Fans of Ashes to Ashes can order the DVD of the first series from Amazon UK at £25·98, a £14·01 saving (click on image to get to the site). It becomes available on May 5.
   After last night’s finalé ended the first year on a high, with one of Keeley Hawes’s best performances, the second series, airing February 2009, is greatly anticipated. Till then, this is a fabulous way to relive the UK’s best series of 2008 so far.

This photograph was shot for a motoring-and-travel story about the South Island, New Zealand in Lucire no. 26, but it’s one that won’t run in the print magazine as the quality’s not up to scratch. The light is far too strong, but I like the concept: the new Renault Clio meets an old Renault Dauphine. We have no idea which Renault fan in the Otago region put his or her rusting Dauphine on top of a container but it juxtaposed with the new Clio well. I did great mileage in the Clio as part of an extended road test from Christchurch to Dunedin and back, which readers will see in a future issue.

Stanley Moss (left, pictured with designer Tadashi Shoji), travel editor of this title, CEO of the Medinge Group and well known branding expert, is recovering from surgery in California. We wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to him being up and about and motoring in his Chrysler Crossfire soon.

While Samantha Potes is covering Toronto Fashion Week for Lucire (welcome back, Samantha!), we did receive a release about Kolor Shades from Canada. They’ve just had their opening party in Toronto and sent us some great images from their shoot.
   They’re very youthful and apparently these are the latest styles in eyewear, though older readers may see that it’s a case of the cycle swinging around again, albeit with a late 2000s’ bent. There are more women than men pictured, but Kolor Shades does sell men’s and women’s versions.

Despite rumours that America’s Next Top Model Tyra Banks and Jay Manuel aren’t speaking, Banks’s representatives has said that she is not quitting the show.
   Her departure would be unlikely since Banks herself has a stake in the series. Her company, Bankable Productions, produces the show, as well as her talk show, The Tyra Banks Show.
   One rumour was that Banks would quit Top Model to focus on her talk show. This has been dismissed by her spokesperson.
   The story that Banks and Manuel were not speaking was also dismissed as untrue.

I wish that was a joke, but it isn’t.
   I went to preview a New Dowse exhibition on transsexuality, intersexuality and the transgender community with its communications’ officer Mandy Herrick and coincidentally, was told by a friend last night about a situation at a gym in New Zealand.
   They had two intersexual (‘hermaphrodite’) clients. Other patrons petitioned the owner to remove them, otherwise they would not pay their fees.
   Shame on us as New Zealanders.
   We go around saying how open-minded we are, scoff at other nations, point out how we had the world’s first transsexual MP—but no, when we confront intersexual people in our own neighbourhood, we do exactly what pre-US Civil Rights racists did when they hung out ‘Whites Only’ signs.
   For crying out loud, these two clients were born this way—and you’ll be even more shocked to learn that the gym opened itself to a human rights’ violation by cancelling the two people’s memberships.
   Imagine if they were taken to court and how much business they would have lost if word got out.
   Wouldn’t it have been better to have pointed out to the prejudiced clients that if they couldn’t accept the situation, then they could take their business elsewhere?
   Or go so far as to build an extra changing room and encourage more open-minded clients all round?
   I was pretty shocked that this went on. 
   I am not prejudice-free and I will freely admit to thinking, ‘That looks a bit odd’—as I did when I looked at some of the work that the New Dowse will be showing. I don’t know anyone who has told me they are intersex, hence my surprise. Then again, I don’t go around asking. I get over it. I accept that this is part of God’s plan and everyone is created in His own image.
   And there is a clear right and wrong in this case. Hopefully as time goes by more of us will look at this story and equate it to the racism of earlier times.

This was a nice email to get today:

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.0 score out of (10) in the Entertainment category of Blogged.com.
This is quite an achievement!

http://www.blogged.com/directory/entertainment

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.
After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.0 score.

We’ve also created Blogged.com score badges with your score prominently displayed. Simply visit your website’s summary page on Blogged.com:

http://www.blogged.com/blogs/lucire.html

   This explains the extra link in the sidebar to Blogged.com as of today—and we’re grateful that this relatively young blog has received some acclaim. We checked and the top blogs in our section are in the high eights (Blogged.com gives tenth scores). Thank you, Blogged.com, and thank you, Lucire readers—if no one was popping by we wouldn’t bother. Blog and audience help each other.

The state visit of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to the United Kingdom has started off on a positive note, if the fashion media there are any indication.
   First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was dressed in a Christian Dior grey coat (that grey—the one the fashion house itself made famous) with matching beret, accessorized with a black belt and black gloves. She wore black pumps to lessen the 4 in height difference between her and her husband, but also to avoid towering over her hosts, as she may be taller than HH the Duke of Edinburgh.
   The Times made some reference to Thunderbirds’ Lady Penelope but summarized that Mme Sarkozy had, overall, succeeded in a more demure, safe look. Compliments could also be found from editors at Harper’s Bazaar UK and British Vogue, with the fashion magazines drawing comparisons with Jacqueline Kennedy.
   There had been reports that Mme Sarkozy had met with Christian Dior’s English-born designer John Galliano to plan the wardrobe over the last few weeks.
   Her official wardrobe also includes an evening gown by Jean Paul Gaultier. M. Gaultier had also designed her wedding gown.
   HM Queen Elizabeth II wore a mottled fawn coat with dark brown trim and a dark brown hat trimmed with fawn-coloured feathers.

And it’s a hoax—as one reader, who sadly did not leave his or her name in the comments, suspected. George Clooney’s management has said that an email doing the rounds among the fashion media—we and Women’s Wear Daily at least received it—saying that the actor was launching a clothing line is a fake.
   ‘I have no connection whatsoever with any clothing line bearing my name, and more specifically GC Exclusive by George Clooney,’ the statement by Mr Clooney read.
   It was an interesting email to have received, nonetheless—and it will be very interesting to see if anything takes place at the Westin on the promised date.
   As to the site looking like a fake: we’ve seen far worse among legitimate licensees.
   Well, this blog is meant to show you the behind-the-scenes stuff, for better or for worse—now you know what we get!

It had to happen sooner or later. Of all the celebs out there, George Clooney is particularly marketable, not just because of his looks, but because of his social activism. Thanks in part to his politician Dad Nick, the younger Mr Clooney is probably interested in more than acting.
   At the Westin Palace in Milano next month, Clooney will be débuting his luxury fashion line for men and women (with clothing and accessories). The press release is not the best translated, but we gather he’ll be there. The line is called Style by George Clooney, we believe, and the company is GC Exclusive by George Clooney.
   There’s a business card for the manager, Vincenzo Cannalire, at his site, featuring Mr Clooney’s image and not-very-luxury-brand web design, and an official site at www.gc-exclusive.com in a similar style (above). If one assumes that if the actor has allowed his name to be used, this should be a reasonably good range.

Related links
Lucire: ‘George Clooney fashion line release an early April Fool gag?’ (2008)