James Franco Picture Gallery

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Hairspray Theatre Tickets Give-Away

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teentoday.co.uk has teamed up with Hairspray to offer you the chance to win one of three pairs of tickets for this smash hit musical.

The mother of all musicals at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London: BIG MUSICAL,  BIG COMEDY,  BIG HAIR! It’s time to let your hair down and dance the night away!

Hairspray, the mother of all musicals, follows Tracy Turnblad, a big girl with big hair and an even bigger heart as she sets out to dance her way onto TV’s most popular dance show.

Can this ordinary girl realise her extraordinary dreams, inspire her mum and still have time to win the boy she loves?

For more information visit www.hairspraythemusical.com & to book tickets call 020 7379 5399.

For your chance to win one of 3 pairs of tickets just answer this simple question:

Terms & Conditions
Winning tickets are valid for Monday to Thursday performances from 7th January – 28th February 2008 excluding 14th February & 18th – 21st February and are subject to availability. Winners tickets will be held at the Box Office for collection and have no cash alternative.

High School Musical 2: The Extended Edition Give-Away

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On December 3rd High School Musical 2: The Extended Edition dances it’s way onto Disney DVD and we’re giving one lucky reader the chance to win a £50 worth of Disney Store vouchers and a High School Musical DVD Dance Studio as well as a copy of the DVD and soundtrack. In addition to this we have copies of the DVD and soundtrack to give away to 5 runners-up.

The all-singing, all-dancing sensation sees the original cast - including basketball champ and high school heart-throb Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and his gorgeous and talented singing partner Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) - return for another poptastic song and dance extravaganza.

Packed with exclusive extras including a never-before-seen music scene this DVD is a must-have for all High School Musical fans. The super-cool sequel sees the East Side Wildcats working at a Country Club during their summer break. School is out but it’s not all fun and games for the gang. Scheming Sharpay attempts to break up Troy and Gabriella in a ploy to win his heart - and an all-important talent contest! It’s another heart-warming tale of how people should be free to be whoever they want to be.

For your chance to win please answer the following question: What is the name of Troy’

Answer:
Full name:
Email address:
DOB:
Postal Address:

The DVD releases in the UK on 3rd December 2007. Visit the website here.

Tom Cruise on Doctor Who?

It seems that too many of the TV rumours lately are all about Who, but get this– Tom Cruise is set to star in a special episode of hit British TV show ‘Doctor Who’.

The ‘Lions for Lambs’ actor is among a host of top US stars, including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Madonna, who the BBC are hoping to get on board for three blockbuster instalments of the British sci-fi series to be filmed next year.

An insider told Britain’s Daily Star newspaper: “BBC producers know they can’t pay these stars what they are used to, but what they can offer is an exciting role in a real cutting-edge show. And the big stars love that kind of kudos.”

‘Doctor Who’ already has a track record of attracting top stars for cameos.

This year’s Christmas special, ‘Voyage of the Damned’, will see Kylie Minogue play a waitress at the 1912 launch party for the famously doomed ocean liner the Titanic, which sank after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage.

The three ‘Doctor Who’ specials will be shot in 2008, but will not hit screens until 2009.

The three episodes are rumoured to be the final time actor David Tennant will play the time-travelling Doctor.

It is also believed 25-year-old actress Billie Piper - who quit the show in 2006 to pursue other projects - will return to play his sexy sidekick Rose Tyler.

Voice of the London Underground gets sacked for having a sense of humour

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Emma Clarke, the voice of the London Underground has just been fired for recording and posting some spoofs on her own blog. “Mind the gap” no more. To spare her server and just in case she’s forced to remove the recordings from her website, links to the recordings are below:

“Do not drop litter on the train. Please use the tramps provided”

“Warning, this is an emergency. I’ve chipped a nail”

“Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read a paper, but is actually staring at that woman’s chest, please stop. You are not fooling anyone. You filthy pervert”

We’d like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loud.”

“Passengers should note that the bearded gentleman’s rucksack contains the following items only: Some sandwiches, a library card and a picture of a bare ankle and is no cause for alarm”

“Passengers are reminded that a smile is actually a friendship signal and not a sign of weakness”

“Would the passenger in the pinstripe suit and ÂŁ1000 glasses who obviously works in the media, please take one step forward on to the track as the train arrives. Thank you.”

