Pop Buzz UK

As soon as the seventh and supposedly final Harry Potter book ‘The Deathly Hallows‘ was released, fans and book lovers alike started speculating about the possibility of an eighth book securing a release one day.

That possibility came a step nearer this week as Harry Potter author JK Rowling admitted that she had considered it, and certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

Talking to Time magazine, the author admitted there had been times when she’d thought about penning another installment in the long running, and hugely successful franchise, which is estimated to have earned her a billion dollar fortune.

“There have been times since finishing, weak moments, when I’ve said: ‘Yeah, all right’ to the eighth novel.”

“If, and it’s a big if, I ever write an eighth book about the (wizarding) world, I doubt that Harry would be the central character. I feel I’ve already told his story. But these are big ifs. Let’s give it 10 years.”

At the time of the release, I said on Pop Buzz UK that there would be no reason not to carry on the series, using the same world which we now all know and love, but focussing on another character, or even set of characters than Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione.

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Noel Gallagher - What, who, where, when? I know he’s cool and all but I’m not sure that the Oasis guitarist and occasional singer deserves to top Zoo Magazine’s 2007 Coolest Blokes List.

The top 100 coolest men in the UK was voted for by Zoo readers, and Noel Gallagher did indeed top the list. In the process, he beat Doctor Who star David Tennant, David Beckham, Daniel Craig and Lewis Hamilton.

Gallagher is definitely the coolest member of Oasis, showing none of the false bravado and smugness of his younger brother Liam, who, incidentally came 22nd in the list.

The thing is, as good as Oasis are, they’re not the force in British music they once were, although last album Don’t Believe The Truth was a return to form. But then that came out in 2005, so can’t be counted for this poll.

Noel just pipped Liverpool, and England footballer Steven Gerrard to the top spot. David Tennant was in third, and latest James Bond Daniel Craig was in fourth.

David Beckham was a surprise fifth place, seeing as he’s moved to Los Angeles, been paid an absolute fortune and failed to live up to the hype. He also helped England fail to qualify for the Euro 2008 Championships, so I certainly wouldn’t have voted for him.

Becks even beat Lewis Hamilton, who could only make it in to sixth place, despite going from a nobody to just being pipped at the post for the Formula One world championships.

Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner made it in to the top ten, and deservedly so. Here is a man who has taken the success of his band in his stride, and gone from being an arkward young kid to a singer with pure class.

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All of us loyal Dr Who fans only have a few days left before we can watch the Christmas special, starring Australian pop tartlet Kylie Minogue as the Doctor’s assistant.

Titled Voyage of the Damned, it follows the Doctor trying to persuade passengers on a ship of his magical powers, and in the process saving them from a meteorite storm.

Nice story, original, fun, and it should be exciting to watch. But wait, what is that there on the horizon? It’s some religious zealots who assume once again have taken to assuming everything is about them.

Unbelievable as it may seem, some Christian groups have criticised the programme’s makers for allegedly insinuating that the Doctor is the second messiah. Oh dear God, how the hell did they come to that conclusion.

It’s true that there have been some threads of storyline, and dialogue which have hinted at the fact that the Doctor may be more than just a mere mortal, but that’s because he’s a timelord, not a human. No-one has ever said that the Doctor is the reincarnation of Jesus!

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Amy Winehouse may be about to be made a suspect in the trial fixing plot which her husband Blake Fielder-Civil already finds himself in jail for. If this is the case, and she gets found guilty in a future trial, she could end up facing life in prison.

Fielder-Civil was arrested back in November for the alleged plot to pervert the course of justice. Along with another man, he is accused of trying to persuade a man he allegedly beat up, from giving evidence at the trial.

The police case revolves around a sum of £200,000, which was allegedly offered to the victim for him to withdraw his complaint, and fly out of the country instead.

It’s that large sum of money which is where Winehouse herself becomes involved. The police seized mobile phone records, bank details and computer software when they raided the couple’s house in Camden, London, and this is thought to contain evidence that Winehouse was involved in the plot.

Although it was thought that Winehouse was just being regarded as a witness, the News Of The World claims that her status could change to suspect this week.

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I’ve been following The X-Factor all series, right from the early auditions where we get to see the morons who think they can sing, but can’t even hit a note, get the chance to humiliate themselves on national television. Tonight was finally final time, and we were down to just three acts: Leon Jackson, Rhydian Roberts, and Same Difference.

They all performed three times, singing their favourite songs from the whole series, and they all gave good accounts of themselves, with hardly a bum note audible during the whole 2 hour show.

