MAYBE it’s the success of Slumdog Millionaire. Perhaps it’s because corporate outsourcing is now a very real — and frustrating — part of Westerners lives. Or perhaps it’s because India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and its influences have finally spread to Hollywood.

JAY-Z is pleased he didn’t meet Coldplay pal Chris Martin when he was a teenager —because he would have tried to rob the singer.

SHOCKER!
A FRENCH woman discovered her 42-year-old son had been buried in the same cemetery where she was attending her brother’s funeral, after she had tried to invite him to the ceremony, a newspaper has said.

EGYPT’S Culture minister blamed “incompetent” security staff for the theft of a US$55 million Van Gogh painting from a Cairo museum and said worries for the safety of the country’s art treasures are depriving him of sleep.

LAWYERS for Michael Douglas and his ex-wife Diandra squared off in court on Tuesday over rights to the earnings of the upcoming sequel to the movie Wall Street.

I WAS an early customer when Soprano’s Restaurant initially opened its doors to a public widely expecting a bathroom showroom or tile emporium in the new premises three or four years ago!

ERYKAH Badu must pay a US$500 fine and serve six months on probation for her naked stroll through downtown Dallas, Texas, while making a music video last March, a city official confirmed
Tuesday.

DROP THE BOOZE: Job applicants who drink alcohol are perceived as less intelligent and less hirable by American bosses, a bias dubbed the “imbibing idiot bias” in a study published on Monday.

TWO female poets, Blessing Musariri and Ethel Kabwato have returned home from a tour of the United Kingdom where they had gone to launch their recently published poetry collection titled Sunflowers In Your Eyes edited by acclaimed Welsh poet Menna Elfyn.

FUNNY how things pan out…or sometimes don’t!

I CAN’T quite make up my mind if I prefer the new Sitar Restaurant, about 700m away from the old (formerly much loved) one.

SUPERMODEL Naomi Campbell is set to face questioning from prosecutors at the war crimes trial of ex-Liberia President Charles Taylor in The Hague.

LADY Gaga has admitted that she takes cocaine, describing her usage as “occasional”.

LAUNDRY ASP
A WOMAN unloading her laundry from the washing machine was given a huge scare after finding a five-foot snake curled up in her clothes.

SOUL singer Aretha Franklin has cancelled shows after breaking two ribs in a fall at her US home.

I WAS hungrier than would normally be the case at Adrienne’s Restaurant in Belgravia last Friday lunch (sampling a new menu), because we waited ages for two “foodies” who didn’t pitch up.

HAITIAN singer Wyclef Jean is considering a bid for the presidency of his earthquake-shattered homeland, where he is a popular figure, but has not yet decided whether to run in November’s election.

I THINK it’s maybe because I gave the restaurant trade a universal rollicking in one of these columns recently for often simply shutting up shop, unannounced and sometimes for an open-ended period of time, that several proprietors have gone out of their way, since, to let me know what they’re up to.

APE SMUGGLER
A MAN has been stopped at an airport in Mexico for carrying 18 small monkeys in a girdle under his T-shirt.

THE head of entertainment programming and production at ABC resigned from the network as the company conducted an internal sexual harassment investigation, a source said Wednesday.