It's what's inside that counts

I don't care if it's a portent of our gradual slide into metrosexuality, I love my manbag. After all, what's the point of having a good jacket, or a slim-fitted pair of jeans, if you've got to stuff half your worldly belongings into the pockets every time you go out? You end up looking like Bob Hoskins trying to hide Roger Rabbit from the weasel police.

Women may spend half their time rummaging round their handbags like a spelunker with a broken torch, but at least they've got somewhere to keep their oddments. The only downside of course, is that with unlimited capacity comes a lack of selectivity. There's really no need to decide on the essentials when you can just throw everything in there and worry about finding it later.

Weirdly, for one woman in Scranton, New Jersey, the same rules apply, even when she leaves her purse at home. Karin Mackaliunas was picked up by the police, having crashed her car on Sunday evening after a suspected burglary. Having already found three bags of heroin in her jacket pocket, the officers' suspicions were raised when they noticed their quarry 'fidgeting in the backseat of the cruiser'.

Back at the police station, Mackaliunas originally resisted a closer inspection, before admitting that she had more items about her person. Fans of exploitative chained heat movies will be fully aware of the concept of 'crotching' contraband. However, Karin demonstrated an accommodating nature that would have most women reaching for the pelvic floor exercise book.

When doctors inspected her at the Community Medical Centre, they found "54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, 8.5 prescription pills and $51.22" in her vagina. The fifty dollars I can understand, but I'd probably have left the change behind. Using bodily cavities for transporting drugs is nothing new, but the term 'mule' seems somehow inadequate - Karin's more of a carthorse.

Once the bags of heroin had been counted, and the after hours party hastily arranged, Karin was charged with "possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of possession of a controlled substance." Although I don't know why they stopped there, surely they could have also prosecuted her for running a self-storage business with insufficient insurance.

Bad bath and beyond

We all have different ways of unwinding after a stressful day. Some people drink until they sound like Amy Winehouse accepting a Grammy. Others prefer to go clubbing for a class-A kind of night. Me, I like to soak in the bath.

I admit that this might make me sound like my life is about as racy as an omnibus of Larkrise to Candleford, but I don't care. Give me bubbles, a glass of wine and about half an hour, and the pressures of the day float away, like so many dead skin cells.

I can't be alone in this, since supermarket shelves are laden with all kinds of potions, lotions and unctions designed to transform floating around in your own detritus into a blissful spa-like experience. There are even whole stores dedicated to enhancing our bathtime. We've all turned the corner in a shopping mall, only to walk face-first into a wall of overbearing fragrance, billowing out of LUSH like smoke from a burning pile of leaves.

Personally, I've never felt much benefit from the various Radox treatments that I diligently pour into the bathtub. But maybe I've just been doing it wrong all these years.

Instead of tipping bath salts into the running water, I should have been freebasing them. Apparently it's all the rage in the States, even if it does have some alarming side effects. Finding himself less than satiated by more traditional narcotics, such as heroin and crack, Mississippi native Neil Brown got high on bath salts instead - only to suffer a series of terrifying hallucinations that made him take a skinning knife to his face and stomach. The worst I've ever done is try to give myself a bubblebath mohican.

Switching from the medicine cabinet to the bathroom cabinet, resourceful junkies are snorting, injecting and smoking powders with names like Ivory Wave, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky. And since a pack can be picked up for less than $20, they're even bagging a bargain with their burgeoning new habit.

The authorities should have seen it coming, since the bath powders contain legally available stimulants such as mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also found in plant food. But now, with 125 calls to Louisiana's Poison Centre in the last quarter of 2010, the pressure's on to ban the products before it becomes a full-scale epidemic.

Dr Mark Ryan told reporters: "MDPV and mephedrone are made in a lab, and they aren't regulated because they're not marketed for human consumption. The stimulants affect neurotransmitters in the brain. It causes intense cravings for it. They'll binge on it three or four days before they show up in an ER. Even though it's a horrible trip, they want to do it again and again." 

The one upside is that heavy users should at least be easy to spot, with silkily clean hair and pruned finger-tips. And just think how much harder it would have been for Whitney's sister-in-law to sell those pictures of her and Bobby's druggy bathroom, if all they showed were a series of decorative glass bowls. 

