The topless fire-eater who impressed the two male judges on this week's Britain's Got Talent has previously appeared in pornographic films according to a shitehawk 'exclusive' in, you guessed it, the Daily Scum Mail. Exotic dancer Tia Brodie advanced to the next round of the ITV talent show after singing the Kasabian song 'Fire' whilst running a burning torch over her skin, wearing only high heels, knickers and two patches over her - quite sizeable - baps. 
The show's creator Simon Cowell said he 'loved it,' and fellow judge slimy Piers Morgan said he would like to 'see more.' You couldn't see much more, mate. Only Amanda Holden was critical, dismissing the performance as a 'brilliant new way of hair removal on the legs.' According to the Scum Mail who love rooting around in filth for this sort of thing Ms Brodie has worked in the sex industry for nine years. She said that she was not ashamed of her past. Nor has she any need to be; to the best of my knowledge the Scum Mail didn't produce any evidence that anything she's ever done is illegal so why make a story out of this at all? Oh yes, sorry, I forgot, it's the Scum Mail and that's the only way they can get The Horn. Meanwhile, self-appointed 'media campaigners' have criticised ITV, asserting that the sexualised performance was 'inappropriate for Saturday night family entertainment.' Which may well be true but I'll tell you what, dear blog reader, I'll be buggered in a ditch on fire rather than allow the Scum Mail or some tight-arsed Christians-in-search-of-filth to decide, for me, what I can and can't watch in my own home whenever I damn well please. Vivienne Pattison, director of Mediawatch UK, who always seems to get her comments in the newspapers at time like this, said: 'This show is watched by thousands of children. ITV push the boundaries and push them again. 
It's an erosion of standards that we have to resist.' Won't SOMEBODY think of the children? Brodie claimed she had not intended to go topless for the audition. 'I had brought along a liquid to spray on clothing so it becomes fireproof but it didn't work so I couldn't wear the top I wanted to wear. For health and safety reasons I had to do it without the top otherwise I would have set myself on fire.' Ms Brodie left school with eight GCSEs and two A-levels. She worked at a magistrates court in Kent and became a legal secretary before giving up her career in 2001 to be a pole dancer and stripper. So, she's clearly a bright, articulate young self-employed woman making a success for herself in the demanding world of light entertainment. The sort of person, in fact, that one would expect the Daily Scum Mail to be supportive of. I mean, they're usually so vocal in their admiration for that get-up-and-go British spirit. You know, Oswald Mosley, Mrs Thatcher ... Hitler.
Adrian Chiles allegedly 'feels betrayed' by his former ONE Show co-host Christine Bleakley, according to reports. The presenter, who last week defected to ITV from the BBC, apparently wanted more persuasion from Bleakley to stay at the corporation. He's really not a happy bunny at the moment, old Adie, is he? 'Things have become highly uncomfortable between the pair. Christine always wanted Adrian to stay on the show, she thinks he's making a big mistake leaving,' a source told the News of the World. Another 'insider' revealed:
'That shows how edgy things are. They used to talk about everything, and the whole thing has been very stressful for her. It's been a very fraught few weeks. Adrian thinks she could have done more to help him and if she'd refused to work with Chris [Evans] they'd have been forced to abort the plans.' It is noticeable that public sympathy, which did seem to be very much with Adrian in the couple of days after he announced that he was leaving appears to be swinging back the other way. Especially as he's now, seemingly, doing to Steve Rider and Andrew Castle pretty much exactly what he perceives Chris Evans has done to him. Mind you, as a punishment, he does have to spend the next four years working with Andy Townsend so, you know, it's not all wine and roses.
