Eastenders party and pics

I walked straight into Albert Square tonight.
Ok, so it's a fictional place but this street/ club in east London couldn't have looked anything more like the grotty club on Eastenders if it was the actual grotty club in Eastenders.

Sid Owen, aka Rickaaaaaaay, threw a party to celebrate leaving Eastenders and also to highlight his drop4drop charity campaign, which he'll now spend his time raising money for.
The charity aims to try and overcome the global water crisis and Sid will be traveling out to India again to build wells.

The bash was a proper who's who of

Albert Square

.
Janine in one corner with Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiitneeeeeeeey, who looked exactly the same as she does on screen. Really tarty, short dress, hair scrapped back and gobbing off loudly..
In the other corner was Phil Mitchell and Dean Gaffney.
Sheri Murphy came along, fuck me her boyfriend is serious HOT. She's done well there.
She's lovely and really down to earth telling me, when I offered to grab her a champagne, "I prefer vodka, it's stronger!"
Damn straight sister.
Hippy soul singer Joss Stone was there, looking like a stoned, female version of Jesus.
Her long, flowing locks literally glided around a few seconds after her as she smiled at everyone like a angelic child who was hiding a secret.
Joss is so mellow and chilled out I started to feel an overwhelming urge to bear hug her or inappropriately burrow my face in her mane like hair.

The night was a success, charity wise. Although the venue was so dingy and dark there could have easily been dead dogs lurking around. You know that smell.
A bit like vomit in your hair the day after a big night out. Rank.
And Sid somehow has the hottest girlfriend. How?
She was one of the hottest girls there. And I was out with former glamour model Francoise Boufhall. So I’m used to seeing men with their tongues hanging out.But wow, Ricky's girlfriend is something else.
Anyway, here's a few snaps of the wideboy Eastenders...and Joss-stick Stoner.

Two Greedy Italians

I love it when you stumble across something good on telly. It’s quite rare these days.
I’ve slowly put my Hollyoaks obsession to bed, that died when Justin left.
To be honest it was time to put down the unnecessaryily pretty Cheshire actors and move away from E4 First Look at 7pm every night.
The reality TV shows don’t float my boat, I could really give two shits what Peter Andre, Kerry Katona or Katie Price do when they’re not in the tabloids for some kind of mutual bickering\ wardrobe malfunction\ new endorsed product flogging.

However, I somehow came across Two Greedy Italians on BBC2, and loved it instantly.
The basis is... two old Italian friends, they’re both internationally renowned fantastic chefs, but first and foremost they’re best friends.
Each have won awards for their fantastic cooking, unique recipes, restaurants, books, but they are so enthusiastic about life and the main ingredients of life. These being love, family and passion
Their programme is compelling viewing.




Famous chefs Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo

The show is really therapeutic. It could easily double up as an hour long counseling session. They should play it on repeat in rehab.
Forget drugs all you need to do is follow these wise Italians and you’ll end up eating your way to a heavenly utopia filled with handmade tortellini, seafood linguine cooked on a boat in the Med, the best Italian wine all seasoned with love, friendship and dreams of the perfect, idyllic life.

The two chefs bicker as much as they laugh, and spend as much money on food as they do time talking about love.
Their favourite dish is tortellini, which can take up to six hours to prepare, each handmade squashed tiny tortellini shell..."Each made with a little bit of love”, they enthuse.

They believe happiness is sitting round a huge table with your family and friends eating out of massive bowl of shared, home-made pasta dishes.

Each week I take a little piece of their advice and a little nugget of their excitement for life.
I want to grow up like them and pass on their enthusiasm and happiness for life to my children.

God bless The Two Greedy Italians.
They make me happy to have a hangover in bed on a Sunday.
 
Well for a good 60 minutes anyway.

Each hand made Tortellini created with love

Men and their todgers...

I watched Due Date last night, much to my fella Jimmy's annoyance.
He wanted to get the Pirates Of The Caribbean boxset and watch all three back-to-back.
Luckily for me there were no copies of any of the three films in our nearest Blockbuster, let alone the bumper boxset.
What are the chances of that?! Result.
Smirking, on the sly, I suggested we get Due Date.
He begrudgedly agreed, only if he could get a 'boy' film as well.
Deal.
He got Winters Bone, which suited me anyway as I've wanted to see it for ages (obviously didn't tell him that).
Despite being a real slow starter Due Date was pretty good, Jimmy was laughing out loud more than me.
I think he could seriously relate to curly haired, free spirited, walking disaster zone Ethan (American comedy actor Zach Galifianakis)

