What Happened To The Child Stars Of These Classic 90s TV Ads?

‘It’s the Milkybar Kid’, cried the showgirl, peeking around the saloon door as her hero rides through the dusty street with a job to do.

The town proved to be too big for both the chocolate bar-waving cowboy in white and the hat-stealing bandito in black, who’d been busy scaring the locals.

A lash of the Kid’s lasso, and the bad guy was soon out of play, covered in treacles and feathers, while the star shared his namesake chocolate bars with his idolising fans.

For millions of 90s children, the bespectacled Milkybar Kid was as familiar as the taste of the creamy chocolate he famously waved, but is that where his story concludes?

A newspaper outlet took a peek at the life of child star Conrad Coleby, and the youngsters from other iconic television adverts like Dairylea, Breakaway, Hovis and Rolos to discover what happened to them after their 15 seconds of stardom.

He rides into town on a horse to save the townspeople from an evil sheriff before handing out Milkybar bars, shouting: ‘Milkybars are on me!’

The real-life Milkybar Kid, Conrad Coleby, 43, son of British actor Robert Coleby, has enjoyed a varied acting career since his time with Nestle.

The character has been portrayed by a series of blond child stars in Australia, with Conrad Coleby playing the lead part throughout the nineties.

After his time in the Western-inspired ads, Conrad Coleby launched a successful acting career, starring in Disney’s Sabrina Down Under and Home and Away.

He played heartthrob Dylan ‘Dutchy’ Mulholland in Sea Patrol and even shared a screen with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in the 2013 blockbuster.

Conrad Coleby said in 2020 there was a downside to being so famous.

He said that as the Milkybar Kid in his younger days, he copped quite a bit of bullying for being one of the only youngsters in his neighbourhood to be on TV.

He said that he clearly enjoyed being bullied so much that he chose to give everyone more ammunition and became a professional actor later on.

He stepped away from acting in 2016 to pursue life as a photographer and now photographs action sports, portraiture and property.

Hovis: ‘Boy On The Bike’

The toils of the hardworking Hovis Boy, pushing his bicycle up a never-ending cobbled hill to the backing music of Dvořák’s New World Symphony was first featured in an iconic 1973 advert, directed by Ridley Scott.

The advert, which continued to appear on television screens throughout the 80s and 90s, was set in an industrial town but was actually filmed on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset.

The moving clip was voted the nation’s favoured TV advert of all time in 2006.

In 2017, Carl Barlow, 63, conquered the steep hill with the help of an electric bike, just 44 years after the short originally aired.

Carl Barlow, who enjoyed a thirty-year career as a firefighter after starring in the advert, said it was strange to be back after all that time.

He said he recalls he had to push the bicycle up the hill numerous times for the best part of the two days of filming on Gold Hill.

The former child actor explained it was much easier this time around, and that he simply glided up the hill.

The advert had such an impact when it was first released that it was later parodied by The Two Ronnies.

Mr Barlow had been asked to audition when he was 13 years old and got the job because he could ride a bicycle and was happy to cut his hair, and he said that after the advert he had some teasing at school due to the pudding basin type haircut, but it was mainly in good fun.

He said that whenever he sees the advert he finds it particularly fascinating to see his younger self and that it feels rather surreal.

Dairylea: Would You Kiss Veronica Dribblethwaite?

The youngsters would do anything for Dairylea, this advert says, as three young boys having a sleepover in a tent are dissatisfied with their haul of food for a midnight snack.

One says he would even kiss Veronica Dibblethwaite for the cheesy snack, although he looks much less enthusiastic when he’s told by his friends they’ll watch him do it.

Chris Hoyle, formerly known as Chris Cook, was the ringleader in the advert and would go on to score an ongoing role in Coronation Street as Mark Redman.

He told I Love Manchester in 2018 that his life had been completely changed by the instant fame, and that he went from being a shy lad to having a bit of confidence. He said that he’d never gotten a Valentine’s card in his life, and the year he was in Corrie he suddenly got loads in the post from fans.

However, the teenager ran into trouble after he was found with cannabis, making national headlines and losing his Coronation Street role.

He said that he was devastated, and that it was a lot to handle, and that it was difficult at the time to shake off the drugs thing, and people used to shout things at him when he was walking down the street, and that it went on for years.

The actor found a second calling as a playwright, and his play The Newspaper Boy debuted in 2009 and was revived in a production for Queer Contact 2018.

He said he trained as an actor and he loved being in the rehearsals, but that writing gave him so much more creative freedom and control. Also, writing meant that he gets to play every character in his head.

