Silly News Items Not Covered In The Shoutbox That Don't Warrant Individual Threads

It was July 1982 and Steven Spielberg had just become considerably richer. His charming alien fantasy ‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial’, which saw Henry Thomas play a little boy who befriends an excrement-shaped alien, was on its way to overtaking ‘Star Wars’ as the highest-grossing film of all time.

With studio Universal’s coffers quickly filling, Spielberg and ‘E.T.’ writer Melissa Mathison quickly began work on a nine-page story treatment for a sequel called ‘E.T. 2: Nocturnal Fears’. Thankfully it was never made.

The treatment, which can be found online and has been reviewed by several bloggers, featured child torture, evil albino aliens and almost nothing of the cute alien from the first film.

It opened once again with a UFO landing in a forest. But it’s not E.T. in there; it’s a bunch of albino mutant versions, led by an alien called Korel. They are there to investigate the distress beacon sent by ‘E.T.’ – whose real name is revealed as ‘Zrek’.

Apparently the story then switched to the kids, Elliott, Michael and Gertie. They miss their alien chum and when Elliott gets a feeling E.T. has returned they all head out to the forest to investigate.

Things then become really dark. The kids are captured, and Korel tortures Elliott for information about E.T. (sorry, ‘Zrek’). Apparently Elliott’s screams of pain echo through the forest.

Eventually Elliott’s mum, who has now shacked up with the scientist from the first film, finds E.T.’s radio and summons him to help out the kids. He returns and duly does just that, before re-programming Korel’s ship to fly to a ‘remote corner of the galaxy’, and heads off back into outer space himself.

Sci-fi boffins reckon the story, which would’ve doubtless been altered if it had ever gone into production, was based on another much darker alien idea Spielberg had called ‘Night Skies’. Developed after ‘Close Encounters’, it saw a family home menaced by extra-terrestrial nasties. The director ended up using some of the material in ‘Poltergeist’, which he produced.

Thankfully, Spielberg quickly decided a sequel to one of the most beloved sci-fi films of all time might be a bad move, saying (somewhat creepily): “it would do nothing but rob the original of its virginity’.

He’d already seen the legacy of his other big hit, ‘Jaws’, tarnished by increasingly awful sequels, though series nadir ‘Jaws 4: The Revenge’ hadn’t yet been released. Indeed it only adds to ‘E.T.’s considerable charms that this beautiful film never became a long-running and cynical franchise.

‘Jurassic Park 4’ took one step closer to becoming a reality on Thursday morning with ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ duo Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver signed up to pen the script.

Steven Spielberg, who directed the classic original and its sequel in the 90s, announced last summer that plans were afoot and was discussing ideas with Mark Protosevich, the writer behind 2007’s ‘I Am Legend’.

Thursday’s reports make the much-delayed project seem that bit more tangible, though we’re still waiting on news of a director and the cast.

Whatever direction Jaffa and Silver take the franchise though, it can’t be as barmy as the ‘Jurassic Park 4’ script written by ‘The Departed’ screenwriter William Monahan back in 2007. Simply put, it would have been the maddest Hollywood movie ever made.

Steven Spielberg himself came up with the initial story, which he apparently referred to as "the mother of all ideas".

According to AICN’s review of the script it begins with a pterosaur attack on a baseball game and soon finds its soldier of fortune lead character on the original film’s island Isla Nublar, searching for the shaving cream can Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) used to try and steal away DNA samples for a rival company in the first film.

It then takes a turn for the worse as Nick is captured by the company which took over Jurassic Park. He then wakes up in a medieval castle in the Alps, imprisoned by the corporation who are genetically engineering their own dinosaurs... to use as soldiers.

They are described as like a ‘miniature T-Rex’, with modified fore-arms, dextrous fingers, dog DNA for extra obedience but human DNA so they can solve problems. Yes, this was really in the script.

Nick is tasked with training the dinosaurs, who he names Achilles, Hector, Perseus, Orestes and Spartacus (after warriors from Ancient Greek myth and classical Rome) and taking them on missions involving them killing drug dealers. The review didn’t go into much detail for the final third of the story, but hinted at “set pieces that are much, much bigger than anything we’ve seen in the other films, and much crazier.”