Big Mutha strikes back

Farewell Big Brother, it was nice knowing you. We'll miss your dominance over our summer viewing habits, your ever-fading relevance, and your increasingly obnoxious housemate selections. But most of all, we'll miss Davina.

For over a decade, she's been a regular TV staple, standing on that stage of a Friday night, bellowing into the camera, in an endless procession of unflattering black outfits. She may be responsible for a million broken volume buttons, but she's hard to dislike.

As well as genuinely loving the show that made her a household name, she seems to sincerely care about the contestants, no matter how awful they might appear. It's one of the reasons the nation took her to its heart, even forgiving her for some truly egregious career decisions.

But not everyone is so willing to give Davina the benefit of the doubt - especially the Daily Mail, which is today running a story about her irresponsible approach to parenting.

As a recovering addict, Davina has an obligation to give her kids an honest answer when they ask about drugs. Quite rightly, she feels that telling the truth is the only way to make it believable.

So when her eight-year old daughter Holly asked what drugs feel like, Davina told her "Heroin is so fantastic you’ll want to take it again, then you’ll get addicted, which is horrible." It's not like she gave the kid a burnt spoon to play with.

Unfortunately, her open-minded approach was too much for the Mail, which delighted in reporting on the "furious response" that she drew from David Raynes, head of the National Drugs Prevention Alliance. Although, to be honest, he doesn't sound that furious - he actually described the news as "very worrying".

Another Daily Mail staple (the grieving mother) has also been deployed, this time it's Maryon Stewart, whose daughter died last year after taking GBL. She said "I think that is an outrageous thing for someone to tell their children. It is important to highlight the dangers of drugs, but certainly not to tell someone how wonderful they think they are."

Interestingly, Maryon is "currently advising the government on how to educate children on the danger of drug use." Which is a little odd, given that she doesn't appear to have been too successful in steering her own child away from experimenting with Class As.

That's not intended to sound unkind - just to acknowledge the fact that one mother who has lost a child to drug abuse might not be in the best position to lecture other mothers on how they should be bringing up their kids.

Maryon's theory is that "If [Davina] wants to warn her children about drugs, she should be showing them what happens to heroin addicts." But that's the problem - as an ex-heroin user Davina is showing her kids just what does happen to some addicts. They're able to rebuild their lives and forge a successful future. Surely that's worthy of celebration rather than condemnation?

The girl who cried wolf

As criminal masterminds go, no-one's every going to confuse Paris Hilton with Professor Moriarty. She only stays in her family's hotels as an aide-mémoire for spelling her own name.

Why else would she be caught out, not once, not twice, but three times in a single summer for alleged drug possession?

The first time could reasonably be written off as a case of over-zealous police spotting an easy target. The second time the mud starts to stick. But the third arrest means that she's probably carrying more drugs than a dodgy pharmacist.

On Saturday morning, everyone's favourite social-blight and her boyfriend were snagged by Las Vegas police at a traffic stop, when officers claimed that they could smell “the strong odor of marijuana coming from [their] vehicle.”

Displaying near super-human levels of quick thinking, the trouble-making tart made a dash for the bathroom, citing embarrassment and a desperate need to pee. She also, quite rightly, added that she needed to apply her lip-gloss - because no-one wants cracked, dry lips when they're giving the mugshot camera their best duck-face.

At this point the canny cops noticed that there appeared to be a 'bindle' of cocaine in Paris' purse, especially when the clueless car-wreck tipped it straight into the officer's outstretched hand. Come on, don't act like you've never inadvertently dropped a wrap of class-A into a policeman's palm.

Before you could say 'TTYN', Paris was arrested and charged with felony cocaine possession. This time, however, it doesn't look as though the charges will be dropped as quickly as when Paris was fingered at the World Cup. No, not like that - get your mind out of the gutter.

Given that Paris seems to live her life as though she's appearing in an early season of Beverly Hills 90210, her first excuse was that she didn't know the cocaine was in the purse. She could account for the bundle of cash, the credit card and a broken Albuterol tablet, but stressed that she'd never seen the coke before.

