.: Cath’s Blog:.

I went to see ‘Elizabeth - The Golden Age’ this evening…I enjoyed it, I mean, it’s Cate Blanchett!!! But, did they really need to go there again? They must of known it would in no way be as good as the first.

Reprising the role that first made her an Oscar magnet, Cate Blanchett offers up her most compelling performance thus far as the fiery monarch in this vastly superior sequel to the tepid 1998 telemovie Elizabeth.

Again directed by Shekhar Kapur - brandishing a confidence lacking from the first film - Blanchett’s sterling portrayal exploits the growing tensions between the queen’s public duty to her beloved, besieged England and her private desires. There are plenty of high-volume scenes in which Elizabeth fills elaborately dressed sound stages with booming rages or shrieks of anguish, but the moments that shine come when we see through the regal authority to the vulnerable woman beneath.

It’s 1585 and a stormy time for the queen, politically and emotionally. She has the Spaniards spoiling for a holy war, her imprisoned cousin Mary Stuart (Samantha Morton) is plotting an overthrow and, on top of all this, being the Virgin Queen in the presence of dashing adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh is losing its appeal. (In a marvellous piece of sexed-up historical revisionism, Raleigh is played by Clive Owen rather than Danny De Vito.)

Kapur imbues the film with the historical import and epic sweep missing from Elizabeth, and while Blanchett’s firebrand performance is the film’s searing centrepiece, strong supporting work from Owen, Abbie Cornish (finally impressive after many try-hard strike-outs), Morton and, especially, Geoffrey Rush as her loyal-to-a-fault servant Francis Walsingham, bring out the shades in her deeply conflicted character. In one of the film’s most powerful sequences, Walsingham confronts Elizabeth on the need to have Mary Stuart executed for treason, wearing her resistance down with quiet persistence and powerful logic. It’s a golden Rush moment and what follows is a firestorm of emotion, with Elizabeth’s distress at killing her cousin cross-cut with the brutal, perversely beautiful, execution ceremony as both women reluctantly accept their destiny.

The Age

SULLIED statesman Tony Blair earned the scorn of the Chinese media after delivering a “clichéd” after-dinner speech - for a mere £200,000.
The natural born entertainer stopped off in China on the latest leg of his world tour, in which he showcases his hilarious routine, including his trademark earnest look, his overuse of hands to prove his point, and his sincere tearful eyes.
He was expected to come out with all the old favourites, like the “Why I still believe invading Iraq was the right thing to do” and the “NHS is better than ever” sketches. But Chinese papers said that the speech resembled that of a local official and one asked: “Is he worth the money?” Others said that the visit was a “money-raking” exercise, something Tony has been short of since losing the power to grant OBEs.
Part of Blair’s visit was a fact-finding mission, to try to learn lessons from the Chinese Communist Party on how to stay in power and make decisions without pesky problems like a parliament and democratic elections.

A PUB has drawn complaints because its sign, featuring former Poet Laureate John Masefield, bears a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The John Masefield pub has been nicknamed “the Adolf” by locals in Wirral, but the pub chain Wetherspoons – whose owner, incidentally, is a proud supporter of the UK Independence Party – have refused to take the sign down.
Manager Seanie Walsh said: “That is what he looked like so the sign is to stay. Decades later we shouldn’t penalise talented people simply because of how they cut their moustache.” John Masefield is a local hero, having spent time in the Merchant Navy before being made Poet Laureate in 1930. His list of poems include Right Royal, King Cole, and his lesser known work, The Aryan Super Race Will One Day Rule the World.
Since the controversy, the pub has seen profits go down, but has become a bit of a celebrity haunt, with local lass Danielle Lloyd now a regular. Local councillor Steve Niblock said: “If you put John Masefield into Google you get all sorts of pictures of him and it is unfortunate that they chose one which looks like this.”

WORK-SHY foreigner Jose Mourinho attacked a pupil at his daughter’s school, pulling his hair and ears.
Headmistress Isabel Simao said: “I did not see a physical attack, but the child and the parents of other pupils present claim Mourinho pulled the pupil’s hair and ears.” Jose has obviously been missing his childish schoolyard arguments with Rafa Benitez, Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson, but at least this latest incident displays a bit more maturity than his normal rants to the press.
Simao continued: “Jose Mourinho himself immediately realised he had overreacted and admitted he was in the wrong. He wrote two letters of apology, one to the school and the other to the parents.”
However, Jose being Jose, he denied the attack and his spokesman even claimed that the incident was: “Normal considering the insults the boy made at length to both Jose Mourinho and his daughter.”

POLICE investigating the tragic murder of British student Meredith Kercher think she was killed by three of her mates after refusing to take part in an orgy.
The Leeds University student, 21, was found with her throat slit in her rented flat in Perugia Italy, where she had been living as an exchange student. Meredith’s American flatmate Amanda Knox, 21, was dramatically arrested by Italian cops and has since broken down and confessed to the crime. Her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and a Congolese chef have now also been arrested and held.
Knox has told cops she heard Meredith’s screams – and hinted the student, Surrey, had been asked to join an orgy. Police chief Arturo de Felice said: “All three participated in this crime. The motive was sexual and the victim rebelled.”

A SCHOOLBOY was treated to a kinky lap dance by a stripper in front of his entire class, after his mum mixed-up his birthday surprise.
The 16-year-old, now thought to be the most popular lad in school, was supposed to be getting a birthday visit from a bloke wearing a gorilla suit as an embarrassing gift from him mum. Instead a mix up on the booking form meant that the lad and his mates were treated to the sexy policewoman’s erotic routine. Begging the obvious question, since when were any kind of surprise birthday acts allowed to walk into classrooms?
The stripper put a dogs’ collar on him and spanked him 16 times.
She then stripped down to her knickers and told him to rub cream on her arse, before a spoilsport teacher finally stepped in. One pupil said: “The boy ran out. Everyone was in a state of shock.”

MET chief Sir Ian Blair has magnanimously looked past the fact that he is the only man in Britain who still thinks he should be in a job and vowed to carry on at the UK’s top cop. With the London Assembly passing a motion of no confidence against incompetent Blair, the noose is surely beginning to tighten around his overpaid neck. Blair was expected to stand down after the Met were found guilty over the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting.
But he again insisted he would not be stepping down and insisted upon seeing out his five-year contract until 2010, saying that he still had the support of Londoners, police colleagues and senior politicians – although surprisingly he couldn’t name one of them.
“I have made my position very clear. I am to go on doing the job with which I have been entrusted,” he said.
“The principal charge against me seems to be that I have become the story rather than the success of the Met.”

OVERCOME by a fit of Smirnoff-induced sleaziness, a teenager tried to have sex with a pavement in broad daylight. Scot Steven Marshall, who unsurprisingly was on medication at the time, was seen lying in his own street “pleasuring” himself, before flipping over and getting down and dirty with the ground.
The 18-year-old was apparently on seven forms of medication for arthritis problems when he was spotted making sweet love to cold cement. In his court case Graham Fraser, prosecuting, told how Marshall was spotted with his trousers at his knees: “in the press-up position on the pavement simulating sexual intercourse.” Marshall has been placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years. Somewhat understating the situation he said: “I really regret it.
“I was depressed and had too much to drink.” He went on to reveal that the full extent of his pain over his unrequited love for the pavement, saying that she had a “heart of stone.”

