The hair/make-up

A woman who spent £400 on a portrait of Jimmy Savile at a charity auction just days before the allegations about his paedophilia made headlines across the country has told the charity: “Keep the money, but I don’t want the painting”.

On why, as jobs go, Marxist historian isn’t often suggested by career advisers at school

'There was something on the menu that sounded rude, so of course she had to order it'

Supermodel, artist's muse, mother, Mick's girl...Jerry Hall looks back at a life in front of the camera's lens...

Click on the image on the right to launch the gallery

‘Jerry Hall: My Life in Pictures’ is published by Quadrille, £25

Artwork owned by the model Jerry Hall fetched more than £2.4m at auction in London, Sotheby's said yesterday. Hall said the sale of the 14 works, by artists including Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Frank Auerbach, was about "letting go of the past". "At a certain age you just want to get rid of things," she said. Auerbach's Head of Helen Gillespie sold for £1,071,650, well above its £700,000-£900,000 estimate.

"Oh, thank God," Gwyneth Paltrow exclaimed, reaching for a passing tray of canapes. "I haven't eaten in days!" Not exactly on-message, given that she's due to publish her first cookbook in April. Ms Paltrow's punishing schedule, she told me, keeps her sooo busy that she's hard-pressed to find time for meals. "And I'm about to start filming a Steven Soderbergh movie [the star-studded epidemic thriller, Contagion]." The Oscar-winning actress, attending a party at her pal Stella McCartney's London store in aid of Kids Company, divulged a couple of her culinary influences: "I just love Jamie Oliver, and the River Café guys." As her website, Goop.com reveals, Ms Paltrow recently spent a day in the kitchen at the River Café, "stationed at the deep fat fryer (Delight! Fried zucchini!)" We call them courgettes, Gwyn, but anyway. Her decidedly non-macrobiotic cookbook, My Father's Daughter, will be peppered with recipes already familiar to fans of Goop, such as her "Low-Maintenance Turkey" – a phrase unlikely to fit its sales performance.

Nick Frost is known for playing buffoons, but, he tells Gerard Gilbert, he refuses to be typecast. So why did he agree to portray a pill-popping, pants-clad hedonist for the BBC's latest Martin Amis adaptation?

Once upon an election campaign, John Prescott found himself struggling with his temper after an onlooker pelted him with an egg. Now it's the turn of the former deputy PM's photogenic wife, Pauline, to bare the brunt of a grassroots protest.

I’ll only give you an interview if you go to bed with me,” is not the kind of line a journalist hears much nowadays. Or perhaps I don’t get out enough. But whereas a request like this today would have broadcasting apparatchiks in a frenzy over harassment procedure, back in 1972 it didn’t faze David Bailey. It didn’t even bother him that it was Andy Warhol asking. He said yes, and the resulting surreal documentary made history, entertainingly recounted in Radio 4’s When Bailey Met Warhol.

How does Gordon Brown keep going? How does he manage to get out of bed and face the troublesome day? What does he hope will happen to change the political weather in the 15 long months he intends to hang on as Prime Minister for?

The Richard Curtis wedding – village church, silly hats, Hugh Grant pulling faces – is going out of fashion. One in six couples now prefer to get married abroad. They want something secular, hot and relaxed. Suspension of their everyday lives, freedom from their in-laws, wedding shots framed in Caribbean sunshine.