Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Two Soldier's Shot Dead in Afghanistan

Two UK soldiers from 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment have been shot dead in separate incidents in Afghanistan.


They died while on patrol in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province on Tuesday. Next of kin have been told.

Their deaths bring the total number of UK troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 298.


They follow that of a Royal Marine from 40 Commando who died from injuries sustained in conflict in a UK hospital.


Lt Col James Carr-Smith, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said: "Both soldiers were part of security patrols that were involved in operations to improve freedom of movement for local nationals in Nad Ali, Helmand province, when they were killed by small arms fire.

"Their bravery and boldness in the face of danger will not be forgotten.


"They died in the course of their duty, amongst their comrades and whilst improving the lives of ordinary Afghans. We will remember them."


Katie Price's Perfume Pulled from Superdrug

Katie Price's perfume has been pulled from Superdrug's shelves because of "ethical" reasons.

It follows a report in The Observer newspaper claiming Indian workers making the bottles were paid less than the minimum wage.


A spokeswoman for the high street shop said that because of their "robust ethical trading policy" it had been decided to remove the fragrances.

Price's spokesperson said production has now been moved to the UK.

Sunday's Observer claimed that workers at a factory in India are paid 26p an hour to make perfume bottles for Price's Stunning and Besotted fragrances.

A Superdrug spokeswoman said: "As a business, we have a robust ethical trading policy so that our customers can be confident that they are buying products that are made in an ethical way.

"Therefore, we have taken the decision to remove Katie Price's fragrances from our shelves at this time while we conduct an investigation."

In a statement, Price's spokesperson said: "Following a press report about the production of Katie Price's perfume bottles by the Pragati Glass Company, we can confirm that this factory in India is no longer used as a source of component.

"The production of the bottle, its packaging, filling and finishing has been moved from India to the UK and France.

Prince of Persia


I was looking forward to this film because of the hype, and I was afraid to be disappointed. But as the film unfolded, I most definitely enjoyed this adventure from beginning to end.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays the titular Prince of Persia, Dastan, who was an urchin picked by the King from the marketplace to be his third son. He and his brothers get caught in a web of political high jinx that cross their paths with Princess Tamina of Alamut (played by Gemma Arterton), and the fabled powers of the Sands of Time.


This is Jake Gyllenhaal's most accessible film so far, and he goes to town with it. OK, granted he does not look the least bit Persian, or of that particular time period, but somehow his charisma was able to carry us on this fantastic ride. I also enjoyed his interaction with the beautiful Arterton, which sparks with humor and romance. She was my favorite part of "Clash of the Titans (2010)," and same here.


I highly recommend this film for a good old-fashioned, action-adventure film set in ancient times. The parkour sequences are definitely of the highest order and very well-edited and photographed. The sets and visual effects are excellent. Best of all, the story is intelligent and well-constructed. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has again delivered a very entertaining summer blockbuster. A very well-executed film of its genre. A must watch!
 
p.s.  Gemma Arterton looks beautiful!
 

Friday, 14 May 2010

Owl adopts ducklings born in 30ft-high nest


A tawny owl is acting as surrogate mother to two ducklings born 30ft (9.1m) up a tree after their natural mother laid her eggs in the wrong nest.
Mary Hartley was expecting to see owlets after four eggs appeared in her nest box in Marple Bridge, Stockport.
But when she checked a nest box camera she was surprised to find two Mandarin ducklings jumping around inside.  Two owlets, also born in the nest, are being cared for by the mother alongside the two-day-old ducklings.


Sir Mick Jagger goes back to exile

Forty years ago, the Rolling Stones decamped to the South of France, living as tax exiles as they recorded their tenth album.
The sessions became notorious for their bacchanalian excesses, taking place amidst a nine-month, non-stop cocktail party in a sprawling villa that had supposedly once been a headquarters for the Gestapo.
The result was a sprawling double album, Exile On Main Street, which has gone down in history as one of the band's best.
Next week, they are re-releasing the record with 10 new tracks - including several recently rediscovered songs. An accompanying documentary, Stones In Exile, will premiere in Cannes, before screening on BBC One on Sunday, 23 May.
Frontman Sir Mick Jagger met up with BBC arts editor Will Gompertz to explain why the band had gone back to the archives - and whether the band would ever get back together. 

Facebook Downplays Privacy Crisis Meeting





Facebook has downplayed the significance of a company-wide meeting to discuss privacy issues.
The blogosphere described the meeting as a panic measure following weeks of criticism over the way it handles members' data.
Several US senators have made public calls for Facebook to rethink its privacy safeguards.  The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, launched a petition directed at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.  It called on him to regain the trust of users by giving them control over all the information shared via Facebook.
A number of high-profile users have also deleted their Facebook accounts after the site introduced a new feature that lets non-Facebook websites, or third parties, post the personal views of Facebook users without their consent. 