A PERVERTED deviant of a driving instructor hid a twelve inch carrot down his trousers – to reward women who drove well.
Stephen Cooney, 51, has been convicted of four sex attacks on pupils, thanks to his vegetable flashing antics. The weirdo put one pupil’s hand on his groin and tried to convince her that her driving skills had impressed her so much he’d been left with a throbbing member. When he finally came clean and pulled out the carrot the woman is said to have collapsed with shock.
Cooney also offered to write off the £80 owed by a mum in her twenties if she would sleep with him, and often groped an 18-year-old girl’s breasts.
Later police found snaps of his manhood in his Vauxhall Corsa’s glovebox. Amazingly, Cooney tried to blame these on “practice” pictures he’d taken with his digital camera.

THE BUNGLED cash-for-honours probe, which led to a grand total of zero arrests, cost the tax payer nearly £1.4million.
In a somewhat predictable outcome to the whole affair, it has been the British public that has once again suffered for the actions of Tony Blair and his henchmen. In the investigation, which tarred the final stages of Blair’s leadership, Scotland Yard managed to rack-up the massive bill during a 19-month search for answers, which proved about as fruitful as John Prescott’s diet.
Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who led the inquiry, defended his conduct to MPs last month. He told the Public Administration Committee that his team found evidence that suggested there might have been “something there.”
So that’s £1.4 million to suss out that there might have been some dodgy dealings going on in British politics – keep up the good work lads.

IN FURTHER proof that mobile phones have taken over our lives Britons are now sending more than one billion text messages per week. Figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA) show the numbers are 25 per cent higher than a year ago. Staggeringly, the number of texts sent in the week is the same as the total number of messages sent in 1999.
With arthritis already starting to cripple his thumbs Mike Short, head of the MDA, said: “It has exceeded our forecasts quite significantly.” No sht shrlck.

HARD-UP Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has refused to give up his €38,000 pay rise, saying to hand it back would be a token gesture - well, that was kind of the point Bertie.
Helping maintain his reputation as a man of the people, Ahern has joined the scores of civil servants across Ireland in helping themselves to hefty pay rises. Not quite understanding how increasing your salary by more than the Average Joe earns in a year might leave pesky commoners feeling slightly bitter, Ahern refused to take a leaf out of previous administrations’ books and turn down the extra cash.
The news is sure to aid the image of Fianna Fail, coming just weeks after Tanaiste Brian Cowen announced Ireland was facing a bleaker period for the nation’s finances. Not surprisingly, the party has sunk to a 20 year low in the opinion polls.
Ned O’Keeffe TD said: “It’s a joke. We have a raft of unnecessary junior ministers costing a fortune. We have 23 committee chairs when all we really need are seven. The whole lot are out of touch of what is going on.”

A HOSPITAL has been giving women the all clear from breast cancer, even though they still have the disease – who says the health service is unreliable?
A soon-to-be-ex doctor from the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise is thought to have misdiagnosed at least seven women when treating them for the deadly disease. Following a review by the HSE, it was found that one of the women had been suffering from the cancer for more than a year, despite being assured by the bumbling quack that she was fine.
The consultant radiologist at the heart of the scandal has also been accused by colleagues of misreading mammograms and diagnosing cancer where there was none. How reassuring.

A VILE hacker posted a message on the Bebo page of a girl fighting for her life in hospital, telling her mates she had died.
Kiara Duncan, from Kentstown, Co Meath, was in critical condition in hospital in Perth, Western Australia, when someone logged onto her page and posted the message. It read: “Kiara fought hard for her life but unfortunately she has passed away. Rest in Peace Princess.”
Within minutes, distraught friends were posting messages of sympathy to the family.
Kiara was part of a group of seven backpackers who were involved in a car crash while travelling in Western Australia.

CANCER conqueror Kylie Minogue is to quit pop music and rough it up as a real life Crocodile Dundee.
The pop princess claims she wants to give up the high life and “go feral,” living in the wilderness of the Aussie bush.
Why anyone would want to give up the glitz and glamour of a night in the Hilton for tent surrounded by crocodiles and snakes, using leaves for toilet paper in the middle of nowhere, is quite baffling.
The miniature minx said: “I’d love to travel - I’d love to have a backpack and just go. I’m genuinely thinking about doing it, with friends. Maybe with William Baker - my creative director. Big Willie and I, I’d be the one happy to go in a tent, he wouldn’t. There can’t be two divas on the round and normally it’s him!
“But that’s what I’d really love to do. In the undergrowth - I’m a real Aussie! I need to go feral.”

“SHY” Angelina Jolie says she’s still terrified about getting her kit off on screen.
How awful that we live in a world where one of the most fanciable women is shy of getting into her birthday suit, whereas Beth Ditto is eager to appear naked. Jolie explained about her new movie Beowulf: “There are certain moments where I felt actually shy – and called home, just to explain that the fun movie that I had done that was digital animation was, in fact, a little different than we expected.”
On playing a gold man-eating lizard, she said: “I didn’t expect ourselves to come out as much. I didn’t expect it to feel as real and so, because of the type of character I play.” Well, as long as you don’t get type-cast into the flesh-eating amphibian character, Angie.

FUTURE rehab attendee Lily Allen has launched another tirade on Victoria Beckham, claiming she’s desperate for fame.
Yes Lily, good thinking. Like the spoiled little child, if Posh is desperate for fame, getting her name in the papers is just what she wants. Probably best to do this as part of a long series of rants that are guaranteed to get you in the paper, thereby opening yourself up to accusations of hypocrisy too.
On seeing Posh in the papers, the motor-mouthed Cockney said: “I think, ‘You’re not promoting anything, you don’t need the money, so all it’s about is being famous’. “And I can never imagine my life being about being famous. I make music, that’s what I’m here for,” said Lily, who has no album coming out soon yet is still in the papers most days.

MODEL citizen Kerry Katona has revealed she is crusading to help addicts give up drugs.
After maybe joining forces with Britney Spears to promote a good motherhood charity, the ex-Atomic Kitten dancer is backing online and Satellite TV resource base Recovery Network. Hopefully, this will show pictures of her before and after discovering cocaine. From a semi-fanciable “singer” in Atomic Kitten – despite the fact that she has admitted she never sung a word – to the messed-up rehab resident who starred in those nauseating Iceland ads.
If her coke-affected nasal whine of “that’s why mums go to Iceland” is not enough to turn people off drugs, then we might as well cut off all funding to drug programmes. The pram-face, whose coke binges led to her thinking Brian McFadden was husband material, said: “I should have said no. But I didn’t. I wasn’t strong enough.” If she can only learn to say no to that third Big Mac too.

ENGLISH rose Keira Knightley has been banned from reading newspapers, as she flies into a diva-like rage whenever she sees one.
The feisty star concedes her mates have taken to removing newspapers from her sight because she can’t handle seeing herself referred to as a moody bastard. The moody bastard said: “I’m a moody bastard, to be honest. I’ve been banned from reading newspapers because the way they’re written angers me so much.
“If I want an opinion, I’ll read the opinion part of the newspaper. I do not want it when I’m trying to get the facts. I get incredibly angry. It really fucks me off. See, I have to calm down about it even now!”
The lovely actress cannot even blame her periods for her mood swings as, at 4st 5lbs, her menstrual cycle has prematurely stopped.

