People
Martin Amis invisible in Manchester
Martin Amis (pictured), the bestselling author of Money and London Fields, may still be one the biggest beasts in British fiction, but he does not appear
to have made much of an impression at Manchester University, where he is paid £3,000 an hour to be the Professor of Creative... [continued]
Howard accuses Amis of being ‘pompous’ 
Julia Bradbury starts ageism row at Beeb
A shake-up of staff at the BBC's rural affairs programme Countryfile, where it was announced recently that 36-year-old Julia Bradbury (pictured) was being brought in and a number of older presenters were being axed, has, according to the Daily Telegraph, led to accusations of age discrimination against woman among the... [continued]
In brief: Nixon says deal not done on Sex and the City sequel
Cynthia Nixon (pictured second from right), one of the Sex and the City quartet, has sought to dampen expectations about an early sequel to this summer’s hit movie.
While her co-stars Kim Cattrall (far right) and Sarah Jessica Parker (second from left) have enthused about filming beginning early... [continued]
People: Mayor Bloomberg joins the girls for Sex and the City film version
Birleys go to court over virtual disinheritance
People: Chris Martin denies charge of plagiarism
People: Beckhams to appear in Italian film
Garcia Marquez breaks his writer’s block
When the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (pictured) confessed that he was suffering from a very severe case of writer's block two years ago many of his
admirers suspected there would be no more novels forthcoming. However, a close friend and collaborator of the 82-year-old Colombian novelist, fellow writer... [continued]
Books: Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
Melvyn Bragg supports assisted suicide
Melvyn Bragg, the broadcaster and novelist, has entered the debate over assisted suicide, claiming that he would consider ending his life in a Swiss clinic if he were terminally ill
or incapacitated. In an interview with Clive James filmed by the Times, he said: "I would want to do... [continued]
Clive James interviews Melvyn Bragg
Dasha defies the art market slump
The recession in the contemporary art market is being heroically ignored by Dasha Zhukova (pictured with artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov at the opening of her Moscow
arts centre), the 27-year-old girlfriend of the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. This week she not only launched a massive project in Moscow, showing... [continued]
Features: Dasha opens the doors to her garage
People: Abramovich and Dasha fare poorly on art power list
Michael Ignatieff: from BBC to Canadian PM?
A former BBC journalist is poised to become the Prime Minister of Canada. Michael Ignatieff, who wrote regular columns for the Observer as well as making films for the BBC during the 20 years he spent living in London until 2000, has become leader of the Canadian... [continued]
Jenni Murray evicts her squatter
Jenni Murray (pictured), the formidable presenter of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, is not the sort of person you want to mess with, as a squatter who broke into her London home recently discovered to his cost. "I hadn't been to my flat for a while and when I... [continued]
