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Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'I was forced onto streets after marriage split but now have unique job'
Invisible Cities offers tours run by people who have experienced homelessness. For dad-of-two Andy it's been life-changing – and his clients love it too. It's a city of famous landmarks, from the stunning Central Library to the neo-gothic Town Hall, Old Trafford to the Etihad, the Chinatown archway to the rising skyscrapers of 'Manc-hattan'. But even if you own an original 1989 bucket hat, Manchester tour guide Andy has something to show you. From tales about the city's quirky Tommy Ducks pub – where bras and knickers were once pinned to the ceiling, and glass-topped coffins were used as tables – or to hear what happened when celebrity medium Derek Acorah encountered spirits as lairy as the Gallagher brothers, Andy is your guide. Like all the tour guides who work for Invisible Cities in Manchester, Glasgow, Aberdeen, York, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Liverpool and have been affected by homelessness, Andy has a unique perspective of the city he lives in – shaped by his experience of living in a garage in Greater Manchester. Meanwhile Gordon Brown blasts the return of 'poverty of 60 years ago' as he makes one big demand. READ MORE: 'I lost my husband, now I've only got 12 months to live' "I had a group of nurses over from Massachusetts last week," Andy says, as he takes another tour through secret passageways and hidden cut-throughs. "I was able to show them the oldest and best pubs in Manchester and a bit about how people live. Hopefully they experienced something really different." Founded in 2016, Invisible Cities aims to "challenge perceptions of homelessness and provide meaningful opportunities for people to share their experiences and knowledge through unique walking tours". Over the last few weeks, the Oasis faithful have been led by fellow fan Nic, on a 'Wonderwalk' through the city that inspired anthems like Don't Look Back in Anger, visiting iconic spots such as the Free Trade Hall, Microdot, and Afflecks Palace. In Glasgow, tourists get to see the streets from the perspective of people like Brian – who spent 30 years battling addictions and homelessness before rebuilding his life. In Aberdeen, mum-of-three Michelle leads tourists into The Silver City's Shadows where people like her struggle to find a safe home. In York, Miles – a former banker who found his life turned upside down by addiction and homelessness – peels away the layers of local history. These are just some of 158 trained guides, covering tours from 'The Real Women of Edinburgh' to 'York's Railway Heritage' to a poetry and protest tour of Cardiff that ends at the feet of the founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan. Invisible Cities' founder, Zakia Moulaoui Guery, set up the project after experiencing something similar on a trip to Athens. "I wanted to bring homelessness out of the shadows," she says. "Our goal is simple: to replace stigma with understanding, and stereotypes with human connection." For Andy it's been life-changing. "It's given me purpose, a future, at a time when everything seemed to have gone," he says. Andy is happy to share his own story with the people he guides around the city too. In 2014, his marriage ended, forcing him to leave the social housing he'd shared for a decade with his ex-wife and two children. He'd been a full-time carer for his son who has cerebral palsy so hadn't been in paid employment for a while, making it even harder to start again. Deemed a low priority for council help – he was told he faced a wait of five years to be housed – he suddenly found himself homeless. "You don't think it can happen to you," he says, shaking his head, "Not at 47. I'd had a family and a stable home then suddenly it all went. I literally had nowhere to go, I was facing having to sleep on the streets, I didn't know if I could hack it, but what else could I do?" Someone from Andy's church in Wigan, Lancs, offered him a place to sleep – in their garage. "I thought it would be for a week or so, while I looked for a private rented property," he says, "But with all the paperwork it took three months. I was stuck in a catch 22, the benefits people said I needed an address to get Job Seekers' Allowance and to have it paid into a bank, but I didn't have an address. "They told me to keep quiet about being homeless if I went for an interview, I didn't know how that would work…" While flat and job hunting, Andy threw himself into volunteering. A placement at the Manchester Museum saw him start to find himself again. He learned fast, working with the public and in other museums. When he heard about Invisible Cities, he felt confident enough to sign up. "I decided to give it a go," he explains, "I was nervous but when you're on your a**e you realise you've got nothing to lose." Andy used lockdown to prepare his tour and joined the team in 2021. Now he gives three or four tours a month. "I realised I had knowledge I could share, of the city centre, of its history and pubs and like the other guides, of my own life," he says. "It feels more important than ever to do that. Until you've experienced homelessness it's hard to understand how isolated you feel. "But no-one is immune. Things like bereavement, being switched to Universal Credit, relationships not working, it happens. When I got my own place and put the key in the door, that feeling of safety came back. Most of the time homelessness is invisible, people are sofa surfing, or staying in these hotels or B&Bs. You feel left out of society. This is about showing we're human, we're still here, it can happen to anyone." Invisible Cities isn't just for tourists, but for locals too. Manchester is the Mirror's Claire Donnelly's home city but she says Andy opened her eyes to new parts of the city and gave her a different vantage point from which to view a place she's known all her life. Andy, she says, had her laughing out loud with some of his stories. "He's fun, easy company with a great line in unusual local history, including the lady drinkers pinning their knickers to the wall," she says. "Manchester is my home city but thanks to Andy I've noticed things that have previously passed me by. Tiny, tucked away pubs, historical monuments, secret tunnels – including one from a church altar to a pub down the road – and some of the quiet spaces homeless people use." The Tommy Ducks pub is now a Premier Inn, but in St Ann's Square, a place Claire says she passes through all the time, Andy points out a striking artwork – 'Jesus the Homeless,' a bronze depiction of Christ as a homeless man, sleeping on a bench. "It's one of several dotted across the world, but I must have walked by here thousands of times without noticing it," Claire says. Andy smiles. "And that's why we do this," he says, "To show you all the things people never see. And to show that anyone – including people who have been homeless – are capable of doing anything, of contributing."