That story didn't seem to fly, so Paris decided to cry victim and allege that she'd been set up by some unscrupulous party-goer, telling friends "It could be a setup. Everyone knows how against cocaine I am."

But the best alibi to emerge from this whole preposterous palaver, is the one offered by a 'source' who spoke to The Sun. They told the tabloid "This purse in question was a high street brand - and by no means up to her high fashion standards. Paris is hoping authorities will see sense and let her off the hook." Now there's a rock solid defence if ever there was one.

At least now we're one step closer to understanding the logic behind the long-running reality show 'Paris Hilton's My New BFF' - which depicts her tireless search for new best friends. With such a prolific drug habit, it seems that she's always going to need a host of sacrificial lambs to take the fall, whenever she gets grabbed with a gram in her Gucci.

...or are you just pleased to see me?

OK, let me state for the record that this blog post is not simply an excuse to share a video of a man pulling sizeable items out of his well-filled underwear. Although if that's what you're here for, you might as well scroll down to the end. You're welcome.

So, why the obsession with what's in people's jocks? Don't blame me, blame the guy in Brooklyn who was arrested for marijuana possession last month. He blew the whistle on a long-kept secret within the drugs trade about how to hide your stash when out and about.

In less advanced, not to mention stickier-fingered, times, to 'crotch one's contraband' meant literally shoving your illegals where the sun don't shine - and no, that's not a reference to Blackpool. Now, nefarious narcotics users can take their pick from a range of cleverly designed underwear, packed with more pockets and pouches than the marsupial enclosure at Paignton Zoo.

These spectacular skivvies can even pass a particularly zealous pat-downs - no doubt helped immeasurably by the body's natural response to such enthusiastic rubbing. That's enough to distract even the most dedicated law enforcement officer.

In response to this revelatory realisation, NYPD has issued a memo alerting police officers to be on the look-out for anyone with a prominently bulging crotch. Which for some, will be like all their birthdays have come at once.

One of the leading brands, (Crotchin' Klein, if you will) is called 'Stashitware' - a name that probably could have benefited from a little more consumer testing before going to market. Anyway, their range of infinite intimates includes one particular model which boasts a 'crotch pocket' large enough to hold a two-litre bottle of Coke.

Now, you don't have to be a prolific drug user to see the benefits of that kind of accessory - it's like the Wonderbra revolution all over again. Hello boys indeed.

They've even produced an instructional video on YouTube, where company owner Phillip Scott, tells potential customers how to keep their valuables tucked away. Delighting in the amazing storage capacity of his duplicitous drawers, Scott reels off a list of items that can be safely stowed away - money, cigarettes, condoms, cellphone, wallet, lighter, credit card, drugs, jewellery. It's like the 'memorise the items' party game we all used to play. But with a pair of boxers instead of a lightly stained tea-tray.

Whether or not you agree with the ethics of making a product specifically for hiding illegal drugs, you have to marvel at the engineering. It's not so long ago that we marvelled at Mary Poppins' bottomless carpet bag. Now the same magical technology comes in a variety of fabrics and waist-sizes.

The kids are alright

Forget about the 'obesity timebomb' that threatens to turns the world's kids into listless, corpulent slugs. There's another healthcare crisis looming on the horizon - a mass outbreak of peptic ulcers amongst the Daily Mail's constantly agitated readership.

That's right folks, it's time for another flick through the pages of everyone's favourite anger rag to see what's causing Middle England's intestines to spontaneously erode. And this week's bone of contention is with a new craze that's getting kids hooked on a new 'legal high'.

With mephedrone and naphyrone already banned, and MDAI expected to follow, young people are seeking out alternative ways to cut loose and elevate their consciousness. Neither of which are concepts likely to appeal to the Daily Mail or its apoplectic readers.

So it's with a suitably sombre tone that Daniel Bates reports on the i-Dosing craze, in which young people listen to "repetitive drone-like music" in order to "change their brains in the same way as real-life narcotics." Forget coke or heroin, if you really want to enter an altered state, all it takes is a couple of Basshunter tracks.

