Pop Buzz UK

A few days ago I detailed the whole sorry Sharon Osbourne saga which blighted the show last week. For those of you too lazy to go back and read the whole post, basically Sharon threw her toys out of her pram, and threatened to leave the show. Except she didn’t, because it was probably all a big publicity stunt.

And that wasn’t the first instance of the judges egos taking precedence over the contestants singing performances this series. Right at the beginning of the season, Louis Walsh was supposedly called back from the grave (he wasn’t dead except maybe in Simon Cowell’s eyes) to replace Brian Friedman as a judge. Oh come on, it was planned all along, why was he “fired” in the first place anyway?

And last night’s show, the second of the live final episodes which will run up to near Christmas right on cue for the winner to grab the Christmas number 1 in the UK, we saw more evidence of the problem with this show.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love The X Factor, I sit there religiously tuning in every week along with millions of other sad individuals too boring to be out partying on a Saturday night. But the judges and their participation in the show is ruining the whole thing for me.

The public vote who is their favourite performer of the night, with the two who receive the least votes ending up in the bottom to and having to sing for survival. So far so good. the problem comes when you realise that it’s the judges who then have the final say on who goes and who stays to fight another day. This is obviously wrong.

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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!”

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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.

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JK Rowling sure knows how to get Harry Potter back in the news doesn’t she?! Three months after the seventh and final book was released, she chose to reveal the truth about Professor Albus Dumbledore’s love life by declaring he was gay.

She was speaking at a special reading of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows at Carnegie Hall in New York. One thousand grand prize winners (and one companion each) got to hear her speak and ask question at the Q and A session for Scholastic’s Open Book Tour Sweepstakes.

As well as the Dumbledore revelation which is sure to upset the already anti-Potter brigade religious right wing, she revealed such delights as what happened to Neville Longbottom, how did Ron know Parseltongue and much more.

The Leaky Cauldron were there and this is their transcript of the evening:

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England displayed a combination of a poor performance and terrible bad luck as they lost 2-1 to Russia in this latest Euro 2008 qualifying group game.

This result leaves England on 23 points in the table and needing a minor miracle to get through to next year’s Euro 2008 finals.

We are now relying on Israel either beating or at least securing a draw from their game with Russia, and us beating Croatia at Wembley on November 21st.

Wayne Rooney scored an incredible goal on 29 minutes to put England ahead, and make fans up and own the country truly believe we had a chance of getting through. Victory in Russia would have virtually secured England qualification to the Euro 2008 finals but a super sub and what manager Steve McClaren described as “five minutes of madness” spoilt the party.

Russian player Roman Pavlyuchenko came on as a substitute in the second half, and scored twice to deny England the win they probably deserved. His first goal was a 69th minute penalty as a result of a reckless Rooney tackle, which replays show was actually outside of the box, and should have been a free kick at best. He then scored as a result of a blunder by Egland goalkeeper Paul Robinson, and ruined millions of Englishmen’s days to boot.

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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.

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It’s over, yes that 12 weeks of blissful summer television viewing that was Big Brother 8 has come to an end. Thankfully I got the result I wanted on Friday night as Brian Belo (short for Bellend, at least in my head) emerged victorious from his 3 month long incarceration.

The bookies had twins Samanda (Sam & Amanda) as hot favourites to win the thing, but Brian beat those improbable odds and won through in the end with over 60% of the vote.

The final was great, with Davina wearing red for a change, maybe she’s now worn every black dress there is in the world. The format was the usual 2 parter, with 3 people being evicted in the first half and 3 in the second. The amount of time each evicted house mate had to be interviewed was disappointingly short, but apart from Carole and Ziggy, none of them had much to say anyway.

I’ve liked Brian ever since he entered the house, and desperately wanted him to win, especially over the pink twins. He’s the one house mate who has been on a journey this year, which seems to be the mark of a winner these days.

He entered the house emotionally stunted and well, not to be unkind but quite thick. While he’s still no Stephen Hawking, he does at least have a fair idea of who Shakespeare is now.

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Today saw the memorial service take place to commemorate 10 years since Princess Diana died in a car crash.

The memorial service took place at the Guards’ Chapel near Buckingham Palace with both Princes William and Harry in attendance.

Prince Harry said:-

“To lose a parent so suddenly at such a young age, as others have experienced, is indescribably shocking and sad,”

“It was an event which changed our lives forever, as it must have done for everyone who lost someone that night,”

“But what is far more important to us now and into the future is that we remember our mother as she would wish to be remembered, as she was: fun-loving, generous, down to earth and entirely genuine.”

The Bishop of London gave a sermon at the memorial and used it to call for an end to the sniping between Diana’s fans and detractors. The debate carries on as to how Diana died, and who was to blame. There is also continuing views and disagreements on how the Royal Family dealt with the event of Diana’s death in the days after it happened.

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Unfortunately the bang wasn’t from a gun as Simon Cowell got shot by yet another disgruntled auditioning contestant. But it was a great first show to kick off the new series of The X Factor with.

As is the tried and tested format with these talent shows, the first few weeks are the funniest and often best, as we get to see a mixture of the best and worst of the first round of auditions. And this first show followed the plot completely.

First there was a new presenter in Dermot O’Leary to get used to, and he did a good job. It must be weird for him doing something on TV other than Big Brother, as he’s been the main man on ‘Big Brother’s Little Brother’ from the start. Although I would still prefer Ant & Dec to be the main presenters like they were for the original Pop Idol shows, Dermot is a step up from the awful Kate Thornton, who was inextricably given the role last year.

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I watched this television programme last night late on BBC3, which was a repeat from last Saturday. The first of a 2 part show, it’s a run-down of the 100 ‘Most Annoying Pop Moments… We hate To Love’, or at least someone’s idea of them. This first show gave the countdown from 100 to 50, with the usual discussion of each moment and the same old talking heads giving their opinion son them.

I enjoyed the show, but I have a couple of major problems with it, and this tired old format in general. First of all, some of the moments they chose were ludicrous, as in not annoying at all. The Zimmers doing a version of The Who’s ‘My Generation’ was listed, even though I found that great rather than annoying. Also, stuff like the Spice Girls getting back together, which was ridiculed and rounded on by the various celebrities and journos commenting. How is that annoying? It seemed like a lot of the moments were only included so as to be completely up to date, even though the moments themselves have fostered no annoyance from anyone.

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Last night, Channel 4 aired the 2nd of a 5 part TV programme looking at the lives of various youngsters who have emigrated to the UK. My New Home follows 3 children from different countries and ethnic backgrounds as they move to Britain. Over the next 5 years we will see how they have coped with their new lives, and how well they have integrated in to their newly adopted country.

The first kid is Imran, originally born and brought up in Pakistan, and now living in the UK with his mum and stepdad. Imran maybe has the most interesting story, especially in this current climate where many Westerners have a fear of Islam and Muslims. Imran is devoted to Islam, and Allah, and uses his religion as both a source of strength and salvation in his troubled first year in the UK. He feels like an outsider, and doesn’t feel he fits in to any social category. The English kids won’t play with him as he dresses in traditional Pakistani clothing, and can’t speak English, only Urdu. The other Asians in the area, British Muslims won’t hang around with him, as he’s not conforming to the Western culture as they have learnt to. He’s stuck somewhere in the middle.

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Wow, I went to see this film on Saturday evening, and was blown away. It’s the best film I’ve seen all year, and will probably stay that way. It wasn’t perfect however, and included massive amounts of one of my pet peeves… the American military getting all the credit.

First of all the film. I found it great, with perfect pacing, and a good amount of humour as well as all the action I wanted to see in a Transformers movie. Seeing those childhood cartoons and toys being brought to life like they were, was pretty amazing, and I turned to my girlfriend about half way through utterly speechless at the greatness of what I was seeing on screen.

I liked the way the film was very now, with references to Paypal, eBay, Satellite navigation etc all included. In 10 years this film will look very dated in this respect but for those of us going to the cinema to see it now, it helps connect you with the normal aspects of the plot… apart from the fact that there are huge robotic aliens which can transform in it obviously. I don’t think that’s real life yet.

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Manhunt 2, the controversial Rockstar game, was banned from being released in the UK last month by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). The game was due out on both the Playstation 2 and Nintendo Wii, but the BBFC’s decision meant it couldn’t be sold anywhere in the UK. Well, now Rockstar are appealing the decision, by going to the Video Appeals Committee in the UK.

This game is the first to be banned from sale in the UK for 10 years, the last being the gory but light hearted Carmageddon in 1997. I can see why the decision was made, as it is reportedly a sick, violent game where people are killed in a variety of ways just for the sake of it. Graphics have moved on so considerably that while in Carmageddon you would run someone over and basically be killing a group of undefinable pixels, Manhunt features lifelike humans being slaughtered.

The thing is, they are still just graphical representations rather than real living people, so is there that much of a difference?

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Well I’ve finished it have you? My copy of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows came on Saturday morning, delivered by the postman courtesy of Amazon, yes I was one of the 1,500,000 people who pre-ordered. I read non-stop for about 8 hours on Saturday, and then finished it on Sunday after another 6 hour session.

This post will have some spoilers in and thoughts of certain aspects of the story, so only click to Read More and continue reading if you have already reached the end of the book.

The book started as I suspected it would, but that expectation was blown out of the water once the Death Eaters attacked and we had our first death so early on. I thought it was a great way to set the stage and make all of us realise this book was going to be different than the previous 6 in the series.

One thing that was exactly the same in this book as all JK Rowling’s other masterpieces is the way it encourages you to keep reading and very rarely gives you an opportunity to put it down. All the way through I found myself doing that “Oh, just one more chapter then” type of reasoning with myself, so much so, that I didn’t have time for dinner on Saturday.

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Continuing the countdown to the release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book The Deathly Hallows, and tonight is the night. From Midnight you will be able to obtain your copies of the last book in the series, although I suspect like me, most of you will be more likely to be getting your copy in the morning. A lot of stores are opening tonight, or early tomorrow morning especially for the launch, but I’ll be waiting for my postman to deliver my Amazon pre-ordered copy to my door. I’ll be going to bed early tonight so I can get up early and start reading asap. Sad yes, but there’ll be millions of people like me so don’t judge!

Anyway, on to the point of this post, the fact that Harry Potter is in essence just a copy of Star Wars, at least in plot, if not character and setting. Don’t believe me? Then take a look at this…

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