderfully typical of Britain’s attitude towards students, drugs, sense of nationhood, and toilets.
The Incredible Hulk
There’s no doubt about it, eyewitness accounts are dumbing down. First it was police in Bolton on the hunt for someone ‘white and large’, and now this.
Derby Telegraph, 15 March 2010 (story):
‘The hulk’ bit off my nose
A REVELLER has spoken of his horror at having part of his nose bitten off by a man who witnesses say looked like The Hulk.
Detective Constable Manjit Johal said: “A search of the dance floor was carried out but the nose was not found.
“The victim can’t recall any clothing but a lot of witnesses have told us that he had a ripped top and looked like The Hulk.
“We assume this lad has got a taxi at about 1am, and we would like to hear from taxi drivers if they remember taking someone home who looks like The Hulk.”
Judging by the average crowd in Booze Britain’s town centres at weekends, the Derbyshire Constabulary will no doubt have been inundated with calls.
Thank you to Mary Harmon.
