She sizzles on screen, a pint-sized goddess with a penchant for her co-stars, but as Penélope Cruz tells us in this exclusive interview, film success is simply not enough. It was supposed to be one of the most fiery and passionate love scenes of Penélope Cruz’s career and the actress admits that she was terrified. […]

Julia Gillard, 48, Deputy Prime Minister “When I finished high school at 17, my family went back [to the UK] for Christmas in South Wales, from where we’d migrated when I was four. We went back to my dad’s small mining village of Cwmgrach. He was one of seven brothers and sisters, and his mother […]

Question: When using frozen berries in muffins, should they be thawed before using? Frozen berries should be used while they are still frozen, this way they keep their shape and don’t “bleed” into the mixture too much.

On the eve of her 60th birthday, Anna Wintour, fashion’s imperious ice queen, seems to be coming in from the cold, writes Sharon Krum. For 21 years, Anna Wintour has been famous for her ice-queen reputation. She’s been called Vogue’s “feted dominatrix”, a dragon, a bitch — and probably the most inventive nickname, “Nuclear Wintour”. […]

It’s the news we’ve all been waiting to hear: chocolatiers in Spain have invented a chocolate that can help you lose weight.. The chocolate is called Lola and it contains ingredients designed to trick your body into thinking you are full and therefore restrict overeating, the UK’s Daily Mail reported. On display in Madrid for […]

Summer is at our doorstep and we’re all starting to enjoy more time outdoors in the sunshine. But even though the sun’s ultraviolet rays on our skin help us produce vitamin D in our bodies, recent studies have found that Australians are mildly deficient. Unlike other key nutrients, there are few dietary sources of vitamin […]

Clive Owen shoots from the heart rather than a pistol in the new Scott Hicks film,The Boys Are Back, an adaptation of Simon Carr’s memoirThe Boys Are Back in Town(2001), which looks at the challenges men face as parents. Apparently this film has been eight years in the making, although Hicks and Owen were involved […]

The skies are just starting to show signs of the season ahead – the sun is shining and the trees are bursting with flowers. Take a hint from the runways around the world and put a burst of colour on your face, brush it on your lips or smudge it on your lids. Whichever way […]

Country-music sensation Keith Urban has said his “heart stretched” the day he became a father to daughter Sunday Rose. “I think, as Nicole has said, it’s just the stretching of the heart,” the singer, who is married to Aussie beauty Nicole Kidman, told STV Entertainment . In pictures: Nicole Kidman “It is an indescribable feeling! […]

It was always interesting to see what Terry Gilliam — the man responsible for the cheeky Monty Python animations — would do with a good script, excellent actors and a budget that would allow computer-generated graphics to unleash his imagination. And the result, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, is somewhat amazing.. And of course, this […]