News

It looks like she won’t be able to get away with this one. There’s a new report that suggests the British public are none too pleased over the fact that Meghan Markle has decided to skip the UK altogether to visit Nigeria instead.

In fact, one royal critic even likened it to the Duchess of Sussex giving the British people the ‘V’ sign mostly because they think that Meghan loves the royal title that she has but she doesn’t like the country. Or at least that’s what her critics think. Keep reading below for everything you need to know.

Royal Family News – Meghan Markle’s British Snub Taken To Heart

According to royal expert Kelvin McKenzie, he believed that the Duchess of Sussex is giving the British people the ultimate snub and even the ‘V’ sign with her behavior.

Because clearly she doesn’t mind going to Nigeria,...

Roberta Whiteman, a longtime editor for Variety who specialized in international coverage, died June 17 at a hospice facility near Vero Beach, Fla., where she lived. She was 62.

Known as Bobbie, the British native was a skilled copy editor and news editor who was an unfailingly sunny presence in Variety‘s newsroom for nearly 13 years. Whiteman demonstrated her courage, strength and resilience after being diagnosed in 2007 with a rare form of cancer that affected her spinal cord and brain.

Despite undergoing difficult treatments, Whiteman was rarely absent from the newsroom for long. She was renowned for her skill at sorting through the high volume of news filed round the clock by Variety‘s unmatched roster of international correspondents.

Whiteman knew every correspondent and stringer in every territory, and she also shouldered the unenviable task of helping to ensure that their freelance payments were sent out on time. She was an encyclopedia...

The lineup for this year's Pointless Celebrities series has been announced by BBC One.

Beginning with an August 9 comedy special, the upcoming series will feature different themes each week.

Four teams of two from the world of music, TV, soaps, sport, food and drink, journalism, radio and theatre will compete for charity in weekly specials to air on Saturday evenings on BBC One.

The first show pits Lesley Joseph and Linda Robson from Birds of a Feather against Ronni Ancona and Phil Cornwell, Su Pollard and Ruth Madoc, and Josh Widdicombe and his partner Sara Pascoe.

Standout teams from the series include Stefan Dennis and fellow Neighbours star Rebekah Elmaloglou, who will square off against Ray Quinn and Louis Emerick from Brookside.

Antony Costa from Blue will team with 5ive's Scott Robinson in the music special, while TV stars Louie Spence and Carol McGiffin will face off against the likes...

Live TV

In the continuing series of low-budget TV shows and channels that I’ve worked on I present to you, my good readers, six reasons why making L!ve TV wasn’t quite the fun ride you might imagine it would be. (If you missed the first, check it out here – 6 Sucky Truths About Working On Gamesmaster And Games World)

L!ve TV was a TV channel spewed forth from David Montgomery and Sun newspaper mogul Kelvin MacKenzie who, in a fit of madness, decided an entire channel made by the people who make the Daily Mirror would be a big hit. Janet Street Porter was plonked at the helm and it was supposed to offer a mix of lifestyle, news and celebrity info all broadcast live. Funnily enough Janet Street Porter and Jane Hewland (of Gamesmaster) were once colleagues – I guess I was destined to be connected to both.

Hadrian's wall, Culloden, the poll tax, Jacob Rees-Mogg: yes, England has inflicted an awful lot of angst and pain on Scotland down the centuries – but, look, we still don't want you to leave

1 Sorry for calling every last one of you "Jock". We now know it's offensive, especially if you're a woman.

2 So sorry for the years of heartless Conservative governments that you never voted for that ripped the heart out of the Scottish mining, steel and shipbuilding industries, butchered public services and imposed an unwonted, dismal neo-liberal ethos on a land to which such a callous political and economic philosophy was inimical.

3 And for making you guinea pigs for Margaret Thatcher's disastrous poll tax, inflicting it on you a year before England and Wales, and then – somehow! – forgetting to backdate the rebate for the tax when it was abolished in the early 90s.

