chuzhuchichezhan

If fillm posters told the truth...

The NOTW story is now incredibly wide-ranging but one area on which some journalists have been trying to defend the papers is the hypocrisy of celebrities. For example Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan have criticised the intrusive behaviour of the tabloid press. They have both been criticised for complaining about the morals of the press. This becomes harder and harder to defend now we know much more about what the journalists were up to. One journalist who was honest enough to speak out was found dead yesterday. There is not reported to be anything suspicious about his death but the article below sets out just what the journalists get up to in pursuit of a story. It was always hard to take the press seriously when they lecture their readers on morals, the article below just goes to expose even more of their hypocrisy. I always wondered what might have been found had the expenses of the press been subject to the same scrutiny as that of MPs in the expenses scandal of last year. Guardian report on Sean Hoare

With that posterior if she sits on the babies they will suffocate...

Interesting to see what I wrote last September and to see how it has all exploded in the past 10 days. For anyone who has not been following it too closely, the straw that finally broke the camel's back was the revelation that NoTW journalists hacked into the phone of a girl who had gone missing and was subsequently found murdered. The fact that they did so and deleted some messages to make room for others meant that her friends and family thought she might still be alive. For anyone on this side of the pond, it has been a remarkable time when for the first time in many many years, politicians have felt released from the threat of exposure by Murdoch's empire and have been free to say what many of them have thought and what many of us have known for a long time, which is that Murdoch carries (or should that be carried) far too much power and influence over politicians who all felt, rightly or wrongly, that they had to cosy up to him to get elected and to maintain good coverage in his media outlets (primarily the tabloid press). There have been non-stop revelations in the last 10 days with further exposure of the seedy links between police (mainly the Met in London) and the Murdoch papers (police hiring Murdoch employees as advisers and Murdoch papers hiring senior policemen as columnists) and also between the Murdoch papers and some very dubious characters indeed. For far too long, these people have acted as if they felt untouchable (and it's not just the Murdoch empire, there are plenty of other tabloid papers that behaved in similar ways) and now that has all come crashing down. Indeed the Guardian newspaper has been repeatedly told that there was nothing to this story and it was just one rogue reporter - this line was also given by News International executives to a select committee in Parliament - but the whole brazen facade has been completely demolished. What I sincerely hope is that the politicians do not shy away from properly dealing with this issue and with a press (not just the Murdoch empire, though it was unquestionably the worst) that has been out of control and a law unto itself for decades. For too long they have hidden behind "press freedom" and used behind the scenes threats in order to continue to behave in an anarchic manner. The last two weeks have shattered that and I hope that the momentum and the desire for change do not let up. It's been a long time coming.

There are two well-known soccer-playing brothers in England, Gary and Phil Neville. They both used to play for Manchester United but Phil now plays for Everton. They also have a sister (Tracy) who plays netball for England. Their father is Neville Neville.

This case has been rumbling on for a long time but it's starting to get more legs now and it's shining an interesting and somewhat disturbing light on the goings on in the press. The Guardian has been pursuing it for a while, but the entry of the New York Times has given things more impetus, along with the election and change of government. When you read more detail it starts to get worrying. Apparently MPs who wanted to investigate further were "warned" by a Senior Tory that they should not pursue the matter or News International would start to probe into their own private lives. That just shows how politicians can be manipulated by the threat of press action. This just highlights the power of certain elements of the press (Murdoch primarily). When Labour was in power they did not want to upset News International and so they did not really pursue this case. Now they are out of power and now the ex editor of the News of the World is closely associated with the new Government and the Prime Minister they scent blood. What is even more murky is the apparent lack of interest of the police in pursuing this and you can easily see why. Journalists use contacts to find out about people in the public eye ("celebrities" royals, politicians, sports personalities) and you can see how some of this information could come from contacts in official or responsible positions who either "earn a little on the side" or are compromised because the press have something on them already (there have been a lot of things going on in the police in London with suggestions of discrimination on the grounds of race or sexuality plus factional infighting which the press would have reported and investigated so it's easy to see how people in the police might either be compromised or willing to feed information). The thing the NOTW did which was silly was to target the Royals and use information about trivial matters (one of William or Harry had a knee injury) which raised suspicions about how they were getting the information. Once the Royals came into the picture, the matter had to be investigated because of the security concerns and that cracked things open initially. It was pretty clear that neither the police nor News International wanted this to go further but some papers have been pursuing this doggedly and the alliance of ousted politicians and the press opponents of Murdoch (which is where the New York Times comes in) are keeping the issue alive. It's going to be interesting to see how this develops.

