Page 3 Review of the Year 2006

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times……

For Page 3, 2006 was a year of contrasts in which we saw The Sun have its best year for a long time and by total contrast, the Daily Star collapse spectacularly into a right old mess.

This review looks back at the highs and lows of a busy year in which we saw the good, the bad and the Big Brother rejects!

The Sun:

A couple of years ago it looked like The Sun was heading downhill fast.  Its Page 3 content had become weak, bland and tired thanks mainly to some really poor ‘arty’ photography from Alan Strutt.

2005 however saw a new photographer enter the fray in the form of Alison Webster who has done nearly all of the 2006 content and has become firmly established as the current Sun Page 3 photographer.

Thanks mostly to her excellent work, The Sun has enjoyed its best year since Beverley Goodway retired.  Almost every picture has screamed quality which has been achieved with a small select group of popular and well known Page 3 Girls, excellent lighting and good use of locations, in particular the recent glut of shots taken on location in Ibiza.

Of course there were a few low moments but not many.    Quite what they were on in the Picture Editors Office when they ran this picture of Zoe McConnell and Nikkala Stott dressed as saucy school girls on the 17th of March heaven only knows.   However they did it again two weeks later with Zoe and Ruth dressed as saucy plumbers!!  Having Peta standing on a freezing cold beach on the 14th of August was not exactly their finest hour either…..

And to cap it all, the Sun's calendar for 2007 is one of the best yet!   The future looks bright for The Sun…..

The Daily Star:

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear….  What the hell happened here?

It all started off so well as the Star continued its run of excellent form it enjoyed in 2005 through into January of 2006.  The first week was dominated by some excellent two girl shots and up until the last week of January, it was some of the best stuff they had produced for years.

Then the wheels well and truly fell off…..

First up was the ‘Week from Hell’ of 30^th January to 3^rd February when both papers went barmy and started ditching Page 3 left, right and centre in favour of ‘Chantelle’ who (having sold her story exclusively to three papers at once!) got her tits out, won ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother and generally milked her fifteen minutes of fame to the max.

This was a watershed moment for the Daily Star as it would appear a new picture editor or policy arrived.  From then on with the exception of a couple of weeks of location shoot pics, the quality plummeted dramatically.

Then there was June 9th’s Football World Cup poster, a howling own goal as they turned a tops on picture into a topless one courtesy of Photo Shop man and managed to make a right balls up of it in the process.    Anna Taverner (Front row right hand end) had had her boob job by then but they used her old boobs on the picture!   It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, were it not for the fact that the Daily Sport had already done exactly the same much better a week earlier….

For the Daily Star, it has been a dreadful year, by far their worst on record.  Several occasions Page 3 was dumped for Z list celeb rubbish (Mostly talentless Big Brother rejects with eye poppingly bad boob jobs) and the standard of presentation varied wildly between average and utterly appalling.  Something has gone seriously wrong here and with the ‘quality’ of their recent seasonal shots with badly photo shopped ‘snow’ effects, there is no sign yet of any improvements on the horizon.

Other Publications:

The Weeklies:

Somehow, both of the Weekly mags, Nuts and Zoo managed to survive the year despite being generally regarded by all and sundry as little more than shiny loo paper. 

To be fair they did pull up their socks a bit with a few really rather good features although thanks to the Internet, all you needed to do was wait until someone put the scans of the good stuff online so you did not have the embarrassment of being seen in public buying this crap at Tesco’s.

Zoo signed up Keeley which was a good move as it meant plenty of themed topless pictures to keep the punters happy although we did seem to have a bit of a Keeley overload this year I felt.  You can have too much of a good thing.

The Monthlies:

Of the monthlies, there was little really to get all that excited about.  Ice duly went under only to reappear again a while later and the others generally kept churning out the same old tired rubbish as Zoo and Nuts but with a glossier finish.  Again for any of the pictures actually worth seeing, the Internet was your friend!

The Daily/Sunday Sport:

Shock horror!  The Sport has become worth buying again!  After a couple of years away, I picked up a few copies of it during the year and whilst its not back to its golden days of the early to mid 1990’s, its certainly a lot better than it used to be.

With the Daily Star’s quality heading downhill faster than a depressed Lemming on a skateboard, the Sport is the only alternative for the second place Page 3 paper in the marketplace, just a pity availability is still poor in some areas.

Page3.com:

Flagship of the Internet Page 3 community – err not this year.  Although they came through with some lovely Lodge shoots over the year, there was still a lot of recycling of often seen before shots (and some very strange choices to boot).  In addition the Page 3 ‘E-Zine’ was quietly taken to a dark corner and finally put out of its misery.

However the area where Page3.com really fell down was the presentation of the website which for a major public cash cow from a high profile international news organisation was nothing short of a disgrace.

