Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani top diplomats to discuss Nagorny Karabakh

The Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers will meet in Moscow on Monday to discuss progress in the settlement of the Nagorny Karabakh issue, a spokesman for the Armenian foreign ministry said.

Foreign Minister of Armenia Eduard Nalbandyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov are travelling to Moscow for the meeting on the invitation of their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who is also an initiator of the talks.

The three diplomats last met for the discussions in November in Moscow.

The issue of Nagorny Karabakh, a breakaway region on Azerbaijani territory with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population, has been a sticking point in relations between the two former Soviet states.

The conflict first erupted in 1988, when the region claimed independence from Azerbaijan to join Armenia. More than 30,000 people are estimated to have died on both sides between 1988 and 1994. Nagorny Karabakh has remained in Armenian control since then.

The Caucasus neighbors continue to accuse each other of violating the ceasefire agreed in 1994.

Russia, along with France and the United States, is a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is mediating efforts to resolve the conflict.

 

YEREVAN, January 24 (RIA Novosti)

Carlina White: Woman suspected of kidnapping baby 23 years ago has been arrested

The woman who is suspected in the kidnapping of a baby 23 years ago has surrended to the FBI.

Ann Pettway surrendered to the Bridgeport, Connecticut police on Sunday morning.  She was on probation for a embezzlement case where she took items from a store where she worked.  When police went to talk to her about the kidnapping case of Carlina White, she could not be located and a warrant was issued.

Carlina White was kidnapped from a Harlem Hospital 23 years ago after her mother, Joy White took her there for a high fever.  Carlina was only 19 days old when a woman, disguised as a nurse, took her from Joy and then disappeared.

Pettway will appear before a federal court to face kidnapping charges next week.  

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Davos 2011: Here comes the Russian bear

By Andrew Osborn

When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev takes to his feet in a swanky new conference centre in the Swiss resort of Davos this Wednesday, he will need to make the speech of his life.

Russia has an image problem and it knows it, which is why it has retained a small army of domestic and Western spin doctors to help it to shed its reputation as an inefficient corrupt kleptocracy.

Read more on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Still Fighting Russia, This Time With Words

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

The Georgian government has already lured 1,000 English speakers to Georgia, and by September, hopes to have another 500 in place so that every school in the country has at least one. Under the program, which resembles both the Peace Corps and the Teach for America program, the teachers live rent-free with Georgian families and receive a stipend of about $275 a month.

The initiative to embed these foreigners across Georgia reflects the ambitions of its Western-leaning president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who speaks excellent English and studied law at Columbia University. Since taking office after an uprising in 2003, Mr. Saakashvili has worked to wrench Georgia out of Moscow’s orbit and move it closer to the United States — so determined is his effort that it was a factor in the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia.

Read more on http://www.nytimes.com/

Slideshow: Jack LaLanne, inspirational fitness guru, dead at 96 (photos, video)

Slideshow: Jack LaLanne, inspirational fitness guru, dead at 96 (photos, video)

Jack LaLanne, the man who inspired millions of television viewers for decades to eat right, exercise, and stay healthy has died. He was 96.

Reuters reports that LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California.

LaLanne’s daughter, Yvonne LaLanne, 66, told the news outlet, “He was surrounded by his family and passed very peacefully and in no distress… and with the football game on Sunday, so everything was normal."

She said her father recently taped a public TV special and had remained active until just a few months ago.

LaLanne exercised about two hours a day after turning 90, continuing to lift weights and swim -- switching up his routine every 30 days, Reuters reports.

Of his healthy lifestyle, LaLanne said “I can’t die… It would ruin my image.”

Born Francois Henri LaLanne on September 26, 1914, he began his health and fitness regimen after attending a Paul Bragg lecture when he was only 14. Bragg, a health advocate, preached the gospel of exercise and ingestion of unprocessed foods.

By 15, LaLanne was eating mainly fruits and vegetables and created his own exercise routine.

In 1936, he opened the first modern health club in the U.S. in Oakland, California, which contained a gym, juice bar, and health food store, according to Reuters. His health clubs grew in popularity and shortly thereafter 100 gyms existed across the nation.

LaLanne’s rise to infamy began in 1959, when an exercise show he began in 1951 -- ‘The Jack LaLanne Show’ -- went national. It ran for more than three decades on daytime TV, schooling housewives on healthy eating and exercise.

He was innovative and inventive, developing exercises that needed no special or costly equipment.

“The only way you can hurt the body is not use it,” LaLanne once said. “Inactivity is a killer and, remember, it’s never too late.”

In 2009, LaLanne successfully underwent heart valve surgery.

He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Elaine LaLanne, two sons, Dan and Jon, and daughter Yvonne.

To see more photos of Jack LaLanne, click on the slideshow to the left of this article, or click here.

To see a video report regarding LaLanne, click on the player to the left of this article, or click here.

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Will Hu Jintao’s visit improve U.S.-China relations?

China is a large and responsible country, but its chief responsibilities are to its people, alongside those commitments it has before the international community. It is not a country that has a responsibility to the United States alone. U.S. politicians certainly understand that problems in U.S.-China relations are not all rooted in the yuan exchange rate that does not satisfy U.S. requirements.

Valdaiclub.com interview with Sheng Shiliang, Chief Researcher with the Center for Global Challenges Studies, Xinhua News Agency

The modern global currency system is outdated and in desperate need of reform. So says the Chinese leadership. Consequently the yuan-dollar exchange rate has grown from a purely financial or trade factor into a political issue capable of derailing U.S.-China bilateral relations. Will the two countries be able to resolve this dispute? Or, on the contrary, will their argument about revaluing or allowing the yuan to appreciate simply drag on, tarnishing relations for years to come?

First of all, one should admit that the use of the U.S. dollar as the key international currency that others are pegged to, as set out at Bretton-Woods in 1944, failed.

© RIA Novosti.

Sheng Shiliyang, Chief Researcher with the Center for Global Challenges Studies, Xinhua News Agency

That did not stop the United States trying to use all the political and economic tools it has at its disposal to keep its currency strong. Is it advisable to continue to allow the United States to decide which currencies are in need of depreciation or which exchange rates other countries should use? Is it reasonable to spend beyond your means and make others pay for it? Is it wise to print another $600 billion dollars under the much-vaunted “quantitative easing” policy, while relying on other countries’ workforces and services in exchange for “valuable” greenbacks?
True, the yuan has appreciated 3% against the dollar in under a year, combined with inflation sending the real yuan-dollar exchange rate up 10%. Any correction of the yuan’s exchange rate that does happen will be a long and painstaking process. But it will not be the result of U.S. pressure.

China is a large and responsible country, but its chief responsibilities are to its people, alongside those commitments it has before the international community. It is not a country that has a responsibility to the United States alone. U.S. politicians certainly realize as much, just as they, no doubt, also understand that problems in U.S.-China relations are not all rooted in the yuan exchange rate that does not satisfy U.S. requirements.

Chinese and U.S. leaders have met regularly in recent years. Will they be able to build bilateral relations that could be considered strategic interaction or partnership?

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s planned visit to the United States will surely improve the general tone of bilateral relations and produce a kind of a roadmap for the next decade. Current disagreements between the two countries, founded in a chronic lack of trust, can be easily resolved. Structural conflict is much more difficult to tackle. The United States is striving to preserve its status as a global leader, and as an Asian leader, without actually being an Asian state.

China recognizes that the United States needs to protect its own interests, but neither believes in U.S. leadership nor sees why that country should have the final say in all international affairs. In practice, this argument over leadership is stale and predictable, and the U.S. desire to lead the peoples of the world looks unachievable.

The United States is unlikely to change its current policy toward China – that of containment and improving relations, of “restrictions and contacts” – any time soon, though tactical changes are possible.

U.S. President Barack Obama in his election campaign showed willingness to develop contacts and cooperation with China. However, that policy started to give way to containment in 2010 after he sensed China’s unwillingness to bow to Washington’s requests.

Even though I am an optimist, I do not see how U.S.-Chinese relations can be upgraded to a strategic partnership in the near future. Of all the major global powers, the only country China has such close relations with is Russia.

Does the “U.S. factor” threaten to influence Russian-Chinese relations? Or could the “Russian factor” affect U.S.-China interaction? Or are we dealing with an interlocking web of influence?

With the Cold War and even the “post-cold-war” eras safely in the past, interactions within the U.S.-Russia-China triangle should no longer be seen as a “zero sum game.”

Improving U.S.-China relations, if anything, promotes the development of Russian-Chinese and U.S.-Russian relations: they become more predictable, manageable and easier to coordinate. Therefore, China has been very supportive of Russia’s rapprochement with the West, and of recent changes in Russia’s political priorities.

In the long term, I believe the best result would involve establishing a system of tripartite strategic partnerships between Russia, China and the United States. On the other hand, any such new “club” that emerges should beware of turning into a trilateral alliance or a Three Party League of the World’s Top Players.

Derek Walcott: Inspired by rhymes and a faith in paradise

Derek Walcott sounds as though he’s had an all-right day so far. It’s mid-afternoon when we talk and the poet is looking out at the beach on his native St Lucia. This morning he’s “made a mess of a job” on a painting he has been working on; but then, he tells me, “I’ve had a terrific time talking with some people on the beach. That intimacy you don’t get from a city.”

The Nobel prize-winning poet elegantly fends off any opportunities I give him to brag. When I ask if he feels like he’s become a part of the landscape, he says no, but with good grace. After all, plenty around him feel that he is the island. “No. It’s amusing – it’s very touching that there should be a bust in the square.” He omits that it’s called Walcott Square. “It’s a way of telling me thanks.” Nor does he mention the dish named after him, the Walcott Acra, which is a salt-fish cake that comes with chips and a Creole sauce.

