The latest version, published in October, showed they had jumped from 43rd to 16th place.. President Pervez Musharraf has delayed the purchase of 25 F-16 warplanes from Washington to help speed recovery from the earthquake which killed more than 70,000 Pakistanis last month and left nearly three million homeless in Kashmir and the North-West Frontier provinces. And he castigated the West for the shortfall in aid donations which is hampering the race to save the survivors. With winter snows weeks away, there is a desperate need for shelter in the quake-ravaged settlements in north Pakistan cut off by landslides.. The two held 15 per cent of the company when it floated and, despite reducing their holdings, are still major shareholders.The dramatic creation of wealth has propelled the duo up Forbes magazine’s rich list. Company filings show they have both sold a considerable amount of Google’s shares, which have rocketed from a flotation price of $85 a share to almost $400, valuing the company at $114bn.Last month Mr Page pocketed about $370m from selling a chunk of shares. A request for onboard internet access has also been made.Mr Page has acknowledged that the aeroplane might seem to propel him and his business partner into the world of corporate one-upmanship.

But he defended the purchase, saying the plane could be used for good causes.”Part of the equation for this sort of machinery is to be able to take large numbers of people to places such as Africa. I think that can only be good for the world,” Mr Page told the Wall Street Journal in a rare interview.The executives have joined the club of business high-flyers who believe cars are not sufficient for getting around. Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen owns an entire fleet of aircraft, though his flagships – two Boeing 757s – are smaller than Messrs Brin and Page’s 767 model.The two internet gurus recently pleased the charity world by emulating their chief rival Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, in using some of their fortune to set up a philanthropic trust for socially-minded investments that is funding projects in Africa and elsewhere.But, perhaps inevitably, the unprecedented growth and global dominance of the internet search market by the California-based company – which was only created seven years ago – has generated suspicion that it is more like the “evil empire” than an offbeat collegiate company interested in helping the world.The company has had a series of bust-ups with business rivals, including fighting in court with Microsoft over allegations that Google illegally poached an executive to head its Chinese operation.Most recently, the Association of American Publishers, which includes firms such as Penguin, said it was suing Google over its decision to scan millions of books and make them accessible online – on the grounds that the company is breaching copyright agreements.Aside from the jet, it is not clear what Mr Brin and Mr Page spent their money on. The children came to see their dad in the play but (with God knows what ironic significance) weren’t allowed to watch the first act, during which his character Frank has sex on a kitchen-table with Cora, the slatternly wife.”The bottom line, for me,” says Whalley, “is that we have children together, and my parents are really important to me, and I’m sure Val feels the same about his, and our children are lucky enough to have both parents available so, as they say, it’s a no-brainer, you know? It’s better that we should get on. Interviewed in London over the summer – he was starring in The Postman Always Rings Twice in Shaftesbury Avenue – Kilmer told reporters he had picked up from his ex-wife a passion for Arsenal FC (Joanne says, “It’s Manchester City, excuse me – it’s Jack who’s the Arsenal fan”) and a fascination for Ricky Gervais. She waited until he was working on a movie, then filed for divorce – the first he knew about it was on CNN.Little can be gained, all these years later, by asking her why the marriage failed (Joel Schumacher called Val “the most psychologically disturbed human being I have ever worked with”. Do you understand why he said that? “I think you should ask Val that question”), but it’s clear that they are both keen to play nice in public.

When Joanne decided she wanted a divorce, she didn’t break it to him gently. “Having that comfort level that Americans possess, but also having that European sophistication – that thing of questioning your place in the world. They have them both.”What they don’t have to hand, of course, is their father, Val Kilmer, who split up with Joanne in 1996 It was an acrimonious parting. There had been rumours about Kilmer’s involvement with the actress Drew Barrymore. “They just don’t sound English.”She likes the combination of American forthrightness and English sarcasm she sees in Mercedes (14) and Jack (10). “We have endless talks which start, ‘That’s not the way you pronounce that word.’”What kind of words? “Oh – cen-triff-ugal, for instance, rather than centri-few-gal.”Uh-huh. Did many discussions of gravitational pull and rotational thrust go on in the Whalley household? “These words come up on a daily basis.

And there’s a particular sound they make when they’re pronouncing, say, ‘Sean’ and it comes out as ‘Shaaaahn’.” Ms Whalley wrinkles her heavenly nose in distaste. It’s too huge.”Had she had the experience (like the Tess character) of looking at a child and seeing a hostile stranger? Or, in her case, seeing her flesh and blood becoming foreigners, Californians? “I like the English-American combination. Because they’re typically British in some ways and terribly American in others.”Such as? “Well, their accents for one thing,” said Joanne. I’m quite strong, I think, pretty resilient, but I don’t know if I could take it.” (I think she’s talking about IVF treatments.) “I mean just physically, what happens to you with the cocktail of hormones racing inside you, the mental strain, the physical strain. They didn’t mind shifting [from Los Angeles] to the frozen wastes of Canada, and then we all met up in London, so there was minimal disruption.” Children turn up all the time in her discourse, as if she’s assuring both herself and the outside world that by God, she is one hands-on mommie these days. But it could be just a natural response to the film, which is centrally concerned with strained mother-daughter relations.Researching the part, she talked to people about infertility and how it affected them “I don’t know if I could go through what they went through.

And because it was partly set in Canada – we went and had these huge vistas of the Canadian Rockies, this great landscape, and, next thing, we were in central London It was a great read And it fitted in with the children’s schedules. She empties packets of cereal in Sainsbury’s if she doesn’t get her own way. She attacks her nice half-brother with scissors because he touches her bag. She appears around corners and in doorways doing a fair impression of the mad-staring-eyed blonde kids in Village of the Damned. We know that she and Grace witnessed their trailer-trash mother’s murder.