YIPPEEE... finally!

Okay, so I'll admit it. I'm a big nerd and I love Dawn French. She is a legend, so there.

In the first year of university, I dragged my parents to go and see the fairwell French & Saunders 'Still Alive' tour in London. Yes I'm one of those sad people who actually gets on with my parents and I go out and do stuff with them, Glastonbury 2010/11 included - God I'm cool! It was absolutely hysterical, amazing and everything you can imagine watching those two live, but the problem was, my parents wouldn't let me be a childish fan girl and stick around afterwards to meet the famed duo - I hate it when people still have authority.

Now, after Dear Fatty was released, I geeked out massively and read it in like two days, then of course looked for book signings... I can feel you judging me... please don't!

Anyway I missed the only book signing in opportunity London that was feasible to get to, so I've been dying to make up for the missed opportunity since (this was two years ago by the way)...

I thought I'd found the solution to my nerdy fanatic problem when it was announced good olde Dawn would be at the Cheltenham Literature Festival this year... but no. Of course that IS the weekend my Nan is celebrating her 60th birthday and I have to play the dutiful granddaughter and go home. Cracking.

But alas, finally, after two years... my inner (and occasionally outer) geek has had her prayers answered. I've bullied my fab mother into coming to London with me to go and see Dawn French talk about her new book and first novel, A Tiny Bit Marvelous, as well as a book signing afterwards, HEAVEN!

I don't care what you think... I know I'm cool.

The Coffin Route

Climbing up through the Cumbrian hills is something I have a great fondness for, the views along the way are truly spectacular, especially in autumn when the most beautiful array of colours sweep across the valleys.

The Coffin Route is about an eight-mile round trip from Ambleside to Grasmere and back. The walk offers amazing views of both Rydal water and Grasmere Lake. Even with low cloud, the misty atmosphere adds something special to the trail.

Although the ‘Coffin Route’ may suggest killer climbs and tough terrain, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Up until about 1821 the trail was used to carry coffins from Ambleside to Grasmere, allowing people to be buried in St. Oswald’s church, as there were no graveyards in Ambleside itself. The land is relatively flatIt is also the final resting place of English poet William Wordsworth. (Note: It is well worth visiting Wordsworth’s house, Dove Cottage, on your travels. For more information about parking and admission prices click here).

The land is relatively flat, there is a small amount of strenuous climbing but nothing my 60-year-old granddad couldn’t manage, and can just be a very pleasant Sunday afternoon stroll. There are large flat stones placed along the way for the coffin bearers to rest on, they would prop the casket up on the stone and rest before continuing along the route. So if you’re feeling particularly warn out, there is a rest point every mile or so where you can sit and soak in the unique landscape.

There are plenty of cafés and pubs on route, including the Rydal Hall Tea Room, which serves scones with clotted cream, and not to mention the most amazing raspberry jam you’ll ever taste! A pot of tea costs just £1.20 in the quaint self-contained retirement village – IMPORTANT this is not to be taken lightly. It makes about 3 cups so make sure you pop to the loo before you set off again, because it’s a good hour and a half before you reach Grasmere.

Once you arrive in Grasmere (home of the famous Grasmere Gingerbread), the village is littered with pubs and cafés for lunch. The Lamb Inn is particularly good for a delicious jacket potato, especially if it’s on the chilly side. They also serve a selection of guest ales, you can eat and drink for around £7 p/p.

On the second leg of the journey, the track drops down to the shore of Grasmere Lake, which has been a hotspot for painters over the years. Just a little further along the trail holds ‘Rydal Cave’, an old slate mine that has now been cordoned off due to a series of roof collapses. At one point you could walk inside these majestic man made quarries, and see the beautiful slate that was collected to make the trademark Cumbrian houses. However visitors now have to settle with the murky blue water and slight glimpses into the cave.

There is a bit of a steep decent after the caves, but then it levels out leaving a brisk walk along some duckboards back into Ambleside. It is a lovely way to spend an afternoon and highly recommended.

Grasmere Lake 2010

For more information on this walk and other walks in Englands majestic Lake District, visit golakes.co.uk.

Glastonbury 2011 - You better be worth the hassle!

I feel genuinely distraught and angry for the people who failed to get Glastonbury 2011 tickets yesterday. It was a complete disaster! Five-long-hard-hours it took 5 of us (all with at least one computer and one phone going each, sometimes even two) to get through to SeeTickets. In the end I was the only one so booked all five, but there were just so many people who didn't make it through.

It really was disgracefully handled this year, understandably SeeTickets has to deal with a massive amount of avid festival goers hammering on their website door at 9am sharp, however if you know this is going to happen, and it's getting worse every year, surely it is time to step up and recognise the problem?

Thousands of people were left disappointed and the 137, 000 tickets in just over five hours, some didn't even get to see the booking page! Fingers crossed for the resale in March/April!

Dare to Dream

Inception. What a fantastic idea. The ability to plant an idea in the mind of a subject and let it manifest. Nolan has created a film that in theory has no boundaries. Dare to dream, he literally allowed imagination to take control and run riot on a cinema screen with some cracking actors. Epic!

