A Pair Of Old Slippers

‘GOODNESS! Forgive our profanity but we’re shocked to see Cliff Richard and a woman in the same shot.

To vote for them to stop, phone 0800 666666

However, our initial surprise is tempered by the realisation that this is Olivia Newton-John.

The Cliff Richard Tennis Foundation had gathered at Hampton Court Palace, where for first time in six years Cliff and Olivia Neutron-Bomb have sung together.

The atmosphere was ‘electric’.

Afterwards, the entertainers, who met in the 1960s when Cliff was a mere 57, talk and ‘interrupt each other like a long-married couple’.

So, in other words, they get on each other’s nerves and exchange dark looks of pure loathing?

No, they were ‘repeatedly and unselfconsciously giving each other reassuring pats on the arms and affectionate squeezes on the hand.’

‘We’re like a pair of old slippers,’ says the Australian singer. ‘We just fit together.’

‘I really like singing with Olivia,’ says Cliff, ‘because she sounds like the girl and I sound like the bloke. Well, have you heard some of the records today? You can’t tell who’s who.’

Perhaps, But one things for sure – none of them are Cliff. And for that, let us pray…’

Posted: 16th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Shane On You

‘IF they don’t call their sons Jake, Max or Oscar, the next most imaginative thing a celebrity can do is to name future stage school protégés after themselves.

‘And the winner of Best Audition Not To Be Given A Role is…’

And here is Shane Jr, named after his famous dad, Shane Richie, sitting with his brother Jake on a rug before the roaring fire at dad’s five-bedroom house in the Buckinghamshire countryside.

Completing this scene of domestic bliss is 25-year-old Christie. She’s not mum to the wee scamps – that honour goes to Coleen Nolan, Shane’s first wife. No, she’s better than that – she’s their mate.

‘Shane and I get the best bits,’ says Christie, a former dancer, no less.

‘Coleen and Ray [her husband with whom the former Nolan Sister lives in Blackpool] have to make sure they go to bed early, but they come here in their holidays so we stay up until 3am watching films and eating pizzas.’

And Christie is not only a great pal but a budding actress to boot.

She has ‘followed Shane into acting’, a comment that suggests Christie was not into acting when she met actor Shane and then moved into his home within two weeks of that magic moment.

We’ll move onto Shane in a moment, but first let it be known that Christie has appeared in the straight-to-Channel-Five blockbuster American Daylight and only just missed out on a regular part in the ITV drama Bad Girls. She was down to the last two!

Oh, and before we get to how much Shane loves Christmas and his kids, Christie would like it to be known by everyone that the tinsel and trees that festoon their home are all her own work.

‘I do all of it,’ says Christie. ‘Don’t let Shane tell you any different!’ Pah! As if he could. ‘I buy all the presents,’ she adds. ‘It doesn’t feel like Christmas unless I’m running about on Christmas Eve panicking that I’ve forgotten somebody.’

Like old woz’isname. You know, the one who’s in EastEnders. Sorry, Christie, you were saying. Of yes, about that acting career…’

Posted: 16th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Go West

‘WELCOME to the new look Ellis Island.

Sophie tries to stop herself hitting the wall

Leave your old Asda carrier bags by the door, step right up onto the stage and tell the judges – in two singing, dancing verses or fewer – why you would like make it big in the United States.

Coronation Street’s Chris Quentin, Bruce Forsyth and Victoria Beckham have all failed this part of the test and been sent packing.

But the Enquirer is always on the look-out for new arrivals twirling wide-eyed and hopeful down the gangplank of the HMS Superstar. And this week it spots Sophie Anderton.

And boy, does Sophie have some baggage. ”Top US relationship expert” and immigration official Dr Gilda Carle says that ”Sophie hit the wall out there in the jungle”.

It was nothing but a headlong collision that could either ”kill her or cure her”.

Dr Gilda then flips open Sophie’s health chart and nods sagely. She looks up.

”Considering Sophie’s emotional history and chronic substance abuse, I am aghast that any responsible adult who cares for her welfare would have put this obviously vulnerable girl in a make or break survival situation in the first place.”

When we last looked, the woman who played Jungle Pain to Paul Burrell’s Tarzan was not forcibly hurled onto the aircraft and deported to Australia, but rather she chose to shed so many salt water tears in the camera-infested rain forest.

And as for make or break, surely Sophie has achieved the former.

As her ambitious fellow travellers will jealously note, being noticed by the American media is no small thing.

Now if she can just find something she’s good at, she might just succeed where so many have failed.’

Posted: 13th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Is Fat The New Thin?

”’WHEN I started eating again, my metabolism was too slow and I put on tons of weight,” says Christina Ricci, aka Ant of Ant and & Dec look-alike fame.

No prizes for guessing where most of the weight went

”I didn’t work for a year because of it. Still part of me feels I’m never going to be thin enough.”

And we wonder why only part of her feels this way; there is no way anyone can ever be too thin in showbiz.

Ricci is at home in Tinseltown, a place where the populace looked at the images of stick-thin people coming out of Africa in the mid-1980s with unbridled envy.

There is talk in Ethiopia of the ”Yankee tribe” who arrived looking for the perfect excuse not to eat, having exhausted all the old staples – ”I’m allergic to wheat”; ”I ate earlier” (in 1976); ”I don’t ‘do’ food”.

They have never summoned up the energy to leave.

But, if you can’t be too thin, can you be too fat?

Since Kirstie Alley piled on the bulk and then duly scored a comeback in the TV show Fat Actress, the answer seems to be ”No”.

But is fat the new thin? Perhaps it is, although it might simply be the old thin wrapped in many inches of lard.

This could imply that inside every fat actress there’s a thin one waiting to eat her way out. Which could mean Rosie O’Donnell is twice as big a star as we first thought.

Which is an interesting, if not a frightening, thought…’

Posted: 13th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Nil By Mouth

‘WHILE the world looked and wondered what Bill Clinton had seen in Monica Lewinsky, we simply began to applaud.

Close, but no cigar

Here at last was a man in a position of power – he was the president of the USA at the time of his alleged dalliance with the intern – forgoing the obligatory nubile blonde in favour of a chubby brunette.

Sure, Monica was better looking than Bill’s wife, but he’d married Hilary when he was an ambitious pup looking for the dream ticket.

Ensconced in his seat of power and smiling broadly, Bill would surely opt for beauty over brains.

But, no, he went for Monica, an unexceptional girl in a shark-infested pool of pneumatic talent.

By rights she should have been a pin-up for middle American womanhood – a woman who dared to be frumpy and plump and still won a man – while Bill should have been lauded for bucking the trend.

But the events of those heady days are now so much testimony.

Monica never became the darling of the media and duly ballooned to such an extent that if she now twanged her knicker elastic at the president, she’d perforate an eardrum.

So she’s been to a ”fat farm” in Canada (so, that’s where those Americans get it from!), having checked into the Grail Springs Health Retreat and Wellness Spa.

There, dieticians put Monica on a regime of oatmeal smoothies, salads, soups, egg white omelettes, herbal teas and vegetables.

In future, she has been told to watch what she puts in her mouth – and if you can’t think of something funny to say about that, you’re in more trouble than Monica…’

Posted: 13th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Kelly On The Telly

‘SINCE Kelly Brook was sacked from The Big Breakfast and quit these shores to build a new life in America, things have just got better and better for the former underwear model.

In this scene Kelly acts like an underwear model

She’s traded in Jason Statham, her trusty English banger, for a shiny new Hollywood model in the fine four-fendered shape of Billy Zane.

And her career as an actress is on the up and up.

We know this because it says as much in every newspaper and every magazine that is looking for an excuse to publish pictures of Kelly from her modelling days.

But has anyone actually seen her in anything? In the five years since she boarded the modern equivalent of the Mayflower, what evidence is there of her acting prowess?

Hell, she hasn’t even released the obligatory home video of her and Billy recreating the best bits from Pulp Friction or Romancing The Bone.

But don’t worry – all that’s about to change because Kelly is on the cover of this week’s Hello! to promote a “slew” of films that are about to go straight to a video store near you.

First up is School For Seduction, in which Kelly plays Sophia, an Italian temptress who arrives at a school in Newcastle to teach a bunch of Geordies the art of love.

“If I never do another movie, I have this one,” says Kelly proudly (and, one suspects, prophetically).

“It’s very important to me because it’s the first time that England will see me as someone other than the girl who was on The Big Breakfast.

“So, it’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.”

Not so exciting are the reviews. One critic described it as “crude and embarrassing”, another as “sub-Full Monty” and an “abject British comedy with no laughs”.

At least, there have been no such bad notices for Kelly’s two other films – Three, the film in which she met Zane (think Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in Gigli), and House Of 9, a thriller starring Dennis Hopper.

Neither has been released yet…’

Posted: 9th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

A Klass Apart

‘LIKE Kelly Brook, Myleene Klass has turned a cleavage into a career – and, in so doing, has become an example for other generously chested women.

Catching a chill in January

“I always wanted to be seen as a role model for the average flawed woman,” says the former Hear’Say singer.