Industry watchers said the company, which is the world's biggest social network, has shown it has "lost touch" over the issue.

"Most of us got onto Facebook because we want to know what our high school quarterback is doing or to reconnect with old school friends, not worry about how our information is going to be used," Catharine P Taylor, media blogger with news site BNET.com told the BBC.
"They need to get back to basics, throw out their policy and start all over again," she said. "It's way too complex for most people to understand how to change their settings and if they can't make it simple for people to make choices, it will cost them."
A report this week by the New York Times revealed that Facebook's privacy policy has 50 different settings and 170 options.

Peter Rojas, co-founder of the gadget site gdgt.com, told ABC News he quit because he "was spending more time managing my account than actually using my account. "Having to constantly monitor the privacy settings was way too complicated. You can never be sure you caught everything."

On the same day as the all-hands meeting at Facebook, the company launched new security measures to battle spam and other malicious attacks.
The upgrades include being able to approve the devices users commonly use to log in and being notified when that account has been accessed via a device that has not been approved. Another feature is giving users the ability to block suspicious logins before they happen.
"We're confident that these new tools and systems will do a lot to prevent unauthorised logins and the nuisance they can cause," said Lev Popov, a software engineer on Facebook's site integrity team.
"As always, though, the first line of defence is you. We need you to help by practicing safe behaviour on Facebook and wherever you go online."

ACDC Tops Euro Chart for Third Week



AC/DC holds off new entries to the European Albums top ten by Diana Vickers, Mark Medlock and the Deftones to start a third week at No. 1 with the "Iron Man 2" soundtrack (Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment).  The AC/DC album tops the charts again in Norway, Austria, Ireland and Flanders, falls 1-2 in Sweden but moves 2-1 in Switzerland. It also holds at No. 2 in Germany and Wallony, No. 3 in the United Kingdom, No. 4 in Italy and Hungary and No. 5 in Spain.
Lady Gaga 's "The Fame" (Interscope/Universal) is up again on the composite chart, 3-2, improving 11-5 in Switzerland, 7-5 in the United Kingdom, 9-8 in France and 12-9 in Portugal. The equally resilient "The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies)" (Interscope/Universal) by Black Eyed Peas rebounds 7-3 overall, inspired by moves of 12-6 in Ireland, 7-6 in Austria and Wallony and 16-10 in the United Kingdom.

Teenage U.K. breakthrough pop artist Vickers follows her No. 1 single there, "Once" (RCA/Sony Music Entertainment), with a chart-topping debut in her home territory for her debut album "Songs from the Cherry Tree." It sells 35,000 to lead the U.K. market, and opens at No. 7 in Ireland, fuelling a No. 4 start on European Albums.
Amy Macdonald 's "A Curious Thing" (Mercury/Universal) bounces back 10-5 on the pan-European chart, thanks chiefly to an 8-4 improvement in Germany. Slipping one place each Europe-wide are Unheilig's "Grosse Freiheit" (Universal) to No. 6 and Plan B's "The Defamation of Strickland Banks" (679/Atlantic/Warner Music) to No. 7. The Unheilig album remains at No. 1 in Germany while Plan B's falls 1-2 in the United Kingdom on weekly sales of 33,000.

U.S. rock act the Deftones rounds out the pan-European album top ten with a new entry at No. 10 for "Diamond Eyes" (Reprise/Warner Music). Its best European market is Germany, where it starts at No. 8, and it's in at No. 26 in the United Kingdom (on 7,000 sales).
 
The former European Hot 100 Singles chart-topper "Telephone" by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé continues at No. 2, after climbing 3-1 in Wallony and holding at No. 3 in Italy and No. 5 in France.

Iron Man 2



Six months after the end of the first movie, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has used his Iron Man armor to bring about a negotiated peace treaty between the major super powers of the world, and his immense popularity with the general public is only furthered when he fulfills his father's dream by opening the "Stark Expo", to showcase all the latest inventions that will benefit the world. Stark is, however, still vilified by the United States government, and Senator Stern (Gary Shandling) in particular, who demands that he hand his armor technology over for military application. Stark refuses, publicly shaming rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) in the process by highlighting his own failed attempts at recreating the technology. All is not well in Stark's life, however: he has discovered that the palladium in the arc reactor keeping his heart beating has begun to poison his body, slowly killing him, and all attempts to find a substitute element have failed. Slowly going off the rails as a consequence of what he believes to be his impending death, he appoints his former personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) CEO of Stark Industries, replacing her with Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson).