But this is a time for celebrating Walcott. It is his 81st birthday tomorrow; and then, in St Lucia, there is an annual Nobel day, in honour of his prize in 1992 as well as that of his compatriot, the late Sir Arthur Lewis, who won the award for economics in 1979.

Now he has a strong chance of winning the 2010 T S Eliot Prize, announced on Monday. The award for the past year’s best collection of poetry is worth £15,000, and Andrew Motion has called it “the prize most poets want to win”. This year, it seems to be between Walcott and Seamus Heaney, with Walcott looking a little more likely. Both poets have managed to distill a lifetime of craft and meditation into ever simpler, more elegant affirmations of poetry’s power.

Derek Walcott made his name in the early Sixties as a poet who could take on the often bitter legacy of colonial rule, and articulate his responses with formal cadences inherited from Yeats and earlier, more English poets. “When you’re young,” he says, “influences count”; but as you develop, he says, “you want to hear your own voice at an honest pitch”. His latest collection, White Egrets, does just that: the poet of St Lucia has gone global. His responses to islands, the past and the sea have a more international echo, and while the anger of his early work is still evident, the music is calmer.

But even if White Egrets beats Heaney’s Human Chain, Walcott is cool-headed about such honours. Now that he’s passed 80, he is wry about an earlier poem of his, “Nearing Forty”, in which he expressed a dread that his work might be “fireless and average”. “I think it’s the usual cliché of the middle-age crisis,” he reflects with hindsight. “It’s menopausal almost.” He adds that a lot has happened since then, including the Nobel Prize. So, even if the Nobel hasn’t made much difference, at least it’s proof that the fire didn’t die.

He does allow himself to say: “I’m read in the Caribbean with justice, with fairness. What I expect it to do is to encourage articulacy in the young.” The qualification of “the Caribbean” is crucial to him. St Lucia is a deep and consistent inspiration for him, and although he is a powerful voice on the problems it still faces, the island still allows him a haven from the modishness that lies beyond its shores. “I can talk my stupidness out here,” he says. “I don’t have to be part of a school, or a chronological movement. A city would confine me to a description.” In any case, one of the things he’s learnt, he says, is “to have less regard for criticism”.

The inspiration is in that landscape. There is a faith in paradise running through his work, which he refuses to renounce, and which comes from his surroundings. Yes, there’s a lot wrong with the Caribbean and he is frank about the problems he sees. His recent poem, “The Acacia Trees”, has a young hotel worker using patois to warn a tourist about crime. The crime is bad, as Walcott says: “The brutality of the crime, and the increase in it, is infernal.” But he is troubled by the hotels, too.

“There’s a difficult drama between tourism and poor people,” he explains. “There are plans to sell beach property and land owned by the Queen to hotels. If they can do that, then the whole Caribbean is threatened with hotels covering the beaches. That’s the future and their excuse is that tourism is a necessary evil.”

So is there really a hope for paradise? His answer is at once rhetorical and calm. “I have experienced paradise in the landscape and the surrendering that takes you in. To repay with gratitude the joys I’ve experienced – I’ve found that paradisiacal.”

The trick, then, is to evoke that paradise through poetry. I heard him talk about rhyme on Desert Island Discs 20 years ago and I really want to hear him do it again. He obliges. “Rhyme is an attempt to reassemble and reaffirm the possibility of paradise. There is a wholeness, a serenity in sounds coupling to form a memory.”

And yet it’s that rhyme, that learned, honed elegance, that has made his poetry controversial. In the Seventies, poets who identified themselves with the Black Power movement dismissed his work for being too influenced by writers of the colonial past. His poetic response was mordant and colloquial: “After the white man, the niggers didn’t want me/when the power swing to their side./The first chain my hands and apologise, ‘History’; /the next said I wasn’t black enough for their pride.”

In that Desert Island Discs, he spoke of rhyme as a way towards redemption. In White Egrets, the birds that have haunted previous poems here rhyme with “regrets”. He spares us the details of his regrets, but does concede, “I know what I’ve done, I cannot look beyond./I treated all of them badly, my three wives.”

This kind of thing recently made him famous for something other than his writing, when Ruth Padel and he were the final two candidates to become Oxford’s Professor of Poetry. The whiff of scandal caused him to withdraw from the race and Padel to resign the post she won. But, on an island where his birthdays are a national event, admiration for his poetry protects him from the harsher aspects of fame. Does he mind being a celebrity? “I don’t feel like a celebrity.” But he adds: “Poetry justifies celebrity. It’s good to have respect for a poet. I hope that what I write is superior to whatever bullshit it is that I do.”

When I ask Walcott if he is working on anything new, he says: “There’s something in the back of my head.” It’s a relief to hear; in White Egrets, the fears that his gift might abandon him resurface 40 years after “Nearing Forty”. Not only does poetry continue to come at his greater age but it provides one last comfort in facing what Larkin called “the only end of age”. He considers this indirectly, especially when he remembers his friend, the late Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, whose immediate presence he feels when re-reading his work. “If there is immortality,” he says, “it lives in art.”

His faith in poetry is as reassuring as his faith in the beaches and trees around him. The link between the two seems to lie behind everything he says. If poetry can help a writer find redemption, then an island can find the same hope, even as it faces the ravages of tourism and the rise of crime: “The landscape is so emphatic and undeniable that it’s stronger than the error.”

* Nine of the poets shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize will read from their work at London’s Southbank Centre tomorrow. The readings will be online at telegraph.co.uk/culture from Monday

Bargain Hunter: Window of opportunity

See the light with some new blinds

If you choose the right blinds for your conservatory, you should be able to use the room all the year round.

Thomas Sanderson’s pleated conservatory blinds can be used to control light and temperature. Available in a wide range of styles and more than 200 colours, they are fully retractable, so they are completely hidden from view when pulled up.

Telegraph readers can benefit from a saving of up to 50 per cent, and the VAT rate is being held, too.

Visit www.tsreaderoffer.co.uk or call 0800 220603 and quote ref D218B. Offer ends January 31.

Bring some order to the bedroom

A well-organised bedroom is the perfect way to start the New Year.

The new Inside Storage range from Sharps showcases the latest in design, with its cleverly created storage space.

A half-price January sale extends across all the Sharps ranges, including the new luxury Boutique bedroom collection (pictured), which was inspired by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Horizon.

As one of Britain’s top fitted-bedroom specialists, Sharps offers an all-inclusive service from design through to installation.

To arrange a free design visit, call 0800 917 8178 or visit www.sharps.co.uk and present this article during your appointment. Offer valid on bookings made by January 23.

Stacks of style at a knock-down price

A contemporary classic, the Rondo dining chair by Erik Jorgensen comes in more than 20 colours. It is made from veneered pressed beech wood and is robust and practical, stacking in sets of 12.

Telegraph readers are offered a 15 per cent discount, reducing each chair from £119 to £101.05. Chairs can be ordered in any colour or quantity, although special orders may take up to four weeks.

Order by January 31 to receive your discount, by visiting www.purves.co.uk and entering DTR15RC at the checkout or calling 020 8893 4000.

A home office space that’ll work for you

A well-designed workplace promotes happy workers, and the same principle should be applied in the home office. The new black ash Curve range from Jual Furnishings meets the criteria. Finished with a real wood veneer, the large Curve desk is £298.80 (usually £358.80) and the small version is £226.00 (usually £274.80). The laptop work table is £252. (usually £334.80).

The Jual Curve range of office furniture, which also comes in walnut and oak, is available from Margolis Office Interiors at a big discount with next day delivery.

Telegraph readers can benefit from an exclusive extra discount of £10. Visit the London showroom at 341 Euston Road, NW1, go to www.just-office-furniture.co.uk or call 0845 539 0067 and quote TELEGRAPH. Offer ends February 28.

Window of opportunity

Sash windows contribute to the character and heritage of a period home, but with age and the elements, they will eventually deteriorate.

When this happens, old sash windows are often replaced with double-glazing, losing a big part of a home’s history; the renovation of sash windows is a much kinder option for the planet than installing new ones.

Ventrolla specialises in renovating existing timber sliding sash and casement windows. Its unique Perimeter Sealing System virtually eliminates draughts, which means that your home will be greener as you save on heating.

Ventrolla is available to renovate timber windows throughout the UK and Ireland. The company has more than 25 years of experience. Call 0800 0277 454 or visit www.ventrolla.co.uk

For more fabulous homeware bargains visit www.homesandbargains.co.uk.

The companies listed here are wholly independent of the Telegraph Media Group Limited.While care is taken to establish that they are bona fide, we recommend that you carry out your own checks before entering into any agreement. When making any purchases we recommend that you use a credit card. This provides you with protection in the unlikely event of any issues with your purchase.

Alison At Home is a trading name for Bayswater Publishing Ltd

Karzai invites Medvedev to visit Afghanistan

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has met his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Moscow. The two leaders discussed trade cooperation, security, cultural issues and the pressing matter of countering international drug trafficking.

­Hamid Karzai arrived in Moscow on Thursday evening on his first official visit to Russia. However, it is the fourth time the two presidents have held talks. In an interview with RT, Karzai praised the cooperation between Russia and Afghanistan and said, in particular, that Russians understand Afghans better than Americans do.

­Economic cooperation as top priority

­Speaking at a news conference after the summit, the Russian president said that economic cooperation was a priority in the development of relations between Moscow and Kabul. He pointed out many large-scale projects in which Russian companies have been restoring the infrastructure in Afghanistan and expressed hope that the cooperation would continue.

