Funplaneta: September 2009

The cat

charcoal,watercolour in paper

22''x30''

$250

Cat

The cat
24''x36''

oil on canvas

$350

Jennifer Lopez Top 5 Hit songs

Jennifer Lopez Top 5 Hit songs

I'm not your typical very tall and thin, size 8 actress. And I'm very proud of it! I am very comfortable in my own skin. When you're insecure about your body and trying to pull yourself and your clothes a certain way, it doesn't look sexy at all!

Well, if you watch the films I've been in, you can see what my figure's like. It's not like you can hide it. But when I get in with the wardrobe designer, they're thinking, "Let's see, she's looking a little hippy, she's got a big butt, what should we do?" They're always trying to minimize-- put it that way-- and it's because we see all those actresses who are so thin and white. Latinas have a certain body type. Even the thin ones, we are curvy. I've always had trouble with wardrobe people!

Top 5 songs list of jennifer lopez:

1.Lola

2.Hooked On You

3.What Is Love

4.One Love

5.Faint

6.starting over

7.Love and War

8.Songs for the twins

Guinean soldiers 'lost control'

Some Guinean soldiers lost control at an opposition protest in the capital, Guinea's military leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has admitted.

He said in an interview on French and Senegalese radio that the security forces had been provoked by a stampede.

At least 87 people died when soldiers opened fire to disperse the rally sparked by rumours that Capt Camara wants to run for president next year.

There has been worldwide condemnation of the violence.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the Guinean authorities to exercise maximum restraint, while the West African regional body Ecowas is reported to be pursuing sanctions against Conakry.

Three of four opposition leaders arrested after the unrest have been released.

The BBC's Alhassan Sillah in Conakry says Cellou Diallo remains in hospital.

On Monday, a doctor at a government hospital in Conakry said his wards looked like "a butchery".

Querrey out at Bangkok after arm injury

Querrey out at Bangkok after arm injury

American Sam Querrey will miss the next four to six weeks of the ATP season after cutting his right forearm in an accident at Bangkok, according to the US Tennis Association.

Querrey, seeded third at the Bangkok event and ranked 25th in the world, suffered the injury after practising for the Thailand Open when he sat on a glass table and fell through it, requiring emergency surgery.

Depleted New Zealand "desperate" for success

Depleted New Zealand "desperate" for success

The last thing New Zealand ever need, given the relatively limited size of their cricket-playing pool, is an injury crisis. It is somehow in keeping with the way the cookie often crumbles for underdogs, though less than a week ago, calling anyone the underdogs in a battle with England could only mean an associate nation was playing.

But an outbreak of injury is precisely what Daniel Vettori finds himself dealing with, as he heads into what is, for his side, a quarter-final with England at The Wanderers. Jacob Oram has already gone home, another disruption in a desperately curtailed career; Daryl Tuffey has broken his hand and heads back home for surgery; Ian Butler is recovering from an intestinal infection which has seen him lose 7-8 kgs and he may or may not be ready for tomorrow; and of course Jesse Ryder, who took out the anger and frustration of his injury in a wildly entertaining and destructive 74, to set New Zealand up, is also out; Aaron Redmond, his replacement, will only arrive on the morning of the game, his flight from Hong Kong delayed by hours. You couldn't have found this script in ER.

India set for last-chance saloon

India face holders Australia in the Champions Trophy at Centurion on Monday needing a victory to retain realistic hopes of reaching the semi-finals.

Captain Mahendra Dhoni admitted every game is a knockout after they lost their opener by 54 runs to Pakistan.

"If we don't play well, we can pack up and go back home," he said.

Australia beat the group outsiders West Indies by 50 runs but skipper Ricky Ponting said: "We know we need to play better when we take on India."

Dhoni admitted the absence of Yuvraj Singh, who like star opener Virender Sehwag has been ruled out of the tournament because of injury, was difficult to cover, with ball as well as bat.

"Yuvraj bowls six or seven useful overs and I missed that option," he said. "It's all about adapting to conditions. We should have adapted to the conditions. We could have done a lot better.

"Frankly speaking, I thought I was short of three bowlers. I didn't know who to turn to."

The Indian bowling will be put to the test once again by a strong Australian batting line-up, which demonstrated its depth against West Indies as fast bowler Mitchell Johnson smashed an unbeaten 73 from 47 balls.

"It was particularly hard work early on," Ponting admitted. "It was a difficult wicket, so to get that sort of total was good going.

"The batsmen did a pretty good job and Johnson finished things off pretty well for us and those runs proved vital in the game."

It is all about state of mind: Owais Shah

It is all about state of mind: Owais Shah

England and Middlesex middle-order batsman Owais Shah has vowed to stay with his carefree attitude for the rest of the Champions Trophy tournament.

Shah has said that the team couldn't have done any worse in the one-day series thumping against Australia - and having hit rock bottom, the only solution was to throw caution to the winds.

That is exactly what Shah, Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan [ Images ] have done in the tournament and it has paid off in spades, with Lady Luck now smiling on them rather than kicking them when they were down.

"It is all about state of mind," The Mirror quoted Shah, 30, as saying as he prepared for their final group game against New Zealand .

He added: "Sure, we got thrashed by Australia 6-1 and when you are quite low in confidence, you start a tournament like that and you have nothing to lose. You can play with freedom and you can be dangerous when you play like that. You don't worry about the opposition, you say ''Let's express ourselves''.

"The England team is a very dangerous place at the moment. As a batting unit, we are definitely - like Straussy said - not going to die wondering,"

Miandad calls Champions Trophy pitches 'dangerous'

Miandad calls Champions Trophy pitches 'dangerous'

Javed Miandad, the former captain and current director of the Pakistan board, has termed the pitches used in the ICC Champions Trophy as "dangerous" and said they will adversely affect interest in one-day cricket.

"[With] the sort of scary pitches they have prepared for such a big event it is not going to help the ICC or its members keep interest in one-day internationals alive," Miandad said. "Some of the pitches they have played on can be ranked as dangerous. The bounce is inconsistent. Balls are kicking up from a good length. All this is not good for the survival of ODIs.

"People want to see fast-paced cricket and lots of runs and excitement and that is lacking generally in this tournament because of the inconsistent nature of pitches."

Miandad called for ICC's intervention when it came to pitches and ground conditions for big events. "The ICC is quick to monitor the pitches in member countries, but they also need to talk to their curators about the pitches in the Champions Trophy.

"Even the length of boundaries is varying at the two grounds. They should have more venues for the tournament. Too many matches at one venue is adding to the problems," he said.

