People - Here, There and Everywhere
George Bush: not on my watch
Did the American President have his watch nicked by an Albanian yesterday - or not? TV footage doing the rounds today shows George Bush wading into a madly friendly crowd in Fushe Kruje, near Tirana, clearly wearing a wristwatch one minute - and not the next. White House officials claim nothing happened.
Judge for yourself 
Was Sarko sozzled on TV?
Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly-elected French President, has a reputation for being a near teetotal keep-fit fanatic. But an encounter with Vladimir Putin at the G8 conference apparently drove him to drink.
When Sarko took to the stand at a televised press conference shortly after the
meeting he was nervous, confused and giggly.
A video clip has aired on Belgian and Swiss TV channels, and on YouTube, but the French media, ever respectful of their political leaders, has refrained from showing it - until this morning.
The left-of-centre French daily Liberation is finally screening the clip on its website, saying it would be 'hypocritical' not to. But it adds that there is no certainty that Sarkozy's 'breathlessness and hiccoughs' were caused by alcohol.
Judge for yourself
June 13: June Sarpong, Robert Kilroy-Silk and Vanessa Feltz will help Nancy Dell'Olio launch her autobiography, My Beautiful Game, at the Orangery, Holland Park.
Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece will attend the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair, London.
Mariella Frostrup (below) will be at the House of Lords v Commons Tug of War, Victoria Tower Gardens, London.
June 14: Giles Deacon, Leah Wood, Peaches Geldof and Erin O'Connor are due to attend the Visa Swap launch party, 5 Brompton Road, London
June 15: Simon Sebag Montefiore, Fay Weldon and Ronnie Corbett will join Earl Spencer at Althorp Literary Festival, Althorp, Northampton
June 16: Pete Doherty, Jarvis Cocker and Bryan Ferry will perform at the Royal Festival Hall, London in a Disney Songbook tribute.
Tina launches with a bang
To launch her book, The Diana Chronicles, Tina Brown enjoyed a glittering party in New York last night, hosted by Sony's Howard Stringer and attended by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, TV tycoon Barry Diller, historian Simon Schama, movie mogul (continued below ad)
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Harvey Weinstein and her husband Harry Evans.
Having already held a star-studded lunch at MoMA, the former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor seems to have forgotten the lesson of Talk, the ill-fated magazine she launched in 1999 with Harvey Weinstein's money - and which closed in 2001.
Brown launched Talk with an opulent event, held under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. When it folded, she remarked it couldn't live up to the hype: "We gave an insanely huge launch party that really subscribed to the great David Brown theory of showbusiness - which is never give a party which is better than the movie."
For the moment, however, Brown's star is on the rise again. Cooed a smitten Mayor Bloomberg last night: "If Tina hadn't married Harry and I didn't have my girlfriend... Well she has a great combination of brilliance and beauty." (The First Post)
The Diana Chronicles: all on one page
From Soprano to Hemingway
The one person who seems not to have cared how The Sopranos ended, as long as it ended, is James Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano.
"I'm relieved," he told the New York Times as the show's long-anticipated finale was broadcast on Sunday.
Afraid of being typecast, Gandolfini has decided to develop his own scripts. His company, Attaboy Films, is developing a screenplay about the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.
Gandolfini will play Hemingway and Robin Wright Penn is due to play Gellhorn, who became the novelist's third wife. The film will be directed by Philip Kaufman...
Tom Wolfe's hallucinogenic book of the 1960s, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, is to be filmed by Gus Van Sant, honoured at Cannes for Paranoid Park...
Matt Damon is cashing in his chips on Ocean's 13 and has headed to Iraq's Green Zone: he has signed up for Paul Greengrass's take on Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, by Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran...
God releases Paris, jail sadly doesn’t
First, Paris Hilton was hoiked out of prison on medical grounds - it seems her fear of being photographed using the lavatory led her to stop eating and drinking - then she was sent back. Now it seems the pouting heiress has found God.
In a call to ABC anchor Barbara Walters, she declared: "I'm not the same person I was... I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance. God has released me."
While He may have released her, the authorities have not and she remains in LA's Twin Towers Detention Center. Inmates released in recent days talk of meals of 'mystery meat' on toast, known as 'shit on a shingle', and the rationing of regulation underpants. "I know Paris doesn't wear underwear, but you have to," said one. "Otherwise they'll say you're trying to entice the other females."
Stupid con tricks
Police in Montana are searching for an escaped convict who once allegedly plotted to kidnap David Letterman's son - and who may now be headed for the TV talk show host's 2,700-acre ranch. Kelly A Frank, 45, disappeared on Friday from prison.
Indications are accomplices may have stashed weapons and other provisions for him and a fellow convict. Frank was arrested in 2005 on allegations he crafted a plan to kidnap Letterman's son, now three, and the boy's nanny for a $5m ransom. A charge of solicitation to kidnap was dropped in return for his guilty pleas to other charges. (Los Angeles Times)
Lord Justice Richards claimed he was the victim of mistaken identity during his trial for indecent exposure on a train, and today in court he held up a pair of his Calvin Klein briefs in order to prove his point... Princess Anne rebuked the Bailiff of Guernsey after he tried to help her up after she fell on an official walkabout, telling him "I'm perfectly capable of getting myself up"... Having 'fired' Sir Alan Sugar on TV show The Apprentice, Katie Hopkins has now been fired from her £90,000 a year job at the Met Office, due to the 'many articles about her private life' detailing her affairs with three married men... Singer George Michael (below) and partner Kenny Goss attended a 
private viewing of Damien Hirst's jewel- encrusted skull and may buy the £50m work...
David Hockney claims, "We are not in a very visual age - I think it is all about sound," at the launch of a Tate exhibition of Turner paintings he has curated...
Stilettos at dawn in Choo shoe war
A bitter rift has developed between Jimmy Choo shoe queen Tamara Mellon and her mother Anne, since the death of Tamara's father Tommy Yeardye, co-founder of the Vidal Sasson hair empire.
A disgruntled Anne feels that she has been cut out of her share of the £185m Jimmy Choo empire, and is now accused of trying to take money from trusts bearing the name of Tamara's five-year-old daughter Araminta.
On the advice of a psychic, Tamara's ex-husband, recovering drug addict Matthew Mellon, has proposed they join him at his Arizona rehab centre to try to work things through. (Daily Mail)
Vincent gives it
all away
Iranian entrepreneur Vincent Tchenguiz, who with his brother Robbie shares a £850 million fortune, has a playboy reputation, with a taste for overblown yachts, partying and gambling. In 2004, he scooped £1m on a bet that Greece would win the Euro 2004 football tournament.
Now he is giving it away. He is to create one of the largest charitable foundations in the UK, the Vincent Tchenguiz Foundation. It will sponsor disparate causes across the globe, with the first recipient the John Clare Education and Environment Trust.