According to Bates, YouTube is awash with tracks that "mimic different sensations you can feel by taking drugs such as Ecstasy or smoking cannabis." The thing is, kids have always been prone to suggestion wherever 'drugs' are involved. Most fourteen-year olds only need half a can of Top Deck shandy to start carrying on like George Best in Wogan's green room.

Of course, this wouldn't be a Daily Mail feature without a bunch of ill-informed speculation and conjecture. So Bates uses the fact that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has issued a warning about i-Dosing, to confirm the scale of the threat.

Perhaps someone should have pointed out that taking scientific advice from Oklahoma is like asking Peaches Geldof about meritocracies. After all, this is the state that filed a resolution last year to oppose the teaching of evolution.

Nonetheless, Bates forges ahead with his terrifying tale of tracks with "imposing names such as ‘Gates of Hades’ or ‘Hand of God’ which are ten minutes long" and often "resemble cheap synthesizers being played very fast." Terrifying stuff indeed.

It doesn't seem to matter that Dr Helane Wahbeh, a Clinician Researcher with the Oregon Health and Science University is on hand to point out that the whole concept of i-Dosing is utter nonsense. Bates would rather side with the unnamed 'researchers' who suggest that the placebo effect is enough if users really want to feel it.

But that's also how stories like this work - it's not about the veracity of the concept, it's about the desire to believe.

Sympathy for the devil

It's a little depressing when our favourite trouble-makers lose the ability to shock. Once the the rowdy, anarchic yang to the Beatles clean-cut yin, the Rolling Stones have, over the years, grown into rock music's elder statesmen. These days, the only thing remotely upsetting thing about them is when one of them forgets to put on a shirt.

The rock 'n' roll ethos might be 'live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse', but that doesn't hold any sway with the Stones. At this rate they'd even survive a nuclear holocaust, along with the cockroaches and Twinkies.

But after half a century of strutting angrily around a stage, it seems as though Sir Mick Jagger might finally be losing his edge. Speaking to Absolute Radio this week, he found himself reminiscing about the good old days (presumably when the Earth was just a single land-mass).

In a surprising interview, Mick admitted that the group had written some of their biggest hits while 'under the influence of drugs'. I know, shocking isn't it? It's hard to know what to believe after a revelation like that. Next you'll be telling me that Jodie Marsh isn't good dating material.

"That was a period of time when everyone took loads of drugs, it was very fashionable, but I mean, we did a lot of hard work as well, so it was a bit of a party atmosphere, loads of visitors, you know, there was a lot of drugs floating around."

Whilst I'm sure that the world of music journalism is rocking on its heels at this news, it's probably worth remembering that it's almost forty three years to the day that Mick and Keith were first arrested on drugs charges. Or that Keith went on to become a heroin addict. Or that Mick has regularly spoken out about his past dalliances with illegal pharmaceuticals.

The worst thing about ageing rock stars is that they start to repeat themselves. First it's a lyric or two, then a guitar riff or melodic hook.

But when they start telling the world things that everyone's known for forty-odd years, it's time to start thinking about hanging up the skinny t-shirt and trading it in for a nice aran-knit cardigan. There's no shame in getting old - only in pretending you're not.

It's not right, but it's OK

Great news for fans of throaty, ballad-bothering divas - the queen is back and she's sounding... well, she's sounding a bit average actually. Whitney Houston, believed by many (including American Psycho Patrick Bateman) to be one of the finest singers of her generation, has finally got her life back on track and is ready to reclaim her rightful place at the top of the charts.

Unlike most model-turned-singers (Naomi Campbell for instance) Whitney exploded onto the music scene with a 13-times platinum album and three Grammy nominations. More importantly, she had a voice that could cause tectonic plates to shift involuntarily. By the time her follow-up album emerged, she was the most recognisable African-American face on MTV (Michael Jackson doesn't count, since his face wasn't recognisably African-American).

Not everyone was happy about Whitney's cross-over appeal, with some black critics suggesting that she was selling out her soul and gospel roots with generic radio-friendly pop. Whitney disagreed though, stating "if you're gonna have a long career, there's a certain way to do it, and I did it that way. I'm not ashamed of it."