Miandad said the toss at the venue gave an unfair advantage and made the matches one-sided. However, out of the eight completed matches so far, the sides winning the toss have won only four times.

Before the start of the tournament, there was a lot of debate over the sustainability of one-day cricket, with Sachin Tendulkar suggesting the format be altered to have two innings of 25 overs each. The general response to Champions Trophy was expected to play a major role in deciding the future of ODIs.

Sex not important: Drew Barrymore

Twice divorced Hollywood actress Drew Barrymore, who is rumoured to have rekindled her romance with actor Justin Long, says that sexual love is secondary to her.

"I have spent a lot of time in my life dedicating myself to love or the pursuit of love or the understanding of love. But for the last few years, my life just hasn't been about that for me," femalefirst.co.uk quoted Barrymore as saying.

"Sexual love is secondary to me right now. My life is very refreshing without it and I am trying to understand and relish it....

AI robots

The latest episode of the Robots podcast takes a closer look at the emergence of communication - and how it can be studied using robots. The first part features an interview with Sara Mitri, an interdisciplinary researcher at Switzerland's EPFL and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Mitri and colleagues have taken an unusual approach to the problem: Using the ground-based S-Bot robots (pictured above) as a model for biological organisms, they used artificial evolution to study complex behaviors like communication. And as the broad media coverage of her recent publications in Current Biology and PNAS show, the advantages of this approach have not gone unnoticed: While retaining many of the real-world complexities present in biological systems, the robotic models allow complete access to all model parameters. And there is another key advantage: Today very little is known about the evolution of phenomena like communication, because they leave no trace in the fossil record. By conducting artificial evolution, this work allowed to reconstruct part of that missing evolutionary history and shed light on the origins of communication in all animals, from simple cells to us humans. In the second part of the podcast, Jürgen Jost, director of the "Complex Structures in Biology and Cognition" group at Leipzig's Max Planck Institute discusses the question of intentionality of robot communication. Tune in!

Portable Laptop

A laptop is a personal computer designed for mobile use and small and light enough to sit on one's lap while in use.[1] A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device (a touchpad, also known as a trackpad, and/or a pointing stick), speakers, and often including a battery, into a single small and light unit. The rechargeable battery (if present) is charged from an AC adapter and typically stores enough energy to run the laptop for two to three hours in its initial state, depending on the configuration and power management of the computer.
Laptops are usually shaped like a large notebook with thicknesses between 0.7–1.5 inches (18–38 mm) and dimensions ranging from 10x8 inches (27x22cm, 13" display) to 15x11 inches (39x28cm, 17" display) and up. Modern laptops weigh 3 to 12 pounds (1.4 to 5.4 kg); older laptops were usually heavier. Most laptops are designed in the flip form factor to protect the screen and the keyboard when closed. Modern tablet laptops have a complex joint between the keyboard housing and the display, permitting the display panel to swivel and then lie flat on the keyboard housing. They usually have a touchscreen display and some include handwriting recognition or graphics drawing capability.
Laptops were originally considered to be "a small niche market" and were thought suitable mostly for "specialized field applications" such as "the military, the Internal Revenue Service, accountants and sales representatives". But today, there are already more laptops than desktops in businesses, and laptops are becoming obligatory for student use and more popular for general use. In 2008 more laptops than desktops were sold in the US and it has been predicted that the same milestone will be reached in the worldwide market as soon as late 2009.

Portable Playstation GO

PSP®go SystemGo versatile. Go digital. Go anywhere.

Introducing the smallest and mightiest PSP® system yet. Download rich, immersive digital gaming or the best movies and TV shows saved directly to the ample 16GB hard drive. Browse the incredibly deep lineup of PSP gaming and movie content on the PlayStation® Network. Use built-in Bluetooth support to connect a wireless headset and utilize Skype to talk with friends. But best of all, show off your content via the ultra-crisp 3.8 inch LCD screen on the most portable PSP system yet.

Microsoft's tablet PC

Microsoft is working on a new tablet PC, codenamed "Courier." It could be here soon or might be a year or more away. And, no, Microsoft probably doesn't much care what Apple does.

Will this be Microsoft-branded, like the Zune and Xbox? It still seems unclear. Looks like they're going to debut it at their upcoming meeting. It looks pretty sweet, but I still think I'd like a keyboard. A keyboard and screen on the inside, like a regular netbook; and a second screen on the outside that works like an iphone, when you just need to touch, scroll, and go.

It feels like the whole world is holding its breath for the Apple tablet. But maybe we've all been dreaming about the wrong device. This is Courier, Microsoft's astonishing take on the tablet.Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.
Until recently, it was a skunkworks project deep inside Microsoft, only known to the few engineers and executives working on it—Microsoft's brightest, like Entertainment & Devices tech chief and user-experience wizard J. Allard, who's spearheading the project. Currently, Courier appears to be at a stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies.
Microsoft has a history of collaborating with other firms, especially in the E&D division: Zune and Xbox have both gone through similar design processes. (And plans for the Microsoft Store leaked through a third-party agency were confirmed as genuine prototype layouts and concepts.) This video is branded Pioneer Studios, a Microsoft division within E&D that specializes in this kind of work, working with another agency that's a long-time Microsoft collaborator on confidential projects.
The Courier user experience presented here is almost the exact opposite of what everyone expects the Apple tablet to be, a kung fu eagle claw to Apple's tiger style. It's complex: Two screens, a mashup of a pen-dominated interface with several types of multitouch finger gestures, and multiple graphically complex themes, modes and applications. (Our favorite UI bit? The hinge doubles as a "pocket" to hold items you want move from one page to another.) Microsoft's tablet heritage is digital ink-oriented, and this interface, while unlike anything we've seen before, clearly draws from that, its work with the Surface touch computer and even the Zune HD.
Over the next couple days we'll be diving much, much deeper into Courier, so stay tuned.

Charlize Theron thanks her mom for acting career

Charlize Theron thanks her mom for acting career

Hollywood actress Charlize Theron hit rock bottom when her dreams of becoming a prima ballerina were shattered, but it was her mother who encouraged her to try her luck at acting instead.
The South African beauty trained as a ballet dancer in New York City, but a knee injury at 19 left her devastated and ruined any chance she had of turning her passion into a career. Now the star has heaped praise on her mother for helping her out of her slump and launching her Hollywood career, reported imdb.com.
"I remember at night, crying my eyes out and eating four pints of ice cream because I couldn't dance anymore, and my mom saying ‘Well, why don't you try acting?' Because of that, I'm standing on a red carpet today," said the actress.
The actress has gone on to star in a series of hit films and even scooped an Academy Award for her performance in 2003 movie Monster.

