Jenjie

The Foreign Office admitted a serious breach of security today after 3,000 blank passports destined for British embassies worldwide were stolen from a van. The 24 parcels, containing blank passports and vignettes - the blank stickers for visa stamps - were taken from the vehicle, which was en-route from a factory in Oldham to RAF Northolt near London. The passports - taken when the van was hijacked near the site of the factory in Chadderton - were said to be the new electronic type which contain a chip replicating the data printed on the document itself. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said that the "security features" made them unusable, but added that the Home Office had in any case taken "preventative action" to guard against forgeries. She confirmed that the documents had been produced at Oldham-based printing firm 3M Security Printing and Systems. "The van was hijacked en route from the production site," she said. A spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said: "Shortly before 6.40am on Monday, police were called to Gorse Street, Chadderton, following reports of a robbery. Officers attended and found boxes containing blank passports had been stolen. Inquiries are ongoing." An Identity and Passport Service spokesman reiterated that "hi-tech security features" left the passports unusable. "The police are doing everything in their power to catch the perpetrators," he added. Such sensitive documents are usually transported in armoured, secure vehicles, he added. It was not stated whether the vehicle transporting these passports conformed to this specification. The incident is the latest where government departments or agencies either lost personal data or had it stolen. Last month, an Independent Police Complaints Commission report condemned the "woefully inadequate system" being used by staff which brought about the loss of 25 million child benefit records, complete with sensitive personal information, late last year. In addition, nine NHS trusts last December admitted they had lost confidential patients’ information while - in the same month - it was disclosed that the personal details of three million UK learner drivers had been lost by the agency in charge of storing them in the American state of Iowa. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4420850.ece

Coldplay Bring the Bombast J.I. would like to think we are pretty open minded, and jaded as we might be, we’re not music snobs – if we get drunk and nostalgic enough, we can karaoke “American Pie” from start to finish. So when last minute Coldplay tickets came along, we decided to live in the moment and hopped on a train headed for Philly. You see, we’ve never been big Coldplay fans. We don’t dislike them, per se, and we think they serve as great background music in one of our favorite movies (the deliciously snarky Igby Goes Down). But we never quite got the mass appeal, either. Perennial J.I. fave Santogold opened the show, and after a lackluster SummerStage performance last week, totally redeemed herself. The addition of a full band, as opposed to the DJ and dancers she performed with previously, filled out her sound and her seem more like a real group and less like a hipster karaoke act. Unfortunately, the Coldplay crowd didn’t really seem to get her; she wasn’t booed, but she was met with plenty of shrugs. While Santogold might have been met with ambivalence, Coldplay were met with an outpouring of support from the sold out arena. J.I. has always respected bands that take their job as entertainers and performers seriously; while we’re not big Bon Jovi fans, we admire their respect for their fans and their determination to provide a memorable night. Coldplay, much like a U2, are in the same vein – they bring the bombast, and act like they genuinely want to give the assembled masses a good time. From the opener, “Violet Hill,” to the hits from their previous albums, the band was tight, energetic, and true showmen. We probably won’t be running for the president of the Coldplay fan club any time soon; the songs did begin to blend in to one another, and something still leaves us a little cold. But the show did provide us with a newfound admiration for a band that takes their craft very seriously. http://billboard.blogs.com/jadedinsider/2008/07/coldplay-bring.html

