Live Long And Prosper

Last night I embraced my inner geek and went to see Star Trek. I'm no Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination - my knowledge extends to Spock, Captain Kirk, William Shatner and being able to identify a Star Trek uniform by it's trademark block colour and the little upside-down V badge.

I couldn't tell you anything else. I didn't know when it was set, which characters were in which series or that Spock is in fact a Vulcan - all I knew was he had funny ears. I was blissfully ignorant of any details about the TV show beamed into my living room every weekend as a child.

So it was with some apprehension that I agreed to join a group of my twentysomething friends - half of whom revealed themselves to be closet Trekkies while my ignorance shone through.

And I was pleasantly surprised. Even I, with my limited knowledge of Star Trek, was impressed at how well cast the characters were, with the new actors matching up pretty well with the original TV cast.









Couple that with a good script - "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" and "I'll be monitoring your frequencies." - even if the plot is a little formulaic (token space bad guy causes problems, USS Enterprise comes to the rescue, bad guy gets upper hand, USS Enterprise wins in the end ready to defend the federation again) - and you're on to a winner. The applause at the end of the particular screening I was at would back that up too.

From Zachary Quinto's performance as Spock (better known as Heroes psycho-character Syler) to Simon Pegg's Scotty, the film is full of fantastically brilliant characters pulled off by actors you wouldn't necessarily expect.

You don't need to be a Trekkie to enjoy the 11th Start Trek film. (Yes 11th, according to Wiki, the Guiness Book of Records claims that the original Star Trek series has the largest number of spin-offs of all TV shows.) Whether you know that "Live long and prosper" is a Vulcan farewell or not, let Scotty beam you aboard the USS Enterprise and enjoy the film.

The Good and the Bad: Death, the UK media, Jade and Natasha

I have been somewhat slack these last few weeks in posting ANYTHING ANYWHERE. Mainly because I have been so caught up in planning a magazine or two as part of the assessment for my course. My apologies. Now with cup of tea in hand (and dunked biscuit heading for my jeans), I shall resume.

There's been an interesting media reaction to the death of two very different celebrities over the past two weeks.

Firstly, Natasha Richardson's unexpected death on March 18 2009.

Initial reports spoke of Natasha's admission to the intensive care unit of Sacré Coeur Hospital, in Montreal, Canada, after a skiing accident on the slopes. Later the story was even more tragic as news arrived that the 45 year old actress was 'brain-dead'. Natasha Richardson 'brain-dead' after skiing accident - Times online

There were tributes, obituaries and a few front pages (notably The Sun's Neeson's Natasha Dead and The Mirror's 1am special Liam's Grief as Natasha Dies). Natasha's death was completely out of the blue. No one could have predicted it.

While the mass media reported the accident and then her death, the event almost passed by un-noticed. It was tragic and totally unexpected, yet coverage was humbly small and handled in a very respectable, news-worthy way.

Natasha was a member of the Redgrave clan, one of the most distinguished British acting families, and this should have deemed more column inches in reporting her surprise death. However, such family background is, perhaps, why Natasha's death was not more widely exposed. Subsequent stories ran concerning the funeral and her organs being donated. We were fed information about her death and necessary extras in an unobtrusive fashion. So much so, if you weren't paying attention over the last two weeks you could easily have missed it altogether.

Walk into your newsagents this week and only a handful of magazines have run tributes to the British actress; Hello! being one of them.

Instead, most (like OK! and New) covered the other major "celebrity" death in the last week: Jade Goody's final exit. (Which, in a rather cynical view, couldn't have been better timed even if Max had planned it himself). Even those who have run with a main cover focus on Natasha still have a designated Jade corner (Hello! I'm looking at you).

In contrast to Natasha, Jade's face has been plastered across more magazine racks and newspaper stands in the week she's been dead than when she was alive. There is no way you can miss that Jade Goody died - unless perhaps you happen to be a hermit living on a remote Scottish isle with no form of modern communication.

Forgive me for sounding callous, but I'm a bit relived Jade finally passed away. For her it means no more suffering (having seen what cancer and its treatment does to a person, makes you, in a way, glad when the ordeal is over even if it ends in death). It also means that I do not have to put up with Jade's constant clamouring for the limelight. I wouldn't wish death on anyone, but I was definitely suffering from a chronic case of Jade-fatigue.

That said, I admire what Jade has done since she discovered her terminal cancer. Skeptical as I was about the way in which she chose to go about dealing with it, I don't blame her for using the media to get as much money as she could for her boys. Then there's the way in which, intentionally or otherwise, the profile of cervical cancer and the need for cervical screening has been raised.

