Buzzin Celebrity Gossip

Artists, designers, film makers and musicians are lining up to take part in a unique new event in the heart of London which is being launched today. City Showcase: Soho Flea Market will bring
together London’s creative talent on Sunday 27 May, in support of HIV and sexual health charity
Terrence Higgins Trust.

From fashion to furniture designers, glass sculptors to games developers; all will be exhibiting and selling their works at ‘creative market stalls’ the length and breadth of Dean Street. There’ll be musical showcases, too, from exciting new artists on the City Showcase outdoor stage.

Businesses in and around Dean Street are supporting the event which promises to be one of the
coolest street parties of the summer. Supporting businesses include Soho Estates, The Groucho
Club, The Soho House Group, The Hart Group, Dean Street Studios and Blacks. Terrence Higgins
Trust has also been chosen as charity partner for the event.

Launching the event at Soho House today, co-curator of City Showcase: Soho Flea Market, Karim Ladak (Habitat, Ralph Lauren and now Potassium) said:

‘We’re inviting London’s creative community to come together for one special day in May where we’ll celebrate the capital’s diverse talent in a unique and fun way that also supports up and coming artists.’

Fawn James of Soho Estates said:

‘This vibrant and exciting concept is a fantastic addition to Soho. Soho is about independent and talented creative minds and businesses and City Showcase: Soho Flea Market is the perfect event to showcase the best of what we have to offer to the world.’

Nanette Rigg, Founding Director of City Showcase added:

‘We are proud of our track record for helping and supporting new talent in the field of music and are delighted to be able to extend our work to be able to showcase all creative talent in one of London’s most iconic streets’.

Genevieve Edwards, Director of Fundraising at Terrence Higgins Trust, said:

“We are thrilled City Showcase have chosen us as charity partner. Since the early days of the AIDS epidemic, there has been a great tradition within the creative industries of championing HIV as a cause. We’re delighted to see this support continuing today.”

Anyone wishing to get involved as a participating venue, a sponsor or by applying for a pitch at one of the ‘creative market stalls’ visit www.sohofleamarket.com.

Morrissey Named PETA UK's Person Of The Year

From the moment Morrissey, ex-The Smiths vocalist & voice of an 80’s generation, took the stage at his shows in the UK, US and Europe this year, his fans were hit with the animal rights message in a big way.

At live shows The Smiths wore blunt, pro-animal shirts speaking out against fur, fast food and other industries that abuse animals.  At solo shows Morrissey showed footage of PETA US’ hard-hitting “Meat Your Meat” exposé as he performed The Smiths’ song, ‘Meat Is Murder‘. PETA even had its own booth at Morrissey’s shows – and now, to honour the rock legend’s constant, bold promotion of kindness to animals, PETA UK has named Morrissey its Person of the Year 2011, a designation formerly held by Pamela Anderson (2010) and Sir Roger Moore (2009).

“If you love animals, obviously it doesn’t make sense to hurt them”, Morrissey explained in an interview with PETA US. “Please don’t kill anything. These are pathetically basic words but get through your life without … killing animals and dragging animals down … it’s not anything that anybody really needs. We were all raised with that concept that animals are there to be used, but they’re not. It’s just the dreadful industries that do it.”

“Morrissey shows us the benefit of boldness – when he opens his mouth, people pay attention”, says PETA’s Yvonne Taylor. “Moz is a rebel with a very real cause – encouraging everyone to re-examine their attitudes towards animals and the industries that abuse them.”

As far back as Meat Is Murder’s 1985 debut, Morrissey has been promoting kindness to animals. He has teamed up with PETA and its overseas affiliates to speak out against forcing baby elephants to perform as tourist attractions in Thailand; against Iams’ intensive laboratory tests on animals and against the Queen’s Guards’ bearskin caps. And two years ago, he made international headlines when he walked off stage at a US music festival, stating that he hoped the “burning flesh” he smelled was human.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

The long anticipated list of the 5 worst celebrity diets to avoid in the New Year has finally been released by the British Dietetic Association (BDA).