However, the masturbating car scene is still freaking me out.
Why? Why do men think it's OK to jack off in front of each other?
I know it's just a film. But it does reflect some aspects of true life.
Like this particular conversation.
I was having dinner with a group of girl friends a few weeks ago.
One said her boyfriend used to watch porn with his lad mates and masturbate. OK, they were about 18 but still.
He said it wasn't a big deal as the lights were off and everyone was doing it.
Firstly, I'm not prude.
Not in any shape of the imagination, but at what point does getting our shlong out, in front of your mates and bashing one out become light evening entertainment?
What about the noises? The face finale? What if everyone else had finished but you were still going strong?
It's all a bit too weird for me to get my head around.
And this spunk on a biscuit game, does it exist or is that an urban myth?
I know people...lad, girls, whoever, have sex while other people are in the same room.
We've all been there, young on holiday, sharing a room with your mate etc...
No drama.
But the whole wanking around a TV in the dark scenario baffles me.
How does it start? Is it borderline gay?
I know some people are reading this thinking 'big deal'. They've probably been to sex dungeons, gimp parties, orgies, swinging weekends, spankathons dressed as giant babies etc.
But my friend's boyfriend is just a normal guy. Works in IT, isn't a sexual deviant, just your average everyday guy, who likes to hangout with his mates.
I'm just intrigued to know if this behaviour is normal? Not for any newspaper related reason, just because I'm nosey and overly fascinated with life.
Especially with randy teenagers who enjoy mutual masturbation, it seems.
Answers on a postcard please.
(Or more conveniently email jessica.brown@dailystar.co.uk)

National Movie Awards = carnage

Before arriving at the National Movie Awards at Wembley Arena I'd already thought it was going to be pretty boring, lots of waiting around, a long ceremony and not much fun.
I couldn't have been more wrong.

The night started with me and my reporter Ed sitting in the press room, a small room tucked away upstairs in the venue with TV scattered everywhere.
We sat with the other journos gorging on wine, sandwiches and crisps watching the ceremony on the screens and chatting about which celebs looked good etc.

Half way through the ceremony we were invited to go down into VIP celebrity green room, where we bumped straight into showbiz legend\ diva Dame Shirley Bassey (who later in the night even invited up into her dressing room).
Which as you can imagine, was pretty flipping awesome.


We sat in the swanky green room eating pizza and drinking champagne with Shirley, Frank Lampard, The Inbetweeners and James McAvoy.
As I chatted to Shirley about generally girlie stuff, (how much we both fancied Frank and James, her dress, Wales)... her PR lent over and said "please call her Dame Shirley, not Shirley."
Whoops, take it Shirls was out the question then?!
I was genuinely surprised how much everyone ran circles around the Dame.
And embarrassingly, within moments, this included me too...I was fetching her bowls of olives, glasses of champagne and even moving the crisps closer.
It was impossible to not pamper her as she purred: "crisps please" which resulted in about four of us all rushing to find the nearest crisp bowl.
In hindsight it was quite ridiculous.


I chatted, very briefly, I mean VERY briefly, to Frank Lampard.
He's hotter than I expected but more nervous too.My colleague Ed asked him about the footballer's super injunction and why they cheated.Frank left the room about 30 seconds later. Whoops.
Also spoke to Lewis Hamilton and his missus Nicole Sherzinger.




We then headed off to Dame Shirley's dressing room, which was full of champagne, caviar, Louis Vuitton luggage and fur coats. She let me try on her blue rabbit fur coat, which was pretty  cool.
DSB started singing, at the top of her voice, her most famous hit Gold Finger.
Amazing, she has such a distinct, powerful voice,
Me and Ed looked at each other in amazement as we too joined in... "Gold finger..he's the man. The man with..." Comedy.
As we kissed Shirley, sorry Dame Shirley, on both cheeks and waved her off in her chauffeur driven car she said: "Life live to the full, be happy."
What a night. Won't forget that for a while.

I'm an moron

I had to have a serious word with myself on the tube home last night.
A lot of people in the media industry are self obsessed, greedy, demanding, un-appreciative idiots.
Unfortunately this is a fact. It really winds me up.
Last night I went to a New Look party to celebrate the brand's new T4 TV show.
Champagne was flowing and there were trays of gin cocktails as far as the eye could see.
However, I started moaning to the girls in my office, who were all out with me, about how "crap" the canapes were.
I actually said "I can't believe there's only four different types of canapes. This has to be the worst food ever at a showbiz bash."
Despite being really hungry, I had one of each type (as I've pointed out there were only four, so it didn't take long) and decided they were all minging.
I was so bored with the lack of exiting nibbles (there are usually loads and mountains of variety) I actually got my coat and went home.
Yep, you heard me right.
I actually went home. From a party. Because there wasn't enough decent food. Free food, I should point out.
Can you believe that? Not because I was tired, or had an early start\ busy day tomorrow. But because the canapes were crap.
God, I was a twat. Of mega proportions.
I sat on the tube and had a realisation that I needed to have a serious word with myself. Instantly.
Don't be an ungrateful brat. I apologise to myself for being a media wanker and commit, wholeheartedly, to never doing it again.

