The Mail tuts while its website leers

Your starter for ten: which person of international importance has been mentioned in 43 Mail Online articles since the start of June?

Answer: Katy Perry.

As Perry is currently in a relationship with Mail hate figure Russell Brand, you'd think they'd stay well clear. But they simply have to report on her when she continually does such newsworthy things.

For example, when she wears a dress. Or when she wears a dress. Or wears glasses. Or a dress. Or wears a dress. Or goes out - guess what? - wearing a dress.

And those are just some of the fascinating exclusives from the last week.

She's far ahead of the other people the Mail website is currently obsessed with: Kim Kardashian, Kelly Brook and Miley Cyrus are each averaging a meagre one pointless article per day this month.

This is, apparently, the shape of things to come.

According to Peter Kirwan in the Press Gazette, Mail Online has recently opened an office in Los Angeles in order to flood the website with even more wafer-thin celebrity crap.

Kirwan says that the office is being run by Elliot Wagland who has been:

advertising on Facebook for new recruits.

On Facebook? On life-ruining Facebook? The hypocrites.

Kirwan reports:

According to sources at the Mail, the number of US-focused articles running on Mail Online has increased sharply in recent weeks.

Mail Online’s plans could signal a renewed interest in building audiences and revenues in North America among British newspapers.

This seems obvious. As this blog has noted before, there seemed to be very little reason for the Mail to be following every insignificant move of Kardashian - someone with almost no public profile in the UK at all - unless it was trying desperately to attract visitors from America.

And the 'lads' mags' crowd.

The Mail has a bizarre love-hate relationship with lads' mags. Much the same as its attitude to Big Brother: it's a cultural disgrace, but we'll keep you informed of everything that's going on anyway.

The Mail has made it pretty clear it thinks men's magazines are 'explicit' and 'pornographic'. It has happily run criticism of them:

• MP's outrage: 'Give these lewd lads' mags an 18 certificate'
• Lads' mags fuel rise in feckless fathers, say Tories
• Calls for tougher curbs on 'pornographic' lads mags
• Put lads' mags on the top shelf: MPs call for crackdown on 'explicit' titles

As well as having their own columnists speak out against them:

• JAN MOIR: Lads' mags and a toxic culture that treats all women like meat
• 'Mummy, why do those ladies have no clothes on?': Explicit lads' mags should be moved to the top shelf, says an embarrassed mother
• A GCSE in lads' mags? The fantasies they peddle give young men a distorted and dangerous view of women
• How lads' mags are creating a generation of exercise-obsessed men striving for the perfect body
• GCSE pupils studying 'soft porn' lads' magazines
• I just want crisps, not groins and breasts...

Yet while bemoaning men's magazines such as FHM on the one hand, the website happily runs extended adverts for them, and very happily reprints their pictures. Such as here, here and here.

It's not just the pictures. The Mail recently ran pictures and video of a 'provocative' and 'racy' shoot from Esquire.

And they have found it hard to contain their excitement over Kelly Brook's recent appearance on the cover of FHM, embedding the same 'behind the scenes' video of the shoot on not one, not two, but three articles.

The news that Brook will pose for Playboy has been mentioned repeatedly over the last week or so, pointlessly dragged in to such feeble headlines as Kelly Brook puts her legs on show in a leopard print mini dress (but fans will be seeing a whole lot more of her in Playboy).

A James Slack article from February entitled Roll back the raunch: Explicit pop videos 'should be banned before the 9pm watershed' gave sympathetic coverage to a report making recommendations about restricting access to raunchy pop videos and lads' mags. But the Mail gave the game away by illustrating it with a picture of a pop singer in knee high boots.

And they have never been slow to embed these 'sexually provocative' and 'raunchy' pop videos on their site either. For example, here, here and here. These articles usually have 'scroll down to watch the video' in bold and/or caps somewhere near the top, just so you don't miss out.

But while the Mail calls the BBC a disgrace for having adult material freely available on its iPlayer, material the Mail calls 'explicit', 'sexually provocative' and 'soft porn' is freely available on their site. Indeed, it is cynically included to make sure it attracts attention and visitors.

Of course, the Mail is a business. It knows sex sells - the more visitors it gets to its website, the easier it is to sell advertising space. So maybe the bottom line simply means more, err, bottoms online.

But whereas the newspaper promotes itself as moral, middle class and conservative, the website is like a downmarket version of Heat.

With the Mail Online's new LA office - which has been advertising for 'a freelance showbiz picture researcher' - it seems this gulf is set to get wider still.

(Big hat-tip to Tom_MKUK and others at the Mailwatch Forum.)

Richard Desmond newspaper accuses other media outlets of producing 'filth'

Yesterday, the Sunday Express ran a front page headline Families hit by BBC 'filth'.

It wasn't, in fact, a plumbing problem at Broadcasting House, but a feeble attack on online catch-up services. Although the headline focussed on the BCC, ITV and Channel 4 were also mentioned. But, as ever, it's the BBC that was the main target.

