.: Cath’s Blog:.

A MONTH’S rainfall in the space of one hour has left 330,000 people in southern England without drinking water or electricity.
Thousands have also lost their possessions as global warming made its presence felt in the UK.
The unprecedented monsoon style weather last Friday has left parts of England in utter devastation.
Of the thousands of people whose homes were flooded, it is estimated that only one in four have full home contents insurance, leaving many people in financial ruin.
Peter Stott of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, and author of a new scientific paper linking increases in rainfall to climate change, said: “It is possible under climate change that there could be an increase of extreme rainfall even under general drying.”
The areas hit hardest by flooding were Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged to increase spending on flood defences, with the rain showing no sign of letting up in Britain’s most miserable summer on record.
Tory Leader David Cameron has faced massive flak for his decision to be in Rwanda while his constituents suffer in the floods.

A WOMAN has been scarred for life after a £1.68 vegetable kiev exploded in her face. Who said being a vegetarian was good for you?
Jessica Morgan fears her teatime trauma may leave her with permanent scars. Scalding hot liquid sprayed onto her face and shoulder after she, perhaps in hindsight overeagerly, stuck her fork into her veggie Kiev.
Miss Morgan was treated in hospital after she suffered excruciating scalding to her right cheek and her lip swelled up. To compensate her for being grotesquely disfigured ASDA have awarded unlucky Jessica a five pound gift voucher. Sounds fair enough. Jessica is unsure whether or not to take the offer of the voucher as an indication of what her face was worth before the kiev catastrophe.
“Customers should always be careful when handling hot food,” said an ASDA spokesman, who later pointed out to Jessica that kievs were on a buy one get one free offer.

UNEMPLOYED parents of twelve kids, who net £44,000 a year in benefits, have been given a plush home worth half-a-million quid in an exclusive suburb of Berkshire.
The detached period house, with eight bedrooms, a garden, its own driveway and all set in a leafy residential area of well-to-do Newbury, is way out of the financial reach of most professional families but the get-what-you-can Gillespies have been allowed to stay in the property – despite neither Carl or Samantha maintaining even a polite pretence of trying to find any sort of employment.
The couple were handed the keys to the palatial pad after one of their devil spawn sparked a blaze which burned down their old home. Sounds like a really cute kid. Samantha, classily dressed in an England away shirt, said:
“Some people may think we’re a bunch of spongers, but it’s not true. I was born to have children, it’s what I am here for.” At the expense of the taxpayer, of course.

A SAD-CASE prison warden, addicted to people praising his fast and efficient service on eBay, has ended up behind bars after stealing from cons to sustain his internet image.
Timothy Stark, who evidently badly needs a hobby, or, however unlikely, a girlfriend, bucked the trend of men getting addicted to trawling the net for porn images and instead became obsessed with people praising his good character on eBay. Stark’s addiction became so bad he sold a con’s tracksuit and even Polaroid film used for mug shots.
His lawyer told the court: “It was not about the money. He got compliments for valued service. It was this he became addicted to.”

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair began work last week as a - wait for it - middle east peace envoy.
Presumably he will attempt to keep a straight face while telling countries not to attack each other without UN backing.

PRIME MINISTER Gordon Brown has ordered a review of the 24-hour drinking laws.
No doubt Charles Kennedy will be the first to volunteer to study the effects that 24-hour benders can have first hand.
Only in Britain does some sort of expensive think tank have be to set up to show that with the introduction of 24-hour drinking more people are, in fact, getting more drunk for longer and knocking the crap out of each other in the streets afterwards. Meanwhile local kebab kingpins rake in money like never before.

BOMB plotter Dhiren Barot received third degree burns to his body and face when he was attacked by fellow inmates returned to jail last week.
Bet he can’t wait to catch up with his practical-joking buddies again.
The deranged extremist was thrown in the slammer for 30-years for plotting to plant a radioactive, chemcial or toxic gas bomb and pack limousines with nails and explosives. What a charming fellow, nice way to repay your adopted country.
His lawyer Muddassar Arani said he struggled to recognise his client and that he may need skin grafts. Shame.

ROYAL retard Prince Andrew has been caught dipping the public till to the tune of £6,000.
It was discovered he took a flight to watch the British Open at Carnoustie on the royal jet, at a cost of £6,000 to the taxpayer. Tough life for those royals.
If some lowly peasant had wasted six grand of taxpayers’ money it would be called fraud or theft but, as usual, he was given a gentle rap on the knuckles as royalists chuckled: “Oh what are you like Andrew.” The aircraft is reserved for “vital” royal work, although it’s beyond us what work they have ever done that’s vital.

AN EX SAS hardnut who demonstrates his unbelievable survival skills on Channel 4 show Born Survivor is actually about as hard as one of the Wiggles according to a show insider.
Tough guy Bear Grylls was filmed biting off snake’s heads and eating them, making rafts from bamboo and squeezing water from animal dung but the whole show is a fake according to show adviser Mark Weinert.
The survival expert says he was the one who built the raft and that supposed hard man Bear was actually going to luxury hotels to stay after filming scenes for the show. Bear was unavailable for comment because he was trekking in Wales, according to Channel 4.
He was probably away to a health spa for a weekend of pampering because his skin was in an awful state from the harsh Hawaii sun.

A TRAWLERMAN thought he had caught something to brag about back at the pub after catching a human skull in his nets – but was left gutted when he found out it was his dead mate’s.
Barry Hunter made the catch in December and handed the skull to police but now DNA tests show it is the remains of fellow fisherman Brian Allison who had disappeared three-years ago when his boat sank in the North Sea.
Barry, of North Shields, North Tyneside, said: “It was a very eerie feeling to be standing there on your boat with a skull in your hand. “And then you find it’s one of your mates who went missing all that time ago.
“When I first saw it, the thought did cross my mind for a split second that it could be Brian. But I just thought, ‘What are the chances?’ It’s unbelievable.”

WE ALL know what a pisser it is when you’re just about to make a call and the battery goes dead.
A recharged phone is only a heartbeat away thanks to new technology that enables your ticker to send electricity to your phone.
All you have to do to recharge is place it in a pocket near your heart.
It also means lonely women won’t need to leave the bed in the middle of the night to give the rampant rabbit another blast on the charger.
Steve Beeby, of Southampton University, said: “There is a lot of energy available on the body. Heartbeats or even the impact of a heel on the floor could be used,” as he clamped a set of jump leads to his nipples and jump started his Lexus.

A BINMAN has been banned him from wearing a St George’s Cross bandana because council bosses thought it might offend minorities - even though he is a Rastafarian.
Matt Carter, apparently the least popular member of the National Front, used the headpiece to keep his “dreads” away from machinery and had been doing so for the last seven months. Barbados-born Matt, who moved to Britain eight years ago, was given a dressing-down after council bosses in Pendle, Lancashire, received complaints.
Taking a toke from his customised St George’s Cross bong Matt said: “I always used to wear the bandana and no one ever said anything to me about it until complaints were made. “I received a verbal warning and was told the St George’s Cross was not allowed to be seen on any clothing we wear because it could be considered offensive and racist.”

AFTER years of being told it’s sweets that will rot your teeth, kids were shocked to learn that it was in fact toothpaste that was responsible for their horrendously bad teeth and foul breath.
Hundreds of tubes of potentially toxic toothpaste had to be seized by Trading Standards officers.
About 125 tubes of counterfeit Sensodyne toothpaste had to be taken off shelves after it was discovered they contained a chemical found in anti-freeze that is toxic to children and people with liver or kidney problems.
Officials say you can spot the dodgy paste as it is green – although anyone stupid enough to brush their teeth with green toothpaste deserves everything they get.