Chris is presently filming in Yorkshire for a BBC drama, Boat Story, which is being made by the studio responsible for The Tourist and Fleabag.

Nestle: Breakaway Kid

The Breakaway bar, with its layers of chocolate and biscuit, was launched in 1970 and has been a pantry staple for families ever since, and in a 1986 advert, Matthew Shaw plays a young boy who’s robbed one of the chocolates from his sister.

‘It’s wicked,’ the child actor says at the end of the advert.

But Mr Shaw has continued performing since his turn as the hat-wearing chocolate thief and has had an expansive career in smaller productions.

He attended the Elliot Clark School of Dance and Drama before landing jobs at Children in Need and on Shameless.

The Merseyside-based singer has featured in innumerable pantomimes and starred on cruise ship productions of West End favourites, including Cinderella.

Nestle: Rolos Are Too Good To Share

Cees Molenaar starred in the 1995 award-winning Rolo elephant advert as a youngster, where he refuses to offer a young elephant one of the caramel chocolates, but the selfishness comes back to torment him (or Philip Childs, who plays up the grown-up chocolate lover) when the elephant smacks him in the face during a parade.

The advert was originally supposed to be for Dutch audiences but was used internationally after it proved extremely popular.

The Rolo advert fought off stiff competition to scoop the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1996, beating Nike’s Good Vs Evil spot, which starred Eric Cantona.

Philip Childs is a stage actor with credits on and off the West End. He’s also scored roles in Emmerdale, Eastenders and The Bill.

In a piece written in 2015, Philip Childs explained how he got the job and his delight when the advert was popular.

He said that he’s lost count of the number of people asking him if he gets regular free samples or that at times children should shout “neh neh neh neh neh!” at him in the street, but that he loved it, and he said.

He added that the story continues with a joyful reunion with some of the creative and production team and the grown-up Cees, now 27 years old and fluent in English, to celebrate 20 years since the making of the ad.

He said the news that it had won an award for being the best Dutch commercial of all time made him extremely proud indeed.

Mr Molenaar is now a father and worked for Klaas Puul in the Netherlands in fish processing.

The pair reunited in 2015, 20 years after the advert was filmed, to mark its success.

This was back in the day when boys were boys and girls were girls and they accepted it. Perhaps the world was a better place then?

There was the old Yorkie advertisement, and then there was the sultry Flake advert, which was brilliant.

Mind you, you also used to have boys that thought they were girls on Top of the Pops.

Boys and men had those tight loon pants that they sported back in the 70s, and the lads had long hair, and their trousers left you in no doubt of their sex.

And then there was Puff the Magic Dragon, which wouldn’t be permitted now with all the wokes out there – we all took a walk on the wild side back then. The good old days when people weren’t offended by life.

And it was an age when adverts were usually pretty amusing. Nowadays, they’re all just irritating babble that ticks all the boxes.

But all that adverts are is brainwashing. It’s always been brainwashing of some sort, but now it’s woke brainwashing. I now turn the sound off during the ads, or just download all the programmes so there are no pesky adverts, and if one creeps in I fast-forward it.

The Milkybar Kid would have been cancelled today, probably too white. And a small boy with a dangerous cap gun, well, he would have been taken into care for being a juvenile delinquent, and his parents would have likely been arrested for letting him get out of control.

Fruit And Vegetables Are Now Rationed At Tesco And Aldi

Empty red pepper shelves in Aldi in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, on Wednesday morning

Tesco became the fourth UK supermarket to ration fruit and vegetables, and the UK’s largest retailer has introduced a buying limit of three items per customer on tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

Hours before Aldi followed competitors Asda and Morrisons by imposing customer purchase limits on salad vegetables after supplies were hit by disrupted harvests in southern Europe and north Africa.

The cold temperature in Spain and Morocco has drastically hit the availability of vegetables in British markets along with skyrocketing energy prices.

The supply issue has been blamed on poor weather, transport disruption and high energy prices making British greenhouses more expensive to heat.

Growers in Europe and North Africa are reportedly sending produce to European supermarkets rather than to the United Kingdom because they’re more inclined to pay higher prices. Yet the UK are content to send aid overseas but doesn’t want to pay out more money to feed their own.

Tim O’Malley, of major importer Nationwide Produce, said wholesale spot prices for fresh produce have soared by as much as 300 per cent in recent weeks. If passed on to British consumers, these items would add several pounds to a weekly shop.

