First Lady on canvas: The father of French President Nicolas Sarkozy has rented the elite Pierre Cardin gallery for a one-man show of his paintings. Pal Sarkozy, 82, produces kitschy, splashy surrealist works, mostly of naked women; they are routinely panned by critics. The highlight of the new show will be a huge canvas of Carla Bruni, the supermodel-singer his son married in 2008. She is pictured clothed, strumming a guitar while sitting on a piano painted with an image of the French president at his desk. The gallery made a point of saying that it does not endorse the show, which opens in April. “We hire out part of our space for private shows,” said a spokesman. “We don’t have a choice.” Sarkozy said his son’s position has helped his painting career “enormously.”
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Safer brawling: The British government has introduced new, shatterproof beer glasses in an effort to cut down on injuries during drunken brawls. British pubgoers have an alarming tendency to smash their pint glasses and use them as weapons. An estimated 87,000 such attacks occur annually, and cost the National Health Service more than $4 billion. “Glassing causes horrific injuries and has a lasting and devastating impact on victims and their families,” said Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who last week demonstrated two prototypes of shatterproof glasses. One has a thin bioresin coating that strengthens it, and the other, similar to car windshields, bonds two thin layers of glass together. London bartender Mirjam Linzie said the staff at her pub would welcome safer glasses. “One time there was a big fight, and 50 pints were smashed in one minute,” she said. “It was a bloodbath.”
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