Tag Archives: BBC

Matthew Jure | New Faces

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Today’s New Face is an actor and musician. Just starting out on his career, he only got an agent when he was 30. He has a solo album coming out called Solitary Blooms, two films; Night Bus and Standing Water [playing the lead in the latter], and a self-penned play, Order/Progress which is about football and politics in Brazil and will be staged in the summer. Phew.

He also played DS Stan Davies opposite Jim Broadbent in BBC crime film, The Great Train Robbery: A Copper’s Tale. All good stuff which is why we have made him one of our new faces, we predict good things. http://www.matthewjure.net/

matthewjure

Thames Festival 2013 | Things To Do

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City Cruises to host Sir Andrew Motion and Dan Cruickshank for Thames Festival 2013

 

As part of the 2013 Thames Festival celebrations, City Cruises, London’s leading riverboat operator, is hosting two distinguished events with former poet Sir Andrew Motion (7 September) and National Geographic and BBC art historian, writer and presenter, Dan Cruickshank (9 September).

 

Celebrating the very best of the Thames, the Mayor’s Thames Festival brings together art, music and educational events through an inspiring 10-day event on the river, its banks and bridges. As a key feature of tourism on the Thames, City Cruises’ is hosting these two major events on its flagship boat – and largest on the river – the Millennium Diamond.

 

Sir Andrew Motion – now President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England – will present an afternoon of poems and reflections from both his own collections and others on Saturday 7 September (4pm to 6.30pm). Concentrating on London’s greatest waterway and its many myths, poems and tales, Sir Andrew will take guests on a literary journey as they sail down the very river that inspired them.

 

Dan Cruickshank, whose credits include Around the World in 80 Treasures and Marvels of the Modern Age, will take centre stage on Monday 9 September (7.30pm-9.30pm). Taking guests on an architectural tour of London’s bridges – past and present – he will enlighten passengers on their rich history, heritage and significance in making the Capital the powerhouse that it is today.

 

Both events are ticketed and include a glass of red or white wine and canapés. Tickets cost £22, with each cruise departing from Tower Pier at 4pm, 7 September (Sir Andrew Motion) and 7.30pm, 9 September (Dan Cruickshank).

 

For further information or to book, please visit www.citycruises.com or call 020 77 400 400.

 

Nick Grimshaw and Olly Murs put through their paces at Perform

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Nick Grimshaw, Olly Murs, football, celebrity, news, BBC Radio 1 five-a-side football match ,BBC, BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show presenter Nick Grimshaw and English singer-songwriter Olly Murs today prepared for the match of a lifetime at Perform, the world-class human performance, sports and exercise medicine and rehabilitation centre at the heart of the St. George’s Park, the FA’s National Football Centre.

Nick and Olly, who both captained their 5 a-side-team, visited the Perform centre in preparation for their big match. They were put through their paces by leading trainers and sports and exercise medics who ensured they were in top condition when they hit the pitch.

As part of their warm-up, Nick and Olly took part in a range of pre-football training exercises. These included the Batak challenge, which tested their reactions, stamina and coordination, the Hydroworx underwater treadmill and various strength and conditioning exercises. They finished off their training by using the contrast pools – the hot and cold water pools helped reduce any muscle tightness ahead of the big game.

Lining up with Nick for his team ‘Radio Onederers’, was former Welsh player Robbie Savage and colleagues from Radio 1. Olly’s teammates in ‘Olly Hot Spurs’, included former England player David May.

Perform is part of Spire Healthcare, one of the UK’s leading private hospital groups with 38 hospitals across the UK. Perform is open to all and can provide any visitor to St. George’s Park with sports science and training facilities to help them reach their physical and mental potential and perform beyond their expectations.

St. George’s Park is the training base for 24 England teams, the home of coaching education and a hub of activity for the local community. Over 800 elite coaches will be trained and qualified each year at St. George’s Park, helping to develop and nurture future talent.

Top Of The Lake DVD Review and Competition

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Top of The Lake may be a television show but the talent behind it packs a cinematic punch. This cinematic punch shows in the quality of the show. Oscar winning writer/director Jane Campion and Garth Davis have teamed up with the Oscar winning producers of The King’s Speech, Top of The Lake looks beautiful, set in New Zealand the scenery is just stunning. Add in the beautiful cinematography and you have a show that is already worth watching.

