Russian grain producers suggest exporting food grain, import feed grain

Russia should export food grain from the country's south and import feed grain instead, National Grain Producers Union President Pavel Skurikhin said on Tuesday.

Russia's southern regions hold about 10 million tons of surplus food grain, while drought-hit central regions suffered from feed grain shortages,Skurikhin said.

"To my mind, it would be reasonable to use (southern) grain ... maybe to sell it abroad, and to import the same amount of feed grain," Skurikhin told a news conference.

Russia banned grain exports from August 15, 2010 to June 30, 2011 in response to the country's worst drought in decades.

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti)

Read more: News

KHL's cream of the crop: Week 10

It has been an entertaining week in the KHL after the break, with plenty of clever combinations and spectacular fights, which are always worth watching.

RT offers you the very best moments from Europe’s best league!

Read more: News

The government’s role in economic diversification

With the Russian government looking to promote economic development and diversification business RT spoke with Yuri Voitsehovsky, Head of the National Council for Investment Climate.

RT:Your council represents directors who actually manage companies. What do they think is the key to updating and diversifying Russia’s economy?

YV:“Of course, it’s a big task, and both the government and private investors can do quite a lot. I think first of all what is important is the government can follow a consistent policy of growth and development, and that policy should be based on a consistent focus on business and investment, on promoting foreign direct investments in the country, and setting up clear rules and regulations.Of course, on top of it, it is important to build infrastructure in the country, both legal and physical.And if you look at the growing competition from countries like the BRIC countries they invest a considerable part of GDP in growth, to achieve above 6-8% levels.So currently in Russia it is less than about 20% of GDP.Should invest more of its GDP to sustain high growth rates.And also what is important on top of it, is to increase efficiency of government bodies, and promote better corporate governance in the country.And a lot depends on elite, on business owners showing the example how to develop socially responsible businesses in the country.”

RT:What is being done in Russia to improve corporate governance – to protect the rights of shareholders and investors – and what still needs to be done?

YV:Yes, of course, Russia has promoted and done quite a lot in areas of improving corporate governance in companies, and promoting such institutes as the institute of independent directors, for example.However although such institutes became more and more common in state companies, for example, still quite a lot have to be done in terms of improving how such directors are appointed, improving rules, as such, and also changing the legislation so that such corporate governance rules are enforced and companies have to follow them.

RT:So surely independent directors would be key, would make that work.The government seems to be aiming at top-down modernization, with state projects to buy new technology, but your members have experience building and growing companies. Is enough being done to promote the organic growth of companies?

YV:“I think, again, investment is a big theme and I think it’s good to look at successful countries like, for example, Singapore, and look at best practices.So I think that one thing that Russia should adopt is a best practice and learn from other jurisdictions how to implement certain initiatives – that’s number 1.I think it’s also very important to develop infrastructure, and , I think, also develop trust between businesses. Russia should promote development of joint ventures, for example foreign investors.I am a little bit more sceptical about government directly investing into particular technology.I think that should be left to, led by the private sector.But what I think government should do, and what state should do, is promote equal rights, clear rules, and right climate for such investments to prosper.”

Read more: News

Russia's Medvedev says some small businesses to pay 26% social tax for 2 yrs

Some Russian small businesses will pay a 26% social tax for two years instead of a 34% percent tax paid by other enterprises from next year, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

"I have decided that small businesses involved in production and social spheres will get a two-year transition period with a lower rate of insurance premiums of 26%," Medvedev said in his annual address to the nation.

The government, whose coffers are hard hit by the international financial crisis, will raise the tax which companies pay to pension, social insurance and obligatory medical insurance funds, to 34% from 26% from next year. The government hopes the measure will help it raise 460 billion rubles ($14.83 million) to be used for healthcare system upgrades.

Presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters that small businesses would save 100 billion rubles from the measure.

"There are various estimates. If we talk of production and social companies, it will be about 100 billion rubles in the two years, or 50 billion a year," he said.

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti)

Read more: News

Marinette High School hostage standoff ends with gunman shooting self – video

A 15-year old student left a room where a movie was being shown and returned with a .22 handgun and a 9mm pistol.

He shot the projector and then held 23 students and a teacher hostage.

Later, he released 5 students because they had to go to the bathroom.

One Student who talked with reporters said the gunman did not wish to hurt anyone.

Although several shots were fired by the student before the police arrived, the only casualty was a film projector.

A police negotiator was able to talk with a teacher who said no one was harmed.  The child gunman refused to talk with the negotiators.

The Technology Splice Blog reports: An official at Marinette high school called the authorities just before 4pm local time to say a student had taken over a classroom.

Now Public found out: Authorities say the 23 students along with one female teacher have been released from the classroom where they were held hostage by a student armed with a hand gun.

The Huffington Post tells us: Officers who were outside the Marinette High School classroom said they heard three gunshots shortly after 8 p.m. and busted through the door, said Police Chief Jeff Skorik. The 15-year-old male gunman then shot himself.

After five hours, the student gunman fired several more shots.  None of the shots were aimed at any of the hostages.

The police SWAT Team then crashed through the door.  The gunman shot himself.

The 15-year old gunman was taken to the hospital and his condition has not been released.

School officials announced classes were cancelled all of Tuesday and counselors would be available for all the hostages.

News of the hostage situation spread over the social media like Twitter and Facebook before any of the news organizations.

In fact, news of the 5 hostage release and the final resolution were spread by the students and some of the news media reported the breaking news based on their monitoring some Twitter and Facebook accounts before being notified by the police.

Read more: News

Moscow temperatures drop by 16 degrees overnight

Although the Russian winter is not supposed to arrive for another two days, temperatures in the capital have already dropped to -16 degrees Celsius.

­Weathermen say this is just the beginning: It is forecasted to drop below -20 this week, and on Tuesday a heavy snowstorm is expected.

Read more: News

TSA chief warns against boycott of airport scans

The nation's airport security chief pleaded with Thanksgiving travelers for understanding and urged them not to boycott full-body scans on Wednesday, lest their protest snarl what is already one of the busiest, most stressful flying days of the year.

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said Monday that such delaying actions would only "tie up people who want to go home and see their loved ones."

"We all wish we lived in a world where security procedures at airports weren't necessary," he said, "but that just isn't the case."

He noted the alleged attempt by a Nigerian with explosives in his underwear to bring down a plane over Detroit last Christmas.

Despite tough talk on the Internet, there was little if any indication of a passenger revolt Monday at many major U.S. airports, with very few people declining the X-ray scan that can peer through their clothes. Those who refuse are subject to a pat-down search that includes the crotch and chest.

Many travelers said that the scans and the pat-down were not much of an inconvenience, and that the stepped-up measures made them feel safer and were, in any case, unavoidable.

"Whatever keeps the country safe, I just don't have a problem with," Leah Martin, 50, of Houston, said as she waited to go through security at the Atlanta airport.

At Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Gehno Sanchez, a 38-year-old from San Francisco who works in marketing, said he doesn't mind the full-body scans. "I mean, they may make you feel like a criminal for a minute, but I'd rather do that than someone touching me," he said.

A loosely organized Internet campaign is urging people to refuse the scans on Wednesday in what is being called National Opt-Out Day. The extra time needed to pat down people could cause a cascade of delays at dozens of major airports, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.

"Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays," said Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, which has warned its more than 8,000 members about delays. "It doesn't take much to mess things up anyway."

More than 400 imaging units are being used at about 70 airports. Since the new procedures began Nov. 1, 34 million travelers have gone through checkpoints and less than 3 percent are patted down, according to the TSA.

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the government is "desperately" trying to balance security and privacy and will take the public's concerns and complaints into account as it evaluates the new, more stringent boarding checks.

The American Civil Liberties Union has received more than 600 complaints over three weeks from passengers who say they were subjected to humiliating pat-downs at U.S. airports, and the pace is accelerating, according to ACLU legislative counsel Christopher Calabrese.

"It really drives home how invasive it is and unhappy they are," he said.

Ricky D. McCoy, a TSA screener and president of a union local in Illinois and Wisconsin, said the atmosphere has changed in the past two weeks for officers in his region. Since word of the pat-downs hit the headlines, officers have been punched, pushed or shoved six times after they explained what would be happening, McCoy said.

"We have major problems because basically TSA never educated the public on what was going on," he said. "Our agency pretty much just threw the new search techniques out there."

Stories of alleged heavy-handed treatment by TSA agents captured people's imagination.

A bladder cancer survivor from Michigan who wears a bag that collects his urine said its contents spilled on his clothing after a security agent at a Detroit airport patted him down roughly.

Tom Sawyer, a 61-year-old retired special education teacher, said the Nov. 7 experience left him in tears. "I was absolutely humiliated. I couldn't even speak," he told MSNBC.com.

During an appearance on CBS, the TSA's Pistole expressed "great concern over anybody who feels like they have not been treated properly or had something embarrassing" happen.

Late Monday, Sawyer said Pistole called him to apologize and Sawyer accepted.

A video showing a shirtless young boy resisting a pat-down at Salt Lake City's airport has become a YouTube sensation and led to demands for an investigation from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, an outspoken critic of TSA screening methods. The video of the unidentified boy was shot Friday by a bystander with a cell phone.

The TSA said in a blog posting that nobody has to disrobe at an airport checkpoint apart from removing shoes and jackets. According to the TSA, the boy was being searched because he triggered an alarm inside a metal detector, and his father removed the youngster's shirt to speed up the screening.

"That's it. No complaints were filed and the father was standing by his son for the entire procedure," said the posting by "Blogger Bob" of the TSA Blog Team.

The boycott campaign was launched Nov. 8 by Brian Sodergren, who lives in Ashburn, Va., and works in the health care industry.

"I just don't think the government has the right to look under people's clothes with no reasonable cause, no suspicion other than purchasing a plane ticket," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He said he has no idea how many passengers plan to opt out, but added: "I am absolutely amazed at the response and how people have taken to it. I never would have predicted it. I think it hit a nerve."

In the meantime, security lines appeared to move briskly at many airports.

Frank Bell, 71, of Norfolk, Conn., said he took off his shoes and passed through a scanner at New York's Kennedy Airport — and wasn't even sure whether it was one of the full-body machines.

"It was absolutely nothing," he said. "If there was something that was supposed to tell what sex I was, I wasn't aware of it."

___

Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Sarah Brumfield and Joan Lowy in Washington; Russell Contreras in Boston; Dan Elliott in Denver; Karen Matthews in New York; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago also contributed to this report.

Read more: News

Donna Brookman: 'Ragini' at Lobby Gallery in S.F.

This article appeared on page Q - 45 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more Entertainment

DVD review: 'Calvin Marshall'

Writer-director Gary Lundgren grew up in the Bay Area a sports fan and a movie fan, and it shows in his very funny feature film debut, "Calvin Marshall." Imagine the kids in "The Bad News Bears" about eight years later as a junior college team and you get the idea of what the Bayford City College Bisons are like. Calvin (Alex Frost) dreams of playing in the major leagues, but he barely made the cut for the Bisons. He seems more natural hosting a local access cable show that is Bayford CC's version of ESPN's "SportsCenter." Yet he stays on the team because he somehow brings out the soft spot in his otherwise crusty coach, a washed-up ex-minor-leaguer (Steve Zahn, excellent). Suddenly he meets the girl of his dreams, the school's star volleyball player Tori (Michelle Lombardo), and he begins a relentless campaign to impress her. His strategy in both baseball and love seems to be "fake it until you make it," with sometimes hilarious results. Lombardo is good, although a subplot about her character's terminally ill mother seems forced. Also providing excellent support is the underused character actor Abraham Benrubi ("ER," "Men in Trees") as an assistant coach and enemy of Calvin.

CALVIN MARSHALL

2009

NOT RATED

PASSION RIVER

$24.98

This article appeared on page Q - 32 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more Entertainment

Daniel Day-Lewis prepares for role as Abraham Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis has been preparing for his role as Abraham Lincoln in Steve Spielberg's planned 2012 blockbuster by visiting the state where the former president began his political career.

Day-Lewis will star in the movie based on the book "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who joined Day-Lewis on his tour in Illinois. They visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, the Lincoln Home and the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln served as a legislator and and the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices.

Kathleen Kennedy, who is co-producing the film with Spielberg, said: “We just came in for a quick peek. All of us were very moved by seeing some of the historial artefacts.".

Dave Blanchette, a spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, said Day-Lewis spent a lot of time in the House of Representatives chamber in the Old Capitol. “He got up on the dais and said, ‘This is a very intimate setting, you can really see everybody in the room when you’re speaking from here,’” Blanchette said. “It was obvious he was trying to get a sense for what Lincoln might have seen when he spoke and gave his ‘House Divided’ speech.”

However, when the group toured the portion of the presidential museum dedicated to Lincoln’s years in the White House, Day-Lewis stopped short of the rooms that depict Lincoln’s assassination and funeral. “The producers went in, but he didn’t,” Blanchette recalled. “He said, ‘I’m portraying Lincoln alive and I choose not to go any farther.’”

According to a press release from DreamWorks Studios, “Lincoln” is to focus on the “political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War.”

Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire, a history of Britain's involvement in the civil war, believes that casting a Briton as the national hero could cause offence. "I think people are going to be upset. We're talking about one of the most famous presidents in America's history... There'll be much agony about this. Selling the idea to the American public that there was no American actor who could play Lincoln will be hard."

But even the original contender was not an American. When the director first signed the project to Dreamworks in 2001, Irishman Liam Neeson was pencilled in to play the part. But four months ago Neeson withdrew from the project, saying he was, at 58, already two years older than Lincoln was when he was assassinated.

Day-Lewis, 53, who has two Oscars, for My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood, is a superb alternative.Spielberg said in a statement: "Daniel Day-Lewis would have always been counted as one of the greatest of actors, were he from the silent era, the golden age of film or even some time in cinema's distant future. I am grateful and inspired that our paths will finally cross with Lincoln."

Read more Entertainment

'Black Swan': Natalie Portman's labor of love, pain

Well, Natalie Portman says it took almost a decade, but she finally got him to direct "Black Swan."

"He talked to me about it nine years ago; I was still in college, and he had just made 'Requiem' and I was obviously very eager to work with him," says the actress. "I kept bugging him about it over the years because there was no follow-up - he kept doing other movies. Finally, a year before we started shooting, he called up with the script (by Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin)."

Portman had trained in ballet as a child and kept up somewhat, but knew she was very far from where she'd have to be to sell the character of Nina.

"There was no financing, so I just started training on my own. I'd call him and be like, 'I'm in ballet class, come watch.' I was trying to make sure this was actually going to be his next project," she says with an utterly dazzling smile in a room at the W Hotel in Hollywood. "Then they started getting the money together about six months before, and I was like, 'OK, let's get serious.' We were doing two hours a day; we went to five hours a day - I was doing swimming and toning, and three hours of ballet. And then, about two months out, we started doing eight hours because we added in the choreography.

"And then they lost the money.

"It was so grueling. And it's also the one art form where they starve themselves. So I was not eating very much, I was working out like a crazy person, and it just kept getting pushed and pushed. Which ended up being great because it gave me more time to train."

Aronofsky had reservations despite his leading lady's total commitment. Could the Oscar-nominated actress become an artist in another medium?

"About two months out, I was still concerned," he says in a separate interview. "Then about a month out, it kind of clicked. Suddenly, I started to see Natalie's natural grace coming through the moves. 'Oh, she's going to be able to act while dancing,' which was the next level. I always knew I could find a dancer who was better than Natalie, but I could never find a dancer who could act better than Natalie. So my concern became, 'Will she be able to perform, to emote while dancing?' That, to me, is the major accomplishment of her performance."

Told of those remarks, Portman laughs.

"In my own personal life, I am never, ever a depriving person. I like to eat. I like pleasure. I like a few extra pounds on my frame. I'm not that person. So I saved it to the very end: 'When they have their money together, then I'll start the diet!' So that's the thing, when he saw me start looking like a ballerina. I started getting really sinewy. Also, that's when we were really perfecting the choreography because we had worked on it for a couple of months, so toward the end of that, it all started coming together."

Aronofsky says there were easily more injuries among the dancers in "Black Swan" than among the bruisers who populated his previous film, "The Wrestler." He mentions lost toenails and - for his lead actress - a dislocated rib.

Portman winces only slightly now at the thought: "When I got lifted, it went out of place. It sort of goes under another rib. So that was real, (the scene in which a physical therapist) was doing real work on me. Darren was like, 'Film it! Film it! Stay in character, talk in your character's voice!' "

That voice, halting, girly, fragile, was part of Portman's subtler transformation, the finely tuned work she did to create a character simultaneously real and symbolic.

Read more Entertainment

Swallows and Amazons: every child wants to be a pirate

At the Bristol Old Vic, a grown-up actor is playing a child called Titty who is frightfully, frightfully cross about the lack of wind on the lake. But not for long. Cue a song about jolly well cheering up and making the best of it.

“When plans go up in smoke/ don’t sit around and mope”, sensible Susan sings in what morphs into Fred and Ginger-style dance number. Meanwhile two characters, gruff Lake District charcoal burners, announce “being bored is boring” and sing a Louis Armstrong-like doo-da duet. It’s a hoot.

This stage version of the children’s classic Swallows and Amazons has music and lyrics by Neil Hannon, frontman for the band the Divine Comedy, whose first theatre piece this is. Hannon is a diffident, funny, Irish song writer, whose father is a retired Church of Ireland bishop who drives a tractor. He is sufficiently Anglophile to be the first ever pop musician to have produced an album (called The Duckworth Lewis Method) entirely about cricket.

This rather unlikely Christmas show was conceived during the director Tom Morris’s days at the National Theatre (where he co-directed the smash-hit War Horse) when, drawn to the “dramatic whiff” in Hannon’s songs, he asked the eclectic musician to come up with a musical project.

They talked about doing something grim and arty, possibly a version of Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf. But Hannon one day found himself in a bookshop and had a better idea. “I saw Swallows and Amazons and read it to myself, skipping the boring bits. I don’t know why it struck such a chord but it just seemed to something ready made, well-known and doable,” he says.

Classic though it is, I am not sure how well-known Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons actually is, apart from the title. There is no blockbuster Hollywood film version to boost its profile, as there is with books by J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis. (Mancunian director Claude Watham’s 1974 movie was, despite its cosy charms, far from an international hit.) Yet in his day, children wrote to Ransome in their thousands, demanding more of his gilded world of outdoor adventure. He duly produced 11 other bestsellers, though not all set in the Lake District.

Even Morris was worried by the old-fashioned subject matter of sailing and innocent pirate-playing in Ransome’s lakeland idyll. Lord of the Flies it is certainly not. “I have to say my initial reaction was this would be a very remote world from our own. But what the book is really about is an attitude to children where they are trusted to play and be responsible at the same time. That mixture seemed quite potent and relevant,” he says.

The book is set around Windermere and Coniston, evoking a world of cotton tents, knickerbockers, bunloaf, perch fishing, lemonade posing as grog, squashed fly biscuits and posh children with good grammar.

But it is the sense of total liberty that glares from the pages like sunshine on water. The show features a key song about “duffers”, an anthem to the most famous telegram in children’s literature, when at the beginning of the book the Walker children write to their father – who is away at sea – to ask whether they can sail and camp on the lake’s island.

The message comes back BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN. A sentiment which today would probably have social workers opening a “children at risk” file on Titty, Roger and the rest.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the book is that a man like Ransome should have written it. As revealed in last year’s gripping biography by Roland Chambers, The Last Englishman, Arthur Ransome (1884-1967) was not the tweedy walrus-moustached English patriot he resembled. He was in fact a convinced Communist. He witnessed the Russian Revolution first hand as a journalist for the Daily News.