This version never saw the light of day. Perhaps it would’ve been too expensive. Perhaps Universal saw sense and decided it was just too bonkers. Whatever the reason, plans to revive the franchise stalled in 2007 and stopped completely after original author Michael Crichton sadly passed away the following year.

A series as lucrative as ‘Jurassic Park’ was never likely to stay dead forever though, and the latest incarnation of the sequel probably won’t follow the same militarised dinosaur path. Jaffa and Silver helped make a movie about a monkey taking over the world seem fairly realistic, and we expect their ‘Jurassic Park 4’ to be a bit more grounded.

Our idea? We’d like to see it set in a new dino theme park, this time in full swing and open to the public before the dinosaurs naturally escape. When the army are called in to save the day they draft a knowledgeable scientist like Ian Malcolm or Alan Grant to head up a group of marine types tasked with saving the day. Think ‘Aliens’... but with dinosaurs. Hollywood, that one’s on us.

Dr Helen Wright, headmistress of St Mary’s Calne, a girls boarding school in Wiltshire, will tell an education conference this week that the US reality TV star is part of a culture which sexualises women at an early age.

This culture, which is rife on TV, the internet and in magazines, sends the message that physical appearance is more important than character, according to Dr Wright.

She will say: “I have spoken out a lot over the last two years about the increasing dangers of premature sexualisation of young people, and the objectification of women which accompanies this.

“It is not too strong a statement, I venture to suggest, to say that almost everything that is wrong with Western society today can be summed up in that one symbolic photo of Miss Kim Kardashian on the front of Zoo magazine.

“The descent of Western civilisation can practically be read into every curve (of which, you will note, there are indeed many). Officially the hottest woman in the world? Really? Is this what we want our young people to aim for? Is this what success should mean to them?” Dr Wright will say.

Kim on the May issue of Zoo Magazine.She will claim that Ms Kardashian is famous for "the reality TV series, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, for hanging out with the rich and famous, for a sex tape, a 72-day marriage and a rather ample backside”.

"What is she telling our young people about life? As a society, we have clearly attached a value to her, and there may be some messages about hard work buried in there somewhere - I expect she has to slave in the gym to keep that posterior in shape - but these are very hidden messages, buried under the other messages surrounded by glitz and sparkle," Dr Wright will say.

Ms Kardashian, whose father is the late Robert Kardashian, one of the defence lawyers in OJ Simpson’s 1995 murder trial, shot to prominence when an erotic film of her appeared online in 2007. She has since gone on to become a household name on both sides of the Atlantic.

However people’s obsession with celebrities such as Ms Kardashian means that pupils are “soaking up a diet of empty celebrity and superficiality”, Dr Wright will say.

She will be speaking at the Institute of Development Professionals in Education (IDPE) conference later this week.

Rupert Murdoch has branded Scientology 'creepy, weird and evil' in the wake of the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes split.

The media mogul caused a storm on Twitter with his remarks, which pulled no punches over his opinions on the religion, of which Cruise is its most high-profile follower.

“Scientology back in news. Very weird cult, but big, big money involved with Tom Cruise either number two or three in hierarchy,” he said, after hearing the news of the split.

“Watch Katie Holmes and Scientology story develop. Something creepy, maybe even evil, about these people.”

He later replied to 'attacks' made on him after making the comments.

“Since Scientology tweet hundreds of attacks. Expect they will increase and get worse and maybe threatening. Still stick to my story.”

He was also asked by followers his thoughts on Mormonism, and added: “Mormonism a mystery to me, but Mormons certainly not evil.”

It's claimed that Cruise's devotion to the religion will become the centre of the couple's divorce battle.

“There is no way her advisers will not be putting Scientology at the very core of this divorce,” legal expert Mike Paul told the Daily Mail.

“The only possible reason for Katie to push for [custody] is that she fears for the emotional wellbeing of her daughter. Suri is at an age where she will be becoming more and more involved with the church and Katie clearly wants to make the break before her daughter is dragged into Scientology.”

UK’s top chocolate taster forced to quit on doctors’ orders
The UK’s most eminent chocolate taster has been forced to give up his sweet Ł30,000-a-year job because it’s playing havoc with his health.

Angus Kennedy, 47, who tastes chocolate for confectioners including Mars and Nestle, put on two stone and has developed dangerously high cholesterol after being in his dream job for two years.

Kennedy’s keen tastebuds have been relied upon by chocolatiers since 2010 and he also edits a confectionary trade journal, Kennedy’s Confection. But doctors have warned that if he carries on eating chocolate all day every day, he risks a heart attack. He’s also aiming to shrink down from 13 and a half stone to his normal 11 and a half, which has involved cutting all chocolate from his diet.

"Eating chocolate for a living really was the dream job. I was given a Golden Ticket to sample the world's craziest, tastiest new goodies and review them in the magazine,” Kennedy said.

"The only problem with eating chocolate from nine to five, of course, is the predictable weight gain and high cholesterol.

"In the last couple of years, I've put on some considerable weight and a recent check-up showed my arteries were far from fighting fit.

"It was with regret that I stepped down from the magazine to concentrate on a less harmful - but certainly less sweet - career."

Dubbed ‘Willy Wonka’, Kenndy has been known to eat 3lbs of sweet goodies (around 25 Crčme Eggs!) in a single day at trade shows.

He now plans to focus on writing, but says, “I'll really miss being Willy Wonka."

Nobel laureate, discoverer of HIV, sees 'hope' for cure

The Nobel laureate who helped to discover HIV says there is hope for an AIDS cure following recent discoveries, in an interview with AFP ahead of a global conference on the disease.

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008 as part of a team that discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS, said scientific research had made major strides since then.

She cited a patient in Berlin who appears to have been cured through a bone marrow transplant, "which proves that finding a way of eliminating the virus from the body is something that is realistic."

Other sources of optimism are the small minority of patients -- less than 0.3 percent -- who exhibit no symptoms of the virus without ever receiving treatment; and a small group in France who received antiretroviral drugs and now live without treatment or symptoms, Barre-Sinoussi said.

"There is hope... but don't ask me for a date because we do not know."

She also said that it would be possible "in principle" to eliminate the AIDS pandemic by 2050, if barriers to drug access could be eliminated.

The main barriers there were not scientific but political, economic and social, she said: the problem was lack of access to testing and drugs in poor and rural areas, as well as the stigma around the virus, which undermines early detection and treatment.

Some 25,000 people -- including celebrities, scientists and HIV sufferers -- are expected in the US capital on Sunday to call for more strident global action to address the three-decade AIDS epidemic.

"At the Washington conference we are expecting greater mobilization... to widen access to current treatments and to continue research into HIV," Barre-Sinoussi said.

Deaths and infections are down in the parts of the world most ravaged by the disease, while the number of people on treatment has risen 20 percent from 2010 to 2011, reaching eight million people in needy countries.

However this is only about half the people who should be on treatment worldwide, suggesting much more remains to be done.

More than 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, a higher number than ever before, and around 30 million have died from AIDS-related causes since the disease first emerged in the 1980s, according to UNAIDS.

London could destroy Banksy’s valuable Olympic graffiti



While London and the world is enthralled with Olympians showing us what they worked their entire lives for, there will be distractions that take the focus away from the athletes. One individual who isn't competing in the Games but is sharing the Olympic spotlight is London-based street artist and Oscar-nominated documentarian, Banksy.

On Monday, Banksy posted photos on his website of his latest works: "Hackney Welcomes the Olympics" and "Going for Mould." Both stencils, locations unknown, are Olympic-themed and may trouble the International Olympic Committee which maintains an iron fist over Olympic branding, not to mention the British Transport Police (BTP), which have been busy arresting alleged street artists and banning them from coming within a mile of any Olympic venue.

The Guardian reported last week that the BTP had begun a pre-emptive sweep of alleged graffiti artists in preparation for the London Games. Street artists in London have also told the BBC that, "walls which they say have not been touched in years are now being cleaned off."

