gamezine.co.uk: Game review - Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

I had the somewhat enviable task of reviewing Red Alert 3 for the Xbox 360 and I came up with a relatively decent review, given its phenomenal range of facets that needed to be covered. It can be found here.

gamezine.co.uk: Game review - King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga

Finally! My dream has been realised, albeit on a voluntary scale. I took it upon myself to throw my hat into the ring for Gamezine to review the King of Fighters Collection on the PS2. A dilapidated console? Yes. Dilapidated game? Why not find out at Gamezine? Brought to you by the Brotherhood of Adfero.

Look out for my review of Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 for the Xbox in the coming days.

The Latest (Column): An ode to the Beeb - why the TV Licence is justified

I decided to attack the complainers of this world with some complaining of my own. How beautifully ironic, I thought. You can read my TV licence piece at The Latest or read the unedited version below in all of its sarcastic glory!


We live in a nation of complainers. It seems that the last few weeks have brought about a Mary Whitehouse-style backlash against the media.

People have been able to condemn programmes without having seen or heard them, most notably in the most famous case involving phone calls to a largely-forgotten actor from Fawlty Towers. With Christmas fast-approaching and thousands of hours of repeats gracing the box, one thing is likely to hit the news again: the TV licence.

Let them do it. They evidently don't know how good they are getting it.

It has already received plenty of bad press over the charges and the intimidating adverts ensuring that people buy the licence. Really though, it's similar to anti-drink driving adverts or an infomercial regarding the details as to why murdering someone in cold blood is not the best idea - it's against the law to own a TV and not have a licence. It has been for a long time. People should know better.

One notable example was Noel Edmonds who, shortly after telling us all that his late parents were orbs of light, said the TV licence was a sham and would not pay for it. I hope he gets rinsed for it, particularly making most of his riches off the back of it in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Then again, since moving away to university a few years ago and then getting a job and dealing with real life (and real bills), the TV licence is one of those things I'm not a massive fan of paying. It feels like money could be better spent, even if the fee of £139.50 is split between myself and others.

Still, when I look at the amount of things the BBC has done for me, it's hard not to justify paying that amount. It's actually quite staggering.

Aside from the obvious bonus that there is largely-uninterrupted TV across a variety of channels after the advent of Freeview, radio also provides entertainment from both national and local stations and delivers the widest variety of content.

I've always been a huge radio fan, with my interests turning away from commercial radio stations such as talkSPORT and Virgin Radio (now Absolute). The BBC has answered my demands with a huge amount of choice and happily provides me with World Service when I'm abroad - something that is vastly underrated.

People have access to classical music on Radio 3, sport on 5 Live, popular music on Radio 1 and the brilliant George Lamb on 6 Music (although I may be in the minority on that last one). Sadly, too many people are quick to write radio off as a media outlet. I think it's the best one going.

The expansion into digital media is probably the greatest bonus to the licence-payer. With a relatively recent update to the iPlayer facility, people can watch any original programming on the BBC's website from any TV channel or radio station. Even going on the news or sport sites can link you to shows currently on the box such as Match of the Day or BBC News 24. Everything you need is at your fingertips.

Of course, the BBC is also an elite training area for some of the world's finest journalists and TV stars, seemingly less-affected by the cult of celebrity than others. If a journalist tells you that they would turn down a job offer with the BBC, they are a liar and you have permission from me to give them a hearty slap about the face.

If it weren't for the BBC, charities would not get the platform they deserve, with Children in Need and Comic Relief doing massive amounts for people across the world and highlighting causes we would never know anything about otherwise.

If the licence idea was dropped, the channel would either need advertising, telethons or government subsidies. If there were ad breaks, people would go insane. Should the BBC do a telethon to raise funds, it would not generate sufficient income and the Beeb would become a laughing stock. If it was bankrolled by the government, people would complain about taxes and the level of political bias the BBC would supposedly put on events due to their financial affiliation.

Essentially, the nation would complain even more.

This is what I say to the non-believers and constant whiners: keep your £139.50. Force the BBC to decommission their stations from your Freeview and Sky. You have fun watching ITV2+1 and Nuts TV. Make sure you enjoy what's left of Dave without any of the BBC's contributions. I'm really very sure that you can get a year's worth of quality entertainment at the same price.

inthenews.co.uk: Music review - Twilight OST (Various Artists)

In one of several pieces to come during the next few weeks, I did my first-ever music review for my workplace's consumer-facing website, inthenews.co.uk. In what I thought would be a write-off, I actually changed my mind quite a bit after a few listens.

Click here to see the article!

The Latest (Column): Will we forget?

After a small hiatus from writing due to a ridiculous amount of reasons, I took a look at Remembrance Day for my column at The Latest. Read below if you can't be bothered to click, or go here to read it at The Latest!


As is the norm with me, I open with an anecdotal realisation.

Standing on the bus on Sunday, I realised that I was the only person who was wearing a poppy for the Royal British Legion's annual campaign for Remembrance Day.

Granted, I live in Leeds and I was surrounded by students. But is not outwardly marking something of such magnitude - the loss of millions of lives to defend one's country - really excusable by a mere generation gap?

Nope.

There were around 50 people on the bus. With the front part blocked, I had to meander down the bendy bus to get to the back doors if I had any chance of escaping the throng before Headingley. Not one speck of red was displayed on anyone's chest. The lack of colour was accentuated by the predominance of winter colours - greys, blacks, browns - but no red.

It didn't really hit me until I stepped off. It was Remembrance Day and nobody seemed to care. I even started to doubt how many of the indifferent faces I saw on the bus even observed the two-minute silence earlier that day.

But the question is why they weren't marking the occasion - is it a lack of compassion or a lack of education?Having spent my final year of university specialising in the First World War, I suppose I was lucky. Being able to see the pictures of the front lines, watch the videos (portraying both propaganda and reality) and hear the accounts, I actually felt privileged.

Getting inside the minds of the average soldier revealed a whole range of their emotions - anything from happy-go-lucky pugilism to bitter cynicism that counted the days until their inevitable death by a machine gun over two miles away, working on quarter-degree longitudinal increments to fire into the darkness.

Either way, the conflict was brutal - no, worse than that. I don't think there's a word better to describe it than desperate. Maybe helpless.

Seeing my own mother well up with tears when she watched the coverage of the Remembrance Day ceremony direct from Whitehall in London, where amassed troops, veterans and well-wishers gathered around Edwin Lutyens' monument, was one of the most powerful things I've ever seen.

I did not have the same raw emotional connection to the remembrance service as my mother did, yet I observed the silence with nothing but the eternal gratitude that it deserved. Essentially, it's tied to the memories that precede us.

When all the last surviving First World War British combatants die, a huge chunk of the national consciousness about that war will die as well.

And 90 years on, it seems that the whole thing is already simply a memory. I'm not trying to romanticise the conflict, yet it genuinely was a time when the British Empire realised that it was neither invincible nor innocent. We learned a lot about ourselves and the fickle nature of human life, human brutality and, essentially, human error.

However, all my generation needs to do, like me, is to pick up a book and learn about why we need to remember. The memory is collectively British, not individual.

Without poppies and without a caring attitude, the British Legion's great work will suffer and the untarnished war graves which occupy the quietest places in the Western world will deteriorate.

I believe the modern and increasingly indifferent view of the Great War is the combined result of a lack of knowledge and compassion. With one, I believe, comes the other. I just wonder if lackadaisical attitudes to learning and history will consign the tradition of November 11th to a simple military occasion.

I, for one, sincerely hope not.

inthenews.co.uk: Why a salary cap will not work

I wrote a second story for the month and for the inthenews.co.uk website. It allows me to write more tailored articles - ones that are in demand as opposed to a regular opinion piece, although I'm still planning to do another for The Latest in the coming days.

Click here to see the article!

inthenews.co.uk: The Mighty Boosh - live and in person

After a brief hiatus I decided to pitch an article to my workplace's consumer-facing website, inthenews.co.uk. Here is my review of the Boosh Live after seeing them playing in York's Opera House. It's a long one, but a good read. I plan not to paste the whole story into my blog (SEO and all).

Instead, click this link!

The Latest (Column): A wake up call to British cynicism

Adapting a post from my blog to cover a topic I thought was quite important, I tackled the cynicism found in Britain today. Check it out at The Latest or below!