Jade will always be a controversial topic, even years from now. There will be media experts discussing the "Jade effect", examining what it shows of our media centric society.

When Jade's cancer was confirmed as terminal, radio reports opened with "Reality TV celebrity". Now the papers are attempting to call her a "people's princess". Please stop. She was no "star" or "celebrity", she was an insecure young women searching for affirmation in what people thought of her. That is not a healthy way to live. It means that when people think ill of you, as happened to Jade with the Celebrity Big Brother racism saga, your self-esteem and self-confidence take a massive beating.

Ultimately the media are responsible for the way Jade died. They encouraged (forced) her to live her death out on screen, in magazines and newspapers. Her story sells, it draws readers, viewers and internet users. It's sad that a young woman, who let's face it didn't amount to much more than "that Essex girl off Big Brother" and then "that racist one off Celebrity Big Brother", let herself be exploited by a celebrity orientated media for nearly a third of her short life. That is no way to die.

I wondered what her boys will think of her when they are older. Will they, like Wills and Harry, sons of Diana "The People's Princess", seemingly respect her and want to up hold the good things she did in her lifetime, admiring her as a mother? Or will they wish that she had never set foot on the set of Big Brother all those years ago?

If I had been in Jade's shoes I would have preferred coverage of my death to have been like that of Natasha Richardson's. But then I would have been me in Jade's shoes, not Jade in Jade's life, and the way she went out was most apt to her persistent pursuit of fame and glory throughout her twenties. The media pandered to her and she pandered to the media.

Regardless of their coverage, both Jade's and Natasha's deaths, have enabled the media to expose other issues and ultimately could save lives in the long term.

The revelations surrounding Natasha's accident - that the first ambulance was turned away and, had Natasha been wearing a helmet when she was skiing, she could well have lived - warn us of the need to follow safety precautions.

Jade's battle with cancer raised questions as to why young women in England are not screened for cervical cancer until they are over 25, five years later than in Scotland and Wales. Screening women younger could mean the signs of cancer, which is prevalent in women under 35, are spotted earlier and lives saved.

Whatever Happened to Freedom of Expression?

The school receptionist facing the sack for requesting prayer
Telegraph -Receptionist faces sack

Devonshire school receptionist, Jennie Cain, is waiting to find out whether school governors will let her keep her job after she sent an email to 10 of her closest church friends. Mrs Cain asked her friends to pray for her and her family and her children's school after her 5 year old daughter was told off for talking about Jesus.

There are many things about this story, in our staunchly politically correct society, that are absolutely ridiculous. Not least of which is that Mrs Cain could be sacked.

That a five year old was told off for talking about her faith is, in itself, pretty extraordinary. After all, I doubt any teacher would risk telling a young Muslim child off for talking about Allah or Mohammed. Or a Hindi child for talking about Vishnu. So reprimanding this little girl for talking about Jesus seems grossly unfair.

As a openly born-again Christian I appreciate that on some level I am not totally detached from this story. However I am not willing to leave these obscene double standards alone. The United Kingdom is supposed to be a "Christian" country, or so the government would have us believe. Yet we leap at every opportunity to beat down even the slightest hint of God, fearful that other religions or ethnicities will offend. Why on earth should we? They are not falling over themselves in India, for example, to water down and conceal Hinduism for fear of what other religious groups will do or say or feel.


We pride ourselves of living in a country that allows freedom of speech and freedom of expression for all. This school has oppressed these rights entirely. In my experience, children learn a lot about life from their friends. I certainly learnt more about faiths and races from my friends during my school years and at university than I could have ever been taught from lessons in a classroom. Children should be allowed to express the things they are interested in, be it Barbie dolls, Nintendo DS or Jesus.

Telling this girl off for talking about Jesus does somewhat present a problem for the school for any future nativity plays, up-coming Easter events or celebrations of other religious festivals. Hypocrisy at its finest.

The school's actions are teaching our children that is it not ok to talk about their faith - a critical component in their identity. This is wrong. Such suppression will achieve nothing but merely enhance already strained relations, as the next generation grows up with less understanding of other religions, ethinicities and races.

But this story carries another, more sinister question. How on earth did the headmaster of the school get a copy of the email sent from a personal email? Is there a secret Big Brother society rising up in Devon that is monitoring our every moment? There is a breach of privacy that should be investigated. It is unfair that Mrs Cain's job hangs in the balance on a decision based on an email, probably sent with the best of intentions, obtained by undisclosed means.

If Mrs Cain loses her job, who knows what this means for the future of freedom of expression in our liberal democracy.

Robert Pattinson - New Heartthrob?