Eventually “Red Ransome” was recruited by MI6 in Russia under the code name S76 while also possibly working as a double agent for the Soviets. After a life of covering many of the great upheavals of the early century, he ended up, in 1925, on the shores of Windermere living with his second wife, Evgenia Shelepina, Trotsky’s former private secretary.

A shady man writing sunny novels – Ransome belongs in one of Alan Bennett’s various plays about privileged English spies. There is nothing, however, of his past detectable in Swallows and Amazons except a luggage label with Moscow on it and perhaps that telegram, which was a nod to his journalist days. He loved telegraphese and particularly relished a Reuters colleague’s classic: UNCASH UNFED UPFED RESIGN.

Helen Edmundson, the show’s script writer – and the woman behind the National Theatre’s acclaimed adaptation of Coram Boy – is not convinced Ransome was that political. “I think he was more drawn to adventure. The Russian adventure, the building of a new world, the adventure of sailing – it’s all part of the same attraction,” she says.

Like most people working on the show, she was no fan of the book as child. “I read the first two chapters, having saved up my pocket money to buy it and was irritated by all the sailing jargon. When Tom asked me, I reread it and absolutely loved it. I read it aloud to my children and they did, too. The characterisation is so strong, as are the sibling relationships, the whole pecking order.

“Children coming to see this will see themselves as one of the characters. Are you the imaginative one, the dramatic one, the one who gets left out? There are moments of daring and danger, and a baddy, but it’s all couched in a safe, entertaining way.”

Morris, who is the brother of Chris Morris the actor and satirist, is the only member of the creative team who knows anything at all about sailing. He went out as a boy with his father, a keen sailor, and his chief memory is of being sick over the side. The show has jettisoned the lingo of halyards, thwarts and rowlocks. It’s not only the yachting jargon but the also middle-classness of Ransome’s world that has dated the book and which the show is attempting to hose off.

Ironically, had Ransome put in a bit more class consciousness into the novel he’d be on every school syllabus in the land. Perhaps this is the reason the National Theatre never staged this musical? The material is too socially incorrect.

Morris argues that when it was written, it was pure fiction. Nobody in the Twenties, he reckons, let their children run riot on islands when the smallest couldn’t swim. “If there is a political nugget in it for me, it is the pressures we put on our children not to be playful but to be ever more timetabled in what they do. That has real consequences.”

Hannon agrees. “I thrived on boredom as a child. Kids have so much thrown at them they don’t have time to be inventive. They are too busy going to ballet class. There’s a melancholy in the book for what we’ve lost. You can’t go back and let your children do what ever they want. That time has gone.”

The DIY aesthetic of the show is in keeping with the make-believe the book trades in. As Morris puts it: “It’s a developed theatrical version of a child jumping into a cardboard box and saying: 'I’m in a battleship.’ It’s about how children naturally tend to play with the box and not the present.”

In Bristol, it is hoped the show will commend itself to grandparents as a nostalgia outing and to the young DVD generation as Pirates of the Caribbean in the Lake District.

“In London, we did a rough version in the studio and invited in a class of inner city kids to find out what their response was,” Morris recalls. “They watched the show. At the end, I said: 'OK, thanks for coming and is there anything you want to ask the performers?’ They jumped up and virtually mobbed the Amazons. They just wanted to join in. Every child wants to be a pirate. It’s an urge that crosses any class barrier, time barrier, geographical barrier. That’s, I think, the imaginative heart of the thing.”

Swallows and Amazons is at Bristol Old Vic (0117 9877 877) from Dec 1 to Jan 15. More4 will broadcast a documentary on the production on Saturday Dec 11 at 8pm

Read more Entertainment

Robert Fulford: Bad times, good ol' days and Dick Cavett's take on depression

It is, as they say in showbiz vernacular, an “entrance.”

It’s not just the silk sheath dress into which she’s almost managed to squeeze herself. Or the silver bracelets that jangle as she stalks through the door. Or the full makeup of one who knows she’s on display. Or the white Papillon dog -- name of “Stinky” -- trotting behind her. Or the common touches: the bowl of vegetable soup she’s busily eating, or the furry blanket spread over her knees.

There’s also the simple fact that Christina Aguilera exudes presence as soon as she walks into a room. This is what 30 million albums can do, not to mention five Grammy Awards and four No. 1 singles on the Billboard charts.

As she approaches her 30th birthday on Dec. 18, she exudes confidence and authority, despite the fact that her latest project -- the gaudy musical Burlesque -- takes her into the challenging new territory of acting, singing and dancing onscreen.

“I had so many bruises every day,” she says. She especially remembers reprising Marilyn Monroe’s old number, Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, before the cameras. “I was whipping that long strand of diamonds around.... I smacked my legs so many times in rehearsal before I got it right.”

Burlesque, which opens Wednesday, marked the first time in her life she really had to dance. The bits of footwork she’s done in live performance don’t really count.

“I’m vocals first, so I’m very much about my mike and working everything around my vocals, but here everything was pre-recorded, so I fully had to solely concentrate on the dancing.”

The bottom line? “Doing this movie was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Still, she isn’t one to complain. She’s just reporting on how it was. “I bruise easily. I looked like a car accident some days after rehearsal.”

On the positive side, she says she learned new skills, styles and techniques. “I felt very empowered.”

In brief, obstacles or challenges exist to be conquered. Call it empowerment or self-confidence or control of her own destiny, Aguilera seems to possess it in spades. It’s probably been that way since her childhood: In the small Pennsylvania town where she grew up, she was known as “the little girl with the big voice.”

She plays Ali, a small-town girl who heads for Los Angeles to fulfil her dream of a performing career. She talks herself into a job at the Burlesque Lounge, an ailing revue theatre presided over by Tess (Cher), a feisty veteran of the nightclub wars, and eventually becomes the lounge’s star entertainer -- and its ultimate saviour.

As she talks to reporters, Aguilera is constantly pushing back the blond curls that are tumbling over her face or else fiddling with her silver bracelet. Her dog has settled into the chair next to her and watches her attentively. But is this real nervousness? She’s too organized for that. In fact, she makes it pretty clear she was only prepared to do Burlesque on her terms.

“There have been a lot of attempts making movies like this that haven’t turned out so well, and I definitely had to think it over to do Burlesque,” she says. She looked at director Steve Antin’s script and decided early on that her character lacked drive: “She didn’t have enough Me.” Then she had a meeting with Sony Studio boss, Amy Pascal. “You know, I just don’t think she’s for me,” Aguilera told Pascal. “I want someone with more bite, more passion for what [she wants] in life.”

Pascal still wanted her, so the script was rewritten to serve the 29-year-old Aguilera’s clear-eyed vision of what she needed from her first film project. She needed empathy with Ali’s character.

She herself came to the project “wide-eyed and a newcomer and open and vulnerable to everyone’s opinions and ideas, and ready to learn” -- just like the character she was portraying. The humility isn’t phoney; neither is the underlying determination to succeed Cher, more than twice Aguilera’s age and a film and pop icon, proved a valuable mentor in all kinds of ways.

“We would talk about love and relationships a lot. She’s done everything before any of us. I mean, how could you not learn from Cher? Her work ethic, the way she commands attention when she walks into a room -- yet exudes such peaceful tranquillity and love for everyone. She just makes you feel warm and welcome -- more inspired to do a better job because you want to step up to the plate.”

There was also the issue of her director, Antin, who had never before directed a feature film.

“I had a few reservations about that, as I’m sure everyone had a few reservations about me acting in my first film. But I went to the office of Steve Antin and looked at his boards that were strewn all over his wall.

“They were referencing cabaret and beautiful women, and you could tell that this man appreciated a woman’s beauty and body, the way it moved, the way he wanted it to be lit, the way he wanted it to be shot.

“There are many ways you can conceive or interpret burlesque, and I wanted to make sure he had the right idea. He appreciated the art form so much that I knew it would be a perfect fit, him and I. And we hit it off like we’d known each other for years. I knew it was going to be done in an elegant and beautiful way.”

Read more Entertainment

Fair dinkum jungle verdicts

THE Sun's Billabong Blogger Leigh Holmwood gives his verdict on I'm A Celeb contestants.

Read more Entertainment

'The Big Bang Theory': Eliza Dushku's visit and more (photos, video)

Thursday night's new episode of "The Big Bang Theory" is looking to be an especially funny one -- why? Eliza Dushku (most notably of "Dollhouse" fame) is stopping by for a visit, and it is giving all of your beloved geeks a chance to battle it out testosterone-style. (Well, all of them except Sheldon.)

Dushku's character is an FBI agent trying to seek approval for Howard to work on a project, but she first needs to interview all of his friends to make sure he is suitable. The problem? Just look at the preview to the left and see for yourself.

Dushku also had this to say to TV Guide about the experience -- and her Wikipedia research beforehand:

"I am a fan, but I have to be honest. I Wikipedia-ed each of their characters to see things that have been revealed and things that might be in their file so I would get lines that I wouldn't have made the connection to because I haven't watched every single episode. When they said little things, I could raise an eyebrow or have a light bulb go off. Wikipedia has such an intense rundown on all the characters and all the actors. I mean, I really felt like I could go in as an FBI agent who had all my information on them."

You can also check out some photos from the episode to the left.

More "Big Bang Theory" news

Want more TV news? Check me out on Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter. To receive email updates, be sure to subscribe. Also, check out my new commercial for Examiner at this link.

Read more Entertainment

Supes override meal-toy veto

The restrictions, vigorously opposed by McDonald's, the California Restaurant Association and other representatives of the fast-food industry, are set to take effect in December 2011.

The new law, modeled after a Santa Clara County ordinance adopted earlier this year, aims to combat childhood obesity and hold "the fast-food industry accountable to creating healthier choices for our kids," said Supervisor Eric Mar.

The board voted 8-3 to override Newsom's veto, the bare minimum needed. Joining Mar were Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, David Chiu, Chris Daly, Bevan Dufty, Sophie Maxwell and Ross Mirkarimi. Opposed were Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd.

