Minor Celebrity Gossip from Summer 2006

Cilla Black In Offal Frenzy!

12/07/06

To a central Liverpool branch of Jacob’s the Butchers, where shop manager and long-time

brisket expert, Brian Lardycake, is today being treated for shock and post-traumatic stress

following an incident involving sixties chanteuse and keen dead organ-devourer, Cilla Black.

“She just came in and demanded a big trough of innards like some kind of demented werewolf.”

A visibly shaken Lardycake told Home Defence from the shop’s rear where a pale errand boy

mopped sweat off his flabby brow. “Cilla was all ‘eeh chuck, gorra cow’s intestine for me?’ But

when I advised her that most of our offal stays at the slaughterhouse to be fed to the pigs, while the rest gets kept back for old Mrs. Withysnape to give her terriers, Cilla turned bright red and became threatening.”

The 63 year-old Priscilla Marie Veronica White was the second biggest star to emerge from a Scouse-hole

during the birth of ‘beat-pop’. Changing her name to Cilla Black following a misprint in the taste-making

‘Merseybeat’ magazine, she went on to have twenty consecutive top forty hits including two number ones.

Yet all the time Cilla harboured a terrible secret, an overwhelming appetite which saw her long for all types

of animal viscera, sometimes as many as six portions a day. Experts have linked Black’s irrepressible

need to eat guts with her nascent years during the war, a time when meat was severely rationed and a

sheep’s spleen often had to feed a family of four for weeks.

An open secret in show business circles for decades, venue promoters have long been forced to put plates of tripe and liver on Cilla’s rider or face violent repercussions from this waning star. But it’s only in recent years, with society growing more permissive and Black’s television career disappearing down the toilet, that Cilla has grown comfortable enough to admit her strange dietary needs to the world at large.

Indeed, this former fame-whore, who presented ITV’s horrendous romantic abortion ‘Blind Date’

every Saturday night for almost two decades, and has duetted with both Cliff Richard and Barry

Manilow, took the brave step of ‘coming out’ with her offal needs earlier this year on ‘Eating

With…(Insert Name of Minor Celebrity Here)’ It was during this show that Black sliced open a

pig, and proceeded to feast on its insides like some kind of shrivelled Romero zombie.

Meanwhile an appalled live audience turned an unhealthy shade of green. Many believe that

the media’s subsequent acceptance of Cilla’s predilection means she has thrown caution to

the wind and fully embraced a lifestyle choice which involves consuming ‘a lorra lorra guts’ and

pestering the likes of Lardycake and his fellow butchers around the north-west.

“I’d heard stories about Cilla, cruising premises like mine, pestering meatworkers until she got what she wanted, but I thought it was all an urban myth dreamt up by naughty errand boys.” Continued Black’s distraught victim. “At first I tried to reason with her, pointing the ‘Surprise Surprise’ woman towards my prime rump steak. After all, Cilla’s not short of a bob or two [in fact, recent estimates put

Black’s net worth somewhere in the region of fifteen million smackeroos]. That was when she got angry, baring

her teeth and emitting a scary hissing noise. I thought she might jump over the counter and bite me, so I hastily

assembled some kidneys and innards that were lying around. Cilla devoured the concoction in seconds, gave

me a bloody grin, then disappeared out onto the high street. At which point I collapsed into the chains of pork

sausages.”

Despite his horrendous experience, Brian is reluctant to go to the police, claiming that Cilla has ‘done a lot for

this city’ and should be allowed to go on gobbling viscera whenever she sees fit. But with so much time on her

hands, and seemingly no end to the carnivorous cravings, surely it’s only a matter of time before this

sixtysomething spinster eats the wrong man’s pile of poultry pancreases? Watch this space!

Daz Sampson ‘Washed Up Already’

05/08/06

You join us on an outlying Greek island where the months since an appalling UK performance at the 2006

Eurovision Song Contest have been characterised by the dissolution and downward spiral of a particularly minor

celeb, that man who is directly responsible for making our country the laughing stock of Europe’s premiere

musical event for the third year running - Daz ‘Messin On Those Grade As’ Sampson.