DESPITE the reputation of being able to drink the rest of the planet under the table Ireland is apparently turning into a nation of lightweights. The country’s love affair with the booze is waning, according to a new survey which says people are spending less money on alcohol and are abandoning the pub in their droves.
Last year the Irish bought a massive 698 million litres of beer, spirits, wines and ciders - although the most Irish Englishman of all time, Shane MacGowan, is thought to have consumed at least half of this.
Still though, the figure is almost 84 million litres less than in 2001.
It’s thought that bans on smoking and happy hours, inflation and house prices are the reason people are abandoning the drink.
The report, probably written by a bitter Englishman, said: “Despite their reputation for being “fond of a drink”, alcohol was increasingly perceived as a luxury item among Irish consumers during the review period.”

A PRIEST was blackmailed by a woman who offered to reach under his robes and then told him she’d made a Paris Hilton style home movie of the two of the them.
Father Brendan Lawless of Portumna turned down the chance of some holy humping with Mullingar native Margaret Zsiga but still paid more than €16,000 for the video she claimed to have made.
Porn star wannabe Margaret had been calling on the priest to lend her cash for months before she made the video. She called round to his house with a bottle of wine before offering him a leg-over. But the cheeky bootlegger had hidden a camera in her bag that was facing out of a peep hole. When Father Lawless refused she followed him upstairs to his bedroom as he sat on his bed and removed his shoes.
Later she rang him to tell him she had filmed them together in his bedroom. He paid the cash but eventually went to the gardai after Margaret asked him for a further €10,000.

THE ALWAYS on the ball Health Services Executive waited nine months before bothering to tell a group of patients that their dental nurse had HIV – imagine getting that phone call.
More than 60 dental patients, now with slightly soiled trousers, are being tested for the disease after it emerged their nurse had the virus.
Despite finding out she had the virus in October last year the HSE - realising it wasn’t really a big deal – is only just getting around to tell the patients affected, most of whom are kids.

TOM CRUISE wowed wife Katie and celebrity guests…at a party for the Beckhams by throwing some moves on the dance floor Saturday Night Fever style.
The control-freak midget got his groove on, much to the amusement of new best buddies the Beckhams and a gaggle of other celebs.
He left his pièce de résistance till the end though - doing the splits in the middle of the dance floor.
Tom’s daughter Suri is going to be humiliated by the egotist’s dance floor antics at every family party.
A source, who later helped paramedics lift a stricken Cruise into a wheelchair, said: “The party was in full swing when Tom amazed guests by doing the splits while he was dancing with Katie.”
Wonder what his scientology friends would have made of such fancy-free antics – it’s probably in breach of some rule in the bizarre religion.
Scientologists believe that we were brought to earth 75 million-years-ago on a spaceship. That’s ridiculous, God created the earth in seven days and made the first humans, Adam and Eve, everyone knows that…

REHAB season ticket holder Lindsay Lohan has placed a bet with her skanky little friends that she can get into Beckham’s golden balls.
The occasional actress and full-time socialite has been impressed by the Beckhams since their arrival in Tinseltown and little Lindsay reckons she has the charms to be bent over by Beckham.
She’s already been screwed by the son of a world famous footballer so you can see the natural progression is actually to take a pounding from an actual footballer.
Stick insect Spice Girl Victoria might have something to say about Lohan’s advances however.
Maybe the two of them could have a bikini catfight on the pitch before LA Galaxy’s next game with the winner getting to take dim David to the dressing room to practice some ball control after the game.
That would get the fans flocking to LA Galaxy

SHY, RETIRING little petal Lily Allen was caught taking the piss out of Courtney Love to one of her friends on Myspace.
The outspoken chav sent a message to a friend saying that after speaking to the off the rails media whore, she realised why Kurt Cobain killed himself.
Lily wrote: “I am not bfs (best friends) w/ (with) C (Courtney) Love, one night with her made me realise why Kurt killed himself. I nearly checked into rehab.”
But to be honest, you can kind of see what Lily’s getting at. You really do feel sorry for the poor people who are associated with that psycho.
SCIENTISTS at a Polish University claim that Kelly Brook is “the perfect woman.”
The sex-starved boffins, who clearly needed an excuse to look at pictures of sexy girls on the internet, came up with a “scientific experiment” to end debate on who was the perfect woman - and Brit stunner Brook came up trumps.
As if you needed to perform an experiment to come to work that one out.
The busty brunette babe is the closest thing to perfection thanks to her huge natural boobs, collagen free smile, breath-taking hourglass figure and long slender legs according to boffins at Gdansk University.
How come we never got to do science experiments like that when we were at school?
And, what is she doing with that ungrateful gimp Billy Zane?

EXTRAVAGANT eco warrior Sting has clearly found a new kitchen slave, despite being successfully sued for sexual discrimination by his former chef.
Sting, who likes to portray himself as some super advanced being on a higher level of understanding than us mere misled mortals, brought his personal chef to cook for himself and friends at a top restaurant. Begging the question, why bother going at all?
A source said: “It was amazing - Casa Tua is one of the best places in town. It has some fantastic chefs and Sting brings his own person to cook! No one could believe it.” Least of all the poor chef, who had thought he might get his first night off in ten months.

BONKERS Britney Spears wiped her greasy KFC covered fingers over a designer dress and used it to wipe her dog’s shit off the hotel carpet during a photo shoot. Her pictures were so dreadfully bad that OK! magazine is still discussing whether or not to use them because they could “kill the singers career” – that died a long time ago.
In one photo her eyes rolled back and she looked “half dead,” according to a source.
Brit also took frequent toilet breaks but, in fairness, cocaine and KFC don’t compliment one another.

COLUMBIA’S second most adrenalin pumping export, Shakira, is proving she’s no sap by making her hubby-to-be sign a pre nup.
The hip gyrating beauty quite wisely decided that her lawyer boyfriend might already have his scheming eyes on her millions and is making him sign away any right to her fortune we’re sure.
He will read the small print and try to catch her out on a minor technicality.

FAMOUS for splitting up with Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese, has confessed to loving porn in a shameless bid to keep her name in the papers. Looks like we fell for it.
The pasty faced sex fiend said: “Amateur pornography is a great thing. You can find anything for everyone on the internet. So long as no one’s hurting anyone or involving children then hey, what’s wrong with that?”
That’s the sort of girlfriend you’re after, instead of being subjected to Grey’s Anatomy you could watch Big Trouble in Little Vagina together. Much more romantic.

MOVE over girls, the MILFS rule Hollywood now. They say women don’t reach their sexual peak until their mid thirties and a new poll has backed up the adage that older berries have the sweetest juice.
Paris and Lindsay might never be out of the headlines with their amorous alcohol fuelled antics but it’s the mature and refined ladies who are now rated as the hottest in Hollywood. A new poll from E-Poll Market Research found that the average age of Tinsel Town totty is 36.

Luscious Latina leading lady Salma Hayek topped the survey, with more than 65 percent of respondents considering the 40-year-old star as sexy. Also in the gallery of glam golden oldies were Pam Anderson, Elizabeth Hurley and Halle Berry. Jennifer Lopez and Catherine Zeta-Jones, both 37, were also awarded mature minx status.
Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel and Angelina Jolie (who came in last place) were the only Hollywood whipper-snappers to make the lust list.

SEXPOT Heather Graham says her family, who tried to bring her up as a devout Catholic, were left disappointed when they saw her getting it all ways in the movie Boogie Nights. The actress said her family refused to talk to her after she starred in the movie about porn.
She said: “Boogie Nights was quite explicit and my parents were horrified. They didn’t really want to hear my point of view.”
Realistically, it can’t be pleasant to watch your beloved daughter get banged, even if it’s only simulated sex.

AUSTRALIA’S best export Kylie Minogue has told her dim-witted French lover that he can either marry her or leave her – it’s not really a question that deserves much pondering is it? The cheating liar was taken back by Kylie for unknown reasons - but only on the condition that he proposed to her.

DIRTY diva Mariah Carey showed just how removed from reality she is once again when she apologised to fans on her website for neglecting them because of working on her album for “20 billion hours.”
The Venga Boys probably didn’t even take that long to create their works of art, so what the hell has she been doing?
The breathtakingly curvy fruitcake further confused her army of chubby 30-something fans by saying: “Hello, I know I haven’t called you since 1802.”
She really is a proper psycho - but you still would.
Mariah also revealed she has been put through her paces by a personal trainer for a guaranteed straight-to-video movie.
She moaned: “I’m on a diet which means I can’t eat anything good and my trainer has been working me really hard even when I come back from spending 80 billion hours in the studio.” Thought it was 20 billion?

