Made by World Productions, whose This Life embodied the spirit of a certain type of young urban professionals in the late Nineties, Gold Plated aims to do the same again in the North. More than a grown-up Hollyoaks, the Beverly Hills 90210 wannabe set down the road in Chester, the series promises to explore the hidden side of the county’s wealth explosion. Billed as a “family saga of life on the edge, on the never-never and on the verge of madness” it promises to pull no punches.And according to Channel 4 senior commissioning editor, Francis Hopkinson, the location was a no-brainer.”If society is becoming more consumerist, then Cheshire is the glitzy heartland of that new wealth and of lives lived on the brink of bankruptcy. Wilmslow along with Bowdon and Hale, is known as the “golden triangle” among Cheshire’s champagne set. It is a place where Premiership footballers’ Bentleys rub bumpers with the Aston Martins of the North-west’s leading industrialists, where actors from Manchester’s Granada studios swap anecdotes with the city’s media types on some of Britain’s finest golf courses, or in country pubs.And the salaries for the elite that have made the rolling countryside south of Manchester their home are more than a match for their contemporaries 200 miles down the M6.For these reasons Channel 4 is staging a new eight-part drama here. For those unschooled in the intricacies of the jewellery trade, that is a diamond the size of a five-pence piece and it will set you back the best part of £200,000.
“If they want it, they will buy it,” explains local jeweller Peter Harrington He should know. He has shifted half a dozen of the ostentatious baubles in the past 12 months alone.

They used to be content with two-carat solitaire diamonds in Wilmslow, the Cheshire boom-town that has become a byword for conspicuous wealth in modern Britain Today it seems, the five-carat rock is all the rage. Ms Germaine subsequently married television presenter Jeremy Kyle, who was working at BRMB when they met Mr Cordell is now a recruitment consultant in Dubai.. This is another way of doing it.”Radio’s doomed first attempt * The winners of the original contest in January 1999 were Greg Cordell, then 28, and model Carla Germaine, 23, who honeymooned in the Bahamas but moved out of their luxury canalside flat in Birmingham and returned to their previous lives three months later after Mr Cordell allegedly cheated with a dental nurse. So why not try something novel to boost the institution? Elliott Webb, the co-presenter of The Big Brum Breakfast show, said: “This makes people think about marriage and re-engage with the process.

She is the type of person I would have approached anyway,” he said.Organisers at BRMB radio station said the numbers of couples getting married was at an all-time low. he’s very nice looking,” she said.Mr Cooper said his brother had been a finalist in the competition seven years ago. “I know it’s kind of a strange thing to get your head around but the public has picked a great choice. They held hands, giggled and told the media that they already “fancied each other”.As winners of the Two Strangers and a Wedding II contest, they will have a paid-for honeymoon in Bermuda and be given the use of a city-centre flat and a car for 12 months, as well as being the “stars” of two television documentaries.Mrs Cooper said she did not have any qualms about entering the competition. “Why not do it? It’s very early to be in love but when I saw him, I thought he was absolutely lovely After I get to know him, things can develop but … Unlike the earlier couple who were brought together by a judging panel in January 1999, the Coopers’ pairing was voted for by 100,000 members of the public who read the profiles of eight finalists on the internet.The couple were whisked off to a press conference minutes after they had exchanged rings. The couple, who won the contest which drew more than 250 contestants, were not put off by the fate of their predecessors, Greg Cordell and Carla Germaine, who married in the same way seven years ago, and split up three months later – after he allegedly cheated on her.

The panel took a breakdown of private-sector contributions to GDP in 2003 as its template and, for this reason, looked to pick more retailers and financial companies, for example, than pure technology firms. Far from being a crass publicity stunt, organisers said, this was a noble attempt to boost the failing institution of marriage.
Standing behind the 30-strong group of dewy-eyed relatives and friends yesterday was a television camera crew recording their moment as part of a documentary. She arrived for their first date by horse and carriage, dressed in ivory and with her father on her arm Among the first words the couple exchanged were “I do”. “I have heard the evidence of Mr Ackroyd and have concluded that he was a responsible journalist whose purpose was to act in the public interest.”. Craig Cooper, 30, and Rebecca Duffy, 28,were the winners of a radio station competition in Birmingham in which the prize was marrying a total stranger. When Craig first met Rebecca he turned up in a top-hat and tails.

He said he made his decision in the light of the passage of time and because of new evidence indicating that the source did not act for money, the extent of the material leaked by the source was more limited than previously understood and there had been no further leaks. “In addition, the stance of Ian Brady has changed, and I have not found that the disclosure was made without his consent,” said the judge. The judge stressed that nothing he had said should be taken “as providing any encouragement to those who would disclose medical records”. A High Court judge in London rejected the argument by the top security Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside that the public interest in a journalist’s right to protect his sources was overridden in this case by the need to protect the confidentiality of medical records.
Mr Justice Tugendhat said: “Considering the facts now, in my judgment it has not been convincingly established that there is today a pressing social need that the sources should be identified.” He said that to require freelance writer Robin Ackroyd to disclose his sources “would not be proportionate to the pursuit of the hospital’s legitimate aim to seek redress against the source, given the vital public interest in the protection of a journalist’s source”. A journalist today fought off an attempt to force him to reveal his sources for an article published more than five years ago about a mental hospital’s treatment of Moors murderer Ian Brady.