Elizabeth moss in top of the lake top of the lake Peter Mullan in top of the lake top of the lake filmed in New Zealand

The story however, is somewhat less beautiful, this is not a criticism, it is just hard hitting. Top of the Lake begins with a mystery – Tui, a 12 year old girl, walks chest deep into the freezing waters of an alpine lake in New Zealand. She is five months pregnant and won’t say who the father is. Then she disappears.

Robin Griffin is a gutsy but inexperienced detective called in to investigate. But as Robin becomes more and more obsessed with the search for Tui, she slowly begins to realise that finding Tui is tantamount to finding herself – a self she has kept well hidden.

Top of The Lake has a brilliant cast. It stars Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men), David Wenham (Lord of the Rings), Peter Mullan (War Horse) and Holly Hunter (The Piano). All of the cast is amazing. Elizabeth Moss takes the lead and as the detective on the story sees parallels of her own life with the missing Tui. She unravels as the search continues but will she find herself in the end? Top of The Lake has a lot of twists and turns and keeps you on the edge of your seat. It is an excellent, must watch drama. Don’t miss it.

The Top Of The Lake BBC DVD is available here or on Amazon or iTunes UK

RRP: £20.42 / £25.52

EXTRAS: BEHIND THE SCENES INTERVIEWS WITH CAST AND CREW

We have a copy to giveaway. To win follow @Frostmag on Twitter, subscribe or like us on Facebook. Good luck.

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Politicians Get £400 Per Month Food Allowance While Families Go Hungry

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It has not been a good time for the general public recently. In the past few years we have learned that some of our politicians are corrupt (the expenses scandal), that some of the Metropolitan Police Force was on the pay role of News Corporation, and that some of the press dealt in illegal activities to get their stories. Is anyone on the straight and narrow these days?

While ordinary people feel the pinch along with everyone else MP’s are legally claiming £400 per month on food. In fact, politics is the only career that I can think of where your get a food allowance and also get your rent or mortgage paid. All by the taxpayer, who can barely afford to live.

Recently I watched a brilliant documentary that was on the BBC called Britain’s Hidden Hungry. This was along the same lines of an excellent Marie Claire magazine article that I recently read. The documentary focused on food banks in Coventry. Food banks are on the rise now as families tighten their belts. Their are 11 food bank in Coventry. They are called Hope Centres and are set up by a Christian charity. A voucher is given to you by social services if you are deemed in need. Each voucher gives you 3 days of food.

Two more food banks are opening every week. The food bank in Coventry fed 10,000 people in 8 months. These food banks are on the rise all over the UK. Sometimes people need them as they have fallen down a benefits hole. One young women in the documentary who was in full time education only ate one meal a day because she was not eligible for benefits. She was even told to have a child by an employee at the benefits agency so she could apply for benefits.

I know quite a few politicians and they are not all corrupt and horrible. Some of them go into politics to help people and do good. But you have to wonder why in the current economical climate they are making cuts to benefits and the price of everything is rising above inflation that MP’s still get their food and rent paid for them. Especially as their constituents will be surviving on the bare minimum. If they really want to make more cuts, maybe that would be a good place to start?

Some MP’s do not even seem grateful at being in the only profession I can think of that pays for your food and rent and are still taking advantage of the situation.

David Amess is one of 27 MPs who claim expenses up to £20,000 a year to rent a second home in London while letting out the property and pocketing the cash. But he is doing nothing wrong according to parliamentary rules, just moral ones then.

Amess’s constituency home is in Essex, a mere 41 miles from Westminster. One wonders why MPs cannot commute like the rest of us. Amess owns a home in South West London, rents another at the expense of the taxpayer AND was claiming expenses to stay in a hotel in London.

The MP hit taxpayers with 23 separate expenses claims for ­hotels since July 2011.

Is one of the reasons so many MP’s are happily pushing through more austerity measures, because the austerity never affects them? Maybe a dose of reality is in order.

Interview with Zawe Ashton of Fresh Meat

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Zawe Ashton can totally identify with her character Vod’s sense of style in Fresh Meat because she has been there and done it herself.

“It’s not even like I have outfits in mind for Vod – I have influences in mind. So after last year instead of listening to so much riot girl punk, Vod is maybe going into a more androgynous place where she is playing with gender and masculinity and at the same time her musical influences are extending to discovering more Bowie or New Romantic post punk music.