Residents of London are reminded that there are other places in Britain outside your stinking shithole of a city, and if you removed your heads from your arses for just a couple of minutes, you may realise that the M25 is not the edge of the Earth”

“Passengers are reminded that, like all voiceover artists, I probably look nothing like you imagine and may turn out to be somewhat of a disappointment”

“Would passengers filling in answers on the Sudokus please accept that they’re just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers”

“Here we are again, crammed into a sweaty tube carriage. And today’s Wednesday - only two more days until you can binge drink yourself into a state of denial about the mediocrity of you life. Oh, for Goodness sake, if you’re female smile at the bloke next to you and make his day. He probably hasn’t had sex for months”

Has the first evidence of another universe been seen?

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Astronomers announced in August 2007 the discovery of a large hole at the edge of our universe. Since then, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton and colleagues have claimed it is an “unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own.”

The article entitled “Astronomers Find Enormous Hole in the Universe” discusses the August 2007 discovery of the hole. It is located at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory website.

Dr. Laura Mersini-Houghton is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).

The hole is estimated to be almost one billion light-years across, where one light-year is about 9.5 trillion kilometers (5.9 trillion miles) and is located within the constellation Eridanus.

The Mersini-Houghton team states that the hole is another universe at the edge of our own universe. Such an explanation, if true, would be the first experimental evidence of such an exo-universe, or a universe outside of our own universe.

Several teams of astronomers have used data from the NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to make examinations of this large hole. The hole first showed up in images of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the radiation left over from the formation of the universe (what we call the big bang).

In images made by WMAP back in 2004, the volume of the hole showed up as being of a colder temperature than surrounding volumes of space because of less energy being ejected from the region.

The hole is not actually devoid of matter, only has far fewer galaxies and galactic clusters than normally found in a comparable volume of space. It is estimated that the hole has about 20 to 45% less galaxies than normal, which contributes to it being colder than other volumes of space.

Not knowing how far away the hole was located astronomers then began looking at the Sloan data to make comparisons with galaxies. They found that the hole was about 900 light-years across and about 8 billion light-years away. This hole is the largest one ever found, and is difficult to explain, with current models of the universe, as to why it exists. Standard cosmology theory says that such a large void in space is exceedingly unlikely.

Several teams have made claims at to the explanation for this hole. Some cosmologists say that large hole in space is a “topological defect,” a large knot in space.

The Mersini-Houghton team, however, says it is another universe at the edge of our own. They looked at string theory for the explanation. In string theory, 10500 universes (or string vacuums) are described, each with unique properties. They contend that the largeness of our universe is due to its vacuum counterbalancing gravity. This counter-gravity of the vacuum keeps our universe very large (rather than shrinking due to gravity)—larger than the other multitude of universes. The team says that smaller universes are positioned at the edge of our universe, and because of this interaction they are seen by us.

The team predicts that another giant void will eventually be found. The already found void is in the northern hemisphere. They contend another one will be found in the southern hemisphere.

Cosmologists are mixed as to the conclusions from the Mersini-Houghton team. Some call it very interesting, while others call it very speculative. Future tests will be made that will probably validate or reject their conclusion.

Source: ITWire

U.N.: Tasers Are A Form Of Torture

taser1.jpg(CBS/AP) A United Nations committee said Friday that use of Taser weapons can be a form of torture, in violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Use of the electronic stun devices by police has been marked with a sudden rise in deaths - including four men in the United States and two in Canada within the last week.

Canadian authorities are taking a second look at them, and in the United States, there is a wave of demands to BAN them.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture referred Friday to the use of TaserX26 weapons which Portuguese police has acquired. An expert had testified to the committee that use of the weapons had “proven risks of harm or death.”

“The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use,” the committee said in a statement.

Tasers have become increasingly controversial in the United States, particularly after several notorious cases where their use by police to disable suspects was questioned as being excessive. Especially disturbing is the fact that six adults died after being tased by police in the span of a week.

Last Sunday, in Frederick, Md., a sheriff’s deputy trying to break up a late-night brawl tased 20-year-old Jarrel Grey. He died on the spot.

“I want to know what he did that was so bad,” the victim’s mother, Tanya James, said. “Did the deputy think that their life was in danger? Did he have a weapon?”

The death came just weeks after Frederick police used a Taser to subdue a high school student.

