More February anniversaries. Sky TV is 30 years old this month. Launched by Rupert Murdoch on 5 February 1989 at 6pm, it had a shaky start and haemorrhaged money for several years to the tune of millions of pounds a week but merged with BSB and eventually turned round to make a tidy … Read more
Albert Finney, the irrepressible talent who shot to fame in the kitchen sink drama Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, roistered his way through Tom Jones and latterly counterbalanced Julia Roberts in Erin Brokovich, has died. Throughout a long, sometimes erratic career, he received five Oscar nominations, but never won, and refused a knighthood. … Read more
Samantha Markle, half sister to Meghan, is back grabbing for her sliver of fame by rubbishing a recent magazine piece in which friends of the Duchess tried to counter recent negative media coverage. The griping and clearly resentful Samantha was born in November 1964 and in a recent interview said she’d spent Nov … Read more
Pope Francis keeps saying the right words but he doesn’t appear to be making much headway in cleaning out the Augean stables at the Vatican. There is ample evidence that his religious colleagues and underlings are dragging their heels determinedly over child abuse allegations and now over admissions that nuns have been and … Read more
Irish actor Liam Neeson in an ill-advised fit of honesty has landed himself in dire trouble with accusations of racism being thrown at him. He is doing the PR tour for his latest movie Cold Pursuit in which he plays an ordinary man transformed into a coldblooded vigilante after his son is killed by … Read more
Elvis and Gladys sounds like a corny sit com but is the stranger-than-fiction tale of Elvis Presley and his mother, turned into a novel – Graceland by Bethan Roberts. They were renowned as being close since his birth when a stillborn twin was lost. The family lived in chaotic poverty with his feckless … Read more
The make-or-break round of trade negotiations between China and the USA, due imminently, has almost certainly crashed with the filing of charges against Huawei. The Chinese telecommunications equipment maker is accused of corporate theft, violating sanctions against Iran and the two indictments include almost two dozen alleged crimes ranging from wire and bank … Read more
Is there method in Rudi Giuliani’s madness? Or has he become “a shell of himself talking gibberish” according to one political strategist, who mourns the passing of a once serious man. Giuliani was renowned as the fearless prosecutor who took down the mafia, the mayor who cleaned up a crime-ridden New York and … Read more
UK actor Richard E Grant has received his first ever nomination for an Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance alongside Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me? He’s had a quixotic career, constantly in work but moving across the genres. He says he intends to enjoy the LA feste since he says everyone … Read more
A peaceful activist for women’s rights is still imprisoned in Saudi Arabia along with nine other women who say they have endured torture. Loujain Al-Hathoul campaigned for years to allow women the right to drive. The Crown Prince Bin Salman was applauded by the west when he granted women such rights but shortly … Read more