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Kate Bush has EIGHT albums in the top 40: Two make the top ten on back of singer's 'spellbinding' return to stage after 35 years

 

Kate Bush has become the first woman in history to have eight albums in the Official Albums Chart at the same time.

 

The achievement comes following her return to the stage after 35 years, which went down a storm with critics and fans alike, who hailed her performance as 'spellbinding'.

 

Yesterday, two of Bush's albums reached the top 10 - The Whole Story at number six and Hounds Of Love at number nine - with a total of eight Bush albums in the top 40, the Official Charts Company said.

 

50 Words For Snow is at number 20, The Kick Inside is at number 24, The Sensual World is at 26, The Dreaming is at 37, Never For Ever is at 38 and Lionheart is at 40.

 

A further three of her albums are at numbers 43, 44 and 49.

 

 

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Bush is now only behind Elvis Presley, the overall record holder who managed 12 entries in the top 40 following his death in 1977, and The Beatles, who notched up 11 simultaneous top 40 entries with their 2009 album reissues.

 

More than 80,000 tickets for Bush's Before The Dawn 'tour' - 22 shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in west London, the venue where she effectively retired from live performances after six weeks on the road in 1979 - sold out in less than 15 minutes after they were announced in March.

 

Back in 1978, Bush became the first female artist in history to score a UK number one on the Official Singles Chart with a self-penned song - Wuthering Heights went on to top the chart for four weeks, becoming the first of Bush's 26 top 40 hits.

 

Official Charts Company chief executive, Martin Talbot, said: 'Her new live shows have created a huge stir, but for them to help push her catalogue to make such a significant sales impact is further evidence of the love that the British public have for her music, from generation to generation.'

 

Meanwhile, Brighton rock duo Royal Blood top this week's album chart with their self-titled album, scoring the UK's fastest selling British rock debut in three years.

 

Ed Sheeran spends his 10th week in the top five with X at number two, and US singer/songwriter Ariana Grande scores a personal best with new album My Everything at three.

 

Britain's Got Talent winners Collabro slide three places to number four with their debut Stars, while Sam Smith's In The Lonely Hour is at five.

 

In the Official Singles Chart, Lilly Wood and Robin Schulz are at number one with Prayer In C.

 

Maroon 5 are new at number two with Maps, the lead single from upcoming album V.

 

Last week's number one, David Guetta's Lovers On The Sun featuring Sam Martin, slides two places to number three, while Taylor Swift spends a second week in the top five with Shake It Off at four.

 

Rounding out this week's top five are Norwegian duo Nico & Vinz with Am I Wrong at five.

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She's heaven-sent! Kim Kardashian is angelic in white at Hollywood studio before enjoying romantic dinner with husband Kanye West

 

She has developed a reputation as quite the sexpot, with her barely-there attire and string of high-profile relationships.

 

But Kim Kardashian is cultivating a more virtuous look of late.

 

The 33-year-old was angelic in a fitted white ensemble for a second day in a row as she arrived at a studio in Hollywood on Wednesday, before enjoying a romantic dinner with husband Kanye West

 

The reality star showed off her feminine curves in the tight long skirt and long-sleeved white top, which featured a cut-out on the back and sides.

 

She added a boost of height to her 5ft 3in frame with gold chain-link stilettos and she carried a black designer handbag in front of her mid-section as she entered the building.

 

The mother-of-one wore her dark hair loose and straight and highlighted her brown eyes with smokey eyeshadow teamed with nude lips.

 

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For their dinner, Kanye was dressed down in jeans, a white T-shirt and red plaid shirt paired with grey suede boots.

 

The pair were seen leaving The Little Door, which calls itself 'the best romantic restaurant in LA.'

 

At one point the pair were seen standing rather awkwardly on the sidewalk together, perhaps waiting for their valet.

 

The previous day, Kim stepped out in white once again, this time with her 13-month-old daughter North, who was also clad in the soft hue.

 

The girls' day out came just before Kim revealed some big news on Twitter... that she will be starring in an upcoming episode of 2 Broke Girls.

 

The reality TV star wrote: 'Shooting an episode of #2BrokeGirls with @OfficialKat & @BethBehrs! Can’t wait for you to see it 10/27 @ 8pm on #CBS.'

 

Kim will famously be following in the footsteps of Lindsay Lohan, whose appearance in the same show last year was widely panned and it was claimed her diva antics and lack of preparation led to severe delays in filming.