Oh, do behave, government ministers and the Prime Minister himself are racking it in, and instead of lining their own pockets, why don’t they have some spirited compassion and put some of that money back into the economy?

Aldi (Altrincham store pictured) is now limiting purchases of peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes to three units per person

Asked about the difference between shelves in the United Kingdom and in Europe, he said that it wasn’t about Brexit, it was about different buying models – yes, of course, it was, not! I bet the Prime Minister isn’t going short of a cucumber or two!

Our shelves are now empty, and the price being demanded by Spanish and Moroccan exporters has doubled for cucumbers, peppers, lettuces and onions, and the price of tomatoes has gone up a third and courgettes are two-thirds more costly since the beginning of the year.

Asda set purchase limits on eight lines of vegetables and fruit on Tuesday, while Morrisons imposed them on four lines on Wednesday.

Expats have gleefully been filming their full shelves in Spain (Malaga pictured) and across the EU amid shortages of tomatoes in the UK

An Aldi UK spokesman said that they were limiting purchases of peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes to three units per person to ensure that as many customers as possible can buy what they need.

Tesco said that it was working hard with its suppliers to ensure a reasonable pool of vegetables for customers in light of temporary supply challenges on some lines due to unfavourable weather conditions abroad.

Some people are saying that they came back from their weekly shop and all vegetables were in ample supply. However, I went to my Tesco Express which usually has an abundant supply of vegetables and I couldn’t even get one cucumber. I then went to another shop that also had no cucumbers, although they did have some other fruit and vegetables, but not very much. I wonder where we’re going to get our five a day now?

Spanish and Moroccan peppers, courgettes and aubergines in France

But this isn’t something that’s just happened. I’ve seen when shopping for fruit and vegetables for a while now that fruit and vegetables have been lacking, and sometimes when shopping most of the shelves on the fruit and vegetable section are almost empty and it looks like they’re halfway through a closing down sale.

The problem being is that when supermarkets do get fruit and vegetable stocks, they will take advantage of this and likely put their prices up so that people can’t afford to purchase them anyhow, and then they will go to waste and be chucked out.

The saying is that ‘Ve hav waze ov making you talk, but now it’s been changed to ‘Ve hav waze ov making fruiz walk’.

But here we go again, the cost of fruit and vegetables is going to rocket, yet I bet you can’t get any rocket in the supermarket!

After Losing Her Citizenship Battle, Shamima Begum Cannot Return To The UK

Shamima Begum has lost her fight for British citizenship, eight years after she left the United Kingdom as a 15-year-old schoolgirl to join Islamic State (ISIS).

Shamima Begum, who left east London at age 15 to join the Islamic State, had been challenging the decision taken by the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, in 2019 to strip her of her British citizenship.

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) decided this decision was lawful and ruled that the suspicion she’d been trafficked to Syria was inadequate for her to succeed in the appeal.

The judge, Mr Justice Jay, found that there was a credible suspicion she was the target of trafficking, nevertheless, Mr Justice Jay concluded that the Home Secretary wasn’t formally required to consider this when he removed her citizenship.

Mr Justice Jay also said the Secretary of State’s conclusion that she travelled willingly to Syria was as stark as it was unsympathetic.

Shamima Begum’s lawyer said that it was far from over and would be contesting the decision. Their statement read: “Regrettably, this is a lost opportunity to put into reverse a profound mistake and a continuing injustice.”

Shamima Begum married the notoriously hardline IS member Dutch national Yago Riedijk, 27, aged just 15 and she had three children with him who all later died.

She was discovered by a British journalist in a refugee camp in 2019, after IS lost the ground war in Syria, thus making the government knowledgeable that she was still alive.

Shamima Begum’s British citizenship was then stripped and she was barred from entering Britain following being considered a threat to the nation, she’s been fighting to return to the United Kingdom ever since.

Bahrain and Nicaragua, very recently are the only nations other than the United Kingdom that strip citizenship in bulk. Since 2000, the United Kingdom has deprived at least 212 people of citizenship, more than ten times as many as France or Australia.

In 2020, the Court of Appeal gave her permission to return to the United Kingdom to appeal her revoked citizenship. Then in 2021, the Supreme Court overturned this, finding national security fears outweighed the right to an effective hearing.

Giving the judgment of the tribunal, Mr Justice Jay said that reasonable people would differ over the circumstances of Shamima Begum’s case and that those advising the Secretary of State see this as a black-and-white issue when many would say that there are shades of grey.

