Chocolate Jesus exhibit cancelled

Here's the story as it appears on BBC.
But what really caught my eye was not that the Christian group was protesting against somebody making a chocolate sculpture of Jesus, but that they were protesting just as much about portraying Jesus naked:
Ms McCaffrey had called the exhibit "an assault on Christians".
"They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the Prophet Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan."

Firstly, with Islam it would be a whole different deal because *any* sort of portrayal of God or Mohammed is not allowed by Islamic law AFAIK.

Secondly (and this is what I really want to talk about), Christ most likely *was* naked on the cross. The whole idea of Christianity is that God made his own son suffer torture in a very humiliating way to clear humanity of its sins. And while generally the gospels do not specify whether they took his underwear off, all four gospels do specify his clothes were taken off.
The Wikipedia entry for Crucifixion actually says that the procedure usually involved nudity:
The victim was, if able, made to drag the cross or a part of it (usually weighing 150 lb or more) to the place of execution. At this point he was stripped naked, and was either fastened to it or impaled upon it, and left to die.
I'm not sure why there's this whole attempt of hiding the fact that Jesus might have been naked on the cross (surely it just adds to his humiliation and therefore to his sacrifice?), but the attempt goes much further than just not portraying him so in art...
If you look up John 19:23 on the Bible Gateway, you'll find that the New International Version, New American Standard Bible, New International Reader's Version, New International Version - UK and Today's New International Version all have some sort of wording indicating that only Christ's outer garments were taken off. None of the other versions (including two "new" ones) have any mention of whether it was just his outer garments and I don't think any of the other gospels have anything mentioned either (though I only checked the New International Version). I also checked out the Polish Biblia Tysiąclecia translation and again nothing specific mentioned. Some of those olds versions were really well researched (definitely the King James version for example), so can there be any other reason for these changes in the new versions?

The cover art for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is out!

The Harry Potter books must be the only books ever which have people rampantly discussing their cover art and page count every time a new one is released ;) Here is the cover art for the seventh book. The page count for the British edition is 608 pages and 784 for the American edition (the text is the same, just that the American one has illustrations and I think the size of the print is bigger or something).

Here is Arthur Levine (the American editor) talking about the American artwork.

The seventh book will set a record with 12 mln first print copies in the US (the previous record holder was the sixth Harry Potter book with 10.8mln ;-P).

New Order of the Phoenix photos

You can see the pics here. I really love almost all the pics they've released so far - there's moments when I think I'll like the pics better than the film ;-P
These new pictures first appeared in this article which I think is a fun read :)

Slightly old news, but the test screenings for the film have already taken place. You'll find some reviews here.

Speech Recognition on Windows Vista

There are certain problems that computer technology might never be able to solve. Speech recognition might get further than it is today, but I think it's unlikely that a computer will ever understand fully natural speech. That is unless AI will become reality (which I very much doubt).
Serious work on AI started in the 1950s so it's been over 50 years with relatively little progress comparing to other areas of computing. After all 50 years is like five centuries in computing history (the World Wide Web was not made public until 1991!). The web evolved to the point it is at now in only 15 years (I bet nobody in 1991 even imagined things like blogging or youtube), but as far as AI goes there are still no computers that can pass the Turing test which was introduced in 1950!
The concept behind the Turing test is that a human judge chats by text to two "people" in a different room. One of them is a human and one is a computer. If the judge is not sure which is which then the computer has passed the test. Alan Turing who thought of this test (and did a number of other amazing things relating to computers) apparently predicted that computers would eventually be able to pass the test thanks to memory power alone, but so far it has not happened.
(Alan Turing is btw a very sad story. He was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexuality and then committed suicide - or so many think - in 1954 aged just 42. Quite a way to lose somebody of such importance to science, ha?)

Anyway, really what I wanted to post is not all these ramblings (which to be honest I'm in no way qualified to be writing and may have just as well given you incorrect information :-/), but a video of how Speech Recognition works on Windows Visa (and I mainly wanted to post it because I think it's funny ;)):

Daniel Radcliffe on the Jonathan Ross show once again

Daniel Radcliffe has given a new interview on the Jonathan Ross show (the one from last year which was just as hilarious has been taken off youtube, but you can still access it - unfortunately in poor quality - here). The new interview is about Equus and the fifth Harry Potter film and IMO it's the dirtiest interview Dan has given yet ;) (although with a presenter like that it would be difficult not to ;) ).
Just on a side note (cause I keep rambling on about things like this), I think it's interesting that people are commenting that in the US a 17 year old (or any sort of big star really) would not be getting those sorts of questions (they're not saying it's bad, just pointing out that it wouldn't happen in the US). But I guess the same would be true for Poland. I'm wondering - is this specific to the UK or is it the US and Poland that are unusual?
Anyway, the interview is here (again it was on youtube and I originally intended to embed it, but it's been taken off).