David Stephenson's report, which seemed highly influenced by the prudes at Mediawatch, feigned outrage at the accessibility of sex and violence on BBC iPlayer and the like.

The idea that five-year-olds would be watching Wallander was rather unlikely. Nonetheless, the Express was adamant:

The result is that highly impressionable children are becoming hooked on TV programmes which have unsuitable images and dialogue, leading to long-term concerns for their mental health.

The same concerns, incidentally, that some people might have about 'highly impressionable adults' reading the Express.

It goes on:

The Sunday Express watched an episode of the adult crime drama Wallander on the BBC iPlayer by simply confirming, with one click, that we were over 16...

From the ITVplayer, the Sunday Express downloaded an episode of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, featuring adult sexual content. Again it took one click.

Now, the Express newspapers are owned by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell company. They also own several pornographic television channels. This includes Television X, whose website needs only two clicks before 'highly impressionable children' could be seeing hardcore porn.

Indeed, starting from Google, that was significantly easier than finding far, far, far less explicit stuff on iPlayer.

Desmond also owns the Daily Star, which shows a topless page 3 girl every day and carries a very large number of adverts for phone sex in every edition.

So is the Sunday Express really in a position to complain about 'filth' elsewhere?

Ogling Miranda Kerr

During a live interview on Australian television, a bank worker was spotted behind the interviewee looking at pictures of model Miranda Kerr.

It's an incident that would probably give Dennis Norden a chuckle, but is it worth three articles on the Mail website in four days?

The Mail clearly had sympathy with the (ahem) embarrassed banker. After all, how could it possibly lecture anyone about ogling pictures of Miranda Kerr?

In the first article about the incident, on 2 February, the Mail included two pictures of Kerr wearing very little. Just so you too could see the photos the 'hapless worker was feasting his eyes on'.

But regular Mail website watchers wouldn't have needed the reminders. They had published those same two pictures, with two others from a GQ shoot, on 30 January.

Which was a handy reminder for those who missed the very same pics in a Mail article about the very same shoot on 21 January.

And then there was the eighteen bikini photos spread across two articles on 26 January.

Perhaps the Mail could explain how much 'ogling' goes on in their offices when they're wondering which photos of nearly-naked women to publish?

Mail's latest faux outrage

Too rude for TV? Billie Piper bleats like a sheep for perverted client in Belle de Jour's latest distasteful call girl adventure. So says the Daily Mail website. In full 'high horse' mode.

And it wasn't just 'perverted' and 'distasteful' but:

demeaning

and:

disturbing

Nice to see Daily Mail Reporter knows where the Mail's office thesaurus is kept.

Good job, too, that only 650,000 people watch the show and the details of this 'disturbing' scene aren't too widely known.

Oh:

In white lingerie and a pink robe, Belle is confident that she will soon remind him of what he has been missing.

Talking to camera, she says: 'It's so sad when they're like that. Give me an hour with him, he'll be a new man.'

But as the action hots up, Simon reveals he has a penchant for the farm yard - or rather pretending to be an animal.

He says: 'Let's do it like dirty dogs. You dirty cow. You little pig. You dirty, dirty, dirty goat.'

Belle obliges him, replying: 'I'm so dirty. I'm a goat. I'm a chicken. I'm a dirty ewe.'

In a scene which becomes increasingly humiliating, she has to fulfil the wish of her paying customer when he asks her to 'bleat like a sheep'.

It sounds so ridiculous that it must surely have been played for laughs. Does the uptight Mail not realise that?

Clearly not, because Daily Mail Reporter has taken it all very seriously, pretending to be outraged while also giving every 'perverted' detail of what happened and even included a screenshot of Piper during this 'distasteful' 'romp'. Along with three other pictures of her not wearing very much.

The article says:

As a high-class call girl, there is nothing that Belle de Jour won't do for money.

As a low-class website, there is nothing that MailOnline won't do for hits.

How to recycle reality TV show lies, with the Daily Star

With crushing predictability, the Daily Star has run Celebrity Big Brother stories on the front page day after day after sodding day.

Last Wednesday, the front page story was trying to claim that Vinnie Jones was using tactics to stay immune from nomination for eviction. Unlike every other contestant on Big Brother, of course. And by calling him a 'bully', it would suggest his attempts to win aren't working that well.

So it's not exactly a fix.

But then, nor was it when the programme was being fixed for Alex Reid to win a week before.

And if the Star claiming a reality show is fixed sounds familiar, that's because they do it every time one is on. Such as with I'm A Celebrity, which was 'fixed' for Jordan to win, eventhough she, err, didn't.

Or when The X Factor was being 'fixed' for Jedward to win, eventhough they, err, didn't either.


On Thursday 22 January, the front page was about a punch-up between two of the Big Brother contestants. While Vinnie Jones and Sisqo had been mouthing off to each other, they hadn't actually had a punch-up.

