Pick of the week’s Gossip

Sean Penn’s literary career has not got off to a good start. The film star has just published his debut novel and it is getting a drubbing. Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff is apparently an unsubtle satire on contemporary America. Reviewers have described it as “repellent”, “stupid” and “crazy”. One sentence, selected as an example by The New York Times, reads: “There is pride to be had where the prejudicial is practised with precision in the trenchant triage of tactile terminations.” Kim Kardashian will always look flawless – even if she is “out of it” in her dotage. The reality TV star (pictured) has made a living will, which specifies that beauticians must attend to her, even when she is dying. “I made a section that... [if] I can’t even communicate... I need my hair, my nails and my make-up done,” she told Elle. “I want to look as good as possible.”

Paul Bremer was vilified for plunging Iraq into turmoil after the fall of Saddam Hussein. But now, George W. Bush’s “viceroy” has a new career: aged 76, he is working as a ski instructor in Vermont. He applied for the job through the normal channels, and the ski school’s owner noted that he “skied well and had a friendly, patient demeanour”. It was only when the owner saw that Bremer had listed Donald Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger as his former employers that he realised that this candidate was a bit unusual. Bremer says he is “very rarely” recognised on the slopes and that he “loves” his new job. “It’s a lot of fun.”