Singer Pete Doherty cancelled the rest of a British tour with his band Babyshambles to give himself more time to recover from his drug addiction treatment.
Doherty, 27, known as much for his on-off relationship with model Kate Moss and his well-publicized drug problems as his music, was more than halfway through the 13-date tour.
The concerts were his first since leaving a drug London rehabilitation clinic.
PHOTO: AP
“It is now clear that Peter embarked on this arduous and high profile tour too soon after his discharge,” Doherty’s spokesman said Saturday.
The band cancelled a concert in Liverpool on Friday night and the remaining four dates in Glasgow, Nottingham, Manchester and Newcastle.
Critics have praised Doherty’s performances during the tour, with several newspapers using the headline “Pete’s no shambles.”
Moss joined the band onstage to sing during La Belle and La Bete. One reviewer said she “chirped self-consciously and almost inaudibly, then ran off, waving her arms like an excited schoolgirl.’
On Saturday, the Sun showed pictures of a bare-chested Doherty supposedly “storming out” of Moss’s home at 3:30am after a row.
Meanwhile, pop diva Cher has put up 700 items and says she’s amazed by what people were willing to spend for them.
Of the dozens of vintage gowns and flashy costumes she put up for auction, a skimpy black number made of fishnet, rhinestone and patches of fabric got the highest bid.
The Bob Mackie-designed outfit, which came with a black leather jacket, sold for US$60,000 — about twice the asking price, said Darren Julien, president of Julien Auction. His firm helped administer the two-day auction, which brought in a total of US$3.5 million, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel with Sotheby’s.
Cher’s asking that all winning bidders send her pictures of the items in their new homes.
While Cher is making money from old fans, Madonna is earning new ones.
The singer visited an orphanage in the impoverished African country of Malawi last week, handing out copies of her book English Rose to a crowd of AIDS orphans as her publicist dismissed claims that she was going to adopt a child herself.
The pop star was greeted by about 50 children as she arrived in a four-vehicle convoy. Bodyguards prevented journalists from getting access to the premises or approaching her.
Madonna’s publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said the pop star was on a private visit working on projects for children and dismissed statements from Malawian government officials that she and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, would adopt a boy.
“I have no information or confirmation regarding Madonna adopting an individual child. She’s kind of adopting an entire country of children,” Rosenberg said.
“She is on a private visit to Malawi and is involved in the building of an orphanage/child care center as well as other initiatives to help the children of that country who have lost parents to AIDS.”
The visit has generated huge excitement in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, which usually only makes headlines because of its grim cycle of drought, hunger and disease. More than 14 percent of Malawi’s 12 million people have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and an estimated 1 million children have been orphaned.
Madonna was greeted Thursday at the Kondanani children’s village near Malawi’s commercial capital by a crowd of about 28 singing orphans, who each received a translated copy of Madonna’s book.
Orphanage officials said Ritchie accompanied the singer and filmed the children.
“She and her husband are very lovely,” said orphanage director Anne Chikhwaza. “She has a kind heart; she really wants to help.”
Madonna’s project, called Raising Malawi, aims to set up an orphan care center to provide food, education and shelter for up to 4,000 children. It will have projects based on Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism that has gained popularity in recent years and which counts the 48-year-old singer among its devotees.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
RSS