Not surprisingly, the various international launch parties attracted a host of celebrity mothers with Hollywood actress Liv Tyler even throwing her own party in the line's honour.

Still, the latest nod paid to the designer was rather ? to say the least ? unexpected.

We hear that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy ? wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and new muse of Woody Allen ? has eagerly snapped up items from the modestly-priced collection.

Of course, the move in itself is not surprising; ( Read more... )
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Already preparing their celluloid onslaught ahead of next year's General Election, the Conservative Party has begun advertising for actors to play the part of voters in their forthcoming television adverts.

Among the roles to be filled, are those of "the sort of girl who wears lots of rings and has chipped nail polish" ? whatever will the Turnip Taliban say? ? and the "honest, hardworking welder who has worked for the same company for 20 years... think Billy Elliot's dad" (immortalised ( Read more... )
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Mike Kendell, a professional landlord, owns the Bristol residence in which the four insalubrious students of Scumbag College ? Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), Rick (Rik Mayall), Neil (Nigel Planer), and Mike (Christopher Ryan) ? lived. He has decided to rent the property, an unfurnished one-bedroom conversion, for the not unreasonable price of £525 a month, billing it as a "building with a history".

Would-be tenants should not be deterred by the flat's frequently squalid on-screen appearance. ( Read more... )
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The chap in question is the new Commons Speaker John Bercow, who has taken the unprecedented step of throwing open his official residence to host the annual Westminster Kids' Club party. The move is in contrast to his predecessor Michael Martin who, we are told, rarely invited MPs, let alone their offspring, into his abode.

"We usually hold it in the members' dining room but this year John suggested his house," explains the event's organiser, the Labour MP Keith Vaz. "His kids have enjoyed ( Read more... )
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"I've done one play in the last 20 years. I'm very much a film actor," he told Pandora at the South Bank Awards. "I think acting on stage is like landscape painting, and I think acting on film is like fine detailed portrait painting.

"I really love portrait painting, but I find it difficult to pick up that other brush."

While some might think this a bit of a snub to his theatrical roots, I suspect that the ultra-proud knight of the realm won't be tempted follow Anthony Hopkins's ( Read more... )
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The book ? which will be available in September next year ? will be released by John Blake, the publishing house behind the recent autobiographies from Katie Price and Peter Andre, which is thought to have paid five figures for the privilege. Frost certainly isn't short of tales to tell. As well as her two high-profile marriages, she is rumoured to have enjoyed dalliances with several high-profile toyboys, and faced financial crisis after her fashion label FrostFrench was taken into administration ( Read more... )
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This time, the eurosceptic party ? memorably described by David Cameron as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly" ? have chosen to pick a fight with Sir Paul McCartney, over the former Beatle's campaign to encourage meat eaters to go without flesh one day a week in a bid to cut the greenhouse gases emitted by cattle.

The Liverpudlian MEP Paul Nuttall has fired the starting gun, accusing McCartney of using the idea to turn people vegetarian. "He is just propagandising," Nuttal argues ( Read more... )
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"I'm not sure who should play me, I suppose whoever it is will have to know how to sing," she told me at the Girls Make Your Mark Awards. "Jaime Winstone would be great, and actually she doesn't need to know how to sing. I just used to shout."

'Standard' calls the tune for composer

When the composer Keith Burstein was bankrupted after his failed libel action against the Evening Standard, he claimed he had absolutely nothing to lose.

"They won't be able to get anything ( Read more... )
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The quirky bird watcher tells me that he's launched a personal campaign against a decision by the Humanist Association to decorate London buses with the slogan: "There's probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

He claims to have petitioned the association in writing and over the telephone, but to no avail.

"What they are doing is dangerous," he insists. "In doing something like that they're speaking straight to extremists. I'd like to know how they sleep the night ( Read more... )
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First there was last year's assertion that he missed "nothing" about his home town, Liverpool, weeks after playing at the city's inauguration as European Capital of Culture (the claim provoked torrents of abuse in the local media, and prompted vandals to behead a foliage sculpture of Starr). Then came fan mail-gate (Starr posted an angry video on his website, threatening to throw away any fan mail and autograph requests sent after a specified deadline. "I'm warning you with ( Read more... )
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The sultry actress is currently on location in Germany filming The Last Station, a film about the last year of Leo Tolstoy's life.