Charlie Brooker has joined a reported three thousand viewers to have officially complained and criticised the BBC for ruining the climax of Saturday night's Doctor Who episode. Even the Sun have got in on the act - ripping off some comments from Gallifrey Base instead of doing some real reporting of their own. Which is always good for a laugh. Anyway King Charlie, who recently praised the family SF series on his Channel 4 game show You Have Been Watching, was, according to reports, 'left reeling' after a cartoon version of Graham Norton danced on the screen to promote Over The Rainbow. As previously noted, yer actual Keith Telly Topping wasn't. 'Mildly miffed at the crass timing of it' would be a more accurate description. King Charlie tweeted yesterday: 'Why don't the BBC just wipe shit all over the screen during the final scene of Doctor Who next week? That's a reference to the Over The Rainbow on-screen trail by the way. Loved the episode. Until then.' Brooker, who then watched the reality show, later quipped:
'I hope they trail The News with an animated George Alagiah in the final scene of Over The Rainbow.' He's in a particular sarky and dangerous mood at the moment is King Charlie. On that same You Have Been Watching episode he told his guests - Big Fat Cuddly Liza Tarbuck, David Baddiel and Kevin Bridges - that this was a show which 'does for TV what the leadership debates do for politics. Turn it into a frivolous point-scoring game show between three desperate wannabes who'll say anything to make you love them!' How can anybody not love a man who describes The Delicious Miss Dahl thus?: 'My over-riding feeling when watching it was that I wanted a man with a cricket bat - covered in shit - to come in and smash the whole fucking place up!' Respect, King Charlie. Respect, for da man.
Dragons' Den winner Levi Roots has been accused of stealing the recipe for his famous Reggae Reggae Sauce by an old friend. Tony Bailey has filed a claim in the High Court for more than three hundred thousand pounds alleging that Roots, fifty one, stole his recipe before appearing on the BBC programme three years ago. The pair had worked together on a takeaway food stall in Brixton, South London, for seventeen years. Roots was backed to the tune of fifty thousand pounds on the show after he impressed tycoon Peter Jones with a recipe which he said had been devised by his grandmother. According to the Mail On Sunday, it is understood that Bailey claims that Roots invented the story about his grandmother as a 'marketing ploy' to persuade the Dragons to back him. A source claimed that the recipe was 'definitely Tony's. Levi did tell Tony that he was going to go on Dragons' Den but Tony was amazed when he then lied about the provenance of the sauce. After the programme Levi made some payments to Tony which were never really explained. At first it didn't seem right to take legal action but Tony is angry at how things have turned out.' Roots declined to comment.
The author Alan Sillitoe has died aged eighty two at Charing Cross Hospital in London, his family has said. The Nottingham-born novelist emerged in the 1950s as one of the Angry Young Men of British fiction.
His son, David, said that he hoped his father would be remembered for his contribution to literature. Which, of course, he will. Alan's novels included two genuine twenty four carat masterpieces of British Twentieth Century socio-political storytelling, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, both of which were subsequently adapted into hugely successful movies. The books are regarded as classic examples of the early years of so-called 'kitchen sink drama,' a movement which aimed to reflect both the aspirations and the limitations of working class life in post-war Britain. Sillitoe was born in Nottingham in March 1928 - the second son of an illiterate tannery labourer who was often out of work. Later, he described life growing up in a poor household. 'We lived in a room in Talbot Street whose four walls smelled of leaking gas, stale fat and layers of mouldering wallpaper,' he said. He would note that his mother burned his first semi-fictional work when he was a twelve-year-old. It was about the behaviour of his cousins but she felt it to be too 'revealing.' Alan left school at fourteen to work in the Raleigh bicycle factory in his hometown before joining the Royal Air Force four years later. He worked as a wireless operator in Malaya but, while in the RAF, he contracted tuberculosis and spent sixteen months in hospital where he began to write novels. After travelling to France, Spain and Majorca - where he met the poet Robert Graves - he wrote the pioneering novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. 
Published in 1958, the tale about the life of factory employee Arthur Seaton won the Authors' Club First Novel Award and received instant critical acclaim. It was adapted as a film in 1960, starring Albert Finney as a broodingly magnificent Seaton, one of the great performances of British cinema. 'They have a TV set and a packet of fags, but they're both dead from the neck up!' God, it was good. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, focusing on a rebellious boy with a talent for cross-country running, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1959. It was also turned into a brilliant film, directed by Tony Richardson and starring Tom Courtenay, in 1962. The award-winning writer was married to the American poet Ruth Fainlight, with whom he had David, and adopted daughter Susan. Although he tended to spend most of his time in London, they also lived in France, Spain, Tangier and Israel. Poet Ian McMillan paid tribute to Sillitoe, describing him as a 'marvellous prose stylist' whose work had a 'kind of Midlands sonority to it. 