The nagging question once you’ve watched this film is surely enough to drive even the most intelligent minds at MENSA insane. Asleep, or awake?

It would be pretty damn annoying, the wiles of the film drawing you in, making you believe you’re gunning for a man who has tragically lost his wife, fighting desperately just to go home and see his children. He finally gets his true dream of returning home, and ohhh and it was all a big fat lie to begin with, it would almost be as irritating as Cillian Murphy’s jaw line.

I must say that the number arguments for Cobb being asleep at the end of the film are mounting thick and fast; his children haven’t aged, the totem is still spinning and I’m sure the list goes on and on with endless speculation and relentless theories as to the true ending of Inception.

There are several occasions throughout the film where by Cobb spins the totem and it topples, thus giving us the interpretation that he is awake. However as it is Mal’s totem, surely it doesn’t matter if he spins it, he has no control over it therefore it will topple. But where is Cobb’s totem?

Another irksome niggle is that Mal manages to penetrate his dreams throughout the film, popping up at the most inconvenient times and proving slightly troublesome to say the least, this doesn’t happen when he is supposedly awake. She is absent from one of his obvious dreams, and this is clearly pointed out by Ariadne, Cobb replies that she is already gone at this point, so it could be argued that he is unknowingly repressing her and that is why she isn’t penetrating his life “up top”.

In reality when they are in the house and Cobb is looking at his children in the garden, it isn’t a dream it’s a memory he is reliving. As Mal wasn’t part of that memory she isn’t included, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t appear at any moment. As Cobb is having difficulties controlling his dreams throughout the film, surely his subconscious should take over and thrust Mal’s projection into his ‘reality’?

Throughout the dream sequences Cobb is shown wearing his wedding ring, however when he is supposedly ‘awake’ he isn’t wearing his ring (this includes the closing scene in the film). As the story is fundamentally about catharsis, a sense of having to redeem yourself and right the wrongs that were made, it seems that it is possible to argue that the wedding ring was on Cobb’s finger to remind him of the guilt he feels. As the ring is missing in the final scene it could be interpreted as he is indeed awake, or it could be because he has relinquished the immense guilt surrounding Mal’s suicide and therefore the need for his wedding ring died along with the projection of his wife.

Also, if Mal did indeed wake up when she jumped off the side of the building, why did she not then give Cobb the kick he needed to wake up and join her in reality?

Another irksome niggle was Cobb’s children, this is a tricky one as many people have pointed out. Seemingly they haven’t aged, they are wearing the same clothes as they were in Cobb’s projections, and they are in the same place in the garden when he arrives home, coincidence? This theory is easily clarified by looking at the cast list. Two actors play the children at ages 20 months and three years, two more play them later on at ages three and five years, therefore they have aged.

However, there is one very distinctive concept in the film that solidified my belief that Cobb was indeed awake, the idea planted very early on in the film. You are in a dream, it feels real, but how did you get there? “We came from the uummm…”

But we see the characters board the plane in Paris, heading for LA. We know where they’ve been, how they got there and exactly where they are heading. Proof they are awake? Possibly.

The film is very much open to interpretation, and it just goes to show how people’s thought process takes hold and goes into overdrive. At the end of the day, we’re all talking about it, was he awake, was he asleep. You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t interested in the concept, taken in by the experience and wanting to know other people thought.

The real irony of the film lies in the fact that the audiences are in a metaphorical dream state whereby they’re watching the film. When the lights come on, and the final coda plays everybody in the room wakes up. But the idea has been planted in your mind; what you just saw wasn’t real, Cobb was indeed asleep. Or was he?

Nine years on from The Matrix, arguably the greatest movies of our generation, both in narrative and visual effects. Inception is definitely a worthy adversary for the title. And I mean, come on… how suave is Arthur?

When were the good and the brave ever in the majority?

The media has had the unfortunate task over the past nine years of reporting death after death. International conflict has taken many lives during of the so called "fight against terror" and though we hear of soldiers being flown back to Woolton Basset, their coffins draped in the Union Flag, we rarely hear of the injured. The hero's who fight for our country, in a war born from an alliance to America and George W Bush.

The UK currently have 9,500 troops "fighting the war against terror" in Afghanistan. A war which was waged by an obsolete government. Neither the US nor the UK can boast a Republican or Labour government any more, so surely it is time to bring the fighting to an end?

Launched in response to 9/11, it was said that the aim of the invasion was to find Osama bin Laden, and yet today we are still fighting for this; to find the man who destroyed the World Trade Centre and killed thousands.

After Saddam Hussein was captured and hanged in 2006, it sparked a new lease of life in the fight against terror. It seemed then that the possibility of capturing bin Laden drove the government to push our troops harder with little to show for it four years on.

Now, I've always understood that there are various reasons for our presence in Afghanistan, but I am questioning the rationality of it all today. There are several aspects keeping troops in the country, and many argue that withdrawing troops now will mean in excess of 3

00 British soldiers who've lost their lives in the past nine years will have died in vein. But the question I ask these people is; how long to we let the killing continue before we realise that there are no winners in war? Both sides in any conflict suffer losses, so at the end of the day it isn't who won the most, it's who lost the least. And the only way to do this is to put an end to the insanity.

