GEORGE MICHAEL - LA ROUX PINES FOR FAITH-FUL DAD

La Roux singer Elly Jackson is such a huge fan of George Michael she wishes he was her father.
La Roux singer Elly Jackson wants George Michael to be her dad.
The 'Bulletproof' star admires the pop story who was arrested earlier this year following a car crash so much she wishes she had grown up with him.
She said: "I love George Michael. I want him to be my dad. Even the Land Rover incident just made him more endearing."
Elly recently lives in South London with her mother actress Trudie Goodwin, who is famous for playing Sergeant June Ackland in UK TV police drama 'The Bill' and insists she would rather "live in a bin" than move anywhere else.
She added: "Move? I'd rather live in a bin. I've got four actually close old friends, I can walk to all their houses and my sister lives in walking distance. No one recognises me here. If I lived somewhere else in London I'd get recognised all the time."

George Harrison's widow wins razor wire planning battle

Rodney Bewes , the television comedy actor and star of The Likely Lads, had objected to Olivia Harrison's proposal to install a new barbed wire fence around her £20 million pounds mansion, citing a series of injuries to his pet cat Maurice.
Bewes and other neighbours of Friar Park, the sprawling mansion where George Harrison was once stabbed by an intruder, had tried to persuade their local council to refuse permission for the new razor sharp fence.
Letters to the local authority likened the perimeter fence to a German prisoner of war camp.
However, now district council planners have given Mrs Harrison permission to top the fence with the sharp razor wire.
Despite losing the fight, civic leaders in Henley-on-Thames said they were hopeful they might still be able to get the imposing security scaled down by appealing directly to Mrs Harrison.
Mr Bewes complained that the razor wire opposite his home had nearly killed his six-year-old pet cat Maurice and forced him to fork out thousands of pounds in vet's bills.
In a letter to the local council, the 70 year old actor asked: "Is the razor wire necessary?
"Our cat has been caught three times, once severing an artery and we know of three other cats who have been injured."
He added: "My biggest saddness (sic) though is coming home and seeing razor wire and all it stands for in the world."
Mrs Harrison's home, Friar Park, nestles on a hill at the edge of upmarket Henley-on-Thames, Oxon. Hidden behind the imposing fence are 38 acres of lavish landscaped gardens and a picturesque lake.
Mr Bewes' wife Daphne said there was little they could do about the council's decision and would not be mounting an appeal.
"You can't argue with the council," she said.
"Lots of people have nice houses around here and none of us wants to be burgled but we don't all go and put razor wire up.
"The new wire is going to be latticed which will probably take Maurice's eye out. You can't tell a cat not to be stupid and climb over it."
Talking about the fence she added: "I just think it's wrong. It looks like a war zone.
"We are neighbours and it is nothing personal but it is just the principle - there are a lot of lovely houses around here that don't have it."
In their objection to the plans, neighbours John and Anna Rayner commented that it was "just downright unneighbourly to impose Stalag Luft 17 on the residents around Friar Park."
Town councillors in Henley voted unanimously to oppose the planned new fence and wire.
In 1999 George Harrison and his wife came close to death when a schizophrenic man, Michael Abram, broke into the gothic mansion and stabbed the musician.
Olivia Harrison smashed the 33 year old Liverpudlian attacker around the head with a poker and a table lamp and Abram was detained and treated before later being released against her wishes.
It had been pointed out that fencing and razor wire was around the house prior to the attack and did not prevent it.

George Michael, Where Have You Gone?

George Michael picked up the telephone Monday morning to call Sonny Jurgensen, his friend and former Channel 4 colleague, to rehash the Redskins' 9-7 victory over the woebegone St. Louis Rams on Sunday. They spoke for 40 minutes, and when they finished, Michael said he told Jurgensen, "If that (conversation) had been on the air, it would have been some great television."
Sadly, that chat will never look the light of day. Nor will Michael's face be seen or his blustery "now hear this" be heard anytime soon on local television, doing what he always did better than most -- asking provocative questions and often eliciting interesting and occasionally outrageous, newsmaking responses from anyone within range of his booming voice.
That memorable voice is mostly silent these days over the Washington airwaves, heard only occasionally when a local radio sports talk host gets him as a guest for a quick hit, as WTEM's Tony Kornheiser did last week. But as for local television, which Michael often dominated as Channel 4's sports director from 1980 to 2007, he's been a TV no-show since his last "Redskins Report" aired in December.
Michael, 70, still lives in Montgomery County and spends most of his time these days researching old baseball photographs, a longtime passion that includes purchasing old newspaper photo libraries with several partners. He still lookes a lot of football, the better to stay up on the sport whenever radio hosts from around the country call him for an on air opinion.
Two years ago, Michael was the victim of an industry-wide budget-slashing movement in the local broadcasting business. Never mind that his nightly sportscasts at 6 and 11 and his popular weekly football and basketball shows often produced high ratings, not to mention more than occasional must look television, a major reason Channel 4 has been No. 1 in the local TV news market for years.
"Everything has changed," Michael said in a telephone interview Monday afternoon. "Why has it changed? Because whatever you do, quality doesn't actually matter. It's whether you kept the cost down. Management doesn't worry about ratings. They worry about the dollars, and I guess I can't argue with that. That's just the way it is now."
Michael left the daily grind at Channel 4 two years ago when he was told his budget would be slashed and he'd have to let go of a number of key people in his sports operation. He still kept his hand in the business with his highly acclaimed "Redskins Report" show featuring panelists Jurgensen, John Riggins and Michael Wilbon during the NFL season, as well as his day-after-game interviews (along with Jurgensen) of the Redskins head coach du jour.
These days, Jim Zorn gets grilled on Comcast SportsNet by Chick Hernandez, a perfectly competent interviewer in his own right. Still, for this viewer, at least, it's just not the same without Michael asking the questions. Obviously all good things eventually come to an end, but Michael's outsize ego and bodacious bluster still ought to be on display -- whether on TV or talk radio -- on a regular basis in this town.
One of the first day-after questions Michael said he would have loved to ask Zorn involved that brutal halfback option pay from the Rams 5-yard line midway through the third quarter, when Clinton Portis overthrew Chris Cooley in the end zone and the Redskins had to kick another field goal.
(By the way, much to his credit, Jurgensen did exactly that in his postgame radio locker room interview with Zorn. Jurgensen told the head coach that if he'd been the quarterback and that play came through his headset, he'd have ignored it and switched to something else. Why pay a quarterback all that money to throw touchdown passes, Jurgensen wondered, then take it out of his hands and allow a running back to heave it in a critical situation?
Just a tad perturbed, Zorn told Jurgensen that he would have benched him for disobeying a direct order, an almost laughable response from a novice play-caller to a Hall of Fame quarterback who called most of his plays over the course of his excellent career. But it also was must-listen radio, a response that was aired several more times on the radio the next day.)
"If I were doing it, I would say to Zorn before we went on the air, 'There are three things today I'm going to ask you that you're probably not going to like,' " Michael said. "But these are the same questions the fans would be asking, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you for an answer."

Backstreet Boys (4) vs. George, Guilty Pleasures, Final Four

EW’s Music Mix is searching for the Greatest Guilty Pleasure Musical Act of All Time. With four seeded contestants remaining (see all the matchups), this tournament is continuing to change hearts, minds, and lives, as well as make some people noteworthy agitated! Read/listen to the following, and then cast your vote in the poll after the jump; reader comments will be used from here on out, so we encourage you to also post a comment explaining why you chose the way you did. Note: In case of a tie, please select the artist you feel more ashamed to adore. It was a true clash of the titans, but Backstreet edged out Britney Spears to claim the ’90s teen pop crown.
“I don’t need to exaggerate here, but this is like Sophie’s Choice.” et
“BSB still makes my voice jump two octaves when I hear them sing (especially a capella), even though nobody likes to admit to teenying out… I do. All it takes is those voices and a Carter smirk, and I’m there. damn. So they get my vote.” Anna
“The Backstreet Boys truly are larger than life they represent an entire area to anyone who was a tween/teen in the nineties, girls and boys. Put them on in a room full of nineties kids and in about 10 seconds everyone, EVERYONE will be singing along.” kaitlin
“Now here comes the important question, why do I feel more shamed for a liking the Backstreet Boys? My guilt is not self generated but rather pushed on me by society. We live in a world where it is perfectly acceptable to like a female singer for the size of her breast and not the sound of her voice. However when a male singers is appreciated for their appearance in addition to their talent, there considered less of an artists. In addition, it is okay for men to like someone for only aesthetic reasons, but not for women. This is an unfortunate double standard. If I admit I like the backstreet boys to a coworker, they see at me like I crazy and think I want to grow up. If someone admits they like Britney spears, everyone assume it is because she looks nice in her panties or that they enjoy a watching train wreck. PS. Does this match up remind anyone else of his or her TRL days?” Ms. Car

Michael Moore ponders post-`Capitalism' career with move to fiction films, No more docs?

TORONTO - Michael Moore says he made his latest documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story," as though it were his last. And it might be.
The George W. Bush antagonist of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and gun-control champion of "Bowling for Columbine" closing up shop? The General Motors jouster of "Roger & Me" and health-care trouper of "Sicko" no longer in the documentary business?
"I'm saying it's a possibility, yeah," Moore said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "Capitalism" played in advance of its limited release in theaters Sept. 23 and nationwide rollout Oct. 2.
"I've done this for 20 years. I started out by warning people about General Motors, and my whole career has been trying to say the emperor has no clothes here, and we better do something about it," Moore said. "I've been having to sort of knock my head against the wall here for 20 years saying these things.
"Two years ago, I tried to get the health-care debate going, and it did eventually, and now where are we? We may not even have it. What am I supposed to do at a certain point?"
Moore, 55, whose nonfiction projects include the television shows "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth," is thinking he wants to return to fiction. He wrote and directed one fictional film, the 1995 comedy "Canadian Bacon," starring John Candy in his next-to-last role as an American county sheriff who goes on the warpath after the U.S. president (Alan Alda) tries to boost his sagging image by provoking hostilities with Canada.
The movie was a critical and commercial dud, but Moore said he is anxious to do more narrative flicks. Moore said he has been working on two fiction screenplays while making "Capitalism," a documentary in which he pegs corporate inroads into the federal government during the Reagan years as a key factor in today's economic meltdown.
In "Capitalism," Moore offers a glimpse of the rosier America in which he grew up in Flint, Mich., where his father worked at a spark-plug factory. Moore and his dad revisit the sprawling site of the defunct plant, now just barren lots and demolition debris.
"I had not seen it leveled. It was pretty shocking, actually. I was affected by just standing there," Moore said. "That place represented a good, middle-class living for our family, and it's now surrounded by a town that's dying. Where the only people left there are the people struggling, really struggling, to survive."
The film presents a condo shark brokering deals on foreclosed units and chronicles the despair of people evicted from their homes. It details corporate profiteering through "dead peasant" insurance policies companies take out on employees and captures tongue-tied experts unable to explain investment derivatives that are blamed for much of the economic chaos.
Moore's conclusion: Capitalism doesn't work.
"I started this film before the crash. The crash happens, I'm thinking, oh, somebody's going to start talking about what I'm talking about in this movie," Moore said. "I've yet to see a talk show or read an op-ed where somebody has just named it, just come out and said, `Folks, what has to happen here is capitalism's got to go.' Because we can't have a system where the richest 1 percent own as much as the bottom 95 percent. That just isn't democracy. That's not America."
"Capitalism" goes after the "big enchilada here," the root of problems he's examined in his earlier films and TV shows, Moore said. The sort of film that, if he retired from the documentary field, would stand as a summation of his work.
"Look, I love the movies, I love going to the movies, and I love making movies. I think making a good movie is about telling a good story, and you can do that through fiction or nonfiction," Moore said. "I've made a body of work of nonfiction that I'm very proud of, and like any filmmaker, I'm looking for different challenges, and things that will keep me interested and excited about what I'm doing."
"Capitalism" serves as something of a call to arms for others to step in and fill the void as Moore moves on to other things.
"I think people will be maybe somewhat disappointed because there's so many things we need to deal with right now, and they wish I would make a film about it. But I want other people to make those films," Moore said.
"I am tired of feeling like I'm doing this alone. All through the eight years of Bush, you Google `Bush' and `nemesis' and I'm the first name up. And there aren't a whole lot of other names," Moore said. "It doesn't work with Michael Moore and Sean Penn and Ted Kennedy and a few others. The people have got to get involved in their democracy."