We had badly cropped pictures, wrong pictures, out of date links, the Gold section packed up on several occasions and indeed has not worked since the end of October, the so called ‘Wallpaper Chef’s output was somewhat mediocre and to cap it all at one point the captioned Peta as Pete!!

Bums need to be kicked – at least hire a decent webmaster who has a passion for the art of Page 3 and knows what they are doing!

Page 3 Idol:

There were two Page 3 Idol contests this year.  The 2005/6 contest somehow got forgotten about and eventually resurfaced for its final stages in mid January during which from a rather below par field, Freya was selected to succeed Keeley as Page 3 Idol. Then she disappeared…..  This was one of the great mysteries of Page 3 in 2006, what the hell happened to Freya?  She averaged barely one appearance a month, many of these being disappointing with her looking thoroughly miserable.  It was almost five months before her one and only Lodge shoot finally appeared and even this was disappointing. It was not until her last week or two as the reigning idol that Freya made a couple of really nice decent Page 3 appearances such as the one on the right from the 18th of December.    Her noticeable lack of use (Rhian made more appearances in three months than Freya made in the whole year) is a complete mystery and she was noticeably barely mentioned in the blurb for the 2006/7 Page 3 Idol contest whereas Keeley was mentioned ad infinitum.

The second Page 3 Idol contest of the year was for the 2006/7 Idol.  It started off with what can only be described as a gallery of horrors.  Almost every single entry submitted to the contest was put on Page3.com amounting to an average of 25 entries per day for the best part of six weeks.   There were an awful lot of terrible pictures which never failed to provide much amusement and gasps of horror on the usual online forums.  It was extraordinary how many pictures were blurred, featured boobs covered or indeed other horrors.  There were at least three transvestites, one man, one who looked about twelve years old and several who were at least ten years older than they claimed.   Thankfully in the midst of all this grot there were a number of gems and when we got the six finalists in mid December, it looked like we were going to get another brunette Keeley clone as there were three of them with two more brunettes and one solitary blonde.   The world came to its senses and voted for lovely blonde Sam who in her first few pictures, has made a good impression.  Lets just hope that unlike her predecessor, she actually gets some decent appearances over the coming year.

The Girls:

The Sun kept a small stable of regular Page 3 lovelies on its books and added only a few to it during the year.  Freya was Page 3 Idol (not that you would have noticed!) Rhian made a good first impression in the latter half of the year and is now a permanent fixture whilst The Sun welcomed back Peta after maternity leave, looking better than ever.

The three most impressive of the current Sun crop as at the end of 2005 for me were old veterans Nikkala Stott and Zoe McConnell who both made some breathtakingly lovely appearances this year, the other big name for me was Danni Wells who I predicted would come on in leaps and bounds and by golly she has not disappointed!  Meanwhile the remainder, particularly Ami continue to impress but there was a sense many are getting a bit tired of Keeley as there was an awful lot of her in 2006.

New arrivals abounded at the Daily Star, mostly as a result of their purge in February but not all of them hung around for very long.  Selina was a welcome new comer bringing a black Page 3 to the scene for the first time in many years whilst some of the familiar names who had disappeared in the February purge duly returned, notably the popular Hayley-Marie.   Departures this year from Page 3 saw farewells to Kerri and veteran Ruth Higham whilst Anna Taverner (seen right in her last appearance on the 18th of April) departed Page 3 and then had a boob job (one of my major low point of 2006!)   Meantime we welcomed Vikki Blows in February only for her to disappear again a few months later, whilst the lovely Cherry headed over to the Sport where she is doing well.   A controversial addition to the Page 3 scene came from the Daily Star who brought us Zuzana, touted as the next Lucy Pinder (yawn…) she came with a dubious background of hardcore porn which caused much tut tutting and shaking of heads.  Much of her extensive work in the latter field under numerous different aliases can be found across the Internet.   And quite frankly, Zuzana is one of the most boring Page 3 girls ever which ignoring her dubious background, there is nothing about her that works for me particularly with the over prominent forehead that seems to dominate all of her pictures assuming that YTS Trainee Page Layout Muppet hasn’t chopped half of it off that is….

What Happened to the predictions for 2006?

Last year’s 2005 Review ended with some predictions for 2006 so what happened to them?  Lets find out!

Retirement for some of the longest serving Page 3 girls (Anna Taverner and Zoe McConnell I would have thought but I await to be proved wrong)  I also fully expect (or should that be hope?) that we will have seen the last of Lucy Pinder and Orla McCallister before too long.

Not far off – Anna Taverner duly departed Page 3 sadly and then even worse, had a boob job!  Zoe McConnell still appears on Page 3 with some excellent shots this year but she is starting a new career behind the camera as already mentioned. 