“She’s not that self-conscious, she draws so much from her surroundings and is so perceptive that anything that seems vaguely anti-establishment she can really chime with and I can identify with that because that is exactly what happened to me when I was studying in Manchester. Being in a smaller environment with people from so many different backgrounds I changed on a daily basis. One day you’d be having an existentialist conversation with a random in a bar then someone would say ‘do you want to get pissed and dance all night to 80s music’. And I’d be like ‘Yeah’. And because Vod is a yes woman she will say yes to all of that and have all these different influences and experiences. She’ll never miss out. Never regret something she didn’t do…I totally did that at uni after I broke up with my first boyfriend, who of course was a musician. I thought, “Right I am going to have a summer of saying yes to everything.” Which I did.

“This job is such a touch! It is so collaborative but you can also trust every single department to just be on it. If I send June, our costume designer, a picture of Prince and say this is our touchstone for this series – the next thing you know I’m wearing a ruffle shirt, a bolero jacket and my hair’s sticking up and it’s Prince. She runs with it, she is so inventive.”

So how has Vod changed since last term?

Explains Zawe: “This series Vod is exploring the friendships she’s made with these people. What is interesting is having new characters come in and seeing Vod’s reaction – she doesn’t like it at all. She is fiercely protective over the whole group. Vod takes on a hell of a lot more than she lets on and the fact that she has lived with these people and let them in over the course of a term has been a big deal. Seeing her relationship with other characters deepen, especially with JP and Josie, has been really satisfying. Also the episode where she falls in what she thinks is love was really funny because it’s Vod opening up even more to different experiences.

“This season we do see her slightly more vulnerable side but she is also almost like a narrator in a way, she clocks absolutely everything – nothing happens in the house without her knowing about it.

“She’s really caring but at the same time she’s sort of weirdly indestructible. She has such a big heart but is also one of those amazing people who can drink far too much and take too many drugs – like you might say to Iggy Pop ‘you’ve put yourself in some bad situations but you seem to have come through them alright. Still rolling on…’

Also because she is so blunt about things I think she has got a really good grip on what life is. If people die that is just something that happens and you move on. Who knows, maybe aged 40 she’ll have a huge emotional breakdown but for now she’s just a character who has very little subtext, enjoys a good time, has time for people but also insight and will share that. She is her own little thing.”

But Vod also has a few money worries this term and needs to find a job…

“Starting work as a chamber maid is Vod’s idea of hell – that is working for the man. But she is also really good at it. She is massively creative and hard-working but she doesn’t fit into a system and I really identify with that – your work ethic not being that of an institution or a machine. She could probably be great at anything she put her hand to, she’s not limited. But you wouldn’t get out of it what you think… She is definitely born out of her time, she is really modern but at same time there is something sort of old school and punk about her.”

And what are Zawe’s stand-out moments of this series? “I love doing the scenes where we are all together. Those big group scenes are beasts – seriously we are there all day – but they are so satisfying. What is so nice is that you can have reactions off of people, even if you are not saying anything I get an awful lot out of those scenes. The reaction shots are my favourite bits. And exploring the physical proximity of each other – giving this real sense of being in a student house.

Talking of her eclectic mix of fans, Zawe says: “Some people are really drawn in by the hard-living side of Vod and are watching the show thinking ‘that’s someone really good on a night out’. Unfortunately I’m not that person anymore. It is the realisation that I can’t go clubbing all night; I have a job and I’m tired. On the flip side I get lots of lovely mature men and women in their 50s and 60s coming over and saying how nostalgic the whole show feels and how much they like the character because they knew someone like that, so I get both ends of the spectrum. Some lovely fans on twitter made t shirts saying Keep Calm and Trust in the Vod… in that font with a little picture of me. That is definitely the nicest thing that has happened.”

Zawe is currently filming Case Histories for the BBC. She also has another project in the pipeline. “I’ve written a short film for Greg (McHugh). Greg is a superstar, one of the best actors out there working – the characters he creates on screen are superb. I want to direct that. To have a production company and be working out of that writing, directing and acting and hiring teams of people I know will do a good job would be amazing; a dream come true.”

 

Fresh Meat returns to Channel 4 on Tuesday 9th October at 10pm.

