Monthly Archives: October 2011

Women Miss Their Pets More Than Their Boyfriends.

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NOT ALWAYS’S A MAN’S BEST FRIEND…

One-in-five women miss their pets more than their partners during prolonged absences, according to new research.

Almost 30 per cent think about their dogs and cats at least twice a day when separated for a week or more.

But only half that number think about their boyfriend or husband as often, a poll of female pet owners reveals.

They also worry more about their pets’ welfare – and if they are “eating well” – than their loved ones’ own health.

In fact, over 75 per cent ensure the cupboards are stocked with pet food and treats before they leave, yet far fewer are concerned about the man of the house going hungry.

Meanwhile, one-in-three would cut their trip short “at the drop of a hat” if their pet fell ill or had a minor incident, compared to just one-in-10 for their partner.

The survey into female travelling attitudes also shows that 60 per cent admit to feeling “guilty” about leaving their pets to go on a “girly weekend”.

Only 28 per cent, however, will have the same crisis of conscience over leaving their man on his own for a few days.

The figures were revealed yesterday by short breaks website GirlyWeekend.com, which polled 1,500 of its visitors who own cats and dogs.

Website founder Pat Gardner said she “fully understands” the findings.

“As a pet lover myself, I can fully understand why women would miss their pets more than their partner while away on a girly weekend,” she said.

“Women tend to see their pet cat or dog like a baby, in need of constant care and attention. Men, meanwhile, are seen as being able to look after themselves.”

The poll also revealed that 65 per cent of female travellers would take their furry friend with them on a girly weekend if allowed to do so by their hotel.

Pat added: “We specialise in upmarket breaks for women around the country and one of the questions we get asked a lot is if the hotels and country halls will allow pets.

“It just goes to show much women value the company of their cats and dogs.”

For more information about female short breaks visit www.girlyweekend.com

Brew up your own FestiviTea Party in aid of autism!

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The National Autistic Society (NAS), the UK’s leading charity for people affected by autism, is asking friends, families and colleagues to get together during the festive season and raise money for charity by throwing a ‘FestiviTea Party’. Organising your very own bash couldn’t be easier and requires just three very simple ingredients: tea, cake and friends!

FestiviTea Parties are a chance to roll up your sleeves, don your aprons and bake up a storm with your nearest and dearest, whilst at the same time raising vital funds for the National Autistic Society. You can hold your party anywhere and at anytime. Whether it’s at home, work or out in the local community, you can make your FestiviTea Party as elaborate or as laid back as you like. How you choose to raise the money is also up to you – ask guests to buy tickets, make a donation, or pay for the cakes and biscuits you bake!

Christmas can be a stressful time for many families, but it can be extremely difficult for the half a million people affected by autism, who can often become confused and frightened by sudden changes of routine, unusual foods and new social activities. We need your help to continue to provide vital support and services for individuals and families affected by autism across the UK.

Jane Asher, President of The National Autistic Society and famous for her cake baking said: “I love baking, especially at Christmas time, and if you have children FestiviTea is a great activity to get them involved in too. But you don’t have to be an expert baker or spend lots of time putting together your own tea party: you can keep things simple and easy to organise by asking your friends to help out – or by buying ready-made supplies from the shops.”

“This is the time of year when we all like to get together with our loved ones – but it’s also the perfect time to think about helping those who find Christmas celebrations frightening and confusing. FestiviTea lets you do both at the same time: you’ll have fun with family and friends and every penny you raise will go towards helping the half a million people with autism in the UK.”

Last year, FestiviTea Party organisers across the country raised a fantastic £16,000 and this year, we want to get everyone in the Christmas spirit and raise even more. Every penny raised makes a difference and helps ensure that people with autism across the UK have the support they need to live fulfilling and rewarding lives.

To find out how to organise your own FestiviTea Party, visit: www.festivitea.org.uk or order a pack by calling 0845 180 0426 or emailing festivitea@nas.org.uk.

Christian Louboutin, Daphne Guinness, Bonnie Wright Party in Monaco

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Christian Louboutin, Daphne Guinness, Bonnie Wright Jamie Campbell & Curtis Stigers Attend Roger Dubuis Star Studded Event In Monaco

Haute Horlogerie meets glamour As Monaco’s Hotel de Paris Plays Host to World Renowned Guests Across Film, Fashion and Music

Friday 21st October: Famed watch designer Roger Dubuis welcomed more than 200 glamorous guests to Monaco for a night of glitz, glamour and watches. The star studded guest list was a who’s who of the fashion, acting and art world. Stars included international style icon Daphne Guinness, renowned shoe designer Christian Louboutin, actors Jamie Campbell Bower, James Purefoy and actress Bonnie Wright plus gallery owner Alexander Dellal. There was also an electrifying performance from Curtis Steigers.

The guests were welcomed on the red carpet at the famous Hotel de Paris by Mr. Georges Kern, CEO of Roger Dubuis.

Oddbins is back on a High Street near you…

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Oddbins is back on a High Street near you…

– Unique initiative allows Oddbins’ customers to choose the price of wine –

Oddbins is relaunching in the UK this week with a revolutionary approach that will see customers decide the price of some of its wine range.

From 20-23 October, consumers will be able to blind-taste wines in-store and then provide a price that they would be happy to pay for that bottle.

The wines will then go on shelves at the Customer Recommended Price (CRP).

Ayo Akintola, Managing Director of Oddbins says: “We’re taking the old cliché of ‘the customer is always right’ and actually demonstrating our belief that this is the case. The new Oddbins will put the consumer at the heart of everything we do, so it makes sense that we have a conversation about our pricing with our customers to explain our value based pricing model, while at the same time taking their opinions on board.

“For a long time the noise around wine has been about discounting and price cuts. It is time we have a mature conversation about price and what constitutes value.

“Oddbins has a proud history of innovating in the market place and this is just another example of that. No matter what the occasion, Oddbins is here to provide our customers with the perfect choice of great value wine.”

The unique initiative celebrates Oddbins’ relaunch on the 19th October, which will see 37 stores across the UK reinvigorated with a new look and feel.

The new stores will build on Oddbins’ heritage as an innovative and adventurous selector of wines, and see the retailer continue to offer a carefully considered and great value range.

Staffed by an enthusiastic team of wine buffs – ready to share as much (or as little) advice as customers want – Oddbins aims to bring the pleasure back to wine buying with a personal touch that cruising the supermarket aisle just fails to deliver.

Blake New YA ebook by Sarahjane Funnell

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Children’s Author Sarahjane Funnell has published her
first YA fantasy story entitled Blake, launching as an
ebook with Amazon and myebook.com on Monday 10th
October 2011, published by Gibson Publishing.

Blake, downloadable for £2.99, is the latest literary addition
to her published repertoire, which includes the short story
Princess Rose and the Royal Tea Castle published within
the middle grade Children’s Anthology A Pocketful of Moondust.
Blake is an aloof and mysterious guy. He possesses a sharp glint in his eye and
harbours a hidden secret. Ebony, a schoolgirl, becomes completely mesmerised
by him and his strange character. Longing to unveil just what it is that makes
Blake so different, Ebony desperately searches for him to find the answer. When
Ebony finally has an opportune moment to discover the secret that surrounds
Blake, she learns that it is not only he who hides an unknown identity but that she
too has an inner secret that stretches far beyond her own existence. An unknown
secret that changes not only her thoughts and the ways of the world but also her
physical human form.

Blake is a captivating short story that will spark the imagination of Young Adult
readers, taking them on an emotive journey of self-discovery within two
contrasting worlds. Featuring rich language and powerful emotion, Blake is
perfect for readers looking for an introduction to fantasy fiction or shorter reading.

Ron Burgundy launches attack on the UK

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Will Ferrell’s alter ego Ron Burgundy launched an attack on the UK on Chris Moyles Quiz Night, it’s funny so check the video out below.

The first episode of the new series features a star-studded US v UK line-up as Hollywood comic legend Will Ferrell goes head-to-head with David Walliams and Louis Walsh; with appearances from Robbie Williams, Britney Spears and Paul O’Grady. Plus One Direction deliver the popular maths song and there are new rounds and challenges.

Chris Moyles Quiz Night returns to Channel 4 this Sunday at 10pm






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Vivienne Westwood’s official arrival in China

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This week is the official launch of the Independent British brand Vivienne Westwood in China. Vivienne Westwood will host four major events, including opening Shanghai fashion week, to mark the brands prestigious arrival in one of the Worlds most important markets, China.

The beginning of this week saw the official opening of the Vivienne Westwood Grand Gateway Shanghai store. The new shop was toasted in style by Chinese VIP’s and press. To celebrate the brands arrival the official opening of Vivienne Westwood Shoes An Exhibition: 1973 – 2011 also took place this week. This is a unique exhibition which showcases over 40 years of design and is touring internationally. So far it has travelled from the UK to Russia then on to Beirut and Lebanon and is now at the Grand Gateway in Shanghai, China. The exhibition will showcase around 80 shoe designs and traces the exceptional success of Dame Westwood’s career to date. The exhibition is open to the public form the 19th – 23rd October 2011.

The grand arrival continued yesterday evening when Vivienne Westwood was the main guest at ‘Fashion Shanghai’, the official opening of Shanghai’s Fashion Week, at Shanghai Fashion Center. Vivienne Westwood showcased a selection of her designs from her Autumn- Winter 2011/12 and Spring-Summer 2012 collections.

As part of the launch Vivienne Westwood is also set to be a guest of honour at the ‘Can China Survive the World Green Economy?’ conference hosted in the prestigious University of Shanghai and will be voicing her environmental campaigns to reach an International audience. Also attending the conference will be journalists from Chinese publications, and members of international organizations based in China.

The Thing (2011) {Film Review}

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*WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!*

As normal tradition with every year from the film industry, we’re treated to an unnecessary horror remake that didn’t need to be remade in the first place (I’m looking at you Michael Bay and your production company, Platinum Dunes!). So it would’ve been sooner or later that John Carpenter’s 1982 cult-classic, The Thing, would be up for grabs! The film was a remake to The Thing From Another World (1951), which itself was an adaptation of the 1938 short story, Who Goes There?. 2011’s The Thing, is a prequel set before the events of the 1982 film and shows us exactly what happened at the Norwegian base in Antarctica. Though the idea of seeing the events unfold isn’t something fans were desperately demanding to see and we can already establish what will happen without having to guess. So it comes to great shame that this version of The Thing is nothing more than a continuation of the unnecessary horror remake/prequel line.

The film starts out three members of the Norwegian team discovering the alien spaceship that was featured briefly in the first film. Then they recruit an American paleontologist, Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), ask her to come to the alien crash site in Antarctica and to study the specimen they also discovered. They bring back the frozen alien life form back to the base, though it eventually escapes. Causing chaos and destruction, whilst Kate finds out the creature can imitate other beings (in this case, other people) and therefore one of their team members could potentially be the alien.

The film obviously shows the filmmakers does not understand what made the original movie brilliant; it wasn’t about the monster but the horror was atmospheric. The pacing was slow but that’s what brought the suspense and tension, making you play detective on guessing who’s not human and who is. This film is more interested on killing each human character we barely got to know as quickly as possible, leaving our two heroes; Kate Lloyd, who is just a rip-off of Ellen Ripley from the Alien series. Braxton “Sam” Carter (played by Joel Edgerton) is a carbon copy of R.J. MacReady (played famously by Kurt Russell) but less charismatic and interesting. The characters in the first film had individual traits, which made them identifiable and somewhat likable that made you care what happens to them. The characters in this film get barely anything to work with and you could care less which one gets infected and dies.

The story is an exact copy of the original film, done maybe in different order but essentially a remake by the word. It also features quite a few plot-holes and stupid decisions from the filmmakers; if the ship worked all this time, why didn’t the alien just go and leave? If there was a Russian base mentioned at the end of the film, why didn’t the American base know about it in the original film? The film was written by Eric Heisserer, who also co-wrote the equally unnecessary horror remake, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). This is Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s feature film debut, as he only previously made a video and a short film (according to his IMDb page). He resorts to the horror clichés on having jump scares, mistaking it for creating scares when it doesn’t (and it gets really tiresome very quickly). The suspense and paranoia that was featured in the original is gone and it is just simply a generic monster film where it is survival for the fittest.

The visual effects in this film look terrible, and this is over reliance on CGI. The effects in the original film, done by legendary make-up maestro Rob Bottin, are much more affective because they’re practical and are more believable than seeing monsters done by computers. Though worst of all, seeing more of the creature is hard to suspend your disbelief and makes it less scary. The creature in the original was only shown with close-ups and viewed with other uses of lighting (flares, flash-lights etc.) It was more a creature to hide, never to attack full on. Another thing that this remake/prequel fails to attempt that the original succeeded.

Overall; as I keep mentioning through-out this review, John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece is, and will always be, the best! It is far more scary and is done with a lot more care. As Carpenter once said to Empire magazine in 1997; “You’ll never, ever, see anything like The Thing again.” Looks like it will be a long while till we do!

2 out of 5