 

We had yet more Big Brother rejects to replace the awful Orla – it would appear that the qualification to appear on BB is to be a) a nutter and b) have one of the worst boob jobs ever seen – see the awful Nikki for a prime example!  As for Lucy Pinder – she vanished thank goodness, the Daily Star have been plugging Zuzana endlessly instead.

Keeley will go from strength to strength, hopefully the story about her being approached by Playboy will bring her to a world-wide audience and bigger things.  The only pity with Playboy is that they will probably airbrush her really badly if the pictures they once did of Anna Taverner were anything to go by.

Signed up by Zoo, appearing in many of the monthlies, on Page 3 seemingly every week.  Unfortunately it has led to a bit of a Keeley overload but her fans won’t be complaining I am sure!

The usual selection of new girls and maybe a few surprises.

Not as many new girls in The Sun as I thought there would be but what there was were pretty damm good, especially Rhian.  The Daily Star, well it was all a bit of a mess really….

One if not both of Zoo and Nuts will probably either be forced to completely revamp themselves or go to the wall and I predict that at least one of the monthlies will be history by the end of the year also.

They are both still around but a complete revamp was not far off what happened with them as Zoo signed up Keeley and both mags did now and then do some nice themed photo features with some of the regular Page 3 girls.  Their circulation's (as are those of the monthlies) is still plummeting though.  Indeed one of the monthlies did go, Ice mag vanished but then reappeared a few months later, relaunched as a more upmarket mag with no topless totty – they might as well not have bothered.

The launch of a new Daily Star website presents interesting possibilities and I hope these are developed along the lines of Page3.com which in all fairness needs a bit of direct competition to prompt it as its starting to get a little stale.

Never happened did it?  The Daily Star has enough trouble coming up with decent printed Page 3’s at the moment.  As for Page3.com, well they are being overwhelmed with technical cock ups and poor web presentation as already discussed.

The Predictions for 2007:

Nikkala Stott’s last year I would have thought (sadly), Zoe McConnell goes behind the camera full time and we will probably see the last of the likes of Michelle Marsh and Sophie Howard whilst the Star’s fascination for Zuzana will hopefully fade away.

We will get more ‘Weeks from Hell’ as the papers go mad over whatever daft badly boob jobbed bint evicted from Big Brother offers to get them out for the much needed cash.

I still think one of the weekly mags (Nuts most likely) will go by the end of 2007 and more revamping will be needed.  The monthlies also need a radical shake up as stale does not even come close to describing how bad they are.

High Points of 2006:

Consistently excellent performance from the Sun.

The arrival of Rhian, excellent appearances from Nikkala Stott and Danni Wells.

Zoe McConnell’s promising debut as photographer.

An improving Daily/Sunday Sport

Low Points of 2006:

The Daily Star – awful presentation standards and some terrible pictures.

Zuzana.

Recycled Lodge’s

Anna Taverner getting a boob job!

Page 3 2006 – The Awards:

A new feature for this year, my awards for 2006!

Best Newcomer:

Rhian

Best Page 3 Girl of 2006:

Danni Wells

The award almost went to Nikkala Stott but in the end I decided it should go to Danni as she has come on in leaps and bounds this year.  Honourable mentions also go to Ami, Hayley-Marie, Peta making a brilliant return after having a baby and Vikki even if she didn’t hang around very long.

Best picture of 2006:

The Sun - 23^rd May – Nikkala Stott

There was a glut of excellent photographs from The Sun (and less so the Daily Star on the odd occasion when it put its mind to it) this year with notably the extensive collection of outdoor shots and especially the huge number of high quality Ibiza Shoot pictures, however my award is going to the one picture that was different yet brilliant.  It also proves that even though Nikkala has been on Page 3 for the best part of seven years, she is getting better and better each time we see her.

The ‘Is the Picture Editor Off His Medication’ Award:

This is the award for the weirdest or just plain most daft Page 3's of the year.  A runner up was Sophie Howard’s appearances in the Daily Star on the 4^th and 15^th of December in a terrible white fluffy hat that looked like it was on fire but the winner is The Sun with their mind boggling daft idea of having Nikkala Stott and Zoe McConnell dressed up as saucy school girls on the 17^th of March and then following it up with Zoe (again) and Ruth as saucy plumbers on the 21st of March!!.

Best Photographer:

Alison Webster

Honourable mentions to some of the excellent tog’s who worked on some of the Lodge Shoots though and a warm welcome to Zoe McConnell!

Page 3 Lifetime Achievement Award

Nikkala Stott

She seems to have been around since the year dot but yet is still managing some breathtakingly beautiful appearances.

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And so there you have it, the end of another year.  Hopefully there is much to look forward to in 2007.  Some new girls, some old favourites and maybe a few surprises.

Happy New Year!!!

Fred....

Note:  All pictures used to illustrate this review remain the intellectual property of their original publisher and are not for redistribution or reuse.   To see Page 3 pictures visit www.page3.com