The most disorientating moment of the last few months happened to me in the early hours of last week. Roughly one hour after falling asleep, the loudest thing I think I've heard since seeing Iron Maiden in 2003 had descended on the house. The fire alarm.

After the ten seconds it took me to realise that yes, it wasn't my personal alarm, I was angry. Nothing more, nothing less. Upon waking up earlier that morning, I never assumed that my house was engulfed in flames. I assumed straight away that the "fire" had started in the kitchen, without flames, from frying burgers that, for all intents and purposes, were still cooking.

Of course, it was exactly how I predicted.

After all was rectified and the code was put in on the utterly useless controls, I went outside to get some fresh air and calm down the shakes after having my ears subjected to temporary tinnitus by the screaming red foghorns that littered the house.

In a street with 60 houses, there wasn't a peek. No heads peering out of windows, nobody standing outside, no-one nearby to enquire about what could have been Carrie recreating the prom blaze in our homestead.

Ultimately, nobody cared. And you know what? I don't blame them.

The amount of times we've all walked past houses where the alarms are going off is in the dozens, I'm sure. Hearing a car alarm in the street doesn't even attract a curtain-twitch. It reminded me of a time in 2003, when my college issued rape alarms to all and sundry for their protection, resulting in the surrounding area becoming an orchestra of intolerably loud beeps for a week, ultimately undermining the whole safety measure. It's like the boy who cried wolf. Well, the girl or boy who falsely cried rape.

We are completely numb to the safety systems put in place by, ironically, ourselves. The things we hope will deter others or attract attention are effectively superfluous - bought under what can only be described as socio-cultural pressures to defend oneself.

Whatever happened to the days when we cared about each other? The culture of the have-a-go hero has been consumed by self protection issues instilled in our brains over fears that we may be physically harmed or become criminally liable in some way.

It's gotten so bad that people have been instructed by the British Embassy to do the following if they are the victim of rape when travelling abroad:

Consider beforehand what you might shout to attract the attention of other people. For example, in English-speaking countries you may receive more attention if you shout 'fire!' rather than 'help!'

Yes, consider what you say while somebody tries to sexually assault you - it's only polite, after all.

What a cynical world we live in.

The Latest (Column): If you love news, don't be a journalist

After experiencing the real world of journalism through my work at my news agency, I decided to write about the effects of it all on my taste for news. It may not sound too positive, but it's all true! Read it below, or go to The Latest to read more!


I realised last night what my job had turned me into. Sat in bed listening to the radio, I heard that Morgan Freeman had been in a car crash, his condition was serious but that he was stable. It was the first piece of news in a month that genuinely made my heart jump with the thrilling mixture of shock and excitement.

Before I started working as a journalist, I used to get that with most stories across any field of my interest, which was most things: entertainment, sport, current affairs, music, film… you name it.

However, as I now read up to 75 or 80 stories a day from my desk, I don't have time to be interested in news. That is - of course - unless it interests my client.

As a writer for a news agency, I'm not a textbook journalist - the stereotype does not apply to me. Ultimately, I write for and interact with nine clients across a diverse field of subjects, including mortgages, construction, online gambling, trade unions and sleep.

I suppose the idealistic and hopeful journalists-to-be may criticise this. It won't help when I add that I write up to 25 articles a day - since labelled "churnalism" by several people - but the truth of the matter is that many "real" journalists may cover less in a day of things that they are not interested in - I'm perfectly happy in what I do and I do enjoy it.

The rate of knowledge absorption is off the scale. Within a month I have learned the intricacies of conservation and energy efficiency. I know where to get the best two-year fixed-rate mortgage (if still possible). I even know the effects of the credit crunch on the holiday industry and, as a result, where the best driving holiday in Europe is.
It's the little things, right?

Well perhaps not. I've noticed a worrying pattern emerging. To be a journalist - especially in the volume that I process - you have to be only interested in your assignments. It's the same in any journalism job but with the amount of deadlines I have to meet, I have probably experienced similar in a month to what a regular newspaper journalist would see in a year - and my attitudes have adjusted accordingly.

As much as I may be labelled heartless by some, I didn't feel anything for the situation over in Antigua where the newlyweds were shot dead. As awful as it is, I did not react aside from wishing a painless death to the husband who, if he survived, would probably not want to live anyway. Similarly, hearing about 16 Chinese policemen getting slaughtered at the hands of a pair of terrorists did not even raise an eyebrow.

The bottom line? When you work in news, you're no longer surprised by it. When you're not surprised by it, you have no emotional attachment to it.

Before I started work with the online agency I work for, I thought I'd never get sick of news. When you work in the industry, you pray for your work to be made easier by relevance - everything else is superfluous.

So when I hear news about the mortgage market in its death throes, I find myself rejoicing. If I hear that the credit crunch has resulted in widespread, country-demobilising strikes, I relax more. When MRSA is wreaking havoc in hospitals and care homes, I feel comfortable.

News is brilliant until you work in it. After that, you're desensitised to everything and find yourself enjoying socio-economic disasters. Why? Because that's the news that really affects us, except it's my job to write it - not get worried by it.

It's akin to a policeman counselling every victim of a crime; a soldier lamenting the loss of every adversary they've shot; a pathologist learning about the life and personality of each motionless piece of meat on the slab. If you get too involved in things that do not concern you in your first port of call as an employee, the quality of your work will drop.

To all of the budding journalists out there - the world of news is never how it seems in the job description.

The Latest (Column): Mugabe's crimes against fashion

After a small hiatus from writing for fun (due to moving to Leeds and having to write for a wage), I decided to do this over the weekend about the ever-worsening situation in Zimbabwe. Read it below or by visiting the article directly at The-Latest.com!


Is it only me that's wary of people who have Hitler moustaches and wear bright green suits covered with pictures of themselves?

To be honest, I don't think even Screaming Lord Sutch, rest his soul, would have stooped to such lengths of crimes against fashion - not even if he went on a rampage of slapstick terror to silence his critics in an election that would still amount to a one-party vote.

Yes, you guessed it - another Uncle Bob story. Mugabe, the lovable Rhodesian rogue, continues to walk the earth, much to the chagrin of most of the world.

The UK and US, backed by France, Italy, Belgium, Croatia and a few others, failed to secure sanctions against the leader of ZANU-PF. This was because, rather fittingly, those bastions of free and fair democracy - China and Russia - decided to veto the UN sanctions that should be imposed on Zimbabwe.

China have had their hands full trying to stamp down on any notions of a free Tibet, using a flame to attract the moth-like proponents of freedom in all corners of the globe to get them arrested. Quite clever, really, if not brutal. Usually I don't like the Olympics on the grounds that it's a warm version of its superior, the Winter Olympics, which is infinitely more entertaining.
Russia is still under the umbrella of ex-KGB superstar Vladimir Putin and his marionette understudy, Paval Medvedev, in a regime that poisons former agents on foreign soil, and gets annoyed that we make such a big deal of it. And literally flies fake penises to mock Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster and leader of the government opposition group the Other Russia Movement.

These historic giants, backed up by the other great free states, Vietnam and Libya, have sought to keep Robert Mugabe away from the wrath of the rest of the world.

Oh, and South Africa vetoed too. Remember them? You'd think that after rightfully being heralded as the true free state (as opposed to the Orange Free State) in the 1990s, they'd do something. Even Nelson Mandela's a bit wound up, which is something that I thought was an impossibility.

South Africa opposed the vote due to their belief in a future national Unity government in Zimbabwe; a government that would bring together Mugabe, the dictator, and his plucky opponent Morgan Tsvangirai, who is only still alive because he is in the public eye too much to be quietly bumped off. Yet he still had to hide in the Dutch Embassy as soon as he pulled out of the re-run presidential poll, while his supporters were rounded up and beaten.

Personally, I don't think pulling out of a cricket test match with Zimbabwe is enough to show our disgust at the current regime. Still, the news presents the coverage as another pseudo-Cold War in a backdrop of worldwide terrorism, with the US and UK joining together again to vanquish the evil and unjust elements of human society. There's hardly been any mention of other European countries joining us - just the supposedly ex-Communist opposition that fought us in the post-war period.