Mugdha Godse Looking For Image Makeover

Mugdha Godse Looking For Image Makeover

Model-turned-actress Mugdha Godse is keen to change her image. The actress claimed that she is bored of doing the same kind of role and now wants to do ‘something different’. The actress portrayed the role of a model in movie, ‘Fashion’.

Mugdha Godse said, “I want to experiment with different genres. I am looking forward to comedy, action and, of course, a romantic movie. I do not want to get typecast."

The 24-years-old actress who made her debut in Bollywood with Madhur Bhandarkar's film ‘Fashion’ claimed that she is being offered same kind of roles which she portrayed in ‘Fashion’.

Femina Miss India 2004 Semi-Finalist said, "I don't know when the right opportunity will come along, it’s not always the director or the script, but I give importance to the character I am going to enact. If I feel I am fit for it, I take the project."

Vidya Balan's sister Priyamani to make her Bollywood debut

Vidya Balan's sister Priyamani to make her Bollywood debut

Vidya Balan's sister Priyamani is making her Bollywood debut with Mani Ratnam's Raavan. The South actress plays the important character of Raavan's (Abhishek Bachchan) sister Shoorpankha.
A source from the unit reveals, "Mani's production team initially approached the South top actress Nayantara for the role of Shoorpankha but she refused. Also many top Bollywood actresses were approached for the role of Shoorpankha but they refused it because they didn't want to play Abhishek Bachchan's sister. Abhishek is a dishy actor, and not many actresses want to ruin their chances of being paired romantically opposite him by playing his sister in Raavan."

Priyamani will play Shoorpankha in the Tamil and Hindi versions, just like Aishwarya is playing Sita in both versions. Priyamani won the National Film Award for her role in the Tamil film Paruthi Veeran (2006). She also won a Filmfare South Award for her role in the Malayalam film Thirakkatha (2008).

Mallika Sherawat Hisses to Shirley MacLaine

Mallika Sherawat is on a Hollywood-meets-Bollywood spree in Los Angeles to promote and create awareness for her next release Hissss directed by Jennifer Lynch.

It is learnt that she recently spent some time with legendary American movie star Shirley MacLaine. They were spotted leaving the Chanel store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

They were followed by paparazzi and ducked in to a cafe for a late lunch. The meeting between the Oscar-winning actress and Mallika lasted over two hours. A few weeks ago Mallika met Shirley's brother, Warren Beatty, at the Beverly Hills Polo Lounge. It is unclear whether Warren arranged the introduction between the actresses.A source close to Mallika says, "They discussed films, and gossipped. Shirley told her stories about Billy Wilder and the time when she 'kicked Jack Nicholson in the groin.' Ms MacLaine also enquired of her film Hissss, as she has long been fascinated by reincarnation and has written nine books on it." Since Hissss deals with reincarnation, the senior actress was quite interested in the film, and asked to see the teaser promo of the film.Shirley is known to be one of the quirkiest Hollywood actresses, just like Mallika who loves drama. Naturally the two bonded like soul sisters, albeit from different generations. MacLaine gave the desi actress tips on how to make it in Hollywood.

Sonam Bollywood's best dressed celebrity

Sonam Bollywood's best dressed celebrity

Two film-old actress Sonam Kapoor has beaten the likes of Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor and Katrina Kaif to emerge as the best dressed celebrity in India, according to People magazine.
"My style isn't about trends. I don't let the clothes wear me, I wear them," said the 24-year-old about her style statement.
On the list, Kareena holds second position, Priyanka is third, Twinkle Khanna on fourth and Katrina on fifth slot.
Sonam, daughter of Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor, made her acting debut with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya opposite Ranbir Kapoor and later featured in Delhi 6.

Soha kisses the serial kisser!

Soha kisses the serial kisser!

Patuadi dynasty's princess and Bollywood actress Soha Ali Khan so far perceived as Plain Jane has shunned her conservative image. She's become bold and obviously beautiful. Soha Ali Khan who has so far delivered only girl next door roles in all her movies, is trying every bit to become sexy. The petite actress has locked lips with the serial kisser Emraan Hashmi in the upcoming film Tum Mile.
Earlier there were reports that she has refused to kiss Emraan but it seems that she has agreed and kissed him not only once but twice in the film.

Bollywood welcomes Julia Roberts!

Bollywood welcomes Julia Roberts!

Some Bollywood stars are flying about 1200 kilometers north to Pataudi (India) to host a dinner in honor of Julia Roberts, who is currently shooting for “Eat, Play, Love”, according to reports.
These reportedly include Filmfare award winners Saif Ali Khan (Hum Tum), Kareena Kapoor (Jab We Met), Sharmila Tagore (Aradhana), etc. Tagore, who is chairperson of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) of India, has reportedly already met Roberts. Government regulatory body CBFC is “responsible for certifying the films produced in India as well as outside the country suitable for public exhibition”.

Iran denies violating IAEA rules

Iran denies violating IAEA rules

Iran's president has denied his government violated International Atomic Energy Agency rules after disclosing the existence of a new nuclear-enrichment facility to the UN watchdog.
Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had in fact informed the IAEA a full year in advance of the deadline set by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"If you want to build the building, you can do that. If you want to lay the pipes, you can do that. Six months before you start processing itself ... then you need to inform the IAEA so it is prepared to begin its inspection programme," Ahmadinejad said.
"Now is this the right thing or the wrong thing to do?" he asked. "It is not a secret facility. If it was, why did we inform the IAEA a year ahead of time?"
Even as he insisted that Iran, as a sovereign state, did not need to report to Washington, Ahmadinejad said that Tehran would allow IAEA inspectors to visit the site.
Marc Vidricaire, an IAEA spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Friday that Tehran had notified the body of the second enrichment plant's existence in a letter earlier this week.
Iran was previously known to have one enrichment plant at Natanz, in central Isfahan province, which is under daily surveillance by IAEA inspectors.
The New York Times reported that the facility was being built inside a mountain near the city of Qom, where Iran's supreme leader and the country's influential religious leadership are based.

It's Priyanka Chopra's show all the way

It's Priyanka Chopra's show all the way

You: How is What's Your Raashee?

Me: Wrong question.

You: How long?

Me: Now you're talking.