And if the average flawed woman likes nothing better than posing in her underwear, Myleene will get her wish every day of next year because she – and her cleavage – are launching their very own 2005 calendar.

“Fans asked when I’d have a calendar out,” the talented 26-year-old tells Hello!

“I played for the Forces and they asked the same thing. So we said, ‘Let’s give them what they want – it should be fun’.”

And what they wanted was not Myleene playing Rachmaninov’s Second or a Nocturne by Chopin, but Myleene posing in her smalls.

For the multi-talented Myleene, however, this is all in a day’s work. If all the world’s a stage, Myleene is used to playing several parts.

“I play daughter, girlfriend, musician, performer, recording artist, role model,” she says, “then I go home and I’m just me.”

Just another girl lounging around in her underwear…’

Posted: 9th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Love Sick

‘WHO are Britain’s most romantic pair? No, not Myleene Klass’s breasts, apparently, but comedian Vic Reeves and former lapdancer Nancy Sorrell.

More more X-list photos visit doanythingtogetonthetelly.com

That’s the opinion, at least, of Hello! which has this week secured the first – and only – interview with the couple as they emerged from the Australian jungle.

And it wants to know what it was the persuaded them to appear on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!

For Nancy, it was never about fame and fortune.

“Of course, the money is nice,” she says, “but the reason I went in is because I wanted people to get to know me for who I am.”

And Vic?

“I said ‘no’, initially,” he reveals. “But I thought about the fact that John Lydon opened it up a bit – so it’s not just for X-list celebrities – and said ‘yes’.”

To sharing a camp with X-list celebrities like, er, your wife…

“I think it’s a split camp,” he continues. “There are those who want to do it for the experience and there are those who do it because they are trying to flog something.”

And then there are those who do it because they want people to get to know them for who they are…’

Posted: 9th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | Comment

Her Crowning Glory

‘DO blondes really have more fun or is the newly brunette Kerry McPudding more wildly interesting than her old self?

The Queen is dying

Before we summon up the courage to look at Kerry’s OK! diary for the first time in weeks to investigate, we have news to make your own hair curl up and dye.

Kerry is no longer billed as Kerry McPudding. She is now Kerry Katona. But like McPudding before her, this Kerry’s been keeping a diary.

She has also, by some quirk of technical wizardry, reverted from the front-cover brunette to an inside-page blonde.

And this means we’ll have to wait at least one more week until OK’!s picture editor catches up with chameleon Kerry to discover the answer to our opening question.

In the meantime, we can at least look out for some more in-the-know tittle-tattle as Kerry comes back to “DISH THE DIRT”.

So, come on Kerry – it is at least still Kerry? – tell us if there’s any truth in the rumours about a certain ex-boy band singer and a lap-dancer?

Is the erstwhile queen of the jungle really stepping out with some new man?

What about the singer who spelt his name with a “y” because he thought it sounded cool? Has he now dropped the “y” for an “i”, and, if so, is that the reason you left him?

Come on, Kerry, we’ve waited weeks. We need the goss…’

Posted: 7th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Reality Love

‘WITH Kerry McPadding-Katona pondering her future as dethroned Queen – possibly living in exile – we wonder what the New Year will bring for some other reality stars.

More than three rubs is illegal in the matinee

The good news is that Michelle Bass is already branching out with a little singing, a little dancing and a little (thigh) slapping in her role as the Princess in Aladdin.

Right-oh, indeed. Or “Right-toe!” as panto royal Michelle will soon have it as she slays them in the aisles of St Albans, making the audience weep one minute and hoot with uproarious laughter the next.

But while Michelle dreams of a summer season in Bridlington and becoming the new Sonia, Stu shows signs of reinventing himself as the next Michael Fish.

Quite casually, as if it were no big deal at all, Stu says: “I heard the other day that we might be getting snow this Christmas.”

Heard? Or worked out with through a blend of science and gnostic rituals, calculating the elements to predict the future with unnerving accuracy?

Whatever it is, Michelle is taking modest Stu at his word and says that the best thing in the world would be if the lake near the home they’re sharing for the duration of Michelle’s theatre run freezes over and allows them to skate on it.

But before Stu and Michelle skate on thin ice, he reminds us of the true meaning of Christmas.

No, not a Christmas reunion of the Big Brother cast – well, okay, that too – or screaming “Oh no it isn’t!” as Michelle does the Birdie Dance with her panto co-star Jamie Rickers(!), but going to church.

Stu’s been before – his dad played organ at one – and he wants to go back, not because he left his hair band there, but because, as he says, worship is the “true meaning of Christmas”.

“I’ve always been to Sunday school and stuff,” he says knowingly.