He was a man who attempted to capture the majesty and drama of ordinary life,' he said. 'He wrote this great line which said "the art of writing is to explain the complications of the human soul with the simplicity that can be universally understood" and I think that's what he achieved.' Sillitoe for the most part rejected the celebrity life and claimed that all he wanted to do 'was sit in his house in London and write and write and write.' As well as numerous novels Sillitoe also published several volumes of poetry, children's books and was the author of several stage and screen plays. In 1995, his autobiography Life Without Armour was well-received. In 2007, he published Gadfly - an account of his travels in Russia. In 2008, he was recognised for his Nottingham roots and given freedom of the city. Earlier this month, along with others with the same honour he was due to herd sheep across Trent Bridge, as was his right. However he had to pull out because of illness. Last year, he appeared on the BBC's Desert Island Discs, where he said if he were cast away his ideal companions would be a record of Le Ca Ira sung by Edith Piaf, a copy of the RAF navigation manual, The Air Publication 1234, and a communications receiver - but for receiving only. Although he once said he preferred to be thought of as a poet rather than a novelist, it was his prose that attracted the more critical success.
Denise Welch has admitted that she snorted cocaine on the Coronation Street set during her time as a cast member on the soap. Speaking candidly about her drug habit for the first time, the actress explained that she first started using charlie when she was in her twenties, but developed a more serious habit in 1989 while suffering from post natal depression following the birth of her first son. Welch confessed that her 'lowest moment' came when she took cocaine in a backstage bathroom while her co-stars were busy filming scenes to mark Betty Driver's on-screen eightieth birthday celebrations. Her dealer had met her outside the show's Manchester studios moments earlier.
The actress, who played barmaid Natalie Barnes, is quoted by the Mirror as saying: 'I'd become the master of getting out of scenes in the Rovers. I'd always be saying something like "Don't you think Natalie would be in the toilet? Or in the Rovers living room?" It was ridiculous, but this was a particularly awful day and I felt very low. When you suffer with depression it can just hit you like that at any time and I could feel myself slipping. I didn't have any drugs on me and I knew the only way I could possibly keep going and stay on an even keel was to get some more.' Welch also recalled arriving at work in July 1998 and barely being able to speak following an overnight cocaine binge. However, she managed to get through her scheduled scene with screen lover Michael Le Vell (Kevin Webster) as planned. The actress eventually kicked her drug habit when she became pregnant with her second son Louis, now nine. She has since discovered that her depression was caused by a hormone imbalance and now suffers low moments less frequently after being prescribed tablets. Welch reveals the full extent of her personal problems in new autobiography Pulling Myself Together, which is released later this week.
Karen Gillan admits she has taken part in some weird photoshoots. The actress, twenty two, used to be a model before she landed the role of Amy on Doctor Who. 'I went for a shoe modelling casting,' she says. 'They made me put a bucket over my head and walk up and down.' But Karen insists she gained a lot from her experience. 'I did commercial modelling, hair products and stuff, not high-end fashion,' she told Metro. 'It was character building.'
The first 3D-ready television set went on sale in the UK last week, despite there being a limited amount of 3D content available. Samsung officially launched its forty-inch 3D set at selected John Lewis, Curry's and Comet branches, priced at one thousand seven hundred and ninety nine notes. Panasonic is due to launch its first 3D-ready model this week, with Sony and LG likely to follow in the coming months.
