Big is beautiful

Everyone knows that the magazine industry has a love/hate relationship with fat people. Editors are notorious for their dislike of images of anyone carrying more fat than a Muller Fruit Corner. But at the same time, they fill half their pages with ridiculous workout regimes and desperately unappealing diet plans.

Want to look like Jennifer Love Hewitt? Simply drink hot water with lemon five times a day, and for a treat, indulge yourself with a small handful of seeds. As if anyone other than a malnourished grey squirrel would think that was any kind of a reward.

But things are all set to change as the magazine industry sees the launch of its first title aimed at women sized 14-20. The rules are simple - no skinny models, no dieting tips and no airbrushing. Instead, I guess they'll fill their pages with pictures of women trying to fish a dropped Minstrel out of their bra.

It may be intended as a positive, life-affirming magazine for 'normal-sized' women, but even its title sounds somewhat defensive - 'Just As Beautiful'. Maybe their original name - 'It's Water Retention You Heartless Bastard' got shot down by a narrow-minded focus group.

The magazine's editorial stance takes a similar tone. Editor Ronnie Ajoku explains "We have normal interviews with women who happen to be size 14-16. We might have interviews from plus size celebrities like Ruth Jones but they are straightforward interviews and don't concentrate on their size. The point of the magazine is not to make such a big deal about women's figures like other magazines do."


So they're not making a big deal about size, but interview subjects will be selected according to the size of their bingo wings. Forget about talent, back-story or human interest, if you've got back-fat we'll run a feature. Surely this is precisely the kind of obsession with weight that their readers don't want?


Still, imagine the conversations that'll ensue when a poor agent has to explain to her 'slightly-less-svelte-than-she-used-to-be' client, that 'Just As Beautiful' have been sniffing around for an interview and photoshoot in Greggs Bakery. 


Reality is all well and good, but let's be honest, when have magazines ever tried to reflect reality? Back in the 1980s, a fortnightly publication attempted to convince a generation of housewives that they could cater the most elaborate dinner parties using only their microwave and a cupboard full of plastic appliances.

Nobody who reads Homes And Gardens actually lives in the kind of abode that would ever grace its beautifully designed pages. Unless they did a special issue about mildew covered sheds and how to hide a patchy lawn with broken go-karts.

Magazines are there to give us a tantalising glimpse into how the other half (less 48%) lives. We don't want reality, we have enough of that at home. Would Vogue run a photoshoot of Elle MacPherson trying to dry her tights over a radiator?

Do it yourself

It's almost as if the world has actually stopped spinning. There is literally no news about anything. So what's a blogger to do?

I could try and write about Katie Price driving her hot-pink horsebox in a reckless manner. But would that really come as any surprise?

How about covering Pete Doherty's arrest over cocaine possession? That's like the Pope being arrested for wearing robes.

Oooh, hang on a minute. Lord Sugar has announced that the new Apprentice hopefuls are all 'credible'. Nope, can't really do anything with that either. They're all likely to be slick of hair, loud of mouth and wide of tie.

This is the problem with writing a daily blog - you're dependent on interesting or surprising things happening. Without them, it's just a random selection of words with little or no reason for being.

Since the celebrities of the world are unwilling to cooperate today, here's a 'build your own p0pvulture' - simply choose your own elements and chuckle away.

First, pick a name:

Katie Price, Amy Winehouse, Paris Hilton, Liz Jones, David Hasselhoff, Simon Cowell, Susan Boyle, Angelina Jolie, Demi Moore, Madonna, Jan Moir, Ann Coulter, Beth Ditto, Lady Gaga, Christina Hendricks, Louis Walsh, Posh Spice, Cheryl Cole, David Beckham.

Now choose a news item:

Cheating, smuggling, whoring, snorting, lying, quoting, slamming, driving, drinking, drinking and driving, adopting, bitching, Tweeting, auditioning, interviewing, singing, judging.

Kick off your sentences with a few loose conjunctions:

However, given that, on the other hand, with this in mind, nonetheless, it's funny, surprisingly, unsurprisingly, predictably, with, but and although.

Then finally throw in a few similes, a little alliteration and a couple of snippy remarks at the end of every other paragraph.

It's that easy. Let me know how you get on. And if you have any ideas for new posts, please let your blogger know...

Remember my name...

It's a sad day over at Daily Mail towers, as the entertainment team wakes up to a cold, unforgiving new world. After a week of frenzied speculation and almost hourly character assassinations, Chloe Victoria has departed the X-Factor.