Mr Yogi, Mr Yogi, remember that catchy refrain we would wait to hear on our Doordarshan-friendly television sets every single week? Now imagine those 13-episodes of Ketan Mehta's [ Images ] popular sitcom clubbed together for one single viewing. Well, that's how long What's Your Raashee? feels like.

It's the only goddamn obstacle in what could have been a socio-comic gem. What's Your Raashee? could have been at least one and a half hours shorter. Those thirteen songs could have been reduced to five. That ridiculous sub-plot about a marriage agent's illicit affair could have been done away with. There are just so many sequences that could have done with a snip here and a cut there.

As much as I appreciate his trademark idealism and eye for detail, filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker's weakness for lengthy cinema has always sparked debate. Personally, I had no issues with the running time of either Lagaan [ Images ] or Swades [ Images ] but Jodhaa Akbar [ Images ] did contribute in aggravating my spondylitis. What's Your Raashee? was never going to be a short film, considering its premise, inspired by Madhu Rye's Gujarati novel, Kimball Ravenswood, about an NRI guy coming to Mumbai [ Images ] to pick a perfect bride from 12 different astrological signs in ten days. What's the hurry, you ask?

Basically, the eligible bachelor in question, namely Chicago boy Yogesh Patel (Harman Baweja), is tricked into flying back home by his astrology-blind folks (an utterly believable Anjan Shrivastava and Manju Singh) to bail them out from monetary woes after their elder son (Dilip Joshi stumps you with yet another poker-faced winner) loses a fortune in gambling and owes an underworld don, among many others. The only thing that can save them now is his grandfather's inheritance, which Yogesh will procure only after he ties the knot.

Meanwhile, there's no overlooking a serious effort to shoot Mumbai as uniquely as possible. While there's no escaping a drive around Marine Drive [ Images ] and Fort, it's good to catch up with good ol' Kamla Nehru Park, the claustrophobic spaces of Bhuleshwar, lush greens of Powai while receiving a good glimpse of the upcoming neighbourhoods around Navi Mumbai lending the somewhat far-fetched set-up a much-welcome stroke of realism ..

The anticipation of watching Priyanka Chopra unleash her 12 conflicting avatars -- all Gujarati, however, keeps the optimism going. Establishing lot in less is still one of Gowariker's greatest limitations and hence the aforementioned scenario takes a little more than it should to unfold.

Also, if you have ever been (still are) into Linda Goodman's Sun Signs or Love Signs, spotting popular zodiac traits is one guilty pleasure you can never have enough of. Too bad most of the signs as projected in the movie are nothing like I expected them to be.

India hails Moon mission 'find'

India hails Moon mission 'find'

India's inaugural Moon mission has been hailed as a "grand success" by the head of India's space agency, after helping find evidence of water on the Moon.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chief G Madhavan Nair said a spacecraft probe found more water on the Moon "than was expected."
The mission was terminated last month after communication was lost with the orbiting spacecraft.
The craft was launched last October for a two-year mission of exploration.
Data from three spacecraft, including India's Chandrayaan probe, has shown that very fine films of H2O coat the particles that make up the lunar dirt, US space agency Nasa announced.
The quantity is tiny but could become a useful resource for astronauts wishing to live on the Moon, scientists say.
"We truly believe it is a path-breaking finding. But this is just the beginning," Mr Nair said.
"Indians should be proud of the fact that the Chandrayaan enabled the discovery of water on the Moon," he said.
Indian scientists have welcomed the discovery and said more studies needed to be done to find out how much water was available and whether it was fit for human consumption.
'Significant'
"The results suggest that frost rather than water is present in the form of a thin film on the lunar surface. The quantity and its distribution across the Moon is still an open question," K Kasturirangan, a former chief of Isro told the Press Trust of India press agency.
"Ultimately, in the long run if humankind has to go and inhabit the Moon, one of the important requirements is that you should have adequate water for survival," he said.
An Indian scientist working in Nasa said it was a "significant discovery"
"It is a very significant finding if we ever are to venture out to set up a base anywhere in the solar system, the Moon is the nearest destination," Amitabha Ghosh said.
The Indian media has also hailed the role of Chandrayaan in the finding.
One Big Step for India, A Giant Leap for Mankind, headlined The Times Of India newspaper.

Obama looking forward to Manmohan’s visit

Obama looking forward to Manmohan’s visit

Singh and Obama greeted each other and were seen talking for over two minutes before they moved to dinner.

US President Barack Obama is looking forward to the state visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington in November.
Singh, who will be paying the first state visit of the Obama Administration, and his wife Gursharan Kaur, were warmly greeted by Obama and First Lady Michelle at a dinner hosted by the US president for the world leaders attending the G-20 Summit on Thursday.
Singh and his wife were received with a warm handshake by the President and the First Lady at the entrance to the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.
Singh and Obama greeted each other and were seen talking for over two minutes before they moved to dinner.

I-POD

iPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and launched on October 23, 2001 (2001-10-23). The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle. The iPhone can function as an iPod but is generally treated as a separate product. Former iPod models include the iPod Mini and the spin-off iPod Photo (since reintegrated into the main iPod Classic line). iPod Classic models store media on an internal hard drive, while all other models use flash memory to enable their smaller size (the discontinued Mini used a Microdrive miniature hard drive). As with many other digital music players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices. Storage capacity varies by model.

Apple's iTunes software can be used to transfer music to the devices from computers using certain versions of Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. For users who choose not to use Apple's software or whose computers cannot run iTunes software, several open source alternatives to iTunes are also available. iTunes and its alternatives may also transfer photos, videos, games, contact information, e-mail settings, Web bookmarks, and calendars to iPod models supporting those features. As of September 9, 2009, more than 220,000,000 iPods had been sold worldwide, making it the best-selling digital audio player series in history.

China's largest cloud seeding assault aims to stop rain on the national parade

China's largest cloud seeding assault aims to stop rain on the national parade
Cloud-seeding aircraft to intercept rainclouds that threaten to cast shadow over communist party's 60th celebrations in Beijing....
China's air force is gearing up for its biggest ever assault on the clouds to ensure blue skies above Beijing for the 60th anniversary of communist party rule, local media reported today.

Eighteen cloud-seeding aircraft and 48 fog-dispersal vehicles are on stand-by to intercept rainclouds that threaten to cast a shadow over the festivities, which will include the biggest display of military power in at least 10 years.

The weather modification could exceed the huge cloudbusting operation for the opening ceremony of the Olympic games last year, when more than 1,100 rain-dispersal rockets were fired into the sky.

"It is the first time in Chinese history that artificial weather modification on such a large scale has been attempted," said Cui Lianqing, an air force meteorologist, speaking to the Global Times newspaper.

Meteorologists will coordinate the mission using satellite data. The Beijing Weather Modification Office will supplement the air force's campaign with rockets and planes that load the clouds with silver iodide or liquid nitrogen — dry ice — to induce precipitation above reservoirs and rivers.

China has the world's most extensive rain creation infrastructure, employing about 50,000 people nationwide. Their job is usually to alleviate droughts in the arid north of the country. For national day they would have to encourage rain to fall from clouds before they reached Beijing.

The National Day events mark the founding of the People's Republic of China on 1 October, 1949. The communist party wants to use the occasion to showcase its achievements since Mao Zedong took power.

Thinning glaciers driving polar ice loss, satellite survey finds

Thinning glaciers driving polar ice loss, satellite survey finds

Satellite survey of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets reveals extensive network of rapidly thinning glaciers that is driving ice loss in the regions.
A comprehensive satellite survey of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has revealed an extensive network of rapidly thinning glaciers that is driving ice loss in the regions.

The most profound loss of ice was seen along the continental coastlines, where glaciers speed up as they slip into the sea. In some regions, glaciers flowing into surrounding waters were thinning by nearly 10m a year.

Scientists used data from Nasa's ICESat (Ice, Cloud and and land Elevation Satellite) to piece together a picture of the changing fortunes of glaciers on the ice sheets. The satellite bounces laser light off the ground, allowing researchers to measure the terrain with extraordinary precision.

The survey, compiled from 50m satellite measurements taken between February 2003 and November 2007, shows glaciers thinning at all latitudes in Greenland and along key Antarctic coastlines. Thinning penetrated deep into the interior of the ice sheets and continues to spread as ice shelves melt into the sea.

"We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline. It's widespread and in some cases, thinning extends hundreds of kilometres inland," said Hamish Pritchard who led the study at the British Antarctic Survey.

In Greenland, glaciers in the south-east were found to be flowing at speeds of more than 100m per year, during which they thinned by 84cm. More slow-going glaciers lost around 12cm a year.

In a vast region of western Antarctica that drains into the Amundsen Sea, the Pine Island glacier and neighbouring Smith and Thwaites glaciers are thinning by 9m a year, the satellite measurements show. The study is published in the journal Nature

Manchester United v Wolverhampton Wanderers - as it happened!

Manchester United v Wolverhampton Wanderers - as it happened!

Teams:
Man Utd: Kusczcak; Neville, Brown, Evans, Fabio; Welbeck, Carrick, Gibson, Nani; Owen, Macheda
Subs: Amos, Ferdinand, Tosic, Valencia, De Laet, King, Eikrem.
Wolves: Limp Bizkitt's frontman Fred Durst, Foley, Craddock, Berra, Elokobi; Kightly, Henry, Castillo, D Jones; Ebanks-Blake, Maeirhoff.
Subs: Ikeme, Keogh, Halford, Milijas, Zubar, Hill, Doyle.
Ref: Referee: Peter Walton (of The Waltons)

Preamble:
Should I start with a joke about how this match could go into extra-time, penalties and, in the event of Manchester United still not having won, as much special bonus Fergie-time as is required? No, that would be lame. Besides, I don't get why folks should complain about there being more time in football matches – as it is, the paying public are already systematically swindled out of as much as a third of the advertised duration of a match. That's a scandal that I have previously addressed, to widespread indifference.

Anyway, Wolves. Who can tell us something about them that we don't already know? What do you mean that's my job? Take, take, take, that's all you web surfers do. Come on contribute. Please

Danny Welbeck keeps 10-man Manchester United on track

Danny Welbeck keeps 10-man Manchester United on track

The most entertaining part of the evening came right at the end when the fourth official raised the board to indicate there would be a minimum of three minutes' stoppage time. "We want six," the Wolverhampton Wanderers supporters responded. Even if their wish had been granted, however, it was difficult to imagine Mick McCarthy's side breaking down a team that had coped so admirably with having to play the final hour with 10 men.

Manchester United may not regard the Carling Cup with enduring affection but the holders still seem to regard it as a matter of duty not to relinquish the trophy. Sir Alex Ferguson's men had to cope with Fabio da Silva being sent off after half an hour, the young Brazilian committing a professional foul on Michael Kightly, but still managed to get through what should really have been a more problematic evening, triumphing through a combination of Daniel Welbeck's 66th-minute strike and the reticence of their opponents to do more to make their extra player count.

Perhaps, in hindsight, Wolves will regret not being more adventurous. McCarthy felt his side had played well, controlling the game in spells, but the feeling still persists that they might have dared to believe in themselves more. This was a United side largely made up of fringe players, and Ferguson later remarked that Wolves had actually looked more dangerous before Da Silva's departure.

Ferguson felt that "discipline got us through". His goalkeeper, Tomasz Kuszczak, kept out Wolves' best effort, a Dave Jones shot from the free-kick that followed the red card, and the game was eventually won with a goal that was classy in its creation and clinical in its execution. Welbeck's finish was almost worthy of Ferguson's remarkable assertion during the summer that the teenager would be in Fabio Capello's England squad for the World Cup. But Capello, one imagines, would be more intrigued by the contribution of Michael Owen, who set up the winner in the best move of the match.

This was only Owen's second start since he was signed in the summer to help make up the shortfall in goals left by the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and, to a lesser extent, Carlos Tevez. Ferguson had not included a single player from the team that started Sunday's Manchester derby, although it would be stretching the point to say it was a significantly weakened side. Even in a competition Ferguson regards as a chance to give his B-side a run-out, the personnel still included eight full internationals, four of them English.

The problem when there are so many changes is that it can have a detrimental effect on a side's fluency. This was the first time, for example, that Owen had played with either Welbeck or Federico Macheda and there were times when cohesion was conspicuously missing.

Largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in Staffordshire

Largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in Staffordshire

First pieces of gold were found in a farm field by an amateur metal detector who lives alone on disability benefit.

