THE launch of a specially built Venetian boat on the River Avon has turned into a double celebration for a Stratford boat builder.
Avon Boating managing director Nick Birch fulfilled a lifetime’s ambition after being commissioned to build a Venetian sandolo, which was launched at Swan’s Nest Lane on Saturday.
Mr Birch, who has dreamt of building such a boat since importing his own gondola ten years ago, was delighted when girlfriend Patty (Patrizia) Deon accepted his marriage proposal as the couple travelled on the boat rowed by colleague Roberto Costa for its maiden voyage.
Source: stratford-herald.co.uk
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Actress Kirsten Dunst has vehemently denied reports that she had a fling with actor Orlando Bloom on the sets of their movie Elizabethtown.
According to Internet Movie Database, the actress admits she got close to Bloom but says the friendship never turned romantic. Speaking at a press conference at the Venice Film Festival she said, "If you're alluding to whether Orlando and I got together then that's a No."
But she added, "There are a lot of charismatic people in this industry and I can understand why people on location get together."
Source: hindustantimes.com
AFTER a transcontinental romance, former Dowerin correspondent for the Avon Valley Advocate and now Muresk Ph.D. student Karen Crute has become engaged.
Karen will marry wheat, corn and soyabean irrigation farmer Michael Schwarz of Beaudesert in Queensland.
The couple met at the Grainsweek Conference in Brisbane in April as two of the 70 delegates selected as Rural Leaders.
Michael sat next to Karen at the conference dinner and kept in (Karen says "businesslike") touch afterwards although they began to find they had more in common.
For some unexplained reason Michael broke the habits of a lifetime and took a holiday
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A funny thing happened to romance fiction on its way to the bank -- it got more popular and more diverse.
If you doubt it, consider these numbers compiled by Avon Books, one of the world's largest mills of romance titles and an imprint of the giant HarperCollins publishing house:
Romance fiction has annual sales of $1.41 billion worldwide.
Half of all paperback books sold internationally are romance titles, and a third of all popular fiction sales are romance titles.
64.6 million Americans read romance fiction, 22 percent of them men.
Further, a look at a recent New York Times best-sellers list for paperback books
TV mob boss James Gandolfini took a break from filming his hit HBO series, ``The Sopranos,'' yesterday to flog his raunchy musical, ``Romance & Cigarettes,'' here at the 52nd Annual Venice Film Festival.
Also making the red carpet scene at yesterday's world premiere of John Turturro's latest flick – about a long-married couple thrown into crisis by the hubby's affair with a British tart – was the director himself along with co-stars Susan Sarandon and Aida Turturro. The tart, Kate Winslet, was MIA from the premiere.
For Gandolfini, playing