In other possibly (definitely), more interesting news Jamie Winstone is my new girl crush.
She's cool and stylish and has a certain enigma about her which I find fascinating.
We had a quick chat and she told me she'd just come back from a wild adventure in Madagascar and it had inspired her to dye her hair pink.
She reckons it's "the best place in the world" she's ever visited.

Fancy a night in a coffin?

A nice perk of my job is that no two days are the same.
Often I have weird and wonderful things delivered to my desk or sent in the post.
Today I was greeted with an email entitled "Are you brave enough to sleep in a coffin?"

Simple answer 'no'. Second answer 'why?'

Basically I was challenged to sleep overnight in a sealed wooden coffin, on the stage of one of London's oldest and most haunted theatres, in connection with the West End show Ghost Stories (which I haven't seen as I'm too much of a baby).
The plan was "those brave enough to make it through the night without leaving their coffin will be in with a chance of winning two flights to New York."

The email read...
 
"Each competitor will receive two tickets for the evening's performance of Ghost Stories, then at 11pm when the theatre closes its doors to the public, all four contestants will enter their individual wooden coffin. The lid to each coffin will then be sealed shut with only air holes for ventilation and then the fun begins!
Contestants will be left alone with only the dark to keep them company. Who knows what might happen? At 7am the next day, theatre management will enter the building to release those still in their coffins."

A good end to this story would be that I took part, got utterly freaked out by a ghost, cried, made peace with the deathly demon and then jetted off to New York...

However, I just pressed deleted, got back to my mug of Earl grey and day dreamed about what Danny Dyer was up to.

Sorry.

Royal Wedding madness

So there's been two bank holiday weekends back to back, which was chuffing amazing thanks to Prince William and Kate Middleton getting married.
Naturally, like most people I boozed and partied solidly for four days, then went back to work for four days to recuperate and rest the liver, before doing exactly the same again.
This circle seems to follow me around...but usually the other way.
Normally I go to work events in the week - so drink and get no sleep Monday to Friday.
And then the weekend comes and I sit on my laurels downing cups of tea and eating eggs on toast.
Then Monday comes back around and I start the process again, boozing, interviewing celebs, getting to bed late, skipping dinner (apart from the obligatory canapes).
If I haven't had this conversation with my mum at least once a week then, well, something's wrong.
Mum: "Are you alright love, you sound like you're not listening..."
Me: Some form of grunt
Mum: "You're hungover again? It's only Tuesday. Do you have to drink every night? When are you going to grow up? What time did you get in last night?"
Me: "I was at an event until midnight."
Mum: "You don't have to drink, can't you just have a cranberry juice?"
Me: "Yeah but the champagne was free and if you have to spend a night with Anthony Costa, Liz McClarnon and the likes of Nikki Grahame, you'd have to drink too."

Blah blah blah.

Not drinking at a showbiz event is like sitting in the shade after putting on Factor 30... it doesn't make sense.

Me and ex-Goss girl Emily Payne getting into the royal spirit in the Daily Star office, obviously our regal mugs were filled with Rose - well it was sent in free from Asda PRs. It seemed rude not too.

Me and my mates having a few drinks in a pub in Devon on the eve of the Royal wedding 

We made a fire on the beach in Devon and carried on drinking litres of Scrumpy cider and red wine until the wee hours.
I'm sure Wills and Kate would have approved.

The FHM 100 Sexiest Woman awards

It's been a busy month, event wise in the showbiz world.
Russell Brand walked the red carpet in London for his new film Arthur, alongside Dame Helen Mirren.
Russ even brought his super famous wifey Katy Perry along to try and drum up further attention.
I haven't seen the film yet, but early reviews have been pretty dire.
Which is annoying, as I'm a big fan of Randy Russ.

Then Robert Pattinson came to town for the premiere of his new flick Water For Elephants, which I'm told is fantastic.
It's been compared to The Notebook, that itself excites me greatly.
And everyone said you fall in love with the elephants instantly.
I can't wait.

However, the big party of the week was the FHM 100 Sexiest Woman awards, won by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, if you don't know her she's mostly famous for dating plastic gangster Jason Statham.

The bash was raucous, everyone was hammered.
Alex Reid (ex husband of Jordan) was so pissed he kept asking girls to go into the photo booth with him, he basically wanted a shag.
He eventually ended up leaving the party, completely wasted, with Vanessa Perroncel (the ex-girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, who (allegedly) shagged John Terry and caused a royal drama between the Chelsea footie squad). A nice pairing, I think you'd agree?