Telegraph
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘You two-faced maggot': How Kim Woodburn turned rudeness into an art
Farewell, then, dear Kim Woodburn. You were great at cleaning houses. But you were even better at being the rudest woman on TV. Maintaining a showbiz career involves gritting your teeth, smiling sweetly and pretending that you love everyone around you. That couple on the breakfast show sofa? Secretly, they hate each other. The actress saying what a pleasure it was to work with her leading man? She'd be happy to see him run over. Queen Kim was having none of this fakery, and delighted in dropping truth bombs all over Britain's TV studios. Coleen Nolan? 'A two-faced maggot.' Derek Acorah? 'He couldn't spot a ghost at 50 paces.' Footballer Jamie O'Hara? 'Go away, you adulterer.' Lorraine Kelly, who had mocked Nigel Farage 's appearance in the jungle on I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here? 'He's in there doing a splendid job. He's polite and courteous. Lorraine Kelly, you ain't all that, dear. You ain't all that.' Camp as Christmas and fond of a pink gin, Woodburn became a reality TV icon. But before all that was How Clean Is Your House in the 2000s. In her smart pastel jackets, polished jewellery and immaculately coiffed hair, she was magisterial in Marigolds. 'What in the name of all that's normal is this?' she would cry, surveying revolting kitchens and bathrooms. While partner Aggie MacKenzie squealed in horror at the mouldy fridges and manky toilets, Woodburn would briskly take the homeowners to task for their laziness. In an early episode, a couple feebly claimed that they were too tired after a long day to tackle the housework. Woodburn had zero time for that excuse. 'A lot of people work very hard. You make the time to do your house. You're lazy. I'm appalled. I wouldn't cook a dog's meal in that kitchen.' In 2010, she appeared on a special edition of Come Dine With Me, jokingly glugging spirits from the bottle and insulting Claire Sweeney for buying mascarpone. Sweeney took this in the right way, saying on news of Woodburn's death: 'Kim Woodburn was a legend. When we did Come Dine With Me, she was hysterical. She called me the slapper of the parish and accused me of spiking her dessert with pink gin.' But that was small beer compared with Celebrity Big Brother in 2017, when Woodburn went into overdrive against the bunch of 'chinless wonders' and 'ratbags' in the house. 'I wouldn't s— on you if you were on fire!' she yelled at O'Hara, calling him a 'chicken-livered bugger'. 'I'll cross you so badly and you'll regret it for the rest of your life!' at someone called Nicola McLean. She also dispensed words of advice, harking back to her old job: 'We don't mix with scum. We wash it down the sink.' It was TV gold, but there was a sadness behind it – Woodburn had endured a horrible childhood of abuse, followed by the trauma of giving birth prematurely to a stillborn baby whom she buried in a park. She felt bullied and belittled by her fellow housemates, and it was horrible to watch. She followed it up by confronting one of her alleged tormentors, Coleen Nolan, on Loose Women, eventually storming off the set while shouting: 'You are trash. You're a piece of filth!' The studio audience sided with Nolan, but viewers at home were on Woodburn's side. She leaned into the drama after that, appearing on TV to dispense more insults as and when required. She was a regular on This Morning, and had one particularly testy encounter with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby. 'Don't mess with me,' she glowered at Willoughby, who giggled nervously: 'I wouldn't, I'm terrified.' Schofield thought he could have the last word, signing off with a mocking: 'What a delight to see you.' To which Woodburn narrowed her eyes and said with disdain: 'You phoney.' RIP, Kim. You were spectacularly rude. And, more often than not, you were right.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Britain's voters can't resist a messy drama. How fortunate for Nigel Farage and Reform
It was a busy week for on-again off-again Reform chair Zia Yusuf, whose job over the past 11 months had been to reform Reform. (I know.) Zia quit on Thursday. Had his job split on Friday. Returned on Saturday. Chilled on Sunday. The job split seems to have endured though, as Yusuf will now run a UK version of Doge – as we know, the perfect role for highly emotional men – while this very morning, Nigel Farage was unveiling a new chair: Dr David Bull. David brings extensive experience with witchcraft, ghosts, spirits and beasts from his time as presenter of paranormal reality TV show Most Haunted Live, where he packaged the wailings of reekingly obvious charlatan/compelling spirit medium Derek Acorah for a studio audience. I can't imagine what this CV could do for Reform, but Nigel Farage must have seen something in it. Derek Acorah crossed permanently to the spirit world in January 2020, but it would be nice to think that shouldn't be a bar to his being selected as one of those Reform candidates credited with being able to make deep connections with a public that is desperately