It's almost as if we're the bullies in all of this. The global news is becoming easier by the day for Mugabe to spin, somehow holding on to supporters with a million per cent inflation rate, empty supermarkets, employment that pays workers through bartering and the imprisonment of gay and lesbian elements of society for behaving "worse than dogs and pigs".

The rest of the adult population are coerced into voting, branded with indelible ink to prove to the armed mobs that they posted their vote even though they didn't need to. The only pictures on our television we get are of propagandised amassed crowds which have, as we're told by many independent sources within the country, been forced to attend the poll.

The only solace many opponents take from recent developments is that, at age 84 in a country that has a life expectancy of 37 (dropping from 60 in1990), Mugabe will most likely be dead soon. Sadly, when he goes there are a number of like-minded Zanu-PF strongmen to take his place.

The Latest (Column): A Dictatorship's Delights

Inspired by a recent blog post, I decided to tackle the amazing facts surrounding North Korea. It's an utterly fascinating place, and I hope that by reading this article, you'll agree! Continue below or, alternatively, go to The Latest and read it there!


You know when you get lost on the internet and you read all manner of beautiful things? Through the magic of this frequent occurrence for me, I learned a little more about everybody’s favourite crazy dictatorship.

It’s a place that’s stuck in a time warp - a time where Communism is still accepted and pint-sized leaders are all the rage. It also happens to be the only place governed by a dead Head of State.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to North Korea.

There has always been a somewhat disconcerting yet unavoidable interest in totalitarian regimes. Aside from Turkmenistan, there hasn’t been a good old dictatorship to gawp at with incredible awe in a long time. North Korea has remained wonderfully insane since the Korean War, and went largely unnoticed to all but the South Koreans until George W. Bush added the peninsula to his Axis of Evil.

Having taken an active interest in the DPRK for many years due to my history background, I’ve heard everything about the “Democratic” “People’s” “Republic”. The funny thing is, pretty much all of it is true; it’s the country that creates the benchmark for unbelievable rumours about other places.

For example, the roads of North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, as well as any other areas deserving of an infrastructure (read: none), are famously designed to allow jet fighters to land. They would probably have little difficulty avoiding traffic either; an estimated 9% of the 300,000 road vehicles in the country are privately owned - in most cases by government officials.

“Mass Games” are the country’s version of the Olympics, except much more regular and perhaps more entertaining - if you can ignore the slave-like conditions the performers are subject to. 100,000 people synchronise to hold coloured boards to depict famous scenes of North Korean freedom, strength of will and superiority - like Nuremburg without the torches, I suppose. And more gymnastics. They are played to only around 5-10,000 visitors, making it akin to the England football team and their opposition watching the supporters having a kick-about in the stands.

However, what typifies North Korea's both fascinating and unbelievably worrying motives is through what many have branded Propaganda Village, or Kijong-dong. It lies on the heavily-patrolled demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. I still have no idea why they have kept up the charade for so long.

Purely for show, the North Koreans fabricated an entire village to show off their wares to the South, using actors and actresses to cut the grass, turn the lights on in most buildings at the exact same time, and pretend to live happy, poverty-free lives in the houses.

It sounds pretty silly given that 1,000,000 DPRK and 600,000 South Korean soldiers man the border. It doesn’t help that everyone knows that the North side of the DMZ is heavily landmined, particularly around the houses.

After the recent development of high-intensity binoculars, it's been noticed that the 'houses' have neither rooms nor windows. The same actress from one house has been known to hang out the same five items of washing every day. For 15 years. You'd think they'd actually try to make it more believable, wouldn't you?

Things have died down in the village since the flagpole war of the 70s. I know, it’s hard to believe things could ever get back to normal after such an international crisis.

Kijong-dong, as a result of the battle, has the world's tallest flagpole measuring 160m, proudly flying the North Korean flag at its peak. It wasn't as big before, but after the South Koreans in Taeseong-dong decided that it would be a laugh (in a very tit-for-tat way) to make one bigger, the DPRK responded within hours to make theirs even taller.

How nicer a place would the world be if we dedicated our resources into flagpole construction? It would be cheaper in the very least and still convey the metaphor for the unnecessary stockpiles of weapons as seen in the Cold War and in the present day. On top of this, the flagpole would still be useful, unlike every nuclear weapon in the world after the first dozen or so.

The North Koreans, just to make sure that they covered both sides of terra firma, dug tunnels too. Four to be exact (…and counting, no doubt). They thought that the old ‘coal mining’ excuse ought to be one good enough to dig, in one case, a mile-long tunnel 246ft below the ground with full concrete support, lighting and a boatload of military supplies.

When the Southerners found it (after seeing steam coming out of the floor), they were immediately gunned down. The tunnel could shift a division of troops (around 2,000) in an hour. They even went to all the effort of painting the granite black to pretend it was actually coal. Genius.

Really, though. Who are they trying to fool?

Now in 2008, after a brief 15-year period of being utterly broke, the North Korean government decided to finish a few things. These nigh-on complete buildings and ridiculously ornate sculptures are testaments to Kim Jong-il and his dead Head of State father, Kim Il-sung.

The most striking is, no doubt, the 26m high bronze statue of Kim Il-sung in the centre of Pyongyang. Many say it’s impossible to ever grasp the size of it - still, it certainly makes you think of just how much money it cost, especially given that there are no natural resources of bronze in the entire peninsula.

The strangest is the Ryugyong Hotel - started in 1987, stopped in 1992, restarted about two months ago. It's absolutely huge - 105 floors to be exact. After messing up the foundations (mostly due to leaving it for so long), Balfour Beatty are apparently finishing the job for them. To quote a visitor regarding the hotel, “nobody talks about it. Ask them a question and they immediately talk about something else. It’s a very sore subject.”

Esquire found that official pictures of the Pyongyang skyline had rendered it invisible, completely deleting it from view. Only somewhere like North Korea could try and fool its own people into thinking that a 1,000ft skyscraper didn’t exist.

Still, it’s not the first time. Mike Chinoy, a former reporter for CNN, compared the hotel to a problem of Kim Il-sung, the eternal leader and aforementioned dead Head. He had a giant calcium deposit on his neck for his dying days which the media tried to cover up completely. It was down to childhood malnutrition, apparently. Only one picture actually proves it existed, taken at a time by which point it was the size of a baseball. It was clearly visible, however hard officials tried to hide it from view.

Still, the Ryugyong Hotel is amazing to see. The Juche Tower is breathtaking too, alongside the Arch of Reunification and the Proletariat Freedom sculpture - all beautiful testaments to what is a corrupt leadership. It proves that a military dictatorship gets stuff done though, I guess.

If you wonder if the vast majority of North Koreans are on the side of their leaders, it’s worth looking at the reaction of Kim Il-sung’s people to his death. I doubt even Jesus would get such a send-off if his second coming went awry.

It's like there's nothing else to do in the country except worship the leaders. Then again, judging by the amount of electricity and illumination in North Korea, I'm not exactly surprised; see if you can guess which is North and which is South (that is to say, if you're not a whizz with a compass).

And yet the world needs extremes like North Korea. As backward and despotic as it is, as well as throwing the sheer notion of human rights out of the window, it makes us feel better about ourselves. It also supplies us with endless pub facts, staggering photos and unbelievable happenings.

The tours are getting bigger and better by the day. And you know what? Alongside Chernobyl, it’s top of my list of places to go. Might as well do something interesting on holiday though, right?

The Latest (Column): Adverts: the good, the bad and the downright lazy

After a general rant over adverts on my blog, I saw a good opportunity to wrangle it into a column for The Latest. My love/hate relationship with adverts has grown recently, and I'm sure you'll associate with the reasons as to why this is the case. Read it below or at The Latest!


I love watching adverts now - it's the best showcase of television. Why? Because the fickle nature of the human being is perfectly reflected in their ever changing ways. They reflect the products we wish we had until we buy them and they are upgraded so that we want purchase the same thing again.

They play upon recent socio-cultural changes to get the best impact, humour and relevance. Most importantly, perhaps, is that they now have to be brilliant to capture our attention enough to stop us from making coffee, picking up the phone or going to the loo.

Thankfully, I think they're getting much better. I actively watch adverts now just to see how a product is offered to the nation. Out of these, three ads have jumped out to me - all of which have consulted major advertising agencies to help them work - and work they do.

