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He shot to fame in 1984 with his first novel, Bright Lights, Big City, which chronicled the lives of wealthy New York hedonists. So how is the poster boy of 80s excess faring in the middle of a global recession? A quarter of a century and '17 midlife crises' after his debut, the writer, still at the top of his game, meets Rachel Cooke and talks about his many marriages and how the Wall Street crash is at the heart of his next novelThere are some men who you wish would just grow up, and some men you hope will remain forever the same: boyish, eager, occasionally ridiculous ... fun. Jay McInerney is one of the latter. To sit with him is to smile. He orders champagne, and you drink it; he beams at you, and you beam right back; everything is tickety-boo. The world shrinks to the size of the extremely well-placed table he has bagged in one of New York's best restaurants ('the best restaurant,' he says). 'I could get used to this,' you tell yourself, which is dangerous for the interviewer, of

Why is gangster Jacques Mesrine an icon across the Channel 30 years after his death? UK film-goers are about to find outNo less than the British or the Americans, the French have always loved their movie gangsters, especially if they have an intellectual or political edge. The latest addition to this canon arrives in the UK next month with two films Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy No 1, starring Vincent Cassel in the lead role. Both films tell the story of Jacques Mesrine, the legendary master-criminal who was killed in Paris in 1979. They have been massive critical and box office hits in France, where Le Monde has described them as 'brilliant exercises in style'. For the critic of the fashionable and influential magazine Les Inrockuptibles, they are 'a searing political indictment' of recent French history. The first film, Killer Instinct, was nominated for nine Césars (the French equivalent of the Oscars) in January. And Mesrine is everywhere in France - a f

Bollywood might not be happening for our Mallika Sherawat, but there?s no denying that she?s a big draw in Hollywood, maybe not for roles in films... but just as a special guest at events related to India. This time, the sexy starlet has been ...

Usually, when a music legend announces, 'And here's a song from my latest record,' the unspoken response from the audience is 'OK, but you'd better follow it with some hits.' Sometimes this dynamic makes sense; mega-artists tend to draw big crowds even after the muse of inspiration has long since left the building. But as Paul McCartney prepares to play seven dates in four U.S. cities this summer, he happens to be floating on a raft of recent material that ranges from good to great. You could draw up a fascinating set list just from the snappy , the sophisticated , and the wild-as-'Helter Skelter' (released under The Fireman moniker in 2008). The sad thing is we'll probably never hear that kind of Macca concert.

THE sun continued to shine on the second day of music at T in the Park as revellers were treated to a host of big name bands.

TV News: External City fest honors TV productions -- The BBC's green-themed mini 'Burn Up' and Teutonic Thomas Mann telepic 'Buddenbrooks' where the big winners at the third Rome Fiction Fest which wrapped Saturday (July 11), cappping a rich, tightly focussed and widely attended edition of the Eternal City TV extravaganza.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are set to move to New York. The couple - who have previously rented different properties at a cost of around $100,000 a month when working in the Big Apple - have been looking around the Apthorp, a 1908 property in Manhattan currently being converted into lavish homes.

URUMQI, China (Reuters) - China raised the death toll from ethnic rioting in Xinjiang, giving for the first time the ethnicity of the dead, and a big security presence in the city at the center of the strife prevented protests on Saturday.

This season, the producers kicked season 10's simplicity out of their systems by inventing a new twist that, depending on how it runs its course, could lead to some interesting game play.

Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic director, Stephen Eich, Executive Director, Tom Ware, Producing Director) today announced full casting for the West Coast Premiere of THE NIGHT IS A CHILD, a new play by Charles Randolph-Wright. Sheldon Epps (Pasadena Playhouse Artistic Director), who directed Pasadena Playhouse's production of Ray Charles Live!, directs a cast of six led by JoBeth Williams (The Big Chill and Poltergeist). Preview performances begin August 28 with the official press opening set for Friday, September 4 at Pasadena Playhouse (39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena).