The blacking up of Kate Moss for Giorgio Armani's "guest-edited" edition of The Independent the other week (see previous posting) has been criticised by website blacklooks.org.
Under the category of Racism, the site headlines its report with: "We dont want a real black woman - i mean nah! so we got kate moss and painted her black instead." One of many commentators, Sokari, writes:
"This is even more disturbing as it is part of a trend for white celebrities to use Blackness and Africa in this insiduous way. Whether it is Jolie acting the part of a woman of colour or Paltrow 'dressing up as an African woman' and defining herself as such or Moss. It seems to me that there is a shift in the boundaries of racism whereby it is acceptable for whiteness to appropriate and act out blackness in these ways. African and Blackness has always been consumed through art, dress, music and so on but now it has gone beyond that to our identities. I would not be surprised if painting yourself black becomes a fashion trend like dreadlocks. I dont know how but I think these are issues we need to challenge ."
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Galloway's pretty Castro book
George Galloway's Fidel Castro Handbook crashes onto my desk - for a small book it's physically very weighty, likely to cause much damage or injury if dropped from a high spot.
It's cleverly and beautifully packaged as a bonsai gift book by MQ Publications, too heavy (literally) as a stocking filler or a loo read, and just too pretty as a socialist billet doux to the Cuban leader: homo-erotic doesn't begin to describe George's love for Fidel and his revolution. But its mirror-effect front cover typography would make it an attractive, free-standing light reflector, casting pretty word patterns upon a cocktail cabinet if positioned beneath a recessed spotlight, or whatever.
Its 400-odd pages (fabulously illustrated by the way) yield no space for coverage of Cuba's less than exemplary human rights record, a fact that implicity causes Mr Galloway no unease whatever. Human Rights Watch reports:
"The Cuban government systematically denies its citizens basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, movement, and a fair trial. It restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent, and uses police warnings, surveillance, short term-detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment as methods of enforcing political conformity."
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/10/cuba10306.htm
It's cleverly and beautifully packaged as a bonsai gift book by MQ Publications, too heavy (literally) as a stocking filler or a loo read, and just too pretty as a socialist billet doux to the Cuban leader: homo-erotic doesn't begin to describe George's love for Fidel and his revolution. But its mirror-effect front cover typography would make it an attractive, free-standing light reflector, casting pretty word patterns upon a cocktail cabinet if positioned beneath a recessed spotlight, or whatever.
Its 400-odd pages (fabulously illustrated by the way) yield no space for coverage of Cuba's less than exemplary human rights record, a fact that implicity causes Mr Galloway no unease whatever. Human Rights Watch reports:
"The Cuban government systematically denies its citizens basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, movement, and a fair trial. It restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent, and uses police warnings, surveillance, short term-detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment as methods of enforcing political conformity."
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/10/cuba10306.htm
What gave Tom Parker Bowles an erection?
Tom Parker Bowles is pushing his book The Year of Eating Dangerously - his chronicle of munching disgusting things.
"It started with a pea" is the first sentence - and for me the last by preference. One of the dedicatees is "Camilla Cornwall" - the Duchess of Cornwall surely? - his mummy. She's the only reason why Ebury have brought out this eye-glazingly dull and pointless book. It's a publishing trophy book, a Trojan "name" book. How sad that an editor wearing a hair band went through Oxbridge to end up editing this.
When I meet him he says he would love to have a TV food show - he declaims one interesting thing: "There is a lot of low end, bad cooking TV out there ... I could definitely live without Ready, Steady, Cook. It's terrible."
The other revelation is that although the Korean taste for dog fills him with revulsion, he wouldn't mind dining on Chihuahua - "These mutts are asking to be thrown in the pot," he writes.
Then on p218/9 things get a bit interesting - he has an erection. This is the result of eating dog soup - not Corgi presumably. "As I walk, my ego starts to swell too, engorging into a proud tumesecence. I start to imagine a Ready Brek glow emanating from every pore ... " Ready Brek? How odd. Anyway ... "The stirring of my loins ... I've discounted all the 'fucky fuck' chat as rubbish, just like any other so-called aphrodisiac. But I have to admit, I feel mighty perky."