 

Kardashian is no stranger to the small screen, having previously guest starred on Drop Dead Diva.

 

In a recent interview with People the Kim described how taken her husband is with their first-born child.

 

'Kanye treats her like a princess,' Kim gushed to the magazine. 'It's so obvious how much he cares about her, how much he loves her.'

 

She added: 'They are meant to be together and they know it.'

 

The moment baby North walked for the very first time was an amazing experience for Kim and Kanye too.

 

The proud mama described how a swimming lesson led to the momentous milestone, not to mention an apple.

 

Kim revealed she got her daughter moving in the water by holding the fruit in front where she could see it.

 

'She was so excited to have this apple that she would swim around the pool to get it,' Kim told People.

 

'Then we took her out, and she just walked [her first steps] toward the apple.'

 

The couple were obviously bowled over that they were both witness to their child's first steps.

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The picture that says you can invade an Englishman's castle...but you'll never break his spirit (or his family!): Flanked by his loyal daughters, victim of Polish thugs tells of his appalling ordeal

His misshapen and bruised face is shocking evidence of the vicious beating he endured at the hands of four masked raiders.

But academic Paul Kohler is nevertheless wreathed in a broad smile, testimony to his indomitable spirit.

Flanked by two of his four beloved daughters, one of whom was also caught up in the horrific attack, he is clearly proud of the family he fought so valiantly to protect.

And his courageous decision to allow pictures to be taken of him sitting up in his hospital bed, his blackened, swollen eyes little more than slits and his cheeks and forehead blotched with dark purple, sends out an unambiguous message to his attackers – whatever you do, his spirit will not be broken.

Sitting by his side, his 24-year-old daughter Eloise appears serene, with little to suggest that only a few days ago she had been forced to hide under her bed, terrified that she too would become a victim of the attackers.

In a second picture, she shares a joke with her father, reducing him to what must be painful stitches of laughter, while her mother Sam, who was threatened with violence by the intruders, stands by the bed like a tower of strength.

The images were taken after the Cambridge-educated law lecturer and father of four spoke in graphic detail for the first time about the brutal attack that shocked the country.

When he opened the door of his six-bedroom house on Monday night, he had been enjoying a tranquil evening playing board games with his wife.

The last thing he expected was that within moments he would be battling for everything he most loved.

Mr Kohler, the head of law at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said he thought only of protecting his family as he fought back furiously against the intruders.

He said: ‘I regard my home as my domain and suddenly these men break through the defences.

‘Within my domain I had this hostile force and I felt incredibly protective. I had my family there and this whole notion of an Englishman’s home is his castle – that was the feeling. I realised I’d stupidly let into my house someone who was out to create havoc, and there’s a real sense of fear and panic.

‘But I felt I had to defend my home and my family. I really was fighting for my life.’

Mr Kohler’s ordeal, during which he suffered severe blood loss and injuries that could permanently damage his sight, began at 10pm on Monday when he heard the doorbell ring at his £2 million, three-storey Edwardian property in the normally peaceful suburb of Wimbledon, South-West London.

Unusually, he said, he had won several rounds of the intellectually challenging game Lost Cities, and his wife Sam had gone upstairs to ‘lick her wounds’.

His daughter Eloise and her boyfriend Geraint had earlier had supper with the couple but had gone upstairs to watch television in her room, a piece of good fortune that probably saved the family from an even worse fate.

His other three daughters, Saskia, Bethany and Tamara, were not in the house, and Mr Kohler, who was alone downstairs when the doorbell rang, said he assumed it was one of his daughters’ friends.

He said: ‘I could see a silhouette of someone through the glass – it’s pretty badly lit out in the hall – and it looked just like the height and haircut of one of the girls’ mates. So I opened the door and this guy appeared to fall through the door.

‘Before I even thought what’s happening I had blows raining down on me. They hit me before they said anything. Then the one at the front started saying, “Where’s the money?” It was a dark hallway, but from what I could see of them they had covered their faces.

Then they pushed me away from the door so I wasn’t making sound out into the street.’

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The bloody and relentless assault continued as the men punched and kicked Mr Kohler almost 20ft along the hallway until he was at the door of his dining room. ‘They were pushing me to the dining room and I was trying to defend the stairs a bit because I knew my family were up there,’ he said.