Shamima Begum and her two friends were not stopped by the police, school and local authority and the commission said that there were state failures and possible breaches of the state’s corollary protective duty, between December 2014 and February 2015, which could be explored.

Shamima Begum might want to come back to this country but our Government will definitely not let it happen. However, she was a 15-year-old girl departing the United Kingdom through a British terminal that let her through. Were there no alarm bells ringing when she arrived at the terminal or even going through the departure gates with her friends? Perhaps someone was paid off to allow them through the departure gates?

Whether she was brainwashed by ISIS along with her school friends does make you wonder, but she did go on to enthusiastically recruit others into the bloodthirsty regime and was part of a group that aggressively policed morality. A group that battered women in the street for showing even a wrist.

She was recruited into ISIS, but did she go willingly or was she brainwashed? I don’t think we will ever know. But she was 15 years old, just a child – she was a British citizen, and we have children younger than that in the United Kingdom who’ve committed vile crimes and murders, but we don’t throw away the key.

She should be allowed back, but put in prison for a very long time, or at least until such time she’s been rehabilitated because she was legally a child at the time. What’s different here is that she isn’t the right colour or faith.

Conservative Chief Lee Anderson Says He’s Not A ‘Lunatic’ For Demanding The Death Penalty Be Reinstated

Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson says he’s not on some lunatic fringe for wanting to bring back the death penalty.

The blunt MP for Ashfield said he’s entitled to have opinions after backlash to comments declaring capital punishment has a 100 per cent success rate.

Mr Anderson was given the post by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in his reshuffle last week.

In an interview with The Spectator magazine a few days before his appointment, he said he would support the United Kingdom reintroducing the death penalty.

The Prime Minister was forced to distance himself from the comments to confirm that neither he nor the Government, shared his view.

Talking on Nadine Dorries’ TalkTV programme with Nadine, Mr Anderson doubled down on some of his controversial assertions, insisting bringing back the death penalty wasn’t some lunatic fringe view. However, he did admit that it was never going to be Government policy.

He said that it wasn’t a big surprise to his constituents and that he wasn’t all of a sudden coming out saying that he supports the death penalty and that this was an opinion that he’s always held since being a teenager, but that it wasn’t some lunatic fringe view.

And he claimed the policy was even backed by 52 per cent of the country and millions of Conservative voters, and that he knew that this was never going to happen, it was never going to be Government policy, and it would never get through Parliament.

He said that he was entitled to have opinions, even if there were some people in his own party in Parliament that didn’t agree with them.

Asked by Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel, a guest on the show, whether he felt like a rat that had jumped on a sinking ship, after switching sides in Parliament, Mr Anderson said that he didn’t feel like he’d jumped on the sinking ship.

Mr Anderson served as a Labour councillor in Ashfield before defecting to the Conservatives in 2019.

The now-Tory MP has been dubbed ’30p Lee’ for claiming that meals could be prepared for that sum and suggesting people using food banks couldn’t budget.

In 2021, when the men’s Euro 2020 football match was taking place, he promised to boycott England games in protest against the players’ anti-racism stance of taking a knee before matches.

He says that he’s not a lunatic, although he protests too much, and he’s not a very pleasant man, although it appears that all the Tories are horrible because how often have the Tories sentenced to death with austerity and cuts?

He said that he’s not a lunatic, but we know precisely what he is, he’s a bog standard, ten a penny, lying, money-grabbing Tory opportunist of the worst kind, and it’s fairly evident that the Tories are in a total dilemma. All their major policies have failed, Brexit has been a catastrophe, they messed up over the pandemic, and now they’ve become pathetic. Although, Brexit wasn’t a Tory policy per se. David Cameron was the prime minister at the time. It was voted in by the British people, but the idea was put there by Government.

Let’s face it if you put something in the minds of people enough times, they will start to believe it, it’s called the illusionary effect.

Perhaps he’s been given the position to be a lightning rod for the Tories? Because while he’s playing the doofus, attention is being taken away from the rest of the Tory party, and they get away with all sorts while attention is diverted.

This will inevitably go to his already enormous ego, and he might even start chucking his weight around, although he’s probably not very popular with the backbenchers, and I really can’t see him lasting long.

A Woman Who Claims She Is Madeleine McCann Says A DNA Test Will Be Conducted Soon

It’s been said that a woman who claims she’s Madeleine McCann has said that she will take a DNA test shortly.

Julia Wendell, from Poland, went viral after creating an Instagram account named @iammadeleinemcann, saying she started wondering if she was Maddie a few months ago after hearing something from her grandma.

