London Archive

London, Oct 27 – Socialite Paris Hilton fled from boyfriend Doug Reinhardt’s birthday party after seeing her ex-boyfriend Benji Madden was booked to perform there.

Hilton whisked Doug to Las Vegas for the weekend to celebrate his 24th birthday and watch his friends Taintsticks in action at the Hard Rock Hotel.

However, her joy turned to despair after finding out that Madden had stepped in at the last minute to play bass, reported thesun.co.uk.

‘Shortly after getting into the gig Paris saw Benji’s face and bolted. She was freaking out big time and was desperate not to bump into him and left. It’s quite clear they didn’t end on good terms,’ said a source.

Hilton and Madden broke up in November 2008 after nine months of dating.

London, Oct 27 – President Pratibha Patil has urged the Indian diaspora around the world to help overcome the challenges presented by a resurgent India and help build a ‘great and dynamic’ nation.

‘You know the challenges that a resurgent India presents,’ she told prominent members of the Indian diaspora at a reception hosted in her honour Monday night.

Pointing out that the Indian diaspora across the world number some 25 million and those in Britain more than 1.5 million, she said: ‘We seek to interact directly and substantially with them’.

‘We must work in our individual ways to contribute to the objective of building a great and dynamic India which will be one of the mainstays of emerging global order,’ Patil told an audience of some 400 Indian-origin guests.

She lauded the diaspora in Britain, saying that although they formed two percent of population, they contributed 4-5 percent to Britain’s Gross Domestic Product.

‘Your hard work and industrious attitude have won you appreciation both in country of adoption and country or origin,’ she said.

The guests included Nobel-winning scientist Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, industrialists Swraj Paul, Srichand Hinduja, Raj Kumar Bagri, Nat Puri, Ghulam Noon and Kiran Bilimoria, politicians Navneet Dholakia (Liberal Democrat), Sailesh Vara (Conservative Party), Paramjit Dhanda (Labour) and Lord Adam Patel, leading academics and representatives from the worlds of business, medicine, charity and the arts.

Patil said it was fitting that the first engagement in her three-day state visit to Britain was the reception with members of the Indian diaspora.

She praised the contributions of people of Indian origin to the development of post-War Britain.

‘When we hear the prime minister of Great Britain… mention the excellent treatment he personally received from an Indian-origin doctor in the National Health Service, we feel proud of all of you,’ she said.

Patil said the Indian diaspora was an important bridge between the two countries, pointing out that the architects of modern India — Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhai Patel and B.R. Ambedkar — had all been educated in Britain.

Education had now been identified as a major field of collaboration between India and Britain, she added.

London, Oct 26 – Singer Lily Allen wants to build her own country house with a Mongolian-style yurt which looks like the tent that she used to stay at the Glastonbury music festival every year.

‘My plan is to build a yurt on to the side of my country house. You have the house for traditional living and, of course, running hot water and toilets. But the yurt is full of old Moroccan rugs where you hang out.

‘I want to feel like I’m at Glastonbury year-round, with a few home comforts next door. I want to buy some barn buildings and do them up or buy some land and do a grand design job,’ thesun.co.uk quoted her as saying.

She has already hired a property expert to supposedly help her ‘find the right project rather than buy a country house already tarted up’.

London, Oct 26 – Troubled British pop star Amy Winehouse and her ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil have married again, just three months after they officially divorced.

Thesun.co.uk reports that the two updated their social networking site Facebook saying they are ‘married’ again.

Blake in a separate post wrote: ‘Can’t argue with true love. What’s the point?’

The two had ended their marriage when Blake divorced Winehouse on grounds of infidelity. But the two kept in touch and Winehouse’s father Mitch even caught them in bed together.

‘Amy’s family, especially Mitch, will be furious. They have been so happy with her progress and are terrified that if she gets back together with Blake she will fall back into drugs again,’ said a friend.

London, Oct 26 – Late pop legend Michael Jackson’s fans want to boycott his latest film ‘This Is It’ because they feel it has been made just to make money.

According to thesun.co.uk, fans pointed out that the movie does not mention Jackson’s bad health during his last days and the stress that he had to endure while working on his comeback before he eventually died in June.

Almost 20,000 hits on the site have been registered just within 24 hours and over 13 branches. ‘The film has been craftily edited to maximise profits,’ said the spokesperson Giovanni Panunzio.

Even a few family members seem to be unhappy with Jackson’s father Joe and sister La Toya claiming that Sony Pictures used stand-ins in the film.

London, Oct 26 (DPA) British composer and musical producer, Andrew Lloyd Webber is undergoing treatment for prostrate cancer, British media reports said Sunday.

‘Andrew is now undergoing treatment and expects to be fully back at work before the end of the year,’ his spokesman was quoted as saying in a statement.

The 61-year-old Lloyd Webber was being treated in hospital. The diagnosis of the cancer in its early stages was made several weeks ago, according to the statement.

The composer is best known for his musicals, including ‘Cats’, ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Evita’. He owns seven theatres in London’s West End.