Piper told the crowd her favourite scene involved being attacked by a Christmas tree and the Cybermen were “quite sexy actually”. That said, last year they did let Martine McCutcheon do the honours.What’s in it for her? She doesn’t need the money but the National Osteoporosis Society does.Bright spark or short circuit? With Clarence House just round the corner, she can legitimately claim to be a local celebrity. Kylie Minogue, the Spice Girls and even Charlotte Church managed to do it in past years without creating a lynch mob Star rating: They should have hired … Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne.The Duchess of Cornwall: BURLINGTON ARCADE, LONDONCelebrity switchers: Camilla is the poshest of this year’s crop, following in the footsteps of Diana, Princess of Wales, who lit up Regent Street in 1981. Lord George Cavendish commissioned Burlington Arcade, between Savile Row and Piccadilly, In 1818, “for the sale of jewellery and fancy articles”. The X-Factor judge was booed by many of the 12,000 crowd after his support for the Conway Sisters led to the elimination of Maria Lawson from the talent show.
What’s in it for them? The Christmas number one is up for grabs.Bright sparks or short circuit? So much for peace on earth and goodwill to all men.

Doctors described her condition as “critical, but stable”.In Wales, more than 460 schools were forced to close.Further north, in Aberdeenshire, more than 4,000 homes had their electricity supply cut off.. His body was discovered in his car on the A420 at Tog Hill.More than 70 schools were closed across Devon and Cornwall after a foot of snow fell overnight on Dartmoor, forcing police to set up a shuttle service using 4×4 vehicles to get staff to work at Dartmoor prison.In Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, dozens of schools were closed and an RAF Hercules was scrambled from Lyneham to rescue a critically ill baby girl from Ireland.Kerry Ann O’Riordan, aged eight weeks, needed emergency hospital treatment after suffering a severe bout of whooping-cough, but when blizzard conditions grounded helicopters, a Hercules transport plane was sent to Cork to take her to Glenfields Hospital, Leicester. The police and Royal Marines used helicopters and heavy-lifting equipment to rescue about 150 motorists, who had been stranded in freezing conditions after an accident blocked the A30 trunk road. Many other motorists have also been trapped across the region.
Vehicles had become trapped on the A30 between Kennards House and Bodmin following an accident. The rescued motorists were taken to six rest centres across the county. Among those stranded were an 80-year-old woman and a one-month-old child.In Newquay, north Cornwall, 300 children from the Treviglas Community College were rescued by tractors and four-wheel drive vehicles after they had been snowed in for most of the day without food and water until an RAF helicopter managed to fly in emergency supplies.Other schools faced similar problems. A county council spokesman said up to 2,000 children had been trapped at different locations until parents could get through to fetch them, and supplies had been being sent in for those facing a long wait.Around the country, blizzards and fallen snow closed schools, blocked roads, delayed travellers and caused many minor accidents.Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and south-west England were worst hit, with police reporting a spate of crashes on treacherous roads and lorries getting stuck in heavy snow.In Cornwall, a motorcyclist was killed on the A394 between Sithney and Breague, near Porthleven.An elderly man is believed to have died from a heart attack brought on by hypothermia near Bath in Somerset.

“We have a series of problems, not the least being the ability of the council to find money from an already stretched council tax pot,” said Russell Proffitt, head of regeneration at Southwark. The danger will be that if the funding does dry up, the project will fall far short of its aims.Three teenagers are due to face trial for Damilola’s murder in January next year at the Old Bailey. Hassan Jihad, 19, from Peckham, and two youths aged 16 and 17, also from south London, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were charged with murder in January this year.. Hundreds of vehicles and up to 1,000 people were stranded on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, last night as white-out conditions swept across Britain, killing at least two people and injuring dozens.

There are several community treasures, foremost among them an award-winning library designed by Will Alsop, which is packed throughout the day. There is a new leisure centre and a youth centre, the Damilola Taylor Centre, funded to provide sports activities.Peckham has also been reborn as something of a creative hub, attracting artists such as Antony Gormley, who has designed some of its street art.Low rents and its proximity to Goldsmith College and Camberwell College of Arts recently saw it named by a panel of experts as a “hot spot” of British culture.There is criticism of the project once you go to East Peckham, outside the regeneration zone. Gordon Fox, a retired postman, said his part of town had seen none of the benefits. “I go home at 4pm and don’t come out until the next morning, it’s not safe,” he said “But credit to the council, the library is beautiful. I do my crossword there.”Despite cynicism about the regeneration’s chances of success, the council insists it would be churlish to scoff at its efforts. It promises to attract new businesses and homeowners to breathe energy into an area which has suffocated with little of either for 50 years, and says that crime is slightly down. But the real challenge is yet to come.In two years’ time, government funding runs out and the council has to absorb the substantial costs of sustaining regeneration into its existing budget.