"I toot under the sheets, I spend a lot of money and I can belch the ABC's." Jessica Simpson, on what any man of hers has to put up with. Classy.

Sometimes we’re so busy kitting out our bodies that our homes have to sit around naked. Cost is a factor. Even though the rules of cost-per-wear/cost-per-sit says a $5000 sofa is much better value than a $500 dress, $5000 still looks a lot scarier once you’ve plugged it into an online shopping cart.

So that’s why we love Matt Blatt. For the cost of a party frock you can pretty up your home with pleasingly weighty and detailed replicas of classic retro furniture – everything from Arne Jacobsen chairs to Eames sofas.  At FFFS, we’ve developed a sudden taste for using chairs as bedside tables, and have recently purchased two replica Eames DSW Fibreglass Side Chairs – reduced from $500 each to $295 each - to flank our bed and hold all our back-copies of madison. They’re having a bit of a clearance – get in quick. mattblatt.com.au

We think we know what happened: Catherine Zeta-Jones has tried to mask a recent peel with waaaay too much bronzer.

... that Kate Winslet will play Dame Vivienne Westwood in an upcoming biopic.

 

A crowd goaded 17-year-old Shaun Dykes as he threatened to jump off the roof of a shopping centre car park in Derby, England, on Saturday. Shaun, who had been depressed after a recent relationship break-up, then plunged 18 metres to his death as the crowd took photos of his body.

Police negotiators had tried to talk the teenager down for three hours before a crowd formed underneath and shouted abuse at the boy, urging him to jump. Newspaper reports suggested one teen yelled, "How far can you bounce?"

"People were at the police cordon shouting for the man to jump," Derbyshire Superintendent Andy Hough told a newspaper. It was a "disturbing and shocking reflection on society when people feel inclined to do that".

A witness told the paper "when he fell, lots of people were screaming and crying, but there were several groups of youths who ran from behind the cordon and looked like they were taking pictures with their mobile phones."

You have succeeded where many, many other models have failed.

Gemma Ward's attempt to go from model to model-slash-actress has been rewarded: she landed a best actress nomination at the 2008 Inside Film (IF) Awards yesterday for her role in The Black Balloon.

In the movie, Gemma plays a woman helping her boyfriend deal with his brother's autism. The coming-of-age romantic film earned a total of 10 nominations. The IF Awards will be handed out next month. 
 

Apparently, former PM John Howard was never a great speaker, but that didn’t stop Canada’s Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, from ripping off a speech Mr Howard delivered five years ago. In fact, two days after Mr Howard announced that Australia’s defence forces had been authorised to go into action against Saddam Hussein, Harper repeated much of his case for intervention in the House of Commons in Ottawa - word for word.

Mr Harper, now the Prime Minister of Canada, is embroiled in plagiarism claims that have derailed his campaign just two weeks from the October 14 election. Liberal leader Stephane Dion has since called for Mr Harper to be expelled from the House of Commons over the affair. A staffer with the Canadian Conservatives' campaign headquarters, Owen Lippert, resigned on Tuesday after taking responsibility for the plagiarism.

"Pressed for time, I was overzealous in copying segments of another world leader's speech," he said in a statement.

"Neither my superiors in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition nor the Leader of the Opposition was aware that I had done so."

According to the 2008 Australian Happiness Index, men are happiest when they are having sex while women prefer to raise their endorphins by having meals with friends and petting their pooches. Rest, relaxation and entertainment topped the list for both men and women in the index, with quality time with your partner also making the top four for each sex.

But that's where the similarities end.

Unsurprisingly, sex ranks as a top five activity to make men happy but surfing the net tops even that at number three. Sex and the internet were also top 10 choices that please women, but enjoying a family meal and playing with pets or children ranked much higher. Good old comfort food scored in the top 10 for both sexes, although men preferred great food and wine than chocolate.

And here’s some breaking news, shopping does not make all women happy - only 30% were happiest when shopping for new clothes, shoes or accessories, while 14% of men were happiest when shopping.

From the man who once claimed he feels "few emotions," has "never been in love" and "does not believe in marriage" comes this:

"I want to get married and have children," Leonardo DiCaprio says in a new interview. "In saying that, I realize I am contradicting everything I've said before. I absolutely believe in marriage."

So Bar Rafelli is out of the picture now, so any takers out there?

A life insurance company is hesitating at making a US$10 million payout to Heath Ledger's daughter Matilda, lawyers representing Matilda's estate say.

ReliaStar Life Insurance Co. wants to investigate whether the actor died by suicide, which would allow the insurer not to pay. The cororner's report states Heath died from an accidental overdose.

"There's no evidence out there we know of to remotely suggest the death was a suicide," says lawyer William Shernoff, who is working on Matilda's case. "We think it's more of stalling tactic than anything else."

A ReliaStar spokesman said "we have not yet rendered a decision on this claim." 

A 400kg obese woman, set to stand trial for crushing her toddler nephew to death, is too big to fit in the court room that will try her, her lawyer says.