The young woman also claims to have a freckle on her leg and a speck in her eye in the same places as Madeleine.

She’s 21 years old but believes her age could be wrong. Maddie was born in May 2003, meaning that she would now be 19 years old.

However, German investigators believe that Maddie, who vanished during a family break in Portugal in 2007, was killed by a sex predator Christian Brueckner, but despite extensive searches and countless police investigations, the child’s body has never been discovered.

In recent months, people have taken to social media as part of a trend to show their similarities to Maddie.

The most recent unsupported claims, made on TikTok and Instagram, have seen Ms Wendell comparing her images to those of Maddie as proof that they’re the same individual.

She now alleges that the McCanns have approached her to take a DNA test, and hopes to be in direct contact with them in the coming days.

The woman claimed on her Instagram story that she spoke with someone from Madelein’s family and that she will have the chance to talk with Madeleine’s parents and that a DNA would be done soon.

Meanwhile, a source close to the McCanns told a newspaper outlet that the family are taking no chances, and that they’re willing to look at all leads, and that it was essential that they look at all of the factors, and that the girl does look similar, there was no disputing that, and that if what she says is true, there is every chance it could be her, and that all adds up.

In a post published, the woman claims to have talked to someone who was alleged to be Madeleine’s cousin, and who told her she could have a chance to speak to Kate and Gerry McCann to arrange a DNA test, but these claims haven’t yet been addressed by Madeleine’s family.

Her Instagram bio, on a profile that has now accumulated more than 200,000 followers, and says that she thinks she could be Madeleine and that she needs a DNA test.

Is she Madeleine? Who knows, but to be frank I don’t believe she looks anything like her, but who am I to judge, but we do need the truth. Or is she just some fruitloop that’s opened up some social media instead of attempting to contact the parents discreetly? Although it would be wonderful if it were true, but we shall have to wait to find out.

While Shivering Brits Battle On, Rishi Sunak’s Wife Jets Off On A Luxury £7K-A-Week Holiday

As shivering Britain battles the cost of living crisis and skyrocketing fuel bills, the Prime Minister was feeling the heat.

Rishi Sunak’s millionaire wife has escaped it all by jetting off with the children on a luxury, money-no-object sunshine holiday, and it’s added uproar from critics over a Prime Minister happy to let money-grabbing energy goliaths make record returns as hard-up customers face crippling rising bills, with no chance of any type of holiday this year.

Akshata Murty, 42, left her husband’s Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire, where temperatures dropped to 2C this week with 70mph winds, to lap up India’s 36C sunshine on the costly paradise beaches of Goa along with daughter’s Krishna, 11, nine-year-old Anoushka, and billionaire parents Naranya and Sudha.

The family enjoyed speedboat and jet ski rides across crystal clear Goan waters and Ms Murty, who has a £690 million stake in her father’s tech company Infosys, was photographed basking on Benaulim beach where a seven-night full-board holiday costs £7,500.

Meanwhile, her husband is under fire back home, blamed by unions for failing to impose a tough windfall tax on money-grabbing energy goliaths.

British Gas owner Centrica has coined in record earnings of £3.3 billion while sending bailiffs to force fit prepayment meters on vulnerable customers.

A couple of weeks ago Shell announced doubled returns at £32.2 billion while BP banked £23 billion, and hiking up electricity prices helped the United Kingdom wing of France-owned EDF Energy turn a £1.12 billion profit.

Labour MP Justin Madders stormed that the contrast between the Prime Minister’s wife soaking up the sun in the lap of luxury and the people of the United Kingdom paying exorbitant prices to greedy energy companies couldn’t be starker.

Gavin Sibthorpe of the GMB union said that millions were struggling as a direct result of policies forcing millions of households to cut back, with bills going up and their pay down and that many were questioning whether they could afford any kind of break this year.

He said that Rishi Sunak will never have a clue how that feels and that he and his ministers were completely out of touch.

Meanwhile, back in Goa, Indian heiress Ms Murty, who used her former non-dom status to save an estimated £20 million in taxes, went on a £10 a head jet ski ride with a local fisherman who runs water sports for sightseers.

Some might say that people of wealth shouldn’t be shamed because they have money and that they shouldn’t have to stop spending it or hide away eating ready meals so that they don’t offend others, and that might be true, but she’s the Prime Minister’s wife, which makes it slightly different.

And apparently, Rishi Sunak’s wife potentially dodged up to £20 million in UK tax by being non-domiciled and paid £30,000 a year to keep the status, disclosures that came amid increasing political tension.

