The feral beast: Tina to launch British 'Beast'
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Your support makes all the difference.The Daily Beast is heading for Britain. After the success of Tina Brown's news and opinion site in the US, I can reveal that Brown has plans to launch a UK version within months.
The ex-Vanity Fair editor launched the US site in October last year, naming it after the fictional newspaper in Waugh's Scoop. A spokesman is cagey about the plans, saying there's "no time-line currently in place to launch a seperate [sic] operation", but fails to deny it. From one beast to another: we wish them well.
Curtain rises on ringtone ruffian
The Sunday Times reports that London's theatre-goers have become so badly behaved that theatres are employing bouncers to keep the peace. "Some patrons have been known to let their phones ring and even take calls while a play is running," it harumphs. So whose mobile phone was that trilling at a crucial moment of the Donmar's new production of A Streetcar Named Desire? Stand up Richard Brooks, arts writer for, ahem, The Sunday Times.
Sugar sweetens Quentin's foe
Sir Alan Sugar, now Lord, is threatening sketch-writer Quentin Letts with legal action for calling him a "telly peer" who "doesn't seem to have an enormous intellect". But in doing so, Lord S has unwittingly healed the breach between Letts and Guardian political blogger Michael White, who once called Letts a word rhyming with Berkshire Hunt. White was so incensed by Sugar's threats that he offered to sign a letter rallying to Letts's defence. The letter, in the current Spectator, bears the signatures of a Fleet of top hacks, but, alas, Whitey just missed the deadline to be among them.
Walker: come fly-over with me
Anyone driving under the Chiswick flyover in West London can expect to spot an odd-looking bunch of hacks nibbling cheese'n'pineapple as the juggernauts thunder past. For The Daily Telegraph's diarist Tim Walker has become involved in one of his own stories, about how the descendants of Jayne Mansfield, including actress Mariska Hargitay, have declined invitations to commemorate the flyover's 50th anniversary; it was opened by Mansfield in 1959. So Walker himself is planning a party there. Who needs Mariska when you've got Tim?
Heads may roll ...
Does Masquerade artist Kit Williams want Trevor Kavanagh's head served up on a plate? I ask as an invitation to Williams's new show at London's Portal Gallery shows his painting, Salome, depicting a head on a silver salver, which is the spitting image of The Sun's political supremo. Of course, the head is more likely to be St John the Baptist, but when I ask Williams for the picture so we can compare and contrast with Trevor's face, he inexplicably declines. Spooky.
An embarrassing admission
Dashing foreign reporter Charles Glass is seeking help with his next project. He wants to hear from any Allied deserters from the Second World War. Just one problem. Er, will any of them want to own up?
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