Mayra Rosales, 27, suffers from a rare thyroid condition and is bedridden. She claims she accidentally fell on Eliseo Gonzalez, 18 months, at her Texas home and crushed his skull. The boy's mother, Jamie (Rosales sister) had left Eliseo and his two younger siblings under Mayra's care. Two hours later Mayra called Jamie and told her Eliseo was "stuck under her bed and his head was swollen." Jamie believes Mayra rolled on Eliseo and killed him, but her lawyer says Mayra's arms are too big “she is not physically capable of having committed those acts”. Mayra told authorities she attempted to pick Eliseo up after he fell off a chair but she slipped and landed with her right hand on the boy's head.

The law states a suspect must stand trial in their own county, but Mayra's weight may hinder this.

"Can it logistically be tried here? No. Can she be brought to courthouse and tried in one of our courtrooms? No. Because of her condition and the amount that she weighs," said her lawyer. He suggested Rosales make her trial appearances from a building adjacent to the courthouse.

The Amazon is being deforested more than three times as fast as last year, with 292 square miles of Brazilian rainforest destroyed in August - a rise of 228% - Brazilian officials confirmed. That's a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate. 

Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said upcoming nationwide elections are partly to blame, with mayors in the Amazon region ignoring illegal logging in hopes of gaining votes locally.

Non-government environmentalists disagree.

"The tendency of deforestation rising is deeply related to the fact that food prices are going up," said Greenpeace's Paulo Adario, who believes this price hike encourages soy farmers and cattle ranchers to clear land for crops and grazing. "When you have elections, the appetite of authorities to enforce laws is reduced,,, But the federal government has to step in and do its job."
 

At his 36th birthday party, Jermaine Dupri had a good time.

A really good time.

The music producer and girlfriend Janet Jackson went to New York club Tenjune and drank pricey champagne. Lots of fun was had by all until Jermaine "vomited in Janet's lap. Ms. Jackson bolted out of the scene and sped off in her chauffeured Maybach."

Ew ew ew.

This is definitely not a case of great minds think alike.

At the New York launch of the couple's new fragrance, David and Victoria Beckham went for matching grey ensembles, and, just two days later, (former?!?) BFF Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise went for the same look.

Now, we're going to give a slight edge to the Beckhams, because the duo went for different shades of grey (But let's deduct a point for those shocking, super-shiny heel-less boots. We're wincing just thinking how the balls of her feet felt later that night.) We're all for tone-on-tone.
 
As for the Cruises, we don't know where to start. Matching grey suits? Matching shiny grey suits?? And what about that ill-fitting double-breasted jacket for Tom???

An American mother has told police that human remains found in her basement freezer are those of her two adopted daughters, believed to be aged nine and 11. Renee Bowman, 43, told authorities the bodies had been in the freezer since February. She has been arrested and held without bail.

"We have reason to believe that's the two children in the freezer," Lt. Bobby Jones of Calvert County Sheriff's Office said Monday. "We believe that the mother, who adopted the two children, is responsible for it."

The discovery was made when authorities were at the Maryland home on Saturday, investigating the treatment of a  seven-year-old girl runaway who was found wandering in the neighbourhood on Friday night wearing a blood-and-feces-soaked t-shirt. The girl escaped from a locked bedroom by jumping out the second-story window. She then went door-to-door looking for help, and a neighbour gave her clothes and called police. The girl had open sores and lesions on her butt and thighs, marks on her neck made by a cord, rope or other item and bruises on her hands and lips.

Cadbury has recalled 11 products, including 180gram bags of Cadbury Eclairs sold in Australia. These are the only products in Australia so far affected. The decision came after tests showed the products contained melamine, the industrial chemical that was found in milk in China and which sickened around 53,000 Chinese babies who drank the milk.  

The company confirmed preliminary tests had found melamine in some of its Chinese-made chocolates. A Cadbury spokesman in Hong Kong said it was too early to say how much was in the chocolates, but confirmed the tests had "cast doubt" on the safety of its Chinese-made products.

Australian stocks wiped more than $50 billion off the value of the market today after lawmakers in the US House of Representatives rejected the US$700 billion bailout designed to rescue the American financial system. It was to be the biggest government intervention in the economy since the Great Depression in 1929.

The result was 205 - 228 against the bailout, with both Republicans and Democrats blaming each other for the loss. The shocking turn of events came after politicians believed they had agreed on Sunday on the details of the rescue plan and that they would get the support of the House of Representatives. Once the vote was lost, the Dow Jones plunged 777 points - the worst single-day point loss ever - wiping out almost US$1.2 trillion in market value.

President Bush was "very disappointed" with the outcome, Barack Obama blasted Congress for not passing the plan and John McCain accused Obama and the Democrats of putting "politics ahead of country."

The plan would have authorised the government to purchase bad debts from financial institutions, thus allowing banks to recommence lending to enable now-frozen credit markets to resume operations.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he had spoken to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this morning.

"We are now in touch with all of our counterparts in the United States from the Australian point of view, a British point of view and the Europeans are doing the same," Mr Rudd said today.

"There's no doubt that events in the United States will probably put further upward pressure on borrowings but we'll just have to wait and see," Treasurer Wayne Swan said today.