Walking The Talk


The Pulitzer prize-winning author Alice Walker has refused to allow an Israeli edition of her classic feminist novel The Color Purple to be published because she believes the country "is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people". In a strong letter to Yediot Books, published on the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Walker explained that last autumn she was a juror on a tribunal that met in South Africa to discuss the Palestine situation, and the testimony she heard was devastating. "I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse, " she wrote. "Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long. It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation. " Walker was one among the group of women who sailed to Gaza as part of the 2011 aid flotilla to Gaza. She has long spoken out against racial injustice and when the film of The Color Purple was completed, she lobbied against it being shown in South Africa.


Posh, Be There


They broke up a decade ago but we still want to know about their lives. As fans gear up for the Spice Girls' new musical, Viva Forever, that will hit London in December, there are plans to bring out a documentary to coincide with the event. With worldwide sales of over 75 million, this mega-selling Brit girls group defined the nineties and gave it what it really, really wanted. The biopic, which promises to be a 'warts and all" tale, will include one-on-one interviews with Scary Spice Mel Brown, Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell, Baby Spice Emma Bunton and Sporty Spice Mel Chisholm. And Victoria Beckham? That's the catch. Posh Spice might well throw a spanner in the works. The producers are concerned that she might say no. In which case, the whole project might have to be called off. Come on Posh, show how good you are.


DJ Culkin


Remember Macaulay Culkin? The mischievous tot who starred in the most successful movie of 1990, Home Alone, who went on to make up to $8 million per film, and whose parents fought a bitter custody battle over his estate? Guess what he's up to now? Not much. Last year, the one-time star whose life unraveled steadily in his twenties - he was arrested for possessing marijuana in 2004 - started a new job as a New York DJ at a club managed by another former child actor. Macaulay, who organises theme parties, doesn't stand in the DJ booth - he lets his iPod do his work for him. This is how a reporter, who was forbidden from taking pictures, described him: "In the dim light, he sometimes looks like an adolescent and sometimes like an old man. But never, from any distance or light, does he look his real age of 31. " In a voice that is "high-pitched and androgynous", he announced: "Hi everybody, welcome to the dinosaur party!" What a pity.