4 Sorry for the 1746 Dress Act that banned tartan,...

ITV has picked up three coveted awards from The Royal Television Society (Rts) for its coverage of the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal.

At an awards ceremony held last night (February 20) in London, ITV documentary Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile won 'Scoop of the Year', beating entries from Al Jazeera and Panorama.

The jury members praised the Exposure documentary as being "a sensation without ever being sensationalist".

"They felt an investigative challenge which had defeated other media organisations over decades had been achieved with commitment, skill and sensitivity," said an Rts statement.

"The programme-makers had given a voice to victims who had always been denied one, with unprecedented impact across many British institutions."

Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile also picked up the 'Current Affairs - Home' award, while ITV News's coverage of the ensuing scandal around late BBC star Savile was honoured with the 'News Coverage - Home' accolade.

✒On newly minted culture secretary Maria Miller's CV are two spells at Grey Advertising, as an "executive" in 1985-90 and a "director" from 1995-2000. Monkey's inquiries about what she actually got up to have yet to produce results, partly because no one at Grey now was there so long ago. What is known is that she was at Grey when a famous group photo of 36 naked staffers (around half the total) appeared in Campaign, to promote the agency as trustworthy; but it seems that who took part went unrecorded. So we may never find out. Only hunting down back copies of the magazine from 1998 might reveal whether the future cabinet minister was a spoilsport or went with the flow, and Monkey naturally has not the slightest desire to encourage such seedy sleuthing.

✒In an exciting development announced last week, some Telegraph journalists are to be equipped with "a backpack device...

It’s been a long week, hasn’t it?

We’ve all learnt things that only a select few knew before and heard truths that we thought were simply impossible. The Hillsborough Independent Report which was released last Wednesday, exposed many of these things. It exposed the crimes against the 96 victims and famlies in addition to crimes against the survivors. It brought to life the truth – when at times we thought it had been killed by the establishment. The Real truth this time. For the people of Merseyside, we always knew that truth. It has never escaped us. I know I wasn’t shocked when the findings of the report came out, the confirmation of a cover up was precisely that, a confirmation and nothing more.

What has surprised me though, is that the lies published in that ‘newspaper’ 23 years ago were actually believed by the British public. In Liverpool,...

Tweeting that Scientology is 'evil' (but Mormonism Ok), Murdoch took time to cement his opinions on important social matters

Rupert Murdoch took time out from his reverse ferret* over UK newspaper ownership on Sunday to air his views on Scientology, Mormonism and the weighty issue of Tom Cruise's split with Katie Holmes.

In a smattering of tweets, the octogenarian media mogul appeared in combative mood, dismissing the New York Times as "boring", Scientology as "evil" and the British government as "weak".

It comes on the back of a week in which he snubbed the English while announcing the hiving off his UK publishing arm into a separate company, and criticised Republican presidential hope Mitt Romney for failing to look like a challenger.

On Sunday, he added more names to the list of people we can assume won't be getting a Christmas card from Uncle Rupe this year.

First off was Cruise,...

The first broadband television platform has launched on Freeview in the UK, bringing an initial line-up of 45 internet-delivered channels to viewers with compatible set top boxes. Connect TV aims to change the "free to air TV landscape in the UK" by combining digital terrestrial television broadcasts with Iptv, enabling broadcasters and content owners to reach their audience in a more cost effective way. The service works on all compliant IP-connected Freeview HD receivers (currently available in an estimated 5.5m UK homes) and customers can access a raft of additional channels through their existing electronic programme guide. The launch line-up includes Racing UK, the pay-tv horseracing channel, former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie's Sports Tonight Live channel, and Chinese network CCTV. Users can also watch French, Greek, Polish and Turkish programming (more)...

Full text of the Guardian editor's Orwell lecture on journalism and the phone-hacking scandal, given at University College, London

Thank you for asking me to give this lecture.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have become a journalist were it not for George Orwell. His collected Essays, Journalism and Letters appeared in a four volume Penguin edition in 1968, when I was about 15. I bought them one at a time with my saved pocket money … and read every word. And, with each essay and article, I learned more about politics; about observation; and about how to write. I doubt that I have ever managed to match his clarity of thought and prose – but he was certainly a model of both, and so it's a great honour to be here speaking in his name.