“There’s been no talking to Darren since he came nineteenth out of twenty-five back in May.” Nodded Lydia

Woggle, a professional dancer of twenty years standing and formerly one of the ‘Sampsonites’, a group of

grown women who would dress up as schoolgirls in order to mime along with the UK’s entry. “As soon as it became apparent no countries were going to vote for us, Darren hit the coke and booze big-time. He’s been on one long binge ever since. I tried to restrain him after the broadcast, but I couldn’t prevent Darren going up to one of Lordi [the winning Finnish metal band] and remonstrating with him about apparently political voting. Unfortunately the guitarist didn’t listen, he just breathed fire into Daz’s face, badly singeing his eyebrows.”

Going into this year’s contest the 32 year-old Sampson, a former member of such trancey one-hit

wonders as ‘Bus Stop’, ‘Rikki & Daz’ and ‘Uniting Nations’, was in bullish mood. His song ‘Teenage

Life’, a half-assed rip-off of Jay Z’s ‘Hard Knock Life’, had gone top ten, and the bookies were giving

good odds on a successful Eurovision. Despite a campaign to reward Lordi’s impressive animatronic

wings and sheer chutzpah gaining pace, Daz had convinced himself his opponents were “just too

scary” to win. On the day Sampson changed into his best, freshly ironed, stonewashed jeans, and gave

what his mum calls “the performance of his life”. Sadly, a couple of hours later, the Sampson party’s

optimism had turned to despair, their entry hundreds of points behind the eventual winners and, in the

case of Daz, eager to kill the pain of failure with whatever intoxicants were to hand.

“I can’t see Daz making any kind of comeback now, even if he gets off the charlie.” Giggled Peekaboo

Smith from Famous Cellulite magazine. “He was a laughing stock before the competition even began, and now it’s gotten worse. None of the showbiz agents I know would touch Sampson with a shitty stick. His reputation for unreliability and being a bell-end is just too huge. Plus he’s apparently taken to living in a tree. It’s sad, but unless the Greek government forcibly repatriates Daz into rehab, I can see him going the same way as Pete Doherty, Randy Quaid, or even - God forbid - Cheryl Baker.”

But Sampson himself remains unwilling to give up and come home, continuing to stage a coked-up, one-man

protest from the branches of his palm tree on an island off the Greek coast. In fact, Daz treats any friends or

family who attempt to coax him down with yelled tirades such as the one we witnessed first-hand last Sunday:

“It was all because of the war! You’ll see! They’ll listen to me eventually! I made Eurovision trendy again

me! They’ll be begging Daz to come back next year! Sampson for 2007 – just you wait! I’m good at this shit, it’s

the only life I know. I guess maybe I should have tried harder at school…”

Mariah Carey ‘Not Prima Donna, Just Nuts’ –

Official!

06/08/06

This summer we have confirmation from top psychologists attending increasingly erratic r’n’b

warbler Mariah Carey, that previous reports of her princess-like behaviour and obscure demands are

less to do with an inflated ego than a degenerative mental condition which has rendered the star

increasingly nutzoid.

“Remember what happened to Howard Hughes during his final years? How he started seeing germs

everywhere, fashioning shoes from Kleenex boxes, and grew afraid to go outdoors? Mariah’s

suffering from a milder form of this celebrity condition, known by its Latin name; showbizet bonkerus.” So says Carey’s physician, Dr. Baritone Quirks. “As her doctor I find it extremely concerning, but also quite funny. At least now her publicists have a cast-iron excuse for past episodes like getting her assistant to hold the receptacle she’s drinking from, or that legendary unwillingness to ‘do’ stairs. Mariah’s officially mental!”

Carey (36) possesses a ‘melismatic’ singing technique, which means her vocals are belted out of one serious set of pipes. She was ‘discovered’ by sleazy control freak Tommy Mottola, whose svengali skills led to a run of hits throughout the nineties. But by 2001 Mariah was on the verge of a physical and emotional breakdown, citing overwork and her inability to sleep more than two hours a night as the cause. Her fans first began to suspect there was something wrong when Carey appeared on MTV’s ‘Total Request Live’, handed out Popsicles to the audience, then began to take her clothes off. This episode was followed by pronouncements such as: “The nature of what I do is Divadom, it really is” and: “Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go.” Then came the debacle of 2002’s autobiographical movie ‘Glitter’, in which the self-proclaimed ‘hip-hop Rapunzel’ played

herself in the musical story of Paul Gadd’s fall from grace, subsequently winning a Razzle

award for the special brand of awfulness she brought to the big screen.