Are Joan Fontaine (b 1917) and Olivia de Havilland (b 1916) still not talking to each other? That must go down as the longest celebrity (family) feud. And a while after I posted the above, apparently they are still feuding

Didn't she start off on Blue Peter? For perplexed non UK persons, Blue Peter is a children's programme renowned for its "wholesomeness", if you like. It started in the '60s and is still running. It's also worth mentioned that her husband has just been declared bankrupt with about £50m debts after over-expanding in the buy to let property market.

I thought it was a euphemism at first...

Can't help feeling that Gatorade missed an opportunity there. "Drink 'Tiger Focus' and you too can focus more effectively on skanky women!"

It's not. No, it's not just both of you either. Speaking as a normal (I hope) heterosexual male, I don't find any of them attractive.

The longer she stays, the more she's gonna get. Does that include Herpes? I think she should get out but I also feel sorry for her (Elin). She has two young kids and Tiger has all the money, power and influence. That's the main reason why I can see her hanging around, because she may be worried about what might happen to the kids and her access to them should she decide to leave. BobbyD's points are good ones, especially the latter. He has potentially been putting both his health and hers at risk. One would hope that all parties involved have been sensible but the sheer number of the revelations (and there will probably be more) would raise health questions and concerns. Edited because I messed up attributions in the comments.

Indeed not. But it was not just the quality of his game, it was also how he reacts afterwards. He comes across as a very classy, down to earth guy. He's always been gracious in defeat, able to congratulate the winner and has a sense of humour in what must have been a tremendously disappointing time for him. I remember him talking about throwing the sink at Federer and Federer throwing back the rest of the bathroom (or something like that) when he lost the first Wimbledon final he played in and he was able to make a joke by apologising to Sampras yesterday. He comes away with a great deal of credit for how he conducted himself.

I think you have to do more than look into them for them to be effective :4biggrin:

From the Guardian newspaper. Fulll extract at this link "Sienna Miller has reached an out of court settlement for an invasion of privacy action against the Sun and the News of the World over a series of articles published by the papers in June and July. The high court today approved a settlement in which the papers' publisher, News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers, paid £35,000 damages to Miller and agreed to pay her legal costs." It's also interesting to note that she is suing paparazzi for harassment too. Sienna Miller sues paparazzi As part of the article it states: 'Last month Miller accepted £15,000 in damages from the Daily Star for photos published in the paper. The paper, which settled the matter out of court, admitted in a public apology that "Ms Miller was extremely harassed and distressed by persistent pursuit and intimidating tactics adopted by numerous paparazzi".' I don't have any particular opinion on Sienna Miller myself (never seen any films) but it is interesting that she's won two lots of damages against newspapers recently and particularly seems to be targetting the way in which the paparazzi operate. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the case that is still to come to court.

You highlighted the role of the Daily Mail in stoking this matter up and I don't think that should be ignored. There is a significant undercurrent of anti-BBC feeling amongst a lot of the media, principally from the Murdoch empire for commercial reasons and Associated Newspapers (Mail, Evening Standard) for political reasons. Murdoch thinks the BBC has an unfair competitive advantage because of the licence fee and Murdoch papers rarely pass up an opportunity to attack the BBC while the Mail pines for a return to a bizarre Olde Englande, largely of their imagination, where there were no immigrants or asylum seekers, no one ever ate a swan (except the Queen), everyone was law-abiding (largely because there was a friendly copper on the beat in every village in the land) where women stayed at home to clean the house and look after the children while the husband went out to earn money to look after his family. In this bizarre and wonderful world, no teenager ever became pregnant, criminals (the few that there were) were sent to prison for life (or executed if the crime was particularly heinous, such as dropping litter) and the unemployed would hop on their bikes and cycle three hundred miles to find work (which was always plentiful, you just had to get out there and find it). As a consequence of this somewhat quaint view, the Mail does not like the "lefty Liberal" BBC and will take the chance to give it a hefty kicking whenever the chance arises. I jest a touch, but you get the point.