She plays the Russian novelist's wife Sofya, and is joined by a glittering British cast which includes the award-winning Atonement actor James McAvoy and his wife, Anne-Marie Duff.

Although it's a suitably juicy role for an actress of Mirren's standing, she is working in the knowledge that it wasn't actually meant for her.

At a recent press conference ( Read more... )
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Not Michael McIntyre. The plummy comedian has agreed to host this year's annual Credit Today Awards at Park Lane's Grosvenor House Hotel. The ceremony, which will take place in May, promises to "honour the high achievers within the credit industry".

Some might question the wisdom of hosting a night of corporate back-slapping in the current economic climate. After all, several of last year's winners have since been forced to apply for hefty bailouts. The organisers insist, however, that ( Read more... )
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While this matches the entire sales to date of David Blunkett's 2006 The Blunkett Tapes (advance £385,000), it pales beside Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years ? 24,000 flogged in five days after its release last July. Campbell has just crossed the 100,000 mark, bolstering his fragile ego. Cherie's book needs to far surpass that ? sales of 150,000 is the estimate ? for Little, Brown to recoup its lavish outlay. Perhaps Cherie can get in touch with Pandora so that we may have a wager she will not ( Read more... )
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They have fired off a letter to the little-known Lampeter campus of the University of Wales, requesting that his image be removed from a document advertising its Masters degree in creative and scriptwriting.

The photograph, which was part of a collation of pictures, appeared on the cover of a flyer alongside images of the course's students.

The stern missive accuses the university of using Spielberg's image without seeking his prior permission.

For a man with a personal fortune ( Read more... )
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The singer, still locked in a dispute with the NME over remarks he made about immigration, is now publicly urging fans to snub his forthcoming DVD, Morrissey Live At The Hollywood Bowl, thanks to a row with its distributor, Warner Entertainment.

While the film is to be billed as a "career-defining performance", Morrissey has accused Warner of shoddy workmanship and broken promises.

"The slapdash release is being done by Warner without any consultation to me whatsoever," he rants on ( Read more... )
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Yet I'm assured it's the politician's decision to use this newly forged alliance to "beat bullying" that's been met with rather more chuckles in the corridors of Westminster.

"When I was at school, we all knew that bullying happened, but it was not really talked about," explained the Secretary of State during the launch of his pals' new song "RU Cyber Safe". He went on: "Things are so different today ? and so much better. Bullying is talked about openly."

Indeed it is, Ed. Only last ( Read more... )
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Aides to Ms Garrett, who is an independent, claim Labour activists are casting aspersions on their gal's intelligence. "Gemma signed the condolence book and the middle-aged Labour woman standing with Jack Straw and Tamsin Dunwoody [daughter and Labour candidate] read Gemma's handwriting, which had got a bit smeared, and accused Gemma of being unable to spell Miss Great Britain. Gemma had just come out of Crewe's finest hair salon and suggested that the woman could do with a visit herself."

Says ( Read more... )
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Just days after the Prime Minister was accused of making "insulting" mistakes in a handwritten letter of condolence to the mother of Jamie Janes, a young British soldier killed in Afghanistan, insiders tell me that Brown's trusted aide Kirsty McNeill is to unofficially "vet" his future scribblings before the envelopes are sealed.

"It's a very sensitive issue but there is no question of the current system remaining in place," I'm assured. "He trusts Kirsty and she is best-placed to cast a ( Read more... )
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With his lucrative diaries to promote, however, Campbell has overcome his inadequacies and boldly launched his very own blog, Diary of a Diary. Campbell used the first entry yesterday afternoon to conciliate the man set to benefit least from his colourful recollections of Downing Street spats, Gordon Brown.

"I have seen close-up how hard the job of Prime Minister is," writes Campbell, "and I have no desire to make it harder for anyone, let alone Gordon, who has been central to New Labour ( Read more... )
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In 2005, the BBC's likeable royal reporter faced the insult of being "dissed" by the Prince of Wales during Charles's annual ski tip to Klosters.

"These bloody people. I can't bear that man," he was heard mumbling to his two sons. "I mean, he's so awful, he really is."

This week, Witchell also found himself singled out while following Prince Harry on his trip to the African kingdom of Lesotho. The prince, who is helping to rebuild a special-needs school with his charity Sentebale, ( Read more... )
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