The hits kept on coming, and in 1992 Whitney proved that she was more than just a set of industrial bellows with a voicebox attached. She appeared opposite Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard and managed to turn in a reasonably competent performance as a chart-topping singer/actress - clearly a dramatic stretch. However, exploding speedboats and Gary Kemp aside, the real legacy left by the movie was a cover version of Dolly Parton's classic 'I Will Always Love You'. Here, Whitney took a gentle ode to an unsustainable friendship, and turned it into a gut-wrenching, ear-hammering love song that lasted longer at number one than some artists' entire careers.

And that's when it all went a bit crack-pipe shaped. Whitney's marriage to Bobby Brown became a drug-addled nightmare of rumoured domestic abuse, parental interventions, and the dirtiest bathroom outside of Trainspotting.


Aside from a lazily produced album in 2002 that felt so rushed it could have been recorded in real time, Whitney disappeared off the radar. In the meantime, her record label churned out a never-ending supply of compilations to keep fans satiated and remind them that she was still around.

Finally, in 2008, a new track leaked to YouTube. Called 'Like I Never Left', the song was rumoured to be the result of new studio sessions for a freshly divorced, detoxed and made-over Whitney who was ready for a proper comeback. Cleverly acknowledging her diminished profile in recent years, the song claimed that Whitney had always been around, and was ready to pick up where she left off. Photos also emerged of a clearly rejuvenated Houston that thankfully eradicated the memories of her painfully thin and sweaty appearances in 2001.

So now, here we are on the eve of Whitney's first new material in seven years. Early reviews are in, and they're looking pretty good. Although everyone's going out of their way to apologise for the lack of guts and throaty gravel in her once-signature sound. Yesterday, Whitney also gave an exclusive 'comeback concert' broadcast on Good Morning America, and fans were dismayed to discover that the voice isn't what it once was. According to reports, she struggled to hit the notes and at times had to call upon the enthusiastic crowd to fill in the gaps.

Sadly, this is what happens to big voices as they get older. Mariah Carey's voice seems to have broken into two pieces, making her high notes sound as though she's swallowed a dog whistle. And Whitney's aunt Dionne Warwick now just talks through her biggest hits rather than try and sing them.

There's a silver lining here though. As young wannabe singers line up to audition on shows like The X-Factor and American Idol, they'll continue to tackle the songs made famous by the big-voiced divas, and come off worse for the comparison. But at least now they can take solace in the fact that there is a gap in the market. It's one Leona Lewis, and more recently Alexandra Burke, have capitalised on. Whitney may not be the one to beat anymore, but surely her legacy is sufficient enough to ensure pop immortality.

Not a lot of people know that...

...Michael Caine's a Fidiot. Sorry, that's short for fucking idiot.

He's in town (London for those who live elsewhere) filming Harry Brown, playing a grizzled ex-military man who goes vigilante in response to petty gangsters terrorising his neighbourhood - which all sounds alarmingly like Clint Eastwood's recent Gran Torino. Anyway, he's filming on the mean streets of 'Ackney and is horrified at the crime and violence he's seen "very close at hand".

You see, Michael understands society's ills and knows what's causing all the problems. It's drugs. Not the good kind of drugs that actors and film makers and pretty much everyone in the media industry use, but the ones that people on council estates use. Discussing his recent experiences, Michael told The Sun "We were shooting in Hackney and someone local came up to me and said, 'Welcome to Crackney!'" Now call me old fashioned, but if I was in Hackney and managed to get some lighthearted wordplay AND a friendly welcome out of a complete stranger, I'd be over the moon.

But not Michael. No, he longs for the good old days. Apparently, young Maurice Micklewhite grew up in "a gentler time", when the vicious gangsters at least had the decency to hold 'professional' status, and chose who they hit and robbed. Similarly, Michael's disgusted that these drug addicts commit random violence. In Michael's day, one would fight the people in the next street, which was much better. And there were alcoholics who got pissed, but at least they didn't do drugs. Some addictions must be better than others I guess. We just won't mention the fact that around 3.5 million people used drugs in the last year, whereas 8.2 million people have an alcohol disorder.

So to sum up, the good old days were when people got drunk, had fights and the gangsters were more organised about who they attacked. Certainly sounds like heaven to me.