• Don't panic, but the Olympics may have to be cancelled. The Diary has been given a top-level briefing by the head of Olympic security for G4S, which is providing 10,000 guards for the Games, and the news is not good. At its Games security hub at Canary Wharf, which remotely manages logistics and staffing for the Olympic Park, there is a Truman Show-style bank of giant TV screens providing a stream of the latest info. Two of them permanently display the Transport for London web page, which gives tube and bus info. Forget missile strikes by al-Qaida, G4S's No 1 nightmare is the tube breaking down, as it has done repeatedly this week. If that happens, security staff can't get to the site, and, ... Continue reading →
Geri Halliwell addresses Liverpool from the roof of her limo. Photograph: McPix Ltd/Rex Features Arriving in Liverpool for the first round of auditions for The X Factor on Wednesday, Geri Halliwell was probably feeling a bit nervous. This was make-or-break time. Cowell had called her off the substitutes' bench once more and, if she performed her X-Factory duties correctly, a permanent place on the judging panel beckoned."Everyone remembers my batshit performance back when I was a guest judge in 2010," she doubtlessly thought to herself. "Maybe I talked too much. Maybe I wanted it too much. But not this time. This time, I'll play it cool. This time it'll be Cowell doing all the chasing!"And then her limo pulled up outside the studios and Geri ... Continue reading →
How to make friends and influence people: the Wanted in Los Angeles, April 2012. Photograph: Christopher Polk/Getty Images The Wanted have broken a golden rule by slagging off other stars in public. But it's child's play compared with the undisputed master, Bronson Pinchot Continue reading →
Tom Daley has big hands. When he shakes mine, I am surprised by his oversized, chunky grip. "I also have out-of-proportion feet," he says as we chat in a hotel room in his home town of Plymouth. Are those useful attributes for a diver? "Definitely. Big feet help you balance. The bigger surface area you have with your hands, the cleaner you can hit the water. It's important to go in with the least splash possible." A bigger splash is what you want if you are David Hockney, not if you are Tom Daley. His aim is to be like Kristofferson in the film Fantastic Mr Fox, who dives from a great height into a bucket of water, making only a teeny-weeny splash before the ... Continue reading →