“I’d like to go either Christmas Eve or Christmas morning – there’s usually a nice candle-light service on Christmas Eve.”

Michelle concludes that going to a mass to celebrate Christ sounds “quite Christmassy”.

And as Stu could tell her, she’s not wrong. Which makes her right. Or right-toe!’

Posted: 7th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Candy Girl

‘“WHAT do you miss about South Africa?”

A South African

Oh save us! If ever there were a question guaranteed to induce a catatonic state in the British reader, it is surely that one.

Feel your eyelids begin to droop and your heart begin to slow as the barman leans forward, rests the elbows of his rugby shirt in the slops tray and tells you how wonderful life is back home.

Back home, the sun always shines, everyone surfs all day long (even those who live on dirt farms miles from the sea) and the sun is still shining. Shame about the natives etc. etc.

So when OK! asks this question of Candice, the latest South African singing sensation to hit these shores, the answer will surely be as surprising as the discovery that she has blonde hair and blue eyes.

But what’s this? Although she misses home every day, Candy says that she lives in Johannesburg, a city with all the charm of scabies.

Back home, she couldn’t ride her bike or walk because it was so unsafe. What with her being a woman, she could never venture out after dark even in her car.

Hello? This sounds interesting. What about the spectacular vistas as oceans collide?

What of the prawns as big as those weedy British cows? What of the rainbow nation and how every one, black, yellow, brown and tanned just loves Nelson Mandela?

No? Instead we hear about Candy’s love of poetry and how she’s turned off by a lot of the pop music at the moment because it “isn’t saying anything”.

And when asked about the future, Candy just wants to be having a “great time”. No peace. No love. No walk-on part in Emmerdale. Just fun.

And at once we find ourselves warming to Candy. We wish her well. And when we next see her, we hope she’s performing the cutting-edge anthem of her generation live on air.

While the South African barman looks up at Candy on the TV and tells us how all the girls back home are like Candy – only better…’

Posted: 7th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Eating Is Cheating

‘WE know our American friends like to apply legendary Chicago mayor Richard Daley’s famous axiom ”Vote early, vote often” to their eating habits as well.

Now touch your head

However, to our knowledge, it is still not yet a crime in the land of the free shake with every Happy Meal to be seen in a restaurant after 11pm.

Nevertheless, the National Enquirer is sure that, criminal or not, Jennifer Aniston was up to no good at the Chilpancingo, a fancy Mexican restaurant in Chicago.

And it is true that the charge list is a long and grievous one.

It states that Aniston, 35, was picked up outside the Four Seasons hotel by a certain Vincent Cassel, a French actor and her co-star in her latest movie Derailed.

She was driven by said Cassel, 38, to the aforementioned Mexican restaurant ”to join a cast and crew party”.

Photographer Mustafa Kalili takes up the sordid tale.

”They arrived at the restaurant at 7.55pm and didn’t leave until 11.10pm,” he says.

”Someone who was inside the restaurant told me they were drinking maragaritas.”

What is more, neither Jennifer’s husband Brad Pitt, 40, nor Cassel’s wife Monica Bellucci, age unspecified, were present at the three-hour dinner.

As if that were not damning proof enough of immoral conduct, news is Aniston and Cassel called the Chicago cops to try to stop Mr Kafili and his friends getting shots of them leaving.

However, it takes more than the presence of a few cops to stop our shutterbug friends.

And, as soon as they spied the cameras, Aniston ”tried to shrink into the back corner of the vehicle” while Cassel ”tried to turn his face away so as not to be seen”.

We are not surprised at their embarrassment.

Cassel is French and knows no better, but what kind of example does it set to America’s youth when Aniston is seen dining out after 10pm?’

Posted: 6th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Hoff The Booze

‘NEWS reaches us of our favourite lifeguard, David Hasselhoff, now sadly now back in the United States after his six-week stint in London.

David arriving at his first AA meeting of the day

He is said to have attended 46 out of the 104 AA meetings he was ordered to attend after being busted for drink driving – in just two weeks.

”He generally goes to the early morning meeting in the Malibu area, headed by Mel Gibson,” his spokeswoman (who clearly hasn’t quite got to grips with the anonymous part of Alcoholics Anonymous) tells the Enquirer.

”Throughout the day, David attends other meetings in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, as well as in the San Fernando Valley where he lives.

”He hits his first meeting at dawn and by the time the sun sets, he’s still going to meetings.”

The Hoff, it seems, is bringing the same dedication to his quest for sobriety as he once did to saving the lives of those Californians who could drown in two foot of water.

He’s determined, the Enquirer says, not to let down his wife Pamela and his two daughters – but every day is still a struggle.

