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[caption id=”flickrImage_2” align=”aligncenter” width=”500” caption=”Queens Diamond Jubilee © by Robin Utracik”]
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httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9K_uxQsbI
Final preparations are under way for the diamond jubilee celebrations, with a dawn rehearsal held on Friday for the ceremonial carriage procession that will be the climax of the bank holiday events.
Members of the armed forces and Household Division were among 2,000 servicemen and women being put through their paces at the 6am rehearsal, watched mainly by sleepy commuters and startled joggers.
The ceremonial carriage procession on Tuesday, followed by a balcony appearance by senior members of the royal family and a flypast at Buckingham Palace, will bring the curtain down on a weekend of street parties and beacon lighting ceremonies across the UK.
The Queen begins her jubilee weekend in one of her favourite places, the royal box at Epsom racecourse, for the Derby on Saturday, where the popular mezzo soprano Katherine Jenkins will sing the national anthem.
The Thames diamond jubilee river pageant will make history on Sunday, with an ambitious flotilla of 1,000 ships recreating royal pageants of old. More than 20,000 people will be on the boats, some of which were beginning to muster in advance on Friday.
Over a million spectators are expected to line the banks and bridges as it sets off at 2.30pm with the last of the vessels expected to sail under Tower Bridge by 5.30pm.
Up to 50 large viewing screens have been placed along the river, bringing central London to a standstill with some roads and bridges closed. Family festivals in Battersea Park and Hyde Park are also expected to attract large crowds.
Sunday will also see thousands of street parties as the jubilee coincides with the Big Lunch. More than 9,500 applications for road closures have been approved across the UK – almost twice as many as for last year’s royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Buckingham Palace becomes the centre of attention on Monday, with the BBC jubilee concert kicking off at 7.30pm. More than 10,000 ticket holders will see artists including Robbie Williams, Dame Shirley Bassey, Sir Cliff Richard, Stevie Wonder, JLS, Jessie J and Elton John perform. One highlights will be the group Madness, performing their hit Our House on the roof of Buckingham Palace.
However, the unseasonably cold weather over the bank holiday may dampen the celebrations. On Sunday, persistent rain is forecast for the London river pageant, with a maximum temperature of 12C, with rain over quite large parts of England and Wales affecting street parties.
Rain is expected to clear throughout Monday, though the possibility of showers for the outdoor concert remains.
Those without tickets to the jubilee concert can try partying in Hyde Park, the Mall and St James’s Park where giant screens will relay the action live. The concert, which also features Kylie Minogue, Cheryl Cole and Sir Paul McCartney, is broadcast live on BBC1 and Radio 2.
Soul singer Wonder said: “It’s an honour to celebrate the Queen. It’s an honour to celebrate Great Britain. The time is overdue that I meet Her Majesty.”
More than 4,000 beacons will be lit across the UK and across the globe on Monday night, culminating in the Queen lighting the national beacon at 10.30pm in the Mall.
By Tuesday the temperature in London will creep up to 17C, and with rain clearing there is hope the Queen can travel in her open-topped landau.
Tuesday sees a more traditional celebration, with the Queen attending a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, followed by a reception at the Guidhall, and Jubilee lunch at Westminster Hall for 700 given for the Queen by the Livery.
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh will depart in the 1902 state landau carriage – weather permitting – along a processional route back to Buckingham Palace. With an emphasis very much on succession, the only other members of the royal family to be in the carriage procession are the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
After the mandatory balcony appearance, and the flypast, the Queen can finally put her feet up … until Wednesday, when she will be a guest at a luncheon hosted by the Commonwealth secretary general at Marlborough House.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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[caption id=”flickrImage_1” align=”alignleft” width=”240” caption=”tor © by twicepix”]
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“Wir freuen uns auf die Nordharzliga.” So kommentierte Michael Weber von SC Gitter II den Sieg seiner Elf im Nachholspiel gegen die Vahdet-Reserve. Damit wird es nicht zum von Bruchmachtersens Interimscoach Torsten Bogdenand erhofften Showdown der beiden Teams um den Klassenerhalt kommen. Wobei: “Klassenerhalt” stimmt ja nicht ganz.
Die Fußball-Kreisliga Salzgitter erlebt am Sonntag ihren letzten Spieltag, danach gibt es sie nicht mehr. Und das ist komisch und irritierend zugleich für mich. Seit 16 Jahren berichte ich über den Fußball im Kreis und habe dabei zwei Dinge gelernt: Nichts ist unmöglich - wie rekordverdächtige acht Treffer vom Thieder Gordon Leitzen in einem Spiel - und: Manchmal darf man eben doch “zum letzten Mal” schreiben.
Einen ausführlichen Saisonrückblick auf die letzte, mitunter kuriose Spielzeit einer Fußball-Kreisliga in Salzgitter werde ich Ihnen nächste Woche präsentieren. Mit etwas Wehmut schließe ich mich Michael Webers Worten an: Ich freue mich auf die Nordharzliga.
Salzgitter Zeitung: 2. Juni 2012, Lokalsport Salzgitter
Kreisliga-Interview: Gebhardshagens Trainer Siegfried Kuschel zum Saisonfinale in der Fußball-Kreisliga und der Glück-Auf-Bilanz 2011/12
GEBHARDSHAGEN. Zum Start der aktuellen Spielzeit zählten einige Glück Auf Gebhardshagen zu den Titelfavoriten der Fußball-Kreisliga. Doch nur einmal führten die Knappen unter Trainer Siegfried Kuschel die Liga an. Im Gespräch mit unserem Reporter Frank Wehrmann nannte er die Gründe dafür.
Nur ein Punkt beim Ligaschlusslicht Mahner - was war da los?
Wir haben das Spiel zu leicht genommen und mit angezogener Handbremse kann man solche Spiele eben nicht gewinnen.
Wie betrachten Sie die Saison der Knappen: Was waren Höhe- und Tiefpunkte?
Immer wenn wir die Möglichkeiten hatten, den Anschluss an die Spitzenteams zu schaffen, kassierten wir empfindliche und auch vermeidbare Niederlagen. Unser Hauptaugenmerk richtet sich nun auf den Kreispokal.
Was fehlte, um ganz oben mitzuspielen?
Wir kassieren zu viele Gegentore durch Standards. Bei hohen Flankenbällen haben wir Probleme.Ein Höhepunkt der Rückrunde war der 3:1-Erfolg über Thiede, dem ein 0:2 gegen Steinlah/Haverlah folgte.
Fehlte insgesamt in der Saison die Konstanz?
Ja, leider waren wir zu unbeständig - wie gegen Steinlah/Haverlah. Dort haben wir zu viele Chancen vergeben und wurden bestraft.
Wie muss sich die Elf verändern, um in der Nordharzliga zu bestehen?
Wir müssen uns mehr auf die Defensive konzentrieren. Chancen, um Tore zu erzielen, haben wir immer.
Zum Derby gegen Heerte: Volles Engagement oder Sommerkick?
Es werden einige Stammkräfte wegen Urlaub und Verletzung passen müssen. Einen versöhnlichen Punktspielabschluss soll es aber trotzdem geben.
Salzgitter Zeitung: 2. Juni 2012, Lokalsport Salzgitter
Handys sind nützlich. Besonders die ältere Generation höre ich schon: Braucht man nicht, ging früher auch ohne. Stimmt, aber selbst Skeptiker wie meine Eltern sind mittlerweile mobil erreichbar - weil es einfach praktisch ist, und die Telefonzellen es den Dinosauriern nachmachen.
Aber der mobile Telefonapparillo, um es mal mit Helge Schneider zu sagen, bestimmt mehr und mehr gesellschaftspolitische Belange. Jüngstes Beispiel: Eine junge Frau in Saudi-Arabien sollte das dortige Einkaufszentrum verlassen, weil sie sich die Fingernägel lackierte.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpUUOYRLW3k
Eine Traube von Religionspolizisten umlagerte sie. “Ich werde euch zeigen, wer hier gehen wird”, rief sie ihnen entgegen, filmte die Aktion mit ihrem Smartphone und blieb trotzig in der Einkaufsmeile. Das Video des Streits ist auf Youtube zu sehen und sorgt in der von Männern beherrschten, konservativen Region für Furore.
Wann wird bei uns jedes einzelne Schlagloch oder jeder Hundehaufen am See fotografiert? Vielleicht hätte ein Video das Abholzen für das neue Altenheim an der Albert-Schweitzer-Straße verhindert.
Man muss es einfach tun.
Salzgitter Zeitung: 2. Juni 2012, Salzgitter Lokales
[caption id=”attachment_260115” align=”alignleft” width=”203” caption=”Photo: 20th Century Fox”]
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Those who have dared to believe that Ridley Scott is still capable of adding something to the Alien canon can breathe a sigh of relief. The first reviews are in for Prometheus, the veteran British film-maker’s first science fiction project in more than three decades, and they are broadly positive. The 87% “fresh” audience rating on rottentomatoes.com makes it one of the year’s best-received saturation-release films, and yet there’s a thread of uncertainty running through even the most gushing of reviews, a sense that Scott has produced an epic entertainment without actually delivering a particularly “good” film.
Alien effectively reimagined John Carpenter’s Dark Star, a study of crushingly tedious space ennui, with added scary monsters. James Cameron’s Aliens plumped for a balls-to-the-wall action approach with a touch of anti-corporate polemic. But Prometheus sets its ambitions on far grander matters.
Writes our own Peter Bradshaw:
“It is a muddled, intricate, spectacular film, but more or less in control of all its craziness and is very watchable. It lacks the central killer punch of Alien: it doesn’t have its satirical brilliance and its tough, rationalist attack on human agency and guilt. But there’s a driving narrative impulse, and, however silly, a kind of idealism, a sense that it’s exciting to make contact with whatever’s out there.”
“Prometheus is a pick’n’mix bag of religious and mythological tidbits, and it’s an undeniably muddled project,” writes Robbie Collin in the Daily Telegraph.
“Yet while it lacks Alien’s ferocious simplicity and focus, Scott’s determination to see his often loopy ideas through gives his film a single-minded vigour rarely found in pictures of this scale … [The film] exists simply because Scott got up one morning and thought the cinematic landscape would be much improved by the addition of a slime-splattered, blood-spurting science-fiction adventure that offered scares as well as spectacle; and who, in good conscience, can argue with that?”
“[Scott] has delivered a film that is already one of the most anticipated titles of the summer and should thrill, challenge and provoke audiences ready for his signature brand of intelligent and visceral film-making.”
But Empire’s Ian Nathan is a naysayer, who can’t quite bring himself to praise a film which is “too busy, too talky, too noisy by half”:
“Awe, wonderment and terror need atmosphere to flourish. For all the CGI grandiosity, there is a flatness to the mood. Prometheus is strangely impatient, irritable, rushing its setups and squandering drama. Characters perish, but without any great wit or design, and in fits and starts. The film can’t fix on where it wants the action to occur, dragging the cast back and forth between the Apple-elegant fixtures of the good ship Prometheus and the grey-green bio-horror chambers of the ‘temple’. Motive is sorely lacking.”
I enjoyed Prometheus, but I wonder if it may come to be seen as a textbook example of how no amount of money and talent can guarantee a great work of art. It’s all up there on the screen in abundance: the best writing that millions of dollars can buy, a sumptuous cast and an embarrassment of film-making panache from a wily old pro of a director with a genuine gift for visual élan. Yet there is something missing: a unified purpose, a direct line to the main artery. Scott seems to be happily meandering around in the cosmos when he might, with a little more purpose of thought, have found a wormhole straight to his final destination.
Perhaps in 10 years time we will be able to look back and enjoy Prometheus as a portentous, tremulous “event movie” that imagines 21st-century man as an arrogant overreacher who really ought to have listened to the wise warnings of his god-fearing forebears. For now, the clunky thematic furniture gets in the way a little of what is otherwise a highly enjoyable ride into the minds of a bunch of Hollywood creatives who tried to steal fire from the gods, and very nearly got away with it.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2TcjXRsAus
Who’s better, Bond or Bourne? It’s a question that’s been posed ever since Matt Damon first started pegging it over rooftops in The Bourne Identity just over a decade ago. While Bond may have his wit, his gadgets, his charm and his Walther PPK, Bourne had Olympic-level running-away skills and was very, very good at forgetting stuff.
Damon isn’t even in The Bourne Legacy, but newcomer Jeremy Renner (starring as Not-Bourne) is revealed in the trailer (above) as a genetically modified update on the old Operation Treadstone model. In other words, he’s a superhero of sorts, a fact he duly shows off by pegging it over rooftops in grand fashion.
Yes, just as you were wondering exactly why Hollywood is bothering to make a fourth film when the events of 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum appeared to round off the series so nicely, new director Tony Gilroy and co decide to up the ante. Perhaps it’s the presence of The Incredible Hulk’s Ed Norton as villain Byer, or the fact that Renner appeared in Avengers Assemble, but the fourth instalment in the series has a distinct whiff of Marvel comics about it. Don’t be surprised if it turns out sexy scientist Rachel Weisz has been tinkering with human DNA using gamma rays and arc reactor technology, or if Stan Lee turns up in a cameo as a jocular lab assistant.
Not that I’m complaining: if Universal want to turn the Bourne series into a fantasy-tinged cautionary tale of test tube misadventure, all power to them. But wasn’t this series supposed to be the gritty, brutally topical antidote to Bond’s suave and fancy 60s-influenced take on the world of secret service operatives? Then again, perhaps I’m being naive and the CIA really are stealing ideas from the pages of 2000 AD in their ongoing battle against terrorism.
At least we can finally be certain that Bourne’s souped-up successor would have wiped the floor with 007, even at some cost to the saga’s integrity. For all his panache and swagger, Bond was never able to boast even a single genetically altered chromosome. Not-Bourne has three!
What are your thoughts on this latest instalment? Does Renner appear a worthy replacement for Damon? And if so, why didn’t he at least get his own moniker in the movie’s title? One of Not-Bourne’s given names is apparently Aaron Cross, which might have led to all sorts of fun. I’m thinking The Cross Patch (in which you really wouldn’t like Aaron when he’s angry), The Cross Purpose (in which Aaron and his superiors discover they have wildly different objectives) and perhaps The Cross Fire (in which Operation Treadstone HQ is ruthlessly burned to the ground by irate former operatives, signalling the end of a second trilogy).
The Bourne Legacy is out on 13 August in the UK and 3 August in the US. Will you be first in line, or are you prepared to hang on for Damon’s inevitable return to the franchise?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ljWFe0BiY
Huge big band intro. Top Cat! Do you remember it? Top Cat! Well, they’ve dismembered it. Cartoon cats who’re breaking the law — we loved it on TV, but the film version’s poor. Top Cat! The indisputable worst film of the year! The animation’s bad, and the script is just sad, I think we’ve all been had by – Top Cat! Middle instrumental section: a badly animated TC and the gang zoom unfunnily and jerkily around New York, trick Officer Dibble in various ways, go into a club, throw the doorman a dollar bill attached to a piece of string and pull it back etc, while audience wonder what happened to their much-loved childhood TV memories. Instrumental section ends. Top Cat! It’s ineffectual. Top Cat! It’s just incredible. A decent film is what you desire, but oh, my, God, this really is dire. “Top” Cat? Oh Lordy, is the word “top” justified? It’s the bottom of the heap, and it frankly looks cheap, the disaster of the year is – Top Cat.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQIvmR21VU