Black leaders held a rally Tuesday calling for the department to ban Tasers, at least until there is a clear policy on how they are used. The NAACP says it appears the sheriff’s office is using Tasers routinely, rather than as a weapon of last resort.

Also this week, in Jacksonville, Fla., in two separate cases two men died after being stunned.

One suspect, who fled a car crash and tried to break into a nearby home, struggled with a policeman, prompting the officer to tase him three times. The man continued to fight, and tried to bite the officer, while he was being tased. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Another man died Tuesday after a Jacksonville officer pulled over his car. When the officer approached it, the man took off running. When the officer caught up with him, during a struggle, authorities say the officer used his Taser to subdue the suspect.

After being placed in the back of the police car the suspect became unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Last Sunday, in New Mexico, 20-year-old Jesse Saenz died after Raton police used a Taser to subdue him. Police say Saenz was struggling and fighting with them as they attempted to take him into custody.

How Beatrice is turning into a most unusual young royal

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(from the Daily Mail)

Stepping out into the night - and even brushing alongside the questionable company of party-queens like Kate Moss - she never varied.

The smile was attractively uncertain, the manner polite, the personal control absolute - not bad for a girl of 19.

Who would ever have imagined that out of the dysfunctional Royal Family, the parents who would produce-the most poised and promising-member of the new generation would be the divorced Duke and Duchess of York?

From clubland to dowagers’ drawing rooms there is no greater surprise in London society than the mark that Fergie and Andrew’s elder daughter Princess Beatrice has made.

Just a moment ago, or so it seems, she was dating the louche Paolo Liuzzo, a drug-taking Italian-American eight years her senior who once faced a lengthy prison sentence after being charged with manslaughter - later reduced to assault and battery.

Paolo lined his pockets with the money from a seedy kiss-and-tell about his months with the teenage Princess, who was only 17.

Today it’s as though that ghastly episode never happened. What has emerged is the brightest of the young royals - in her A-levels at St George’s, Ascot, where she was head girl, she got an A in drama and Bs in history and film studies - this despite having dyslexia.

And her boyfriend is the eminently clean-cut businessman’s son David Clark, 25, a St Andrews university friend of Prince William, who works for Richard Branson and whose American family live in Hampstead.

Clark, who works in marketing at Branson’s space tourism project Virgin Galactic, took her last weekend to former Hollyoaks actress Davinia Taylor’s 30th birthday party in the Colour Rooms in edgy Shoreditch, East London.

She found herself among an A-list of hard-partying creatures including Moss, Sienna Miller, Jade Jagger, Naomi Campbell, Kelly Osbourne and Meg Matthews, all part of the outrageous Primrose Hill mob.

She wasn’t even properly dressed - the party had an “Eighties rave” theme but Beatrice was, somewhat demurely, in a floral jacket, jeans and pashmina.

How did she cope with this fashion faux pas? “Without a care in the world,” says one of the partygoers. “She never lost her poise for a moment. And you could tell that in such company she was just a ‘tourist’, not one of the crowd.”

She looked equally out of place in Ugg boots at Soho House earlier this week when friends took her to the media watering hole, and she was seen alone on the stairs, taking a break from the crowd.

Such sang-froid and lack of interest in hard drinking - so unlike her much noisier cousins William and Harry - comes as a pleasant surprise from a girl whose parents split up when she was only four years old.

Her achievement in growing into a young lady of whom her grandmother the Queen is said to be “hugely proud” must be measured against the riotous background that has often been provided by both her mother and father.

Beatrice, who is fifth in line to the throne, spent much of her growing-up years with her high-octane, unpredictable mother.

It is, perhaps, understandable, that with Fergie interminably crisscrossing the globe, Beatrice was happiest at school when she became a boarder.

Even so, she could not have avoided learning of the crises that Fergie went through involving both men and money, nor the embarrassment of her father’s skirt-chasing.

And yet, as one of the Duke’s oldest friends says: “When you meet Bea these days you’d think she was the product of the most loving and stable of marriages, not from a broken home where her paternal grandfather (Prince Philip) refuses to have anything to do with her mother.”

Just for once, people they know actually find themselves praising Andrew and Fergie for the way they have maintained a sense of “family” even though divorced.

“What they’ve achieved - with Eugenie as well as Beatrice - is an object lesson for millions of divorced couples,” says one senior courtier.