”As long as he’s busy,” a close source reveals, ”David feels he is OK, but when he has excess free time, he finds it difficult to battle his drinking problem.”

An obvious solution presents itself. Time to get David back into his red trunks and patrolling the beaches of southern California once more.

Lest he start singing again…’

Posted: 6th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | Comment

The Butler’s Revenge

‘DAVID Hasselhoff is not the only one to have deserted these rain-sodden islands for the red swimsuited beaches of California.

”Camp? Moi?”

Paul Burrell is set to join him, the real reason he went on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! apparently being to help his quest to become a Hollywood star.

”Paul is determined to get out of Britain and head for the States, where he’s convinced he can become a superstar,” a source tells the Enquirer.

”He’d see that as his ultimate revenge on the royals and Mrs and Mrs Joe Public, all of whom he thinks have failed him.”

What exactly Mr and Mrs Public have done to fail the ”double-dealing butler” is not specified.

Perhaps he’s upset that we didn’t buy enough copies of his execrable book, A Royal Duty?

Possibly he hasn’t forgiven us for crying with laughter at his ambition ”to become a serious actor” and appear in a thriller directed by Guy Ritchie?

Or maybe he’s peeved at all our insinuations that he is camper than a camper van with 50 Great Broadway Showstoppers blasting from the CD player?

What is certain is that, as a butler, he will know the correct way to serve up his revenge, be it hot or cold…’

Posted: 6th, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Bobby Dazzler

‘CILLA Black may have the teeth and leather trousers of a woman half her age, but Hello!’s cover shot of her cradling a newborn baby in her arms still comes as a shock.

Cilla and ‘er Bobby (Mark I)

We know how in this age of high-tech wonderment a woman can have a baby at any age – it was only through want of a man with stamina and no fear of splinters that the dear old Queen Mum never got her feet in the stirrups – but Cilla having a baby still smacks of wrongness.

What would dear departed Bobby Willis have made of it, the man to whom Cilla was married for 30 years until his death not so long back?

Well, rest assured he’d have been delighted because – silly us – the young ankle (over)biter isn’t hers at all but the fruit of her son Bobby’s loins.

Yes, that’s right, Cilla’s son is called Bobby Willis – like her dearly departed Bobby, Bobby’s dad.

This oddity that smacks of a palpable lack of imagination at chez Cilla is confirmed inside Hello!, where Bobby is on hand to put an arm round mum – whom, just like ex-Bobby used to, he manages – and say how very happy he is.

And who could not look at young, bouncing Robert Maximilian Willis and smile as they realise that, although his parents prefer to call him Max, the newborn’s name seems to be more in tune with Robert Willis, or Bobby Willis for short.

This is all very confusing, none more so than for Bobby Willis’s wife, the lovely red-of-hair Fiona.

Imagine the confusion at Christmas time when the family get together for a good rousing game of Blind Date.

‘This question to Bobby No 1: Are you a) My husband back from beyond; b) my son; c) my grandson?’

Choose carefully, Cilla, there’s a romantic holiday to a fertility clinic up for grabs…’

Posted: 2nd, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

McCall Girl

”THE uglier the truth, the truer the friend that tells you,’ says Hello!, as Merlin tells King Arthur in the movie Camelot.

A punishment from God?

And it’s good that Hello! should remind us of such profundity. We have sometimes struggled to keep aloft our simple sword of justice in the face of the celebrity onslaught.

Many is the time we’ve wandered up from the unlit basement and crawled on our hands and knees into old Mr Anorak’s offices and asked why we can’t just leave the great and good alone.

Let Jade be ‘stunning’, allow Jessie Wallace her ‘radiance’, let’s stop pretending and let is be said that Her Poshness is more sweet-sounding than a castrated choirboy eating sugared bonbons from a hummingbird’s wing.

And each time he turns to us, taps the side of his head – but not too hard lest a vein pop – and tells us: ‘Send for the big guns! Fuzzy wuzzies everywhere! Nurse! Charge!’

And in an instant we know. We must plough on. For, as Hello! has said: ‘The uglier the truth, the truer the friend that tells you.’

And we are true friends to Davina McCall. It’s up to us to tell her that her voice is like listening to a live kitten being dragged down a cheese grater.

It’s our duty to tell her that her newly-renovated six-bedroom home in Surrey cements her reputation as the new Anthea Turner.

And that banging on about her tough childhood, her anorexia, her discovery of drugs and her time wasted trying to ‘fix’ broken men is self-indulgent and trite.

And, if we are all friends here, then we must say that, when we hear Davina say that getting her job in telly after giving up drugs was like a reward from God, we want to scream.