If and when Banksy's new pieces are found, officials may want to think twice about removing the world-renown artist's work. In March, 18 original Banksy artworks sold for over Ł400,000 at an auction in London. In the ever-present battle of street art vs. vandalism, Banksy's form of self expression has grown from being viewed as a criminal act into a valuable commentary on society.

Helen Bingham of Keep Britain Tidy told the BBC: "There's a difference between low-grade tagging and the work people like Banksy do … You have to look at it and know the difference - it's not a black and white thing."

From The Guardian's Jonathan Jones:

Tourists don't come to London for shining perfection. They come for old and new in chaotic ungainly juxtaposition. And they come, partly, for Banksy. The prince of street art is our most famous contemporary artist, however much the moneyed art world would like to believe otherwise. Banksy postcards and canvas Banksy reproductions sell alongside royal memorabilia in London — West Country man as he may be. So how is the Olympics benefiting London by enforcing a clean-up of its most globally recognized art movement?

This is not just about the freedom of a few artists to mess up the pristine Olympic bubble. It is about the identity of London.

On Banksy's website there is a frequently asked questions page in which the street artist answers critics who say his work is "crass, dumb and simplistic." Banksy's response is that they are correct. "Most of this stuff is designed to be viewed from a moving vehicle."

Top 10 banned books
Fifty Shades of Grey may have been banned in some US states this year, but it’s just the most recent in a long list of books considered ‘too explicit’ for our delicate minds. Here are our favourites

1. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932
This book was banned in Ireland when it was first published and continues to be challenged in some US states today. Explicit sexual scenes caused controversy as Huxley imagined a world where birth control and reproduction were controlled for society rather than by individuals. For Catholic Ireland, the idea was just too much!

2. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
This is the tale of literary scholar Humbert Humbert and his sexual obsession with ‘Nymphets’ and in particular 12 year old Dolores (Lolita) who becomes his step daughter. Nabokov had trouble getting the novel published due to its contentious material and though there is little that is explicit in the novel, the themes of paedophilia and incest were enough to ban it in France, England, Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa.

3. And Tango Makes Three, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, 2005
Based on a real life penguin family, the story of Tango the penguin and his two dads was written to teach children about same-sex parent families. It was revealed to be the most banned book at the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, mostly having been removed from US libraries and schools.

4. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini, 2003
Now a major film, the Kite Runner was banned in Afghanistan, where the story is set, for its rape scene of a young male character. It’s also banned in some parts of the US because of the sexually explicit scene and offensive language.

5. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1985
Describing a bleak future where women are sexual slaves, the Handmaid’s Tale regularly appears on most ban request lists and was removed from the English curriculum in Texas after complaints by parents that it was anti Christian.

6. The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall, 1928
An early lesbian novel, Hall’s story, thought to be a thinly veiled account of her own life, was feared by the authorities for introducing ideas of homosexuality to women. It was banned soon after publication but this probably only served to make the British population far more aware of lesbianism.

7. Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
Banned in the US in 1928, the UK in 1926 and named a prohibited import to Australia in 1933, Ulysses was considered ‘obscene’ by the authorities thanks to a scene where the main character masturbates. In 1933 it was ruled ‘pornographic’ but not obscene and the ban was lifted.

8. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller, 1934
Miller’s book has been credited with giving literature the free speech we now take for granted. Its US publication in 1961 tested American pornography laws but in ‘obscenity trials’ the tome was declared ‘non obscene’. Loosely based on Miller’s own life in Paris, the protagonist’s sexual experiences are recounted in detail and the book is considered one of the most important in 20th-century literature.

9. Fifty Shades of Grey, EL James, 2011
Banned in libraries in the states of Georgia and Wisconsin (Florida lifted its ban), the rather badly written sexual exploits of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey have been dubbed ‘mummy porn’ for their popularity with older women. Despite being banned by these conservative states, the book topped the best seller charts in both the US and UK.

10. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill), John Cleland, 1748
When it was published, Fanny Hill was ignored by the authorities, but a year later its publishers were charged with "corrupting the King's subjects". Sold underground, it was also banned in the US in 1821. Strewn with details of sex acts, the book depicts prostitution, lesbianism and mutual masturbation. The ban was lifted in the 1970s after the book was decided to be a historical source and of literary value.