LINDSAY Lohan’s mum seems to have found the perfect way to help her daughter regain some normality in her life – starring in her own reality TV show. With Li-Lo attempting the rocky road to recovery after drug and alcohol addiction, mum Dina obviously thought that reality shows were the best way to keep her daughter sane and balanced. Either that or she is a money-grabbing harlot.
The news that she has asked Lindsay to star in her new reality show has infuriated Lindsay’s new boyfriend, snowboarder Riley Giles. He obviously doesn’t seem too worried about keeping the in-laws happy.
Riley said sarcastically on his MySpace page: “Advice of the week - if you’re a mother with four kids the best thing you can do for them right now is have a reality show We Do Not Want. She had the nerve to ask us to be on it. No thanks!”
Good on him. He may have lost funds for a potential wedding, but at least he has shown some principles – a rare thing in Tinsel Town.

FASHION designer Stella McCartney has found a novel way to take the piss out of evil stepmother Heather Mills - designing a necklace featuring a single leg.
The daughter of British institution Paul was the target of one of Heather’s recent TV rants aimed at gaining sympathy in her divorce battle with the Beatle. Mills said: “She wasn’t interested in her dad’s happiness. Every week she tried to break up my marriage to Paul. She’s done some evil, evil things.”
Doing her best to refute these accusations, Stella got her own back by laughing at Mills’ wooden leg whilst making money out of the £300 silver pendant at the same time. That’ll show her who’s evil.
A source said: “A lot of people thought it was really edgy while others secretly thought it was out of order. It’s such an obvious dig at Heather. It will cause a stir when it goes on sale.”

EVERGREEN George Clooney and male model Fabio Lanzoni got into a scrap in a Los Angeles restaurant.
Eternal ladies’ man Clooney was dining with the latest of his never-ending string of hot young girlfriends, Sarah Larsen.
He then accused Fabio and his friends of taking pictures of them. Fabio claimed they were photographing each other and not the actor. To be fair to Fabio, it is perfectly plausible that he spends evenings photographing and admiring himself.
Defining ‘pot calling the kettle black,’ he then told George: “Stop being a diva.”
One eye witness said: “George looked annoyed when Fabio went to his table. George stood up, dropped the F-bomb and then went to push him. It turned into a shoving match.” Waiters broke it up before it got out of hand, and luckily not a hair was out of place on their pretty little heads.

VOLATILE vixen Amy Winehouse trashed a hotel room with a plate of spag bol as Snoop Dogg looked on in horror.
The bee-hived queen of calamity went scatty just hours before the MTV Europe Music Awards in Germany, losing her temper and causing thousands of pounds worth of damage to her room.
Earlier that day Snoop, who hosted the ceremony, arranged to visit Amy in her hotel room and arrived with his entourage just as she launched her spaghetti throwing fit. A source said: “About 90 minutes before the show, Snoop said he wanted to see Amy. When we got there, she was in a bad way. Everyone, including her management, just stood there as she threw spaghetti on the walls.
“She then started kicking the walls and throwing whatever she could get her hands on - even the tables and chairs. Then she started cutting up the rug. Snoop was just standing there open-mouthed, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.”

BLUBBERED comedy genius Ricky Gervais admits he’s embarrassed by his wealth.
The Office and Extras funny-man has revealed that his estimated £7 million fortune plagues him with guilt.
Gervais said: “I don’t sit back and say, ‘I deserve to earn silly amounts’. Doing so has made me feel guilty. Apart from being able to afford more things, I haven’t changed my habits. “It can all get a bit embarrassing. I didn’t go into the industry because I wanted to be famous.” Though that is generally what happens if you’re successful in showbiz, Ricky.

JENNY from the block may very soon be back begging on the block; Jennifer Lopez’s record label are considering dropping her because she is no longer drawing in the profits. J-Lo, who has seen herself surpassed by younger, more beautiful stars in the hip-pop market, such as Rhianna, Beyonce, Fergie, Missy Elliot and Cher may suffer the ignominy of being out of a career. Why do bad things always happen to good people?
Down-to-Earth Jen, who insists on no more than ten bodyguards to keep fans from making eye contact with her, saw her last album sell only 53,000 copies in the first week of its release. An insider for the label said: “She costs too much money and doesn’t sell enough. Her last album cover alone cost $60,000 in hair and makeup, lighting, photographers, re-touching, etc. The video budget was in the neighbourhood of $300,000. The label is tired of throwing money away.”
If anyone is worthy of a whip-round to keep her on her feet, it’s our Jen. The total stands at four buttons and a starburst.

AXEMAN extraordinaire Jimmy Page has hinted that Led Zep would be up for more reunion shows.
The band’s supposedly one-off gig has had to be postponed because plucker Page broke his finger after falling over in his garden - not exactly a rock ‘n’ roll injury then. The much anticipated reunion - which had every man and his dog clambering for tickets - has been moved from November 26 to December 10 to give Page time to recover, but he’s not ruling out further dates.
“At the moment, I’m told we’re doing one gig. That’s a bit unfortunate for all the people that would have liked to have seen us, but I can understand why some of the other members don’t want to be touring.”

VACUOUS attention-seeker Pete Doherty is back on the gear, after ridiculously allowing himself to be filmed shooting up heroin in his home.
It looks like all the talk of Pete ‘turning the corner’ and beating his drug demons was all complete bollocks as expected. The video, which was posted on the net, shows the world’s most notorious skag baron crouching on the floor of his home the morning after the MTV Europe Music Awards, holding a needle in his mouth. He then prepares a dose of heroin on a spoon and injects himself.
The question has to be asked as to why the hell he would allow himself to be filmed shooting up? This is, after all, a man who only escaped a jail term a few weeks ago because he had cleaned up his act. Is this a man with a serious problem, or merely an attention seeking prick revelling in his anti-establishment fame?
Just a day before the video was shot the Babyshambles man was quoted as saying: “I know it’s a bit sad, but I’m in mourning. I’m in mourning for an armful.”

ENLIGHTENED egotist Sting says he will never try to suppress his “eroticism.”
In news sure to leave middle-aged women gushing, the Police singer reckons being in touch with your sexuality is “as important” as understanding art or politics – perhaps that’s why he was spotted popping into one of the world’s more notorious brothels in Berlin recently?
Sting said: “I think eroticism is incredibly important, at least as important as art and politics. You pay a terrible price if you try to suppress it. You can’t do that, the unconscious always wins.”

HELPING promote tourism in South America, four people were shot dead and nine left injured as a gunman went on the rampage at a Carl Cox gig in Caracas, Venezuela.
Lancashire lad Cox was spinning the decks after headlining the Red Noise event at the La Rinconada Terrace venue when, ten minutes into his set, a gunman opened fire in the audience. It’s thought the shootings are gang-related and video footage of the incident has begun circulating the internet.
Being from Oldham you’d assume Cox would be used to such antics at gigs.
He released a statement saying: “My condolences go out to victims that were caught up in this horrific act. I am informed that it was gang-related, and feel so sad that anybody would act in such a manner when the event was full of 7000 people having fun.”