He then goes to bed but fails to say whether he has a wank before sleep.
"It started with a pea" is the first sentence - and for me the last by preference. One of the dedicatees is "Camilla Cornwall" - the Duchess of Cornwall surely? - his mummy. She's the only reason why Ebury have brought out this eye-glazingly dull and pointless book. It's a publishing trophy book, a Trojan "name" book. How sad that an editor wearing a hair band went through Oxbridge to end up editing this.
When I meet him he says he would love to have a TV food show - he declaims one interesting thing: "There is a lot of low end, bad cooking TV out there ... I could definitely live without Ready, Steady, Cook. It's terrible."
The other revelation is that although the Korean taste for dog fills him with revulsion, he wouldn't mind dining on Chihuahua - "These mutts are asking to be thrown in the pot," he writes.
Then on p218/9 things get a bit interesting - he has an erection. This is the result of eating dog soup - not Corgi presumably. "As I walk, my ego starts to swell too, engorging into a proud tumesecence. I start to imagine a Ready Brek glow emanating from every pore ... " Ready Brek? How odd. Anyway ... "The stirring of my loins ... I've discounted all the 'fucky fuck' chat as rubbish, just like any other so-called aphrodisiac. But I have to admit, I feel mighty perky."
He then goes to bed but fails to say whether he has a wank before sleep.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Russell Brand's scrotal shave guide
Oh my! The Heat 2007 Annual arrives! Lovely pictures, zany interviews! What a mag! Russell Brand's asked what body hair he's removed. Reply (children turn away ... ):
"None! But it's good manners to trim your pubic hair. I don't remove it, though, I cultivate it. Prune it, nurture it. One of the papers said I shave my ballbag, which was strange. Someone did it to me once, but it's dangerous - you have to pull it taut and rake a razor up it. But women are more inclined to pop it in their gobs, so there is an upside."
"None! But it's good manners to trim your pubic hair. I don't remove it, though, I cultivate it. Prune it, nurture it. One of the papers said I shave my ballbag, which was strange. Someone did it to me once, but it's dangerous - you have to pull it taut and rake a razor up it. But women are more inclined to pop it in their gobs, so there is an upside."
Gilchrist the Pedalling Nazi
Rod "Umpteen Jags" Gilchrist, the retired deputy editor of the Mail on Sunday, has turned into a "Pedalling Nazi", if we are to believe the October issue of Saga Magazine. Introduced as a "mild-mannered man" by someone with a droll sense of humour, Gilchrist has penned a Confessions piece about how he becomes a raving lunatic once he's on the mountain bike his old paper gifted him - along with the high six-figure pay-off last year.
"After a lifetime of meeting deadlines, conforming at work, being responsible, being a good Boy Scout, my optimum compaction carbon-fibre frame seemingly wills me to break all society's rules. I am gripped by an overwheleming urge to behave badly," he writes. He then describes how he scatters pedestrians, ignores lollypop ladies and disobeys traffic rules that "displease me".
Age plainly has not mellowed the whippet-thin Gilchrist, it would seem. Even now the psychic among his former colleagues at Derry Street claim still to hear his shrieks and ravings, perhaps etherically impregnated into the walls forever - what Derek Acorah calls "residual energy". He wasn't a total brute in the least but it didn't take much to set off his ear-splitting tantrums - so his psycho cycling is a reassuring sign that he still hyper-ventilates with vigour.
Gilchrist's verbal assault on the grand Victoria Mather (now Vanity Fair's travel ed) back in 2004 is worth recalling. At an Argentine embassy bash he charged up to her and launched into a filthy-mouthed tirade, denouncing her for "going on television and talking cock". Mather had taken part in a BBC brekkie show criticising journos who accept travel freebies.