However, only Monsters vs Aliens is currently available on 3D Blu-ray and customers will have to wait until later in the year to access Sky's 3D channel, which launched in pubs and clubs earlier in the month. Sony has confirmed plans to release a firmware update for all PS3 consoles before June to enable them to support 3D gaming. Customers purchasing Samsung's 3D model, which is claimed to add greater depth to normal broadcasts and Blu-ray films, will have to buy a pair of battery-operated 'active' glasses at a cost of one hundred and fifty knicker each. Matt Rajah, who was the first in the queue to purchase a 3D set at the John Lewis' Oxford Street branch, claimed that the outlay is worth it. 'I have been waiting for this for a long time, there's lots of exciting 3D content on the way, and it's set to be the TV of the future,' said the twenty eight-year-old. 'It's more money than a normal telly, but I love to buy the latest gadgets and be ahead of my friends.' I've got just two words for you, mate. 'Beta' and 'Max'!
Emmerdale actor Tony Audenshaw celebrated a double triumph after taking part in the London Marathon yesterday. The actor, who plays Bob Hope on the Yorkshire-based drama, broke a world record for the fastest ever runner to complete the race while 'dressed as a baby.' Blimey, that's a record you want to have, isn't it? His time of three hours and thirteen minutes also made him the first celebrity to cross the finish line this year. Speaking to reporters afterwards, Audenshaw joked: 'You can forget about the one hundred metres record, this is the record people are interested in - the world's fastest baby in a marathon.'
Alesha Dixon has promised to be tougher on Strictly Come Dancing after receiving an ultimatum from the show's bosses, according to press claims.
Producers of the ballroom contest believe that Dixon was 'too nice' to contestants after she joined the judging panel on last year's series, the Mirror alleges. A Strictly source Copper's Nark'd to the paper: 'Following the [Arlene Phillips] backlash, Alesha was on the back foot from day one - perhaps she feared she'd be attacked even more if she spoke out. But she has vowed to come back tougher than ever. She has said she will pull no punches. It was that or bosses were prepared to look elsewhere.'
Factual show New Brands is going to be taking the 9pm slot on BBC1 on Wednesdays from 17 May. It will have four episodes, which will take the BBC up to the start of the World Cup. In this format, Jo Malone, one of Britain's most successful female entrepreneurs, is looking for people who have an original product or range which they believe has the potential to make the leap from kitchen table to high street. Those who are chosen by Jo will benefit from her expertise, experience and guidance. Each of the four episodes will focus on a different category, for example, home and garden, food and drink, children, and accessories. Once Jo has selected those who she believes to have real potential, she will guide them through the world of branding, public relations and business, and prepare them for a pitch to a major retailer. Will they be able to convince them to take a chance on a new product during this period of commercial uncertainty? Astonishingly, this will be the first full series the BBC have shown on a Wednesday this year. Previously, the day has been something of a dumping ground for them - in fact, they've not even shown the same programme two weeks running! This year has seen repeats of Inspector George Gently, New Tricks and the I Swear I Can't Help It tourette's documentary, along with football, Crimewatch, Five Days, Famous Rich & Jobless, Cars Cops & Criminals, The Day The Immigrants Left, an episode of Panorama, the Masterchef final, Traffic Cops, Bang Goes The Theory and Motorway Cops. No sense of structure at all. Seriously, it's become something of a game in TV watching circles, 'what are the BBC trying on Wendesday this week?'
Channel 4 presenter Emma Spencer reportedly refused to interview a winning jockey whom she blames for breaking up her marriage. The 'new face' of Channel 4's flat racing coverage was waiting to interview the winner at Newbury races and was said to be 'horrified' when forty-to-one outsider Hayley Turner took first place.
Spencer, thirty one, realised that she would have to congratulate Turner who, she claims, had an affair with her husband Jamie Spencer, and made it clear that she did not wish to carry out the interview. According to the Sunday Telegraph, co-presenter Mike Cattermole stepped in to take over with just moments to spare. The Spencers had been known as the 'Posh and Becks' of the racing world: a rich, glamorous couple who married in 2005. A spokesman for Channel 4 confirmed yesterday that Spencer had declined to interview Turner after she had won the Berry Bros & Rudd Magnum Spring Cup at Newbury last weekend. 'Emma would prefer not to interview Hayley – it is in the interests of both parties to avoid any unnecessary tensions,' the spokesman said.