Pornography, sexual content and obscenity

According to this and this (both articles in Polish unfortunately!) Poland might be facing a full ban on pornography in the near future. The new legislation that some politicians want to bring in (perhaps they'll be in the minority, we shall see!) will make it possible for someone to get a prison sentence not just for distribution but even for possession of any kind of pornography.
No definition of what constitutes pornography is given in this proposal, which sort of brings me to what I want to discuss (other than how stupid our current government is I mean ;-P). I've always felt that the limit of what's ok and what's not ok as far as sexual content goes is a fascinating discussion topic. Of course it's largely about taste and I don't think I'm going to come up with any reasonable conclusions, but if you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them :)

Not so long ago in India, there was a legal complaint against the kissing scene between Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2 (imdb page, trailer on youtube). A quote from IndiaGlitz reads:
According to the complainant, the women felt offended after watching the scene and it promoted vulgarity in society, especially among the youth.
Now for anyone who read the Polish articles on the pornography ban you might have noticed that those are almost the exact reasons for which some of PiS want a full pornography ban in Poland. In case you're wondering, here's the scene which we're talking about (the actual kissing happens late in the clip and sorry for the lack of subtitles but didn't find a clip with them):

It's not even as if there's no kissing in commercial Indian cinema, so it's hard to say why this particular kiss was so controversial. In the end, the kiss was cut.

But even a Western perspective of what's ok and what's not may sound just as ridiculous at times. Having been rambling about Equus on this blog I'm going to link to a Guardian article which uses Equus as a starting point to write about the history of nudity in British theatre. Apparently 40 years ago only female nudes were ok in the theatre and only if they didn't move. If they moved they were automatically considered obscene.
Not that people in the West don't have (what I would call) weird ideas about nudity even now. If you check out some discussions about Equus on-line, a lot of people (many of whom seem to be American) think that Daniel Radcliffe appearing nude on stage is enough to constitute child pornography because he's not yet 18 (he will be in about 6 months by the way). In accordance with US laws this might actually be true, I'm not sure, but I still feel it's a bit weird...

Of course so far I've been writing about stuff which nowadays only a small minority of people in the West would call obscene or pornographic (if at all that is - I'd be shocked if someone considerd the Hrithik-Ash kiss as such!). When we think pornography we generally think about stuff which is more explicit - usually photos or films which show people really having sex rather than just pretending. But there are films which would confuse us even there because they show *real* intercourse and yet they probably wouldn't be of interest to someone who is looking for pornography. One such film is definitely Lars von Trier's The Idiots (imdb page, trailer on youtube), another (although I haven't actually seen it) is Michael Winterbottom's 9 songs (imdb page, trailer on youtube). Both of these were shown at art cinema festivals and entered normal distribution in many countries.
And it's not just with films. If you ever check out some sites which specialize in fetish photography you'll find that most of the photographs are very artistic (sometimes - especially when we're talking about the violent stuff - very unsettling, but still artistic). I'm not sure what it is specifically about the fetish community but they really take photos which are way more than something that's just supposed to turn people on (in fact I've not seen many fetish pics which show people "in the act"). And yet when people hear "fetish" we usually think "obscene". Check out Incubus Choice if you want to see some stuff (though I am warning you - if you click on the link you are straying into territory that maaaany would consider porn, not that I think that should scare you but I'm saying it all the same).