The most obvious example of the togetherness that the Yorks have achieved was when Beatrice was given an 18th birthday ball at Windsor Castle.

The gold-embossed invitations sent out to more than 500 family and friends said that their hosts were “HRH The Duke of York and the Duchess of York” - only the missing HRH before Fergie’s title was the give-away that the parents were no longer together.

It explains a touching belief which, according to friends, has always sustained the two teenage princesses, that despite their divorce their parents have never stopped being in love.

Beatrice is sophisticated enough to be amused at how seriously some people took it when her mother proclaimed that she liked to go out “on the pull” with her elder daughter.

The remark emerged when Fergie was proudly explaining how close she and Beatrice were. And they are close - close enough for the young princess to return the compliment by declaring in an interview with a magazine that she so admired her mother that she wanted to be a “minimummy”.

Friends say her mother “remains her No. 1 role model” because whatever holes Fergie sank into in the past, she has dug herself out of, both with men and her ÂŁ4million overdraft with Coutts.

“Bea admires the way her mother has beaten off her critics and taken control of her own life and wants to do the same,” says the family friend. “She and her sister both know that being HRHs no longer means that much and want to make their own way in the world, just like Mummy, as it were.”

The fact is, Beatrice’s recent London partying was just a short break from gap year travels in South America, which she embarked on to “get completely away”.

She came home from Brazil for her grandparents’ diamond wedding celebrations and cousin Peter Phillips’s 30th birthday.

She is, it must be said, strikingly like her mother, with the same sense of fun, a biggish personality, and just like the Weight Watchers ambassador, Beatrice’s weight, says a friend, “is an issue”.

Now she is flying out to Argentina where she will stay on the ranch that her mother inherited from her own mother Susan Barrantes.

She is with childhood friend Nikolai von Bismarck, also 19 - greatgreat grandson of Prince Otto von Bismarck, Prussia’s Iron Chancellor - with whom she has already trekked the Inca trail through the Andes.

Thank God my son’s in jail, says Amy Winehouse’s mum-in-law

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From the Daily Mail–

Most parents would be horrified to see their child sent to prison but Georgette Civil says she’s “delighted” that her son, Blake Fielder-Civil is now on remand at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in Pentonville, North London.

Indeed, after the past six months, Georgette and her headmaster husband Giles both firmly believe prison is the best thing that could have happened to Blake.

Her son and his wife singer Amy Winehouse’s descent into drug addiction and squalid mayhem is well documented. Now Georgette believes her son’s detention on remand is his only chance of beating his heroin addiction.

Even Blake, it seems, has come to the same stark conclusion.

He has told his mother he is desperate to beat drugs and that, astonishingly, he doesn’t want bail for fear of returning to his old life.

In fact, says Georgette, prison seems to be suiting Blake. Contrary to reports, her son is neither suicidal nor struggling to cope without Amy by his side.

In his mother’s words, in just the fortnight since he was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, Blake has reverted to being “the boy we had before he left for London aged 17″.

“Blake’s more focused now than he has been in years,” Georgette says.

“He’s finally taking responsibility for his behaviour too and accepts that he and Amy are totally responsible for the mess they’re in. Now he’s using the time in prison to overcome his drug habit.

“He spends his days exercising and reading. He has always shared his father’s love of reading and to this day he is forever recommending literary works for him. People think he’s this monstrous junkie but, while he certainly has a drug problem, there is much more to Blake.

“Looking at him all dishevelled, gaunt and unkempt it’s hard to remember the bright teenager who won a place at a great local school; who had so much promise.”

Hard indeed. And, of course, Mrs Civil can be forgiven for taking a more rose-tinted view of her son than others. What is not in dispute is that Blake and Amy have shared a relentlessly depressing tale.

With Blake locked up, Amy’s troubles seem to have deepened. Slurring and sobbing, she gave an incoherent performance on the first night of her tour in Birmingham last week, leaving furious fans jeering and demanding their money back.

At least twice in the past few days she has been photographed with a white substance - presumably cocaine - clearly visible in her nostrils.

To understand the latest chapter in this wretched story, we go back to the morning of Thursday, November 8 when police smashed down the door of Amy’s Camden home and arrested Blake for allegedly perverting the course of justice. He had been due to go on trial four days later for allegedly inflicting GBH with intent on a pub landlord last summer.

The arrest came among accusations that he had offered a witness in the case ÂŁ200,000 to change his statement.

