Some say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all...

I am convinced that those that do say that fall into three camps:
1. Your Mum
2. Your Friends
3. Someone who did the dumping.

Your mum and friends will say it in times of turmoil to make you feel better about your situation that it was a good thing to happen as you can learn from it. The third camp, the dumper will say it because obviously they have never been hurt to that degree that you feel as if your heart has been ripped out of your chest. As the dumper they see the experience as a positive thing and although they have lost you they know in the long run is it a good thing and you learnt something from each other.

I have in my years encountered heart ache and know friends who have been left heart-broken, and that saying never brings comfort.

I understand that it is good to have known people in your life as knowing them makes you the person you are today and shapes certain parts of your life but the heartbreak isn't always worth the pain.

In many ways you just hope that love will last forever, but as the celeb world shows even those that you think are pretty solid can come undone. Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt and Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon.

So is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? I'm not convinced either way.

Rest in Peace - Amy Winehouse 1983-2011

This weekend has been one of shocking news and devastation, first the terrible attacks in Norway, which involved a car bomb and shooting on a youth camp island and then today the tragic news of the death of Amy Winehouse.

I am a fan of Amy Winehouse, in 2007 I think I had tickets to see her live at Bournemouth International Centre, but when we got there she had cancelled the gig. I was devastated, I really wanted to experience that amazing voice live, and now this will never happen.

Some people have jumped on this news that she brought it on herself, but to be honest we all will never know the problems she had and how she may have tried to overcome her dependency on drugs. People are very quick to judge but none of us truly know what she was combating and never will.

It is believed that the singer died of a suspected drug overdose but officially her death is being treated as "unexplained", full story here....
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Amy-Winehouse-Found-Dead-At-Home-In-Camden-London-Police-Confirm/Article/201107416036201?lpos=Showbiz_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_16036201_Amy_Winehouse_Found_Dead_At_Home_In_Camden%2C_London%2C_Police_Confirm

It is just a tragic waste of life and talent that may have been stopped. She is considered by some as a self-destructive wild child, but then it could be argued the most talented artists are. She never hid her addiction and did on some occasion, it is reported, try to kick her habit but her demons were obviously too strong.

Amy Winehouse was born on September 14 1983, and her parents Mitch and Janis have talked openly about their hopes for their daughter to kick her habit.

She had an amazing talent for singing and songwriting and although she hadn't released anything in a while she will be missed in the music world by fans and artists for her jazzy tones.

Another sad fact is also that she joins the 27 club, a club where musicians have died at 27, included in this are Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain, all great musicians whose lives were cut way too short.

I am still an Amy Winehouse fan, and I send my condolences to her family and friends, she was an amazing musician and now may she be at peace.

Just make sure you remember her as she was and not what she became near the end...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojdbDYahiCQ

My First Front Page

I am very proud of it and the people of Horsham have donated a pram, money and good wishes. It's just awful that my first story is a sad one but it is a human interest story and what I want to write about.

Everyone loves a wedding... film.

I saw Bridesmaids on Sunday. It is one of the funniest films I have ever seen and very relate-able. As my mum said in life there are always Helen's. If you have seen the film you will know what I mean and you will nod your head in agreement.

It is so funny, there are bits I keep thinking about and I can't help laughing. It isn't too girly I think you could go with your boyfriend and he would enjoy it. It has been dubbed the female Hangover, I do love The Hangover but you laugh at it because you think stupid men, but with Bridesmaids you think 'Oh My God, that is so true' or 'Oh My God that reminds me of that time...'

If you are going expecting Bride Wars or  27 Dresses, you will be mistaken, it is not candy floss it is dark chocolate with yummy bits of caramel to sweeten the deal.

A brilliant girly film and I have a bit of a girl crush now on Kristen Wiig, she has tremendous comic timing and I am surprised at how many films she has been in that I have seen. She is the film producer in Knocked Up, she's Ruth in Paul, and she is in Adventureland, Date Night, she nearly kills Ricky Gervais in Ghost Town and she is in Semi-Pro and Whip it. Amazing comic actress.

Anyway I am going back to my original reason for posting was to talk about wedding movies, although I notice I have a bit of a theme with weddings but then two of my friends did get married in the last year.

Anyway, everyone does love a wedding film right?

Well not quite, everyone likes the classic Four Weddings and a Funeral. But recently there has been an influx of wedding movies we have Wedding Date (not great), Made of Honour (not seen yet), 27 Dresses (great film but a little fluffy) and  Bride Wars (good film but again shows the outrageous craziness of females and the fluffiness of friends).

I think that is my problem with some wedding films, ok we have all heard of Bridezillas but why do films turn women in to paranoid, crazy  monsters when it comes to friends. It turns friends against each other for wanting the best wedding or jealous because friends are getting married. This is not always the case! Yes some people turn into crazy people, but some women just enjoy it.

That is one of the things I liked about Bridesmaids Annie was happy for her friend being engaged but her main problem was worry about losing her friend and things changing not the fact her friend was getting married and her still single and alone.

I do love a good wedding film but I love Bridesmaids it is just refreshing to see a more realistic view of weddings and female friendships.

Teenage Crushes Never Die

After seeing Take That I remembered a piece I wrote about teenage crushes, I wrote it while on work experience at the Chichester Observer, it was printed on August 5 2010:

With the recent shock marriage of Robbie Williams to his girlfriend Ayda Field, I knew that around the country whole hosts of 20 and 30-somethings inner teenager's hearts were breaking.

This got me thinking about how our teenage crushes never seem to leave us.

When Take That reformed, the girls screaming uncontrollably and making a spectacle of themselves were not teenagers but women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, recapturing a simpler time before jobs, kids and mortgages, when the most challenging decision was whether to buy Smash Hits or Top of the Pops magazine.

When I was younger I was convinced I was going to marry either Robbie Williams or Jason Donovan.

It didn't matter to me that there were about 20 years older than I was, nor did it cross my mind I would probably never meet either of them. It took me until I was an older teen to realise this would never happen.

It seems women's belief in seeing the good in their crushes never falters.

Whenin the past couple of months it came out that pop's good boys Ronan Keating and Mark Owen had had extra martial relations, it took a while for people to believe it; you could see the heartbreak in seemingly-grown women's eyes.

Not only were some kicking themselvesit could have been them, but the image that both presented was one of the wholesome family man.

Pre-Ayda you could believe it is Robbie (the former womaniser) had kiss and tells revealed, but not Mark Owen, the baby-faced, innocent member of the band.

I can only imagine now that the girls lusting over Justin Bieber or McFly will in years to face the news they have got married, had kids, or had affairs in a composed unfazed manner, only to shed a tear in private.

Especially if they always lived in hope they would one day marry into the band. Never fear we have all been there.



I realise now as well that poor old McFly fans will face this sooner as Tom proposed to his girlfriend the other month and she said yes.

Guns in the Afternoon, Western Film Club, 3rd July 2011, The Exhibit Cinema, London

Guns in the Afternoon as far as I am aware is the only western film club in the UK run by (in their own words) self-proclaimed western nuts Russ and Jon. Their mission is: 'to put on the big screen every six weeks the westerns that have long since been forgotten and bring the genre to forefront of peoples minds.'

I will admit that I am not a huge western film fan, but thought I would go along with the boyfriend as his friend Russ is one of the organisers. 

The film this month was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. A 1948 film written and directed by the great John Huston, who also directed Katherine Hepburn and Bogart in The African Queen and Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable in The Misfits, Gable's last film before he died.

It is a film adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name. It focuses on two Americans Fred D. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt) during the 1920s in Mexico who join old-timer Howard (Walter Huston, the director's father), to prospect for gold. They find a bit of land with gold and set about protecting it from Mexican bandits and then from each other as they start to suspect each other of trying to con the others out of the gold and finally money.

You can't beat a bit of Bogart but his suave and clean cut persona as seen in Casablanca wasn't the case here, he is down on his luck, unshaven and a bit unkempt, his cool and calm persona is also a little absent as Dobbs starts to get very paranoid about those around him. This film shows you a side of Bogart that you never get to see but is very convincing and shows that he is not a character actor but quite diverse.

A film well worth a watch if it's on on a cold and wet Sunday afternoon.

Now the film club, the cinema is quite small but a load of two seater sofas, fantastic and a nice change from the boring seats in multiplexes. The film club is a great idea, the cinema has a bar down stairs so you can have a drink after and chat about the film. Tickets at £10 and you get the film, popcorn, trivia sheet and entry in a raffle.

If you are interested in attending the August club email either Russ and Jon at either russbish@hotmail.com or costello120@hotmail.com for details.

http://www.theexhibit.co.uk/
 

Take That, Wembley Stadium, 2nd July 2011

So last Saturday I fulfilled one of my childhood dreams and actually saw all five members of the greatest boy band ever to grace the world....Take That.

I had seen Take That the four of them when they did the come back tour and saw Robbie on his solo tour in the same year so it was similar to seeing all five, although nothing could compare to actually seeing all five performing together.

The way the show worked was the four lads came out and sung a few songs, the crowd were luke warm, they enjoyed it but as soon as Robbie came out to Let Me Entertain You the place erupted! It was the moment everyone had been waiting for. Take That have done a few tours over the past few years but when you think Robbie's tour was nearly 6 years ago, many fans probably thought they would never see him in concert again. He was on top form, and showed/reminded everyone of the true entertainer he is and he did not disappoint.

After this set Take That reformed the famous five and started with the Flood, with an actual flood on the huge wall with dancers on rope going up and down. All five together was just magical! I knew they would be good but they were better than I expected.

Everything about it was a show, the stage was huge and had a 60ft man who came out and stood up. It was just phenomenal! These boys know how to put on a show.

They also pulled out some of the old dance moves, singing Take That and Party and doing the running man. I was over the moon when Robbie sung Everything Changes and me and my friends sung our hearts out to the classics into Take That branded glow sticks.

There were over 80,000 people there and the atmosphere was just electric! Anyone who is a fan of Take That will just fall in love with the band again.

The band were note perfect and as much as he tried Gary Barlow was still crap at dancing, ala the nineties!

There was a fifteen year wait for this tour and it was worth everyday. I think I appreciated it more now than I would have when I was 10, I did love Take That in their heyday but my first big band were Spice Girls. Saying that Take That were just great!

However, I do have one criticism... ending with Eight Letters... Why? At the end of a concert the audience should be dancing out of the aisles but instead they walked back to the stage shaking people's hands, it was ok but it can't beat ending with Never Forget. Great guys but please don't break with tradition end with Never Forget!

They are off to Milan after Wembley so you will need to go over to Europe. I do love them together but I hope they don't milk the cash cow for too long so we all get fed up with them. But in the mean time... 'come on, come on, come on TAKE THAT AND PARTY!!'

Set List:
Rule The World

Greatest Day
Hold Up A Light
Patience
Shine
Let Me Entertain You
Rock DJ
Come Undone
Feel
Angels
The Flood
SOS
Underground
Machine
Kidz
Pretty Things
Million Love Songs
Babe
Everything Changes
Back For Good
Pray
Love Love
Never Forget
No Regrets
Relight My Fire
Eight Letters

A lot to come

I have had a busy couple of weeks which I am compiling at the moment into blog posts. One on the amazing Take That, one on a piece I wrote last year for the Chichester Observer, one on Guns in the Afternoon a Western film club. I think that's it but obviously I'll stagger the posting don't want to give away too much at once do I.

So first of all I thought I would do a brief piece on Glee. I saw it at the O2 at the end of June and it was amazing! All the gang were there and they performed for just over an hour which was a bit of a disappointment. They came out to Don't Stop Believing and did hit after hit, such as Slave 4 U, River Deep, Mountain High and Kurt and the girls did the Single Ladies dance.

Amber Riley (Mercedes)  and Naya Rivera (Santana) have amazing voices, they can hit the right notes and have voices that can fill the whole of the O2 two fold.

Of course Lea Michelle (Rachel) has an amazing voice and I really think she would be a great Elphaba in Wicked. Really though I think it is a shame they didn't do Light up the World or Thriller/Heads will Roll. As they are some of the best songs over the two seasons.

The Warblers and Blaine made an appearance and although I didn't like them in the show (they freaked me out a bit) he was excellent live, such a great voice that it's a shame he doesn't get to sing more in the show.

Unfortunately Gwyneth Paltrow, Mr Schuh or Sue were there although there were videos of Mr Schuh and Sue which were hilarious.

Of course I have to save the best until last Brittany S. Pears (Heather Morriss) had comic timing to the second and when you see her dance live you can see how she has had a great career as a dancer on the I am.... Sasha Fierce World Tour with Beyonce, phenomenal.

Not as in depth as some gig reviews but Glee Live!