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HAVE you heard about Holly Willoughby? She's having another baby! Oh and did you read in the tabloids that she's proud of being a size 12, actually? But you do know she's writing a series of best-selling children's books with her sister, right? And that she's designing another range of bedwear for BhS?
And recently she made breathless headlines for co-presenting This Morning with – wait for it, wait for it, because it's a bit radical - no, not Stephen Hawking. Christine Bleakley, of course!
In the curious universe that is planet celebrity all of these count as big news because apple-cheeked Willoughby is pretty much the queen of daytime.
Peaches-and-cream pretty, crown of blonde hair, old-fashionedly buxom (more of which later) and radiating girl-next-door charm, the 33-year-old is regarded as TV Gold.
Her advertising brand – before her BhS tie-up she was the winsome face of the online fast-fashion chain Very for four years – is also regarded as a 24-carat investment.
"Am I a brand, really?" she enquires, rhetorically. "It wasn't ever intentional, I just do the things I really like to do. When my two children were born I made a pact with myself that if I was leaving them with a nanny and going to work it would have to be for something I really loved doing otherwise it wouldn't be enjoyable. And let's face it, meeting my sister while the children mill about my sitting room hardly counts as work."
Quite so. Willoughby, who is married to television executive Dan Baldwin, has a five-year-old son, Harry and a daughter, Belle, aged three. Her elder sister, Kelly, 35, has a daughter, Lola, 18 months. Together they are penning the series L'Etoile School for Stars, a showbizzy update of Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers.
These are presented bound in the sort of pink-and-lilac livery that would have the Let Books Be Books anti-gender campaigners weeping into their plain brown wrappers, but are proving irresistible to eight-year-old girls eager to discover the latest terrific travails of Molly and Maria and Pippa and Lucinda and Lavinia and so on.
"Kelly and I chat on the phone six or seven times a day, so we have ongoing conversations about the characters and plots," says Willoughby. "Then Kelly writes it up, and we read it through together and make any changes and see whether it works."
It makes sense for Kelly to do the heavy lifting; her sister, who started out in children's television, has more than one day job. Alongside fronting This Morning with Phillip Schofield and larking about on Celebrity Juice, she also presents Surprise Surprise, a revival of the Cilla Black long lost family reunion show.
Willoughby was always a natural; she won a Bafta aged 25 for children's television, presented Dancing on Ice and, on BBC, the first two series of The Voice.
To date, her only on- air infraction (apart from showing a soupcon too much cleavage) was once getting a fit of the stammers during an item on mushrooms and pausing, fatally, halfway through the word shiitake. Yet last year she found herself subject to an extraordinarily personal attack.
In an outburst decrying the state of television, Fern Britton's former agent, Jon Roseman described Willoughby as a bimbo "without a single flicker of talent" and derided her rumoured seven figure income. "It's dispiriting enough that TV bosses are prepared to hire a woman who seems to be such a lightweight. But to see her being rewarded so handsomely takes the biscuit."
This was an astonishing breach of the unwritten showbusiness code of conduct, namely: Thou Shalt Not slag off anyone, ever, as chances are you will meet them in the corridor or have to work with them in the future or they will avenge themselves by smiling to your face then destroying your career. Worse, laying into Willoughby was a bit like clubbing a baby seal. And the nation's favourite baby seal at that.
At the mention of the debacle she pauses and blinks, very slowly, slowly enough, in fact, for a hard-hearted hunter to raise, then drop, his cudgel in an epiphanic moment of conscience.
"I tend to regard all press the same, good and bad," she says. "You simply can't afford to react to everything you read or see because it would tear you apart. Sometimes headlines are literally made up, with not a germ of truth to them. I have never talked about weight or body image. Never. But I have picked up magazines listing "my" diet advice.
"This Morning covers so many family issues, genuinely tragic stories about anorexia and eating disorders that for me to chime on about diet tips would be tasteless."
Born in Sussex, near Brighton, to a former air stewardess mother and a father who works in management for a double glazing firm, Willoughby and her sister were educated at the independent Burgess Hill School for Girls.
While Kelly was head girl, Holly was a dreamer who excelled at art. She was also strikingly pretty and at the tender age of 14, was spotted by talent scouts for a model agency while visiting The Clothes Show Live exhibition.
Fashion shoots in teen magazines, including Just Seventeen followed, then in 2000 she was cast in the CITV kids' show S Club TV, in which she appeared alongside the pop group. Her easy manner and skill at live broadcasting saw her move mainstream in 2006.
"When you've clocked up enough live hours you develop a very effective self edit button; I wouldn't swear in front of my grandmother and I've never slipped up, so it's the same on air," she says.
How she can quite square that circumspection with rubbing squirty cheese over Olympic diver Tom Daley's mostly naked body on Celebrity Juice, is hard to fathom.
She also gamely beams and answers to the excruciatingly laddish soubriquet Holly Willoughbooby on the love-it-hate-it but mostly hate it ITV comedy show - is hard to fathom. But, an epic 11 series in, Willoughby still enjoys the show's vulgar silliness, for which she is no doubt paid handsomely.
"I know it's a programme that's not to everyone's taste," she says, mildly. "But it's a bit like hanging out with your younger brother's cheeky best mate. I genuinely have a great laugh and it doesn't feel in the least bit like work."
On the home front, Willoughby is pregnant with her third child and has a tiny baby bump to show it. She already has a nanny for the other two to cover when she films This Morning but she finishes at 12.30, then she's off home on the back of a motorbike taxi by lunchtime.
By her own admission, she's "ruthless" about timekeeping; once she's clocked off, she wants to get back to the children. Then again, she's reached that rare and fortunate position where producers both accept and accommodate her enviable work-life balance.
"I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I know how lucky I am, but I'm not scared of this, my work, all going away," she says. "I'd be far more fearful of my family breaking down; I would be grief stricken if that were to happen."
I suspect if sunny blondes were, rather inconceivably, no longer welcome on our screens, she'd dive head-first into homewares and reinvent herself as a purveyor of domestic dreams; rose-strewn trellised wallpaper, trailing wisteria and rustic French pastels are very much her thing.
"My home is my hobby," she beams. "It's where all my money goes - far more than on shoes or clothes. I have scrap books that I've been filling for years with snippets from Homes & Gardens and swatches of fabric.
"I use candles to create mood and I'm very particular about lighting. I can't believe it when I sometimes come home and find Dan on the sofa watching football."
Why, because he's a lazy so-and-so who hasn't bothered to put the tea on?"
"No, because he's just got the overhead light on! I mean, it's horrible, so I have to go around switching the side lamps on and lighting candles. I get such a buzz from creating a more relaxing, homely yet stylish ambience."
Which, when you think about it, is pretty much what Willoughby does on screen too.
Third Term at L'Etoile by Holly & Kelly Willoughby (Orion Children's, RRP £4.99) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £4.99 + £1.10 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk


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Apple announced back in November that they were planning on killing the XServe line of rack-mounted servers at the end of January, and this is the day: after today, you won't be able to purchase an Apple XServe through Apple, or register an AppleCare Protection Plan against an XServe purchased from some other retailer. Apple has said they'll continue to support XServe owners and people with existing service plans for the duration of those agreements.
Apple's server line was never a flagship part of its business, but the company did enjoy some success with the servers as a way to get their foot in the door in large enterprises, colleges and universities, and the federal government.
Apple has said they're replacing the XServe with the Mac Pro desktop that we all know and love, just running Snow Leopard Server instead of the desktop version of Mac OS X. Alternatively, people looking for OS X servers can look to the new Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server bundle. Even so, the death of the XServe signals something many analysts never thought would ever happen: Apple retreating from a market they didn't find particularly beneficial to their bottom line.

subset: commoncrawl


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Where's Foxymoron when we need her?
You're welcome dearie!....
What shiny cheeks, all so highly polished, delightful picture!!! Many thanks for the heads up on all these wonderful puzzles Lela!! :))))))
(time, 3:39)
should have got somebody else to roll 'em
Poor boy......he had trouble with his joints!
that's our foxy lady!
This one looks like a particularly fond memory! Thanks granny!


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Warning: Here Comes The Sun!
Yes… IT IS HOT! We have passed "heatwave" and we are now all up in the middle of a "HOTWAVE"! I heard a lady at Walmart earlier today say "It's as hot as the sun". Well, as it turns out… the sun is coming to visit. The National Weather Service advises us of a "Strong Solar Storm" on the way for tomorrow.
Our Thoughts and Prayers are with Her Family and Friends!
We have been keeping up with the details of what happened earlier today, and are terribly saddened by the tragedy at the Bowie County Courthouse in New Boston Texas this afternoon, and it is so sad.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Deputy Sheriff Sherri Jones' loved ones, family and friends, and all of the members of the Bowie County Sheriffs Department.


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It wasn't just Perth, or the momentary slip �- this 77-year-old has been getting retro with the whole trip. "Zero-g and I feel fine," said Glenn -- then and now -- when mission control wanted to know how he was adjusting to microgravity. Not to mention the "godspeed" references uttered ad nauseam Thursday, or the fact that when the shuttle flight passed the mark of Glenn�s previous extraterrestrial excursion �- four hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds �- it was conspicuously pored over. Now that the aged astronaut is in uncharted territory, however, the nostalgia trip has nowhere left to go. "I don�t know what happens down the line," he said, "but today is beautiful and great." Amen, John Glenn.
Glenn Goes Retro
Everything�s just peachy for John Glenn. And on the second day of his back-to-space voyage, the man who is ostensibly a humble payload specialist continues to get more attention from the planet below him than all other shuttle astronauts, past and present, put together. The city of Perth in Western Australia, nostalgic about the night it lit up for Glenn�s Friendship 7 fly-by, decided to go one brighter. The grand old spaceman saw their luminous display for about five minutes, and pronounced it better than 1962: "They�ve really got them lit up tonight," Glenn said. So wrapped up was the Ohio senator, he mistakenly called Houston mission control "Cape" -- which it was, 36 years ago.


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So this is how one memorable chapter in the history of Orange County theater ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.
It's not that the two Mark Ravenhill one-acts chosen by Dave Barton as his Orange County storefront-theater swan song are plaintive or whiny. They are finely crafted, if a bit elliptical, and Barton's four female performers are captivating. It's just they lack the visceral components (swinging dicks, boobies, shocking violence) of the Ravenhill plays that helped put Barton and his theater companies, Rude Guerrilla and the Monkey Wrench Collective, on the local, even international radar.