Dmitry Medvedev also noted the joint projects in education and the importance of the fact that Russia was training not only civilian specialists for Afghanistan, but also military and law enforcement officers.

The Russian president said that Russia welcomed the Afghan people’s independence. “Russia would like to see our neighbor as a prosperous and independent state with powerful state structures that could ensure the sovereign development of the country for decades to come,” Medvedev added that his nation was ready to assist Afghanistan in its desire to become a fully-pledged member of various international organizations.

­Afghanistan very satisfied with Russia relations

­Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai  thanked his Russian counterpart for the “tremendous hospitality” he received in Moscow.

He began his speech saying that his country is grateful to Russia for its contribution in the development of the Islamic Republic and noted that progress has been achieved in many areas of cooperation, including countering drug-trafficking.

Karzai noted that Russia and Afghanistan are more than just close neighbors. “There are cultural and historic ties between our states…” he said, adding that these ties are very important. “We will do everything to develop them.”

Hamid Karzai expressed hope that Russia will provide help to Afghanistan during the uneasy period of the transition of responsibility for security to the Afghan government.

The republic’s president also said that the two discussed the revival of “essential” bilateral projects launched years ago. Karzai added that he hoped the relevant government authorities will now start working in that direction.   

Overall, the president concluded, Afghanistan is “very satisfied” with the level of relations with Russia. But still, there is potential for further development and his country would like to keep the process moving.

Hamid Karzai invited Dmitry Medvedev to the Islamic republic on an official visit.

“We would be very happy and it would be a great honor for us to receive you in Afghanistan,” he said.

­Praising Russian support

­President Karzai pointed out relations between Russia and his country have a long history.

“These relations go back to the pre-Soviet Union days. They actually go to the middle of the 19th Century,” he said.

But of course the current phase of relations, which began in 2001 in spite of the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan, is “especially important”. And since then the relationship has seen considerable improvement, mainly due to Russia’s continuing support.

­Helping international mission in Afghanistan

­Medvedev said that the situation in Afghanistan was important for Russia. However, he pointed out that actual help was as important as observations and reminded the journalists that Moscow has approved a number of documents allowing cargo transit through Russian territory to aid the international task force in Afghanistan.

“Finally Afghanistan should be able to provide its security and independence through its own resources,” the Russian president said.

Speaking about the assessment of the activities of the US and international military forces in Afghanistan, the Russian president called upon the reporters not to hurry when drawing conclusions. He acknowledged that some mistakes had been made, and said that each incident must be thoroughly investigated, but noted that these were mistakes in tactics rather than strategy. As for strategic mistakes – the time for analysis has not come yet, the Russian president said, adding that we should wait until 2014 when Afghanistan is fully independent before drawing conclusions.

Medvedev also said that a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan is important for the whole region, including Russia.

Surrogacy: the brave new world of making babies

Hollywood stars are good at paying tribute to the production teams who helped them create their latest masterpiece. But last week, when actress Nicole Kidman and her musician husband announced the birth of a baby girl – and thanked the “gestational carrier” in whose womb she grew – they conjured up a Brave New World indeed.

In Aldous Huxley’s chilling dystopia, natural reproduction has been abolished, with children created in bottling factories and decanted, to be brought up in hatcheries and conditioning centres.

Issuing a statement on Monday, hours after shimmering tautly at the Golden Globes, Kidman said no words could adequately convey the gratitude that she and husband Keith Urban felt to those who supported them through the process, and in particular to their gestational carrier.

Yet it was precisely this inelegant euphemism for surrogate mother – perhaps an attempt by baby Faith Margaret’s biological parents to assert their authority – which calls to mind Huxley’s vision of 2540.

The pronouncement came days before singer Sir Elton John, 63, and partner David Furnish, 48, shared the first images of their baby son, born via a surrogacy arrangement on Christmas Day. The celebrity pair said they had “no clue” which of them was the father of Zachary Jackson Levon, both having contributed sperm samples to be mixed with eggs donated anonymously.

Is this just the stuff of Hollywood – or a glitzed-up mirror to a new world of reproduction, where traditional social and moral conventions are quickly changing?

Natalie Gamble is one of this country’s leading fertility lawyers, specialising in surrogacy. A lesbian mother of two children (both born via donor insemination), she won a landmark legal case last year, in which two British parents were allowed to keep a child who had been born via commerical surrogacy.

Since Britain’s first official surrogate birth, in 1985, laws have limited payments to cover only what is described as “reasonable expenses”, such as loss of income. Women cannot make a profit by “renting out” their wombs, nor can infertile couples pay such rates to surrogates, even if they live in countries with different laws.

But, last month, Mr Justice Hedley explained how he had allowed a British couple to keep their child, despite the fact that they made higher payments to a surrogate living in Illinois, in the United States, where there is no ceiling on amounts.

In making the ruling, he went further, saying that the welfare of the child was the paramount consideration,

and future cases would be rejected only in the “clearest case of the abuse of public policy”.

Ms Gamble, a partner at Gamble and Ghevaert, says: “The ruling was pretty important. It doesn’t change British law, but it shifts the focus within it, so that people know that, if they do go abroad and pay more than expenses, the chances are that those deals will be ratified afterwards.”

Support groups for surrogacy believe many women who want children but are unable to carry them will feel they have no alternative.

In October, Surrogacy UK, which brings together potential surrogates with intended parents, was forced to close its waiting lists for those seeking surrogacy, such is demand.

Kim Cotton, Britain’s first surrogate mother, was paid £6,500 when she had a child for an infertile Swedish couple, using her own eggs and the sperm of the father, 26 years ago.

Estimates suggest that, since then, about 750 children have been born in this country of such arrangements, with “expenses” payments averaging about £15,000.

Soon after the birth, Mrs Cotton, who had already had two children with her husband, said: “You can cut off all maternal feeling if you try hard enough.”

She has never met her child, nor the couple who brought her up. Now a grandmother, aged 54, she does not regret her place in British fertility history, but she believes it was both wrong and damaging that a relationship was never forged between the parties involved. A later happier agreement saw her carry twins – unpaid – for a friend with fertility problems.

Yesterday, details emerged of a surrogate mother allowed to keep her baby girl after refusing to hand her over to the prospective parents.

Explaining his ruling, Mr Justice Baker said on Friday that the woman – the biological mother of six-month-old child T – was better able to meet the girl’s needs than were the married couple, who were alleged to have a violent relationship. Surrogacy support groups insist that such disputes remain rare.

Jayne Frankland, 45, from Herefordshire, tells perhaps Britain’s most unusual surrogacy story. She is bringing up a child born via surrogacy, has acted as a surrogate three times – and in between has had four children who were conceived naturally.

She and her husband Mark had been married for more than 10 years and had undergone repeated fertility treatments in their attempts to start a family when they decided to contact a surrogate agency. After four months of insemination with Mark’s sperm, the surrogate, Susan, a mother-of-two, became pregnant with baby Abigail, who is now 14.

Three years later, to her amazement, Mrs Frankland discovered she was pregnant. Her fertility had spontaneously recovered and she was now producing eggs. Four children – Sam, 11, Charlie, 10, Elisabeth, seven, and Scarlet, three – followed.

Because of their experiences, the couple had become members of support group Surrogacy UK. Soon after Elisabeth was born, they got to know a couple who were desperate to have a child. It was their eldest child Abigail, then seven, who asked Mrs Frankland if she could have a child for somebody else “now that your tummy is mended”.

Mrs Frankland has now done that twice, giving birth to Isaac, now six, and Hector, five, for two more couples. She is currently three months pregnant for another couple. In the 14 years since Abigail was born, she belives that the stigma attached to surrogacy has almost evaporated.

“When we had Abigail, I was afraid of what people would think. I wondered how they would treat us – would they accept her? Would we be outcasts or be seen as buying a baby? Compared with how it used to be, people really don’t bat an eyelid any more.”

She acts as surrogate, she says, because of her empathy for those struggling to have a family. She believes that no one would enter lightly into surrogacy, or choose it for convenience, or to maintain a figure: “I don’t think anyone who wanted children would choose this as an option over anything else.”

But it is the ethics for the surrogate mothers and the risks of exploitation that most concern fertility experts.

Dr Gillian Lockwood, a fertility doctor and vice-chairman of the Royal College of Obstretricians and Gynaecologists’ ethics committee, believes the current British laws restricting payments are hard to justify.

In response to a national shortage of eggs and sperm donated for fertility treatment, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is currently consulting on proposals to raise the amount donors can be paid.

But the rules on surrogacy remain mired in controversy, and, so far, watchdogs and Parliament have shown little appetite to relax the current restrictions, which say payments should not overtake expenses.

Dr Lockwood says: “If you can pay for egg and sperm donors, it starts to look ridiculous that a woman can agree to carry a child for nine months and all they can get is a bit of money to buy a few maternity frocks. It would have made good sense to include this in the HFEA review rather than doing law on a case-by-case basis, which introduces a lot of uncertainty.”

The difficulty, as the fertility doctor acknowledges, is that, if the rates are too high, “temptations can become irrestistable for those living on the margins”.

Looking abroad, the global economy in surrogacy makes it almost impossible for “fair rates” to be set.

Since 2002, when India legalised the practice, it has become a world centre for surrogacy tourism, expected to generate £1.5 billion for the country annually by next year.

Dr Lockwood says: “If you have a woman in India with two children who she is struggling to bathe and feed, and one surrogacy arrangement means she can send them to school and build a house, is that exploitation? Renting a womb out might seem a much better option than a year of breaking rocks.”

Dr Allan Pacey, a fertility lecturer at the University of Sheffield, says the ethical issues are different but just as complex on home turf. “I worry particularly about the cases involving family members, who might feel under intense pressure to act as a surrogate. Areas like that are a great concern,” he says.

