Sacha Baron Cohen to play Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury

Borat To Play Freddie Mercury – Sacha Baron Cohen, the man behind Borat and Bruno, will take on some serious fare when he stars in the role of Queen’s Freddie Mercury in an upcoming biopic. The as-yet-untitled film will track Mercury’s career from the beginnings of Queen to their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium. I reckon Sasha will absolutely nail it. Michael Brain would have also been a shoe-in, if you ask me. [rollingstone]

They’ve Stopped The BP Oil Spill – U.S. officials formally declared an end to the worst oil spill in U.S. history Sunday, a milestone that followed nearly five months of dashed hopes and blistering criticism of nearly everyone involved. Well owner BP began final cementing operations to permanently plug the blowout on Friday. Pressure tests conducted early Sunday confirmed the cement was holding, and the Interior Department agency that regulates offshore drilling pronounced the well dead. [cnn]

iPad Has Halved Laptop Sales – Well, the iPad is about one half of a laptop — both in its form and functionality — so it makes perfect sense that it’d chop laptop sales by 50 percent. We might be pulling your leg, but Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn isn’t. The dude in charge of the yellow label empire has told the Wall Street Journal that his company’s internal estimates indicate the iPad has eaten up as much as half of laptop PC market demand. [engadget]

Nando’s Hungry For Burgers – The British unit of Nando’s, owned by private-equity firm Capricorn Ventures International, on Friday made a cash offer for Clapham – the owner of Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Real Greek – at 74p a share, an 8% premium to the stock’s Thursday close. Nando’s is buying a UK company that owns the Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Real Greek chains in a deal valuing the company at £30.4-million. [timeslive]

J-Lo’s Ex To Audition For American Idol – With Her As a Judge – The ink isn’t even dry on Jennifer Lopez’s new $12 million contract to join ‘American Idol’ and her first husband, former waiter Ojani Noa, already has plans to crash the party — this week, in fact. Noa’s manager, Ed Meyer, says, “He escaped Cuba and married Jennifer Lopez, now he wants to be the American Idol….Of course, he will sing a Jennifer Lopez song.” Mboert. [popeater]

Pope Apologises On Abuse As Thousands Protest – Pope Benedict made one of his strongest apologies to victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in London, while thousands of marchers staged the biggest protest of any of his trips abroad. As he has done on three previous visits, the pope held a private meeting with victims of sexual abuse on Saturday after telling worshippers at a Mass that pedophile priests had brought “shame and humiliation” on him and the Catholic Church. A+ Good. Perceptive. [businessday]

A Peek Inside Tatoosh – We’ve been talking a lot about Paul Allen’s Tatoosh yacht recently. And now it’s time to look inside! The Tatoosh was built in 2001 by HDW Nobiskrug and refitted just this year. It has an owner’s stateroom plus nine guest staterooms with room for 20 guests and 30 crew. There is a cinema, swimming pool and two helicopter decks. Other over-the-top features include a basketball court, recording studio, spa, massage room, gym and games room. [luxist]

Paris Hilton To Plead Guilty And Avoid Jail – Paris Hilton will serve a year of probation and avoid a felony conviction under the terms of a plea deal worked out with prosecutors following her arrest on drug charges in Las Vegas, Clark County District Attorney David Roger said Friday. Roger said the celebrity socialite has agreed to plead guilty Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court to two misdemeanors stemming from the Aug. 27 arrest. [msnbc]

What Happens When You Lie About Having A Hot Internet Girlfriend – A user on crowd-sourced linkdump site Reddit posted a picture of his shapely “girlfriend’s” new tattoo. Apparently she wasn’t his girlfriend. Nice try, nerd.Two weeks ago, Reddit user R66y started a thread titled, “My girlfriend (an art student) went away for the summer and came home with this tattoo, I don’t even…” He included a picture of his art student girlfriend’s (admittedly stupid) tattoo, a detail from Dali’s “Temptation of St. Anthony” [gawker]

Joaquin Phoenix Is A Walking Encapsulation Of The Internet – No one seemed particularly surprised when Casey Affleck, director of I’m Still Here, admitted that his brother-in-law’s documented descent into drug abuse, possible mental illness, and physical deterioration as he sought to kickstart his rap career was all for show, an experiment in blurring the lines between fiction and reality that Affleck described as “the performance of [Phoenix’s] career.” [jezebel]

Six Reasons Why The Editor Of Wired Is Not On Facebook – “David, you’re sounding like an old dude!” Matt Flannery, who runs social-lending website Kiva, couldn’t understand when I explained that, no, I wouldn’t be keeping in touch with him via Facebook. “What are you worried about?” he teased in a break at the PINC conference in Holland. “Only old guys get worked up about privacy.” Well, Matt, I admit I’m the wrong side of 30, and that I still avoid using emoticons in formal correspondence. But let me explain why I’m not active on Facebook.. [wired]

Boeing’s New Spy Plane Will Fly For Five Years Straight – The SolarEagle is Boeing’s winning design for an unmanned plane capable of continually flying for five years on reconnaissance and communications missions above 65,000 feet. The solar-powered, propeller-driven UAV will begin test flights in 2014. [jalopnik]

Lindsay Lohan Fails Drug Test – Might Go Back To Jail – Lohan, 24, who is due to star in “Inferno”, an upcoming Hollywood biopic of the 1970s porn star Linda Lovelace, seems likely to return to jail after failing the court-ordered drug test. She recently served two weeks behind bars after violating probation for drug and driving charges that followed two arrests in 2007. On her release, the starlet was ordered to undergo regular drug testing. The violation involved cocaine use… Not ideal. [telegraph]

Six Biggest Myths About Food Busted – I love things like this, because the amount of new fears, rules and paranoia that is spread about food is enough to give you a heart attack anyway. Finally we can find out the truth about cholestrol in eggs, corn syrup vs sugar, raw food diets, microwaving removing nutrients (or not) and more! Off you go, girls.. [huffers]

Celebrity Twit Pics – I know, can you believe it’s that time of the week again. This time we have a great mix of famous twit pics, including some fashion front-row vibes from Posh Spice, some Gwen Stefani, a bit of Serena Williams, some Denise Richards action, Marc Jacobs, Coco Rocha, Rachel Roy and many many more. Go Twitter go! [dailybeast]

[thanks richard]