searching for something beyond the ordinary. It would certainly be a less mad development than some other of the party's activities this week. On Monday, Farage could be found in Wales promising to reopen Port Talbot steelworks, a plan so nutso that it could only really be believed by conspiracy theorists. Jet fuel can't melt steel beams – and Nigel Farage can re-melt steel furnaces that have cooled solid. Sure thing! Also, he might very well win the next election, so make of that what you will. From the Rupert Lowe conflagration to the Yusuf hokey cokey last weekend, it has to be said that the endless drama in Reform this year hasn't dented Farage's party's poll ratings one tiny bit. In fact, up they climb. My theory is that at some level, people actively like it. They liked Boris Johnson's fecklessness and chaos too – until, admittedly, they really didn't. Still, what a run. As discussed here previously, Britain is a majority nutter nation, and in recent history our deepest and most long-lasting political affections have been reserved for figures across the spectrum who had something of the nutter to them. Thatcher, Blair, Johnson … all nutters. Even Corbyn did miles better than he should have, simply by virtue of being a nutter – though he ultimately failed for not being a kindred nutter. Reform give the impression of being long and strong in nutters. 'He crawled out under the wire,' twinkled Farage this morning of Yusuf's 'bid for freedom', 'but we got him back in!' 'Sorry to put you all through that!' said Yusuf with a slightly strangulated smile. 'I did realise the only way I was going to get a couple of days off was to resign and then come back again … I can't thank Nigel enough for having me back. I regret those tweets, I was exhausted.' As Farage implied, this is just the sort of thing that happens when passionate people care almost too much. For decades, the deepest analysis afforded to the England football side was that they needed to play with more 'passion', and there is now a huge amount of this in the way we assess politicians. Keir Starmer, a sterile lawyer who communicates with all the vim of a recorded 'see it, say it, sorted' message, does not reach the parts that need reaching. Farage speaks a more natural language, and consequently gets away with dismissing with one joke a row that would have consumed other parties' PR machines for weeks. 'Reform hit a speed bump last week,' he said in Wales of Yusuf's resignation and unresignation. 'Maybe it's because we were driving above the recommended 20mph …' Arguably, it was ever thus. Reform keeps refreshing its moniker, but in many ways it's still the same – like a bankrupt who changes his name each time he moves town and starts another double-glazing business. Ukip, the Brexit party, Reform – every time Nigel leads another one you hear a lot about professional revolution, but at some level they're still the same outfit where one MEP had some altercation with another one, after which the latter collapsed in the European parliament. As Neil Hamilton insisted at the time, this is simply the sort of thing that happens when 'passions run high'. But by far the most important part is: it doesn't seem to matter. What's changed in a post-Trump world is that chaos and drama can be repolished as political assets. As I say, I think the lack of discipline is part of the appeal. Discipline – what really is there to love about that word for most people? It smacks of being told off, which many have had quite enough of over the past decade of elite cultural policing. Politicians who manage rigidly conventional discipline above almost anything else have become regarded as robotic, while prodigals like Farage are polling like they're worth laying on a fatted takeaway for. Instead of trying to counter Farage with the very conventions to which he is an adverse reaction, the two main parties should consider how unbelievably badly they've cocked things up that Nigel's rolling drama seems like a good idea. 'Can we do it?' wondered Dr David Bull rhetorically this morning of making Farage prime minister. 'Well, to quote Bob the Builder: YES WE CAN.' Can't help thinking it was someone other than Bob the Builder who made 'yes we can' into an iconic political slogan … but – to use words which may function equally well as a Reform slogan – let's not get bogged down in details. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
The Sun
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Watch the moment mum's £3 B&M mug EXPLODES two days after she bought it – as she says it ‘could've blown up in my face'
