Donna Air Online

The Flower Council of Holland are making flowers more fun – and they’ve started by sculpting a vase in the shape of Donna Air’s head.

Yup, Donna’s the face (and head) of the #FavouriteFlower campaign, which is offering someone the chance to win a vase in the shape of their own head, to give to a friend.

Whether or not the friend will actually want to receive it is a different matter, but with each bespoke 3D-modelled vase valued at around £1,000, it’s actually not a bad prize.

Donna’s was the first head off of the production line, and she admitted that, as well as spurring her to buy more flowers for her friend, she appreciated the entertainment value of the vase.

“One of the signs of a great friendship is always being able to make each other laugh and smile, and this gift will certainly do that.

“I love receiving bouquets of flowers, but admittedly I don’t gift flowers to my friends as much as I gift flowers to myself. But now, with this amazing vase to put them in, I’ll have to make sure her vase is always full!”

The Flower Council of Holland are now aiming to make sure more people give flowers to their friends more often.

In recent research, the FCH found that 87% of women say they are guaranteed to smile when they receive their favourite flowers as a gift, but only 31% have ever received a bouquet of their most-loved blooms.

FCH UK marketing manager Chanel De Kock said:

“True friends know each other’s favourite flowers but, as our research shows, we’re possibly not gifting them to each other enough.

“It’s such a simple gift that’s guaranteed to make people smile and strengthen an already strong bond.”

To be in with a chance of winning a bespoke vase based on your own head, upload a selfie to FCH’s ‘funnyhowflowersdothat’ Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest page, tagged with #FavouriteFlower – you’ll need to give a short explanation of why your friend deserves to receive a flower-filled version of your head (good luck!).

A total of five people will be chosen in all, with each receiving a selfie-vase filled with flowers.

More Pictures

Donna Air has lent her support to the Think Pink campaign, a partnership between retailer Debenhams and cancer research charity Breast Cancer Campaign.

Everyone’s favourite Geordie fundraiser was pictured in a ‘Think Pink’ T-shirt, produced by Red Herring and available from Debenhams at a current retail price of £16.

In an October 2nd tweet, the retailer said: “Check out Donna Air showing her support for Think Pink. Show your support with a T-shirt.”

You can get involved with the campaign in any one of a number of ways:

• Follow Debenhams on Twitter.
• Follow Breast Cancer Campaign on Twitter.
• Follow the #ThinkPink hashtag.
• Buy the T-shirt online from Debenhams.

And of course, you can keep up to date with all of Donna’s charity work and other activities in the public eye, by following Donna Air on Twitter.

About Think Pink

The Think Pink campaign was created by Debenhams in 2001 and all sales help to support Breast Cancer Campaign.

Over the first ten years, well in excess of £3 million was raised by the sale of pink items, ranging from lingerie to perfume and accessories – and, of course, T-shirts.

A decade on from the launch of Think Pink, Ed Watson, head of PR at Debenhams, said: “The dedication and continued support of our staff and our customers over the past ten years towards this great cause has been able to fund 68 research projects all across the UK and Ireland.”

Two more years have passed, and the amount raised continues to rise – supported in part by familiar faces like Donna appearing in Think Pink merchandise – funding further essential research into beating cancer once and for all.

August 8th 2013

Well, the tabloids haven’t taken too kindly to Donna reportedly dating Kate Middleton’s brother, James.

Hot off the heels of misreporting her as being married to Damian Aspinall for several years (which, as far as I’m aware, they never were), they now seem to be variously either reminding Donna that James Middleton ‘isn’t that posh’, or berating her for ‘losing her accent’ because – yes – she’s going out with a posh bloke.

Impressively, it’s not just the tabloids who are weighing in on this one, and the Independent’s Simon Kelner has managed to compile perhaps the most ill-informed, self-contradictory opinion piece of the lot.

Mr Kelner varyingly refers to Donna as a “real-life Eliza Doolittle”, confesses that “I have obviously never seen her present anything on television” (that’s going to make for a well-informed article then, isn’t it?), and suggests that her softened accent stems from a desire to “fit in with the posh set with whom she’s now socialising”.

Despite opening his article in defence of Donna, Mr Kelner spends most of it implying that she is somehow deliberately altering the way she speaks, because she’s dating a Middleton. Which would be fine, if her accent had abruptly changed in the past few weeks.

But it hasn’t; it’s been gradually changing for more than a decade, during which time Donna hasn’t lived any closer to Newcastle than, say, David Cameron does.

Here’s Donna in Hotel Babylon in 2008, as an example:

Not only is Donna’s accent clearly partway between Geordie and her so-called ‘plummy’ accent of present-day; this episode is also a particularly useful example of why Donna’s relationship with James Middleton really is not the driving force behind her steadily drifting (not abruptly changing) accent.

That’s because, not only was this five years ago – and long before she started dating James – but the anguish in her performance is because she had only just separated from Damian Aspinall, demonstrating that her accent was already noticeably different from its Geordie origins even then.

And if you still don’t believe me, this post on PointlessNostalgic.com (which, weirdly, seems to be a Jamie Cullum discussion forum at heart) proves that other viewers noticed Donna’s “half posh English, half Geordie” accent at the time.

It’s a little disappointing that the press are being as lazy as ever in the way they report Donna’s life – not to mention the thinly veiled hostility they seem to have for her – but given that many of them still refer to her as Damian Aspinall’s ‘ex-wife’, it comes as no surprise.

