10 Most Read Online Stories of the Week

By Valerie Shanley

Jonathan Rhys Meyers with girlfriend Reena Hammer

Overexposed - Argy-bargy over Sex and the City 2. The new film provokes endless derogatory newspaper features for continuing its offensive, air-headed, shallow and deeply touching story of four middle-aged women obsessed with themselves, shoes, cocktails, shoes, shopping, more shoes, and, occasionally, men. Which suddenly started us wondering... Should Russell Crowe be given a male lead?

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Method acting

Air passengers' plans are (d)ashed again. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is also grounded. He's banned from boarding a flight at JFK airport after gorging, Henry Tudor style, on vodkas at 7am in the VIP lounge. The ban resulted in him giving staff a mouthful. Maybe he was just trying to say Eyjafjallajokull.

Service with a whine

Dog's abuse too for Hollywood star John Travolta. After he landed his own jet at Maine airport, his two canines were hit by a service truck as they were being walked on the tarmac. Volcanic or theatrical eruptions aside, you wouldn't bring a dog to an airport these days either.

France unveiled

An outright ban on the burqa and niqab is introduced in France. President Sarkozy evoked the spirit of the sans culottes for his sans veil law, saying France was "an old nation united around … personal dignity, particularly women's dignity. It's the fruit of centuries of efforts." Alarm bells ring over this dictat from the capital of fashion.

You've been framed

Sacre bleu! The alarms clearly didn't ring at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris as five masterpieces are stolen in what is described as the "art heist of the century". The gendarmes are scratching their heads as to how the thief/thieves "clearly defeated the alarm systems". It's as tricky as trying to figure which is the right way up for those Cubist paintings.

UCC's bat man

Dr Dylan Evans would probably like to draw a veil over the charge of sexual harassment brought against him by a female colleague at UCC. He showed her, allegedly uninvited, a research paper on the sex lives of fruit bats. The story has taken wings and gone global – despite confidentiality clauses written into the original hearings. Someone could be dangling by their feet over this one.

Long live the queen

Listeners to a local BBC radio station may have thought it was her having to elect David Cameron prime minister that did for the 84 year old in the end. But radio presenter Danny Kelly's announcement that "Queen Elizabeth II has now died", before playing the national anthem, was just his batty little joke. Kelly, whose show is advertised with the tagline "it's guaranteed to put a smile on your face," won't be grinning himself since the corporation has now apologised for his remark, adding ominously that "action is being taken". Presumably he's been marched off to the Tower.

Cardinal error?

Cardinal Seán Brady is still going nowhere. He dismisses those persistent calls to resign over his involvement in the Fr Brendan Smyth cover-up, claiming the vast majority of people he has spoken to want him to remain. "I was on pilgrimage to Lourdes yesterday with 800 people from this diocese and not one said they had no confidence in me."

News bad for the heart

Cardinals stay, workers go. Anti -cholesterol medication Lipitor is the biggest selling branded drug in the world, manufactured by Pfizer largely in Ireland. But by the end of next year, its patent protection runs out and as the drug goes generic, the jobs go with it – 785 from Newbridge, Dun Laoghaire and Cork. Our sick economy shows little sign of getting better.

Maximus! Maximus!

Workers suffering pay cuts could look to an unlikely hero. A new book alleges that during the filming of Gladiator, Russell Crowe threatened film producer Branko Lustig "You motherf**ker. I will kill you with my bare hands", apparently incensed at Lustig's refusal to pay his assistants what the actor considered to be a fair daily wage. The book also reveals Crowe's initial reluctance to say the line: "And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." After the scene was wrapped, he told Ridley Scott: "It was shit, but I'm the greatest actor in the world and I can make even shit sound good." And who would dare argue?

Keatings split

Ronan Keating sounded good to the 22 million who bought his solo records. Now the former Boyzone is truly in the alone zone, going solo in his personal life as he and his wife Yvonne have agreed to separate after 12 years of marriage. So far, he says it's best if he says nothing at all. Or, as a spokesperson translates it: "The family ask for privacy at this difficult time." About as likely as Jonathan Rhys Meyers opening a school of etiquette.