PESSIMISTIC Police guitarist Andy Summers was shocked by how well their reunion tour has gone.
Translated, that means he is stunned that moody egotist Sting hasn’t had a tantrum and stormed off yet.
The band are back playing together for the first time in 23 years and their tour is tipped to be the highest grossing this year unless, of course, Right Said Fred tour again.
Taking a quick break from polishing Sting’s bass guitar, Summers said: “We’re just having one knockout show after another. We keep thinking we’ve done the best show we’ll ever do and then somehow we do another one that we seem to have upped the ante.
“We’ve become very sure of the material and onstage now it’s just gotten faster, looser and funnier. There’s a lot of humour and antics now. I mean, we’re sort of loosening up with it. I think (in) our little mini-universe, we’re very sure of where we are now.”
Humour? Antics? Sting? Forgive our cynicism.

LEGENDARY New Order bassist Peter Hook has claimed the band have split - but forgot to mention it to the other members.
Hook said the outfit were no more in a radio interview - much to the surprise of band members Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris.
The two remaining lads said they will carry on making music as New Order.
Looking suitably sulky Sumner and Morris announced: “After 30 years in a band together we are very disappointed.”

DANCE music gurus Basement Jaxx will team up with the evil one, Yoko Ono, for their new album.
Just as long as they remember not to look her directly in the eye in case she turns them to stone.
Felix Buxton, who has obviously become completely detached from reality following his success, says he’s delighted to be doing the collaboration.
He said: “We ended up doing a couple of things (and) once I started listening to her stuff, I think she was miles ahead… She should be on the new album.”

CHEEKY young Scottish rockers The View have reacted in typical blasé fashion to their Mercury Music Prize nomination by saying it means nothing to them.
But perhaps they mean that in the literal sense and they really don’t have a clue what it is – let’s face it, Dundee isn’t exactly the cultural centre of Europe is it?
Their debut album Hats off to the Buskers was shortlisted for the award but bassist Kieran Webster, happy just being in the limelight for a few seconds, said: “The album doesn’t suddenly get any better or worse. The real accomplishment is when the fans went out and bought it. People have come up to me in Dundee and said, ‘I heard your album and started a band’. That’s the really big compliment.”
Outspoken frontman Kyle Falconer was equally unmoved by the award but the big-hearted Scot did say he’d buy his mum a caravan if they won the £20,000 prize money.

THE SMITHS reunion looks about as likely as the release of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, with Morrissey stubbornly refusing to speak to his former band-mates.
The light-hearted crooner is not even willing to talk to his ex-band mates - never mind entertain the idea of a reunion.
Former bassist Andy Rourke, despite being happy with his job as a security guard at Mothercare, said he would like a Smiths reunion but Morrissey makes it impossible.
“He makes himself unavailable. He only communicates in postcards. But I suppose time is a great healer, and can change your perception of people.” Time doesn’t seem to have changed Rourke’s view that Morrissey is an obstinate wanker.

ROCK hero Slash has been playing some of the best riffs of all time - on a knocked-off guitar.
The former Guns N’ Roses man was at a dedication ceremony to, well, himself, held at the Hard Rock Café. Slash stunned organisers when he handed back a guitar he nicked from the organisation years ago.
He said: “I stole that from the Hard Rock in Orlando (in Florida). It was in the dressing room. I didn’t know what it was doing there, so I took it. So I’ve had it all these years and been playing it.
“But then I thought what better way to honour the Hard Rock for honouring me than to give it back, sort of.”

PROVING that there is life after death, The Rolling Stones made a tidy little packet playing for a corporate event in Spain last week.
The old rockers, no longer bothered about the shame of “selling out” earned £2.6 million for an 80 minute gig organised by the Deutsche Bank – that’s £650,000 each for just over an hour’s work.
Mick Jagger joked with the crowd: “Thank you for having us. The best part is, it’s coming out of your bonuses.”
It’s hard to imagine a bunch of straight-laced fat-cats getting lost in the music as the Stones belt out Start Me Up.

THE CURE’S chubby oddball Robert Smith has admitted to a possible collaboration with Ashlee Simpson.
Old age has obviously ravaged his mental faculties, quite sad really. Or perhaps her young body ensnared his dirty old mind.
The porky goth said: “I went to see her in Chicago – I was impressed. The fact is, when she got onstage and sang she was really good.”
Whatever you think, Robbo.

BERMUDAN babe Rihanna has spent ten weeks at the number one spot in the UK with her insanely annoying hit Umbrella - making her the first artist to spend more than nine weeks at the top since Wet Wet Wet with Love Is All Around.
Granted, it is a lot more bearable watching the sexy young star shake her delicious rump than watching grinning gimp Marti Pellow - but the song still has you changing the radio channel with the hand speed Muhammad Ali.

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I was invited over to Kim’s parents house this morning for breakfast and honestly, it was just what the doctor ordered.

It’s been nearly 10 month’s since I have seen Gail & Andy but they were the same chirpy selves that I remembered when they stayed with us in Doha. It was great catching up with them both and we had lots to talk about. It was just a shame I had to leave to go to work.

Thank you for the invite, it was great also to meet the boys, they are adorable x

I was telling them about how I listen to the Scott Mills’ (Radio 1) podcast every morning on the way to college…it keeps me very entertained, some days I get randomly stared at because I am laughing so hard…the following clips had the whole carriage staring at me.

My Name is Scott - Electric Shock Trivia

And then it’s Laura’s turn…

Today I wasn’t feeling too great, so I stayed in bed most of the day and relaxed. I did however frame some photos for my bedroom wall…

Bethesda Fountain in Central Park NYC - one of my favourite places ever

Subway through Harlem

Amazing view of the Empire State Building

A random shot I loved

After college I headed straight over to Amrish’s swanky new apartment, as I didn’t have time to go home and back before meeting up with everyone for Nanine.

Me and Amrish hung out, had a few drinks, told random stories and reminisced about our days in Doha. When Lauren turned up, the drinks were a-flowing and stories became even funnier.

One hour late, after a few calls from people we dragged ourselves outside, pulled a cab (possibly one of the funniest cab rides ever) and headed to the Water Rat to meet Nanine and everyone.

When we got there everyone was well on their way, Jager shots were chugged and possibly the silliest moment was when Shay, Michael and I were trying to devise a way to have B.B.Q. Chicken Shish Tawook’s mailed here…ahhh memories!

Nanine, it was great seeing you again, hope to see you again really soon.

By TONY RENNELL

This week archives revealed two million of us are descended from the convicts deported to Australia. Here we tell the shocking stories of depravity and despair on the very first convoy that took them to the new worldPoor Elizabeth Beckford. She was 70 years old and her crime was stealing 12lb of Gloucester cheese.

For that she could have hanged. Hundreds did in those violent, vengeful days, dancing “the Tyburn frisk” in the words of those who crammed around the gallows to watch this favourite spectator sport of the 18th century. But the state, in its mercy, saved her life - and gave her a punishment that some would see as worse than death.

She was an unwilling passenger on a fleet of 11 ships that set out from England in 1787, the first of the convoys of the criminal underclass - as the ruling elite of Georgian England saw them - sent in chains to colonise new and dangerous shores on the other side of the world.

Those 736 sad souls on that pioneering voyage would establish a new world. Though she didn’t know it - and the thought would have given her no consolation as she lay crammed with others in cell-like spaces below decks - Elizabeth was a founder member of a new country, Australia.On Thursday, more than 200 years later, those who made those dreadful voyages - 163,000 in all over the years to come - are feted. Twenty-first century Australians celebrate their convict past, taking their lead from premier John Howard, a descendant of transported folk on both sides of his family.

