The Saturdays’ Rochelle Humes and Frankie Sanford channel the Spice Girls for 90s night out

 

Marvin and Rochelle Humes dressed as MC Hammer and Scary Spice (Picture: Xposurephotos.com)

 

The Saturdays’ Rochelle Humes and Frankie Sandford gave their best Spice Girls impression as they hit the town for a 90s night out with their other halves last night.

The girls donned two of Mel B and Victoria Beckham’s most iconic outfits as they headed to Freedom in Soho for their former S Club Junior bandmate Aaron Renfree’s 25th pop star-themed birthday bash.

Rochelle showed off her modest baby bump in a Scary Spice-inspired leopard print catsuit as Marvin put a protective arm around her as they fended off the crowd outside the club.

 

Marv protected his pregnant wife from the crowd as they headed home in the early hours (Picture: INFphoto.com)

 

Frankie looked just like Posh in a strapless LBD, which she teamed with towering stilettos and a sleek bob.

But despite the girls’ best efforts, it was Marvin who really stood out from the crowd in his flamboyant MC Hammer kit.

And Rochelle couldn’t have agreed more.

‘Fancy dress is fun! It’s always funny to see who goes the hardest! Marv was a contender lol x x,’ she tweeted after the bash.

 

Frankie Sandford and her beau Wayne Bridge were also at the 90s-themed birthday bash (Picture: Xposurephotos.com)

 

Hot on Frankie’s tail was her boyfriend Wayne Bridge who worked his best 90s urban get up in a hoodie, baggy shorts, a baseball cap and socks pulled up.

Paris, an enchanted city of carousels

As Paris prepares to celebrate Christmas, carousels have appeared around the city providing free rides for those who want to be whirled far away from the everyday.

Sunday afternoon in the Champ de Mars - a long, green park running down to the Eiffel Tower. Dazzling winter sun in a clear blue sky.

Parisians stroll with their dogs, a lady feeds the sparrows a bit of baguette and, from a small dusty corner, comes the jangling of a brass bell.

"Attention! Au depart." (Look out! We're off.)

Twenty carousel horses lunge forward, each with a child strapped to its saddle - wooden ears pricked, hooves raised in charging gallop, painted eyes brave and bold.

Round and round they whirl - Rocky, Lucky, Zorro, Jim, Polo, Betty - spurred on by the joy of the children and the force of one Frenchman's left arm - that of Monsieur Daniel who is breathlessly turning the hand-crank.

"This carousel will be 100 years old next month," he laughs.

"Allez, les enfants, allez!" (Go, children, go!) he cries.

The children clutch wooden batons in their right hands while gripping the red and yellow carousel poles with their left.

They are playing the jeu de bagues (ring game) - a children's version of the medieval tournament where galloping knights spear rings with lances.

Popular since the 18th Century, it is still played at several merry-go-rounds in Paris. Metal rings dangle tantalisingly from a suspended block, as children - spinning past on wooden steeds - try to catch them on their batons.

The carousel whirls, the rings chink, the onlookers cheer and the score mounts up.

"J'ai huit (I have eight)," a boy cries.

"Mais moi, j'ai dix (I have 10)," shouts a little girl.

The jeu de bagues fascinated the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke who, while living in Paris in the early 1900s, would sit for hours in the Jardin du Luxembourg watching the carousel turn, its horses, a stag and an elephant - Rilke's favourite - carrying children round and around, playing the ring game.

He wrote his famous poem Das Karussell in 1905. It begins:

"Beneath an awning and its shade revolving,

"There passes, every little while, the stand

"Of dappled horses, hailing from the land

"Which lingers long before at last dissolving."

At the age of 134, this carousel is now the oldest in Paris but its "stand of dappled horses" still turns almost daily, and the children still play. Rilke's beloved elephant, once snow-white, is now grey.

Carousels have always been about the latest technology... they brought the latest inventions to the masses”

Jean-Paul FavandLes Pavillons de Bercy

At the front left foot of the Eiffel Tower, on the bank of the River Seine, turns the city's newest carousel. A French-blue, red and gold, double-decker confection in the Belle Epoque style - with horses, wild animals, fairytale carriages and spinning teacups.

Just 18 months old, it is designed to run on renewable energy. Beneath their rearing hooves, the horses have bicycle wheels so passengers can pedal to boost power.

Atop the colourful canopy - lined with solar panels - a windmill whirrs, garnering every last drop of energy from the passing river breeze.

It is a far cry from the hand-cranked merry-go-rounds.

"Carousels have always been about the latest technology," says Jean-Paul Favand, owner and curator of one of the world's most significant collections of fairground art, the Musee des Arts Forains.

"They ran on steam, then electricity," he explains. "They brought the latest inventions - the most glamorous experiences - to the masses.

"On a carousel, you could ride a bicycle back in 1848, drive a motorcar in 1890 and fly an aeroplane in 1905."

Favand collects, restores and displays his extraordinary acquisitions through his museum, where all the exhibits are there to be touched, played and ridden on.

Pull aside the rich, red-velvet theatre curtains that shroud its doors and enter an enchanted world of great beauty and fascination, of genuine Belle Epoque fairgrounds and tournees (travelling shows with carousel-salons) where hundreds would gather to dance, drink wine and take a turn on a glittering carousel, to be whirled far away from the humdrum everyday - be it on a dashing steed, a farmyard pig or a bi-plane.

The museum throws open its doors to all in the days between Christmas and Epiphany, thronging the antique carousels with crowds of curious visitors.

A favourite is always the velocipede - a bicycle carousel from 1885 which tears round at breathtaking speed, the riders pedalling furiously.

Favand's enchanted merry-go-round world lies within another - the city of Paris itself.

Lit with hundreds of thousands of holiday lights and with a big wheel glittering on the Place de la Concorde, Paris has just added 20 more carousels to its 35 permanent ones. They are a Christmas gift from the mayor to citizens and visitors.

Free rides from chill winter dawn until long after dusk, for adults as much as for children.

Fifty-five carousels - set like whirling jewels throughout the city - each one filled with laughter and imagination.

Bin Laden film see A part of movie (video)

 

BBC Talking Movies' Tom Brook reviews the film and meets the director

A new film about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden is "inaccurate" for suggesting torture helped lead to his discovery.

That is according to three US senators who outlined their objections to Zero Dark Thirty in a letter to the head of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar-tipped drama, their letter claims, is "perpetuating the myth that torture is effective".

In a statement, Bigelow said her film depicts "a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods".

According to the director and Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal, no single method was responsible in the successful manhunt for the terrorist leader.

The letter, made public on Wednesday, was co-signed by Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and former Presidential candidate John McCain.

The trio, all of whom are members of the Senate Intelligence committee, said that Sony and its CEO, Michael Lynton, had an obligation to alter the movie.

"The fundamental problem is that people who see Zero Dark Thirty will believe that the events it portrays are facts," the three senators wrote.

"The film therefore has the potential to shape American public opinion in a disturbing and misleading manner."

Senator John McCain is one of the three co-signatories

The senators said the "use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America's values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged".

The makers of Zero Dark Thirty, they went on, had "a social and moral obligation to get the facts right".

"I've watched the film and I can tell you there's no doubt the impression that you get from the film is that waterboarding did elicit information... that was instrumental," Mr McCain told the BBC.

"It certainly conveys the impression that this treatment of detainees is somehow justified,"

Mr McCain said he would "like to have them to make a statement that some of this depiction is not factual in a very important way... it's not just a side aspect of it".

Earlier this year Bigelow's film was accused of being a propaganda tool intended to assist President Obama's re-election campaign.

The release of the film was subsequently put back until after November's election.

It was also claimed Boal, who previously worked with Bigelow on Oscar-winning drama The Hurt Locker, had been granted access to classified information, an allegation he denied.

The film, which has been nominated for four Golden Globes, is released in the UK on 25 January.

Robin van Persie: Man Utd striker lucky to be alive - Ferguson

 Sir Alex Ferguson says Robin van Persie is "lucky to be alive" after being hit in the head by a ball struck by Ashley Williams in the 1-1 draw with Swansea.

Van Persie was lying on the ground when Williams kicked the ball from a couple of yards away as the referee blew the whistle for a foul.

Ferguson felt Van Persie was fortunate to escape serious injury.

"Robin van Persie is lucky to be alive. It was a disgraceful act from their player," Ferguson told BBC Sport.

Van Persie and Williams were involved in an angry confrontation

"He should be banned by the FA. Robin could have had a broken neck."

The United manager said Williams, 28, had deliberately aimed the ball at Van Persie, who reacted furiously - both players were cautioned by referee Michael Oliver.

Ferguson added on Sky Sports: "With the Van Persie situation, you can clearly see that he could have been killed.

"He should be banned for a long time because that was the most dangerous thing I've seen on a football field for many years.

"It was absolutely deliberate. The whistle has gone, the game has stopped and he has done that right in front of the referee, he could have killed the lad.

"It was a disgraceful act by the player, he should be banned for a long time."

Williams denied he had hit Van Persie intentionally.

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Williams on Van Persie incident

"I've seen it on the TV and that's his [Ferguson's] opinion," said Williams.

"Everyone's going to have their own opinion but, from my point of view, I tried to apologise on the pitch but it all flared up.

"I just kicked the ball in frustration and obviously not trying to hit him square on the head.

"I understand exactly why he's angry. I'd be the same if the ball hit me on the head at that pace."

United striker Wayne Rooney tried to play the incident down.

"I think it's one of those things," he said. "The whistle's gone, the defender has gone to clear and it's hit him in the head. I think probably the right decision from the referee."

United led the Premier League by six points going into the weekend's fixtures but, after the draw with Swansea and rivals Manchester City's win over Reading, that advantage has been cut to four points.

"It should have been six. That's the disappointment," added Ferguson.

"We absolutely battered Swansea [in the second half].

"In the second half it was a marvellous performance by us and we were unlucky not to win it. We struck the bar twice and had some great chances.

"If there is a criticism then maybe it is that we were wasteful with the chances and we have to hold out hand up to that."

The United manager was angry that referee Michael Oliver, 27, did not disallow Swansea's equaliser for a foul by Chico on Van Persie during the build-up to the goal.

"It really it should have been a foul for us when the defender fouled Van Persie but the referee has had one of those games," said Ferguson.

"I know he is a young referee but dear me what a performance that was."

Uruguay 'may legalise cannabis'

The government in Uruguay is considering taking the production, sale and distribution of cannabis under state control.

Supporters of a bill before the country's congress claim it will reduce criminal activity, but opponents say it will lead to more drug use.

Vladimir Hernandez reports from Uruguay.

The rise of ironic Christmas jumpers

Until recently no fashionista would be seen dead in seasonal patterned knitwear, but now the kitsch style is a must-have for designers and celebrities alike. How did Christmas jumpers become so popular?

They might be embroidered with reindeer, or snowflakes, or a cheerful Father Christmas.

Knitted from variety of garish woollen hues, they look as though they are being worn to please a kindly but sartorially clueless grandmother.

Once any self-respecting young adult would have been horrified to open their wrapping paper and find they had been gifted such a garment.

But somehow Christmas sweaters have become not just acceptable, but cool - the gaudier the better.

Fashionable chains like Urban Outfitters and Topshop stock entire ranges of sweaters gaily adorned with holly, fir trees and so on.

High-end designers have got in on the act, too. Ralph Lauren sells asnowflake-patterned turtleneck for £785 ($1,277). One yellow-and-pink Stella McCartney creation featuring two prancing deer retails at $1,230 (£755).

Colin Firth in Bridget Jones's Diary - an unintentional style icon?

“Start Quote

He turned round, revealing that what had seemed from the back like a harmless navy sweater was actually a V-neck diamond-pattern in shades of yellow and blue - as favoured by the more elderly of the nation's sports reporters”

From Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Celebrities as diverse as Kanye West, Cheryl Cole, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Matt Damon, Samantha Cameron and Snoop Dogg have all been pictured in various woollen improvisations on the theme.

Quite why trend-setters have decided that Andy Williams and Bing Crosby crooning festive ditties before a roaring fire, represent the ne plus ultra of style is surely one of fashion's more baffling mysteries.

For most people in the UK, the arresting visual impact of the Christmas jumper first registered when Renee Zellweger's protagonist of the 2001 film Bridget Jones's Diary was introduced to her suitor, Colin Firth's Mark Darcy, as he wore a roll-neck affair adorned with a giant reindeer's head.

In North America, the trend was already getting well under way. Ugly Christmas sweater parties - in which attendees compete to wear the vilest seasonal pullover - are thought to have first been held by students in Vancouver around the turn of the millennium.

The craze quickly spread across the continent. Undergraduates would scour their parents' wardrobes and second-hand clothes shops looking for the most hideous festive tops they could find.

A mini-industry of retailers sourcing or manufacturing especially tasteless garments quickly mushroomed.

Adam Paulson, a 30-year-old from Crown Point, Indiana, discovered this could be a profitable enterprise when he formed the online storeuglychristmassweaterparty.com in 2006 with two friends.

"The more stuff on the sweater, the more glittery and jangly it is, the more it will sell," he says.

But somewhere along the line the Christmas jumper phenomenon ceased to be about looking as dreadful as possible - a sort of yuletide version of Halloween - and became something that esteemed fashion designers and High Street shoppers alike could buy into.

Anne Marie Blackman, 52, of Vermont, sells sweaters online

"I had never heard of ugly Christmas sweaters but I found out there were these contests people would have to wear the ugliest. I thought, this is right up my alley. I could make sweaters that were even uglier.

"What's curious about it is how different ages do it. Ugly Christmas sweater parties were started by college kids in their 20s, but people who are older actually have these things in their closets."The change in emphasis has been attributed to the rise of that much-maligned archetype, the hipster - the young urban bohemian, attired in self-consciously quirky thrift-store clothes. Their visual aesthetic - tight jeans, over-sized glasses, garish second-hand T-shirts - was exemplified in the films of Wes Anderson and, in the UK, parodied in the Channel 4 satire Nathan Barley.

This subculture, growing in enclaves like Portland, Oregon, Williamsburg, New York and London's East End, was quickly appropriated by the mainstream.

The hipsters' fondness for all things twee and retro - baking cupcakes, riding fixed-wheel bikes, using Polaroid cameras instead of digital - meant Christmas jumpers could be re-cast as modish.

"The whole hipster movement definitely helped," says Paulson. "It started off with college-age kids. Now it's work parties."

In the UK, where ugly sweater parties had never quite caught on in the same way, the onset of the phenomenon was perhaps more sudden.

The popularity of Danish thriller The Killing - whose heroine, Sarah Lund, sported an array of knitwear, some of it snowflake-patterned - added to the garment's allure.

But even now, it isn't enough just to buy any old Christmas jumper, says former Clothes Show presenter Caryn Franklin.

To look fashionable, she says, one had to be doing it for the right reasons.

"It's hipsters that can wear it - they give it some edge," adds Franklin.

"The cooler brands like Topshop or Urban Outfitters can do it. But If Marks and Spencers were selling them, they wouldn't have the same credibility."

The Killing star Sofie Grabol, and Samantha Cameron

It's this idea that a simple pullover must be accessorised with a raised eyebrow has turned some against Christmas jumpers.

"It's not the jumpers I mind, it's the claim of 'irony'," writes Guardian fashion columnist Hadley Freeman, casting the UK's fondness for such garments as proof that many British men are "ashamed of genuine emotion".

Not just for Christmas

The Jewish festival of Chanukah or Hannukah takes place in December, and the lure of retro sweaters and cardigans knows no faith boundaries.

This ad is from the US company Geltfiend.com, which offers a range of Hannukah-themed knitwear - their slogans: "Because Jews get cold too", and "Everything is better in a Chanukah sweater!"

But Jonathan D Fitzgerald, author of Not Your Mother's Morals: How the New Sincerity Is Changing Pop Culture for the Better, believes there is nothing ironic at all about patterned woollens.

Instead, he argues Christmas jumpers and, more generally, the hipster preference for everything retro and vintage are deeply rooted in a longing for the heartfelt and the sincere.

While individuals might insist they are wearing a sweater ironically to give themselves an emotional get-out, Fitzgerald believes that deep down they are expressing a longing for the comforting certainties of a traditional Christmas.

"Nostalgia is a huge hipster virtue," he says. "This isn't about irony, it's about kitsch.

"This is about looking back to something nostalgic - 'Oh, my mom used to wear sweaters like that.' It's only people who are afraid to express the fact that they enjoy it who say it's ironic."

If Fitzgerald is correct, even the most achingly fashionably urban trendsetters are still hoping for a cosy family festive season.

It's enough to make you buy a new jumper to celebrate.

Newtown shooting: Gun lobby defiant as US remembers

The US has observed a moment of silence for the 26 victims of the Connecticut school shooting, as a gun lobby group called for armed security at schools.

Bells in Newtown tolled 26 times, one week after 20 children and six adults died at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

In Washington, the National Rifle Association called for "good guys" to be armed for "absolute protection".

Adam Lanza, 20, carried out the attack at 09:30 EST (14:30 GMT) after killing his mother. He later shot himself dead.

Funerals for those killed have taken place throughout the week, and continue in Newtown on Friday.

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has asked people throughout the state to join the moment of silence, and churches in many other states also rang their bells 26 times.

The governor, with his deputies, marked the moment on the steps of Edmond Town Hall in Newtown.

NRA defiant

In Washington on Friday, influential National Rifle Association (NRA) broke a week-long silence with a robust defence of its pro-gun position.

ef executive of the NRA, criticised politicians who had "exploited" the tragedy in Newtown for "political gain" and took aim at laws designating schools as gun-free zones.

"They tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk," he said.

Mr LaPierre called for a national database of the mentally ill and blamed violent video games and films for portraying murder as a "way of life".

He spoke out against the media for demonising lawful gun owners, and for suggesting a ban on certain types of weapon would be effective.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," Mr LaPierre told reporters.

Congress should authorise funding for armed security in every school in the country, he said, adding that an "extraordinary corps" of trained professionals could be drawn from active and retired police officers, security professionals and firefighters around the country.

At the scene in Newtown

Zoe ConwayBBC News, Newtown

Governor Malley had called for a day of mourning. It seems the weather obliged. The rain has been pouring down for hours. When the moment of silence came at 09:30, the governor and the town's dignitaries stood huddled on the steps of the town hall - a pretty, quaint New England building. The rain and winds swirled around them.

Across the street the Episcopal church rang its bell 26 times. Further down main street, the employees of the local bank stood on the porch in silence. People stood stock still in the street and got drenched. The silence lasted for 10 minutes, which is how long it took Adam Lanza to kill 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook elementary school just one week ago.

Mr LaPierre was interrupted twice by anti-gun protesters carrying banners and declaring that the NRA had "blood on its hands".

Afterwards, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is an advocate for tighter gun control laws, said the NRA's response was "a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe".

The guns used in the shooting had been legally bought by the gunman's mother, Nancy Lanza.

The shooting has seen some pro-gun congressmen say the mass shooting has prompted them to change their views on whether guns should be regulated more strictly in the US.

Meanwhile California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has been an advocate for tighter gun laws, said she would introduce new legislation when Congress meets for the first time in the new year.

But there is no bipartisan consensus on the issue, with others backing the NRA line that teachers in schools should be armed in order to better defend students if a shooting occurs.

Biden tasked

In Connecticut, Governor Malloy has called Friday a "day of mourning" and invited the governor of other states to participate in the acts of remembrance.

Protests during the NRA news conference in Washington

President Barack Obama said he would observe the tribute to the shooting victims privately.

Since the mass shooting, the Obama administration has indicated that it will look for ways to tighten gun laws in the wake of the attack.

Vice-President Joe Biden has been assigned to lead the response to the Sandy Hook massacre, and Mr Obama has demanded a set of "concrete proposals" within a month.

Speaker of the House John Boehner has said the Republican-controlled chamber would consider new proposals.

Mr Obama has said he would support reinstating an assault weapons ban that lapsed in 2004.

The White House has also suggested the president would back other gun control measures on high-capacity ammunition clips and closing loopholes that allow people to buy guns without background checks.