Jailhouse rock is something to Bragg about

“The Governor of HMP Brixton went to Rikers Island in New York and he is trying to get me in there,” Billy Bragg tells us. Critics who would like the Bard of Barking in a maximum-security jail for musical offences will be disappointed.

Bragg is following in the footsteps of Johnny Cash by bringing music to the hardest lags, in the belief that song can help rehabilitation. Bragg’s Jail Guitar Doors scheme has so far delivered 120 guitars to British prisons. The reconviction rate is significantly down for participants and the project has been endorsed by David Hanson, the Prisons Minister.

Bragg hopes to export guitars to San Quentin State Prison, in California, where Cash famously performed. “I have great respect for Johnny, because he opened up the whole idea of reaching out to people beyond the pale,” he says.

Do convicted criminals deserve private gigs by Bragg and his chums? “I do believe in punishment, but while they are incarcerated we have a chance to change their lives,” the singer said at the Gibson Guitar Studio. “Music can can help you escape from your surroundings.” But not literally in this case.

Anne-Marie Duff is keeping tight-lipped about her role in Nowhere Boy , Sam Taylor Wood’s new Beatles film. “I’m playing John Lennon’s mother. It’s about Lennon’s childhood, but I can’t say much more,” she tells us at the British Independent Film Awards. The film explores the conflict between Julia and John’s aunt, Mimi, over the boy.

The credit crunch has hit Condé Nast. “I am so sorry to ask this,” laments Charlotte Zamani, managing editor of GQ, in an e-mail wondering if there are any “goodies from clients we have published, for me to use as goody-bag presents for our Christmas lunch please? We are 65 in total. Anything at all, and I will be so grateful.” Come on, you Scrooges.

Sightings of mice on the House of Commons estate are down to 79 this year from 200 in 2001, Hansard reports. Complaints about flies numbered 79 this year, while action to tackle an infestation of the common house moth ( Tineola bisselliella) means that complaints fell from 2,507 in May to 907. No confirmation yet of any moles . . .

Mumbai's good news story

The Face: Dev Patel

To his friends, Dev Patel is the same tae-kwon-do-loving teenager from Harrow. But the Oscar buzz is already beginning after the young star of Slumdog Millionaire, released here next month, took the Best Newcomer award at the British Independent Film Awards.

Danny Boyle, the director, scoured the sub-continent for an actor to play the orphan from the slums of Mumbai who becomes an Indian quiz-show star. But Boyle did not want a typical Bollywood “beefcake” star. His daughter spotted the gawky Patel, 18, in Skins, the E4 teen-drama series, and urged her father to “give him a try”.

Born to a Hindu family that emigrated from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, (“but my descent is from India”), Patel was fascinated by Mumbai’s teeming streets during filming. “To see acts of kindness in places of such poverty is amazing,” he said. After winning the award, he said: “I’m joining the ranks of the unemployed actor . . . and hoping for Slumdog Trillionaire.” With the film taking on greater significance after last week’s attacks, Hollywood could soon beckon.

Postscript

Fame costs. So Kelsey Grammer will star in the remake of the classic 1980 film about the New York School of Performing Arts. The Frasier star will take the Dr Shorofsky role of maestro music teacher.

“What’s the best thing that Angelina has ever cooked for you?”, Jamie Oliver asks Brad Pitt for the chef’s new glossy mag. “Cereal,” is the reply.

“I try to be as frank as I can be,” says Nick Clegg, embroiled in a row over unflattering comments about his Lib Dem colleagues he reportedly made on a plane. “I hope I’m candid in what I say,” he told Total Politics magazine.

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