Only even if we did, no-one would hear us – for how could they above the infernal and vacuous din our good pal Davina makes…’

Posted: 2nd, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

La Vida Loca

‘FOR some time now we’ve followed the love affair between Gisele Bundchen and Leonardo DiCaprio.

The celebrity couple are often seen out together

But it’s all been a sham. No, no, no, silly, Leo’s not sexually indifferent or worse and Gisele’s not just in for the fame by association. This is no PR stunt, you fool.

This story is about the simple truth that Leo is not the Brazilian model’s ‘great love’, for that honour must go to her pet pooch, Vida.

So when Vida went missing, it was only natural that she should panic. She looked everywhere for the Yorkshire terrier, under hedges, in the toilet and under her baseball cap.

But she was nowhere. So Gisele and a friend mounted a ‘frantic poster campaign’, sticking up pictures of Vida all over the area around her Santa Monica home and asking for help.

There was even a reward on offer – Gisele was willing to pay $2,000 for the return of the dog of which she says: ‘She is my company.’

And than a call. Vida had been spotted in the street. Without a moment to lose, Gisele dashed over to the scene and there was Vida.

The pair are now reunited.

But there is no small mystery as to how Vida came to be lost. Perhaps Leo knows. Anyone seen him?’

Posted: 2nd, December 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Sweet Smell Of Success

‘AMID all the recent reports of war in Iraq, famine in west Africa and the dearth of golfers in Britain, you may have missed the news that Michelle Heaton has been chosen as an RG girl.

Michelle’s life has been one long battle against BO

You had? Well, the news is that she has been chosen as an RG girl.

What do you mean you don’t know what an RG girl is? Shame on you! It’s one of that select group of women who every year are picked out to be the face – and armpits – of Right Guard.

And Michelle is delighted to join their fragrant ranks, even if she is not entirely sure why she was chosen.

‘I suppose it is because I’m known for being quite adventurous,’ the Liberty X singer and Hot Stars columnist tells OK!

And to illustrate the point, OK! publishes a picture of Michelle giving two Moroccan camels a whiff of her deodorised armpits.

‘I think that’s what being an RG girl is about,’ she hurriedly continues before the camels decide to return the compliment.

‘It’s about taking risks, being true to yourself and not being afraid to challenge yourself.’

And there were we thinking it was about getting some overexposed popstar to try to sell more cans of deodorant…

But, hang on, Michelle wants to tell us all about the adventurous things she’s done.

She’d ‘really like’ to go white water rafting; she’d ‘love’ to do a parachute jump; she’d ‘love’ to go scuba diving; and she’d ‘like’ to do the London marathon.

‘I also think getting married is quite adventurous,’ she says, ‘and that’s something I’d definitely love to do.’

And we have no doubt that OK! will be there every adventurous step of the way down the aisle…’

Posted: 30th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Sea Listers

‘YOU would have thought that Jordan was made for a life on the ocean waves.

‘To inflate, blow here and here’

After all, not many of us come equipped with our very own life-preservers and inflatable life raft fitted as standard.

But when the pneumatic glamour model spent an eight-day trip aboard an ‘exotic’ Caribbean cruise liner with her Dinky Toy fiancé Peter Andre, she spent the whole time throwing up.

This, we feel obliged to point out, was not a reaction to the exotic cuisine on board (steak and chips, hamburger and chips, fish and chips etc.) nor to her future husband’s singing nor indeed to the presence of his family.

It was because Jordan hadn’t brought her sea legs with her, with which to flee the troublesome press.

‘Imagine being stuck in the middle of the ocean when you’re feeling sick because of the motion of the boat anyway and wherever you go there’s press everywhere,’ she fumes.

‘It ruined the whole holiday. I couldn’t wait to get off the boat.’

Of course, when Jordan talks about the press, she is not including OK!

They were obviously invited on board to take the pictures of Jordan throwing up and Peter being small that grace this week’s issue.

Nor presumably was she talking about the cameras that have been following her round for the past few months as part of Sky One’s When Jordan Met Peter programme.

She’s talking about the people who can’t tell the difference between her public private life (as chronicled by Sky and OK!) and her private private life (offers in writing to her agent…)

And while we’re on the subject, OK! would just like to say congratulations on the documentary. It’s hilarious…

‘It’s funny, eh?’ replies Pete. ‘We’re mad!”

Posted: 30th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Electrostyle Icon

‘WHILE Jordan wants to have her celebrity cake, eat it and then barf over the side of the boat, Jennifer Ellison is just quietly getting on with the job of being big-breasted and famous.