Lily Allen has reportedly signed a deal with Channel 4 to host a reality TV fashion show. The programme will be the singer-songwriter's first return to presenting since the second series of BBC3's criticially reviled Lily Allen and Friends ended two years ago. It would seem that the television industry really does learn nothing from its biggest failures.
The show's creator Simon Cowell said he 'loved it,' and fellow judge slimy Piers Morgan said he would like to 'see more.' You couldn't see much more, mate. Only Amanda Holden was critical, dismissing the performance as a 'brilliant new way of hair removal on the legs.' According to the Scum Mail who love rooting around in filth for this sort of thing Ms Brodie has worked in the sex industry for nine years. She said that she was not ashamed of her past. Nor has she any need to be; to the best of my knowledge the Scum Mail didn't produce any evidence that anything she's ever done is illegal so why make a story out of this at all? Oh yes, sorry, I forgot, it's the Scum Mail and that's the only way they can get The Horn. Meanwhile, self-appointed 'media campaigners' have criticised ITV, asserting that the sexualised performance was 'inappropriate for Saturday night family entertainment.' Which may well be true but I'll tell you what, dear blog reader, I'll be buggered in a ditch on fire rather than allow the Scum Mail or some tight-arsed Christians-in-search-of-filth to decide, for me, what I can and can't watch in my own home whenever I damn well please. Vivienne Pattison, director of Mediawatch UK, who always seems to get her comments in the newspapers at time like this, said: 'This show is watched by thousands of children. ITV push the boundaries and push them again. 
It's an erosion of standards that we have to resist.' Won't SOMEBODY think of the children? Brodie claimed she had not intended to go topless for the audition. 'I had brought along a liquid to spray on clothing so it becomes fireproof but it didn't work so I couldn't wear the top I wanted to wear. For health and safety reasons I had to do it without the top otherwise I would have set myself on fire.' Ms Brodie left school with eight GCSEs and two A-levels. She worked at a magistrates court in Kent and became a legal secretary before giving up her career in 2001 to be a pole dancer and stripper. So, she's clearly a bright, articulate young self-employed woman making a success for herself in the demanding world of light entertainment. The sort of person, in fact, that one would expect the Daily Scum Mail to be supportive of. I mean, they're usually so vocal in their admiration for that get-up-and-go British spirit. You know, Oswald Mosley, Mrs Thatcher ... Hitler.Adrian Chiles allegedly 'feels betrayed' by his former ONE Show co-host Christine Bleakley, according to reports. The presenter, who last week defected to ITV from the BBC, apparently wanted more persuasion from Bleakley to stay at the corporation. He's really not a happy bunny at the moment, old Adie, is he? 'Things have become highly uncomfortable between the pair. Christine always wanted Adrian to stay on the show, she thinks he's making a big mistake leaving,' a source told the News of the World. Another 'insider' revealed:
'That shows how edgy things are. They used to talk about everything, and the whole thing has been very stressful for her. It's been a very fraught few weeks. Adrian thinks she could have done more to help him and if she'd refused to work with Chris [Evans] they'd have been forced to abort the plans.' It is noticeable that public sympathy, which did seem to be very much with Adrian in the couple of days after he announced that he was leaving appears to be swinging back the other way. Especially as he's now, seemingly, doing to Steve Rider and Andrew Castle pretty much exactly what he perceives Chris Evans has done to him. Mind you, as a punishment, he does have to spend the next four years working with Andy Townsend so, you know, it's not all wine and roses.Charlie Brooker has joined a reported three thousand viewers to have officially complained and criticised the BBC for ruining the climax of Saturday night's Doctor Who episode. Even the Sun have got in on the act - ripping off some comments from Gallifrey Base instead of doing some real reporting of their own. Which is always good for a laugh. Anyway King Charlie, who recently praised the family SF series on his Channel 4 game show You Have Been Watching, was, according to reports, 'left reeling' after a cartoon version of Graham Norton danced on the screen to promote Over The Rainbow. As previously noted, yer actual Keith Telly Topping wasn't. 'Mildly miffed at the crass timing of it' would be a more accurate description. King Charlie tweeted yesterday: 'Why don't the BBC just wipe shit all over the screen during the final scene of Doctor Who next week? That's a reference to the Over The Rainbow on-screen trail by the way. Loved the episode. Until then.' Brooker, who then watched the reality show, later quipped:
