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ISABELLE DINOIRE
A POIGNANT LIFE WITH A NEW FACE
Ever since she underwent the world’s first face transplant in 2005, Isabelle Dinoire has endured a long, strange recovery. She required the groundbreaking surgery after her dog, Tanya, bit off her nose and mouth. Now, in a new memoir, Dinoire describes a strange new existence. She can speak and eat, but kissing eludes her. She recounts discovering a small hair growing on her new chin and realizing that the donor must have been brunette. Before the dog attack, Dinoire had been facing feelings of suicide and had taken a large dose of sleeping pills (when she awoke she found her face bloody from Tanya’s attack). Then she learned that the donor had killed herself, and that gave Dinoire a feeling of sisterhood. Today she has a new dog to replace Tanya. The animal is affectionate enough, but some instinct always prevents it from licking the new part of her face. And Dinoire has finally gotten over initial disgust at living inside someone else’s skin: “Sometimes, I put my hand to my face to check that it’s still there.”
FRED GOODWIN
THE BIGGEST BANKER OF THEM ALL
The bosses at two Canadian banks toasted their acquisitions of regional U.S. financial institutions last week. But they were mere tiddlers compared to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s CEO. Fred Goodwin, 49, was about to close the biggest banking deal in history. Along with Belgian-Dutch and Spanish banking partners, he was poised to spend US$101 billion snagging the giant Dutch bank ABN Amro. Buying the 183-year-old Dutch firm is just the ticket for Goodwin’s plan to grow RBS into one of the world’s dominant banks. Nicknamed “Fred the Shred” for brutal measures that catapulted thousands of workers from banks he’s previously headed, Goodwin will probably make similar cuts in the ranks at ABN Amro. Job one, however, will be shredding the bank itself. RBS, along with principal partners Fortis and Banco Santander, will break up ABN Amro into three pieces. Nothing on this scale has ever been done before. Even Shred will need three years, experts say, to deal with the remains.
MRTHA LOUISE
A FAIRY-TALE PRINCESS GETS TOUGH IN COURT
Hours before her father, King Harald V, opened the Norwegian parliament, Princess Mrtha Louise was in court last week, seeking to stop publication of a book about angels that put her photo and name on its cover though she had nothing to do with the project. Her lawyer labelled the publisher “cynical parasites” for exploiting her image. The king’s only daughter has been a lightning rod for otherworldly controversy ever since claiming earlier this year that she had been making “contact with angels.” Though the publisher settled the court case, agreeing to apologize and remove her name from the cover, Mrtha Louise’s problems persist — a veteran journalist has called the princess “a hypocrite” for apparently using his father’s translations of fairy tales in her own book Princess Mrtha Louise’s Wonderful World. Now he’s asking for a halt to book sales.
JOSEPH KAISER
THE HUNKENTENOR GOES TO NEW YORK
To legions of opera fans, 29-year-old Joseph Kaiser of Montreal is known as the “Hunkentenor” for his blue-eyed good looks and affable, thoughtful manner. Last week, he made his debut on the stage of New York City’s Metropolitan Opera opposite superstar Anna Netrebko in Gounod’s Romo and Juliet. He was conducted by Plcido Domingo, who simply advised Kaiser to “have fun.” Kaiser has had a storybook rise: during the 2002 Jeunesses Musicales competition in Quebec, the great singer Teresa Berganza advised him to switch from being a baritone to a tenor. Kaiser recalls: “She pulled me aside at a dinner and she said: ‘Take three months, take six months. Try.’ ” Then came a chance to audition for a minor role in Kenneth Branagh’s film of Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute. Kaiser won the lead, playing Tamino. That was one of his favourite performances, Kaiser says. The other two are singing in his synagogue and belting out O Canada at a Montreal Canadiens home game.
JAMMIE THOMAS
THE HIGH PRICE OF DOWNLOADING MUSIC
When she was slammed with a lawsuit from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for downloading copyrighted music for free off the Internet and distributing it again, 30-year-old Jammie Thomas of Minnesota did what no one else had done. The RIAA has served 26,000 other people with legal action for swapping music on sites. All have settled with the industry, but Thomas was the first to go to trial. The closely watched proceeding ended last week with a jury awarding in favour of several recording companies. They ordered the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe employee to pay US$9,250 in damages for each tune she’d downloaded, including Destiny’s Child’s Bills, Bills, Bills and Sarah McLachlan’s Building a Mystery. The total: a whopping US$220,000. The award infuriated critics of the recording industry. “Four venal record companies,” wrote Jon Newton, editor of a website devoted to file-sharing, “have bankrupted a single mother with two chidren in their lust for money.” But the win may be symbolic: pundits belive Thomas can win an appeal of the case.
DIDA
SOCCER DIVE WAS A MAJOR FLOP
Soccer players dive; it is a wart on the face of the beautiful game. Occasionally, though, a player goes too far even by soccer’s standards. In a game in Glasgow last week, defending champions AC Milan suffered a shock defeat by hometown Celtic FC after Milan goalkeeper Nlson de Jesus Silva — known by his nickname Dida — conceded a last-minute goal. In the ensuing pandemonium, a fan ran onto the field. Passing Dida, he slapped the 34-year-old Brazilian keeper lightly on the shoulder. Dida angrily began charging after the fan, then seemed to change his mind and collapsed, clutching his head. Medics stretchered him off the field. It was one of the most cynical dives in memory. And if it was a flimsy attempt to have Celtic forfeit the game owing to an injury, it failed and then some. Dida was reproved by teammates and fans, and may face discipline by UEFA. British football commentator James Richardson recalled Pel’s endorsements for Viagra a few years ago when he sniped: “Not since Pel spoke out about men’s issues has a Brazilian man had this much trouble staying upright.”
TOKITSUKAZE
THE BANISHING OF A SUMO MASTER
Sumo stable master Tokitsukaze claimed he was just trying to whip a charge into shape, but Japan’s sumo authority has sacked him for beating Takashi Saito, 17, with a beer bottle a day before the young trainee died in June. While Tokitsukaze admitted he struck the junior wrestler on the knee and head, he claims other senior wrestlers also assaulted the teen, including one who hit him with a baseball bat. In the world of sumo, such hazings are meant to toughen new recruits. Saito subsequently collapsed while practising with another wrestler. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead from heart failure. An autopsy revealed multiple bruises, lacerations and cigarette burns, and led to a police probe. Now Tokitsukaze has been pushed out of the centre ring forever. Japan Sumo Association rules stipulate that the dismissal prevents him from ever returning to the national sport. But the scandal has dealt sumo a very public battering.
KIMBERLY BELL
LIFE WITH BARRY: AN OVERGROWN MESS
The of home-run king Barry Bonds used to examine her lover’s body in minute detail. “There was bloating. Acne. Losing of hair. Dysfunction sexually,” Kimberly Bell says, blaming it on the baseball player’s alleged steroid use. Now, the public can examine Bell’s body in equally minute detail: she’s posed nude for November’s issue of Playboy. To promote it, Bell’s been dishing the dirt on her ex and she’s got a big spoon. She details his transition from being simply moody (”I always figured he had PMS, like a woman̶  to downright scary. Bell claims Bonds threatened to chop off her head. Steroids also put a hamper on their sex life: “You exaggerate your reactions.” Bell has big plans for her future, including writing a self-help book and becoming a teacher. She hopes to “inspire children,” she says. Maybe posing in Playboy isn’t such a good start.
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