The invitation to speak tonight came just after the extraordinary events of the summer. I know you wanted the...

London, Oct 18: Music Mogul Simon Cowell made a desperate panic phone call to a newspaper columnist after the writer joked that 'The X Factor' bosses were planning to sack him from the U.S. version of the show.

Kelvin MacKenzie, a former editor of 'The Sun', wrote a small item in his newspaper column praising 'Take That' star Gary Barlow after he took over Cowell's role as a judge on the programme.

MacKenzie also questioned Cowell's future on the U.S. version of the show.

Cowell, 52, was so concerned by the throwaway comment that he called MacKenzie and demanded to know if the journalist had inside information on plans for the American X Factor.

"He called me because I wrote a piece that indicated that Gary.

Simon Cowell made a desperate phone call to a newspaper columnist after the writer joked The X Factor bosses were planning to sack him from the U.S. version of the show.

Kelvin MacKenzie, a former editor of British publication The Sun, wrote a small item in his newspaper column praising Take That star Gary Barlow after he took over Cowell's role as a judge on the U.K. programme.

He also questioned Cowell's future on the U.S. version of the show - and the music mogul was so concerned by the throwaway comment, he called MacKenzie and demanded to know if the journalist had inside information on plans for the American X Factor.

MacKenzie tells British TV show This Morning, "He called me because I wrote a piece that indicated that Gary Barlow was fantastic - which I seriously believe - and that Simon Cowell might get the bullet (fired) in L.A. to get a younger version in. It was just an observation.

"He called up to ask me whether I knew something that he didn't know! I pointed out I'm a columnist, I don't know anything. I'm just speculating. I said, 'You're an actor-manager, there will come a moment for you, Simon, when you have to decide to sack yourself.'"...

The presenter of Film 2010 served a long apprenticeship before landing this prime-time slot. No wonder she has a style very much her own

The kohl-rimmed eyes and the weighty fringe were probably the first things viewers noticed. Those key Winkleman trademarks were there from the very start, back in the late 1990s. Who is this unusual woman presenter, people asked, and why does she look at the camera sideways, as if tentatively sharing a joke?

Claudia Winkleman's new role as the host of Film 2010, coupled with a stint tonight on Strictly Come Dancing's main show while Bruce Forsythe recovers from flu – as well as her usual presenting job on the Strictly spin-off, It Takes Two – all mark a move up to the front ranks of the broadcasters' roll call of talent.

But how the presenter herself views her prestigious elevation is another matter. With a self-deprecatory...

Mark Watson has become the second celebrity to be eliminated from ITV’s Kitchen Burnout.

Watson was working alongside Wag Elen Rives and This Morning presenter Ruth Langsford and after a night of cooking for 25 paying guests, scored only 38 out of 100 for his efforts.

Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White and the night’s diners placed Rives in first place with a score of 74 and Langsford in second, scoring 67 points. Both will advance to the show’s semi final stage.

On hearing his fate the comedian said:: “I felt a bit gutted at the decision but I am really proud that I didn’t let myself down.”

Marco’s Kitchen Burnout will continue next Friday at 9pm on ITV1.

Related posts:Kelvin MacKenzie signs up for Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen BurnoutMarco Pierre White’s American Show AxedElen Rivas for Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen BurnoutHell’s Kitchen changes to ‘Marco...

Donna Air is competing on Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen Burnout series but insists that she didn’t fancy the celebrity chef.

The blonde TV told the Daily Mirror that while she “didn’t fancy Marco” there definitely was “something about him.”

She added:

“I’d not met him before but I’d eaten in his restaurants and it was great working with him.

“He’s exceptionally talented and there’s something very manly about him.”

She added: “He can be a little scary, just because he speaks really slowly with lots of pauses!

“Obviously, a man that cooks is definitely a bonus, although when I did the show, all I wanted to make when I got home was something really simple, like a cheese sandwich.”