I think I am going to change my username to evangelico loonbucket. It has a nice ring to it. Now, onto more serious matters... I agree with everything that you have written and I think that when it comes to culprits, the "popular" or mass media have a lot to answer for. The basic problem (and it is the case on both sides of the pond, I think) is that the media (by which I mean newspapers (although the US press is quite different from the UK in a lot of respects) and TV channels) have to compete for ratings/advertising and have somehow to make themselves stand out in some way and the easiest way to do this is by being as sensational/outrageous as possible. Also, I don't think we can ignore the fact that there is also a Faustian pact between a lot of these "celebs" and the media/paparazzi whereby unfavourable stories are withheld in return for picture opportunities/exclusive interviews and where media and papparazzi are tipped off so they can get pictures which make them some money. There is also the appalling phenomenon of "kiss and tell" where a lot of the lower level tabloids will pay a few thousand pounds to someone so that they will present their account of having slept with a "celebrity" or sports star. It all feeds on itself. Sadly, the fact remains that if people out there did not buy the magazines and watch the programmes then this might all go away. A couple of million people a day still buy "The Sun"and a similar number still buy the "News of the World" on Sunday. However these things do go in cycles. We've just seen a long period of economic growth and prosperity come to a crashing end and it seems more sober and difficult times are with us, one hopes that this may well lead to more sober and sensible media. I live in hope...

Actor. On our side of the pond his profile is exceptionally low. If you get Trouble on your cable at home, they endlessly repeat "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" or whatever it is (Trouble endlessly repeat everything...) and he is in that. If you check out his IMDB page there's nothing on there really that would have made any impact here. He seems pretty bland and unremarkable to me to be honest.

I didn't walk out on this one but had I been on my own and not with Mrs Chuz, I would have: The Accidental Husband. Mrs Chuz duped me into seeing it (I hadn't heard of it and had not seen any reviews and it was on at the local flea pit) and it was unutterably awful. Not only that, but it was so badly done that I swear I saw the boom mike (I think that is the technical term) about six times. ETA - I just noticed that one thread on the IMDB discussion board for this movie is entitled "WTF - the microphone was at the top of every shot!!!" On a related note, Lust, Caution was ruined for me because of the fact that they used a London taxi of a type that you can still see on the streets in the present day in one shot that was supposed to be wartime Hong Kong. What were they thinking?

Mmmm...who's the hot chick? She's kinda cute. Courtney Cox after not having shaved for a couple of days...

Agreed. I have no real idea who Faith Hill is, to be honest, but she looks fine in that first un-touched photo and the fact that they felt they had to slim down her arms is, to me, rather disturbing.

Cara, dahling (sic), any socialite worth her salt would know that the phrase is per se.

Don't know if that is photoshopped or not, but I've been "poo-ed" on twice. The first time was at Epcot Center and a crowd of pigeons flew off and one of them dumped on me. Luckily there was a gents toilet nearby and I was able to go in and wash it off. Then a couple of years back I was walking home along a road where there are a lot of trees and I felt something hit my shoulder. I thought it was a small chestnut or acorn or something and didn't think much more of it until I got home and found I'd been dumped on again on my shoulder. We were just in Venice last week, sitting in a square and having a coffee and a little sparrow dumped on my wife's arm. She had on a long sleeved top and it wasn't much from a small bird but still...

Anyone with a weak stomach, don't click this link...Crocodile bites off man's arm

I saw "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" on TV when I was a teenager and for years it was my favorite film. His performance in that movie is heartbreaking. Even though this obviously was a win for his body of work, it was long overdue. Sorry to drag this slightly off topic again but glad to see someone else loves the film. I checked it on IMDB after I posted and there are lots of people there who have discovered it recently and wrote wonderful reviews. I was reading an article the other day about the raft of great films out there that you just never see any more on TV and this would be one of them. Maybe I need to get a DVD player...