NAKED BOB TURNS VOW INTO A LAP OF HONOUR
He had to go one step further, didn’t he? Not content with the old
“I’ll eat my hat” staple of sports pundits, Express motorsport
correspondent Bob McKenzie quite literally put his balls on the line
with a prediction last year. “If McLaren wins a race in 2004, I’ll run
round Silverstone naked.”
And so it came to pass, following Kimi Raikenen’s win, that 100,000
fans were treated to the most bizarre sight in racing history. On
Sunday, a fter two hours with a bodypaint artist, McKenzie took the
green flag with only a sporran to hide his modesty.
Around 36 minutes later, his lap was complete, the spectacle having been turned into a fundraiser for the Tommy’s baby charity.
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“I’ve
honoured the challenge,” said McKenzie. “Even on the way round,
marshals were coming up and giving money. I was hoping that they would
arrest me but they kept saying ‘Go on, go on.'”
He wasn’t the
only hack blushing. His daughter, Lee, is a TV reporter and she was
spotted wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Oh My God Father” on the
front and “Sorry Silverstone” on the back. To donate, go to
www.mclaren.com/bobmckenzie
Blast survivor suffers post-traumatic press
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One survivor of the bomb on the Piccadilly Line at King’s Cross
wrote movingly about her traumatic experiences on the BBC website and
on an urban community message board.
On Monday, she was contacted by The Mail on Sunday to see if she would like to do an ‘upbeat, positive feature’.
Here’s her transcript of the conversation: Like what, I ask, suspiciously.
He explains, “Maybe a birthday? wedding? pregnancy? A happy occasion, post the bombing.”
Perhaps ‘Bomb victims: What are they wearing this week?’ I suggest.
Or ‘Blast Fashion Tips: Match your lipstick to your stitches!’ Or ‘The Kings Cross Diet: I lost 3lbs in 3 days with PTSD!’
“Are you erm, taking the mickey?” he asks. “It’s, erm, not a fashion piece.”
Look,
I say. I’m writing anonymously for the BBC. I’ve posted on a London
community website. I should have thought that anyone who’d read that
would see I have no interest in appearing in a paper that peddles
race-hate. And slags off Ken Livingstone, whose speech was
inspirational.
And what I and the other survivors are trying to do is get on with our lives.
Not wheel out made-up feel good women’s magazine bollocks to make Tory housewives feel good in Cheshire…
“We’re, um, not as bad as the Mail,” he says, “We’re The Mail on Sunday, um, we’d take, um, a different tack…”
I wouldn’t, I said, getting into my stride, wipe my arse on the Mail if terrorists had blown up every bog roll in London.
“And The Mail on Sunday?” he says. “You’re, um, not keen on us either?”
What do you think? I say.
“Hmm, well, in that case, I wish you well,” he says, “and I hope that you, um, feel better soon…”
Oh, I do, I say. I feel much better.
snappy titles for new magazines, but spare a thought for those covering
the esoteric world of blast furnace waste.What do you do when you’re
dealing with an international audience that is deadly serious about the
subject, yet publishing in Britain where the key word has a different
meaning entirely? There’s no other option really. You take it on the
chin.
sinking feeling after headlining a story in Tuesday’s paper “Brown
leads tribute to bus driver killed in terrorist bombing”.
The enormity of the mistake became clear further down the story
which told of how Chancellor Gordon Brown led a moving tribute at the
T&G conference in Blackpool to the driver of the bus.
The
driver, George Psaradakis, was mercifully not dead but attending the
conference where he received a standing ovation from delegates for his
courage.
From the file marked ‘Did he really say that?’ After mentioning
reports of casualties in London blasts, “…talking about injuries, the
Lions are taking a right hammering…”
Matt Chapman interviewing Mark Stafford, Sky NZ rugby expert, on At The Races channel last Thursday morning.
Perhaps it’s just a tpyographical error
The kind explanation is that this Newcastle Evening Chronicle headline was done as a joke. But Dog has his suspicions…
Au naturelle voice activated software
Freelance travel writer Felix Milns, suffering from a nasty bout of
repetitive strain injury, has installed a special type of software on
his computer at home.
Called Dragon Naturally Speaking, it enables him to ‘speak’ features
and e-mails directly into the PC rather than use a keyboard.
“But you have to be so careful,” he says. “There are some unexpected pitfalls.
The
other day I was writing an e-mail to a female editor of a travel and
lifestyle magazine who I knew had recently been away on a trip.
“So I signed the e-mail off, ‘Hope you had a nice trip’ – or thought I had.
But instead my voice software wrote ‘Hope you and I strip.’
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