Ok, so I've gotten from kissing scenes to real intercourse and photography portraying naked people tied up. Surely there should be a limit somewhere, right?
Lets look at the law then - I found this article very interesting and useful for this. Law is obviously different in different countries. But what I think is true pretty much everywhere is that it is illegal to supply pornography to people below a certain age (usually 18 or 16 though in Poland surprisingly enough it's 15 at the moment - however most Polish shops dealing with any sort of porn would not sell it to anyone below 18). It is also illegal to force the viewing of pornography on anyone (hey, I warned you about that Incubus site so I've done nothing illegal! ;-P ). The other legislations differ. Usually depicting bestiality is illegal (though I don't think that is true in the Netherlands - I think it is ok there as long as the animal is not harmed in any way). And of course there's child pornography which also has different restrictions and definitions in different countries. Mostly nobody below the age of 18 should be depicted although sometimes it is 16. Shockingly enough until 1999 Japan was extremely liberal about child pornography:
Prior to 1999, the only Japanese statute prohibiting actual child pornography was very limited in its reach, applying only to children under 13 who filed complaints within six months of an incident. A general criminal obscenity law protected minors over 13, but it also specified that the material must depict sexual organs to be considered illegal. Consequently, pornographic materials in Japan often resorted to showing other sexually oriented depictions of children, including abuse or torture, to avoid running afoul of the law.
Most countries also have laws against possession of child pornography (reading through the imdb boards, I'm not sure if this is true but apparently in the US anybody with nude pics of Daniel Radcliffe from Equus on their computer could theoretically be arrested for child pornography - not that there are many non-photoshoped pics of him floating around but I think even those are not legal under US law).
Many countries have laws which seperate child pornography into "virtual" and "actual" penalizing the virtual kind just as much. Virtual pornography is defined as depictions in which adult models are made up to look like children, and artistic or computer simulations of children involved in sexual activity. Now while I can see the logic of this I at the same time can't help but wonder if some of the stuff I've read or seen wouldn't be considered child pornography of the virtual kind. I mean particularly when I think about Harry Potter fan fiction and fan art... there's a lot of teacher-student relationships portrayed in those. To give you some examples, here's fan art showing Snape with Draco, Snape with Harry and another of Snape and Harry. I can see how for some people this might be considered totally sick, but is it harmful?
There have been (more about this in the long article I linked to) attempts at trying to find a link between watching porn and comitting sexual offences, but generally it seems the results depended on who tried to find this out (conservatives found a correlation and liberals did not).

I think I've finally come to the end of this post, but I don't really have a conclusion... I do believe people should be left with a choice as long as it doesn't harm anyone, but when it comes to "mental harm" it's very difficult to establish what is harmful and what is not (other than making somebody watch porn when they don't want to). Obviously if pornography causes sexual offences then something should be done about it (though I'm not sure a total ban would work), but we don't even know if it does (I've even heard claims that it actually makes the amount of sexual offences drop! but unfortunately don't have a link for this). Also I think even describing what pornography is is problematic. I'm not saying that any sort of porn is ok. There is definitely a lot of things happening in the porn industry which are not right - there are many reports of children and women being forced into starring in porn films (and in the case of children even if they did this willingly there would be reasons to say this is wrong).
On a final note, I think it's interesting that porn is apparently a huge economy booster and a pioneer in technology. The BBC article even says that the switch from Beta to VHS happened because of the porn industry.

"300" controversy

Little did I know when I posted this that 300 would fall into political controversy...
Iranians are unhappy with how their history has been portrayed, saying that the film tells total lies (including changing the outcome of many battles). While I tend to believe them, I'm rather surprised that this is causing such an uproar... I mean everyone should know films like this are nonsense...

Ricky Gervais' "Extras"

My cousin Matt tried to introduce me to The Office when he was here last year, but unfortunately (as with a lot of our film tastes) it did not go down well with me at all ;) I think it still hasn't been shown on Polish TV (though I could easilly be wrong seeing as I don't watch any TV really). The series was a huge success in the UK and was later remade for the US market. I clearly did not understand the humour of it, as demonstrated by the following clip (which is apparently a cult scene from the series) during which I did not laugh even once (something my cousin thought wasn't physically possible):

Please let me know if I'm not the only one who doesn't feel this humour - you'll make me feel better ;)
To be fair, I do believe it's a great idea for a series. I think my problem is that there's something about Ricky Gervais (the creator/writer and star of the series - seen on that clip dancing) that I just don't like.

Anyway that was off-topic ;-P My point is that in spite of not liking Ricky Gervais, his next series - Extras is going down very well with me (or at least many of the clips I've seen of it on youtube are). A major part of the series is celebrities doing guest appearances and totally destroying their images, which I guess is something that has always amused me. I love when actors do stuff against their images *grin*
Since the point of telling you all this information about my (lack of) sense of humour was to show you my favourite clips from Extras, you'll find them below (everything not related to the star in question is edited out in them, but they're perfectly easy to follow).