'I hope they trail The News with an animated George Alagiah in the final scene of Over The Rainbow.' He's in a particular sarky and dangerous mood at the moment is King Charlie. On that same You Have Been Watching episode he told his guests - Big Fat Cuddly Liza Tarbuck, David Baddiel and Kevin Bridges - that this was a show which 'does for TV what the leadership debates do for politics. Turn it into a frivolous point-scoring game show between three desperate wannabes who'll say anything to make you love them!' How can anybody not love a man who describes The Delicious Miss Dahl thus?: 'My over-riding feeling when watching it was that I wanted a man with a cricket bat - covered in shit - to come in and smash the whole fucking place up!' Respect, King Charlie. Respect, for da man.Dragons' Den winner Levi Roots has been accused of stealing the recipe for his famous Reggae Reggae Sauce by an old friend. Tony Bailey has filed a claim in the High Court for more than three hundred thousand pounds alleging that Roots, fifty one, stole his recipe before appearing on the BBC programme three years ago. The pair had worked together on a takeaway food stall in Brixton, South London, for seventeen years. Roots was backed to the tune of fifty thousand pounds on the show after he impressed tycoon Peter Jones with a recipe which he said had been devised by his grandmother. According to the Mail On Sunday, it is understood that Bailey claims that Roots invented the story about his grandmother as a 'marketing ploy' to persuade the Dragons to back him. A source claimed that the recipe was 'definitely Tony's. Levi did tell Tony that he was going to go on Dragons' Den but Tony was amazed when he then lied about the provenance of the sauce. After the programme Levi made some payments to Tony which were never really explained. At first it didn't seem right to take legal action but Tony is angry at how things have turned out.' Roots declined to comment.
The author Alan Sillitoe has died aged eighty two at Charing Cross Hospital in London, his family has said. The Nottingham-born novelist emerged in the 1950s as one of the Angry Young Men of British fiction.
His son, David, said that he hoped his father would be remembered for his contribution to literature. Which, of course, he will. Alan's novels included two genuine twenty four carat masterpieces of British Twentieth Century socio-political storytelling, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, both of which were subsequently adapted into hugely successful movies. The books are regarded as classic examples of the early years of so-called 'kitchen sink drama,' a movement which aimed to reflect both the aspirations and the limitations of working class life in post-war Britain. Sillitoe was born in Nottingham in March 1928 - the second son of an illiterate tannery labourer who was often out of work. Later, he described life growing up in a poor household. 'We lived in a room in Talbot Street whose four walls smelled of leaking gas, stale fat and layers of mouldering wallpaper,' he said. He would note that his mother burned his first semi-fictional work when he was a twelve-year-old. It was about the behaviour of his cousins but she felt it to be too 'revealing.' Alan left school at fourteen to work in the Raleigh bicycle factory in his hometown before joining the Royal Air Force four years later. He worked as a wireless operator in Malaya but, while in the RAF, he contracted tuberculosis and spent sixteen months in hospital where he began to write novels. After travelling to France, Spain and Majorca - where he met the poet Robert Graves - he wrote the pioneering novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. 
Published in 1958, the tale about the life of factory employee Arthur Seaton won the Authors' Club First Novel Award and received instant critical acclaim. It was adapted as a film in 1960, starring Albert Finney as a broodingly magnificent Seaton, one of the great performances of British cinema. 'They have a TV set and a packet of fags, but they're both dead from the neck up!' God, it was good. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, focusing on a rebellious boy with a talent for cross-country running, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1959. It was also turned into a brilliant film, directed by Tony Richardson and starring Tom Courtenay, in 1962. The award-winning writer was married to the American poet Ruth Fainlight, with whom he had David, and adopted daughter Susan. Although he tended to spend most of his time in London, they also lived in France, Spain, Tangier and Israel. Poet Ian McMillan paid tribute to Sillitoe, describing him as a 'marvellous prose stylist' whose work had a 'kind of Midlands sonority to it. 