The shipping and court registers of the banished have long lain in the National Archive in London. Now, in the knowledge that two million of us in Britain probably have blood links with Australia’s criminal forebears, they have been put online for the hundreds of thousands of amateur genealogists in this country, eager to find out more about their roots.

The history they hide may not be pleasant. Elizabeth, incredibly, was not the oldest on that first ark of despair. Dorothy Handland, a dealer in rags and old clothes, was 82. How she was expected to contribute to empire-building in a virgin land whose hardships could only be guessed at is a mystery as great as the place she was being sent to.

But nonetheless she was among the waggon-loads of prisoners dragged down to the docks in Portsmouth from the sunless ship hulks at Woolwich where they had been held because the prisons were all full. They were dressed in rags, their faces pale from imprisonment, louse-ridden and thin as rakes from the slops they had been forced to live on.

Alongside the grannies were 120 other women, mostly young, like 22-year-old Elizabeth Powley. Penniless at home in Norfolk she had raided someone’s kitchen for a few shillings’ worth of bacon, flour and raisins and “24 ounces weight of butter valued 12d”.

The death sentence on this starving girl was commuted and, as Robert Hughes, historian of the transportations, notes wryly in his book, The Fatal Shore, “she was sent to Australia, never to eat butter again”.

At least the youngest of the “passengers”, John Hudson, would never be pushed up another chimney. The nine-year-old sweep was condemned to seven years’ exile for theft.

All on board were small-time criminals whose punishment, by the standards of later generations, in no degree fitted the crime. James Grace, 11, had taken some ribbon and a pair of silk stockings. John Wisehammer, 15, snatched some snuff from a shop counter in Gloucester.

For that, they would never see home again. The most extraordinary crime was that of William Francis, who stole a book about ‘the flourishing state of the island of Tobago’ from a gentleman in London. If he had had time to read it before he was caught, perhaps he had an inkling of what now lay ahead of him in a British colony far rawer than the West Indies.

There were no political prisoners, however, no rabble rousing, hay stackburning activists or trades unionists sentenced for their subversive activities, as some of today’s anti-Pom Australians like to think. Nor, contrary to another common belief, were there any prostitutes as such - because prostitution was not a transportable offence at the time.

The women, however, were treated as whores. They arrived at the gangplank of their vessel, the Lady Penrhyn, almost naked and filthy, “in a situation that stamps them with infamy”, according to the officer in command of the expedition, Captain Arthur Phillip.

He was appalled at their treatment by the magistrates who had sentenced them and the jailers who had held them. Whether he could guarantee them better lives at the end of their nine-month voyage was yet to be seen.

What they were about to embark on was the longest journey ever attempted by such a large group of people. Where they were going might as well have been the moon. Crewmen, let alone convicts, believed they would never see home or their loved ones again. “Oh my God,” wrote one officer of Marines in his journal, “all my hopes are over of seeing my beloved wife and son.”

As for the country they were going to, almost nothing was known except for the promise of Captain James Cook, its discoverer, that this ‘New South Wales’ as he chose to call it, was now British. But, to some observers of the hang ‘em tendency, the thought that the felons might be better off than if they had languished in jail provoked bitter reproach. They were getting a new life, courtesy of the state, some argued. One balladeer wrote: They go to an island to take special charge Much warmer than Britain, and ten times as large. No customs-house duty, no freightage to pay, And tax-free they’ll live when in Botany Bay.

Judging by the behaviour of some of the prisoners on that first voyage, the balladeer may have had a point. In truth, some of those on board acted in a way we associate with holidaying in Ibiza.

As they crossed into the tropics, and the hatches were taken off at night to let the prisoners breathe in some cool air, sex was rampant. The women prisoners were like stoats, according to the surgeon on one of the ships. They threw themselves at the sailors and Royal Marines in “promiscuous intercourse”, he declared.

“Their desire to be with the men was so uncontrollable that neither shame - but, indeed, of this they had long lost sight - nor punishment could deter them.”

Some were put in irons and others flogged, but the going-price for a quickie was just a tot of rum from a sailor’s ration. Not surprisingly, the next problem for the captain was drunkenness among the same women.

The voyage rolled on seemingly endlessly with stops at Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. The last leg was into the swells and troughs of almost uncharted waters of the Southern Seas.

The convicts were more crowded than ever because room had to be made for cows, horses, pigs and sheep for the future colony. Still the lechery continued. “There was never a more abandoned set of wretches collected in one place at any period than are now to be met within this ship,” said the surgeon on the Lady Penrhyn.

Violent thunder squalls dumped tons of freezing water on the halfclothed convicts and dampened some of their ardour. The ladies fell on their knees praying.

And, finally, 252 days after leaving England they had made it to dry land as the ships anchored in Botany Bay. Forty-eight people had died - 40 of them convicts, five convicts’ children. It was a tiny death rate compared with what they had achieved in that voyage.

“The sea had spared them,” wrote Hughes. “Now they must survive on the unknown land.”

It was a fortnight before enough tents and huts could be made ready and the female convicts could be disembarked. Sailors and women went mad with lust again.

That night a storm blew down the tents and rain lashed the camp. Male convicts pursued the women intent on raping them. Sailors from the ships, fuelled by rum, joined in.

“It is beyond my abilities to give a just description of the scene of debauchery and riot that ensued during the night,” wrote the surgeon.

There was swearing, quarrelling, singing - “it was the first bush party in Australia,” wrote Hughes, “and as the couples rutted between the rocks, their clothes slimy with red clay, the sexual history of colonial Australia may fairly said to have begun”.

The next day the new governor harangued the convicts. He would stand no repetition of last night’s orgy. Prisoners who tried to get into the women’s tents would be shot. There was back-breaking work to do just to survive and if they did not work they would not eat, he told them.

The convicts had come to a hard country, as tough as any prison back home. They looked out on a territory that appeared fertile and lovely but was in fact arid. Beyond the landing grounds was bush, mile upon mile of it. There were Aborigines out there, too. Try to escape and they would spear you.

Even the Marine officers who ran the colony despaired. One wrote, that ‘in the whole world there is not a worse country. All is so very barren and forbidding that it may with truth be said that here nature is reversed and is nearly worn out’. Surely, he added, the government would not think of sending any more people here.

But it did. The colony survived for its first year largely on rations it had brought with it, a diet of salt meat and leathery cakes baked on a shovel. Crops failed, illness struck down dozens of the convicts. But then supply ships arrived, and after that more convicts.

For some life was too harsh to continue. Dorothy Handland, now 84, who had endured so much already since her conviction back in England, hanged herself from a gum tree. She was Australia’s first recorded suicide.

The convict colony clung on - just. There is no point in romanticising those days. Hughes’s book makes clear that many of the convicts behaved badly, stealing each others’ rations, and acting generally in the same dog-eat-dog fashion of the English slums they had come from.

On the other hand, they had little to cheer them. They worked on the land, hard, gruelling labour, often yoked together to haul timber in the absence of draught animals. Some preferred punishment to work.

The batch of women in the first fleet was not enough. More of marriageable age were needed and the next transport brought a boatload. The women convicts on the Lady Juliana had paired off with the crew as soon as they set sail from England. When she stopped in Tenerife and other ports along the way, a constant stream of male visitors came aboard, earning her a reputation as ‘The Floating Brothel’.

On arrival in Australia they had money in their pockets, some a small fortune, for the half-starved convicts and sailors they were then married off to. Here was the “breeding stock”, as one official in London put it, from which Australia would proudly grow.

Then land was granted to convicts who had served their time. There was an incentive at last. After 1792, four years after the first fleet first sailed into Botany Bay, the convict colony of New South Wales was self-supporting.

Back in England, the government hailed a victory. A worrying crime wave had been addressed. The criminal classes had been exiled and at no real cost.

That a whole continent would be conquered too was the unexpected bonus from those convict ships and their sorry cargoes.

This morning I met up with a friend and we went to see a screening of ‘The Simpsons Movie’. Usually when we have a screening of something it’s usually just me and my boss who turns up, but quite a few people turned out for this one. I had a great time.