Jen is the new, er, face of electrostyling

‘We make our money by being in the public eye, so we can’t really complain too much,’ she tells OK! when asked by tabloid intrusions into her private life.

But it’s not Jen’s private life that OK! wants to talk about nor even her role as Roxie in Chicago nor even her time as a celebrity chef.

No, OK! wants to talk about an innovative new styling concept called ‘electrostyling’, launched by empiredirect.co.uk, the UK’s number one electrical e-tailer and home to an unbeatable range of competitively priced electrical products.

So, Jen, what is electrostyling?

‘Electrostyling is styling your electrical goods in the same way that you would style your carpets, accessories and furnishings.’

Give us an example, Jen.

‘It’s been great for Tony and his computer games. Before we had X-Box, Playstation and Game Cube and goodness knows what else all around the living room with wires everywhere, but now everything is nicely organised, the wires are hidden and there’s one control, so it’s brilliant.’

So, Jen, will you be logging onto the empiredirect.co.uk website this Christmas?

‘Definitely. It’s great with it all being online so you don’t have to go to the shops and trail around for hours. They offer lots of advice on how to style your home and how to fit things into what you’ve already got.’

Wow, Jen! Electrostyling from empiredirect.co.uk sounds really fantastic. In fact, you’re such a fan you should become a spokesperson for the company.

What? You are already? So much so that you’ve taken to doing the vacuuming in a bikini..?’

Posted: 30th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

The Celebrity Sets

‘THE Hollywood stud has luxurious zip-on hair, a face as free of lines as the Pope’s coffee table and a gorgeous nubile girlfriend to reassure him that he looks just as youthful as she does.

Armed to the teeth

But how do they achieve this sensational look? Well, it’s all thanks to the power of prayer. And the prayer of this and every other day is: “For the love of God, get me a good cosmetic surgeon!”

Unless daddy’s a top player in the Hollywood Hills, your genetic make-up will count for nothing as you strive to be more fabulous than the next snaggle-toothed, Gonzo-nosed redneck with a dream.

What you need to blend in with the Hollywood crowds, to look just like everybody else, is money. And if you can’t get some of your own, then Britney Spears is willing to pay.

According to the Enquirer, the rumour is that Britney has whisked her Kevin off for a double date at “dentist to the stars”, Dr Kevin Sands.

Britney opted for the $650 bleaching, a process in which the teeth are brushed with something not dissimilar to Domestsos, leaving you with a brilliant white smile right down to the last flush of youth.

Kevin’s gnashers, however, are said to have commanded a heftier price tag. If he went for the full set of veneers, his wife could have coughed up around $30,000.

If that’s the case, we can expect to see Kevin smiling broadly in all the places where the beautiful people hang out.

And why wouldn’t he beam, since he’s just got the one thing that is sure to secure him a happy and rich life.

No, not the teeth, although they can only help. Nor even Britney – given her wedding history, her current husband shouldn’t plan the ruby wedding celebrations just yet.

No, it’s a little bundle of joy that Britney may be carrying inside her stomach.

And in case she is in the family allowance way, Kevin and his wife have apparently already picked out a name for her. It’s Aurora.

Derived from the Latin word aurora, of Indo-European origin, it means luminous, and dazzling.

Like mom and pop’s teeth…’

Posted: 26th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Faking It

‘LET no-one now say that Gareth Gates is not a star among stars.

‘That Gareth Gates ain’t the only one with a pair of double Gs’

When Gareth turned away from his fans at one of his sensational concerts, thanked them all for being so wonderful and commanded them to “MAKE SOME NOISE!”, what we were witnessing was nothing short of cutting-edge showmanship.

Dolly Parton, perhaps just another deliriously happy face in the crowd on that immortal night in Bridlington Recreation Hall, took note.

She watched as Gareth deftly flicked the “on” switch on his junior tape recorder (with realistic microphone attachment and warble effect) and let his pre-recorded words do the talking for him.

So when Dolly began her own ‘Hello, I’m Dolly’ concert tour, she knew that she too must move with the times.

She had to up the stakes and keep abreast of the latest technology. She had to keep up with Gareth.

So the 58-year-old “songbird” has been wowing her fans with her show, which features a little singin’, a little swayin’ and a little mimin’.

“Just know that it’s all Dolly by golly,” says she, even if some of Dolly is less real than other bits. Adding: “I’m doing it for you.”

That’s nice of her, but a few have spotted the fraud.

“Who woulda thunk that one of the greatest stars in the history of country music would come to town on her biggest tour in two decades and lip-sync?” asks Jon Beam in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Indeed, who would even believe that anything about Dolly is less than real?

