‘For years TV presenter Kate Garraway has let people believe she’s a year younger than she really is. Here she comes clean – and wonders why we’re all so worried about ageing.’
– Kate Garraway in the Observer

Kate Garraway is, shock horror, 41 and one of those women who look like, and have adopted the mannerisms of, someone much older. Her being 41 is so very shocking because for the last few years, she’s allowed us to believe she’s a year younger. The ruse means she missed out on a fortieth birthday bash, poor dear, and will have to wait another nine years for another party opportunity… and she’s lecturing the rest of us not to develop a hang up about ageing!

Poor old Kate is now ‘coming to terms with the fact that I’m not going to become trilingual, earn a Michelin star or have a number one hit’ and is working with Help the Aged to help the rest of us come to a similar realisation. But hold up! She could easily go on for another fifty years, plenty of time to learn a couple of languages, develop her culinary skills and join a band.

Tempting though it must be for a charity like Help the Aged to grab the opportunity to get a celebrity on board, indulging this silly woman’s rather unempowering message that we’re all washed up by forty can’t possibly fit in with their mission. They should have waited for her to grow up a bit first.

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Promising to be the most significant bar opening in Chorlton since the Lead Station, Orlando’s is a bit like the Tardis in reverse: smaller on the inside. With its large patio this is very much a summer bar.

The point of difference is that Orlando’s, created by a co-founder of Sankeys Soap, will host intimate (i.e. limited to seventy people) events like Munchies with Howard Marx.

But what went down particularly well with us was that Orlando’s is to be the ‘Home of Sausage Mania’. That is to say this is the place to come for the perfect sausage sandwich. I recommend the veggie option and aim to put the veggie breakfast through its paces before the bank holiday is out.
Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s diary of sorts

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Way back in January, I totally missed the significance of Lib Dem Cllr Faraz Bhatti defecting to the Tories. I think the reason I missed the point was, I never even considered the Conservatives would seriously contest the seat.

Back in May 2007, Lib Dem Faraz Bhatti scored 2030 to Labour’s 1418, the Green’s 393 and the Tories pathetic 206.

And yet the election season opened with a flurry of never before seen blue and green Conservative Party posters. The only political posters for some weeks, although the Lib Dems have now hit back hard and easily outnumber them. Faraz Bhatti apparently added 872 votes to the Lib Dem total and if he took them all with him to the Tories… this time represented by his mate Fawad Hussain… well they’d only leapfrog the Green Party into a solid third place!

But more importantly, Labour would reclaim the seat… doh! So up the Tories in Whalley Range. They’re mostly harmless… unless you’re a Lib Dem.

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Films that let us think the house can be beaten, will always suit the world’s casinos and 21 delivers all that with plenty of Las Vegas glamour.
A good fun corn popping 7.5 out of 10.
Director: Robert Luketic……Starring: Jim Sturgess……Kevin Spacey……Kate Bosworth……Laurence Fishburne
3.10 to Yuma