EIGHTEEN seasons, or 400 episodes, after Homer Simpson first insinuated his way into our lounge rooms, the big guy has finally gotten the wide screen treatment to which he is so clearly suited.

And he relishes every moment - after first thumbing his nose at any critics or nay-sayers. “Why would you pay to see something you can see for free on TV?”

Homer goads the audience at the first full-length Itchy & Scratchy feature, before turning to face the camera directly.

“Suckers!” There’s nothing like having the final word before a story has even begun. In fact, in their feature film debut, Matt Groening and his team have delivered exactly what audiences will be expecting of them.

The Simpson’s Movie, during which Homer triggers an environmental disaster that almost destroys Springfield, plays like an extremely polished one and a half hour TV episode - only with the more spectacular set pieces that a wide screen cinema format can afford.

The humour is razor sharp, the dialogue flawless and there is an abundance of intertextual pop culture references - to global warming, movie star presidents, illegal piracy and government surveillance just for starters.

While the animators haven’t ventured too far outside of their comfort zone, they make full use of the broader story-telling canvas the feature length format affords them, adding a poignant father and son schism between Homer and Bart and and a blossoming romance between Lisa and the new boy in town.

Despite Homer’s initial provocations, The Simpson’s Movie is definitely value for money.

Of course, confirmed couch potatoes with large home entertainment systems could conceivably wait till is comes out on DVD. That’s probably what Homer would do.

Jesse emailed these over to me today…

Looking at this now, we could have been given lashing for this…might have been fun!

THE BBC are in a spot of bother after revealing it ripped-off viewers, again.
Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sports Relief all featured fake competition winners.
The BEEB has suspended all phone-in quizzes after watchdog Ofcom slated its scamming ways.
The controversy follows the Blue Peter scandal earlier in the year when the kids programme was fined £50,000 for pulling the same trick.
Fake winners were put in a number of shows and the “winning caller” was a member of the production team.
Even innocent institution Blue Peter are it, all hope is gone

A LUCKY kid who ordered a PlayStation 2 from eBay was sent £44,000 cash as well.
Police are trying to find the owner of the €65,400 mistakenly sent to the 16-year-old after his parents rumbled him over the package.
The cash arrived in a box at the house in Norfolk with the PlayStation, but minus two games – bet he was gutted.
Police, last spotted blowing wads of cash down the boozer, are said to be holding the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act while the delivery is investigated.
They have until September to hold on to the money before the case comes up in court but if the money remains unclaimed the lad can apply to get it back.

SCOTLAND’S richest man Sir Tom Hunter says he is going to give away at least £1bn to charity, Oxfam must be gushing with anticipation.
The donation will be the single most generous (or idiotic) philanthropic commitment made by a Briton.
The former owner of the Sports Division sports chain reckons it would take years to transfer all the cash, but says he’s committed to doing it.
He has already committed £100m to his charitable foundation to fight inequality in Scotland and Africa.
Trying to avoid assassination by bitter relatives who’ve already spent their inheritance Sir Tom said: “First of all, I’m a Scotsman, so I’m not very good at giving money away.
“There is more great wealth in fewer hands than ever before in history. “My own personal belief is that with great wealth comes great responsibility.”

A SKINT mum who ended up with £135,000 in her account when her bank made a mistake is facing seven years in the slammer after she went on a two-week spending spree – do you really blame her?
Sarah Jane Lee went to the cash machine in the hope that there would at least be a tenner in her account to buy shopping when she found her account had been credited with the heavenly sum of £135,000. Instead of reporting the obvious mistake, she decided to treat herself to a £10,000 holiday to Florida, helped her friends out with £97,000 and bought thousands of pounds worth of sexy knickers – so at least she wasn’t just thinking about herself.

PAGANS have hit out at a 180ft drawing of Homer Simpson painted in a field next to their famous fertility symbol the Cerne Abbas giant.
The 17th century 180ft chalk outline of the naked, sexually aroused, club-wielding giant is believed by many to be a symbol of ancient spirituality. On the other hand a 180ft chalk outline of a doughnut brandishing Homer Simpson is just funny.
Many couples also believe the well endowed outline (not Homer) which is carved in the hillside above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, can help you get pregnant.
The giant drawing of Homer has been painted with water-based biodegradable paint which will wash away in the rain.
Ann Bryn-Evans, of The Pagan Federation, said: “We were hoping for some dry weather but I think I have changed my mind.”

ONE IN 14 adults in Britain don’t know the answer to simple maths questions given to primary school children.
The news isn’t really a surprise considering the UK is a country where the likes of Jade Goody can get famous and Boris Johnson is running for mayor. The question, what is one one-eighth of 32 (take your time) stumped 12 per cent of 18 to 25-year-olds asked.
The poll result comes after schools minister Ed Balls (that really is his name) ordered sweeping changes in the British education system and suggested that children who struggle in class from low income families should be forced to take extra lessons at weekends – we can really see that happening.

A SACRED bull worshipped by Hindus at a Welsh temple has won a stay of execution despite suffering from tuberculosis.
The animal was due to be sent to the big field in the sky under strict laws on TB but monks argued that killing the animal would be a “serious infringement” of their beliefs – so “Shambo” the bull carries on as the world’s most pampered beef.
Farmers were outraged by the decision and farmer’s leader Evan Thomas (selected probably because he has a basic grasp of the English language) said: “It is turning the issue of disease control into a joke.”

BUMBLING blond toff Boris Johnson is to challenge Ken Livingston for the job of London mayor.
Johnson, the epitome of a Tory toff, kick started his campaign by cycling around the city.
You have to feel for Londoners really – imagine having to choose between a little arrogant conman or a big, clumsy, upper-class oaf.
Despite his warped ideas and policies, Boris is good for entertainment value if nothing else.
His ridiculous quotes include: (after he was found to be having an affair) “My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.”
Rugger bugger Johnson alo committed the most hilarious tackle in the history of football during a charity match. Check it out on YouTube.

A MARRIED couple revealed how they split up – to net more benefit money.
Sean Ash and wife Chloe broke up after realising that Sean’s new job would mean they lost even more money. Any wonder Britain is full of resource sapping skivers?
As a couple, they had a joint net income of £1,702 a month. But after the split, Sean now gets £1,184 and Chloe £1,396 - making a total of £2,580.
That means they are £878 a month in benefits better off leading separate lives.
Sean expects to start a job with London Underground earning £22,000 a year. He left his wife and one-year-old son Dylan when it became clear that him working would bring their joint income down to £1,472 a month. He said: “There’s no point in us being together if we get more money by living apart. “It’s ridiculous. Surely if you work you expect to earn more than you’d get on the dole?”

BOFFINS have invented a drug that cures bashfulness.
The docs, who obviously haven’t heard of cocaine, have invented a nasal spray that cures shyness.
The spray releases a synthetic version of the natural feel-good hormone oxytocin which inhibits our bodies fear response and makes us feel calm.
Expect to see red nostriled nerds walking the streets as they get addicted to their new-found power to speak their minds. The drug could help with everything from public speaking, chatting up women and saying at the hairdressers when they show you the mirror: “What the fuck have you done to my hair?”

A MOTHER of three has been hounded by sex pests calling her home after changing her phone number.
Rachel receives at least half a dozen calls a day from randy pervs asking for the ”nympho” - some answered by her kids.
The trench coat brigade started pestering Rachel as soon as she changed her phone number.
Rachel said: “It started almost immediately. It’s always men and after I say hello they say something about talking to the nymphomaniac. I presume they expect me to talk dirty.
“Instead, I point out it’s a wrong number and they get flustered. One said, ‘Oh sorry’ and hung up. The funny thing is the line’s with Virgin, yet these callers think I’m anything but!”
Rachel even had to endure a torrent of abuse from a jealous wife accusing her of having cyber sex with her husband. Bizarrely, it seems that Rachel may secretly be getting off on the calls as she can’t be bothered to change her number again.

POLICE chiefs are asking the government to for permission to detain terror suspects for “as long as it takes.”
Although the current definition of a terror suspect as any Asian man with a beard could lead to some serious overcrowding in prisons.
Labour have already tried to raise the maximum detention period from 28 to 90 days but were defeated in the commons on the bill.
“We are now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes,” said an Association of Chief Police Officers spokesman.

A 13-YEAR-OLD girl was stabbed at school after calling a 14-year-old’s ex-boyfriend ugly on Bebo.
Life truly is stranger and more sinister than fiction. This story makes Hollyoaks look like Pride and Prejudice.
After insults were exchanged on Bebo, a girl from another school threatened Bridie Starr. The next day Bridie was stabbed in the stomach outside her school.
Most disturbingly of all, dozens of onlookers filmed the attack on their mobiles instead of rushing to Bridie’s aid. Evidently they were all after their 250 quid from You’ve Been Framed or the kudos of being the first to have the footage on their own Bebo page. Bridie’s injuries were not life threatening.

DESPITE a reputation of being able to drink the rest of the planet under the table Ireland is apparently turning into a nation of lightweights.
The country’s love affair with the booze is waning, according to a new survey which says people are spending less money on alcohol and are abandoning the pub in their droves.
Last year the Irish bought a massive 698 million litres of beer, spirits, wines and ciders - although the most Irish Englishman of all time, Shane MacGowan, is thought to account for at least half of this.
Still though, the figure is almost 84 million litres less than in 2001.
It’s thought that bans on smoking and happy hours, inflation and house prices are the reason people are abandoning the drink. The report, probably written by a bitter Englishman, said: “Despite their reputation for being “fond of a drink”, alcohol was increasingly perceived as a luxury item among Irish consumers during the review period.”

A PRIEST was blackmailed by a woman who offered to reach under his robes and then told him she’d made Paris Hilton style home movie of the two of the them.
Farther Brendan Lawless of Portumna turned down the chance of some holy humping with Mullingar native Margaret Zsiga but still paid more than €16,000 for the video she claimed to have made.
Porn star wannabe Margaret had been calling on the priest to lend her cash for months before she made the video. She called round to his house with a bottle of wine before offering him a leg-over. But the cheeky bootlegger had hidden a camera in her bag that was facing out of a peep hole. When Father Lawless refused she followed him upstairs to his bedroom as he sat on his bed and removed his shoes.
Later she rang him to tell him she had filmed them together in his bedroom. He paid the cash but eventually went to the gardai after the woman asked him for a further €10,000.

THE ALWAYS on the ball Health Services Executive waited nine months before bothering to tell a group of patients that their dental nurse had HIV – imagine getting that phone call.
More than 60 dental patients, now with slightly soiled trousers, are being tested for the disease after it emerged their nurse had the virus.
Despite finding out she had the virus in October last year the HSE - realising it wasn’t really a big deal – is only just getting around to tell the patients affected, most of whom are kids.

SCANDINAVIA: A group of insane toffs with too much time and money are about to embark on a journey from Denmark to Dublin on a replica Viking longship – reports that the 65 man crew are to offer passenger travel across the North Sea quicker than Stena are so far unconfirmed.

The Sea of Stallion is the world’s biggest Viking ship replica and is modelled on a ship which was discovered in the Roskilde Fjord in 1962.
The crew will be at the mercy of the angry North Sea for seven weeks. That is of course, if they aren’t all swallowed by the merciless ocean before then but we’re sure that won’t happen. “It’s like a banana boat. It moves like a snake,” said crew member Preben Rather Soerensen with a worrying lack of correct maritime terminology.

CANADA: Prime minister Stephen Harper has been accused of not being arsed to meet with Canada’s premieres after cancelling a scheduled meeting with them for about the 115th time. Harper vowed to bring harmony between federal and provincial leaders when he took over 16 months ago but, according to the premieres, he was full of shit, basically.
Saskatchewan’s Lorne Calvert said: “We really do need to sit down to meet.
“Negotiating through the media or discussing through email is not the way to really build a strong Canada.”

USA: The famous, or rather infamous, Fung Wah coach company is undertaking a huge publicity campaign to shed its horrendous image in the eyes of American travellers.
Fung Wah, which probably translates to White Knuckle Coaches, is notorious for hiring lead-footed drivers who can’t speak English and panic like a kid whose just pissed his pants in school in an emergency.
In the Chinese-owned company’s nine-year history, it has wracked up no fewer than a dozen serious accidents, including one where the back wheels of a coach fell off.
A spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said: “They seem to be improving,” as a Fung Wah bus ploughed into a ravine doing 110MPH behind him.

GERMANY: A German bus driver threatened to kick a 20-year-old woman off his bus because she was too fit.
Top heavy shop assistant Debora was told her tits were too big and she was distracting the driver.
Removing her wonder-bra she said: “Suddenly he stopped the bus.
“He opened the door and shouted at me: “Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can’t concentrate on the traffic. If you don’t sit somewhere else, I’m going to have to throw you off the bus.”
Despite leaving the woman red-faced the company defended the driver saying: “The bus driver is allowed to do that and he did the right thing. A bus driver cannot be distracted because it’s a danger to the safety of all the passengers.” Jordan has since been banned from all public transport in the country.

USA: Literary genius and occasional warmonger George W. Bush has given us an insight into the cultured tastes of a man on the cutting edge of the world’s current affairs.
The US president likes nothing more than to scoff down deliciously healthy cheeseburger pizzas for supper and peanut butter and crisp butties for lunch – we always had him down as the refined sort.
His chef Cristeta Comerford spilled the beans at an annual gathering of the cooks to world statesmen and royals, although why such a gathering exists no one is quite sure.
Burning a bowl of two minute noodles she said: “For dinner the President loves what we call home-made ‘cheeseburger pizzas’ because every ingredient of a cheeseburger is on top of a margherita pizza.
“For lunch he loves cinnamon bread with peanut butter and organic honey, with home-made potato chips and pickles.”
She added: “But he’s extremely disciplined and exercises every day. He watches his portion control.”
If only he was as restrained with his army.

AUSTRALIA: An Aussie rugby league player has been playing for more than four months with some poor bloke’s tooth buried in his head.
Dispelling all rumours that rugby players are dumb bastards who’ve taken one too many blows to the head, former NRL prop Ben Czislowski was given stitches above his left eye after clashing with Matt Austin in April - but didn’t notice he’d left a nasher in there too.
Czislowski suffered an eye infection and shooting pains until a doctor finally discovered the tooth.
“I can laugh about it now but the doctor told me it could have been serious,” said Czislowski who used the tooth to replace one of the seven he has lost playing.

UK: A circus has placed an ad in a Jobcentre for a person to be pickled in a bottle full of vinegar – bet you thought you had a shit job.
The only slightly eccentric Circus of Horrors is searching for a “pickled person” to take part in a performance at the Stockton International Riverside Festival in Cleveland.
The ad is for a “loose- limbed person to fit into a 2ft high laboratory bottle.” Ronnie Corbett is considering returning from retirement for the role.
It continues: “Applicants should be flexible, and happy to work in confined spaces.” Circus skills are apparently an advantage.

USA: An armed robber in America held up a family’s barbecue dinner party - then changed his mind and asked for a hug instead.
The hooded man slid through the gate of a home in Washington DC where the family were eating.
He put a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest and said: “Give me your money, or I’ll start shooting.”
Calm as a coma one of the guests replied: “We were just finishing dinner. Why don’t you have a glass of wine with us?”
The thief, obviously a man of taste, took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said: “Damn, that’s good wine.”
This must be the criminal equivalent of walking into a room and forgetting what you went in for.
After tucking into some wine and cheese he put the gun into his pocket saying: “I think I may have come to the wrong house. I’m sorry. Can I get a hug?”

