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His Dark Materials casting and Hollywood big budget ennui

Production on The Golden Compass, the first instalment of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, begins in September. The casting of the major characters seems to be complete; Nicole Kidman is to play the elegantly evil Mrs Coulter, raven-haired Eva Green will play witch queen Serafina Pekkala whilst Paul Bettany will play Lord Asriel.  A surprising choice as I always envisioned Asriel as being more manly than I believe Bettany is capable of (Christopher Ecclestone would win my vote).  However, here’s hoping he will surprise.  Unknown Dakota Blue Richards, an English schoogirl, will play the lead role of Lyra Belacqua.

Where’s Clooney? or I Laghi, Italia 25-29 May 2006

The agony, the ecstasy, the spectacle, the good times, the (more than) occasional snorefests, and the plain old distraction of fußball’s month long fest, has dissipated. Time to painfully wrench back into life away from staring, round eyed at a bunch of millionaires chase after a golden sphere, and catch up blog-wise, on an Italian weekend in May.

Lago di Como’s most famous resident was nowhere about during our sojourn to the Italian lakes. He was never far from our thoughts however; the receptionist at our hostel pointed out his casa, Villa Oleandra, on a map of Como (in Laglio, on the Lago di Como’s western shore), before we even had a chance to ask, and on the Saturday, tantalising local newspaper headlines appeared at the newspaper stalls. They read something to the effect of ‘GEORGE CLOONEY: NARCOTICI EN CASA’ (sic). We never did get to the bottom of those headlines but as the Italian nationals, nor a google search revealed anything, i can only assume it was a local beat up. But that hardly mattered.

Warne-y – he’s ruuude

If anyone needed any further proof that Shane Warne should stick to cricket, drinking beer and text messaging and stay the hell away from (1) opening his mouth (2) picking up a pen and (3) most of all, commenting on ’soccer’, you need look no further.

The Times really should have known better.

Freeview Box (& Aussie) Victory!!

Hah! Should have relied on this idiot-proof solution two days ago: turning the bedeviled piece of electronic equipment off and then on has yielded picture success! Anyway, despite being sorted out telly-wise, couldn’t resist also peeking at the GU minute-by-minute reports… err… particularly the Brazil/Japan one.

Well thank goodness Australia is through – after a messy game which will see the ref’s head roll no doubt. Still, if the Aussie-Croat connection wasn’t confusing enough, the Aussie/Italy match is going to present a whole lotta soul searching for another section of Australian society. Mind you, this could, arguably, happen at all of Australia’s upcoming matches.

Was not graced by the comments of his holy smugness Shane Warne, drafted in by the Beeb as the ‘link’ to erm… Aussie football during the Brazil/Oz match. Granted, he is a sportsman and has more than a passing acquaintance with a round ball (smaller, redder) but methinks the link is still somewhat tenuous.

The Beeb has been a tad more successful with the Brazilian link by engaging Leonardo as a pundit. Can I say, blushing quite girlishly, that Leonardo is quite the most handsome (ex) footballer ever. Although being surrounded by Alan Hansen and a bespectacled high-pitched squeaky scotsman can’t hurt. Even Gary Lineker, ageing quite nicely, fails to impact with the gleaming Brazilian around.

Best Heckle Ever?

Apparently, during 2004, some wit spotted David Hasselhoff at an event in London. On recognising the Baywatch and the sometime popstar, the quipster shouted: “You – you are nothing without your talking car! Remember that! Nothing!”

Fab. I almost choked on my porridge.

One step closer to becoming World President…

In case you’re not a music fan or the news has not trickled beyond the confines of the British Isles, Paul Hewson aka ‘Bono’ of U2-type fame, has added yet another string to a CV already bulging with ‘genuine bonafide stadium sell-out RAWK star’, ‘activist’, ‘environmentalist’ and ‘political big man’. The be-coloured-sunglassed one painted Tuesday’s Independent newspaper ‘RED’ during a one day stint as Editor. It seems that the Indy, always a sucker for a celeb – particularly celebs and their causes – had succumbed lock stock and barrel to one of the biggest celebs in the world and his cause. Needless to say the rather left of centre enviro-centric paper was even more chockful of doom and gloom re Africa, global warming and dying coral reefs, not to mention particularly annoying ads for ‘RED’ motorola mobile phones. Bono’s edition also featured a rather unenlightening interview of Giorgio Armani by Stella McCartney, and an interview of Eddie Izzard by Bon Bon himself which i scanned quickly through and a rather self congratulatory sanctimonious declaration that the Indy commissioned Banksy to stencil an image of a maid sweeping something (humility, perhaps?) behind a curtain on a wall in Chalk Farm.

All well and good. But does this mean I’ll have to front an internationally successful rock band, not to mention start hobnobbing with Nelson, Dubya and Tone (or Gordo, as the case may be) before I have a decent crack at editing a national?