That time of the year is just around the corner.  The Christmas festivities have come and gone, the New Year’s Eve party is just a blur, everyone in the office has a case of the post-Christmas blues, and this year, yes this year, you will get the body of your dreams!  But how?

Yes, January signals a UK-wide dieting frenzy.  However, with so many diet books and celebrity-endorsed fitness DVDs on the market, who’s cashing in and who’s worth checking out?

The BDA receives literally hundreds of calls from the media every year on this subject and they come across a huge range of weird and whacky diets and diet claims.

Based on telephone call volume and other contributing factors, here are the top 5 dodgy celeb diets to avoid in 2015.

5. The Baby Food Diet
Celebrity Fans:  Lady Ga Ga, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston are reportedly fans of this diet.

What’s it all about?
This diet calls for eating just up to 14 jars of pureed food or baby food every day or mostly pureed food or baby food and one adult meal or pureed food or baby food instead of snacks.

BDA Verdict:  The Ga Ga should be for babies only!  This diet works on portion control and guess what?  Yes, restricted calories, as a jar of baby food has very few.  Although fruit and veg are included they are pureed so have much less fibre and texture.  Chewing food is associated with feelings of fullness and satiety, so reach for an apple or a carrot rather than a jar. Also, how anti-social would you be whipping out your jars of baby food and a top restaurant?

4. Raw Food Diet
Celebrity Fans:  Demi Moore, Natalie Portman and Woody Harrelson are reportedly fans of this diet.

What’s it all about?
It’s the practise of eating raw uncooked food and non-pasteurised/non-homogenised dairy products. This diet can be used by vegans and meat eaters.

BDA Verdict:  This hits a raw nerve!  A raw diet can be low in fat and calories but can also be low in calcium, vitamin D, iron, zinc, and protein.  Many foods can only be eaten cooked, like rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, beans and pulses, so these are excluded.  The diet is unsuitable for pregnant women, children and other at risk groups.  In fact some foods are more nutritious if cooked, like carrots and tomatoes.  This diet is time consuming, socially isolating and you’ll have an awful lot of chewing to do.  For those who use meat in a raw diet, they put themselves at risk of food poisoning and gastroenteritis.

3. Blood Group Diet
Celebrity Fans:  Cheryl Cole, Sir Cliff Richard and Courtney Cox-Arquette are reportedly fans of this diet.

What’s it all about?
This diet is completely based on pseudo-science.  It claims that different nutrients are broken down in the body based on the body’s blood type.

Blood Group A – No dairy products allowed and a vegetarian-based diet.

Blood Group B – A more varied intake of food and the only blood group able to ‘manage’ dairy products.

Blood Group AB – Combination of diets A and B (confused yet? Yes or no to dairy?)

Blood Group O – High meat intake, no dairy, no wheat, no grains (think Atkins).
BDA Verdict:  Blood and sweat won’t make this work!  Cutting out food groups is never a good idea (unless medically advised to do so and with help making substitutions from a Dietitian).  This diet could lead to significant deficiencies such as calcium.  You lose weight on this diet because your calorie intake is very restricted and this diet is not sustainable in the long term.

2. Alcorexia / Drunkorexia Diet
Celebrity Fans:  It is widely thought that many top models and other celebrities are fans of this diet.

What’s it all about?
It’s when people eat very few calories during the day/week and think they can save all the calories they have not eaten then use them to binge drink alcohol.
For example, if you favour a VLC diet (very low calorie) to follow the Alcorexia Diet, you could be banking around 1,500 calories a day, which then gives you 10,500 calories to drink during the week.  This amounts to:

45 pints of lager (based on a single pint being around 230 kcals).  With a pint of lager being 2 units, this gives you a weekly alcohol intake of 90 units.

201 shots of spirits (based on a single shot being around 52 kcals).  With a single shot of spirit being 1 unit, this gives you a weekly alcohol intake of 201 units.

52 alcopops (based on a single alcopop being around 200 kcals).  With a single alcopop being 1 unit, this gives you a weekly alcohol intake of 52 units.

131 glasses of red wine, or 26 bottles (based on a glass of red being around 80 kcals).  With a single glass being 1 unit, this gives you a weekly alcohol intake of 131 units).

To put this in context, the safe weekly alcohol unit intake is 28 units for men and 21 units for women.

BDA Verdict:  You must be blind drunk!
Following a VLC diet alone is madness, as you will most certainly not be getting the calories, vitamins and nutrients your body needs to survive and function.  In addition, you will feel weak, tired have no energy and will become very irritable very soon.  Alcohol has little nutrition other than calories.  To do this in order to ‘bank’ your calories so you can go a use them on alcohol is pure madness and could easily result in alcohol poisoning and even death.  The BDA has received a significant increase in media calls about this diet and it is a worrying trend.

1. Dukan Diet
Celebrity Fans:  The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton (and her mother Carole Middleton), Jennifer Lopez and Gisele Bundchen are reportedly fans of this diet.

What’s it all about?
A complicated four-phase diet that starts off with a protein only approach that promotes weight loss of around 7lb per week.

BDA Verdict:  The Dukan’t Diet is Offal!  There is absolutely no solid science behind this at all.  This works on restricting foods, calories and portion control again.  Once again, cutting out food groups is not advisable.  This diet is so confusing, very rigid, full of very French foods that most Brits would run a mile from like rabbit and offal, and even Dr Dukan himself warns of the associated problems like lack of energy, constipation and bad breath – lovely!

Speaking about these and other fad diets, Sian Porter, consultant dietitian and Spokesperson for the BDA, said:

“Sadly, there is no magic wand you can wave.  There is no wonder diet you can follow without some nutritional or health risk and most are offering a short-term fix to a long term problem.  It may be obvious, but if you want to lose weight you need to eat a nutritionally balanced and varied diet with appropriately sized portions and burn off more calories than you consume. In short speak, eat fewer calories, make better choices and move a bit more!

“On a serious note, glamorous images of celebrities saturate our daily media in all forms.  These celebs have an army of people to help them to keep looking good, which is essential to their livelihood and plenty of money to do whatever they think it takes.  You need to remember too, a lot of these images are airbrushed and retouched to give celebrities an unachievable body image that does not exist in real life, yet many aspire to.  Some people look at these images and will try anything they think will help them achieve the ‘perfect’ body. “If you have some weight you need to lose, then do it in a healthy, enjoyable and sustainable way.  In the long term this will achieve the results you are after.”

For more information and tips about healthy weight loss, please visit www.bdaweightwise.com.

Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions

Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions, curated by Jo Whiley announce Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland will be headlining on Thursday 24 November, completing the line up for the series of atmospheric gigs. Joining the bill for what will be a night to remember are: Ben Howard, Emile Sande, Michael Kiwanuka and Bebe Black. Tickets go on general release from 7 November with an exclusive presale for subscribers from 4 November.

Due to unprecedented demand Mencap have also released additional tickets for the following SOLD OUT shows: Tuesday 22 November with Elbow, Maverick Sabre and Ren Harvieu. Friday 25 November with Goldfrapp and Alpines. Saturday 26 November with Example, Ed Sheeran, Birdy and Fenech Soler. Also performing at this year’s Little Noise Sessions are Marina & The Diamonds, Icona Pop, Spark on 23 November and Sinead O’Connor and King Creosote on 27 November.

This year Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions are heading to a new home St. John-at-Hackney to once again showcase a series of stunning stripped back performances from some of the hottest names in music. Our new iconic venue is set in the heart of Hackney, with over 700 years of history and now plays host to it’s FIRST EVER music festival.

Chris Martin said; “Jo does amazing work for Mencap, we are thrilled she asked us to play and are honoured to be part of this special night”

Mencap ambassador Jo Whiley said; “We are delighted to welcome the return of Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland to headline an extra special night for Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions. With a week of unbelievable shows, this year is set to be one of the most exciting and inspiring we’ve had to date. I can’t wait!”

Subscribers to the Little Noise Sessions website have exclusive access to a host of great content including; priority ticketing, backstage footage, audio, photos and all the latest news from the Little Noise backstage blog, for just £6 for six months. Your subscription fee will go directly to Mencap to raise vital funds to support people with a learning disability.  Visit www.littlenoisesessions.org.uk to subscribe now!

To keep up to date with all the latest information on Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions follow us on Twitter @little_noise or stop by and check us out on Facebook www.facebook.com/littlenoisesessions.

There are 1.5 million people with a learning disability in the UK. Mencap works to support people with a learning disability and their families and carers by fighting to change laws and improve services and access to education, employment and leisure facilities. Mencap supports thousands of people with a learning disability to live their lives the way they want.

MenCap’s Little Noise Sessions
St John-at-Hackney Church
22 – 27 November 2011

Tuesday 22 November
Elbow, Maverick Sabre solo performance, Ren Harvieu

Wednesday 23 November
Marina & The Diamonds, Icona Pop, Spark

Thursday 24 November
Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland, Ben Howard Emile Sande, Michael Kiwanuka, Bebe Black

Friday 25 November
Goldfrapp, Alpines

Saturday 26 November
Example, Ed Sheeran, Birdy, Fenech Soler

Sunday 27 November
Sinead O’Connor, King Creosote

For more information visit www.littlenoisesessions.org.uk.

Bryn Terfel, Rebecca Evans, The Three Welsh Tenors, Shaheen Jafargholi And Cerys Matthews Join Together To Support Shelter Cymru

The Shelter Cymru Presidents Concert brings together a stellar line-up including Bryn Terfel, Rebecca Evans and Cerys Matthews to celebrate the charity’s 30th birthday.

The three, who are long time supporters of Shelter Cymru, are joined by Shaheen Jafargholi (Britain’s Got Talent) and The Three Welsh Tenors (Rhys Meirion, Aled Hall and Alun Rhys-Jenkins ) for a musical extravaganza at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, on Thursday 17 November 2011.

Bryn Terfel said: “For 30 years, Shelter Cymru has been working tirelessly to prevent homelessness in Wales and myself as President and Rebecca and Cerys as Vice Presidents are very proud to be involved with a charity that has such a long history of helping some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The current economic situation means that Shelter Cymru is busier than ever and needs all the help and public support it can get to ensure that its services remain available to anyone with housing problems. The 30th birthday concert is a great way to mark such an important milestone, but amid the celebrations I ask people not to forget the thousands of families who would not have a home if it hadn’t been for the work Shelter Cymru does every day across Wales.”

The concert is sponsored by Grwp Gwalia and the artists will be supported by Sinfonia Cymru.

Shelter Cymru is Wales’s people and homes charity. We prevent people losing their homes by providing free, independent, specialist advice. Last year we helped nearly 15,500 people in housing need, preventing homelessness in 90 per cent of relevant cases. We believe that everyone has the right to a decent, secure home. Through our campaigning and lobbying work, we are calling for more homes that people can afford, greater support for anyone with housing problems or facing homelessness and for empty properties to be brought back into use.

Shelter Cymru 30th Birthday concert
Thursday 17 November at 7pm
St David’s Hall, Cardiff
Tickets range from £15 – £50

A VIP package can be purchased directly from Shelter Cymru at a cost of £120. The package includes a premium Tier1 seat of the auditorium. Also included is a drinks reception on arrival in the Viscount Tonypandy Suite, an interval drink followed by a post concert three course dinner where you will have an opportunity to meet the artists. 

Contact 01792 469400

For more information visit www.sheltercymru.org.uk.