DCI Hunt takes on the Tibet cause

Watch out Gordon, the Guv’s got a beef with the Chinese. Philip Glenister, the unreconstructed DCI Gene Hunt in Life on Mars, is investigating a human rights blag.

“Tibet has more bones to pick with China than a dog that’s dug up a dinosaur,” he blasts, possibly in character. “My message to the British Government is, ‘Get off your backside and do something to free Tibet’.” Glenister is backing the T for Tibet campaign, which urges Olympic athletes to show their dissent at the Games though a “T” hand signal.

David Threlfall, the Shameless star, also posed for the campaign in full Frank Gallagher pose, but Channel 4 withheld permission for the shots to be published. Apparently the wildman Gallagher is “commercial property”. The Beijing censors would approve.

Russell Brand has apologised for calling a Northamptonshire police hotline during a stand-up show with false information on a series of sex attacks. The comic says that he is “devastated by the possibility that I may have offended vulnerable people”. Three women have been attacked in the area recently. Brand will not be pursued for wasting police time.

David Cameron believes that the poor, fat or addicted should be blamed for their plight. The problem is that George Osborne doesn’t seem to agree. He says: “As we all know, humans aren’t always rational. We do things we know we shouldn’t, like eating too much or not saving enough.” A chink between the Tory duo that Labour might like to exploit?

Batman turns Terminator

The Face: Christian Bale

A star who prefers the darker corners of Hollywood to the limelight, Christian Bale was keen to deflect attention from the late Heath Ledger’s show-stealing performance as the Joker at this week’s premiere of The Dark Knight.

Intense performances as the yuppie serial killer in American Psycho and as a skeletal insomniac in The Machinist, for which he lost 60lb (27kg), made the Welsh-born Bale, 34, a cult favourite with audiences.

Since walking out of promotional interviews for Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, when aged 13, Bale has sought to protect his privacy. Questions about his marriage to Sandra “Sibi” Blazic, Winona Ryder’s personal assistant, with whom Bale has a daughter, are off limits.

Choosing Bale to front a billion-dollar superhero franchise was a gamble - the actor says that he was never a Batman fan - but his glowering Dark Knight may outlast the Heath Ledger hype.

Having proved himself to be a success at the box office, Bale will next lead the human resistance in Terminator Salvation next year.

Boy George’s next single, Yes We Can , pays tribute to Barack Obama. “We use his voice, he’s actually doing guest vocals on the track. He doesn’t know that yet, but he is,” said George, who was banned from touring America because of a false imprisonment allegation. “Maybe when Obama gets in he’ll let me in,” George adds, hopefully. “At the moment it’s a Republican Government - I tick all of their boxes,” said the gay, cross-dressing, former heroin addict.

Postscript

Titter ye not: Amy Winehouse’s mother is lining up Frankie Howerd’s old Somerset house as a retreat for the singer. “She seems to think there may be something in the atmosphere of the place that has healing [qualities],” says Chris Byrne, a friend of the late comic. Worth the £800,000 price?

Pete Townshend is mourning his old 45s. “iTunes simply doesn’t have the heart, it is software attached to a bank, nothing more, nothing less. Brilliant, but heartless.”

Got a story to tell? people@thetimes.co.uk

Times recommends

• The Joy of Sex: why you need help in bed
• Don't move - improve
• Adoption: finding my birth mother