But that shouldn't be a surprise, because neither had Alex Reid and Peter Andre when the Star claimed they had, in a pre-series front page on 22 December.

On Friday, one of the first people to be evicted was worrying about 'stolen sex pics'.

Well, possibly. Everything, as always with the Star, came from anonymous sources so chances are it wasn't true.

This is, of course, totally different to the story the Star ran during I'm A Celebrity about Jordan fearing Alex Reid would ruin her career with sex pics. Not sure how someone who spends half her time in public naked gets ruined by that, but it was another anonymous source so it probably wasn't true either. And no such pics have yet come to light.

And it's certainly nothing like the 'Myleene Klass sex pics' story they ran when she was on I'm a Celebrity several years ago.

On Monday, the Star seemed to give up. It put all its favourite front page headline words into a hat and pulled them out at random. The result?

Jordan's BB sex plot 'fix'. What?


Yes, it's another 'fix'. But what is the 'plot' this time? Well, the Star's two journalists (yes, two of them) claimed she wanted partner Alex Reid out of the house so she could shower him with attention. And have sex. So she was asking friends to vote him out. It's neither a fix nor a sex plot and so not really accurate. Even the quote they use from Jordan's Facebook says: 'Sooo missing him, 8 more sleeps'. But if she had wanted him out on Wednesday, as the Star claimed, that would be two more sleeps. Not eight.

But the Star likes a made-up sex plot. Indeed, Katia was involved in one earlier in the series. As was Danielle Bux in the 2009 series of Hell's Kitchen, Sophie Reade in last year's Big Brother, Charley Uchea in the 2007 Big Brother and Nicola McLean in the 2008 I'm A Celebrity.

Today, the headline was Jordan fury at Alex and Nic naked B Bro romp.

And by 'naked' they mean 'Nic' was wearing clothes. And by 'romp' they mean she was covering Alex in spray tan.

Unsurprisingly, that naked romp headline has appeared before too. During the 2008 I'm A Celebrity some of the contestants were accused of having a 'naked jungle romp' which actually amounted to them having a shower.

It's not just that the Star makes up reality TV stories, using sex to make the programmes seem far more interesting to their one-track-mind readers than they actually are. But they then repeat them over and over whenever a new reality show starts. The same bullshit stories, the same misleading headlines, the same lies attributed by anonymous sources.

Mail invites you to look up a woman's skirt

Mail hack James Tapper must be so proud. He has spent some time looking up Venus Williams' skirt and then produced an article inviting readers to do the same.

And his less-than-dazzling prose is accompanied by several photos of Williams which have been specially chosen so you can do just that.

MailOnline Editor Martin Clarke said last year:

News is far more important to us that showbiz. News is what drives our site.

Well, the Williams story is filed in the News section:


So it rather depends on what you call 'news'. Clarke's definition seems to be stretching it.

But it's not just the lack of news value, it's that the Mail sees value in running an article which is all about looking up a woman's skirt.

Sex, lies and Georgina Littlejohn

Two actresses are going to kiss in a soon-to-be-released film. Yes, it's the Mail website's latest shameless attempt to boost visitor numbers by attracting the dirty mac brigade.

And it's yet another example that shows Mail Online Editor Martin Clarke's statement that 'news is far more important to us than showbiz' may not be entirely believable.

She could be your Mamma! Amanda Seyfried, 24, in lesbian scene with Julianne Moore, 49 contains five screenshots from the film, two mid-kiss, and one of Seyfried naked. This from the same organisation that was pretending to outraged by a bit cleavage the other day.

And who is the star journalist behind this masterpiece?

Georgina Littlejohn, of course.

She adds in such search-engine-friendly terms as 'girl-on-girl action', 'Megan Fox', 'naked', 'lesbian' and 'steamy lesbian scene', just to make sure it'll get lots of hits.

She also includes this clunking segue:

But the buzz surrounding her steamy scenes seemed to have gone over Amanda's head yesterday as she was seen leaving a medical centre in Los Angeles last night.

Ouch.

But they've got a pap shot to use and they are determined to use it.

It's not the only clunker. Earlier in the piece, Littlejohn writes:

In these never-seen-before screen shots from the film, which is released in March...

It's an interesting use of the word 'never' when the Huffington Post was running them yesterday.

Mail gets over-excited as Kim Kardashian eats salad and does some 'writing'

After a bit of a quiet period, the Mail website is back in full Kim Kardashian mode.

First she was dragged into a fascinating 'story' about her sister's marriage. Then they covered the pic she posted on her Twitter when she was at the dentist, which led Mail columnist Lauren Booth to complain about seeing her at the dentist.

Her other sister then gave birth so she was mentioned again, and they followed that with the less-than-impressed reviews of her acting appearance in 'CSI: New York'. But an evident lack of talent isn't going to stop them.

So on Tuesday - her sixth appearance so far this month - they decided to go into quite excessive detail about an advert she has done for a fast food outlet. In which she eats chicken salad. There are five screenshots, an embedded video of the whole ad to (ahem) enjoy and lots of breathless description:

in another scene she is seen in the bath, naked, covered only by bubbles as she pops a slice of apple into her mouth.

Phwoar, eh? They say the ad is a:

reenactment of her sex tape

although a sex-tape where the woman is clothed and eating chicken must be a strange one.

And then, in an amusing typo:


That's 'writing'. Not 'writhing'.

That's what happens when you type one-handed...

Mail admires 'pretty' 11-year-old with 'innocent smile'

After a series of decidedly creepy articles about the pre-school-age Suri Cruise and the picture of a fourteen-year-old's bum, the Mail is at it again, with the groundbreaking revelation that someone who is now 25 was once 11:


Now, there's nothing wrong with Perry putting a pic of her younger self on Twitter - the same evil Twitter the Mail seems to get lots of stories from.

But there's plenty wrong with the Mail using the picture and referring to her as a:

pretty, wide-eyed little girl

with an

innocent smile

and noting

My, hasn't she grown!

And all that is just above a very sexualised recent pic of Perry showing lots of cleavage and with her tongue out - a snap they first used a few days ago. It's all a bit weird.

Their colleagues at the Metro also go overboard in their descriptions:

Who is this wide-eyed, fresh-faced little lady? Surely not one of today's naughtiest pop sirens?

And then:

Who would have thought that this fresh-faced little princess would grow up to become a multi-platinum-selling pop vixen

And just in case you haven't go the picture:

who could have known that this angelic little lady would mature into the sexy saucepot

This juxtaposing of a child and a sexualised adult is troubling and, as with the Suri articles, it's not immediately obvious why they continually use this curious and inappropriate tone and language.

As Tracy Morter noted on Twitter, the Mail appears to be increasingly resembling 'some dodgy uncle with a bag of Werther's'.

Mail columnist complains about cynically exploiting girls' bodies for commercial gains

A few days ago, the Daily Quail wrote a Super sexy misogyny special which looked at several recent news-free articles from the Mail which were published mainly to get lots of celebrity flesh on the website.

Missing from the list was the Serena Williams 'swimsuit malfunction' article, which went so far as to show the actual moment the tennis player's nipple was exposed. All in the name of quality journalism, as Mail Online Editor Martin 'news is far more important to us than showbiz' Clarke would undoubtedly claim.

The infamous Daily Mail Reporter tried to link the Williams picture to the £50,000 fine handed out for her outburst at the US Open, in a desperate attempt to give it a news angle. But as they had already covered that story, they were fooling no-one.

Still, the Mail's been a bit undecided about what to do with nipples this week (although a few weeks ago they were gutted they didn't see one). It happily showed Serena's but in Bel Mooney's article about the sexual revolution, a stock photo of naked hippies was censored. Well, sort of - the picture on the article contained pixellated nipples, apparently to spare us this dreadful, corrupting image:


Yet on the Mail's homepage, the trail for the article contained no such censorship:

And if you search for the article, it's not censored on the results page either.

Mooney's article was very strange and more than a little hypocritical. She criticises Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for being bad role models for letting Suri wear heels, but doesn't criticise media outlets such as the Mail who disseminate dozens of pictures of her in heels and say she is 'growing up fast'.

She talks - in the Mail - of:

girls feeling abused and full of hate for their bodies - the very bodies so cynically exploited for commercial gains throughout a sexualised media.

Something the Mail would never, ever do, of course.

They wouldn't use four pictures of 19-year old Taylor Swift in her bikini and call her 'slender' and a 'bikini babe', would they? They wouldn't write in bold near the top of the article that you can scroll down to watch a video of her in said bikini?

And then, deciding Swift is perhaps too old, surely they wouldn't dream of printing five pictures of the 17-year old Miley Cyrus looking 'pretty' as she 'paraded around' in a 'skimpy neon pink two-piece'?

That wouldn't be cynically exploiting girls' bodies for commercial gains, would it?

Incidentally, that Miley Cyrus article was written by a Georgina Littlejohn, who has been busily churning out 15 articles for the Mail website in the last four day, all in the worthless celebrity gossip genre.

It appears that Georgina is indeed Richard's daughter.

Who said 'nepotism' at the back? The Mail has taken a stand against nepotism and people 'giving plum jobs to their friends' children' on many occasions, so obviously she got the job solely on merit. Obviously...

Going on the evidence so far, she's not much better at being a journalist than her father.

Mail ogles 18yo in bikini - in close up

The Mail website article Twilight New Moon actress Kristen Stewart courts controversy in a marijuana leaf bikini has several classic Mail features.

One: it's got a pic of a young actress in a bikini.

Two: it's got a drug angle.

Three: the 'controversy' is mainly in the Mail's head.

Four: there's no news in it whatsoever.

And that fourth point would be true even if this picture of Kristen Stewart in a bikini was new. But it's not. As the story acknowledges - the pic is from July 2008 and appears (from a Google search) to have been widely available on the internet since February 2009.

So why drag it out now?

Partly because the new Twilight film is currently doing good business at the box office and the Mail is desperate to boost visitor numbers by doing an article that mentions it.

And partly because the Mail is increasingly obsessed with celebrity flesh. So they begin with the pic:


There hasn't even been proper research done for this because although they claim in the caption that the man is a 'male friend', the comments say he is actually her brother.

But they could run that pic, if they really had to, and leave it at that.

There is absolutely no need whatsoever to zoom in on Stewart's breasts for this second image:


Is MailOnline Editor Martin Clarke going to try and pretend this is about something other than an excuse to have a perv at a teenage girl's breasts?

Outrage, Nazis, immigrants and upskirts: welcome to the Mail

There are several articles on the Daily Mail website today that deserve a quick comment.

First, there's the Mail's second attempt in a few days to out-do the Daily Sport in publishing 'upskirt' pictures of young women in short skirts/dresses.

Generally speaking, there is very little news value in 'singer gets into limo', but a lack of news value has never stopped the Mail website before...

The paparazzi pictures they have used of Rihanna - the singer in the limo in this particular article - are really, really tacky.

She's lifting her leg up! She's bending over in front of the camera! You can see her pants! And there's this one, which may be one of the weirdest pictures the paper has ever run:


It's an incredibly cheap and crude attempt to boost website hits. And to slag someone off for their 'dimpled thighs' (what is it with the Mail and 'dimpled thighs'?)

Second, the Mail has decided that it is going to be outraged by another comedian who has had the audacity to tell a joke:



Here's what the Mail claims Elton said:

The novelist called The Queen 'a sad little old lady' and Prince Philip a 'mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war'. Elton claimed Prince Charles was 'a disillusioned ex-hippy,' Prince Andrew is 'a bit of a yob,' and suggested Prince Edward was gay.

It's not exactly funny, but how can the Mail possibly justify calling those remarks 'sick' and 'foul mouthed'?

And like the Frankie Boyle joke about Rebecca Adlington, if it's all so awful, why the need to repeat it? In detail.

As one of the comments says:

Quick everyone! Get outraged - the Daily Mail has spoken! - Delboy, georgeosborneland, 17/11/2009 14:09

Third, the murder of Geeta Aulakh which is currently top story on the Mail website. When it first appeared, the headline was:

Asian woman, 28, found dying in street with hand chopped off

Thankfully it has been changed to remove the pointless reference to the woman's race - perhaps because she was born in Britain.

Next is How Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine tried to take Christ out of Christmas, a shameless attempt by the Mail and the people leaving comments to suggest those mythical people who want to 'ban Christmas' are all Nazis. As 5CC noted, the stories have already begun this year, with the Times falsely claiming Dundee was banning Christmas despite plenty of very easily found evidence to the contrary.

The comments include lots of myth-based, fact-free ramblings as:

Oddly the 'Nazification' of Christmas reminds me of so many of the stories we hear about PC local authorities trying to rename Christmas 'Winterval' - Iain, Bristol, UK, 17/11/2009 16:20 Yes, and certain individuals are trying to take Christ out of Christmas over here, in this day and age too! - Pol, Stoke on Trent, 17/11/2009 16:41 Bit like some of OUR councils...eh - Sid Jacques, Durham, 17/11/2009 17:12

Yes, the Nazi's are exactly like our councils Sid. Probably using wheelie bins instead of freight trains.

As Richard Bartholomew pointed out, the article is very similar in content to this one published in Spiegel four days ago. From the original:

One symbol posed a particular problem for the Nazis, namely the star, which traditionally decorates Christmas trees. "Either it was a six-pointed star, which was a symbol of the Jews, or it was a five-pointed star, which represented the Soviets," Breuer says. Either way, the star had to go.

From the Mail:

The symbol that posed a particular problem for the Nazis was the star, which traditionally decorates Christmas trees. 'Either it was a six-pointed star, which was a symbol of the Jews, or it was a five-pointed star, which represented the Soviets,' Breuer said. It had to go.

From the original:

In the 1930s, their efforts were aimed mainly at changing the ideology of Christmas, Breuer explains. But when World War II started, the focus became more practical.

From the Mail:

In the 1930s, the Nazis tried to change the ideology of Christmas. But when World War II started, the focus became more practical.

And so on. The whole Mail article is a poor bit of plagiarism which has been picked up just as a warm up for the many 'PC bans Christmas' stories to come.

Finally the immigration story. The article Afghan asylum seeker wins right to stay in Britain after converting to Christianity begins:

An Afghani who arrived in Britain on a hijacked jet has been granted asylum after converting to Christianity.

It's not until the fifth sentence - conveniently beneath the first picture, so well down the page - that the Mail explains the man in question wasn't one of the hijackers, which the first sentence heavily implies.