Anyway, here's Orlando Bloom doing an appearance. I've always thought he must be a rather boring guy with no sense of humour (that's how he comes across to me in the interviews I've seen), but clearly he can't be that bad ;)


And here's Daniel Radcliffe making an appearance. At the time he did this there were people who were surprised "that Harry Potter would do such a thing", but I guess after Equus it's rather tame ;)


Here's a totally hilarious one (I was laughing so hard I could barely breath), Sir Ian McKellan making an appearance:


And last but definitely not least - Patrick Stewart (this is from the first series, the other three are from the second series of Extras I think):

More on Equus

Since I've had lots of fun posting about the Harry Potter nude story, I thought I'd follow it up ;-P

The play opened in London at the end of February and so far all the reviews I've seen have been good. Pretty much everyone who's seen the play says that by the time he takes off his clothes nobody cares because that's really not the point ;) Even those who dislike Peter Shaffer's plays or Daniel Radcliffe's acting in Harry Potter seem to be giving rather good reviews.

Here's an interview with Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths (who plays Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter series and Dysart in Equus) after one of the shows:

Maria Olszewska-Lelonkiewicz dies

Today is the funeral of Maria Olszewska-Lelonkiewicz. She was a figure skating coach in Łódź, probably the best ice dance coach we had in Poland in recent times. Sylwia Nowak / Sebastian Kolasiński and Aleksandra Kauc / Michał Zych were amongst her students.
I've still not heard any news about what she died from, but there's a short article in Polish that you can read here. It is a great loss to skating in Poland.

300 trailer

As usual I suck at regularly updating my blog (I regularly update my blog with drafts but not posts you see ;-P - I'm currently at 105 drafts versus 48 published posts if anyone's interested) and this post will be a pathetic attempt at getting back into the rhythm of writing here.

Anyway, here's the trailer for 300 (an American movie in case you're wondering). I'm tempted to go see it once it releases because although it looks like total nonsense, visually it's absolutely stunning. I really haven't seen anything like it before:

Follow-up on Shantaram and Water

Just a short follow-up to my previous post.

You can read a nice article about Water's chances for an Academy Award and about Hollywood starting to take notice of Indian cinema here.

And I've found something on youtube that makes me even more excited about Shantaram. Below I've embedded an interview with the author of the book. It's in five parts (but I've embedded it as a playlist so it should appear as one with the possibility to switch between the five parts). If they manage to keep that sort of spirit in the film then OMG! I really hope they do!

Also, here's confirmation that Mira Nair is indeed in talks with Shahrukh Khan over a small role in the film.

Is Indian cinema on the verge of making an impact in the USA?

There's many things to write on the topic of why films from outside of the US don't seem to be able to make an impact in the US box office. Someday I hope to write a very long post about why that is (or at least why I think that is), but since I still have to read up a lot about it to properly write it, it won't be soon ;)
But to make a long story short, the most major reason that makes it almost impossible for a non-US (or independant US) film to make an impact in the USA is the system there. A few major studios pretty much own the market and the same companies that produce films also own all the major cinema chains. This means that a film that has not been produced by one of these major studios will probably only get shown in independant cinemas and these are few and far apart. There is no way that a film made outside of "the system" could get shown on a few thousand screens in the US alone as is the case with many major Hollywood productions.
Occasionally a film from outside of the US will do very good business (like Borat did recently), but when you'll check the company credits you'll always find one of the major US studios in them (for Borat it was 20th Century Fox).

India has so far never had a major financial success in the US even though interest in Indian cinema is growing. But there's two films on the horizon which might change this.

The first is Deepa Mehta's Water. In fact already based only on its Canadian box office results it's the biggest Indian box office earner ever in North America. While technically a Canadian film (that's where the financing has come from) it is about Indian issues and by Indian filmmakers (some of them like the director based in Canada and some of them from the Indian film industry like Bollywood star John Abraham).
So far it's enjoyed only a small release in the States (less than 100 screens), but it's being distributed by Fox Searchlight, which is the independant branch of 20th Century Fox and therefore I assume they have the means to give it a wider release if they think it commercially viable. It is Canada's official entry for this year's Academy Awards and has made it into the final five nominated foreign films. While Pan's Labyrinth is probably the favourite to win, Water is most often named as the other film that has a strong shot at winning the award. Ironically, Deepa Mehta has had huge problems with releasing this film in India. It had to be shot in Sri Lanka because the issues raised (it is a film about the treatment of widows in India) were so controversial in India. It has however finally passed the Indian censors and will be released there in March.
Here is a song number from the film:

The trailer is not up on youtube, but you can see it here (I don't have the required plugin, but the downloaded file works for me in vlc). You can read more about the film here.

