DiCaprio goes sole searching

Sometimes you have to feel sorry for celebrities. Leonardo DiCaprio was visiting a hilltop shrine in Kyoto during his current trip to Japan when he was spotted by a couple of American tourists, who demanded that he interrupt his private search for spiritual enlightenment and pose for some pictures.

The Titanic star politely declined, pointing to a sign prohibiting photography on the sacred premises.

The fans were determined not to leave empty-handed. They waited until he entered the temple, removing his Nike Dunk sneakers — and then they stole them. “The poor guy had to leave the place barefoot, ” a source said. When they make their inevitable appearance on eBay, we hope that a kindly soul reunites DiCaprio with his footwear.

If John Bercow, the Speaker, is serious about forcing ministers to outline policy to Parliament before the media he will get no help from the BBC. “You might argue that, given the decreasing coverage of proceedings in Parliament in the media, politicians have a responsibility to take the story to where the audience is, at a time when more of them are listening,” argues Jamie Angus, editor of The World at One. He invites listeners’ views on whether they prefer to hear the news before Bercow does.

Gurinder Chadha, the Bend It Like Beckham director, regrets that her plan to reboot the 1980s soap Dallas as a feature film, starring John Travolta, came to naught. “It just didn’t happen because of studio bureaucracy,” she tells us at the summer party for the Pratham Indian literacy charity.

“You can see how so many bad films get made. People generally go for what they think are more common denominator films.” We shall draw a veil over Chadha’s own Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.

Proof that Bono is not infallible: Evan Rachel Wood is due to play Mary Jane Watson in the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, scored by the U2 frontman and his compatriot, The Edge. But Ms Wood felt she had to intervene when the boys played her their gloomy tunes. “I was like, ‘Bono, I know you want to save the world and everything, but in this song you’re talking about poverty and world hunger and it’s Broadway. Can we lighten this up a bit, can I just not sing this?’ He was like, ‘You’re right, I know, we have to try, we have to try’.”

Jon Bon Jovi has shown his support for democracy protesters in Tehran by posting a YouTube video of himself singing Stand By Me in Farsi. A comment on the rocker’s website predicts that he will become “the first legendary American singer to perform in Iran . . . one day in the near future”. The video may not have been the best way to impress the current regime.

“We have more than 300 BBC technicians that have gone to another festival [Glastonbury] and not a single one that has come here,” complained Sir Sean Connery, speaking at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. “I think we should all do something about it.” The BBC said it would be sending its technical army to T in the Park, Scotland’s own Glastonbury.

Home is where the art is for Yorkshire lad

The Face: David Hockney

"You’ll destroy Bohemia,” railed David Hockney, rebel smoker, to a Labour MP, as the smoking ban was proposed. The polemical Yorkshire artist, 72, also branded the MP “absolutely dreary” — but he has never been known to hold his tongue. Born to a “radical working-class family” in Bradford, he left for the Royal College of Art in London, where his work was featured alongside Peter Blake’s in Young Contemporaries, the exhibition that announced the arrival of British Pop Art. After hanging out with Warhol in New York, he chose the wide open landscapes and swimming pools of California as his home. Beverly Hills Housewife, a painting from that period, sold for £5.2 million last month. A BBC One Imagine documentary tonight follows his decision to return to work in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, after 30 years in Santa Monica.

Preparing for a Royal Academy show in 2012, he says: “I’d actually rather just get on with my work and be left alone.”

Postscript

Geoff Hoon joined the great unwashed at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park. The former Transport Secretary ferried a plastic tray of chicken nuggets and chips into the heart of the mosh pit before Neil Young’s headline set.

• Sir Paul McCartney joined Young at the event for a feedback-drenched encore of A Day In The Life. Macca will now receive performance royalties, helping to beef up the value of the Beatles song catalogue that was held by Michael Jackson.

• Dame Shirley Bassey is working with David Arnold, the James Bond franchise composer, on her first new studio album in a decade. “There could be a new Diamonds Are Forever, says a source.

people@thetimes.co.uk

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