“It's war!” screams the cover of Us magazine.
Forget Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria and Nigeria. It's Kim Kardashian vs Taylor Swift that has Us mag so excited, after the reality TV queen called the singer a “f--king liar.”
People magazine also gets in on the war reporting as Kim and Tay's “feud explodes” after Kim videoed husband Kanye West asking Swift's permission to include a song lyric saying they might have sex - but failed to tell Taylor that he was going to call her a “bitch" that he made famous. Therein lies the philosophical difference that evidently is the pop culture equivalent of assassinating the Archduke of Austro-Hungary.
The Globe is preoccupied with another battle-front: “Queen Kate's War With Di's Brother!” Ignoring for a moment the fact that Kate is neither Queen, nor will she be even when HRH Queen Elizabeth pops her royal clogs, Duchess Kate is supposedly outraged that Diana's brother, Earl Charles Spencer, is renting out his stately home - and Diana's last resting place - to well-heeled tourists. for up to $40,000- a-night. Perhaps the Globe is forgetting that Buckingham Palace is currently open to visitors until October 1 for a mere 37 pounds (about $49)?
A “Top Secret GOP Convention Plot” to ensure that Donald Trump wins the presidential election is exposed by the National Enquirer. I'm not sure how secret a “convention plot” can be when it's being televised live every day, but the Enquirer nevertheless reveals Trump's “7-Step Plan to destroy Hillary.” This supposedly involves the GOP exposing seven dark secrets about the Democratic candidate and her husband, including Hillary's alleged “lesbian shenanigans,” her spell in an Illinois mental hospital “following a nervous breakdown caused by Bill's cheating,” Bill's illegitimate love child with an ex-lover, exposing Monica Lewinsky's secret diaries, and Hillary's secret pact to divorce Bill if she loses the election. Let's see how many of these are even mentioned at the convention, let alone becoming major planks in the GOP platform, shall we?
Actor Nick Nolte has only “4 weeks to live!” claims the Globe. “Nolte dead in a month,” agrees the Enquirer. Evidently he is suffering “clogged sinuses” (sounds like a death sentence to me) and “cardiac palpitations.” How do they know he has only days to live? “Friends are worried,” reports the Globe. He was reportedly spotted wandering the streets of Los Angeles “in filthy clothes.” As everyone knows, dirty clothes are an infallible sign of terminal late-stage chronic fashion blindness. Death is sure to follow swiftly (or Kardashianly, depending on which side of that conflict you're on.). I'm starting a death count-down. Let's see if Mr. Nolte is still with us in four week's time. He won't let the tabloids down like Val Kilmer, who over a year ago was given just weeks to live but stubbornly refuses to go. Or Cher, or Bill Clinton, or the Queen, or George Bush, or all the others who have been given weeks to live by the tabloids yet keep clinging on.
Hopefully Nolte will live long enough to see the “100 yard-long kraken” which surfaced near Antarctica, according to the National Examiner. I can't help wondering if its crack team of science reporters might be adding just the merest touch of spin to the satellite photo that supposedly shows a “massive disturbance” breaching the ocean surface and a “fin-like object” in a black patch of sea? Apparently not. “This looks like the kraken,” says Scott Waring of the UFO Sighting Daily website, which certainly sounds like it must be some branch of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. The Examiner quotes a “commenter” who says: “Maybe the stories about the giant monster of the deep are all true.” Hang on a second: what's a “commenter?” Just a random person making a comment, who they can't even be bothered to name? Like the kraken, this smells fishy.
Michael Caine's “amazing secret to learning his lines” is also revealed in the Examiner: he repeats them to himself, over and over. Amazing!
Fortunately we have Us mag's crack investigative team to tell us that Lucy Liu wore it best, Zoe Saldana lacks feeling in one finger after a childhood bicycling accident, Abby Elliott (Who she, Ed?) carries lip balm, bobby pins, sunglasses and keys in her straw Clare V bag, and the stars are just like us: they enjoy a cold beer, sip drinks while they stroll, ride bikes and “they hold the phone.” Remarkable. I'm holding my phone right now, and I've never felt more like a celebrity.
The presence of Kim vs Tay on the cover of both Us and People magazines gives you a good indication of the vacuousness of the rest of the stories inside. People magazine devotes its cover to “The JFK Jr you never knew,” and since almost 100 per cent of People's readers never met, spoke to or knew the former President's son, it should be a slam-dunk to tell us something we don't know. But that's not to be. People, celebrating the 17th anniversary of JFK Jr's death - because 17 is a prime number? - tells us that John John was “ridiculously handsome,” a “reluctant hunk,” had “brains and brawn . . . but no coordination,” and was “his father's son.” Well, we never knew that.
TV's Bachelorette suitor JoJo gets rejects a lover in the Fantasy Suite next week, reveals Us, which is good, because we need more room in the Fantasy Suite for the editors of the tabloids and celebrity magazines. We can only hope and pray that they wear their flak jackets and survive another week in the savage trenches of celebrity war reporting.
Onwards and downwards . . .
Cranes on the bow of the R/V Marion Dufresne, in Colombo harbor[/caption]
As we left Colombo harbor early in the morning, we passed numerous small boats coming in from the fishing grounds.[/caption]
Before I left the United States, I worried that my cabin on the ship would resemble [caption id="attachment_470948" align="alignnone" width="800"]
MIRAGE scientists Helen Carton (left), Jerome Dyment (and), and Nugroho Hananto (right) prepare the log book to record the bathymetry, a manual double-check on electronic data collection.[/caption]the inside of a sardine can, but it is actually quite spacious and comfortable.[/caption]
MIRAGE scientists Helen Carton (left), Jerome Dyment (and), and Nugroho Hananto (right) prepare the log book to record the bathymetry, a manual double-check on electronic data collection.[/caption]
Sunset, July 1, 2016, east of Sri Lanka[/caption]
Sunset, July 1, 2016, east of Sri Lanka.[/caption]