Boxer and Welsh stud Joe Calzaghe was also there, alongside a host of reality TV stars including Kerry Katona and The Only Way Is Essex peeps.

Alex Reid before he got seriously shitefaced and ever-the-gent Joe C

Reality TV sandwich Amy Childs and our Kezza

Seemed only fitting to get a photo with Joey Essex... the No 1 TOWIE wannabe

Essex madness

The showbiz world has gone The Only Way Is Essex bonkers.
I can't deny I found the show amusing to watch during the first series.
It fascinated me, I couldn't believe anyone could be as much of a dickhead as Mark Wright, as empty-headed as Amy Childs, as pointless as Harry and as emotionally-pathetic as Arg.
Despite that, I really liked all four characters.
They are who they are and they're happy and proud of it. Fair play to them.
I found the show fun to watch, I really liked Sam and felt sorry for Lauren as she mugged herself off over man slag Mark time after time.

Billie (Sam's sister), me and Sam at the opening of their fashion boutique Minnies in Essex

However, then came the second series...
I honestly don't get Joey Essex... the fact he's so delusional annoys me.
My work colleagues think he's sexy, cool, and even funny.
I'm baffled.
He's a scrawny little fella, with horrendous dress sense and so dense his parents should be embarrassed.
His stupidity frustrates me.
He didn't know anything about the Royal Wedding, the day before he said to my reporter Ed: "What wedding? Is Prince Harry marrying a fit blonde bird or something?"
That would've been mildly amusing, if he hadn't meant it seriously.

His relationship with Sam is also ridiculous.
I'm surprised producers thought the public would ever believe they were actually dating.

And his cousin Chloe's had so much surgery and botox, I can't look at her face without wanting to turn over.
Why would anyone think that amount of botox and lip filler looks good?
She looks like a Janice Dickinson transvestite act.
I hope the third series goes back to the original format.
In fact, that's a lie...I couldn't really care less, I'm all TOWIE'd out.

Now where's The Telegraph's culture section?

April showbiz action

During my years as a showbiz bod I've interviewed a humbling number of supermodels.
And yes these ladies could give any man a trouser-tent within seconds.
They really are alien-like, super humans who put the rest of us girls to head-hanging shame.
One thing that baffles me, constantly, is how freaking nice they are.
Seriously, if you're going to be offensively flawless, gorgeous and slim please just be a crabby cow.
At least then we can say, "Yeah she might have legs I'd die for and hair I could never afford but she's a miserable old witch."
Or can't they just wear nasty perfume, or sport BO breath.
It's a fact that all supermodels are perfect... in their look, smell and conversation.
Bastards.

I met Naomi Campbell for the first time at her Fashion For Relief charity event at Westfield shopping centre in London last month... (see they even do nice stuff for charidee mate).
She was really friendly, stopped for a quick interview and photo, and even ducked down to make me look less of a short ass.
Her flawless skin and shiny hair made me silently wish I could throw spaghetti bolognese down her dress.
Luckily, for her and me, they were only serving raw fish canapes, not that anyone dared eat them.
Good God, it's a fashon event darhling, people only look at food (longingly).

Earlier on in the year me and my column sidekick Sonja met Helena Christensen at the Glamour Awards.
She was like a goddess. And to make matters worse she told us she brought her dress just 20 minutes before the cermomy saying "I never worry about stuff like that".
I suppose when you're a supermodel you could wear a dog blanket and look almighty.


Last yeat I met Elle Macpherson at the most random showbiz party, in a church, where Madonna's boyfriend Jesus was DJing. Also in St Mark's church that night was Beth Ditto who starting singing Whitney Houston classics at the top of her voice.
It was a weird night... but Elle was lovely and wore the world's tightest leather trousers.
Spectacularly, without looking like a try-hard.

I've been kidnapped by Monica from Friends... or someone equally as dull

It's been a month since I've written on my blog.
I'd love to pretend my radio silence is because of the rock 'n roll existence I've been living.
Staying up all night snorting vodka while cavorting in penthouse hot tubs with random hot, bearded men.
Then spending days in a dark hole, sleeping off my hangover and questioning my morals.
However, the reality is I've been really busy at work.
I seem to have morphed into one of those people who has multiple To-Do lists.
I've even set my alarm an hour earlier so I can get up and cram in a few extra pre-work jobs.
For those reading this who've know me for years, please stop reading.
I've changed. I know.
I hate myself too.
However for the time being my life is 100% work, a severe lack of booze (fun) and post-it-note reminders.