Pop Buzz UK

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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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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There was me all set to blog about the first eviction on Friday night, and a bit of a review of the first week of Big Brother UK 8. And then Emily uttered one offensive word, and that plan came apart.

The first week had been boring at best, with the odd argument and moment of fun thrown in, but at approximately 8.30pm last night a conversation in the garden between Emily, Charley, and Nicky proved to be one with far reaching consequences. I’ve chosen to print the full transcript of the conversation [courtesy of Channel 4 and Digital Spy], so please be aware that it contains racist, sexual, and potentially offensive words.
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Gordon Brown was the only MP to stand for leader of the Labour party after Tony Blair resigned/retired and will become the new PM by default on June 27th. So the question is, will he do a good job? The dowdy Scot has made a very good chancellor of the exchequer, and has had his eye on the big job for the entirety of Blair’s tenure as Prime Minister.
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Not Bad For A McJob by Cloudy

Coined in the 80s but made popular in the 90s by Coupland’s Generation X, the word “McJob” is ruffling a few feathers with the employees at McDonalds and other service sector employers. The term “McJob“, which has imposed itself upon todays popular culture and is offically defined in The Oxford English Dictionary as “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector” had been the focus of the past few years of McDonalds staff recruitment drives. After the addition of McJob to the dictionary, McDonalds hit back with the advertising campaign slogan “Not bad for a McJob“, which was shown on posters depicting highly flexible working hours, competitive pay, share options, health plans and promotion opportunities.
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A new series of the BBC programme ‘Cooking In The Danger Zone‘ began on BBC2 on Sunday, and this first episode featured Inuits from Igloolik, and the South Korean Dog meat trade.

Throughout the series, gastronaut Stefan Gates travels around the world focussing on controversial issues, and exploring them through food. This first episode started 500 miles inside the Arctic circle, where Stefan was to spend days with Inuit hunters, and eat traditional courses such as seal, and whale. The first surprise was the great big Co-Op supermarket in the village, which stocks everything from fries, to hot dogs. The prices are astronomical, as everything has to get airlifted in to this hostile environment. Since the Canadian government set up these basic townships, with healthcare and benefits, the Inuit way of life has changed dramatically, with them having to leave age old tradtions behind. They still hunt, but even that has become more difficult due to global warming. Stefan tagged along on one of these hunts out on the ice, where they shot a seal, and skinned it in front of him.
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This is a review of the new film written and directed by Shane Meadows called ‘This Is England‘. It’s set in 1983, and tells the story of a young 12 year old boy, and his experiences with a group of older skinheads who take him in, and treat him as one of their own. It’s based on Shane’s own experiences growing up, and it shows in the maturity and way in which it’s told.
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This is my weekly round-up of the best pop culture blog posts from all over the blogosphere. I realised a long time ago that I can’t cover every story that breaks, so instead I bring you the ones that have interested me in this nice little feature I like to call ‘A Slice Of Pop Pie‘…

According to the traveller’s weblog Gadling, British Airways edited Richard Branson out of in-flight copies of Bond film Casino Royale. The rival Virgin Airways boss’ cameo appearance was strangely absent from the version shown on BA flights. 3 words for you… petty, childish, spiteful.
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Would tougher gun laws make any difference?

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The amount of times I’ve heard and read this absurd sentence over the last week is unbelieveble. Yes, so a gun is an inanimate object and needs someone to pull the trigger, but if there weren’t the incredible amount of guns available, surely tragedies like Virginia Tech and Columbine wouldn’t happen.
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How elements of Pop Culture were blamed yet again!

The victims of the Virginia Tech shootings were killed by a person… weren’t they? They were cruelly gunned down in the prime of life by a sad loner who felt he needed to eke out some sort of revenge… weren’t they? I already know the answer to both questions is yes, but after the crap I’ve had to endure reading over the past week, I had to check to be sure.

Elements of the media and some crackpot rent-a-quotes in particular seem to have been trying to blame the massacre on anything but a person with a gun. Video games have been the main culprit under suspicion this time, as they have been after other school shootings such as Columbine. But music hasn’t got away without it’s fair share of finger pointing either, as Marilyn Manson, and artists like him, were once again highlighted as having infuenced the tragedy. And you can stick films in the mix too, with the cult Korean revenge flick ‘Oldboy‘ held up as a direct reason that this incident happened. What an absolute pile of steaming bs this all is, and here I’ll explain why…
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Media Coverage - American lives more important than others?

I’m writing this on the 23rd of April, a week to the day of the Virginia Tech shootings, long enough since the incident for me to have a comprehensive and fair view on it, but with it still fresh in my mind. Like others around the world, I watched the news reports filter in of a shooting happening in America, and by mid afternoon, we all knew it had ended in a massacre. I was upset, with my heart and head going out to the victims and their families. And although that sympathy still holds true, some things have occurred since which have left me wondering about the whole saga, the way it’s been reported, and how even in this day and age, it seems we are not all born equal.
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We all know Sony have had problems with their launch of the Ps3, and now there’s the devastating news that prisoners will not be allowed to play the new console in British jails! I’m kidding of course, Sony probably see it as a good thing, it certainly won’t hurt their sales much as Britain’s prisons are so overcrowded it was going to be like…hmm one console for 5,000 prisoners or something stupid. (more…)

The verdict is in and according to Britain’s Court Of Appeal in London, The book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown is not a copy. Authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh sued Brown’s publisher, Random House Inc. claiming he copied from their non-fiction best selling book ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’. Their book was first released in 1982 and controversially dealt with the issues that would later be turned into a fictional bestseller and Hollywood movie. (more…)

15 British sailors have been abducted after they boarded a ship suspected of smuggling cars in the Persian Gulf off the Iraqi coast. The British government have demanded “the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment.” The British Navy personnel were “engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters,” and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, Britain’s Defense Ministry said. “We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and … the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office,” the ministry said. (more…)

The Formula 1 season started on Sunday in Australia and despite not winning, Lewis Hamilton was the man making all the headlines in yesterday’s newspapers. The season kicked off with a traditional and dominating win for the Ferrari team, just with different personnel in the driving seat than the last few years. With Michael Schumacher’s retirement, it was left to his replacement Kimi Raikonnen to lead the Italian giants to victory. But the Finn’s drive was overshadowed by Lewis Hamilton, who made one of the most impressive Formula One debuts for years as he took third place. (more…)