A harvest of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver so beautiful it brought tears to the eyes of one expert, has poured out of a Staffordshire field - the largest hoard of gold from the period ever found.
The weapons and helmet decorations, coins and Christian crosses amount to more than 1500 pieces, with hundreds still embedded in blocks of soil. It adds up to 5kg of gold – three times the amount found in the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939 – and 2.5kg of silver, and may be the swag from a spectacularly successful raiding party of warlike Mercians, some time around AD700.
The first scraps of gold were found in July in a farm field by Terry Herbert, an amateur metal detector who lives alone in a council flat on disability benefit, who had never before found anything more valuable than a nice rare piece of Roman horse harness. The last pieces were removed from the earth by a small army of archaeologists a fortnight ago.
Herbert could be sharing a reward of at least £1m, possibly many times that, with the landowner, as local museums campaign to raise funds to keep the treasure in the county where it was found.
Leslie Webster, former keeper of the department of prehistory at the British Museum, who led the team of experts and has spent months poring over metalwork, described the hoard as "absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells".
"This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries," she predicted.
The gold includes spectacular gem studded pieces decorated with tiny interlaced beasts, which were originally the ornamentation for Anglo-Saxon swords of princely quality: the experts would judge one a spectacular discovery, but the field has yielded 84 pommel caps and 71 hilt collars, a find without precedent.
The hoard has just officially been declared treasure by a coroner's inquest, allowing the find which has occupied every waking hour of a small army of experts to be made public at Birmingham City Museum, where all the pieces have been brought for safe keeping and study.
The find site is not being revealed, in case the ground still holds more surprises, even though archaeologists have now pored over every inch of it without finding any trace of a grave, a building or a hiding place.
The field is now under grass, but had been ploughed deeper than usual last year by the farmer, which the experts assume brought the pieces closer to the surface. Herbert reported it as he has many previous small discoveries to Duncan Slarke, the local officer for the portable antiquities scheme, which encourages metal detectives to report all their archaeological finds. Slarke recalled: "Nothing could have prepared me for that. I saw boxes full of gold, items exhibiting the very finest Anglo-Saxon workmanship. It was breathtaking."

Discovery of water on moon boosts prospects for permanent lunar base

Discovery of water on moon boosts prospects for permanent lunar base

Nasa's long-term goal of establishing a permanent, crewed base on the moon has been bolstered by the revelation there are large quantities of water locked in its soil.

Nasa's plans to establish a human outpost on the moon have received a surprise boost following the discovery of large amounts of water on its surface.
Three spacecraft detected a thin sheen of water locked up in the first few millimetres of lunar soil that could be extracted and used to sustain astronauts on expeditions to our nearest celestial neighbour.
Instruments aboard the spacecraft suggest that a cubic metre of soil on the lunar surface could hold around a litre of water.
The discovery of water on the moon will bolster Nasa's long-term goal of establishing a permanently crewed outpost there. The space agency is developing a new generation of rockets and crew capsules capable of reaching the moon which are due to fly within five years of the space shuttle fleet being retired next year.
"From the long-term space exploration point of view, it opens an entirely new option to consider as a water resource," said Carle Pieters, a planetary scientist at Brown University in Rhode Island, who led the study. "It has surprised everyone."
Since the Apollo missions brought back the first clumps of lunar soil and rock in the 1960s, scientists have worked on the assumption that the moon is bone dry. Small traces of water found in some of the samples were dismissed as contamination picked up while the material was being handled on Earth.
The latest discovery came when scientists analysed sunlight glancing off the moon's surface with detectors aboard the Chandrayaan-1 probe, India's first mission to observe the moon. The reflected light was found to be missing infrared wavelengths that are absorbed by water molecules.
The results were backed up by further observations from spectrometers aboard Nasa's Deep Impact and Cassini probes. The research will be published in the US journal Science tomorrow.
Writing in the journal, Paul Lucey, a planetary scientist at the University of Hawaii, who was not involved in the study, comments: "The most valuable result of these new observations is that they prompt a critical re-examination of the notion that the moon is dry. It is not. "
The research paper from the Deep Impact team, led by Jessica Sunshine at the University of Maryland, adds: "Observations of the moon not only unequivocally confirm the presence of [water] on the lunar surface, but also reveal that the entire lunar surface is hydrated during at least some portions of the lunar day."
The water appears to be more abundant at the moon's frigid poles, suggesting that water forms in the soil and gradually moves to cooler regions.
Scientists believe the moon formed when a Mars-sized body collided with the Earth some 4.4 billion years ago.
In the past 2bn years, asteroids and comets have ploughed into the moon, dumping an estimated ten thousand billion tonnes of water onto its surface.
Water is quickly broken down on the lunar surface, but Roger Clark, who led the Cassini study at the US Geological Survey in Colorado, said the new results "could be indicating the presence of that ancient water".
Data from the spacecraft found the lunar soils became increasingly damp during sunlight hours, but dried out again at the end of the lunar day.
The waves of damp and dry conditions suggest water is created on the moon every day, when hydrogen nuclei in the solar wind slam into oxygen-rich silicate minerals on the moon's surface.
If water is created in this way, it could happen on all airless planets throughout the inner Solar System that have oxygen-rich rocks scattered on their surfaces.

The Jets can talk all they want, but not to Michael Crabtree

The major storyline in the NFL last week was all the talking that the New York Jets did before their game against the New England Patriots. As it turned out, all their smack-talking didn't get them into one bit of trouble, as they were able to back it up and slap around the Patriots on Sunday.

This week, though, we're talking about a whole new kind of talk from the Jets, and it might get them in a whole lot of trouble.

The San Francisco 49ers organization has filed tampering charges against the Jets, accusing them of some kind of improper contact with unsigned 49ers draftee, Michael Crabtree. Gary Myers and Rich Cimini of the New York Daily News provide some details.

Although the specifics aren't known, it's not hard to connect the dots. Crabtree, the 10th overall pick in the draft, is threatening to sit out the season and reenter the draft in 2010. The 49ers may believe the Jets contacted Crabtree's agent, Eugene Parker, to let him know they'd be interested in trading for his rights, or in drafting him in 2010 with a better salary than the 49ers are offering. The NFL's trade deadline is Oct. 20, while the 49ers must either sign Crabtree by Nov. 19, or surrender his rights, putting him back into the draft pool for 2010.

Jets head coach Rex Ryan has already said that any charges are untrue, and that no one with the Jets has had any contact with Crabtree. 49ers head coach Mike Singletary wouldn't comment on it, and said the league would handle it.

Now, if they wanted to, the 49ers could have called up the Jets and said, "Hello, would you be interested in trading for the rights to Michael Crabtree(notes)?" The Jets are absolutely not allowed to contact Crabtree on their own, though, without going through the 49ers.

Accusations like this actually aren't new to the Jets. A couple of weeks ago, there was some talk that they may have made improper contact with Denver Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall(notes), though the Broncos never filed a formal complaint against them. The 49ers, according to the Daily News' report, have.

If the league finds any truth in the allegations, the most likely result is a fine, though it would also have the right to take away draft picks.

Ford small car is called Figo!

Years of speculation, names and even the possibility of the entry being an international model, Ford have finally revealed their 'for India' designed small car at the hands of Alan Mullaly, Ford's Global head, here in New Delhi today.
Called the Figo, the new small car gets its name from the Italian word for "cool". Featuring Kinetic design elements, the car has a small front grille and a large air-dam, seen also on the current generation Fiesta hatchback sold in Europe. The large swept back headlamps, recessed fog lamps and the cleverly integrateed indicators are all hallmarks of a typical Kinetic design new generation Ford. The eye-catcher that runs from the indicator to the tail is angular, rather than a straight line, to reduce any visual heaviness that the car might have otherwise created.

The tail lamps may look pinched from the Fusion, yet the tail gate is all-new. The large wheel arches too hint at the Fusion. The reason why you also see elements from now what are previous generation models is because Ford has based this car on a previous generation Fiesta, that also underpins the Fusion and Fiesta saloon sold in India. It's one of the reasons why Ford, despite a US$ 500 million investment went for a tried and tested platform, and altered it to suit Indian conditions.

No detailed pictures of the interior are available yet, but we hazard that it will be based on the Fiesta saloon sold here. Engines are expected to be a 1.2-litre DOHC, aluminium alloy petrol engine called the Sigma, with about 70 bhp of peak power and around 10 kgm of peak torque. Based on the Duratec engine family that powers the Fiesta, this engine stays within the excise duty benefit range, just like the diesel engine.

This engine is the tried and tested 1.4 Duratorq found on the Fusion, Fiesta and Ikon with about 16 kgm of peak torque and 68 bhp of peak power. Both engines are said to be Euro-IV ready and have been homologated with the car for India. Which also brings us to its competition. Despite its dimensions that seem like a Volkswagen Polo, Ford wants to price it extremely competitively and take on the likes of Hyundai's i10, Suzuki Ritz and Swift.

Ex-NY Giant Burress gets 2 years in gun case

NEW YORK (AP)—Former Super Bowl hero Plaxico Burress (notes) apologized to his family and tearfully kissed his pregnant wife and young son goodbye Tuesday before he was led away to prison to begin serving a two-year sentence on a weapons charge.

Burress, at the time a star receiver with the New York Giants, was at the Latin Quarter nightclub in Manhattan last November when a gun tucked into his waistband slipped down his leg and fired, wounding him in the thigh.

The accidental shooting enraged New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who publicly castigated Burress for carrying his .40-caliber weapon.

Burress arrived in the courtroom Tuesday wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, a stark contrast to the dark blue suit he wore last month when he entered his guilty plea.

Julia Roberts' film-shoot launched with hawan

Hindus have applauded the makers of Hollywood movie Eat, Pray, Love and its star Julia Roberts [ Images ] for reportedly launching the India leg of the shooting with a hawan.

Before shooting started on Sunday at Ashram Harimandir hermitage in Pataudi, priests reportedly performed hawan for the success of the shooting and the film.

Oscar winner Roberts along with her twins Hazel and Phinnaeus (four and half) and Henry (two) joined for mass lunch, reports suggest.

She is said to have written the 182-verse Sanskrit chant in English, which she has to recite as part of the script, and is said to be rehearsing it.

The hotel, she is living in, has been furnished with a unique yoga center and on the first day's shooting,

Roberts wore Indian attire and ate Indian food with her bare hands and found Gulab Jamun her favorite. Roberts reportedly commented, "India is really amazing."

Yankees book post-season spot after Angels win

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The New York Yankees clinched a post-season berth with a tense 6-5 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday.

The Yankees made up for missing last year's playoffs after a tie-breaking sacrifice fly from Alex Rodriguez in the top of the ninth inning secured a hard-earned road win.

"A-Rod" also smacked a two-run home run in the third inning for the Yankees, who led 5-0 before the Angels rallied to tie the game in the eighth.

Los Angeles scored two runs apiece in the fifth and sixth innings, and New York committed two errors in the eighth leading to Maicer Izturis' game-tying RBI single.

Closer Mariano Rivera shut down the ninth for his 41st save of the year.

"We still haven't accomplished what our mission was," Yankees captain Derek Jeter told reporters. "We wanted to win the division and we haven't done that."

The Major League-best Yankees (96-56) have a six-game command of the American League East Division with just 10 games left to play.

China and U.S. try to jumpstart U.N. climate talks

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - China laid out a plan to curb carbon emissions by 2020 and U.S. President Barack Obama called on all nations to act now to tackle global warming, as world leaders tried to inject momentum into climate change talks.

With less than three months until a United Nation conference aimed at sealing the world's toughest pact to fight climate change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Tuesday's leaders' summit to give negotiations an extra shrove.

"While the summit is not the guarantee that we will get the global agreement, we are certainly one step closer to that global goal today," Ban said at the close of the meeting.

The one-day summit drew nearly 100 heads of state and government before official talks among 190 nations in Copenhagen in December to forge a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase runs out at the end of 2012.

Analysts and green groups gave cautious praise to China and Japan but said Obama's speech was long on rhetoric but short on specific pledges of U.S. action.

In his address, Chinese President Hu Jintao said China's new plan included vigorously developing renewable and nuclear energy and promised emissions would grow slower than economic growth in the future.

"We will endeavor to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by a notable margin by 2020 from the 2005 level," Hu said.

The pledge, which marked the first time China has said it will accept measurable curbs on its emissions, was seen as an attempt to counter critics, especially in Washington, who say Beijing is doing too little to fight climate change.

Hu did not include specific figures, however. A Chinese official said those would be ready soon. But the step comes in addition to China's current aim to cut energy consumption per unit of GDP by about 20 percent by 2010 compared with 2005 levels.

CLIMATE AID

New Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama won plaudits for pledging to offer more aid to help developing countries deal with climate change and repeated his goal of reducing Japanese greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

Hatoyama also proposed setting up a framework to coordinate climate change aid, but did not give details of how much cash or what kind of technological assistance Japan would provide.

Obama outlined his administration's work on climate since he took office in January and said the United States was committed to act.

But he offered no new proposals and did not urge quick U.S. Senate passage of a climate bill, which many observers see as crucial to reaching an international deal.

British R&B star conquers America

British R&B star Jay Sean has conquered the US chart - succeeding where many UK artists have failed by notching up six weeks in the Billboard top 10.

Sean's single Down, which features rapper Lil Wayne, has sold a million copies and been at number two for the past three weeks.
Sean, from Hounslow, west London, is now the most successful male UK urban artist in US chart history.
"If you have some good music, you can make it anywhere," he said.
The singer is currently enjoying greater success in the US than he has found at home.
The former medical student had two UK top 10 hits in 2004, but later split with his record label Virgin when, he says, they tried to make him sound like James Blunt.
He went on to form his own record label Jayded with his management company 2 Point 9, and the resulting music attracted the attention of US hip-hop label Cash Money, home of Lil Wayne.

The singer had already written and recorded the song Down when Cash Money paired him up with Lil Wayne, who had the best-selling US album of 2008.

Lil Wayne added a 30-second rap to the track and the collaboration was propelled toward the top of the charts.

"I'm very blessed that it got off to a flying start and it's been doing crazy things over the last couple of months," Sean told BBC News.

His quick success came as a surprise to many American fans, he said.

"All the journalists and radio people have been saying, dude, where did you come from?

"It's just different for them. I talk funny. They say, dude, we wouldn't expect you, a little Brit, to be signed to Cash Money. They love the fact that we're from two different worlds, and I love that as well."

As long as you work hard and strive to do you best and make good music, and of course with a bit of luck, it is possible

Jay Sean
Sean now hopes to topple the Black Eyed Peas from the number one spot, which they have occupied for the past six months.

"I know their sales are decreasing and their airplay is falling. It's probably going to be on its way down. Hopefully we can clinch that number one spot."

Sean has joined an exclusive club of UK urban artists who have enjoyed hits in the home of hip-hop and R&B.

Leona Lewis topped the US charts with her song Bleeding Love last year, while Soul II Soul, Mark Morrison, Craig David and Estelle have broken into the top 10 in the past.

"I want to do my best to represent the UK in America and let people really understand that it doesn't matter if we're from a little place called Hounslow.

"As long as you work hard and strive to do you best and make good music, and of course with a bit of luck, it is possible," he said.

His single is also shaping up to be a hit in the UK, where it is released on 26 October, after being added to the playlists of radio stations like BBC Radio 1, Capital and Galaxy.

Jackson's contribution to music

Music journalist Paul Gambaccini looks at the impact Michael Jackson, who has died aged 50, had on the music world.

Michael Jackson had two music peaks: the first with The Jackson 5. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, ordered his producers and writers to come up with three number ones to launch the group and they actually had four number ones with their first four singles.

They were the template for the boy bands that followed - The Osmonds, who already existed as The Osmond Brothers, copied them.
Michael reached his second peak with Quincy Jones with the trilogy of albums of Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad.

Thriller, interestingly enough - since it is the best selling album in the world - is likely to remain so because people now get their music from the internet, so its unlikely that any album will even sell 50m again.

These were great achievements artistically as well as commercially, and Michael was the first of the great American male video stars in the US.

I Want You Back was the record that bowled over the US - for an unknown kid group to go to number one was pretty amazing and people were asking who was this 11-year-old guy who could dance so well and sing so vibrantly.

When it came to putting on a live show he paid attention to every detail and executed his ideas brilliantly. He is still to me the best showman ever

We subsequently learned that their father had been drilling them for years and so they weren't as new as we'd thought, but nonetheless everyone was impressed by Michael and he instantly became a world star.

Billie Jean was very important as it was the song that was the first great American video. There had been great British videos, particularly The Boomtown Rats' I Don't Like Mondays and Bohemian Rhapsody, but Billie Jean made it de rigueur for American artists to make videos as well and that changed everything.

Thriller also spawned that famous video which so many people have bought as well as seen.

When he did the Moonwalk with Billie Jean on the Motown 25 special on TV he won an Emmy award. It was something that looked impossible - he practiced it so much. He learned from Fred Astaire and James Brown and it was something that caught the fancy of people around the world.

I had a conversation with the late John Peel and he agreed that even though Michael Jackson's style of music wasn't his favourite, he was the greatest showman in pop history.

He was not necessarily the greatest record maker and not the best writer because he didn't write many of his hits, but when it came to putting on a live show he paid attention to every detail and executed his ideas brilliantly. He is still to me the best showman ever.

As the years and decades go by, people forget or disregard personal problems. To use the example of an earlier music legend who went his way - Judy Garland - we nowadays just think of the great songs and films and we don't think of her drug problems.

And within a few generations, Michael Jackson will be a great recording artist and that's it. There won't be more than a footnote about the scandals.

Global premieres for Jackson film

The Michael Jackson film This Is It is to have simultaneous premieres in more than 15 cities around the world.

Cities hosting the premieres on 27 and 28 October include Los Angeles, London, New York, Berlin, Seoul and Rio de Janeiro, Sony Pictures said.
The movie is based on more than 100 hours of footage from rehearsals for the 50 London shows he had planned to do. Jackson died in June aged 50.
Names of the other cities hosting the premiere have not yet been released.
Hollywood films often hold premieres at different locations around the world but rarely at the same time.
"Michael Jackson has an army of fans everywhere around the world... we are giving the audiences an incredible opportunity to join together in celebration of Michael Jackson's incredible career," said Jeff Blake, chairman of worldwide marketing and distribution for Sony Pictures.
The Los Angeles premiere will take place on the evening of 27 October, while the London event will happen after midnight local time on 28 October.
Limited release
In total, more than 25 cities will host premieres but not all will take place at the same time - they include Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney and Paris.
This Is It, directed by Kenny Ortega - the choreographer of Jackson's planned shows at London's O2 arena - offers a behind-the-scenes look at preparations.
The content is drawn from footage shot in Los Angeles between March and June.
The film will go on general release in cinemas on 28 October for just a two-week run.
The $60m (£36.4m) movie deal was made between Jackson's estate and concert promoter AEG Live and Sony Pictures.
Tickets for This Is It go on sale on 27 September.
The singer died after suffering a cardiac arrest on 25 June, weeks before he was to have started the concerts.

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Blog Archive

India set for last-chance saloon

Ford small car is called Figo!

Ex-NY Giant Burress gets 2 years in gun case

Julia Roberts' film-shoot launched with hawan

Yankees book post-season spot after Angels win

China and U.S. try to jumpstart U.N. climate talks

British R&B star conquers America

Jackson's contribution to music

Global premieres for Jackson film

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