He could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if found guilty.

Though Georgette is understandably distraught at this latest turn of events she can’t help but feel that currently it is absolutely the best place for him.

Certainly, since marrying on a whim with a ÂŁ60 ceremony in Miami in May, Blake, 25, and Amy, 24, have cut pretty desperate figures.

The sordid chapters to their story are almost too numerous to mention but have included the award-winning singer being rushed to A&E after a three-day drugs binge and being pictured dazed and bloodied in Soho following a furious bust-up when Blake reportedly caught Amy about to take heroin with a prostitute.

Then, in August, the pair were packed off on a ‘clean up or clear off’ break to the Caribbean by her record company but again, failed to return clean.

Georgette, a 42-year-old hair salon owner, saw them when they returned: “They were both totally out of it on drugs.

“He was edgy and highly strung, she was docile and incoherent. As a mum I want to be able to make things right for my children, but I felt so utterly helpless.

“It was four years ago when we first suspected Blake of taking drugs.

“When he came home for a visit he was sniffing constantly and when we visited him in London he kept disappearing to the toilets in restaurants with his friends. We were horrified.

“As a head teacher, Giles is passionate in his condemnation of drugs.

“We were devastated at the thought he might be doing drugs and confronted him at once. He didn’t deny it.

“He told me: ‘It’s normal, mum, everyone takes a bit of cocaine.’

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from my own son, but he was quite nonchalant about it. And the evidence of what he was saying was staring us in the face - he was more verbally aggressive and tense.

“We offered to buy Blake a house close to us in Nottinghamshire in a bid to get him away from London and the music industry crowd he was mixing with but he declined.

“The circles he mixed in led him to Amy and inevitably their getting together was like an accident waiting to happen.

“They both had problems with drugs before they met but as a couple those problems have got dramatically worse as they seem to feed off one another’s increasingly bad behaviour. It’s been unbearable to watch Amy and Blake destroying each other but what more can we do?

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve urged them to return to rehab.

“One minute Amy would think it a good idea and then Blake wouldn’t. The next minute it would be the opposite way round.

“The more drugs they took the worse their behaviour got and the more trouble they got into.

When I saw news reports that they’d been self-harming and then that Amy had been arrested for possession of drugs in Norway last month, I was devastated. I just thought: ‘Can this get any worse?’

“It was hugely upsetting to see my son portrayed as some sort of monster who was accused of supplying his wife with heroin and cocaine and I worried terribly that someone would harm Blake as a result.

“Then there are my two other sons, aged 14 and 15, whose hearts are breaking seeing their big brother being portrayed like this.”

The first that Georgette, who lives in a Nottinghamshire village with Giles, Blake’s stepfather, knew of his arrest this month was a call from Amy several hours after police officers had taken him away.

“Amy called on that day and told me: ‘Blake’s been arrested but don’t worry.’

“I was absolutely beside myself with worry. I said to her ‘Giles and I and the boys are on our way’ and the four of us got on the next train to London. It was the longest journey of my life but I had to be near my son.

“We arrived late that Thursday night and went straight to where Amy and her father Mitch were waiting. It was very tense, with Mitch shouting that it was all Blake’s fault.

“Things got very heated.

“My 15-year-old son got very upset at Mitch’s accusations about Blake. Giles had to step in between him and Mitch to calm things down.”

She denies accusations that she and Mitch came to blows, as has been reported. “It was a row and that’s all.”

The following Saturday a tearful Amy attended Blake’s brief appearance in court with fellow drug addict Pete Doherty. Georgette says she and Giles chose not to attend because Mitch had assured her that Blake would get bail and they would be able to see him immediately.

When he didn’t, Georgette sought a meeting with her son’s legal team. She was told by Blake’s solicitor that the ÂŁ50,000 Amy had earmarked as Blake’s bail bond, should it be needed, had been withdrawn by Mitch.

“I rang Amy but she was too out of it to realise what was going on.

“She insisted she would pay but we didn’t want to rely on her so Giles and I frantically managed to raise ÂŁ100,000 through our own savings and the generosity of family and friends. We just wanted to have money on standby in case Blake changed his mind and wanted to accept bail if it was an option.”

The first time Georgette saw Blake after his arrest was at his second court appearance the following Tuesday. There was no sign of Amy.

