People - Here, There and Everywhere
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DVD pirates set their sights on Moore
'IF YOU CAN'T take it, don't dish it out', would be good advice for cinema's enfant terrible Michael Moore. Having espoused the virtues of movie piracy in the past, he's come over all coy now that it appears his latest flick, Sicko, an indictment of the US health system, has been afflicted by the curse. His expose has been spotted on Google Video and YouTube, and is currently available on dozens of filesharing websites.
Weinstein Co, the film's producers, say that watermarking technology will enable them to trace whether a critic has passed on a pre-release DVD. But Moore (above) insists the leak was, like 9/11, 'an inside job', mysteriously blaming forces with a vested interest in ruining the film's opening weekend. Moore is no stranger to internet intrigue, having seen his last anti-Bush effort Fahrenheit 9/11 inspire a raft of pro-Republican reaction movies across the net. (The First Post)
Burchill bows out - for now
CORUSCATING COLUMNIST Julie Burchill is putting down her poison pen. "I don't need to do journalism any more," she says. "Thirty years from the age of 17 without a break is way enough - for me and my public."
Instead, Burchill (left) plans to write books and scripts, and take a degree in Theology. The media firmament will lose a colourful star. At the Modern Review, the short-lived magazine she founded with Toby Young, she was famous for topping up contributors' meagre pay with lines of cocaine. "When the issue was finished, we would go back to her place, and I've never seen a bowl of coke as big as the one she'd offer round," a source tells The First Post. "It was the size of a plant pot. She was generous to a fault - if you can call handing out Charlie a fault!" At any rate, Burchill will not leave journalism poor. Writing for The Times, she commented: "I was paid £7.50 a word. Therefore "fuck off" was £15. Bit more with the VAT."
June 22: Arctic Monkeys, The Fratellis, Amy Winehouse and Kasabian kick off the Glastonbury Festival, Somerset.
June 22: Lewis Hamilton (above), Jenson Button, Sir Stirling Moss, Damon Hill attend the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Goodwood, West Sussex
June 24: Shane Warne and Andrew Flintoff take part in a charity cricket match, Lords Cricket Ground, London
June 25 - July 8: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova, and Amelie Mauresmo compete at the Wimbledon Championships, London
Molly puts a dent in castle debt
AMID DESPERATE times at Sudeley Castle there comes a glimmer of hope. After a BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary exposed bitter rifts between chatelaine Lady Ashcombe and her children as to how they make enough money to maintain the 15th-century pile, on June 23, Lady Ashcombe's daughter (continued below ad)
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(continued from above ad) Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst will throw a glittering party to mark the opening of a contemporary art exhibition at Sudeley. Guests will include Tracey Emin, Pia Getty and Andi and Patti Wong.
The show, aptly titled Resurrection, has funding from the Arts Council and sponsorship from Kleinwort Benson.
In the documentary, Crisis at the Castle, to be broadcast next week, Lady Aschombe frets: "The castle is like a big hungry beast that needs to be fed, and if we can't find a financially viable way to run it we will have to be sold to some Russian oligarch."
Other measures already taken to fund the 1,200-acre estate - where Liz Hurley, best fiend of Mollie's brother, Henry Dent-Brocklehurst, held her wedding - include selling pictures from the family art collection, and opening Sudeley to the (fee-paying) public.
Woody Allen: renaissance man
NEW YORK-BASED filmmaker-turned-jazz musician Woody Allen, who recently released a collection of short stories, is now branching out into the world of opera.
Allen (left) will make his operatic directorial debut with the opening event of the LA Opera's 2008-09 season, with Gianni Schicchi, part of Puccini's Il Trittico, a trio of one-act operas. Another movie director, William Friedkin - who made The Exorcist and French Connection - will take charge of the other two operas in the set. Placido Domingo, general director of the LA Opera, spent four years persuading Allen to accept the role. Says Allen: "I have no idea what I am doing. But incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm."
Cherie and the lap dance club owner
Cherie Blair can make some odd career decisions. First, there was the controversial paid public speaking tour. Now, in her legal guise as barrister and QC, she has agreed to help 'erotic nightclub' owner Dave West fight the smoking ban brought in by her husband Tony.
West showed Mrs Blair (left) round his club Hey Jo - in which the urinals have gold-plated, penis-shaped taps - before taking her upstairs to his flat. "She was not stuck-up, and even joked that she would soon be homeless," said the lap-dancing tycoon. "I specifically asked her to represent me, and I think she will do a very good job. Smokers have rights too."
Wino’s Glasto rider
HARD LIQUOR and soft fluffy towels are on the backstage menu for Glastonbury performer Amy Winehouse. The self-confessed 'terrible drunk' has requested two bottles of red wine; one bottle of vodka; one bottle of Champagne; one bottle of brandy; one case of lager; 40 Marlboro Lights; 40 fluffy towels and two sober members of staff.
Meanwhile Kate Moss has requested a helicopter to get to and from the £400-per-night Babington House where she is staying with Pete Doherty.
By contrast, Arctic Monkeys plan to sleep on site, requesting a teepee to stay in.
Tony Blair will move into Prime Ministerial residence Chequers when he leaves his job on Wednesday. The building work is not finished at his £3.6m London home... Former Big Brother star Jade Goody has lost the baby she was expecting with boyfriend Jack Tweed... After firing him in March, now Simon Cowell has reinstated Louis Walsh as judge on X Factor... 
Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee has signed a deal with Disney to create new superhero characters... Philip Pullman's Northern Lights has won a Carnegie poll as the best children's book of the past 70 years... Morrissey says he would "love" to go on tour to Iran... The Spice Girls will net £10m each for their reunion tour... Zara Phillips (above) stole the show at Royal Ascot's Ladies Day in a daring leopard print hat... Pete Doherty says he will wed Kate Moss in the summer providing he is 'smack-free'...
Diamond-geezer Damien storms the record books
Damien Hirst set the art world alight last night, when a joust between two anonymous collectors sent the price for one of his trademark medicine cabinets up to a staggering £9,652,000.
Lullaby Spring (above) sold at Sotheby's for treble its estimate - and three times the European auction record. The sale makes Hirst, 42, the world's most expensive living artist.
"We were amazed," a Sotheby's spokesman tells The First Post. "It was a thrilling auction. When the gavel finally went down, the audience burst into applause."
Francis Bacon's Self Portrait was sold at the same gallery for £21.58m, £9.5m over the estimate.
It was the most expensive picture sold in a record-breaking week: by this evening, the total spent on art in London is expected to top £414m.