I think my favourite in recent months is the Brains-based Drench advert which actually made me remember the name of the brand. Although I think that the people who buy bottled water can be described as Evian spelt backwards, it hit the spot. Even if it isn’t full puppet work but computer generated, it taps into the nation’s nostalgia at a time where we need humour, stupidity and a breakdancing Gerry Anderson marionette.

The next lovable advert was more of a sigh of relief than anything. Vauxhall, advertising their relatively boring family hatchbacks, have done away with the two insufferable children from their Meriva and Zafira adverts. In several ‘original’ and ‘hilarious’ role-reversal adverts, the children were the adults and vice-versa, with the kids musing about their parents playing games and dropping plates, as well as talking to the Indian kid next door who couldn't act for toffee (although I assume the other two could, judging by their build).

The new commercial is, with the help of a decent advertising agency (which I believe to be Lowe), one of the cleverest concepts on TV and could probably be a good basis for a TV show if brainless executives weren't afraid of unique ideas like Arrested Development.

With people changing the landscape to suit their needs - buildings moving inwards to allow cars to drive down alleys, pushing goalposts away into the ground, that sort of thing - Vauxhall have hit the mark by reflecting this image back to their foldaway chairs and spacious MPVs. If I had £15k, a family, a need for a car and a no claims bonus as long as this rant, I’d actually consider thinking about buying one.

As a disclaimer to the final commercial, I don’t really like Saatchi & Saatchi. This is mainly due to Charles' marriage to sexy-but-a-pain-in-the-face Nigella Lawson, who insists on pretending to be a cook for the proletariat yet still insisting on inviting her "friends" to dinner on TV (which all happen to be multi-millionaires).

They did, however, make a very clever advert for Visa recently, based on the popular “get our card, get everything you need, especially if all of your friends are grade A idiots on your stag night” concept. A naked man in the desert runs, picking up various items along the way, to his own wedding, where he arrives suited and booted with a ring, a shave and a sharp suit. Very impressive.

However, advertising is not as blessed as I make it out to be.

Adverts can also show their slovenly side with the most ridiculous money-saving (read: wasting) technique used by European or international companies. The process is:

1) Get rubbish advert from the continent
2) Make no effort to change it to make it culturally relevant
3) Dub it with differently-accented voices
4) Throw it into the British market

The only one that ever got away with it was the ad for Ferrero Rocher at the Ambassador‘s Reception. Still, if you watch it closely it exhibits all of the symptoms of today's lazy advertising - which is a good 20 years forward from this precursor to the trend. I think, given it was the first of its kind, it wasn't too bad; besides, the set wasn't exactly cheap and it's still an immortal advert.

Still, after seeing an advert for a yoghurt made by Dr. Oetker called Paula (I mean, come on...), which is coloured like a cow (white and brown flavour, I assumed), I couldn't help but wonder why the company would go to such effort to make a single-language advert only to re-dub it to make it look shoddy.

If anything, dubbing an advert constitutes a lack of foresight in production. If it's an international product release, it needs a simple voiceover with moving images that can be changed to make it not sound like foreign muck when it hits our screens - just British muck, which is somehow better in our collective eyes.

Of course, we're not without our own disgraceful attempts at advertising. My favourite is definitely for Bold Infusions' White Diamond and Lotus Flower fragrance washing powder. Sorry, what?

What do they smell like?! I’m sure a lotus flower smells nice, but I haven‘t been to Vietnam recently to find out. White diamond though? Why would they market it as a potential fragrance for washing clothing? To make it sound as pretentious as possible? It’s like releasing dodo and panda flavoured crisps.

You can't advertise perfume and aftershave effectively, never mind fragrances that you know don't exist. Still, perfume manufacturers insist on communicating their scent via the strangest of advertising methods:

1) Get attractive man or woman, preferably a famous one you can pay £500,000 for 20 minutes of work
2) Get them to imply that beauty and attraction is all due to the perfume
3) Make it for a 5 to 10 second time slot
4) Make them look coyly into the camera, or make them lark about in general - skipping from post to post as waves crash behind them, for example
5) Show the bottle and say the brand name alone in a gruff yet sexy French accent like "LAH-COST-UH" or "CH'NEHL"

Whether it's Nicole Kidman talking rot for 3 minutes for Chanel No. 5 in an ad directed by Baz Luhrman that cost upwards of £20m (which they'd never get back through sales alone), or that unfeasibly attractive happy-go-lucky scamp on the Lacoste advert, it makes me wait for the day that Willy Wonka perfects his chocolate-via-TV teleportation technology so I can push a nuclear warhead back through my TV just for them.

All-in-all, advertising is the glue that holds TV together - soon to be the foundations upon which programming is built, such as it is in the United States. Whatever happens, I’m not worried - the British humour will always leak through and produce some of the finest works of television. With money to be made and agencies to be hired, things can only get better - but others will still continue to counteract this platform.

The Latest: Pig's head nailed to door of Asian centre

After reading an extraordinary story in the press, I decided to report it on The Latest. Read it on the site or, if you're too lazy to click that link, continue below!


A pig’s head was nailed to the door of an Asian community centre in Cornwall, prompting police to patrol the area after several racist attacks on the building.

In a scene reminiscent of The Godfather, the pig’s head was used as a shock and awe tactic by perpetrators who have built up a steady campaign of hatred against the centre over the last two weeks.

The latest addition to the troubled centre was discovered today in Quenchwell, six miles north of Falmouth, where graffiti has already covered the building, including the words “leave now” and “freedom”.

Tipu Choudhury, the owner of the centre as well as several Indian restaurants in the area, said that he was “saddened and shocked” by the racist elements at work.

The attacks against the community centre, formerly a Methodist chapel which is now used by Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus in the area, prompted Choudhury to question the motives behind the crime.

“I think they have misunderstood the intentions behind the centre,” said Choudhury, adding that the building was not a mosque.

He added that the variety of religions that the centre brings together allows celebration of faith and culture from all backgrounds.

“It is totally out of order,” said Insp Mark Richards of Devon and Cornwall Police.

“The graffiti is offensive not only to Asians, Asian religions, but also to Christians and Cornish nationalists whose name is taken in vain.”

The police plan to update the centre on a daily basis, which will continue to operate as normal.

The Latest (Column): Lock 'em up and throw away the key

After hearing yet another under-sentenced murderer's successful appeal for freedom, it became clear what I had to write about. In this week's column with The Latest, I decided to discuss prisons, and the key to the future of crime. Read it below or directly at The Latest!


Crime’s getting a bit out of hand these days, isn’t it? Although the press make Britain’s knife problems out to be as great a problem here as guns are in America (where they have both guns AND knives), it’s still a sorry state of affairs.

It was again brought to our attention in a slightly higher-profile case when Rob Knox, 18, who plays Marcus Belby in the upcoming Harry Potter film, The Half-Blood Prince, was brutally murdered outside of a London bar.

And yet again, the papers had a field day. It’s perfectly understandable, but for the last few years, a pattern has definitely emerged. With the fickle and unpredictable nature of news generally, the crusade against knife crime or similarly popular evil pastimes rises then dissipates in the wake of a newer, fresher tragedy.

Granted, it’s the same with anything. That’s why news is so interesting. The main problem is caused by the identities of the newspapers themselves, who show their collective intentions through campaigns, extended columns and angled editorials. The only one I know that has survived well is the Daily Mirror’s Honour the Brave Campaign, which even made it into a House of Lords discussion with the backing of Labour peer Lord Lipsey.

Oh, and we can’t forget the Daily Express’ tireless and remarkably dedicated coverage of Princess Diana and Madeleine McCann (I now refer to the paper as Madeliana).

But the current crime pandemic (as I suppose it will have been called somewhere along the line) has a much more simple solution. Newspapers have had t-shirt campaigns, the odd rally and special issues that focus on the problems. Since the jailing of Paris Hilton, which highlighted the need for true justice to be done, the answer becomes much more simple.

Build more prisons. Lots of them. And give them the Kwik Save (R.I.P.) No Frills treatment.

Okay. I’m not saying that we should employ the landscape of a Soviet gulag and the brutality of the Hanoi Hilton, but what is there to fear in prison these days?

Week after week we hear of judges not convicting bonafide criminals because of a lack of prison space. The same thing results in shortened sentences. And yet, particularly for the tiny crimes, fines and penalties are rising. It seems that as a country, Britain prefers the easy route when it comes to crime and punishment (and certainly not Dostoevsky’s).

To balance the justice and have a fair system for all, everyone has to serve the correct time. No more manslaughter convictions getting 2 years with parole in 14 months. No more serial killers getting what seems to be one life sentence. The Americans have got it right - add the sentences together. Give a murderer of five people 250 years. Drop the notion of saying one sentence and actually serving another.

However, the argument for me isn’t in judicial reform - that’s another story, perhaps much bigger than this one. Reform starts at the base.

When Paris Hilton was incarcerated for taking the mick out of the law for too long, she was stuck in Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles - the world’s largest jail. I still think you could make them bigger myself. Although many will complain that it’s an eyesore or similar, it’s the way forward. Build more, or build bigger.

Then again, Alcatraz got it right. Stick it in the middle of nowhere with no chance of escape - drain the enthusiasm out of prisoners and make their time there seem like more of an eternity. No more TVs, restricted radio, no more entertainment. There are plenty of islands in the Outer Hebrides that aren’t inhabited.

And what happened to all this talk about prison ships? Isn’t that a great idea? Stick them in an old converted oil tanker (as they’ll be going for quite cheap soon, I imagine) and stick it in the middle of the sea. Scapa Flow did a good job in the wars, we could just stick them up there.

Finally, Louis Theroux also cottoned onto a large part of American law and order - desert prisons. Give them pink clothing to make them all feel stupid. Give them only-slightly-less-than-condemned food. Make them pay.

I know of no other place where people commit crime just to get in jail, but we hear about it regularly. Why do people do it? To, ironically, have more freedom and control in their lives. This has to stop.

Prison isn’t a matter of money. It’s a matter of how many criminals there are. If prison recalls awful memories for criminals, then they won’t go back - and as such, they won’t repeat offend. I know nothing is ever as simple as that, but you have to start somewhere - and we DO need to start.

The Latest (Column): Shocking Asian disasters and awful human folly

In my third column, I decided to tackle the obvious - the recent disasters in China and Burma, alongside their ramifications and response. You can read it on the front page of The Latest, directly as a story or below!


This time last month, I was hoping for a few shots of lava from Colombia’s Nevado del Huila to brighten up the slow news weeks of April. I didn’t expect that nature would answer my boredom by tenfold.

Now we have two of the most shocking natural disasters in recent times, again engulfing East Asia. Some of the most shocking imagery I’ve seen in recent years has only been outdone by the human idiocy that governs over so many of those affected by the tragedies.

Here’s a recap.

As we all know, both Burma and China have been affected by sheer destruction. On 3 May, Cyclone Nargis swept through the Irawaddy Delta in South East Burma. Currently it has the morbid fame of being the 8th deadliest cyclone ever. With deaths now at over 77,000 with the final total possibly reaching anywhere up to 124,000 lives lost, it is by far the worst tragedy to hit the North Indian Basin, and possibly the worst to claim lives on mainland Asia.

Less than two weeks later, on 12 May, the Wenchuan County disappeared under thousands of tons of rubble after an earthquake, measuring 7.9 Mw, wiped out most of the buildings in the area. With over 32,000 dead (and rising), as well as 220,000 injured and 5 million homeless, it is China’s biggest disaster since the Tangshan earthquake in 1976. Luckily, it doesn’t seem to be approaching the number of fatalities in Tangshan, which could have been anything from 250,000 to 750,000.

So, where did it all go wrong?

If you told people that both China and Burma would have had a major natural disaster, they would have predicted events to have taken the complete opposite directions as to what they did.

Burma, now known as Myanmar, is an ex-colony of Great Britain (which gained independence in 1948) and currently sits second-bottom in the table for Gross Domestic Product between Kiribati and Sao Tome and Principe as measured by the International Monetary Fund in 2007. With infrastructure being very poor and governed by a relatively technophobic military junta, the nation is stranded amidst the terror of the storms.

China, however, is the modern version of the Soviet Union and an extremely rich one at that. The newest superpower and the one that will, sooner or later, turn out to be the strongest, China has (on the whole) a strong and obedient workforce with great communication systems. Productivity is phenomenal, at one point turning private mobile phone ownership from 0 into 200 million - in one year.

And yet Burma refuses aid, cameras and journalists, whilst China openly accepts every single offer. The reason, to me, is very basic.

China, host of the Olympic Games this summer, has hit a crisis of image. With the Olympic torch processions throughout the world - which will be postponed for three days of national mourning - have been marred by protests along every foreign route due to their questionable treatment of Tibet. Although any humanitarian aid mission should be accepted, it’s not hard to believe that China is opening its doors a little early in order to broker stronger ties with the nations that have questioned its moral compass.

However, independence is the key factor in Burma. Although the junta in power has been shown for the tyranny that it seems to be (even struggling to deliver foreign aid 10 miles down the road - aid that they refused for a week after the devastation), their insistence on closed borders, plain clothes policemen and journalist deportation is clearly a sign for the rest of the world that Burma can handle its own problems.

Even if they can’t, and aren’t.

And as the death toll rises in Asia, the help that people have naturally offered to the victims of the latest round of natural disasters is seemingly reduced to politics. Granted, China is acting as it should, but even the more pro-China people of the world would have struggled to predict this political about-face which, to the more cynical members of the Chinese government, may have shown ‘weakness’.

However, it’s the sheer stupidity of Burma that will not be forgotten. Even if they did do something to help domestically, it wouldn’t have helped their international image to turn away foreign aid. As we see more videos of bloated dead bodies floating in the Delta and thousands huddled together under the few surviving structures, we wonder if we could ever help a state that is founded on sheer barbarism.

The Latest: Kasparov gathering interrupted by flying penis

Best. Story. Ever. Read it at The Latest or below!


Garry Kasparov, former chess grandmaster and leader of the Other Russia Movement, was interrupted by a penis-shaped helicopter during a speech to his coalition.

Yes. Really.

The Moscow Times reported today that the incident was a prank caused by “a couple of pro-Kremlin Young Russia activists” who intended to mock the anti-Putin gathering which brought together over 500 followers and press representatives.

His listeners, who ranged from Communists to human rights supporters, were part of Kasparov’s attempt to unite the opposition to the Kremlin with the goal of the “restoration of democracy”, Associated Free Press understands.

Minutes into Kasparov’s speech, a low hum attracted both attention and laughs when the obscene aircraft buzzed over the heads of camera-wielding journalists.

Many of Other Russia’s pre-election campaigns were marred by similar events, but none were as audacious as the most recent bid, which was smashed out of the air by a heavy-handed and humourless party supporter.

The meeting was marked with fierce comments before the farce ensued, with Kasparov blaming the Putin-backed government for “taking the country to the brink of national disaster”.

Tempers heightened when a young woman called Samara read from the group’s founding charter before adding: "We should spit in the face of tsars Putin and Medvedev."

The comments and flying penis follow the controversial national election in March, in which Putin’s candidate, former Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, received 70.3% of the vote.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) refused to monitor the election due to what they believed to be “severe restrictions on its observers by the Russian government”.

You can watch the incident as it happened by following this link.

The Latest: Wife gets life for killing husband with vat of acid

I've found a few shocking stories recently and seem to have a knack for it, so I hope to post a few with The Latest over the next few days (time permitting). Read the following story below or on my blog at The Latest!

A biochemist from California was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole after killing her estranged husband by putting him in a vat of acid.

Larissa Schuster, 47, of Fresno, was convicted in December of murdering husband Timothy with the motive of financial gain.

Nearly a week after he was reported missing in July 2003, Mr. Schuster’s half-dissolved remains were found submerged in a 55-gallon (250 litre) vat of hydrochloric acid in a storage unit his wife had rented.

The Schusters were in the middle of a divorce that was to put an end to a 20 year marriage.

Associated Press reported that prosecutors said that Mrs. Schuster, alongside her former lab assistant James Fagone, used a taser and a chloroform-soaked cloth to immobilise Mr. Schuster.

They then bound his hands and feet before throwing him in the acid head first - probably while he was still alive.

The remains, when found by police, were only intact from the belt buckle down.

Fagone has already been sentenced to life without parole for murder and burglary.

The Schusters’ adult daughter, Kristin, told the court that she felt much safer knowing that her mother was in jail.

"I've been living for five years not knowing if I would have to worry for my own safety," she said.

"In your quest to become a dominating power freak, you became your own demon. You have hurt me for so many years and probably smiled inside, but look who's smiling now."

The Latest: Tennis champion Henin announces shock retirement

Firstly, I apologise for the lack of updates - aside from my blog and the odd picture post, I haven't had much time for article writing. You know how it is. Anyway, I decided to take a very current affairs story - the retirement of Justine Henin - and create a short story for The Latest. Read it below, or directly at the site!


The world of tennis has been left reeling after Justine Henin, the world number one, announced her retirement with immediate effect.

Henin, 25, had recently experienced bad form and pulled out of this week’s Rome Masters, citing fatigue as the factor.

However, nobody expected what was to come from the Belgian during today’s press conference, just two weeks before the French Open - a tournament she has won for the last three years.

"I thought long about this," Henin said, with tears in her eyes. "I started thinking about it late last year. I was at the end of the road. I leave with my head held high."

Winning 10 tournaments last year alone, alongside seven Grand Slams in four years, Henin insisted that she would not go back on her decision to retire.

"This is the end of a child's dream,” she continued. "I have experienced everything I could have. I have lived completely for tennis.

"I am relieved and proud of what I achieved."

Many rated Henin as the greatest woman to play tennis in recent years. Although only 5’5” and weighing 9 stone, she was able to overcome it with a devastating one-handed backhand - a rare skill that was stronger than most of her opponents’ double-handed efforts.

John McEnroe described her as “the Roger Federer of women’s tennis”.

Martina Navratilova, winner of 18 Grand Slams, went further in 2007, saying that “maybe the guys have 'the male Justine Henin', because she is just head and shoulders above everyone else right now".

But with a recent divorce from Pierre-Yves Hardenne, as well as a car accident involving her eldest brother in 2007, her personal life has caused her problems on and off the court.

Henin joins fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters, who also reached world number one, in retiring early from the sport. Clijsters, who called time on her career in 2007 aged 23, is now married and has become a mother, giving birth to Jada Ellie in late February.

Henin’s announcement also means that she will not be defending her Olympic gold for women’s singles in Beijing this summer.

It is thought that Henin is to continue her work with her tennis academy, Club Justine N1, which opened last November in Limelette, a French speaking part of Belgium.

The Latest: I hope you can live with yourself, London.

After hearing the inevitable result at the London mayoral election, I felt I needed to voice my opinions on something I am still having trouble processing. Read below, or go to my blog entry at The Latest.

Sometimes Labour is blamed for everything. As the Government, it’s bound to happen.

As a left-winger I’m disappointed in Labour - firstly for losing such a great lead over the decimated Tories, but secondly, and possibly most importantly, getting complacent enough to step into the amount of pitfalls it has.

On the scale of parties representing my views, I am now somewhat apolitical.

But for once, anti-Government sentiments seem to have resulted in one good casualty. Ken Livingstone, the man who orchestrated the Olympics coming to London - the man who brought American sports to the capital - the man who set up Britain’s first register for same sex couples - the man who dealt with the London bombings like a true professional and citizen - has been ousted by an utter buffoon.

I never seriously thought that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, the man who refers to black people as ‘piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’ - the man who insulted the entire cities of Liverpool and Portsmouth - the man who forgot the name of his OWN book halfway through writing, giving it a different name on the dust cover to the book itself - the only non-Londoner of the three candidates - has somehow found his way into the most important job in London.

Another character in David Cameron’s Etonian regime, Boris Johnson, the man who couldn’t even snort cocaine properly (due to sneezing… seriously), has somehow overcome his multicultural incompetence to land himself with a multi-billion pound budget, surfing on the successes of Red Ken’s eight years of relative success.

Who would have thought that bringing back Routemasters - the dilapidated, unsafe transport of yesteryear - would have swung it in his favour so much (even though it will cost over £100m more a year to run them)?

Who would have thought that the candidate backed by no less than the BNP for being a joke - or being the closest to their policies - would have been at the front of the queue?

Who would have thought that Johnson, made into a pseudo-celebrity for being an utter idiot on Have I Got News For You, ridiculed thoroughly by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, would have triumphed on the greatest political battleground in Britain?

One thing’s for sure - it seems that people aren’t so much voting for Boris as they are for Not Ken.

It has already led comedian Richard Herring to say that he “is disappointed in you London - in half of you anyway”. I don’t think he’s far wrong either.

But you can guarantee - Boris will mess it up. Like George W. Bush, it only takes one unforgivable quote to seal an idiot’s demise. Cue HIGNFY, Bremner, Bird and Fortune and all manner of current affairs quiz shows to parade just how wrong London was tonight. For the next four years, no less. Well done London.

The Latest (Column): Kampusch Times Ten - The Story of Josef Fritzl

As my second column's personal deadline dawned on what was, to me, a boring newsweek, the Journalism Gods handed me what can be considered as story of the year for its sheer shock value. I try to make sense of the horror that was revealed in Austria this week. Below is my original cut - if you want to read the sub-edited version, please visit the ever-wonderful The Latest.


You know, until recently, Austria didn’t seem to be that interesting. Only famous for a local Archduke’s assassination leading to the First World War and the Anschluss that was a precursor to the Second World War, it is of no surprise that the Green Party and liberal politics have been the way forward since 1945 in this traditionally quiet part of Europe.

And then the cameras came in 2006. Natascha Kampusch, abducted at age 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil, escaped her kidnapper after eight years of being locked up in a small cellar under the garage of her captor’s house. In a story practically made for a Five Extraordinary Lives documentary to follow The Girls with Too Much Skin and Half Man Half Tree (I kid you not), Kampusch’s story ended up selling for €290 per minute of interview footage to more than 120 countries.

Natascha Kampusch

After the media frenzy died down, Austria returned to its usual Schrammelmusik, Apfelstrudel and Roman Catholic ways.

That was, of course, until yesterday, when a story I can only refer to as Kampusch Times Ten unfolded before the media’s eyes.

Here’s the story, summarised to the best of my abilities. Josef Fritzl, 73, turned himself in to police in his home town of Amstetten, a town 80 miles west of the capital Vienna. Over 23 years ago on 28 August 1984, he lured his 18-year-old daughter Elisabeth into the cellar, drugging her and handcuffing her before locking her up behind an electronic door which only he had the code for.

The cellar’s chambers - which were divided into a kitchen, bathroom and sleeping quarters - were soundproofed and windowless.

And so it began.

To cover his tracks, he made his daughter write a letter stating that she had run away. Until his arrest, he sexually abused his daughter, resulting in seven children - one of which, a twin, died shortly after childbirth. Josef disposed of the body in the incinerator.

Elisabeth and three of the children stayed in the ‘dungeon’ and never saw daylight. The other three were mysteriously left by ‘Elisabeth’ at the door of the family home and later cared for by Josef, his apparently unknowing wife Rosemarie, and the seven other children the couple had. Seriously.

It all came to an end when Kerstin, the first-born 19-year-old daughter who remained in the cellar her entire life, was admitted to hospital on 19 April 2008 due to a critical illness which currently holds her in a coma. On the same day, the police issued a statement to search for her mother, who was still widely believed to be elsewhere in Austria.

And then Josef gave up - but not without another lie first, telling his wife that his daughter had ‘returned home’, with her three other children in tow. On Saturday 26, the police picked Josef and Elisabeth up, with Josef arrested the day after and Elisabeth’s children all placed into care, as well as Elisabeth herself.

So the authorities failed, right? Wrong. How could they have ever known? I do, however, firmly disbelieve the claims of Rosemarie Fritzl, who was ‘completely unaware’ of what happened. It reminded me of John “dead but not dead” Darwin’s wife, Anne, who denied six charges of deception even though there was a photo of the pair in Panama during John’s ‘dead years’.

Still, the crimes of Fritzl are utterly loathsome and, above all, simply scary to think of in any detail. However, I can’t help but afford Fritzl some credit to his intelligence. As much as the designs he drew upon his 18-year-old daughter are beyond comprehensible, the man is clearly clever, and almost military in his level of planning.

Image courtesy of the BBC in their "Inside Josef Fritzl's cellar dungeon" article.

His cellar, as small as it was, had all the facilities needed and was actually decorated (which, again, could not have gone under Rosemarie’s radar). The walls were soundproof, he was the only one who knew the code to the electronic doors, and although he certainly didn’t (want to) consider contraception, he was able to deliver the babies inside the house and relocate half of them with a suitable alibi.

I don’t know if Stockholm Syndrome applies to this situation yet, if at all (particularly given it was a family member that did it), but it certainly can’t have been easy for anybody involved at any point. The worst thing is that it may be less merciful for the cellar children to have survived. I don’t think medicine, psychology or cultural re-education could ever help the unfortunate ones back into society.

If anything, Josef Fritzl could be considered a serial killer without ever having murdered anybody. His actions reach deeper into his victims, the community, the country and the world at large. The survivors will have to live with the psychological and physical misery that he inflicted upon them.

In a world filled with copycat crimes, trends and anti-hero idolisation, it makes one wonder if something similar, if not worse, is currently going on somewhere else - perhaps closer to home.

And even after the shock of Kampusch’s 8-year ordeal, not even Austria was prepared for something like this. Sadly, I think it has made many more people live in fear of something to outdo the newest addition to Austria’s Greatest Criminals.

The Latest: Beckham Mania hits fever pitch

After hearing this utterly crazy (yet totally believable) story from America, I decided to collate my sources and rewrite it as a report for The Latest. Read it at their website or continue below!

David Beckham’s generosity has led to two children being on opposite sides of a court case.
After a game between Japan’s Gamba Osaka and Beckham’s LA Galaxy in the Pan-Pacific Championship at Hawaii’s Aloha Stadium, the former England captain offered his famous number 23 jersey to the two former best friends.
A scrum-like battle between the two children, aged 9 and 10, was resolved by a police officer, who handed the sweaty white shirt to the son of Wilfred and Yoshika Ho.
“My boy got the shirt,” said Mr. Ho, citing the front page photo of the altercation in an edition of The Honolulu Advertiser. “Their kid started to pry at it.”

But the parents of the other child, Eric and Yoshika Kerr, claim that the jersey was initially arranged to be held in joint custody - one that the Hos are failing to honour. It was this that resulted in Mr. Kerr hiring a lawyer to send a formal letter to the Hos.
“Why not let the kids share?” said Mr. Kerr. “Becks is such a big star and it’s one heck of an experience for the boys.”
Mr. Kerr went on to cite his son’s use of a sign to attract the attention of Beckham as the catalyst for the superstar’s offer.
“He pointed out that he wanted our son to have it. How do you explain this to a 10-year-old?
“We just want them to keep their end of the bargain.”
But Mr. and Mrs. Ho deny any knowledge of this agreement. “When we tried to clarify that we were the owners they got upset so we never let them borrow the shirt,” said Mrs. Ho.
David Beckham has not commented on the situation, but LA Galaxy’s club president, Alexei Lalas, was in “utter disbelief” at the situation and offered a simple yet effective solution to the problem: “I suggest that they get a pair of scissors, cut the thing in two and give half to each.”

The Latest: World's door to hell fire

The other day on my blog, I picked up on an amazing story through English Russia. After trying to fathom the translation from the website, I decided to do a bit of research into it, finding inaccuracies in the reports from elsewhere. That's the value of reading up I suppose! Anyway, the story made the front page of The Latest today. Read the article directly here, or by continuing on below...

Thirty-five years ago, geologists searching for natural gas near Darvaza, Turkmenistan, stumbled upon a chamber filled with poisonous gas after their drilling equipment caused the ground around it to collapse. With their camps and equipment already established tens of meters below ground level and an extremely profitable resource at stake, securing the tunnel’s safety seemed to be the only choice.

So, with no other option available, they decided to get rid of the poisonous threat once and for all… with fire.

And now, in 2008, the fires are still burning. Casting an eerie glow in the middle of an arid desert, the locals have named the crater “The Door To Hell”, and the pictures support the claim.

Nobody knows how many tons of gas have been wasted, but the flames have never showed any sign of dying down. If anything, they’re burning brighter than ever.

And for all of the waste and idiocy surrounding its creation, the true beauty of the site has not been picked up on by any major news source. The internet, specifically English Russia which is dedicated to all areas of the former Soviet Union, has provided the images and video through a Russian contributor.

And as they quite rightly say: “something cool happens daily on 1/6 of the Earth’s surface”.

A video at the site can be found at YouTube by clicking here (mislabeled there and on English Russia as being in Uzbekistan). If you have Google Earth, the co-ordinates are 40°15'8.90"N 58°26'24.00"E.

Images of the "Door to Hell" can be viewed here: http://englishrussia.com/?p=1830

The Latest: Metroland closes its doors for the last time

To mourn the loss of one of the North East's childhood favourites, I've written another news article for The Latest to inform people about the closure of Metroland. Read it at The Latest or below!


EUROPE’S largest indoor theme park, Metroland, officially closed yesterday after 20 years of widespread popularity.

Part of the MetroCentre in Gateshead, Britain’s largest shopping centre, Metroland is now being dismantled with every ride being sold to the highest bidder.

Unveiled in 1988 at a cost of £20m, Metroland operated 12 major rides including a roller coaster, alongside amusement arcades and a food hall, and attracted one million people a year.

The MetroCentre, which was valued at an estimated £7 billion in late 2007, plans to expand the Yellow Mall area of the complex with a new Odeon cinema and additional shops to expand further from its 165,000m² floor space.

“We did run rather an extensive campaign and we received about 2,500 responses to it, but unfortunately it didn’t go to plan in the end,” said Craig Strong, park supervisor at Metroland.

“We weren’t able to save Metroland, but we did put up a good fight.”

With the Wonderful Waveswinger and Whirling Waltzers now packed away and plans already in motion to convert the existing Odeon cinema into more shops, many customers are lamenting the loss of the largest part of the MetroCentre’s individuality.

And with more theme parks closing down across the country, it is hard to disagree with them.

The Latest (Column): The Pope attempts to make it in America, and the romantic tragedy of Mark Speight

After being asked by the staff at The Latest to become a featured columnist, I happily accepted their offer. Each week, starting from now, I’m reflecting on stories in the news that many may not have picked up on, or popular topics and casting my own spin on them. I'm encouraging feedback and topic proposals too to keep myself on my toes. Below is the raw cut of my column, unedited by The Latest. If you want to read the edited copy on the site, click here to go straight there!


So, Pope Benedict XVI has landed in America and is now most of the way through his six-day visit. I’m still not too sure why he chose the United States as his first international trip, although I see it as no coincidence that he celebrates his 81st birthday inside the White House. Perhaps it’s a holiday destination of choice.

The one thing that does make me wonder, however, is the fact that he’s spoken for the fourth time in five days about the problems surrounding the vast amount of Catholic priests - more than 4,000 since 1950 - that have been accused of sexual abuse towards children.

It seems that Catholicism isn’t having a crisis of faith under the increase in pressure from a rapidly modernising world, but a crisis of image. I think it speaks volumes that in recent years - at least with the last two Papal appointments - the Catholic Church has looked outside of Italy for their human-based God hotline. Given a lot of this image problem lies in the Western world, it seems that the US may have been the best base for a religious push. Only after apologising a few times, though.

I still believe the Catholic Church has yet to break from the old routine. Being subject to such a rigid prepositional approach to The Bible, their beliefs aren’t going to change. It wasn’t until 1992 that the Pope admitted to imprisoning Galileo Galilei for proving that the Earth was not stationary (and as such that the Universe was not anthropocentric as The Bible decreed).

Still, the image is flexible. The Pope could do with being younger, for one.Perhaps with age comes the innate ability to remain conservative with ethics, which is the balance I assume Catholicism is trying to uphold. I’m just glad that Ratzinger’s appointment forewent the need to give it to someone with every illness that God could throw at him, as with Pope John Paul II.


Back at home, I’ve mainly been taken by the circumstances surrounding the death of former CBBC presenter Mark Speight and his fianceé Natasha Collins. You hear of plenty of celebrity deaths happening, but this has a whole romantic tragedy element to it - a modern Romeo and Juliet twist, one may say.

She was young and attractive and met a grim death through a drugs-based heart attack in a bathtub, getting 60% burns to her body. Days later, Speight was accused of supplying Class A drugs and murder. It turned out to be a misplaced theory, but to see a man like Mark Speight - one of the most energetic and friendly presenters around - take such a staggering free-fall in such a short space of time is not easy to ignore.

Speight was found hanging from a secluded rooftop, metres away from thousands of daily commuters at Paddington Station. It accentuated the loneliness that Mark found after Natasha’s death. It is not often that I am affected by widely-publicised tragedy - what with the media circus surrounding any such event - but I feel sorry for all people involved.


Speaking of media circuses, a little-read story surrounded Tuesday’s seismic activity in Colombia. The Nevado del Huila, Colombia’s third-highest peak, was spewing smoke and ash, forcing the evacuation and relocation of thousands of locals.

Now call me old fashioned, but you can't beat a good old natural disaster to spark up a boring news channel. Not that I'm wishing death on those unfortunate enough to be near by - far from it - but volcanoes are spectacular, and as we've seen from the evacuations in South America, it would probably have been relatively trouble free.

As a journalist and a consumer, it is almost as if you can put your feet up for a while because the stories write themselves and the videos are enchanting. I still remember the pictures from the Mt. Etna eruption in 1992. I don't want another Armero tragedy - just a few pictures of lava, and the usual "look how hot it is!" journalist with a frying pan, cracking an egg over the molten rock and seeing it reduced to cinders in seconds. Even if the Daily Express disagrees, it sure beats 6 hours of a trained camera on the McCann’s hotel in Praia da Luz, Spain.


Finally, I was taken aback by the recent advert on BBC One for Bianca’s return to EastEnders. It was marked by Bianca and her illegitimate children singing ABC by the Jackson 5 (get it?! Her last name's Jackson. Sigh), which is possibly the most light-hearted thing that EastEnders writers have produced in their lives.

We were soon brought back down to Earth in the first re-entry episode, which depicted Bianca crying herself to sleep whilst her kids slept soundly in a bus shelter. It didn't remind me of Dancing Machine, that was for sure. I don't think the Jackson 5 was the correct choice of music to accompany her promotional shoot. Maybe Radiohead.

It’s the tragedy known as original programming. Without EastEnders and similar soaps, most channels would be redundant.

The Latest: Being an MEP Izz 'ard? Not for Eddie

Given many other commitments elsewhere, I have been pushed for time to write articles. Luckily I have some free time now so I am able to continue for The-Latest, alongside my work on my blog and Photoshop gallery. Today's piece concerns my favourite comedian, Eddie Izzard, and his potential future career. Read it below or visit The Latest directly to see it!



EDDIE Izzard, one of Britain’s leading stand-up comedians and actors, told Newsweek yesterday of his desire to become a politician in the European Parliament.

Izzard, 46, strongly advocates the European Union - now the largest international democratic electorate in the world - and told the New York magazine that people have “got to make it work in Europe”.

Izzard believes that the EU does not compromise the identities of nation states, but brings them together for the collective good of all Europeans.

“People are very worried about sovereignty and the loss of sovereignty,” Izzard continued. “I think the stakes are if we don't make the European Union work, then the world is screwed. End of story.”

The United Kingdom has long been traditionally cynical of European federalism, but Izzard has regularly spoken out against these views citing the European Commission’s agreement for subsidiarity amongst member states - a policy of local governance as outlined by the Maastricht Treaty of 1993.

In 2005 on BBC‘s Question Time, Izzard went on to describe himself as “British-European,” comparing it to the term “African-American”.

And with the success of the European Regional Development Fund and humanitarian aid programs, alongside the growing strength of the Euro, Izzard’s comments come at a time where national beliefs are changing.

The fervent pro-European campaigning of Izzard was awarded with two honorary doctorates in Letters from the Universities of East Anglia and Sheffield after his comedy was seen to have “transcended national barriers,” particularly in light of his successful multilingual stand-up performances in France and Germany.

And with his recent international success in FX’s The Riches and Hollywood blockbuster Ocean’s 13, Izzard may not fully commit to his proposal yet - but if he does, he will no doubt be successful.

Izzard begins his eighth stand-up tour, Stripped, on April 28 in Boston, and stars alongside Tom Cruise in upcoming war epic Valkyrie.

Monkey Business: Paradise Lost

I wrote another article for the Monkey Business' last issue of the season - this time about the season as a whole. It's more to highlight the ups and downs of Hartlepool United's season from my perspective. Click on the images for bigger versions of the Bizz's front cover and my published article!


For the first time in seven years, I’m experiencing a close of season where Pools don’t seem to have anything to play for.

And regardless of my view at the beginning of the season that a mid-table finish would be perfect for Pools’ re-establishment in League One, I can’t help but feel a little cheated.

A sequence of events early in the season should have told us all what to expect. After a convincing 4-2 win at table toppers Leyton Orient gave us a great starting position in the league, we then fell apart in a disastrous display at home to then-bottom Walsall.

Surely our cup performances would give us some early season fun, maybe a little money? After an inspired performance by Foley away to Scunthorpe, we had all of about 1.3 shots on target at Hillsborough in a 2-1 defeat that was more comprehensive than the need for extra time suggested.



At least there was always the Paint Pot Trophy to have a crack at. Great away wins at Chesterfield and Lincoln gave us hope, but then we lose at home to Conference fodder Morecambe. What was worse was that Carlisle, Donny and Leeds also went out, leaving a possible choice of Stockport, Grimsby or Bury. Christ.

At least we had a patsy with Gainsborough in the FA Cup though, with an easy ticket to the second round after slapping them about 6-0 in Lincolnshire - no Havant & Waterlooville dream for them, that was for sure. A draw to Hereford gave us hope for a real team in the third round, but that went out of the window after a thorough pants-down spanking at Edgar Street.

We could focus on the league though , yeah? Well maybe, if we hadn’t already been three games into a drought that would see us pick up two points from a possible 36 away from home.

It was at about this time that Wilson’s job was in question. Granted, he was near messianic last season in his near-perfect season, sticking to the tradition of foregoing the silverware in the last few games. We were too good for that, anyway.

His choices were questionable though and for so long too, only choosing what many regard to be our strongest XI with ten games to go. Monkhouse disappeared from the face of the earth after an alleged falling out with Wilson (and getting his longest game on Soccer AM’s Crossbar Challenge); Porter was behind Barker, the king of penalties; and McCunnie was replaced with cardboard cut-outs from month-long loans in the likes of Danny Coles.

Oh, and some fella called Budtz was in goal all the time. Remember him? I’m still trying to forget.



Even our great new signing seemed to have the odds stacked against him. The mention of Collins’ name would regularly get “who hell he?” responses from fans who barely got to see him before an extended four match ban for a relatively innocuous challenge.

Still, it seems that Pools have completely changed in the space of a season. After leaving the comfort of League Two, we’re without a consistent defence and goalkeeper - two things that were hardly ever criticised before. Scoring goals just isn’t the problem - we’re top scorers at home, and a top five team for overall, but even the likes of Admiral Nelson would agree that their performance was somewhat lacklustre this year.

And after a surprising run of three wins, Pools showed how poor League One was. From being five points from relegation, we were then 7 points from the playoffs. Now neither seems achievable. With Luton and Bournemouth seeing administration and Port Vale doing a lower league impersonation of Derby, it’s down to two or three other teams to scrap it out until the final game - and it doesn’t look like Pools are one of them.

For me, it’s paradise lost as a Pools fan. Not so long ago, we were at the top of a poll for overly-optimistic fans in our league. Over-expectation was not an issue this year though - we COULD have done it. Had the true starting XI been picked every game, we may have. If the players could remember how to pass from game to game, we may have. If Budtz was a goalkeeper, we may have. Who knows?

I’m just a bit shell-shocked that I don’t feel the need to care over the last few games of the season - so many other fans feel the same.

But, for all his mismanagement, I want Wilson to stay. I like the bloke. I think he’s finally learned from his mistakes. And luckily, statistics don’t lie - after a bit of reading up and some shopping, I can see us fighting for promotion again.

Please, Danny. Make it happen.