It was the unofficial London wrap party for Dancing On Ice late Monday night at Zilli Fish on Brewer Street.
Chloe and Sam, Laura Hamilton and Johnson all headed down to the iconic Soho restaurant, after Denise Welch called celebrity pal Aldo Zilli out of bed to come and cook for them at midnight.
Aldo cooked up a treat of freshly made pasta, risotto and lobster for the hungry contestants.
By 3am, Denise was still in the mood to party but everyone else decided to call it a night.
PSN Network goes down –
Another day – another day without the Playstation Network (PSN) being up and running.
Shut down on the 20th for what many gamers thought might be just a couple of hours, annoyingly hours then turned into days and with bank holiday Monday now well and truly over and the Royal Wedding on the horizon – online gaming on the PS3 has now ground to a complete halt.
If the news reports are to be believed then our worst fears have been confirmed.
“Hackers have seized control of gamers details” “Sony are asking for gamers to check their accounts for ID fraud”
The current situation has got gamers screaming at their screens ‘Just what the hell is going on Sony!’
Sony came clean a few days ago admitting that the service was compromised by hackers. The outside ‘intrusion’ was apparently so severe that it warranted one of the key people in the high level of the food chain within Sony to throw the ‘kill switch’ to prevent further damage. As a result, the company disabled the service Wednesday evening last week to investigate the matter, an official statement indicated.
Spokesperson for Sony Patrick Seybold said “An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services,” Temporary closure to the service was done “to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward”
Regrettably this is not the first time Sony has shut their PSN Network and then blamed the issue on outside ‘intrusion’. Scouring other sites gives clues that point the finger towards hacking group ‘Anonymous’, however they were quick on Thursday to deny any involvement in the matter. The group is reportedly not happy with Sony over its treatment of hacker George Hotz – you know the chap, the one who became infamous over his hacking into Iphones and was filmed having hacked into a PS3 so that it would run an open source version of Linux.
This was like a kick in the teeth for Sony; the PS3 was previously thought of as virtually un-hackable that was until Hotz got his mitts on it, so they promptly took him to court and charged him with copyright infringement. This intrusion is a bit like ripples on a pond because it risks drawing out other hackers who might have an axe to grind with Sony or might see it as an opportunity to gain reputation.
All the while gamers are the ones left suffering and Sony stupidly left its gamers in the dark for quite some time and in doing so risked damaging their reputation.
Understandably they are getting angry. One gamer posts on his site: ‘Thanks to you Sony I had to talk to my wife over Easter – thanks a lot!’ and there are some rumours / propaganda circulating from the XBOX fraternity urging gamers to now switch sides and get an XBOX if they want to be playing online by the next bank holiday.
So why is this situation driving gamers into a frenzy? Well, PS3 users rely on the network to play online content and gain enhanced features from their games. Titles such as the recent release of Mortal Kombat and Crysis 2 are heavily dependant on online play; to put it simply without it games have limited life spans, PSN is also the source for demos, trailers and downloadable content and the main centre for gamers to play together online. Far be it without the network gamers would have no choice but to be social again and we can’t have that can we?
Jokes aside there is a very serious side to this, because if your account details have been compromised, copied or cloned it will be really hard to check for internet or identity fraud until it is too late. So the advice is to go into your bank (rather than online) and check all your statements for anything suspicious. Any questionable withdrawals or payments you should raise directly with the bank’s fraud team. Passwords are equally a big issue because many people use the same passwords for a range of different accounts. It makes sense for all users to change their passwords.
In terms of when the PSN will be back up and running Sony posted this blog yesterday “We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.”
For some gamers, a week is way too long to wait. I await with baited breath, Sony have always had a tight grip on their console network and it has always been free to users. Let’s hope this matter gets resolved.
NASA is partnering with other federal agencies to fund new research and applications efforts that will bring the global view of climate from space down to Earth to benefit wildlife and key ecosystems.
NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Smithsonian Institution will provide $18 million for 15 new research projects during the next four years. Organizations across the United States in academia, government and the private sector will study the response of different species and ecosystems to climate changes and develop tools to better manage wildlife and natural resources. The projects were selected from 151 proposals.
NASA’s Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate has funded several ecosystem and biodiversity research projects during recent years. This is the first time the agency has targeted research investigating the intersection of climate and biological studies.
The wildlife species that will be studied include polar bears in Greenland, bowhead whales in the Arctic Ocean, and migratory birds and waterfowl in the United States. Other studies will focus on species of commercial interest such as clams, oysters and other bivalves in U.S. coastal waters, and Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico.
To learn more about climatic effects on plants, researchers will focus on the loss of cordgrass marshes in coastal wetlands of the southeastern states. They also will examine the stresses to native tree species, many of commercial value, across the western states and Canada.
“We know very little about how the majority of species and ecosystems will respond to environmental changes related to changing climates,” said Woody Turner, manager of NASA’s Ecological Forecasting program in Washington. “These projects bring together NASA’s global satellite data of the physical environment with ground-based data on specific species and ecosystems and computer modeling to detect and understand biological responses to climate. As a result, we will improve our management and mitigation of the impact of changing climate.”
The studies will use long-term observations of Earth from space, including data on sea surface temperature, vegetation cover, rainfall, snow cover, sea ice and the variability in the microscopic marine green plants that form the base of ocean food chains.
One study seeks to determine how waterfowl and forest bird populations respond to extreme events such as long-term droughts, heat waves and cold snaps. Wildlife biologists like Patricia Heglund of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in La Crosse, Wis., the leader of the study, have several hypotheses, including lower reproduction rates and adult mortality. Satellite data will be used to map the habitats and identify extreme events in the continental United States.
Another study will seek to explain why the distribution of native tree species across the western states and Canada is changing and why some species are dying as the climate becomes progressively warmer and drier. Scientists have used computer models to explain how environmental stresses have affected tree species in the Pacific Northwest. The new study, led by Richard Waring of Oregon State University in Corvallis, will extend that research to the entire Rocky Mountain west and 25 native tree species, including aspen and lodgepole pine.
A project led by Mitchell Roffer of Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service in West Melbourne, Fla., aims to improve existing models to predict spawning habitat of Atlantic bluefin and other migratory tunas in the Gulf of Mexico. The model will assess possible effects of future climate change scenarios on fish populations.
According to Turner, the most ambitious project in terms of scale will use a global inventory of data from about 1,000 species, merged with satellite and ground-based observations of the environment and climate. These data will be used to assess climate’s impact on biodiversity during the past 40 years in two 20-year increments. The study, led by Walter Jetz of Yale University, will focus on land-based mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.
For a complete list of the new projects, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_partners.html
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
SOURCE NASA
Few people manage to capture the publics attention, but it is fair to say that Catherine Middleton is huge right now. She’s bigger than a movie star, just as famous as Diana, she’s (arguably) more popular than her fiancee Prince William. If you google “Kate Middleton” you get 51,700,000 hits. If you google “Catherine Middleton” you get 8,600,000.
The tale of a commoner (okay, millionaires over privileged daughter) done good is a story usually only read in fairytale. Yet on the 29th Miss Middleton will walk down the aisle and marry into royalty. Yet to call her a millionaire’s daughter doesn’t really scratch the truth of the surface. Her mother was a flight attendant (snobbishly nicknamed “doors to manual” by Williams posh friends), it doesn’t take long to find coalminers in her family history. This is what makes her fresh. The royal family need her to make them relevant again. The Queen and Prince Philip are cousins, he of Greek royalty.
Catherine Elizabeth “Kate” Middleton was born on 9 January 1982, she grew up on Bucklebury, Berkshire. Her parents Carole and Michael. She is the eldest and has a sister, Phillipa, and a brother, James. She met Prince William in 2001 when they were both studying at the University of St Andrews. They lived together (and at one point were both seeing other people), they became a couple. There have been two break ups, including one in 2007 that lasted a few months. Kate stayed friends with William and the romance was rekindled. During the break up Kate went out a lot, always looking stunning, and mostly with Williams friends.
It seems naïve that when Kate started dating William she complained about harassment through her lawyer saying “she had done nothing significant to warrant such publicity.” She must have known that you cannot date royalty and come out unscathed. She has had Royal Protection officers since 2006. Kate has done more than her fair share of work on the relationship. She has learned how to shoot, joining a royal deerstalking party in Scotland in 2007, Kate and William had broken up that year and it was a make or break trip. They had broken up because Prince William felt he was too young to get married and because he was too close, and disclosed too much, to ex-girlfriends.
