Dodgy

It seems that many of the great comedy teams of the 30s and 40s suffered the indignity of having there likenesses appear in cheaply made cartoons. Some, like Laurel & Hardy, had their cartoons...

The Hancock reviews are in, and they’ll probably make Will Smith want to get drunk and damage the city. Originally titled “Tonight, He Comes”, the script for Hancock floated around Hollywood for a decade. During that time it passed through the hands of directors Tony Scott, Michael Mann (who opted to direct Miami Vice instead) [...]

It has been more than 40 years since Dana Beal came to prominence as a theoretician for the Youth International Party, known as the Yippies, and embarked on a long career in the world of countercultural politics. Since 1973, Mr. Beal and other Yippies have used a brick tenement on Bleecker Street, just west of the East Village, as a base for planning large-scale events, including demonstrati

Here's a bit of Queens Park many won't have seen. You can't drive around here, the path surface is awful, there's litter strewn everywhere and as you bend around towards the small bridge there's graffiti. It's not nice. And yet, from a distance, it looks an idyllic summer walkway. It could be gorgeous. I don't think it's part of the park regeneration - but it should be. Trouble is, I suspect it fa

When Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi blamed saboteurs and poor policy implementation for Barisan Nasional's setback, he only got it half right.Worse than disgruntled party members, keris-waving and broom-presenting antics or even an unhappy ex-prime minister, many people had gotten fed up with scams perpetrated by BN politicians and their friends.Take for instance Kampung Perepat in Kapar. Fr

Dupes, rip-off, cheats, we are all afraid of meeting a dodgy wholesaler whose out to scam us. To those looking for reliable wholesalers the 1st time, this risk alone can be a real turn off! The trick to avoid it is to spot it early and stop it before its too late. More: continued here [...]

Trying to find out if would-be Mac clone maker Psystart in legit or not, Gizmodo readers went to the two addresses identified by the Guardian’s Charles Arthur (see below). As Arthur predicted, one address is a single-story home, and the other address is a warehouse, but it’s home to a completely different company. The Gizmodo reader, [...]

Suspiciously it turns out that Dirk Kuuyt knows the referee who made the crucial error is last night's game rather well, this is the referee who failed to award us a clear penalty when the aforementioned player took down Alexander Hleb when he was clean through on goal. Kuuyt appears to be as dumb as he is ugly: "I think the referee got the decision right. I did touch Hleb but I didn't pull his

Justin Fox When the Federal Reserve announces that it’s going to lower interest rates, most of of us think we have some idea of what that means. When it announces, as it did this morning, a $200 billion “expansion of its securities lending program,” the meaning is a lot muddier–although Wall Street certainly took it as [...]

The tourist industry has once again hit out at the many New Zealand accommodation establishments that brand themselves as “lodges” or “boutique lodge” accommodation. NZ has many wonderful lodges that have invested vast amounts of both money and energy to create internationally recognised accommodation. Huka, Kauri Cliffs, Blanket Bay and Grasmere Lodge are but a few [...]

Poor old Emma Bunton. She sprained her ankle on stage. I bet it was painful. She probably let out a chilling scream, but that would just sounds like Geri singing. Here's a link I did on radio about it, and to make things a little more interesting than just more typing, you can have a listen here. Listen to Steve Allen - newsplus.co.nr - Emma Bunton Link Oh, and the picture I mention, it's here. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit www.newsplus.co.nr for full links, other content, and more! ]]

As a result of the dodgy donations by David Abrahams, one of Labours top donors, Willie Haughley, has said he will stop donating to the party until the funding crisis is over. When someone is banged up, presumably.If those enthusiastic enough to give money to political parties are stopping doing so it's only indicative of the wider distrust with which people regard politicians. Donorgate has seriously undermined Labour and looks even worse because of Brown's constant preaching about his moral compass.In scandals such as this, all politicians get tarred with the same brush which is why Cameron has frequently been heard saying that "we all get things wrong in party funding" in order not to appear as someone engaging in ecstatic schadenfreude at Labour's expense. The public don't like gloating and it would be unwise to do so as Ashcroft is hardly whiter than white.

The donorgate scandal took another turn for the worst last night as the cabinet minister Peter Hain revealed more donations to his unsuccessful leadership campaign has not been registered properley.The head of the department for work and pecsions said that the failures to report the donations to the electoral commission were "extemely regrettable" and that they were due to "administrative errors". Seem to a lot of those in Labour party at the minute.They are insisting that the dodgy donations are not connected with the wanabee anonymous donor David Abrahams. In a statement he said:"In light of recent events I have undertaken a review of all donations to my deputy leadership campaign. "This afternoon I have been to see the Electoral Commission to inform them that further donations to my campaign were not registered as they should have been."Brown's desperate attempts to "relaunch" his credibilty are swallowed everyday by more revelations of corruption within the Labour party. This is

After receiving reports of malfunctioning 360 Wireless Wheels, Microsoft has decided to cut to the chase and just fix the lot of them. In a handful of incidents, a component in the Wheel chassis overheated and began to smoke while the Wheel was plugged in to be recharged. If you're a Wheel owner (you lucky sod, you), you're advised to stop using the power supply until your unit has been retrofitted, but you can use it on battery power without worry. No injuries or property damage from smoking Wheels was reported, but Microsoft figures better safe than sorry. To get all the vital info about the retrofit, click here. Basically, you have to fill out a form, send it in, and wait to be told what happens next. Source: Game|Life Online Games Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Wheel

aqua bear cd mem I made cupcake brownie things last night in exciting cake tins. I also watched four hours of CSI but we wont go into that! mmm Nick Stokes! Unfortunately I thought it’d be a great idea to cover them with icing and hundreds and thousands. I got them out of the oven let them cool a bit, I put the icing on and it went everywhere! I went to get the hundred and thousands out of the cupboard, I come back and start sprinkling, the sodding icing dries in 2 seconds, I got sugar strands all over the place! This is getting to be a bit like an episode of ‘One foot in the Grave’, I go to get the dust pan and broom, sweep everything up, including the cat food prin gets everywhere and then the dust pan falls off the end of the stick, hundreds and thousands and cat food everywhere - again. ugh. The cripple as I affectionatly call her, decided to help out by eating the cat food though. Which reminds me - My car is now fixed! (My mum was so upset because of smudge

Fans of the blockbuster (book and film) series will recognise these fellas as Harry Potter and Dumbledore from JK Rowling's best-selling books. Today these look-a-likes descended on Crewe's Market Centre to wow kids and adults alike. Happy to sign autographs and have pictures taken, they even put on a freebie show outside Wilkos store in the heart of town. The kids loved it. Security had to keep moving spectators over as shoppers were having to squeeze themselves past the crowd to access the store!

Kaspersky sues indignant Chinese ‘victim’ Chinese anti-virus firm Rising Tech has hit back at claims by larger Russian rival Kaspersky that it engaged in anti-competitive practices. In response to a 2 July lawsuit, Rising Tech says that Kaspersky made “six serious mistakes” involving anti-virus definition files over the last two weeks, Interfax reports.… Read more…

There isn’t much going on with the bulk of our transfers done and our squad happy, relaxed and taking it easy. The pitiful attempt at a takeover of Manchester City provided a little bit of relief and of course there was the usual rumours doing the tabloid and message board rounds. Alan Smith, Giuseppe Rossi and [...]

Finjan Software Inc. today joined the ranks of vendors offering free site security-ranking services by unveiling SecureBrowsing, a plug-in for Internet Explorer and Firefox that warns users of risky Web sites. The browser plug-in scans each link in the results generated by the search engines from Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. [...]

Last Friday, The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith (who is an old friend of Prime Minister Tony Blair) was granted an injunction against the BBC, preventing it from broadcasting information it had about the police investigation into the alleged selling of honours by New Labour in exchange for donations to the party’s coffers. The Guardian reports that the police requested the gagging order because they are pursuing a line of enquiry which links Lord Levy (Lord Cashpoint, Tony Blair’s fundraiser and unofficial envoy to Israel) and Ruth Turner, Tony Blair’s director of external relations, or so-called “Gatekeeper”. Both Lord Levy and Ruth Turner have been arrested by police in the past on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. They each deny any wrongdoing and if the offence should be proved, it could carry a custodial sentence. It seems that there may have been communications between Turner and Levy which could be construed as seeking to alter evide

The Dodgy Peerages Saga may have died down for a day, with Lord Goldsmith warning MPs to steer clear of making comments about the police handling of the case, but it is clearly not going to go away. This Is London (from The Evening Standard) is suggesting that the Metropolitan Police may want to question more people close to Tony Blair, including his Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, perhaps under caution. This follows from what appears to be a leak from Number 10 and subsequent police investigation of emails relating to the cash for peerages scandal. Lance Price, a former press aide at Number 10 said:- ‘If that had been seen through [the reform of the House of Lords], with a democratic Upper House with no place for anybody who hadn’t earned it on merit alone, then we would be looking at Tony Blair as one of the greatest reforming prime ministers,’ he writes. ‘As it is, he will get no credit for what he did do and has earned nothing but contempt for what he fail

The Guardian has an article suggesting that for all the brash, vulgar, money-sodden distastefulness of the eighties under Thatcher, Blair’s New Labour and its obsession with chav celebrity and making piles of money by any means debases Britain and its culture to a greater degree. The Blair court has presided over this new rottenness New Labour has played along too happily with the greedy and bullying. Society is now uglier than it was under Thatcher It is hard to deny that, perhaps in trivial ways, the Blair court has encouraged the cult of extravagance. From the early fawning on the Oasis boys, through the holidays in palazzos and Caribbean hideaways, this has hardly been an austerity administration. The media barons and television darlings who have done most to encourage boorishness have been grovelled to by ministers. Rupert Murdoch trumps the BBC, as we saw last week. Richard Desmond, the pornographer-publisher, is courted by Tony Blair himself. If you are rich and influentia

There has been an effort by politicians (some of them friends of Tony Blair) to deflect some of the attention away from the arrest at 6:30am on Friday on suspicion of perverting the course of justice of Tony Blair’s so-called “gatekeeper” Ruth Turner. The general thrust of the comments has been that whereas ordinary Toms, Dicks and Harrys of the general population can have their doors smashed in by police at any time, when the suspect is a politician, they should be treated differently and perhaps just be telephoned and asked if they would mind popping in to their local police station when they feel like it for a little chat over tea and biscuits, because we all know that politicians are people with special needs. The usual suspects in this case have been Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, former Home Secretary David Blunkett and Labour peer Lord Puttnam, who have all called the police tactics “theatrical” with Lord Puttnam adding to the tone of the debate b

This is an odd one. West Ham boss Alan Curbishley is apparently considering smashing the club’s transfer record for a full back (not usually the priciest position to purchase) not only that but this is a full back with an injury record that would make Darren Anderton and Michael Owen envious! West Ham are [...]

“We will deceive you… for a price…” Right. I can honestly tell you that the last two weeks have been for me the most stressful of the year.  Who knew that trying to rent a flat in London could become such a nightmare?!? Please prepare yourself for a rant…   OK, so first ...