Ken Loach’s new movie arrives in the UK garlanded with the Cannes Jury Prize: a freewheeling social-realist comedy caper. In many ways this is his most relaxed and successful screen offering for some time. The Angels’ Share could stand as a companion piece to his Sweet Sixteen (2002) or even his early classic Kes (1969), and of course, it also draws on the Ealing film Whisky Galore! Again, Loach has used non-professionals: his leading man is newcomer Paul Brannigan, playing Robbie, a young Glasgow criminal who finds himself sentenced to repaint a community centre with a bunch of lawbreaking dopes and dorks: Mo (Jasmin Riggins), Rhino (William Ruane) and Albert (Gary Maitland). The supervisor, Harry (John Henshaw), is a kindly soul who has a connoisseur’s passion for whisky, and out of the goodness of his heart takes them on an outing to a distillery. Miraculously, Robbie turns out to have a “nose” – an untrained discerning judgment of whisky, perhaps like Billy’s bird-training ability in Kes. He is intrigued by the fact that some whisky evaporates in the cask – the so-called “angels’ share” – and the unreconstructed criminal in him wonders how he can get his share. How strange to compare the conclusion of The Angels’ Share with that of Kes. Robbie and his mates are no angels, but the film finds a way of giving them something that real life can’t or won’t: a chance.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4SQ9xBXMX0
In this new version of the fairytale, the second in just a few months, Snow White is like a cross between Aslan and Joan of Arc. It’s very different from the jokeyness of Julia Roberts’ Mirror Mirror, but with a similar basic problem. Kristen Stewart stars as the heroine; Charlize Theron is the sexy evil queen with headgear modelled on the Disney animation; and Chris Hemsworth plays the huntsman, who is now a full-blown romantic lead, a hunky-stubbly protector with an accent like Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood – from Cowdenbeath, Taunton and Dublin. In the manner of Twilight and Hunger Games, the film gives Snow White an unresolved and franchise-friendly romantic choice between the Huntsman and a posh prince resonantly named William (Sam Claflin). Unlike Julia Roberts’s feebly evasive version, this movie does at least tackle head-on the Queen’s sexual jealousy, and Theron has an interesting steely coldness at first. But she is soon reduced to screeching like a panto villainess in that all-purpose Bardspeak accent. Her stepdaughter leads a revolution against the queen’s misrule, and Snow White has the power to cure the people’s physical ailments. Like Mirror Mirror, the dwarves are badass forest brigands played by British character actors, but with a Narnia touch. It all becomes very drawn out, and like Mirror Mirror, tries to fix what isn’t broken: the poignant clarity of Snow White being betrayed by a non-mother and then having to be a quasi-mother to seven little people. That is evidently far too babyish and needs to be sexed up, or rather teen-abstinenced up. The result is tangled and overblown.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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Außenstehenden fällt es ja oft schwer, die optischen Reize unserer Stadt und ihrer näheren Umgebung zu erkennen. Aber: das ging uns auch so, wenn wir auf Klassenfahrt gingen, oder?
Der bekannte Kolumnist Axel Hacke (übrigens aus Braunschweig) hat jetzt via Facebook von einer Leserin eine schöne Postkarte ihres Nachwuchses aus der Schweiz bekommen: „Liebe Mami, lieber Papi, das Klassenlager ist SCHEI…, wie ich schon vor dem Lager gesagt habe.“ Darauf kommentierte Hacke: „Wir fuhren ins Klassenlager immer in einen Ort namens Liebenburg. Ich fand’s gar nicht so schlecht damals.“
Sehen Sie. Selbst nach Jahren langen Lebens in der schönen Metropole kann sich der Braunschweiger und Toskana-Fan noch positiv an die Vorharz-Region erinnern. Loriot hat die großen Ferien als Schüler oft bei Verwandten in Vienenburg verbracht. Und unsere Gegend ist doch auch schön.
Ich behaupte: In einigen Jahren wird man Postkarten eines inzwischen berühmten Milliardärs finden: „Liebe Eltern, Salzgitter war gar nicht so übel: Wasserski, viel Grünp, weiches Wasser. Was will man mehr…“