Akshata Murty gets around £11.5 million a year in dividends from a stake in an Indian IT company and declared non-dom status, which permits people to evade tax on foreign earnings.

Apparently, the required tax was paid by Ms Murty but refused to say where, as the information wasn’t relevant, and evidently, it’s possible for someone in the multimillionaire position to take advantage of tax havens on income earned outside the United Kingdom.

However, now, Rishi Sunak’s wife has now given up her non-dom status after a political row, which threatened to jeopardise her husband’s career prospects, and Ms Murty revealed that she would start paying British taxes on all her worldwide income, although she insisted that the move was solely voluntary.

The bottom line is that Ms Murty isn’t using taxpayer’s money, she’s a multimillionaire, and she’s spending her own money. However, she is in the public eye because of her Prime Minister husband.

In The Midst Of Rapturous Applause And Standing Ovations, Peter Kay Is Moved To Tears

Peter Kay was driven to tears as he received a tremendous standing ovation at Manchester’s AO Arena on Friday night as he made his return to stand-up comedy.

The funnyman, 49, has undertaken a mammoth 110-date tour and played to a sell-out crowd in Manchester, 16 miles from his hometown of Bolton as he was met with joyful applause, and chants of his name were heard ringing out across the venue, prompting him to brush away a tear as his fans continued to cheer.

‘Aw you’ll have me in bits,’ he said. ‘Lovely Manchester you made me cry. I can’t believe I cried, where did it come from all that emotion?’

Comedian Peter Kay has been largely missing from the public eye for the last four years and the aptly named Peter Kay Live Tour is his first live tour since 2010, when he scored the Guinness World Record for the biggest-selling run of all time, playing to more than 1.2 million people.

Peter Kay’s comeback was announced during an advertisement break in the series launch of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! on ITV last month.

He said that it was good to get back to what he loved doing best, stand-up comedy and that if there was ever a time people needed a laugh it was now, and that with the cost of living at an all-time high, ticket prices were starting from £35, the same price they were on his previous tour in 2010.

After Manchester, Peter will perform in locations including Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Belfast, Newcastle, Glasgow and Dublin. His run will conclude on August 11 2023 at the Sheffield Utilita Arena.

Following the announcement, the star’s official website appeared to crash briefly under increased online traffic.

A poster for the event featured Peter Kay holding a sign reading, ‘Better late than never’ and described a ticket to his performances as an ‘ideal Christmas gift’.

After being mostly out of the limelight for the last four years, Peter Kay returned to the stage in August 2021 for two special charity events to raise money for Laura Nuttal, a then 20-year-old with an aggressive type of brain cancer called Glioblastoma Multiforme.

There was also a brief return in January 2021 when he appeared on BBC Radio 2 to chat to Cat Deeley, who was filling in after Graham Norton left the station, about his passion for music, mixtapes and the musical Mamma Mia.

Whatever Peter Kay’s reason for stepping back for a bit is his business, but I truly hope his return means he’s back for good and that he’s happy because he’s a comedy genius who’s been sorely missed.

There’s no doubt why this happened and respect to Peter Kay because he’s a really genuine guy, and he kept his ticket prices low for his fans, that is worth high praise in itself, and he’s a natural talent that is back.

To be honest, I don’t know any other comedian who is so universally adored as Peter Kay, with his sharp humour, and his kindness out of the public eye, bravo!

Once in a while, a man arrives who understands, entertains and identifies with his audience to an uncanny degree, but Peter Kay is in a class of his own, and he will always be an original and a genuinely hilarious comedian at the top of his game, and his ‘Miss heard lyrics’ is one of the funniest things I’ve ever watched, and I’ve watched it so many times and it always makes me laugh.

Legendary Actress Raquel Welch, 82, Who Starred In Fantastic Voyage And One Million Years B.C, Has Died After A ‘Brief Illness’

American actress and international sex symbol Raquel Welch has passed away at the age of 82 following a short illness, her business manager has confirmed.

Steve Sauer said that she passed away in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning.

Steve Sauer said that her career spanned over 50 years starring in over 30 movies and 50 television series and appearances.

He said that the Golden Globe winner, in more recent years, was involved in a very successful line of wigs and that Raquel leaves behind her two children, son Damon Welch and daughter Tahnee Welch.

Raquel Welch rose to stardom after her back-to-back roles in Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years BC in 1966, breaking the mould of the ‘blonde bombshell’.

From there, she appeared in a slew of films and television shows and gained a Golden Globe for her part as Constance de Bonacieux in the 1974 remake of The Three Musketeers.

