News about Van Morrison

It was once the biggest and busiest shipyard around, making Britain and especially Belfast the envy of the world as workers there built some of the finest ocean liners ever seen - although including of course the ill-fated Titanic. Harland & Wolff also proved crucial to Britain's Second World War efforts, manufacturing hundreds of warships and merchant ships as well as 500 tanks - and its 1960 creation SS Canberra would go on to transport troops to the Falklands during the 1982 conflict, having also appeared in James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. The firm's flagship shipyard in east Belfast also has showbusiness connections, such as the singer Van Morrison who grew up beside it - with his father George working there as an electrician - while a riveter Bob Bishop was responsible for discovering a promising young footballer named George Best. Yet now the 163-year-old firm is on the verge of plunging into administration for the second time in five years, which could finally close down that historic Belfast shipyard plus three others across the UK - having previously endured world wars and IRA bombings as well as that Titanic tragedy. The decline marks a mighty fall for a company whose two 300ft yellow gantry cranes - named after Biblical warriors Samson and Goliath - have been iconic sights towering against the Belfast skyline since the 1960s.

Dermot O'Leary surprised fans by sharing an emotional tribute to his wife Dee Koppang on Instagram as he celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary. The This Morning star, 51, took to his Instagram page on Saturday with a rare snap from their wedding day as they danced the night away together. Dermot, who is usually fairly private about his family life, gave a rare insight by sharing the sweet shot of himself and Dee, 45.

Now the 42-year-old has hired the services of Nick Freeman, aka 'Mr Loophole', to fight contest the speeding charge at a trial. Mr Freeman has worked on a number of high-profile speeding cases including Van Morrison, Ranulph Fiennes, Jeremy Clarkson and Alex Ferguson . He was given the nickname 'Mr Loophole' by the press following his continued success in challenging prosecutions and it became his trademark in 2008. According to the Evening Standard, Cole did not initially pull over because he believed it was another motorist who was being flagged down by police.

Mary Martin (at right with Keith Urban and inset) was an important but unsung hero for folk and rock music. A sort of connector and catalyst for the genres, she died Thursday while receiving palliative care at Nashville's Alive Hospice. She rubbed shoulders early on with Dylan in the 60s, before winning a Grammy for an album in which he was featured. The manager and executive helped start the budding careers of Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, and Keith Urban (at left), and worked with big names like Janis Joplin. A cause of death was not provided, but news of her death was confirmed on social media.

It was about 11pm, just before I got into bed, that I heard a ping from my phone. I assumed it was a text from BA cancelling my flight the next day, but it was an answerphone message with the caller ID coming up 'Unknown'. When I listened, I heard a deep, Northern-accented voice saying slowly and deliberately: 'You haven't got back to me. It's been four weeks. I saw you in that shop that one time. Get back to me NOW!' It was extremely unpleasant. Of course I didn't want to speak with this man and, in any case, with his number withheld, it was impossible to return the call.

Despite Heritage Live being granted a five-year contract to hold concerts on the site, the King's Royal Sandringham estate in Norfolk will not host its sell-out music festival this year. Last year, the eco-conscious Monarch partnered with Heritage Live to produce a series of concerts over five years, aiming to be as profitable as possible. Robbie Williams, Van Morrison, and The Who opened the first season of concerts in August, delighting thousands of fans. However, Heritage Live has revealed that the concerts will not return this year in order to book big shows.

Mark Borkowski said the Duke and Duchess of Sussex 'crashed' the Princess Diana festival in a 'in search of wealth' from the lucrative'mummies market.' On the same night when Prince William was still speaking and giving out awards at the Science Museum in London, the couple revealed Archewell's winner of a $100,000 civil rights award in the United States. The Sussexes took a leaf out of Kanye West and Bianca Censori's playbook by 'causing confusion left, right, and center,' according to the company's chief. The fact that Royal PRs were 'blindsided' by her intervention tells a lot about the 'chaos at the Palace,' according to the public relations veteran. Kate Middleton's Photoshop blunder and mea culpa will also have assisted them due to the amount of royal press coverage this week, according to Brand and Culture Consultant Nick Ede. This week, he said that the scandal surrounding the Mother's Day portrait this week was 'welcome timing for Meghan's portrait and good news for her and the brand.' According to Mark Borkowski, whose celebrity clients include Sir Cliff Richard, Van Morrison, and Graham Norton, the Sussexes have taken a leaf from Kanye West and Bianca Censori's playbook by 'causing chaos left, right, and center'. The fact that Royal PRs were 'blindsided' by her intervention speaks volumes about the Palace's 'chaos.'