It was one of the few times during Newsom's seven years as mayor that his veto wasn't upheld.

In his veto message on the toy ban, Newsom said that although it is well intentioned, it goes too far. Parents, not the government, he said, should make the call on what their children eat.

- Rachel Gordon

So much for first: This might be hard a hard pill for San Francisco politicians to swallow, but San Mateo County was the first in the nation to collect and destroy residents' old drugs for free.

We told you about Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's proposal to require drug companies to pay for the disposal of their expired products. Mirkarimi's office has said it would be the first of its kind in the nation - the favorite phrase of many a San Francisco city official.

While Mirkarimi's requirement that drug companies pay for the program is unique, a very similar program has been chugging along for years in the suburbs of San Mateo.

When that county's Supervisor Adrienne Tissier lost her father to cancer in 2004, she was overwhelmed by his large number of prescription medications and wondered what to do with them. That led to the creation two years later of the county's Pharmaceutical Disposal Program.

Sixteen police stations and sheriff's offices around the county collect expired drugs. Under federal law, only law enforcement agencies can take back controlled substances.

We asked Tissier whether it's true that San Mateo County was the first in the nation to implement such a program, noting it's our politicians' claim to fame. "I don't need to brag about it," she said laughing.

The county pays for the expense of pickups, which have cost $60,000 over the past four years.

"The city is in no position to be paying for anything right now," Mirkarimi countered. "We're asking the pharmaceutical industry to help subsidize this, which they should."

He is working with the companies and hopes to have a compromise in place on or before Dec. 7.

But supervisor, is your hesitation really that San Mateo County beat you to it? Mirkarimi laughed, saying that doesn't matter to him.

- Heather Knight

Alert! It's cold: The Department of Emergency Management's Alert SF notification system is certainly worthwhile and has notified residents who sign up for the service of tsunami warnings, bomb scares, Bay Bridge closures, major BART shutdowns and the like.

But there were a few chuckles at City Hall Tuesday over the frantic-sounding alert entitled "Arctic Cold Blast." We couldn't help but imagine the voice-over for a horror movie trailer as we read the following:

"A new modified artic (sic) airmass originating over western Canada will reach the Bay Area this afternoon. This will be the coldest weather of the season so far and it will be arriving during a major holiday week. ... Chilly weather will linger through the end of the week."

To be fair, low temperatures can be a big problem for the city's homeless, and that appears to be the intent of the message because it highlights available shelter space. But we can only imagine non-Californians reading an emergency alert that "low temps will range in the lower 30s" in late November and sneering.

- Heather Knight

E-mail the City Insider team at cityinsider@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: News

Karzai government disputes Afghan election results

Over all, the results of the September election indicated that the 249-seat lower house of Parliament would be dominated by warlords and other power brokers. According to an analysis by the New York Times, Karzai will be able to count on the support of at least 100 members.

That has not been enough to satisfy the Karzai government or the many losers who saw significant numbers of votes thrown out - at least 25 percent of ballots - because of concerns about fraud. The losers have placed enormous pressure on election officials and Karzai to undo some results or even void the election.

The attorney general, Mohammed Ishaq Aloko, gave a sense of the stakes Wednesday when his office released a statement within hours of the announcement of the final results. It criticized the United Nations for endorsing the final results earlier in the day, calling it "premature" and "a huge tragedy for the Afghan nation and the current democratic government."

The statement said that criminal investigations the attorney general's office was considering into the election fraud should have been completed before results were released.

"Unfortunately, that didn't happen," it said. "Therefore this organization declares decisively that it will not confirm the results of the election and promises our countrymen that it will honestly continue to investigate these cases."

While it was unclear what the attorney general's position portended, since there is no legal way for the government to undo the results, it raised the possibility that the government might be willing to precipitate a constitutional crisis.

Earlier this week, Aloko threatened to charge two election officials - Noor Mohammed Noor, spokesman for the Independent Election Commission, and Ahmed Zia Rafat, a commissioner for the Electoral Complaints Commission - with defaming the nation.

In a statement Wednesday, the United Nations defended the results. While the balloting was marred, the process was fair enough and the Afghan election commissions that oversaw the vote had taken a "significant step" to improve democracy, it said.

The government's challenge may contain a measure of political posturing and be intended to influence a decision on the disputed outcome in one important province.

This article appeared on page A - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: News

The American, review

Dir: Anton Corbijn; starring: George Clooney, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli. Rating: * * *

The American is a European film. A very European film. Its Dutch director, Anton Corbijn, has at his disposal all the elements of a thoroughly modern action thriller: a good-looking hit man who’s never far from comely beauties, cloak-and-dagger machinations, scenes full of guns, blood-letting and chases. Yet what emerges is far from being a Bourne knock-off. If anything, it’s closer to Wim Wenders’s The American Friend (1977) or Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey (1999), both of which pay homage to – and meditatively deconstruct – noir crime fiction.

George Clooney plays Jack (or is it Edward?), an American assassin holidaying in Sweden with his girlfriend. Then he’s discovered by agents. He kills them, his girlfriend too, and flees to Italy. There, in a small village that is as pregnant with mystery as it is picturesque, he occupies himself with what may or may not be his last job: custom-building a high-velocity rifle for a glamorous client (Thekla Reuten). Who she is or what she wants it for: this is not our business to know. The same goes for those other men tailing Jack: we never find out why they’re doing so or who their paymaster is.

The American, adapted by Rowan Joffe from Martin Booth’s 1990 novel A Very Private Gentleman, is a film that prizes mood – more precisely, moodiness – over drama. Its director, who started out as a photographer, and whose pictures of Joshua Tree-era U2 and Depeche Mode fashioned grey, serious-faced mythologies of those bands, is excellent at framing his subjects.

Together with cinematographer Martin Ruhe, with whom he collaborated on the Ian Curtis-biopic Control (2007), he has crafted a good-looking and elegantly composed picture whose potency lies mostly in its generic restraint.

German musician Herbert Gronemeyer offers a delicate score, but the most important element of the sound design is silence: it’s a rich and multi-textured silence that encompasses brooding masculinity, existential loneliness, the snowscapes of Swedish winter. When it’s punctuated by dialogue, the spell is broken. A typically gauche speech comes from the local priest (Paolo Bonacelli), who complains to Jack: “You Americans. You think you can escape history. You live for the present.” Other scenes also veer towards being parodies of European arthouse cinema.

It seems unlikely that such a petite Italian village would house the bordello portrayed here, far less one staffed by quite so many lovelies, all of whom seem to enjoy their jobs very much. One of them is Clara (played by the fantastically named Violante Placido) who is given many opportunities to show off her curves, and who even has the pleasure of being pleasured by Jack. Soon she’s contemplating giving up prostitution, while he’s planning to retire from the game. It’s all a bit – what’s the word? – unlikely?

Clooney, while he never manages to wring as much depth from his character as we might like (there may not be any to wring), reprises the tetchy restlessness he drew on for Syriana (2005) and Michael Clayton (2007). “You have the hands of a craftsman, not an artist,” the priest tells Jack at one point. Clooney’s art in The American lies in his making the most out of very little. When it comes to thrillers, pensive pulchritude can be as beguiling as sweaty agitation.

The American: Seven Magazine review, by Jenny McCartney

Seven rating: *

A thriller in name only, Anton Corbijn’s The American is a film that seems so pleased to have bagged George Clooney as its star that, like a gawping autograph-hunter without a pen, it clean forgets to do anything with him. Clooney plays a hired assassin, a profession now so overcrowded, in film scripts at least, that I’d advise anyone thinking of entering it to seek an alternative.

At the start, Clooney’s character, Jack, does an extremely nasty thing: I won’t rob the potential viewer of a rare moment of surprise by revealing what it is. But thereafter, it is very hard to care about Jack and he makes it even more difficult by being such a crashing bore. Clooney is at his best in slick, fast-talking roles that suit his Thirties leading-man looks, but he’s not a good brooder.

Here, he hardly says anything and he has two expressions: pensive and irritable, the latter in the style of someone who has just been told that the promised osso bucco is in fact off the menu this evening. Since great swathes of time pass with the camera lovingly caressing Clooney’s every facial crevice, that’s not much of a payback.

Jack’s boss, a sour old guy with a face like an abandoned lesson in origami, sends him to a medieval Italian town to craft the perfect weapon for another assassin’s hit. Someone appears to be after Jack but we don’t know who: there’s talk of 'the Swedes’ but that could be a bunch of turnips stacked in a surly local’s backyard.

Jack spends a lot of time carefully amending guns and fining down bullets, which is great if you like to spend your weekends watching metalwork DVDs. His assassin colleague appears, with the look of a young Princess Anne, albeit with a wider range of hairstyles, and together they talk weapons.

Just so you remember that we’re in Italy, there’s also a garrulous priest and a brothel full of pouting extras from a Fellini film, one of whom, Clara (Violante Placido), Jack takes a shine to. The minutes pass so slowly that time loses all meaning: if someone had whispered that we had slipped into 2011, I might have believed them.

By the end, Jack remains a killer about whom we know little and care less, carrying out an unspecified task for an unexplained goal, of which he is clearly tiring. Perhaps depriving the plot of context was meant to pare the inaction to the bone, but The American – despite its lack of either feeling or dramatic tension – still boasts plenty of ham.

Read more Entertainment

One year after scandal, Woods tries to move on

The dark sedan backed into a spot next to the clubhouse at the Australian Masters, trunk open, waiting to whisk Tiger Woods to the airport. Lingering behind the car was a friend who was still wrestling with divided loyalties — to Woods and his former wife.

They approached each other, awkwardly at first, then shared a quick embrace and quiet words.

Woods believes he finally is ready to move on after a self-destructive year that cost him his marriage, his mystique, millions in endorsements and, lastly, his No. 1 ranking.

What remains are relationships to repair, along with his golf game.

Still to come is Thanksgiving.