A newspaper outlet spotted the star in July at a Beverly Hills nail salon, J&J Beauty Lounge, and enchanting as ever, she was dressed in gold hoop earrings and a white top with black pants, and seen patiently reading magazines in the waiting room until her beautician was ready.

Before her July outing, low-key Raquel Welch, who seldom ventured out in public was last photographed by a newspaper outlet in September 2021.

That marked the first time she’d been spotted in two years.

Tweeted actor Paul Feig said that this was so sad, and he said that he had the great pleasure of performing with Raquel Welch when he was a regular on Sabrina The Teenage Witch and that she was amazing. He also said that she was kind, funny and a true superstar whom he was pretty much in love with for most of his childhood, and that we’d lost a true icon.

Actor Titus Welliver, 60, tweeted that Raquel Welch had departed and that she was an iconic beauty and actor.

The estate of Ray Harryhausen, a British American animator who worked on some of the most celebrated movies of the 1960s, including One Million Years BC, and died in 2013 aged 92, voiced their condolences.

They said that they were saddened to hear about the death of legendary actress Raquel Welch, who starred as Loana in Ray Harryhausen’s 1966 ‘One Million Years B.C.

Raquel Welch was such a stunning and adorable woman, with a fantastic sense of wit as well.

She was a star from the days when a sex symbol was still somehow wholesome, not like the show it all nobodies that fill the magazines these days, and most of the greats are now fading, it’s very sad, and we will never get them back.

She was an absolutely stunning woman with the most fantastic hourglass figure. They definitely don’t make them like that anymore.

She was not only beautiful but also an extremely classy woman. She was a sex symbol but she did it with style – there was nothing vulgar about her. She was indeed, the last of a dying breed, and she knew how to strike that flawless balance between classy, glamorous, graceful and sensual.

She really did know who she was. Beautiful and talented with a brain and common sense. Not a lot of that in Hollywood these days.

Raquel Welch and Elizabeth Taylor were two of the most naturally beautiful women ever, and add Grace Kelly in there too, and it’s sad that all these beautiful women are gone.

Fury At Whitehall Staff’s £145 Million Spending Spree

Whitehall civil servants camouflaged sparkling wine acquisitions and five-star hotel catering as ‘bookkeeping services’ and ‘administration’, as part of a £145 million of government debit card spending.

Rishi Sunak has been accused of overseeing a shameful chronicle of waste as it was disclosed how officials splurged on booze, luxury furnishings and costly dinners abroad.

Opposition MPs said the Labour Party’s new report has shown a culture of extravagant spending, while the country suffers in the cost of living crisis.

Ministers and officials ate in high-end restaurants costing up to £115 per head even when no dignitaries were attending.

Boris Johnson and his posse spent £4,445 on dinner at Smith & Wollensky in New York, where a steak main course costs up to $115 (£95), despite no foreign dignitaries being present.

Liz Truss and her crew dined out twice on Remembrance Day in 2021 in Jakarta, Indonesia, costing £1,443, but she forgot to pay her respects to the war dead.

The Foreign Office racked up bills of up to £18,000 with high-end and designer furnishing, lighting and rug shops.

Thousands were spent on corporate brandings, such as branded USB cables which are never seen by the public.

Departments spent £1.4 million with Amazon on government debit cards.

The Department for Transport paid £5,388 for training, using animal examples to help analyse service models, with questions such as: ‘Do you hoot, growl or wave your feather?’

At the beginning of the pandemic the Conservative Government relaxed rules around taxpayers funded debit cards, first introduced under Tony Blair, permitting them to be used widely, the report claimed.

Key users were allowed to spend up to £20,000 in one go, with an overall monthly spending limitation of £100,000.

But the Labour Party, which compiled the report, claimed the Government black cards had less transparency than ordinary invoice procedures. This was compounded by a failure to correctly categorise payments for controversial items, such as alcohol.

The report found officials spent £3,158 on catering from the five-star Gulf Hotel in Bahrain but filed it under ‘Accounting, Auditing and Bookkeeping Services’.

The Foreign Office spent £3,266 on goods from luxury lighting designer Marc Wood Studio, but this was filed under ‘Computer Software’.

A bill of £1,190 at The Marina Crossroads leisure complex in the Maldives and £1,282 spent on bubbly from Bluebell Vineyard Estates were described at ‘Computer Equipment and Services’.

The Foreign Office also spent £3,680 at Coates & Seely, another English sparkling wine producer, which was put in the ‘Consulting, Management and Public Relations category.