Traffic and Dust Problems Overshadow Pemberton Festival's Big Name Line-Up Over the weekend, the Pemberton Festival brought artists like Jay-Z, Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails and the Flaming Lips to play to more than 40,000 festival-goers in the B.C. wilderness. But it also brought a fair share of chaos as well. According to several news reports, the inaugural music fest was marred by kilometres-long traffic jams, chaotic parking lots, choking clouds of dust, overflowing toilets and overworked medical tents. After many fans got hung up on the 30-kilometre stretch of highway between Whistler and Pemberton— some for over five hours — they were greeted by parking situation that left many scratching their heads. “Getting here from Whistler was a nightmare,” festival-goer Adelle Papp told CBC News. “Then we paid $90 for parking, and we just stumbled on it. There was no one directing traffic, nothing.” Exclaim! correspondent Amanda Ash, who covered the festival for us, faced a different obstacle of her own when he bus turned over, forcing the passengers to escape through the emergency exits. “Our bus flipped last night because they didn't make the roads big enough to fit two cars. Awesome,” said reported. “I’ve never had to use the emergency escape before last night. It's kinda funny after the fact (especially since parts of this festival are a total disaster, as I'm sure you've already heard) but during the whole tipping process I thought I was going to die. Haha.” Amanda also gave a more detailed account of the traffic jam, adding, “There's only one road in and one road out, so traffic was a nightmare. Tour buses were late (obviously). I missed half the festival on Saturday because I was stuck in traffic for over three hours. Another reporter was stuck in traffic for six hours yesterday. Police couldn't get in and ambulances couldn't get out. Oh, and the place looks like a makeshift refugee camp because there were only a handful of garbage cans. All the papers on Friday pretty much said it was a gong show.” Once everyone managed to pass all the traffic hurdles, many had to play the waiting once more, with line-ups to get a beer, use the toilet and even get a bottle of water being almost as long as those on the highway. And while this may be expected for a festival of this size, concertgoers had to do it all while inhaling clouds of dust kicked up by crowds on farmer’s field-turned-festival site, forcing many to cover their faces with scarves to avoid inhaling the dust. Over at the first aid tent, Dr. Samuel Gutman told the Vancouver Sun that the dust had been causing a lot of problems for some festival-goers. “With the dust, we’ve seen lots of respiratory illnesses, and lots of hay fever, which makes sense, given the floor is spread with hay,” he said. He said, the medical team treated about 250 cases a day, with the roving response teams taking care of about 600 to 800 people a day. “To give you a persecutive, at Lion’s Gate, which is a main trauma receiving hospital, we’d see 120 a day,” Gutman told the Sun. “Friday we did over a hundred IVs. We actually completely exceeded our stock.” Also, it seems the security wasn’t as tight as promised, causing many music fans to come out with complaints. "Security was giving up," concertgoer Chris Betts told the Canadian Press. "There were no checks and no one seemed to know who was in charge." Another Pemberton audience member told the CBC: "It was kind of like going to a war zone. It feels like entering a refugee camp: tents, blowing dust and bright lights." Yet, despite the problems, Pemberton Festival organizers are already talking about doing it all again next year. “In our inaugural year, there are obviously kinks and we have identified those issues and we have been taking notes and figuring out how we can improve,” festival producer Shane Bourbonnais of Live Nation told the Province newspaper. “We have already started looking at ways of fixing them, working toward a much smoother festival for next year.” http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=844&fid1=32743

Traffic and Dust Problems Overshadow Pemberton Festival's Big Name Line-Up Over the weekend, the Pemberton Festival brought artists like Jay-Z, Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails and the Flaming Lips to play to more than 40,000 festival-goers in the B.C. wilderness. But it also brought a fair share of chaos as well. According to several news reports, the inaugural music fest was marred by kilometres-long traffic jams, chaotic parking lots, choking clouds of dust, overflowing toilets and overworked medical tents. After many fans got hung up on the 30-kilometre stretch of highway between Whistler and Pemberton— some for over five hours — they were greeted by parking situation that left many scratching their heads. “Getting here from Whistler was a nightmare,” festival-goer Adelle Papp told CBC News. “Then we paid $90 for parking, and we just stumbled on it. There was no one directing traffic, nothing.” Exclaim! correspondent Amanda Ash, who covered the festival for us, faced a different obstacle of her own when he bus turned over, forcing the passengers to escape through the emergency exits. “Our bus flipped last night because they didn't make the roads big enough to fit two cars. Awesome,” said reported. “I’ve never had to use the emergency escape before last night. It's kinda funny after the fact (especially since parts of this festival are a total disaster, as I'm sure you've already heard) but during the whole tipping process I thought I was going to die. Haha.” Amanda also gave a more detailed account of the traffic jam, adding, “There's only one road in and one road out, so traffic was a nightmare. Tour buses were late (obviously). I missed half the festival on Saturday because I was stuck in traffic for over three hours. Another reporter was stuck in traffic for six hours yesterday. Police couldn't get in and ambulances couldn't get out. Oh, and the place looks like a makeshift refugee camp because there were only a handful of garbage cans. All the papers on Friday pretty much said it was a gong show.” Once everyone managed to pass all the traffic hurdles, many had to play the waiting once more, with line-ups to get a beer, use the toilet and even get a bottle of water being almost as long as those on the highway. And while this may be expected for a festival of this size, concertgoers had to do it all while inhaling clouds of dust kicked up by crowds on farmer’s field-turned-festival site, forcing many to cover their faces with scarves to avoid inhaling the dust. Over at the first aid tent, Dr. Samuel Gutman told the Vancouver Sun that the dust had been causing a lot of problems for some festival-goers. “With the dust, we’ve seen lots of respiratory illnesses, and lots of hay fever, which makes sense, given the floor is spread with hay,” he said. He said, the medical team treated about 250 cases a day, with the roving response teams taking care of about 600 to 800 people a day. “To give you a persecutive, at Lion’s Gate, which is a main trauma receiving hospital, we’d see 120 a day,” Gutman told the Sun. “Friday we did over a hundred IVs. We actually completely exceeded our stock.” Also, it seems the security wasn’t as tight as promised, causing many music fans to come out with complaints. "Security was giving up," concertgoer Chris Betts told the Canadian Press. "There were no checks and no one seemed to know who was in charge." Another Pemberton audience member told the CBC: "It was kind of like going to a war zone. It feels like entering a refugee camp: tents, blowing dust and bright lights." Yet, despite the problems, Pemberton Festival organizers are already talking about doing it all again next year. “In our inaugural year, there are obviously kinks and we have identified those issues and we have been taking notes and figuring out how we can improve,” festival producer Shane Bourbonnais of Live Nation told the Province newspaper. “We have already started looking at ways of fixing them, working toward a much smoother festival for next year.” http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=844&fid1=32743

Coldplay's palate pleasers charm Wachovia crowd The world's most palatable rock-and-roll band came to the sold-out Wachovia Center in South Philadelphia on Friday, working hard to please. An hour and half spent with Coldplay is like enjoying a light summer meal, spread out on the lawn on a humidity-free late July evening. Chris Martin and his bandmates make for mildly engaging company, and even when they aim lasers to the rafters, the bombast goes down easy. Airy melodies carry the day, and it never threatens to become a hot and sticky situation. At the Wachovia, the British foursome - which includes guitarist Jonny Buckman, bass player Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion - took the stage half-obscured behind a scrim, with Martin strumming an acoustic guitar on "Life in Technicolor," the vaguely exotic instrumental that leads off the band's formula-tweaking fourth album, Viva La Vida Or Death and All His Friends. Then, the curtain came up to reveal the backdrop of Eugene Delacroix's bare-breasted Liberty Leading The People - nudity, at a Coldplay show! - and the arena-sized entertainment began. Sporting the silly blue and red military outfits that signal they're all on the same soft-rock team, the foursome kicked off with "Violet Hill," the dark and stormy first single off the Brian Eno-produced Vida. The rockers then proceeded to march through agreeable past hits like the mass singalong "Yellow" and momentum-gathering "Speed of Sound." They also performed nearly all of Vida, the album that moved more than 700,000 copies in its first week of release. Martin is a high-energy, ingratiating performer whose music is in its comfort zone when he's bouncing on his piano stool on pulsing songs like "Clocks," with verses that can't help but hurry toward anthemic choruses before settling down to share intimate confidences. If you pay too close attention to the lyrics on ballads like "Fix You" and "The Scientist," you might think you had wandered into a Hallmark-card pep rally. And although the band's tendency toward grandiosity can't help but come off as U2-lite, Martin's self-deprecating charm diminishes the cloying quotient. "Even objectively, this is a tremendous reception, and we're incredibly grateful," the well-spoken rock star told the crowd. And to prove that Coldplay is a band of the people, the foursome closed the set with two acoustic songs played in the midst of the crowd, including a quite lovely "Death Will Never Conquer," sung by Champion. That interlude went so well that Martin received several fist-bump congratulations from fans. "Don't tell Fox News!" he quipped. Mount Airy-raised Santi White - who has risen to ultimate hipster status as Santogold - warmed up with a half-hour set that did its best to connect with a half-full house. The Brooklyn-based White fronted an eight-member ensemble that expertly navigated the New Wave, dub, reggae and electro-pop textures of her Santogold debut. It wasn't her crowd, but White was greeted warmly enough by the audience, even if she had to shout "Philadelphia!" twice to get a response that "sounds like my hometown." Singer-songwriter Jonah Delso - from Westhampton, Burlington County - won a WMMR-FM (93.3) contest to open the show. Delso did 20 solidly crafted minutes of piano-cushioned pop songs like "Elevator" and "Before I Go Away" that dovetailed nicely with the unfailingly pleasant sounds of the headliner. Dan DeLuca http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/music/20080728_Coldplay_s_palate_pleasers_charm_Wachovia_crowd.html

Musical thrills were worth the wait As they hit the stage 50 minutes late at the mega-musical festival they helped to create, the members of Coldplay seemed genuinely grateful that people had stuck around to hear them, late on a Sunday night and after a weekend of logistical problems that might have sent less devoted fans running. "Thanks for waiting around for us," front man Chris Martin said after the opening song, Violet Hill. Then they put on a show that was the worth the wait. Martin exhibited more than his typical enthusiasm as he rocked out on the guitar and behind the piano, complete with dance moves that made you wonder if he's been getting tips from Gord Downie. Their light show dazzled, with laser beams, a lit-up peanut-shaped balloon bouncing through the audience, and of course the trademark yellow floodlights to accompany the hit Yellow. Martin is every bit the rock star. At the same time, he seemed almost humbled and certainly delighted as he looked out at the packed field in the remote Pemberton Valley and saw first-hand the result of his band's dream to help to produce - and headline - a European-style music festival in North America: thousands of fans, on-site camping, a killer lineup. "You braved hours of traffic and rain - all to take a chance on a new festival," Martin said, adding that the consensus was that the event has been "a great success." Their late arrival onstage was the result of a backlog caused earlier in the day when the American funk/hip-hop/alt-rock band N.E.R.D. got stuck in the notorious traffic that overwhelmed the highway between Whistler and Pemberton all weekend. A drive that normally takes 25 minutes took up to 4½ hours on Sunday. The scary prospect of the drive back saw the crowd thinning out a few songs into Coldplay's fine set. "Down your beer and let's go," someone behind me said to her friend during Viva La Vida. Behind the stage, the crawling traffic was visible - along with the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. Distracting, to be sure. On distractions, what should have been a highlight of the night was marred by a sound issue that plagued the festival all weekend. As Coldplay performed a short set on a tiny stage set in the middle of the crowd - which included an acoustic version of The Scientist - the ever-present bass line coming out of the B-Live tent across the field was clearly audible. It made the experience less intimate for the audience and more challenging for Martin. Still, it was a powerful show over all, with the crowd singing along word for word to hits including Clocks, In My Place and especially Yellow. The inaugural Pemberton Festival ended with a double-barrelled bang: Before Coldplay, hip-hop superstar Jay-Z put on an extraordinary performance that had fans in a tizzy for more than an hour: waving their arms in tribute, bouncing like crazy and, in the case of a few free-wheeling female fans, flashing the crowd on the giant video screens. Things never let up. It was electric. One wonders about any controversy in having Jay-Z headline a music festival (a debate raged after he was announced as this year's Glastonbury Festival headliner). Even Martin joked during Coldplay's set: "We're honoured to be closing for Jay-Z." The juxtaposition of Jay-Z's urban lyrics against the silhouette of the darkening mountains was something to experience. As he made his way through hit after hit - 99 Problems; Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem); Jigga What, Jigga Who; even a bit of Crazy in Love (minus new bride Beyoncé) - fans who should have been pretty spent after a long, dusty weekend were beyond enthusiastic. As the show wrapped up, like a teacher handing out gold stars at the end of class, Jay-Z sent some shout-outs to audience members whose enthusiasm he had noticed. "You in the yellow T-shirt," he pointed to a fan. "And you, baby girl." An unlikely highlight from earlier in the day was a stunning two-song collaboration between Toronto's Dj Dopey and part of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. As Dj Dopey (a.k.a. Jon Ryan Santiago) stood centre-stage behind his turntable set-up in his Notes To Self T-shirt, a black curtain slowly rose behind him, revealing 16 members of the VSO in formal wear (we're talking white tuxedos and black ball gowns). The classical musicians played the opening strains of The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, Dj Dopey was spinning and scenes from The Shining flashed on the screens behind the stage. The young, mojito-infused crowd in the B-Live tent ate it up. Future VSO subscription holders? Perhaps. For the most part, Sunday's lineup provided a bang-up end to a festival that had its share of logistical problems (including long lineups for shuttles, showers and porta-potties), but delivered big time on musical thrills. Martin wound up Coldplay's show by wishing for "many more years of success" for the festival and thanking everyone once again for sticking around. "Sorry about the traffic, but I hope it's been worthwhile." A chance to see Coldplay, Jay-Z, The Tragically Hip, Nine Inch Nails, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Buck 65, Wintersleep (I could go on) all in one weekend? Worthwhile doesn't begin to cover it. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080729.PEMBERTON29/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Music/

