Jenjie

Jinx on England - Grip England assistant manager Tord Grip fears the squad are jinxed after the latest injury setbacks affecting Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen. Rooney's fractured metatarsal in his right foot and Michael Owen's on-going discomfort after recovery from a similar problem are the latest issues to concern England, while Tottenham defender Ledley King broke his foot last month while Arsenal left-back Ashley Cole is still to make a full comeback after a similar problem sustained back in October. Grip believes it is becoming a recurring theme, telling The Sun: "I saw poor Wayne lying there and thought 'Oh no, here we go again - another injury before the World Cup. It happened before with David Beckham, now it is happening again. It happens every tournament and it has happened to Wayne Rooney before." He added: "We have tried everything possible to avoid injuries. This time we even made sure the structure of the season gave us extra time to prepare the team before the big tournament. Then this happens. "On top of that we hear Michael Owen is not right and we might be without both our strikers for the World Cup." Rooney's England and Manchester United team-mate Gary Neville is hopeful the 20-year-old will recover within the six weeks suggested and play a part in Germany. "It is too soon to predict what it means for the World Cup but we all know that England don't possess another player with his ability to produce the unpredictable," he told The Times. "He is irreplaceable in the sense we don't have anyone like him but, if only for the pre-tournament friendlies, we have to start working out the alternatives." http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Jose Mourinho has offered to rest his senior England trio from the last two games of the season to help Sven-Goran Eriksson. England boss Eriksson needs a boost after Wayne Rooney broke a bone in his foot which could rule him out of the World Cup finals. Chelsea have clinched the Premiership title and Mourinho says he is happy to protect John Terry, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole by leaving them out of the last two games of the season. "My relationship with Sven is very good. I said to him: 'If you want my players to finish after we've played Manchester United, they will finish then'," said Mourinho. "I gave him that choice. I'm ready to help England if they think it is a help. I'm ready to let them finish for the season now, to have one more week to rest or have a holiday or go to some paradise." Shaun Wright-Phillips is also expected to make England's 23-man squad for the World Cup but he needs more games not less after being in and out of the Chelsea team this season. Terry left Stamford Bridge on crutches after the 3-0 win against Manchester United but Mourinho insists his captain does not have a serious problem. The Chelsea boss said: "I know he was hurt but it's not the kind of injury that is a problem for the future. The problem was the pain. Some people have a very low pain threshold and others have it very high. "When I look forward to the World Cup I think the English players are in very, very, very good condition." Terry has led the Blues to two Premiership titles and the Chelsea manager believes it is time for people to recognise him as a great player. Mourinho said: "For me he is the best central defender in the world, the best. It is difficult to be a better player. All he can do is keep that standard. The only point where he can improve is in European football, for the referees to look at him with the same eyes they look at other big players in the world. "For example, when Benfica played Barcelona, there was a free-kick and Ronaldinho went to measure the 10 yards for the wall. If another player did that, yellow card, goodbye, disappear. Ronaldinho, a walk, a smile, a laugh and it's done. The next jump for JT is for people to look at him as the big player he really is." http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Its all gone Lost! C4 tonight: 19:15 Destination Lost [subtitles] In preparation for the second must-see series of the explosive US drama, Destination Lost takes viewers back to the island for an in-depth look at the lives of the survivors. Fans of the programme and new viewers alike can feast themselves on a full hour of Lost-related facts, insights and flashbacks. Followed by 2 hours tomorrow!!!!! 1 of 21. The second series of the cult US drama begins where the first left off. Jack persuades the others not to explore the hatch until later - but Locke's curiosity gets the better of him. Shannon has an unexpected encounter with a familiar face, who leaves her with a mysterious warning. The next episode follows 2 of 21. Sawyer pulls an unconscious Michael on to a piece of wreckage and tries to revive him; Claire is surprised to discover a statue of the Virgin Mary in Charlie's bag; Locke finally solves the mystery of what's inside the hatch; and a flashback reveals how Walt's mother gained custody of her son Then E4 are showing episode 3 straight after 23:55 Lost [subtitles] Orientation E4 viewers who are dying to know what happens next can switch straight over after the first two episodes of the second series are screened on C4 for a first-look at the third nail-biting installment.

