Food writer and stylist Ravinder Bhogal’s debut book ‘Cook in Boots’ has won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for the UK’s Best First Cookbook.

She will challenge for the title of the World’s Best First Cookbook at the Paris Cookbook Fair on 11 February, 2010.

Ravinder said: “I am so delighted to have won this award as I am fully aware of how many excellent debut cookbooks were published this year.”
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The Independent on Sunday diary column reports:

She’s back: Farah Damji, the serial mistress, jailbird and perennial trouble-maker, once hailed London’s most dangerous woman, is holding a reading of her “explosive” autobiography on Wednesday [16th Dec].

Try Me came out in July but Damji was arrested on fraud charges soon after and has been busy defending herself in court ever since.

The book is chock-full of scandal, chronicling her claims to have had affairs with two high-profile figures – one an executive from The Guardian, the other a well-known travel writer – and even includes intimate email and text exchanges. Tom Cain, Gavin James Bower and Darcus Howe are lined up to read extracts at The Lamb on Holborn’s Lamb’s Conduit Street. Should be a big night out for the libel lawyers.

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Coming from a conservative family, Kia Abdullah (pictured) married a man she had met only once. But illustrating a determination that is become her defining characteristic, she walked out of the marriage after only two days.

That quiet determination also comes through in her writing; she’s the author of her second novel: a dark, sexual, often violent psychological crime thriller. We ask her about the book and whether it’s based on her tumultuous life.

You can also meet Kia at a book signing this Saturday 12th Dec. Details at the end.

What made you want to write this book?
I felt a lot of pressure to conform to the tradition of Asian writers writing about being Asian. Some beautiful books and stunning writing have come out of that tradition, but it has also been quite restrictive.

I felt that Asian writers couldn’t get published if they were writing sci-fi or horror or crime or any type of genre fiction; that it had to be sweeping literary novels or books linked to their heritage. I wanted to see if I could break through that. Luckily, I found an independent publisher that was brave enough to take on my project – one that didn’t say, “Let’s change Allegra’s name to Aisha”.
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The UK arm of the international agency Weber Shandwick this week announced it was focusing on public sector work by promoting its previous head of multicultural campaigns.

Rakhee Vithlani, currently running the agency’s Multi-Cultural Communications practice will look after its Government and Public Sector Campaigns division.
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by Joyeeta Basu
Freelance Writer

There seems to be an explicit shift in mood among Brit-Asian authors. Taking a step away from oft-repeated tales of forced marriages and identity crisis, the move is towards crystallizing their individualities in modern Britain.

The voices are stark and powerful, as they explore different themes that were largely unexplored by their predecessors.

We cover four books: by Ziauddin Sardar, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Kia Abdullah and Shelina Janmohamed.
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The BBC presenter Konnie Huq is fronting a documentary for the Asian Network today, reporting on how Asian women in the UK were at high risk of developing mouth cancer as a result of using Gutka.

Gutka is more commonly known as chewing tobacco and is increasingly popular here.
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Young journalist Angela Saini has been jointly named Junior European Science Writer of the Year for 2009, by the respected Euroscience Foundation. The science has written for New Scientist, Wired, Science and The Economist in the past and is a regular science and technology reporter on BBC World Service.

She was nominated by the European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations. The judges said she had “already become a very versatile and promising science journalist”.

She told AIM Magazine: “I know its cheesy, but since I went freelance last year I’ve honestly felt that my job is its own reward – I love being a science journalist. But to be recognised by your peers, especially early in your career, is brilliantly encouraging.”

The BBC has now received over 400 complaints after Strictly Come Dancing contestant Anton du Beke reportedly called his dance partner Laila Rouass a “paki”.

The corporation was last night trying to justify the decision not to boot him off the show while earlier handing out strict punishments to presenters such as Carol Thatcher.

The row emerged when the News of the World revealed that Du Beke had said Laila Rouass “looked like a Paki” after she turned up to a rehearsal with a spray tan two weeks ago.
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Following the succesful launch of her single last month, upcoming singer Sarah Sayeed is working to release her hotly anticipated debut album.

The lyricist and MC has been tipped as hot ‘homegrown’ talent by presenters on BBC 1Xtra radio (video below)
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A London based model has made her debut in the Bollywood film Love Aaj Kal alongside actor Saif Ali Khan.

23 year-old Poonam Mehmi (pictured) got the part through an agency, but came to prominence after being crowned Miss India Worldwide UK earlier this year.

She has a small role in one of the songs.

She told the Manchester based Asian News newspaper: “I was called to go for a casting. There were so many girls who had gone for the part but two days later I was told that I had got it.”
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Brick Lane actress Tannishtha Chatterjee (pictured) is starring in a new film doing film festival rounds across the world.

Road, Movie recently became the only Indian feature to be invited as a special presentation to the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.
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The actress Archie Punjabi is starring in the American TV series The Good Wife. It will start broadcasting later this month.

The legal drama is being produced by one of the three major US networks – CBS.
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The actress Lisa Ray, famous for her role in the film Water, has contracted a rare form of blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma.

She has started writing about her experiences in trying to deal with the cancer while getting treatment in Canada. The 37 year old Toronto-born has starred in several British films.

The rare form of cancer, which destroys blood cells, is treatable but incurable. She revealed that she had privately been fighting the cancer since being diagnosed in June this year.
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The Evening Standard newspaper this week announced that the former BBC employee would start writing a weekly sports interview column for the London paper.

Mihir Bose recently left the BBC under a cloud when he abruply said he was resigning from his position as sports news editor.

“We are absolutely delighted that Mihir will be writing regularly for the paper and be bringing his incisive and brilliant writing to the sports pages,” said the Standard’s managing editor Doug Wills.

Singer Mumzy, a protege of producer Rishi Rich, releases two music videos to his singles, this week.

The singer has released two promo singles so far: ‘Stranger’ and ‘Let’s Party’.

He recently released the video to ‘One More Dance’, and now ‘Showgirl’.
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Broadcaster Channel 4 has commissioned its first ever Urdu-language drama.

The stylish black-and-white comedy will be screened next week on August 25th just before midnight.
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Former editor and writer Farah Damji may be remanded in police custody after being arrested last week.

AIM Magazine has heard from several sources that she is back in prison but has been unable to confirm it officially from the prison service or the Courts.
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Presenter Bobby Friction has abruptly departed from Radio 1, it was announced yesterday, ending the long-running ‘Bobby Friction & Nihal Present…’ show and splitting up the duo.

An insider at Radio 1 told AIM magazine that their “brand” had become “a bit tired and stale” and it was probably for the best.

Bobby Friction and Nihal’s specialist music show on Radio 1 had been running for seven years and had been nominated for numerous awards.
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A film with actress Lisa Ray came out on DVD this week (trailer below). Kill Kill Faster Faster was winner of the London Independent Film Festival Best International Feature Film 2008.

Based on the crime novel of the same name by Joel Rose, it also stars Gil Bellows (Shawshank RedemptionMcBeal) and was made by British director Gareth Maxwell Roberts.
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The London Evening Standard has been forced to retract its claims that Farah Damji’s book had been boycotted for review by the Spectator magazine because it was “rude about friends of Speccie’s head honcho, Andrew Neil”.
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Mihir Bose, the respected sports journalist, abruptly resigned from the BBC today. He was one of the top journalists at the corporation – employed as its sports news editor.

The former Daily Telegraph journalist took up his position January 2007 and had been there since.
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Former Another Generation magazine editor Farah Damji is imminently due to be sentenced for a new series of offences she pleaded guilty to last week.

At Blackfriars Crown Court last week the prosecution said Ms Damji had £17,000 worth of benefit fraud and made false representations to two separate landlords for properties in London
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by Sunny Hundal
Editor

Is Farah Damji out of prison and terrorising people’s wallets again?

That is the question on everyone’s lips as the most notorious name in Asian media history hits the headlines again.

Damji was recently profiled in two places – the London Evening Standard and The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine. I’ve been trying to find out what she’s up to ever since.
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The much-anticipated film Mad, Sad and Bad releases on 31st July in cinemas across the UK. A gala screening was held in central London this week with lead stars Meera Syal and Nitin Ganatra attending.

The film is a thirty-something comedy about a dysfunctional family and group of friends whose personal lives are continuously messed up by their own selfish needs and neuroses.
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