WALKING advert for drug control, Ozzy Osbourne, has hit out at an American Sheriff after an elaborate police sting in which hundreds of wanted criminals were invited to a fake Black Sabbath party.
Sheriff Paul Laney invited 500 people with outstanding warrants to a nightclub in North Dakota ahead of Ozzy’s gig, an idea that he no doubt nicked from Saved by the Bell or some other formulaic American sitcom.
Osbourne was furious, however, believing that it painted his fans to be drug-taking devil-worshippers who would think nothing of ripping a bat’s head off. Which is, of course, the sole preserve of Ozzy himself.
Looking dazed and confused and forgetting where he was, Ozzy said: “It is insulting to me and to my audience and it shows how lazy this particular sheriff is when it comes to doing his job.”
The sheriff released a statement saying: “We meant no disrespect toward Mr Osbourne or his show. What we did was a very creative law enforcement technique.”

MEATLOAF walked off stage halfway through a performance in Newcastle, promising that he was quitting music.
The standard-bearer for loud-mouthed obnoxious Americans was halfway through a set when he told the audience he could no longer continue. The last time he suffered such an obvious breakdown on stage was trying a battle of wits with Mark Lamarr on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
He was starting the opening chords of Paradise by the Dashboard Light when he came to an abrupt halt, making the heaven-sent promise that: “I can no longer continue. This is the last show I may ever do in my life. This is my last ever gig, this is my last ever song. Thanks for 30 years, I can’t do this anymore.”
According to one fan: “He kept having emotional talks during the gig and telling stories about his children and slurring his words. He was saying things that had nothing to do with the gig.”

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My gorgeous nephew Sam is 12 today and I am so sad I am not there to celebrate his Birthday with him.

Sam, I hope you have a fantastic day, I love you, you will be in my thoughts all day long. Make good use of my old guitar, please look after it and I look forward to hearing you play something when I next come home.

Lots of Love, Auntie Cath xxxxxxx

A real sign in Withington

An old lady came into my work this morning from Withington, she was telling me she has been here in Australia since the 1940’s…it was great chatting with her, she was awsome. She told me about how she was evacuated out to Congleton during the war and how she used to go to the Scala (now Cine City) as a child and about a Pickle Factory next to the Cinema and she would be able to smell her way home…great stories.

On the way to college I saw they had closed Bourke St Mall (like Market St in Manchester) as apparently Santa was making an appearance…I keep forgetting it’s Christmas, it just doesn’t feel anything like it.

Lions for Lambs came out today and since I had nothing to do this morning I decided to go along with the lovely Big Dog, Mary and Andy…all I can say is…what a load of crap!

For starters, the cast is awsome…Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise and I was expecting a great movie, but instead I found myself turning to Mary asking if I had missed something and I hate that, I felt Robert Redford’s character could have done so much more, it just left me a little confused.

One of the complaints constantly levelled at modern mainstream Hollywood cinema is that it’s big on muzzle flash and fireballs but light on tough-minded engagement of those topical issues and challenging ideas that dwell in the dark, foreboding place that exists beyond the comfort zone of the multiplex mindset.
 
So now comes Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs, a searing, sharply written, relentlessly confrontational hot-button think piece in which an A-List cast lend their prestige and marquee value to a thorough chewing over of the fathomless moral complexities of post-9/11 America, the war on terror and the tensions between liberal and conservative thinking.
 
Working from a screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan ( The Kingdom), the film appears to have been designed with slide-rule precision to redress the lack of political aggression in American cinema. For the most part it succeeds, thanks largely to pin-prick dialogue and a cluster of outstanding central performances.
 
Given that much of the film involves people in rooms talking, there is a staginess to Redford’s pedestrian camera direction that often makes it feel like an adequately photographed stage play. That said, Redford’s shortcomings as a cinematographer are more than made up for by his ability to elicit spell-binding turns from chair-bound actors who have nothing to build a performance around other than what comes out of their mouths.
 
Streep, Redford and Hayes are sterling - but Cruise’s portrayal of the Republican senator is a revelation, an overdue reminder of what a good actor he was before he became infatuated with the term “action movie franchise”. It’s the Tom of old.
 
The thematic tangles of Lions for Lambs are framed by three concurrent events.
 
In the snow-blasted peaks of Afghanistan the US military is taking the initiative against the enemy by planning to occupy the high ground. It is the first strike in a bold new plan to get the upper hand in a war America cannot afford to lose.
 
So says Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise), a popular Republican hot shot who represents the fresh new face of the Grand Old Party. He has granted an exclusive interview to veteran liberal reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep). She’s a typically cynical journalist whose world-weary face belies a piercing intelligence and a genuine curiosity about this new kid on the block as they engage in fiery discussion over Iraq, 9/11, the war on terror and the battle between left and right.
 
Meanwhile, at an unnamed university in California, Professor Stephen Malley (Redford) is having an early morning meeting with a student. Andrew Garfield (Todd Hayes) is one of Malley’s favourite charges, full of challenging ideas, intellectual fire and great potential. But he’s also a Gen-Y slacker, so Malley has called him in for a hard-nosed talk about the distinction between being different and making a difference.
 
As the dialogue-driven narrative charges ahead at breakneck pace, all these threads - the White House chat, the lost soldiers, the failing student - begin weaving into a dramatically compelling, thought-provoking rumination about politics, morality, personal responsibility and a media culture that reduces an entire war to a news crawl beneath a celebrity puff piece.
 
Lions for Lambs is stridently cliche-averse. There are no easy caricatures or convenient demonisations here - a  particularly brave move when it comes to the portrayal of Republican senator. Right-wing figures may be chew toy of choice for satirists, stand up comics and editorial opinion writers, but here Irving is imbued with intelligence and a degree of validity that runs so counter to popular stereotype it appears as an anomaly. And while the film is studiously non-partisan, this fair hearing may account for it finding more favour with those on the right than on the left.
 
As scrupulously balanced and politically inflammatory as the film is, however, it’s chief saving grace is that it is made as a drama not as a debate. The characters are fully formed humans concerned about each other aswell as their world, and the dialogue crackles with passion and conviction.
 
It is, admittedly, a word-heavy film full of rhetoric, but it’s that special type of rhetoric that demands answers that lead to more questions. At times the swirl of words can become a tad dizzying - but when was the last time we had cause to fault a Hollywood film for overwhelming us with ideas and great dialogue?
 
About the only cliche Lions for Lambs does honour is the one about there being no easy answers. That seems to be the main thrust of the film, and the only reason it gets away with it is because it deeply believes it to be true.

by Jim Schembri

I had a bad day today…starting from 5am…it just seemed like everything I did fucked up and it really pissed me off.

The weather has been glorious, and all I wanted was to see a friendly face and have a cold drink, so I jumped on my bike and met Lou & Nic at the Prince…just what the doctor ordered!

I decided this morning to check out ‘Across The Universe’…a new film which all the staff have been raving about. I really enjoyed it.

From its first moments, when a solitary dreamer on a beach turns to the camera and sings, unaccompanied, the opening lines of the Beatles’ song “Girl,” Julie Taymor’s ’60s musical fantasia, “Across the Universe,” reveals its intention to use the Beatles’ catalog to tell two stories at once, one personal, the other generational. That young man, Jude (Jim Sturgess), is a cheeky Liverpool dockworker with a twinkle in his eye. He quickly emerges as a winsome vocal composite of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with a personality to match.

From here the movie only gets better. Somewhere around its midpoint, “Across the Universe” captured my heart, and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled.