“Her manager later told me she didn’t come because she was in bed. I was angry, I thought she’d have given anything to catch a glimpse of Blake.”

Now though she is glad the couple have been forced apart.

“My Mum and I visited Blake in prison the next day and I have to say it was wonderful.

“I’d been terrified of what state he might be in emotionally so it was a relief to find him positive and focused.

“He isn’t on suicide watch as has been reported in some papers and he isn’t crying.

“In fact he’s going to the gym, he wants to study and he’s going to use this time to sort himself out.

“He’s already stopped taking drugs. He’s missing Amy desperately and he wants her to get help. He has told her she needs to go into rehab.”

The whole business, she admits, is one sorry mess and she clings to the hope that this will be the couple’s opportunity to sort themselves out

“This is Amy’s opportunity to sort herself out too and I’ve strongly suggested to her that rehab would be a very good idea because this continual bad behaviour has to stop.

“Just because she’s Amy Winehouse doesn’t mean I’m afraid to be angry with her.

“In fact I phoned and told her how cross I was at her foolish and unprofessional comments during her concert in Birmingham.

“Look at the state of her. How can she be held up as an example to other young people?

“This is a woman with enormous talent and a lovely personality underneath but she needs urgent help to deal with her problems.

“She’s emaciated, incoherent and frequently out of it on drugs when I see or speak to her. The same has been true of Blake until his arrest.

“Together they were killing themselves.

“Apart, I finally feel they may have a chance of getting clean. But once Blake is out of prison they will inevitably want to be together again and that frightens me to death.

“If one of them isn’t clean, what chance does the other stand?

“Unfortunately we don’t believe Amy is surrounded by the type of people who are conducive to her living a healthier, happier lifestyle.

“There are lots of hangers-on in the music industry and those who believe that any publicity is good publicity.

“But look at the lives they are destroying.

“Amy is this wonderful singer but she’s a mess. She’s got a drug problem, she should throw the towel in for a year and come out clean.

“The public don’t want to witness any more of her and Blake’s behaviour. It’s boring. It has to stop.”

Georgette says that Amy still rings her often at her salon but that for now her son must come first.

“My son is my priority. It’s early days with Blake.

“For now he thinks ‘good old mummy’ and I think both of us are just relieved to be close again.

“But in time we will talk about the past year. He’s been well brought up and at some point I’m sure he will feel grim about what he’s put us through.

“The last six months has been hell - I’ve barely eaten and I’ve barely slept.

“But he doesn’t need to apologise to me. I’m his mum, I love him unconditionally and the only thing I want is for him to be clean.”

Although she and her husband Giles forbade Amy and Blake from visiting them at home after they returned from the Caribbean three months ago - they will not tolerate drugs in their house - Georgette insists that wherever they are will always be Blake’s home.

“Giles and I absolutely won’t condone the use of any drugs, recreational or otherwise which is why they’re not allowed here.

“It’s not how we were brought up or how we’ve brought our three boys up.

“But in London and in the music industry drugs are glamorised and it sickens me.

“Why is it deemed clever that artists like Amy or Pete Doherty or Kate Moss take Class A drugs? Why do their careers seem only to thrive after scandalous tales of their drug taking?”

“The music industry and the whole cult of celebrity has a hell of a lot to answer for when it comes to drugs and I cannot understand how they get away with it.”

London’s Great Fire Monument to get new accordion-shaped neighbour

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Christopher Wren’s Monument to The Great Fire Of London is to have a new neighbour.

Architect Ken Shuttleworth has obtained planning permission for a building resembling an accordion which will fold around the City square where the Monument has stood since 1677.

There will be a roof garden that will form a giant sundial, with Wren’s 202ft column acting as the gnomon, the pillar which creates a shadow on the dial, indicating the time across the landscaping.

Mr Shuttleworth said he wanted to “reinstate a more coherent plan of the square as envisaged by Wren”.

He added: “The building’s pleated facades will provide a striking motif to frame and reflect the Monument.”

The 10-storey building, being developed by Carlyle Group, will have a ground floor cafe with views of the Monument and 90,000 sq ft of offices.

The Grade I listed Monument is undergoing a ÂŁ4.5million refit, which involves cleaning the stonework, regilding the orb, installing new lighting and improving the cage around the viewing platform. The column stands 202ft from where the 1666 Great Fire started in a bakery.

From the Daily Mail

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