‘I was punching away and thrashing away. I couldn’t punch like them, but I was doing my best and shouting and they were trying to shut me up.’

He recalled: ‘I shouted out “Sam, ring the police!” – a move he said he instantly regretted because it alerted the burglars to Sam’s whereabouts. In response, one of the four thugs ran upstairs, forced Sam to lie on the floor and stood over her for the duration of the burglary.

After that Mr Kohler was careful to not reveal that Eloise was in her bedroom at the top of the house.

His quick-thinking daughter, hearing the commotion, was able to lock her bedroom door and call 999. She then turned off the light before crawling under the bed with her boyfriend and speaking to the police in hushed tones.

Speaking for the first time, the Edinburgh University graduate said: ‘I honestly thought my parents had been stabbed. I thought we were going to die.

‘That’s all I kept thinking, “We’re going to die.” I was so scared. The policewoman was trying to calm me down, but I was just sobbing.’

Meanwhile, Mr Kohler had been ‘blinded’ in his left eye by the force of the blows.

In the dining room, where he was surrounded by his familiar furniture including a piano and cocktail cabinet, the attack took an even more menacing turn. He said: ‘One of the men pushed me back so I was lying in the doorway of the dining room and jumped on top of me and was just beating me remorselessly with his fists.

‘Another one was behind me kicking me in the head, and another held my legs down.

‘One of the first punches I received in the hallway had caused me to lose all sight in my left eye, so it meant I was blindsided on one side and couldn’t see anything coming.

A copper flew through the door like the cavalry -

Paul Kohler

‘One of them was kicking me from the side and I couldn’t see them coming. He was just smashing at my face and the power of the blows was just phenomenal.

‘The guy who came in first was grabbing at my groin and trying to grab my testicles, but it was impossible in that position while I was kicking.’

However, the moment that really terrified Mr Kohler was when one of his tormentors pulled out a roll of gaffer tape and attempted to gag him.

He said: ‘I was biting at it because there’s something about if you’ve lost all your physical freedom and then they try to take your voice as well, which is your only defence mechanism – you panic.

‘So I bit at the tape and bit at it every time he tried to put it on and it stuck together. So he gave up doing that.’

At this point, Sam tried to escape from the man who was standing over her upstairs, causing two of Mr Kohler’s attackers to run upstairs to his aid.

Mr Kohler’s remaining assailant then attempted to put his hands over the academic’s mouth and nostrils, prompting Mr Kohler to try to break free, but then the two other men came back down.

‘Then I was facing all three and one of them hit me again on my blind side, so I was down again,’ he said. ‘Then the ringleader picked up the heavy, wooden door of the cocktail cabinet, which is loose and has come off. And he knelt above me, holding the door above his head, saying, “Tell me where the money is” – and threatening to bring it down on my head, and I’m bracing myself thinking he’s about to hit me with the door.

At that point a copper just flew through the door like the cavalry. He grabbed at the guy who was kneeling on my shoulders and pinned him down.’

When his wife and daughter emerged unhurt, he said there were ‘tears of emotion’ but also bewilderment over what had happened.

The devastating assault on Mr Kohler lasted only eight minutes, but it left the house covered in blood and was described by the detective inspector investigating the case as the ‘most brutal’ he has seen in 20 years.

Mr Kohler said he was ‘unrecognisable’ with swelling on the side of his head the size of a football, while blood flowed from his mouth and eyes. He was unable to open his eyes for two days.

Doctors at the hospital to which he was taken had to carry out an emergency transfusion because he had lost so much blood because of internal bleeding, putting a strain on his heart. He now faces reconstructive surgery on a cracked eye socket that could still could leave permanent damage to his sight.

Mr Kohler said they were still bemused about the motive for the attack, especially as little was taken and their house is close to a police station.

He said: ‘There are only two possibilities. It’s either a mistaken address or someone has made the stupid assumption because we own a small bar in Covent Garden, the Cellar Door, that we have a large amount of money in the house.

‘But most people buy their drinks with credit cards. We have a few hundred pounds at most that comes into the house and goes straight to the bank.’

Two Polish men have appeared in court and were remanded in custody but police are seeking the other two suspects. Both are believed to be aged between 20 and 30 and from Eastern Europe.

Detectives have released CCTV images of one of the suspects running through Wimbledon Theatre car park. He can be seen removing the surgical gloves which he wore during the attack.