So Liz Truss could find the time to go out for a fancy meal on Remembrance Day in Jakarta, all taxpayer-funded, but couldn’t be bothered to pay any respect to the war heroes who gave their lives in service to this country. Well, that says it all about the greedy, shady, ineffective Tory party – they’re all on the make and couldn’t give a tuppence about the rest of us.

This is disgusting behaviour, and not only that, it’s theft, and the culprits should be unmasked and made to pay back the money, even if it takes them a lifetime, and they should be fired for taking from the public purse.

It’s also increasingly apparent that Brexit has cost not saved money, encumbered not liberated trade, hampered not improved our sovereignty, and threatens to break up the United Kingdom. In fact, if you wanted to argue it, it’s nothing more than a political Ponzi scheme, and it’s still going on.

Bernie Madoff is not longer alive but his obituaries, and there were many, reflected on his remarkable ability to convince people to join a pure Ponzi scheme, worth $64.8 billion when it collapsed.

He simply exploited human nature. People are happy to believe a lie, without asking too many questions, especially if it promises them what they want, and this applies in politics too.

The essence of a Ponzi scheme is to offer impossibly attractive returns, 15 per cent a year in Bernie Madoff’s case, which keeps enticing new investors whose savings pay for the impossible returns to the initial investors. So, it only works if it keeps growing, and that requires maintaining people’s trust, assuring them that everything is working as intended come good times or bad, and in all circumstances keeping up the pretence, and maintaining the lie.

However, it starts to collapse when people start smelling a rat, or as with Bernie Madoff in 2008, need to cash in their savings and ask for their money back. Then the whole thing was exposed as just one big lie, and many of Madoff’s investors lost every penny.

Brexit is a political Ponzi scheme, and it’s still going strong. The crash in this case is a slow-motion one, but it’s happening, and in politics, it’s easier. People are looking for reassurances as much as cash, so it’s easier to maintain the lie. Of course, numerous people who voted for Brexit just wanted out, at whatever cost. They believed that Brussels was meddling with our national way of life and wanted it over, and for them, if they lost their money or their job, or if the Union broke up, it was all worth it, but not for every Brexit voter. There were some among the 52 per cent who believed the promises they were sold.

So did any of these promises hold water?

The first one was that Brexit would save money, £350 million a week for the NHS said the big red bus.

The NHS is getting more money, but this is only because of COVID, and it’s borrowed from the future not recovered from the EU. The reality is that the costs of Brexit far outweigh the cash benefits. In 2016, the net annual cost of the UK of EU membership was £9.4 billion (£181 million per week).

From 2021, the UK will still make a net contribution to the EU for continuing liabilities of almost £2.5 billion (€3 billion) p.a. and in 2018/19 alone the Chancellor set aside an additional £1.5 billion for Brexit costs, which only partly covered them. On top of this, approximately £100 million per week cash cost is the impact of the 4 per cent hit to the GDP estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility, which cuts government revenue as well as national revenue. Overall, there is now no question that Brexit costs, not saves money.

The second promise is that it would free the economy, stimulate enterprise and make Britain more nimble on the world stage, but far from liberating British business, it’s now trussed up in red tape.

The essence of the EU’s Single Market was to slash costs and reduce bureaucracy for international trade, and it succeeded.

Rules will always be required to protect competition as well as individuals and protect consumers from environmental harm, bad food and dodgy products. It’s more affordable and more efficient to do that with our neighbours than on our own.

Now the costs and bureaucracy are before, especially for services, and the more we divide, the weightier the costs will be, and it will be numerous years, if ever before the benefits of other fabled free trade deals will match the losses on trade with the EU.

Thirdly, there was a belief that where England led, the other nations of the United Kingdom would dutifully follow, and that Brexit wouldn’t impact Northern Ireland.

The Unionists were complicit in this, rejecting the only deal that would have both delivered Brexit and preserved the Good Friday Agreement with no significant change for the province, and the Prime Minister swore blind there would never be a border in the Irish Sea, and then agreed to one.

Finally, there’s sovereignty. This has become the last refuge of the Brexiteers. Even if Brexit has cost money, and increased bureaucracy endangered the Union, we have our sovereignty back – really? This is only true if you adopt a North Korean definition of authority.

If you judge it instead by the ability to protect our national interest and control our own fate, we were far better able to do that within the EU than outside of it.

Brexit has thrown away control, not taken it back, and this, in some ways, was the greatest lie of all.

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