A MOTHER has been left gobsmacked after a B&M mug s pontaneously exploded and sounded 'like a bomb', just two days after she purchased it. Rebecca Drake, 33, caught footage of a glass mug exploding with no one near it and claims it could have blown up in her face. 7 7 7 The mum-of-one picked up two glass mugs and glass tumblers from the bargain chain on May 6th and used the cup for the first time just two days later on May 8th. She took a sip of her cold matcha latte, before putting the £3 mug down and popping into the garden. But when she returned, she found it shattered and the contents splattered across her table. Pointing the finger of blame at one of her two Sproodle dogs, the cake business owner looked at her dog camera footage and was stunned to see it had spontaneously exploded, sounding 'like a bomb'. After sharing the now-viral clip on Facebook, social media users were whipped up in a paranormal frenzy, urging her to flee the property and suggesting she contact famous psychic Derek Acorah. While the mother admits the explosion was 'spooky', she believes a chip in the glass was a more likely cause - and simply wants a refund from B&M. Rebecca, from Mirfield, West Yorkshire, said: "At first I thought maybe it could be a ghost, it was spooky. "I had one of the radio stations on and they were literally talking about poltergeists as I was cleaning it up. "But nothing has ever happened in my house before which has made me think that it's haunted. "I thought I'd check the dog camera to see if one of them jumped up and knocked it. I tried a viral hack promising to save hundreds on my B&M trolley but it was a total con - I scoured for 2 HOURS & only saved a tenner "I checked the camera and the sound was as if a bomb had gone off, I just couldn't believe it. It took my breath away how it did it on its own and how loud it was. "There were bits of tiny, tiny glass everywhere, it was all in the dogs ' fur and there were big chunks of it all on the table. "I was only outside for four minutes, I was drinking out of it three minutes before it exploded.' Not only this, but the shocked woman then added: "It could have literally exploded in my face or in my hands. 7 7 7 'I've got a daughter who's 11 and if she'd had it in her bedroom it could have really hurt her. "It's really scary to think what could have happened if myself or my daughter were holding the mug. "If there was hot liquid inside it could have scalded anyone. It's really dangerous. "I've wrapped up the other ones I bought and I'm going to take them back - I don't want them in my cupboard and I don't want them in my house." Stunned Rebecca, who bought the mugs from the Dewsbury branch of B&M in West Y orkshire, is unsure of the cause but believes damage in transit may have weakened the glass. Rebecca explained: "One thing that did confuse me a bit was that they wouldn't let me wrap them up when I bought them. "I asked if I could get some packaging so that they didn't get any chips in them but they said that they don't keep packaging and they just chuck it all. "If they're getting damaged then anything could happen. "Even if it gets the tiniest little chip that can cause the glass to have a weak point. I'm going to take the other mugs back. I don't trust them anymore." Footage shows the mug on the table as Rebecca's dogs, Suki and Cooper, watch her through the patio doors before a loud smash can be heard. The mug can be seen exploding as the contents of the matcha latte spills out across the kitchen table - with no one near it. Social media users react How to save money at B&M Shoppers have saved hundreds of pounds a year by using B&M's scanner app. The scanner lets you see if an item's price is cheaper than advertised on the shop floor label. Products that are typically discounted are seasonal items and old stock that B&M is trying to shift. The app is free to download off the B&M Stores mobile app via Google Play or the Apple App Store. According to one ex-B&M manager, you'll want to visit your local branch at 10am on a Wednesday too. Here's how you can join the B&M bargain hunt: Download the B&M app for free on any smartphone with an App Store or Google Play. Once you've installed it on your device, click on the option labelled "more" on the bottom, right-hand side of the app home page. You'll then find an option that says "barcode scanner". Click on this and you'll open a camera screen. Use the camera to hover over the barcode of the product you wish to check. If the price comes up as lower, take it to the cash desk and it will automatically scan at the lower price. You don't need to sign up to the B&M app to use the barcode scanner. Viewers shared their theories as to what caused the mug to shatter, with many suggesting it was most likely a manufacturing issue. One wrote: "Probably a fault in the glass or cold drink not helping." Whilst a second chimed in: "It's material fatigue. If it's tempered glass, then it doesn't tolerate scratches, micro-cracks etc well. "Or could be a fault while tempering glass too, uneven tension distribution, if it's manufacturing fault, there would be at least one piece that's much different from the rest.' However, at the same time, others looked to paranormal reasons. One simply wrote: "Poltergeist', whilst another commented: "I reckon you need to get Derek Acorah involved." And alongside a ghost emoji, someone else claimed: "I'd move house.' A B&M spokesperson has since said: "Product safety is our highest priority. 'This glass mug has undergone rigorous thermal shock testing by an independent laboratory, with all samples passing the required safety standards. "We are in direct contact with the customer and are actively investigating the issue."