Donna turned heads and made headlines at the premiere of The Amazing Spider-Man in London on Monday night, in a Scott Henshall creation that lived up to the main theme of the film.

She took to the red carpet in an awesome, diamond-encrusted spider’s-web dress, a distinctly Hollywood take on the classic LBD teamed with black shoes and a simple but elegant up-do.

Reactions were mixed in the showbiz media – with Stylite only approving of the outfits selected by the film’s stars, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.

Instead, they called Donna’s dress “ballsy” but “tacky” – more than a little harsh for a dress that was created in part by craftsmen at Whitby jet specialists W Hammond.

For a fairer analysis of the dress itself, head to Professional Jeweller, who rightly focus on the work that went into the outfit, and on Henshall’s history with Spider-Man premieres.

As for Donna herself – well, in typical style, she seemingly spent most of the evening worrying that the dress was too short (I’m not sure that’s possible with those legs…) and, later, took to Twitter to ask how she was supposed to take the dress off again!

In between, she found time to tweet this photo of her ensemble alongside its inspiration – which makes me wish Christopher Nolan had decided to cast a Geordie Catwoman for next month’s spotlight-grabbing opening of The Dark Night Rises.

Oh well – hopefully Donna will be attending the premiere…

Donna’s looking good on Heatworld today, where the celeb and showbiz publication pictures her dressed for the weird autumn weather we’ve been having – click here to open the picture in a new tab or window.

With the calendar ticking over into October, but the temperatures in the south pushing towards 30°C, it takes a lifelong fashionista like Donna to show the rest of us how to dress.

But wait a minute – does that outfit look familiar? At first glance, I could have sworn I’d seen it before, so I’ve been doing a little detective work.

It turns out it’s not the dress she modelled at the recent Brown Thomas autumn-winter 2011 collection launch in Dublin (pics via Wim Heitinga) – although it’s not a million miles away.

Donna’s Heatworld outfit is a more vibrant red and a more casual style – and adds a fun, strawberry-pip style pattern – but it seems this season’s colour scheme is very much red up top with grey footwear.

Fashion-conscious women of Britain, the marker has been set.

While many people are using September 11th 2011 to reflect on the events of ten years ago, Donna Air is in London taking part in the Adidas 5k Women’s Challenge for Jeans for Genes.

Donna is part of Team Donna Ida, a group running with denim addict and fashion boutique retailer Donna Ida Thornton at its helm.

Ahead of the event, the team has already raised well over £30,000 for Jeans for Genes – and is aiming for an ambitious target of £50,000 in total.

That would single-handedly smash the entire target for the Women’s Challenge, which was initially hoped to raise £100 for each of 100 participants – or £10,000 in all.

Follow Donna Air and Donna Ida on Twitter for Twitpics throughout the day – and best of luck to the ladies from us.

For more information about the event, click here.

Learn more about Team Donna Ida here…
…or help Team Donna Ida reach their fundraising target.

The Daily Mail has published photos and interview segments from Donna’s upcoming appearance in SHE magazine.

Donna is due to appear in the September issue of SHE, which is also reportedly the last. Despite the cover date, the issue is actually already available, so look out for it in your local newsagent’s.

In the Daily Mail extracts, Donna speaks candidly about finding fame early in life – and why she wouldn’t want the same for her daughter.

There’s also a mention of what went wrong between Donna and Damian Aspinall, a subject she seems to be more willing to talk about as time goes by.

For the full Daily Mail article, along with Ben Riggott’s stunning photoshoot of Donna, click here.

Followers of Donna on Twitter (@donnaair) will have seen her response to the events unfolding this week in London.

Like many people, Donna’s reaction to the weekend’s rioting in Tottenham was fairly subdued, simply saying it was “sad” to see the news when getting up on Sunday morning.

However, as violence broke out again across London on Monday night, she took to Twitter again, saying: “I’m so sad to see the news again. I cannot believe what is happening right here in London. This is insane.”

Again, her tweets that followed echoed the feelings of many people nationwide, first commenting on how “mindless” and damaging to the economy the actions of the rioters were, before pleading with Geordies not to follow suit in Newcastle.

Then came disbelief when faced with news footage of high-street chemist Boots having been ransacked for goods like anti-diarrhoea pill Imodium.

As of today, Donna showed typical British humour, with a light-hearted tweet to say she would consider it a “declaration of war” if riots in Sloane Square had led to looting of her Chanel boots.

For concerned fans – it looks like our girl is doing fine. Follow Donna on Twitter for further opinions direct from the lady herself.

Donna has lent her lips to a new campaign from women’s cancer charity The Eve Appeal.

Kiss of Life encourages supporters of the gynaecological cancer charity to get involved by sending a kiss in one of a number of ways, with proceeds helping to raise awareness and fund research.

The options include:

• text KISS11 to 70070 to donate £2
• mail a special Eve Appeal Kiss of Life card to the charity for inclusion on its site (for a £2 donation)
• upload a photo to its website at www.gcam11.org.uk and donate £1 for it to be included
• download the iPhone Kiss of Life app for free and send kisses for £1 each
• text EVE to 70800 for a link to the app – again, the app is free but kisses donate £1 each

Donna is one of a number of supporters who have added kisses of their own to the campaign.

She says: “Love women, love The Eve Appeal. Together we can make a difference.”

The Eve Appeal’s CEO Robert Marsh adds: “We hope that, through the Kiss of Life campaign, we can make more women aware of the signs and symptoms of this dreadful set of diseases and raise much-needed funds for this vital research.”