He was a man who attempted to capture the majesty and drama of ordinary life,' he said. 'He wrote this great line which said "the art of writing is to explain the complications of the human soul with the simplicity that can be universally understood" and I think that's what he achieved.' Sillitoe for the most part rejected the celebrity life and claimed that all he wanted to do 'was sit in his house in London and write and write and write.' As well as numerous novels Sillitoe also published several volumes of poetry, children's books and was the author of several stage and screen plays. In 1995, his autobiography Life Without Armour was well-received. In 2007, he published Gadfly - an account of his travels in Russia. In 2008, he was recognised for his Nottingham roots and given freedom of the city. Earlier this month, along with others with the same honour he was due to herd sheep across Trent Bridge, as was his right. However he had to pull out because of illness. Last year, he appeared on the BBC's Desert Island Discs, where he said if he were cast away his ideal companions would be a record of Le Ca Ira sung by Edith Piaf, a copy of the RAF navigation manual, The Air Publication 1234, and a communications receiver - but for receiving only. Although he once said he preferred to be thought of as a poet rather than a novelist, it was his prose that attracted the more critical success.Denise Welch has admitted that she snorted cocaine on the Coronation Street set during her time as a cast member on the soap. Speaking candidly about her drug habit for the first time, the actress explained that she first started using charlie when she was in her twenties, but developed a more serious habit in 1989 while suffering from post natal depression following the birth of her first son. Welch confessed that her 'lowest moment' came when she took cocaine in a backstage bathroom while her co-stars were busy filming scenes to mark Betty Driver's on-screen eightieth birthday celebrations. Her dealer had met her outside the show's Manchester studios moments earlier.
The actress, who played barmaid Natalie Barnes, is quoted by the Mirror as saying: 'I'd become the master of getting out of scenes in the Rovers. I'd always be saying something like "Don't you think Natalie would be in the toilet? Or in the Rovers living room?" It was ridiculous, but this was a particularly awful day and I felt very low. When you suffer with depression it can just hit you like that at any time and I could feel myself slipping. I didn't have any drugs on me and I knew the only way I could possibly keep going and stay on an even keel was to get some more.' Welch also recalled arriving at work in July 1998 and barely being able to speak following an overnight cocaine binge. However, she managed to get through her scheduled scene with screen lover Michael Le Vell (Kevin Webster) as planned. The actress eventually kicked her drug habit when she became pregnant with her second son Louis, now nine. She has since discovered that her depression was caused by a hormone imbalance and now suffers low moments less frequently after being prescribed tablets. Welch reveals the full extent of her personal problems in new autobiography Pulling Myself Together, which is released later this week.Karen Gillan admits she has taken part in some weird photoshoots. The actress, twenty two, used to be a model before she landed the role of Amy on Doctor Who. 'I went for a shoe modelling casting,' she says. 'They made me put a bucket over my head and walk up and down.' But Karen insists she gained a lot from her experience. 'I did commercial modelling, hair products and stuff, not high-end fashion,' she told Metro. 'It was character building.'
The first 3D-ready television set went on sale in the UK last week, despite there being a limited amount of 3D content available. Samsung officially launched its forty-inch 3D set at selected John Lewis, Curry's and Comet branches, priced at one thousand seven hundred and ninety nine notes. Panasonic is due to launch its first 3D-ready model this week, with Sony and LG likely to follow in the coming months.