"I think it's going to be great," Woods said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm going to be with my family. My mom is going to be there. We're going to have a great Thanksgiving. We've turned the corner, turned the page, and it's time to move forward."

He was not playing dumb.

Woods realizes the public might forever connect him and Thanksgiving with perhaps one of the most shocking downfalls in sports.

It started with the National Enquirer story of an affair with a nightclub hostess. Then came the still mysterious, middle-of-the-night accident Nov. 27 when he drove his SUV over a fire hydrant and crashed into a tree beyond his driveway. His wife tended to him in the street, the back windows of the Cadillac Escalade bashed out with a golf club.

On the 911 call was the chilling voice of his mother as she cried out, "What happened?"

One year later, that remains a relevant question.

No one really knew much about Woods except that he dominated golf like no one had before. Within weeks, everyone knew too much.

He was caught in a stunning web of infidelity, each indiscretion played out in public through voicemails, celebrity magazines, TV talk shows and even "sexting" on a porn star's website. He became a regular in the National Enquirer. He was on front pages everywhere, long after the major championship season was over.

Woods had spent 14 years carefully cultivating an impeccable image that brought him worldwide fame. Just like that, he went from being universally revered to roundly ridiculed.

"That's fine, totally fine," Woods said in Australia, leaning forward on a leather sofa, elbows resting on his knees. "I made my share of mistakes. People can look at that as what not to do, and if they choose to make fun of it, that's fine. I can't control that. All I know is that I can only control myself.

"And at that point in my life," he said, "I wasn't even able to do that."

___

At a gala dinner in the Crowns Tower, the same hotel where the nightclub hostess was spotted a year earlier, Woods shared the stage with Shane Warne, known as the Tiger Woods of Australian cricket, on and off the pitch.

Warne built his legend as a wicked leg spinner — and a prolific womanizer.

"I think we've got a little bit in common," Warne said with a smile, pausing for effect. "I love golf, too."

Woods flashed an easy smile, breaking the brief tension in the room, and the audience quickly burst into laughter. It was the first time Woods has laughed publicly about such an embarrassing episode in his life, perhaps a sign that he had indeed turned the corner.

On the golf course? Not quite.

With two eagles on the last four holes of the Australian Masters, he at least managed fourth place, as good as he did all year. For the first time in his career, Woods didn't win a single trophy. Instead, he shot the highest 36-hole score of his career when he missed the cut at Quail Hollow, and the highest 72-hole score of his career when he nearly finished last at Firestone.

In so many ways, it was a year no one could have predicted.

"Frenetic would be a word that comes to mind," said Mark Steinberg, his agent at IMG.

Read more: News

Classic Jaguar XJS

Gambit in The New Avengers swanked around in a Jaguar XJS, as did Simon Templar in The Return of The Saint.

When my parents divorced I was sent to boarding school, where the one concession to pleasure was allowing us boys to watch The Saint on Sunday evening following our long return to that joyless establishment.

How I envied the Saint his freedom: the series was based on Leslie Charteris's thrillers, whose covers carried such heroic slogans as "Simon Templar vs Europe's Most Ruthless Man!" Most of all I envied the Saint his car and once I grew up I bought not one but two.

The first, in Saint white, was a rust-bucket I offloaded, a little sheepishly, to a charming Frenchman; the second, a low-mileage minter in dark grey. It was a brilliant classic buy because no one else seemed to acknowledge it was a classic.

"Why drive that dodgy old Jag?" people asked. Only when folk started complimenting me on its cool, angular Seventies looks was it time to cash in and buy a newer Jaguar XK8.

As a rule Jaguar owners don't riot, but if they did there would have been cross words at the golf club with the XJS launch of 1975.

Why had "flying buttresses" replaced those sensual Jaguar curves? Why wasn't it a sports car? Why, in short, wasn't it the E-type it had the temerity to replace?

Thanks to the fuel crisis, early sales were slower than a Labrador after lunch. British Leyland had done its best to make an expensive car look cheap, and it wasn't until the massively improved HE engine of 1981 and the old girl's facelift a decade later that the XJS could be described as both brilliantly engineered and genuinely beautiful.

In V12 form performance was thunderous, but don't overlook the 3.6, which is surprisingly peppy. But to quote performance figures would miss the point.

As the Seventies closed, Britain had discovered talcum powder and considered it one of the seven wonders: the XJS seemed devilishly sophisticated.

Its role was to stand valiantly outside a nightclub while its owner (then always a man; it would take a further decade before women regularly got behind the wheel) swayed under a glitter ball in a flared suit to later Roxy Music and Chic.

If he was successful it was back in the XJS for a rummage on that waterbed; if not, it was home alone with a whisky, a cigar and more consoling Roxy.

There are two strikes against an XJS now. Firstly, its complicated electrics, which with age are prone to falter (mine had an intermittent starting problem that would inevitably wait until I was shrouded in darkness and remoteness to make itself known). Secondly, it is no longer cheap (Robert Hughes is asking £25,000 for late, pristine examples).

But the XJS is a pillar (or buttress) of our automotive heritage, as evocative of its era as the E-type was of its. Best of all, thanks to KWE you can have them remade and remodelled to your requirements. However, a word from experience: steer clear of the waterbed.

THE FACTS

Production: 1975–1996

Cost now: £10,000

Dress: White suit, halo

Music: Dance Away by Roxy Music

Telegraph rating: Three out of five

Looking for more information on a specific car? Order a brochure or test drive some of the latest cars.

Read more Entertainment

Transmissions from a Lone Star: God and germs are everywhere

I recently moved and one of the things that attracted me to my new address was the church at the end of the street. It’s a white, wooden structure, with a narrow spire: classic Americana, like something out of a movie. Best of all is the message board outside the entrance, which reads:

© Photo

Daniel Kalder

One out of every one will die.
Life is a terminal illness.
Where are you going?

Now some individuals might object to being confronted daily with this bleak message, but I was delighted. It’s good to be reminded of your mortality, even- or perhaps especially- when you’re running down the store to buy toilet paper.

Threatening church message boards are still commonplace in Texas. I like to take pictures of the more creative examples. One of my favorites, which I spotted en route to the Mexican border, had an almost haiku like quality, encouraging paranoid terror of the Creator via terse, understated humor:

God and germs are everywhere
Wash your hands and pray often.

I admire the elemental terror of these messages. There’s none of the mealy-mouthed equivocation of European churches, which these days prefer to disguise themselves as social work organizations.

Are these theological roadside warnings unique to America? I haven’t seen anything like them anywhere else. The closest analogy I can think of is social advertising, those crude instruments of social engineering, so beloved of statist governments everywhere. Like church signs, social advertising is not designed to sell a product but rather to reshape consciousness, or indeed, save souls. The USSR did nothing but social advertising, as the government hoped that by sticking up big signs featuring such inspiring messages as:

GLORY TO THE HERO-WORKERS OF THE ULYANOVSK BICYCLE FACTORY!

…it would inspire loyalty to the socialist cause, thus nudging the USSR ever so slightly closer to Communism.

When I came to Russia in early 1997, such comically wooden propaganda was a thing of the past, although old signs could still be seen rotting atop apartment buildings on Leningradskoye Schosse in Moscow, proclaiming the virtues of a dead system. Ten years later, however, social advertising made a tentative return, albeit in a much less utopian form, and targeted at alleviating serious social problems instead.

In particular I remember a billboard campaign urging Russians to adopt more children. While the principle was admirable, I doubted that a lack of encouragement from the government was the root cause of the crisis in the country’s orphanages. Rather I thought many Russians were reluctant to adopt due to low wages, already crowded living conditions, inefficient bureaucracy, and a general distrust for government institutions. For instance, could the orphanages be trusted to tell prospective adoptive parents the truth about a child’s behavioral problems?

A big poster on the street is unlikely to have any impact on a complex cluster of social issues like that. But that doesn’t stop governments around the world from hoping that if only they tell their citizens what to do, then the people will obey and much happiness will result.

A few years ago in Scotland we revived our national parliament after a three-century hiatus. The country’s new leaders immediately started blowing lots of cash on huge billboards proclaiming our cosmic superiority:  SCOTLAND: THE BEST (SMALL) COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. In spite of this apparent self-confidence however, Scottish men continued to enjoy the shortest life expectancy in Western Europe (I believe even the men of Belarus, who suffered the worst effects of Chernobyl and are governed by a baldy tyrant with a comedy-like moustache, live longer). 

The Scottish death spiral is brought on by too much drinking and smoking, too many drugs, casual violence and the unhealthiest diet in Europe. These habits in turn are inspired by a mixture of despair, boredom, poverty, dreary weather and an almost Dostoyevskian pleasure in self-annihilation- not to mention the fact that many of these vices are intensely pleasurable, at least in the short term. Nevertheless, the Scottish Parliament got straight to work paying for enormous billboards with giant pictures of fruit on them that were posted around the country. You know when you’ve been mango’d said one, echoing the slogan for a popular fizzy drink, thus insulting the intelligence of millions.

Naturally the campaign had no effect whatsoever. I suspect this is the case with most social advertising, although it does create the comforting illusion in the minds of the elected and unelected bureaucrats organizing it that they are doing something. Given that such expensive campaigns are completely useless, we might at least ask that they be beautiful; which is why I always opt for the terse, apocalyptic poetry of a Texas church message board over the bland nostrums of a socially conscious bureaucrat, however well-intentioned he or she may be.

Transmissions from a Lone Star: Whatever happened to the Fort Hood shooter?

Transmissions from a Lone Star: Post-election psychosis American style!

Transmissions from a Lone Star: Messiah Time - Apocalypse in Russian-American Politics

Transmissions from a Lone Star: Border Blues

*

What does the world look like to a man stranded deep in the heart of Texas? Each week, Austin- based author Daniel Kalder writes about America, Russia and beyond from his position as an outsider inside the woefully - and willfully - misunderstood state he calls “the third cultural and economic center of the USA.”