Not we. As if…’

Posted: 26th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

Alas, Smith Is Bones

‘THOSE of us who bought the last Anna Nicole Smith Inflatable Doll are using our last ounce of energy to kick ourselves.

With complimentary foot pump

How stupid we were to invest in inflatable Anna when she was, at the top of her game, a true heavyweight star.

It would take a flatulent elephant a year to blow up Anna’s thighs alone, so what hope a mere human in pumping Anna up to her full potential?

Had we only waited, we’d have got to see Anna shed many pounds and turn into something that can be recreated in the comfort of your trailer or communal hot tub in one very hard puff.

And what’s more, this new EZ-Inflate Anna comes with a slow-release air valve.

Just the other day, Anna was exhaling at the American Music Awards. The Enquirer is of the impression that she “babbled incoherently on stage, seemed lost – and needed to be held up by two body guards backstage”.

She was, of course, simply deflating in the mode of her new doll.

But her designer, the wonderfully named Bobby Trendy, fears Anna is reverting to her old ways.

“I heard from someone close to her,” says Trendy, “that they stand there with pills and reward Anna when she poses.”

Go on… “’Pose happy’, she gets a pill. ‘Pose sad’, and she gets another.

Crikey, this sounds ominous. And it might just be that the new Anna is on her way to becoming the old Anna.

In which case, pucker up and get ready to blow. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride…’

Posted: 26th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | Comment

Let’s Have Another Juan

‘FOR Richard Desmond, owner of OK!, to have to walk into his local newsagent all this week and see Victoria Beckham’s face on the cover of their main rival must be hard.

”Brooklyn and Romeo, stop making fun of your brother’s name”

It must be like, well, like coming home from work early to find your hitherto perfect husband in bed with his PA.

Or picking up your husband’s phone, browsing through his text messages and discovering that he does know how to spell “Very, very ****, thinking of your **** and the *****” after all.

Did OK! not pay £1m of Mr Desmond’s hard-earned – have you seen Asian Babes? – money for an invitation to Posh’s wedding?

Was OK! not on hand in the days after the Spice Girls broke up to reassure her that that a No.1 solo single would be hers after all?

Has OK! not spent oh so many years showering her with compliments as unearned as they were incredible in a bid to win back its old place in her affections?

And this is how she repays it – with an interview in Hello!, in which she reveals “why she’s happy again”?

The reason, it seems, is not confined to the fact that she’s decided to put her singing career on hold nor to the fact that she’s got a new poncho, but to a forthcoming new arrival.

So, what’s the new baby boy, due in March, going to be called? How are her and Day-vid going to top Brooklyn and Romeo?

“Everyone always asks,” the former artist formerly known as Posh replies. “Brooklyn and Romeo really aren’t weird names.

“When you’ve got people like Gwyneth Paltrow calling their baby Apple, how does that make Romeo odd? It’s a very old-fashioned name. In Italy, Romeo is like John in London.”

Er, no. We think you’ll find that in Italy Giovanni (or Gianni) is like John in London, but carry on…

“I might just shock you all and call it Juan and be done with it,” she continues. “Juan Beckham…”

Or Romeo Beckham, as they say in Italy.’

Posted: 25th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments

The Travels Of Odysseus

‘WE should go easy on Victoria Beckham – she is not the only poncho-wearing mother of a child with a ridiculous name in the world.

”Odysseus was excited about his date with rosy-fingered Dawn”

Hell, she’s not even the only poncho-wearing mother of a child with a ridiculous name in this week’s Hello!

Let us introduce you to Marie-Chantal, wife of Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece, owner of a cream woollen poncho and – since two months ago – mother of Odysseus.

Of course, we all know that Odysseus is to Athens what John is to London and Romeo is to, well, Rome – and that there is nothing peculiar about naming your children after Homeric heroes.

Paris Hilton was, we are sure, named after Priam’s son; Neighbours’ Helen Daniels was the original face that launched a thousand ships, and the 1970s children’s favourite Hector’s House was an oblique reference to the city of Troy.

But this is something of a novelty for Hello!, which thumbs through its Greek Myths For Dummies book to discover that the baby’s many-wiled namesake was something of a traveller.

And so it is that we learn that Odysseus “is already living up to his name” and has been “getting his travels off to a good start with a trip to Paris en famille”.

And we hear that the plan is to take Odysseus to Athens to be christened, thereby “further ensuring that he lives up to his name”.

With such similarities in mind, may we suggest that they don’t make the trip by sea – there’s only so many shipwrecks, one-eyed monsters, pig-loving witches etc. that a small boy can take…’

Posted: 25th, November 2004 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments