when stephen fry goes in search of the rare kakapo – “the old night parrot of new zealand” – he finds himself privy to an unusual mating ritual which is “one of the funniest things he has ever seen”…

i’m a great admirer of bbc programming. their “being human“, “the office” and “top gear” are among my favourite t.v. programms  so it was with high hopes that i tuned in to watch their (relatively) new “robin hood” t.v.  series.

only one word for it…

SHITE!

the costumes are atrocious, the merry men look like some out of work boy band, the action scenes are laughable and the lead character is a pacifist, emo wimp who apparently doesn’t know how to use a traditional english longbow…

even the kevin costner version was far more believable (despite the rubbish storyline & his american twang)

and yet there are those who sing high praises for this bbc version. can’t figure out why. perhaps those are the same people who consider the sam raimi inspired xena & hercules, high entertainment….

i’m sorry but the bbc seems to have lost the plot here. the series have been dumbed down and (dare i say it?) americanized far too much for my liking. it may gather an instant fan base but i can assure you, in another 10-15 years time,  it will most probably been forgotten unlike some of the older offerings…

me? i’ll stick to “robin of sherwood“, probably the greatest re-imagining of the robinhood legend until something equal or better comes along. certainly not this bbc tripe…

never liked him or his music much. still, nobody can deny that he was a legend in the music industry, an icon for our times. his star faded in the later years but M.J. was & still is the undisputed king of pop….R.I.P. M.J.

finally, after nearly 30 years of bloodshed, destruction & heartache, hope has been rekindled for the people of sri lanka. velupillai prabhakaran, the leader of one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations in the world, the LTTE, was killed by security forces today!

prabhakaran killed

(to be continued…)

please check out maestro…

http://www.maestro.fm/

it’s clumsy and buggy, but you can listen to each others playlists and discover new music like in mercora. after joining please look me up. my dj name is zahrans….

it’s our favourite 47 year old scottish spinster. i know it’s a cliche, the “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” thingy, but susan perfectly demonstrates that you don’t have to be young and glamorous to be talented, and recognized as such…

check out the links below,

talent show singer is online hit

how susan boyle won over  the world

haven’t posted anything nightwish related for a while now. lets change that…

for a very limited time only, you have the chance to watch the entire “made in hong kong (and in various other places…)” documentary exclusively on nightwish’s myspace page.

click here

the beautiful, genteel game of cricket found itself under attack yesterday. reason being some nutjobs  decided to use the sri lankan cricket team as live target practice. thankfully non of the cricketers were killed, however seven cricketers and an assistant coach were injured.

sri lankan team bus

damaged police windscreen

for pakistan hovever, the price was higher . six policemen escorting the team bus and a driver were killed in the attacks. a pakistani umpire was also shot and is now in a critical condition.  as for pakistani cricket the attacks could not have come at a worst time. teams from  australia and india refused to tour pakistan citing security concerns . many including myself were critical of  those decisions. however, in hindsight it turned out to be the right one…

bodies of shot policemen

sad day for pakistani, sri lankan and cricket lovers from around the world….

check out the links below….

hunt for lahore cricket attackers

how the attack on cricketers happened

sri lanka cricket fans in shock

wow! been absent here for a long time..! anyway, i’m back and i’m gonna tell u about something that happened last friday night….

read the bbc article here

we (and by “we” i mean me and some of my co-workers….) were at work doing the nightshift when at around 9.30 pm the electricity was suddenly disrupted. normally the emergency generators would have automatically kicked in but this time it wasn’t activated. sensing that this was no ordinary “power cut” we all rushed to our windows.

from our 6th floor vantage point we could see searchlights frantically scanning the night sky. after about 10-15 minutes it happened. from various locations across the city, anti aircraft fire began to litter the sky. it almost seemed unreal, like something taken out of a bad hollywood movie. aa fire lighting up the darkened city and the skies. for our own safety, we were told to evacuate to the ground floor, an option many of us elected.

the noise levels were deafening, especially on the ground floor level. this went on for about 30 minutes, probably. suddenly, there was a huge explosion, powerful enough to shatter some of the windows off nearby buildings & which for an instant showered the immediate surroundings in a bright orange hue. we later came to know that it had occured at the inland revenue department building, a result of one of the aircraft crashing into it…

rumours were flying thick and fast. there was however no panic…well, among us lot  anyway, jokes & banter were being dished out with some watching the unfolding lightshow & commentating on the events as if describing an an exciting cricket match!  soon afterward though, it all came to an end. the shelling was gradually stopped. searchlights still scanned the skies, more out of precaution other than anything else and electricity was restored in around 2 hours time…

safe to say it’s a nightshift i won’t forget anytime soon!…

just f****n’ awesome, this….