Herve Leger dress – InternalDress

My inspiration always comes from working with my clients. I don’t read wedding blogs (except for HuffPost Weddings, of course) and seldom read magazines. I hear stories from my clients and get inspired. As we explore the options for their wedding, my imagination runs wild. As we walk through the wedding venue, I see oodles of potential.

It’s more fun to create than imitate, and frankly, I’m getting tired of some of the wedding trends. I think it’s time for something new. Since I plan mostly gay weddings, I love playing in a field with no rules or expectations about what should happen at a wedding. So let’s get rid of the mason jars, say goodbye to cupcakes and kick the photobooth to the curb.

Sometimes I have clients who say something completely brilliant Missoni Dresses, from way out of left field, and I get to hit the ground running on solving this problem, addressing this amazing need. That just happened with a pair of my grooms. They didn’t want a band because they think it’s hard to find a great one. They felt that DJs can fall a little flat. So they asked me to find them a VJ.

Yes, VJ. Video Jockey. Think MTV before “Jersey Shore.” Think Adam Curry and Downtown Julie Brown. A VJ.

I instantly loved it! Of course it’s very complicated, but as a planner, I love a fun challenge! My first thoughts are: “Brilliant! But I don’t even know how this works. Does the VJ pre-program all the videos in advance, leaving no room for mixing, spontaneity and “reading the crowd”? Is a VJ an egoist who wants all the attention? Can a VJ get all those songs? Really?”

I’m still figuring this stuff out and I don’t yet have all the answers, but there are a few things I know for sure:

1) There are almost no VJs Hale Bob Dresses, anywhere, who spin weddings. I asked around on Twitter and heard about someone in L.A. I googled and googled some more, contacted a few booking agents in New York City who were as confused as I was, before I found one agent with one VJ (who is awesome and gay for my gay grooms).

2) Apparently VJs can, in fact, mix on the fly. I have absolutely no idea how they mix video files, just as a DJ mixes song files. I don’t know the software. I have truly no idea how this works, but it’s very impressive! One VJ did a demo for my clients (see video at the bottom of this post), where he literally took requests from my grooms and played them for us live. Then the grooms asked about an “SNL” skit and somehow the VJ downloaded that file and mixed that in as well.

3) This is not inexpensive since there are a lot of audio/visual needs — screens and so forth.

4) As much as I love a great DJ (more so than a band, personally), a VJ can make the party pop in a way that a DJ can’t. The VJ captivates the guests with video, adding in another level of nostalgia and bringing them back, in my clients’ case, mostly to the ’80s.

Videos tell stories. We tell our clients’ stories when we plan those fabulous, historic weddings. What a perfect pair. This VJ wedding isn’t till September, but I’ll report back about how much fun we all have toasting our grooms and their fabulous, unique wedding.

Visit my website www.14stories.com and follow me @gaywedding

MANAMA (Reuters) – Leading Formula One team principals expressed confidence in security measures at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday even as police and protesters faced off with teargas and petrol bombs half an hour up the road.

On a day again dominated by politics and safety concerns, as well as a visit to the circuit by the country’s Crown Prince, those charged with running the teams battled to focus on motor racing.

The first question monster beats, posed by an official questioner, at a news conference organized by the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) concerned the security situation however.

McLaren principal Martin Whitmarsh, whose championship-leading team are part-owned by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, said he was “comfortable”.

“Clearly we race as an international sport all over the world and we have security concerns and issues at a number or races and we take that very seriously, and we’re cautious, and we try to take the right precautions,” he said.

Mercedes motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug, Red Bull principal Christian Horner, Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali, Force India’s Bob Fernley and Lotus boss Eric Boullier agreed.

They also backed Whitmarsh’s assertion that the team’s top priority was to go motor racing.

“Formula One is a sport at the end of the day and it’s wrong for it to be used politically. We’re here to race beats by dre, we trust in the FIA, in the decisions that they made, and we’re comfortable with the decisions that they have made,” said Horner.