Daniel Kalder is a Scotsman who lived in Russia for a decade before moving to Texas in 2006.  He is the author of two books, Lost Cosmonaut (2006) and Strange Telescopes (2008), and writes for numerous publications including The Guardian, The Observer, The Times of London and The Spectator.

Read more: News

Are you ready for Black Friday bargains?

Chewing gum, rock 'n’ roll, Jonathan Franzen - and now “Black Friday”. Another American phenomenon it’s impossible to ignore, even if you are 6,000 miles this side of the Atlantic.

The day after Thanksgiving, American retailers kickstart their Christmas trading with a day of bumper bargains. So deep are the discounts and fervent the consumers that they are prepared to queue overnight. It got out of hand two years ago when an employee of Wal-Mart was crushed to death by the crowds.

In Britain, retailers keen to inject a bit of zip into a tricky year, are copying the craze - albeit less zealously. Apple, the most Scrooge-like of companies, relents for one day by offering some modest promotions. Pixmania, the electrical gadget retailer, B&Q, the DIY chain are also joining in, while in London this Saturday, Oxford Street and Regent Street will be closed to traffic, with many stores offering special discounts.

The company that has embraced the idea most whole-heartedly is Amazon, the country’s biggest online store, which has been running a series of “lightening sales” all week. If Susan Boyle really floats your boat, you had the chance to pick up her latest album for just £1. Nintendo Wii, the games console, was a mere £50. In all 300 items are being offered at rock-bottom prices, culminating in some of the best deals tomorrow, Britain’s first Black Friday.

But, in a canny piece of marketing, only a limited number of items are available, for a short period of time. The £1 Susan Boyle and Take That CDs went in seconds, prompting some angry customers to claim the promotion was a con. The company insists that “thousands” of customers benefited, and it will deliver “many millions of pounds of savings”.

To enjoy the discounts, customers need to log onto the home page of amazon.co.uk, and click on the Black Friday link. This will list all the discounts available on the day, with the time that they first go “live”. Customers will then have to be ready, finger poised over the computer mouse, set to click the second the bargain is released.

For those that can not stand the stress, we have also listed some of the best non-Amazon discounts, which are likely to be more widely available - and come without the high-blood pressure.

Battlestar Galactica Complete Series DVD

Normally £120

Likely to be £48 or less

At first glance, this drama looks like sci-fi pulp. But many consider it one of the finest TV dramas to come out of America in the last decade. This box-set features all four series, along with some extra features and commentary.

Talking Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger

Normally £39.99

Likely to be less than £20

Toy Story 3 is set to become the most popular film of 2010, and no surprise after Woody and Buzz’s triumphant return to our screens this year. Be warned - this is not the latest Jet Pack version of the toy, released a couple of months ago. But it’s a very similar talking Buzz.

Breil Ladies Diamond-set Swiss Watch

Normally £495

Likely to be £195 or less

Breil is an Italian company that specialises in high-performance sports watches, but elegant ones. They run on a quartz movement, come with leather straps, and the stainless steel case is water resistant to 100 metres.

Coronation Street 50th Anniversary Box Set

Normally £69.99

Likely to be £31.50 or less

Anyone who dismisses Corrie as a mere soap opera is a snob. Throughout its long run it has produced some of the finest and wittiest television drama. This is for die-hard fans, though. A full 12 discs, with interviews, classic episodes and many special features.

Flip Mino Camcorder, 4GB memory

Normally £170

Likely to be £67 or less

One of the best camcorders on the market, and certainly the simplest to use, the Flip has helped revolutionise family videos. Slips into a pocket, captures two hours of film and runs on - bliss - two AA batteries. The sound quality isn’t great and neither is the zoom, but for sheer ease, it’s a winner.

Calvin Klein Eternity Moment EDP Spray 100ml

Normally £56

Likely to be £22 or less

Calvin Klein produces some of the most popular perfumes while still retaining some edge. Its Eternity scent, first produced in 1988, has hints of pomegranate and warm rosewood. The 60 per cent discount is a significant saving.

Elvis Presley The Complete 1968 Comeback CD Box Set

Normally £25.97

Likely to be £10 or less

The greatest rock and roll star ever? Very possibly. More than thirty years after his death, he still has plenty of fans, many of whom were not even born when he was belting out 'Jailhouse Rock'. Box set contains four discs and 86 songs from when Elvis was at his peak, including a rehearsal version of 'Heartbreak Hotel'.

Xbox 360 console

Normally £145

Likely to be less than £58

The product that helped Microsoft become cool again. Probably the best games console on the market, especially if you splash out the extra £120 to buy the Kinect box and software, the revolutionary technology that will allow you to play games without a joystick and just by moving your body.

Deals from other retailers

Apple, available both in-store and online.

Details of discounts have yet to be released but will not be generous, 15 per cent at most. Last year the iPod range was reduced by between £5 and £11. Don’t expect the latest must-have products, the iPad or the ultra-thin MacBook Air, to be on promotion. However, Quidco, a voucher website, has a deal with Apple whereby shoppers receive a further 5 per cent discount if they buy via Quidco’s site.

Pixmania

Part of the Dixons and Currys empire, this online electrical gadget store is offering substantial discounts on some digital cameras, televisions and camcorders. A Samsung WB600 digital camera has been cut from £250 to £146.

B&Q

Not exactly a romantic Christmas present, but if you are looking to re-do your bathroom before the in-laws come to stay, B&Q is cutting prices on some kitchens and bathrooms this weekend. For instance, a Cooke & Lewis bathroom suite, previously £1,170, will be £585.

London’s West End

To coincide with Oxford Street and Regent Street closing to traffic this coming Saturday, many stores are offering discounts, including Mamas and Papas, the fashionable baby equipment and clothing company, with 10 per cent being knocked off all purchases and 20 per cent of all clothing.

Read more Entertainment

Armenia denies visit by U.S. FBI officers

The Armenian Prosecutor General's Office has denied that U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations officers visited the country to investigate a case on an Armenian criminal gang located in the United States.

An organized group of some 40 members of Armenian descent were arrested in New York in October on suspicion of stealing information on thousands of the U.S. doctors and patients in order to siphon off millions of dollars from social medical organizations.

According to preliminary information, the suspects embezzled approximately $162 million.

Citing its own sources, Yerevan's Jamanak newspaper reported on November 9, that eight FBI officials under an agreement with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan had arrived in Armenia to collect information from the State Revenue Committee, State Committee of the Real Estate Cadastre, as well as several Armenian banks focusing on Armenian-Cyprus money transfers.

"The Armenian side did not receive from the United States, and particularly from the FBI, any request for aid in an investigation," a Prosecutor General's Office spokeswoman, Sona Truzyan, said, adding that the material printed in Jamanak was pure fiction.

YEREVAN, November 26 (RIA Novosti) 

Read more: News

Denzel Washington's road to stardom

Denzel Washington's route to film stardom was an unusual one - taking in a degree in journalism.

The star of the new action thriller Unstoppable was born in Mount Vernon, near New York, in 1954.

His father was a Pentecostal minister; his mother, a beautician and gospel singer. While Denzel is, to this day, a profoundly Christian - and profoundly attractive - man, voted among the sexiest stars in history on more than one occasion, the familial similarities seemingly stop there.

Certainly acting was not Washington's first career choice. As a child he considered becoming a doctor, but changed his mind in preference for a career in journalism. He read for a Journalism BA at Fordham University, but having performed in a number of student productions, he soon became convinced that acting was the path to pursue.

With this in mind he moved post haste to San Francisco, where he enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater. Feeling increasingly unsettled, he left the academy after just a year, itching to find work on screen.

By the age of 27 he had already landed his first major film role in Carbon Copy, playing a black teenage boy who longs to be adopted into a white family.

Thence followed, in 1982, his role as Dr. Chandler in the NBC medical TV drama St. Elsewhere. Washington continued this role for an impressive six years, before embarking upon further film work. It was for one of these early performances, his part as a runaway slave in Edward Zwick's film Glory (1989), that Washington won his first Oscar, aged just 35.

In 1992 Washington played Malcolm X in the eponymous biopic of the Black Power proponent, a role which Washington counts among his favourite to date. Washington indeed named one of his four children Malcolm in his honour.

The Black Power movement had established itself as an alternative to Martin Luther King's 'peaceful protest'-led movement, determined to secure improved rights for black citizens in twentieth-century America. Washington was yet once to say, "I'm very proud to be black, but black is not all I am.

That's my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it's not all of who I am, nor is it the basis from which I answer every question."

His role as Malcolm X was followed by a run of big budget blockbusters, including The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993), and Courage Under Fire (1996).

The mid-nineties also marked Washington's first collaboration with director Tony Scott, Crimson Tide (1995). This was to be the first of five such collaborations to date, Man on Fire, Deja Vu, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and Unstoppable being the subsequent titles.

In 2001 Washington won his second Oscar for his role as Detective Alonzo Harris in the high-occtane cop-film Training Day.

In addition to his performances in a score of blockbuster action thrillers, Washington has proved his versatility with roles across a broad range of films, including Walt Disney's Remember the Titans (2000) and Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing, in which he played Don Pedro, the Prince of Aragon.

He made his debut as a director in 2002 with the film Antwone Fisher, which follows a navy officer's journey to mental recovery.

Denzel Washington lives in an LA mansion once owned by William Holden with his wife Pauletta, whom he met on the set of the 1977 TV movie Wilma, in which they both starred, and their children John David, Kaita, and twins Malcolm and Olivia.

Read more Entertainment

Russian commission approves new ISS crew

A Russian governmental commission has approved the main and back-up crews for a new expedition to the International Space Station (ISS).

The flight will take off from the Baikanur Space Center in Kazakhstan on December 15 and the ship will dock with the ISS on December 17.

The main crew includes Russian Cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratev, NASA Astronaut Catherine Coleman and European Space Agency Astronaut Paolo Nespoli.

The back-up crew comprises Russian Cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, NASA Astronaut Michael Fossum and Japan's Satoshi Furukawa.