In a way, Chloe is to be congratulated for achieving the impossible - becoming front page news at Boot Camp stage. At this point in the show's interminable run, most contestants struggle to be remembered as more than 'her with the chin' or 'him with the arms'. Not so for the Ridings' most graceful and demure beauty. Chloe has managed to capture the tabloid's imagination like no-one since Diana, Queen of HeartsTM.


Since her first appearance at the Manchester audition, wearing jeans that looked like she'd narrowly escaped from an industrial thresher, the luminous looker has become the Mail's poster child for 'Broken Britain'. Batting her enormous eyelashes at Simon (in itself an admirable effort, if only for the strain it must have placed on her neck), the Wakefield wannabe pulled out all the stops to prove she was worthy of a second chance. And despite sounding like Vicky Pollard auditioning for a stage production of 'Kes', she got through.

Aghast that someone so vulgar might actually go far in the contest, the Mail launched a staggering attack on Chloe, composing new headlines every day for a bunch of recycled 'content'. Rather than take the 'innocent until proven guilty' approach, the paper branded her the 'Leeds-based hooker' based on the findings of an 'undercover reporter from the News Of The World'. And let's be honest, that's an unimpeachable source, if ever there was one.

Obsessed with every gloriously grotty detail, the Mail has painstakingly reproduced the same images every day - Chloe with a vodka bottle, Chloe in a pink bra, Chloe's Bebo page. I'm not sure what to make of that last one, since the death of Bebo was predicted more than six months ago, and besides which, the ages don't even seem to match.

She maintains that she's not a prostitute, and that the whole thing has been invented by the media. Instead, she works as a 'sexy dancer' - suggesting she's more likely to be punished under the Trades Descriptions Act than any kind of vice clampdown. 

Chloe's final indignity, at least the one we can talk about here, was to be set up for a cocaine sting by a friend in a West Yorkshire hotel. No sooner had the lines been cut and a rolled-up twenty stuck in her nostril, the pictures had been sold to the Daily Mirror.

By the time last night's 'boot camp' episode aired (showing Chloe's departure from the show), she had already been allocated a new media-friendly nickname. Rather unsurprisingly, today's front page thoughtfully bellowed ' At last! Cocaine Chloe is kicked off The X Factor'.

Given how concerned papers like the Mail seem to be about the thoughtless and insensitive way that contestants are treated on shows like the X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent, this 'throw them to the lions' bloodlust seems slightly incongruous. Heaven forbid that anyone might suggest that the media are complicit in building people up, only to delight in knocking them down...

The butler didn't do it

The times, they are a changing. Next time you throw a sicky, you'll need to sift through countless awful cable channels to find something to amuse you, in between sniffs of an Olbas-drenched hankie. 

Long-standing daytime staples such as To Buy Or Not To Buy, Diagnosis: Murder and Murder She Wrote are being ditched by the BBC, in a move that's set to leave dedicated couch-potatoes thumbing powerlessly at their remote controls. 

With university budgets being slashed by almost half a billion pounds in the next year, UK students are going to be under increasing pressure to make their grades. So the removal of popular time-wasters from the TV schedule can be seen as the BBC's contribution to the further education effort. 

But it's hard to conceive of a world without Jessica Fletcher. The world's favourite octogenarian jinx has been acting as the unofficial Grim Reaper of Cabot Cove, since the show first aired in 1984. 

Boasting an extended family that makes Donny Osmond look like Orphan Annie, Jessica has an uncanny knack of dropping in on blood relatives just as they find themselves accused of double murder. Thankfully, she's never happier then when finding a bludgeoned corpse in a locked room, it gives her something to sink her ceramic dentures into. 

Although Murder She Wrote was officially cancelled in 1996, after 264 episodes and more murders than Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein combined, the show has been become something of a TV staple. Like the Six O'Clock news or the blonde test-card girl with a chalk-board. 

Nonetheless, it's hard to picture daytime TV without Angela Lansbury tapping away at that Victorian typewriter, and carefully removing the index finger of each of her victims with a cigar-cutter, in order to taunt long-suffering Sheriff Tom Bosley. Shit, I might have just spoiled the twist ending of episode 264. Don't hate me for it. 

Time to grow up

Being a parent isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Sure, it means that in seventeen years you'll be able to take advantage of a free taxi service (less petrol costs, natch). And at least there'll be someone to check you into the nursing home once you start leaving patches on the furniture.

In the meantime, there's an awful lot to endure - from sleepless nights and neon faeces to horrendous mood-swings and temper tantrums. However, the real reason most parents look like they're a bug's eyelash away from buying an automatic weapon and shooting up a shopping mall, is the kids' TV they have to endure. 

