One of her films turned a racist ex-colonialist into a national hero, another witnessed her falling in love with a maintenance worker she happened to shoot. The relationship failed when he took her home and she found herself 'in one of my own documentaries'.

Her subjects, most notably Geri Halliwell and Tony Blair, have begged for her services. Her friends accuse her of interviewing them during casual conversation and she gets angry when people talk about her 'fly-on-the-wall' documentaries, insisting that they're 'fly on your bloody face'. Married to publisher William Sieghart, she has a daughter named Maud.

Simon says - 22/10/02
Simon Cowell thinks J-Lo is a "joke" because of her extra-large entourage. He said, "She sends minions into restaurants to see if everything is acceptable. Oh, give me a break." Courtesy of Heat Magazine

Cowell's company - 01/10/02
Simon Cowell is in talks to set up a TV production company focussing on music. He is only employed as a judge on Pop Idol and American Idol and earns nothing from sales of the show. Courtesy of Heat Magazine.

Straight simon - 17/09/02
Simon Cowell understands why people think he's gay. He says "I watch myself on TV and I do seem so gay. I really am straight but I get asked that a lot." But fellow American Idol judge Paula Abdul laughs, "he's been fighting over my lace dress." Courtesy of Heat Magazine

Nasty Simon is minted - 05/09/02
I guess it can pay to be nasty…it certainly has helped Simon Cowell, who, it turns out, is about to be paid $1million for American Idol 2.' The second series of the American version of Pop Idol will be broadcast in the US next year. According to the Hollywood Reports, Cowell, based in Kensington when in the UK, is set to get $1 million for being a judge on the show.

Who wants him? - 03/09/02
Simon Cowell's mum is searching for a "nice all-American girl" to be his wife. While appearing on US TV Julie Cowell begged for someone to settle down with her son - Si quickly said she was just joking after being "on the vodka again". Courtesy of Heat Magazine

Biography

As a music industry mogul Simon Cowell's had a hand in 'shaping pop music today'. Public recogintion had to wait until he was cast as the nasty judge on the hit ITV show Pop Idols .

Starting in 1979 with EMI Music Publishing, Cowell (42) got a taste for what the public wanted and it wasn't long before he decided to take these qualities and put them to use for himself, setting up his own label, Fanfare, along with partner Iain Burton.

By 1989 BMG had offered Simon a position as A&R; Consultant. It was a relationship which would prove to be hugely successful, profitable and enduring. Cowell has set-up his own label through BMG, S Records, reflecting the success and vision he has manifested.

Simon's roster of signing reads like a who's who of pop success stories over the last decade. Highlights include, Curiosity Killed The Cat, Sonia, and cornering the boy band market, bad boys of pop Five (who disbanded last year) and the global multi-platinum phenomenon, Westlife.

Always pop but never predictable, Simon has enjoyed some of his most successful signings by always keeping an eye firmly on the TV world, sensing a public following and always being the first knocking on the door. The Power Rangers, World Wrestling Federation, Zig & Zag and the Xmas Number 1 smash Teletubbies moved from the small box to the airwaves due to Simon, although, he claims his biggest shock success would come in the form of Robson & Jerome.

Making records and breaking them, in the last 10 years, Cowell has achieved sales of over 25 million albums, over 70 top 30 records and 17 number 1 singles.

Simon is currently a judge on the US version of Pop Idols and is busy looking after Will, Gareth and Sarah Watemore, who he signed to BMG after the show.

Society interior designer, sometime columnist and perpetual bon viveur.

His clients include the Prince of Wales, Ringo Starr, Rupert Everett and Bryan Ferry. Nicky's penchant for elegant interiors was apparent even at Eton, where his room had leopard-skin curtains, cut-paper ostrich feather pelmets and ermine bows. He was the original devotee of mauve interiors, but he is now exuberantly modern and yet romantic in his approach.

Nicky has always hung out with the right people. While still at Eton, he became a friend of Cecil Beaton and Lady Diana Cooper; working at Vogue with Diana Vreeland in New York in the 1960s. His 60th birthday party last year was attended by Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, Valentino, Nan Kempner, Anjelica Huston, Conrad and Barbara Black, Robert Hanson, Sir Anthony Bamford, Kate Moss, Barbara Bach and Ringo Starr, George Melly, David and Catherine Bailey, Laura and Tom Parker Bowles, James Hewitt, Claus von Bulow, Cosima Pavoncelli, Prince Kyril and Princess Rosario of Bulgaria, Alexandra Aitken, Jemima Khan, James and Julia Ogilvy, Bella Freud and James Fox and Isabel Goldsmith among 500 guests.

Nicky is currently writing his memoirs and warns they are likely to be spicy: Nicky also recently had a full face lift.

Tom received a 2:2 from Oxford University and is the gregarious godson of the Prince of Wales. His mother Camilla is 'romantically linked' to the Prince.

Tom was in the press last year having admitted to using Cocaine. Since then he's managed to keep his nose clean. He works in IT and runs Quintessentially, a company that helps you get Ascot tickets, upgrade your holidays and other services. He also writes the occassional piece for Tatler which makes him a journalist too.

Anagram of Tom Parker Bowles-
Last blow, Mr? Pass a line o' coke, Mr?

from www.anagramgenius.com

1 June 1999 - Son of Camilla Parker Bowles snorted cocaine

16 May 1999 - Tom Parker Bowles On Drugs

Guardian Pass Notes on Tom Parker Bowles

Anne Robinson upsets the Welsh again - 28/11/02
Anne Robinson has upset Welsh people again by saying only insane people would take a holiday in a north Wales resort. Eight months after asking "What are the Welsh for?" on Room 101 she has ridiculed the town of Pwllheli, on the Lleyn peninsula.

Robinson asked Weakest Link contestant Andrew Evans what he did for a living. When Mr Evans told her he sold holiday homes in the Welsh resort, Robinson replied: "No-one in their right mind would go holidaying in Pwllheli".

On her way to the USA, and bragging that she would take American television by storm, Anne Robinson, the cruel, po-faced, Kensington-based presenter of the ground-breaking TV game show, the Weakest Link, was still waving a red rag at the Welsh this week as she flew out of Heathrow.

Robinson, 57, voted the rudest woman on TV and rated, alongside Hannibal Lecter, as the person other people would least like to have dinner with, sent a storm through the valleys when she tried to consign Wales to oblivion on the BBC2 show Room 101. Robinson was being humorous, she insisted later. But many in Wales failed to get the joke. Viewers complained to the BBC.

Letters accusing her of "racism" poured into London-based newspapers. One recommended that the "witch" be forced to stand in the national stadium, in front of 73,000 Welsh rugby fans, while another, vaguely threatening, said "everyone would love five minutes alone with Anne Robinson".