Rhydian had been the favourite, with the judges, fans, and even the bookies, since the live shows started and his exhibitionist style shone through, and raised him over the rest of the pack. But tonight just wasn’t his night and he lost out to Leon Jackson.

First out were Same Difference, which was the right result, because as good as they are, their fan base must have an average age of about 10, and have a limited musical knowledge which begins and ends with the hits from High School Musical.

So it came down to a straight (although I have my doubts about Rhydian) fight between Danni Minogue’s two acts. I’ve actually been a bit scathing of Dannii in the past, and even though her acts ended up finishing 1st and 2nd, I stand by my thoughts that she is an untalented lump of lard who lives in her sister’s shadow.

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You’ll have probably heard by now that there is no Celebrity Big Brother this year, mainly down to the racism that occurred during last year’s show, when Shilpa Shetty became the subject of abuse from Jade Goody and her cohorts.

But fret not, because ready to take its place is a new spin off called Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack.

The show will begin at 8pm on January 3rd 2008, being simulcast on both E4 and Channel 4. The live launch show will be 90 minutes long, and hosted by Dermot O’Leary, in his last Big Brother assignment.

So how does it differ from the normal Big Brother? Well, as the name implies, instead of having the anonymous Big Brother producers as the voices of Big Brother, that role will be taken by various celebrities, who will basically run the house in turn for a certain amount of time.

Unlike normal, they won’t be just a presence there to help the house mates, instead being able to set random tasks, set their own rules, and punish the contestants they choose to.

As for the house mates themselves, unlike the usual summer Big Brother, we won’t have a random mixture of ages, and people thrown together to cause arguments.

Instead Channel 4 have hand picked a group of 18-21 year olds, all of whom have a special skill, or talent, which puts them head and shoulders above the rest of the population (and on a different evolutionary level than your average Big Brother contestant!)

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Philip Pullman is the best selling author of His Dark Materials, the trilogy of which The Golden Compass is the first book.

That has obviously been turned in to a big budget movie, which opened in the last week over in America, as well as the UK.

Newsround, a British children’s television news programme spoke to him about it, and during the interview he revealed his love for the new version of Doctor Who, the main writer Russell T. Davies, and David Tennant.

Even more interestingly, he expressed an interest in maybe writing an episode of the cult show for the BBC:

“[Penning a story for the show] sounds like enormous fun.”

“Since Russell T. Davies came back and started having a hand in it, [it] has been wonderful. I’ve really enjoyed it. David Tennant is terrific. Billie Piper was wonderful as Rose.”

He’s right of course, the show is brilliant, especially the new incarnation, with some brilliant writing, amazing special effects, and acting talents which were never even got close to on the original show.

I would love to see Pullman write an episode, as he’s an awesome writer, and his style would fit perfectly with the show. I just hope Davies saw the interview, or is even maybe reading this, and gets in touch with him to discuss the possibility.

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The Spice Girls long awaited reunion (or is it goodbye) tour around the world kicked off in Vancouver, Canada last week, and was feted as a triumph, with very little going wrong.

But, it seems that it’s not all going so smoothly behind the scenes, with arguments and in fighting blighting the comeback tour so far.

The News Of the World’s Rav Singh was given exclusive access behind the scenes of the rehearsals in preparation for the tour, and reports all five of the girls were at each other’s throats in the build up to the record breaking concert run.

He reports the following as having taken place:

“Mel B shouted at Geri for mucking up the dance routine for Stop. She yelled: “You’ve got to keep it together, if you spent more attention on your routines then it would be right.”

“Posh had a pop at Mel B for dancing out of time to Spice Up Your Life. She snapped: “Next time we all have to stand in line and get it right.”

“The others rounded on Posh for spending too much time chatting with pals Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes when they turned up to watch rehearsals with baby Suri.”

There’s no surprises there really, as the attention, and expectation on the five girls must be incredible at this stage. Even though they are all older, and (potentially) wiser, you can’t pile stress on people and expect them not to clash with people close to them.

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WARNING: Contains Major Plot Spoilers…

My girlfriend and I went to see The Golden Compass last night and as fans of the book came away slightly disappointed, partly by the amount of changes made from the book, and partly by the fudged ending.

I previewed the film way back in June, when I was super excited about the prospect of seeing one of my favourite books ever be brought to life on the big screen. My review is slightly different…

The casting is pretty much spot on, with Nicole Kidman being perfect for Mrs Coulter, and Ian McKellen doing a fine job as Iorek Byrnison.

Some of the special effects are stunning, with the armoured bears particularly standing out. The whole Iorek part of the story, especially his fight to become king of Svalbard, was the highlight of the film for me, and stopped me walking out in disgust.

