Sweet as pie

I was just studying and as per usual my motivation to read another page of what constitutes acceptance was running dangerously low. Then BAM my nose is hit with deliciousness – fresh apple pie flooded with hot, thick and creamy custard. The homemade pastry tastes almost short-bread like, crispy and chewy and delicious. The sweetness of the pie is balanced by the generous blanket of custard. Heaven in a bowl.

It’s not all bad having siblings. Especially one who enjoys randomly cooking food similar to Manna from the heavenlies. Thanks Mae!

Deperate measures

I was just doing some research to do with the privacy rights of public figures and the paparazzi. I came across this, it’s pretty insane:

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas took perhaps some of the most famous and extreme set of measures to keep paparazzi out of the picture at their wedding:

• All of the caterers, help, suppliers and any other vendors associated with the wedding had to sign confidentiality agreements (even the ones that didn’t get the job).
• No wedding guests were given the time or location of the wedding until the last minute.
• The day before the wedding, special tickets were hand-delivered or couriered to the invited guests.
• Each ticket had a code in invisible ink alongside a special design. Only one person, wedding planner Simone Martel Levinson, knew what that design looked like. Before allowing each guest entry, Levinson personally authenticated the design on that guest’s ticket.
• Once admitted to the wedding, guests swapped the tickets for a gold “guest” pin designed by Jones and Douglas. The ticket swap and the pins were kept secret until the event.
• No guests were allowed to have cameras inside the event.
• Other hotel guests staying at the Plaza Hotel were not allowed anywhere near the wedding rooms.
• Up until the moment the wedding started, all wedding rooms were swept several times for hidden audio or video recording devices.
• The New York Police Department and Fire Department were on board for security. All of the hotel’s fire alarms were monitored by personnel throughout the wedding to make sure no one would pull them during the event.
• Three private security guards patrolled the corridors at all times.

The security bill for the wedding equaled more than $66,000, but even with all of those countermeasures, paparazzo Rupert Thorpe managed to infiltrate the wedding and snap shots of the bride and groom that he later sold to publications Hello! and The Sun.

Rupert Thorpe, what a champion.