Walk away Renée: the latest Bridget Jones film, The Edge of Reason, was filmed amid tight security in the Austrian ski resort of Lech this year. The producers wanted to keep the script top secret, and they did, but according to rumours from the slopes the hapless Bridget, played by Renée Zellweger, is taking a romantic holiday with the handsome Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). In true-to-form Calamity Jane style, Bridget takes the wrong ski lift, accidentally enters a race and overshoots into a bar, where she is catapulted into the arms of her ex-boss and boyfriend Hugh Grant. The film is due for release on November 12.
If you would like to book a stay in the resort before the film hits the cinemas, a night’s B&B at the Hotel Gasthof Post (www.postlech.com), where Zellweger and Firth stayed during filming, costs £215 a night. Alternatively, seven nights’ half board at the Central Hotel Gotthard with Inghams (020-8780 4433, www.inghams.co.uk) costs from £826 per person. Would-be Bridgets will be pleased to know that there are no single supplements.
A mixed bag: hotshots as diverse as Bill Clinton, Oliver Stone, Angelina Jolie and Kate Hudson have been spotted in London recently at the uber-trendy Park Lane Metropolitan Hotel in Mayfair. The hotel’s Met Bar, a magnet for celebrities, is packed to the gunwales most evenings with people from the film and music world, who then move on to the in-house restaurant Nobu, where Boris Becker, according to legend, had a tryst in the broom cupboard. A Follow That Star mole said: “Clinton is incredibly popular with ladies of all ages, and was happy to sign autographs before he went in to dinner.”
A weekend break at the Metropolitan (020-7447 1000, www.metropolitan.co.uk) costs £195 a night. The price includes accommodation in a Queen room for two people (Friday, Saturday or Sunday night, full English breakfast and a late checkout of 3pm).
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Sweet music: Beyoncé, Enrique Iglesias and Christina Aguilera will be in Miami this weekend for the 20th MTV Video Music Awards (which is a huge coup for the city: until now the awards have been held in either New York or Los Angeles). Beyoncé and Iglesias both have homes there, along with Boris Becker, Missy Elliot and Jennifer Lopez. Tickets to the show are sold out, but music fans can look forward to free outdoor concerts or, if they’re lucky enough to bag an invitation or slip past the bouncers, some serious partying. Fans will be keeping their eyes peeled for any headline-grabbing incident after last year’s show was marked by Madonna snogging Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Trailfinders (0845 0505891, www.trailfinders.com) offers ten nights in Miami for £745pp. The price includes accommodation at the Blue Moon, an Art Deco boutique hotel on South Beach, and ten days’ car hire. The deal is based on two sharing and is valid for departures from September 7 until October 31.
All Greek to me: Kim Cattrall, star of Sex and the City, will be spending the next few months on Crete, filming her new documentary Sexual Intelligence. The island is also popular with the rock brigade. Robbie Williams has a villa in the pretty resort of Elounda and Bono is a regular at the Elounda Beach Hotel. Not many people know that John Aniston, father of Jennifer, was born on Crete, or that Jen spent her early years there. She said: “We had a beautiful farm with goats running around everywhere.”
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Direct Holidays (0870 1919138, www.directholidays.co.uk) offers seven night packages in Crete from £255pp.
Spotted a celeb?
e-mail marygold@thetimes.co.uk