The daemons were also well realised, being exactly as I’d imagined them in the books. It must have taken some incredibly detailed work to get so many daemons on screen at one time.

Some of the alterations to the text I could understand, while some I could see no rhyme nor reason for. The ordering of the story is altered substantially, with Iorek becoming king BEFORE Lyra visits Bolvangor.

To people who haven’t read the book, this won’t matter a jot, and the film will probably leave them content. For fans of the book however, there are some glaring omissions, the biggest being the soppy ending.

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I live in the UK, and at times it’s bloody depressing. It DOES rain all the time, we don’t seem to belong anywhere in the world, kind of being European, but not, having a friendship with America, but disagreeing fundamentally on some policies, crime is rising, immigration is continuing at a pace that our island is struggling with etc etc.

And it seems that I’m not the only one getting a bit down on the whole thing, as anti depression tablets are now being prescribed at a massive rate.

A News of the World study found that over 32 million anti depressant prescriptions are issued each year in Britain, which roughly translates to one every SECOND.

Middlesbrough, a town in the north east of England has it worse than anywhere else, with people fromt he area taking £7.58 worth of the drugs each per year.

The whole of the north east of England does badly, with neighbours Gateshead, Redcar, Cleveland, and Newcastle coming next on the list of the saddest places in the country.

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I wrote last week about the lack of available Wii consoles in the UK this Christmas. Unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360, which are both in ready supply everywhere around the country, you’d be hard pushed to find a Wii in any store.

It seems that now, retailers are making the most of the lack of supply, and great deal of demand. When they do get stocks of the Wii in, instead of just offering it on a first come, first serve basis, they are bundling the basic console with games and accessories, which consumers have to buy, and pay a high rate for, if they want to get their hands on a Wii.

MCV carried out research that shows some retailers charging £400 ($850) for a Wii, and extras, which is over double the recommended retail price of the stand alone system.

The trade paper found GameStation, Zavvi, HMV, Toys R Us and Woolworths refused to sell just the consol on its own, selling them only as part of bundle, charging from £250 with two games at HMV to a £400 bundle with five games at GameStation.

Ths has obviously caused controversy and anger amongst gamers, and also parents of children who want nothing more than a Wii for Christmas, and won’t settle for the alternatives such as PS3 and Xbox 360.

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She may have only come third in this year’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, but Cerys Matthews has probably emerged from the jungle with the most chance of making a million on the back of it, and she’s got a new boyfriend out of the experience too.

On Friday night, the latest series of the massively popular reality show, hosted by Ant & Dec, came to an end, and old school entertainer Christopher Biggins emerged victorious, just scalping ex supermodel Janice Dickinson to the title of jungle King or Queen.

Apart from the always present tension and arguments, the biggest story, and one which certainly kept me interested throughout the 2 weeks the show was on ITV, was the love affair between Cerys Matthews and Marc Bannerman.

They had a connection and a mutual attraction as soon as they met, and their experience in the Australian outback seemed to draw them closer together.

Almost mimicking the romance between Peter Andre and Katie Price from a few years ago, the more time the couple spent together, the more interested in a romance they got. The problem was Bannerman already had a girlfriend on the outside, a long term one who he lived with no less.

He was the first celebrity to be booted out, partly because the public wanted blood, and partly because they thought of him as a bit of a love rat, which he was to a certain extent. But, you also can’t help falling in love, and that seems to be exactly what happened on this occasion.

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Heat magazine sparked controversy last week by giving away 50 stickers with each issue, one of which showed Katie Price’s (aka Jordan’s) son Harvey with goggle eyes, and the words “Harvey wants to eat me!” on it.

For those who don’t know, Katie Price, now married to that pansy Peter Andre after they met on ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here‘, had Harvey, before finding out that he suffered from a rare genetic disorder called septo-optic dysplasia, which causes him to gain weight. This sticker is taking the piss out of Harvey’s weight, and so by default is also taking the piss out of his disability.

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) received 56 complaints over the sticker set, which also included other comedy stickers such as a picture of Britney Spears next to the headline “Mum of the year,” and a picture of Victoria Beckham asking “Will you fucking smile?”

The magazine has apologised by issuing the following statement:

“We now accept the decision to include this sticker was a mistake and we recognise that it has caused offence, not only to Katie and Peter Andre, but to a number of readers. Immediately following publication, we apologised unreservedly to Katie and Peter. We wish to apologise publicly to Harvey, Katie and Peter for any embarrassment and distress caused.”

This isn’t enough for Katie though, as she has promised to complain to the PCC about the magazine.

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