At the Concert for Diana they were just friends but after the shooting party she moved in with William at Clarence House. The home of the Prince of Wales, William’s father. When Kate’s parents were photographed on a stalking trip to Scotland three years later the press went into overdrive. Like Kate they were given shooting lessons. The shooting party was hosted by William and was at his father’s residence, Birkhall. The Middleton’s were all doing their best to fit in and have some royal fun. Kate has said of Prince Charles: “I was quite nervous about meeting William’s father, but he was very, very welcoming, very friendly. It couldn’t have gone easier for me.”
Kate will shortly become Princess or Duchess, she already has her own coat of arms and will be going to Canada for her first Royal tour after her honeymoon. She has come a long way after seeing Prince William playing hockey at her school, from becoming his house mate. She will become the first Queen to have a degree. She hasn’t had any career as such, working at Jigsaw as an accessory buyer and then for her parents. Always on call for William, working her life around his. And now she will become his Queen. Let’s wish her luck, she might need it.
Update: Kate has become Duchess of Cambridge and William Duke of Camdridge. Kate’s dress was designed by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen.
Comedian Keith Lemon is asking people to make like their favourite shade-wearing celebrities and support Teenage Cancer Trust’s annual ‘Rock Your Shades’ day on Friday 6 May. Whether it’s in the style of Lady Gaga, Tinie Tempah or even Elton John, Keith wants everyone to wear their shades with attitude and donate to the cause.
Whether you’re at work, school, indoors or out, the charity is asking people to act like Jay-Z and Beyonce, by strutting your stuff and wearing your sunnies. In return, the charity is asking people to donate £1 to Teenage Cancer Trust and help young people across the UK fight cancer.
To make the event even more exciting, Teenage Cancer Trust has teamed up with TOPMAN and a group of young cancer patients who were treated on a Teenage Cancer Trust unit, to design four pairs of unique ‘Rock Your Shades’ sunglasses. These cool shades can be purchased from all TOPMAN stores from 16 April and will cost £15 each, with £5 of every pair sold donated to the charity.
For those wanting to get more involved, there’s a range of suggestions on the charity’s website, such as holding fancy dress sunglass wearing themed celebrity parties where you can imitate stars like Kanye West, Bono or even Dame Edna Everage! Or you can even run a ‘bling your shades’ competition at work or a sunglasses-themed bake sale.
Keith is currently hosting ITV1’s new primetime entertainment show, Sing if You Can, alongside Queen of the Jungle Stacey Solomon. Every episode will see two celebrity teams trying to deliver the best performances of hits and classics whilst taking on extraordinary challenges designed to distract them. The hosts will unleash an abundance of thrilling and comical challenges that will test the stars as never before. Each week the winning team will go through to the end game ‘The Money Spinner’, to be in with a chance of winning up to £20,000 for Teenage Cancer Trust.
‘Rock Your Shades’ is derived from Teenage Cancer Trust’s strong rock heritage. With help from the charity’s long-standing patron, The Who’s Roger Daltrey CBE, Teenage Cancer Trust has been staging sell-out annual gigs at the Royal Albert Hall for the past eleven years. The concerts have become a staple of the music calendar and this year saw acts such as Squeeze, Beady Eye, Biffy Clyro and Tinie Tempah taking to the stage. The proceeds of the shows and Rock Your Shades helps give teenagers the fight and attitude they need to beat cancer.
Every day six young people in the UK are told they have cancer. Usually placed on a children’s ward or with elderly patients, young people often feel extremely isolated when facing a cancer diagnosis, never meeting another young person going through the same thing. Teenage Cancer Trust believes teenagers shouldn’t stop being teenagers because they have cancer and so fund and build specialist units in NHS hospitals that allow young people to be treated together with others their own age, in an environment suited to their needs.
Teenage Cancer Trust units aren’t like ordinary cancer wards. Their home-from-home atmosphere helps create a sense of normality. The state-of-the-art units are bright and vibrant and will often include things like pool tables, jukeboxes, games consoles, computers and webcams, ensuring they can keep in touch with family friends outside hospital. Alongside all of this is a medical team of teenage cancer specialists whose knowledge creates a body of expertise that’s second to none.
To make your £1 donation and for more ‘Rock Your Shades’ fundraising ideas please visit www.teenagecancertrust.org/rockyourshades or call 020 7612 0370. To purchase the Teenage Cancer Trust Rock Your Shades sunglasses please visit one of its 165 stores or online at www.topman.com
First time buyers are finding it increasingly difficult to get on the property ladder. Incomes and property prices remain distorted and banks have become increasingly stringent.
