In brief: Lauren Booth breaks blockade

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth (pictured), looks set to cause him maximum embarrassment this week (in his role as MidEast peace envoy) when she joins a group of protestors trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip by sailing into the Palestinian territory. Some 46 campaigners, among them several Britons, a Holocaust survivor and an 81-year-old retired Catholic nun from the US, will make the 241-mile crossing from Cyprus in two wooden vessels at the end of the week, carrying medical supplies...Boris Johnson has lost another of his key aides. Tim Parker, one of the City’s most successful private equity businessmen who is known as "the prince of darkness", was brought in to oversee transport. When he was stripped of this role he decided to go…James Corden, who won a Bafta for the BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey and starred in Alan Bennet’s The History Boys, has been commissioned by Wall’s to write short gags that will appear on the brand's ice-cream wrappers... Simon Pegg, currently one of Britain’s hottest actors in Hollywood, has had to turn down a part in Inglorious Bastards, a movie being directed by one of his all-time heroes, Quentin Tarantino. Unfortunately it coincides with filming of Paul, a film idea he’s developed with regular collaborator Nick Frost...Actress Michelle Williams, partner of the late Heath Ledger, is reportedly dating film director Spike Jonze. Williams, 27, and Jonze, 38, recently worked together on the film Synecdoche, New York, which he produced...Bono, featured here yesterday after inadvertently leaking U2's latest album, has reportedly been told to lose weight so he can cope with the band's forthcoming world tour, according to the New York Post...