This must have touched a raw nerve - Gilchirst in his many years as a writing editor gained a notoriety for his Phileas Fogg ligging and was in fact banned from writing about his subsidised travels in 2004 by the Mail on Sunday. Whether he continued to write these pieces under the nom-de-plume James Fawcett I cannot comment.
"After a lifetime of meeting deadlines, conforming at work, being responsible, being a good Boy Scout, my optimum compaction carbon-fibre frame seemingly wills me to break all society's rules. I am gripped by an overwheleming urge to behave badly," he writes. He then describes how he scatters pedestrians, ignores lollypop ladies and disobeys traffic rules that "displease me".
Age plainly has not mellowed the whippet-thin Gilchrist, it would seem. Even now the psychic among his former colleagues at Derry Street claim still to hear his shrieks and ravings, perhaps etherically impregnated into the walls forever - what Derek Acorah calls "residual energy". He wasn't a total brute in the least but it didn't take much to set off his ear-splitting tantrums - so his psycho cycling is a reassuring sign that he still hyper-ventilates with vigour.
Gilchrist's verbal assault on the grand Victoria Mather (now Vanity Fair's travel ed) back in 2004 is worth recalling. At an Argentine embassy bash he charged up to her and launched into a filthy-mouthed tirade, denouncing her for "going on television and talking cock". Mather had taken part in a BBC brekkie show criticising journos who accept travel freebies.
This must have touched a raw nerve - Gilchirst in his many years as a writing editor gained a notoriety for his Phileas Fogg ligging and was in fact banned from writing about his subsidised travels in 2004 by the Mail on Sunday. Whether he continued to write these pieces under the nom-de-plume James Fawcett I cannot comment.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Kissinger: 'Operation Breakfast'
I wake up to the blessed Bob Woodward's voice on Radio 4. He's pushing his book State of Denial which reveals that Bush has tried to cover up the undenied fact that there are 7-900 insurgent attacks in Iraq a week. Thanks to Woodward we now know that one of Bush's principal advisers on Iraq is Dr Henry Kissinger - he meets Dick Cheney about once a month, has met up with Bush about 20 times in the past 2-3 years. "Victory is the best exit strategy" is Dr Death's advice. Woodward thinks Kissinger's "fighting Vietnam all over again".
It's as well to remember that Kissinger won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1973, an outrage that even Swift might not have dared to dream up for one of his satires had he lived through the Nixon period. History amnesiacs or the neo-conned may relish the following then -taken from the New Internationalist, 2002:
"Evidence shows that Kissinger sabotaged the 1968 Vietnam peace talks which allowed the US -Vietnam War to drag on for another four years. Three million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans were killed in that conflict. There is also proof that Kissinger personally persuaded Nixon to extend the war to Cambodia and Laos which led to another million civilian deaths. The secret bombing raids were given nauseating code names like 'Operation Breakfast'.
"After one raid, Nixon's chief of staff HR Haldeman wrote in his diary: 'Historic day, K's "Operation Breakfast" finally came off at 2:00pm... K really excited... he came beaming in with the report, very productive. 'The raids killed 350,000 civilians in Laos and more than 600,000 in Cambodia'."
It's as well to remember that Kissinger won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1973, an outrage that even Swift might not have dared to dream up for one of his satires had he lived through the Nixon period. History amnesiacs or the neo-conned may relish the following then -taken from the New Internationalist, 2002:
"Evidence shows that Kissinger sabotaged the 1968 Vietnam peace talks which allowed the US -Vietnam War to drag on for another four years. Three million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans were killed in that conflict. There is also proof that Kissinger personally persuaded Nixon to extend the war to Cambodia and Laos which led to another million civilian deaths. The secret bombing raids were given nauseating code names like 'Operation Breakfast'.
"After one raid, Nixon's chief of staff HR Haldeman wrote in his diary: 'Historic day, K's "Operation Breakfast" finally came off at 2:00pm... K really excited... he came beaming in with the report, very productive. 'The raids killed 350,000 civilians in Laos and more than 600,000 in Cambodia'."
