http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/w...him-428303.html

 

Williams' girlfriend refuses to marry him

30/09/2009 - 08:18:33

 

 

The 'Bodies' singer Robbie Williams is said to be desperate to tie the knot with Ayda Field, but she has been too scarred by her mother's divorces to consider Robbie's proposal.

 

A friend explained to Britain’s More magazine: "Ayda loves Robbie with all her heart and would do anything for him apart from walk down the aisle. The topic of marriage cropped up in their first few months together, which is a huge leap on Robbie's part – he finally realised he'd met 'The One'.

 

"He'd love a wedding. It really would make his life complete after all the madness that's surrounded him. But Ayda has seen her mother divorced twice and is all too aware of the pain it's caused. She doesn't want to end up going the same route."

 

Despite Ayda's refusal to walk down the aisle, the couple – who have been dating for two years – want to have children in the near future.

 

The source continued: "Ayda is planning to be a stay-at-home mother, cooking, cleaning and taking care of Rob. They want at least two or three kids and have names picked out already.

 

"It seems like the perfect fairytale. If Ayda would change her mind about marriage, it'd be the icing on the cake for him."

 

Fear not Robbie! I'll marry you! :w00t: :w00t: :w00t:

 

I want a cook though. And a cleaner. -_-

Nice article about Stephen Duffy

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle6855759.ece

 

Stephen Duffy’s ‘30 years of failure’ as a songwriter are a kind of success, as his album Memory & Desire shows

 

Caitlin Moran

 

 

 

Stephen Duffy and Victoria Beckham have just come down in the lift together, at Claridge’s. Tabloid photographers cluster around the revolving doors, like feeding piglets. “She turned left, to face the international paparazzi,” Duffy recounts, settling into a chair in the bar. “And I turned right, and came to talk to you about . . . 30 years of failure. Haha.”

 

Duffy’s new, career-spanning anthology is subtitled 30 Years in the Wilderness. As befits the title, he is sporting a long, straggly beard. But for someone who purports to have spent much of the interim in the wilderness, Duffy can’t be doing too badly. Six hours after we met at Claridge’s — his suggestion — we’re still here. When the bill comes, it will tell us that we ordered four bottles of Pol Roger champagne — “Churchill’s favourite, darling”. And we are here to discuss not just a double CD anthology, Memory & Desire, but also a documentary by the same name, shot over six years, and now shortlisted for an award at the Raindance Festival in London, which tells the story of one of the quieter, but more eventful, stories in pop.

 

For Stephen Duffy is a man who spent more than half his life writing songs about the impossibility of love, and then releasing them on records that steadfastly refused to sell. He was an industry byword for poetic dissolution and non-commerciality.But then, in a Disney-like twist, he ended up co-writing an album with Robbie Williams, selling 4 million records, then finally running away from all the confusion, with the love of his life, to Cornwall. “I’m thinking of opening an oyster farm,” Duffy says. Later he reveals that he hates oysters. “But I want to do something even dandier than Alex James from Blur making cheese.”

 

It all started in Birmingham, drinking coffee in Rackhams café with a couple of school friends and dreaming. For perhaps the alpha and omega fact of Duffy’s life is this: when he was 18, with his friends John Taylor and Nick Rhodes he formed Duran Duran. Let’s face it, it’s an impressive thing to have done. Especially at Birmingham Polytechnic. In 1978. It’s like managing to build Apollo 11 out of tinfoil and rats.

 

The second most important fact in Duffy’s life is this: when he was 19, he quit Duran Duran, after “a non-verbal disagreement about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s All the Sad Young Men”. It is, perhaps, the only thing cooler than having invented Duran Duran in the first place. In a poem Duffy subsequently explained what would have happened if he’d stayed in the band: “I am amazed by their ambition/And their brazen desire for fame/I caped myself in poetry . . . I would have held them back . . . I would not have been invited to stay.”

 

Piqued that “everyone I knew had been on Top of the Pops”, Duffy had a brief stab at being a pop star himself, trading under the name Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy. With surprising ease he sold more than a million records — the singles Icing on the Cake and Kiss Me both made the Top 20.