Inane, repetitive, and featuring more headache-inducing colour clashes than Katie Price's make-up bag, children's programming can turn even the most advanced academic brain into lukewarm oatmeal. So it's hardly surprising that Sesame Street has endured for over 40 years, since its canny producers are wise to the fact that their output is being watched by grown-ups too. 

The show deftly blends in adult concepts and intelligent humour with the low-tech animation and counting sequences, to make sure that the parents in its audience don't end the broadcast wondering if its possible to commit suicide with a Fisher Price building set. 

This week, the show even took on one of HBO's most challenging and controversial dramas in an extraordinary sketch called 'True Mud' - depicting a version of the vampire thriller where Merlotte's Bar gets visited by a stranger with an insatiable hunger for sludge. The sketch even features a fleeting appearance by the fuzzy version of cross-dressing gay chef Lafayette. You never got that on Playschool.  

The street was also visited by Katy Perry this week, who showed up to serenade Elmo with a new version of her single 'Hot and Cold', designed to introduce children to the concept of opposites. Interestingly, the song didn't need that much rejigging to be appropriate for the under-fives, suggesting that Katy might not be the world's most advanced lyricists. 

No-one seemed particularly concerned about the bizarre coupling of a squeaky-voiced, goggle-eyed muppet with one of Sesame Street's longest-running residents. In fact, most people's issue with the online clip was Katy's somewhat inappropriate strapless dress. The low-cut lime-green outfit was in danger of encouraging too many young viewers to count to two - which would be confusing if that day's episode happened to be sponsored by the number six. 

After a flurry of complaints about the footage, the show's producers issued a statement, which said "In light of the feedback we've received on the Katy Perry music video which was released on YouTube only, we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of Sesame Street, which is aimed at preschoolers." 

It's not all bad news though. Viewers who enjoy the curious fusion of childhood innocence and mature humour will soon have a new show to fixate on. PBS has announced a new concept called 'Next Avenue', aimed at baby boomers, rather than babies, which will teach them "how to handle their lives now that they've reached middle age, much the way the preschool TV show teaches kids their A-B-Cs."

I look forward to seeing how the show's innovative composers handle manage to create catchy songs about final-pay pensions, endowment mortgages and sexual harassment in the workplace. 

Praise be!

One of the problems with modern Christianity is the way it's been hijacked by socially regressive literalists. Despite the fact that they willingly edit out the bits of the Bible that don't suit their own lifestyle needs (shellfish and divorce spring to mind), they insist on taking some of the holy book's most unbelievable anecdotes as categorical fact.

So heavens be praised for an article in today's Daily Mail, which erroneously claims that many of the Bible's 'best stories' have a basis in scientific fact. I'm not sure who determined which were the best stories - maybe there's a Channel 4 pop culture list show where Fearne Cotton, Lucie Cave from Heat and Fiz off Coronation Street select their favourite Biblical passages?

Anyway, the point is, the article attempts to apply scientific reasoning to some of the phenomena depicted in the Bible, as if to prove that they could have occurred.

Noah's flood? That would be global warming, as glaciers melted and flooded 60,000 square miles of land around the Mediterranean. The Ten Plagues of Egypt are attributed to a volcanic eruption and its impact on the amphibious ecosystem.

The Walls of Jericho may have collapsed due to an earthquake in Palestine. And The Burning Bush may just have been growing "over a natural gas vent". But what about the voice of God? Easy - "Hebrew University psychology professor Benny Shannon proposes that Moses was taking a local hallucinogenic substance derived from leaves of the ayahuasca plant found in the Negev and Sinai deserts." Hardly the thing that deathbed conversions are made of.

In typically supercilious style, writer Zoe Brennan argues that, in the case of Adam and Eve, "even the Godless believe she existed." And that's the fundamental flaw in her article. Brennan believes that attributing scientific explanations to biblical stories in some way validates them. In fact, it achieves precisely the opposite effect.

As a system of belief, religion makes the inexplicable understandable, in lieu of a more comprehensive or conclusive explanation. By picking apart these incidents and looking for a geological, anthropological or biological explanation, Brennan effectively eradicates the role of the Almighty in any of them.

Now who's 'Godless'?

Thunderballs

Any junior spy worth their salt knows that the best invisible ink is lemon juice. Simply squeeze, dip and scribble, then hope that the recipient doesn't just discard your conspicuously blank note. Instead, they need to hold the note over a candle flame (taking care not to burn the paper) and your top-secret missive will be instantly revealed.

If you thought that invisible ink only existed in the minds of second-rate writers, who envisage clandestine catch-ups between black-coated strangers on park benches, you might be surprised to know that MI6 spent the early part of the last century investigating its uses.