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i'm guessing the not being able to write comes from when you bite your nails as badly as my cousin. he never used to have more than 1cm worth of nail on his fingers he bit them so much

most of Hostel. it was so gross i didn't watch great chunks of that film

woooooooo more Lost. booooo only 2 more seasons left

Today's quote Seth: "You'll hurt her. Let her go."

wooooooooooooooo :dance: gratz :D

embedded for you :) <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=" name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

welcome! :D yup, that is a 5 hour difference so when I get into work on Wed it'll be 3am in Montreal :)

marisa's post merged into the thread

The threatening letter on the doormat about licence fee non-payment might soon be joined by another from your local internet service provider. At least it will if you have been virally spreading Coldplay without permission. Bereft, perhaps, of enough incidents of dangerous dogs to merit new legislation, the government is attempting to cut illegal downloading activity by up to 80%. In an initiative involving the record industry trade body, the BPI, the film industry and the government, a memorandum of understanding has been drawn up that will potentially see the half-dozen largest internet service providers in the UK sending out around 1,000 letters a week as a warning to those who use their bandwidth to illegally download, or worse, upload and share music and films. The move echoes 80s campaigns that tried to persuade students buying bootleg tapes in Camden that their £2.99 would immediately go into the pockets of the IRA or the National Front. But, as the warnings are of a less altruistic and more personal nature - carry on doing this and we will cut off your broadband - the effects might be more immediate and long-lasting. While nobody should endorse illegal file-sharing, the issue of monitoring internet use is controversial. It reminds people there is an ability to monitor and store data about individuals at the most granular and unwelcome level. Obviously, this happens all the time, but the increasingly public reminders raise some very uncomfortable questions about personal freedom versus commercial compliance in the future. At one end of the thinking on intellectual property, law and the internet, best represented by the US lawyer and open-access campaigner Larry Lessig, the view is, not unreasonably, that the current version of copyright is so broken that we need to rethink it rather than constantly try to enforce it. (Although only two weeks ago, Europe's internal markets and services commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, outlined plans to extend copyright on recorded music to 95 years from the current 50.) Can the free-content genie of the internet really be forced back into the bottle? The answer will depend on how hard companies want to try, how much they are prepared to spend on it and whether they are happy to risk audience extinction. One of the facets of the viral nature of the internet is that reach trumps revenue - and might occasionally undermine it - but it doesn't completely collapse the value chain. We are all in the music business now: we have to accept that the value of content is going to be essentially nil, but that the opportunity to monetise the experience through live gatherings, merchandising, hard copy sales and new advertising models might partially make up for the end of the distribution monopolies. The record industry, and the ISPs for that matter, might reflect on the fact that neither they nor governments and regulators have had the greatest effect on reversing the decline in paid-for music. It was Steve Jobs at Apple who came at the problem with a new model that put the audience at the heart of the equation. Writing on the Guardian's website last week, the musician Billy Bragg noted that artists who want to be paid for their efforts are nevertheless uncomfortable about the idea of their fans being harassed or even penalised for listening to their music. But his suggestion of a kind of licence fee for music evokes images of more letters on the mat. If the campaign succeeds, then what? The free downloaders will not replace the illegal sharing with paid-for music. They might be less inclined to populate the festivals or buy the T-shirts. They might turn off their computers and learn an instrument instead or, more likely, find a different online activity to fill the void. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2008/07/illegal_sharing_is_not_killing_1.html

googling ctv and etalk gives you http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/show/CTVShows/1063825625838_59231102/ its on every night at 7pm http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/tvlist/CFTOtvlist.html

ty :D at least for this one i don't have to worry about trying a last minute get out of working. its a saturday, and my weekend off :D

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grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr how disappointing. the sneak preview is a shorter version of the sneak preview in the back of my copy of Eclipse

a quick time check please ladies & gents. its currently 20:18 in the UK. what time is it in Montreal? then I know what time to be looking for your reviews on Wed morning :)

I love the art deco features on the walls

Just found this on my visitor messages, for all of you in travelling distance of Toronto.

yay!! you win the prize for first one back :D that's my first fan review for Wiki :) and you filled in one of the missing songs from the setlist we had earlier. one more to find :D

Be in the eTalk Audience - Toronto July 31st Just found this on my visitor messages, for all of you in travelling distance of Toronto.