With the situation as it is many first time buyers are turning to shared equity housing schemes. Instead of buying the whole of a property you only buy a percentage. The local government housing authority or a building company own the rest. You pay rent on the remaining percentage but the amount you borrow is significantly reduced and so are your mortgage repayments. You also require a smaller deposit.
The government loves the scheme, it helps the construction industry and keeps the property market booming.
As someone looking to get onto the property ladder I had been considering such a scheme. I was therefore appalled when I came across some of the horror stories people have had with shared equity schemes. I felt it was important that anyone looking into the scheme should be aware of what they are getting into. Here is a selection of people’s experience. All comments are taken from the evening standard see the full article here and all the other comments as well.
– Marlise, Reading, 01/07/2010
Biggest mistake of my life! I bought a 40% share of a property through Thames Valley Housing Association in 2005. After a couple of years, rent had gone up by almost £200 and service charges sky rocketed, for a very poor service. Due to personal circumstances I had to move to London, to which TVHA gave me permission to rent via the local council. The council tenants did not pay rent for close to a year, and after struggling to pay living expenses in London and Rent/Mortgage on the shared ownership property, I went into serious debt, as well as mortgage debt. TVHA have been extremely unhelpful in this situation. Not making it easy for me to sell my share of the property (the costs of which are ridiculous). I am now unemployed and left to deal with mortgage debt collectors’ calls and harassment from TVHA for their rent. I no longer have an attachment to this property and would love to see it go as it has caused me so much stress, but I am trapped.
– SR, London E14, 15/04/2010
Biggest mistake of my life wish I had read this four years ago. Desperately need to sell to move closer to a disabled relative, there are errors in the lease preventing me from selling and the housing association are taking their time to sort it out. Paying a fortune in service charges for poor service.
– Lewis, Southampton – England, 02/03/2010
Very Interesting reading all the comments, only wish the info had been out there 2 years ago before I bought my 40% share. Rent and charges have jumped up by 75% in 2 years, flat has dropped £40,000 in value, can’t afford to increase my share, can’t afford to sell, and now paying more in combined rent and mortgage than I would have if I were privately renting….
Whatever anybody thinks, it is genuinely a mistake to get involved in shared ownership (even in a rising market) believe me!!
– Josh, London, 17/07/2009
Hi, I have just bought on shared ownership. This was the only means of myself and girlfriend to get on the ladder. We are paying a good £450 cheaper than renting in that area. Our incomes are low but we still managed to get a 4.5% fixed rate. This was the only option for us. To be honest all the problems are down to lack of research and thought. In a falling climate you will obviously find it hard to sell property. Not only this but we have gone into this scheme planning on staircasing to 100%. I don’t think anyone can say this is worse than renting as I am saving £450 per month to go on more equity.
As a long term I don’t see this as an investment but a foot up. To me it’s less risk of neg equity if circumstances change i.e break up. If you go in to this thinking it’s an easy way then you will find problems every day. As for the overpriced bit. Ours was on the market for 300,000. We got them to go down to 250,000 due to our independent survey we got and they accepted as they knew we would pull out otherwise. This is about 10% cheaper than all 2 beds in the area on the open market.
I think if you look at this as an easy way to own a home by still having the same rights as renting you will be in for a big awakening. I also have friends who have bought and sold on this scheme and because they did their research they have come out with no problems and quids in.
So I part own a 2 bed apartment right on the river in London next to canary wharf for 800pcm inclusive. Bad??!!
– Sarah, London, 09/07/2009
I am in the same situation trying to sell my 45% of shared ownership property to no success.
My rent and service charge has doubled it is just ridiculous! Now in the predicament of taking it off the market to try and gain some equity as if we sold now we would lose so much, however have a baby on the way and need out! Feel completely stuck in this flat, but had nowhere else to live and no deposit so had to go shared ownership! A2 Dominion housing associations are also unhelpful, time wasters and money grabbers. Good luck to anyone trying to get out!
– Gillian, London, 16/07/2009
I too, am in a similar predicament to the other people commenting. After securing a good job in Norfolk I informed my housing trust (Metropolitan Homes) that I needed to sell my 40% share of my one bedroom flat. It has taken them 5 weeks to market the property, a valuation (for which I had to find and pay a surveyor) £15,000 below one estates agents valuation and £30,000 below a second estate agents valuation. They have sent only two people to view in the two weeks since marketing and I now have only 6 weeks till I take up my new post with NHS Norfolk. (I am a nurse)
Everyone recognises that selling a house is stressful but the ‘don’t care’ attiutude of housing associations just makes the whole situation worse!