The Irish people from around the world will pour a pint of Guinness this weekend as they commemorate St Patrick's Day. And, scientists say you should listen to Irish music if you want the ultimate drinking experience. According to scientists from the University of Lincoln, Guinness tastes better while listening to Irish music - and the style of music changes as a result of the genre of music being played. When listening to Orinoco Flow by Enya or What Can I Do by The Corrs (top right), revellers will relish a sweeter pint of the black stuff. However, those that like a bitter beer should check out Drunken Sailor by The Irish Rovers or Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison (bottom right).

Nigel, my darling husband, was a death for ten years. His feet dragged as the life dripped from him like water from a faucet, causing him to languish in a world where there is no mercy - his astute, tortured soul entombed in a frozen, paralysed body. He had motor neurone disease (MND) and feared the final stages, where he knew he would be both alive and dead. You have nothing if you had no choice. He's lucky,' he'll say. I get to choose how and when I die.' What he did - a true man's man, with three children he adored, a social, gregarious person who was always smiling and joking, a common figure in the pub, rugby club, and golf club - wanted to end his days at Dignitas, Switzerland.

Jane Fryer: In the Kopjes Cat Cafe in Amsterdam, all is quiet and lovely. In centrally heated luxury, the eight resident cats are snooling about. They lay in cat beds, listen to Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl's delicate strains, yawn, stretch, and occasionally bicker over a piece of kibble. And then lie back to be entertained by the steady stream of visitors who have spent five euros just to hang out with them. It's really soothing.' It's wonderful. For our first night, we watched a very sad movie, so I needed to cheer them on.' Tereza, 19, who is on a dating minibreak with boyfriend Joe, 21, of Manchester, is here because she's missing her cats at home. And also because it looked much better than Anne Frank's house on TikTok. 'Twenty-five euros seemed to be a lot to look at a room in an empty house,' she says. 'But this is amazing.' The Dutch seem to adore their cats more than once.'

The 56-year-old actor recalled visiting The Pogues frontman in the 1990s and retelling the touching tale of their journey from enemies to friends in Dublin over a night out. Sutherland said that his encounter and a letter sent by the singer to him changed his perception and taught him not to judge a book by its cover and made him'very rarely trust first encounters.' Sutherland retelling the tale in a 2019 interview, admitting that the pair wasn't off to the best start when they first got off to a fight at a club where he had worked with MacGowan, Sinead O'Connor, Van Morrison, and Ronnie Wood.

On Wednesday, Dermot O'Leary and his wife Dee Koppang made their first public appearance together at the Choose Love pop-up shop for Help Refugees in London. At the Carnaby Street festival, the TV presenter, 50, cut a casual figure in a cream 'Choose Love' T-shirt and black joggers. In comparison, Dee wore a black and white striped top under a trench coat, looking very fashionable.

QUEBIAN THRILLS: Whatever you like about his steadfast anti-lockdown views, Van Morrison's two double albums in quarantine were difficult to bear. Dominated by rants about social distancing, the media and music business, 2021's sprawling Latest Record Project: Volume 1 and last year's What's It Gonna Take? The Belfast Cowboy lived up to his name as the world's most popular man. However, even a performer who outspokenly stated that he hated Covid and showed his more mature face in March, a tribute to the jazz and skiffle that took over Britain in the 1950s. Morrison, who denounced the word "pseudo-science" that surrounded Covid, had to wake up occasionally, and he showed his more empathetic side. Accentuate The Positive is a jolly double LP that includes some notable collaborations and sees him return to two more of his childhood favorites: 1950s rock and roll and 1960s pop. It takes Van, 78, back to his early days as a soulful rhythm and blues singer, and it's (whisper it) positively cheering.

Dermot O'Leary has discussed being a father to a child and how being a parent has influenced his priorities. Dee Koppang O'Leary and his son Kasper, three, live in London with their television presenter Dee Koppang O'Leary and their son Kasper, three. He told The Times how much energy is required to keep up with his teenage son, saying it can be 'full'.

As part of a five-year green plan for summer activities, the royal residence (pictured left and inset) will host separate performances from Van Morrison, Robbie Williams, and The Who, as well as special guests from Friday to Monday. Monarch Ed Monarch (pictured right) aims to lead the way in eventing by staging a series of environmentally sustainable concerts in the historic grounds over the next five years. He has joined Heritage Live to produce a number of gigs this year, including no-single use plastic and biodegradable cups, and by year five, pedal bikes will be on the stage.

Following the 'de-banking' controversy with Nigel Farage, Peter Flavel is expected to be remembered as the juggling banker who dropped the ball after quitting as Coutts boss after quitting as Coutts boss. The 63-year-old, who is expected to have earned £910,000-per-year as the head of the private bank, is taking 'absolute responsibility' for the scandal. In March 2016, the married father-of-three joined Coutts as CEO, which was praised for orchestrating a's 'high growth.' He has previously mentioned his fascination with Pilates and boasted of the benefits of working from home at his £2 million west London apartment well before the Covid pandemic. Mr Flavel was born in Strathalbyn, South Australia, on his grandparents' stud farm, and his first job was to clean glasses in his parents' pub. He played both cricket and hockey at Prince Alfred College as a sports-mad schoolboy. According to the school's website, a serious knee injury ended his hopes of playing hockey at the highest level, and so he began teaching. He began to study at University of Adelaide and University of Melbourne before attending Oxford University and Harvard University. Before embarking on a 30-year career in finance, he worked in commercial law.

This is the bizarre occurrence where a bike vigilante accidentally caught an enraged driver on his cell phone, sparking an outrage of strange and filthy slurs. A man sat in traffic (pictured) in a Fiat 500 while on his mobile phone in Chelsea, London, and was caught by Mike van Erp, 50, better known by his YouTube handle, CyclingMikey. When Mr van Erp confronts him, the driver says 'What are you f******* worried about it for anyway?' Until revealing that he has cancer and is on the way to the hospital, the actor is going to hospital. He begged the cyclist to 'f*** off' and threatens to get out of the car before yelling, 'I bet you're a virgin.' The driver's head then pops back out of his window and he shouts 'And I bet you're a Chelsea fan and all aren't you!'

When Ed Sheeran took the stand on Monday, he promised to leave music if a federal jury finds him guilty of plagiarizing Marvin Gaye's hit song 'Let's Get it On'. In his album 'Thinking Out Loud,' the 32-year-old singer-songwriter has been accused of boosting a four-chord progression from the soul classic.' On the stand, Sheeran said the allegations are actually 'insulting,' because he said he was inspired by Irish band Van Morrison.

ADRIAN THRILLS: A generation of post-war teenagers was being enthused by another pop craze long before the 1960s. The late 1950s skiffle movement, which saw singers such as Lonnie Donegan trying their hands at American folk, blues, and country, may have only lasted a few years, but it left a lasting legacy. The Beatles emerged from John Lennon's skiffle group The Quarrymen, and the Bee Gees' roots lie in Barry Gibb's homespun Manchester band The Rattlesnakes. Van Morrison heard Donegan's Rock Island Line in his local Belfast vinyl store, Atlantic Records, and formed a skiffle group with some schoolmates across the Irish Sea.

The first-ever orbital space launch took off in Cornwall tonight, making history in the United Kingdom. A retired passenger plane had been modified to launch a Virgin Orbit rocket carrying nine small satellites into space. Some of the satellites are intended for UK defence monitoring, while others are for companies involved in navigational technology. Its launch marked the UK's first space flight, more than 70 years since the British Space Programme was established in 1952.

As the hospitality industry's worst times ever faced, a new six-part BBC series follows the hardworking cast of characters at Hastings Hotel Group, Northern Ireland's largest family-owned luxury hotel chain, as they try to recover from some of the worst times the hospitality industry has ever faced. The series follows a celebrity who won't allow the employees to look at them, as well as another whose security guard requested for allusive services to be delivered to the door. Managing Director James McGinn, photographed right.

FEMAIL looks at the other celebrities who have put pen to paper, as ex-Manchester United's cringeworthy poems to his ex-girlfriend are revealed. (right, Kristen Stewart wrote a poem for ex Robert Pattinson). Lewis Hamilton, a Formula One legend, baffled followers in 2017 after he published a poem in honor of Princess Diana on the 20th anniversary of her death (centre). And earlier this year, 90210 actress AnnaLynne McCord made headlines when she penned a number of verses about President Putin (left)

Given the nominations, there are several questions to consider entering the 94th Academy Awards, which will air on tonight (March 27). Will Kristen Stewart land her first Oscar after a much-praised turn as Princess Diana in period drama disguised as a horror film, Spencer?Will CODA's Troy Kotsur make history and become the first deaf male actor to pick up a trophy?Will Encanto make the same waves at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as it's made on the pop charts? Presumably, we'll all know the answers soon. We might even find out if The Power of the Dog nabs Best Picture, as it has already cleaned up at the BAFTAs, Critics' Choice Awards, and Golden Globes. We'll also find out if Beyoncé or Billie Eilish earns their first Oscar win. That's a lot to look forward to.

The Oscar season is here, so be sure to add Letterbox to your to-dote. The 2022 Academy Awards were announced today (February 8, 2009), and Jane Campion's measured but smoldering western The Power of the Dog leads the pack with 12, the most of any film. Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic Dune, anchored by Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, received 10, while Steven Spielberg's sweeping West Side Story update and Kenneth Branagh's black-and-white reflection on his Irish childhood Belfast each earned 7 points.