Monthly Archive for March, 2007
Phone line sleaze seems to have spread all the way to Blue Peter.
The BBC wasn’t making any money from the phone line but still I am shocked and appalled by this state of affairs. No, really, I am. It’s Blue Peter for Heaven’s sake, is nothing sacred? What next? Konnie Huq selling Blue Peter badges out of the back of a van?
Chloe Madeley, 19, was chatting on her mobile in west London when a girl ran up behind her and took her phone.
Her father told viewers of Richard and Judy she “got jacked on the street” and was unhurt but “had her hair pulled”.
Chloe is the daughter of Richard Madeley and his wife and co-host Judy Finnigan. A spokesman for the show said the couple were “relieved” she was OK.
Chloe was attacked on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, where she is doing work experience with a PR company.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the mugging was being investigated by the Notting Hill robbery squad, who were looking for a female suspect aged about 18.
There’s TV that can make you think. There’s TV that can make you laugh. There’s even TV that can make you cry. Now, thanks to the enterprising folks over at BBC3, there’s a programme that makes you want to shout “Well, if your dog’s as fat as you, why don’t stop sodding feeding it and yourself pies and take it for a bloody walk, lard arse” at your TV. Hurrah! All human life is there!
John Inman, star of TV sitcom Are You Being Served?, passed away today aged 71, gone upstairs no doubt to measure God’s inside leg.
Not a lot of people know this but Ugly Betty is actually a remake of a Latin American show “Yo Soy, Betty La Fea (I am Betty, the Ugly)” which started in 1999 on Colombian network RC1, and ran until 2001. The original was a success all over the world (except notably, in the UK) and spawned many remakes, from France, India, Israel and more recently Germany and the US. The actress that originally played her in the original, Ana Maria Orozco, is as visually challenged as America Ferrera who stars in the US remake.
It is not worth trying to ring anyone here in Colombia at 9.30 at night. They will either ignore the phone or answer it with ill humour.
Because this is the time the nation’s favourite soap opera, I am Betty the Ugly, is shown, and it has become little short of a religious ritual.
“The soap shows us at our very worst, our obsession with beauty, the material and superficial,” said Ana Cristina Restrepo, an avid fan.
The story is about a very plain secretary who works in a glamorous fashion design house, surrounded by beautiful women. Some of the other actresses are actually former beauty queens.
Despite her looks, Betty gets ahead, through hard work and intelligence, something Colombians find so impossible to believe that it is the bedrock of the show’s humour and massive appeal.
During an episode earlier in the year Betty was offered a bribe. The next show had the highest rating of any soap on Colombian history, as people tuned in to see whether she accepted it.
Even the newspapers ran articles begging her not to turn out corrupt, in a country where corruption costs hundreds of millions every year.
“We need your example, Betty” and “You still have time to save our country,” ran the headlines.
Needless to say Betty refused the bribe and laboured on believing honesty and diligence were the only way to success.
The country’s Congress did not take the hint and a massive scheme of kickbacks for corrupt politicians awarding public contracts was discovered about the same time, prompting a newspaper editorial that suggested Betty run for office.
The actress that plays Betty, Ana Maria Orozco, is actually a celebrated beauty, but the make-up artists ensure that a moustache, pasted down hair, thick glass and enormous braces on her teeth, cover the fact.
Needless to say Betty refused the bribe and laboured on believing honesty and diligence were the only way to success.
The country’s Congress did not take the hint and a massive scheme of kickbacks for corrupt politicians awarding public contracts was discovered about the same time, prompting a newspaper editorial that suggested Betty run for office.
The actress that plays Betty, Ana Maria Orozco, is actually a celebrated beauty, but the make-up artists ensure that a moustache, pasted down hair, thick glass and enormous braces on her teeth, cover the fact.
The show also parodies the racial and social makeup of Colombian society. It reveals the absurd formality of the upper class from Bogota, in the form of Betty’s boss, the dashing and unscrupulous Armando Mendoza, a member of the country’s European-descended elite.
Despite the fact Betty has a graduate degree in finance, she is offered only a job as a secretary by Armando, because of her looks.
Of course Betty falls in love with her crooked boss, who attempts to use her to rescue his flagging business using nefarious methods.
Another of the record-breaking episodes was when Betty and Armando went to bed together, prompting outraged headlines in the papers the next day, like that run in the respected El Tiempo: “Betty the Ugly is Not a Virgin!”
Don’t worry Betty may be in love, but she has not compromised her principles…yet.
Celebrity maid beater has been sentenced to … erm … scrub floors at a New York office as punishment for throwing a phone at maid Ana Scolavino in a hissy fit.
SHE will be the most glamorous, and richest, Mrs Mopp in history…
Naomi Campbell is to be ordered to work as a cleaner in punishment for attacking her maid, it was claimed last night.
The fiery model will sweep floors in a New York office as part of her community service order.
Sources told a US newspaper: “She will have to push a broom inside a city facility for five days.”
But 36-year-old Naomi will escape the humiliation suffered by Boy George who was forced to sweep Manhattan streets in public after making up a burglary. Naomi’s spokesman said: “She is ready to complete this, no matter where or what is assigned.”
The model is expected to learn her fate from a judge this week. In January, she admitted hurling a phone at maid Ana Scolavino. Naomi was also fined £180 and revealed she was having therapy to curb her temper.
This is her big chance to make a clean start…
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry, they are a mile away and barefoot.
Thanks to Rupert ‘Bastard’ Murdoch and possibly Richard ‘Beardy Git’ Branson, the Sky TV channels are no longer on NTL (Virgin Media or whatever it’s called now) which means no 24, Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, Lost or Battlestar Galactica. GAH! I’ll have to work out how to download them of the interweb! In the mean time, here’s a clip of an angry woman.