While media commentators have been in turn vitriolic and squeamish about the latest cases, with Sir Elton John accused of treating babies as the latest “must-have” accessory in an extravagant lifestyle, some religious figures express a deeper unease.

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester recently told The Sunday Telegraph of his concerns that the introduction of a “third party” into parenthood would affect the child psychologically. He also highlighted the age of Sir Elton, who turns 64 in March. “It is very important for a child’s parents to be of an age that provides the child with a fair chance of being brought up by them without unnecessary disrupution,” he said.

Naturally, where ethical commentators see an issue that is divisive and explosive, popular entertainment sees a ratings opportunity.

Barely recovered from the furore over its controverisal cot death/baby swap storyline, BBC soap opera EastEnders is reportedly planning to dramatise a surrogacy plot, involving gay characters Christian Clarke and Syed Masood.

It wouldn’t be the first time that the dramatic potential of reproductive technology had been detected. In 1946, Aldous Huxley reconsidered the futuristic satire – or prophecy – he had penned 15 years earlier.

“Technically and ideologically, we are still a long way from bottled babies,” he concluded – 32 years before the birth of Louise Brown, the world’s first test-tube baby.

And what of the rest of his brave new world? He looked again at the picture he had painted for 2540, with its widespread promiscuity and babies being decanted, hatched and then conditioned to live in a state that was almost free of emotion.

His verdict: “Today it seems quite possible that the horror may be upon us within a single century.”

Natalie Portman: Little Miss Perfect lets her dark side show

By the age of 13, Natalie Portman was well on the way to stardom – an achievement that didn’t necessarily augur well for her future. Hollywood’s chronicles of misery are thick with the tales of teeny supernovas – Drew Barrymore, Macaulay Culkin, Lindsay Lohan – who find that a stolen childhood leaves a hard-to-fill hole in anyone’s life.

Yet onward and upward soars the perky Miss Portman, with the usual explanation being that she is brainy enough to avoid the pitfalls. Another reason, though, is that the actress has neatly hedged her bets in fashioning an indie-chick persona that plays irresistibly to the arthouse crowd while holding on to the yummy ingénue image via mass-audience movies such as the Star Wars prequels.

Not any more. Portman’s controversial new movie, Black Swan, signals a permanent departure from all that she has done before. Acclaimed by many critics as a masterpiece (and condemned by some as exploitative hokum) it tells a tale of obsession, cruelty and eroticism set in the world of ballet. Natalie plays Nina, an aspiring ballerina, in thrall since she was a moppet to her doting but deranged stage-mother (played by Barbara Hershey). When a new production of Swan Lake is to be cast in New York, the eye of director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) falls upon Nina. But while she is perfect for the role of the virginal White Swan, can this frail, unworldly girl – prone to psychosexual delusions and seemingly on the brink of mental disintegration – bring forth the darkness needed to play the Black Swan, her evil twin?

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, riding high on the unforeseen success of The Wrestler – to which this is, in a sense, a companion piece – the film has been tipped in America for a haul of Oscars, most likely at the expense of The King’s Speech. British critics have been less certain, with the Guardian calling Aronofsky’s film “richly, sensually enjoyable” but also “bonkers”, and this newspaper’s own Jenny McCartney complaining of its “roaring high camp with cruelty in place of comedy”.

Almost all the reviewers, however, have been awed not only by Portman’s performance, but by the stupendous physical ordeal the role involved. Einstein described ballet dancers as “God’s athletes”, perhaps because no other job on earth requires the same cosmic levels of strength and fitness. “The dance training started a year before the film,” says Portman, “with a two-hour session every day. Six months later we ramped it up to five hours a day, and for the last two months it was eight hours a day, and I was also swimming a mile a day. It hurt a lot; your body is in constant pain.”

Although she had taken ballet classes as a child, she was – by performance standards – soft and rusty, and had to lose 20lb off an already skinny form before shooting the dance sequences. There were other challenges, including a scorching girl-on-girl sex scene with her dance rival, Lily, played by Mila Kunis. Not that Portman, now 29, appears fazed: “How do you get guys to go to a ballet movie?” she asks. “How do you get girls to go to a thriller? The answer is a lesbian scene.”

Good thinking – and from a brain unusually capable of it. Natalie was born in Jerusalem, the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli fertility specialist, and his American wife, Shelley. The family moved to Washington DC when she was three, and later to New York, where they settled in a small town on Long Island. The Hershlags took their daughter’s education seriously, steeping her in languages, history and culture. Reassured by her conspicuous cleverness, they assumed a distinguished academic future was waiting. But one day, when Natalie was 10, she was spotted leaving a pizza parlour by a Revlon make-up agent, who suggested she should become a model.

The encounter led, in a roundabout way, to a meeting with a theatrical talent agency, which found her an understudy role in an off-Broadway musical, Ruthless!, about a girl scheming to land the star part in the school play by murdering the lead actress. The following year she made her movie debut in Leon, French director Luc Besson’s excursion into American noir, playing Mathilda, an orphaned pre-teen girl befriended by an ageing hitman.

While her performance, rich in Lolitaesque overtones, won plenty of praise, it also raised many eyebrows. “Always at the back of my mind,” wrote the prominent American critic Roger Ebert, “was the troubled thought that there was something wrong with placing a 12-year-old in the middle of this action. It seems to exploit the youth of the girl without really dealing with it.”

For the film, Natalie abandoned Hershlag for her grandmother’s maiden name, Portman – hoping, she claimed, to protect her family’s privacy. Even so, when Leon came out, “a lot of weirdo letters” came in; which, if nothing else, served as a lesson in the power of popular culture. Fortunately, her parents were there to see her through it. “They give her a very solid, generous centre,” says Mike Nichols, who directed her in Closer (2004).

It was that support that gave her the confidence to abandon the acting business for Harvard, against her representatives’ advice, where she spent four years reading psychology. “I’d rather be smart,” she explained, “than a movie star.” Nothing wrong with a good degree, of course – but the problems began when Natalie decided to go all erudite on the rest of us.

First there was the vegan crusade. In a lengthy magazine tirade against the world’s meat-eaters, she compared factory farming to “misogyny, racism and sexism”. Then there was her attempt to solve the Middle East crisis. “I wanted to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation and peace movement. So I called Queen Rania of Jordan to try to collaborate on something.” She’s also discussed Haiti with Hillary Clinton, Afghanistan with Richard Holbrooke and met Obama at the White House. All suspiciously Hollywoody, for an actress who once preferred to keep her distance. And last year, she moved to live in Los Angeles. “I didn’t think I’d like it,” she says, “but I’ve been surprised.” That’s what celebrity does, even to the brightest.

Jessica Simpson Thanks the Lord for Fianc's 'Perfect Tush'

Eric Johnson is in Jessica Simpson's bedtime prayers – or at least part of him.

"Thank you Lord for blessing me with a Man that has the perfect Tush," Simpson Tweeted on Saturday night. "Laying my hands upon it with peace :)"

Simpson, 30, has been gushing on Twitter about her fiancé since they met last spring, posting a picture of a steamy kiss they shared in August, saying, “YUM!” and later calling him a stud.

It's the not the first time the Push Your Tush singer has rhapsodized about a man's backside. Even after breaking up with NFL quarterback Tony Romo, she said, "I still look at his cute butt in the outfit – uniform."

See what other readers have to say about this story – or leave a comment of your own

Owen Wilson welcomes baby boy into the world with a hula dance!

A Little Focker is born!

Owen Wilson and girlfriend Jade Duell welcomed a son on Friday in Hawaii, less than a week after the duo announced they would be parents.

The 42-year-old actor named his first child Ford Linton Wilson, according to Star Magazine.

The boy was delivered via water birth, after 18 hours of labor, at Owen's $8 million oceanfront home in Maui with the help of a midwife. He weighed in at 6 pounds and 13 ounces.

"Owen and Jade are thrilled!" a source told the magazine. "Owen has been doing a celebratory hula dance all afternoon! It's a beautiful boy and everyone is incredibly happy."

Owen and Jade, a 28-year-old federal air marshal, have been together for just over a year after meeting on a flight from Los Angeles to Washington D.C.

ashahid@nydailynews.com

How to have fun in Walnut Creek

My interest having also been piqued, I looked at other entries in the online log maintained by the police. Exactly a month ago, for example, on Dec. 11, "Service to Citizen" was the description for the police response to a variety of circumstances, including "Reports his friend put him in handcuffs and lost the key" (assistance was provided) and "Citizen reports seeing 4 juvs in the middle of the street walking SW w/ toilet paper in their hands" ("area check negative").

As to other police activities, "Suspicious Circumstances" was the description of an incident that began the day, with a report filed just after midnight from "the bridge that goes over the freeway. Male keeps walking back and forth for past hour. WM, dark jacket, scruffy, all dark clothing." The denouement: The man "was practicing his juggling act."

Saying he had done most of the planning of the project nearby, Duane Baughman, producer-director of the documentary "Bhutto," invited friends to the Clay on Friday night to watch the movie.

Baughman's long-standing expertise is in political direct-mail firms, and his company developed strategy for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, and for the election of New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He was "being vetted for Bhutto's third run for prime minister" when she was assassinated.

The movie, which serves as posthumous endorsement of her idealism, is narrated mainly by Bhutto herself, a feat made possible by Baughman's discovery, just "sitting in an attic," of 67 hours of microcassettes the Pakistani leader had recorded for her first autobiography.

All along, said Baughman, "It wasn't going to be about Sundance, it wasn't going to be about it being shown in 66 cities, it was going to be about seeing it here, down the street from my office at Peet's."

