THE BIG RETORT

Colin and Chris Weir of Largs in Ayrshire have been named as the couple who scooped the £161m on the EuroMillions jackpot this week. The pair have been married for 30 years.. The winning numbers were 17, 19, 38, 42 and 45, and the lucky stars were 9 and 10. The record haul will put them in 430th place on the Sunday Times Rich List.   Och Aye the you!

TheBigRetort has obtained a transcript of News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks informing News Of The World staff of her ‘arrogance’. Taken from a secret recording by a member of Ms Brooks’ staff, the (edited) transcript also includes the explosive admission that more revelations are 'on the way': Rebekah Brooks: ... and I remember the team spirit of the paper where you all, who were there came alongside me and we fought for something we believed in, and I remember when we saw all the news headlines that came in the next day - we were rubbished everywhere and there was an opinion poll that said ‘97% of the British public agree with you‘. And we were like ‘right, here we are, we're up and running‘. And so I feel very strongly exactly the same as you, and that's why I said "mounting anger". And you know, I'm not saying- you know, this is not exactly the best time in my life, but I'm determined to get vindication for this paper. And for...

The current debacle surrounding Rupert Murdoch and his New of the World team of hacks has the feeling of deja vu about it.  Readers interested in glancing back in time need to leap back two decades. In 1999 a NotW reporter was arrested for bribing a police officer and for conspiracy. Later, in 2000, News of the World reporter Neville Thurlbeck faced trial on a charge of offering a police officer a "gift" for obtaining information. Det Con Farmer, who worked for Hertfordshire Police but was seconded to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) at the time of the alleged offences, and Mr Thurlbeck both pleaded not guilty. The prosecution had alleged that Mr Thurlbeck, 38, paid Det Con Farmer to supply information on people whose details were kept on a confidential police computer. Jurors were told Det Con Farmer, 53, made scores of police computer checks on people's criminal records for Mr Thurlbeck. At Luton Crown Court, Mr Justice McKinnon dir...

Following in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, TheBigRetort does the dirty - and hacks Rupert Murdoch's mobile. Murdoch: Hello... Rupert Murdoch speaking, how can I help you? Chief Hacker: Mr Murdoch sir this is Chief Hacker calling from London. Murdoch: Holey doley, mate, you’re interrupting my Barbie. Hope this is good - I‘ve got journos around me like bities. Chief hacker: It’s come on top, Mr M. It's time to bail out. Murdoch: (choking on his Four X) No way. I’m a battler! Chief hacker: It’s a done deal... straight from the Met Commissioner's phone.. Murdoch (sighing): I blame that Milliband Chief hacker: which one? Murdoch: The banana bender. Chief hacker: Ed? Murdoch: That wog should mind his own bizzo! He‘s a kangaroos loose in the top paddock that one! Chief hacker: Wanna turn him over? Murdoch:: No! No! No! On no account are you to hack anymore? He‘s not the full quid that one. Talks through his left nostril. (Pause,...

News just in... Readers of The New of the World are said to be 'shocked' following recent plans to axe the newspaper following in the wake of its phone hacking scandal. James Murdoch, son of the paper's owner Rupert Murdoch, has announced that this Sunday's edition will be the paper's last. It was reported to Yahoo! News by a News of the World journalist that James Murdoch broke the news to staff this afternoon. Many journalists are said to be distraught and phoning their families. In a statement James Murdoch said: "Having consulted senior colleagues, I have decided that we must take further decisive action with respect to the paper. This Sunday will be the last issue of the News of the World. We will run no commercial advertisements this weekend. Any advertising space in this last edition will be donated to causes and charities that wish to expose their good works to our millions of readers." Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour party, remains adamant t...

The district attorney who handled the Dominique Straus Kahn sex trial may have ‘jumped before she was pushed,’ according to a well place source within the sex crimes unit. The district attorney’s office formerly declined to comment on the matter, save to say that the former DA, Lisa Friel, now plans ‘to explore other professional opportunities outside the office.’ Mr. Strauss-Kahn remains on bail after being charged with the attempted rape of a hotel housekeeper and also forcing her to perform oral sex. He has always maintained his innocence. Mr Straus-Kahn is due in court today following doubts about the victim’s allegations. Watch this space….

Recently a homeless man who wandered the streets of Utah pushing a shopping trolley was tracked down by a private detective. He had some money coming to him from an inheritance and didn’t know it. It was hoped the windfall would turn his life around. However good fortune did not always shine on Max Melitzer. TheBigRetort exclusive… it began with a rollover. Penniless Max Melitzer may have inherited a fortune that many hope will allow him to turn his life around, however his has not always been a rags-to-riches fairy story: but a tragedy. July 1990... It was a Tuesday afternoon... A highway in Wyoming five miles east of Rock Springs. The driver drifted off the road and overcorrected the vehicle, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol. Unfortunately all four passengers were not wearing seat belts and were ejected from the car as it did a rollover. Cindy Lee Jones, 36, died on the way to the hospital, and Glen Chrietzderg, 36, also of Ogden, died later at the University of...

