@@@.....Razz Awards 2011: We run the rule over the best in music over the last 12 months

It’s been a great year for music. From Adele singing Someone Like You at the Brits and her album 21 barely leaving the top three all year, to the return of Lady Gaga and the dominance of girls like Rihanna and Katy Perry, to ­continuing Scottish talent in the shape of Emeli Sande.

Here showbiz Editor Rick Fulton gives you the Razz Awards 2011.

Artist of 2011 - Adele

Can it be anyone else? Adele’s second album 21 is the biggest-selling album of 2011. Along with her debut album 19, she sold more than 20 million albums in 2011 with 21 shifting 16 million copies alone. It is now the biggest selling album of the century. She also become the first living artist in nearly 50 years to have two top five singles and albums in the charts at the same time. Problems with her throat dampened the celebrations but 2012 will hopefully see more touring.

UK Band - The Horrors

The Southend band started off as a goth joke, using daft names and raiding The Cure’s back catalogue. But this year’s third album Skying was incredible. The band, lead by Faris Badwan, made an album that sounded like The Doors. A must-see at T in 2012.

UK Female - Adele

Just because you sell alot doesn’t always mean you’re any good. But Adele certainly was. Once seen as Amy Winehouse lite, Adele showed she had the songs and the pipes to match the other troubled British soul star.

UK Male - Ed Sheeran

At the start of the year there were claims rock music was dead but Ed Sheeran proved the doubters wrong. With no more than a battered guitar Ed mixed personal folk tunes with R&B rhythms and urban poetry.

International Male - Bruno Mars

This year Bruno followed 2010’s Grenade and Just The Way You Are with number one The Lazy Song and Marry You. Never off the airwaves he also performed a show-stopping gig on The X Factor.

International Female - Rihanna

A very hard category this with Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Beyonce all worthy winners. But Rihanna pips it for her amazing tour, her number one with Calvin Harris, We Found Love that gave the Scot his first American number one and showed she had good taste in collaborations and her changing hairstyles.

Best pop act - The Wanted

The nicest guys in pop offer a little something more than JLS, Take That, One Direction or the almost departed Westlife. Adding dance groves on songs like Glad You Came and Lightening add an edge often lacking in the other boybands.

Best Girl Group - Little Mix

OK so they’ve only had one single, a cover and won X Factor but Little Mix have already shot to the top of the girl group tree. It’s not hard really. They were the first girl band to do so well and the first group to win. Girls Aloud are still on hiatus (but due to return in 2012), Sugababes are all but over and The Saturdays just don’t seem to find a bigger fanbase.

Newcomer - Emeli Sande

It’s been an incredible year for the Scots singer (whose real name is Adele fact fans). Not only did she go to number two with her debut single Heaven she then went to number one singing on Professor Green’s Read All About It.

Scottish Band - Twin Atlantic

It’s been a long time since a Scots act broke through into the UK mainstream charts. We have to look back to 2006 and The View and The Fratellis. But Twin Atlantic could buck the trend. Offering a hard rock edge like Biffy Clyro, they are on the cusp of big things.

Best Live Gig - Adele

Given her on-going throat problems just seeing Adele live in 2011 was an event in itself, especially as she doesn’t like festivals. The September gig at the 02 Academy, Glasgow was a moment to savour.

Best Festival - T in the Park

No not because it’s Scottish. T in the Park continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with any of the English festivals and with its decent food and dance tent offered a festival-beating line-up in 2011 of Beyonce, Coldplay, Plan B, Foo Fighters and Pulp.

Best Festival moment - Primal Scream

When the lad set off the flare in the King Tut’s tent on the Saturday night the whole crowd came together like it was a rave in 1988. Free of drugs the Scream have never been better live and after playing Screamadelica did the big hits. Utterly amazing and for me the best T moment - ever.

Most Surprising Reunion - Stone Roses

After two albums they split very acrimoniously and it didn’t look like Ian, John, Mani and Reni would ever play again. But in October they announced they were back and would tour in 2012 including a headline slot at T in the Park. Baggy’s back but let’s hope Ian’s voice is better than in the Nineties.

Sadly missed - Amy Winehouse

Many thought it would happen but everyone was still shocked when the Rehab singer was announced dead. A troubled soul who had so much more to give, already with Lioness, the vaults are being ransacked.

@@@....Michelle Mone to take break from Twitter in wake of marriage split

BRA tycoon Michelle Mone yesterday revealed she will be “taking a break” from Twitter after her marriage split.

The Ultimo boss’s break-up from husband Michael was announced on Wednesday.

Yesterday, she returned to Twitter for the first time since Boxing Day – to say she wouldn’t be back for a while.

“For the time being I’m taking a break from Twitter. Have a great New Year.”

Michelle, 40, has blamed the split from 44-year-old Michael – her husband of 19 years – on the pressures of running their £40million firm MJM International.

The couple, who live in Thorntonhall, near East Kilbride, have three children – Rebecca, 19, Declan, 15, and Bethany, 11.

While Michelle – pictured in her car yesterday – is rarely out of the spotlight, appearing on TV shows including Celebrity MasterChef, Michael has kept a low profile.

Michelle has been plagued with rumours of affairs with television co-stars.

But the couple have denied anyone else is involved in their marriage split.

Top ten actor's in the world: @@@...merry christmas wikipedia/merry christmas an...

Top ten actor's in the world: @@@...merry christmas wikipedia/merry christmas an...: Christmas and holiday greetings are a selection of goodwill greetings used around the world to address strangers, family, coworkers or frien...

@@@...merry christmas wikipedia/merry christmas and happy new year

Christmas and holiday greetings are a selection of goodwill greetings used around the world to address strangers, family, coworkers or friends during the Christmas and holiday season, which spans an approximate timeframe of late November through January. Holidays generally thought to be included in this season include Christmas, New Year's Day, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, Epiphany, Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa. Some greetings are more prevalent than others, depending on the cultural and religious status of any given area.

Typically, a greeting consists of the word "Happy" followed by the holiday, such as "Happy New Year" or "Happy Hanukkah", although the phrase "Merry Christmas" or "Season's Greetings" can be a notable exception.

In the United States, the collective phrase "Happy Holidays" is often used as a generic cover-all greeting for all of the winter holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa; however, the phrase is not widespread in other countries.

Merry/Happy Christmas
A Christmas cake with a "Merry Christmas" greeting.

The greetings and farewells "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Christmas" are traditionally used in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, commencing a few weeks prior to Christmas (December 25) of every year.

The phrase is often preferred when it is known that the receiver is a Christian or celebrates Christmas. The nonreligious often use the greeting as well, however in this case its meaning focuses more on the secular aspects of Christmas, rather than the Nativity of Jesus.

Its meanings and variations are:

    As "Merry Christmas," the traditionally used greeting for those from America and the UK, composed of merry (jolly, happy) and Christmas (Old English: Cristes mæsse, for Christ's Mass).
    As "Merry Xmas," with the "X" replacing "Christ" (see Xmas), dating back to the early days of Christianity, with the Greek letter "χ" being the first letter in Christ (Χριστος).
    As "Happy Christmas," an equivalent that is commonly used in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as "Merry Christmas."

As of 2005, "Merry Christmas" remains popular among countries with large Christian populations, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Philippines, and parts of Western Europe not affiliated with the Eastern Orthodox rites.

It also remains popular in the largely non-Christian nations of China and Japan, where Christmas is celebrated primarily due to Western cultural influences. Though it has somewhat decreased in popularity in the United States and Canada over the past decades, polls from 2005 indicate that it remains more popular than "Happy Holidays" or other alternatives.[1]

History of the phrase

A Christmas tree inside a home.

"Merry," derived from the Old English myrige, originally meant merely "pleasant, and agreeable" rather than joyous or jolly (as in the phrase "merry month of May").

Though Christmas has been observed since the 4th century AD, the first known usage of any Christmastime greeting dates back to 1565, when it appeared in The Hereford Municipal Manuscript: "And thus I comytt you to God, who send you a mery Christmas."[2] "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" (thus incorporating two greetings) was in an informal letter written by an English admiral in 1699. The same phrase is contained in the sixteenth century secular English carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and the first commercial Christmas card, produced in England in 1843.