According to a new report in the Telegraph, the Secret Intelligence Service experimented with a variety of ink substitutes, none of which you'd be likely to find on the shelves in Rymans. Rather bizarrely, their preferred alternative was in plentiful supply, but came with its own complications - not least, a sperm count.

That's right, the first chief of MI6 believed that semen was the best invisible ink. Of course, his name was Mansfield Cumming, so perhaps his was a biased viewpoint.

Anyone who uses a fountain pen knows the standard shaking motion involved in liberating the last few ink drops. And by the sounds of things, a similar technique would be employed for generating this particular kind of spy stationery.

The boffins at MI6 were particularly enamoured with their spunky solution because it "would not react to iodine vapour" and was "readily available'. Although it's a little more awkward than simply popping in a new ink cartridge, especially in polite company.

Unfortunately, the unnamed agent who originally recommended man-fat for scribbled subterfuge had to be transferred when he became the victim of 'jokes from other staff'. Presumably this means he was sent a lot of inter-departmental memos on scrunched up toilet paper.

The other main reason that his seminal discovery never took off, was that 'fresh supplies' were recommended, since those receiving his messages 'noticed an unusual smell'. If only he'd thought of using brie wrapping for note-paper, the world of modern espionage could have been a very different place.

Neighbourhood watching

As the last few clumps of firework ash slowly drop from the skies over Elstree, Big Brother fans will be contemplating life without their favourite dose of carefully stage-managed 'reality'. After ten years spent dominating the schedules, the front pages of the tabloids, and conversations around the water-cooler, TV junkies are facing an uncertain future.

Or are they? It turns out that Channel 4 has another trick up its sleeve to satiate our hunger for interminable shows about ordinary people - stretching that particular definition to breaking point in the process. 'Seven Days' is a bold new concept in democratic documentary programming, in effect turning editorial control over to the viewers.

Focusing on the lives of the eclectic people of London's Notting Hill, the new show is described as "part-reality show, part-soap and part-documentary." Presumably, the eclecticism might actually involve a slightly more diverse crowd than the well-heeled white faces who exclusively populate the borough in the mind of Richard Curtis.

Ostensibly another long-running show about regular people doing regular things, it promises to make the output of Mike Leigh look like Michael Bay's back catalogue. But what's really different this time, is the role that viewers will play in the ongoing series.

According to executive producer Stephen Lambert, "This programme not only disobeys that conventional reality TV rule, it actively encourages it, through a new interactive part of the show called Chat-Nav." This oddly named function will enable viewers to connect with the show's characters between episodes, "offering advice on dilemmas and decisions they are making in their lives." It's not enough that these people will be suffering the trials and tribulations of every day life in front of a bank of cameras, they'll also have illiterate teenagers from Birmingham advising them on how to handle that big job interview.

Since the show takes place in the 'real world', its participants will also be encouraged to discuss pressing social issues - which hopefully will amount to more than just Katie Price's parenting skills or Gemma Arterton's shorts. Given the current state of debate around current affairs, it's a little ambitious to expect everyday people to get caught up in a heated exchange around matters of "religion, morality and sexuality." If the show's cast are anything like the 'ordinary people' we've seen on Big Brother, we'll be lucky if they know how to boil an egg.

Channel 4 might be trying to convince us that they've selected a fascinating cast of 'real people', but the claim that they "wouldn't think twice about revealing all about their lives" suggests another group of intolerable exhibitionists.

Another issue that may hinder the success of this admittedly bold concept, is the troubling issue of self-awareness. It's now commonplace for anyone leaving a reality show to complain about damning character assassinations planned in the editors' room. As though anyone with more than a few weeks' experience on Avid could misrepresent a mild-mannered university student as a chain-smoking, racist nymphomaniac.

With the show being aired in real time, the participants will be able to see how they're coming across to the general public and adapt their behaviour accordingly. The moment they see how the press is interpreting their behaviour, it's guaranteed that they'll dial those characteristics up to 11, making the fly-on-the-fourth-wall show about as authentic as Balamory.

Lambert might claim that "Seven Days is a new kind of reality, what happens when you take the walls down. In reality shows like Big Brother in the past we have put people in an enclosed space and watched what happened to them. Seven Days is going to break down those walls and break all the normal rules."

Unfortunately, the biggest rule the show looks set to break, is the unwritten one about "Ignore thy neighbour". Modern London life has become so insular that if someone's house caught fire, their neighbours would only intervene to ask them to keep the noise down. If we struggle to care about the people who live on our own street, what makes Channel 4 think we'll give two hoots about someone else's neighbours?

