People: First lady gig

Published on Saturday 6 September 2008 19:36

France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is set to take time out from political duties to perform alongside Metallica and Sir Paul McCartney, the BBC has said.

The French president's wife will appear on BBC2's Later… With Jools Holland as the new series of the show gets under way.

The 40-year-old musician, who married President Nicolas Sarkozy in February, will perform songs from her new album in a 30-minute programme scheduled for September 16 and in an extended edition on September 19.

CELEBRITY WINGS

Fairy wings designed by pop star Leona Lewis and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are going up for auction on eBay.

Walt Disney asked celebrities to customise a pair of wings to raise money for London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Presenters Tess Daly and Vernon Kay, designers Nicole Farhi and Orla Kiely, sportsmen James Cracknell, Greg Rusedski and Tim Henman, supermodel Agyness Deyn and The Duchess of York have also each decorated a pair of wings by hand.

AWARDS BATTLE

Duffy and Adele will go head to head after both being nominated for Best Breakthrough Artist at the Q Awards.

Coldplay are up for four awards, securing the largest number of nominations and sealing their status at the top of the music scene following the release of their fourth album this year.

The Q Awards take place on October 6 at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

ROYAL STOCKINGS

A pair of Queen Victoria's stockings have fetched 8,000 at auction.

The black and white stockings were bought for the Ruddington Framework Knitters' Museum in Nottingham by David Alcock, whose father-in-law Jack Smirfitt was a curator at the museum.

Alcock, a 52-year-old mechanic from North Wales, saw off bids from as far away as Canada for the stockings, which were discovered in the loft of a former teacher.

SLAVE MEMORIAL

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has unveiled a memorial to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

It stands in Fen Court in the City of London, close to St Mary Woolnoth Church, where Rev John Newton delivered his anti-slavery sermon which inspired William Wilberforce in the 18th century.