Due to my slack publishing of posts, this is now a little, well a lot, behind the times.

There is a new Hollywood heartthrob us women are being told we should be swooning over and he is Robert Pattinson.

No matter that he is barely out of those difficult teenage years and was brought to our attention in his role as a brooding teen vampire. Robert is THE new creature of lust for every woman and teenage girl.

Who? You may well ask.

If you have been living in a box on a remote island for the past few months, calmly setting up camp for when the recession has its merciless grip on all our lives, then you can be forgiven for completely missing the new boy. And if you haven't, well, you too can be forgiven as you probably haven't caught Twilight fever either.

Twilight is the film based on the first book of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series in which Pattinson stars as the moody looking but glitteringly beautiful Edward Cullen. (If you missed in the cinema, you can catch it on DVD in the UK from April.) The series centres around the life of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), your average American teenage girl who moves across America to live with her Dad in Forks, Washington and falls for the local High School hotty, Edward Cullen. Thing is, he's a vampire. And then there's, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who helps create a bit of fantastical twisted love triangle. (I won't say anymore than that for now in case you decide to go away and read the books. They're not as bad as they sound. Honest.)

So what's Pattinson's appeal? The 22 year old is becoming the new big (British) Hollywood heartthrob and has been tipped by some as the next Jude Law. But it's not necessarily conventional Hollywood looks that are the attraction.

There is certainly something about the new boy. Being cast for Edward Cullen though, is a pivotal moment for Pattinson. It has launched him out of acting obscurity and into the bedrooms of thousands of teenage girls across the world. The Twilight premieres were littered with screaming girls desperate for a glimpse of the new poster boy. Something that Pattinson is reported to have found quite alien and strange.

Having read the Twilight series before there were any plans for the films, I had created a definitive Edward in my own head. As with most(all?) books, when a film version is commissioned there's a great danger of ruining the characters for the readers. I was more than a little fearful that such would be the case with Twilight. Yet somehow Pattinson has managed to embody the Edward Cullen of my imagination. Not to mention the Edward Cullen of several thousand others. Now that is some good casting. Hats off to Catherine Hardwicke and her team.

Despite having been cast as the central love interest in a teen fantasy film receiving phenomenal responses, it's not clear what Robert's appeal is. It certainly took time before I was prepared to join this bandwagon of 'Robert is gorgeous'. He's just not obviously attractive. Which is maybe what brings the parallels to Jude Law and (to a lesser extent) Johnny Depp. Both of these actors are not necessarily men of conventional Hollywood sex appeal. Neither is Pattinson.

Even the magazines were late jumping onto Pattinson. It was only after scores of screaming fans stood outside the premiers that many women's magazines took any notice of the new boy. It's not that Pattinson hasn't been in films before - he's been acting for years, using little jobs to pay his way through his A levels - it's just he's not necessarily been an object of desire until now.

Robert played Cederic Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2004. A quick google image search brings up pictures that leave you wondering whether this could really be the same person. Cederic Diggory was not hot. Edward Cullen is.

So maybe it's the characters that make Pattinson sexy? Edward is a character that is meant to be gorgeous. But then explore what other projects Robert has worked on and we could be on to something. He ambles along a fine line of sexiness. As some characters he is sex on fire, as others he's just not. But this tottering is not unique to Pattinson. The same goes for Johnny Depp; Sweeney Todd, fit. Willy Wonka, decidedly not.

But fickle attractiveness aside, Robert Pattinson is a young actor to look out for.

If you need a fresh fix of Robert before he can finish New Moon the second Twilight film, look out for Little Ashes, where he plays Surrealist artist, Salvador Dali.

No more pic'n'mix

Everyday we hear that the credit crunch has claimed another seemingly unsuspecting victim. Banks are being bailed out by the government and thousands of people are losing their jobs.

This month Woolworths closed its doors for the last time, leaving nothing more than the childhood memories of filling a little paper bag with as many sweets as your pocket money could buy.

As Woolies final days approached, walking into one of the eerily empty stores - empty of stock you understand, not of people - was bizarrely, a somewhat mournful experience. Everything and anything from DVDs, fittings and industrial sized toilet rolls were for sale in the final days of Woolies existance. Even uniforms appeared for auction on ebay.

For me, losing Woolies was like losing a dear close friend. 99 years old, Woolworths' comforting red presence has been there throughout my life, providing cheap CDs, much needed sugary sustenance, childish games, a wealth of magazines and reasonably priced coffee mugs.

I would regularly wander into my local store, aged 11, armed with 50ps and ready to stock up on a ludicrous amount of pic'n'mix before sneaking it into the cinema.

Later, I wasted many a teenage Saturday afternoon browsing Woolies' sea of cassettes and CDs or developing my magazine tastes, flicking through Sugar, J17 and NME before parting with my pennies and going home to play my latest purchase loudly while reading whatever magazine I had finally decided on.

When I moved into my own place at university, Woolies came to my rescue with its array of utensils, furnishings and mugs at reasonable prices.

And you could always rely on her to cater for every stationery need too. Woolies was your reliable friend, having everything you could possibly want, all under one roof, whenever you needed it.

But gradually we grew apart and our friendship with Woolies became a mere acquaintance. She became the friend we still liked but only called upon when we happened to be nearby. She'd give us a comforting respite down memory lane, always offering as much pic'n'mix as you could carry but she couldn't compete with the Supermarkets who began to offer us all Woolworths did and groceries too. Combined with a music and film industry locked in a digital download age, poor old Woolies couldn't keep up.

Despite ad campaigns fronted by a dog and a sheep and reinventions as THE BIG W, Woolies has had to pay the price. As her doors closed for the final time, people paid their last visits, mournful of the friend they had lost but unable to help her in these troubled times. She had been through two world wars but in the end, her demise was a crippled economy and a technological revolution.

The Mighty Boosh Live at Wembley Arena

Obscenities fly across the arena as Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding and co take their brand of psychedelic comedy to London.

“Let’s knit it together like a dirty Shreddie!” declares Noel as he and Julian launch into another night of their ludicrous live tour.

From humble beginnings, The Mighty Boosh has taken its fans on a journey into the bizarre minds of Julian and Noel and their alter egos, Howard Moon and Vince Noir.

The first half of tonight’s show brings familiar characters to the stage, the Hitcher and crack fox to the grotesquely crude Bob Fossil.

Although wonderfully scripted, the best moments in tonight’s show are off the cuff, from Noel dressed as the tentacled head of Tony Harrison falling through an armchair, saved only by his chin, and Bollo (a man in a gorilla suit) falling over as he runs off stage pushing a giant globe.

With their obscure humour earning a cult following, The Mighty Boosh is fast becoming a British comedic institution. Where else will elbow tassels, a man riding a giant hairdryer and grannies singing about s**t fit together in such harmony?

The tour continues across the UK until 17th January 2009. For more information and tickets go to http://www.themightyboosh.com/

Child Protection - How Far Is Too Far?

From January 1st 2009, anyone hosting an under 16 in their home will be required to undergo an enhanced CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check. The new Home Office legislation aims to increase the protection and safety of children, including minors visiting Britain. But this time the nanny state has gone too far.

The legislation might look great on paper, but it has opened a proverbial can of worms.

Foreign exchanges were once a staple of secondary schools' modern foreign language teaching. Under the new law, school trips - especially foreign exchanges which are already smothered in parental consent forms and health and safety regulations - may well become a thing of the past as less and less schools spend their limited resources fighting through bureaucratic red tape.

But the new legislation has some unexpected victims.

The internationally renowned Watoto Childrens' Choir, of the Ugandan Aids Orphans charity, have had their visas withheld until over 900 CRB checks have been carried out on all the adults in the families planning to host the choir on their 6 month tour of the UK.

The choir were due to fly out in less than six weeks to start their tour, hoping to raise over £200,000 for child aids victims in Uganda. Now, with their visas withheld and an additional cost of over £20,000 to carry out all the checks, the tour is to be cancelled.

The Ugandan charity claims the number of checks required in such a short time is "completely unworkable" and while they support the need for child protection they have not been given enough time to comply with the new legislation.

In any case, the charity carries out its own stringent checks on host families, making the checks pretty redundant.

The plight of the Watoto Choir highlights a serious flaw in the government's attempts to further protect children. Ironically the legislation prevents the Watoto charity doing just that - protecting children.

Surely, in light of the shambolic Baby P case where Haringey Social Services spectacularly failed the children involved, the government would be better off focusing on ensuring current laws in place to prevent child abuse achieves this rather than giving organisations more hoops to jump through.

Once, you could walk past any school playground at lunchtime and see 9 or 10 children hanging off the arms and legs of dinner ladies, sorry, dinner supervisors. Now you can't put a plaster on a child's bleeding knee without a form signed (in black ink) by the legal guardians, triplicated and filed alphabetically. Although you're probably best to give the plaster to the child to put on their own knee so you don't touch them in any way and risk a lawsuit.

Let the Watoto children tour the UK. If we can't police the laws we already have what is the point of generating more and further stretching resources? Maybe once we know we can save children in situations like Baby P we can consider implementing such ridiculous requirements. But right now, Nanny has gone too far.