A Prince and a Soldier October 22, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Army Life, The Royals.Tags: Royal Families
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Britain’s Prince William visits Royal Navy family members based in Helensburgh Scotland, on October 19 2007.
Britain’s Prince William smiles while visiting Royal Navy family members based in Helensburgh Scotland October 19 2007.
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Dated: 27/03/2006
Prince Harry in Cyprus for tough military training
LIMASSOL – Britain’s Prince Harry, along with 200 other army cadets, is being battle-trained in Cyprusprus before earning his pips as a British officer, military sources said Saturday. Harry, 21, is taking part in field exercise “Spring Victory” the final test in soldiering that cadets must undertake, after which they are assessed on their year of hard work before passing out from Sandhurst Royal Military Academy.
The third in line to the thrown is expected to pass with flying colours and become a second lieutenant in the Household Cavalry after his final parade at Sandhurst next month. The two-week Cyprus exercise is a testing examination of stamina and being able to make the right decisions under fire.
“This is a tough exercise which tries to recreate normal battle conditions. Cadets are burning up to 5,000 calories a day, sleeping three to four hours a day on average and they are put under very stressful condition,” a military source told AFP.
There will be some time for relaxation but Harry can expect to trek up to 10 kilometres (six miles) a day in rugged terrain while living out of a tent, eating field rations and having only rudimentary washing facilities on hand. Moreover, Harry has carried out mock beach assaults, helicopter airlifts and dodged explosions.
“They are all very tired but this is what happens in combat,” said the source. The army is also keen to point out that the prince is being treated like an “ordinary grunt”. “He’s doing very well and cracking on with it like everyone else. He is not treated any different and nobody would want it any other way,” said another army insider. He is going through exactly the same process and pain and the only thing different is that he’s not called by his surname,” he added.
On his uniform and helmet, Harry is tagged as ‘officer cadet Wales’. He is doing the course on the British sovereign base of Episkopi on the southeast of the Mediterranean island where there is a large British garrison.
The son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana has been on Cyprus for a week and his training is scheduled to last until March 31. He was last on the island in December to complete a Sandhurst-approved adventure course. That time he flew in from Heathrow under an assumed name on budget Cypriot airliner Helios.
He was in full view of most people on board as there are no first class seats on the no-frills plane operated by Helios, which remains at the centre of controversy over the crash of one of its planes outside Athens last August that killed all 121 people on board.
Dated: 27/03/2006
Harry the action hero
Britain’s Prince Harry has filmed an action-packed video about his tough army training. Camera crews filmed the young royal on a recent beach landing in Cyprus – where he is currently stationed. Clarence House plan to release the tape after 21-year-old Harry graduates from Sandhurst Military Academy next month. The video shows the prince landing on a beach on the Greek island, amid explosions and gunfire.
A source is quoted in Britain’s News Of The World newspaper as saying: ‘It was just like the opening to ‘Saving Private Ryan’. And Harry did very well. No flinching, no stupid heroics. Very professional.’
The prince, along with 200 other army cadets, is being battle-trained in Cyprus before becoming a British officer. He is taking part in field exercise ‘Spring Victory’ – the final test in soldiering that cadets must undertake, before passing out from Sandhurst.
Meanwhile Prince William’s girlfriend, Kate Middleton, has been invited to join the royal family at Harry’s passing out parade next month. It will be her highest-profile royal event yet. A family friend is quoted as saying: ‘Kate’s nervous but thrilled to have been asked.’ Harry’s long-term girlfriend Chelsy Davy has not been invited.
Dated: 01/04/2006
Prince Harry completing Cyprus training
PRINCE Harry is currently completing his final military exercise in Cyprus, along with over 200 other cadets, before earning his pips as a British Officer next month, a British Bases spokesman said yesterday.
Harry, 21, is taking part in field exercise ‘Spring Victory’, the final test cadets must take in soldiering, after which they are assessed on their year of hard work before passing out from Sandhurst Royal Military Academy. The exercise is taking place across the Sovereign British Bases.
According to Captain Crispin Coates, Spokesman for the British Bases, this is an infantry based exercise, based on different scenarios, where they must obey a number of international constraints. “This is their final exercise, before they are commissioned next month into the army as Officers. So it is very significant,” said Captain Coates yesterday.
Organic music for the Beijing’s Olympics October 22, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Music.Tags: Music, Olympic Games
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Oscar-winning Chinese musician Tan Dun said at an ongoing arts festival that he is going to employ “organic music”, produced by basic natural elements such as water and paper, in his rock-and-roll production for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the ChinaDaily reports.
The music, which is still in the middle of production, will make use of sounds in the movements of Chinese athletes, such as “sounds of water splashes by diver Guo Jingjing, ball hits by basketball player Yao Ming and race-starting of hurdler Liu Xiang”, Tan said at the 9th China Shanghai International Arts Festival that opened last Thursday.
Tan, winner of the Grammy and Oscar awards for his soundtracks of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, had participated in music production for Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Bid Film. The native of central China’s Hunan Province is one of the musical planners for the opening ceremony, award granting ceremonies and a theme song for the Beijing Olympics.
Tan earlier said his favorite athletes are diver Guo Jingjing, basketball player Yao Ming and hurdler Liu Xiang, who is world and Olympic champion in the men’s 110m hurdles. Tan said he could “sense musical tempos in their movements”. “They are natural sounds embodying sports passion, which are quite touching,” said Tan, adding that in his eyes the three are all musicians because he could “see colors and hear music in their movement rhythm”.
Tan is currently testing his idea of bending these sounds of movement in rock music. It was said he had put microphones under the water of Shanghai Swimming Pool to record the sounds created by divers.
“I often think of the scene around the Liuyang river in my hometown, people washing clothes in the river and the musicality of the sounds of water never cease,” Tan said, calling water “the tears of nature”. Tan acknowledged his idea of using water as an instrument originated from childhood memories. “This is sound from the nature, which could create different pictures in different hearts,” he said.
At the ongoing arts festival, said to be the largest in China, Tan staged his “organic concerto of water and paper” created respectively on commission of the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic for the opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. At the Water Concerto, percussionists drummed the surface of the water by hand or with glasses in a number of large, clear, transparent water basins on stage. They also used a range of instruments such as bowls, tubes, shakers, bottles and bells, which were immersed in the basins, and rhythmically rocked them to create “extraordinary sound effects”.
Three Japanese percussionists drummed, tore, blew, shook, crumpled and slapped papers, cardboards, boxes, paper bags and paper umbrellas on the stage in the Paper Concerto, to show “how ordinary paper objects from daily life can create sounds of longing and suffering as well as loving”.
Tan’s “organic music” attempt, beginning at the end of the 1980s, incorporates sounds and instruments from the natural world, water, wind, ceramics and paper, to create a new type of “experiencing music”, which also echoes traditional Chinese culture of “human life being in a highly harmony with nature”. Hosted by the Ministry of Culture and sponsored by the Shanghai Municipal Government, the China Shanghai International Arts Festival, which will run through a month, has become a major cultural gala and an artistic pageant.
Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen still a hit October 22, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Music.Tags: Music
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British music weekly New Musical Express may have failed in its campaign to make the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” a No. 1 single 30 years after it first missed the target, but EMI still regards its accompanying vinyl reissue program as a success, according to a Billboard report.
Boosted by endorsements by such Sex Pistols devotees as Foo Fighters, Klaxons and the Beastie Boys, an NME campaign urged fans to buy the track as a download via iTunes and 7digital.com, or as part of the series of vinyl 7-inch Pistols singles issued on the EMI and Virgin labels in replica artwork, exactly as they were in 1976 and 1977.
“God Save the Queen” peaked at No. 2 in the United Kingdom in the week of the monarch’s silver jubilee, ostensibly outsold by Rod Stewart’s “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”/”The First Cut Is the Deepest” amid dark rumors that the “establishment” had kept it from the top spot. No such maneuvers were required this time, as “Queen” peaked at an anticlimactic No. 42. But, while downloads underperformed, EMI noted that it was the best-selling vinyl single of the week, with sales of some 3,100.
EMI product manager Tom Wegg-Prosser said the vinyl sales fed the campaign leading to the October 29 re-release of the iconic “Never Mind the Bollocks … Here’s the Sex Pistols” album, 30 years and one day after its first appearance. That comes in heavyweight vinyl and replicates the original insertion of a “Submission” single and poster. The album is also available digitally for the first time in the United States, via iTunes.
“We’ve tried to re-create what happened 30 years ago in a respectful and authentic way, and the fans have bought into that,” Wegg-Prosser said. “Aside from anything the NME have done, we’re proud of how the vinyl has sold.” Wegg-Prosser said the reissue program is taking place with the approval of the band and that it dovetails well with the Pistols’ brief reunion, which starts October 25 at the Roxy in Los Angeles and includes seven U.K. shows beginning November 8.
Josh Hartnett’s vampire film tops US box office October 22, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Movies.Tags: Cinema, Films, Movies
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Josh Hartnett’s vampire action film “30 days of night”, it has claimed the number one spot in its first weekend on release on the USA box office.
The movie, in which Josh Hartnett and Melissa George play cops fighting the undead in remote Alaska, toppled Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married?” with a first-weekend take of US$16 million.
Former number one “The Game Plan” slipped another spot to three, while George Clooney’s drama “Michael Clayton” claimed fourth place for a second week. Ben Affleck’s much-hyped and critically-acclaimed directorial debut “Gone Baby Gone” failed to impress cinemagoers, making just US$6 million in its opening weekend, and debuting at three, just ahead of sports spoof “The Comebacks”, which enters the box office countdown at six.
Roommates drama on MySpaceTV October 22, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Internet, Media.Tags: Internet
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MySpaceTV, the video wing of the online community network, late on Sunday unveiled its first original Web series to give its users a television-like experience with the interactive benefits of the Internet, according to a Reuters report.
“Roommates” will track the lives of four women in their 20s who have recently graduated from college and are living together in Los Angeles. The Web show debuts on Monday, October 22, and runs through December 21 for a total of 45 episodes. A new, three-minute segment will play each day, Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. EDT. Fans are expected to engage characters online and influence the plot.
“Roommates” will utilize a real-time “polling tool” in which viewers’ opinions on characters and plot developments will be sought. Fans can chat online, as well as post comments on the characters’ individual Web profiles. The information will be scrutinized and the plot changed, accordingly. According to sources, MySpaceTV and the show’s producers, Iron Sink Media, have enough episodes to get the program started, and future segments would be taped as it progressed. Iron Sink has produced several Los Angeles-based Web series, including “WeHoGirls” and “VanNuysGuys.”
With the success of video-sharing sites like YouTube, the Web is seen as an emerging medium where advertisers can find viewers who previously might have been drawn to TV. Web shows like “LonelyGirl15” and “Prom Queen” have built loyal followings among teenagers and young adults. MySpace is owned by media giant News Corp, which also operates the Fox TV network, and most U.S. TV networks are rapidly ramping up production of short “Webisodes” to recapture viewers they may be losing to the Web. “Roommates” will be sponsored by Ford Motor Co’s 2008 Focus automobile. The car will appear in episodes and ads will be on the show site.
a web (not paper) magazine 