Recently in celebs in chemicals Category

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe performs his party trick, which is singing "The Elements" by musical humorist Tom Lehrer, in this video clip spotted today by Helena.

Daryl Hannah was arrested outside the White House as she took part in a protest on Tuesday against the planned Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf, according to this article today on news.sky.com spotted by Mark V.

The Blog likes the way the article refers to Hannah as "actress Daryl Hannah" for those of us who might struggle to remember her from Splash and Blade Runner.

We also have some reservations about widening the well-respected category "Celebs in Chemicals" to include celebs in oil. There is always the danger that this may result in the Blog being overwhelmed with sightings of celebrities in dreary oily situations.

Photo: AFP/Sky News

Brad Pitt is filming at the Grangemouth petrochemical plant in Scotland, the Blog reads with disbelief in today's Scotsman.

After bringing Glasgow to a halt last week, the film crew for the zombie film "World War Z" moved on 22 August to the industrial landscape of Grangemouth on the east coast of Scotland, on the banks of the Firth of Forth.

According to another article, the area has been screened off, with only film crew and zombie extras allowed on set. Nevertheless, some 100 onlookers have gathered at the site, and doubtless some of them have some connection to the Ineos site.

9 November 2012: First official trailer for the film ...

Performing a one-hour monologue always strikes me as an impressive feat. Whether it is a comedy stand-up routine, a play, a political speech or a lecture, the Blog is always impressed with the feat of memory. Especially when it is a well-known text like a theatre classic, where the audience knows it well, so it has to be word perfect.

Newsreaders, politicians, film actors who read from screen, notes or bullet points, or film just small chunks at a time - that's no big deal. Of course a pretty face, a strong delivery, good timing - they all count for something, but it is the act of delivering from memory without prompts that inspires admiration.

The joint top news item in Scotland (along with the North Sea oil spill) this week is that Brad Pitt is in Glasgow filming the zombie film "World War Z", and the whole country is swooning in adoration, I gather from the newstands of Edinburgh. From the pages of coverage in the Scotsman, it seems that he is not expected to memorise more than a few minutes' dialogue at a time, but then he is Brad Pitt, so who cares?

Jon Huntsman's announcement last week that he would be seeking the Republican nomination brought an avalanche of visitors from all over the US to this Blog.

The Blog's scanned photo of an old Huntsman Christmas card, showing the whole extended Huntsman family, has been a surprise hit on Google as surfers search for "Jon Huntsman family." Friends at Huntsman UK sent these cards to business contacts in the chemical industry in 2003-2005. Maybe the cards will one day have some resale value.

Crime and punishment do not go together in the case of former fugitive billionaire oil trader Marc Rich. Pardoned by President Bill Clinton for crimes of tax evasion and illegal oil trading with Iran, he is now living out an old age of luxury and philanthropy in Switzerland.

He was once a resident of Zug, which is still favoured by oil and chemical traders, some of whom are, like Rich, also ex-Phibro.

Now his life story is about to be made into a movie, based on one of his admiring biographies, "The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich," by Daniel Ammann (2009.)

The film rights have been picked up by Imagine Entertainment, according to this article in the New York Post. 

Lauren Alaina Suddeth, daughter of a BASF worker in Chattanooga, is a finalist and judges' front runner to win American Idol and is being supported by the local BASF workforce, according to this article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, which Nel spotted and suggested for a new blog series called "Tenuous Links to Chemicals."

"Donna Jakubowski, community relations spokeswoman for BASF, where J.J. Suddeth is a process technician, said the same excitement and pride that has swept through Chattanooga over Lauren's achievement is evident at BASF:

"Our Chattanooga site employees have generously proffered moral support, donations to help the family defray the costs associated with travel to California and of course their votes each week to bring Lauren Alaina closer to realizing her dream of becoming the next American Idol," she said."

(photo: timesfreepress.com) 

Celebrities and chemicals - it's hard to keep them apart. The Blog is indebted to a friend at Shell who recalled a memorable advert in which supermodel Naomi Campbell douses herself in Shell's Helix lubricant oil.

There are a few references online to this advert, in a Dutch newspaper and a Dutch treatise on communications, but all trace of it has disappeared from the Shell catalogue of adverts or Youtube. 

"Plasticopedia.com" is a website so addictive that Times columnist Robert Crampton has gone public about his intention to give it up, I read in his column in Saturday's Times Magazine supplement. He describes it as "barking mad," and it is quite distracting once you get into looking at the pictures.

Not "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Plastics," the Blog is disappointed to read, but a site devoted to speculating about the plastic surgery that celebrities may or may not have had done.

I'm forwarding the link to ex/colleagues Carolyn and Linda, both of whom are authorities on this very subject and could teach this website a thing or two.

I remember Carolyn forwarding a multiple choice quiz to us where we had to rate various female surgical enhancements as "real" or "fake."  After two or three questions, they all looked the same to me. Carolyn, however, could tell the answer at a single glance.

The Chemical Industries Association (CIA) Dinner was a grand affair as always, with 980 guests in London's Grosvenor House Hotel for a black tie dinner on Thursday 18 November.

There were two splendid speakers, Dr Vince Cable, UK Secretary of State for Business, and Sir Ranulph Fiennes the explorer - but good as they were, two speakers at a dinner is one too many, and it was a long old evening sitting at the table.

My heart sank when I saw the programme and realised we would be sitting down for three hours. As it turned out, everything ran late, and we didn't get up from the tables until 11.15 pm, at which time everyone was running for the doors.

The whole point of producing a glossy programme, showing who's sitting on whose table, is so that everyone can get round to talk to each other, but there was no time for that.

Vince was on good form. He talked about his time working for Shell, where as chief economist he had the thankless task of trying to predict the chemical cycle. He said that Shell was a very good company and he was proud to have worked for it, because it made massive investments and thought long term. That experience had taught him to be sceptical of critics of the chemical industry, he added.

He said that most chemical business was global, and that the UK government was clear that it needed a trade liberalising agenda. His defence of the science budget, his support of apprenticeships, and his praise for the chemical industry for being export-oriented - "90% of chemicals exported, unmatched in UK industry" - all went down well with his audience.

I was on a non-betting table, but Richard L told me afterwards that he had won the jackpot on his table for getting the length of the Fiennes speech bang on at 35 minutes.

(Photo CIA)