“For us, it’s about trying to extract the maximum from this weekend as a sporting team in a sporting championship.”

While teams have endeavored to focus on the sport rather than politics, with many of the drivers seemingly operating in a paddock bubble, the regular Formula One media has found itself writing more about protests than sport.

The outside world has also thrust itself onto Formula One with both the Force India and Sauber teams witnessing youths throwing petrol bombs while travelling from the circuit to hotels.

Some 10,000 pro-democracy protesters massed in Manama on Friday evening, the start of the weekend in the Middle East, with masked youths hurling petrol bombs at police who had stopped them marching to a traffic roundabout that was a gathering point during an uprising last year.

Reuters reporters at the scene said police responded by firing tear gas and sound bombs.

The press room has been unusually quiet by contrast, with many of the reduced group of reporters present at the race leaving early to return to hotels before nightfall.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by John Mehaffey)

World Sports Bahrain

LONDON (Reuters) – James Murdoch’s belated acknowledgment that he had become a liability to satellite broadcaster BSkyB was a rare admission of defeat by the combative 39-year-old executive known for his self-belief and decisiveness.

Murdoch resigned on Tuesday as chairman of BSkyB, saying he did not want to damage the company any further by the intense scrutiny surrounding his role in a phone-hacking scandal that has convulsed his father’s media empire.

That it took him so long to come to what many had long thought a logical conclusion was a measure not only of his self-assurance and behind-the-scenes calculations but also of his attachment to the British broadcaster.

“He will be bitterly disappointed,” one executive who has worked alongside Murdoch at Sky told Reuters. “He has a strong emotional attachment to that company.”

Murdoch first proved his mettle independently of the family name at BSkyB, first as the youngest chief executive in London’s blue-chip FTSE 100 and then as chairman.

“I am proud of what we have achieved Tattoo kits,” he wrote in a brief resignation letter.

People who have reported directly to James say he is decisive and leaves colleagues in no doubt about what he expects. He likes to work with a small group of people whom he keeps close and trusts.

That confidence inspires fear among many of those who work for him. He used to keep a model of the Star Wars villain Darth Vader outside his London office.

“When James was in the building, you could almost hear the Darth Vader music,” said a former senior staff member at News International, the UK newspaper publishing division of the Murdoch empire that became the focus of the hacking scandal. “He’s a scary man around the office.”

But his stewardship of BSkyB won high marks from investors and media professionals. Roy Greenslade, media commentator, journalism professor and a former senior editor at Murdoch’s Sun tabloid said James Murdoch did not put a foot wrong at BSkyB.

“Most people would say that he’s been an effective chairman, a period of growing share price, and the irony of all this is that it’s got nothing to do with BSkyB.”

DOWNFALL

Murdoch’s appointment at the age of 30 as chief executive of BSkyB, a business his father Rupert had been instrumental in founding, sparked accusations of nepotism.

He arrived fresh from turning around News Corp’s ailing Star TV business in Asia but his previous business experience was mostly limited to the music industry, where he had had little financial success.

However, in his four years as CEO he turned BSkyB into a powerhouse of British broadcasting, and transformed a national media debate that had been dominated by a small elite centering around public-service broadcaster the BBC.

Later, as chairman, James seemed to relish controversy, following in the footsteps of Rupert – whom he called “Pa” – with a series of sometimes blistering attacks on the BBC, which he accused of distorting competition.

The executive who worked alongside James Murdoch, who asked not to be identified while discussing his style, said Sky showed the Murdoch ethos of feeling that ‘everyone is out to get you’. The firm behaved like a scrappy challenger company that under a harsher light could be said to have a chip on its shoulder.

“You can’t attribute that ethos to James, it came before, but it certainly reflected his own approach,” he said.

James’s problems began when he stepped down as BSkyB CEO in 2007 and took on News Corp’s operations in Europe Tattoo Supplies, the Middle East and Asia – including the British newspaper business, News International.

Executives at the UK publisher were at the time reeling from the arrest and imprisonment of Clive Goodman, the royal reporter on its best-selling Sunday tabloid the News of the World.

Within months of arriving, James was called upon to authorize a large settlement to a hacking victim, soccer union boss Gordon Taylor. That proved to be James’s undoing.

When News International was forced last year by the weight of evidence to drop its contention that phone-hacking was the work of a lone, “rogue” reporter and admit that the practice was widespread, questions focused on how much Murdoch knew.

In parliamentary hearings, lawmakers seized on the payment to Taylor, calling it evidence of a coverup.

Unlike his father, James was no sentimentalist about the newspaper business, and with pay-TV operations from Hong Kong to New Delhi to Italy closer to his heart, he says he asked few questions before agreeing to the payment. But the two senior managers who arranged the payoff insist they had made Murdoch aware there was a wider problem at the company.

They even provided an email trail that ended at Murdoch. Murdoch, normally known for his swift grasp of detail, said he had probably read the emails on his BlackBerry, as they had been sent at the weekend, and had not scrolled all the way down.

Murdoch’s role is now under scrutiny by multiple bodies including the police, a parliamentary committee, a judge-led inquiry and the British broadcasting regulator.

Under intense questioning in Britain’s parliament together with his father, the bespectacled James came across as businesslike but arrogant, sometimes appearing pained at the slowness of lawmakers to grasp his points.

The executive who asked not to be identified said this approach had been part of the plan, to talk like a business student to take the sting out of what were very hostile questions. “He could hardly go in there swinging,” he said.

With journalists, he is normally friendly but can quickly become short-tempered when the conversation turns in a direction he does not like.

As James Murdoch tries to focus on his new role as News Corp’s deputy chief operating officer, many are wondering whether his withdrawal from Britain and the newspapers will be enough to insulate him from further trouble.

“The power of sacrifice has been lost by the qualified nature by which it has been made,” says public-relations guru Richard Levick, who has advised crisis-hit organizations from the Catholic church to Arab governments. “Rather than cut off an arm, they’ve been cutting off finger nails.”

Levick believes Murdoch could do best by taking a break from News Corp and going it alone, at least for a while. “I think he’s got lots of choices and I think he’s a very wise businessman. He doesn’t need his dad’s empire to succeed.”

(Writing by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Peter Graff)

Rupert Murdoch Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News

This week, at the United Nations conference on Happiness, the tiny kingdom of Bhutan nestled between India and China will showcase its Gross National Happiness index (GNH) as an alternative to gross national product (GNP). In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy had said that the gross national product “measures everything… except that which makes life worthwhile.” Now, the world is coming around with United Nations resolution 65/309 — “Happiness: Towards a holistic approach to development.”

The pursuit of happiness explains the billions of dollars spent each year on consumer goods, from cosmetics and fashion apparel to computers and new cars. Who among us does not want to be happy?

But, happiness is elusive. Scientists have found that American millionaires living in huge, luxurious houses are barely happier than Masai warriors in Kenya who live in huts.

Over the past 10 years, we have examined and analyzed data and evidence from all over the world to come up with a set of laws that govern our happiness. These laws are supported by findings from scientific experiments, examples from ancient literature and pearls of wisdom from the world’s religions and spiritual practices. These laws of happiness are universal and apply to all of us. For example, we two coauthors were born and raised in different countries, India and Spain. We were reared in different religions, Hinduism and Catholicism. These large differences in culture and background make us perceive many things differently. The laws of happiness, however, apply equally to both of us.

A logical implication of our laws of happiness is the fundamental equation:

Happiness equals reality minus shifting expectations

As we try to improve our reality, by working harder so we can make more money, buy a bigger house, or drive a fancier car, our expectations also shift. We are happy for a little while, but soon enough expectations catch up with reality. At first blush, this equation paints a gloomy picture. It is no wonder that some scientists have concluded that, “Trying to be happier is as futile as trying to be taller.” Let us look on the bright side of the equation. We will give you two strategies for improving happiness and then you can come up with many more on your own.

1. Less to More (Crescendo)

You should plan your life carefully so that the gap between reality and expectations stays the same or increases. That is, the way to be happy is not just to have a lot, but to follow a crescendo strategy in life choices — less to more. On a small, short-term scale, this can be done on a vacation; rather than immediately visiting the most spectacular museum or historic site, save those experiences for the end of your trip. But as a philosophy of life, you can work to organize the chapters in your book of life from less to more (that is, follow a crescendo strategy). In raising children, for example, do not give them too much too fast. In organizations such as those with call centers or service employees BCBG Dresses, more frequent promotions associated with achieving some well-defined milestone or goal will improve employee satisfaction. Crescendo strategy is very similar to what is used in karate by awarding different color belts for progress.

2. Basic Goods

Our equation suggests that new material aspirations arise as previous ones are satisfied, making all of us work harder and harder to see ourselves in exactly the same situation all over again: wanting something new. We face a sort of emotional “global warming,” if we get used to consuming too much too soon, our future happiness is put at risk. One typical example is that of the children of wealthy parents who are not able to keep up with the lifestyle they’ve always known.

When it comes to fame and fortune, beware: The equation predicts that your expectations will also rise and any gain in happiness will be temporary.

So, if expectations catch up with reality, is there an easy and foolproof way to be happy? Basic goods escape this paradox, because expectations for these goods do not fluctuate much and these are less susceptible to social comparison. The treasure of happiness that is in reach for most of us is found in basic goods. The simplest example of a basic good is food. We will always enjoy a meal when hungry. But basic goods are present everywhere in our life. How can we tell whether a good or experience is basic or not?

TEST — Is X a basic good: Ask yourself the following two questions:

1. If nobody knew I am buying or experiencing X Hale Bob Dresses, would I still want X?

2. Will I enjoy X in the future, say five years from now, as much as I do now?

If the answer is yes to both questions, then X is a basic good for you.

We can think of basic goods in three categories: the needs of the body, the needs of the heart, and the needs of the mind. Food, health, shelter, sex, and rest are the needs of the body. Basic goods that meet the needs of the heart and mind are things like spending time with friends and family and listening to music we love — things that consistently make us happy.

Some people say that happiness is like a pendulum — some days you are happy, some days not, and there’s not much you can do to change that. Our view is different. We believe that happiness is like a sailboat. Indeed the wind and ocean currents influence its movements, but you have control of the rudder. Without your exerting control, the sailboat drifts. Our key premise is that happiness is a choice; and regardless of our circumstances or where we are in the world or in our lives, we can all improve our level of happiness. The control lever for extracting happiness from the equation is in your hands. We would love to hear your ideas on how to engineer a happier life.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” — Buddha

For more by Manel Baucells and Rakesh Sarin, click here.

For more on happiness, click here.

ABUJA (Reuters) – The United States has warned its citizens living in Nigeria that Islamist sect Boko Haram is planning attacks on the capital Abuja, including major hotels there.

Boko Haram, which wants sharia, Islamic law, more widely applied across Africa’s most populous nation, has killed hundreds in gun and bomb attacks this year.

“The U.S. Embassy has received information that Boko Haram may be planning attacks in Abuja, Nigeria, including against hotels frequently visited by Westerners,” an emergency message on its website said on Wednesday.

“The Nigerian government is aware of the threat and is actively implementing security measures.”

The U.S. authorities issued a similar warning in November, naming the Hilton, Sheraton and Nicon Luxury as Abuja hotels that could be targets for Boko Haram, but it later retracted it.

Nigerian authorities said then that high profile hotels were always a possible target but security was tight and people should not live in fear. However, occupancy at those hotels dipped after the last U.S. warning.

The embassy did not name specific targets this time. The Hilton in Abuja said it always took security seriously.

Boko Haram strikes usually target police, authority figures and churches in the mostly Muslim north, although there have been a handful of deadly attacks in and around Abuja, which is home to the president’s villa, government ministries and foreign embassies.

The sect claimed responsibility for a bombing at police headquarters in Abuja last year before a car bomb at the U.N. Nigeria headquarters in August killed 26 people.

The police said they killed one member of the sect and arrested 13 others on Tuesday during a crackdown in the sect’s home base of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in the remote northeast on borders with Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

Boko Haram shot dead two people on Monday in Maiduguri, where it has carried out almost daily attacks in recent months.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who is a Christian from the southern oil-producing Niger Delta, has been criticized by Nigerians and foreign diplomats for not getting a grip on violence in the north, from where many feel he is detached.

A bomb near a church in northern city Kaduna on Easter Sunday killed over 30 people but Jonathan was on holiday in Abuja and his team declined to make any comment.

Boko Haram’s purported leader, Abubakar Shekau, has appeared in two al Qaeda style videos posted on the Internet this year but has made only vague threats and no clear demands.

He said his main objective was to spread Islamic law, free its imprisoned members and kill “infidels” who were working against it, whether Christian or Muslim.

Security experts believe Shekau is likely the leader of the main faction of the sect based in Maiduguri, which typically targets the police who killed its members Emilio Pucci Dresses, prisons and kills religious figures who speak out against its insurgency.

There are several factions within Boko Haram spread across the north and some have loose ties with Islamist groups outside the country, including al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Christian Audigier Clothes, security experts and Western diplomats say.

(Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Tim Cocks)

World

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s Phuket International Airport reopened on Wednesday after the government lifted a tsunami warning on six of the country’s Andaman coast provinces beats by dr dre, an official said.

The airport in the southern Thai island, a popular destination for foreign tourists, was initially shut down and all flights diverted to nearly Krabi, but normal service would resume as soon as possible, the official told Reuters by telephone.

The government lifted the warning on Wednesday night after disaster prevention experts determined there was no longer a tsunami risk after a powerful earthquake and aftershocks off the coast of Indonesia.

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Martin Petty)

World

Every holiday and religious celebration comes with a menagerie of delights for foodies, and even though Easter is only just approaching, supermarket shelves have been packed full of spiced hot cross buns and Cadbury Mini Eggs for months – and in some cases, they never stopped.

But with one food fest seamlessly running into another DKNY Clothes, when did ’seasonal’ cakes, buns, and treats start to be eaten all year round?

Christmas and Easter goodies seem to be appearing earlier and earlier in our shops, with nothing preventing us from eating them at the wrong time of year. Granted, these treats, unlike seasonal fruits and vegetables, don’t carry the environmental issues and air miles, but surely it just feels wrong to break the traditional dates for eating such foods?

My favourite times of the year are mostly defined by food, and we had many rules about eating them in our house; no mince pies before 1 December, Crème Eggs only at Easter, and a whole Konditor & Cook curly whirly cake reserved for birthdays. But even I have to admit that, for the first time, I broke the mince pie rule last Christmas, much to the horror of my family, caving in at the end of November.

But if the period in which we eat such foods were to be extended, surely that takes some of the pleasure out of them. If you rounded off your weekly roast dinner with a Christmas pudding or a raspberry trifle, they would be somewhat of a let down on the big day.

Is it that we no longer have the self-restraint to leave hot cross buns on the shelves in January? Or are we just becoming less strict than, say, our grandparents’ generation, when it comes to eating those indulgent holiday treats out of season?

And then we have the supermarkets and producers, all vying for the top Easter treats spots, trying to differentiate themselves from one another by coming up with Willy Wonka-style creations and moving further and further away from the traditional recipes, with varying levels of success.

The latest offering from Heston Blumenthal and Waitrose, the Earl Grey Tea and Mandarin Hot Cross Bun, is not as odd as it sounds. Quite refreshing, tasty and with somewhat industrial sized infused fruits, the supermarket is clearly hoping for a repeat success of his Hidden Orange Christmas pudding, having ordered more of the buns than their most popular range last year. Elsewhere Harrod’s have opted for the Gruyere and Chive hot cross bun. So far disconnected from the traditional recipe Marc Jacobs Dresses, this savoury herb-studded bread surely falls into the ‘bap’ category, and, call me old fashioned, but no amount of salty, oozy gruyere will convince me that this should grace the Easter table.

So, will you be selecting your hot cross buns and Easter eggs for the first time this week? Or have you already waded into the buns months ago? And, which will you be going for? Classic? Apple? Seeded? Savoury? Me, I shall be sticking with tradition and tucking into the most old fashioned of hot cross buns this Easter weekend. Probably from London bakers Gail’s or Ottolenghi – my favourite offerings from this year’s batch.

AP File Photo of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie touches the stones of the Western Wall

Bridgewater DKNY Clothing, NJ – Days after returning from a trip to Israel Missoni Dresses, Gov. Chris Christie will meet Wednesday with Jewish leaders in New Jersey.

Christie was in Jerusalem during Holy Week for a trade mission and tour. He then traveled to Jordan with his family before returning home on Sunday.

The governor traveled with a delegation of 13 business and religious leaders. He met with top Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Perez.

Gov. Jon Corzine made a similar trip in 2008.

Christie’s trip was financed by the Republican Jewish Coalition, a Washington-based lobbying group, and Choose NJ, an economic development group funded by corporate donations. Neither has disclosed the amount of their sponsorship.

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Taxpayers paid for Christie’s security detail, the cost of which the governor’s office will release once it’s tabulated.

Have you heard? Los Angeles teen literacy rates are second lowest in the country. Budget cuts have all but eradicated the arts from our schools. Librarians have received pink slips. Are we witnessing the dismantling of the library in Los Angeles public high schools? YES, WE ARE!

So I work… because books saved my life.

And yes, I realize that those are the corniest words ever uttered. But they did. I grew up in New Jersey. Shy. Heart broken by divorce. Missing my dad, and with a mom that worked around the clock.

Sound familiar? If you were a Los Angeles teenager it would.

Books were my one constant, my one solace. And they were free.

I am Founder and Executive Director of Get Lit-Words Ignite, Los Angeles’ leading teen literacy nonprofit. We introduce teenagers to classic poems by poets like Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda Chanel Dresses, Walt Whitman, Li Po, Lucille Clifton, etc. and then have them write their own spoken word responses. Both they memorize and perform. Through this process teens grow smarter, more confident, and are expanded by the life giving ideas presented in the words they encounter.

I was taught this way of working by the Swedish actress, Viveca Lindfors. I never liked poetry or understood it until I saw her perform it live. Then I understood. She quoted Walt Whitman, “do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.” And I was hooked. Aren’t we all so much more than the faces we present to the world?

CUT TO: 20 years later.

On April 27th and April 28th Get Lit is hosting the nation’s first ever, “Classic Slam,” at the LATC and Wiltern Theaters respectively. 2,500 teens are currently going through our program in 18 different high schools and the top six teens from each school/region including S. Central, Watts, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Reseda, Pasadena, Inglewood, etc… will bus in to represent their school. Both events are free but I am scared. Scared because I don’t know if anyone (besides the 1,000 participating teens) will show up. Scared because Get Lit has broken our bank to do this. Scared because it’s National Poetry Month but we haven’t received any press about this event. Scared because I don’t know if you can risk it all on something, and win. And I have. I’ve risked it all.

Because how long can you hear about budget cuts and Prop 13 and pink slips and incarcerated kids and NOT CARE? How long can you LISTEN TO THE PROBLEM???

“The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,/ The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.” Walt Whitman

POETRY transforms the problem.

As my old acting teacher used to scream as we indulged and vomited out every sob story, dream, and piece of melodrama that we could… “MAKE IT ART!”

Performing poetry gives us the chance to take our fragmented stories and do just that. To make them sources of sharing and teaching — things that unite rather than divide.

But where is Walt now? Where in Langston???

Rolling over in their graves. “We need a new agent!” Because the only ones spouting their words are 1% of academia… Yet I and thousands of Los Angeles teenagers can attest that their words are alive as ever! We are living proof that “a classic isn’t a classic because it’s old… a classic is a classic because it’s great!”

If anyone cares to listen and if any of this matters at all.

For more information go to www.classicslam.org.

Founded in 2005 in Los Angeles Christian Audigier Clothing, Get Lit (www.getlit.org) is a leading non-profit presenter of literary performance, education, and teen poetry programs. Get Lit uses the memorization and recitation of classic poetry as a launch pad for teen-created spoken word responses, fusing the two forms of expression into compelling performances, conducted by teens in school, after school, and through the organization’s own select group of Get Lit Players. These poet ambassadors from throughout Los Angeles perform both classic and spoken word poetry, inspiring fellow teens to read, write, participate in the arts, and be leaders in their community. Each year Get Lit reaches over 15,000 at-risk teens in more than 45 high schools, turning students into motivated scholars inspired to stay in school and thrive.

There has been a lot of publicity in recent days about Simon Cowell and his alleged fling with fellow X Factor judge Dannii Minogue. Whilst everyone has been busy discussing this, the fact that he is apparently no longer engaged to Mezhgan Hussainy seems to have gone under the radar.

However as a divorce lawyer this is something that interests me, not least because he is reported to have given Ms Hussainy his Los Angeles home, reputedly worth $5M.

Mr Cowell has a number of relatively famous ex-girlfriends – including Jackie St Clair, Sinitta and Terri Seymour – and yet it is only Ms Hussainy who became engaged to him Chloe Dresses, and it is for this reason that her status in law is rather different, as she has, effectively, access to legislation should she so wish.

In essence, under the 1996 Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act (TOLATA 1996) s.14, she could argue that because she was engaged to Mr Cowell, (and remember, ‘engaged’ is shorthand for ‘engaged to be married’), this engagement demonstrates a deliberate assumption by both parties that the home they shared was a family home. In such a situation an application under TOLATA 1996 may be made by a trustee of land or a beneficiary with an interest in property [my italics] subject to a trust of land. The court has a broad discretionary range of powers to make orders regarding the exercise of the trustees’ functions or to the nature and extent of beneficiaries’ interests, including a sale or postponement of sale.

In Stack v Dowden the House of Lords issued guidance for cohabitant disputes, including “proof of any intention to share the beneficial ownership of the property that displaces the assumption that beneficial interests do follow the legal title”.

Of course, we don’t know whether or not a pre-nup was drawn up – it seems likely Missoni Dresses, given that the couple were engaged – or indeed if they had a living together agreement, both topics I have blogged about in the past.

In any case, it’s reported that Mr Cowell has given Ms Hussainy the $5M Los Angeles home they shared anyway, so although some might say he’s only pre-empting any legal action from his ex-fiance, I think it would be kinder to suggest that he is simply a very generous man. After all, he did give his ex-girlfriend Terri Seymour a $4.6M house after they split in 2008. Indeed, last year in an interview with the Guardian he said: “You can’t have somebody in your life who’s become accustomed to a certain thing, and just because you don’t want to be in the relationship any more say to them, now everything is cut off. That doesn’t make sense.”

Whatever Mr Cowell’s motives, I rather admire him for his generosity, and it is a mark of that generosity that he has remained on excellent terms with all of his ex-girlfriends – a rare feat indeed.