That surrender is the kind of commitment that Ms. Taymor, a true believer in the magic of art, asks of an audience. And as the movie intensifies, and she brings in a fantastic array of puppets, masks and synergistic effects, you may find yourself in a heightened emotional state, even as you realize that what you’re seeing is unadulterated white, middle-class baby boomer nostalgia.

This risky hybrid of long-form music video and movie musical with clearly drawn characters tells the story of Jude’s star-crossed love affair with Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), a girl from upper-crust East Coast suburbia. It follows the couple as they are swept up and come apart in the evolving counterculture of left-wing politics, sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

The story, briefly: Jude, visiting the United States in search of his long-lost father, meets Lucy through her brother, Max (Joe Anderson), a student at Princeton, where the father is discovered working as a janitor. Max takes Jude home to his stuffy family for Thanksgiving, during which Max shocks his parents by announcing that he is dropping out of college. He and Jude drive to New York and settle in a sprawling East Village tenement and are soon joined by Lucy.

Their landlady, Sadie (Dana Fuchs, who played Janis Joplin in the Off Broadway show “Love, Janis”), is the movie’s resident earth mother. An aspiring rock singer, she sounds like a warmer, more controlled Joplin. Her triumphal “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” announces Lucy’s arrival in New York, and later in the movie, her voice hoarsely shouting “Helter Skelter” rises above the mob during a Columbia University riot at which Jude is arrested.

Rounding out the bohemian household are Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy), a guitarist who arrives from Detroit by Greyhound after his younger brother’s death in the Detroit riots, and Prudence (T.V. Carpio), an Asian-American lesbian cheerleader who hitchhikes to New York from Dayton, Ohio, and (in a joke on a Beatles song title) crashes into the house through the bathroom window.

Jo-Jo, who suggests a softened Jimi Hendrix, becomes Sadie’s on-again-off-again boyfriend and sometime lead guitarist. Prudence, who early in the film sings “I Want to Hold Your Hand” while gazing wistfully from afar at a blond cheerleader, develops a secret crush on Sadie. While Jude embraces art, Lucy, who lost her first boyfriend in Vietnam, gravitates toward antiwar activism after Max receives his draft notice and reluctantly leaves to fight in the war.

If the young lovers are familiar ’60s archetypes, the actors’ natural performances and the easy, colloquial dialogue by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (“The Commitments”) allow the characters to transcend the generic. When Lucy, gazing at Jude, sings “If I Fell” very slowly, in a sweet, trembling voice, she is one girl worriedly fantasizing about one boy.

Most of the historical events are lightly fictionalized in a movie that maintains only the fuzziest of timelines. Its 33 Beatles songs (two without words) have been re-recorded and sung by the actors. Yet “Across the Universe” feels emotionally true both to the Beatles, whose music today seems to exist outside of time, and to the decade it remembers. Smart, uncluttered musical arrangements help reposition the songs to address the situation at hand. As a result, music that has congealed in collective memory — especially the clever, breezy early Beatles songs — emerges refreshed.

A visceral peak arrives with “Strawberry Fields Forever.” In this gorgeous production number, an artwork by Jude in which rows of bleeding strawberries are pinned to a white surface transmutes into a hallucination of strawberry bombs raining over Southeast Asia. Then the artist, in an anguished frenzy, begins smashing strawberries on the walls and floors and destroys his work.

This happens around the time that Lucy, who works for a militant antiwar organization, angrily dismisses Jude’s art as “doodles and cartoons.” He charges into her office, snarls the song “Revolution” and instigates a brawl. It is one of several moments in which “Across the Universe” grasps a central emotional duality of a culture in which rage and ecstatic idealism clashed and played into each other at the same time.

Another extraordinary scene follows Joe to a United States Army induction center at which an Uncle Sam poster comes to animated life, leans down, points a giant finger and growls, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Inside the center a choreographed sequence finds inductees in their underwear sliding involuntarily along the floor through lines of Army officers in grim Expressionistic masks, marching in robotic formation. The new recruits are next shown, still in their underwear, lugging a giant replica of the Statue of Liberty through the Vietnamese jungle.

The dreamiest reverie, set to “Because,” begins with a tableau of nine friends blissfully lying on their backs in the grass in a mandala pattern. The circle disperses as Jude and Lucy find themselves in a watery blue sky where clouds melt into liquid, and the entwined lovers are themselves floating underwater. Most fanciful of all is a largely animated sequence in which Eddie Izzard is Mr. Kite, the ringmaster of a psychedelic circus with a dancing chorus line of “the blue people.”

Amid the phantasmagoria are several star cameos. As Max recovers from war injuries in a veterans’ hospital, he has a morphine-induced fever dream in which the beds in his ward rear up from the floor to the song “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” and he is tended by five Salma Hayeks. Bono appears as the acid guru, Dr. Robert, a Ken Kesey-Neal Cassady fusion who sings “I Am the Walrus” at an acid-drenched party and conducts Jude, Lucy and a roiling band of Merry Pranksters on a delirious bus journey through a rainbow-colored countryside.

“Across the Universe,” in the spirit of the counterculture, goes with the flow. Its scenes, songs and witty roughhouse choreography, spun off from the Beatles’ movies “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!,” dissolve into a stream of consciousness with only occasional punctuation.

Because of its oh-wow aesthetic, its refusal to adopt a critical distance from the ’60s drug culture, its tacit approval of the characters’ antiwar activism and its token attention to the decade’s racial strife, “Across the Universe” leaves itself wide open to derision, complaints and endless nitpicking. But it couldn’t have succeeded any other way. The movie is completely devoid of the protective cynicism that is now a reflexive response to the term “the ’60s.”

“Across the Universe” believes wholeheartedly in the quaint, communitarian spirit it exalts. You share the joy of its blissed-out hippies in the grass. You feel the deepening friendship between Jude and Max that is sealed in Max’s incandescent performance of “Hey, Jude.” And during the time it lasts, the intoxicating passion of Jude and Lucy, both innocents by today’s standards, convinces, for a moment, that love is all you need.

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

THE MET have been found guilty over the shooting of innocent terror suspect Jean Charles de Menezes.
Guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Brazilian de Menezes was shot seven times by cops on a London tube train in the wake of the suicide bombings in July 2005.
It was revealed police had mistaken him for one of the failed suicide bombers on July 21, Hussain Osman, who lived in the same block of flats.
The Met have been found guilty of breaking health and safety laws, and have been fined £175,000 and £385,000 in legal costs.
Who would have thought that shooting a completely innocent man seven times in the chest would constitute breaking health and safety laws?
It’s a complete cop-out to only give those responsible a charge of health and safety instead of murder. That’s like charging a man caught dumping a dead body by the side of the road with littering. Would they have got off so lightly had a UK national been killed?A DRUNKEN thug who urinated on a dying woman while shouting “this is YouTube material” to a crowd of onlookers and a friend filming the act on his phone has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Although his degrading prank did not contribute directly to the woman’s death, his choice to humiliate rather than help may have indirectly contributed. Miss Lakinski, 50, suffered from a number of medical conditions and died of pancreatic failure at the scene of the crime.
Her family were as outraged by the inaction of witnesses: “The fact that Christine was dying makes this man’s actions even more sick and inhumane. However, those who stood by and did nothing to stop Anderson are also guilty in our eyes.”