There are at least three comments that have been left by readers which refer to the still untrue 'immigrant stays because he had a cat' story, suggesting this Afghan should have got a pet rather than go to the trouble of converting to Christianity. It is deeply worrying that a lie that has been spread around by the media so casually is now accepted as true.

One of the other comments - and like the rest, this has been accepted and published by a moderator - says:


It's hard to understand why 'J' thought it necessary to reveal his genius in such elegant prose, why the mods thought it imperative to pass it on, and why at least thirty-eight people have voted it positive. What is he even 'yeah sure'-ing about?

But most of the comments are of the kind where you can sense their head shaking as their intolerant fingers bash out their message. The Human Rights Act, stupid judges, the Liebour government, crooked asylum lawyers and all liberals seem to be being 'blamed' for what they believe will see crowds of Christian converts trying to get to Britain.

But here's the thing. According to the Mail, this man is forty-nine, has two children and although he:

was a Muslim, [he was] baptized as a Christian five years after arriving in the UK and now regularly attends church and bible classes in Hounslow, west London.

So a middle-aged, Church-going, father of two. Isn't that exactly the type of person the Mail loves?

And isn't that the sort of immigrant the Mail's readers love? After all, they demand that all immigrants should integrate into British life. It's a Christian country, they repeatedly say. If they don't like, they should leave. If they can't be like us, they're not welcome.

So this immigrant has converted to the religion of the host country and probably been to church far more regularly over the last four and a half years than most of them. And yet, he's a fraud who's not welcome either:

Any wangle will do ... pass me the sickbag.
- Philip, Bankrupted Britain, 17/11/2009 13:55

he is a muslim not a christian
- joseph diazrald, London, 17/11/2009 13:37

Now I have just about heard it all.Expect a rush of born again Christians on the next ferry from Calais
- Dave, Essex, 17/11/2009 13:21

Deport this bogus man.
- BD, Kent, 17/11/2009 13:07

Disgusting - extremely disgusting......
Don't encourage them - or else they will be a flood, and the boat will sink.
- Expatriate, Hamburg, Germany, 17/11/2009 11:57

Either way, he couldn't win. It's almost as if the Mail and its readers just don't want any immigrants here at all...

Mail loves pictures of Tess Daly in her pants

The Femail section of the Mail website is the bit where they do all the Heat-style sleb gossip and paparazzi pictures. The third story there this morning is the 'news' that Tess Daly is fronting an advertising campaign for frilly knickers shop La Senza:


Cynics might suggest that using two pictures of a blonde in lingerie (plus another of her in a bikini) is a shameless way of getting hits to the website.

They would be right.

After all, isn't this the exact same story, with two of the exact same pictures, that the Mail website published only three weeks ago:


Yes. It is.

Here's an extract from the original 'story':

The campaign is Tess's first major lingerie campaign in more than ten years.

La Senza said Tess's Steal The Show campaign, which features her in a showgirl setting with top hat and cane, aims to bring together the two sides of every woman - playful and fun, yet glamorous and confident.

Tess said: 'As a mum-of-two, I was flattered to be asked to model for La Senza's Christmas lingerie campaign.

'It was great fun becoming a showgirl for the day, complete with top hat and cane.'

And here's an extract from today's brand new story:

La Senza said that Tess's Steal The Show campaign, which features her in a showgirl setting with top hat and cane, aims to bring together the two sides of every woman - playful and fun, yet glamorous and confident.

The campaign is Tess's first major lingerie campaign in more than ten years and while she had been looking glowing and slender on the show, she looks in even better shape in the adverts - no doubt thanks to clever lighting in the studio.

'As a mum-of-two, I was flattered to be asked to model for La Senza's Christmas lingerie campaign,' she said earlier this month.

'It was great fun becoming a showgirl for the day, complete with top hat and cane.'

Amazing. It's as if they have just used the same pics and words as three weeks ago to cash in on the fact she was on TV last night.

Perhaps Mail Online Editor Martin 'news is far more important to us than showbiz' Clarke would like to explain where the news value is in this once, let alone twice.

Lots of tits at the Mail

A quick fact for Mail Online Editor Martin Clarke who once claimed 'news is far more important to us than showbiz'.

If you search the Mail website for 'cleavage', look at how many results you find:


That's even more than the 867 results you get at The Sun.

But it's a good job we have the Mail asking those important 'news' questions such as:

Guess who broke Posh's 'no cleavage' rule?

and

Where on earth has Christina Aguilera's cleavage gone?

Just over a year ago, a Mail article by Louise Janson carried the headline:

For goodness sake, Liz, Jordan, Posh, Amy, put them away - we're suffering from cleavage fatigue

'We' may be, the Mail very obviously isn't.

All we care about is how a singer looks, not how they sound

Alexandra Burke, winner of last year's X Factor, has switched on Manchester's Christmas lights. The Mail, always keen to report on totally unimportant and uninteresting sleb gossip, is on the case. But rather than Daily Mail Reporter, we have a named journalist - Chris Johnson - writing the article. He begins:

Alexandra Burke certainly knows how to please a crowd.

Oh so she sang well then?

The X Factor winner dazzled during a live performance in a tiny little black dress which showed off her incredibly long legs.

OK, but how was her singing?

She was in Manchester to turn on the city's Christmas lights - but despite plunging temperatures the singer braved the chill in the revealing outfit.

In fact, there isn't a single mention of what she sang or how well she sang it. But they do include an upskirt photo, of the type more often found on the front of the Daily Sport.

And inevitably, the (moderated) comments are mostly about her looks too:

she is the ugliest winner yet, in my opinion and is distracting us with her legs.
- bob, wirral, 14/11/2009 8:53

They are not never-ending legs, someone like Gisele has perfect legs, these are stumpy and chubby, put them away love!!!
- Alycia Channelle, London, 14/11/2009 0:36

CHUNKKKYYY!!
- kriss, fort william, 13/11/2009 23:43

She has horrible legs, too muscly.
- Kate J., london, 13/11/2009 23:22

she looks a bit like a man in drag!
- ?, ?, 13/11/2009 20:31

not flattering at all. she's not got the face or body for the entertainment industry.
- roleen, hertfordshire, 13/11/2009 20:25

Why do so many people feel the need to leave comments like these? And why do the mods feel the need to publish such nasty and unbelievably inane comments?

Especially that last comment from 'Roleen'. Talent doesn't matter - it's only about how the face and body looks. But is that any surprise when that is all the Mail ever focuses on?

One other comment says:

Thought she was supposed to sing. Silly me.
- Keith Spencer, Derby, 14/11/2009 7:47

She is singing. The mic in her hand is a bit of a giveaway. But Keith, like Johnson and the Mail and many, many others are only interested in judging her on how she looks, not on what she's doing.

Here's the details of some TV sex you shouldn't watch, says Mail

The Mail's latest 'ban this sick filth'-type article comes in the form of a rant against HBO vampire series True Blood. Olivia Lichtenstein - who else? - writes:

True Blood is a shocking tale of depravity, explicit sexuality (bordering on pornography) and vile language. Even before the opening credits have rolled in the first episode, we see a young woman pleasuring a young man while driving her car.

That's just before a picture of the two leads having sex. Just so you can see how depraved it is. She continues:

There's oral sex, overt discussion of genitalia, graphic sex scenes bordering on the deviant, and foul language. We see a man having sex with a woman while watching a video of the same woman having sex with a vampire. The excitement engendered in the pair leads to rough sex and results in her murder.

Blimey! How outrageous! This is something that should never be seen! Oh:

it airs on one of our terrestrial channels at 10pm on Wednesdays.

The three mentions of Channel 4 make sure no one can possibly miss an episode now that our concerned journalist has told everyone when and where it is on and all the juicy details about what is in it. But Lichtenstein adds, apparently with no self-awareness:

I can't help but worry that children will find their way to this programme

Yes, they will now.

In fact, last week's episode of True Blood received just over one million viewers, so it's not exactly pulling in a huge audience. And this is the Mail - whose website has made it a priority to include as many pictures of half-naked slebs as possible. Indeed, its lead picture story this morning involved a pornstar.

The rant widens out into an attack on the state of television in general:

But a glance at our schedules reveals that sex, violence and vulgar language have become the staples that make up the British TV diet.

A 'glance' at 'our schedules' for tonight reveals no such thing: Watchdog, New Tricks, Question Time, The Restaurant, Defying Gravity, The Culture Show, Emmerdale, The Bill, Coronation Street, The Schoolboy Who Sailed the World, football and Location, Location, Location.

Of course, there are programmes with sex, violence and/or swearing but for every The Sopranos there's a My Family. And really, who would rather watch the latter? Why must adults be force-fed cookery, property and reality shows and soaps?

Frankly, it is highly unlikely that you will watch something with lots of sex, violence and swearing by accident. If you don't want to watch such programmes, turn them off. This faux outrage about television and films for grown-ups is incredibly boring.

Look at the most watched TV of 2008 - there's not one show there that wouldn't be classed as fairly safe family viewing.

But it doesn't end there. Lichtenstein's problem is with the internet too:

instant recording facilities and the internet, it's increasingly difficult to monitor children's viewing. Worryingly for parents, one quarter of 12 to 15-year-olds watch television or film content via websites (such as BBC iPlayer, Sky Player or ITV Player).

Does she really think teenagers with internet access in their bedrooms who are looking for a bit of sex are going to go to 4OD to watch True Blood (and, of course, risk seeing Noel Edmonds)? Of course they won't given what they could find on the web.

Then, in a statement along the lines of 'I'm not racist but...', she adds:

I am far from being a prude, but I find myself longing for the days when, in a movie, if a couple were kissing or lying on a bed, they had to keep one foot on the ground.