Weird and wonderful homes of the future

With a distinct lack of jet packs, hover cars or robots to do the housework, 21st century technology hasn't panned out the way some of us had hoped — but that hasn't stopped experts trying to predict the future of home technology.

We've asked two prominent futurologists, as well as interior designer Kelly Hoppen and TV homes guru Kevin McCloud, for their take on the houses of the future.

10 years from now
Forget huge TVs, we'll soon be watching our favourite shows on visors worn over our heads, according to futurologist Ian Pearson.

"In 10 years time homes will still have one or two communal screens but visors will be commonplace too. Eventually people will prefer to use contact lenses which work in the same way — basic versions of these should be available in the next decade.

"At the moment different members of the family go off to separate rooms to watch TV but in future people will be able to sit together and watch different things. It could have the effect of bringing the family back together."

And another futurologist, Richard Watson, thinks that more of us will be "talking to our appliances and devices and having them talk back to us" as voice-recognition technology improves.

Watson also predicts that energy monitoring and saving will become crucial to home technology.

"I think we will begin to see an 'internet for energy' develop — widespread harvesting and transmission of energy and water at a very local level - exchanging and selling at a local level too.

"Energy dashboards will be common, with energy pricing possibly based on the nature of use rather than time of day - so electricity for a dishwasher could cost more than for a home dialysis machine."

And Kevin McCloud, ambassador for Grand Designs Live Birmingham (12th — 14th October 2012, NEC) thinks we'll be modifying our existing homes to meet more stringent levels of eco-friendliness — rather than knocking our houses down and rebuilding.

He explained: "By the middle of this century the bulk of the UK's housing stock will have been constructed in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries - and will need to be upgraded.

"Even homes built as late as the 1980s will need to be 'retrofurbished' with materials to make them more energy efficient. It makes sense to stay put, because we've already experienced a period of excessive consumption and it was really distasteful."

25 years from now
Fast forward a quarter of a century and our appliances won't just be speaking to us — they'll be talking down to us.

"Appliances and devices will now have a serious level of awareness and intelligence. Computers will be more intelligent than humans on most levels (except in dealing with humans)," says Watson.

And our homes are likely to be less cluttered thanks to miniaturisation and convergence of technology, according to Pearson.

"Most of the technology we have in our homes at the moment will 'disappear' because we'll do all the techy stuff virtually," he explained. "We won't need to have separate big boxes or screen for different functions — just some very small devices and video visors — or contact lenses."

And he predicts the arrival of "augmented reality" where virtual images are mapped onto real-life objects.

"You could live in a dive of a flat but when you put your visor on it becomes a palace," he explains.

"Augmented reality is capable of combining all the things in the virtual world with all the things in the physical world - and it will be a bigger change than the world wide web."

But interior designer Kelly Hoppen feels there will always be a place for the physical comforts of home.

"I think in the short term and long term, people will continue to have very personal and comforting things in their homes, like paintings, photos and sculptures, which have been passed on to them from family - these items are timeless.

"In terms of furniture materials, in the mid and long term I think furniture will have a very global feel as the world becomes smaller. I also think that bigger items like sofas, beds and dining tables will be modular so you can change the shape and size as you want."

50 years from now
By the 2070s Kelly predicts that technology will be applied to textiles and soft furnishings in innovative ways: "In terms of textures in 50 years from now, I believe bed linen, sofa covers and rugs will be ultra soft and amazing to touch - almost skin like as techniques in textiles advance."

While relaxing on an ultra-soft sofa sounds nice, Watson reckons we're just as likely to be having a deep and meaningful conversation with the fridge.

"Assuming we're still here I suspect we will be trying to explain to our machines what it means to be human," he says.

But some of us may avoid this awkward chat — by having our own refrigerated compartments.

He continued: "Also, there will be somewhat problematic issue of having organic and post-human people walking around — because those with the money and the inclination will have merged with machines - thereby creating a new form of 'them and us'."