News about Martha Reeves

When I read a report, this week claiming that there are 745,000 illegal immigrants living in Britain, my immediate reaction was: Is that all? So-called 'experts' at Oxford University say illegals now make up one in 100 of the population. I've no idea where they got that figure from, but it has to be hopelessly wide of the mark.

The first TUC conference I attended was in Brighton in 1978. Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan enraged union leaders by going back on a pledge to call an election , which he would probably have won. After his speech, during which he mocked them with his rendition of the old music hall song There Was I, Waiting At The Church, that evening bedlam broke out in the bars as the TUC barons swore their revenge. They'd handed Sunny Jim a substantial war chest and now they wanted payback. So began what became known as the Winter of Discontent as a wave of strikes drove a coach and horses - or rather a fleet of dust-carts - through Labour's pay restraint policy.

Why does Labour hate older people? Not content with stripping pensioners of their winter fuel payments, it is now being reported that concessionary rail fares for the over-60s are also about to be cut.

Come to think of it, I started smoking properly when I was 11. Tony Saunders, who ran the newsagents where I had my paper round paid in cigarettes. Five Park Drive tipped would last me until it was time to go to school. A few years later, when I got a job on the local rag, the chief reporter chucked me a fag as I walked through the door for the first time, before we had been formally introduced. Then he threw up in the waste-paper basket. That was my introduction to the Fourth Estate. Welcome to The House Of Fun, old son. Smoking wasn't so much encouraged as compulsory for a young trainee journalist, along with a grubby white mac from Burton's, shorthand notebook and Biro.

Full disclosure. Waheed Alli once sent me a bunch of ­flowers, the only time I've ever received a floral bouquet from a bloke. Or woman, come to think of it. To be honest, I can't remember what I did to deserve it. This was back in the dim and distant when I was doing a bit of TV and Waheed had just launched the Big Breakfast. Maybe I'd written something about him in the column, either complimentary or abusive. My guess would be abusive, though I can't be ­certain. Whatever it was, he obviously took it it good part.

Duke Fakir, the final surviving original member of the Motown icons the Four Tops, has died at the age of 88. Fakir died at his home in Detroit, Michigan, on Monday morning, according to the Detroit Free Press. The singer reportedly died from heart failure.

The taxman's taken all my dough... all I've got's this Sunny Afternoon. Whenever someone asks me how I've managed to write this column twice a week when there's nothing new in the world and we're all going to hell in a handcart, I reply, honestly: I put on The Kinks and start typing. There's something about the Ray Davies songbook which never fails to inspire me. Sir Raymond Douglas Davies, to give him his full honorific, turned 80 at the weekend.

Martha Reeves has landed a permanent home in Hollywood more than 60 years since being discovered in Detroit's music scene. On Wednesday, the Grammy and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, 82, commemorated her hard-earned appearance on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as well as Motown founder Berry Gordy.

Despite frontman Bono's efforts to downplay the severity of their new extravaganza - 'what a fancy pad,' he said, feigning surprise - the Dublin band brought the 'wow' factor to a new degree on the first night of a Las Vegas residency, which sets a new bar for live entertainment.

Martha Reeves, a legendary Motown actress, is fighting for her spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 81-year-old Heatwave singer, who was a rival of fellow Motown icon Diana Ross, must raise $55K to ensure her major career milestone, because the coveted plaques don't come cheap. Martha could not afford to fund the lavish honor herself, according to the Detroit Free Press - an expense that is normally covered by the actor's record label or a large Hollywood studio.