Also in 1843, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was published, during the mid Victorian revival of the holiday. The word Merry was then beginning to take on its current meaning of "jovial, cheerful, jolly and outgoing."[2] "Merry Christmas" in this new context figured prominently in A Christmas Carol. The cynical Ebenezer Scrooge rudely deflects the friendly greeting: "If I could work my will.. every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding."[3] After the visit from the Ghosts of Christmas effects his transformation, Scrooge exclaims; "I am as merry as a school-boy. A merry Christmas to everybody!" and heartily exchanges the wish to all he meets.[4] The instant popularity of A Christmas Carol, the Victorian era Christmas traditions it typifies, and the term's new meaning appearing in the book, Dickens' tale popularized the phrase "Merry Christmas."

The alternative "Happy Christmas" gained usage in the late 19th century, and is still common in the U.K. and Ireland alongside "Merry Christmas". One reason may be the Methodist Victorian middle-class influence in attempting to separate their construct of wholesome celebration of the Christmas season from that of common lower-class public insobriety and associated asocial behaviour, in a time where merry was also understood to mean "tipsy" or "drunk". Queen Elizabeth II is said to prefer "Happy Christmas" for this reason.[2] In the American poet Clement Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (1823), the final line, originally written as "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night," has been changed in many later editions to "Merry Christmas to all," perhaps indicating the relative popularity of the phrases in the U.S.

***Best of 2011: Nicole Richie's Sexy Boob Job!

On the heels of Kate Hudson's 2010 subtle breast enhancement, once flat-chested Nicole Richie, 30, opted for small implants.

The mom of Sparrow, 2, and Harlow, 3, -- with husband Joel Madden, 32, -- unveiled her new cleavage during a bikini-filled vacation with pals in Mexico in September.

"Breast-feeding killed what boobs she did have," a source told Us Weekly of the House of Harlow 1960 designer. "And she wanted to stay sexy for Joel."

One thing the reality star hasn't altered since becoming a mom and a wife? Her enviable style.

"I'm still wearing 5-inch heels," the Fashion Star mentor recently told WWD. "My fashion really hasn't changed at all."

J.R. Martinez: Are shotgun weddings old news?

Get those dancing shoes ready!

Dancing with the Stars' champion J.R. Martinez and his girlfriend Diana Gonzalez-Jones are expecting a baby girl in the spring. The 28-year-old Iraq war veteran is so excited for fatherhood that he's already mapping out his daughter's future!

NEWS: 10 things you don't know about J.R.

"I'm thinking I'm going to have my girl play sports. I'm going to have her be active," he told Us Weekly. "Maybe [she'll] go to Karina Smirnoff's dance studio for lessons one day!"

Although Martinez only publicly announced his girlfriend was expecting earlier this month, he's actually known since September. "I kept it under wraps and focused on my dancing," he said.

As for Martinez's future with Gonzalez-Jones, his girlfriend of one year? "We thought we'd get married, give ourselves a couple of years and do more things, experience things as a couple and then we'd start to think about kids," he told Us. "But life doesn't always work that way! Things happen! And I do see myself being with her forever."

***Janet Jackson: Michael talked about my 'big butt'

Teaming up with a big-name weight loss company is so on-trend for stars right now that even A-listers are in on the game. Mariah Carey is Jenny Craig's latest ambassador, while Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson has helped Weight Watchers get their word out about shedding pounds.

Now, Janet Jackson is stepping up as the rep for Nutrisystem, a food delivery program.

Janet Jackson says being teased by her brother Michael made her self-conscious about her figure.

The 'All For You' hitmaker has struggled with her fluctuating weight for years and admitted jibes from her older sibling led her to develop a poor body image.

Asked if Michael teased her during an appearance on TV show 'Good Morning America', she said: "Yeah about my butt being too big, and I carried that through my adult life, but they were just names of endearment.

"We always find something wrong in us. Somewhere. If it's not our arms, it is our thighs ... I would pick myself apart."
Janet, 45, also explained her hurt when a wardrobe assistant on the TV show 'Good Times' told her at the age of 10, that they would have to tape her breasts down and that she needed to lose weight.

Michael's former doctor Conrad Murray was recently found guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of the 'Thriller' hitmaker and Janet revealed she is happy with the verdict.

She said: "Even though it doesn't bring my brother back, the best was done at the moment."janet jackson,"janet jackson","janet jackson",janet jackson janet,janet jackson lyrics,latest on janet jackson,janet jackson janet album,janet jackson tour,janet jackson pictures,janet jackson songs