As of 2009, 14,000 British soldiers had been injured in the line of duty in Afghanistan. Today, 18-year-old Tom Coleridge from Warrington is being flown back to Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham after he was shot in the abdomen causing serious injury to his liver,

kidney and possibly his spine.

I find myself asking the question 'why are we not hearing of the brave men and women who are fighting in an archaic war and being injured doing so?' It isn't right that we only hear of the fallen, many lives have been catastrophically shattered because of injury in the line of duty, we should hear of those hero's too (and I don't mean the ones who are grazed by a piece of shrapnel and back on duty after three stitches, and still milk it for all it's worth).

Although Tom and I weren't close, we knew each other for a brief time in Cheshire Army Cadet Force. Were were in the same company however opposing detachments, always fighting to be better at what we did whether it be drill competitions, field craft exercises or company weekends. He took cadets very seriously and decided he wanted to join the armed forces, the military has been his life for six or so years now, so surely something you've had such dedication to shouldn't destroy you?

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." - Ernest Hemmingway

I wish Tom a speedy recovery from the bottom of my heart, he is a true hero who has put his life on the line in the name of his country.

Unveiled: Boat Show interpretations

ORGANISERS have released exciting new images of the highly anticipated first Liverpool Boat Show in 2011.

The plans for a 10-day international festival were unveiled last year, now images have been released giving a flavour for the festival.

Marine Industry Events are organising the Liverpool Boat Show for next year and are enjoying the buzz surrounding the event from local businesses and the council alike.

They have described the venue as one of the most architecturally stunning waterfronts in the world.

James Gower, a spokesman for the company said: “There is a clash in the South with the London and Southampton festivals so we were looking for something different.”

Since Liverpool received the 2008 European Capital of Culture status, its reputation as blasted sky high.

Mr Gower said: “There was an overwhelming response and Liverpool was by far the most popular destination.”

Liverpool is a focal for boating in the North West and even hosted the internationally renowned Tall Ships Festival in 2008.

Dubbed the ‘City of Sail’, Liverpool is at the heart of the North West coastline, which has made it the prime location for visitors near and far.

Believed to be a primarily untapped area by the organisers, Marine Industry Events have extremely high hopes for the first year of the show.

They are predicting the show will draw around 100,000 paying visitors who will have access to the Main Marina, and a further 300,000 spectators elsewhere.

They will be able to enjoy a selection of sailing and watersports demonstrations in the Salthouse Dock during the week long show.

There will even be a selection of five VIP floating islands in various different docks.

Major sponsors named to back the event are Virgin Trains, Eastern Airways and Guinness in a hope to promote both national and international interest.

Virgin Trains and Eastern airways will be providing exclusive travel packages for the event.

Rob Mackenzie, managing director of Marine Industry Events, said: “The travel agreements mean exhibitors and visitors will be able to travel from the south coast and London conveniently and for very competitive rates”.

Organisers are hoping that the event will become an annual hit, and expected to spend more than £750,000 on marketing.

Believing that it will establish itself quickly, Liverpool council chief executive Colin Hilton said the 2011 festival would “generate a momentum we can continue into the next decade”.

For more information about the event and sponsors visit http://www.liverpoolboatshow.co.uk/

Liverpool band to record for Twilight Saga

MERSEYSIDE band are to record a song for hit vampire saga Twilight.
Electo-pop band Holice have been asked by Twilight music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas to write and record a track especially for Breaking Dawn, the fourth film in the series.
After hearing the last track on Holice’s debut album ‘10 Chakras’, Alexandra Pasavas, 42, from Chicago who has been responsible for both soundtracks in the Twilight Saga so far, got in touch with the Liverpool band and asked them to provide a demo track for the Breaking Dawn film.
They will follow in the footsteps of UK musicians such as Muse and Thom Yorke who have also recorded songs for the Twilight Saga.
Band members Stephen Davies, 39, from Widnes, Chris Oakly, 36, from Runcorn and Sarah Owen, 23 from West Derby, started recording as Holice in 2008.
Stephen said: “We sent the record off and within two weeks we’d heard back.
“The film has quite forward thinking directors who seem to be making a deliberate effort to help smaller unsigned bands”.
Stephen’s kitchen in Widnes doubles up as the inevitably named Kitchen Studio’s, where Holice recorded their demo track.
He said: “Although they liked the song they wanted us to write something specifically for the soundtrack ”.
Preparation is underway for songwriter Stephen, he said: “I’m frantically watching all the films and reading Breaking Dawn just to get a good feel for it”.
He has started writing the track, but told the Liverpool Echo that there is no name for it yet.
“We’re planning on making it quite slow and moody, I’ll be listening to the other soundtracks to try and pick up on the rough tone, but we don’t want to copy anybody else's style”.
The band are excited to get their teeth stuck into the challenge, they are aiming to have the track recorded and sent off by August.
The third film Twilight Eclipse is set to be a hit in cinema’s next month, but it will be 2011 before Holice make it onto the big screen.
Holice’s debut album 10 Chakras is available to download on iTunes.