All of the 32 available places for the 2010 World Cup have been decided, after a dramatic night of play-off qualification which saw Algeria, Greece, Slovenia, Portugal, France and Uruguay book their berths.

The first trailer for Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables just doesn’t bring enough crazy.

Defending champion Venus Williams reaches the semifinals of the $4.55 million WTA Championships in Qatar, where she joins sister Serena, without hitting a ball on Friday.

It’s not about nothing, it’s about marriage.

So although a score of times the invitation has been there, a score of times I’ve said no. Well, 19 times – nobody’s perfect.Friendship with a couple often comes out of an original friendship with one or other of them. It’s not very often these friendships do go deep because it’s quite rare to get on with a friend’s partner. I’m constantly amazed at the awful people my friends have landed themselves with for long relationships. But when such relationships go wrong I’m especially on my guard.I learned my lesson early, when my friend Vivian asked me to agree with her own analysis of the shortcomings of the partner who was in the middle of dumping her. “Well, I never thought he was right for you in the first place,” I said, before listing his many faults She agreed, oh how she agreed. Then she got back with him and neither one has spoken to me since.

I’ve always thought the problem lay in the fact that singles and couples don’t really mix very well. I know a woman who ditched all her women friends when she married because she didn’t trust any of them with her new man. “I’ve never met a woman – including myself – who won’t do a friend down for a man, however much she might agonise over it,” she said. A depressing prospect – but not as depressing as the fact that most men wouldn’t even agonise. When I became a couple myself I thought things would improve. Instead I find I’ve lost control of friendships with other couples.

Now I’m unwillingly dragged into psychodramas via Angela, my partner. Elspeth, psychodramatist extraordinaire, phones Angela to describe the violent row she’s been having with Tony most of the day. My partner says Elspeth should leave him.Elspeth and Tony’s row ends, as usual, in hot passion. He phones me to say Angela should keep her nose out of things and how dare she tell Elspeth to leave him.

Jim Carrey’s always been a bit out there, but has he lost his grip on reality along with his longtime girlfriend Jenny McCarthy?

Tiger’s embattled brand took a step towards the rebuilding process, but might be too late, despite hiring one of the more disenfranchised PR counselors

Heartbreaking accounts of life, death and sorrow in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.

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Accenture, a major sponsor for Tiger Woods, announces it is dropping the world No.1 in light of recent controversy surrounding his personal life.

RUSSIAN TELEVISION showed a fascinating documentary last week about the biggest kommunalka (communal flat) in the country. It set me thinking about my old friend, Oleg Schwarz, who spent his life in one of those mind-boggling apartments and reached the age of 42 before he got a place of his own. Solicitor-advocate David Price says: “We live in a Parliamentary democracy and any move to alter the delicate balance between reputation and freedom of speech should not be taken by judges.”. He points out that the current Press Complaints Commission code of practice deals essentially with matters such as the right of reply and privacy, but does not address fully the subject of efficient investigation practices as his suggested code would.
While The Sunday Times and editors all over the UK might be disappointed by the Reynolds decision, despite the movement on qualified privilege, one specialist lawyer points out that it should not be the Lords’ role to make such a move towards a public-figure defence. If they can tick all the boxes, then they would be more assured of attracting a qualified privilege defence.

The Lords-recommended checklist includes headings such as verifying “the source of the information”, “steps taken to verify the information”, “the urgency of the matter”, “whether comment was sought from the plaintiff”, and “whether the article contained the gist of the plaintiff’s side of the story”.
Mr Caldecott recommends that the broadsheets should join together to produce an agreed code of practice, which would be headlined by that checklist. In an attempt to clarify matters, the Lords in their judgment produced a checklist journalists should refer to when writing a contentious article about a public figure. In it, he said that in future courts “should be slow to conclude that a publication was not in the public interest and, therefore, the public had a right to know, especially when the information is in the field of political discussion”. Provided there’s a balance between what you have said and the evidence you’ve got, then you have at least a running chance of attracting privilege.”
All three lawyers are basing their views on remarks made in the judgment by Lord Nicholls. Now, where journalists are dealing with a matter of public interest, the focus is on the quality of the newspaper’s investigation.

It changes things in two ways: first, the old culture was that to attract qualified privilege outside of the statutory protection was the exception That culture has gone. “I would expect a sea-change in the approach of the courts to media qualified privilege.”
In fact, even the Reynolds side sees a silver lining in the judgment for the press Says Andrew Caldecott QC: “It is a liberalising measure. And that the role of the press as a watchdog outweighs reputation – even when the facts are wrong, as long as the journalists have behaved maturely and responsibly.”
That view is supported by James Price QC, who was also a member of The Sunday Times team in court. “Initial press reaction has perhaps been misled by the fact that the Lords rejected the generic approach and grounded its exposition of law on traditional common-law principles,” he explained. Lord Lester QC, who led the case for The Sunday Times, says: “The Lords have said that the public has a constitutional right to know – even in the absence of a written constitution.

But, on reflection and advice from News Inter- national’s legal team, it was thought the case would “last about five minutes” because the Lords had already made ample reference to European law and the Human Rights Act.
But the editor’s lawyers are more positive. In the future we can try to argue a bit of a public figure defence on the basis of this judgment, but I don’t know that judges and juries will listen very hard.”
Mr Witherow said that the paper had considered an appeal to the European Court of Justice. In our view public figures should be open to greater scrutiny. We wanted to get closer to the New Zealand or US situations regarding public figures, where we can write what we believe is right – even if it is wrong – as long as there was no malice.
“We are left with what in practice is still a black and white test: if you’re not right, then you pay up. Its editor, John Witherow, says the paper was disappointed with the result. “The question is: have we in practice taken the position of qualified privilege much further? I don’t think we have.

We are more or less stuck with the same position of having to meet a reasonableness test. But in giving their reasons, they gave strong backing to the concept of freedom of expression, perhaps even suggesting that, in future, courts should no longer give unflinching support to reputation over the right of the media to publish.
The irony is that the lawyers acting for The Sunday Times walked away from the House of Lords ruling with a jauntier step than the journalists. They ruled against The Sunday Times in as much as the Lords refused to endorse a separate category of political speech in defamation proceedings. The Sunday Times’ lawyers hoped to establish with the Reynolds case a generic qualified privilege defence relating to the publication of “political speech”. That would have covered “information, opinion and arguments concerning government and political matters that affect the people of the UK”.
What the Lords produced has been viewed by some as a fudge. Circumstances where this defence could typically be used include an employer’s references or a complaint about a doctor to the General Medical Council.
It has not generally been used successfully by the media in defending libel actions against public figures. What that means in practice is that there must be a duty on the part of the maker of the statement to impart the information, and a corresponding interest on the part of the recipient in receiving it.