People
Thatcher and the Kazakhstan connection
Borat, aka Sacha Baron Cohen, has not been the only colourful figure to visit the despotic regime of Kazakhstan lately. Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher and a man who attracts trouble like mud, allegedly used his mother’s name to help secure a deal for... [continued]
Calil denies coup plot as Mann jailed 
Hoffman brings play to London’s West End
The stream of Hollywood talent that is keeping the West End stage alive – from Nicole Kidman to Josh Hartnett in recent years – is to be boosted by Philip Seymour Hoffman (pictured). However, the 41-year-old who won an Oscar for Capote is coming to town not to... [continued]
Oligarch snaps up Safra mansion for record €500 million
Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian steel tycoon, holds what is thought to be the record for the most expensive house in Europe - and possibly the world - no longer. Mittal paid £57 million
for a mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens in London in 2004 but he has... [continued]
Mittal becomes world's fourth richest man
Grand designs, big problems
As the presenter of Grand Designs, Kevin McCloud entertains television viewers with his sharp judgments on other people's ambitions to build their dream home. Now his own
vision to build a £19m micro-eco-town near Swindon, to demonstrate how smartly designed high-volume homes can be built at an affordable price, is... [continued]
Swindon shuns McCloud grand design
Thomas’s womanising was ‘just a myth’
Caitlin Thomas, the long-suffering wife of Dylan Thomas, is supposed to have burst into the hospital room where he lay in his last hours shouting: "Is the bloody man dead yet?" Yet following his death in 1953, imagining him in his grave, she wrote in her diary... [continued]
Will Clooney take starring role in film about Osama’s driver?
George Clooney (left) does not appear to have learned the lesson that anti-Iraq war films do not sell at the American box office. The Barack
Obama-supporting actor is considering his politically riskiest move yet - taking a starring role in a screen version of the story of... [continued]
Hail George, the peacemaker
In brief: Rielle rules out paternity test
Rielle Hunter (pictured), the woman who had an extramarital affair with the former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, has ruled out a paternity
test for her baby daughter, after Edwards claimed he was prepared to be tested. Hunter's lawyer said she was a "private" person, who was "not running for... [continued]
Why John Edwards won't be in Denver
How Jacobi served up a camp slice of Bacon
Advice to the actor Sir Derek Jacobi: there is a world of difference between butch and camp. Consorts of the late Francis Bacon (pictured), a violent homosexual who liked rough trade and sado-masochism, and commonly wore women’s pants and fishnet stockings under his normal clothes, are complaining that Jacobi got... [continued]
