Martha Stewart describes house arrest as ‘hideous’

New York – Martha Stewart says in a new interview that her nickname in prison was M. Diddy, that house arrest is “hideous” and that her prosecution was about bringing her down “to scare other people.”

In the interview, Stewart tells Vanity Fair magazine she agrees with those who say her crime – lying about a personal stock sale – is far different from massive corporate scandals such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco.

“Of course that is what it’s all about,” Vanity Fair quotes Stewart as saying. “Bring ’em down a notch, to scare other people. If Martha can be sent to jail, think hard before you sell that stock.”

Stewart, 63, is serving a five-month term of house arrest at her Bedford, N.Y., estate that followed five months in a West Virginia federal prison. She is scheduled to go free early next month.

“I hate lockdown. It’s hideous,” Stewart tells the August issue of the magazine, on newsstands July 12.

Asked about the electronic monitoring device she must wear on her ankle – she has complained repeatedly that it irritates her skin – Stewart says she knows how to remove it.

“I watched them put it on. You can figure out how to get it off,” she is quoted as saying. “It’s on the Internet. I looked it up.”

Her publicist’s eyes “widened with alarm” when Stewart made the remark. The article didn’t say whether Stewart claimed ever to have taken off the device.

Still, Stewart appears to take house arrest very seriously, noting that she once phoned her probation officer to apologize when she arrived home two or three minutes late from an approved outing.

Bono’s stylist ordered to return concert memorabilia

Dublin, Ireland – A former stylist for Irish rock band U2 must return to lead singer Bono a range of clothes, including a cowboy hat and earrings, and nearly 200 backstage photographs, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Dublin Circuit Court Justice Matthew Deery said he didn’t accept Lola Cashman’s claim that Bono gave her the clothes as gifts at the end of the U.S. leg of U2’s 1987 tour. He ordered her to hand over the disputed property within a week.

Neither the London-based Cashman nor members of U2 were present in the Dublin court.

Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton filed a lawsuit against Cashman after she tried to sell the clothes and photos at a London auction house in 2002. She then angered the band with her book, “Inside the Zoo With U2: My Life With the World’s Biggest Rock Band.”

The judge also ordered Cashman to hand over nearly 200 photographs she took backstage of band members, which he said violated her confidentiality agreement with U2.

Live 8 downloads top charts

London – “Hey Jude,” the finale of the London Live 8 concert led by Paul McCartney, was offered as a download while the opening number topped the online charts in several countries, the distributor said.

The McCartney/U2 concert opener, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” was No. 1 on the iTunes charts in Britain, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Belgium, said Adam White of Universal Music International.

Universal said Monday it logged the first “Pepper” sale just 45 minutes after Saturday’s performance.

McCartney’s “The Long and Winding Road,” from the end of the concert, was made available for downloading on Sunday, White said.

He said Universal is donating its share of the sales to Live 8.

Live 8 concerts, organized by Bob Geldof, were held worldwide to raise awareness of poverty in Africa.

Angie Harmon to star in ‘Inconceivable’ drama

New York – Angie Harmon, best known for her role on NBC’s “Law & Order,” will return to the network to star as an ambitious reproductive specialist in “Inconceivable,” a new drama set in a fertility clinic.

“Inconceivable,” also starring Ming-Na (“E.R.”) and Jonathan Cake (“Empire”), will air on Friday nights, NBC said in a recent statement. The series, set to debut this fall, will revolve around the clinic’s doctors, lawyers and patients.

Harmon, 32, played Assistant Dist. Atty. Abbie Carmichael on “Law & Order” from 1998 to 2001.

Nigerian honored for short story writing

London – A former bookstore clerk from Nigeria has won the 2005 Caine Prize for African Writing with a short story exploring how families respond to the dislocations of exile.

S.A. Afolabi was the sixth winner of the $15,000 prize, sometimes dubbed the “African Booker” because of its link to the late Man Booker Prize chairman Michael Caine.

The annual Caine Prize was created in honor of Caine, a British businessman with a deep interest in Africa who for almost 25 years chaired the management committee of the Booker, Britain’s most prestigious literary award.