Lost and confused

With just two weeks to go, p0pvulture is now counting down the days to its much-needed (and well-deserved) holiday. But as my thoughts turn to itineraries and days out, I'm reminded just how different some people's idea of a dream holiday can be.

The sun worshippers will be packing a bag full of cooking oil and heading to the Canaries, more adventurous types will be stocking up on scorpion venom antidote for a trek up Machu Picchu, and nerds will be looking for a week-long sci-fi event that will shield them for the light of day for 90 hours.

So they'll be gutted to find out that they missed just such an occasion last week, as the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square played host to a Lost viewing marathon to celebrate the final season's release on DVD. Although 100 foolhardy fans were there for the inaugural episode (widely believed to be TV's most expensive pilot), only 21 remained as the series stumbled to its confusing and largely disappointing conclusion. It's not clear whether the missing 79 people gave up, expired or slipped through a wrinkle in the space-time continuum. I suppose anything's possible.

Apparently short breaks were taken every four hours, and paramedics remained on-site throughout - presumably to deal with outbreaks of alopecia triggered by excessive head-scratching. Or to extricate the larger members of the audience from their seats for sporadic bathroom visits.

One dedicated fan, Donna Lalek, emerged from the darkness to tell reporters that by the culmination of the islanders' adventures, she had "no concept of time any more". Which seems entirely apt, given the show's propensity for flashing back, forwards and sideways.

Donna took a week's holiday from work as a bank administrator to attend the event, claiming that "most people think I'm absolutely insane." After enduring 121 back-to-back episodes, her friends' judgement might not be so far off the mark.

Appetite for distraction

Congratulations go to the editorial team at the Mail for inspiring the third successive post this week - the ambassador really is spoiling us.

Today's foaming-at-the-mouthpiece is the latest chapter in the Mail's ongoing battle with Islam, as they uncover the 'shocking truth' about the widespread use of halal meat. Of course, it would be easy to accuse the Mail of bigotry for its incessant attacks on Muslims, so they've taken a different route this time.

Shifting the blame away from their own cynical fear-mongering, the article's writers focuses on issues of animal welfare, despite having no compelling evidence that the animals suffer in any greater degree than in non-halal slaughterhouses. Churnalists Simon McGee and Martin Delgardo have shared their reactionary report with an RSPCA 'spokesman' who helpfully gave them a quote: "The public have a right to know how their meat is produced. Many people are extremely concerned about animal welfare. What The Mail on Sunday has discovered shows that people are not being kept informed."

This argument is disingenuous at best, since most members of the British public seem only loosely aware that their food is even animal in origin. High profile campaigns to eradicate battery farming have been met with the kind of apathetic ambivalence usually reserved for party political broadcasts. And when Jamie Oliver tried to get parents focused on the food their kids were eating, we saw desperate mothers poking Turkey Twizzlers through the school gates.

In a world of mechanically-recovered animal derivatives, the plight of Bessie the Cow in her final moments on Earth seem to be of minimal concern to the general public. I'm sure if people actually gave a moment's thought to the way our farmed animals are slaughtered and processed, there'd be a mass conversion to vegetarianism overnight. But that's not the way the world works, and McGee and Delgardo know that.

The real clue to how these purchasing decisions are made, can be found in a quote from a spokesman for Whitbread, which 'admitted' (a far more powerful word than 'confirmed' or 'said') that 80 percent of its chicken comes from halal poultry suppliers: "We don’t specify halal as a requirement in our procurement. We base our decision on quality and price. It just turns out that we source that amount of chicken from suppliers that happen to be halal."

The facts may suggest that meat is sourced according to price, and that the general public don't interrogate the origins of every value burger they cram into their mouths. But that doesn't stop the Mail from carefully choosing its examples to portray the full extent of this insidious Islamification of Great British institutions.

They're concerned that "famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public." The article is even illustrated with a hilarious picture of two rather posh-looking race-goers "indulging in fast food" at the famous racecourse, despite the fact that the 'fast food' in question is clearly a cardboard box of cod and chips. I'm no expert, but I imagine that the North Sea fishing boats have very few Muslim elders on hand to bless the floundering fish as it breathes its last.

It's clear that the real issue here is the fact that unsuspecting white people are tucking into food intended for Muslim mouths - why else would the writers investigate the sourcing policies of Marlborough and Cheltenham Colleges? They're hardly hotbeds of racial and cultural diversity.

With every passing day, the Mail is becoming more and more of a caricature of itself, as if it's being pieced together by Maggie and Judy from Little Britain.