FURTHER proof has emerged that Tony Blair spinelessly and shamefully failed to stand up to George Bush over Iraq, with former US secretary of state Colin Powell claiming that Blair always wilted in the president’s company.
What Blair feared to lose by standing up to half-witted Bush is unclear, perhaps he just enjoyed all the back-slapping in America too much. Powell said of spineless Blair: “I never really understood why Blair seemed to be in such harmony with Bush. I thought, well, the Brits haven’t been attacked on 9/11. How did he reach the point that he sees Saddam as such a threat?
“Jack (Straw) and I would get him all pumped up about an issue. And he’d be ready to say, ‘Look here, George’. But as soon as he saw the president he would lose all his steam.” Tragically, Blair losing his steam lost him his job and countless lives in Iraq.

A MAN has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after trying to have sex with a bicycle. Giving a sinister new meaning to pumping up your bike, Robert Stewart was found romping with his two-wheeled temptress in his room by cleaners at a Hostel in Ayr, Scotland. The mechanics of the actual act are puzzling - but love finds a way.
Unsure about the sexual rights of bicycles, police eventually decided to charge Stewart with sexual breach of the peace, which he admitted to in Ayr Sheriff Court. Depute fiscal Gail Davidson described how he had been found doing the dirty deed by staff: “They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply. They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down.
“The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex.”
Are we the only ones who think that a man should be able to do whatever he pleases with a bicycle in the privacy of his own locked room? Isn’t it a free country? Didn’t he pay for the room? Aren’t we supposed to be a liberal, accepting society? If a man gets his kicks from bikes then he should be free to do so.

THE ALLEGED killer of gunned down 11-year-old Rhys Jones has been named on YouTube. The sickening crime is thought to be the work of a gang member in Liverpool, and the name of the alleged gunman was posted in a comment beneath a video showing a hooded gang with guns and snarling dogs.
One twisted fool seemed to by trying to defend the killer saying: “Why do you all call them child murderers? Rhys was hit by a stray bullet it was not intentional, no-one set out that night to kill Rhys.” Then shortly after a reply was posted naming the alleged killer.
The murderer is said to be a member of the Croxteth Crew gang, although the video was posted by the Broadway Boyz or Nogga Dogs, who are rivals gangs.

THE UNHOLY mess that is the UK immigration system has been thrown into further turmoil, with the government seemingly having no idea how many migrant workers have landed on our shores.
Continuing on their crusade to turn Gordon Brown into a national laughing stock, bumbling Labour officials altered figures for the number of migrant workers twice in 24 hours. The amount of overseas nationals rose from 800,000 to 1.1 million and then to 1.5 million within a day – Eurostar must have made a pretty penny that day then. Never scared to jump on a bandwagon, Tory leader David Cameron has pledged to cut immigration, saying although it boosted the UK’s economy it was putting “unsustainable” pressure on public services. Yes, the same public services he wants to eradicate.
While there is nothing that can be done to prevent migration from within the EU, it is from outside that Cameron aims to tackle the crisis: “Non EU migration is something we can and should limit.
“I cannot understand why this Government has not done so,” before repeating his speech in Polish for the benefit of the crowd.

THE UK’S top traffic cop is about to be dealt a dose of his own medicine after being caught doing 90mph in a 60mph zone. Hypocrite Meredydd Hughes has already been caught and fined twice for speeding, despite holding the undoubtedly revered title of Association of Chief Police Officers’ Head of Roads Policing.
Laughably, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire was nabbed in North Wales, where coppers are known as the Traffic Taliban, and is now to be taken to court, where he can look forward to a judge adding to the six penalty points he’s already racked-up.
A spokesman for anti-speed camera group, Motorists Against Detection, said: “Mr Hughes is a hypocrite and should resign. You can’t go around preaching about speeding when you’ve been repeatedly done.”

A POT-BELLIED geek working on an IT helpline sent naked snaps of his flabby frame to a woman who’d phoned up looking for help.
When unsuspecting Tina Roberts phoned Tesco’s internet support line for help, the needy nerd on the other end of the line tracked her down on Facebook and sent a picture of him wearing nothing but a towel and a smile.
And who said computer geeks were weird psychos?
His message on the stalker friendly site read: “I have no idea who you are lol x. But I am sure I spoke to you on the phone when you rang the Tesco internet support line. I may be wrong? Jamie x.”

OBNOXIOUS talk show host Jeremy Kyle, whose TV show has been described as “human bear baiting,” has been revealed as a sick pervert who used his fame to prey on a 16-year-old schoolgirl.
Vile Kyle’s talk show is best described as a British version of Jerry Springer, where moronic lowlifes are provoked into confrontation under the guise of therapy. Jeremy’s sanctimonious sermonising has now been revealed as rank hypocrisy.
Becky Hayes, a virgin before meeting Kyle, did work experience at Century FM in Manchester where Kyle used to work. Kyle took advantage of her vulnerability and schoolgirl infatuation to have his wicked way with her – even getting her to wear her school uniform and inviting the girl to swingers’ parties.
Becky told a friend : “Jeremy was in a position of trust but totally abused it. He took advantage of me.” She also went into detail about his sordid phone calls: “He’d say, ‘I want to do you….’ and describe exactly how. You could tell he was getting excited, there’d be heavy breathing and all the noises.” Kyle’s lawyers deny the story.

IT NOW looks a question of when and not if Scotland will become independent.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has set out plans for a referendum on independence. There is also growing resentment in England that Westminster’s 59 Scottish MPs can vote on exclusively English matters.
There is a growing clamour, led by the Tories, to stop Scottish MPs voting on English matters and to initiate an English parliament.
English anger has been fuelled by a perception of Scottish MPs spending English taxpayers’ money with abandon on free eye tests, free university education, free whiskey and Scotland’s good showing in the Euro ’08 qualifiers. But in the event of Scottish independence what would happen to the oil money? Could it be Braveheart all over again?

EVOLUTIONARY theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics has predicted that humans will live for up to 120 years by the next millennium and that in the longer term humanity will sub divide into two separate species.
Curry believes that the natural process of sexual selection, in evidence at nightclubs around the world every weekend, will inevitably lead to attractive people only procreating with other attractive people.
Straight-laced boffin Mr Curry clearly hasn’t factored drugs, alcohol, desperation, split condoms or all of the above into his theory. The increasing gulf of good genes and bad genes will lead to one race of 7ft tall, slim, healthy, intelligent and attractive creatures, with all men hung like horses (seriously) and a genetic “underclass” of stupid, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures (above).
The Jeremy Kyle Show is evidence that this process is already well under way.

JUST when you thought traffic wardens couldn’t be any more reviled, a cold-hearted jobsworth slapped two tickets on a funeral cortege - before trying to ticket the hearse itself. Bereaved relatives’ grief soon turned to anger and they chased the jumped-up penny-pincher away from the hearse. Stunned onlooker Tony Halloran said: “You could see the gleam in the warden’s eye. He saw six cars and thought it was his lucky day.”
Traffic wardens, contrary to popular conception and despite the zeal with which they pursue tickets, generally aren’t paid commission. They are however, expected to comply to strict targets by greedy council bosses – or they are given the boot.

