Unlikely casting it may be, but Sacha Baron Cohen is set to play detective Sherlock Holmes in an upcoming comedy flick inspired by the fictional sleuth. Playing alongside the Borat and Ali G star will be Will Ferrell, as his sidekick Dr Watson. The pair previously collaborated in the 2006 race-car comedy, Talladega Nights. Meanwhile, Cohen is currently filming his new movie in which he stars as Bruno, a spoof Austrian gay fashion reporter. In best Borat tradition, Bruno has already hit the headlines by managing to dupe a former Mossad agent. Ex-spook Yossi Alpher, now an analyst and commentator, was asked by Bruno: “Vat’s zee connection between a political movement and food? Vy Hummus?” A rather bemused Alpher replied: “Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political movement. Hummus is food.” Bruno went on to interrogate the ex-agent on when the Jews would return the pyramids and why can’t the Jewish people get along with Hindus. According to The Daily Telegraph, Alpher accused Baron Cohen of “exploiting our tragic and painful conflict in the most cynical and deceptive manner” but did eventually see the funny side, admitting: “The end product will undoubtedly be hilarious. We’ll try to be good sports about it.”
Madonna and Guy Ritchie have turned to a rabbi to save their marriage. According to the Sunday Express, the pop star and her film director husband have sought guidance from Rabbi Yehuda Berg, founder of the Los Angeles Kabbalah Centre. According to a worshipper at the centre, Rabbi Berg believes the couple, who wed in 2000, can still resolves their difficulties and stay together.
Sir Alan Sugar has been setting the record straight after his light aircraft crashed, playing down reports that he “cheated death in the incident”. Sugar was unharmed after the four-seater overshot the runway while landing in a thunderstorm at City Airport in Manchester. The Apprentice star shrugged off the idea that his life was in danger, saying: “As far as ‘life-threatening’ is concerned, to put things in perspective, my friend and I had as much chance of dying from the incident as we did in dying from food poisoning from the tuna sandwich that a very nice lady made us in the clubhouse while we waited for a mate to pick us up and take us home.” Sugar has just signed up for a fifth series of The Apprentice — here’s hoping his next winning employee will get off to a better start than this year’s winner, Lee McQueen, who was unable to make the first day of his £100,000 job because he was struck down by a virus.
Forget Kung Fu Panda, here’s Kung Fu Amy Winehouse. Only days after hitting out at a fan at Glastonbury for touching her beehive hairdo, the pint-sized singer was reported by the Daily Mail to have scuffled with a man outside her North London flat after he had pinched her bottom. In another incident, the Daily Mirror reported claims by a man that she allegedly struck him three times in what the paper calls “an unprovoked pub attack”. And the London Evening Standard has carried photographs of the star appearing to attack her own bodyguard. Bet she did it with expert timing…
Conjugal activity chez Katie Price seems to be on hold. Peter Andre, hubby of the former glamour model, recently confessed that the couple haven’t slept together for six months. “It’s always the wrong time,” he moaned.