 The 2012 Olympic torch has been unveiled by that creative London design team Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby. But was the inspiration for the 'flame' really an upside-down building? TheBigRetort remarkable expose... It may come as a shock to the eventual Olympic torchbearer, but as he or she pounds through the streets of London, a rather tall building may cast a shadow over the 2012 event… the Shard . Shock! Horror! Oh no! What can they mean? We mean that the flame of the original idea may have kindled out of the minds of Barber and Osgerby as they stared out of their back window - and upside down - in Brockley. Libellous speculation we grant, but we are neighbours and have also hung out of our back window - and seen it upside down. (Admittedly though this was after a heavy party.) Whatever... we feel certain that this dynamic and innovative duo is going to light up the whole of London - from 2012, and beyond.

Pakistani leaders have protested that the country's sovereignty has been violated by the US following a series of drone strikes that have left 17 militants killed in the country's northwest tribal region. All of Monday's strikes were in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border. The attacks display to militants and the Pakistani government that President Barak Obama will not hold back when it comes to tracking down the enemy in a capture or kill policy that is more about the killing. 'Wanted dead, that's the policy at the Whitehouse now,' a Washington insider informed TheBigRetort.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Khan, is due to appear in a New York court for his arraignment, and has insisted he is innocent of the charges Defence team member claims evidence undermines procecution. William W Taylor, on behalf of Mr Straus-Kahn, has written that there is evidence to "gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case". Mr Strauss-Kahn faces charges of sexual assault and attempting to rape a hotel maid last month. It will be his first appearance in court since he was released on bail set at $6m (£3.65m).

An international team at the CERN institute in Switzerland has managed to create 300 atoms of "anti-hydrogen" and stop them from collapsing into oblivion for a grand total of almost 17 minutes. Five thousand times longer than they had previously achieved. The research, published in the journal Nature Physics, represents a landmark in one of the most potentially profound areas of science. However, it also awakens  the spectre of an antimatter weapon so destructive that it may herald the end of every living creature on the planet. Be that as it may… TheBigRetort Is an antimatter weapon a giant leap closer for humanity? Antimatter was created in the laboratory for the first time last November. Long the preserve of science fiction writers, in Dan Brown’s bestseller Angels & Demons a tiny device with the destructive power of a nuclear warhead hinges on a plot to blow up the Vatican, it has often been dismissed as alarmist by the scientific community.  That was until ...

German diners may be both relieved and concerned that the recent E.coli outbreak may have been narrowed down to a single suspect - sprouts.  TheBigRetort asks, were the warning bells ringing a decade prior to the recent outbreak? If German sprouts do turn out to be the culprit responsible for 22 deaths (and climbing) German health watchdogs, may find it prudent to further examine a scientific paper that presaged such an event - over a decade ago. The paper, which was published in January 1998 and was researched by a number of Japanese scientists, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases amongst them. The group, using cultivation, immunofluorescence microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, demonstrated the presence of viable enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 not only on the outer surfaces but also in the inner tissues and stomata of cotyledons of radish sprouts grown from seeds experimentally and contaminated with the bacterium. HgCl2 treatment of the outer ...

Have we been subjected to the S-factor? With reports in the Daily Mail that Cheryl Cole has been invited back on board X-Factor USA one wonders if the whole thingy was a complete set-up - masterminded by non other than that Svengali of the Tabs Lord Cowall of Hollywood. One can but wonder how the sheeple out there fall for Simon Cowell's shenanigins. But my how that angst-ridden look that Cheryl Cole seems to have perfected this week really hacks us off. Is this the same woman who subjected wannabe hopefuls in Britain to her ‘professional’ judgement on that dreadful show that deserves no further mention?  We mean... the X Factor. (Break that one down like this, X-F-Actor, and add the seven missing  letters accordingly to the "F".) There is nothing worse than a young woman, now a multimillionaire, beautiful yes, and spoon-fed success too, collapsing at the first signs of personal failure. Don’t have her back Simon! TheBigRetort : Failure is good. Success sucks....

My how the sands of time 'flies' for dictators. It was after all only two years ago that Muammar Gaddafi, marking the 40th anniversary of the revolution which brought him to power, three weeks later addressed the 64th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York.  TheBigRetort ... Since the world body was founded in 1945, the Libyan dictator opined, it had ‘failed’ to prevent or intervene in dozens of wars around the world. "It should not be called the Security Council, it should be called the "terror council," he said. He claimed that sixty-five ‘aggressive wars’ had taken place without any collective action by the United Nations to prevent them... Now, with the writing on the walls of his Bedouin tent, and intervention in his own internecine war growing daily, he must rue those words. Failure this time around the UN terror council tells him, is not an option.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is he? It has been claimed that Dominique Strauss-Kahn (note the hyphenated surname) is the well-to-do son of Gilbert and Jacqueline Strauss-Kahn...? Be that as it may, TheBigRetort can reveal in a recent genealogical trawl of birth records... no such named individuals can be found. It is almost as Mr Strauss-Kahn is sans verifiable famille.  No reports appear in a Google press search with regards to this nobodies' boy prior to 1991. Could there be a glitch in the Google time machinery? Is it because his real name is actually Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt? TheBigRetort can reveal that he may be neither a Strauss-Kahn nor a Casonova, just simply a "Kahn" - or some other? - in which case the American authorities should be equally interested. An inconsistency in the defendant's  pedigree may prove embarrassing to his defence team, and to the French electorate. Watch this space....  

A transcript of a message left on the mobile phone of Bob Crow reveals for the first time that the Union leader has been hacked... by the  News of the World . Forwarded to us by the Metropolitan Police, it reads: CROW: " Nobby here. Leave a message." [Beep.] THE BIG RETORT: " Hello, Mr Crow. Is it true that you are England's number one striker?"

Will there, one wonders, be any quarry stone left unturned with the public‘s right to know - in a dwindling band of countries abbreviated to the first letter - the surname of a person suspected of a crime? ‘Landlord, Dutchman, presumed innocent - until such time as a jury has fully deliberated - we hereby sentence you…err, with just one sentence.’ If there were ever any ethical rules in journalism then the Joanna Yeates murder suspects’ show trial suggests they may need a little spit and polish. The recent grotesque phenomenon of national newspapers falling over themselves to name names does not have its beginnings in the McCarthy era, no sir. It is a new brand of ‘netfluenced’ journalism, the kind where the guilt or innocence of a suspect - or even the near bystander for that matter - are now so often deliberated on internet crime forums that democracies the world over no longer have control over what was once fondly termed a fair trial by peers. And national newspapers are tri...

When TheBigRetor t conducted an investigation into the increased use of statins in its office diet, it came up with a forgetful medical profession, and one possibly - how shall we put this? - in denial. Having heard that the use of statins may bring possible side effects in some users we asked a number of doctors if the drug was all it was cracked out to be.  Here, for the first time, is our explosive retort. And it is not for the faint hearted. Me: Doctor, I keep forgetting things. I wonder... could it have anything to do with... these statins you've had me on? Doctor: (smirking): I've never heard that before. What utter nonsense! Me: Really? Doctor: (laughing) Complete! Me: (Pause) How about these bloody aches and pains I've been getting!! Doctor: No need to be so aggressive. Me: Sorry, it's the Statins. Doctor: (smirking): Never heard such a silly suggestion since I started medicine last week. Statins making you aggressive - won't wa...

VINCENT TABAK The new suspect arrested following the murder of Joanna Yeates wrote of starting a new life in England. Thirty-two year-old Vincent Tabak was born to the son of Gerald and Sonja Tabak in 1978 in Veghel in the neighborhood of Eindhoven. In 1996 he studied at the faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He graduated in 2003 from the group Design Systems obtaining the degree of Master of Science. He worked as a people flow analyst for Buro Happold, a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy in Bath. The five-year thesis he completed in 2008 was dedicated to his friends, his extended family (via his sisters), girlfriend, and his father who died following an 'ongoing struggle with illness'. His son wrote in acknowledgement of his passing: ‘I miss you and regret that you are not able to see the end result of my PhD.’ After completing his PhD, in 2008, Vincent started what he termed his 'new life in England'.

Carrying on from my last posting into the abduction and murder of Joanna Yeates , isn't it about time? TheBigRetort ... The murder of Joanna Yeates in what was the spring of her life is we are told quite complex. Due to this complexity, and the mysteries growing out of it, time as dragged on and still no one person (or persons) has (or have?) been brought to book. Only one person has been arrested, vilified by press and public alike, and subsequently not yet moved on towards a charge of any offence, and still police have yet to come up with, well... not a truncheon. But, drawing back on the crimes 'complexity', what is one single fact in this whole sorry, awful, and desperate matter? "Jo" is alleged to have sent a text message to a friend she hardly met at 8.20pm on that fateful 17 th December. A night she did not want to spend alone. The recipient claims that he did not receive it until 9.20pm of that date, at which point he responded that he was 'busy...