USING certain brands of mouthwash could put motorists over the limit under Irish drink driving laws, it has been revealed.
Drivers keen on oral hygiene could find themselves in trouble with the fuzz with some popular brands of mouthwash leaving people four-and-a-half times over the limit because of their high levels of alcohol.
Following tests on the supposed state of the art CA2000 Digital Breathalyser it was found certain mouthwash formulas can fool the machine into thinking drivers had been knocking back of few pints of the black stuff, as opposed to maintaining their pearly whites.
One test showed a person recording a reading of zero per cent on the machine before gargling 20 millilitres of Listerine mouthwash for 30 seconds, which left them four times over the limit.
Motorists known for their excessive flossing are set to be the next group of dangerous drivers to be targeted by gardai.

THE IRISH government has launched a massive clamp-down on L-plate drivers – but forgot to tell gardai they were introducing any new laws.
Bumbling transport Minister Noel Dempsey launched new legislation banning provisional licence holders from driving alone as part of his new master plan to make Ireland’s roads a safer place. But Garda sources say they had no clue about the scheme and were left with only a few days to train staff on how to uphold the new laws.
“It is a total mess. It is a mess and people are trying to drag the gardai into it and leave the mess on our door,” said a senior Garda source.
Further showing the excellent lines of communication between top cops and the government, it’s still not clear how or when the new laws will be enforced. Dempsey said that gardai would use “discretion and common sense, as opposed to automatic prosecution” for the first few months, but Garda headquarters claimed that the force would “fully enforce the laws in relation to this area.”

A VICTIM of an internet betting scam travelled all the way to Ghana to demand his money back from fraudsters – only to be taken hostage and held for ransom.
James Lafferty, from Ennis, Co Clare, had apparently been caught in a money laundering scam where the victims are sent e-mails from people claiming to have hundreds of thousands of euros which needs to be stashed in bank accounts outside their country because their father, usually a president, was overthrown in a coup.
On his mission to get his money back, he was kidnapped and held captive for five days before being rescued by police. On balance, it probably serves him right.

Public-spirited Pammy put her fashion sense aside, donned a fetching florescent jacket and became a lollipop lady to help children at her kids’ school.
The former Baywatch sex siren helped direct traffic at the school in the Malibu area of California, as the children returned to classes following the fires that have ravaged the west coast of the US.
There must have been a few youngsters wondering why their dads kept driving them around the block that day.
Pammi had flown her tots out to Vegas away from the fires – an ideal town for kids, no doubt – where she has been starring in illusionist Hans Klok’s stage show.
Apparently her sons Brandon and Dylan spent their break getting to know new step-dad Rick Soloman. Whether this involved watching his most successful work, One Night in Paris, is not known.

PUBLIC enemy number one Heather Mills broke down on GMTV in the UK, comparing herself to the “Queen of Hearts” Princess Diana and the parents of Madeleine McCann. The sadistic harlot who ripped the heart from national treasure Paul McCartney, who nicks money from homeless orphans for a luagh, says she’s been the victim of a savage media campaign.
“They make up such lies. They’ve called me a whore, a gold-digger, a fantasist, a liar, the most unbelievably hurtful things, and I’ve stayed quiet for my daughter,” she blubbered. “I have been persecuted. What did the paparazzi do to Princess Diana? They chased her and they killed her.”
“Look what they are doing to the McCanns, they have lost their daughter. What are we doing as a nation to persecute a woman that is devastated behind closed doors and trying to hold it together as I have for 18 months?”
Perhaps a £50 million divorce settlement and a nice new house will make her feel better.

BETTER-seen-than-heard Kelly Brook has laid into money-grabbing WAGs making a living off their famous hubbies’ names.
While there’s no denying Coleen McLoughlin and Alex Curran would have made just as many millions living out their lives as lowly chavettes in Liverpool, it appears Kelly does have a point. “II would hate to be a girl thinking, ‘What am I going to do when I leave school?’’ and all I was reading about was these girls marrying footballers, getting magazine deals. I’ve done it all on my own.”
Far better to be a girl coming out of school thinking she will expose her body for a load of slavering old men. With her claws already out Brook also took a swipe at female celebrities who stumbled out of clubs drunk.
“I’d never fall out of a nightclub drunk. No night out’s worth that - a photo that’s there for a lifetime of you with your knickers round your head.”

NOTORIOUS drug baron Jon Bon Jovi has confirmed he used to be a dope dealer.
The usually clean-living king of the mullet has confessed he bought and sold weed when he was a teenager growing up in New Jersey, even calling himself an entrepreneur for doing so. Jon Bon said: “I did the drug thing very young and wised up very young too, because I was into drugs a little too much.
“I was entrepreneurial even then, buying quarter pounds of dope and trying to make a couple of bucks.”

FUN-LOVING Britney Spears let a complete stranger snort cocaine off her tits in a wild Jacuzzi party – who said rock ‘n’ roll is dead?
The mother of the year candidate is said to have invited a gaggle of strangers to party at her Hollywood mansion, just two days after she lost visitation rights to her kids. Scott Kohler said he looked on as bonkers Brit downed vodka, stripped to her undies and ordered everyone into the hot-tub.
He explained how one reveller offered Britney cocaine and “joked he wanted to do a line off her chest, and she agreed.”
Kohler said: “She was in a great mood. She didn’t have a care in the world.” Perhaps because she was drunk and coked out of her head? Perhaps because she was drunk and coked out of her head?

BILLY-NO-MATES Robbie Williams was conned out of £200,000 by two of his supposed friends.
The fragile loner, who just wants to be loved, loaned the money to pals so they could set up a fashion label in New York, but the pair spunked the cash on partying instead. It also begs the question: is £200,000 really enough to pretend to be Robbie’s friend and put up with his constant breakdowns and tantrums?
Never far from the psychiatrist’s couch, Robbie set up his footy team LA Vale FC in the hope of making new friends after complaining of being lonely in the States. But it looks like his far-fetched fantasy that someone may actually enjoy his company has come back to bite him.
A source said: “These so-called friends have preyed on his hospitality and good nature. “It was as if the penny had finally dropped and Robbie realised he was being taken for a ride. He ordered them all out of his house and told them not to come back.”
Realising how lonely and quiet his house was without his rent-a-chums Robbie screamed ‘no, come back. I’ll give you more money’ - but it was too late.

HERMAPHRODITE Madonna begged Tupac Shakur to have a child with her, according to a new book.
The legendary rapper is said to have briefly dated Madge a year before he was shot in 1996, with the pop queen desperate to start a family. Lucy O’Brien claims in her new book Madonna: Like an Icon: “In her mid-30s Madonna desperately wanted children and had various relationships with unlikely men, in the hope she would conceive.”
But Mrs Ritchie was allegedly dumped by ‘Pac, for not fitting in with his bad-to-the-bone rapper image. A friend of Madonna claimed: “She was going out with him but homegirls were saying to him, ‘I can’t believe you’re going out with a white girl,’ so she got dumped.” Just like dat biatch.

JORDAN proved that she is in touch with public perception by admitting that she wants her boobs to be her legacy to this world.
The 32FF walking blow-up doll, who is married to her third tit Peter Andre, said that she wants her gravestone to reflect exactly what she has contributed to humanity - a great set of norks. Seemingly finding it hard to make a distinction between being an exceptional woman and just having an exceptional surgeon, Jordan said: “I’d like to have, ‘She had perfect tits’ or ‘Wonder Woman’. I’d like that after all I’ve been through - having kids, trying to make everyone else happy and working hard.” Stripping is very taxing.

