In defence of...Jordan???

I've previously made my dislike of glamour model-turned-TV celebrity and author Katie Price, aka Jordan apparent in previous entries on this blog.
However for ex-Atomic Kitten Kerry Katona to claim the model has ‘more money than sense’ (earlier this month Jordan admitted her daughter Princess Tiaami has over 100 pairs of shoes) is a bit rich - especially since Ms Katona is now declared bankrupt.
Methinks Kerry should be more concerned about her own financial affairs...
PS: in case you were wondering, the pic is of Katie Price/Jordan in LA, albeit with newly reduced 32C bust and mysteriously plumped up lips. If she's not careful, those operations will come back to haunt her...
Katona: 'Jordan has more money than sense'
Ex-Kitten Katona is made bankrupt

Football, football, football (continued)...

Well Premier League football is back, and Arsenal beat West Brom 1-0 in their opening gamr of the season (equally as good, the Spuds lose their first game - and this is after outspending Arsenal in the transfer market).
Besides scoring his first Prem goal, new boy Samir Nasri looked the real deal. Apart from that, it was a case of same old Arsenal (dominating large parts of the match, but not killing off the opposition when it mattered).
Still even though the team isn't quite working together yet, Arsenal WON!! Let's hope this is the start of more success....
Arsenal 1-0 West Brom

Isaac Hayes RIP

This has not been a good weekend. First Bernie Mac...now this:
Soul icon Isaac Hayes dies at 65

US singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes has died at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 65, police said.
Police were called to Mr Hayes' home after his wife found him unconscious. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1408 (1908 GMT).
Mr Hayes won an Oscar for the 1971 hit Theme From Shaft.
He was perhaps better known to the younger generation as the voice of Chef from the hit cartoon show, South Park.
The cause of death was not immediately known.

I could go on about Isaac's work in music and film. Or about his role as Chef.
But above all, he deserves to be remembered for making Shaft...Shaft. One simply cannot imagine anyone else but Richard Rowntree as Shaft (sorry Samuel L. Jackson, but that's the honest-to-God truth). And one simply can't imagine the original Shaft movie without Isaac's legendary theme.

Thank you Isaac, for the Shaft theme, for Hot Buttered Soul, Black Moses, the Duke of New York, Truck Turner and for Chef.

RIP.

Isaac Hayes - Disco connection
Uploaded by coolfunk

Bernie Mac RIP

It's not often I am genuinely surprised by bad news.
But I was shocked and saddened to hear that comedian and actor Bernie Mac had passed away today.
According to his publicist Danica Smith, Bernie passed away this morning from complications due to a bout of pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital. He had recently been hospitalized and was being treated for this disease.

I know of Bernie though his work in movies such as Charlie's Angels, Kings of Comedy and Bad Santa.
But in America, he achieved critical and popular acclaim for the long-running sitcom The Bernie Mac Show, which earned him two Emmy award nominations.

Bernie often attributed his comedy career to his mother who, he said, had imbued him with a strong work ethic (he worked as a janitor, furniture mover, appliance hauler, and delivery man, prior to finding fame and fortune).

"Parents today don't get it," he wrote in his memoirs. "They don't want to be parents. They want to be cool. They want to be hip. They don't want to be the bad guy. But guess what? Being the bad guy is your job. My mama knew better. She wasn't there to make me like her; she was there to shape me; she was there to make me a good person."

A King of Comedy who talked some good sense and who'll be sadly missed.....R.I.P, Bernie Mac.
Comedian Bernie Mac dies aged 50

Thunderbirds are GO (again)...

Usually my weekend TV viewing centres around watching repeats of Stargate SG-1.

But this weekend I'll be gravitating to the Sci-Fi channel for a weekend of the popular Gerry Anderson television series Thunderbirds.
Although the series were created in the mid-1960s, it's still as great as ever (and shows up the 2004 Thunderbirds live action film for the pile of doggie-doo it was - director Jonathan Scott Frakes, hang your head in SHAME)....
Thunderbirds (TV series) - Wikipedia entry

THE GEORGIA-RUSSIA CONFLICT

From the BBC this morning:

Fierce fighting between Russian and Georgian troops is continuing in the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia.

After days of exchanging heavy fire with the Russian-backed separatists, Georgian forces moved on Thursday night to regain control of the region, which has had de facto independence since a war against Georgia that ended in 1992.

In response, Moscow sent armoured units across the border. Russia says 15 of its soldiers are dead, and separatists estimate that 1,400 civilians have died.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has failed to agree on the wording of a statement calling for a ceasefire.
Q&A: Violence in South Ossetia

Tensions between Georgia & Russia has been rising of late - besides the dispute over South Ossetia, Moscow has not looked favourably at Georgia's aspirations to join Nato as well as the European Union. Georgia has also forged a close relationship with the United States.

It is my fervent hope that the fighting will cease as soon as possible with minimum bloodshed. But sadly I doubt it.... since entering this post, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has declared the country is "officially" in a state of war.

808 on 08/08/08 (a musical interlude)....

Somehow I think it's appropriate that 808 State should be my musical interlude for today - August 8th 2008...08/08/08.

So here's Pacific State, a timeless house tune from 1989, that still sounds fantastic today (and reminds me of some great clubbing memories back then)!



The date 08/08/08 is considered so lucky to the Chinese that officials opened the Beijing Olympics today at exactly 8:08 pm, China Standard Time. In Chinese culture, the number eight (八; accounting 捌; pinyin bā) is considered a lucky number, because it sounds like the word "prosper" or "wealth" (发; Pinyin: fā). No wonder state media reported that 16,400 couples registered for marriage certificates in Beijing today, almost four times as many as on the same date last year.
808 State (Wikipedia entry)

LDM is 30....

Geez - now I really feel old!!!
Congrats to Linsey Dawn McKenzie (aka LDM), who is 30 today....following info from Wikipedia:

"Linsey Dawn McKenzie, B-list celebrity, glamour model and former pornographic actress. Measurements: 36DD-22-34 (was 36HH-22-34 before her breast reduction). Born August 7, 1978".

LDM was recently involved with a "free DVD" promotion with the Sunday Sport, apparently of new (post-breast reduction) material - but the less said about that, the better.

Furthermore in July 2008, LDM began performing as a summer feature act at Secrets, a nude lap dancing club in London.

Come on in! The (Martian) water’s lovely!

Nasa's Phoenix Mars lander spacecraft has identified water in a sample of soil collected on the planet for the first time. Scientists will now be able to begin studying the sample to see whether the planet was ever, or is, habitable.

"We've seen evidence for this water-ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted," William Boynton, one of the researchers on the mission, explained.

"We're also finding nutrients - sodium, potassium, magnesium, fluorides - things that we find in our own bodies and are definitely nutrients that are important for life. However, we have yet to discover organic materials."

Well, if there is life on Mars, I'm hoping it's Dejah Thoris...
Nasa's lander samples Mars water

British justice - the best (that money can buy)....

Drugs charges against the heir to the multi-billion pound Tetra Pak drinks carton empire were dropped this week. 45 year-old Hans Kristian Rausing, whose father is Britain's sixth richest man with a fortune of £5.4 billion, had been charged with possessing Class A drugs. His American-born wife Eva, 44, was charged with possessing Class A and Class C drugs.
The couple were arrested in April this year, after Mrs Rausing allegedly tried to smuggle small amounts of crack cocaine and heroin into the US embassy in London.

According to court documents, Mr Rausing was charged with possessing 0.2oz (5.63g) of crack cocaine, 0.1oz (2.9g) of heroin and almost 1.8oz (52g) of cocaine. However after a ‘protracted correspondence’ between the Rausings' lawyers and the Crown Prosecution Service, all charges were dropped and they will each receive a ‘conditional caution’ instead, after confessing that they are drug addicts.

The couple will have to sign an official document admitting to the offence, giving consent to the caution. A record of the cautions will remain on police files but the couple will not have criminal records as a result.

Bear with we - the following extract was taken from an article in the Times published this week after the above events:

A random selection of people who in one way or another were found in possession of Class A drugs in recent months.

Scott McEvoy, 24, from Liverpool - 40 months in jail. Alistair Oliver, 23, from Edinburgh - 29 months, ditto. Craig James, 23, from Swansea - three years. James McGlashan, 26, of no fixed address - fined £300. Former Royal Marine Vincent McGuire, 32, of Gloucestershire - three years' jail. Matthew Edward Dean, 20, of Cardiff - fined £100 with £60 court costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Spot the difference?

One has to wonder - how can we hope to ‘win’ the war on drugs when the rich and famous can apparently use drugs without worry or repercussions?
Tetra Pak drug case sparks review
Blame the rich for feeding the drug industry