Sarah Bettens & other
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Newer Blood Pressure Drug Shows Promise As Alternative To ACE Inhibitors For Some Patients
drug for lowering blood air pressure, showed a modest decrease in cardiovascular deaths, strokes and fondness attacks in patients with heart problems and
diabetes who can't tolerate the standard and more wide used
Monday, 25 August 2008
Madonna Hires 250-Strong Crew For Sticky & Sweet World Tour
Madonna will be accompanied by a travelling crew of 250 people on her forthcoming world tour, which begins in Cardiff on Saturday (August 23rd).
The singer's tour, which calls in London on September 11th, will feature four sections: 'Pimp', 'Old School', 'Gypsy' and 'Rave'.
Each section will take in a unlike era, kickoff with a mashed up homage to 1920's art deco and modern day gangsta pimp.
The show itself will feature 16 dancers, a 12 piece band, more than 8 costume changes for Madonna and �1 1000000 worth of Swarovski crystals.
36 Different Designers ingest contributed to the onstage wardrobe, piece 30 Wardrobe Trunks will travel to each venue.
Tickets for the tour, which supports Madonna's latest album 'Hard Candy', are on sale straightaway and available through Gigwise here.
Alternatively, you can call our ticket hotline on 0871 230 1098 for more details.
The spell begins barely a week after the singer turned 50. Check out our birthday tribute gallery HERE.
Madonna performs 'Hard Candy'
More information
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Reality host nominees to co-host Emmys
A week ago, they found out they are the first ever Emmy nominees in the newfangled category of best reality host.
But rather of enjoying the express in the audience, Ryan Seacrest (American Idol), Jeff Probst ("Survivor"), Tom Bergeron (Dancing with the Stars), Howie Mandel (Deal or No Deal) and Heidi Klum (Project Runway) will have to work.
The v have been named co-hosts for the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, which testament take place September 21 at the Nokia Theatre and testament be broadcast on ABC.
As they were looking at potential hosts, Emmy producers focused their attention on the new reality hosts category.
"It was pretty obvious," executive producer Ken Ehrlich said.
But they didn't make any move until July 17 when the nominations were announced.
"When we power saw the nominees (in the category), they turned out to be such a perfect grouping of people," he said.
Seacrest, Probst, Bergeron, Mandel and Klum, wHO know each other well, were approached and quickly agreed to come on board.
Details on how the five testament share the hosting duties are unruffled being worked out, only they are expected to be together on stage at some point, Ehrlich said.
This will be instant consecutive Emmy emcee duties for Seacrest, who was the sole host last year when the ceremony aired on Fox.
After draftsmanship criticism for using a multiple host format in 2003, when 13 comedians alternated at the helm, the Emmys have stuck to a single host in yesteryear five years.
But having the top fin reality hosts to master of ceremonies the 60th Emmys was too good to pass up, Ehrlich said.
"This gives us the opportunity to be very contemporary and current on a read where we also testament celebrate the history of the TV Academy and the history of tV," he said. "It's the best of both worlds."
More info
Monday, 23 June 2008
‘While They Slept’ Author Kathryn Harrison on Not Getting Over It
Kathryn Harrison has made a career out of mining uncomfortable personal territory, as she did in her famed memoir The Kiss, which documented her incestuous relationship with her father. So the title alone of her latest work, While They Slept, which hits bookstores today following a rave on the cover of The New York Times Book Review, implies a major departure, with its bare-bones description of how 16-year-old Jody Gilley witnessed the murders of her parents and younger sister at the hands of her older brother Billy. But a standard true-crime tale this is not: Instead Harrison fashions a fascinating hybrid of journalism, narrative, and memoir that links the surviving Gilleys' perspectives with her own tumultuous past history. Harrison spoke with Vulture about the impulse to kill one’s parents, brassiere advice from murderers, and lives broken in two pieces.
You spent six separate three-hour sessions interviewing Billy in an Oregon prison, where he was serving a life sentence at the time. What was that like? You mention a letter in which Billy advised you not to wear a bra with underwire…
It is a weird little detail because it's a man in prison talking about my underwear! [Laughs.] And yet it's totally pragmatic advice because if I do wear underwire, I won't get through the metal detector. My first fear about interviewing Billy was that he wouldn't see me or having said yes, he would change his mind. I didn't know if he was going to be taciturn, whether he would refuse to answer some questions. I am perfectly capable of writing things about myself that one doesn't discuss in polite company, but I was raised by people who said you don't discuss politics, you don't discuss religion, and you certainly don't discuss people's sex lives. And I was going to, in defiance of all I'd been taught, talk to a man about murdering his family, whether or not he molested his sister.
And then…?
Billy made it as easy as it could be, I think, for two reasons: One, he wants to tell his story. He answered my questions in good faith and to the best of his ability. We correspond still, which is not something my husband relishes … Billy's my pen pal, I suppose. I send him magazines once in a while.
Early on you talk about how an almost hidden love of true-crime novels helped spur the writing of While They Slept, but why this case – a 23-year-old triple murder – of all possible ones?
The pragmatic reason is that I had access. I'm not an investigative journalist; I don't track crime or police blotters. I had been talking to a friend of mine, who is also my agent [Amanda "Binky" Urban] on the phone about thirteen years ago. At one point she said, "I just spoke with a really interesting woman. You would have thought her story was fascinating." It turns out the woman was Jody, and she was trying to write a memoir about the murders and of her brother, who wanted to run away with her. About ten years later, my agent and editor I met to discuss my next nonfiction project. Apropos of nothing I asked, "What happened to the book about girl whose brother killed their family?" My agent threw up her hands and said Jody would never write the book. So I said I would. Which is how I got myself into fixes before [laughs].
Your own personal narrative — as outlined in The Kiss — intersects with Jody and Billy's stories. I think a lot of people think that once you write about a painful topic that gets attention and press, that door is closed. But as you write, what happened with you and your father is the defining moment of your life.
Of course! My response to people who say, "Oh, there goes Kathryn Harrison talking about her father again" is "I'm not getting over this! If you're waiting for me to get over it, it's not going to happen." It would be very unnatural if I did get over it. It's also one of the reasons Jody let me write the story — because I could say to her, you and I have been through different things, but we are both people with lives that have suffered a rupture. I believe that about myself. My relationship with my father broke my life into two pieces..
I saw aspects of myself in those children. I understood Billy's rage. You could say there was some ugly gratification in exploring what it was like to pound your father's head in with a baseball bat because I am someone who felt murderously angry at my father. I have fantasized about killing my father. Not with a baseball bat; a little more distantly, with a gun … I got both Billy and Jody in a way that made me want to tell what was a very different story from mine, but one I felt connected to from the beginning. It resonated. —Sarah Weinman
Monday, 16 June 2008
Ashanti Causes Outrage Over Violent Album Campaign
Ashanti has sparked an outcry over the promotional campaign of her new album, prompting lobby groups and family values campainers to protest out the front of her record company's office in Los Angeles.
The new video for the singer's 'The Way That I Love You', which can be viewed below, shows images of blood splattered walls and a knife dripping with blood, and gives the impression that Ashanti killed her lover by stabbing him to death.
On her website, readers can sign a friend up to 'punk their ass', which will send said friend an email stating, 'Your life may be in danger', with links to a fake news website and a video that claims, "Police are investigating a string of violent attacks and searching for the possible next victim."
Despite a disclaimer at the end of the video saying, "Ashanti and Universal Music Group do not encourage or condone violence of any kind. This is for parody purposes only", protests were staged outside of the record label's office on Tuesday (June 10) by more than two dozen parents and religious leaders, who are concerned about the message the video was sending.
Watch the video for 'The Way That I Love You' below.
NEXT: Sex and the City Book Doesn't Exist
Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Amy Winehouse - Fascinating Fact 5348
AMY WINEHOUSE has been announced as the latest artist set to perform at English music festival Glastonbury. The star will sing at the event on 28 June (08) directly before controversial headliner SHAWN JAY ZCARTER's set.
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