DESPICABLE diva Naomi Campbell threw one of her notorious strops an airport after she wasn’t allowed to board a flight.
The volatile vigilante – for whom every day is that time of the month - turned up 11 minutes before her flight was due to take-off from London’s Heathrow and demanded to be let on.
Remaining level-headed despite all her years in the limelight, Campbell is said to have started stamping her feet and whined: “You have to let me on. Come on,” when told she was too late. When British Airways staff offered to let her travel without her luggage and send her bags on a later flight Naomi yelled: “You are joking. You are always losing bags and I don’t trust you with mine in a million years.
“I can’t believe you won’t allow ME on your flight. What is this? Who must I speak to?”

HOLLYWOOD A-lister David Beckham respects Scientology but insists that new best friend Tom Cruise has not tried to convert him.
David said that, although he doesn’t understand the religion, he admires famous scientologists like Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. When it was explained to him what Scientology was, he said: “We respect their religion. We respect everything they do and believe in.
“But they have never turned around to us and said, ‘You have to be part of this’, because that’s not what they’re about.”
Beckham confirmed that he had never visited Cruise’s Scientology camp and that the only time they went away with Tom and Katie was for a romantic break at the L. Ron Hubbard ranch, where they went to boost their Thetan levels while preparing for an imminent attack by Xenu.

PARIS HILTON’S emaciated mimick Nicole Richie is still smoking despite being pregnant.
Unable to cope with the stress of shopping and not needing to earn a living, the socialite just cannot give up cigarettes.
She has been spotted lighting up outside various Beverly Hills restaurants and one witness says: “I saw Nicole come out of DaSilvano with a girlfriend and a middle-aged lady. She looked around at the outdoor tables, like she was checking to see who was there, and then lit up.”
The baby, whose father is Good Charlotte frontman Joel Madden, will likely suffer from dangerously low weight, slightly deformed features and a far lower than average IQ. Though this is, of course, a result of inheriting its mother’s genes rather than the effects of nicotine.
Nicole has denied the rumours but considering she was charged with drink driving while five months pregnant, it is not that much of an outlandish accusation.

UPTIGHT king-of-camp Morrissey has booted the support band off his tour of the US - because they took the piss out of his sexuality on stage.
It’s not advisable to bite the hand that feeds you at the best of times, but when that hand happens to belong to the world’s biggest man-diva, it’s downright stupid. Experimental outfit Kristeenyoung, who’ve been the support act for the majority of Morrissey’s 170 shows so far on his tour, were asked to leave the tour after lead singer Young reportedly revealed “Morrissey gives good head, I mean, er, cunnilingus.”
In a message posted on her Myspace page, Young said: “We have been asked to leave because of something I said on stage…unfortunately, the statement has been perceived as being profane (when, actually, one of the two words in question is a scientific term found in junior high, health class text books, and the other word, I feel most would agree, is lightweight slang) or defamatory.”
Morrissey seems a bit harsh for a sexually liberated man - it’s not as if they outed him.

PICTURE-OF-HEALTH Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty has avoided jail for drug and driving offences.
The now supposedly clean-living Mr Doherty was facing a jail term after being found with a cocktail of drugs while driving illegally, but instead escaped with a suspended sentence plus a fine.
We’re sure Joe Public would have been treated with such leniency in similar circumstances.
Thanks to a successful stint in rehab (the judge evidently doesn’t read the tabloids), Doherty was let off with a four month custodial sentence suspended for two years, and was also fined just under £500.
Tragically, the court failed to land the singer with a ban on making any more half-arsed self-indulgent records.

POMPOUS pumpkin-pubes Mick Hucknall has announced that Simply Red are to split up – the only tragedy is it won’t be until 2009.
The band, who only reminded us they still existed by telling us they’re calling it quits, say their next album Stay, will be their last. Hucknall has revealed the group will disband when their current tour ends in 2009. He said: “I’ve kind of decided that the 25 years is going to be enough.”
But the crooner has promised to return as a solo artist: “I’ve just recorded an album that is a tribute to Bobby Bland, a blues and R&B artist. It’s a solo project and I’ve really enjoyed it - so much that I feel the time has come now to just put a book-end to the [Simply Red] story.”
Fancying himself as a bit of a musical visionary, Hucknall said he wanted to “invent a new form of music.” We wait with baited breath for the revolution.

MEDICAL mystery Keith Richards has sparked fears for his health, after slurring his way through an acceptance speech.
The Rolling Stones legend picked up the prize for Best Cameo at Spike TV’s Scream 2007 awards for his performance in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. But in his pre-recorded acceptance speech rock’s most notorious wild-man was seen rocking back and forth and mumbling.
He slurred: “Thank you all fans voting for me in, you know. “We had a great time and it was a wonderful thing. Driving into the Disney studios, I laughed. God, at last I’m working for Mickey Mouse.”
It’s now thought the garbled speech - which had the audience at the glitzy Los Angeles ceremony in hysterics - could be a side effect of the medication he takes daily to prevent seizures. Either that or the bottle of Jack Daniels he drank for breakfast.

BRITISH TV has banned a video for Duran Duran’s collaboration with Justin Timberlake as the clip was too explicit.
The video for Falling Down, which Timberlake co-wrote and produced, pokes fun of the celebrity culture in rehab. But the promo was criticised by TV censors for showing controversial scenes of semi-naked models in distress.
The Eighties pop sensations have had to compromise by releasing a toned-down version instead.

PROMO pics for Britney Spears’ new album Blackout show her seducing a handsome Catholic priest.
In one shot, Britney is dressed in a black mini-skirt and fishnet stockings sitting on the priest’s lap. In another, she is leaning seductively on the confessional box repenting her sins, which set back filming by two days.
One church official laughingly said that this was a “bottom of the barrel” publicity ploy – a ridiculous statement given that Britney crashed through the bottom of the barrel long ago. In the most shocking news about Britney since she went off the rails, the album has incredibly proved to be a hit, and is tipped to knock Bruce Springstein off number one.

UNSATISFIED with being the greatest British musician ever, Johnny Borrell is to try his hand at acting.
In what is exceptional news for the Johnny Borrell Fan Club – including president, Mr J Borrell of Hoxton – the God amongst men is to star alongside Colin Firth and Robert Carlyle as the boyfriend of the as yet unnamed lucky leading lady.
He explained: “We’re filming around Christmas time or just after. I expect it will be quite fun.”
Johnny did state that he would refuse his inevitable Oscar, content with simply producing music and films that will revoltionise society.

FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl has admitted that he still dreams of Kurt Cobain.
As if the Grohl/ Love/Cobain love-hate triangle wasn’t Freudian enough, the former Nirvana member used the national press as a psychiatrist’s couch to tell how he has recurring dreams about Kurt.
“I still dream about Kurt. Every time I see him in a dream, I’ll be amazed and I get this feeling that everyone else thinks he’s dead.
“It always feels totally real, probably because I’m a very vivid dreamer. But, in my dreams, Kurt’s usually been hiding - we’ll get together and I’ll end up asking him, ‘God, where have you been?’”
He went on to say he always resented his mother’s sexual affections towards his father.

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It was raining today…and I am not talking about a drizzle, I am talking about pouring…Manchester style. It made me just want to crawl into my bed and not leave.

I met my friend Jay in St Kilda for breakfast, laughed over the prospect of a new project I am thinking of doing and then went home for a ’short’ nap…I slept in unfortunately and was an hour late for work…oops!