In fact, it was the great success of the last Ravenhill play he produced, pool (no water), in which a successful artist is physically abused—and filmed—by a group of friends as she languishes in a coma, that eventually led Barton (who doubles as an arts writer for this infernal rag) to drop the curtain on his 15-year career here. Produced first in Fullerton, then at South Coast Repertory's Nicholas Studio in May 2012, Barton realized that selling out the latter show was his artistic pinnacle, at least in Orange County storefront theater.
Ghost Experiment at Stages Theatre, 400 E. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, (714) 525-4484; www.stagesoc.org. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. Through May 26. $18-$20.
He'd already shut the doors at Monkey Wrench in December 2011 and seemed determined to focus on his film-production company, Bryton Films, as well as seriously delve into Los Angeles theater. But then Stages Theatre, needing someone to manage the programming side of things, asked him last summer if he was interested; he was. But while he helped schedule the current season under the auspices of the theater's board, the two parties decided several weeks ago that the experiment wasn't getting an extension.
Which leaves Ghost Experiment as the last time OC audiences will have Barton to kick around. And it's fitting that it's composed of two short plays written by Barton's favorite playwright. This is the 13th production of a Ravenhill play directed by Barton and the seventh American premiere. In addition to exposing Ravenhill to Southern California theater circles, Barton has lectured in London on the works of the British playwright, who is in his second year as writer-in-residence at the Royal Shakespeare Co., and has had a personal and professional relationship with him.
The first piece being performed at Stages, The Experiment, is 20 minutes or so of bizarre. The highly versatile Rose London plays three characters: a woman grappling with the hazy memory of her and her husband experimenting on their child in order to find a cure for a terminal disease; the twin of that child; and the father of the child. But we really have no clue whether the child in question actually belongs to this man or woman, or whether it belongs to a neighbor, or if the whole thing was just glimpsed in a documentary. Ravenhill provides no resolution or confirmation, leaving it up to the audience to figure it out. Unfortunately, I think most people might sum it up as did the confused dude I overheard in the lobby: "Great memorization and acting, but what we she talking about?"
Ghost Story is far more firmly planted in something resembling reality. Lisa (Jill Cary Martin) has approached Meryl (Brenda Kenworthy), a New Age healer, to help to guide her on her journey to beat cancer. The two women couldn't be any more different: Lisa is scared, angry, helpless and hopeless, while Meryl seems the epitome of strength and positive vibes. But it really wouldn't be much of a play if neither changed, right?
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It's a gem: heartfelt, dark, with astonishing character arcs. Both Martin and Kenworthy have worked with Barton extensively over the years, and their performances—along with Katrina Klein's as Meryl's partner—capture both the restraint and aggression in Ravenhill's words. And it is as satisfying in its ultimate ambiguity as The Experiment is not.
Both pieces deal with uncomfortable themes—child abuse and dealing with the reality of death, just for starters—honestly and with no blinders. Which makes them fitting odes for Barton, whom I first met a few years after the Weekly launched in 1995. His first piece was an original, ridiculously overcharged screed against anti-abortionists and organized religion; I thought this guy has enormous passion, but not an ounce of craft (probably like the dope who reviewed his early plays). To watch his work as a director evolve over the years, to see where he's taken it, has been to observe one of the great personal artistic successes in OC history.
It was always hard for Barton to get OC audiences into his theaters; his companies were about the material, not marketing. But his knack for choosing plays, usually written by contemporary playwrights, that were always honest—brutally so, at times—and thought-provoking leaves us with one undeniable thought: The work he chose to do mattered. And that's something all local theater practitioners should remember.


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Another good line, and one that's also seen a number of solos. Break out rightwards from Barbecuing, to gain the steep arete. Move right to a big crack, then continue up and right to gain a thinner crack. Gradually move back leftwards, to finish more easily. (S1/2, F6c)
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Express. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express.
Jurgen Klopp reveals the value of Joel Matip and why Liverpool signed the Schalke star
JURGEN KLOPP believes the capture of defender Joel Matip has saved Liverpool millions of pounds in the transfer market.
Jurgen Klopp believes Joel Matip will be a perfect fit for the Premier League
The Cameroon centre-back has signed a pre-contract agreement and will move to Anfield in the summer on a free transfer after rejecting offers from elsewhere.
Liverpool manager Klopp was behind the deal for a player he knows well from his tenure at Borussia Dortmund and is convinced Matip is perfect for the Premier League.
"He was an easy choice," said Klopp. "I know in England it is really difficult to sign a player without paying a transfer fee, but I thought it cannot be a reason not to take him only because you cannot put a number behind his name.
"If you asked in Germany what other clubs would have paid for him had he still been under contract, you can just pick a number.
"You cannot play in a club like Schalke for six years, always in the starting line-up, without having big quality. If it was one, two or three years ago when he was under contract he would not have been ready for a change, but I knew about his thoughts.
"I knew he was thinking about doing something else because he had been with Schalke since the youth team in 2000, a long time, and he wanted to do something completely different.
"This was our chance, but for sure there were a lot of clubs interested in him.
"It's good because he knows that I know him, and it is not a coincidence or something else. He won't be coming here having to show the manager special things, but of course he has to work hard and improve.
"He can be a really good centre-half in the Premier League."
Liverpool are unlikely to keep Kolo Toure, who is out of contract at the end of this season, though the way in which Klopp spoke suggests he sees Matip as more than a replacement for the Ivorian.
"He's 24 years-old, got over 200 Bundesliga games, played Champions League, played Europa League and was a German Cup winner in 2011," continued Klopp.
"He wanted a new challenge and he's made big steps in his development in the last few years. He's become a really experienced centre half – tall, but flexible and quick. A perfect header of the ball. He scores four or five goals a season and is good in the build-up.
"It's clear there were a lot of other clubs interested. Schalke is a big club who have played the last four or five years in the Champions League. They made him a big offer to stay, they wanted to keep him.
"There are probably only three or four clubs in Germany who could get Matip when he is at Schalke – Dortmund, and that's not possible (because of the rivalry), Bayern, maybe Leverkusen and maybe Wolfsburg. Finished. The rest, no chance.
"Then you have to think about other countries and that is what he wanted to do, and we moved early enough."
Meanwhile, promising youngster Kevin Stewart will miss the Europa League trip to Augsburg after suffering a suspected ankle ligament injury in training. Lucas is fit, but Adam Lallana is again missing.


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The Californian
When the Murrieta Valley boys water polo team hits the pool, it doesn't just win -- it blows its opponents out of the water.
The Nighthawks did it again Monday, easing to a 23-8 Southwestern League road victory over Temescal Canyon. Tyler Middleton led the charge for Murrieta (23-2, 13-0 league), scoring seven goals. Kevin Swanberg chipped in with four.
Paul Frankenberger and Adam van Haaster each tallied three goals, and Mike Toledo had a pair.
For Temescal (14-9, 8-5), Nick Wilbur scored five goals, and Adrian Ortiz had three.
Murrieta hosts Perris in its regular-season finale Wednesday.
In other boys water polo,
Elsinore 13, Ramona 6 -- Chris Murphey, Matt Sentak and Andrew Bradford each scored three goals as the Tigers rolled to a Southwestern League victory.
Andrew Baker made nine saves.
In girls tennis,
Hemet 11, Linfield 7 -- At Hemet, No. 1 singles player Brenna Myers won two of three sets, but her efforts weren't enough for the Lions (5-10, 3-5 Sunbelt League) in a league contest against the Bulldogs.
Myers lost her first set, but rebounded with 6-1 and 6-3 wins. Linfield travels to Elsinore for a 2:30 p.m. match Wednesday.
Chaparral 10, Temescal Canyon 8 -- At Temescal Canyon, all three singles players swept as the Pumas (9-9, 4-3 Southwestern League) earned a narrow league victory.
Nazlie Ghazal didn't lose a game, while Caitlin Aloia and Sarah Sansom each won their three sets. Chaparral visits Murrieta Valley on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Murrieta Valley 16, Hemet 2 -- At Murrieta, the Nighthawks recorded three sweeps in beating the Bulldogs in a nonleague match.
Freshman Christine Abayan gave Murrieta (15-2) a singles sweep, winning 6-3, 6-2, 6-0.
Christin Knitter and Tyna Dao won 6-0, 6-1, 6-4 at No. 1 doubles, Susan Chen and Laura Rainey won 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 at No. doubles and Laura Knudson and Jennifer Huscher won 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 at No. 3 doubles.
In girls volleyball,
Temecula Valley def. Elsinore 15-2, 15-10, 15-4 -- At Temecula, Courtney Vacek had a service ace for the final point of the match as the Golden Bears downed the Tigers in a Southwestern League.
Heather Dresch and Kelsey Terry led Temecula (13-4, 4-3) at the net. Laura Branch and Claire Thornhill led the Golden Bears defensively. Temecula travels to Temescal Canyon on Wednesday.
In girls golf,
Temescal Canyon 188, Hemet 306 -- At Golden Era Country Club, the Titans clinched a share of second place in the Southwestern League.
Junior Melissa Edman led the Titans with a 50. Both teams will play today in the Southwestern League prelims at Jurupa Hills Country Club.


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One of the key figures in Washington and Lee's rise to prominence in the Division III tennis circle was Ben Johns, '78.
Johns teamed with fellow inductee Stewart Jackson to win the NCAA Division III doubles championship in 1977, leading W&L to a second place finish in the team standings.
For their efforts the duo became W&L's first tennis All-Americans. Johns and Jackson also became the first W&L players to compete in the Division I championships in 1977.
A native of Alexandria, Va., Johns again helped lead W&L to a second place finish in 1978. Johns and Jackson finished as runners-up in the doubles competition and Johns advanced to the semifinals of the singles championship to become W&L's first singles All-American.
Johns also helped lay the foundation for W&L's success within the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. In the inaugural ODAC tennis championship in 1977, johns won the No. 1 singles title and teamed with Jackson to win the No. 1 doubles title while leading W&L to the team title. Johns was honored as the ODAC Player of the Year. The following year Johns swept the same honors and championships in helping lead W&L to another ODAC title. Johns also won two singles and two doubles championships in the Virginia College Athletic Association and was the VCAA Player of the Year in 1976 when he led W&L to the VCAA championship.