Category Archives: Uncategorized

Motherhood has given Alicia Keys a “reason in life”.

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The ‘Empire State of Mind’ hitmaker – who has an eight-month-old son, Egypt, with husband Swizz Beatz – says becoming a mum has changed her life in a “fun” way.

She explained: “Motherhood is heaven. It’s so purposeful and such fun. I feel much wiser in the choices I make. I have a reason in life I never had before.”

Alicia’s new outlook on life is a far cry from when the 30-year-old singer first found success and she admitted her fame was “scary” to begin with.

She told the Daily Mail newspaper: “I suddenly found myself doing tours, TV shows and flying every day.

“Everyone wanted a piece of me and that was scary. Being from New York, I covered that up.”

Now with a successful career and a happy personal life, Alicia is looking to the future and first on the agenda is a collaboration with Kings of Leon.

She said: “For a while I’ve wanted to do something with Kings of Leon. I definitely want to do it – I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

Jim Carrey On The Lookout For Love.

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Jim Carrey doesn’t know if he’ll ever find someone to spend the rest of his life with.

The ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins’ actor – who split from girlfriend of five years Jenny McCarthy in 2010 – admitted after having had to “erase” a number of former flames from his life, he doesn’t know if he will ever commit to another person fully.

He said: “I’ve been erased and I know what it’s like to erase someone. You know the feeling when you loved somebody and it ends and you feel as if they’ve moved on or maybe even none of it ever mattered? It’s a terrible feeling.

“But everything in my life comes to me for a reason, to step me up to another level and to make me learn. Every single relationship has brought me a little bit closer to realising what I want and what I don’t want, and teaching me the value of love.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever actually find somebody I can hang with for the rest of my life.”

The 49-year-old star – who has battled with depression in the past – explained he has on occasions veered into a “bad neighbourhood” in his life.

Jim added to the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “I veer off the road once in a while and take the off-ramp into a bad neighbourhood and live there for a while, but it’s not usually very long.

“Everything starts to go wrong and you can only stay in that mode for a short time if you’re awake and sober and looking at the universe.”

Six Things You Didn’t Know About Green Lantern

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1) There have been six Green Lanterns in total.

Although most people have come to know the Green Lantern as being Hal Jordan, there were five others. In the Cartoon Network’s Justice League cartoons, he is John Stewart – an African-American man. But the very first Green Lantern was the World War II-era superhero, Alan Scott, an army engineer who found a magic green lantern and made a ring that allowed him to tap its powers.

The other Lanterns are all members of the Green Lantern Corps. Obviously. you have Hal Jordan who received his from Abin Sur, who was hurt and later died from injuries when his spaceship crashed. Guy Gardner was second as a backup should anything ‘happen’ to Hal, until Stewart replaced Gardner on the sub’s bench. Kyle Rayner became the ‘last’ Green Lantern when Jordan became infected with the Parallax and went on a murderous rampage. And the last member of the Corps who became a Green Lantern for Earth is Jade, the daughter of Alan Scott, who was given one of the spare Power Rings.

2) Superman was going to be in the film at one point making a cameo appearance.

Following on from Marvel’s success at having cameos in movies, DC and the director were intent at having Clark Kent/Superman in the script. Originally, he had a cameo as one of the candidates considered to receive a power ring, but was cut out because the filmmakers didn’t want to depend on another superhero for a success. So much for The Man of Steel’s invulnerability.

3) There is a hidden scene at the end of the credits. Sorry, but I just wouldn’t be a man if I told you what happens.

4) Quentin Tarantino was considered to direct the film.

This is absolutely true and was scheduled as his big comeback film. Question is, could you imagine a Green Lantern film directed by him? A cross between guns, green lights, John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson and let’s not forget blood, exploding heads etc. Hmm. Can Green Lantern dance?

5) There are different-coloured Lanterns.

The Green Lantern’s background has been greatly expanded in recent years, to the point that there are now seven different Lantern Corps. Each is driven by a particular emotion — the Green Lanterns are powered by willpower, the Blue Lanterns is hope, the Red Lanterns represent rage, and so on. Sinestro, a character in the movie and comic books, inherits a yellow ring – driven by fear. Incredibly, in the comics, Blake Lively’s character, Carol Ferris, goes on to inherit a violet ring, powered by love, and later becomes Star Sapphire.

6) The movie could have been completely different.

There are loads of different scripts that they came up with for Green Lantern.. Out of all those, perhaps the one most interesting is the one which contained a cameo by Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern in history (whose powers were magical rather than cosmic). Scott was going to be the United States President, and near the end would reveal his own past as a Green Lantern to Jordan, and give him his blessing. He was later revised to become an agent of the Checkmate agency (the Checkmate membership stayed true to the comics), who would approach and offer Jordan membership. Later drafts finally wrote him out of the film, and replaced him with Amanda Waller. Shame? Yeah that’s what I said…

Bird of the Week: Stonechat (Saxicola torquata)

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After a nice (if rainy) day out birding on Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, we were sitting in a restaurant with our cameras around our necks, looking at our new bird photos when a lady next to me looked at my camera display and asked: “Oh, what a lovely bird. What is it?” So I said: “It’s a stonechat.” “A WHAT??” was her reply.

You won’t find stonechats in your garden. They prefer heathland or coastal sites with gorse bushes.

Male Stonechat

Stonechats are very beautiful little birds. They look a little bit like robins (in fact they are closely related – robins are also members of the ‘chat’ family). In summer plumage, the male has a black head with white patches on each side of his neck (almost like a collar) and an orangey-red chest. The female is brown but also has an orange tint to her chest.

Female Stonechat on gorse

Stonechats are insectivorous but don’t migrate to Africa in winter so they’re very susceptible to cold weather.

Juvenile Stonechat

Stonechats can be quite shy but do like to let you know they’re around, perching conspicuously on top of small bushes, birch or conifer saplings, bracken or gorse while constantly flicking their short wings and uttering alarm calls. These sound like little stones being tapped together – hence the name ‘stonechat’. If you try to approach them, they’ll fly off but not too far from their previous perch, calling loudly as if to say “Ha ha, you can’t get me!” I love stonechats!

Female Stonechat calling

For more stonechat  photos please have a look here:
http://www.finepetportraits.co.uk/stonechat-bird-photos.html

Sandra Palme
www.finepetportraits.co.uk

Lily Allen Married and Pregnant

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Lily Allen is celebrating a double dose of good news, she’s married and pregnant. After two miscarriages, Allen is on her way to domestic bliss. Allen’s vintage Chanel 1920’s wedding dress had a resemblance to Kate Middleton’s wedding dress.

The singer, 26, married decorator and business owner Sam Cooper at St. James the Great Church in Gloucestershire, England, on Saturday.

Actor Keith Allen proudly gave his daughter away and Cooper revealed that Allen was pregnant, seven months after her tragic miscarriage

Cooper popped the question over Christmas and the wedding took place in the village of Cranham in the English countryside.

Frost wishes them all the best.

Nancy Dell'Olio Turns 50

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IT’S TIME TO PUT SAGA IN THE OLD FOLKS’ HOME

Nancy Dell’Olio leads launch of high50 – targeting new generation of fiftysomethings

London, 7th June 2011: high50 (say ‘five-oh’), an online community with cutting edge editorial for people who believe life really begins at 50 – launches with a lead column by Nancy Dell’olio on what turning 50 means to her.

The mortgage is coming to an end, the kids are leaving home, the anxieties and insecurities that bedevil the earlier years are beginning to slip away. It’s like being a teenager again, but with experience.

Reflecting this ideal, high50 will offer quality editorial that is relevant, cool and interesting. With a stellar line-up of journalists readers can expect everything from sex, shopping and sport to music, money and mischief, as well as thought-provoking pieces from the likes of Dominic Sandbrook on 50 years of British history.

High50 will be both inspirational and aspirational, and will source the best promotions and discounts for the discerning – partner brands include erotica boutique Coco de Mer, Champneys spa resorts and luxury travel operator Kuoni.
In what will be the first of many guest columnists Nancy Dell’Olio writes exclusively about what turning 50 means to her:
“This August I want to celebrate my 50th birthday with two days of partying in Puglia, in Italy, where I spent many of my childhood summers. Yes, my 50th: Barack Obama turns 50 this year too. I have something in common with him: everyone’s always asking to see our birth certificates!

50 – what’s not to like? I feel wiser, wittier and happier; I’m in the prime of my joy. It is, as I’ve said, a magical time, and magic has no age – just like my spirit. My spirit is the thing that will keep me vibrant forever. There’s an old saying that goes, “If the young only knew, if the old only could.” Well, huh. I do know, now, and I certainly can, still. Here’s to my fifties: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The 50-plus market will soon be the biggest, richest and most influential in the UK, by 2020 accounting for half the population. It is the fastest growing demographic using Facebook and Twitter, accounting for 31% of online users.

In the real world, the over 50s increasingly share interests – music, art, cinema, theatre, television, sport, technology, rock festivals – with people of all ages. Yet advertising, branding and editorial largely ignore them or assume their interests amount to buying end of life insurance policies and stair lifts. High50 looks to change this, and celebrate all that turning 50 has to offer.

Former Sunday Times Style editor and acclaimed author Tim Willis was appointed editor of high50 earlier in the year and has assembled a team of regular columnists which include some of the most respected journalists and writers in the UK, including: Sally Brampton, Linda Kelsey, Elaine Lemm, Julie Welch, Daniela Soave, Peter York and more.