Related posts:Kelvin MacKenzie signs up for Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen BurnoutHell’s Kitchen changes to ‘Marco’s Kitchen Burnout’Marco Pierre White fancies Nancy Dell’Olio?...

Kelvin MacKenzie has become the first celebrity to be voted off Marco's Kitchen Burnout. The three chefs - Mackenzie, Tupele Dorgu and Donna Air - were charged with cooking a special menu as part of a culinary challenge for 25 paying customers. Each celebrity then faced a score out of 100 decided by both the diners and host Marco Pierre White. At the end of the evening, Air finished in first place with an overall score of 76, with Dorgu runner-up after amassing 57 points. Mackenzie (more)...

Kelvin Mackenzie has said that he enjoyed his confrontations with Marco Pierre White on new ITV1 reality show Kitchen Burnout. The former tabloid editor, who claims that he has never cooked in his life, also joked that the chef used to hold his knife in a "threatening manner" when they were in the kitchen together. "I like the stares. I describe it as the 'stare-way' to heaven. He describes himself as Fred As-stare!" said MacKenzie. "I do notice that he holds that knife in a threatening manner. I am sure at some stage there would have been a (more)...

Marco Pierre White has claimed that ITV1's Kitchen Burnout will expose the competing celebrities' flaws. The former Hell's Kitchen star argued that the programme would show viewers a "reality within reality", allowing them to see the good and bad sides of the contestants. "Whether it is Kelvin Mackenzie or Russell Grant, what this show does, it reveals who they really are," he said. "I think that is what the viewing public want. Without it being contrived, without it being manufactured. If someone is really organised, you see that they are really organised. If someone is arrogant, you see that they are arrogant. If someone cracks under pressure, you seem them crack." However, the Michelin star chef insisted that all the celebrities on the programme appreciated what they learnt during their time on the show.

(more)...

Donna Air has claimed that she trained for Marco's Kitchen Burnout with friends Ant & Dec. Air will compete against former tabloid editor Kelvin Mackenzie and Coronation Street star Tupele Dorgu in the first heat of the new Marco Pierre White cooking reality show next week. The TV presenter admitted that she had invited her former Byker Grove co-stars around for dinner to help her win the competition. "I was only 9 when I started on Byker Grove with Ant and Dec. I spoke to them the other day and said, 'Right you've got to come over for dinner. I'm doing this show with Marco and I've got to practice'," she said. "They haven't given me any tips, but they are coming over. So hopefully I won't kill them. They're (more)...

The full celebrity lineup on new ITV1 reality show Marco's Kitchen Burnout has been confirmed. Wag Elen Rives, TV presenter Ruth Langsford and comic Mark Watson are among the contestants taking part in the cooking challenge, which will be presided over by Hell's Kitchen star Marco Pierre White. Carol Smillie, Russell Grant and ex-EastEnders star Alex Ferns are also taking part, while former tabloid editor Kelvin Mackenzie, Coronation Street star Tupele Dorgu and ex-Byker Grove actress Donna Air will compete in another heat. Completing (more)...

This Morning presenter Ruth Langsford and former Coronation Streets actress Debra Stephenson have signed up for Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen Burnout.

Other stars reportedly appearing on the show will be Elen Rives,Alex Ferns, Russell Grant, Nancy Dell’Olio and Carol Smillie, Kelvin MacKenzie, Donna Air and Coronation Street actress Tupele Dorgu.

The show will differ from Hell’s Kitchen, as none of the celebrities will appear together. Rather they will face individual challenges and have to cook for jockey Frankie Dettori, Chelsea Fc and a private members’ club.

A source told The Sun: “The show is different to Hell’s Kitchen, but will keep the key ingredients of Marco and the celebs showing off their culinary skills.

“But you won’t ever see all the celebs together and even if they win they will only appear three times – in their heat, the semi-final and final. If they do badly,...