Its tomorrow night!!!!!! This is what David Chater in The Times said:

She co-wrote James Blunt’s biggest hit; now Amanda Ghost has the belief to go it alone, says Paul Sexton Twelve months ago, Amanda Ghost’s career was on the critical list. She gave an unbilled South by Southwest performance that was attended by approximately three men, since even the dog didn’t turn up. For all her potential star quality, one wondered where she could turn next. Earlier this month, at Joe’s Pub, a chic establishment in New York’s Village district, that career was officially reborn. Ghost and her band played a gig that had some extremely grands fromages from the American record industry buzzing around her like bluebottles. The captivated audience included two interested parties from the mighty Island Def Jam group: its chairman LA Reid, a respected writer-producer; and the label president, who also happens to be one of the top rappers in the world, Jay-Z. On stage, they saw an artist who immerses herself as compellingly in her strongly melodic and lyrically vivid songs in a club as she could in an arena. Such is the sudden all-around desirability of this Enfield girl of Indian and Spanish parentage, fully six years after she first did sport with the music business. If it is unusual for an artist to be Tomorrow’s Next Big Thing on two separate occasions, then Ghost can quickly banish any feeling of Groundhog Day with the knowledge that this time she is more than merely a malleable young artist at the mercy of the majors. Now, as singer, songwriter, producer, talent scout and label-owner, Ghost is preparing to release an EP on her own Plan A outlet, and seems highly likely to be snapped up again any moment now. Songs such as the thoughtful lead track Deep Water and the future smash Time Machine advertise a writing talent that has only matured by her bad business experiences. Ghost had been chasing a deal for four years when she was signed to Warner Brothers by Andrew Wickham, who had signed Joni Mitchell, among many others. Her first album, Ghost Stories, was released in 2000 to plenty of hoopla but skimpy commercial response. Notable songs were overbaked in what Ghost describes as a “wedding cake of a mess”. Her experiences of climbing the industry’s slippery ladders, only to come down its slimy snakes, are cautionary. “I was flown to LA in first class, picked up by a stretch limo, taken to the Warners lot in Burbank and driven around in a little golf cart. I felt like Judy Garland. You go in and you see pictures of Joni and Chrissie Hynde. It was, ‘I’ve arrived, I’ve made it.’ I guess as a girl from Enfield I had, because it was better than ending up on the checkout at Tesco. “You’re made to feel so incredibly special, until the record comes out and fails. And when it fails, you don’t even get a flight, you have to buy your own, and get a taxi.” A period of stasis followed, as the label refused to release her second album and scratched its collective head wondering what to do with her, before an equally dispiriting divorce. The transformation in Ghost’s fortunes was brought about by two events last year. The one attracting the attention, and for which she was nominated last week for two Ivor Novello awards, was that she was a co-writer of James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful. Happy to acknowledge the rejuvenating effect of a credit on what became the biggest song of 2005, she nevertheless says that her contribution consisted of tweaking its chorus four years ago, when Blunt was totally unknown. The outbreak of vehement anti-Bluntism throughout the industry is not something Ghost endorses, and why would she? The astonishing success of that ballad has put her on the songwriting want-lists of several stars from the outer stratosphere of stardom, their identities to remain secret a while longer. “Nobody thought I could write a song,” says Ghost. “‘Oh, she’s got a great voice but she can’t write a hit. We need to get her with somebody who can write a hit, then it will be fine.’ Now I’ve written one, and everyone’s saying, ‘Great songwriter, can she be an artist?’ I’ve been an artist all my life. I’m being asked to write with all these humungous stars, and I won’t do it unless I think they’re great. I’m not a musical whore. How soulless would that be? I’d hate to be called a professional songwriter.” The other turning point last year took place during that sparsely attended show in Austin, Texas. “It was so weird, because I wanted to give up that week. But one of the people who did see me worked on (the American television show) Jimmy Kimmel, and through that I got booked to play on there. It was still tough, and there was still no money, but something wouldn’t let me quit.” Plan A will not only release the album Ghost is completing amid the stellar writing commissions and her own gigs. She is also signing other artists, with whom she will write and record, adding to her new image as a sort of inadvertent renaissance woman. Her first discovery is a Charterhouse- educated member of the Thai royal family, Hugo Chakrabongse, an established recording and TV performer in his own country. “All the things that I argue about in the music business, and that I’m unhappy with — no development of artists, no belief, signing acts because everybody else wants to sign them — that’s not going to be my label. It’s going to sign people that I believe in, that make me stop. I don’t understand why record companies need to be the bad guys. They used to be the good guys, who nurtured things and brought them to a wider audience.” There is no danger that the great financial compensation of her famous collaboration will, as it were, blunt her edge. “I’m so not motivated by the money,” she says. “I haven’t made any yet: it takes ages to come through. But it’s made me hungrier — are you kidding? Now I’ve got to prove to everybody that I can do it as an artist.” Whether or not Ghost’s second coming proves more fruitful than the first, she is calmer in the knowledge that, this time, she gets to do things her way. “When I first met Joni Mitchell, she said, ‘What do you want to be, a rock’n’roll star or an artist?’ I didn’t know what to say, and I totally misunderstood the question. It’s taken me six years to understand what she meant. I said, ‘Both.’ She said, ‘You can’t be both.’ For years, it bugged me. What did she mean? We all want to be successful, we all want to be good. What she meant was, you can’t want to be both. “I want to do something that leaves a mark on the world. If I wanted to make money, I’d be a music lawyer. So now I’m standing on this precipice, looking down, thinking, ‘I’m going to jump’, and I’m either going to fly or fall like a stone. But it’s with my record.” Amanda Ghost’s EP, Blood on the Line, is released on Plan A on May 22 http://www.timesonline.co.uk

