Pop Buzz UK

Pop Buzz UK is now over a year old, and in that first month last October I wrote an interesting article about Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills divorce proceedings turning nasty. In a Nostradamus style premonition I titled it ‘Paul Vs Heather Round 1′… and how right I was because it’s still going on.

After last month’s supposedly friendly secret meeting to discuss and hopefully figure out a compromise deal, the gloves are back off and Heather is playing hard ball again. Last month’s meeting ended with both parties walking away claiming the other was unfair and asking for too much, and now Heather has given two TV interviews where she has been quite vicious on a number of the claims.

First of all she told America’s Today show that she had offered Sir Paul (more commonly known as Macca) a “very gentle and quick divorce” but was turned down.

“All I can say is when we first split, I said to Paul: ’I’m going to be crucified. You know why we split. You know the truth. They don’t need to know the details, but you need to stand up and say: “I’m responsible for the breakdown of this marriage.”

’If you say that, I’ll walk away with nothing, and we’ll do a very gentle and quick divorce.’ And he promised he’d do that. I have evidence of that. And he did nothing.�

She then went on to claim that she has so far spent £1.5 million on legal fees. Further justifying her claims on such a huge portion of Macca’s fortune (which she must admit had nothing to do with her influence) she says she put her life on hold for the seven and a half years that the marriage lasted.

She then claimed to have received death threats and without naming names, almost fingered Paul McCartney himself saying:

“Well, I can’t say who I think it is because it will affect our family, but I know a lot of information and, you know, certain people don’t want certain things coming out because of their image.�

Yeah whatever love.

(more…)

Lily Allen’s brother Alfie has been chosen as Daniel Radcliffe’s successor as the star of Equus.

The run at the West End which starred Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe ended after just 8 weeks due to poor reviews and ticket sales.

The production will now go out on a nationwide tour starting in Chichester on January 31st 2008 before a possible return to the West End.

The 21 year old Alfie Allen was most famous for the song called ‘Alfie’ by his sister Lily before his role in Atonement.

On the power of that performance, writer Peter Shaffer offered him the role afer a screen test.

(more…)

Sharon Osbourne supposedly quit her role as an X Factor judge on Saturday night’s live show after two of her three acts were voted in to the bottom duo and had to battle for survival.

At the time it made good TV, with Sharon storming off and seeming to decide she’d rather have nothing to do with the show than be responsible for getting rid of one of her own acts in the Under 25s Girls category.

But now it has become one big soap opera with multiple appearances on chat shows and a whole host of publicity for the show.

Kimberley Southwick and Alisha Bennett received the least amount of votes out of all twelve X Factor finalists on Saturday’s first live final show.

This meant they had to perform again, and then the four judges Sharon, Simon Cowell, Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh would have to decide individually which contestant they’d rather see come back and which would go home.

Sharon then had a hissy fit and declared to show presenter Dermot O’Leary “I’m out… gone!”

(more…)

Wow, you don’t hear anything about Doctor Who for weeks, and then all of a sudden there’s an influx of stories on the cult British Sci-fi show.

So here is a round up of all the latest news and gossip from the world of Who.

Doctor Who chief writer and series reviver Russell T Davies has claimed that the show is set up so it can be around for 20-30 years.

He explained:

“I don’t have any big ambitions except to carry on writing stories for telly. We’ve set [Doctor Who] up in such a way that it should be around for 20-30 years yet.”

“Within that time frame there will be year-long hiatuses to give it a chance to get its momentum back.”

This is such brilliant news, especially coming from the head honcho. There have been constant rumours either of the show ending after one more series, or Davies and his team leaving the show.

These now look to have been shown to be completely erroneous, and it should please Who fans to know their favourite show has a good future, so long as the BBC don’t decide to can it of course.

(more…)

Oh dear, what a week that was for English sport. First of all we had the England football team putting in a shocking display and losing to a controversial penalty against Russia. A result which may lead to us not reaching the Euro 2008 finals, and also manager Steve McClaren being fired from his job. You can read the full post about that here.

Then on Saturday, England played South Africa in the Rugby World Cup final in Paris, and lost 15-6. Okay, we weren’t expected to reach the latter stages of the competition in the first place but once we’d reached the final there was a massive amount of expectation on the team. In the end it came to nothing as South Africa just managed to pip us at the post, quite literally.

It had started so well, and looked like carrying on the same vein until England had a sure try unjustly disallowed. It looked perfectly good to me as Cueto sailed in and stuck the ball over the line.

The television match official watched replay after replay before deciding that his foot had narrowly gone in to touch before the ball was down.

I’ve since watched the replay numerous times myself and still think it was too close to call a definite out. Surely we should have had the benefit of the doubt given?

The Springboks took over from then on, and in the end easily beat our boys.

(more…)

Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives fans in the UK will be able to watch their favourite programmes for free on their PCs from tonight.

Channel 4 has signed a deal with Disney ABC which means that all ABC Studios shows will be available on the online 4oD service for 30 days after they have originally aired.

Tonight’s Ugly Betty episode will be the first of the shows available to watch and the deal will cover subsequent seasons of Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, Reaper and Dirty Sexy Money.

Jeff Ford, Channel 4’s director of acquisitions and Film4 said:

“We want Channel 4 viewers to be able to see our shows in a format, time and platform to suit them and to make the process as simple as possible.”

“This deal means that viewers can now catch up on some of their favourite US shows, alongside home grown product, free of charge at a time convenient to them which can only be good news.”

The programmes will be free to watch, and the service will be supported by video adverts and sponsorships from multiple companies.