GORGEOUS blonde bimbo Jessica Simpson… is being whipped into shape by a hard-ass personal trainer in preparation for her role in an army movie.
Whether or not he’ll be screaming: “Drop and give me twenty or I’ll unscrew your head and shit down your neck,” is debatable.
Once again showcasing her splendid acting talents, Jessica will star in Major Movie Star, a film about an out of work actress who joins the army – that’s an Oscar for sure.
The battle blonde is being worked like a dog and has lost a staggering 20 pounds since she started the tough regime.
She’s also doing a “5 Factor Diet” which in layman’s terms means you eat five miniscule portions of dry bread every day.
With typical intellectual wit, Jessica squeeled: “I am aiming to be able to lift weights with my highest pair of heels on,” as a crazed drill sergeant screamed obscenities in her face.

THESE DIETS get the stars looking superb, or skeletal.
The skinny bitch diet: Posh is on this diet and despite her looking like she has recently been released from a lengthy term in the Bangkok Hilton, people are still jumping on this fad. This diet demands that you must cut out sugar, dairy, meat, white rice and pasta from your diet. Which doesn’t leave much.
The five factor diet: Says you should eat five small simple meals a day and exercise for 25 minutes five times a week. You must also drink sugar free drinks but are allowed to “cheat” one day a week. Having nothing to do all day but hit the gym with your personal trainer and having a personal chef prepare your meals undoubtedly makes this easier.

OFF the rails Amy Winehouse has sunk to a new low, even by her standards, with her latest horror stage show.
The always smashed soul singer finally performed at the Eden Project after two weeks of cancelling gigs suffering from “exhaustion” - which she has apparently tried to treat by getting shit faced every night.
After running off the stage after two songs - perhaps to powder her nose - Amy began making Peter Doherty look like an upstanding pillar of the community. She slapped herself in the face, hit her head repeatedly with the microphone, forgot the lyrics to her own songs and mumbled swear words in between them.
She even spat into the crowd, and walked off halfway through her last song.
And all this on the day she was named favourite for this year’s Mercury music Prize.
A fan at the show said: “She was acting like she couldn’t be bothered and being really weird. We paid a lot of money because I was a huge fan - but I’m not any more.”

LILY ALLEN really doesn’t wish she looked like Cheryl Cole anymore with a recent survey revealing that Lily trumped Chezza in a beauty poll.
However, pouring scorn on these results are the fact that a whopping 88 per cent of people believed that the quest for superficial beauty was irrelevant. Only ugly losers or a liar could say something so stupid.

SNACK-SIZE strumpet Kylie Minogue is getting back with cheating Frenchman Olivier Martinez.
The pair split earlier this year with the love rat linked to enough women to make Julio Iglesias jealous while Kylie recovered from breast cancer.
They met a number of times in Paris last week and were seen kissing – which apparently is a sure sign of love.
One “friend” said: “Their relationship has begun to redevelop.” Once again a woman chooses the bastard over the nice sensitive type they profess to want.

BRONZED hottie Eva Longoria has been spending a romantic honeymoon with husband Tony Parker - playing ping-pong.
The newlyweds flew out to an exclusive Caribbean resort and spent their break relaxing with a few games of table tennis. Someone should have told her you can do that at Skegness Butlins. Not to mention have a go on the looping star. The couple were also seen cosying up to each other on the beach while playing the dice game Yahtzee. Who said romance was dead?

STRAIGHT laced Kelly Clarkson has finally confessed to some at least slightly rock ‘n’ roll antics admitting to eating space cakes whilst in Amsterdam.
But Clarkson reckons eating the cannabis cookies was not the same as taking drugs because they were not Class A.
Lighting up her customised bong Kelly said: “I have eaten a marijuana cookie.
“It was in Amsterdam. It is legal there, and it is not legal in America. I don’t ever do anything illegal at home.I have never smoked anything in my life. I’ve never tried any drugs.”

MADONNA and her hubby Guy Ritchie are shitting themselves about a visit from African welfare inspectors who will decide if they can keep Malawi boy David Banda after they jumped on the celebrity adoption bandwagon.
Madge is worried about the “gruelling assessment” set to be carried out by Malawi’s top officials to see if they are a suitable couple.
We’re sure the kid will be more than happy to give up his new plush London mansion to return to a Malawi orphanage.
A “source” said: “This home study is a big deal - and Madonna and Guy have been absolutely dreading it. Malawi is a conservative country that disapproves of drugs, alcohol, divorce and cheating.
“These assessments are very gruelling and many couples don’t pass.”
Madonna however is expected to sail through, it’s not like she’s stared in soft porn videos, released a sex book promoting lesbianism and animal sex or dated a basketball playing cross-dresser is it?

PETE DOHERTY is still living off former missus Kate Moss’ fortune even after she kicked him out for being a two timing smack-rat.
The narcotics nut is trying to quit the gear - we’ve heard that one before - and is being fitted with his fifth anti-heroin implant - and lucky Kate’s picking up the bill.
He told fans on his band Babyshambles’ website he was going to cut back on touring because “it’s implant time coming up.”
The implant works by blocking the effects of heroin and will cost thousands. No doubt Pete, in the clutches of a vicious cold turkey, will rip the implant out of his body with his bare hands then take it to cash converters and buy a few bags with the proceeds.
A “pal” said: “She feels terribly betrayed but understands that he stills needs help and support.
“Kate is very aware that Pete still has issues with drug use and doesn’t want to leave him in the lurch completely. Helping with his medical care is one thing that Kate wants to do for him.”

REHAB regular Lindsey Lohan is shitting herself after sex snaps of her taken by famous-for-nothing Calum Best were nicked from her computer.
It’s enough to drive the Mean Girls minx back to drink, first she gets nailed by a waste of space living off his dad’s talent - then the rest of the world gets to watch it.
Lohan is worried the pictures could appear on the net at any minute after someone hacked into her machine.
In an online message board she said: “All I know is that someone broke into my computer and left a file on my desktop saying they had the pictures Cal took of me naked. My lawyer knows about it.
“If I ever find out who broke into my computer, he’s in big shit.” Wouldn’t be surprised if it was crafty Calum himself, he will do anything to get in the papers.

HOOKER loving Hugh Grant has reportedly got engaged to on-off girlfriend Jemima Khan.
The pair recently said they were no longer a couple but friends reckon their romance is back on and Hugh has popped the question.
Jemima has apparently said “yes” but is believed to have doubts about walking down the aisle with the typecast English ponce. It’s thought they are reluctant to announce the engagement as Jemima’s mother has warned her daughter not to rush into anything – wonder why?

CHAV queen Kerry Katona had a knife held to her throat when armed robbers raided her plush Cheshire home last week.
Three masked men, carrying sledgehammers and crowbars, broke into the home she shares with husband Mark Croft in Wilmslow.
They kept the former Atomic Kitten “singer” and the couple’s baby Heidi downstairs as they took Croft around the house looking for things to steal.
Police said the gang escaped with gear worth about £150,000 – probably pies, cakes, booze and a few kilos of coke knowing Kerry.
Katona’s publicist, and all round nice bloke, Max Clifford, said: “When I spoke to her this morning she was in floods of tears and absolutely distraught.
“It was a terrifying experience. Luckily they weren’t hurt, but Kerry was held at knifepoint and the robbers threatened to kill them.” How unlucky that Kerry was caught up in the raid, she’s usually out on the razz at that time of night.

THE ARCTIC MONKEYS have banned the free bar at their Old Trafford cricket ground gigs for fear that their tight Sheffield mates will drink the place dry - leaving the tight-fisted so-called rock stars footing the bill.
While bands like Guns ‘n’ Roses had staff paid solely to collect groupies and maintain the ski lift to the top of the cocaine mountain, the tight-fisted monkeys won’t even shout their oldest friends a few pints. Come on lads, it’s not all going on pension funds and oxyclear is it?
The band had planned to foot the bill for family and friends but pulled the plug when the invites started getting out of hand.
A source said: “The lads want these gigs to be a real party for everyone who has supported them. But so many friends have taken up their offer of free tickets they have now decided to scrap the free bar. They’ll buy their mates a couple of drinks instead.
“Some of their pals have never seen a free bar and would be hell-bent on drinking it dry. They’re Northerners - brought up to take their ale.”