However, only Monsters vs Aliens is currently available on 3D Blu-ray and customers will have to wait until later in the year to access Sky's 3D channel, which launched in pubs and clubs earlier in the month. Sony has confirmed plans to release a firmware update for all PS3 consoles before June to enable them to support 3D gaming. Customers purchasing Samsung's 3D model, which is claimed to add greater depth to normal broadcasts and Blu-ray films, will have to buy a pair of battery-operated 'active' glasses at a cost of one hundred and fifty knicker each. Matt Rajah, who was the first in the queue to purchase a 3D set at the John Lewis' Oxford Street branch, claimed that the outlay is worth it. 'I have been waiting for this for a long time, there's lots of exciting 3D content on the way, and it's set to be the TV of the future,' said the twenty eight-year-old. 'It's more money than a normal telly, but I love to buy the latest gadgets and be ahead of my friends.' I've got just two words for you, mate. 'Beta' and 'Max'!Emmerdale actor Tony Audenshaw celebrated a double triumph after taking part in the London Marathon yesterday. The actor, who plays Bob Hope on the Yorkshire-based drama, broke a world record for the fastest ever runner to complete the race while 'dressed as a baby.' Blimey, that's a record you want to have, isn't it? His time of three hours and thirteen minutes also made him the first celebrity to cross the finish line this year. Speaking to reporters afterwards, Audenshaw joked: 'You can forget about the one hundred metres record, this is the record people are interested in - the world's fastest baby in a marathon.'
Alesha Dixon has promised to be tougher on Strictly Come Dancing after receiving an ultimatum from the show's bosses, according to press claims.
Producers of the ballroom contest believe that Dixon was 'too nice' to contestants after she joined the judging panel on last year's series, the Mirror alleges. A Strictly source Copper's Nark'd to the paper: 'Following the [Arlene Phillips] backlash, Alesha was on the back foot from day one - perhaps she feared she'd be attacked even more if she spoke out. But she has vowed to come back tougher than ever. She has said she will pull no punches. It was that or bosses were prepared to look elsewhere.'Factual show New Brands is going to be taking the 9pm slot on BBC1 on Wednesdays from 17 May. It will have four episodes, which will take the BBC up to the start of the World Cup. In this format, Jo Malone, one of Britain's most successful female entrepreneurs, is looking for people who have an original product or range which they believe has the potential to make the leap from kitchen table to high street. Those who are chosen by Jo will benefit from her expertise, experience and guidance. Each of the four episodes will focus on a different category, for example, home and garden, food and drink, children, and accessories. Once Jo has selected those who she believes to have real potential, she will guide them through the world of branding, public relations and business, and prepare them for a pitch to a major retailer. Will they be able to convince them to take a chance on a new product during this period of commercial uncertainty? Astonishingly, this will be the first full series the BBC have shown on a Wednesday this year. Previously, the day has been something of a dumping ground for them - in fact, they've not even shown the same programme two weeks running! This year has seen repeats of Inspector George Gently, New Tricks and the I Swear I Can't Help It tourette's documentary, along with football, Crimewatch, Five Days, Famous Rich & Jobless, Cars Cops & Criminals, The Day The Immigrants Left, an episode of Panorama, the Masterchef final, Traffic Cops, Bang Goes The Theory and Motorway Cops. No sense of structure at all. Seriously, it's become something of a game in TV watching circles, 'what are the BBC trying on Wendesday this week?'
Channel 4 presenter Emma Spencer reportedly refused to interview a winning jockey whom she blames for breaking up her marriage. The 'new face' of Channel 4's flat racing coverage was waiting to interview the winner at Newbury races and was said to be 'horrified' when forty-to-one outsider Hayley Turner took first place.
Spencer, thirty one, realised that she would have to congratulate Turner who, she claims, had an affair with her husband Jamie Spencer, and made it clear that she did not wish to carry out the interview. According to the Sunday Telegraph, co-presenter Mike Cattermole stepped in to take over with just moments to spare. The Spencers had been known as the 'Posh and Becks' of the racing world: a rich, glamorous couple who married in 2005. A spokesman for Channel 4 confirmed yesterday that Spencer had declined to interview Turner after she had won the Berry Bros & Rudd Magnum Spring Cup at Newbury last weekend. 'Emma would prefer not to interview Hayley – it is in the interests of both parties to avoid any unnecessary tensions,' the spokesman said.Lily Allen has reportedly signed a deal with Channel 4 to host a reality TV fashion show. The programme will be the singer-songwriter's first return to presenting since the second series of BBC3's criticially reviled Lily Allen and Friends ended two years ago. It would seem that the television industry really does learn nothing from its biggest failures.
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