Friday, October 06, 2006
The X Factor: How to sell a corset
A PR firm writes to Madame Arcati:
"The third television series of The X Factor is well underway, and on the 7th October the Judges Houses shows will be broadcast on ITV1 at 6.10pm and 8.30pm. These will feature eighties pop star Sinitta who will be appearing as a member of Simon Cowell's panel.
"The glamorous Sinitta has her own distinctive style, and what more perfect a garment could she wear than a Court Royal corset, specially designed with diamante patterns to complement her natural sparkle. 'Arpana's corset was amazing to wear, I felt curvaceous and deliciously feminine in Miami - so much so I rushed back to choose different colours and fabrics so I can wear them for other special occasions!!' says Sinitta.
"In fact, even Simon Cowell couldn't fail to notice the dramatic appeal of the corset, after Sinitta made her entrance in the outfit during the filming of the show.
"The corset has been around for over 300 years, adored and famous for its ability to reduce waists, flatter curves, and add shape to every lady .... "
I'm sure Sinitta will look very becoming in her diamante corset. But shouldn't viewers be told she's a walking advert? And I wonder how many Court Royal corset items will be appearing in the press in the next few days?
"The third television series of The X Factor is well underway, and on the 7th October the Judges Houses shows will be broadcast on ITV1 at 6.10pm and 8.30pm. These will feature eighties pop star Sinitta who will be appearing as a member of Simon Cowell's panel.
"The glamorous Sinitta has her own distinctive style, and what more perfect a garment could she wear than a Court Royal corset, specially designed with diamante patterns to complement her natural sparkle. 'Arpana's corset was amazing to wear, I felt curvaceous and deliciously feminine in Miami - so much so I rushed back to choose different colours and fabrics so I can wear them for other special occasions!!' says Sinitta.
"In fact, even Simon Cowell couldn't fail to notice the dramatic appeal of the corset, after Sinitta made her entrance in the outfit during the filming of the show.
"The corset has been around for over 300 years, adored and famous for its ability to reduce waists, flatter curves, and add shape to every lady .... "
I'm sure Sinitta will look very becoming in her diamante corset. But shouldn't viewers be told she's a walking advert? And I wonder how many Court Royal corset items will be appearing in the press in the next few days?
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Is Kelvin a repressed homosexual?
I am distressed to see that the bloated, homophobic, racist, bullying, misogynistic Kelvin Mackenzie is not exactly setting the publishing world alight with his John Prescott Kama Sutra guide. It stands at about 20,000 in the Amazon sales charts after about a fortnight out - perhaps because the Prescott shenanigans were a great deal more comic than his cock-obsessed puerility.
I have often wondered about Kelvin. For it was during his editorship of the Sun that the paper came up with the "lunchbox" appellation for male athletes' genital bulges. What tickled him especially was the puppet show of jockstrap-free cocks and balls jiggling against Lycra shorts on the racetrack. I recall pictures of athletic lunchboxes everywhere in the paper at one point - black athletic lunchboxes especially
You could well imagine his ghastly porcine flushed face sweating profusely over slow-mo re-run footage on his box - his TV box I mean. What was it that fascinated him so much? I wonder if one of his favourite films is Deliverance.
But back to publishing. His Kama Sutra book is published by the one-time cocaine hoovering ex-People editor John Blake - his face a Mount Rushmore testament to a life spent sleepless. He's not at all a bad booksman - it was he who spotted the kerching factor in Jordan's memoirs (itself a celebrity cock size guide) and he has done much to awaken UK publishing to the tabloid trough.
The only problem with Blake is that he's not always the most enthusiatic marketing man in the world. It was a running joke for years that once he'd flogged a book extract to one of the tabs he was thereafter scarcely interested in book sales. In Kelvin's case I don't sense any Blake interest at all. For instance, go to any of the internet bookshops - Amazon, StudyNet, Tesco etc - and you won't find a single cover illustration anywhere - "No image available" is the explanation.
Tsk. Anyone might think that he'd only published Mackenzie's book as a favour to a media big-mouth.