The new crew is expected to stay at the ISS for 152 days.

A Soyuz-TMA-19 spacecraft carrying three astronauts from the ISS landed in north Kazakhstan on Friday morning.

ZVEZDNY GORODOK, November 26 (RIA Novosti) 

Read more: News

Stubborn survivors are tough but tender

Bison farmers are, without question, completely mad. As Roger Clutterbuck steps from the Land Rover to check his herd of North American bison at Hornby Park, North Yorkshire, he grips my arm.

“Stay at the wheel, leave the engine running and the back door open,” he hisses. “A bison does 0-45mph in six seconds and turns on a sixpence. Even if you hide behind a tree, it’ll have you.”

Exactly a year ago, the 55-year-old farmer slaughtered the first bison on his farm. Two more will be culled this month and as many as 10 next autumn, with all the meat sold from the farm gate.

“It’s one of the more unusual diversifications but it works well because we farm deer here, which demand a similar infrastructure. We’ve plenty of grass parkland and the high fences for the deer are similar to those we need for bison,” he says.

But given they are tricky to handle, why does he want to farm them? “I just like the look of them,” says Clutterbuck. “Yes, we’re selling the meat but they’re as much an eye-catching addition to the look of the park as anything else.” And the sums do add up. “The return on a 500lb dead-weight carcase is around £3,000, compared to £1,800 for domestic cattle, and we’ll sell it all. We’ll also turn hides into a rug worth another £1,000,” he says.

At 55, Clutterbuck is light on his feet, but you can’t help thinking that running spikes rather than wellies might be more appropriate footwear. Galvanised by potential peril, he rapidly checks that all is well with seven chestnut-coloured calves born two weeks ago, then retreats, keeping a wary eye on the only bull.

He is some bull. Only five years old, he weighs a ton and has short black horns, tapering abruptly to a sharp point as they curve upwards and outwards. And his name? Clutterbuck shrugs: “We call him That Big Bugger – he’s a funny bull.”

Bison farming is not for the windy. “There are two farmers in Britain who have given up on bison after narrow escapes. You soon realise that a bison’s brain is wired completely differently from that of a domestic cow,” Clutterbuck says.

Given recent stories of a British bull attacking and killing a man who was out walking, this is saying something.

Clutterbuck started five years ago with 12 bison. When they arrived, it took two hours to persuade them down the ramp of the sturdy wagon. Handling causes them a lot of stress so they are cornered only once a year for TB testing, and to ear-tagg calves. “You have to work with them or you lose every time. If something doesn’t go according to plan you don’t force it,” he says.

Hornby Park is a 650-acre farm, much of it parkland that has changed little from its 1770s layout, which has been attributed to “Capability” Brown. So when new EU farm grants were introduced five years ago and Clutterbuck decided to switch from commodities to niche markets, he knew the historic landscape was his strength.

“When I removed some rotten post-and-rails I glimpsed what it looked like originally when it was more open. It was lovely. I decided I’d return another 250 acres from corn to grass, and have a go at deer and bison,” he says. Having re-fenced the area where the bison would roam with 6ft-high stock netting, he was granted a Dangerous Wild Animals licence. “You have to satisfy the local authority that they won’t escape and go on the rampage,” Clutterbuck says.

He then went to see Colin Seaford, a Wiltshire farmer who founded the British Bison Association 17 years ago. He told him, ''There’s one tool essential to bison farming, a kettle. You’ll decide you want to do something but you’ll soon be inside making tea, because you can’t do much with bison.”

The bison live out all year round, running happily with his 280 red deer hinds. Given neither medication nor high-protein feeds, they are the greenest of beasts and, compared to other bovines, emit scarcely any methane.

The meat tastes terrific: “It’s high in protein yet low in fat, calories and cholesterol. It has a uniquely rich flavour and, unlike most red meats, doesn’t shrink when you cook it,” says Julia, Clutterbuck’s wife.

While the couple and their herdsman enjoy the challenges that bison present, they see them as a sideshow to the red deer. “Because of the complexities of handling them, I don’t think I’ll ever run any more than 20 of them,” Clutterbuck admits.

But he is certain that these celebrated animals attract people, and he and his wife are already thinking of the spin-offs on the great plains of Hornby. “If this doesn’t sound too mad, I think a tepee or two with the bison about – albeit on the other side of a fence – would make a great farm-stay experience,” he says.

For more information

British Bison Association 01747 830263; www.bisonfarm.co.uk

Other exotic diversifications:

Ostriches: www.ostrich.org.uk

Llamas: www.llama.co.uk

Alpacas: www.bas-uk.com

Read more Entertainment

Kamala Harris: attorney general race's long wait

Harris trailed in early returns Tuesday but steadily narrowed the gap as the night progressed. By early Wednesday, she had overtaken her Republican challenger, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley - but just barely.

With all of the state's precincts reporting semi-official results Wednesday afternoon, the San Francisco prosecutor led by only 14,800 votes - about 0.2 percent - in a race where more than 7 million ballots were cast.

The secretary of state's office does not know exactly how many votes still need to be tallied, but spokeswoman Shannan Velayas estimated that there are tens of thousands of uncounted damaged, provisional and absentee ballots at county registrars' offices.

Velayas said counties have 28 days to complete their counts before the results are handed over to the secretary of state, who has until Dec. 10 to certify final results.

Harris confident

Harris campaign officials said they are confident that the two-term top prosecutor will ultimately prevail because the uncounted ballots will bolster her lead.

"We are very optimistic," said Harris campaign spokesman Brian Brokaw. "We always believed that any results on election night that showed us within an incredibly close margin would lead us to victory, because of all of the outstanding ballots that have yet to be counted. We believe they will be very reflective of the election day vote."

Cooley's campaign - which had declared victory Tuesday night - on Wednesday wasn't willing to bet on the outcome, however.

"The bottom line is that it will be very close," said spokesman Kevin Spillane "There are still over 1 million provisional and absentee ballots to be counted. We will likely know the result in a couple weeks, but it could go" until December.

Surprisingly close

The closeness of the race came as somewhat of a surprise, despite recent polls showing a virtual dead heat between two prosecutors who were largely unknown to voters outside their respective regions before the campaign began.

Cooley, a moderate Republican who has been elected three times in the Democratic stronghold of Los Angeles County, was considered the favorite. He ran on a traditional law-and-order platform, while Harris focused on less typical issues including shrinking the state's recidivism rate and tackling school truancy.

But polls had shown his lead shrinking in the final weeks of the campaign as Harris increased her attacks on Cooley's record and Democrats pulled ahead in all of the other statewide races.

Top Republican

Allan Hoffenblum, a former GOP consultant, noted that even if Cooley ends up losing, he will still be the top Republican vote-getter in all of the statewide races. Cooley, Hoffenblum said, "could still pull it out."

"The top of the ticket lost by 13 points," he said, referring to GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. "It's very different running as a Republican - he ran for D.A. as a nonpartisan - he didn't have to put Republican under his name. The brand hurt him."

Harris, on the other hand, was dogged on the campaign trail by her liberal background, particularly her opposition to the death penalty. Cooley and his supporters hit her hard in recent weeks with attack ads in Democratic Los Angeles County, including a last-minute, $1 million-plus ad buy by a national Republican group. Harris, however, began running ads early, both to introduce herself to voters and critique Cooley's record; she also spent much of her time in recent months campaigning and raising money in Los Angeles, a strategy that paid off.

Harris ultimately gained a foothold there, and overwhelmingly won the voter-rich county by more than 14 percentage points.

E-mail Marisa Lagos at mlagos@sfchronicle.com.

For more election-related news and information, visit our California Elections 2010 page.

This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: News

Horoscope, November 27 to December 3: Catherine Tennant looks at the week ahead

Sagittarius Nov 23-Dec 21 A piece of news may give you extra insight into what is happening in a tricky situation. Trust your intuition and refuse to let yourself be thrown off balance by a loved one’s attitude towards you. You can sidestep problems if you take the line of least resistance and relax. Financial worries also fade from Thursday. Starline 0906 8 951 456

Capricorn Dec 22-Jan 20 You can avoid unnecessary problems by standing back and letting others feel that they are in control this week. If you are prepared to listen to their point of view, you may also find out something that will make you see your situation in a very different light. Accept an invitation later in the week. Someone may have more to offer than you think.
Starline 0906 8 951 457

Aquarius Jan 21-Feb 19 New friends may inspire you to branch out and take a more adventurous approach to life this week. With so much action in the area of your skies that rules your friendships, new horizons beckon, but do not let your social life put too much strain on your finances. A relationship you thought was over may preoccupy you later in the week. Starline 0906 8 951 458

Pisces Feb 20-Mar 20 Whether you should focus on career success or on a relationship with someone close may be a hard decision now. This weekend's link between your ruler, Neptune, and quick-witted Mercury stresses the importance of being single-minded and determined. Your dedication will pay off, and in an unexpected way. Starline 0906 8 951 459

Aries Mar 21-April 20 You are nearer to a certain goal than you imagine, so carry on along your chosen course a short while longer. If you change direction now, you may miss a chance to transform a tricky situation. You may also find that someone close is now prepared to see life from your angle. All you need to do is let them make the opening move. Starline 0906 8 951 448

Taurus April 21-May 21 Doubts about the future of a close relationship or friendship may not have made it easy for you to relax and be yourself with someone close. With your ruler, Venus, travelling through the area of your skies that rules your love life, a more outgoing, optimistic phase is beginning. Do not look for problems where there are none. Starline 0906 8 951 449

Gemini May 22-June 21 You may be tempted to make snap career decisions early in the week, or let loved ones tell you how to live your life. Slow down and wait until you see your way ahead more clearly. With your ruler, Mercury, in pragmatic Capricorn from Thursday, you can gain a new advantage. Starline 0906 8 951 450