SULTRY Spanish sexpot Penelope Cruz says she’s addicted to belting out cheesy karaoke hits and gets really angry when friends don’t join in.
The actress, who for some crazy reason shacked up with little effeminate dwarf Tom Cruise at one time, says she prefers having a night in the house with friends to clubbing.
“I have a karaoke machine at home. Sometimes I do karaoke parties.“Everyone arrives saying that they are not going to sing, but everybody ends up performing,” said Cruz before belting out I Will Survive in her living room.

BRITNEY SPEARS’ bodyguard (who she’s allegedly shagging as well as her shrink) was fired from his last security agency for having a little sideline selling dildos on the internet.
Daimon Shippen, whose job is to stop Britney from attacking photographers and passing cars with umbrellas, set himself up with a nice little earner in the form of a sex toy website but was fired from his agency Galahad Security when they found out.

MATT DAMON has come up with a novel way of explaining why he comes across about as witty and engaging as an Australian sketch show in interviews - it’s all just a dull persona he plays.
Keep telling yourself that Matt. Matt said in a monotone voice: “You want to protect your family but I’ve always tried to present this boring persona. Early in my career, my ex-girlfriend, Minnie Driver, said that if I want to protect myself I should create this other, dull identity. We came up with a name, and she had a badge made for me that spelled it out, and I’d slip into this persona when I did interviews.”
He certainly stuck to his plan. It also sounds like him and Minnie were just a wacky pair of loons who must have had a real swell time together. “It worked, so I’ve kept that going throughout my entire working life,” he finished, as reporters started snoring loudly.

REFORMED ice-head Fergie says wetting herself on stage was the most embarrassing moment of her life.
And she’s had a few, for example, every single she has ever released. Luckily for her, having a perfectly pert arse and tanned, never-ending legs will see you forgiven for a multitude of sins.
Even singing the lyrics that made people sympathise with the Taliban’s banning of popular music, the truly spine chilling: “I’ma get you drunk/ Get you love drunk off my hump/ My hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps,” seems bareable when you see her shaking the aforementioned lovely little lumps.
Fergie relived her nightmare: “The most embarrassing moment of my life was when I had my ‘accident’ live on stage in San Diego. That’s one picture I’ll never live down. That’ll always be there.” Funnily enough pish and pants and two words often used to describe Fergie.

MUSICIANS have clubbed together to raise funds for the saviour of British music, Tony Wilson, who is suffering from cancer.
The man who gave us Joy Division and the Happy Mondays - but famously made absolutely fuck all money - needs £3,500 a month to pay for controversial new drugs which his NHS Trust, surprise, surprise, refused to pay for.
The famous Factory Records boss said: “Where am I going to find the money? I’m the one person in this industry who famously has never made any money. I used to say some people make money and some people make history which is very funny until you find you can’t afford to keep yourself alive.”
But Nathan McGough, another former manager of the Happy Mondays, set up a fund for Wilson and has so far raised enough money for five months supply of the controversial Sutent drug.

POISONOUS self-publicist Courtney Love returned to her old ways last week by treating her hotel room the same way she treats everything else – with complete disregard.
The “singer”, who has made a career out of being the wife of a legend, stubbed out cigarettes on furniture at the Covent Garden Hotel and left the place in a vile and disgusting state according to staff. Much like you would expect really.
A source said: “Staff say the room was in a right state – like a wild animal had been left in there.” Precisely – a wild dog actually.

BRIT POP gurus and Noel Gallagher’s favourite band Blur are reportedly about to take a leaf out of the Spice Girls book and get together for a reunion later in the year.
The group are thought to be reuniting in September with all four original members, Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Dave Rowntree and Alex James having some spare time.
The reunion will only go ahead, however, if the other band members can drag Albarn’s ever growing head from up his own arse. Coxon was famously sacked in 2002 before the bands Think Tank album was released, though he’s not done bad for himself since then.

GLASTONBURY organiser Michael Eavis has vowed to get more young people back to the festival after it was accused of being “too middle-aged and respectable.” Does that mean he’ll ban himself from the event?
Several festival veterans said the atmosphere hadn’t been as good as previous years and some bands complained that they weren’t allowed to turn the volume up as much as they would have liked.
Organisers had said that there would have been strict limits on volumes so as not to disturb neighbours. It’s in the middle of nowhere what residents are there apart from the occasional farmer and weird cults hanging out at Stonehenge?
“We’re trying to get the youngsters back – the 16, 17 and 18-year-olds because numbers were down this year,” admitted Eavis as he was given a sponge bath by his home help.

HAVING already slagged off every other person on the planet, camp crooner Morrissey has now turned his attention to madam Madonna for a good tongue lashing.
The outspoken former Smiths frontman delivered the verbal volley to Madge whilst on stage at a gig in Virginia.
He accused the wrinkling star of being a hypocrite for backing every media friendly charity possible and still having a love for wearing fur. Morrissey was playing a gig for PETA when he lashed: “I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned that African boy she adopted into a coat and wore him for 15 minutes, then threw him away.” A bit harsh even by his standards.

A PAIR of specs worn by Beatles legend John Lennon have sparked an online bidding war after a website put them up for auction.
Lennon’s trademark circular sunglasses, which he wore during the tour of Japan in 1966 have already received bids of £750,000 and that price is set to rise as the auction goes on until the end of the month.
A pair of Ringo Star’s glasses sold last week for £3.50. Lennon’s glasses are up for sale on 991.com. Sales director John Warner said: “The interest has been phenomenal. Our phones have been in meltdown. Lennon wore the gold-rimmed glasses when the Beatles played five dates in Tokyo’s Budokan Hall in June 1966.

MISSY ELLIOTT went crazy because her backing dancers left her pad like a shithouse when they were staying with her.
The big bruiser went “ballistic” after her backing dancers abused her hospitality.
Chewing on a turkey twizzler and swigging a can of beer, Missy ranted: ““I have a couple of my dancers staying at my house - they’re with me because I’m starting on my album, just to get a vibe. But they’ve got cups in the sink, underwear on the floor.
“My house started to look like a trash can. They were dirty dancers - that’s the perfect word for it. I told them to clean up but they didn’t do nothing but push it in the corner. So I just went ballistic.”
Those poor little dancers must have thought their numbers were up when all 200 pounds of Missy started getting nasty.

PUNK legend Iggy Pop is to be the voice of a politically active uncle in an animated film – he isn’t the first guy who springs to mind when thinking of suitable children’s TV performers. Iggy, or Mr Pop to you, will play the character in Persepolis which is an animated political drama about a young girl struggling with life in Iran.
The film will also feature the voice of Sean Penn if they can get him sober enough to be able to speak.

DAPPER rapper P. Diddy has been flooded with applications after posting an advert on his MySpace site looking for a new personal assistant – men need not apply. The rapper received over 10,000 applications in just four days after he uploaded a video appealing for a PA.
Five thousand of those were probably from little white guys who fancy themselves as the next Eminem saying: “I really want this job. I love your music and I used to watch the Cosby Show and I have a black friend.”
The other 5,000 applicants were probably a mixture of American and South American hos looking for a pimp daddy.
In the video, Diddy says: “This is not a joke, I’m trying to give a chance to somebody who is out there to be my personal assistant to help me to be the best and maybe I can help them to be the best. That’s what this thing is about, helping each other out.” Go to www.myspace.com/pdiddy to have a look.

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This morning I dragged myself along to Brighton Bay to see ‘La Vie En Rose’. My boss raved about it and I thought it was great too.

From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf’s life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love. Raised in poverty, Edith’s magical voice and her passionate romances and friendships with the greatest names of the period - Yves Montand, Jean Cocteau, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Cerdan and others - made her a star all around the world. But in her audacious attempt to tame her tragic destiny, the Little Sparrow - her nickname - flew so high she could not fail to burn her wings.

I love you x