Will and Kate have been doing their bit for BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts)

Will and Kate have been doing their bit for BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) by appearing as the marquee attraction at a Los Angeles dinner in aid of British creative talent, the Press Association reports.
Jack Black, Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Lopez were among the guests, as was Stephen Fry.
Kidman with the prince, was stopped on the red carpet outside and praised the Duke and Duchess.

''I think they are lovely. I just got off the phone to my mum and she said, 'I'm so glad you're going, you're Australian' - they just make you smile.''
Whatever that means, we can but guess.
Fry, a chum of Prince Charles, also praised William and Kate and the monarchy generally, adding: ''They are an extraordinary selling point that no other nation has. Picture for a second the grandson of the president of Italy arriving in LA - it would take half a line in a newspaper, it just wouldn't interest anybody.
We have this extraordinary hangover from our past that means something to Americans and allows us to set up a shop window for talent.''
Forty-two emerging Brits have been selected by a BAFTA panel to attend the event to introduce them to the ''movers and shakers'' in Hollywood.

THE ACCENT SNATCHER
Crikey, she is really good, isn't she, that Meryl Streep. For months, the British public has been feverishly anticipating the release of the Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady, nervous perhaps that Streep, despite her masterful reputation with accents, would mangle the portrayal of the Milk Snatcher. Well, the doubts have lasted as long as the film's trailer. In it, two of Thatcher's political strategists advise the very prim, handbag-clutching Maggie - every inch, at this point, the grocer's daughter - that her voice is ''too high and has no authority''. As The Guardian pointed out, Thatcher's voice was carefully crafted: after her marriage, she developed a contrived posh accent which her PR adviser forced her to soften in an effort to sound less hectoring: "Her voice had a husky style that male politicians of her generation (Labour included) found sexy, especially if she had Scotch on her breath." And The Telegraph praises Streep for mastering Thatcher's accent: "She has no problem getting the Baroness's plummy but powerful voice to a T." But the power of oratory has little to do with accent, and more to do with emphasis, and the high point of the trailer is the moment Thatcher's voice reveals its power in its tone. Told she must ditch her dowdy hat and pearls she, hitherto meek, retorts: ''I may be persuaded to surrender the hat. The pearls, however, are absolutely non-negotiable''. After she which she pauses for a trice, offering a spine-chillingly twinkly look, and says: ''That's the tone we're looking for.''

DON'T ACT GLOBA: LOCALS
Imagine if the characters in Neighbours were played by British actors, or if Home and Away characters spoke with a twanging West Country burr. Or imagine, say, Brenda Blethyn in the Jacki Weaver role in Animal Kingdom. These and other startling scenarios were put to a rally of actors in Melbourne yesterday who had gathered to protest the federal government's proposed changes to the Foreign Performers Certification Scheme Guidelines. The changes include a lowering of the proportion of foreign investment needed in an Australian feature film and TV mini-series before foreign actors can be cast in lead or supporting roles, and the removal of restrictions on the use of foreign talent in long-form serials, such as Home and Away and Packed to the Rafters. This would mean, said the actor Justine Clarke from the podium, ''Neighbours, which plays really well in the UK, could cast as many British actors as they like''. The federal president of Actors Equity, Simon Burke, said that without the present guidelines, which were developed by the actors' union in 1985 and became law in 1991, it would have been possible for a foreign actor such as the two-time Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn, an Englishwoman, to have been cast in Animal Kingdom in place of Jacki Weaver, meaning ''Jacki Weaver would never have had the sweet, sweet experience of being an overnight sensation at 64''. However, after the rally, Antony Ginnane, the president of the Screen Producers Association of Australia, speaking from Los Angeles, said Equity's claim the change would open the floodgates was ''completely bogus''. He said it would put more power into the hands of producers. ''More films will be made, more jobs will be created, not less. Over the past 25 years [the] guidelines haven't changed. Anybody who thinks it isn't time to review them is one side east of the dinosaurs.'' Equity, SPAA and other parties are scheduled to meet the staff of the Arts Minister, Simon Crean, on July 27 to attempt to reach a final agreement on the guidelines.
CYCLE OF RIDICULE
The NRMA has an advertisement spinning away on high rotation during the late-night SBS coverage of this year's Tour de France that boldly attempts to press into the minds of viewers the absolute existential centrality to their lives of the motor car. Anyway, the ad (''Life without your car'') promises comprehensive insurance policyholders a replacement car when theirs is damaged in an accident, and depicts punters enduring all manner of calamity as they try, and fail, to manage without one: shopping bags burst, a woman hobbles on a broken heel - that sort of thing. But one person, you can't help but notice, really, really struggles: the silly cyclist, who stays almost stationary with inexplicably windmilling pedals. So there you have it: an ad, shown repeatedly, during a telecast of the Tour de France, at an hour when the viewers are nearly all avid cyclists, or (and this is not quite the same thing, but it's pretty close) avid fans of cycling: which mocks people, in short, for whom life without a car is not a nightmare but a dream. We're just saying, is all …
OLD, OLD MASTERS
Yesterday, during a guided tour of Vaucluse House as part of NAIDOC Week, the Diary saw three Aboriginal rock carvings - a whale, a kangaroo and ''a human-like figure that is part of a creation story'' - unveiled by Michael Ingrey, a member of the La Perouse Aboriginal community. ''We can't tell when the carvings were made,'' he said of the weathered figures. ''They may have been there before the Wentworths arrived.'' Ingrey said that, although William Charles Wentworth and his family lived there from 1827 to 1862, indigenous people continued to live in the area for 100 years after European arrival. Ingrey and a colleague, Paul Irish, were commissioned last year by the Historic Houses Trust - which operates the museum - to research the indigenous history of the Vaucluse estate. Ingrey said some rock carvings now lie on private land and at least one is thought to be buried beneath a garage. Fortunately the aforementioned trio survive and Ingrey said similar figures have been found at North Head and in the Royal National Park that may date back 500 years or more. ''Traditionally [rock carvings] were teaching sites,'' he explained. ''Elders used them to teach hunting and food-gathering skills, as well as passing on laws that governed traditional society.''