While racing in Monaco, Stark is attacked by Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who has constructed a miniaturized arc reactor of his own, including whip-like attachments harnessing the electrical energy. Defeating Vanko with the aid of his Mark V armor (a transforming briefcase), Stark discovers that Vanko is the son of disgraced Russian physicist Anton Vanko, who collaborated on the first arc reactor with Stark's father Howard (John Slattery). Vanko is promptly broken out of jail by a revenge-seeking Justin Hammer, who puts him to work fashioning a line of "Iron Drones" that he will use to upstage Stark at his own Expo.

Tony throws what he believes will be his last birthday party and promptly proceeds to get drunk whilst wearing the Iron Man armor, forcing his friend Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to don the Mark II armor and subdue him. Disgraced, Stark is approached by Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D (Samuel L. Jackson), who provides him with a chest of his father's old artifacts that can hopefully be used to find a cure for his palladium poisoning. Reviewing the film reels in the chest, Stark discovers a message from his father that leads him to the original 1974 diorama of the Stark Expo: in reality, a disguised diagram for the atomic structure of a new element. Stark hand-builds a particle accelerator with the aid of his computer J.A.R.V.I.S. (voiced by Paul Bettany) and synthesizes this new element, creating a new triangular chest arc that cures his poisoning.

Simultaneously, at Stark Expo, Hammer unveils his new military drones, captained by Rhodes in a heavily-weaponized version of the confiscated Mark II armor. Unfortunately, it is soon discovered that Vanko has complete control of both the drones and Rhodes's new armor, and Stark arrives just as they go on the attack. As Stark battles against these remote-controlled enemies, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) and Natalie (an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Natasha Romanoff) race to Hammer's Queens facility to stop Vanko. By the time they arrive, Vanko has already departed for the Expo in a new, more powerful suit of armor, but Natalie is able to give Rhodes control of his armor again so that he and Stark can fight Vanko together. The two armored allies combine their powers and successfully take Vanko down, but his armor and drones are revealed to have been equipped with self-destruct charges. As they begin to go off, Stark races to save Pepper, rescuing her at the last minute.After landing on a roof she quits her CEO position, and she finally gives Tony a kiss, to which they both find Rhodes sitting a few meters away. He then claims he was there first so they should get their own roof after Stark tries to defend himself.

At a debriefing, Fury informs Stark that while Stark is "unsuitable" for the "Avengers Initiative", S.H.I.E.L.D. wants Iron Man as a consultant. Stark agrees on the condition that Senator Stern present him and Col. Rhodes with their medals for bravery.

Iron Man 2 is an extremely satisfying sequel on all accounts. While the original film is probably slightly better, the sequel does everything right and doubles up on everything in comparison; action, strong characters, teases for upcoming Marvel films, etc. Despite some of its early negative criticism, Iron Man 2 delivers a worthwhile sequel with a fantastic cast and spectacular action. 

Cadbury's Chocolate Charmer

Fallon London's latest spot for Cadbury's is released today, and features a 'chocolate charmer' conjuring up bars of Dairy Milk goodness...

The ad shows the charmer creating towering spirals of chocolate and milk in spinning glass bowls, before mixing them together to create the special chocolate bars. It is the most obviously branded film we have seen for Cadbury's in some time, and follows the more enigmatic Gorilla, Trucks and Eyebrows ads.

An official says Lil Wayne's efforts to keep up the beat behind bars have gotten him in trouble in a New York City jail.

A city Correction Department spokesman says the rap star faces potential discipline after jail officers found a charger and headphones for a digital music player in his cell on Monday. The rapper is serving a yearlong sentence after pleading guilty to a 2007 gun charge.

Lil Wayne's lawyer had no immediate comment Thursday.

Officers said the music player itself turned up in another inmate's nearby cell. Both men were charged with infractions that are not crimes. They'll be subject to a jail disciplinary process, not a court.

Inmates can listen to music, but only on radios and headphones sold at the jail commissary.

Muse, Metric confirmed for Twilight: Eclipse Soundtrack

ummit Entertainment released the long-awaited track listing for "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," the third installment in the vampire film series due in theatres on June 30.

The soundtrack will be available in stores and from all digital retailers on June 8.

Squeezed for every last buzz-worthy drop, the soundtrack was slowly revealed on the film's official MySpace page at a rate of one song per half hour. The 15-song set boasts a strong indie presence and confirms rumored appearances by Florence and the Machine and Muse, who returns for a "Twilight" hat trick, bringing surprises with tracks from Cee-Lo Green and the Black Keys.

Here's who you can expect to hear on "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse":

1. Metric - "Eclipse (All Yours)"
2. Muse - "Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)"
3. The Bravery - "Ours"
4. Florence + The Machine - "Heavy In Your Arms"
5. Sia - "My Love"
6. Fanfarlo - "Atlas"
7. The Black Keys - "Chop And Change"
8. The Dead Weather - "Rolling In On A Burning Tire"
9. Beck and Bat For Lashes - "Let's Get Lost"
10. Vampire Weekend - "Jonathan Low"
11. UNKLE - "With You In My Head (featuring The Black Angels)"
12. Eastern Conference Champions - "A Million Miles An Hour"
13. Band Of Horses - "Life On Earth"
14. Cee-Lo Green - "What Part Of Forever"
15. Howard Shore - "Jacob's Theme"

If platinum performance by the past two 'Twilight' soundtracks is any indication, the set could conceivably reach No. 1 when it hits the shelves on June 8. Both the 'Twilight' and 'New Moon' soundtracks hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 2,540,000 and 1,130,000 respectively according to Nielsen Soundscan.

Micheal Jackson's Kids on Youtube

The once sheltered children of the late Michael Jackson have become Internet sensations after home-made videos of two of his three children playing up for web cameras were leaked and appeared on YouTube.

Jackson, who died aged 50 last June of an overdose of powerful medications, went to great lengths to keep Prince Michael, 13, Paris, 12, and Prince Michael II, 8, out of the public eye, even making them cover their faces when out.

But less than a year after his death, two of the youngsters -- last seen in public at the Grammy awards in January -- have hit the spotlight with up to nine video clips of Paris and Prince Michael II appearing on the Internet.

Their grandfather Joe Jackson told celebrity website Popeater that the family was upset by the leak, having adhered to Michael Jackson's wish to keep them out of the spotlight and did not want these videos out in public.

He confirmed that it was not the children who posted the clips. The account owner of French-language fansite KingofPop-Kids.com, which posted many of the clips, said Jackson fans were responsible for hacking into family web accounts.

"We don't know who (the hacker) was but we're trying to find out," Joe Jackson told Popeater.

CNN said the videos were on the Internet for two weeks in April before older members of the Jackson family realized and had them removed but by then other YouTube users had made copies and have republished them, drawing hundreds of thousands of views.

Calls to representatives of the Jackson family went unanswered.

The video clips show the two youngsters messing around like another other children.  In one clip on YouTube, Paris raps for the camera while in another short clip she comes up close to the camera and just says: "Monkey, please help."  Prince Michael II, who is also known as Blanket, is shown with his cousin Donte in several videos, reenacting scenes from "Star Wars" with a pretend lightsabre, and singing.

The videos were welcomed by some fans.  "I just think it's nice to see (Prince Michael II) happy. He's playing normal games that normal kids play," said one Internet comment posted by "Judyr."
Greyson Chance's dreams are coming true overnight. The sixth grader who has wowed over 8 million YouTube watchers and counting with his cover of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" Thursday (May 12), and got a surprise call from the song's original performer.

DeGeneres set up the surprise by asking Chance why he admires Gaga. "She's probably my No. 1 inspiration because I love how she's so different," Chance said, shaking his Bieber-styled bangs off his forehead. "She takes her individuality, and she takes the amazing talent that she has and she makes just great songs that are catchy and they make you want to dance and maybe throw out some Ellen moves." 

"Well, we have somebody on the line right now," Ellen said. "Hi, Greyson!" Gaga exclaimed, as Chance took in the surprise. "Hi, Miss Gaga!" he replied. Gaga offered a few words of advice for the 12-year-old: "Everyone loves you so much, so keep following your dreams and work really hard, and stay away from girls, and be focused." 

"Don't be nervous today," she added. "You already won over everybody's hearts."

Chance has become a viral sensation within days after posting the video, which shows him singing "Paparazzi" at a sixth grade talent show, as his female classmates look on shock. The original video has been viewed over 8 million times since it was posted on YouTube  Apr. 28.
Just when Justin Bieber thought he could singlehandedly claim the heart of every young girl on the planet, one YouTube video at a time, here comes Greyson Michael Chance with his own viral clip, a piano cover of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" that leaves his classmates speechless. 


Known by his YouTube handle Greyson97, the budding online sensation made his fellow sixth graders swoon with this rendition of Gaga's hit song. Chance rocks a Bieber-esque hairstyle in the video, but the similarity ends there.  "Paparazzi" isn't the only trick in Greyson97's bag, either. The 12-year-old also apparently writes his own material, and though the subject matter seems a bit mature for his age, it's not too shabby. Here's Greyson performing his original song, "Broken Hearts."

Thursday, 13 May 2010

Airbrushing to be banned

It has been said that in the near future photoshopping images in the media is to be stopped.
Images have leaked from Madonna's F/W 09 ad campaign for Louis Vuitton and they pretty much confirm that Her Madgesty undergoes extensive retouching before her face hits those shelves.

Ambrose Oslen dies of unknown causes