(more…)

Prince William and on off girlfriend Kate Middleton were chased in their car by paparazzi photographers on Friday morning. The pair were leaving Boujis nightclub in London when the photographers saw their chance to grab the first picture of the pair together again after they got back together.

The couple had allowed themselves to photographed as they left the club, both looking relaxed and happy. But when the couple drove away in their Range Rover, a number of paparazzi photographers chased them in cars, on motorcycles and on foot.

It seems inconceivable that this would happen in the same week that the Princess Diana inquest began. The crash that killed the Princess as well as boyfriend Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul is thought to be partly because the couple were trying to speed away from the pack of chasing paparazzi.

Have the photographers and the press at large not learned a thing in the intervening ten years?

(more…)

Both David Beckham and Victoria have rushed back to the UK in the past 24 hours after David’s father had a massive and very sudden heart attack.

Ted Beckham was rushed to hospital by ambulance after complaining of chest pains. Beckham senior apparently almost died on the way to Whipps Cross hospital in East London. After being treated for a time there, he was swiftly moved to a specialist heart clinic.

Becks was told the news in LA where he is currently plying his trade as a footballer for LA Galaxy and immediately made plans to come home to be with his family. He arrived in the UK this afternoon, landing at Heathrow airport at about midday.

(more…)

Back in June, Channel 4 screened a controversial documentary about the crash that killed Princess Diana. Titled ‘Diana: The Witnesses In The Tunnel’, it was a look at the tragedy from the point of view of the paparazzi photographers who were present at the scene and wrongly blamed for the crash afterwards. I wrote a full and thorough review of the documentary at the time it aired which you can read here.

Ofcom (the regulators of British television) received 62 complaints about the documentary after it aired, and so launched an investigation. Today they have cleared Channel 4 of any wrongdoing or breaches of the broadcasting code.

Most of the complaints concerned the pictures which were shown on screen during the documentary showing Diana receiving treatment at the scene of the crash. Ofcom ruled the use of the pictures was “justified by context”, and “integral” to the programme.

(more…)

Wow, call me stupid but I didn’t see this coming. I know Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho and owner Roman Abramovich have had a difficult relationship and results haven’t exactly been outstanding this season so far, but still the ‘Special One‘ has gone, and I’m in shock.

It’s reported that Mourinho has left the club by mutual consent, but does that mean he resigned in the face of criticism from the top, or did main man and club owner Abramovich fire him? Mourinho is said to have texted the senior players with the news of his departure, that would have included captain John Terry and midfielder Frank Lampard.

This news comes just 24 hours after Chelsea only managed a dismal 1-1 draw with Rosenborg in their first Champions League game of the new season. It seems this result and the fact Chelsea are sitting in a lowly (for them at least) 5th in the league was enough to draw an end to Mourinho’s 3 year reign at the club.

(more…)

An official BBC Report has been published in to the possible causes of Richard Hammond’s almost fatal crash last year. Hammond, commonly known as The Hamster, was driving a rocket car similar to the Vampire when while travelling at 288 miles an hour, the right hand tyre blew out and he almost lost his life.

It has now been revealed that a nail in the tyre was the likely cause of the crash which resulted in Richard being airlifted to hospital and suffering a serious brain injury.

It was a terrifying crash which could quite easily have killed the guy, and it’s a miracle he ended up fit enough to present the new series of Top Gear a few months later where they showed the crash as above. I looked at the crash in more detail back in February so click here to read that post.

(more…)

September 11th has rolled around again, as it keeps doing every year, and luckily it seems this year is another quiet one.

That wasn’t the case 6 years ago though, when America was attacked, and dragged unceremoniously in to a new war for the 21st century.

This was one of those World events where everyone can think back and remember what they were doing when they heard the news, and saw the terrible scenes of carnage happening in New York.

As a Brit, it was no different for me than most Americans, the only thing being I wasn’t likely to know anyone directly or indirectly affected.

I was sat at home on the afternoon (British time) that it happened. My parents were away on holiday, and I also had a week off work to chill out and relax. I was playing Excitebike 64 on my Nintendo 64 when the phone went. My brother had Sky News on and was watching the first plane hit the Twin Towers. He described it at the time as an accident, as that’s what the authorities thought. I quickly turned my game off and sat enthralled while watching the events unfold.

(more…)

Big Brother 8 has come to an end, and I’ll miss it, even though it was the least watched series of Big Brother ever.

These videos are great as they show the best bits of the whole Big Brother 8 series in under 9 minutes. I sat there for 3 months watching hour after hour of footage, and here it all is broken down in to a short compilation of clips.

(more…)

All of us Doctor Who fans who have been subjected to months of tabloid newspaper speculation over the fate of current Doctor David Tennant need not worry any more.

Russell T Davies, the new series creator and head writer has confirmed that Tennant will be present for the whole of the upcoming series, and not leaving after 4 episodes as has been continually rumoured.

Davies told Doctor Who magazine:-

“He’s doing the whole series,”

“It was never even discussed that he might leave after six episodes. That’s completely invented by the papers.”

“None of us knows exactly what will happen after series four, but there’s already talk of a 2008 Christmas Special.”

(more…)

Heroes is due back on our TV screens on September 24th 2007, with the première of the 2nd series. I thought we should take a look at what to expect from the second series, and also it’s a great excuse for me to share some sexy pictures of Hayden Panettiere.

The first series is still currently being shown on BBC2 in the UK, so if you haven’t yet seen the final episode, you may want to stop reading now, although if you do, you’ll miss out on those pics I mentioned earlier…

(more…)