New Iceberg Created - The Size of Luxembourg!

Queen - I want to break free

The music video of I want to break free was a parody of the northern British soap opera Coronation Street. During part of the video, the band members dressed in drag (as women), as similar characters found in that TV series at the time.

The video also depicted the band in a coal mine in their normal look, and it also features a ballet piece with the Royal Ballet, for which Freddie Mercury shaved his trademark moustache to portray Nijinsky (though he had kept it for the parody part of the video).

According to Brian May in an interview about Queen's Greatest Hits, the video ruined the band in America, where many people - unlike the case in the UK - didn't see the soap-opera connection and interpreted the video as an open declaration of transvestitism and Mercury’s homosexuality. (source: Wikipedia)

Viggo Mortensen's Rabbit Dinner

Find out how Viggo Mortensen ran over his dinner after getting lost in New Zealand.

Millennials

Skin: Sandra Laing's story

Skin is based on the true story of Sandra Laing, an Afrikaner child born with dark skin to white parents in the apartheid era.

Sophie Okonedo talks about the movie Skin

Sophie and Sandra together

Flight of the Conchords - Racism

Flight of the Conchords - Racism

Stephen Fry interviewed by Craig Ferguson

The Knack - My Sharona

Doug Fieger, the front man of The Knack who co-wrote "My Sharona" has died after a long battle with cancer.

How to make pancakes for Shrove Tuesday.

Mr Bean's wedding

Charlie Brown Valentine

WORD OF THE MONTH FEBRUARY 2010: NOUGHTIES

The Noughties are the years from 2000 to 2009

The expression Noughties is formed from a derivation of the word nought (meaning 'zero' or 'nothing'), on the model of established references to other decades such as eighties, thirties, fifties etc.

At the advent of the 21st century and the third millennium, there was a whole host of ideas as to how we should collectively refer to the years beginning with zero. Among the suggestions were the Ohs, the Oh-Ohs, the Zeros, the Two-thousands, the Ones, the Nulls and, interestingly, the Naughties. Though in the US the word naught is a common spelling variant for nought, its usage is archaic in British English, which may explain why Noughties was favoured over Naughties.

The ultimate success of the noughties relative to the other candidates may partly be attributable to its catchy phonetic overlap with naughty, originally though to be a disadvantage, but creating the potential for wordplay as in naughty noughties or noughtiness.

Another Oscar for Penélope?

Last year's Best Supporting Actress winner Penelope Cruz says she's happy to be nominated for another Academy Award for her role in the film Nine, but doubts she'll win second time round.

Ellen Degeneres jokes that she thinks Penélope should have thanked her for predicting her Oscar in Vicky Cristina Barcelona last year.
Penélope talks about her appearance in a cameo in Sex in the City, where she plays a banker (she pronounces it "bunker") and then goes on to tell Ellen how she discovered she wanted to be an actress when she was a child in her mother's beauty salon, which was her first acting school.
She became very famous when she did the film Jamón, jamón, and soon she discovered contradictions of being famous, when people screamed "I love you" at her and 10 seconds later "Whore!".
She also talks about her role in Broken embraces by Almodóvar and finally she plays a game with Ellen: Guess the lips.

Penélope talks with Oprah about how she prepared her role of a sultry mistress in the film Nine and how scared she was to sing professionally.
She remembers how she started her career: Her acting curiosity began in her mother's beauty salon but it was after seeing Almodóvar's film Tie me up, tie me down at the cinema that she decided to find an agent and become an actress.
Finally she talks about her Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Matt Damon on playing Francois Pienaar in the film Invictus

Matt Damon explains how Clint Eastwood made him look taller and how he had to get beefy and learn to speak with a South African accent for the role.

NB. Matt Damon is 5'10'' (175cm) and Francois Pienaar is 6'4'' (190cm).

Francois Pienaar on Mandela

Francois Pienaar was the captain and flanker for the South African Springboks national rugby team who won the World Cup Championship during Nelson Mandela's post-apartheid presidency.

South Africa 20 years after Mandela's release

Sanjeev Bhaskar: Growing up in two cultures

Sanjeev Bhaskar is an British Indian comedian and actor, best known for his work in the BBC Two comedy series Goodness Gracious Me and as host of The Kumars at No. 42. He also presented and starred in a documentary series called India with Sanjeev Bhaskar where he travelled India and visited his ancestral home in today's Pakistan.
In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.

Susan Boyle interviewed by Oprah Winfrey

In the garlic

Buenafuente interviews Theresa O'Shea and Valerie Collins, two English women living in Spain and authors of In the Garlic, an informative, fun guide to Spain.

Thanks, Nuria. You really are in the garlic!

Stephen Fry on Social Media

Stephen Fry is a writer, comedian, actor and technology enthusiast - and a man very much online. Aleks Krotoski and the Digital Revolution team met and interviewed Stephen to discuss the web, the changes it has brought to the world, its benefits and its possible dangers.

Oscar nominations 2010

Groundhog Predicts Six More Weeks of Winter

The world's most famous groundhog has seen his shadow which, legend has it, means we can expect six more weeks of winter.

February 2, 2010

PUNXSUTAWNEY, PENNSYLVANIA

~ Phil's Official Forecast ~
"If you want to know next,
you must read my text,
as the sky shines bright above me,
my shadow I see beside me,
6 more weeks of winter it will be."

Phil Says Six More Weeks!

Phil's official forecast as read February 2nd, 2009 at sunrise at Gobbler's Knob:

Let's hear from the Seer of Seers, Punxsutawney Phil.

Hear Ye Hear Ye Hear Ye

On Gobbler's Knob on this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2009 Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators, awoke to the call of President Bill Cooper and greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths.

After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed, that his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were World Champions one more time. And as he looked a bright sky above me showed my shadow beside me, so six more weeks of winter it will be. Woe is us, woe is us!

Two cars, one night

While waiting for their parents, two boys and a girl meet in the carpark of a rural New Zealand pub. What at first seems to be a relationship based on rivalry soon develops into a close friendship as we learn that love can be found in the most unlikely of places. Nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short.

Two Cars ,One Night

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is February 2nd. It is said that if the groundhog sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of bad weather, and if he doesn't, that spring will be here soon.