I have often wondered about Kelvin. For it was during his editorship of the Sun that the paper came up with the "lunchbox" appellation for male athletes' genital bulges. What tickled him especially was the puppet show of jockstrap-free cocks and balls jiggling against Lycra shorts on the racetrack. I recall pictures of athletic lunchboxes everywhere in the paper at one point - black athletic lunchboxes especially
You could well imagine his ghastly porcine flushed face sweating profusely over slow-mo re-run footage on his box - his TV box I mean. What was it that fascinated him so much? I wonder if one of his favourite films is Deliverance.
But back to publishing. His Kama Sutra book is published by the one-time cocaine hoovering ex-People editor John Blake - his face a Mount Rushmore testament to a life spent sleepless. He's not at all a bad booksman - it was he who spotted the kerching factor in Jordan's memoirs (itself a celebrity cock size guide) and he has done much to awaken UK publishing to the tabloid trough.
The only problem with Blake is that he's not always the most enthusiatic marketing man in the world. It was a running joke for years that once he'd flogged a book extract to one of the tabs he was thereafter scarcely interested in book sales. In Kelvin's case I don't sense any Blake interest at all. For instance, go to any of the internet bookshops - Amazon, StudyNet, Tesco etc - and you won't find a single cover illustration anywhere - "No image available" is the explanation.
Tsk. Anyone might think that he'd only published Mackenzie's book as a favour to a media big-mouth.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Acorah is a con, says "ghost"
No one can quite put on a show like the Spiritualist medium Derek Acorah. His Living TV fans can't get enough of his donkey impersonations as yet another dead castle proprietor takes possession of Acorah's vocal chords. When he was on Most Haunted, his spirits' fury was usually aimed at the wild-eyed host Yvette Fielding - and with reason. She and Acorah couldn't abide each other.
Now I hear that someone else has fallen out of love with the hair-gelled mystic. Back in 1998 fellow medium and author John G Sutton "ghosted" the book The Psychic World of Derek Acorah for the medium. The book was reissued last year - but with Sutton's name missing as "co-author". What could have happened?
Over to Sutton. He recalls Acorah of the late '90s as a sensitive man, someone he respected. But no longer. He writes in Psychic World: "To the best of my knowledge he had no connections with the Spiritualist Church and was never a member in the accepted use of that term. Yet in various press interviews Acorah makes the false claim that he trained in Spiritualist Churches and is indeed a Spiritualist Medium, which is something he most certainly has never been."
Of Acorah's psychic hysterics on TV Sutton says: "People watching this twaddle may, unfortunately for Spiritualism, actually think that the man is really channeling a spirit entity through trance-mediumship. The way he fakes it makes the very idea appear ridiculous ....
"Nor have I ever seen any evidence from Derek Acorah that he can channel spirit. What I have seen amounts to a ludicrous charade played out for the benefit of the cameras in the name of making a TV show."
So no more Acorah ghost gigs for John then.
Now I hear that someone else has fallen out of love with the hair-gelled mystic. Back in 1998 fellow medium and author John G Sutton "ghosted" the book The Psychic World of Derek Acorah for the medium. The book was reissued last year - but with Sutton's name missing as "co-author". What could have happened?
Over to Sutton. He recalls Acorah of the late '90s as a sensitive man, someone he respected. But no longer. He writes in Psychic World: "To the best of my knowledge he had no connections with the Spiritualist Church and was never a member in the accepted use of that term. Yet in various press interviews Acorah makes the false claim that he trained in Spiritualist Churches and is indeed a Spiritualist Medium, which is something he most certainly has never been."
Of Acorah's psychic hysterics on TV Sutton says: "People watching this twaddle may, unfortunately for Spiritualism, actually think that the man is really channeling a spirit entity through trance-mediumship. The way he fakes it makes the very idea appear ridiculous ....
"Nor have I ever seen any evidence from Derek Acorah that he can channel spirit. What I have seen amounts to a ludicrous charade played out for the benefit of the cameras in the name of making a TV show."
So no more Acorah ghost gigs for John then.
Blood diamonds are Indy's best friend
A supplement on Botswana fell out of the Independent last Saturday - a "World Report" no less - which attributes the state's wealth to diamonds and its pact with De Beers. "Thirty-three percent of GDP comes from the girl's best friend," it reports - and on the back page there's a charming tourist piece exhorting the tribal Bushmen (or San) and their videocam-friendly "unique dances".
Produced for the newspaper by World Report Inc, it is designed to look like editorial but is just a Botswana ad, depicting a shangri-la in the marriage of benign capitalism and indigenous civilisation. Yeah, right.
You have only to go to http://www.iwant2gohome.org/ to learn that 1000 Bushmen are appealing for help after the Botswana government relocated them from their ancestral lands of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to reservation camps. This is to make way for diamond mining. Survival International reports:
The Botswana government has brutally evicted the Gana and Gwi Bushmen from their land in the Central Kalahari, and De Beers diamond company is exploring for diamonds there. The Bushmen are calling for a boycott of De Beers and Botswana diamonds until they are allowed back on their land.
SI recently asked Leonardo DiCaprio to join their campaign (he stars in The Blood Diamond out soon). And only the other week the Independent itself reported in its Pandora diary that SI approached model Linda Evangelista to step down as the face of De Beers and Harrods.
Actors Colin Firth and Julie Christie have already spoken out in support of the Bushmen. Julie Christie said, "Diamonds as the cause of misery and suffering are not a thing of the past. The Bushman evictions in Botswana are a clear demonstration that local people are still suffering because of these stones."
De Beers is a controversial presence in Botswana. At http://www.survival-international.org/ it's reported, for example:
De Beers Botswana has made a 100,000 pula ($15,000) donation directly to the country's High Court, bringing accusations of interference in the judicial system. The company has also announced plans for further donations.The gift comes as De Beers Botswana is immersed in a legal battle with the Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) over the sacking of 461 mine workers who went on strike in 2004. BMWU secretary-general Jack Tlhagale said the donation should have been made to a ministry and not directly to the High Court.
It is astonishing that the liberal Indy should have prostituted itself for blood diamond money. But then as World Report Inc comments on its website: "Our Special Reports provide a platform which enables politicians and business leaders to voice their opinions directly to a highly influential sector of the UK: the readers of The Independent newspaper."
Produced for the newspaper by World Report Inc, it is designed to look like editorial but is just a Botswana ad, depicting a shangri-la in the marriage of benign capitalism and indigenous civilisation. Yeah, right.
You have only to go to http://www.iwant2gohome.org/ to learn that 1000 Bushmen are appealing for help after the Botswana government relocated them from their ancestral lands of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to reservation camps. This is to make way for diamond mining. Survival International reports:
The Botswana government has brutally evicted the Gana and Gwi Bushmen from their land in the Central Kalahari, and De Beers diamond company is exploring for diamonds there. The Bushmen are calling for a boycott of De Beers and Botswana diamonds until they are allowed back on their land.
SI recently asked Leonardo DiCaprio to join their campaign (he stars in The Blood Diamond out soon). And only the other week the Independent itself reported in its Pandora diary that SI approached model Linda Evangelista to step down as the face of De Beers and Harrods.
Actors Colin Firth and Julie Christie have already spoken out in support of the Bushmen. Julie Christie said, "Diamonds as the cause of misery and suffering are not a thing of the past. The Bushman evictions in Botswana are a clear demonstration that local people are still suffering because of these stones."
De Beers is a controversial presence in Botswana. At http://www.survival-international.org/ it's reported, for example:
De Beers Botswana has made a 100,000 pula ($15,000) donation directly to the country's High Court, bringing accusations of interference in the judicial system. The company has also announced plans for further donations.The gift comes as De Beers Botswana is immersed in a legal battle with the Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) over the sacking of 461 mine workers who went on strike in 2004. BMWU secretary-general Jack Tlhagale said the donation should have been made to a ministry and not directly to the High Court.