Cancer June 22-July 23 If you set your sights too high, or try to plan too far ahead, you may miss a chance to bring about an unexpected breakthrough in the here and now this week. If you concentrate on what you can achieve, short term, the rest will follow. Changes for the better in a close friendship are also due from Thursday. Starline 0906 8 951 451

Leo July 24-Aug 23 With adventurous, fiery Mars travelling through the area of your skies that rules adventure and romance, existing ties may seem restrictive this weekend. Do not give in to pressure to fit in with someone's plans. They will start to see life from your angle if you stand your ground, so make it clear that you intend to do things your way. Starline 0906 8 951 452

Virgo Aug 24-Sep 23 Your ruler, Mercury, moves into Capricorn this week and a new era dawns. The emphasis is now on being creative, and on expressing your real feelings, so do not let domestic ties limit your horizons, or let others tell you how to live your life. Romantic Venus helps you forge a deeper bond with someone later in the week. Starline 0906 8 951 453

Libra Sep 24-Oct 23 Much as you may like to win somebody over and make them see a project's full potential, you will create unnecessary problems if you try to go too far too fast this week. A casual conversation later in the week may well be all it takes to overcome their doubts. Set the scene, relax and let events unfold. Starline 0906 8 951 454

Scorpio Oct 24-Nov 22 What you can achieve, short term, is the most important thing this week, so do not waste your energy and time on building castles in the air, or listen to advice from friends, however plausible it seems. With energetic Mars in charge of your finances, you can make real and lasting progress in the here and now. Starline 0906 8 951 455

Read more Entertainment

Morgan Freeman disputes North Carolina Republican candidate claim of endorsement

Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman expressed his anger over the claims of a Republican candidate that the actor rendered his voice for a campaign video of the candidate.

"These people are lying. I have never recorded any campaign ads for B.J. Lawson and I do not support his candidacy. And no one who represents me ever has ever authorized the use of my name, voice or any other likeness," said Freeman, as quoted by Ben Smith of Politico.

Morgan Freeman was reacting to claims by North Carolina Republican candidate B.J. Lawson and his campaign manager that the actor voiced over a campaign video now available on YouTube. Despite Freeman's denial, the camp of B.J. Lawson was insistent on their claims, further saying that they have a contract saying that the voice in the video is Freeman's.

However, B.J. Lawson's campaign also said they are pulling out the campaign if Freeman says it's not him.

Lawson's opponent for the congressional seat, the incumbent Democratic candidate David Price castigated B.J. Lawson over his claims of Morgan Freeman's voice over, saying: "Lawson has lied to his supporters and to the community he wants to represent."

In a statement, Price called  B.J. Lawson's claims as "an unfortunate and desperate attempt to fool voters in the last hours of a campaign."

"By using Mr. Freeman's good name, BJ Lawson has ruined his own, and he should be ashamed. Now the voters will decide whom they trust."

Watch the video for yourself to determine if it was really Morgan Freeman narrating the video:

 

 

 

Read more: News

How the other half lives: Bryony Gordon has a pleasant dream

I have worked out the cause of my weird pregnancy dreams. Drugs! I am off to Kenya soon, and have been taking anti-malarials that my nurse warned me might make me 'a bit deranged’. Brilliant, I thought, as I left the surgery. As if I need any more help with that. Anyway, the dreams keep getting trippier and trippier, and the other morning my sister told me I had been shouting so loudly in my sleep that she had heard through the wall.

When she told me this I realised I have no idea if I sleep-talk or snore, because it has been so long since I shared a bed with someone (the Socialist doesn’t count, because I was always so nervous of snoring and aware of the body next to me that I rarely slept anyway). But I don’t want to dwell on that, because I am so excited about my holiday.

I am going to the coast for a week, with old friends, and then on safari. I decide I must pack sensibly. But, without resorting to crass gender generalisations, I can’t. When it comes to packing, I wish I were a man (packing, and sex, and being able to wee standing up). I would select only what was needed, and I would fit two weeks’ worth of clothes into a tiny bag that I could carry on to the long-haul flight.

Instead, I find myself staring at a living-room full of clothes and a suitcase that has been packed, unpacked and repacked several times over. It is midnight. I have to be at the airport at 8am.

I try to apply logic to the packing. Do I really need to bring five pairs of shoes, including some thigh-high boots? (Come to think of it, do they even allow thigh-high boots in Kenya?)

The bright-pink Biba sun-hat has great charm, but if I wear it on safari, will I just be eaten by a lion, having unnecessarily attracted attention to myself? (And you can just imagine how much I hate attracting attention to myself.) And is the huge jar of Origins salt scrub really suitable to take on a nine-hour flight? I suspect not.

I close the case and flop into bed. Tonight I have nice dreams, fun dreams, dreams of not being in London for two whole weeks. Bliss.

Read more Entertainment

Will.i.am's rubber dub with Cheryl Cole

WILL.I.AM isn't silly. The BLACK EYED PEAS singer dressed CHERYL COLE top-to-toe in rubber for the video to his latest song Check It Out.

The pair are bound to score a hit with it and it will help Chez crack America, so everyone's a winner.

Apart from her "friend" DEREK HOUGH - I bet he's not too chuffed.

Read more Entertainment

Rihanna on fashion, rock and politics

POP superstars don't have a great reputation as caring, genuine or considerate.

But chart-topping Barbadian icon Rihanna bucks that trend.

In one of the busiest weeks of the stunning 22-year-old's career, she made an incredibly sensitive gesture few of her contemporaries would have bothered with.

The singer made a gruelling 48-hour, 8,000-mile round trip - flying from London to her home country of Barbados - to pay her respects at the funeral of the island's Prime Minister David Thompson.

She had no shortage of excuses to duck out, but she chose to be there for a man she admired and respected.

Tears ... Rihanna at funeral of Barbadian PM David Thompson

Islandpaps / Splash News

In an exclusive interview with The Sun, she said: "He was a really dear friend of mine. It just sucks he didn't have enough time to really show Barbados what he was made of and all that he could have done.

"Just to be with his family, his friends, people that love him... it felt like it was the worst person it could happen to. He was a great man, great for the country.

"He was great to everyone that he knew, there's not one person that hates or hated this man. He is irreplaceable."

Thompson, who only took office in January 2008, died after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer aged just 48. Rihanna was pictured at the funeral on Wednesday wiping away tears.

She added: "It was very upsetting. I'm not good at the politics side at the moment. It terrifies me because I am so young.

"But maybe one day in years, decades from now, I'll get involved. I think more pop stars should care about their country and how it's run."

Flower power ... singer on stage after her X Factor performance

Ken McKay

Most pop stars would have found an excuse to avoid a long-haul trip as tough as Rihanna's, especially when you consider her hectic schedule last week.

She performed with Bon Jovi, turned on the Christmas lights at London's Westfield Shopping Centre, appeared on The X Factor and starred at the MTV Europe Music Awards.

But the hard-grafting singer made light of it. She said: "I'm a little tired. I think you just have to deal with it.

"You can't fight jet lag. You can't put off work for three days until you get on time. Let's face it, it's a brilliant job and I love it. There are harder jobs in the world."

Another career she is considering in the future is fashion. She's no Lady GaGa, but Rihanna, real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty, has a distinct sense of style.

She said: "The UK is somewhere I definitely enjoy spending my time. I would love to come here and live for months at a time, making music.

"I really get creative here, there is a crazy energy that inspires me a lot, whether it's music, or fashion.

"I see Kate Moss and just think about her style. It's completely effortless with her and so true to who she is.

"It's always spontaneous, it's never thought out, or put together, it's just there and her hair is always messy.

"She doesn't care who is looking, or if there are paparazzi, and it works. She's a f****** rock star, bad ass. She's the s***.

"I love Victoria Beckham's line too, it's so feminine and chic. Really sexy, really, really tailored. That's what she is, she's put a lot of effort into it."

Over the last week Rihanna struck up a strong friendship with X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. They had met before but only swapped numbers on the show last week after Rihanna performed her new single Only Girl (In The World) which went to No1 yesterday.

She said: "It was crazy, we have a mutual friend, so he was in my dressing room at The X Factor and I said I would love to do a song with Cheryl Cole. He told me she just said exactly that next door, so I said to give her my number. He went to her dressing room and now we're going to start talking about that.

Lady in red ... Rihanna oozes glamour on Only Girl single cover

"It seems like it's something my fans really want, and also something that's so not typical for me to do, work with another person who's in the same genre as me, so I think it'll be amazing.

"Cheryl Cole is the s***, not only that she's f****** hot. It really put into perspective how well my new song is taking off because Cheryl Cole is 'it', she is The X Factor. Everybody wants to be on that level."

It's not just Cheryl Cole she admires here. She spends any precious time she has in her hotel room, tuned into British music.

Pals ... Bizarre Editor Gordon Smart with Rihanna

DAVE HOGAN

Rihanna added: "I have always wanted to work with Depeche Mode but there are a lot of newer artists coming out here that I really appreciate, like Ellie Goulding. Her voice is unbelievable. Even if she just writes for me, I want to work with her somehow. I appreciate her art, she's one of a kind, nobody does what she does.

"When I'm here I just put the music channels on all day long so I can see what's happening, what I like. That's how I found out about Amy Winehouse before she came to America. And La Roux, I love her."

Rihanna might only be 22, but her fifth album, Loud, is shaping up to be another No1. In the UK alone she has sold more than two million copies of her last two releases Rated R and Good Girl Gone Bad.

She collaborated with Eminem on a song from the new album and was tough enough to stand up to him when their opinions clashed on the final mix.

She has just started enjoying the money that is flooding in, investing a huge slice in a mansion in LA. She has spent a fortune decorating the house with gun-shaped chandeliers, a giant, custom-made sofa and her very own Bob Marley shrine.

"The Bob Marley room is my loungey room, so there's incense burning, there's a painting on the wall of Bob Marley in black and white, which I love.

"The rest of the room goes from green into yellow into red. Then there's a little bar with the old school wood that's usually used in Jamaican houses.

Read more Entertainment