-- Michael McCourt has presided over many a North Beach bar but is changing careers; Garry Graham, who presides over his Fairfax club, 19 Broadway, has a background in law. They'll both be performing at Pier 23 Cafe on Saturday. McCourt is making his singing debut with Graham's five-piece band backing him up (Graham will be singing, too). This is planned as a monthly gig for McCourt.

-- If you're having a drink at Toronado, the beer bar in the Lower Haight, you can order a burger from the neighboring Rosamunde Sausage Grill, and the Grill will deliver it to the bar.

Jason Bennett was at the Grill one night when he heard a man who'd been quenching his thirst next door stop by to check on his order, the delivery of which had been delayed because the Grill was busy. "It's loud over there," said the customer, wondering whether he'd missed the calling out of his name, "and I'm drunk."

Taking a friend to the Berkeley JCC seniors lunch, Bill Schechner noticed a woman handing out "not-so-perfectly hand-lettered" New Year's cards, hoping for a year "filled with compassion, comradeship & contemplation." Said one of the recipients, "Compassion and comradeship I get. But constipation?"

Schechner, who is producing a "Jewish Jokes" show, with open-mike segment, at Freight & Salvage on Wednesday night, says this gleaned remark, gathered in the company of his girlfriend's mom, was authentic and not just a plug for the show.

P.S.: Laura McCabe (her real name), overheard two aging docs (herein with aliases) in a California Pacific Medical Center elevator:

Doc 1: "Aloysius! Are you still practicing? How long has it been?"

Doc 2: "Engelbert ... is that you? I thought you were dead!"

"I feel so safe the next time I go in for surgery," observes McCabe.

Public Eavesdropping

"I had plastic bags tied at the knees and my goulashes over that."

New York snowstorm survivor telling gym pal about innovative way to use Hungarian stew in place of rubber shoes, overheard by Jaime Caban

Open for business at (415) 777-8426 or e-mail lgarchik@sfchronicle.com, tweets @leahgarchik.

This article appeared on page E - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle

'Japanesque' sheds light on Monet

Jane Hirshfield, Mill Valley

A: Monet shared his painter contemporaries' enthusiasm for Japanese woodblock prints. He collected more than 200 of them. Their influence seems blatant in his famous early portrait of his wife in samurai-figured kimono, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, but more atmospheric than conceptual as regards his late work.

Monet's serial views of Chartres Cathedral appear to have grown more out of his obsession with the equation of time and light, with describing them as a sort of aqueous medium through which vision and things seen swim toward one another.

This article appeared on page F - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Today's TV highlights

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FRIDAY 21 JANUARY

Critic's Choice: Planning Outlaws

Channel 4. 7.30pm

An Englishman’s home may be his castle, but as this Short Cuts documentary proves, if he wants to add some extra turrets, he’s going to need full planning permission. UK planning laws may sometimes seem overly restrictive but they exist to prevent opportunistic developers from blocking views of the village green with a concrete carbuncle. Hence it’s impossible to feel any kind of sympathy for the three “planning outlaws” profiled here. Jim (surname wisely withheld, right) was given permission to build a straw bale house in the Forest of Dean, with the proviso that he use it for educational purposes and not as a dwelling; he moved in ,and now he wonders why the authorities are trying to evict him. Hotelier Abid Gulzar erected a set of hideous six-foot white stone lions on the protected Pevensey Levels in Sussex without seeking planning permission; now he wonders why they’ve been vandalised by locals. And nightclub owner Michel Harper built a granny flat in the grounds of his Surrey mansion that was bigger than green belt restrictions allowed; after stubbornly refusing to comply with the council, he now wonders why they’ve come to demolish it. All three flouted the regulations before wasting taxpayers’ money contesting the decisions. They are three of the most dislikeable people you’ll see on television all year, and by the end of the programme you’ll be ready to drive the bulldozer yourself. SR

Scottish Island Parish

BBC Two, 7.30pm

A new addition to the Parish family (we’ve already had A Country Parish, A Seaside Parish and Island Parish), this affable new series follows a year in the most southerly islands of the Outer Hebrides as experienced by Father Paul MacKinnon, Father Roddy McAuley and Father Calum MacLellan. SR

Green Zone (2010)

Sky Movies Premiere/HD, 8.00pm

Paul “Bourne” Greengrass is reunited with Matt Damon for this thriller set during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Damon plays an officer on the hunt for WMDs who begins to suspect that there might not be any, and that his shady superiors might already know it. A compelling blend of fact and fiction. EC

Life in a Cottage Garden with Carol Klein

BBC Two, 8.30pm

It might be all frost out there at the moment, but it’s never too early to start planning your planting for the year, which is where Carol Klein comes in. Condensing a year in her North Devon cottage garden into six weeks of inspiring horticultural tutorials, she’s now reached late spring. The trees may be blossoming, but there’s still work to be done, planting sweet peas, staking perennials and picking the first salad leaves. Carol and husband Neil also turn beekeepers, taking delivery of their first hive of honey bees. SR

Can’t Take It with You

BBC Two, 9.00pm

If you haven’t made your own will yet, you may well want to seek out your nearest solicitor after tonight’s episode of this series about what happens to your money after you die. Sir Gerry Robinson meets two retired couples with sizeable estates but as yet no wills in place. It may seem likea simple enough equation for them to divide their assets equally between their offspring, but what if their children are at different stages of their lives, with some more in need of money than others? Robinson insists that the solution is less about deciding who gets what and more about maintaining honesty within the family, so he gathers the affected parties together to talk through their decisions in the open. It all makes for emotive and illuminating television. SR

The 50 Funniest Moments 2010

Channel 4, 9.00pm

It does seem a little late to be looking back at the gaffes and blunders that defined 2010. Unlessof course nostalgia is contracting at such a rate that we’re already meant to be getting misty-eyed about Gordon Brown and Paul the Octopus. Either way, expect the usual parade of jobbing comedians cracking second-hand gags about the BP oil spill. SR

Legends: Thin Lizzy – Bad Reputation

BBC Four, 9.00pm

This is an affectionate documentary about the Irish devil-may-care rockers Thin Lizzy which isn’t afraid to tell a few truths either, helped by contributions from former band members, producer Tony Visconti and Bob Geldof. There are pre-mix tracks from the self-confident Jailbreak album, early pre-Lizzy footage of front man Phil Lynott and the story behind the numerous guitarists that were fired. Then there is the ongoing controversy behind the recording of the Live and Dangerous album (was it really live?) and the constant dark cloud of drink and drugs that claimed the life of Lynott and eventually prompted another band member to take up golf as a substitute. SH

Criminal Minds

Living, 9.00pm

This more-than-decent police procedural is still getting the necessary ratings in the US and was granted a sixth season last year. From that series comes Remembrance of Things Past, in which an old crime comes back to haunt the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit when David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) finds unnerving reminders of a killer called The Butcher who hadn’t been heard of for 25 years. SH

Babel (2006)

More4, 9.00pm

Engrossing, multi-narrative drama telling the interrelated stories of a handful of people, in Morocco, Japan, Mexico and the US, who are all bound by a fateful shot fired by a playful Moroccan boy. It’s about the difficulties of communicating but the film itself is communicated in a rather jumbled fashion. With Brad Pitt. RW

Fast and Loose

BBC Two, 10.00pm

Second helping of this new comedy improv show from the makers of Mock The Week. Hugh Dennis, of the aforementioned topical comedy vehicle, is the most prominent name involved, but Fast and Loose is also a showcase for some of the most respected names on the live comedy circuit, such as Laura Solon and Justin Edwards (aka hilarious drunken children’s entertainer Jeremy Lion). SR

Point Break (1991)

BBC One, 11.30pm

Kathryn Bigelow’s cult surfing/crime film elevated the late Patrick Swayze’s status to true action hero. Keanu Reeves plays Johnny Utah, an FBI agent who goes undercover to infiltrate the Ex-Presidents, a gang of bank-robbing Zen surfers led by the charismatic Bodhi (Swayze). CM

The Fountain (2006)

Film4, 11.40pm

Darren Aronofsky, currently wowing cinema goers with Black Swan, had his work cut out with this metaphysical melodrama about the quest for eternal life. Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman star in a visually resplendent time-travelling three-pronged narrative. The leap-frogging in time is a little bewildering. RW

Click here for full TV and radio listings

SATURDAY 22 JANUARY

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)

ITV1, 3.30pm

After the dire Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, George Lucas comes good with the last of his Star Wars prequels. It’s exceptionally silly – as are all the Star Wars films – but is still a beautiful, action-packed adventure as we witness Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) succumb to the dark side.

British Comedy Awards

Channel 4, 9.00pm

Just in time for its 22nd birthday, the comedy back-slapping bash gets a transfer from ITV1 to Channel 4 and a general spruce-up. This revamped ceremony is being broadcast live from London’s O2 Arena and the often recklessly risqué Jonathan Ross remains as host. His traditional acerbic opening monologue – edgy enough on ITV, likely to be even nearer the knuckle now – should have station executives shifting nervously in their seats. For the first time, there’s a live public vote for the year’s top funny person, to be crowned “King or Queen of Comedy”. Out in the crowd, the cream of the UK’s comedy talent will eat, drink, be merry, then forget to pull gracious faces when they don’t win. In another first, those industry types will be joined by the great unwashed, as some tickets have been on sale to viewers. Expect Michael McIntyre and Miranda Hart to lead the race for gongs. Tonight’s proceedings have been heavily trailed by a week of build-up programming, so there’s a lot invested in the event itself delivering both entertainment and headlines – while avoiding the phone-in scandals and voting irregularities that dogged its last years on ITV. MH

The Magicians

BBC One, 7.00pm

The penultimate visit to Lenny Henry’s noisy, neon-lit warehouse of wizardry, where three magic acts team up with celebrities. Illusionist Luis de Matos is joined by pop wallies N-Dubz, Chris Korn by kangaroo-tying artist Rolf Harris, and Bafta-nominated Scots duo Barry and Stuart by actor Martin Kemp. MH

Primeval

ITV1, 7.00pm

The telegenic prehistorian team travel to a coastal village, where local legend has it that a sea monster is attacking farm animals. Naturally, it turns out to be an amphibious dinosaur, the crocodile-like koolasuchus, which soon broadens its prey to include local fishermen. The sci-fi drama has disappointed in the ratings this year, attracting fewer than 4m viewers and being soundly beaten by the Beeb’s Magicians in this family-focused slot – hardly ideal for a CGI-laden show that costs a pretty penny to produce. MH

The Tudors

BBC Two, 9.45pm

The fourth and final series of this Canadian-produced period drama about Henry VIII. This 10-part run portrays the last seven years of his turbulent reign. The increasingly infirm Henry is newly married to beautiful teenager Katherine Howard (Tamzin Merchant). However, some of his treacherous male courtiers have lascivious designs on the seductive young Queen. Despite the drama often playing fast and loose with historical fact, it’s amusingly glossy (razor-cheekboned star Jonathan Rhys Meyers hardly resembles an obese, gout-ridden fiftysomething) and soapily entertaining. MH

The Killing

BBC Four, 9.00pm & 9.55pm

Copenhagen is suddenly all the rage: it’s been voted “the world’s most liveable city” by style pundits and, in Noma, it boasts the top-ranked restaurant. Now comes the British debut of this acclaimed Danish crime series, which has been a cult hit across Europe and is being remade by Fox in America. It follows a female detective from Copenhagen police’s homicide department who investigates the murder of a teenage girl – tracing it back to a politician campaigning to become the city’s mayor. Set over 20 episodes spanning 20 days on the case, it’s moody, violent and viscerally thrilling. There’s also a double bill to open, in a bid to get you hooked. SH

Journey to the Edge of the Universe

More4, 9.00pm

This spectacular film takes viewers on the first ever accurate non-stop voyage from Earth to the edge of the universe using a single, unbroken shot. Adding CGI to images taken from the Hubble telescope, it travels out past the Moon and our neighbouring planets to the galaxies beyond – right into infinity, exploring the science of the stars as it goes. SH

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)

ITV1, 10.30pm; not STV/Ulster

Andy Stitzer (Steve Carrell) is a virgin at 40. Egged on by his workmates, Andy endures drunken encounters and painful chest waxes – which make it seem better to be chaste than chased. That is until he meets single mum Trish (Catherine Keener). A raunchily amusing yarn, even if the film’s one joke premise grows tired by the end.

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)

ITV1, 10.30pm; not STV/Ulster

Andy Stitzer (Steve Carrell) is a virgin at 40. Egged on by his workmates, Andy endures drunken encounters and painful chest waxes – which make it seem better to be chaste than chased. That is until he meets single mum Trish (Catherine Keener). A raunchily amusing yarn, even if the film’s one joke premise grows tired by the end.

Nurse Jackie

BBC Two, 10.40pm

Another import returns, this time the under-rated US black comedy starring former Sopranos matriarch Edie Falco as the titular anti-heroine working in a New York emergency room. She’s a corner-cutting, acid-tongued, drug-addicted adulteress but you can’t help rooting for her, thanks to Falco’s fine, Emmy-winning performance. As we rejoin it, Jackie is patching things up with her family but faces an official complaint at the hospital. The debut series slightly slipped under the radar last year – partly because it was interrupted by coverage of the Winter Olympics. Perhaps it will now get the plaudits here it deserves. MH

The Big Heat (1953)

BBC Two, 12.40am; Scotland, 1.10am

Fritz Lang’s explosive noir classic in which Det Sgt Bannion (Glenn Ford) uncovers a world of venal public officials on the payroll of gangsters, Lagana and Stone (Lee Marvin). Ford brings a cussed intensity to the role of Bannion and the great Lang conveys an oppressive morality with his direction: the economic shots and dialogue give the film a prickly unease. Worth watching alone for Bannion’s confrontation of Lagana.

Click here for full TV and radio listings

SUNDAY 23 JANUARY

Aladdin (1992)

Channel 5, 3.40pm

Along with Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, Aladdin formed part of the Disney Renaissance, an era when the studio returned to making successful animations based on fairy tales. Robin Williams’s Genie steals the show with witty one-liners in a story about a street urchin who, using a magic lamp, tries to win the love of a princess.

Top Gear

BBC Two, 8.00pm

The Top Gear team rev up their engines for a 16th series with more car reviews, big-budget stunts and blokeish banter. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May assume their usual roles as loudmouth, enthusiast and wiseman, respectively. One cast change is the debut of a new Stig, the mystery driver who was introduced – as a racing-suited baby in a manger – in the Christmas special. In all other respects the show’s format remains reassuringly the same, presumably because there is no point in fixing what isn’t broken. Top Gear continues to pull in an impressive 6 million viewers and has become a global phenomenon, with viewers as far afield as Malaysia never tiring of the sight of middle-aged men blowing up caravans. Tonight’s motoring japes include Clarkson subjectingthe Skoda Yeti to a thorough road test that involves landing a helicopter on its roof, Telegraph motoring columnist May testing out the Ariel Atom V8 and Hammond racing a Porsche Turbo Cabriolet. Liverpudlian comedian John Bishop guest stars as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car. With only six episodes, Top Gear provides fans with a short burst of high-octane entertainment. VP

Lark Rise to Candleford

BBC One, 8.00pm

The decorous period drama continues with the arrival of a temporary new vicar whose views upset some villagers. The Reverend Marley, played just the right side of creepy by Burn Gorman, preaches a free-thinking doctrine that is at odds with the fire-and-brimstone views of postman Thomas Brown (Mark Heap). Marley is not the only newcomer, however: a snake slithers into Emma Timmins’s (Claudie Blakley) laundry basket, a not-very-subtle symbol of the temptation she is feeling as a lone female in Lark Rise. VP

Terry Wogan’s Ireland

BBC One, 9.00pm; Wales, 10.25pm

Those missing the whimsy of Terry Wogan on radio every morning will be pleased to see him back in the spotlight in this two-part documentary series. A mix of travelogue and Who Do You Think You Are?, it sees Wogan on a drive around the land of his birth, recounting a bit of Ireland’s tragic past and enjoying the craic at a lively pub. More insightful moments see Wogan return to his father’s birthplace of Enniskerry and have a snoop with his brother Brian around their childhood home in Limerick. Infused with Wogan’s warmth and ironic wit, it’s a pleasant enough journey, so it is. VP

Arctic with Bruce Parry

BBC Two, 9.00pm

For those who only know of Alaska as the home of Tea Party queen Sarah Palin, Bruce Parry’s travelogue gives an informative look at America’s largest state tonight. He finds that it’s a wilderness brimful of natural resources, but those willing to harvest them must brave treacherous conditions. Parry meets a family of millionaire salmon fishermen who only work a quarter of the year, as well as some eccentric gold-diggers and an indigenous tribe, the Inupiat. But this instalment ends with a whimper when the Inupiat people exclude Parry from their traditional whale hunt. VP

Being Human

BBC Three, 9.00pm

A welcome return for the bloodsucking, shape-shifting delight that is Being Human. The start of the third season finds Annie (Lenora Crichlow) in purgatory and the rest of the gang upping sticks and moving to Barry Island. Mitchell has to confront his past via a meeting with sparky Lia (Lacey Turner from EastEnders). And watch out for Robson Green as a cage-fighting werewolf. SH

Justice: Fairness and the Big Society Debate

BBC Four, 9.00pm

This year BBC Four is running a series of films debating the state of justice in Britain today. This week’s raft of programmes opens with a debate from London’s Royal Institution on political concepts such as David Cameron’s “big society” and what “fairness” means in today’s world. The discussion, hosted by Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor of political philosophy, poses questions on whether a “big society” can cross all parties, and whether it’s fair to raise student fees or cut housing benefit. Sandel also explores philosophical ideas about equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity. in 21st-century Britain. SH

That Sunday Night Show

ITV1, 10.00pm

Daybreak may still be finding its feet, but this post-watershed magazine show seems a better fit for Adrian Chiles’s wry sense of humour. Tonight he takes another sideways look at the most interesting stories of the week with two guests likely to deliver piquant views: comedian Catherine Tate and former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. VP

My Best Friend (2006)

BBC Four, 10.00pm

Hidden star Daniel Auteuil plays François Coste, a wealthy but obnoxious and self-satisfied Parisian antiques dealer who is challenged by a business partner to prove that he has a best friend within 10 days, in this likeable French comedy. As he trawls around Paris looking for people from his past, Coste forms an unlikely bond with a trivia-obsessed taxi driver, Bruno (Dany Boon). Slight, but funny and thoughtful comedy.

Sirens (1994)

BBC One, 11.25pm; NI, 11.45pm; Wales, 12.25am

Hugh Grant is well cast as a bumbling English vicar who is out of his depth in John Duigan’s ensemble comedy drama. Set in Thirties Australia, it charts the mission of Anglican priest Tony (Grant) to dissuade an artist from showing his provocative painting, Crucified Venus, at a local exhibition. But instead Tony gets drawn into the artist’s erotic world.

Bright Young Things (2003)

Channel 4, 1.05am

Stephen Fry made his directorial debut with this adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, a dramedy that pokes fun at celebrity culture. Remaining faithful to the novel, the film, which is set in 1930s London, follows the debauched antics of a young writer (Stephen Campbell Moore), his fiancée (Emily Mortimer) and their circle of friends (including, Michael Sheen). Witty but weirdly sentimental, it’s an impressive first-feature none the less.

Telegraph previewers: Anne Billson, Ed Cumming, Toby Dantzic, Serena Davies, Michael Deacon, Catherine Gee, Chris Harvey, Michael Hogan, Simon Horsford, Lucy Jones, Clive Morgan, Pete Naughton, Andrew Pettie, Ceri Radford, Sam Richards, Tim Robey, Patrick Smith and Rachel Ward.

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MONDAY 24 JANUARY

CRITIC'S CHOICE: Horizon: Science Under Attack

BBC Two, 9.00pm

Sir Paul Nurse (right) has taken over the presidency of the Royal Society at a difficult time for science. Fronting this Horizon investigation, he concedes that recent health scares about vaccines and GM foods seem to have eroded public trust in scientists.The big issue for science at the moment is climate change. The overwhelming majority of scientists working in the field insist that global carbon emissions have caused the Earth’s average temperature to rise by around 0.75 degrees over the past 50 years. Yet nearly 50 per cent of Americans and more than a third of Britons believe that such climate change claims are exaggerated. Nurse’s mission here is to find out why.

He goes to America to canvass the views of Nasa – its satellite data are essential to climate change study. Back in the UK he visits Professor Phil Jones, the University of East Anglia scientist accused – but subsequently cleared – of fudging data in the “climategate” scandal; he also meets James Delingpole, the Telegraph blogger and climate change sceptic who broke the story. Nurses’s conclusion is that reporting of science in the press tends to be sensationalised, over-simplified and politically motivated, while scientists themselves don’t always help, with their media-unfriendly attitudes. It’s an intriguing look at what can happen to science once it leaves the confines of the laboratory. SR

Battle of Britain (1969)

Film4, 11.00am

Not cinema’s finest hour but stirring stuff none the less. An all-star cast fall in line to tell the story of the fight for Britain’s survival after the retreat from Dunkirk. It’s pretty standard fare but it’s always uplifting seeing Spitfires stick it to the Stukas. Laurence Olivier is joined by, among others, the late Susannah York. PR

Great British Railway Journeys

BBC Two, 6.30pm

Michael Portillo begins a five-part trundle into Kent by riding the capital’s oldest railway line, built on 878 brick arches from London Bridge to Greenwich. Alighting at the Royal Observatory, he discovers how the railways were both the catalyst and the method for standardising time across the country in the 1840s. He also he rides at 200 mph in the cab of a new high-speed commuter train from St Pancras to Chatham. SR

Birth of Britain

Channel 4, 8.00pm

If you think this winter’s been cold, it’s got nothing on 20,000 years ago, when most of Britain was under a sheet of ice a mile thick. Here, Tony Robinson investigates the effect of the last ice age on Britain’s landscape. The way in which what Robinson calls “lumbering glaciers”, thousands of feet high, were able to carve their way through the landscape is evident from the gloomy depths of Loch Ness to the drumlins (steep glacial hills) of Glasgow. First shown last year on National Geographic. SR

Panorama: Stop Stalking Me

BBC One, 8.30pm

Stalking affects two million people in Britain a year, most of them women. Tonight’s Panorama tells the story of one woman who’s been recording years of threats and abuse. Reporter Richard Bilton investigates how UK authorities are apparently failing to deal with the problem. RW

Silent Witness

BBC One, 9.00pm

In the first part of a new case for the forensic crime drama, Harry (Tom Ward, above) is glad to be able to resume his love affair with Hungarian human rights lawyer Anna (Lili Bordan) after she calls him to Budapest to perform a second postmortem examination on the body of a prostitute drowned in the River Danube. Anna believes the death is suspicious and her determination to link the case to the disappearance of other Budapest prostitutes has serious consequences for both of them. The story concludes tomorrow at 9.00pm. SR

Justice: a Citizen’s Guide to the 21st Century

BBC Four, 9.00pm

Michael Sandel, professor of government at Harvard, takes a philosophical journey to examine the thoughts of thinkers ancient and “enlightened” and to test their beliefs in the modern world. The result offers an intriguing insight into various moral predicaments: for example, say there’s a plane over London with a bomb on it, and a suspect is refusing to talk. Should you torture him if you believe it will save hundreds of lives? Sandel discusses the utilitarian thinking of Jeremy Bentham (which favoured the rights of the many), and looks at the work of Immanuel Kant, “the father of human rights”, who believed in dignity and respect for all. For an interview with Prof Sandel, visit www.telegraph.co.uk/tvandradio. SH

Layer Cake (2004)

Channel 5, 9.00pm

Directed by Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels producer Matthew Vaughn, Layer Cake is an intelligent British gangster movie. Daniel Craig plays a suave London cocaine pedlar whose attempts to quit the trade are scuppered when the sinister Kenneth Cranham asks him to do “one last job”. PS

Glee

E4, 9.00pm

The musical comedy drama, set in a US high school, tackles religion as Finn (Cory Monteith) has a spiritual awakening when he sees the face of Jesus on his toasted sandwich. To celebrate his new-found faith he asks Will (Matthew Morrison) to discuss spirituality with the group and honour Jesus in song – much to the disdain of cheerleading coach and atheist Sue (Jane Lynch). It all sounds ridiculous but it’s a decent attempt by the show to address a weighty subject for a family audience. Cue renditions of REM’s Losing My Religion and Whitney Houston’s I Look to You, but it’s Kurt’s (recent Golden Globe winner Chris Colfer) poignant cover of The Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand that’s the most noteworthy. RW

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

TCM, 9.00pm

Three tough-guy, serious actors (Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce) star as two drag queens and a transsexual who travel in an enormous bus to get to a cabaret gig in the Australian desert. It’s hilarious and as camp as you’d expect, but is also darkly absorbing. CG

Episodes

BBC Two, 10.00pm; not N Ireland

Three episodes in, and this comedy about how American studios set about adapting British TV series isn’t getting any better. Matt LeBlanc is actually rather charming as an exaggerated version of himself, although unlike Steve Coogan in The Trip or the brilliantly excruciating guest cameos in Extras, he hasn’t been asked to venture very near the knuckle when sending himself up. However, the main problem is that Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig, who play the two British scriptwriters out of their depth in Hollywood, are just plain annoying. All their jokes at the expense of the vain, insincere Americans fall flat because their smug reserve is equally unlikeable. Tonight, LeBlanc and Sean (Mangan) try to bond in Las Vegas. SR

Storyville: Sex, Death and the Gods

BBC Four, 10.00pm

They are called devadasi, “God’s female servants”, and are part of a Hindu tradition that is supposed to have been illegal for decades. And yet Biban Kidron’s thoughtful film reveals that the practice, which involves girls being married to God in childhood and then sold for sex when they reach puberty, still exists in southern India. Some devadasi say the role gives them money and independence. SH

Dog Soldiers (2002)

Film4, 11.10pm

A low-budget British horror-comedy that is fairly funny (in an OTT way) and scary. Sean Pertwee’s Army sergeant leads his men on a mission in Scotland that feels routine until he runs into a pack of bloody-thirsty beasts. Snappy direction and some convincing werewolf costumes make up for a predictable plot twist. AP

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Bush, ex-Gulf War team mark 20th anniversary

Before a crowd of 3,500 people, including Gulf War veterans, Bush and key members of his national security team gathered at Texas A&M University to discuss the 20th anniversary of the conflict, which began Jan. 17, 1991. The war was prompted by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 under then-President Saddam Hussein.

Bush said helping to liberate Kuwait and guiding as commander in chief of the U.S.-led coalition troops was one of the great honors of his life.

"A few things I probably could have done better, but in the case of Desert Storm (the military name for the Gulf War), history will say we got this one right," Bush told the audience from a stage at the event, held at A&M's basketball arena.

Bush was briefly joined by former Vice President Dan Quayle.

Later, his top advisers - then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, former Secretary of State James Baker and then-National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft - took the stage.

This article appeared on page A - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Jim Carrey Steps Out with Anchal Joseph

Looks like Jim Carrey has bounced back from his split from long-time girlfriend Jenny McCarthy.

The funnyman was spotted holding hands with former America's Next Top Model contestant Anchal Joseph after catching Laura Linney's new play Time Stands Still in New York City on Thursday.

Joseph, 24, appeared on the seventh season of America's Next Top Model and is currently pursing a modeling career.

Carrey, 49, and McCarthy, 38, broke up last spring. McCarthy has been dating Paul Krepelka, a Boston sports agent, since December.

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Russian child ombudsman urges 'kidnap' woman to appeal to Strasbourg court

Russia's children's rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov has urged Russian national Rimma Salonen, who is fighting with the Finnish court for the right to be with her seven-year-old son, to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Earlier on Monday Finnish court has refused Salonen's request for custody of her child, Anton, granting it to the boy's Finnish father, Paavo Salonen.

The seven-year-old boy has been at the center of a Russian-Finnish diplomatic row after his parents divorced and his mother took him back to Russia. In 2009, his Finnish father illegally took him from Russia to Finland with the help of a Finnish diplomat.

"This decision [by Finnish court] deserves a profound regret. Finnish authorities continue to deprive Rimma from the opportunity to stay with her son," Astakhov said, adding the mother should keep on fighting.

"Rimma unlike the others is law-abiding. She is absolutely self-restrained and patient...she does not invoke any demands and politicize the situation," Astakhov went on.

The court allowed the Russian mother to see her son only twice a month in the presence of police and social workers.

MOSCOW, January 10 (RIA Novosti) 

 

Beethoven: Symphony No 9, CD review

BR Klassik 900108, £12.99

This superb recording of Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony emanates from a live performance given in 2007 at the Vatican’s Aula Paolo VI in honour of, and in the presence of, Pope Benedict XVI.

As usual with Mariss Jansons, the score’s salient detail is immaculately crafted, with individual instrumental components of the texture defined and brought to life in a way that animates the whole symphonic process. Nothing escapes Jansons’s attention, either in terms of apt emphasis on a particular instrument’s role at any given moment or in the care with which he shapes a phrase.

The clarity of line and the judicious balance of timbres are equal hallmarks of his style and they are manifested here to breathtaking effect. At the same time, Jansons possesses and harnesses an intense interpretative energy, lending the whole performance an inevitability of direction and giving the symphonic climaxes an utterly natural, visceral force.

His Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is with him all the way, playing magnificently and responding both alertly and mellifluously to the nuances of his conception of the music. The final pages are spine-tingling, partly because they have such powerful momentum and electricity, but also because Jansons has so thoroughly prepared the entire structure to culminate in this dramatic denouement.

The performance is also blessed with four superlative soloists in Krassimira Stoyanova, Lioba Braun, Michael Schade and Michael Volle, and with the well-drilled and magnificent vocal sound of the Bavarian Radio Chorus.

All in all, a fine testament to Jansons’s art and a classic Beethoven “Choral”.

Donald Trump: Ivanka and Jared Will Be 'Great Parents'

Donald Trump has always had confidence in his daughter Ivanka, relying on her during The Celebrity Apprentice and in the boardroom.

Now that Ivanka, 29, is expecting a child with husband Jared Kushner, Trump says he's sure she'll make the perfect mom.

"I know Ivanka and Jared will be great parents," Donald Trump tells PEOPLE. "They're a wonderful couple."

Adds Trump, already grandfather to son Donald Jr.'s kids Kai and Donnie III: "They are thrilled to be starting a family. I am very happy for them."

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Real Housewife Kyle Richards Speaks Out About Limo Fight with Sister

It shouldn't have gone so far – or become so ugly.

So says Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards of her nasty blowout that left her on the serious skids with sister Kim in the season finale.

"The events that transpired that evening were quite unfortunate and should never have occurred on or off camera," the reality star, 42, said in a statement released Friday by Bravo. "There are a lot of elements to the story that viewers didn’t see."

She adds: "This has been difficult for our entire family as we both said and did things that we regret. My sister and I love each other very much we want to move forward and put this behind us."

In the clash in a limo, Kyle called her older sister, 46, an alcoholic and threatened to revoke any aid – apparently financial – that she and her husband provide. Kyle also said she'd stop covering for Kim amid allegations of alcohol.

Kim and Kyle will discuss the matter further in a reunion special hosted by Andy Cohen on Jan. 27 at 9 p.m. on Bravo.

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Why do Liverpudlians need an embassy in London?

So Liverpool City Council wants to open an Embassy in London. This confirms two things. One, that a ludic surrealism weaves like a truculent, drunken Mick through the perpetual Friday night that is the Liverpudlian mentality. Two, that Liverpool has an inspiring and disturbing sense of being apart. The perceptive music historian, Paul du Noyer saw it as “the capital of itself”.

But an embassy is a redundant idea because Liverpool already has many eloquent ambassadors actively abroad (myself included). And the thing about these ambassadors is this. Liverpool inspires an intense, mawkish sentimentalism… coupled with an extreme desire to get away and never return. Its diasporised diplomats speak eloquently of the city’s intense romanticism while praying never to be required actually to live there again. Ever.

No-one feels indifferent about Liverpool. Its physical drama – epic, comic and tragic – requires strong responses. In 2004, Boris Johnson accused Liverpudlians of being whining recidivists. It was typical, unintended verbal acceleration by the future mayor of London, but there was, even Liverpool enthusiasts concede, something valid in Johnson’s criticisms. Liverpudlians have had an inclination to indulge in elective misery and voluntary self-deprecation, often of a most poetic kind. Du Noyer called it “civic one-downmanship”.

It is a place apart whose intense physical presence, stubborn tattiness and residual melancholy (with strong Irish and Welsh accents) inspires great music, poetry and art. Theorists of urban design may note that Liverpool’s insistent civic stroppiness, scruffiness and what Engels called “barbarity” may be its greatest assets. Neat, safe, quiet, prosperous urban areas – Mayfair and Belgravia, for example – do not produce artists. And I love the idea that Liverpool produced William Roscoe, who helped establish the concept of “Renaissance” and they honour this by naming pubs after him.

Growing up there was a real sentimental education. Liverpool taught me to look because it has an almost overwhelming architectural character, not all of it good. It is miserable, funny, proud, heroic, shameless, sad and exciting. The extremes of beauty and ugliness, great refinement and dismaying coarseness I experienced as a child made me interested in design. It was design, I seem to have sensed aged about ten, that turned one arrangement of bricks and glass into something wonderful. And a lack of design that made those same materials depressing.

So there is a lot of cultural tourism for Liverpool’s new diplomats to advocate. But there is a gnawing absurdity about a Liverpool embassy in London since Liverpool is itself already the Embassy of The United States in Britain. An element of the intense local melancholy can surely be traced to some remaining presence of the souls of 1.4 million Africans shipped from the Mersey to America via the horrific Middle Passage.

Stand at The Pier Head and you look to America, not London. Still less Europe. The Illustrated London News called Liverpool “The New York of Europe”. And the novelist Linda Grant described her grandparents’ first visit: “Even used to the baroque splendour of Warsaw… visited from the agrarian plains of the east, [my grandfather] was staggered by the city at which he had made landfall. 'New York,’ he cried. The greatest city on earth. The splendour of its architecture bearing down on this pogrom immigrant”.

Splendour indeed: it was a Liverpool architect called Peter Ellis who created skyscraper technology and style on Liverpool’s Water Street long before Chicago. St George’s Hall is Europe’s grandest neo-classical building. Ye Cracke, an art- college annexe, is surely the best pub in the world. Walk around Liverpool’s impressive financial district and you get an intense feel of the Midwest. You could be in Detroit. But, despite its typically fitful recent resurgence (“an endless modernist Esperanto of polite retailing boringness,” according to architect Sean Griffiths) Liverpool sometimes feels, like Detroit, a city of the dead. Indeed, it was the elegant Liverpool University scholar Mario Praz who once compared the ’Pool to Pompeii.

But unlike Pompeii, Liverpool has a knack for self-destruction. There is a belief (supported by nearly credible data) that the Blitz was visited on Merseyside with special ferocity because a young Adolf Hitler was miffed at mistreatment he had suffered when in lodgings on Ullet Road. It would be sad, but symmetrically satisfying, if this were true. But poetic cities don’t trouble much with truth. So much of Liverpool is imaginary: Jung dreamt in detail of the city without ever have been there. Perhaps the new Liverpool Embassy will remain imaginary too. In any case, the locals don’t care much for the effete, milk-fed Londoners. I was in a Liverpool cab recently and the driver said: “Yeah. I’ve been to London. I was there in 1969”. You see: the capital of itself.

Stephen Bayley is a cultural and design critic.

Paris Hilton's boyfriend to be charged with felony

Nearly five months after Paris Hilton and boyfriend Cy Waits were arrested in Las Vegas, her businessman beau is expected to be charged with three crimes.

Waits, who failed multiple sobriety tests when his vehicle was stopped by police outside the Wynn Hotel on Aug. 27, will face a felony charge for being under the influence of a controlled substance, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Additionally, prosecutors are seeking to slap the 35-year-old with two misdemeanors for driving under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance.

In all instances, the drug in question was marijuana. Cops found a "roach" – a "white piece of rolled paper w/ green leafy sub inside" – in Waits' car, according to the initial police report.

The Las Vegas paper reported that lab tests proved Waits was high during the incident.

He could be sentenced to jail and/or probation if convicted on the charges.

It's unknown whether he will be offered a plea deal like Hilton was in September.

The heiress, 29, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges in exchange for a year of probation, a $2,000 fine and a mandate to complete 200 hours of community service as well as a year a drug abuse program.

Non-gypsy girl's 14-stone dress

THE weird and wonderful world of gypsies continues in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding next week - with a controversial marriage between a gypsy man and a non-traveller.

Romany gypsy Pat Lee gets criticised by his friends and family for wedding non-gypsy Sam Norton, who tries to prove that she fits into the community by wearing a 14-stone dress which lights up in the dark.

The over-the-top frock even weighs more than her dad and includes 21 underskirts and moving diamante butterflies.

Meanwhile, another little girl gets dressed up to the max for her holy communion.

Six-year-old Mary Ann, who lives in Europe's biggest traveller site in the Dale Farm in Essex, has her first ever spray tan for the event and gets welts on her hips from the sheer size of her massive frock.

It comes as she and the other 1,000 travellers living on the site face eviction.

Elsewhere, three miles away a smaller site is destroyed by bulldozers to the anguish of its gypsy residents.

Wedding ... Josie and Swanley

Channel 4

The first episode of the Channel 4 series - which follows the success of a one-off Cutting Edge special last year - aired last night.

It showed 17-year-old Josie marry Swanley, 19, in an unusual wedding dress which was cut to the thigh at the front.

Her bash then saw one of her pals get "grabbed" by a gypsy boy, who tried to kiss her when they were alone.

The gypsy girls, who often marry between the ages of 16 and 18, explained how they would never have sex before marriage but were seen wearing tiny crop tops and posing provocatively on nights out.

The show seemed to be a hit with the audience and was at one point one of the top trending topics on Twitter.