It is astonishing that the liberal Indy should have prostituted itself for blood diamond money. But then as World Report Inc comments on its website: "Our Special Reports provide a platform which enables politicians and business leaders to voice their opinions directly to a highly influential sector of the UK: the readers of The Independent newspaper."
Monday, October 02, 2006
Mr Lubbock seeks ... Veritas?
The brilliant site for literary junkies http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com [click here] explores the peculiarities of a book titled Not Awight Now - Getting Away with Murder (out Oct 16). It's supposedly an examination of Stuart Lubbock's death - the guy who died at fallen TV star Michael Barrymore's house. For background see Grumpy's item.
Interestingly the book is edited and published by someone called Harry Cichy - a name that rings a bell. He was a press officer of Robert Kilroy-Silk's right-wing party Veritas and a Veritas party election official in Harlow in 2005. The Veritas 2005 general election candidate for Harlow was one Tony Bennett - the Essex lawyer who at some point represented the father of Stuart, Terry Lubbock, or the Lubbock Trust, and who tried and failed to bring a private prosecution against Michael Barrymore earlier this year.
This is the same Tony Bennett who leads the militant Active Resistance to Metrication. He's been arrested a number of times for damaging road signs and other public property in his campaign to put the Olde back in England. He's now acting secretary of the Popular Alliance party which campaigns against Europe and the Human Rights Act. His publicity agent is one ... Harry Cichy who also happens to be Terry Lubbock's publicity agent.
Of Cichy a trawl through Wikipedia - which has clearly been hijacked by the Lubbock contingent against Barrymore - reveals him to be some sort of consumer journalist and Olde Englander. Apparently he contributes to UK Whitegoods and made a bit of a name for himself over the Hoover free flights fiasco back in the '90s.
All in all Harlow sounds a happening place and Terry Lubbock would appear to have surrounded himself with some, er, very interesting people.
Interestingly the book is edited and published by someone called Harry Cichy - a name that rings a bell. He was a press officer of Robert Kilroy-Silk's right-wing party Veritas and a Veritas party election official in Harlow in 2005. The Veritas 2005 general election candidate for Harlow was one Tony Bennett - the Essex lawyer who at some point represented the father of Stuart, Terry Lubbock, or the Lubbock Trust, and who tried and failed to bring a private prosecution against Michael Barrymore earlier this year.
This is the same Tony Bennett who leads the militant Active Resistance to Metrication. He's been arrested a number of times for damaging road signs and other public property in his campaign to put the Olde back in England. He's now acting secretary of the Popular Alliance party which campaigns against Europe and the Human Rights Act. His publicity agent is one ... Harry Cichy who also happens to be Terry Lubbock's publicity agent.
Of Cichy a trawl through Wikipedia - which has clearly been hijacked by the Lubbock contingent against Barrymore - reveals him to be some sort of consumer journalist and Olde Englander. Apparently he contributes to UK Whitegoods and made a bit of a name for himself over the Hoover free flights fiasco back in the '90s.
All in all Harlow sounds a happening place and Terry Lubbock would appear to have surrounded himself with some, er, very interesting people.
A date with Gest's bodyguard!
Michael Jackson's fellow bizarro pal and Liza Minnelli's estranged husband David Gest promises a "highlight of the musical year", the forthcoming London New Year's Weekend All-Star Soul Spectacular (Dec 29-31 2006).
Much more exciting than listening to the likes of Candi Staton or Bonnie Tyler though is the prize on offer to listeners of the sponsor Smooth FM in the promo competition. The winner can look forward to the David Gest luxury Hollywood holiday that includes this heady promise: "David's bodyguard will personally take them to Universal Studios."
Much more exciting than listening to the likes of Candi Staton or Bonnie Tyler though is the prize on offer to listeners of the sponsor Smooth FM in the promo competition. The winner can look forward to the David Gest luxury Hollywood holiday that includes this heady promise: "David's bodyguard will personally take them to Universal Studios."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)