that's coz the rest of the world are glory hunters :P why else would you support Man U if you live in China? :D

A report compiled over two years details the ever-increasing species of flora and fauna facing extinction THE polar bear and hippopotamus have joined the list of species facing the threat of extinction, according to a report to be released this week. More than 16,000 species of animals, birds, fish and plants are registered as under serious threat of becoming extinct on the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). The number is up from just over 15,500 last year. The study, which examines the status of more than 40,000 species most in need of conservation attention, says that one in three amphibians, a quarter of the world’s coniferous trees, one in eight birds and one in four mammals are under considerable risk. Of 547 shark and ray species listed, 20 per cent are considered to be threatened with extinction. The report, compiled over two years by scientists from around the world, provides one of the most comprehensive indications of progress in meeting targets to reduce the rate at which species become endangered. The increase in the latest list is partly because more species have been examined than before. Among the worst affected are polar bears. The report says that the impact of climate change is being increasingly felt in the Arctic, where the level of sea ice in the summer is expected to decrease by 50 to 100 per cent over the next 50 to 100 years. As a result, the polar bear population is predicted to decline by more than 30 per cent in the next 45 years, and the species has moved up the IUCN list to be classified as “vulnerable”, threatened with global extinction. More unexpected is the decline of the common hippo, listed as under threat for the first time, largely because of a dramatic fall in numbers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In 1994 the DRC came only second to Zambia in hippo populations — with 30,000, compared with Zambia’s 40,000 — but numbers have since plummeted by 95 per cent, primarily because of unregulated hunting of them for meat and ivory from their teeth. The lesser-known pygmy hippo, a forest creature which exists in small numbers in West Africa, has similarly been affected by illegal logging and loss of habitat. Achim Steiner, directorgeneral of the IUCN, said: “The 2006 IUCN Red List shows a clear trend: biodiversity loss is increasing, not slowing down.” Several marine groups have been included in this year’s list. The angel shark has been declared extinct in the North Sea and the common skate upgraded from “endangered” to “critically endangered”. Both were once commonplace on European fish counters. Freshwater fish appear to fare little better, having experienced some of the most drastic falls in numbers, with 56 per cent of 252 endemic freshwater Mediterranean fish at risk of extinction. Mark Wright, science adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature, said that the study’s findings were “sad but not surprising”. “For freshwater species, not only do they face loss of habitat, but there’s also the issue of water pollution and poor management of water systems,” he said. “In Africa, governments understandably want to develop and improve their countries, but this must be done in a way that is environmentally sustainable. “Polar bears face the double problem of losing their natural habitat through climate change as well as being at the top of the food chain and hence carrying a high toxic load.” Mr Wright acknowledged international efforts to accommodate conservation issues. “We have seen some governments who are keen to improve their approaches environmentally and recognise that it is to the benefit of their economies if they act now,” he said. Desert wildlife, including various types of gazelle, also features in the list because of the threat of hunting and loss of habitat. Additionally, several plants from the Mediterranean area, one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, are listed, faced with growing pressures from intensive agriculture and mass tourism. However, some conservation projects have appeared to yield results. The Abbott’s booby, a seabird found in Australia and listed as critically endangered in 2004, has since started to recover, as have the Indian vulture and Mekong catfish. LEVELS OF DANGER The World Conservation Union’s Red List of Threatened Species contains information on the global status of 40,000 species, keeping track of those that are most at risk Threat categories range from “least concern”, “near threatened”, “vulnerable”, “endangered”, “critically endangered”, “extinct in the wild” to “extinct” The list was first conceived in 1963 and is used by government agencies, wildlife departments and conservation-related NGOs The number of species declared extinct is 784, with 65 found only in captivity or cultivation There are thought to be about 15 million species on the planet, with up to1.8 million known today Its results show that Australia, Brazil, China and Mexico are key areas containing threatened species http://www.timesonline.co.uk

nice generalisation that!!! might as well say that there aren't any Man U fans in Manchester :P I don't hate Chelsea. I do have a severe dislike of Man U though.

The best-selling novel by a university student who apologised for similarities between her book and another author's work has been pulled by its publisher. Publisher Little Brown asked retailers to stop selling Kaavya Viswanathan's book and return any copies. The book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, has passages that have been compared to the novels of Megan McCafferty. Viswanathan has apologised and said the similarities were unintentional. Sorry She has promised to change her novel for future print runs. Crown Publishing Group, which published McCafferty's work, said more than 40 passages of Viswanathan's book contained either identical language or common scene and dialogue structure to two of McCafferty's books. Its senior vice president, Steve Ross, called it "an act of literary theft". But following Little Brown's withdrawal of the book, Crown said it was pleased with the outcome and that McCafferty was "not seeking restitution in any form" and hoped to put the affair behind her. Fan Viswanathan said earlier that she had "read and loved" two of McCafferty's novels when she was younger and was "very surprised and upset" to learn of the similarities with her own novel. She added: "I am a huge fan of her work and can honestly say that any phrasing similarities between her works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious." The student also apologised to anyone who felt "misled by these unintentional errors on my part". She signed her contract with publisher Little Brown at the age of 17, making her the youngest author signed by the publisher in decades. The film rights have also been acquired by Dreamworks studio http://www.bbc.co.uk

More disaffected students have joined a campaign urging lecturers to stop industrial action which could see exams severely disrupted this summer. Members of Natfhe and the Association of University Teachers are refusing to mark work and exams in response to a "derisory" pay offer from employers. Last week 21 university student unions criticised the National Union of Students for supporting the boycott. Now a further 10 student unions have joined a lobby against the action. The NUS maintains that the majority of its campus members support the action and says more than 30 student unions have signed a counter-protest, backing the boycott. "Just yesterday University College London Students' Union, who previously signed up to the letter condemning AUT, passed policy to support the union and their action," said NUS president Kat Fletcher. Ms Fletcher said, in supporting the AUT action, the NUS was "representing the interests of all of our members". "Well-paid staff are motivated staff who will go the extra mile in delivering a high standard of service to students," she said. And the NUS would continue to urge the AUT to set exam papers, having "always opposed AUT's tactic to not set exams", she added. But a spokesman for the growing number of disenchanted student unions said: "It is a regrettable fact that the NUS chose to adopt a pro-AUT position on the issue of the boycott. "This was a severe error of judgement by the NUS." Students meet union leader On Thursday, three representatives from the "rebel" student unions met with the general secretary of the AUT, Sally Hunt, to urge her to call a halt to the action by lecturers. Gaston Dolle, Andy Wilson and Alain Desmier, from Bristol, Southampton and Exeter students' unions respectively, said they were not against a pay rise for lecturers, but opposed the way in which the boycott was affecting students, especially finalists. But the meeting failed to produce a change of heart on either side. "It was an interesting meeting, but certainly not a productive one," said Mr Dolle, president of Bristol students' union, after attending the meeting. A spokesman for the AUT said the student representatives had shown a lack of understanding of the way the AUT operated and insisted the union was "willing to have a discussion". The spokesman said any actual or potential harm to students as a result of the boycott was "with regret". "We are still looking for the employers to acknowledge and engage with our claims," he added. The AUT and Natfhe have rejected as "derisory" a pay offer by the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) of 3% from August this year and an extra 3% from August 2007. The latest talks in the pay dispute earlier this week failed to lead to formal negotiations. http://www.bbc.co.uk

US diplomatic staff in London have run up unpaid congestion charge fees of £271,000 in the past six months, new figures have revealed. Transport for London (TfL) said embassy staff, the subject of a bitter tirade from London mayor Ken Livingstone, have jumped high up the debt table. The US embassy has said it does not intend to pay the fees, instead claiming diplomatic privilege. The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act. The mayor said US staff should pay the congestion charge as UK staff pay road tolls in the US. The new figures show that many millions of pounds are owed in total by several of London's 160 embassies since the introduction. The US embassy is at number one on the list for fees not paid in the past six months. And the figures show that the Angolan embassy owes more than half a million pounds in unpaid congestion charge fees since the scheme was introduced in February 2003. 'This is not a tax' A spokesman for TfL said: "We are continuing to seek payment for any outstanding debts from embassies refusing to pay. "Last month the United Arab Emirates embassy accepted the principle and have joined the many other embassies who have agreed this is a legitimate change. "This is not a tax, it's a charge for a service and gives no privileges to any VIPs, so we do not see why diplomats should be exempt. He said embassies were immune from clamping and bailiff action under the Vienna Convention, but TfL would continue to press for payment for money owing. UNPAID CHARGES OCT '05 - APRIL '06 1. US £271,000 2. Nigeria £202,150 3. Angola £127,150 4. Sudan £94,250 5. Switzerland £52,300 http://www.bbc.co.uk

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has soared and may now reach $811bn (£445bn), says a report by the Congressional Research Service. It estimates that Congress has appropriated $368bn for the global war on terror, including both conflicts. It says that if the current spending bill is approved, US war costs will reach $439bn, and it estimates that an extra $371bn may be needed by 2016. On that basis, the two wars would cost more than the $579bn spent in Vietnam. The future costing assumes that US troop levels will drop from the 258,000 currently engaged in all operations to 74,000 by 2010. Budget gap The rising cost of the war is leading to growing concerns in Congress, where attempts to control the budget deficit have been hindered by the "supplementary" requests received each year for war spending. The CRS estimates that the US Department of Defense's annual war funding has risen from $73bn in 2004 to $120bn in 2006, with an increase of 17% this year alone. There have also been concerns that extra non-related appropriations are often tucked inside the war funding bill. On Thursday Senators deleted funding for a $15m seafood promotion programme that had been tucked away in the current bill. Earlier, Senators diverted $1.9bn in war funds to pay for increased immigration controls at US borders. Troop levels The cost of the war in Iraq has been increasing since US troops have become bogged down in the conflict. The CRS says the real cost of the conflict in Iraq has risen to $8bn monthly, nearly double the cost in 2003. It points out that it is difficult to estimate the exact cost of individual operations, such as the Iraq conflict, because the Defense Department does not break down the figures for individual operations. And it says that the Defense Department has also minimised the cost of the war by not including other costs, including intelligence and the training of Iraqi and Afghan security forces, in its estimates. Overall, 71% of the total war costs have been spent in Iraq, 21% in Afghanistan, and 7% on increased protection for US forces worldwide. The main reason for the rapidly escalating costs is increased spending on ammunition, equipment and operational materials such as petrol. Over $60bn has been spent on procurement, including improved armour, replacement of damaged vehicles, and the building of a more extensive infrastructure to support the troops on the ground. The CRS says that "if the global war is likely to become the long war as some administration spokesman have suggested, Congress may want to consider requiring that the Department of Defense request a full year's war funds concurrently with its regular budget". The estimates do not include the costs of reconstruction, which the US originally estimated at $56bn. A recent report from the General Accounting Office suggested these costs would be much higher, but also said much of the money disbursed so far had been spent on security, not rebuilding. http://www.bbc.co.uk

except for the fact that the highest bidder has defaulted payment for something at £50 before. is it a real bid?

A Japanese teenage girl who poisoned her mother and kept a blog diary of her worsening condition is being sent to reform school. A family court in Shizuoka heard the 17-year-old gave her mother thallium in her tea. The family said they did not want her charged, media reports said. The girl kept a blog featuring pictures of her victim, who fell into a coma and has not regained consciousness. The girl held no grudge, just "wanted to experiment", investigators said. The girl's dairy also described poisoning small animals to death. Remains of some of them were found in formaldehyde in her room in Izunokuni, in Shizuoka prefecture. Investigators also found a book about Graham Young, a British serial killer who poisoned dozens of people in the 1960s and 1970s using thallium - which is sometimes used in rat poison. The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied the poisoning after her arrest in October but in March admitted trying to kill her mother. She began the poisoning last August and continued to do so even after she her mother was confined to hospital. Media reports said the girl also poisoned herself to try to evade suspicion. Presiding Judge Hiroyuki Anegawa said the girl had had "developmental problems" since childhood and needed to "undergo correctional education for a considerably long period". The girl, the judge added, had poisoned her mother "because of her longing to experiment with thallium". He added: "She is on the threshold of facing up to the seriousness of what she has done, and we can anticipate that corrective education will be effective." A senior investigative official was quoted as saying by Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun: "She did not hold a grudge against her mother - she just wanted to do an experiment." http://www.bbc.co.uk

Nope, I'll take Frank Lampard though :wink3: :P

Physicists have made water run uphill quite literally under its own steam. The droplets propel themselves over metal sheets scored with a carefully designed array of grooves. The US scientists did the experiment to demonstrate how the random motion of water molecules in hot steam could be channelled into a directed force. But the team, writing in Physical Review Letters, believes the effect may be useful in driving coolants through overheating computer microchips. The physics at work here has been witnessed by all of us in the kitchen. Leave an empty pan on the stove for too long, and water, when you drip it over the scorching pan bottom, will hover over the surface on a bed of steam. The effect was described in the 18th Century by a German scientist Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost. What happens is that the heat is so intense, it boils the underside of the water droplet without any physical contact with the pan. "We were interested in whether it would be possible to use this phenomenon to move liquids around," said Dr Heiner Linke, the intellectual power behind the self-propelled droplets. An uphill struggle The trick seems simple. Instead of using a smooth surface, the team scored it with a series of skewed triangular grooves. This gives it a kind of saw-tooth profile. Now the water droplets appear to push themselves off the long-slope side of the grooves and rocket across the heated surface - instead of just dancing on the spot as they do in the kitchen pan. The mechanism is a little more complicated and took a while to work out, Dr Linke told the BBC. "The vapour," he explained, "mostly flows in one direction, and the droplet sits on the flowing vapour, a bit like a boat carried along in a flowing river." Droplets can also climb over steps, and up inclines of up to 12 degrees. Filmed with high-speed cameras, the droplets appear to take on a life of their own, sliding along like sloppy amoebae. Although the original intention was to devise an arresting demonstration of how random energy can be rectified into directed motion - the focus of Dr Linke's main work is with molecular motors - the researchers now think there may be a use for the effect in cooling computer microchips. The electrical currents now passing through microprocessors are so large the heat they generate can limit computing performance. Many chips have cooling circuits nowadays, but these require pumps to drive the coolant, which in turn generate even more heat. Suitably micro-patterned channels, argues Dr Linke, would make the coolant flow automatically. "It would be very neat if we could use the heat from the chip to be the pump, because you would not need any additional power, but also because the pumping only happens when the thing is warm; it would also be a thermostat at the same time. So it would all be in one package." http://www.bbc.co.uk

Happy May Day! :)

gave up reading it as it was very disjointed, jumping around all over the place. interesting set of sources used!!

The Guardian, in association with the Book Marketing Group, will publish a supplement in the Film & Music section on May 5 when voting will begin. The winner will be revealed at the Guardian Hay literary festival at the end of May. From words to pictures 1984 Alice in Wonderland American Psycho Breakfast at Tiffany's Brighton Rock Catch 22 Charlie & the Chocolate Factory A Clockwork Orange Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain) The Day of the Triffids Devil in a Blue Dress Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner) Doctor Zhivago Empire of the Sun The English Patient Fight Club The French Lieutenant's Woman Get Shorty The Godfather Goldfinger Goodfellas Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now) The Hound of the Baskervilles Jaws The Jungle Book A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes) LA Confidential Les Liaisons Dangereuses Lolita Lord of the Flies The Maltese Falcon Oliver Twist One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Orlando The Outsiders Pride and Prejudice The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie The Railway Children Rebecca The Remains of the Day Schindler's Ark (aka Schindler's List) Sin City The Spy Who Came in From the Cold The Talented Mr Ripley Tess of the D'Urbervilles To Kill a Mockingbird Trainspotting The Vanishing Watership Down Link to the full article explaining the poll is here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1756384,00.html And there's a discussion page here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/archives/2006/04/19/adaptation_dramas.html

Saw a clip of it on the news last night. It was just plain weird!

seeing the media today, you'd think it was a one man team!! I sometimes get really fed up of the british media. There are god knows how many men in that squad. What a brilliant way to keep their attitude up, by telling them that without Rooney they're useless. We may have a marginally less chance of winning the world cup, but there are plenty of other people on that team who can play amazing football. The sooner we stop idolising individual players the more likely the team as a whole will have a more positive frame of mind.

you can't leave the bulls out!! shouldn't be any different for bulls. if you think about cows in a field, they're all female with the bull kept secured away from them so he doesn't get any unscheduled action. yet, you frequently see cows mounted up on one another in fields!

the one about gay marriage, where somewhere along the way it was mentioned that some animals have a preference for the same sex

I think that question was answered in one of the threads in the news forum!!! :lol:

so you weren't reading out the titles of your DVD collection, then? :P :D