 

And then, in 1986, the third, and final, key event occurred in Duffy’s career: at the age of 26, he quit the Eighties as well. The whole decade. Disowned it entirely. Not least because people kept telling him that he could, with application, be “as big as Rick Astley”. For a wannabe beatnik poet raised on Dylan, the Beatles and the Incredible String Band, this was an intolerable future, a bit like being told that, with application, he could make his head fall off. So he ran away to the Malvern Hills, decided that it was the 1960s all over again, and formed a folk-pop group with his brother Nick: the Lilac Time.

 

This was where Stephen Duffy began quietly racking up one of the most consistently exquisite, yet persistently non-selling, back catalogues of any British singer-songwriter. He says: “I thought I was an amalgam of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and Iris Murdoch.” On the first album, The Lilac Time, girls walk down summer lanes, accordions get squeezed, and the lanterns come out at night. It didn’t sell. The second album was more of the same: Duffy called it Paradise Circus, a title that promised unending dusk and honey — unless you came from Birmingham, in which case you knew that Paradise Circus is a horrible ring road, with a Toys ‘R’ Us in the middle of it.

 

But then that particular wry Brummie humour was a necessary part of Duffy’s armour. Five albums down the line, he had been signed by, and then dropped by, every record label in Britain. The owner of Blur’s record label, Food, once jokingly refused to shake his hand at a party, “in case that means I’ve signed you, too”.

 

Restless, Duffy left the Malverns for ever-more unlikely locations: touring Australia with Nigel Kennedy and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. A winter spent in Alaska, living above Mormons: “There was one road in the town, which went to Canada. You could sit at the end of it and watch bears.” He had a small nervous breakdown at the end of a love affair and booked a break in New York. The date of his flight: September 10, 2001.

 

Six hours after landing, Duffy was walking down streets in New York, covered in dust, holding hands with strangers and singing All You Need is Love. Everyone thought Western civilisation was ending. And Duffy still didn’t have a record deal. Even for a man with a fairly downbeat career it really wasn’t looking very good.

 

Unbeknownst to him, however, the next part of his life was quietly unfolding in Britain. One of his friends, a musician called Claire Worrall, was playing keyboards and backing vocals in Robbie Williams’s band. One night she played Williams Duffy’s latest album, the hopelessly beautiful Looking for a Day in the Night. Williams was particularly taken by All Over Again, in which Duffy, in typically dolorous manner, chronicled the day he was dropped by his latest record company: “Tomorrow I’ll be dropped/By BMG/It doesn’t bother me/I know underground stars can’t fall further/I’ll go and make a record with my brother.”

 

A few phone calls later and Duffy was living in Williams’s gated compound in LA, co-writing what was to become the 4 million-selling Intensive Care album. It was a surreal time: “One night the lift doors opened in my penthouse at 4am, and Rob came in,” Duffy recalls. “He said: ‘Do you want to come and watch Celebrity Wife Swap with me?’ ”

 

Williams subsequently made Duffy his musical director for a year-long stadium tour and, finally, 25 years into his career, Duffy experienced five-star hotels and screaming fans banging on the windows of limousines. And he decided he didn’t really like it after all.

 

When the tour ended, Duffy went to Tiffany’s, bought Claire Worrall a diamond ring and proposed to her. Their wedding is one of the last scenes in the documentary Memory & Desire. There’s a double rainbow over the garden in the Malverns where they stand, hand-in-hand, and a telegram from Nick Rhodes: “You grabbed the cash, got the girl, and now you’re marrying her!” Birmingham Polytechnic, Year of 1978, had come good in the end.

 

Back in the bar at Claridge’s, and the last of the champagne has been drunk. It’s late. The paparazzi waiting for Victoria Beckham have left a long time ago. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got only one question left, anyway: isn’t he angry that he’s racked up this exquisite back catalogue that, still, few people have heard?

 

Duffy, however, is sanguine about it. “Although it has, by all accounts, been an incredibly failed career in terms of selling any records, I have got to make every record I ever wanted to make — and most songwriters can’t say that,” he says. “Besides, I can go and eat crisps now — and Posh Spice can’t.”

 

The album Memory & Desire is out on Universal. The documentary of the same name will screen at the Raindance Festival on Oct 9 at the Apollo cinema, Piccadilly Circus, www.raindance.co.uk

 

Robbie Williams reveals his Olympic dream

Despite joining Take That in the studio there is still no firm answer on whether he will rejoin the band

By ANDREI HARMSWORTH - Wednesday, September 30, 2009

 

 

 

http://i34.tinypic.com/biunht.jpg

Robbie Williams out and about in New York yesterday - but will Take That team up for the Winter Olympics?

 

Ever-shy Robbie Williams is keeping coy over whether he will finally be Back For Good with the Take That lads but in the meantime he does reveal the fivesome will be forming…a winter Olympics team.

 

The Angels singer jokingly tried to put reporters off course as he marched through the streets of New York to visit his former band in the studio and join in, in Mark Owen's stag do celebrations.

 

Grilled on fever-pitch hype he is recording with the boys once again, Williams instead revealed the lads have a new gold ambition.

 

'I tell you exactly what we are doing here. The winter Olympics are coming up and we are thinking of entering the first five man bobsleigh team for the UK', the 35-year-old said.

 

'We're warming up with individual luge. And then eventually we want to bring the whole team together and just get this bobsleigh thing going', he sarcastically told GMTV.

 

Meanwhile, band member Jason Orange seemed was more eager to give a definitive answer on welcoming back his long-lost band brother.

 

Orange, 39, revealed Robbie would 'quite possibly' join them on stage once again.

 

'We have different opinions on that one. I think why not. If he's fit and able and we go ahead with the tour. I'm not saying he is, I'm saying I hope he is', says Orange.

 

But band supremo Gary Barlow, 38, told fans not to get too excited, saying Williams won't be back on 'this tour'. Just make up your minds guys!

Robbie Williams reveals his Olympic dream

Despite joining Take That in the studio there is still no firm answer on whether he will rejoin the band

By ANDREI HARMSWORTH - Wednesday, September 30, 2009

http://i34.tinypic.com/biunht.jpg

Robbie Williams out and about in New York yesterday - but will Take That team up for the Winter Olympics?

 

Ever-shy Robbie Williams is keeping coy over whether he will finally be Back For Good with the Take That lads but in the meantime he does reveal the fivesome will be forming…a winter Olympics team.

 

The Angels singer jokingly tried to put reporters off course as he marched through the streets of New York to visit his former band in the studio and join in, in Mark Owen's stag do celebrations.

 

Grilled on fever-pitch hype he is recording with the boys once again, Williams instead revealed the lads have a new gold ambition.

 

'I tell you exactly what we are doing here. The winter Olympics are coming up and we are thinking of entering the first five man bobsleigh team for the UK', the 35-year-old said.

 

'We're warming up with individual luge. And then eventually we want to bring the whole team together and just get this bobsleigh thing going', he sarcastically told GMTV.

 

Meanwhile, band member Jason Orange seemed was more eager to give a definitive answer on welcoming back his long-lost band brother.

 

Orange, 39, revealed Robbie would 'quite possibly' join them on stage once again.

 

'We have different opinions on that one. I think why not. If he's fit and able and we go ahead with the tour. I'm not saying he is, I'm saying I hope he is', says Orange.

 

But band supremo Gary Barlow, 38, told fans not to get too excited, saying Williams won't be back on 'this tour'. Just make up your minds guys!

 

I dont' think TT should let him back <_< ...they are much better without him ..

 

I would love those specs though ;)

Edited September 30, 200915 yr by staralliance

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showb...-That-Tune.html

 

Ant ‘n Dec will Name That Toon

 

TV'S Five has called on Ant and Dec to help it relaunch an old telly classic - Name That Tune.

The Geordie duo's company Gallowgate is remaking the legendary show, which first hit screens back in the 1950s.

 

Five bosses are hoping Ant and Dec can persuade their pal Robbie Williams to host the programme, which pits contestants against each other to test their knowledge of songs.

 

They have invested heavily in the revamped show and want the Toon stars to try to tempt the 1990s pop icon to present it.

 

A source said: "It might sound daft but Robbie's a fan of the show and Five are prepared to do anything to get him. Robbie's a big star but he's not pretentious and he isn't worried about coming across not too cool.

 

"The biggest problem they'll have is persuading him to stay in the UK long enough to film it."

 

Previous versions of the show were fronted by Lionel Blair and Tom O'Connor on ITV.

 

Five's Donna Taberer said: "This is is a slickly updated series for a modern audience.

 

"It's Five's first big-budget, musical entertainment series, and I'm thrilled to have it."

 

 

 

:lol: Perhaps we might see Robbie on Mr & Mrs next!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/a...3RIhj4bH8V_Prpw

 

Simon Cowell bans celeb guests

(UKPA) – 23 hours ago

 

Simon Cowell has banned X Factor judges and presenters from inviting their celebrity pals to watch the show.

 

The music mogul has stopped the team from giving away free tickets for Saturday night shows when the celebrity singers, like Robbie Williams :wub: , perform as he wants more "real people" in the audience, The Sun reports.

 

Judges Cheryl Cole, Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and presenters Dermot O'Leary and Holly Willoughby are normally allowed around 30 tickets each, but Simon has told producers that's too many as it affects the atmosphere - with celebs turning up to be seen, instead of to cheer on the contestants.

 

An email send out to all the X Factor team read: "Big apologies for the delay in confirming this year's judge allocations for the live shows.

 

"On Simon's wishes, to create the right atmosphere the studio is going to be full of a more 'general public' audience and so people's allocations have had to be adjusted accordingly."

 

The X Factor team will still get some tickets, but only for the Sunday nights shows.

 

Last year Kate Moss was a regular in the audience as the show reached the final.

 

 

http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/7652-1254...p-partners.html

 

One Third of Women Would Dump Partners :lol:

Online PR News – 01-October-2009 – Almost two thirds of British women think they would be luckier in love if they lost weight, a new survey has revealed.

 

And one third of women admit they would DUMP their partners and find someone more attractive if they were slimmer.

 

Celebrities such as George Clooney, :w00t: Brad Pitt :w00t: and all four members of Take That :puke2: were all named by women as being men they would happily ditch their partners and run away with.

 

Yet former pop favourite Robbie Williams fared less well :o in the poll with less than one per cent of respondents naming him as someone they would be prepared to dump their husband or boyfriend for.

 

The poll of women aged 18 to 50 was carried out on behalf of weight loss product Proactol and full results are due to be published on the company’s website www.Proactol.co.uk.

 

The poll revealed that a shocking 65% of women believe they would be luckier in love if they were slimmer.

 

And 33% of the women questioned said they would happily dump their husband or boyfriend if they did posses their dream bodies – and run off with someone more attractive.

 

When asked who they would choose to run away with the women named celebrities from film, TV and music with Robert Patterson, star of the Twilight movies, featuring in the wish list of the younger ladies while actors George Clooney and Brad Pit were most popular with those over 25.

 

Man band Take That enjoyed popularity with every age group and all four members were named as a dream man worthy of ditching a partner for. Yet the band’s former member Robbie Williams was named by only one respondent – possibly a sign of his fading popularity. :rolleyes:

 

Proactol product manager Katie Downing-Howitt said: "We all know women who complain about their weight and try to diet and our survey shows this is completely normal with a majority of women feeling this way at any time.

 

"Very close to two thirds of those we surveyed feel they are over weight and almost one fifth feel they are very overweight.

 

"I was more surprised by how many women admitted they would leave their partners for someone more attractive if they did manage to lose their excess weight. The survey shows that almost one third of women are only with their partners because they feel they couldn’t do any better.

 

"But if they could lose weight women clearly feel they would be more confident and more attractive – so look out lads.

 

"Our product Proactol is an organic fat binder which helps dieters to reduce their calorie intake. With more and more women finding it is possible to reach their target weight with the help of Proactol, men could increasingly find themselves back on the shelf in the months and years ahead."

 

She added that Proactol were seeking case studies of couples who had fallen out of love after weightloss. If you dumped your partner after losing weight please contact the Proactol team through their website www.Proactol.co.uk

 

 

Based on a sample of 200 women.

 

 

http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/7652-1254...p-partners.html

 

One Third of Women Would Dump Partners :lol:

Online PR News – 01-October-2009 – Almost two thirds of British women think they would be luckier in love if they lost weight, a new survey has revealed.

 

And one third of women admit they would DUMP their partners and find someone more attractive if they were slimmer.

 

Celebrities such as George Clooney, :w00t: Brad Pitt :w00t: and all four members of Take That :puke2: were all named by women as being men they would happily ditch their partners and run away with.

 

Yet former pop favourite Robbie Williams fared less well :o in the poll with less than one per cent of respondents naming him as someone they would be prepared to dump their husband or boyfriend for.

 

The poll of women aged 18 to 50 was carried out on behalf of weight loss product Proactol and full results are due to be published on the company’s website www.Proactol.co.uk.

 

The poll revealed that a shocking 65% of women believe they would be luckier in love if they were slimmer.

 

And 33% of the women questioned said they would happily dump their husband or boyfriend if they did posses their dream bodies – and run off with someone more attractive.

 

When asked who they would choose to run away with the women named celebrities from film, TV and music with Robert Patterson, star of the Twilight movies, featuring in the wish list of the younger ladies while actors George Clooney and Brad Pit were most popular with those over 25.

 

Man band Take That enjoyed popularity with every age group and all four members were named as a dream man worthy of ditching a partner for. Yet the band’s former member Robbie Williams was named by only one respondent – possibly a sign of his fading popularity. :rolleyes:

 

Proactol product manager Katie Downing-Howitt said: "We all know women who complain about their weight and try to diet and our survey shows this is completely normal with a majority of women feeling this way at any time.

 

"Very close to two thirds of those we surveyed feel they are over weight and almost one fifth feel they are very overweight.

 

"I was more surprised by how many women admitted they would leave their partners for someone more attractive if they did manage to lose their excess weight. The survey shows that almost one third of women are only with their partners because they feel they couldn’t do any better.

 

"But if they could lose weight women clearly feel they would be more confident and more attractive – so look out lads.

 

"Our product Proactol is an organic fat binder which helps dieters to reduce their calorie intake. With more and more women finding it is possible to reach their target weight with the help of Proactol, men could increasingly find themselves back on the shelf in the months and years ahead."

 

She added that Proactol were seeking case studies of couples who had fallen out of love after weightloss. If you dumped your partner after losing weight please contact the Proactol team through their website www.Proactol.co.uk

Based on a sample of 200 women.

 

That's because Robbie is totally unpredictable... <_< the rest ' just do boring ' ;)

Edited October 2, 200915 yr by staralliance

Running away with Gary Barlow? They must all have really feckin boring husbands..... :blink: :blink: :blink: :huh:

Running away with Gary Barlow? They must all have really feckin boring husbands..... :blink: :blink: :blink: :huh:

 

Hmm! Or maybe they just don't fancy someone who comes across as Norman Wisdom's love-child ... only not as funny. And Norman Wisdom wasn't even funny himself! :lol:

 

Norma

I liked Norman I'll have you know -_-

 

His were the only films we ever got at our local village hall when I was a kid. -_- -_- -_-

 

And if you're throwing insults around,Gary Barlow's got cross eyes. He looks like Clarence from Daktari.

 

Still, I'd run off with George and Brad though. :w00t: :w00t: :w00t:

http://i33.tinypic.com/9gx75t.jpg

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nw8fcHV1bdE/SNUV6yqU2-I/AAAAAAAADao/rwT2bKVvfQs/s400/GaryBarlow.jpg

 

^_^

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

 

I liked Clarence :wub: :wub: :wub:

yeah me too :wub:

 

 

Running away with Gary Barlow? They must all have really feckin boring husbands..... :blink: :blink: :blink: :huh:

 

Obviously the poll must've consisted of mainly grannies voting :lol: I bet Daniel O'Donnal was high up as well. They prob want to run away with them and knit those cotton jumpers together with a cup of tea. Prob their idea of a bit of excitment :lol:

Edited October 2, 200915 yr by Scotty

You leave my Daniel alone :angry:

You leave my Daniel alone :angry:

 

Dont worry. I bet Gary one day aspires to be as wild as your Danny boy. Would'nt take much though- perhaps an extra spoon of sugar in the cup of tea :lol:

I bet Wee Daniel is wilder than Colin Feckin Farrell. It's all an act you know. ;)

 

 

Now Colin Feckin Farrell, I'd run away with him no problem. I like my Bad Boys. :kink: