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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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Star Stories returned for a second series last Friday on Channel 4 with the aptly named first episode ‘Take That: How our success was nothing to do with Robbie Williams’. It told the story, or a satirically comedic take on the story of the early days of Take That right through to their recent reunion (minus Robbie).

I loved the first series of Star Stories, with it’s childish humour and quite biting take on celebrities lives, and this second series started in the same vein as the last. Like ‘Rock Profiles’ or ‘Bo Selecta before it, the actors play a caricature of the real celebrity, with just enough of the real persona peeking through that you can recognise the star being portrayed.

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Debating: The continuing floods blighting the UK

Reading: Reviews of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows

Playing: Transformers: The Game

Viewing: The Top 5 Phone Pranks on YouTube

Watching: The Transformers Movie

Listening: To Anyone But Rihanna

Buying: Kate Nash’ Catchy Single ‘Foundations’

Searching: The Lyrics for ‘Rehab’ by Amy Winehouse

Anticipating: The Spice Girls World Tour

Learning: There is an itch gene.

UK, Britain, England, Floods, Flooding, Transformers the game, Transformers the movie, Harry Potter, Phone Pranks, The Simpsons, Rihanna, Kate Nash, Amy Winehouse, The Spice Girls

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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I went to see Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix at the cinema on Sunday, and while I was impressed with the film as a whole, my girlfriend was very disappointed with how the film rewrote and bastardised the book. So I asked her to write a post detailing what was missing and modified for the film.

Order Of The Phoenix Review by Cloudy

Overall the film was a decent effort at retelling the epic story told by J.K. Rowling but I thought the acting in the early stages of the film was a bit wooden. Harry, Ron and Hermione didn’t seem to have their usual rapport going on until part way into the story. I did, however, like the portrayal of Dudley Dursley to be a moronic scally buffoon, it fitted in very well with my idea of an adolescent Dudley and gang.

I was severely distressed by the amount of scenes that had gone missing as Order of the Phoenix under went it’s transformation from book to film. In some cases extra scenes had been added to cover up the missing parts, but why bother doing that when the original scene would have worked just as well, if not better.

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Debating: Whether Live Earth will make any real difference

Reading: ‘One Good Turn’ by Kate Atkinson

Playing: Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix

Viewing: Big Brother UK’s Fake Week

Watching: Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix

Listening: Art Brut album ‘It’s A Bit Complicated’

Buying: ‘One Chance’ by Britain’s Got Talent’s Paul Potts

Searching: David Beckham after his move to LA Galaxy

Anticipating: Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows

Learning: A sense of humour diminishes with age

Live Earth, Kate Atkinson, Harry Potter, Order Of The Phoenix, Art Brut, Big Brother, Paul Potts, Britains Got Talent, David Beckham, LA Galaxy, The Deathly Hallows

Debating: The Smoking Ban which came in to effect July 1st

Reading: ‘Whitethorn Woods’ by Maeve Binchy

Playing: Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix

Viewing: The Live Earth concert from Wembley Stadium

Watching: ‘Shrek the Third’ starring that green ogre thingy

Listening: Jack Penate with ‘Torn on the Platform’

Buying: The Traveling Wilburys Collection album

Searching: ‘Cloverfield’, a new film by Lost’s JJ Abrams

Anticipating: The Enemy’s debut album ‘We’ll live & die in these towns’

Learning: Tony Blair proposed to Cherie while she was cleaning a loo.

Smoking, Smoking Ban, England, UK, Maeve Binchy, Harry Potter, The Order of the Phoenix, Live Earth, Wembley Stadium, Shrek the Third, Jack Penate, Torn on the Platform, The Traveling Wilburys, Cloverfield, Lost, JJ Abrams, The Enemy, Tony Blair, Cherie Blair

The long awaited ‘Concert for Diana’ finally came to fruition on Sunday, and I have mixed feelings on the whole event. First off, the idea of it and the cause is excellent. To mark ten years since Princess Diana’s death, a concert featuring a mix of some of her favourite musicians and a new breed of stars vying to pay tribute to her is very fitting. But in my opinion there were some major problems with the whole thing.

For starters, some of the performers seemed weird choices. I can understand Elton John, Bryan Ferry, and The Feeling, but why were Pharrell Williams and Kanye West there? They just seemed slightly out of place, with their music a world away from what Diana stood for and was associated with.

Regardless of which bands and singers were on stage, the next thing to annoy me was the crowd. For 63,000 people, they really did produce a lacklustre display of singing, cheering and getting involved with the on stage performers. At one point, I thought half of the audience had fallen asleep, it was so quiet. If I’d have been there, I would have got in to the spirit of it, and had a bit of a party, although be it respectful. I think the problem was the crowd were of such diverse ages, with the people who seemed to get tickets being mostly “of an age“, to put it politely.
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Debating: The foiled terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow.

