Mindfulness for Babies

July 1, 2015, 10:25 am

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I'm now in full turbo to finish my new book, which is due in about ten minutes. It's on mindfulness and is called Wake the F*ck Up. It comes out at Christmas so please buy one because writing this is like a worm crawling through the Sahara and I've just left the tent. Hard isn't the word for it; I'm not complaining - and yet I am.

I'm on the chapter about babies and teaching them mindfulness, obviously through the parent. It can't do it so you have to. The baby comes in helpless, lying in its own mess unlike every other animal who automatically know how to trot, fly, swim, or gallop away. Your mommy, daddy or caregiver is the master builder when it comes to growing the baby's brain. Every sound, touch, facial expression you make is connecting and growing those neurons as a map to how he/she will turn out in the future. No pressure.

One of the first reactions after the baby's grand entrance is to imagine that he looks exactly like his father and a little of you. (In reality they don't look like either of you, they all look like smashed, bald prunes but it's in our biology to imagine they resemble daddy to ensure daddy sticks around). Also if you think there's a sign that baby's going to be a mathematical genius or a future tennis star this is also down to your imagination.

Early on you should try and see baby for what he is - not what you project on him. Nature, in the name of survival, is using everything's she's got to make you see this pink package as containing all your dreams and hope - otherwise you'd dump it. This 'thing' is the next 'you' and it will carry your genes into the future so it's in your interest to believe the baby is going to be the next Messiah. So, you're intentionally trying to see past your instincts to pay attention what's unique about him.

It's crucial to try to see and love your child as he really is and respect (unless it's dangerous) his tastes and proclivities. He doesn't need your criticism - he will get enough as he grows older. Mindfulness is about learning to tolerate your personal urges, holding them back until you react from your prefrontal cortex where you can make better decisions. If you're working from your prefrontal cortex you'll begin to feel what he feels and this is empathy. My mother thought when I came out she was like a photocopier and I was the copy; no idea I was a completely different person.

I remember I had an operation on my feet when I was a kid and I begged my mother to turn on the air conditioner; it was boiling in Chicago where bugs melted. She wouldn't do it because she said it was a waste of money, the air would just escape. I begged her; I couldn't get up, my feet were in bandages. She eventually went to the wall and pushed her finger on it, nowhere near the air conditioner and went, "Mmmmmmm" imitating the sound if it was on ... like I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Maybe someone should have given her a glove puppet rather than a child, it would have saved so much confusion.

In this new book I'll be giving mindfulness exercises not just for the baby but for kids, teenagers, older-aged along with my own version of mindfulness training, a six week course if I ever finish.


You can find my last book SANE NEW WORLD here.

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Kim Kardashian Rolling Stone Cover: 16 Other Memorable Rolling Stone Photo-Shoots, Including Britney Spears, Zac Efron And The Cast Of 'True Blood' (PICS)

July 1, 2015, 11:41 am

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After almost 50 years on the newsstands, Rolling Stone magazine has become synonymous with the heavy-hitters from the world of film, TV and music. It’s a fair assumption that you haven’t made it until you’ve covered Rolling Stone, with massive names like Madonna, Michael Jackson and David Bowie all having featured in iconic photo-shoots and given memorable interviews with the magazine.

In recent times, the magazine’s cover has also been synonymous with pushing the envelope, be that with the inclusion of heavily sexualised imagery, thought-provoking photo-shoots with political undertones, or just the choice of off-the-wall celebrities and public figures on the magazine’s cover.


Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian is the one of the most recent stars to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone, shot by controversial photographer Terry Richardson, though we’ll admit it’s not among our favourites from the reality star. In addition to looking like the photo was taken about five years ago, it also simply doesn’t compare to her already-iconic cover shoots with Vogue, where she appears in bridal attire, alongside then-fiancé Kanye West, or Paper magazine, where she bore her bum in her infamous quest to ‘Break The Internet’.

Since we feel like Kim’s missed the mark somewhat, we’ve delved into the vaults and chosen 16 of what we feel are the most shocking, controversial or otherwise memorable Rolling Stone covers of all time...

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It's Time to Abolish the 12A Film Rating

July 1, 2015, 2:55 pm

≫ Next: 'Big Brother' 2015: James Jordan Talks Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace, 'Misunderstood' Marc O'Neill And Being 'Honest... Not Opinionated', Ahead Of House Return (EXCLUSIVE)

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Cinema film classifications are essential. We need them. But 12A doesn't work. It encourages studios to dumb-down adult action movies to fit the rating; allows incorrectly classified older films to scare the pants off 10 year olds, and makes 13-year-olds believe that when you shoot someone they don't bleed, scream or writhe in agony, but just fall athletically to the floor and lie still.

Ironically, it was in 1984 that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) introduced the PG-13 film certificate. In the UK we followed suit in 2002 with the 12A certificate. Both ratings basically allow a kid of any age to see that film at the cinema as long as they're accompanied by an adult.

12A dumbs down action movies

Taken 1 is a brilliant action movie. Taken 2 is great. Taken 3 is rubbish. Ever wondered why? Most people don't even notice the certificate of a much-hyped movie - especially if it's part of a franchise. At the cinema, Taken 1 was an 18. Taken 2 was a 15. Taken 3 was edited down to a 12A. This is typical of the downward spiral. Hollywood is spending millions as we speak, editing all the great adult and 15-rated action movies; removing the blood and swearing, and cutting the horror, nudity and sex. They're doing this so that they can get the 'coveted' PG-13/12A rating for all their action, thriller and adventure movies.

The studios need 12A ratings for a reason. Everyone loves a good action movie. It's why the cinema was invented. And it shows in the takings. Of the top 10 grossing movies worldwide in 2014, all were action/ adventure movies. Only one was a straight PG rating - Disney's Maleficent. All the rest were PG-13 /12A. In fact, of the top 20 grossing movies in the US, only three were R rated (under 17s accompanied by an adult; generally a '15' in the UK) - and two of those were comedies; the vast majority were PG-13 action movies.

The upshot of this is that we adults, and those teenagers over the age of 15, are now being sold short. Movies that rely for their impact on swearing and violence are either not being made or are being cut to within an inch of their plot. There's nothing left for us. We're been fed a diet of sanitised, plasticised, over-processed rubbish. And it's thanks to the 12A rating.

12A scares the pants off 10 year olds

At this point, most people will say: 'But what about Jaws? That's a 12A'. Yes. It is. And this is where it gets complicated. Take a look at just this one clip and tell me that if Jaws was released today, with or without a CGI shark, it would be classified anything less than a 15.

Jaws is a classic horror/suspense film, possibly the best ever made. It's an incredibly scary film. And its classification is a reflection of the world in 1975. In those days no one gave any real thought to the psychological effect films might have on younger viewers. As long as there wasn't too much sex, pretty much everything was OK. So on its release in the UK Jaws was an 'A' or 'Advisory' classification. That essentially meant that children aged five and older were admitted to the cinema with an adult, but it was not recommended for children under 14 - so everyone old enough to walk upright unaided saw it. And many people now in their late 40s regret that fact.

Jaws should not be a 12A. It's too psychologically affecting for most under 15s. And it has oceans of blood; something you never see in today's 12A. But what it does have, we can now see, is a very unrealistic shark. And that gives the classification boards an 'out' because, naturally, even a kid can tell the shark's not real, right? Wrong. But because the film classification boards in 1975 messed up spectacularly, and can't admit they got it wrong, we're stuck with a 12A Jaws. This just shows you how ridiculous the rating system really is.

12A makes 13 year olds think people don't bleed

The final problem with 12A ratings is that because we've removed the blood, children think that people die nicely. It encourages them to think of violence as something that's clean and painless - and therefore not so bad. After all, if it doesn't hurt.....

Every time a young person commits an atrocity it's partly blamed on violent computer games. But I don't think I've ever heard anyone cite a constant diet of sanitised Hollywood-style death as a contributing factor. In Hollywood movies the hero often strides around killing people with no accompanying blood, screaming, horror, pain or mess. And this is the impression we're giving to 13 year old cinemagoers. Wouldn't it be more sensible to show death in all its horror but restrict it to older teenagers with the maturity to cope?

But even here there's a mismatch; one that harks back to the Jaws conundrum and is starting to rear its very ugly head. If the studios know the movie is going to be massive, they'll pretty much ignore all their blood and violence issues, do no cutting and apply enough pressure to get the 12A / PG-13 rating regardless. So what we've got is a situation where a child of five can legally watch The Bourne Identity, Jack Reacher, The Dark Knight and The Wolverine, as long as they're with their mum. All these films were a 12A rating at the cinema.

Scrap the 12A - and bring back proper use of the 15 certificate

In my view, the only way to unravel this mess is to agree to a new system. Scrap the idea that a violent film is less violent or psychologically damaging just because you're sitting next to your dad in the cinema, and use 'U' for universal; PG for (genuine) Parental Guidance, 15 for over 15s, and 18 for over 18s. Simple, straightforward and unambiguous. I know this will never happen because the Hollywood studios call the shots and they love PG-13/12A. But if we want to stop the dumbing down, stop scaring our children and stop telling kids killing people doesn't hurt, then we need to try something - and soon.

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'Big Brother' 2015: James Jordan Talks Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace, 'Misunderstood' Marc O'Neill And Being 'Honest... Not Opinionated', Ahead Of House Return (EXCLUSIVE)

July 1, 2015, 4:00 pm

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James Jordan has made his return to the ‘Big Brother’ house, for what is now his third appearance in the Channel 5 reality series, following his ‘CBB’ stint last summer, and brief return to the house for a task in January.

SEE MORE:

• 'Cash Bomb' Twist Ahead In 'BB'?


• Jasmine Lennard Causes A Stir With Her 'BB' Return


• 'BB' House Explodes Into Row After Aisleyne's Arrival

Before storming the house for what promises to be an exciting 24 hours as one of Hotel BB’s latest guests, he managed to squeeze in a chat with HuffPost UK Entertainment, where he told us he had every intention of being the James Jordan we’ve all come to know and… well… actually, just know, in the house.

“There’s people in that house who I think should put more clothes on,” he tells us, “There’s people who have forgotten they’re on a TV show, making TV, and they just slob around the house, thinking they’re sitting at home, waiting for their mum to come and wipe their arse - and I will say what I think, if they ask my opinion.


James Jordan

“But I’m not going in there necessarily to be horrible to people. I don’t want to be horrible to people, I’m going in there to be a terrible hotel guest. And you can do that in a fun way, rather than a malicious way. So hopefully, I’m going to bring a bit of fun to the house, which I feel is missing at the moment.

“I don’t look at myself as being opinionated - isn’t that funny? If someone asks me a question, I’ll tell them what I think. But I’m just very honest. A lot of the people in this world now, have become so scared to be honest, because of the PC brigade, but I wouldn’t say that I’m opinionated, I just say what I think.”

James also told us a bit about what he thinks about a few of this year’s contestants, and revealed that, if it were up to him, Sam Kay and Jack McDermott would both be given their marching orders.


Jack McDermott

When we asked him to name two housemates to nominate, he explained: “I would nominate Aisleyne [Horgan-Wallace]. Oh I can’t, can I? Well, I’d nominate Jack and Sam, probably. Because they’re boring!

“It’s ‘Big Brother’. If you’re going to go on a show like ‘Big Brother’ - they all did their VTs before they went on the show, ‘I’m this and I’m this and I’m gonna do this’, and they’re not! They lied, didn’t they? They all lied, to get on the show, and then they didn’t deliver.”

He also gave us his view on Marc O’Neill, undeniably one of this year’s most talked-about and controversial contestants, revealing he thinks the stripper and science student is actually just misunderstood.

“I know everyone says that Marc is a vile person, blah blah blah, but without him in the house, it’d be pretty boring. Everyone says that he is bullying people, but that’s a horrible word to use. I don’t believe that he’s bullying people, I don’t believe that he’s a malicious person. I think he sometimes says things which cross the line, one hundred per cent. Sometimes I watch things he says and I cringe, and I think, ‘why have you just said that??’, but I do also find him very funny.

“I just think he doesn’t take himself too seriously, he’s trying to have a laugh, he says what he thinks, if people piss him off - it doesn’t matter who it is - he’ll tell them. So he seems quite true to himself, which I quite like.

“Some people don’t like people like that, they find them obnoxious or they find them too confident. Yeah, he’s a confident person, that doesn’t make him a bad person. But he says what he thinks - it doesn’t make him a bad person.”


Marc O'Neill

Aisleyne, on the other hand, was spoken about by James somewhat less favourably.

“She kind of scares me a little bit, to be honest with you,” he joked, “I don’t really know Aisleyne, so I’m only going off what I’ve seen, but I do think sometimes she’s taken things a little bit too far. And it’s not her house, that’s the way I look at it.

“I don’t know why she’s taken everything so personally, when she’s not up for the £150,000. She’s not going to be sitting there when they’re calling out third place, so why is she getting so involved? I’m not going to be sitting up in the Diary Room going *puts on Aisleyne voice* ‘Oh it’s so hard in here, it’s horrible… I hate Marc’, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand it.

“But I wouldn’t wanna go up against her because I think she’d kick the living shit out of me.”


Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace

Since she’s been in the house, Aisleyne has also been seen enjoying a few cheeky drinkypoos, which culminated in her falling over a chair in Tuesday night’s show, though it sounds like James is sceptical about her drunken behaviour.

“OK, I’m going to be very honest with you,” he adds. “This whole falling over drunk business… I know for a fact that ‘Big Brother’ are only allowed to put in so many units of alcohol per evening.

“Now, I reckon that the amount of alcohol that is put into the ‘Big Brother’ house, I could probably just about drink on my own, and still be compos mentis, yeah? I don’t understand all this falling around pissed, because there’s not enough alcohol in there to get drunk.

“So either that’s a big act, or she’s a massive lightweight. One or the other.”


James Jordan, leaving the 'CBB' house last summer

When we ask him which former housemates he’d like to share a stay in ‘Hotel BB’ with, he’s stumped, but he can think of one in particular who he hopes won’t be dropping by.

“Definitely not Gary Busey!” he laughs, “Definitely don’t put him in there with me, honking his horn again *honks* that would drive me bloody mad. But just someone fun!

“There are people that I definitely would not want to go in that house with. If they’ve done that to me, this time, I’m not being paid enough, I can quite easily walk out that door.

“I’m doing this as a bit of fun, to go in the house and stir things up a little bit… It’d be nice to enjoy the 24 hours I’m in there and have a nice time doing the task that I’m doing, rather than going in there with some knob that I can’t stand, I wouldn’t really find that very funny.

“If it does happen, I’m probably stronger than them, so they’ll probably be more shocked to see me, than I am to see them, let’s put it that way. They’re probably more likely to walk than I would be. I’m not going to do a Brian Belo and jump over no wall.”

Find out how James gets on during his stay in ‘Hotel BB’ when he makes his arrival in Thursday’s episode of ‘Big Brother’, airing at 10pm on Channel 5.

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Miley Cyrus And Victoria's Secret Model Stella Maxwell Spotted Kissing As Pair's Relationship Heats Up (VIDEO)

July 1, 2015, 11:39 pm

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Miley Cyrus has been spotted looking seriously loved up with her rumoured new girlfriend Stella Maxwell, after the pair were caught locking lips (and rather a lot more) in Hollywood.

READ MORE:

• Paper Mag Reveals New (VERY NSFW) Miley Cyrus Snaps


• Miley Cyrus Says She Can 'Fix' The Issue Of Homeless Youth

The 22-year-old singer, who recently came out as bisexual, was spotted having a major PDA with the 24-year-old Victoria’s Secret model during a break from filming her new music video.

WATCH MILEY AND STELLA GET UP CLOSE AND VERY PERSONAL IN THE VIDEO ABOVE

Miley met the Belgian model through her assistant and close friend Cheyne Thomas and they've been inseparable ever since.


Miley Cyrus and Stella Maxwell

The pair have yet to officially go public but both have shared a number of cosy-looking selfies on their Instagram pages over the past few weeks.

It’s Miley’s first known relationship with a woman since she came out as bisexual, having previously been engaged to ‘Hunger Games’ star Liam Hemsworth.

She also dated Arnie’s son Patrick Schwarzenegger for five months until they split earlier this year.

MEOW-TZ @stellamaxwell

A photo posted by Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus) on Jun 17, 2015 at 5:18pm PDT

Speaking about her sexuality, Miley recently told Paper Magazine: “I am literally open to every single thing that is consenting and doesn't involve an animal and everyone is of age.

“Everything that's legal, I'm down with. Yo, I'm down with any adult - anyone over the age of 18 who is down to love me.”

She also described the moment she opened up about her sexuality to her mother Tish when she was 14.

“I remember telling her I admire women in a different way,' she explained.

“And she asked me what that meant. And I said, ‘I love them. I love them like I love boys.’ And it was so hard for her to understand.

“She didn't want me to be judged and she didn't want me to go to hell. But she believes in me more than she believes in any God. I just asked for her to accept me. And she has.”

Sick dayyyy @mileycyrus

A photo posted by Stella! (@stellamaxwell) on Jun 6, 2015 at 7:40pm PDT

Miley also opened up about her sexuality in an interview with Time about her Happy Hippie charity, which is dedicated to helping homeless and LGBT youth.

“There are times in my life where I've had boyfriends or girlfriends,” she said. “And there are times where I just love being with myself and don't want to give part of myself away to someone else ... I think that's a new freedom for women, especially.'

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'The Apprentice': Lord Sugar 'In Talks To Replace Donald Trump On US Version Of BBC Business Show'

July 2, 2015, 12:44 am

≫ Next: 'House Of Cards Season 3': Writer Beau Willimon On Frank Underwood's Evolution, Michael Dobbs On Political Morals Or Lack Thereof

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Lord Sugar is hoping to get one up on his American counterpart Donald Trump by replacing the fired star on the US version of ‘The Apprentice’.

SEE ALSO:

• Lord Sugar's New 'Apprentice' Sidekick Has Been Confirmed


• Former 'Apprentice' Candidate For 'CBB'?


• Nick Hewer Quits 'The Apprentice'

Trump was axed as the show’s main star earlier this week, after making a series of controversial comments about Mexican immigrants.

Now, Lord Sugar - who has fronted the UK version of ‘The Apprentice’ since it started in 2005 - wants to take up his seat in the boardroom.


Lord Sugar

According to The Sun, the businessman has already held talks with the show’s creator Mark Burnett.

“The fact that Sugar has a pretty bad relationship with Trump would make landing his old job all the more sweet,” a source said.

“Lord Sugar is not that famous in the States but he has had some massive spats with Piers Morgan on Twitter, so people are aware of him.”

The insider added that he wants to make his role in the UK work with his possible one in the US.

“Lord Sugar is very loyal to the BBC. It would be an amazing gig for him,” they said.


Donald Trump

Sugar and Trump first fell out in 2012 when they became embroiled in a Twitter spat, the with US star telling “dopey” Sugar: “Without my show you’d be nothing”.

Sugar then told him to “shut up”, adding that he’d had “a charisma bypass”.

Lord Sugar has since admitted that he “would like the challenge” of taking over the US show, when asked by a fan on Twitter.

He’s also received the backing of old sparring partner Piers Morgan, who tweeted: “Actually, not such a mad idea.”

The UK version of ‘The Apprentice’ is set to return to BBC One in October.

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'House Of Cards Season 3': Writer Beau Willimon On Frank Underwood's Evolution, Michael Dobbs On Political Morals Or Lack Thereof

July 2, 2015, 2:06 am

≫ Next: When Art Meets Technology, Innovation is All About the Outsider

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The stakes are higher than ever for Frank Underwood now he’s installed as US President in Series 3 of the award-winning ‘House of Cards’, says showrunner Beau Willimon.

Beau tells HuffPostUK how Kevin Spacey’s Machiavellian mischief-maker thrived on operating in the shadows of Washington’s political corridors, but these are no longer available to him.

“He’s facing challenges he hasn’t had before” says Beau. “It’s harder to write for him now, but in a good way.

“Before, Frank’s conflict was with all the power players, now it’s with his own wife Claire (Robin Wright), culminating in a massive challenge to their marriage.

“Previous seasons saw Frank’s ability to spar and think on his feet made him impermeable. Now, his most formidable foe is potentially his wife, and that means Frank’s armour is beginning to crack.”


The stakes have become higher for Frank and Claire Underwood, now installed in the White House

One thing fans of the show will notice is the far less frequent use of Frank Underwood’s addresses direct to camera. Beau reveals this change of direction is intentional, to reflect the politician’s evolution within the show.

“We’re delving deeper now into emotions between Frank and Clare,” he explains. “Those chats to camera used to serve as either a glimpse into Frank Underwood’s political insight, or as a piece of theatre, it was all very tongue in cheek, but now we’re far deeper into emotional territory, we want to show it, not tell it.

“We’re not taking Frank out of the drama any more, he doesn’t have us to conspire with, and it’s forcing him to get a graft on his emotions. The story is in a new emotional place.”


Frank's addresses to camera have become increasingly rare as the series has become more emotional

Beau, who previously penned the George Clooney political thriller ‘Ides of March’, has a background in campaigning on which he draws, and he admits there is plenty of bad behaviour within the real-life battles for political power.

“On polling day, an opponent may send vans to take people to vote, complete with campaign banners, and then drop them off somewhere completely different,” he chuckles. “That’s par for the course. That’s the benign low-key version.

“Or telling lies that are repeated enough that even the person telling them starts to believe them. That’s kind of what you expect in those conflicts.

However, he’s quick to add that the malevolent events at the hands of Frank and his cohorts are not based on anything real, but all in the pursuit of striking drama.

“We’re putting the agency of the drama in the hands of our characters. The politics are authentic, but you want to go to the essence of the character, and ask how far would he go?

“Frank’s power lust is the portrayal of an extreme to portray a truth.

“The act itself might be unlikely (murder, blackmail, cohersion in Frank’s case), but the impulse is truthful.

Beau adds that some fans of the show in Washington have complained to him that Frank gives politics a bad name, and he’s more than happy to agree.


Cracks are beginning to appear in the Underwood's formidable union

“Most politicians are ethical, most have a sense of law,” he agrees. “Frank is an extreme of pragmatism, he’s an iconoclast who stands out from the crowd.

Lord Dobbs, Margaret Thatcher’s former chief of staff, creator of the original British series and now sharing executive duties on the US version, agrees we shouldn’t be too shocked by Frank’s behaviour on screen.

It’s not a documentary, it’s a drama,” he says. “You look at Shakespeare, he takes the human condition and concentrates by and large on the dark side, because that’s where we understand the limits.

“It’s a very small part of the whole picture, my area of politics, but it helps us to understand that politicians are human, like the rest of us. Too many people come to us, thinking it’s all about politics and it’s not, it’s about people and what drives us.”

Lord Dobbs also makes the point that, to succeed in politics as in other areas of life, characters both real and fictional are not always the nicest, cosiest types to have dinner with.

“Great people are not comfortable people,” says Dobbs, who’s also written much about Winston Churchill. “They are obsessive, they are driven, and that’s how you become great, not by being nice to the rest of us, but by getting things done.

“Politics and power aren’t family-friendly. To win in politics, someone else has to fail.

“Winston Churchill we put on a plinth now, but he was a man of great personal contradictions, and it was his battle to deal with those contradictions that made him great.”

Contradictions, yes, but lying and scheming on such a grand scale as that demonstrated by Frank Underwood?

“Yes,” Lord Dobbs affirms. “Politics is not about honesty and openness and truth, it’s about getting things done.

“Very often in politics, it’s not a choice between right and wrong, it’s been two different types of wrong, because there’s no easy, popular solution, and you have to make a choice about which is going to do less damage. You’re not there as a cardinal, you are there to get things done.”

The Tory peer also cautions against us expecting our leaders to be as morally astute as they are politically.

“If you expect great leaders to act like choirboys, you’re not going to great leaders,” he beams.

“What you want are people who’ve experienced and learned from their mistakes. One of the problems of the modern culture is that people aren’t allowed this chance. It’s more a case of one strike and you’re out now, and I do wonder where the next great leaders are going to come from.”

House of Cards Season 3 is out now on Blu-ray and DVD. Watch the trailer below...

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When Art Meets Technology, Innovation is All About the Outsider

July 2, 2015, 8:39 am

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My practice is all about displacing people and ideas from their natural habitats, prizing them out of their comfortable environment to see what they really look like. I work with people who are already outsiders to the commercial machine, but I also create outsiders, by decontextualising people and ideas - taking artists, writers, hackers and scientists and putting them into challenging new contexts. If innovation is, as a thousand stock photos would have it, about 'thinking out of the box', then my stuff certainly qualifies at the most conceptual level. (We've forgotten the box. The box is in the recycling.) But it's beginning to feel like innovation is something else, and the more that big brands try to claim the trendy word for themselves, the more sure I am of this truth: the only way to be an innovator, authentically, is to detach the claim from the question of finance.

Innovation needs genuine NEED (and not yours)

As artists, we must do the things which feel difficult, because there is comfort in familiarity, it instils confidence and ultimately complacence. But we approach new things more sensibly. So long as we're doing the very difficult thing of trying to solve an external problem in a new way, we're reasonably protected from the emo knots that go along with doing what we want.

However, novelty is not as commercially popular as you might think. Money hates risk, and risk (or perceived risk, which is usually the same thing) is lower wherever there is experience and similarity. Commercial society, whatever it claims to want for its innovations, does not want explosive lightening bolts of novelty. It wants is repeatable, proven money-spinners.

I've noticed that commerce doesn't seem to mind novelty if it arises from decoupling and shuffling of skills and contexts - it's still sufficiently familiar. People, not ideas, are the real raw material of innovation. The courage to take ourselves out of context is key. Just don't tell the money people how much we're prepared to do for each other without any of their cash.

Go global

The UK has a lot of big talk about innovation and culture, for such a little place. It's rational to assume our elected handful of cultural influencers must be the best. Those without much power or influence literally can't afford to question the system.

But you don't have to go far to realise what a nonsense it is. In February this year, with my project 'Hack Circus', I was one of the successful applicants for the 'Global Futr Labs' programme pilot, a co-production of Future Everything, consultancy Strange Telemetry, the British Council and the Arts Council. There are some really good posts already on the British Council blog from the other participants so I won't repeat the details, but it kicked off some fundamental changes for me. I went to Manchester, and the world turned up.

The 'Global Futr Labs' were a sort of package of hot-housed opportunities laid out for us in a banquet - one foot in the global scene, one in Manchester itself and a third foot (maybe a kangaroo-like tail-as-foot?) in the future of our own work. We were treated to a walking tour of Manchester, some workshopping of ideas around the critical urban environment, and an opportunity to methodically analyse our processes and present our work at the festival.


There was genuine innovation in the stuff my new colleagues were doing - these creative entrepreneurs from around the world were not 'disrupting' in the school rebellion sense we gleefully embrace in this country, they were almost doing the opposite: equalising. They were a voice of sense, using their tools to calmly resolve the chaos they'd grown up with, through bootstrapped ingenuity and bloody hard work. I realised with a jolt: real disruption is a glamorous and foreign thing to many in the UK, a shorthand for 'authentic', and just as distant. In post-revolutionary Indonesia or the Ukraine, a hack space is a critical centre for development and education, a spark that might reignite an economy or at least charge a community with hope. In the UK, hack spaces are (to some extent) a place for the privileged to indulge hobbies and just like 19^th century hobby farms, perhaps they are, to some extent, an expression of our craving for the more meaningful life of an exotic 'profonde'.

Change your context

Through our own displacement, our origin stands out in relief. We can only show others who we truly are when we place ourselves in total contrast to something. It's like wearing red in a red house all your life, then suddenly finding yourself in front of a green wall.

So it was that I found myself heading to Berlin the other week to lead an 'intervention day' at the 'School of Magic, Machines and Make-Believe', an annual summer school run by Rachel Uwa. A group of students from around the world, many simultaneously managing professional art and design careers, are taking the summer out to improve their technical and creative skills and try to build some new stuff.

I invited them to think about the city as a place of invisible limits and forbidden behaviours, and things developed from there. Some of us ventured outside, carrying heavy sandwich boards through the searing heat, offering strangers tours of everything from the police station to a local Lidl. Rachel and I stood in front of a shop window where dust-covered builders could be seen mid-renovation, and handed out tickets to passers-by to 'watch the men for one minute'.



Some teams thought about influencing routes and trails of breadcrumbs. They followed unwitting pedestrians over bridges, trailing a chalk on a stick. Others stayed behind and considered fantastical scenes beneath the street, so that we might mount projectors onto CCTV cameras and transform them from Orwellian harbingers into beams of magic that moved when the cameras did. We found ourselves in the park collecting childhood fairytales from a group of drug dealers, and left them, smiling, with our hamfisted gang signs (actually Rachel was very good).

And that was when I realised what all this was about. Putting yourself in a different context is an intervention and an innovation. And the more publicly you do it, the more completely you embrace the challenge, the more your experience will impact on your surroundings. So creatives, hackers, anyone keen to make a difference but feeling by the overwhelming influence of the status quo, I urge you: do the difficult thing and use your freedom. Get away from the red house and head to the green wall, at every opportunity. You won't regret it.



 

 

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Increasing Opportunities for Girls and Young Women on Stage

July 2, 2015, 8:47 am

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Like so many other walks of life, there is a profound gender imbalance in theatre, whether that's in the commissioning of female playwrights, female directors, or the amount of parts available to women, which in turn results in gender imbalance in casting too.

But Tonic Theatre has stepped forward with a fascinating, and hopefully incredibly effective, way of addressing some of these issues right at the start.

Tonic Theatre was created in 2011 with an aim to support theatre in achieving greater gender equality in its workforces and repertoires and now they have created Platform, a new initiative that seeks to tackle the same issue from the grassroots level of youth drama.

Platform's specific objective is to increase opportunities for girls and young women on the stage, and this came about as a response to Tonic's own nationwide research into opportunities for girls in youth drama.




This research found that though the majority of those interested in drama at a young age were girls, the majority of roles in the scripts available to them were mostly male. Sound familiar? Ladies, how many times were you playing male characters during play readings at school? Exactly.

And it's not just the lack of numbers of female parts either. As Lucy Kerbel, director of Tonic Theatre herself observed, quality and variety is also an issue. "Speaking to young women across the country who take part in drama, the overwhelming consensus was that they found that existing writing for female characters was frustratingly narrow and often displayed outdated stereotypes of femininity. Girls overwhelmingly felt they had little opportunity to drive the action on stage, rather than being at the periphery. Some felt the only way to access complex, well-written, and demanding roles was by playing male characters."

That Tonic's own research evidenced a clear lack of provision for girls and young women taking part in drama at school, college, and youth theatre level is worrying enough. But the research suggested that this then sows the seeds for persistent gender imbalances in the theatre profession because young people enter the industry already anticipating that female characters will have less to say and less to do on stage.

So Tonic said, enough!

And in the first stage of their new initiative, they commissioned three playwrights - Jemma Kennedy, Joel Horwood and Silva Semerciyan - to write high-quality, big-cast plays for performance by school, college and youth theatre groups, which have all-female or mainly female casts.




Playwright Jemma Kennedy loved the challenge the project brought. "Drama is powerful. It's a place you go to to interrogate experience but these girls too often found that the plays they read didn't relate to who they are."

And this work rewards the writer too as the girls and young women using these plays will be from across the country, from a wide variety of backgrounds, and hopefully they will now find something in these texts that relates to them, that speaks to them. As Jemma said, "To create a piece of drama to entertain is great but to create one with an emotional, social use and purpose is just fantastic."

Lucy wants the plays to make a change. "The hope is that this changes expectations [for the young girls]. By working with plays that reflect your feelings and life, it validates you, that your experience is important enough to be the subject of a play."

Creating plays with a variety of roles and, importantly, placing female characters as the propelling force in the narrative, is an important subliminal message for girls and young women, especially when the material is of a subject that they can relate to.




And the response from the girls and young women who've workshopped these plays has been terrific. Lucy quoted one young woman from the read-through of Jemma's play, Second Person Narrative, which looks at the various stages of a woman's life and the challenge in finding her own identity along the way, who said "If I'd have had this play when I was at school, it would have blown my mind."

Platform was only announced last week but already Tonic has been flooded with orders for these three plays. To get these plays as distributed as widely as possible, Tonic has partnered up with leading theatre publishers Nick Hern Books who are selling these plays to youth theatres and education institutions at reduced rates.

"It was very important for us to work with Nick Hern Books to publish these books professionally", said Lucy "as we wanted these plays to be of equal weight as any other play, though these have not yet had a run in a single venue."

And Tonic is not stopping here. Their aim is to keep commissioning more, so that over time they will creating a whole new canon of youth theatre plays, plays that give the girls masses to get their teeth into and in the meantime, change the way they think about theatre.

Tonic though does not receive any core funding and, instead, relies on fund-raising. Nevertheless Lucy says "the hope is to publish another three plays in a year's time, then another three the year after that, then another three. And so on."

High five to Tonic. And good luck to them too for what is a great initiative.



To learn more, visit www.tonictheatre-platform.co.uk and www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

The first three plays in the series penned by award-winning writers: This Changes Everything by Joel Horwood, Second Person Narrative by Jemma Kennedy and The Light Burns Blue by Silva Semerciyan are published in single editions by Nick Hern Books and are available to youth theatres and education institutions via a dedicated website at £3 per copy for a limited period (rrp £8.99)

Image credits: Photos of Tonic Theatre (c) Nick Flintoff

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Emily Young: Call and Response London

July 2, 2015, 8:50 am

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Emily Young is regarded as Britain's greatest living stone sculptor. Not for her the pristine slabs of Carrara marble. She revels in those ragged off-cuts that lay at the back of old stone quarries near her home in Tuscany, sometimes wearing, as she puts it, dark overcoats of disguise.

Then she will chip off a corner and discover the rich, complex and beautiful patterns that nature and time, the greatest sculptors of all, have created. Her job, she believes, is to shape, polish and lay bare this natural beauty whether by chiselling or diamond cutting. Using traditional classical free carving skills, her trademark is to sculpt a human face on to the ancient rock, reaffirming the sacred relationship between the living world and Mother Nature.



Geological accidents are at the heart of her work. There may be blue veins as in Rosea Marble Head of a Woman (above), crevasses where air bubbles once existed millions of years ago, ripples of colour caused by mineral deposits, fissures by geological trauma.

At her wonderful new exhibition, Emily Young: Call and Response London, at The Fine Art Society, I spoke to the artist about her work and began by asking her whether putting a human face on these stones is a way of celebrating the natural world and our dependence on it?

"It's incredibly personal for me - I just love doing it. I don't put an expression on the faces - it's always contemplative, quiet and timeless. The world is in a very sorry state in many parts and a lot of terrible things are going on and I think a lot of that is based on a lack of respect for the material world that we're exploiting for our benefit and that's robbing us of our future. What I feel is that we've lost our sense of humility towards the great mother that is our creator which is the Earth and the solar system and the universe. We are not separate, we don't have power over the earth, we are utterly dependent on it and many of the great religions of the past spoke of this. In my culture, there's huge arrogance about the rights that we have to exploit the resources of the earth."

BC: Do you think that by sculpting and enhancing the beauty of nature, you are making your contribution to the green cause?

"Yes, and I'm also very aware that the future is a very long way away, and apparently the future is much longer than the past. These stones were born way in the past, and also they will endure. So when we look at previous cultures, the things that have endured are the stone things. Leather and wood just doesn't last. Some of my pieces, for example, are made of quartzite and quartzite is next to diamonds in hardness and these will endure for billions of years."



BC: Your sculptures such as this (Verdite Forest Head, above,) have extraordinary deep colours and amazing patterns.

"This is an African stone called Verdite. It's volcanic and you can see that it has many metals that have melted and stirred. There's so much beauty here, it's like looking into a forest or looking down from a satellite photo. There are these patterns that repeat and repeat. There could be green swamps full of algae or something. There could be rivers or clouds. There's a purple colour - how beautiful. Sunsets, blue water running. I just wanted to give it a face, for the Earth also has a kind of much ancienter, quieter consciousness but there is something there that we can love, respect and have a sense of awe for in all its manifestations.



BC: Again, this piece, (Primavaro Torso, above), made from onyx, has extraordinary marks and patterns.

"Here you can see little blocks of stone that were in another form once. These blocks of white were smashed up by a volcano erupting or possibly an earthquake. As they resettle, little bits of carbon come in. The green is of calcium carbonate mixed with silicates. A lot of water has allowed these tiny, tiny mineral deposits to stick together before evaporating. It's stalagmitic and stalactitic, and there's an air bubble and you can see crystals growing. There's a lot of iron in here. From that you can deduce that water got in later carrying iron with it from another place because elsewhere there is no iron, just white and green."

BC: It's a whole history of the earth.

"This is what I'm saying. Be conscious of the history of the earth. I think it' s a good alternative to the way we are looking at the earth at the moment which is that it's there for us to plunder. We don't put back what we take out until we've used it. How could we possibly be doing this? I'm interested in psychoanalysis as well. Part of growing up is that you leave your infantile dependent. You have a voracious appetite and you want your mother to give what you want when you want it. You scream if you don't get it and you really think you're going to die. So we have a lot of that still. As a species, we've moved into adulthood but are still behaving like babies. We have instant appetites that require instant gratification. We want more and more and more. We have to get beyond that and behave more responsibly like an individual adult. Leave that stuff behind and say I'm responsible for children now, my appetites and needs need to be put on the back burner for a bit. I can organise this but it's not going to be all about me, it's going to be about the future."

BC: So the human race has to grow up.

"Big time."

Emily Young: Call and Response London is showing at The Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond Street, London W1S 2JT until 27 August.

The images are used with the permission of the artist at The Fine Art Society, London.

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Am I A Grumpy Old Fart? Or Is Everything Sh*t Now?

July 2, 2015, 9:08 am

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Is it just me, or is popular culture coming to a standstill? I feel like it might be. As a self-confessed muzo, film fan and sometime-comedian - a guy that enjoys performing arts in a variety of mediums - it's becoming increasingly obvious and harder to ignore that, whatever your passion: rap music, festivals, stand-up or cinema;

Sorry, but it's getting shitter.

Now, being of a naturally pessimistic, morose disposition, you could probably argue it's just a depressive's graduation from youthful angst to "grumpy old fart", though I personally feel it's just an accurate observation of the tanking standards of the mainstream worldwide. But I'd be equally unhappy with either so I don't know where that leaves us.

I mean, I don't want to be a grumpy old fart and I don't think that I am? I truly don't believe everything was better "back in the good ol' days". In fact, quite the opposite. The reason I'm pessimistic now mostly goes back to life-lessons I learned while not having fun back in the good ol' days. If I were a grumpy old fart it would be because I took in all the information and experience that life had offered me thus far - and 'grumpy' was my conclusion. But anyway... let's consider the 'grumpy' angle first.

Because I am thirty-four now. This is the age where people start staying in more. We aren't (usually) going out, getting wrecked til 8am, moshing to Dubstep in a Hoxton dive bar. Maybe that lack of exposure to newer forms of music creates a tunnel-vision bubble, where our only interaction with new stuff tends to be when we're out doing "thirty-something-things" - like when I'm begrudgingly shopping for a new pair of chinos, while actively making a half-buzz, half-disabled-person-grunting noise because I find it more pleasant than whatever god-awful warbling they have on in Next that day. I run out the door and straight into M&S. While I grab my olives and feta (don't worry, I hate me too), the next three songs I hear are all produced by the same guy, performed by trill-for-hire, RnB crooners, with chains and tattoos; they all look the same. I'm not even trying to be racially provocative here, objectively they look identical. Like their stylist wasn't equipped to manage the workload of three separate clients, and so aligned their campaigns and reduced them all to one perfectly standardised product.

"Hey, I was thinking maybe for the next album, maybe I get my tattoos removed and hold back on the chains?"
"I think it's better for everyone if you just keep both. Trust me, it's more efficient."

Away from the critically acclaimed, innovative and eclectic music broadcaster that is the UK High Street, I scan the charts, ten to one. I see new(ish) albums from Florence & The Machine and Taylor Swift - and maybe I assume that that's all there is? Blinkered. And now here I am, at home, chewing on olives, convinced that the top-10 and drudge of a family-friendly shop's playlist is all that there is.

Don't get me wrong, 'Pop Music' has always had its shit, but there's always been popular music that was good. Looking back, when I was seventeen, I went to Reading Festival. Now, festivals are seen by many as good places to find new music. In a sense they're a trade show for what's new, what's out there to be heard. And while the main stages are more likely to be established acts rather than new, I can't help but think back to Paramore, who I saw in 2007 on the main stage. Or Nirvana who famously headlined Reading Festival a matter of months after Nevermind came out.

Anyway, I was there in '98, seventeen, watching Deftones (who were on album number two), Ash (who were on album number two), Prodigy (album number three) and Garbage who headlined (on album number two) - these were bands that were about three or four years into their careers if that, tearing up the main stage, beacons of fresh, dirty artistry. The muzos among you will know that the same year Foos, Supergrass, Gomez - were also on that main stage, all early in their careers.

But a look at Reading's line-up for this year tells a different story. Panic At The Disco (on their fifth album now), All Time Low (their sixth), Bring Me The Horizon (their fourth), Metallica (god knows) and The Libertines (first album was thirteen years ago). You start to get a picture of how the landscape has changed (or hasn't). Maybe the price of a ticket now is only within the grasp of a generation that wouldn't pay for it - were it headlined by a Dubstep collective they'd probably never heard of. Or maybe those that coordinate the itinerary for these events assume the only way to sell them out is to get Limp Bizkit back together?

But that's a risky approach. If I'm honest, in 2007, it felt like it had lost its spirit. Where were the fifteen year-olds who spent their whole year listening to albums by new bands and now were here, ready to rock out, moshing to chords that were written in the back of a van the summer before. Now they were replaced by Business Analysts that had hung up their suit for a couple of days and bought a Ramones t-shirt. The whole thing felt like parody.

Because if I pay £200 for a ticket and I'm watching Fred Durst or Panic At The Disco, listening to lyrics and bopping my knee, it's not because I'm really feeling the music or I believe what they're saying or singing. It's not part of a cathartic experience where the singer wrote the song about a break-up from last year, and it's real and you feel that. It's because I remember the tune from my youth and I'm smiling, thinking back to the craaaaaazy festival memories I banked in '98.

And they're two very different experiences. It's like Rod Stewart fans in '75 screaming and throwing their pants versus Rod Stewart fans jiving at the O2 in 2013.

It means the festival itself is kind of just a field full of thirty-somethings remembering. F*ck it, if we stay on this trajectory maybe in ten years' time we can all pay half a grand to stand in a field and remember the time we stood in a field remembering. I don't know when something stops being a festival and starts being an Alzheimer's treatment, but I suspect it's the decade after that.

And music is just one example of this. Cinema's the same. Listings show prequels, remakes and rehashes. Standards are lowered, edges are blunted; Producers want to ensure the maximum possible return. Gone are the "Kids", the "Usual Suspects" and "Pulp Fiction"s. Now it's en-masse, bankable drudge. Terminator movies are 12-rated now.

Maybe music and film are so decimated by piracy that there's such little return on investment that finding the finance to fund a half-interesting, 18-rated thriller, or a ballsy punk-rock outfit that need two or three albums to grow their following- maybe it's just financially unviable? But even the interesting stuff that does get produced bizarrely doesn't get the exposure. It's a cliché and a catch-all to say that it's all piracy, and a revenue driven problem. We forget there's a baby-boomer influence at work here too.

Take last year's Christmas party. The room was full of blue-chip, FTSE 100 employees. The average age of an attendee was about thirty-five. There were temps that were twenty, directors who were fifty, but overall, on average, if you'd scanned the iTunes of every phone in that room, you would've found Rudimental, Jay-Z, Oasis, Chase & Status, Prodigy, David Guetta - so why were we all listening to rock n roll hits of the sixties?

Television's the same. Gone are the innovative new kids on the block; TFI Friday, The Word, Eurotrash; the nearest we have is a re-launch of TFI Friday (starring Chris Evans) or a re-launch of Top Gear (starring Chris Evans);

So where does this leave us?

I think it was a Forbes article I saw that said "Every Disaster Is An Opportunity You Must Seize". The internet has totally ruined popular culture in some senses. Perhaps if fewer people stole music, the record companies would have more to invest in the less mainstream of their portfolio? Maybe if Piratebay had never come about, movie studios would have the funds to gamble on an edgy 18-rating. Maybe if Sky, Netflix and BT hadn't seen the number of broadcast channels soar, the overall advertising revenue wouldn't have lowered, the "main" channels would be able to produce more expensive/ballsy content, rather than the endless conveyor belt of reality TV we get waterboarded into our heads night after night.

But this is actually an opportunity. I mean, the internet isn't going anywhere. So I guess it's about making it work for you. And to me (and hopefully others), that means exploiting it to provide something interesting to those that are similarly bored of the status-quo. Or high-def pornography. Which is also great, you should definitely check that out. Don't even bother reading the rest of this, seriously, go and watch that shit now.

I digress. Exploiting the net means using YouTube or Vimeo to broadcast a live show of your own. It'll be cheap and probably shit, but the Wild-West nature of the web means you have zero regulatory concerns to adhere to. If I had the choice of listening to The One Show having to apologise for using the word "crap" or watching a comedian off the circuit with free-rein, swearing, getting pissed on TV and having a laugh before introducing a new band that's performing live - f*ck me I'm going for the second of those two in a coke-head's heartbeat.

If you're bored of the festival scene and think it's too highly priced for the same names being rolled out again and again, f*ck it... set-up your own gig. It'll be small and shit at first, absolutely. But if you promote it with the tools that are out there (Meetup, Twitter Advanced Search, Facebook, get yourself into Associated Press and local newspapers, appear on other peoples' podcasts, crowdfund it) there is no reason you couldn't get a field of acts together and turn a profit while you're at it.

Whenever I see an old documentary about the 70s (or the 90s more recently) there always seems to be some old boy, talking-head saying "Well, everything had gotten so stale, people were bored of the same faces and same shit coming out. It was ripe for a shake-up".

I feel like that about now.

Reality TV, auto-tuned pop-singers, festivals with bands that you saw ten years ago, movies that are all remakes; now is the time for that shake-up.

Worst case scenario you try to do something and it fails and it ends. Who cares? If, after it dies, you're still depressed, grumpy and want to hear something new?

Well, you can catch me making those buzz-grunt-disabled-person noises in Guildford High Street every Saturday.

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Film Reviews: Amy - Housebound - La Grande Bouffe - Still the Water

July 2, 2015, 9:17 am

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Amy, Asif Kapadia's powerful and mesmerising portrait of Amy Winehouse, whose seductive voice placed her alongside Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday as one of the great jazz singers - Housebound, a horror-comedy offers a fun-scare mix, a haunted house and a vicious killer on the loose - Marco Fererri's La Grand Bouffe (The Big Feast) caused quite a stir at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is re-released as a new 2K restoration of the original cinema negative - Still the Water, Naomi Koware's tale of life, death and love is mysterious and visually captivating but is so self-contained that it borders on the pretentious.



Director: Asif Kapadia
Genre: Documentary, Music, Biography
Language: English
Country of Origin: UK 2014 128 mins.
Certificate 15
Rating: *****

Powerful, haunting, mesmerising and and utterly tragic, a portrait of Amy Winehouse, a pure jazz singer who died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 aged 27.

Asif Kapadia whose critically praised 2010 documentary Senna received two BAFTA Awards has fashioned a mesmerising film about Amy Winehouse, the vivacious, bubbly North London Jewish girl who wrote and sung from the heart, who needed love from her father, husband, family and friends and didn't always receive it. Amy Winehouse, a once in a generation talent whose seductive voice placed her alongside Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday.

Told through video footage from friends and family, chat shows and award events and brilliantly edited by Chris King, it starts with Amy's teenage years, her happiest pre fame years with friends Juliette Ashby, Lauren Gilbert and her first manager Nick Shymansky. The journey begins, the seductive voice of a pure jazz artist, a voice made for small jazz clubs, the success of the album Frank and Back To Back. The essence of the film is the songs and it was a brilliant touch to put the lyrics on screen as subtitles which echo the very personal nature of her songs. Amy, traumatised early in life by her father Mitch walking out on the family only for him to reappear as a Svengali-like figure at the centre of the tragic circus when fame took her by the hand and advised her against rehab. The parasites have arrived, climbed aboard the gravy train and smiled for the camera. Her love for her husband Blake Fielder, the descent into drugs and the excessive workload. No longer the intimacy and fun of a small jazz club. Amy Winehouse was public property, the subject of banal interviews and the aggressive and obscene intrusion of the paparazzi. Kick hard, humiliate for cheap headlines. It's all part of the circus.

Then her tragic death and managers, promoters, advisers distance themselves. How could you describe Amy Winehouse's talent? Listen to her duet with her hero Tony Bennett in Abbey Road - she maybe initially nervous but when she kicks in, Amy Winehouse out sings her hero.

Asif Kapadia doesn't apportion blame and leaves the audience to make up it's own mind.

Released 3rd July



Director: Gerard Johnson
Cast: Morgano O'Reilly, Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru
Genre: Horror, Comedy, Drama
Language: English
Country of Origin: New Zealand 2014 107 mins.
Certificate 15
Rating: ***

Gerard Johnson's horror-comedy Housebound confident directorial debut offers a fun-scare mix, a haunted house and a vicious killer on the loose.

Kylie's Bucknell (Morgano O'Reilly) got a lot of hang ups, she isn't the best of ATM robbers and when a lenient judge sentences her to home detention at her mother Mikriam's (Rima Te Wiata) creepy house in the country that's worse than a life sentence in solitary. Mum's happy and Kylie will get used to the ankle bracelet - 'Aren't you lucky, Kylie having all that high technology on you foot.' This is deep country New Zealand and it's got it's share of characters. The cops are off the planet, weirdo hoarder Krugland (Mick Innes) lives next door, stepfather Graeme (Ross Harper) not exactly great company, home detention security guard Amos (Glen Paul Waru), the eager amateur ghost buster's on hand to solve a 20 year-old murder mystery and find the ghost, a talking teddy bear pops up and to add to Kylie's agony she has regular sessions with psychologist Denis (Cameron Rhodes).

It's an oddball horror-comedy but it works. The cast are excellent and Morgano O'Reilly's terrific in the lead role, the editing's spot on and cinematographer Simon Riera offers a claustrophobic shadow filled scare haunted house feel.

With Jermain Clement and Taika Waititi's recent laugh-out-loud surreal vampire spoof What We Do in the Shadows and now the scare-laugh odd mix Housebound, New Zealand cinema's shining.

Released 3rd July



Director: Marco Ferreri
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Language: English, French, Italian with English subtitles
Country of Origin: France, Italy 1973 130 mins.
Certificate 18
Rating: ****

Marco Ferreri's La Grand Bouffe referred to as 'a physiological farce' by the director caused quite a stir at Cannes in 1973 but went on to win the Fipresci Award jointly with Jean Eustache's The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain).

Billed as a satire on the bourgeoisie, La Grande Bouffe is the story four middle aged men, Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), a pilot, Philippe (Philippe Noiret), a judge, Michel (Michel Piccoli), a TV executive and Ugo (Ugo Tognazzi), a chef who retire to Philippe's country villa to eat themselves to death and engage in group sex with prostitutes and a local school teacher Andrea (Andrea Ferreol) who's game for anything. Bored with the routine predictability of their lives this is the hedonistic end game.

Dark and grotesque, gluttony rules layered with black humour and intervals for the pleasures of the flesh, La Grande Bouffe was considered perverse and decadent and faced almost total rejection but acquired cult status with three of Europe's major stars romping and rollicking in the sex and fart-filled chaos.

La Grand Bouffe is released as a new 2K restoration of the original cinema negative.

Released 3rd July



Director: Naomi Koware
Cast: Nijiro Murakami, Jun Yoshinaga, Miyuki Matsuda
Genre:Romance, Drama
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Country of Origin: Japan, France, Spain 2014 121 mins.
Official Entry 2014 Cannes International Film festival
Certificate 15
Rating: **

Naomi Koware's tale of life, death and love and the mystical power of nature is mysterious and visually captivating but it's so self-concerned that it borders on the pretentious.

Set on the tropical island of Anami-Oshima, 16 year-old Kyoko (Jun Yoshinaga) is in love with Kaito (Nijiro Murakami) whose parents are divorced, his mother Misaki (Makiko Watanabe) works as a waitress and his father's Atsushi (Jun Murakami) a tattooist in Tokyo. Kyoko's mother Isa (Miyuki Matsuda) lies dying surrounded by her extended family in the shade of a Banyan tree. When a dead body's washed up on the beach, Kaito reassesses his relationship with his parents and with Kyoko.

Visually powerful with metaphorical imagery but the close up shots of a goat being slaughtered was unnecessary and didn't add anything to the story.

Released 3rd July

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We Are the Mods - The Chant That Never Dies

July 2, 2015, 9:38 am

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The 65,000 people packed into Hyde Park to watch The Who, Paul Weller, Kaiser Chiefs and Johnny Marr last month and the millions that watched The Who headline Glastonbury was confirmation, if we needed it, that Mod culture is back big time. In fact it never went away. What is it about a youth culture that began in the sixties that means it continues to re invent itself? From American Ivy League through to Jamaican Rude Boys, football casuals to Acid Jazz, Britpop and more recent artists like The Strypes and Miles Kane. Actor Martin Freeman loves beautiful clothes and sixties soul and has a great haircut - so even Bilbo Baggins is a mod...

It's the style and way of life that refuses to go out of fashion - in many ways because it really is timeless. That's now admirably illustrated by an exhibition of The Jam memorabilia at Somerset House. A fascinating collection of artefacts mainly from the early days of the bands career including full stage set up, front covers of music papers, badges, master recordings from the studio and of course a collection of the sharpest of clothes. One couldn't help but wonder at how far Mod had come from the early days of pitch battles with rockers on Brighton Beach and the lurid national headlines. Mods were of course the second outburst of visible teen rebellion since the Second World War, the first being the arrival of rock n roll and smashed cinemas - the birth of the teenager. Teddy Boys though haven't had anywhere near the enduring power of Mod - so it's clear who won the war. It's big business too from Liam Gallagher's Pretty Green to Bradley Wiggins clothing line for Fred Perry and Weller modelling for British heritage brand DAKS. Brands have cottoned on to the fact that Mod sells - Clark's have their Originals range meaning the Desert Boot will adorn feet until the end of time. Fred Perry clocked this route years ago and have their Heritage range, which leverages their mod history.

Mod was very often routed in class. Working class young men who wanted to look super smart when they went out at the weekend and would save for months to buy the right clothes. Add into the mix a carefully selected mix of music, a penchant for drugs to keep them dancing all night and the desire to prove they were not defined by a dreary office job - and you have a template that can be repeated whatever the year.

The Who of course are the group that many identify with are recognised as the iconic mod group. I've very proud to have worked with the band for many years but they are the best example of the power of mod culture and surely one of our greatest rock acts. Don't just take my word for it, as one of the reviews put it "It was a few miles west of Hyde Park that 50 years ago Townshend, Daltrey and the late Keith Moon and John Entwistle created the soundtrack for the capital's original Mod scene - playing adrenaline (and more) fuelled vignettes of aspiring working class teenage life. And it was the band's ability to still thrill five decades on that was being celebrated here." Their Hyde Park show, which was the biggest in terms of tickets they've staged in the UK, followed swiftly by a headlining slot at Glastonbury, illustrates that they are now as relevant as they were in 1965 the year My Generation was released. So Mod marches on as another generation is inspired by the authenticity and unique Britishness of this movement.

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Amy Winehouse - A Lost Little Girl, Who Could Have Been Saved

July 2, 2015, 9:42 am

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I saw Amy Winehouse three or four times in person at the London Clinic in December of 2009. I was there regularly, visiting my terminally ill father. Even in that environment, she was vibrant yet restless, surrounded by bodyguards, but somehow alone. My Dad commented on how sad it was that she was there from her addictions when she had everything going for her. He was right - if only she had known it herself.

The media after her death in July 2011, focussed on her alcohol and drug abuse. But they didn't mention her bulimia, nor the depression she wrestled with since she was a teen. The new documentary film on her life directed by Asif Kapadia sets the record straight, telling the tale of a brilliant woman who was plagued with self-doubt and deficient in resilience.

She was a happy child, but a troubled teen, finding her 'perfect' diet early on - eating a lot and then throwing up afterwards. In some old video footage she talked about being an ugly mug, because she looked different from others. But therein lied her beauty, a striking, unique charm that made her Amy.

Three quarters of young girls today don't like how they look and five out of six are worried about getting fat. Amy was one of those girls, one that society didn't save. If these confidence issues aren't addressed they seep into later life. Amy's bad relationships all stemmed from a belief she didn't deserve love. Her eating disorders and substance abuse weren't part of a 'rock and roll" lifestyle, but because she couldn't cope with the reality of who she was.

Confidence comes from loving what you do, not from external stuff such as image and fame. Amy loved her music but she was plunged into a world of live events, paparazzi and TV appearances, which was her worst nightmare. All she wanted to do was expel her pain by converting it into lyrics and music.

At the Amy premiere at Cannes Film Festival, we were able to honour her life, remembering that she was a ‎woman of great achievement who struggled with many demons. Every single person in the cinema was moved to tears by her incredible story. Contrary to popular belief, she wasn't party mad or overly hedonistic. She was a girl in trouble that needed help and somewhere along the lines society failed her. Had she been supported during those vulnerable teenage years when she found fame, she could have coped better with life. Excelling at sport, music, or in your studies is not a guarantee of feeling good on the inside. The pressure to be perfect today is immense and it can be an addiction in itself.

At the end of the film Amy's bodyguard reveals that she regretted her stardom. She would have given anything to take it all back, to be able to walk down the street in peace. She is now known around the world for the very songs that made her ill, Back to Black about her toxic ex boyfriend and Rehab about well, the obvious. She just wanted to move on and compose some new work away from the media eye but the money machine kept whirring. Her father even brought a film crew with him when he visited her on retreat in St Lucia. Each time she reached a new milestone, the Brits, Grammys, singing with Tony Bennett, she would immediately relapse. For when you don't think you're good enough these goals are impossibly unattainable and at the same time they are addictive because they are the only proof of self-worth.

Let's make Amy's early departure a learning for us all to protect our children and those we love in trouble. For many, many people suffer from mental health problems that have been swept under the carpet for too long. Amy wasn't crazy, nor was she a wildchild. She was an ordinary girl with an extraordinary talent, and she just needed the tools to assist her - if the appropriate coping mechanisms had been imparted along the way, from childhood, through to her years in the spotlight, things could have been very different.

Amy Winehouse shone very brightly and she still does. She is a reminder to all of us to take care of those we love and build, not crush, their confidence. Self-harming, eating disorders and suicide are all on the rise and we need to curb this heart-breaking trend. Her loss is deeply tragic but she has left an incredible legacy and not just her music. She has pathed the way for our youngsters, to stand in their truth and truly believe in themselves.

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Prince Removes Music From All Streaming Services Except Tidal

July 2, 2015, 10:09 am

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Prince may have just solved one of Jay Z's 99 problems.

The artist has just pulled his catalogue of songs from all major streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify, except for Tidal -- a move that has coincided with the release of his new song 'HARDROCKLOVER' on sound cloud.



A Spotify spokesperson told Mashable: "We have cooperated with the request, and hope to bring his music back as soon as possible."

Prince who is famously anti-internet, a fact marked by his lack of presence on YouTube, still has his catalogue of songs on iTunes for now.

TechCrunch reports that Google has not yet received such a request and will continue to stream his music.

His decision comes days after Taylor Swift convinced Apple Music to pay artists during its three month free trial period, by initially refusing to let the platform stream her 1989 album.

Days letter Apple gave in to Tay's charm (and monetary value) and agreed to pay artists.

After the events of this week, I've decided to put 1989 on Apple Music...and happily so.

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 25, 2015

Prince is yet to comment on his decision to favour Tidal but it is something Jay Z should count as a blessing, given the platform's struggle to make a dent in the music streaming market.

READ MORE:

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• Taylor Swift's '1989' Album Will Be On Apple Music When It Launches 30 June


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• Is Apple About to Teach Us the True Monetary Value of Music?

Despite being launched by an entourage of heavy hitters within the industry, including Kanye and Rhianna, the app dropped out of iPhone's top 700 download charts soon after its release.

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'Big Brother' Sexiest Moments: 14 Most Shocking, X-Rated And Outrageous Antics In The House (PICS)

July 2, 2015, 10:14 am

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This year’s ‘Big Brother’ has been yet another combination of bitching, arguing and laughs, all with the usual mix of x-rated action thrown in for good measure.

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True, we haven’t quite reached the depths of last year’s show, where Kimberly Kisselovich and Steven Goode famously consummated their love in the ‘BB’ bedroom, while the rest of their housemates slept, but there’ve definitely been a few moments that have had the housemates hot around the collar.


Harry Amelia and Nick Henderson

The arrival of webcam model Harry Amelia late into the series meant that we were never far from a PVC ensemble or a bit of bare-breasted cooking in the ‘BB’ kitchen, while her nocturnal activities with fellow housemate Nick Henderson had the rest of the group pondering exactly what had gone on under the covers.


OUR EYES!!!

Marc O’Neill also (somehow…) managed to charm Sam Kay, despite having previously thrown some rather disparaging comments in her direction, with the two sharing a steamy snog in sofa area, before spending the night together.

And then there’s Jasmine Lennard, the former ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ contestant, who arrived in the house and immediately set her sights on Cristian MJC, taking roughly five minutes to get him alone and exchange a passionate kiss with him in the living room, warning him a day later that things could get “out of control” between the two of them (which, we’ll admit, he didn’t actually seem to mind).


Cristian and Jasmine share a snog

Of course, ‘BB’ has always been one of the raunchiest shows on TV, and here are 14 of the most jaw-dropping moments from the reality series’ 15-year history…

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Glenn Beck Considers Boycott Of Disney Over Charles Darwin Film

July 2, 2015, 10:46 am

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NEW YORK -- Glenn Beck, erstwhile mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, this week suggested listeners of his radio show should consider boycotting Disney. The author and media personality, who masquerades a daily offering of religion and conspiracy theory as traditional conservatism, had previously stated his opposition to boycotts for reasons of free speech. However Beck appears to have performed a volte-face when it comes to the House of the Mouse.

Last week Disney announced they are moving forward with a film about Charles Darwin, the renowned nineteenth-century scientist. The movie is to focus on the English naturalist’s voyage on the HMS Beagle -- the trip on which Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, leading to his refining of the idea of natural selection.

“Creation,” a previous biopic about Darwin, starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, struggled to find a distributor in the US because, according to producer Jeremy Thomas, “There's still a great belief that He [God] made the world in six days."

Beck’s recent comments flowed from a discussion on boycotts and whether or not they work. “Boycotts work and we [social conservatives]... do nothing,” said the 51-year-old former alcoholic. He then added: “They’re doing a new movie, kind of an Indiana Jones swashbuckling spirit of a five-year voyage in 1831 on ship HMS Beagle to the coastline of South America to find and follow the man who made discoveries that made him one of the most influential figures in human history.”

Beck continued sarcastically: “Wow, this sounds like a swashbuckling thriller that we are going to have to take our families to see. Doesn’t it sound great? It’s Charles Darwin. It’s the story of Charles Darwin and so we’re going to find out how exactly he came up with the idea, made the discoveries that brought him to the theory of evolution. Thank you, Disney! That’s fantastic. That's wonderful.”

A 2014 Gallup poll found that a staggering four in 10 Americans still believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago. A similar poll conducted in 2008 found that 60% of Republicans think God created humans, while a 2012 poll in Britain showed that only 17% of respondents believed in creationism.

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‘EastEnders' Spoiler: Stacey Slater Gets A Shock From A Familiar Face (PICS)

July 2, 2015, 4:05 pm

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Stacey Slater gets a surprise in tonight’s ‘EastEnders’ (Friday 3 July), when a familiar face appears in her flat.

Yes - Jean Slater is here - and she's got some unexpected news...


Jean surprises Stacey in her flat

Stacey’s mum is set to return to the Square to surprise her daughter, and reveal some happy news, by telling her that she’s going to be getting married.

However, Stacey doesn’t exactly look delighted following her mum’s revelation - can she feign happiness?

As fans already know, Jean’s arrival looks set to finally push Stacey closer to sharing information about the mysterious key, which she’s been carrying since returning in Walford earlier this year.


Stacey embraces her mum

Previously revealed spoiler snaps show that Jean is set to panic when she spots the mysterious key hanging on Stacey’s necklace.

Stacey is set for more drama later this year, when she discovers she’s pregnant, and this being ‘EastEnders’, things are never simple, and the unborn tot’s paternity will be unclear.

Watch ‘EastEnders’ tonight (Friday 3 July) to see the events unfold.

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Cheryl Fernandez-Versini Hits Back At Troll Who Body Shamed Her On Instagram

July 2, 2015, 11:59 pm

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Cheryl Fernandez-Versini is certainly never one to hold back, and the ‘X Factor’ judge has brilliantly hit out at comments about her size, after being body shamed on Instagram.

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The star was angered by a so-called fan who branded her a “bag of bones” on a picture of her being whisked away to Italy by husband Jean-Bernard on her birthday, and sensationally cut them down to size in a furious rant on the photo sharing site.


Cheryl Fernandez-Versini

She wrote: “I am so sick and tired of it being ok to call somebody too thin or a ‘bag of bones’.

“I would never dream of calling somebody too fat and that they shouold maybe cut down on their food intake? What is the difference?

“You have no idea what I have been through. Just losing my father in law v recently and everything that comes with that.

“Not that I am or should justify myself to anyone.”

“I’m so f sick of people thinking it’s ok to be mean or body shame anyone. And it’s woman on woman. Have some respect and maybe think there may be reasons why before opening your mouth please.”



She added: “I am just tired of the ignorance...At some point it’s just enough. Some people are naturally thin. My mother is all of 4’11 and six stone something. And is incredibly healthy and happy.”


Cheryl with husband Jean-Bernard

Cheryl celebrated her 32nd birthday over the weekend, and her husband surprised her by taking her to Italy for dinner during a holiday together.

When you're asked what you would like to have for your birthday dinner and you say lets go to a nice Italian restaurant!... Then you actually end up IN Italy I need to step up my game I'm feeling very lucky and grateful #sobeautiful #italy

A photo posted by Cheryl (@cherylofficial) on Jun 30, 2015 at 2:39am PDT

She shared a picture of their romantic meal on Instagram, writing: “When you’re asked what you would like to have for your birthday dinner and you say lets go to a nice Italian restaurant!... Then you actually end up IN Italy. I need to step up my game. I’m feeling very lucky and grateful #sobeautiful.”

The singer is currently gearing up for her return to ‘The X Factor’, which begins filming auditions on Monday.

This year, she will be joined on the panel by Simon Cowell, Nick Grimshaw and Rita Ora, following a raft of changes on the ITV talent show.

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Katie Hopkins Defends Kelly Brook After David McIntosh's Attack On His Ex

July 3, 2015, 12:52 am

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Katie Hopkins has surprised us all by jumping to the defense of Kelly Brook, following her ex-boyfriend David McIntosh’s attack on her.

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The motormouth hit out at the former ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ star after he made a series of claims about Kelly during an interview with new! magazine, saying that he “wasn’t physically attracted to her”.


Katie Hopkins

Katie has now waded into the row in her column for The Sun, branding David “physically and mentally repellent”.

She wrote: “Here’s the thing, beefcake: I find you physically and mentally repellent. You are a man who has spent too much time looking in a mirror and too little time looking in a book.”

But despite defending Kelly’s honour, she couldn’t resist a cruel dig at enemy Gemma Collins, adding: “So leave our Kelly alone and pick on someone your own size — Gemma Collins, perhaps?”

Not cool, Katie.


Kelly Brook

Speaking about Kelly earlier this week, David said: “I didn’t think she was the sexiest woman in the world.

“It was more about who she was. She was hot but I wasn’t physically super attracted to her.”


Kelly with ex David McIntosh

The former ‘Gladiator’ also passed comment on her new relationship with Jeremy Parisi., adding: “I doesn’t really bother me now, but I feel sorry for Jeremy because he looks like a decent lad.”

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