The Truth About Looking Young

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You may have seen Dr. Rozina Ali’s excellent BBC Horizon programme entitled ‘The Truth About Looking Young’, if not see it here, in which she talked about L’Oreal’s progress in the field of glycobiology and how it is the next big thing in the cosmetics industry. (you can read her article here)

There is a whole new exciting science called glycobiology which looks at lipids and sugars and their role in our bodies. It promises to shed light on the differences between young skin and ageing skin, in particular the role of glycans in repairing damaged skin. This pairs really interesting with our recent skin care report, where together with Mintel l’Oreal found that:

Eye creams and gels

  • Nearly half of all women (46%) use anti-wrinkle eye creams. Eye cream usage is mostly used around the 24 to 54 age groups, for more than half of these women.
  • One in four (26%) 15-24 year olds state that their skincare routine also includes the use of an anti-wrinkle eye cream.

Moisturisers

  • Moisturisers are used by over two-thirds (68%) of women
  • Only 35% use them every day
  • The most popular and highest-volume usage is with young women, with 43% of under 25s using them.

Anti-ageing serums

  • 39% of all British women use anti-ageing serums.
  • As women grow older, 46% of 55-64s using anti-ageing serums as part of their skincare routine.
    L’Oreal have announced a nationally representative UK clinicial trial of YSL Forever Youth Liberator to be published in a journal, which will provide further solid evidence of the anti-ageing effects of glycobiology.

L’Oréal, the leading beauty company will strengthen its understanding of the clinical benefits between the emerging science of glycobiology and skin ageing by commissioning an independent UK-based clinical trial of the Yves Saint Laurent Forever Youth Liberator skincare range.

Forever Youth Liberator is the first range of products available that are based on research into glycobiology, an area of science that is already the subject of intense research activity. L’Oréal has already conducted numerous clinical studies, with validated objective assessments of outcome, for each of the products in this range before their launch. The company is confident that a new independent UK-based clinical trial, to be published in a peer reviewed journal, will provide further evidence of the skin ageing effectiveness of the Yves Saint Laurent Forever Youth Liberator products.  These include a new eye serum and night cream which will be launched in the coming months.

Julie McManus, Scientific Director for L’Oréal UK and Ireland said:

“L’Oréal has devoted over 20 years’ research into understanding the role of glycobiology in skin and the changes that occur with age. We have succeeded in developing highly effective products based on glycobiology, protecting the important role that glycans play in healthy skin. We are totally committed to proving the scientific results of our skincare products, which is why we are carrying out a UK-based clinical trial on the Forever Youth Liberator range.”

Forever Youth Liberator serum, cream, nutri cream, cleansing foam and lotion are now available from major department stores and Boots Beauty counters as well as www.yslbeauty.co.uk.

 

Following the success of the face serum, the best-selling product of the range, Yves Saint Laurent will be introducing on the 5th September an eye serum, specifically designed for the area of the face where skin is at its thinnest.

 

USAIN BOLT: THE MOVIE -“I told you all I was going to be No. 1 and I just did that”

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RELEASED BY REVOLVER ENTERTAINMENT, AVAILABLE TO OWN ON DVD 6th August

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In this extraordinary film, French producer and director Gael Leiblang paints us an intimate and boundless portrait of the life of athletic legend and cultural icon Usain Bolt.

Breaking BBC records (reaching 3 million viewers) when aired in mid July, this DVD features an extra 30 minutes of never before seen footage, delving deeper than ever fathomed into the rigorous training sessions and elusive private life of the long-legged Jamaican.

Granted exclusive and unprecedented access to the fastest man in the world, Leiblang explores Bolt’s childhood and chronicles him in a series of in-depth interviews, as he prepares to make history at this year’s Olympic games in London.

Filmed over a 12 month period, leading up to this year’s Games, Bolt is examined both at home with his family and friends and on the road competing across the world.

This stunning documentary expertly exposes his boyish charm in his home environment, juxtaposed to his uncompromising focus and invincibility on the track, where he gallops past the other runners, like a God competing with mere mortals.

Usain Bolt sealed his position as the fastest man on earth and entered the history books when he successfully retained his 100m Olympic title. As over four billion peopled watched the 100m final at the London 2012 Olympic Games on the 5th Of August, the Jamaican sprinter took the gold medal convincingly. The win means that Bolt retains his three Olympic titles and three world records.*

From gruelling sessions on the practice track, to deejaying for fans in Italy and including his infamous false start at World Championships, this remarkable documentary takes us inside the life of the man who could become the greatest athlete the Olympics has ever seen.

USAIN BOLT: THE MOVIE is out on DVD to buy and rent.

RRP for £12.99