Reading: ‘Marshmallows For Breakfast’ by Dorothy Koomson

Playing: ‘Forza Motorsport 2′ on the XBox 360

Viewing: The ‘Concert for Diana’ on BBC1 on Sunday

Watching: ‘Captivity’ starring Elisha Cuthbert

Listening: The Editors 2nd album ‘An End Has A Start’

Buying: ‘Scrubs’ Series 5 on DVD

Searching: ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ Trailers

Anticipating: The last week of Wimbledon tennis championship

Learning: Peanuts can be made into diamonds.

London, UK, Terrorist, Terror Alert, Marshmallows for breakfast, Dorothy Koomson, Forza Motorsport 2, XBox 360, Concert for Diana, Captivity, Elisha Cuthbert, The Editors, An End Has A Start, Scrubs Series 5, DVD, Grand Theft Auto IV, Trailer, Wimbledon, Tennis, Peanuts, Diamonds

Birmingham’s art rockers The Editors are back after a two year break with a new album and new single. This is the first release from second album ‘An End Has A Start’ which is out this week in the UK and on July 17th in America. The album has been criticised for being a very depressing look at life, and the journey towards death. This is understandable as it was written and recorded in light of a spate of death and illness in lead singer Tom Smith’s personal life. ‘Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors’ gives a good taster of the album, with lines such as “Say goodbye to everyone you’ve ever known, you are never going to see them ever again“. These sort of feel good, uplifting lines are coupled with a deep bassline and thumping drum beat as we’ve come to expect from the band.
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The first series of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, Simon Cowell’s trademarked showreel nasty comment thingy has ended. In a live final on Sunday, we got to see a performance by the six finalists, whittled down from over 50,000 entrants from all across the UK.

Each link to the performer takes you to a YouTube clip of their act…

The show seemed to be ordered in terms of favourites to win, with outsiders Combat Breakers going first, and hot favourite Paul Potts having the starring end spot. The Combat Breakers hit the ground running, literally as well as metaphorically, with their break dancing choreography and skills wowing the crowds.
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Debating: Michael Barrymore being arrested again

Reading: Bill Bryson ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’

Playing: Forza Motorsport 2 on the Xbox 360

Viewing: The final of ‘Britains Got Talent’

Watching: The awful ‘Are We Done Yet?’ starring Ice Cube

Listening: The White Stripes brilliant ‘Icky Thump’

Buying: Fathers Day Cards… My Dad is the best in the world!

Searching: Amateur opera singer Paul Potts

Anticipating: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Learning: As recently as the early 1980s, mortgages were rationed

Michael Barrymore, Bill Bryson, The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid, Forza Motorsport 2, Xbox 360, Britains Got Talent, Are We Done Yet, Ice Cube, The White Stripes, Icky Thump, Fathers Day, Cards, Dads, Opera, Paul Potts, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, 1980s, Mortgage

No, thankfully I’m not talking about a recent experience I’ve had to endure, rather the new ITV1 chat come reality show called 24 hours with… The first episode of this intriguing new show aired on Monday night with Bobby Brown as the guest, and it made for some interesting viewing.

When I first heard the concept of this show ‘1 host, 1 guest, 1 room, 24 hours’ I was blown away by the simplicity but pure genius behind it. It’s one of those TV shows that you sit there and wonder why you didn’t think of first. Well, people sort of have done, with it being a cross between Big Brother, Parkinson, and Louis Theroux. The fact it’s 3 programmes rolled in to 1 is it’s good point, but also it’s downfall.
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The programme that has been debated up and down the country before it was aired was finally shown tonight, and as I expected the controversy was completely out of sync with the actual footage shown. For a change, this programme promised to get the facts from the people who were actually there, the photographers and journalists who were first on the scene, and it made for a refreshing change to hear it from the horses mouth.

In the UK, and around the world, the thought of a programme revisiting the facts behind the Princes Diana crash sparked outrage and revulsion. The main sticking point was the prospect of Channel 4 displaying pictures from the crash scene, some showing Diana receiving treatment. Even Diana’s sons William and Harry had become involved and asked that her dignity be respected. Channel 4 decided to go ahead with the programme, after pronouncing that Diana’s face would not be shown, and they stuck to their word.
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Debating: The start of Big Brother 8!

Reading: ‘Ultimate Weapon’ by Chris Ryan

Playing: ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End’

Viewing: The first night of Big Brother 8, with 11 females

Watching: Pirates Of The Caribbean 3

Listening: Gym Class Heroes ‘Cupid’s Chokehold’

Buying: Pigeon Detectives album ‘Wait For Me’

Searching: Loch Ness Monster, both online and offline

Anticipating: ‘Oceans Thirteen’ Released 08/06/07

Learning: The secret to happiness is accepting misery

Big Brother, Big Brother UK, Big Brother 8, BB8, Chris Ryan Ultimate Weapon, Chris Ryan, Ultimate Weapon, Pirates Of The Caribbean, At World’s End, Gym Class Heroes Cupids Chokehold, Gym Class Heroes, Pigeon Detectives, Loch Ness Monster, Nessie, Oceans Thirteen, George Clooney, The Secret To Happiness