Jan Moir and her Strange, Lonely and Troubling Voodoo Curses

50 sHaDeS oF iDiOcY: pArT 5

Not so long back, as part of the Metropolitan police’s investigation into the corruption of public officials, five senior journalists from The Sun were arrested. The detainees included the newspaper’s deputy editor Geoff Webster, former chief reporter John Kay and the current leading foreign correspondent, John Edwards (not to be confused with the TV illusionist and deluder of the same name who pretends to talk to dead people while his guests’ grief diminishes amid the miracles).

Naturally, following the demise of the News of the World for being a vile, blue-waffled malfeasance, there were rumours that the nation’s favourite red top could also be flushed down the same hole, douched beyond the U-bend, never to return.

If I’m totally honest, I would miss it.

You can't deny that sometimes it is a glory to behold. The complex and purely speculative, illustrated reconstructions of military operations are like the graphic novel battles I've always delighted in. 

Then there are the puntasmagorical headlines such as: ‘Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious,’ following Caledonian Thistle’s shock 3-1 giant-larruping of the Pacers-clad (80s sweets) Glaswegian giants in the Scottish Cup. 

As for the Page 3 models’ insightful ponderings with regard to abstract socio-economic issues, well, they're unparalleled:

Recently, amid the quagmire of our bleak economic landscape, Page 3 lovely Sam (25, from Manchester) quoted from Victorian fiction writer Charles Dickens’ Micawber Principle:

"Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19/19/6d, result happiness. Annual income £20, annual expenditure £20/0/6d, result misery."

As both you and I know, Sam was alluding to Dickens’ novel David Copperfield (not to be confused with the TV illusionist and deceit monkey of the same name who pretends to float over random Wonders of the World, diminishing their majesty into near insignificance beneath his miracles).

So yeah, I would definitely miss The Sun if it self-destructed like the News of the World.

Phone-hacking and corruption scandals aside however, there is one humourless rag that I’d love to see have their offices confiscated and converted into theme parks for transgender Azerbaijani economic migrants. This newspaper goes by the name of…

Don’t bother with the drumroll. Oh fuck it, go on then... Brrrr-rrrrr-rrrr-urgh -

It's The Daily Mail. Obviously. 

And it’s actually fucking despicable.

For a starter, it’s never made me laugh (intentionally) - not once, ever and that's a heinous crime in itself.

In the 1930s, friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, Lord Rothermere directed the Mail's editorial stance and praised the Nazi regime's accomplishments. He stated: "The minor misdeeds of individual Nazis would be submerged by the immense benefits the new regime is already bestowing on Germany." Either he was referring to the violence against Jews and anyone else that didn't fit the Aryan master race ideology or he was a fucking blithering bumblespanner. Either way he was a bottom-drawer prophesier.

But fast-forward to the 21st century and it turns out that the newspaper has a genuine clairvoyant on their hands. A fortune-teller who is so accurate that it can only be rationally explained by the assumption that she dabbles in the ancient witchcraft of voodoo.

From now on, I'm only going to refer to the paper anagrammatically in an attempt to be annoying and provoke temporary confusion.

Here's yet another topic that DIY Himla Tale recently tackled:

The untimely death of Stephen Gately from Boyzone, or Boys Aloud or Banally Blathering Buggernuts - I can't remember the particular band but you know the one I mean?

Vodouist practitioner and My Ideal Hitla columnist Jan Moir scrawled a scandalous assault on Boyzone's openly-gay jigger-abouter Stephen Gately's untimely demise before the poor lad had even been patted into the ground. I definitely wouldn't call it a tribute. It was entitled:

'A Strange, Lonely and Troubling Death...'

Moir opens by warning fans to expect the unexpected from their heroes:

"Particularly if these idols live a life shadowed by dark appetites fractured by private vice."

I don't think she's talking about midnight lemonade slurping sojourns huddled in the glow of the fridge light. But I'm not entirely sure I understand what she means at all? Wasn't Gately's history as a clean-cut idol of hundreds of thousands of 13 year old girls. And my mate Gary.

Then, somewhat suspiciously she writes:

"Robbie, Amy, Kate, Whitney, Britney... We are not being ghoulish to anticipate their bad end."

Well she is being a bit ghoulish, let's be honest. It should be pointed out that when she wrote this article they were all still alive. No doubt when Amy and Whitney died she was rubbing her hands with glee. Either that, or hang on a minute...

Now I'm no Columbo, but if Robbie rolls a 7 in the next few months then Moir should be taken in for questioning, that's all I'm saying. The detectives should probably scour her attic with a fine-toothed comb. I'd be looking for some kind of padlocked antique chest which I guarantee, once prized open with a crowbar, will reveal a plethora of pin-pierced Hoodoo-Voodoo Cabbage Patch celebrity dolls. 

Trust me, I've seen Kill List.

I'm still struggling to see the connection between these celebrities and Stephen Gately. What is the common connection between these 'dark appetites'?

Williams: Bolivian marching powder and pork and pickle pies; Winehouse: smack, crack and booze; Moss: nose candy and looking scrumdiddlyumptious; Houston crack and Brown (not of the heroin variety); Spears: hair-clippers? Gately: Er..?

Stephen had been on holiday in Port d'Andratx, Mallorca with his partner Andrew Cowles when he died suddenly in his sleep. His death was later determined to have been caused by a pulmonary edema resulting from an undiagnosed heart condition according to the coroner. Essentially, he died as a result of a congenital heart defect. 

This however does not satisfy Ms Moir:

"All the official reports point to a natural death with no suspicious circumstances." 

Then the Miss Marple in her bursts forth:

"But hang on a minute. Something is terribly wrong with the way the incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap, like a broken teacup in the rented cottage."

I'm not sure the Gately family saw their son's congenital heart defect in the same way as Jan Moir's metaphor of a fumbled tumbler in a quaint countryside retreat somehow.

A pathology report stated that Gately suffered from atheromatosis, an undiagnosed heart condition. The report said that the star had died from an acute pulmonary oedema – a build up of fluid on the lungs caused by the condition. The report made it clear that he had not been killed by alcohol or drugs.

Good enough for most people but sometimes it takes a maverick to solve these things:

“Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.”

Post-mortem examinations don’t always go far enough for some people apparently. I always like to get a second opinion from a mouthy hack with no medical training whatsoever, dunno about you?

Jan Moir’s article was published the day before Stephen Gately’s funeral. 

The day before.

She's a bit like the Westboro Baptist Church members in Kansas - the religious zealots who picket funerals and waved banners such as 'Matt is in Hell' and 'Thank god for AIDS' during the funeral of Matthew Shephard, a man murdered for being homosexual. 

Jan Moir's like them but more impatient. Why wait for the service to take place before pissing all over the memory of a family's cherished love one?

I'll let Britney Spears have the final word:

"Don’t you know that you’re toxic?"