Yet by last year Carey seemed to have recovered, her highbrow concept album ‘The

Emancipation of Mimi’ winning three Grammies, while the singer held it together long enough

to complete light charity work through her ‘Fresh Air Fund’. But then close friend and

crack-loving rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard kicked the bucket, and many of Carey’s forty-strong

entourage were forced to go unpaid because of financial difficulties. When her tan consultant

walked out in disgust, Mariah was said to be inconsolable.

“She lives in a fantasy world most of the time, no doubt about it.” Agreed a former member of

C & C Music Factory who preferred not to be named. “The twonks at her new record company

just see Mariah as one big cash cow, to be milked regularly and hard. They’re unlikely to

have Carey sectioned so she can get the treatment she so desperately needs, We had better

hope her new range of cosmetics and perfumes for pre-pubescent girls [‘Glamorized’] is a

success. If we can ensure Mariah is kept busy with low-key projects, then her people can

keep this behaviour under wraps. I know from my own experience, it can get very difficult

when Mariah has nothing better to do than go out on the street and be photographed with

disabled tramps.”

Fearne Cotton One Night Stand Unconvinced By Her

Enthusiastic Pronouncements

18/07/06

Finally, to BBC Television Centre, where Home Defence has been malingering near the soon-to-be-vacant

Top of The Pops studio in the hope of gaining a comment from the show’s presenter, that 23 year-old bundle

of vapidity known as Fearne Cotton. We’ve just been moved on by security, but HDUK remains hopeful,

although our argument; that the nation needs to know the truth about Cotton’s private life, is cutting little ice

with the security guard, an extremely large man called Steve.

Our story begins with Fearne getting picked up in Camden’s ‘Good Mixer’ bar by long-time indie scenester Gregory Frottage. “She was sitting there with some girlfriends and Chris Moyles, giggling like a wench at his homophobia and racist jokes.” Gregory told us from within a dimly lit bed-sit just outside Acton. “I was slaughtered on tequila at the time, so when the former bassist from Thurman goaded me into talking to her as she was coming back from the lav, I accepted his challenge. We hit it off pretty quickly, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, Fearne had granted me access to her lower Verusian furrowed plow.”

Unfortunately, once naked, the pair’s evening took a turn for the worse. The amount of alcohol Frottage had consumed meant he was unable to rise to the occasion, yet Cotton hardly seemed to notice Gregory’s sexual uselessness, such was her (obviously faked) excitement.

“She kept saying ‘amazing’ and ‘fantastic’ when I did something completely ordinary like licking her nipple or maintaining an erection for longer than a few seconds.” Remembers Gregory, shaking his head in disbelief. “Then, a minute after I’d finally gotten it in, I was subjected to the most melodramatic and OTT mock-orgasm I have ever had the misfortune to experience. And I’ve experienced a few, let me tell you. That was what really put me off my stroke.”

The next morning over coffee, Fearne compounded her one-night stand’s misery by assuring Gregory he was

“the best lover she’d ever had” and “totally, totally brilliant”, at which point Cotton’s sickened conquest made

his excuses and left.

“Obviously I’d seen her on the telly, so I knew Fearne claimed every band she introduced was her

favourite, if not the greatest thing she’d ever seen, but I thought that hyping up the likes of Lostprophets

was all part of her job, and that she was actually reading it from the autocue. Apparently not, she’s like

that in person too.”

Intrigued by this tale of mendacious compliments and pretend ecstasy, Home Defence vowed to tackle Cotton head on, lying in wait for the former presenter of ‘The Disney Club’ and ‘Comic Relief Does Fame Academy’ who recently exhibited her paintings - all very much in the classic ‘bowl of fruit’ tradition - within a pissant London gallery. On spotting the skinny blonde heading for her car we ran over, ready to hit Fearne with an array of questions about Gregory and her love life in general. However, on seeing us, Cotton immediately asked what publication we were from. When we said Home Defence (the web’s only Paranoia and Lifestyle Webzine), Fearne told us how much she loved our work, how ours was her favourite bit out of all the internet, and then, before we could get a word in edgeways, she got into her Fiat Punto and drove off.