Yes, if only she had made Don't Look Now instead of Nic Roeg.

Of course, this is the same Olivia Lichtenstein who, back in March, watched a load of porn, just to say how disgusting it was. She included this paragraph, which was clearly imperative to her argument:

a man orders two 'take-away bimbos' over the telephone. They arrive, a specifically requested unmatched pair, one blonde, the other brunette, and under his gaze fondle and undress each other like automatons, mouthing filthy words of encouragement and pleading with him to join in. He does.

The article, which complained about the exploitation of women, included several screenshots of porn, including three girls kissing, a woman in the shower, and two bums in thongs.

She appears to be the go-to person when the Mail wants someone to look at representations of sex and say how awful and corrupting they are - she's also written about cybersex, internet porn addiction and erotic magazines for women.

Yet, strangely enough, she keeps accepting assignments which exposes her to more of the stuff. Could it possibly be that all this 'depravity' isn't as bad as she makes out for Mail readers? That grown-ups can watch grown-up material without being eternally damaged?

Or is it that people such as her can watch it, but you shouldn't?

Actress in bikini gets Mail's attention (shock)

The Mail website's latest news-free picture story of a famous woman in a bikini comes in the form of Christina Ricci shows off new boyfriend and a stunning bikini body on Miami Beach minibreak.

Ricci, apparently, 'stunned fellow beachgoers' as she 'flaunted a fantastic figure' notes Daily Mail Reporter before leeringly observing 'she was forced to readjust her bikini top as she stepped out of the surf.'

Her body is described as 'stunning' and 'enviably thin' just to reinforce the impression the Mail thinks very thin is the only 'enviable' body shape.

But could this be the same 'stunning' body as the one they said was covered in 'tacky tattoos' a year ago?

And the same 'stunning' body that they tried to make was underweight when they referred to her 'increasingly thin frame' in an article with several references to Ricci's eating disorders?

Becasue her body shape and size looks much the same in all three articles.

Recommended reads

Angry Mob has revealed how the latest PC gone mad story from the Mail - about parents being banned from playgrounds - has been rejected by the very Council accused.

He also explains how the story of a man's death has been twisted by both the Mail and the Mirror to make it something it wasn't.

Anton reveals the latest anti-Muslim nonsense from the Express, as the paper goes to Islam4Uk for yet another story. It's almost as if the Express can't function without reporting on loudmouths spouting deliberately inflammatory crap, and the loudmouths no doubt enjoy seeing their utternaces in a national newspaper.

Anton has also written about the Mail's quite unbelievably hypocritical article complaining about naked female flesh on the cover of men's magazines. This is the same website, which has this pic on it.

At Hagley Road to Ladywood, Claude has pointed out that the Mail's rhetoric on immigrants and against the BBC sounds suspiciously like the BNP.

Mail points at and laughs at the 'blubber' on 9st woman

Big Brother winner Sophie Reade has done a photoshoot for Ann Summers today. She's blonde, got big breasts, and was on a reality television show - inevitably, she's on the Mail website again.

But as she's posing in lingerie, it gives the infamous Daily Mail Reporter chance to have a go at her weight. Not that they cared when she they were leering over her wrestling, in her bikini, in oil.

At 5ft 5, and 9 stone, Reade is, according to height/weight charts, the recommended weight for her height.

But the Mail knows best. They accuse of her having

blubber

and a

rounded tummy.

She doesn't have either. Is it even possible to describe a nine-stone twenty-year-old as having 'blubber'? Nonetheless, they sneer, she:

was still handed the chance to model Ann Summers underwear.

The use of the word 'still' in that sentence is as if the Mail can't believe someone they think is so unsightly can be an underwear model.

And yet, somehow, that doesn't stop them using four pictures of her in her pants (plus three others from her time on Big Brother).

They mention she was 7st 11 before her Big Brother stint, which puts her on the cusp of being under-weight. But that seems to be how they like their girls, because going from that weight to 9 stone means she has:

piled on more than a stone

and her weight has

ballooned.

Just so we can all see what the Mail clearly thinks is an unacceptable weight, here's Sophie's 'blubbery' tummy:
Hideous...

Clearly Sophie should be more like Kim Kardashian, who was back on the Mail website today with her two sisters.

Keeping Up With The Kardashians sure is hard work

the article begins, although the Mail website tries its best to keep up with every pointless move they make. The 'news' this time? They were at the opening of a cupcake shop.

Martin 'news is far more important to us than showbiz' Clarke must be so proud.

Mail puts Kim Kardashian into Letterman story

The news that David Letterman has confessed to affairs with female employees after a blackmail attempt has been covered by all the papers. For example the Guardian, Times, Sun, Express and Star:























All much the same. Because it's a story about Letterman you get a picture of Letterman. The Mail decides to play it a little differently:

And who is that woman in the pic with Letterman?

It's Kim Kardashian!

The Mail website really is obsessed with her. After four days since her last appearance, it was about time she was back.