People - Here, There and Everywhere
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Sami joins 'Muslim Live Aid'
SINGER Sami Yusuf is one of the biggest names in Muslim music, selling records by the million in the Middle East, and described by Time magazine as 'Islam's biggest rock star'. But he remains relatively unknown in his own country - Britain - where he and his family moved from Iran in the 1980s.
This is set to change however, with 27-year-old Yusuf (below) headlining a peace concert at Wembley
Arena to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Organised by the charity Islamic Relief, the concert has already been dubbed the Muslim Live Aid. It comes amid growing concern over an underwhelming response from Muslims to the plight of Sudan.
Speaking about his recent trip to Khartoum, Yusuf said yesterday: "I saw grief, agony, and pain, people in desperate need. It was like torture."
Joining him for the October 21 event will be Danish group Outlandish, and American-Muslim country-and-western singer Kareem Salama.
Wallace and Gromit ride again
THE CREATOR of Wallace and Gromit, Nick Park, is taking a break from his Hollywood career - he won an Oscar for Curse of the Were Rabbit in 2006 - to make a short film for the BBC.
In what will be their first TV outing since A Close Shave in 1995, the animated pair will star in Trouble at' Mill, to be shown on BBC1 
next year. It will be a murder mystery set in a bakery business and Wallace will have a new love interest, Piella Bakewell.
Says Park (above): "It's nice to be out of that feature film pressure now. I don't feel like I'm making a film for a kid in some suburb of America - and being told they're not going to understand a joke, or a northern saying. I'm making this for myself again and the people who love Wallace and Gromit."
October 7: Dame Helen Mirren, Germaine Greer, Alastair Campbell, Nick Hornby, Tony Benn (above), Ian Hislop, Russell Brand and Douglas Coupland are set to make an appearance at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
October 10: Gary Lineker will attend the CLIC Sargent Golf Day at Sunningdale Golf Club, Berkshire
October 15: Morgan Freeman, Thandie Newton and Kelly Holmes will attend the Screen Nation Film and Television Awards at Old Billingsgate, London.
Bono slammed for demolition
U2 FRONTMAN Bono and guitarist The Edge have been accused of presiding over the destruction of a historic area of Georgian Dublin with their plans to revamp an iconic hotel in the Irish capital.
A £100m proposal has been put forward to redevelop the Clarence Hotel, adding a (continued below ad)
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(continued from above ad) spaceship-shaped glass dome on the roof. Lord Foster (above, with Bono), who drew up the designs, promises it would transform the discreet hotel into a glamorous landmark, as central to Dublin as the Savoy Hotel is to London.
The five-star Clarence hotel on the bank of the Liffey was acquired by the two rock stars in 1996 and has 49 rooms. Guests have included Naomi Campbell, Bill Clinton and Kate Moss.
The redevelopment would see its capacity increased to 140 rooms, with a spa, gym, swimming pool, creche and music venue. It is hoped that the Michelin-starred restaurant, the River Cafe, will become part of the complex.
Michael Smith, a former chairman of An Taisce, the Irish equivalent of the National Trust, has led the criticism. "It's shocking that Bono and the Edge of U2, famously more thoughtful than most, should continue to put their name to what is the biggest demolition of protected and historic structures in the city in a decade," he says.
Life's a drag for Kylie Minogue
TO RESEARCH her new video, Kylie Minogue trawled for drag queens in East London's ultra camp nightclub scene. The new look, to be seen in the video for Two Hearts, is apparently her most shocking to date.
Insiders on last Friday's London shoot speak of a black latex catsuit, poisonous red lips, and a big curly blonde wig. Says one: "Kylie writhes on the floor and cavorts on a grand piano."
Kylie, and her ever present stylist William Baker, also roped in hot British designers Gareth Pugh and Christopher Kane to create futuristic outfits involving Spandex and killer heels.
Baron Cohen's new moviefilm
HE'S BEEN called the next Peter Sellers and now Sacha Baron Cohen plans to 
remake the 1968 cult comedy The Party, reprising Sellers's role as a bumbling East Indian movie extra.
Produced and directed by Blake Edwards, who also guided Sellers through most of the Pink Panther films, The Party features Sellers in a virtuoso performance as the polite, inept Hrundi V Bakshi, who's mistakenly invited to alavish Hollywood bash, which he then disrupts in a big way.
According to US gossip columnist Liz Smith, the idea came up when Edwards and Cohen recently met at a screening of The Party in Santa Monica.
Notting Hill set riled by Sienna's Oz film
RESIDENTS OF Notting Hill have had enough of their leafy borough being used as the backdrop for feature films. Since Hugh Grant's Notting Hill, it seems the cameras have rarely stopped rolling, and now locals are 
doing their utmost to stop filming on the Sixties counter-culture movie, Hippie Hippie Shake, starring Cillian Murphy as Oz editor Richard Neville and Chris O'Dowd as publisher Felix Dennis.
A meeting was recently held in The Pelican pub on All Saints Road, where more than 40 protesters put their concerns to the film's casting director. The local council also received at least 17 formal complaints.
Happily hard cash buys peace, even in Notting Hill. A compromise has been reached, involving various objectors receiving compensation from the producers. Meanwhile, filming has continued in Trafalgar Square, where co-star Sienna Miller (above) has been spotted in a steamy embrace with Murphy.
See stills from Sienna's revealing role 
Anne Robinson has reacted to her recent divorce by saying that she's in the market for a toyboy... Staff at Jo Whiley's (below) Radio 1 show posed as callers to competition, it has been revealed... An expert on mountaineering is claiming that British climber George Mallory (below) conquered 
Everest three years before Sir Edmund Hillary... Sir Roger Moore has revealed that he'd like to return to Bond films as a villain… The romance between actor Charles Dance and retired newsreader Anna Ford is going from strength to strength...
The Chelsea mecca for canine consumers, Mungo and Maud, launched a new range of doggy accessories, created by jewellery designer Vinnie Day. Guests - many with their beloved pooches - included Marina Fogle, actress Holly Weston and Magdalena Maier and her dog Layla (pictured above).
Creative director Nicolas Ghesquiere's previous 'global streetwear' collection for Balenciaga has been massively copied, and recreations of his blazer are saturating the high street. But yesterday's show is going to be much harder to rip off: exaggerated hour-glass dresses crafted in intricate panels of fabric (above), pop art florals mixed with purple checks, and splashy pinks and blues on cocoon-shaped coats, cape jackets and mini skirts. In the audience were Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and artist Cindy Sherman.
On the runway at Issey Miyake, fashion and science came together: British vacuum manufacturer James Dyson created a vacuum hose wind tunnel to blow air at the models on the runway. Meanwhile the collection, titled 'Wind', included replicated parts of a Dyson cleaner as pockets and hoods on grey and pink coats. The shape of the Dyson itself inspired the bell-shaped anoraks, and biker jackets were strapped with ridged tubing.
Jean Paul Gaultier showed a collection apparently inspired by Pirates of the Carribean yesterday, turning models out in striped T-shirts, breeches, braided jackets, and wench-style corsetry. The show finished with 13 pirate brides in white lace, crochets, leather and silk - with veils trailing from pirate hats.
Junya Watanabe had a floral theme, with muslin dresses wrapped round the body and fastened with gold straps. Viktor & Rolf showed what was dubbed an 'average' collection, with slim-fitting wide leg trousers, neatly-proportioned tops, rose corsages and pom-pom belts.