Debra Stephenson and Ruth Langsford are the latest names linked to new ITV1 reality show Kitchen Burnout. The duo are expected to be joined by model Elen Rives, soap star Alex Ferns, Russell Grant, Nancy Dell'Olio and Carol Smillie, reports the Daily Star. Former tabloid editor Kelvin MacKenzie, TV presenter Donna Air and Coronation Street actress Tupele Dorgu are also rumoured to be taking part. (more)...

Peter Andre's tearful TV interview with Sky News anchor Kay Burley has sparked complaints to Ofcom. The popstar broke down on Burley's Afternoon Live programme yesterday after the host asked him how he would feel if Katie Price's new husband Alex Reid wanted to adopt his children. A spokesperson for Ofcom today told BBC News that it had received complaints over how the segment was handled. However, the media regulator would not reveal how many people had been in contact and said that a decision over whether to launch an investigation had not yet been made. Meanwhile, former tabloid editor Kelvin MacKenzie, who appeared on Sky (more)...

Kelvin MacKenzie is to compete in 'Marco Pierre White's Kitchen Burnout'. The controversial former newspaper editor - famed for his outspoken views - will take on the notoriously grumpy chef in the TV show and insiders believe their clashes will make great television. A source told The Sun newspaper said: ''Kelvin's a great signing, Marco needs to handle him with oven gloves or he'll get his fingers burned.'' Kelvin - who has previously appeared on 'The Apprentice Celebrity Special' - is set to be joined in the kitchen by TV presenters Donna Air and Carol Smilie, 'Coronation Street' star Tupele Dorgu and former footballer's ..

Kelvin MacKenzie has been revealed as the latest signing for ITV’s Kitchen Burnout with Marco Pierre White.

The journalist who writes for The Sun will be joined on the show by Donna Air and Tupele Dorgu.

A source told the newspaper: “Kelvin’s a great signing, Marco needs to handle him with oven gloves or he’ll get his fingers burned.”

Related posts:Marco Pierre White’s American Show AxedElen Rivas for Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen BurnoutHell’s Kitchen changes to ‘Marco’s Kitchen Burnout’Hell’s Kitchen: Grant Bovey Doesn’t Understand Marco Pierre White’s CommentsHell’s Kitchen 2009: Marco Pierre White Denies CutsCopyright © Unreality TV 2009 | Celebrity Big Brother Updates

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Part 6: From 50 Cent to Piers Morgan

50 Cent Bought a lot of ugly houses, killed hip-hop in the process

Good work on destroying hip-hop there, Curtis Jackson. Your relentless – and highly profitable – pursuit of the lowest common denominator has turned what was once actually exciting, a musical form that had wit and imagination and some glorious fire in its belly, into something crushingly, ball-achingly tedious, a tail-chasing, scab-picking parody of itself. I mean, well done on the cash and all that, but couldn't "Fiddy" have done something more interesting with it other than just buy an ugly house, some bullet-proof vests and a bunch of vulgar motors while writing rhymes like, "'Til the sun comes up, every night, we party, yeah we party 'til daylight", or, if you prefer, "I'm in my Lambo maggot, my 4, 4 faggot …" Is that it? Is that all the hip-hop fan deserves? Apparently, yes; yes it is.

London -- The Onion News Network will be available to online viewers across the U.K., Europe and Asia following an exclusive deal Wednesday with digital distributor MyVideoRights.com.

The service is kicking off with the run-up to the Nov. 4 election, with the deal partly fueled by what the partners call "the unprecedented interest that the U.K. and Europe have shown in the U.S. presidential election to date."

The Onion News Network, launched in March 2007 as an offshoot of satirical newspaper the Onion, produces footage of current events, both real and imagined, and broadcasts 24/7. It parodies news networks such as CNN and ABC, with much of its humor stemming from interviews and news footage of current events.

Launched by Ashley Mackenzie and Richard Mansell, MyVideoRights.com is backed by Peter Bazalgette, Rupert Dilnott-Cooper and Kelvin Mackenzie.

MyVideoRights.com features only rights-cleared content and allows entertainment producers a way...