Irish Political News

This is borrowed from the Daily Mail. Too good to miss. Holly Willoughby and Jessica Rabbit. Tags: Lookalike, Humour, Humourous, Double Trouble, Lookalike, jessica rabbit, cruella de ville

This will ruin your productivity (you may have run into it in yesterday’s Britblog review). It is a recreation of the D-Day landings at Omaha beach for BBC Timewatch. The whole thing was done with three people, and the fieldwork took 4 days. Stunning. More detail: I sometimes forget just how much can be done with todays technology and a boatload (literally, in this instance) of hard work and determination. Case in point is this amazing bit of vfx work from three graphic designers working for BBCs Timewatch (currently only available in the UK) to recreate the carnage and mayhem that was the Omaha Beach invasion of World War II. Aside from the unforgivable music choice, watching the making-of montage is as much fun as beholding the end result. Its clear that these three lads were motivated by an uncommon passion to pull off this feat. Based on the Timewatch production blog, their names are Neil Wilson, Steve Flynn and Colin Thornton. More from the blog (although its pretty evident in the featurette): They are here for two days to film some basic drama reconstruction sequences that will form the basis of their D-Day landing scene. In order to catch low tide when the beach is at its widest, we head for the beach at dawn whereupon the three boys spent several exhausting hours dress up in the uniforms and run up and down the sand, as I operate the Z1 camera. They carefully plan it so that each run is in a different part of the frame. That way, when they are back in the office, they can layer these frames up in the computer until it looks like there are hundreds of men landing on the beach " rather than just three. Later they will drop in beach obstacles and landing crafts, based on images they have gathered from books " and also small explosions, filmed separately again. As well as the beach landing scene, they have to film a sequence of cliff climbing at Pointe du Hoc " to illustrate what Ike and his fellow Rangers had to do on D-Day. We find a small 10ft sand dune which the boys clamber up head-on into the camera. I help hold up the green screen making sure it fills the frame behind the boys. The green screen means that when it comes to the edit, they can drop in a different background " in this case, the sea and Pointe du Hoc cliff-line. Found at Motionographer via Howling Spoons.

Having watched the first 15 minutes of Ashes to Ashes, I have two conclusions already: 1 - I thoroughly approve of DCI Alex Drake (legs AND fists: gorgeous). 2 - Somebody in the BBC has been itching to remake the Sweeney with decent cars. Watch out for historical errors on the Audi Quattros. If I remember, only the original (140mph -ish) version was available at the new set date.   Tags: the sweeney, ashes to ashes  

I’ve been clearing out the archives - a salutary experience. I’m trying to cull around 75% of a library which goes back to school exercise books. Among artefacts from the past, I have found - in addition to a set of university books that I would have sold had I had more sense - some interesting items. Some Old Nottinghamians A tranche of “Old Nottinghamian” school magazines and photos from the 1950s and 1970s - which means that in there somewhere there may be the odd photo of the likes of Ed “The Campaigner” Davey, Ken ” Smokin’ ” Clarke, Ed “The Enforcer” Balls, and Geoff “The Commuter” Hoon in their youth. Apparently in 1955, the school mock-election gave more votes to a Communist than to the Labour candidate: “The 794th meeting of the debating society (May 20th 1955) took the form of a Mock Election. The voting was as follows: R.P Soble (Con): 123 C.M Williamson (Ind.): 113 N.M Neattie (Nat Lib): 45 D.L Richards (Comm.): 36 T.P. Dolby (Lab.): 10″ And there was a dizzying amount of networking going on: “We should like to thank our fellow-editors from other Schools who have sent us copies of their magazines. These are:- The Loughburian; the Elizabethan; the West Bridgefordian; the Mountaineer; the King Edward VII School Magazine; the Stonyhurst Magazine; the Wheatleyan; the Cottonian; the Derbeian; the Alumnus; the Centaur.” (more…)

Why every time I watch Alex Salmond make a speech, do I think of a …   …. space hopper?   Tags: Lookalike, Humour, Humourous, Double Trouble, Lookalike, Humour, Start the Day, alex salmon mp, scottish executive, snp, scottish government, scottish parliament

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start. Jack Dee hosts the show and guests are journalist Charlie Brooker and comedian Russell Brand. '; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; if (typeof writeTags == "undefined") { document.write(theTags);} else {writeTags(ourTags); }//--> If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems. Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble    

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start. Clive Anderson hosts the show for the first time. The guests are comedian and actor Chris Addison, and author and journalist Will Self. '; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; if (typeof writeTags == "undefined") { document.write(theTags);} else {writeTags(ourTags); }//--> If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems. Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble    

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start. Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Ann Widdecombe MP and guest panellists comedian Jimmy Carr and musician and occasional cheese diarist Alex James. '; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; if (typeof writeTags == "undefined") { document.write(theTags);} else {writeTags(ourTags); }//--> If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems. Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble    

Iain Dale includes a locust swarm for Oxfordshire in his predictions for 2008: David Cameron forced to cancel trip to Rwanda after his Witney constituency is affected by a plague of locusts. As it happens I have a solution for them, since Oxfordshire is probably the heartland on earth for Ducks (apart from the “Eeyup Ducks” of Yorkshire and the Midlands). When I was pulling together my article about the 29,000 ocean current monitoring yellow plastic bath ducks last week, I came across the elite force of 700,000 anti-locust ducks trained up by the Chinese Government. I kid you not - here’s the story on the BBC (and a version for Gallomites - the followers of The Great Profit George Galloway “of the Bungle”): An elite force of more than 700,000 ducks and chickens has been deployed as China’s latest weapon to take on an invasion of locusts. The poultry army has been sent to the western front in Xinjiang province where swarms of locusts have devoured more than 3.8 million hectares of crops and grassland. The birds are trained to seek out and consume the pests at the sound of a whistle which they have been trained to associate with feeding. “We release them on the grassland, blow whistles and they eat the locusts”, an official with the Xinjiang Locust and Rat Control Office is quoted as saying. (Pictures: BBC). (more…)

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start. Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Michael Aspel and guest panellists Sara Cox and Reginald D. Hunter. '; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; if (typeof writeTags == "undefined") { document.write(theTags);} else {writeTags(ourTags); }//--> If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems. Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble    

Perhaps you haven’t heard the name of Jef Denyn, another fabulously famous Belgian to go alongside Hercule Poirot and Jean Rey. I hear you say: Who he? Only the most famous Carillon player in history. Carillons are musically tuned bells which are usually installed in continental belltowers attached to churches or town halls. You can find more information about the school at their website here. Personally I prefer Change Ringing.   Tags: carillon, jef denyn, campanology, change ringing  

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start. Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Jo Brand and guest panellists Julia Hartley-Brewer and Andy Hamilton. '; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; if (typeof writeTags == "undefined") { document.write(theTags);} else {writeTags(ourTags); }//--> If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems. Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble    

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start. Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Omid Djalili and guest panellists Danny Baker and Julian Fellowes. '; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; ourTags+=''; if (typeof writeTags == "undefined") { document.write(theTags);} else {writeTags(ourTags); }//--> If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems. Tags: matt wardman, have I got news for you, hignfy, hignify, paul merton, ian hislop, kirsty young, robert harris, ross noble