Kylie receives top French honour

Australian pop star Kylie Minogue has been awarded one of France?s top cultural awards for her ?contribution to the enrichment of French culture.? The Spinning Around star will receive the ?Chevalier de L'ordre des Arts et Lettres? from the French government at a ceremony in Paris today, the day before her world tour, Kyliex2008, opens in the capital. ?I am deeply honoured to be recognised in this way. French culture has influenced me greatly and I have always had colossal respect for the arts and people of France?, she says. Past recipients of the award include Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Minogue is also set to receive a prestigious honour in the UK later this year : she will be awarded the Order of The British Empire (OBE) by British monarch Queen Elizabeth II for her services to music.

Madonna gets drunk with Justin

Pop diva Madonna is bonding well with Justin Timberlake. A day prior to their stage show in Manhattan, the two went and got drunk at a nightclub in New York. When on stage the next day, Madonna revealed that she was slightly hung-over after gulping down tequila and vodka shots the previous night. ?We had to celebrate. We decided we both work too hard and have to have fun. I had a shot of tequila. I may have had a lemon drop, too! We ?tied one on?, as they say,? she said. The two danced and drank with friends Josh Duhamel, fashion designer Alexander McQueen and REM frontman Michael Stipe.

Pink Floyd?s missing giant pig has landed. A giant inflatable pig that went missing from a Southern California music festival last week-end has been found in tatters in a desert town. The pig, which has been a signature Pink Floyd stage prop since its appearance on the 1977 cover of "Animals" and the song "Pigs on Wings," broke away from its tethers at Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival. The festival organizers offered a $10,000 reward for the two-story inflatable pig belonging to ex-Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters. Two couples said on Wednesday they had found the shredded plastic remains of the pig outside their homes.

Just in time for mother?s day. If anyone was wondering where French avant-garde novelist Michel Houellebecq got his talent for character assassination, the answer is clear : his mother. In his seminal 1998 novel "Les particules elementaires," known in English as "Atomised," Houellebecq vented a lifetime of anger against his mother by portraying her as an egocentric, sexually promiscuous hippie who neglected her children. Now it's pay-back time. Lucie Ceccaldi, 83, has returned to France from her home in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion to publish a book of her own, "The Innocent One," in which she heaps insults on her son. "My son can go and get screwed by whomever he wants, he can write another book, I don't give a toss? But if he has the misfortune of sticking my name on anything again he'll get my walking stick in his face and that'll knock his teeth out," she says.