– Aji, London, 09/09/2008
The shared-ownership scheme has been around for years and the Government are always attempting to promote it, it’s a way of getting people off council waiting lists. I have lived in a shared-ownership property for 15 years and I would never recommend it to anyone, in fact I would advise people to think very, very carefully before taking part. My housing association owns the larger percentage of the house, but do not pay a penny towards the upkeep, as a ‘home owner’ I am expected to do this myself. There are lots of pitfalls with these schemes so my advice is “buyer beware”!
I offer my condolences to all those who have suffered but I also thank them for sharing their experiences. Hopefully we can now avoid making the same mistakes they have. This was not a case of me cherry picking the worst stories. This was the majority experience; please check the evening standard article for yourself.
If you are considering a shared-equity scheme the message is clear, do your research and don’t rush into anything. Make sure you read the small print.
More articles on property coming soon.
To boost your wine knowledge this May in celebration of National Wine Month here are 15 ‘Did you know?’ facts about wine to impress your friends –
· Wine is mentioned 521 times in the Bible.
* Noah was the first documented planter of vineyards.
* There are over 10,000 different grape varieties.
· Wine grapes are the most widely planted crop in the world.
* The average age of a French oak tree cut down to make a wine barrel is 170 years.
* Early Roman women were forbidden to drink wine, and a husband who found his wife drinking was at liberty to divorce, or even kill her.
* If you pay under £4 for a bottle of wine in a UK shop, nearly two-thirds of this is tax (excise duty and VAT).
* The worst place to store wine is the kitchen because the temperature is too warm and variable.
* Don’t store wine in a refrigerator – even at its warmest setting it will be too cold!
· A wine is “corked” if the bottle has a contaminated cork, which makes the wine smell musty, similar to wet cardboard.
* On average, one bottle of wine contains about 2.8 pounds of grapes.
· It takes the grapes from an entire grapevine to produce a single glass of Chateau d’Yquem – arguably the best sweet wine in the world.
* Plato argued that when a man reached 40, he could drink as much wine as he wanted to cure the “crabbedness of old age”
* The earliest known wine production occurred in Georgia around 8,000 BC
* The most expensive drinkable wine ever sold is reputed to be a Romanee-Conti 1978 which sold for $24,000
Visit www.maketimeforwine.org to find out more.
Kate Middleton, 29, has a contender for the title of the nations favourite princess say new price comparison site Theatrebillboard.com
The UK can’t get enough of Amanda Holden! After winning over the nation’s hearts on her return as lead judge on Britain’s Got Talent, tickets to see her perform as Princess Fiona on the new West End’s ‘Shrek The Musical’, have been flying out of the box office.
The 40 year old actress and presenter, who stars alongside David Hasslehoff and Michael McIntyre as a judge on ITV’s top talent show, will be making her debut in Shrek The Musical from the 6th May at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
According to price comparison website Theatrebillboard.com, advance ticket sales have risen a dramatic 250% for the West End musical, since the weekend’s launch of the new series of Britain’s Got Talent. Amanda has been cast as Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical, and will be showing off her own talents alongside co stars Nigel Harman, Richard Blackwood and Nigel Lindsay who plays Shrek.
Mike Walker, Marketing Director for Theatre Billboard.com says “Amanda has won over the nation’s hearts in recent years and this huge boost in tickets sales following her recent television appearance just goes to show that the public can’t get enough of her at the moment.”
The peak in volume of ticket sales for the musical, since Amanda’s taken a leading role on our screens leaves us in no doubt that Kate’s not the only princess winning the hearts of the people this Spring..but her Prince Charming definitely has better table manners!
Theatrebillboard.com, is a price comparison site, offering customers an easier and impartial way to search for the best price on theatre tickets with potential savings of up to 60% on ticket prices.
Theatrebillboard.com enables customers to search, compare and buy theatre tickets to over 350 top shows in a matter of minutes, comparing prices and deals from all the major ticket vendors online including Last Minute Theatre Tickets , Ticketmaster, lastminute.com and See Tickets.
For more information, latest deals and offers, visit www.theatrebillboard.com.