In a year that will see the likes of George Clooney, Julianne Moore, Ricky Gervais, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, the Mini Cooper, the World Wildlife Fund, the lava lamp and the President of the United States of America all turn 50, it’s time to change our opinions of ageing.

WELCOME TO HIGH 50 | www.high50.com Anyone can access the high50 site – though registration will bring extra benefits.

Catherine Zeta-Jones Set To Star As Viking

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Catherine Zeta-Jones has been tipped to play a 6ft 3in blonde VIKING in a new £10million Hollywood movie, it emerged yesterday.

The Bafta Award-winning actress, known for her long brunette locks, will have to cut and bleach her hair for the lead role in romantic flick, Ragged Cliffs.

Executives at Welsh publishing house Dinefwr Press have already started work on the book’s Big Screen adaptation, and are keen to cast the Chicago star, 41, as the leading lady.

The movie tells the story of heroine Lise Jacobson, a “staggering tall and beautiful” Danish woman who starts a troubled new life on Wales’ Gower Peninsula.

She must rely on the “passion of her Celtic mother” and the “warrior spirit” of her Viking forefathers to overcome deceit, betrayal and revenge.

Secrecy surrounds the movie, and there is still “some way” to go before the picture is given the official go-ahead, but bosses at Dinefwr, which published the novel of the same name, revealed they have contacted Swansea-born Zeta-Jones for the starring role.

It will be the publisher’s first major motion picture, but follows the publication of a string of critically-acclaimed fiction titles.

A spokesman for Dinefwr said: “We can confirm that Mrs Zeta-Jones has been contacted, via her agent, for a potential leading part in the movie.

“We are unable to discuss any more of the details, but believe Mrs Zeta-Jones would be the perfect person for the role.”

Ragged Cliffs was penned by Welsh author Julian Ruck in 2006. It was first published by Dinefwr in 2010 but was earmarked for screen adaptation “from the outset”.

Ruck, who lives near Swansea, South Wales, said: “I am thrilled at the idea of Catherine Zeta-Jones taking the lead role in a £10million film adaptation of Ragged Cliffs.

“She is one of Wales’ greatest exports and being from the Gower Peninsula herself, she seems the ideal candidate to play the strong, passionate Lise.”

Bird of the Week: Blue Tit

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If I turn my head and look out of the window, I can see a lot of young birds getting to know my feeding station. They are now old enough to fend for themselves, although they’re still trying to get their parents to feed them.

There are young sparrows, starlings, greenfinches, great tits and blue tits. The young ‘blueys’ are the most vocal, constantly calling their scruffy-looking parents. This is a very stressful time for the adults. It is hard work rearing up to 14 (!) babies that are hungry all of the time! Sometimes the adults return to the nest with insect food every 90 seconds! Once the little ones have fledged, they follow their parents around.

FEED ME!!

Now that the young ones are old enough to eat seeds, bits of peanut and fat balls (although insects will still be their main diet), the adult birds have brought them back to my garden where they spent much of the winter. They know there’s always some food available – which is very important.

Blue tit in winter

Once you start feeding wild birds, especially when natural food is hard to come by, don’t stop. Blue tits in particular will come to rely on this food source. In winter, they might not have enough energy to find food elsewhere, so if you decide to help these little balls of fluff, make sure they don’t visit your garden in vain and waste valuable energy.

If you’d like to be part of the family, blue tits will happily accept a nest box in your garden.

Blue tit

The blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) is among the nation’s favourite garden birds. They’re tiny, fluffy, colourful, cute and bold as brass. When I first set up my feeding station, the first bird to explore it was a blue tit – and I hadn’t actually finished. And yet, it was only a couple of metres away! This little bird didn’t take any food, but hopped from feeder to feeder, checking everything out and then flew off. Five minutes later it returned with all of  its mates for a snack.

Watching you..

Blue tits are great fun to watch – they are little acrobats and will entertain you for hours, hanging from your feeders upside down.

Juvenile blue tit: it has a dull cap and yellow cheeks

Blue tits are also very clever birds. Two examples: blue tits have been familiar with the concept of aromatherapy much longer than humans. They use herbs such as mint or lavender to line and disinfect the nest or feed the leaves to their young in order to help them fend off parasites. And in the 60s, blue tits learned how to peck through foil milk bottle tops to get to the cream. This behaviour was passed on to other members of their flock and more and more birds learned how to do it. Clever or what?

Clever blue tit

A worthy bird of the week indeed!

For more blue tit  photos please have a look here:
http://www.finepetportraits.co.uk/blue-tit-bird-photos.html

Sandra Palme
www.finepetportraits.co.uk