Entertainment When celebrities meet royals: 10 hilarious anecdotes

For most chamber music partners, 2020 has been a year of jarring discontinuity, but for a few – those with a spare room, no family commitments and the ability to tolerate the incorrect loading of the dishwasher – there have been silver linings. In Rotterdam in March the pianist Sam Armstrong moved in with his soprano recital partner Katharine Dain for what they thought would be a few weeks of quarantine and rehearsal. Those weeks turned into months, in which they worked daily on a selection of French-language songs written in life-changing times. The result, recorded in August, is an extraordinarily polished and thought-through disc.

Sofía of Spain: Black & golden silk: It looks stunning

The situation in the Spanish royal family is anything but easy, but Sofía of Spain (82) is very relaxed - at least on the outside. Just one day after her birthday, the Spanish ex-queen was spotted in Madrid (November 3rd). Together with , her sister Irene (78), the 82-year-old visited the "National Music Auditorium" to attend a classical concert - a nice birthday event. In a royal outfit made of gold and black silk, the mother of King Felipe (52) looks just fantastic.

10 . We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public. 11. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. 37. Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet? 38. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the

Celebrity interviews are a tricky affair. The stars involved are often midway through a lengthy promotional The whole thing got us thinking — which are the funniest interviews out there, where the celebrity involved drops the act and just lets rip? 4. Zig and Zag meet their match in Robin Williams.

At its centre is a glowing performance of Messiaen’s 1937 song cycle Poèmes pour Mi, Dain’s voice crystalline yet powerful when required, Armstrong’s piano effortlessly propulsive. Surrounding this, in pleasing symmetry, are works by four other composers. At the beginning and end are two striking songs by Kaija Saariaho: 2002’s Parfum de l’instant, the piano creating a sense of large-scale, almost tectonic motion, and 1986’s Il pleut, in which Armstrong’s contribution is to pick out a descending chromatic scale that goes from the very top of the keyboard to the very bottom, a hypnotising effect. There are two memorably melodic songs by Dutilleux, from one of which the disc takes its name, and Debussy’s early Proses Lyriques, full of Romantic sweep.

Mette-Marit von Norway: She is worried about her beloved dog

If you don't have a dog, you probably can't understand that the four-legged friends are extremely important family members for their owners. For Mette-Marit (47) and Haakon from Norway (47), the two Royal Dogs Milly Kakao and their offspring Muffins Kråkebolle guarantee good moods. © AXEL SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images Mette Marit Mette's oldest son Marius, from a previous relationship, is also a real dog fan. In the video above you can see a cute family photo with four-legged friends.

British celebrity florist Simon Lycett said the government had done nothing to help the devastated events industry since the pandemic hit Celebrity florist Simon Lycett has slammed the government for its treatment of the events industry during the Covid crisis, saying it had been 'totally forgotten'.

Comedian Molly Dworsky and her team have created their own version of the smash hit Royals poking fun at life in your third decade.

It’s the two songs that frame the Messiaen that are the most intriguing. They are by “Mi” herself: Claire Delbos, Messiaen’s first wife, a violinist and composer silenced when in 1949 she suffered memory loss after an operation; she died of cerebral atrophy in a care home, a decade later. Her song cycle L’âme en bourgeon (The Budding Soul), composed when she was pregnant with their only child, sets words by her poet mother-in-law, written when pregnant with Messiaen. Not a note is wasted in the two dark, concentrated little songs that Dain and Armstrong choose to include. In fact, ideally this disc would include more Delbos – but I’m not sure what I’d sacrifice to make room.

This week’s other pick

Slavonic Reflections (Pentatone) captures the elusive Russian pianist Nelly Akopian-Tamarina live in a Wigmore Hall recital in 2009, and it’s just as riveting as the Brahms disc she released three years ago. The intensity and inward focus she brings to her programme of Chopin mazurkas, Janáček’s In the Mists and short pieces by Medtner and Liadov makes the whole thing spellbinding.