But perhaps an even more "curious" prospect is Shantaram. It is currently in pre-production and should be released in 2008. Johnny Depp is producing it and is set to play the lead. Warner Bros is involved in the company credits so clearly we're looking at a very wide release. Originally Peter Weir was attached to direct, but it seems he has left the project "over artistic differences" with Johnny Depp and it is now Mira Nair who will direct it. The film is set in Bombay and the Indian cast will probably include some big names. Amitabh Bachchan has recently been attached to the project and is apparently going to star as something of a mentor to Johnny Depp's character. There are rumours (the imdb boards are my source for them so I'm not sure they are reliable) that the producers are in talks with Shahrukh Khan over a smaller role. Certainly there is reason to think that the author of the book is keen on this since he has used Shahrukh's photo on his site as an example of what one of his characters might look like.

Needless to say I'm quite excited about both films ;)
Of course it's quite likely that Water will not win an Academy Award and Shantaram (although I think a wide release is a given) might not spark people's interest in Bollywood stars, but at least what these two films do show is that America is starting to take Indian cinema more seriously than before.

Nishabd - the Indian Lolita

I think it's appropriate to follow up my Valentine's Day post with the trailer for Ram Gopal Varma's new film Nishabd... It is a story of love between a 60 and 18 year old and the 60 year old is played by none other than Mr Amitabh Bachchan *grin* For those of you who don't know much about Mr Bachchan (and I'm putting the Mr in on purpose because he is often referred to that way, well either like that or just simply as Big B), he is perhaps India's biggest ever superstar. His biggest popularity was in the 1970s. Now there are other Indian actors who have better results in the box office, but despite being over 60 he is still immensely popular all over the world. In fact when BBC did a worldwide poll in 1999 for the greatest actor of the millenium, it was Amitabh Bachchan who came first ahead of actors such as Laurence Olivier and Marlon Brando.
But back to Nishabd... Since many people were already quite "er, what?" about Mr Amitabh Bachchan's choice of role in KANK where he plays Sexy Sam (an older man who enjoys the company of beautiful women very much), this part will probably create even more controversy in India.
Here's one of the promos:

For me personally it's interesting, funny and bizarre that he is taking up these sorts of roles now. It is rather against his image (the "Mr" should have clued you in on that one), but it's not just that. Somehow I've always taken him for a traditionalist (in terms of his private life). In fact he is currently under public fire because of a very traditional Hindu practice that was performed in his family recently. His son, Abhishek has gotten engaged to Aishwarya Rai, but for astrological reasons Aishwarya has had to marry two trees and an idol before she can marry Abhishek.

Valentine's Day in India

This story totally cracked me up. I know it probably shouldn't - the Hindu groups in the article sound rather like some of our Christian groups in Poland which is not good news (not that the Polish groups aren't hilarious sometimes ;-P). But I think the Indian Hindu groups are much more creative in how they want to combat immoral Western behaviour than their equivalents here in Poland:
One Hindu group, the Shiv Sena, said its volunteers would photograph couples caught in "compromising positions".
Overt signs of affection, such as kissing and holding hands, are frowned upon in much of traditional Indian society.
Shiv Sena has warned that its activists will stake out public parks, cinemas and shopping malls in a number of cities, and photographs of couples courting will be handed over to their parents.

But that's not all my Valentine news from India :) (of course this next paragraph is only here because it's a great excuse to write about Shahrukh yet again or rather about something that has been in my drafts since December ;-P) Anyway, in case you're wondering what my favourite Indian actor has prepared for Valentine's Day I have to first fill you in on some news that first appeared in December, but I was too lazy/busy/forgetful (choose the one that you think best applies to me) to put it up on my blog.
So er... Shahrukh was offered the position of host on a very popular TV show called Kaun Banega Crorepati (Kaun I think means who and one of the other words means courage, but that's about all I've managed to pick up of Hindi ;-P). And he accepted. The press loved it because it gave them opportunity to write lots of stories about how tense the relationship between SRK and Amitabh Bachchan is because it was Mr Amitabh Bachchan who used to host KBC. This went well with everything else they had written about the two previously (about which I might also post on my blog very belatedly some day because I think it's rather hilarious).
Anyway, lets get to the show... "Kaun Banega Crorepati" sounds so foreign to me that I made no connection whatsoever as to what this show actually is. All I'm gonna say is that I know it rather well from Polish TV (and I'm pathetic at watching TV, so you'll definitely know it *grin*). It would have never occurred to me that in India being the host of it is so prestigious that stars like Shahrukh and Big B would be offered the position... Of course neither of them host it in the same style as I think it's hosted around Europe but that just makes it all the more amusing. Check out a short totally random fragment with Shahrukh as host (if you want more, all you have to put into the youtube search is "srk kbc"):

My favourite KBC clip however is the hip hop music video promo which I've embedded below. Apparently the video was Shahrukh's idea. But it's just so typical... I don't think any country apart from India could have come up with that sort of promotion for a TV show *grin*

Erm... and the boring bit is that he's invited some celebrities to the show for Valentine's Day (I had to have some excuse for giving you all this KBC news two months after it was due, ok? ;) ).

Harry Potter nude and some even more exciting Potter news

I keep putting off writing anything because I've not written properly for such a long time and I feel I should write a long, clever post about something. The problem is I'm really not feeling clever or up to writing a long post ;-P
So I'll just be boring and write more of the usual. It's not that I don't have anything to write about - on the contrary, you wouldn't believe how many drafts I have on my blog (I just checked - the number is 80 drafts versus 43 published posts :D), but a lot of it seems just too much effort to write about just now ;-P
Therefore lets continue the topic of nudity (apparently it's the main theme of my blog since January 15th).

Harry Potter himself is appearing nude in a play in London and if you don't believe me I'm sure this article will convince you.
You can see some publicity pics for the play on the play's official site. And if like me you derive a certain amusement out of seeing people offended and acting as if it really is Harry Potter appearing nude rather than Daniel Radcliffe, then I recommend the imdb boards for Daniel Radcliffe. I particularly enjoy the comments in which certain Americans claim this is child pornography because according to American law Dan is not of legal age (no matter how many times they're told that under UK law he is, they still don't change their tone lol). But I think the people who think he's going to have real sex or masturbate on stage are even funnier (the arguments that there are no such scenes in the play don't seem to be getting to them ;) ).
On a more serious note, I do love the play. At least on paper it made a huge impression on me. It's the story of a boy who blinds six horses with a metal pick and gets sent to a mental institution. He is treated by a psychiatrist who has started doubting the point of his job. I really love the way the relationship between them is written out. I'm very excited about seeing it on stage (which I will in late April, wheee!).

But lets get to some more exciting and even more frontline Harry Potter news ;-P There is finally a release date for book7 "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!! :D Of course annoyingly it has to be on the 21st of July which is during the film festival in Wroclaw that I want to attend ;-P I'll probably try to force myself to wait until the festival finishes about a week later cause I want to be able to sit down and read it in one go (book 6 took me about 11,5h non-stop reading when it came out ;-P).
So far my favourite news tidbit about book7 coming out is enlikening two characters in the series dieing off to Take That splitting up in 1996 (it appeared in this article). Here's the relevant quote:
British book retailer Waterstone's is hoping to set up a helpline for distressed fans of the popular
Harry Potter series because two characters will be killed off in the final instalment, The Daily Telegraph reported.

"This could be a similar moment to when (pop band) Take That split up -- there could be a lot of upset teenagers out there," said Debbie Williams, a buyer for the book chain.

"We are looking to set up a helpline for them."

(for those of you who don't know - when Take That split up they set up a helpline because they were worried girls might get suicidal!)
But actually everything surrounding the release is absolutely amazing. It has shattered all pre-sale records and even before J.K.Rowling had finished writing the book, the bookies were already taking bets for who would kill Harry. Of course we don't even know if Harry will die! (personally I think he won't ;-P)


Very often when I say I don't feel up to writing anything long I end up doing what I say I won't ;-P (but when I say I'm not feeling up to writing anything clever I do mean it ;-P)
On a final off-topic note - Surya Bonaly chickened out, she was not nude at all.

Surya Bonaly to skate nude

Hopefully now that my heavy schoolwork period has almost finished I'll get back to regularly updating this blog.

For now, however, I have some fascinating figure skating news for all my readers (and since it's coming right after my celebrity nudity database post, I think I'm either going to lose or gain readers by giving the impression that this blog is about nudity ;) ).
Anyway, it's true - Surya Bonaly, a five-time European Champion is going to be skating nude to protect baby seals in North Canada. The news is in a couple of places, but the only English article I found is here (albeit it's a Russian site). The FSU forum is having a lot fun picturing exactly what Surya might do in her program. After all, she is the first ever woman to do a back flip on the ice, not to mention a wide repertoire of very bendy moves (she is an ex-gymnast). So enjoy whatever images this has brought to your mind ;)

Edited to add: Apparently Surya is not the first skater to do this. See here

Celebrity Nudity Database

I just found out that something like this exists and somehow it seems so absurd that I had to post it ;-P So here it is, the Celebrity Nudity Database.
No pics, videos or anything like that, it's just a database of which films have nude scenes with which actors and lots of people write reviews of the scenes.

Polish Junior National Figure Skating Championships 2007 (aka my social life take two)

Yep, I actually have another excuse to try and prove I have a social life. If Senior and Novice Nats weren't enough, there's junior Nats too *grin* (results are here).

Anyway, here's one of the pictures that my lovely friends insisted on taking at the end of the day. This one was taken by Bożenka :)

Incidently, the ice behind us will be used for the European Championships very soon, so I'll have even further opportunity to try and convince you that I am not as lonely as I seem ;)

But now I actually *will* post a bit about the skating (only about what I thought was most exciting - "exciting" being a word that many will find inappropriate in Polish figure skating context, but that's their problem ;-P ).
This part of Edwin's program cracks me up, but I just loved it. Very original way of hiding a bad landing - it makes you wonder how much of it was planned and how much of it wasn't:

You can see the complete performance here and it was a fantastic effort :) It was the 2nd best free program of the event (although overall he was 3rd). The junior men's competition was won by Maciej Cieplucha who turned in an amazing performance. It's not that I've never seen him skate like this, it's just that he's never (to my knowledge) done it when it was so important to do it (last year he started his season off like that and everyone thought he was a very strong favourite for the Polish junior Worlds representation and yet at both Polish Nationals and a special test skate he came second to Mateusz Chruscinski). He had already lost to Mateusz at senior Nationals this season, but here he really outclassed everybody and is finally going to make his debut at the Junior World Championships in March, go Maciek! *grin* And here's the performance that earned it:


Finally (but perhaps most importantly as they will represent Poland at the upcoming European Championships in Warsaw!) Joanna Budner and Jan Mościcki put in some rather nervous looking performances and yet I'm still kind of impressed with them. Originally, Aleksandra Kauc / Michal Zych were pretty much the only ice dancers who were being considered for Europeans, but they very unexpectedely split up in October (you'll find a little bit about that in one of my previous posts). This left Poland with no ice dancers in senior competition! So suddenly mid-season Joasia and Janek (who are Poland's strongest junior eligible skaters at current) started working towards making the required changes to their junior programs (amount of elements, length of program, different compulsary dances) to be able to skate in senior competition. Finally in November they performed as seniors for the first ever time at a very small event in the Czech Republic. Then to make things even more hectic Janek had an ankle injury in December. For this reason they were not able to attend Polish Senior Nationals (but since they would have been the only competitors they were allowed to skate their senior programs at junior Nationals). After all this, this is what they managed to produce at their second ever competition as seniors (this is the Original Dance):

Loads of small mistakes on the required elements (but then ever since the new judging system this tends to happen to ice dancers a lot more), but I'm still rather impressed. Ice dance is the discipline where the difference between junior and senior is the biggest. A good junior single skater can make the top10 at senior World championships, a good junior ice dance couple will be very lucky to make the top20. And while clearly Joasia and Janek are going to be fighting for spots rather low in the European ranking, they're definitely not going to be last or look out of place.

Sacha Baron Cohen

There's been quite a lot of talk about him and his Borat, but I'm really behind and only now have taken notice (I guess my head turned when I heard that a mocumentary by a British comedian is no. 1 at the US box office).
Since I'm now spending my time laughing my head off watching him on youtube, here are two clips...

Here's Borat interviewed by Jonathan Ross:


And here he is as Ali G interviewing the Beckhams: