Time Out - Last Musik

Transcription

Time Out - Last Musik
Page 1 Aug 6.qxd 8/5/2008 11:14 PM Page 1
GULF TIMES FEATURES
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
2
Art & Culture
3
Health
4-5
TV & Radio
6-7
At Your Service
7-8
Entertainment
Terror in the sky
A new book tells
how airline pilots,
air traffic controllers
and military pilots
reacted to the
terrorist attacks on
the World Trade
Center and
Pentagon on
September 11, 2001
By Felicia Cousart Matlosz
M
The ruins of the World Trade Center at dawn on September 12, 2001. Two airplanes were hijacked
and flown into both towers of the World Trade Center on the previous day.
in New York. A short time later, as
their jet flew over eastern
Pennsylvania, they glimpsed smoke
rising from the World Trade Center, a
familiar landmark for pilots flying to
New York. American Airlines Flight
11 had hit the north tower at 8:46am,
but the pilots learned about that only
after their plane landed at LaGuardia.
Earwood and Fjelstad thought the
smoke might be a fire, or perhaps
steam being discharged from the
building’s boilers. As they got closer,
Earwood told Fjelstad that the
increasingly thick smoke might make
it difficult for them to keep the
airport in sight.
They were approaching LaGuardia
from the southwest, just off the
Staten Island shoreline, and Earwood
was growing impatient as he waited
for a controller to respond to his
latest radio transmission.
Suddenly, a controller called
repeatedly for Midwest 7. Earwood
responded and was told to turn left,
as quickly as possible. The jet was
about two miles southwest of the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which
marks the entrance to New York
Harbor.
As they began turning left, the
controller broke in about 20 seconds
later, Earwood said. This time, the
controller was yelling for the pilots to
tighten their turn, to make it as sharp
as possible.
“I’ve never had a controller
scream at me like that,” said
Earwood, who was used to hearing
controllers speak in calm, evenhanded tones.
Seconds later, the controller broke
in again, now calling for the plane to
turn hard to the right.
“I remember those words, ‘Hard!
Hard right turn!’” Earwood said.
Earwood and Fjelstad were
straining at the controls, “yanking
and banking”, as Earwood put it.
Among other things, Earwood was
concerned that if the DC-9 banked
too steeply, the jet could stall and
begin a rapid dive.
The two turns took a minute or so
to execute. A flight attendant was
tossed to the floor. But the
manoeuvres weren’t particularly
violent, Earwood said, and none of
the crew or passengers was injured.
According to Spencer’s account,
other flights also were being cleared
out of the path of United 175. The
hijacked flight’s radar signal and the
signal for Midwest 7 moved so
closely that they appeared to be
merging to horrified controllers, the
book said. But United 175 continued
on toward the World Trade Center.
A collision was avoided “by the
narrowest margin,” Spencer writes.
United 175 hit the south tower
perhaps 60 to 90 seconds after
passing Midwest 7, Earwood
estimated.
Meanwhile, Midwest 7 was
directed back on to its approach to
LaGuardia. As the plane turned back
toward the airport, Earwood
overheard a radio transmission from
another pilot. A second airplane had
just hit the World Trade Center.
“I looked up, and I saw the
fireball,” said Earwood, who didn’t
make an immediate connection that
the south tower was hit by the plane
he had manoeuvred to avoid.
Thick smoke from the explosion
obscured the airport, so the
controllers had Midwest 7 fly east for
several minutes before turning
around and coming back to land. The
jet was on the ground for about 30
minutes after taking evasive
maneuvers to avoid colliding with
United 175. As they waited on the
runway, Earwood and Fjelstad could
see the towers burning.
Once Earwood got off the plane,
he checked his cell phone and found
three messages from his wife,
pleading for him to call as soon as he
could. She filled him in on what was
happening.
“As she’s talking to me, she says,
‘Oh my God, an airplane has just hit
the Pentagon!’” he said. “And that’s
when I knew it was time to get out.”
Earwood returned to the DC-9,
where Fjelstad and the flight
attendants were preparing for their
next flight. He told them to get off
the plane immediately.
“I said, ‘We’re under attack by
terrorists. The last place you want to
be is in an airport when we’re under
attack by terrorists,’” Earwood said.
Around then, a New York port
authority police officer showed up
and ordered the crew off the jet. The
officer told them that police didn’t
want terrorists kidnapping pilots and
forcing them at gunpoint on to a
plane.
Earwood didn’t begin making the
connection between his evasive turns
and United 175 until the evening of
September 11, 2001, when he told a
Midwest flight manager about the
incident. He later unsuccessfully
sought FAA records that might shed
more light on the near-collision.
FAA
spokeswoman
Alison
Duquette said some information
remains under wraps, but she also
said many of those September 11,
2001, documents are being turned
over to the National Archives.
Earwood and other Midwest crew
members stranded in New York were
able to leave two days later. Dale
Schaub, Midwest’s chief pilot and a
former Air Force major, called in
some favors and got federal
government approval for Midwest to
fly home – making it the first airline
to fly from LaGuardia.
“Midwest Airlines shined during
that time,” said Earwood, recounting
how Schaub, now retired, and other
airline employees worked to ensure
the safety of their flight crews.
Just as the flight home was about
to take off, Earwood and Fjelstad
were told by the controller that there
had been a bomb threat at the airport.
The takeoff was aborted, and the 35
or so passengers – all of them
Midwest crew members anxious to
return to Milwaukee _ had to wait on
the runway while the jet was
inspected, and it later got clearance.
The incident didn’t truly hit home,
Earwood said, until he saw the 2006
movie “United 93,” which depicts
the events of September 11, 2001. A
psychiatrist from the Air Line Pilots
Association, whom Earwood was
seeing to help him deal with what
happened, told him the movie
featured an account of a near
collision. In the movie, that incident
refers to a Delta Air Lines flight, and
press accounts from 2001 and 2002
reported that United 175 nearly hit a
Delta jet. But Earwood is convinced
that the scene depicted in the movie –
with dialogue from the controller
similar to what he recalls – is a
depiction of Midwest Flight 7. “It
sent chills up and down my spine,”
Earwood said.
Nearly seven years later, Earwood
still thinks about what happened
every time he flies to LaGuardia.
“It’s something that will live with
me for the rest of my life,” he said. “I
just can’t imagine the horror of being
on that (United 175) airplane. . . . I
think about those people a lot.”
One thing he’s never considered is
to stop flying. He started flying as a
17-year-old in 1979.
“I was not going to let them scare
me out of my life,” Earwood said.–
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MCT
REVIEW
Beijing Games mark the birth of a sports superpower
Olympic Dreams: China and
Sports, 1895-2008
by Xu Guoqi (377pp, Harvard)
and physical training “were
ambivalent, to say the least... Chinese
elites generally considered sports
undignified – a robust body was not
Review by Michael Rank
consistent with the idea of the
cultured gentleman”.
XACTLY 100 years ago a
But as the Chinese empire
Chinese YMCA lecturer had a crumbled and morale was crucially
dream - that one day China undermined by the country’s defeat in
would host the Olympic Games. the Sino-Japanese war in 1895,
That dream is now about to come Chinese people became convinced
true, and this highly readable book that their nation was a “sick man”
traces the history of China’s sporting whose body needed to be
ambition, from an obscure lecture in strengthened through a regime of
Tientsin in 1908 to the “high-quality rigorous physical exercise.
Olympics
with
Chinese
Sun Yat-sen, China’s first
characteristics” that are to open in president, declared that “If we want to
Beijing this week.
make our country strong, we must
Xu notes that the modern Chinese first make sure our people have
word for, sport, tiyu, didn’t exist until strong bodies.”
the 1890s and that late 19th-century
Nationalists stressed the need for
Chinese attitudes towards the body shangwu or “warlike spirit”, and
E
OR the uninitiated,
there’s a phenomenon
out there called the
Twilight series, which has
grabbed a lot of teen and adult
fans by the throat in the US.
The fourth and final book in
the series, Breaking Dawn, has
just been released.
What’s the big deal? Here is
a primer, in case you find
yourself in the midst of
Twilight chatter.
What’s it about? It’s a
contemporary tale of love,
fantasy and horror about a
smart but awkward teenager
named Bella and a handsome
vampire named Edward.
There’s also another guy,
Jacob, with supernatural issues
of his own and, well, if this
isn’t a classic setup for a love
in conflict, what is?
OK, Twilight was first and
Breaking Dawn is the final
one. What are the others? The
second one is called New
Moon, the third Eclipse.
Who wrote these books?
Stephenie Meyer. She is a
housewife who lives just
outside Phoenix with her
husband and three sons. She
earned a bachelor’s degree in
English from Brigham Young
University.
What are we talking about in
terms of ka-ching? Here are
the latest numbers we’ve seen:
The first three books have sold
more than 5.3mn copies in the
US alone since Twilight
debuted in 2005. The
publisher, Little, Brown Books
for Young Readers, had so
much confidence in the fourth
book that it did a first printing
of 3.5mn. With that, nearly
11mn copies of the four books,
hardback and paperback, are in
print in dozens of countries.
Well, that’s nowhere near
the Harry Potter series, right?
True, but know this: The third
novel, Eclipse, did just what
that title says last summer to J
K Rowling’s seventh and final
Potter book. The Potter book
was in the top spot for three
weeks when Eclipse took its
place. No small feat there.
And didn’t Time ask the
question of whether Meyer is
the next Rowling? Yes, it did.
It’s interesting that both were
mothers of young children (or
a child, in Rowling’s case),
and each came up with
brilliant idea for a story and
found success. But, excuse our
bias, Meyer is no Rowling.
Potter’s author is a fastidious
detailer, with a sharp
imagination and depth that
appeals to readers of all ages.
Meyer is admirable, but not on
the same level. Her primary
audience is female.
So why is the Twilight series
popular? First, it’s a romance
novel. There is plenty of
mushy writing and dialogue.
Second, it’s romantic. The
love story is chaste because it
has to be when one partner is
human and the other a
vampire.
Third, there’s suspense
because vampires apparently
are endangered by other
vampire covens and beings.
And fourth, despite the
hundreds of pages in each
volume, the books are fast
page-turners, along the lines of
Dan
Brown’s
hugely
successful The Da Vinci Code.
But why are vampire stories,
in general, popular in the US?
We’re not sure, but it’s partly
the allure of the forbidden and
– in Hollywood’s versions –
lots of handsome and beautiful
vampires.
So what began famously
with Bram Stoker’s 1897
horror novel, Dracula, has
evolved into Anne Rice’s
popular
gothic
Vampire
Chronicles books to Buffy the
Vampire Slayer. HBO has a
new drama coming up called,
what else?: True Blood. We
suspect that if Hollywood and
authors insisted vampires look
like the terrifying and repelling
one in F W Murnau’s 1922
silent film Nosferatu, vampiretheme films and books would
have ceased in 1922.
So there has to be a movie
coming of Twilight, right? Of
course. The film version of
Twilight
premiers
on
December 12, just in time for
the money-making holiday
season. You can check out the
trailer and other information at
twilight themovie.com. – The
Fresno Bee/MCT
F
By Tom Daykin
IDWEST AIRLINES pilot
Gerald Earwood was flying
about 100 miles west of
New York when he first noticed what
seemed like wisps of smoke coming
off the World Trade Center.
Roughly 15 minutes later,
Earwood and co-pilot Eric Fjelstad
were frantically manoeuvring their
DC-9 jet to avoid colliding with
United Airlines Flight 175, the
second airplane to hit the World
Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Their work, following orders from
air traffic controllers, saved the lives
of about 30 passengers and five crew
members of Midwest Flight 7.
A minute or so later, United 175 –
which also came close to colliding
with other planes that morning –
struck the south tower of the World
Trade Center.
A collision between United 175,
flying out of Boston, and the
Midwest jet, flying from Milwaukee
to New York’s LaGuardia Airport,
“would have changed history”,
Earwood said in an interview with
the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, his
first newspaper interview about the
incident.
“Yeah, I’ve thought about it
numerous times,” Earwood said.
“But I never knew, and to this day I
still don’t know, how close we
came.”The near collision is among
several stories told in the new book,
Touching History: The Untold Story
of the Drama that Unfolded in the
Skies Over America on 9/11 , by Lynn
Spencer. The book, published by
Simon & Schuster, tells how airline
pilots, air traffic controllers and
military pilots reacted to the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center
and Pentagon.
Spencer, a commercial pilot and
Milwaukee-area native, interviewed
controllers,
Federal
Aviation
Administration officials, military
pilots and civilian pilots, including
Earwood.
The story of Midwest Flight 7 is
among the most compelling in the
book, which also features one other
story of a Midwest jet that was
diverted from Newark, N J, to
Pittsburgh during the chaos of that
morning.
It would be difficult to estimate the
number of lives that would have been
lost if a mid-air collision had
occurred between Midwest Flight 7
and United 175 before the south
tower was hit, Spencer said. Burning
debris from two jets could have been
scattered throughout New York. “It’s
hard to know how many buildings
would have burned,” she said.
Earwood, 46, has been flying
Midwest since 1990. He recalls
leaving Milwaukee’s Mitchell
International Airport early in the
morning on September 11, 2001, and
watching the sun rise through clear
blue skies as the flight headed east
over Lake Michigan.
The first hint of anything amiss
came about an hour after the flight
left Milwaukee, as Earwood and
Fjelstad noticed unusually slow radio
responses from air traffic controllers
Tale of
love and
fantasy
wows fans
Avery Brundage, later president of
the
International
Olympic
Committee, wrote in the 1930s that as
a result of physical fitness being
neglected, “the highly intellectual
citizens of China have allowed
themselves to be plundered by their
own bandits for generations.”
China’s contact with the emergent
Olympic movement was slow and
hesitant, and although a national
Olympic committee was formed in
1922, China did not participate in an
Olympiad until 1932. Its team in Los
Angeles consisted of just one man,
Liu Changchun, a sprinter, and he
was only dispatched at the last minute
due to money problems.
China took part much more
enthusiastically in the notorious 1936
Berlin Olympics, sending 69 athletes,
but failed to win a single medal.
Xu devotes little attention to these
games and says even less about the
1948 London Olympics, at which the
penniless Chinese team stayed in a
primary school and cooked their own
meals.
Mao Zedong, in his first published
article, declared that “physical
education... should be the number one
priority.” But the Communist party
had little awareness of the Olympics
when it came to power in 1949, and it
took some time for the new
government to realise that one of
China’s three IOC members had
chosen to remain on the mainland
rather than flee to Taiwan.
At the urging of the Soviet Union,
China made a last-minute application
to participate in the 1952 games in
Helsinki, but its delegation arrived
just one day before the closing
ceremony. The delay was largely
caused by the “two Chinas” dispute
that continues to haunt the Olympics
to this day.
Xu notes how the IOC had closed
its eyes to the two-China issue since
the early 50s, and how Canada lost
friends by promising Beijing it would
honour a one-China policy despite
having committed itself to Taiwan’s
participation in the Olympics in 1969.
China first became an Olympic
powerhouse at the Los Angeles
games in 1984, when it won 15 golds.
At the Athens Olympics in 2004 it
came second only to the United
States.
This book focuses on the tricky
negotiations involving Beijing, Taipei
and the IOC over participation, often
in fascinating detail, although it is not
entirely clear why so much attention
is devoted to ping-pong diplomacy
between Beijing and Washington,
which has little direct connection to
the Olympics.
Xu refers to the self-proclaimed
Taoist Brundage, who was IOC
president from 1952 to 1972, as “not
particularly famous for his
intellectual observations” and “not a
good communicator”, which is rather
mild for someone widely regarded as
being pro-Nazi.
There are also many important
areas which Xu neglects, including
Chinese doping scandals, Tibet, and
the IOC’s business ties with the
Beijing authorities. Nevertheless,
although this book is unlikely to win
many gold medals, it is a useful
introduction to an awkward topic that
simply won’t go away. – Guardian
News & Media
C
M
Y
K
2
GULF TIMES FEATURES
Art & Culture
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Attract, repel: Lifelike
dolls are collector cult
Made to look and feel real, owners themselves
say the dolls can cause intense feelings of love or
disgust, writes SOPHIE TAYLOR
T
HEIR chests rise and fall and you
can hear a tiny heartbeat, but these
babies for sale over the Internet are
not alive.
“Reborn babies” are disconcertingly
lifelike baby dolls carefully crafted in
vinyl, which have become swiftly popular
mainly with collectors, but also with
nostalgic grandparents and grieving
parents.
Made and collected by an online
community of enthusiasts, they are painted
several times to create the mottled colour
of newborn skin, have mohair hair and
eyelashes, and are weighted to make them
feel as heavy as human babies.
Fans of the hobby, who call it
“reborning”, are mostly women and
increasingly guarded about discussing it
since media reports highlighted their
purchase by bereaved parents, prompting
some to portray the hobby as macabre.
“Cuddle therapy” is what one reborning
website calls the hobby – the dolls’ bodies
can be fitted with electronic devices that
mimic a heartbeat and breathing.
British department store Harrods –
whose motto is “Everything for Everybody
Everywhere” – describes them as “a bit too
lifelike” to stock, and collectors
themselves say the dolls can cause feelings
of intense unease, even disgust.
“I pick them up and I change them and I
do hold them like a baby now and again –
it’s relaxing,” said doll-owner Gill, a 50year-old grandmother who asked to remain
anonymous because of the way reborning
has been portrayed in the media.
Reborners say their hobby began in the
United States in the early 1990s, with dolls
becoming more and more realistic over
time. Media coverage helped spread the
idea to other countries, mainly Britain and
Australia.
Cathy Newcombe, who makes the dolls
and runs reborning website Reborn Babies
UK, said counsellors were increasingly
looking into the therapeutic benefits of
holding reborn babies.
“The act of holding the doll may have a
role in releasing a ‘feel-good’ hormone,”
Newcombe said. But not all react in this
way. “You get this repulsion from some
because it looks so
life-like and they just see a dead baby,”
said Sue, 56, who bought her first doll in
June. “Looking at my reborn I’ve never
seen a dead baby – she has too much colour
in order to be dead.”
The term “reborn” is used to distinguish
custom-made baby dolls from those massproduced in a factory, says Deborah King,
who took up doll-making as a hobby three
years ago and now sells dolls via Reborn
Baby. “My daughter wanted a sibling and I
didn’t want to have any more children, so I
made her a doll instead,” said the 32-yearold mother of two.
King’s website features lists of baby
dolls photographed in cots and dressed in
frocks, some of which are described as
“premature”. Most have girls’ names and
are described as waiting for “adoption”.
She sells the dolls for between £250 to
£1,600 ($492-$3,146) and receives 10 to
15 requests a week.
The reborning community says most
buyers are collectors. “To me it’s a work of
art... I’m not into pushing it around in a
pram,” said collector Gill.
Newcombe of Reborn Babies UK said
most of her customers want to collect the
dolls as art: “Between 10 and 15% are for
ladies who have lost a child.”
Others have emotional reasons of a
different kind for their purchase: King
recalls one client who decided to buy a doll
for her mother, an Alzheimer’s sufferer,
after noticing she spent most of her time
looking at baby photos.
Ian James, a doctor at the Centre for the
Health of the Elderly at Newcastle General
Hospital said the use of dolls in care homes
for the elderly can help reduce disruptive
behaviour. “There are a number of reasons
for the powerful effect of the doll in
reducing some of the challenging
behaviour,” he added. “People are
comforted and are so much calmer and
quieter – you just have to be there to
witness that.” “It’s a familiar role from
time when they were busy and happy,” his
co-researcher Lorna Mackenzie said. But
James said it made no great difference how
life-like they were. “In our studies we have
used 10lbs dolls from (toyshop) ToysRus –
if you buy three, you get one for free,” he
said.
Most of King’s customers are
collectors and grandparents who miss
their grandchildren’s younger selves,
while others just enjoy holding the
pretend babies.
But while there are hundreds of reborns
for sale on Internet auction site ebay,
their mainstream appeal seems to be
limited by how realistic they are.
“Everything we sell is with a view to a
child owning it or being interested in it, but
these dolls are a bit too life-like for our toy
department to stock them,” a
spokeswoman for Harrods said.
“The more realistic a doll is, the more
niche the market is.” (Additional reporting
by Raissa Kasolowsky) – Reuters
Clockwise from top left: ‘Reborn Baby’ artist Deborah King poses with two of her dolls at her home in Fountainhall,
near Edinburgh, Scotland; King paints the nails of one of her dolls; A small girl cuddles her lifelike doll named
Katie in Fountainhall.
Bringing music from
Nazi death camps to life
By Francoise Michel
HE idea of collecting
music
written
in
internment camps before
and during World War II may
T
not occur to everyone. But that
has been Francesco Lotoro’s
quest since 1991.
“To allow the musicians to
continue to work was also a
way to control them better,”
said the 44-year-old Italian
Jew. “At Auschwitz, there
were seven orchestras.”
Lotoro has amassed some
4,000 pieces, all composed
between March 1933, when
the Nazis’ Dachau death camp
was opened soon after Hitler
won absolute power, and the
end of World War II in 1945.
But while much is from Nazi
camps, Lotoro’s collection
covers internment camps from
both sides of the war. “I’m
collecting all the music, written
not just in Europe but also in
Top: A file photo of Czech musician Rudolf Karel.
Above: Rudolf Karel’s five-part composition written on
toilet paper. Below: Italian specialised piano player
Francesco Lotoro (left) and Ivan Karel, son of Czech
musician Rudolf Karel, during a meeting in Barletta, in
Northern Apulia, Italy.
Asia: Jewish religious songs,
hymns by Dutch Quaker
pastors, gypsy songs or those
of an American, Edmund Lilly,
held in a camp in
the
Philippines, and ballads by
Italian soldiers held by the
Allies,” he said.
Carefully archived in
Lotoro’s office in Barletta,
southern Italy, much of the
music has never been recorded.
The son of distinguished Czech
composer Rudolf Karel, who
died at the Theresienstadt
camp near Prague in 1945,
gave Lotoro a photocopy of a
five-part composition written
on toilet paper.
In a music shop in Prague,
Lotoro met Eliska Kleinova,
the sister of Gideon Klein, who
was the organiser of cultural
life at the Theresienstadt
concentration camp in the
Czech Republic and died in
the
gas
chambers
of
Fuerstengrube.
Lotoro,
himself
an
accomplished musician who
studied under the celebrated
French pianist Aldo Ciccolini,
took home the music to a
sonata Klein composed at
Theresienstadt (Czech name is
Terezin).
“I started studying it. There
were a lot of mistakes. I
corrected them, recorded it and
sent it to Eliska. She was
thrilled. It was a very difficult
piece,” Lotoro said.
At the camp, musicians were
allowed to play a piano for half
an hour a day, which may
explain anomalies in some
pieces.
“The piano lost some of its
reality,” said Lotoro, who
sports a black beard and small
round glasses. “The musician
composed in his head, and the
physical limits of the
instrument
didn’t
exist
anymore. These pieces reflect a
special sort of ventilation.”
Lotoro, who teaches at the
regional conservatory of
music, added: “I respect all
kinds of music. I refuse to
choose between good and bad.
Music written in the camps was
not necessarily sad. It was
about faith, family, the
homeland. When I finish, we’ll
see if they have something in
common.”
He has worked alone and
with little financial help on a
project he considers a “duty” as
well as a “race against time”.
“I hope to finish by 2012. It’s
expensive to bring together
musicians and choirs. I hope to
find a Rockefeller one day.
Everything has to be recorded,
and quickly. More than 60
years have already passed, and
some of the music has been lost
forever,” he sighed.
Lotoro has a contract with
Musikstrasse,
an
Italian
cultural association, to record
32 CDs. So far six have been
produced and are on sale under
the label KZ Musik.
“When I started, I thought I
would find a few hundred
works at most,” Lotoro smiled.
– AFP
Mandarin’s popularity
narrows opportunities to
learn Cantonese in the US
By Vanessa Colón
OR AT least 100 years,
descendants of Chinese
immigrants have looked
to a school near Fresno’s
Chinatown to learn the
language of their ancestors –
Cantonese.
But
fewer
Chinese
Americans are enrolling their
children these days. Fewer
people speak Cantonese at
home, and the classes are too
far for some.
More parents are sending
their children instead to learn
Mandarin – the language of
business and government in a
booming China.
Decades ago, the school on
Waterman Avenue and Tulare
Street in southwest Fresno
filled three classrooms with
dozens of students. Classes
were two hours each day
Monday through Friday, and
three hours on Saturday.
“When I came here in the
early 70s, they had (more than)
60 students,” said Hugo Sun,
president of the Chinese
Consolidated
Benevolent
Association.
Today, 20 students fill a
single classroom. Most of them
are second- or third- generation
Chinese Americans who are
accustomed
to
speaking
English
but
want
to
communicate with their parents
or grandparents.
Sun, who has taught
Cantonese at the school in the
past, said the language school
is vital to the association. “It’s
a big part of the heritage. One
of our goals is to keep the
Chinese tradition,” Sun said.
“It would hurt the facility. Then
I wouldn’t know what the
purpose of the association
would be.”
Gor Leu, 57, of Fresno, has
three children ages 18, 16 and
eight enrolled at the school, run
with donations and volunteers.
Leu, who was born in mainland
China, said he speaks very little
Cantonese at home. His
children tend to speak to him in
English.
“I want them to at least
recognise the language and
speak some words. It’s very
hard. With each generation, it
gets harder and harder. They
speak a lot less at home,” Leu
said.
One of his children, Wayne
Leu, 16, a Buchanan High
School student, said he took the
F
A student practices before her final in Cantonese at
Benevolent Association school in Fresno, California.
class so he could communicate construction of Highway 99.
with his dad’s side of the Since
the
1960s,
the
family.
association has been housed in
“I wish I’d started learning it a two-storey building on
earlier,” Wayne said.
Waterman Avenue.
Chinese immigrants have
The association’s school
been settling here since at least offers Mandarin for adults, Tai
the mid-1800s. About 5,600 Chi and traditional Chinese
residents of Chinese descent dance classes. But a fixture of
now live in Fresno County, the school has been the
according to a 2006 estimate Cantonese language class.
by the Census Bureau.
Today, the single Cantonese
Most early immigrants spoke class meets for two hours only
Cantonese. In the 1950s, on Saturdays from September
immigrants began arriving from through May. Students from 5
Taiwan, speaking Mandarin or to 18 pay $5 a month to attend
Fukienese, a dialect. Now, most the class, learning words such
immigrants are from mainland as “mountain” and “gold” in
China and speak both Chinese characters from the
Cantonese and Mandarin, said chalkboard.
Franklin Ng, a professor of
Most students at the
anthropology at the California Waterman Avenue school say
State University, Fresno.
they
find
Cantonese
Mandarin and Cantonese challenging but fun when
share the same Chinese surrounded by friends.
characters. But they have
“The fun part would be
different pronounciations and recess and the parties. The
tones to convey meaning. That challenging part is sometimes
makes it difficult for someone doing the tests. Sometimes its
fluent in one to understand the hard to memorise Chinese
other.
characters and sentences,” said
As Fresno grew north, many 12-year-old Christina Louie.
Chinese Americans moved as
Principal Eric Lin said most
well. But the Chinese students have parents or
Consolidated
Benevolent grandparents who speak
Association remained behind Cantonese. But some parents
in southwest Fresno. Since the are encouraging their children
1800s, the Association’s school to learn Mandarin, instead.
has moved from G Street to D
In the last five or more years,
Street in Chinatown and then to churches such as the First
southwest Fresno after the Chinese Baptist Church and the
the Chinese Consolidated
Fresno Chinese Gospel Church
in north Fresno have begun
offering Mandarin.
The churches see a demand
for Mandarin because it’s the
official language in China and
some parents, including those
of Taiwanese descent, speak
Mandarin, said Deacon Simon
Wong of the Fresno Chinese
Gospel Church. The Mandarin
classes draw 70 to 80 students
at each church. The First
Chinese Baptist Church has a
class for children in the
summer for a week each year
while the Fresno Chinese
Gospel Church offers separate
classes for children and adults
every Sunday.
“We have a waiting list,”
said 67-year-old Virginia Haw
Kamimoto, a member of First
Chinese Baptist Church. “We
are up to 80 students. Every
year, it’s increased.”
Despite the popularity of
Mandarin classes, some
parents fear their children will
lose a part of their heritage if
Cantonese is no longer taught.
Physician Stanley Louie, 44,
said he enrolled his three
daughters so they could learn
more about their heritage and
carry on the Cantonese
tradition.
Without practice, he said,
“it’s something that becomes a
lost art.” – The Fresno
Bee/MCT
C
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GULF TIMES FEATURES
Health
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
3
Robot puts smile
back on nerve
disorder patient
Cyberknife, ordinarily used on cancerous
tumours to shoot high doses of radiation,
was successfully employed to treat the
rare condition of trigeminal neuralgia,
writes VIKKI ORTIZ
OR 20 years, LaVerne
Petersen was afraid to laugh,
worried that even the glimmer
of a smile could send her into a fit of
agonising pain.
Petersen kept her face as still as
possible to avoid flare-ups of a rare
facial nerve disorder that could be
triggered by something as innocuous as touching a makeup brush to
her cheek, or sipping from a glass,
or smiling at a joke.
“We lived with a sword above our
heads. Nothing could ever help it, it
was just unreal,” said LaVerne
Petersen.
Desperate for anything to stop the
attacks of trigeminal neuralgia,
Petersen, 86, underwent a procedure
known as “Cyberknife” to treat her
disease. Doctors used new robotic
technology ordinarily used on cancerous tumours to shoot high doses
of radiation into the damaged nerve
in her brain.
Now, seven months after surgery,
the smile is back on her face.
Petersen is virtually pain-free and
joking again with her husband,
going out for breakfast, even accepting invitations to parties.
Advocates caution that treatments
for the disorder vary widely, and
F
that no regimen has been proven to
cure what has been nicknamed “the
suicide disease” because of its
unbearable pain.
About 15,000 people are diagnosed with the condition each year
in the US, said Jane Boles, executive
director of the Trigeminal Neuralgia
Association in Gainesville, Florida.
Much is still unknown about the
medical condition, she said.
“This is still considered an orphan
disease or rare disorder,” said Boles.
“What works for one doesn’t work
for another.”
But Petersen’s doctors at
Northwest Community Hospital in
Arlington Heights, Illinois, say her
story should offer hope to the
14,000 trigeminal neuralgia patients
registered on the association’s website.
Based on their success with
Petersen, the hospital is treating
another patient with the disorder,
and doctors hope more will come
forward.
Trigeminal neuralgia is a hypersensitivity of the 5th cranial nerve
that causes sudden, shocklike facial
pains. Although the cause is
unknown, it occurs most often in
people over 50, experts say. It also
Above: LaVerne and Pete Petersen, married 65-years, share a
smile in their Arlington Heights, Illinois, home. Left: LaVerne
Petersen can’t stop smiling after the operation.
has been linked to those with multiple sclerosis, a condition LaVerne
Petersen has battled for 45 years.
At first, she thought it was a cavity causing a nagging pain in her
right cheek 20 years ago. But dentists concluded that her teeth were in
good shape. A neurologist finally
determined that Petersen had the
condition, which experts say is so
rare it takes an average of five years
to be diagnosed.
“This isn’t something that even
frontline health care professionals
know a lot about,” Boles said.
“That’s one of the challenges we
have.”
Family members knew if anyone
could navigate their way through
tough medical issues, it would be
LaVerne and Pete Petersen, who
married 66 years ago after meeting
when he was a church baseball
coach and she his star left-fielder.
Through the course of their marriage
the couple helped each other cope
with complicated health problems.
Pete Petersen, 95, lost most of his
ner, even their beloved “outdoor
breakfasts” – visits to the
McDonald’s drive-through.
“I never knew what to do. I’d
stand by helpless. There’s no way to
control it,” said Pete Petersen, who
nicknamed his wife “Ms. Gutsy” for
the way she dealt with the disease.
LaVerne Petersen tried a variety
of medications and went through
four surgeries in an attempt to get
rid of the pain. But while some of
the treatments helped for a week or
month at a time, the sharp attacks
always came back, she said.
Then late last year at a dinner
party, the couple’s only son learned
hearing while serving in the US about a doctor at Northwest
Navy during World War II. His wife Community Hospital who was using
was diagnosed with MS in her 40s.
Cyberknife to treat unexpected con“The two of them have this ditions, not just tumours. He conincredible resource of courage to tacted Dr Stephen Nigh, medical
deal with adversity,” said Scott director of the hospital’s Cyberknife
Petersen, the couple’s son. “She has programme.
been his ears and he has been her
Nigh had read about cases where
legs.”
trigeminal neuralgia patients were
During dinner at an Elks club a treated successfully with the procefew years ago, a sip of wine sent dure, but had never done such an
LaVerne into an intense attack. The operation before. After he and Dr
couple began skipping friends’ Richard Broderick, a neurologist,
birthday parties, Thanksgiving din- met with her, they agreed to try.
US doctor develops device
to detect unusual glaucoma
By Sabine Vollmer
OR EIGHT years Sandra Naylor
went to one eye doctor after
another, but none could explain
why, exactly, her vision was blurry.
It wasn’t until she was referred to Dr
Sanjay Asrani, a Duke University
glaucoma specialist, that Naylor
learned she had an unusual form of
glaucoma – one that could cause her
suddenly to lose part of her eyesight.
Not so long ago, Asrani wouldn’t
have been able to diagnose her, either.
But now, because of his curiosity and
the skills of a colleague, he has a oneof-a-kind instrument that can catch an
aggressive type of glaucoma that
affects an estimated 6mn people
worldwide and is on the rise.
So far Asrani has studied the instrument’s capabilities on 63 patients. His
F
results, published recently in the
Archives of Ophthalmology, a peerreviewed medical journal, have glaucoma experts excited.
“It has tremendous potential,” said
Dr Andrew Iwach, executive director
of the Glaucoma Centre in San
Francisco. “Anything that can lead to
early detection can be a huge asset.”
Studies show that early detection of
glaucoma is the key to preventing
vision loss. The disease is caused by a
build-up of fluid. As a result, the pressure inside the eye increases and can
irreparably damage the optic nerve.
Ophthalmologists rely on eye exams
and diagnostic instruments to stop
glaucoma. But what works reasonably
well with most types of the disease
isn’t much help with narrow-angle
glaucoma, Naylor’s condition.
Narrow-angle glaucoma can lead to
sudden blockages and painful attacks.
It accounts for about 10% of all types
of glaucoma, but is three times as likely to lead to blindness.
To prevent an attack, most instruments offer clues at best, said Tom
Brunner, a biomedical engineer and
the chief executive of the Glaucoma
Research Foundation, a San Francisco
nonprofit.
“You can’t examine the angle,”
Brunner said. “The optics of the eye
won’t let you see in there.”
Asrani’s instrument changes that.
Five years ago, he went to Joseph Izatt,
a Duke engineering professor and frequent collaborator, with the problem:
how to see inside the eye, where the
iris meets the cornea.
Izatt led him to a graduate student,
and the two spent the next three years
adapting new and existing technology
to meet their needs. By 2006, they had
come up with an instrument that, similar to a video camera, produces
detailed, digital black-and-white
images of that part of the eye.
So far, Asrani is the only doctor to
use the instrument, which the US Food
and Drug Administration has not yet
approved. A smaller, portable version
is under development at Bioptigen, a
company that commercialises medical
diagnostic devices invented in Izatt’s
laboratory.
Izatt is a co-founder of the company,
which is a spin-off of Duke University.
If the instrument receives FDA
approval, the technology could come
to market in about two years.
It could also be used to detect other
eye problems, such as cysts, and guide
eye surgeons in the operating room.
But for now, preventing vision loss in
people predisposed to narrow-angle
glaucoma is its primary purpose. “If
you catch it early enough, the patient
doesn’t get a glaucoma attack,” Asrani
said.
Naylor, a retired court reporter who
lives in Raleigh, said the ophthalmologists she saw could never agree on
what was wrong with her eyes. A specialist in Mississippi recommended
glaucoma surgery in March 2007. Two
months later, another in California
advised against the surgery.
After examining Naylor’s eyes,
Asrani urged her to have laser surgery
in both eyes to prevent a glaucoma
attack. The surgery will create tiny
openings in her irises from which
built-up fluid can drain.
Asrani was able to make the diagnosis because his instrument made the
inside of Naylor’s eyes visible in wide
slices nearly a quarter-inch deep.
Magnified on the computer screen, the
image of one of Naylor’s eyes showed
her iris, the coloured ring around the
pupil, and the cornea, the protective,
transparent cover of the eye.
The cornea and the iris usually meet
in an angle open enough that the two
won’t touch. But in Naylor’s case, the
angle was so narrow, parts of the iris
were sticking to the cornea. Asrani
pointed to these areas and explained
that they could lead to a blockage and
trigger an attack.
Looking at the screen and comparing images of her eye to those of a normal eye, Naylor could see what was
causing her troubles.
“Now it’s clear,” she said. – MCT
A screen (background) shows
Sandra Naylor’s cornea and iris
in profile as Dr Sanjay Asrani
uses
Optical
Coherence
Tomography to make a scan of
her eye in Raleigh, North
Carolina.
“When I first saw her, she couldn’t talk to me. She was kind of bent
over. After a half-hour, she could at
least look at me,” Nigh said. “There
wasn’t a lot to lose in treating her.”
On December 17, LaVerne
Petersen checked into Northwest
Hospital, where a robotic arm pinpointed the nerve – it was smaller
than the lead on the tip of a pencil –
and administered 5,000 units of
radiation. The aim was to injure the
neurons so that they no longer transmitted pain.
Three hours later, Petersen
walked out with a feeling that her
life would be different. The next
morning, she told her husband she
wanted to go out for breakfast. Six
months later, the couple joined other
seniors on a bus for a gambling trip.
There is a chance her attacks will
resume one day, but the fact
Petersen has made it this long without a severe episode is promising,
Nigh said. Petersen said she is grateful to smile again without fear.
“I don’t want to miss out on anything if I don’t have to,” she said.
“We are thankful for everything.” –
Chicago Tribune/MCT
BRIEFS
Need for hip replacements is high: study
OTH hip and knee arthritis are common among older
B
adults, but the need for hip replacements seems to far
exceed that for knee replacements, new research suggests. In a
study of nearly 7,600 Spanish adults age 60 and older,
researchers found that 7% had hip osteoarthritis, while 12%
had osteoarthritis of the knee. Osteoarthritis refers to the common “wear-and-tear” form of arthritis, in which cartilage in the
joints gradually breaks down, leading to symptoms like pain
and stiffness.
TB treatment inadequate
in some “hot zones”
“hot zones” where multidrug-resistant tubercuIhaveNlosisCERTAIN
is prevalent, patients treated with standard TB drugs
high rates of failure and relapse, new research indicates. In
countries where “drug sensitivity testing” is not performed routinely, the current standard anti-TB drug regimens “may be contributing to worsening drug resistance levels,” a multinational
research team warns in a report published last week.
‘Hygiene hypothesis’ may
be tied to bowel disease
HILDREN who grow up in a spic-and-span home may have
C
a higher risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease, a
study suggests. Inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, refers to a
group of conditions marked by chronic inflammation in the
intestines, leading to symptoms like abdominal pain and diarrhoea. It’s thought that the conditions arise from an immune system overreaction that injures the body’s own intestinal tissue.
Low hepatitis B vaccination
rates seen in newborns
HE results of a survey conducted by the US Centers for
T
Disease Control and Prevention indicate that only about
50% of newborns receive a dose of hepatitis B vaccine before
hospital discharge. In 1991, the Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices in the US recommended that all newborns receive the first dose of the vaccine before leaving the
hospital or at age 1 to 2 months. In 2002, however, this recommendation was changed to indicate a preference for vaccination
prior to hospital discharge. Finally, in 2005, the guidelines were
again revised to recommend pre-hospital discharge hepatitis B
vaccination for all medically stable infants weighing at least
2000g.
Terminal cancer patients
not given chemo info
ATIENTS with incurable cancer are often not clearly
P
informed of what they stand to gain from palliative
chemotherapy, according to the study results published in ‘BMJ
Online First’. As a result, British investigators say, patients may
lack sufficient knowledge make a decision based on informed
consent. Palliative chemotherapy is not intended to cure patients
of cancer, only to make their lives more tolerable. Nonetheless,
this treatment may slightly improve survival.
What to do when someone
is injuring themselves
USTRALIAN researchers have developed the first-ever
A
guidelines for offering “mental health first-aid” to people
who engage in “cutting” and other types of non-suicidal selfinjury. The guidelines recommend that people seeking to help a
self-injurer should try to remain calm and positive, understand
that the behaviour is a coping mechanism, and focus on ways to
help the person relieve their distress rather than “stopping selfinjury.” – Reuters
By Richard Harkness
SAW a colon cleansing programme
advertised on the Web and am thinking
of trying it. Would you tell me if it’s
safe?
A: The product is similar to others promoted for the same purpose. It contains a
number of ingredients, the four main ones
being laxatives: Aloe, psyllium, flaxseed
and guar gum. Aloe is a stimulant laxative.
The other three are bulk laxatives.
There are safety issues to consider.
High doses of aloe latex over several days
may lead to kidney dysfunction. Chronic
ingestion of alfalfa seeds has been linked to
I
Are colon cleansing products safe?
blood cell abnormalities and drug-induced
lupus. Chewing or
crushing the seeds of
black psyllium releases a pigment that can damage the kidneys
(supposedly, black psyllium has been
removed from most commercial products).
The fennell constituent estragole appears
to be a carcinogen. Papaya, in excessive
amounts, may cause perforation of the
esophagus. Uva ursi contains hydroquinone,
which can have mutagenic and carcinogenic
effects with long-term use (The general
advice is to avoid using uva ursi for more
than a week or more than five times a year).
A general caution is that the dietary supplements market is only loosely regulated.
You can’t always be sure you’re getting
what’s listed on the product label, in the stated amounts, free of unwanted contaminants.
Adding further uncertainty is the fact that
marketers aren’t required to reveal the
amounts of individual ingredients in their
“proprietary blends.”
Glowing user “testimonials” may not be
worth a plug nickel as evidence. These
pitches are designed to cater to our innate
accumulated toxins
and foecal matter.
Colon-cleansing products or kits purportedly clean out this
desire to believe. In summary, there are
safety issues and other uncertainties to note. “stuck” buildup and thus improve health.
You may have seen TV infomercials in
As a laxative, this product is Ferrari-priced
compared to OTC products containing the which dramatic photos are purported to
same laxative ingredients available at your show masses of such “sludge” that was dislocal pharmacy.
lodged and expelled during cleansing.
That said, let’s take a closer look at colon
The clinical evidence is to the contrary.
cleansing, which is promoted as a detox Deposits of accumulated foecal matter do
not appear to stick to the colon wall.
(detoxification) procedure.
Marketers seem to have resurrected a People scheduled for colon exams
19th-century theory that posits, over time, (colonoscopy) take strong laxatives prior
the colon wall becomes caked with layers of to the procedure.
The purpose of these laxatives is to thoroughly clean the colon (so the examiner has
a clear view of the inside wall of the colon).
No such caked masses of fecal matter are
expelled. Neither do they show up on
colonoscopy exams.
Finally, chronic “colon cleansing” carries
health risks, including dehydration, blood
electrolyte imbalance, impaired bowel function, and disruption of normal protective
intestinal flora.
(Richard Harkness is a consultant pharmacist, natural medicines specialist and
author of eight published books.) – The Sun
Herald/MCT
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6:30 PM
Page 1
GULF TIMES FEATURES
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
SUPER MOVIES
TCM
STAR MOVIES
0550 Eragon
0735 Federal Hill
0920 Everyone Says I
Love You
1105 Die Hard
5am to 1pm
0500 Valley of the Wolves
Iraq (3)
0700 Black Christmas (3)
0900 Goodbye Bafana (3)
1100 Cargo (2)
1300 Phat Girlz (2)
0515
0700
0825
1000
1135
Zig Zag
Speak Easily
Crisis
Royal Wedding
Calling Bulldog
Drummond
1300 The Teahouse of
the August Moon
FOX SPORTS
HOLLYWOOD CH.
0500 Seamaster
0530 iShares Cup France
0600 MLB LA Dodgers at
St. Louis Cardinals
0900 Hooters USAR Pro
Cup Series Salem,
IN
1000 Canadian Football
League
Saskatchewan
Roughriders v
Calagary Stampede
1300 Golf Central
International Live
From PGA
Championship
0500 Live At the
Rehearsal Hall
0600 The Art Of
Architecture
0630 Action
0700 Star! At the Movies
0730 Listed
0830 Look-a-like
0900 Muchmusic Video
Flow
0930 The Wedge
1030 The Originals
1100 Live At the
Rehearsal Hall
1200 The Art Of
Architecture
1230 Action
1300 Star! At the Movies
0500
0530
0600
0630
0700
0730
0800
0830
0900
0930
1000
1030
1100
1130
1200
Sales Slot
AAA Teleshopping
Ek Nazar Exposure
Saat Phere
Naagin
Rakhi
Betiyaan
Maayka
Waaris
Dulhan
Kasamh Se
Saath Saath
Rakhi
Vivaah
Ghar Ki Lakshmi
Betiyaann
1230 Banoo Mein Teri
Dulhann
0540
0605
0700
0730
0755
0850
0915
1010
1105
1200
1255
1500 Major League Soccer Columbus Crew
@ Houston Dynamo
1800 Golf Club
1830 World of Athletics
1900 Raceworld
1330 Listed
1430 Look-a-like
1500 Muchmusic Video
Flow
1530 The Wedge
1630 The Originals
1700 Live At the
Rehearsal Hall
1800 The Art Of
Architecture
1830 Action
1900 Star! At the Movies
1300
1330
1400
1430
1500
1530
1600
1630
1700
1325
1350
1445
1540
1605
1635
1730
1830
MOVIE RATINGS
ZEE TV
DISCOVERY CH.
STAR PLUS
How It’s Made
American Hotrod
5th Gear
Mean Machines
Building the Future
How Do They Do It?
American Hotrod
Deadliest Catch
Mythbusters
American Hotrod
5th Gear
0500
0600
0630
0700
0730
0800
0830
0900
0930
1000
1030
1100
1130
1200
1230
1300
Star Bestsellers
Sangam
Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii
Kasturi
Grihasti
Shanti
Shagun
Santaan
Raja Ki Aayegi
Baraat
Kis Desh Me Hai
Meraa Dil
Kumkum Pyara Sa
Bandhan
Hamari Devrani
Karam Apna Apna
Grihasti
Bidaai
Sangam
1pm to 7pm
1500 The Secret (2)
1700 Assault on Precinct
13 (2)
1900 The Prestige (2)
Firewall (2)
Normal (3)
Frida (3)
Normal (3)
7pm to 5am
2100
2300
0100
0300
1pm to 7pm
5am to 1pm
DISCOVERY SCIENCE
7pm to 5am
T e l e v i s i o n
L i s t i n g s
1 All Viewers,
2 Caution
3 Parental Discretion, V Violence
S Adult Content,
L Strong Language
1320 The Buddy System
1510 Deadly Seasonthe
Secret Of Hidden
Lake
1650 Sorority Boys
1825 Stargate
2030 Mad Love
2210 Fargo
2350 Deadly Seasonthe
Secret Of Hidden
Lake
0125 What’s Love Got To
Do With It
0325 The Buddy System
AMERICA PLUS
QBS FRENCH SERVICE
1345 Arabic literature:
Yacoubian Building by
Alaa al-Aswany
1930 The Big Hollywood
Countdown
2000 Spotlight
2030 The it List
2100 The Story Of...
2200 Born To Be
2230 Number 1s
2330 MmmProfile
0000 I Heart
0030 Box Office
0100 Star! At the Movies
0130 The Big Hollywood
Countdown
0200 Spotlight
0230 The it List
0300 The Story Of...
0400 Born To Be
0430 Number 1s
1900 Saath Phere
1930 Ghar Ki Laxmi
Betiyaan
2000 Teen Bahuraniyan
2030 Waaris
2100 Kasamh Se
2130 Asian Sky Shop
2330 Teen Bahuraniyaan
0000 Kasamh Se
0030 Rakhi
0100 Saath Phere
0130 Vivaah
0200 Urja
0230 Narseva Narayan Seva
0300 Meditation
0330 Sant Nirankari
0400 The Faith Show
ORBIT NEWS
0500 MSNBC Race for
the White House
with David Gregory
0600 NBC Nightly News
0630 ABC Nightline Live
0700 Newshour with Jim
Lehrer
0800 MSNBC Verdict with
Dan Abrams
0900 MSNBC Hardball
1000 ABC Nightline
1030 NBC Nightly News
1100 ABC World News
Now
1130 NBC Early Today
Live
1200 MSNBC Live First
Look
1230 ABC America This
Morning Live
0500
0600
0630
0700
1000
1400 GMA Live
1600 One Tree Hill
1700 Studio 60 on the
Sunset Strip
1800 Bachelor
1900 Cold Case
1320 Little Mermaid
1345 The Littles
1410 Gadget And The
Gadgetinis
1430 Dennis The Menace
1455 Little Wizards
1520 Lady Lovely Locks
1610 Princess Tenko
1635 Heathcliff
1700 Bad Dog
1725 Eek!stravaganza
1750 Peter Pan And The
Pirates
1815 Little Wizards
1840 Gadget And The
Gadgetinis
1900 Princess Sissi
1330 World Business Report
1345 Sport Today
1400 World News Today
World Business Report
1500 BBC News, Weather
1530 World Business Report
1545 Sport Today
1600 World News Today,
Sport Today
1700 BBC News, Weather
1730 Hardtalk
1800 BBC News, Weather
1830 Fast Track
1900 World News Today
World Business Report
1330 NBC Early Today
1400 NBC The Today
Show Live
1800 PBS Newshour with
Jim Lehrer
1900 MSNBC Hardball
1400
1500
1530
1600
1700
2000
2100
2200
2300
0000
0100
0200
0400
1925 Little Mermaid
1950 The Littles
2015 Gadget And The
Gadgetinis
2035 Dennis The Menace
2100 Little Wizards
2125 Lady Lovely Locks
2215 Princess Tenko
2240 Heathcliff
2305 Bad Dog
2330 Eek!stravaganza
2355 Peter Pan And The
Pirates
0020 Little Wizards
0105 Princess Sissi
0130 Little Mermaid
0155 The Littles
0220 Gadget And The
Gadgetinis
0240 Dennis The Menace
0305 Little Wizards
2000
2030
2045
2100
2000 MSNBC Countdown
w/K. Olbermann
2100 ABC News
Primetime Family
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2200 MSNBC Live
0000 MSNBC Live
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0100 ABC Nightline
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0000 Business
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0100 The Situation Room
0200 CNN Today
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ER
(Maryam)
1400 Youth Opinion: Houda
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1500 French Touch: Electro
and House Music (Sid)
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0615 Today’s Programmes
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0855 Charithrathil Innu
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1000 News Headlines
1002 Chayamakkani
1020 Tharapadham
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1200 Asianet Varthakal
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1300 News Headlines
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2000 Kyunki Saas Bhi
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2200 Karam Apna Apna
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2330 Raja Ki Aayegi
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0000 Kasturi
0030 Shanti
0100 Sangam
0130 Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii
0200 Shagun
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0300 Kayamath
DISNEY CHANNEL
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0900 [V] Tunes: Electro
1100 Parental Control
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1200 Popparazzi
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and Cody
1845 Phineas & Ferb
1900 Fairly Odd Parents Splits
1330 The Record Shop
1400 America’s Next Top
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1500 Parental Control
1530 Gene Simmons
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1600 Popparazzi
1630 Remote Control
1730 Get Gorgeous
1800 America’s Next Top
Model
1900 Parental Control
1910 Brandy and Mr Whiskers
1925 Wizards Of Waverly
Place
1950 Cory In The House
2010 Hannah Montana
2035 The Suite Life of Zack
and Cody
2125 Phil of The Future
2150 Classic Cartoons
2200 Mickey Mouse
Clubhouse
2225 Bunnytown
2250 My Friends Tigger and
Pooh
2300 Replacements
2350 Phineas & Ferb
0000 Replacements
0015 Kim Possible
0105 Fairly Odd Parents
0150 Hannah Montana
0240 American Dragon
0330 Recess
1930 Gene Simmons
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2000 Popparazzi
2030 Remote Control
2130 Get Gorgeous
2200 [V] Tunes: Electro
0100 Double Shot
0230 Popparazzi
0300 Remote Control
0400 [V] Tunes: Rock
Classics
Hit Movies
Bin Moosa Sanchari
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0500
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1830
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2110
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0010
0600 Holy Qur’an and its
Translation
0615 The Breakfast Show,
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0845 Arabic/Islamic Programme
0900 Hip Hop Zone
1000 The Mix
1100 News Summary
1105 Midday Show
1300 The News
1315 French Transmission
1600 In All Directions
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1800 The News
1815 Evening News contd..
2000 News Summary
2005 World Chart Show
2100 Music in Stereo
2000 MLB LA Dodgers at
St. Louis Cardinals
2300 The Fight Network
Clottey vs. Judah
ATB
2330 The Fight Network
SYWF
0000 The Fight Network
TKO
0100 The Fight Network
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0130 The Fight Network
Matt Serra 1 On 1
0200 Golf Central
International Live
From PGA
Championship
0400 Personal Lessons Beth Daniel 1
Teen Bahuraniyan
Betiyaan
Waaris
Saath Phere
Vivaah
Parivaar ... Kartavya
Ki Pariksha
1730 Dulhan Banoo Mein Teri
1800 Maayka
1830 Kasamh Se
0500 World News Today
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0600 BBC News, Weather
0630 Asia Business Report
0645 Asia Today
0700 BBC News, Weather
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1000 BBC News, Weather
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1045 Sport Today
1100 BBC News, Weather
1130 Extra Time
1200 BBC News, Weather
1300 BBC News, Weather
1350 How It’s Made
1440 The Xtesters
1510 Man Made Marvels
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1600 Impossible Heists
1650 Superships
1740 One Step Beyond
1810 How Does That
Work?
1835 A Chopper is Born
1900 Beyond Tomorrow
0035
0100
0150
0240
0310
0400
0450
2015 The Seven Hills Of
Rome
2200 Coming Home
0010 The Formula
0205 Ninotchka
0355 The Power
Maayka
Haadsa
Naagin
FUN CHANNEL
0500
0600
0800
0900
1000
1100
1200
1300
How It’s Made
The Xtesters
Universe
Alien Planet
Superships
One Step Beyond
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Work?
A Chopper is Born
Beyond Tomorrow
How It’s Made
The Xtesters
Universe
Alien Planet
Superships
1500 It Started with a
Kiss
1645 Grand Hotel
1835 The Pirate
0510 Bad Dog
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0600 Peter Pan And The
Pirates
0625 Little Wizards
0700 Camp Candy
0725 Dennis The Menace
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0900 Sylvanian Families
0925 Diplodos
0945 Princess Tenko
1010 Princess Sissi
1055 Little Mermaid
1120 Little Mouse On The
Prairie
1145 Diplodos
1205 Eek!stravaganza
1230 Lady Lovely Locks
1255 Princess Sissi
0540 One Step Beyond
0610 How Does That
Work?
0635 A Chopper is Born
0700 Beyond Tomorrow
0750 How It’s Made
0840 The Xtesters
0910 Man Made Marvels
China
1000 Impossible Heists
1050 Superships
1140 One Step Beyond
1210 How Does That
Work?
1235 A Chopper is Born
1300 Beyond Tomorrow
QBS ENGLISH SERVICE
RADIO STATIONS
Wed
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1630
1700
1705
BBC News
Documentary: The Trouble
With Money
On Screen
BBC News
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BBC News
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BBC News
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Analysis
BBC News
World Briefing
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On Screen
BBC News
Newshour
BBC News
Documentary: The Trouble
With Money
Disovery
BBC News
World Briefing
1730
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2100
2105
2130
2200
2205
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2240
2250
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0100
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0120
1000
Outlook
BBC News
World Briefing
Business Daily
BBC News
Europe Today
BBC News
World, Have Your Say
BBC News
Documentary: The Trouble
With Money
Wimbledon Live
BBC News
World Briefing
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Analysis
Sports Roundup
BBC News
Newshour
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Outlook
On Screen
BBC News
Documentary: The Trouble
With Money
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BBC News
WEDNESDAY TV PUSH.qxd 8/4/2008 9:26 PM Page 1
GULF TIMES FEATURES
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
BBC PRIME
0630
0650
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0730
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0915
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0935
1000
1045
1145
1215
1315
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1600
1700
1730
1800
1830
Balamory
Tweenies
Big Cook Little
Cook
Tikkabilla
Razzledazzle
Tweenies
Balamory
Big Cook Little
Cook
Come Outside
Andy Pandy
Teletubbies
Bargain Hunt
Houses Behaving
Badly
Eastenders
Ballykissangel
0600
The Weakest Link
As Time Goes By
As Time Goes By
Next of Kin
Next of Kin
Antiques Roadshow
Garden Invaders
House Invaders
Eastenders
Worrall Thompson
1300
1400
1500
My Family
My Family
A Week Of Dressing Dangerously
Holby City
Down to Earth
My Family
Holby City
Down to Earth
Antiques Roadshow
Houses Behaving
Badly
Houses Behaving
Badly
1900
2000
2100
2200
0700
0800
0830
0900
1000
1100
1200
1230
Air Crash Investigation
Situation Critical
Food Lovers
Guide to the Plane
I Didn’t Know That
On Ice
Perfect Weapon
Mega Thursday
Blue Whales
Mad Labs
STAR WORLD
0500
0600
0700
0730
0800
0830
0900
1000
1100
1200
GRANADA UK
Desperate Housewives
Commander In
Chief
8 Simple Rules
Yes Dear
Family Guy
King Of The Hill
The Apprentice
Code Red
Ugly Betty
America’s Got
Talent
0530
0600
0630
0700
0800
0900
0930
1000
1100
1130
1200
1230
1530
1600
1700
1800
Sky Monsters
China’s Hollywood
Food Lovers
Guide to the Plane
I Didn’t Know That
Costa Rica
Predators in Peril
World’s Deadliest
Animals
1300
1400
1430
1500
1600
1700
1800
1830
Desperate Housewives
My Name Is Earl
Jake In Progress
General Hospital
The Apprentice
Commander
In
Chief
Family Guy
King Of The Hill
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1315
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1445
1500
1530
1630
1715
1800
Yes Dear
Missing
ABC – 20/20
Evening News
Nightline
The Insider &
Inside Edition
CBS – The Early
Show
Jeopardy
Wheel of Fortune
Rachel Ray
Home Shopping
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Nightmares
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Inside
Edition
Week
The Insider
Days Of Our Lives
Missing
Commander
In
Chief
Rachel Ray
1900
1930
2000
2100
2200
2300
0000
0100
0130
0200
0230
0300
SKY NEWS
0630
0930
1000
1030
Sky Today With
Dermot
Murnaghan
PMQ’s
Sky Today
Afternoon Live
With Kay Burley
2100
2200
2300
0000
0100
0115
0130
0230
Dr Phil
Wicked Wicked
Game
The Oprah Winfrey Show
So You Think You
Can Dance
Hidden Palms
Yes Dear
Inside
Edition
Week
The Insider
Wicked Wicked
Games
Hidden Palms
PRAYER TIME
Fajr 3.40am, Shorooq (sunrise) 5.03am,
Zuhr (noon) 11.40am,
Asr (afternoon)
3.08pm, Maghreb (sunset) 6.17pm, Isha
(night) 7.47pm.
DOHA ZOO
Open from 8am to 12 noon and 2.30pm to
7pm daily. Tuesdays are reserved for women.
Friday for general public in the afternoon only.
CONSUMER COMPLAINTS
(FOOD CONTROL DEPARTMENT)
Head of dept: 4347633, 5570888; Deputy
head of dept: 5555296; Central operator:
4347777; Food consultant: 4347540
HOSPITALS
Visiting Hours:
Hamad General Hospital, Women’s Hospital and Rumaillah Hospital: 6am to
7.30am, 4pm to 8pm.
HELP LINE
Is drinking a problem for you or someone you love?
Call Alcoholics Anonymous: 5605901
1900
1930
2000
2030
2130
2300
0000
0100
TEN SPORTS
600
800
830
900
930
1000
1030
1100
1430
1630
1700
1730
1800
1830
Live At Five With
Jeremy Thompson
Sky News At 7
With Anna Botting
Sky.Com News
News,
Sport,
Weather
PMQ’s
News,
Sport,
Weather
1300
1500
1530
1600
1630
1700
1730
1800
1900
2000
8 Simple Rules
Yes Dear
Shark
In Justice
In Justice
Code Red
The Apprentice
Family Guy
King Of The Hill
NGC Program
NGC Program
Shark
0130
MBC 4
0500
0520
0600
0700
0730
0800
Deadly Obsession
Costa Rica
Predators in Peril
World’s Deadliest
Animals
Food Lovers
Guide to the Plane
I Didn’t Know That
Costa Rica
Predators in Peril
1930
2030
2130
2200
2230
0030
0100
0130
0200
Sky News At Ten
With Anna Botting
Sky News Tonight
With Anna Botting
Sky News On The
Hour
CBS News
Sky News On The
Hour
Sky News On The
Hour
CBS News
Sky World News
Review & Business
2000
2030
2100
2130
2200
2230
2300
2330
0000
SHOW MOVIES1
Two’s Company
Second Thoughts
(Series 1)
Barbara
Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased)
Heartbeat
The Krypton Factor
Battle Of The
Chefs
Life Begins
(Series 1)
Crossroads
Emmerdale
Coronation Street
The Knock
0600
0800
1000
1200
Two’s Company
(Series 1)
Second Thoughts
(Series 1)
Barbara
Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased)
Heartbeat
The Krypton Factor
Battle Of The
Chefs
Life Begins
1400
1600
Crossroads
Emmerdale
Coronation Street
Reach For The
Moon
The Brief
(Series 2)
Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased)
Heartbeat
(Series 4)
The Krypton Factor
Battle Of The
Chefs
1930
0630
0900
Sri Lanka v India
2nd Test H/L’s
India Rally Championship 2008
Gillette World of
Sports
Simply the Best
Speed
Great Centuries
Marlon Samuels
Hockey Classics
2007
Sri Lanka v India
2nd Test H/L’s
1330
1355
1400
1430
1500
1530
1555
1600
1630
Great Centuries
Marlon Samuels
Gillette World of
Sports
The Bajaj Pulsar
DTSI Sportsnight
Simply the Best
India Rally Championship 2008
Hockey Classics
2007
Sportsnight
Great Centuries
Marlon Samuels
Cricket Classics
0930
1000
1030
1100
Movie
Kadamattathu
Kathanar
Sooryaputhri
Omanathinkal
Pakshi
Asianet Varthakal
Movie
SHOW MOVIES2
0600
0745
0930
1130
0635
0700
1040
1135
1230
1800
Are We Done Yet?
The Devil And
Daniel Johnston
The House Next
Door
1340
1520
1645
1820
Defiance
Shadows And Fog
High Spirits
Molly
1300
1445
1615
1800
The Prince And
Me 2
Running Free
Salvatore
The Prince And
Me 2
1325
1350
1420
1515
1610
1705
1800
Madea’s Family
Reunion
Are We Done Yet?
Hollywood One
On One
Reign Over Me
The House Next
Door
You Are Here
2130
2330
0000
0230
0400
2000
2155
2335
0135
0310
0500
Moby Dick
Tentacles
The Misfits
Heart Of Dixie
Hawks
Bright Angel
1945
2115
2330
0200
0430
Running Free
Freedom Writers
Joe
StrummerThe Future Is
Unwritten
Reign Over Me
Ghost World
1900
2000
2030
2100
2200
2300
0000
0055
0150
0220
STAR GOLD
0610 Starboxoffice
0615 Tele View Mall
0620 Subh Ho Gayi
Mamu
0700 Nag Nagin
1000 Starboxoffice
1005 Doodh Ka Karz
1410
1415
1725
1730
1700
1730
1800
Chillujalakam
Cookery show
Valkannadi
Narmalahari
Snehathooval
Nirmalyam
Munshi
News Time
Ente Manassa
Puthri
Hello Kuttichathan
Kanakkuyil
Idea Star Singer II
1900
1930
2000
2030
2035
2105
2200
2330
0000
0030
Sreekrishna Leela
Rahasyam
Asianet Varthakal
Munshi Repeat
Cinemala
Ennu Swantham
Gulf News
Swami Ayyappan
Unniyarcha
News Hour
2100 Starboxoffice
2105 Ghayal – The
Fighter Man
0030 Innerworld of
Sharukh Khan
0130 Papa the Great
ARABIC: Sabaho Kedh; 45 Youm; Andaleeb
El Dokki; Fi Mahtat Maser; Ayazono; Abdu
ENGLISH: Step Up 2 The Streets (Briana Mawaseem; Wahed Men El Nass .
Evigan); My First Wedding (Rachel Leigh
(Information courtesy: Q-Mart Audio
Cook); King of California (Michael Douglas);
Video at The Mall).
In the Name of the King (Jason Statham);
Undertaking Betty (Hannah Higgins); VanSEFUL UMBERS
tage Point (Dennis Quaid); Ratatouille (AniPolice, Fire, Ambulance . . . . . . . . . . 999
mation); Rott Weiler (William Miler); Blonde HMC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4392222
Ambition (Jessica Simpson); P2 (Wes Bent- Women’s (Rumaillah) . . . . . . . . 4393333
ley); Cloverfield (Michael Stahl-David); The HMC (Emergency) . . . . . . . . . . 4393507
11th Hour (Documentary); 27 Dresses Veterinary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653083
(Katherine Heigl); Outlaw (Danny Dyer, Water & Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991
Sean Bean, Bob Hoskins); The Good Night Flight Inquiries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4622999
(Gwyneth Paltrow); Rails & Ties (Kevin Doha Seaport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4457457
Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4442191
Bacon); The Water Horse (Alex Etel).
HINDI: U, Me, Aur Hum (Ajay Devgan); Bhoot- Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4671811
nath (Amitabh Bachchan); Anamika (Dino Mumtaz Post (24-hr Service): . . 4415566
Morea); Krazzy 4 (Irrfan Khan); Khuda Kay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4432211
Liye (Nassiruddin Shah); Saawariya (Ranbir (Car) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4483555
Kapoor); Tashan (Kareena Kapoor); Race Ship Phone Service. . . . . . . . . . 4864444
(Saif Ali Khan); 1,2,3 (Paresh Rawal); Shaurya Ministry of Interior main
switchboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4330000
(Rahul Box); Black & White (Anil Kapoor,
Public Department for passports,
Anurag Sinha); Superstar (Kunal Khemu);
nationality and residence . . . . . 4882882
Gauri (Atul Kulkarni); Sunday (Ayesha Takia); Capital Security Dept. . . . . . . . . 4444420
Bombay to Bangkok (Shreyas Talpade); Rama Criminal Information Dept . . . . . 4477477
Rama Kya Hai Drama (Rajpal Yadav); Boundaries and Coasts
Strangers (Jimmy Shergill); Halla Bol (Ajay Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4414488
Devgan, Pankaj Kapur); Dus Kahaniyaan; Civil Defence Department . . . . . 4413666
Welcome (Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif); Mum- Public Relations Dept . . . . . . . . 4448720
Rescue Service . . . . . . . . . . . . 4682888
bai Salsa (Vir Das); Speed (Zayed Khan).
N
ANIMAL PLANET
0610
0755
DUBAI ONE
0600 Emirates News
0630 The Bold And The
Beautiful
0700 The View
0800 The Tyra Banks
Show
0900 Friends
0930 Extreme Makeover
Home Edition
1030 Kevin Hill
1130 8 Simple Rules
1200 Scrubs
1230 E! Entertainment
STAR ONE
0600
0630
0730
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0930
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1100
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1230
LATEST DVD , VIDEO RELEASES
Population 436
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Liaisons
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Movie
0945
I NFORMATION
U
MGM
00520 Birdman Of Alcatraz
0745 Haunted Honeymoon
0905 September
1025 The Magnificent
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1205 The Tender
0850
ASIANET TV
Sri Lanka v India
2nd Test Day 1
H/L’s
The Inside Story
Great Centuries
Marlon Samuels –
100
Indian Golf Show
2008
Simply the Best
Gillette World of
Sports
Speed
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2nd Test Day 2
H/L’s
Stephanie Daley
The Golden Door
Gridiron Gang
Madea’s Family
Reunion
Starboxoffice
Nigahen
Starboxoffice
Rama Rama Kya
Hai Drama
1330 Lost
1430 Friends
1500 The Bold And The
Beautiful
1530 The View
1630 Shabby Chic
1730 Scrubs
1800 My Wife And Kids
1830 The Tyra Banks
Show
1930
2000
2100
2200
0000
0200
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Emirates News
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Secret Men’s Business
5
The Planet’s Funniest Animals
The Planet’s Funniest Animals
Raising Baby
Iwani
Nick Baker’s
Weird Creatures
E-Vets The
Interns
The Planet’s Funniest Animals
Raising Baby
Iwani
Great Ocean
Adventures
E-Vets The
Interns
All New Planet’s
Funniest Animals
Monkey Business
Nick
Baker’s
Weird Creatures
Big Cat Doctor
The Planet’s Funniest Animals
Raising Baby
Iwani
Great
Ocean
Adventures
E-Vets The Interns
All New Planet’s
Funniest Animals
Monkey Business
Nick Baker’s
Weird Creatures
Big Cat Doctor
Animal Cops
Houston
The Planet’s Funniest Animals
Great Ocean
Adventures
E-Vets The Interns
E-Vets The Interns
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Sonpari
Shararat – Thoda
Jadu Todi Nazakat
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Iv
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Wah Bhai Wah
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Chhoona Hai Aasmaan
Teen Ka Show
1600 Pari Hoon Main
1630 Ssshhh....Phir Koi
Hai
1725 V First Day First
Show
1730 Anu Ki Ho Gayi
Wah Bhai Wah
1800 Dill Mill Gayye
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1930 Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai
2000 Mano Ya Na Mano
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2100 Pari Hoon Main
2130 V First Day First
Show
2135 V Trailers
2200 V First Day First
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2205 Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai
2230 India Calling
0630 Movie: Kaasillatheyum Jeevikkam
0900 Anandam
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1000 Kolangal
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1900 Sree Guruvayurappan
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2000 News
2030 Comedy Time
2100 Music Moments
2300 Priyam Priyatharam
2330 Surya Music
0330 Life in the World
All programmes are
subject to change.
Y OUR S TARS
ARIES (Mar 21-April 20): You will
take on too much if you aren’t careful. Stick to basics. You can find out
important information if you listen to
friends and relatives. Be sure to
question any detail that you feel
could leave you in a precarious position at a later date.
lll
TAURUS (April 21-May 21): Daydreaming will be your downfall.
Disharmony in your relationship may
cause minor ailments. You will enjoy
interacting with those who come
from different backgrounds.
lll
GEMINI (May 22-June 21):
You
need to concentrate on your business ventures more than on your
relationship today. You will get out of
shape easily if you don’t keep on top
of things. Try to be considerate in
your personal obligations.
lll
CANCER (June 22-July 22): You
will be able to get your own way if
you use your intellectual charm and
know how. You need some help
today. You will easily blow situations
out of proportion.
lll
LEO (July 23-August 22):
You
can’t lose today unless you get
involved in gossip or overwork to the
point of exhaustion. Travel will be
favourable. Older family members
may try to make demands that are
impossible for you to handle.
lll
VIRGO (August 23-September 23):
Take a close look at documents
before signing on the dotted line.
Make changes in your domestic
scene. However, you must not
neglect your family.
lll
LIBRA (September 24-October 23):
You will feel so much better about
yourself if you can control your
addictions. Someone may not be
thinking of your best interests. Be
prepared to neutralise any threats.
lll
SCORPIO (October 24- November
22): Be prepared to overcome frustrations and obstacles at work. You’ll
be tempted to spend extravagantly
today. Communicate with relatives
who may need advice in order to find
solutions to their existing problems.
lll
SAGITTARIUS (November 23-
December 21): Trips will be
favourable for business as well as
pleasure. You will have the ability to
capture the interest of others. People
you live with will not be happy with
you regardless of what you do today.
lll
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 20): Home improvement projects will go well if you delegate work
to all your family members. Travel
should be on your agenda. Situations you can’t change should be forgotten for the present.
lll
AQUARIUS (January 21-February 19): You can change your living
arrangements. Don’t let your partner
start any arguments. Energy should
be redirected positively. This will not
be the day to start new business
ventures or make drastic changes in
your career.
lll
PISCES (February 20-March 20):
Assets can be doubled if you play
your cards correctly. Be considerate
and avoid being overly opinionated,
or arguments will ensue. You may
have difficulties with someone who
lives with you.
Page 7 Aug 6.qxd 8/5/2008 11:14 PM Page 1
GULF TIMES FEATURES
Entertainment
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
7
Superheroes
march on
They may wear silly costumes and
be obsessed with superheroes and
comic books, but their influence on
the movies we watch has never
been stronger
By Jeremy Kay
ECADES may have
passed since the socalled golden and silver
ages of comic books, but as far
as Hollywood is concerned, the
industry finds itself on the cusp
of a diamond-encrusted platinum era of superhero movies.
As The Dark Knight continues
its record-breaking US run following successful summer
launches for Iron Man and
Wanted, comic book adaptations are once again bossing it
at the box office.
In order to attain such rude
health, the studios are once
again courting one key demo graphic - the geeks. This
knowledgeable and vocal subculture has returned to prominence since the 1990s, when
fan hysteria greeted films such
as Men in Black, Blade, and the
Star Wars sequels and propelled them to box-office success.
In the intervening years,
Hollywood’s cyclical nature
and the ascendancy of comic
book aficionados such as
Christopher Nolan, Zack 300
Snyder, and Frank Sin City
Miller has seen the nerd return
as a highly influential factor in
Hollywood.
Studio chiefs know all too
well that if upcoming projects
such as Captain America,
Wonder Woman and Wolverine
are to prosper, first and foremost they have to be all right
with the fans.
Nowhere is this precarious
dance more in evidence than at
Comic-Con, the annual pop
culture jamboree that took
place last week in San Diego,
California. It is into this maelstrom of costumes and commerce that Hollywood honchos
take the plunge once a year to
promote upcoming releases,
announce cast members and
trumpet new projects.
Footage gets screened way
in advance of a film’s release in
the hope of drumming up
enthusiastic word of mouth in
blogs and online forums.
Hollywood always wants to
know if it’s on the right track.
Book adaptations and genre
D
films are attractive propositions because studios know the
in-built fan base will see the
film and galvanise wider attendance.
But the comic-book fans are
a savvy crowd and, if
Hollywood gets it wrong, poor
early word can spread like
wildfire. Ever since the cult
website Ain’t It Cool News
damned 1997’s Batman &
Robin with negative advance
reviews, there’s been a potency
to the musings of netizens.
After all, who wants to fork
out $250mn in production and
marketing costs only for a film
to end up in the bargain bucket
at the local video shop?
This year, at Comic-Con, the
studios offered sneak previews
of wannabe blockbusters such
as The Day the Earth Stood
Still (Fox’s reboot of the 1951
sci-fi classic, now starring
Keanu Reeves), Frank Miller’s
adaptation of The Spirit, based
on Will Eisner’s old newspaper
comic strip, and Underworld:
Rise of the Lycans.
Reeves and Miller turned up
in person, as did Hugh
Jackman, Comic-Con regular
Samuel L Jackson, Michelle
Yeoh, Brendan Fraser and the
new kings of comedy, Judd
Apatow and Seth Rogen. Few
places outside of the Cannes,
Venice and Toronto film festivals boast such a concentration
of talent.
One of the major Comic-Con
events, though, was the first
screening of footage from the
long-gestating
Watchmen
movie. Twelve months after
Warner Brothers announced
casting information, the studio
returned to show footage of the
postmodern superhero tale. The
crowd was euphoric and - kerching! - you could almost hear
the collective sigh of relief
from the cadre of top executives seated at the front of the
6,500-seater Hall H.
There
were
similarly
excitable receptions for Warner
Brothers/Sony’s Terminator:
Salvation, Fox’s Wolverine
spin-off and Lionsgate’s The
Spirit.
Those in the know agree that
in order to stand a chance of
success, an adaptation must
stick to the core elements of the
property and the studio must
not get side-tracked by the
opinions of fans once the project is underway.
“You always try to be faithful to the origins of the story
and you always make sure you
honour the tone,” Summit
Entertainment’s co-chairman
and CEO Rob Friedman told
me a day before the company
previewed footage of its vampire tale, Twilight, to rapturous
applause.
“Usually you want to keep
the creator involved as much as
possible and that’s what we did
with the author Stephenie
Meyer.”
Any egregious detour from
the essence of a character or
core story might lead to disaster. “If that happens, the fans
will revolt,” one leading agent
close to the comic book world
told me.
So don’t even think of turning Peter Parker from a newspaper photographer into a
roguish used-car salesman.
Fans will, however, allow
small tweaks here and there.
When Spider-Man director
Sam Raimi sat down to develop the first film with producer
Avi Arad, the pair decided it
would take too long to show
brilliant science student Parker
engineering his web shooters.
They settled instead on organic
web slinger that shot out of
Spidey’s wrist.
As the Spider-Man franchise
and The Dark Knight show,
when an adaptation works it
spells big profits for the studios. It also bolsters the sense
of vicarious pride that any fan
feels when his or her favourite
story earns recognition. “Geek
culture is here to stay,” Kevin
Smith, the director of such
comedies as Clerks and Dogma
and about as big a Comic-Con
icon as you can get, told a
packed hall during a panel discussion.
After several hours you
become inured to the hordes of
attendees decked out in tight
fitting Superman outfits or
smeared Joker face paint. Star
Wars, of course, is a galaxy that
is never far, far away at ComicCon and the convention centre
is filled with Boba Fetts,
Stormtroopers and other life
forms.
During a panel to promote
next month’s release of the animated feature Star Wars: The
Clone Wars, I sat next to Amy,
a middle-aged veterinarian
from Los Angeles, who
smoothes the folds of her ObiWan Kenobi tunic as we talk.
“There was something about
Star Wars that has always
stayed with me,” she says.
“There’s so much they can do
with the story; that’s one of the
things that makes it stay interesting.” But Amy is no fool and
won’t buy everything with the
Star Wars name. “They
brought out a line of
books that was pretty
lame so I stopped buying those.”
“It’s an extended
family for me,” says
Michael, a 59-yearold urologist from
North Dakota. “I’d
always loved Star
Wars and after my
wife passed away
15 years ago I
threw myself into
it and the community became my
family. I meet
some of my best
friends at these
events. I have a
day job and a
mortgage and
car, but this is
my real life. I
couldn’t say what
I’d do if I didn’t
have Star Wars
and the community.”
“You see this a
lot,” says Steve
S a n s w e e t ,
Lucasfilm’s head of
fan relations. “People
will tell you how
much Star Wars Christian Bale stars as Batman in Warner Brothers Pictures’ and
means to them. Legendary Pictures’ action drama, The Dark Knight. As The Dark
Fan culture is all Knight continues its record-breaking US run following successful
sorts of things. It summer launches for Iron Man and Wanted, comic book adaptations
can be geeks in
costumes
who are once again bossing it at the box office.
haven’t showered
tone. “We grew up with Star
Nonsense or not, Sansweet
for two weeks or ordinary- Wars. We really believe in it.”
has never regretted jumping
looking people who received
So do millions of others. into the world Lucas created.
their love of Star Wars from Lucasfilm first came to Comic- “I’m a fan myself,” says the
their parents and have in turn Con in 1976 because even back man who is working on the
passed it on to their children.”
then, a year before the first second edition of the Star Wars
Star Wars: The Clone Wars film’s release, Lucas felt a fan encyclopedia that he assures
is an original idea that Lucas convention would be the per- me will run to at least 1,200
and the film’s director Dave fect forum to develop aware- pages.
Filoni worked on. A 22-episode ness. They’ve never looked
“I’ve been called a geek, an
animated TV series will follow back.
anorak and even a nutter in
this autumn and beyond that
Are the fans’ being exploited Australia. I don’t care. None of
Lucas has his eye on a live- by a succession of films, books us cares. You take the word
action TV series.
and merchandising? Sansweet people are calling you and you
“The live-action movies doesn’t think so. “You have to desensitise it. If that’s what we
were really centred on the handle fans as a fellow fan and are then that’s what we are and
Skywalker family and we’ve you can’t talk down to them. we’ll keep on going.”
never gotten to see the full Fans are smart: if they smell
Hollywood, for one, will be
breadth of the conflict,” Filoni bullshit they’re not going to cheering them on. – Guardian
told the crowd in a reverential jump into it.”
News & Media
James McAvoy and Jim Sturgess… in demand
Top Hollywood
studios love
cut-price Brits
By Guy Adams
IKE many a careful
shopper, Hollywood’s
cash-strapped casting
agents are discovering that the
best way to ease spending in
these times of economic difficulty is to follow an old housewife’s trick: buy British.
The film industry, weary of
paying $20mn salaries to Matt
Damon, Nicole Kidman and
their A-list chums, is waking
up to the value of a generation
of cut-price alternatives from
across the Atlantic.
In an attempt to cope with
falling domestic box-office
sales and the after-effects of
the writers’ strike, major
Hollywood studios are hiring
up-and-coming actors such as
James McAvoy and Jim
Sturgess to front productions
that would traditionally feature
major US stars.
A story in the Hollywood
newspaper Variety last week
identified young Brits who represent value bets for producers.
They include Ben Whishaw,
Emily Blunt and Ben Barnes,
who was catapulted to fame as
the star of the recent Prince
Caspian, which took nearly
$400mn worldwide.
McAvoy, who cut his teeth
on the British TV series
Shameless, is thought to represent a canny alternative to
action heroes such as Damon
or Brad Pitt.
Although he commands a
fraction of their salaries,
McAvoy recently received
adulatory reviews as the lead in
Wanted, which co-starred
Angelina Jolie. The film took
$155mn in the US alone.
The increasing importance
of foreign markets to US film
revenues is also helping talent
from Europe. Overseas box
office, which used to be
thought inconsequential, now
accounts
for
half
of
Hollywood’s takings, increasing the importance of employ-
L
Emily Blunt… a value bet
for producers
ing credible international
stars.
“In the world of foreign
sales, there is a parallel universe, with a different group of
actors who are considered
bankable, even if they’ve only
had a few film credits, as long
as those few films were successful enough to give them
recognition around the globe,”
Variety noted.
A further boon to Brit actors
has been the US independent
film industry slump. Producers
who are not supported by big
studios face the toughest markets in decades. “As available
money for movies gets
squeezed, indie producers need
to find ‘bankable’ names who
don’t command movie star
prices,” the article added.
One beneficiary may be
Blunt, who stars in The Wolf
Man, landing a higher credit
than
Anthony
Hopkins.
Another could be Tilda
Swinton, referred to (only halfjokingly) as a cut-price
Kidman, who will take top
billing in the Coen brothers’
film Burn After Reading, costarring Brad Pitt and George
Clooney. – The Independent
C
M
Y
K
Page 8 Aug 6.qxd 8/5/2008 11:15 PM Page 1
GULF TIMES FEATURES
8
Entertainment
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
INTERVIEW/Aishwarya Rai
‘A wonderful experience’
By Subhash K Jha
Q: The international press has gone
ga-ga over your dancing?
A: I enjoy dancing and I’m having the
time of my life. But I wanted to come
back to Mumbai for a while to spend
time with dad. If it was London, it
would be a hopping flight. But from the
Q: How could you dance after US, you lose time because you cross the
getting up from your illness?
meridian line. So much as I’d like to
A: The first two shows were really come back every week from the
tough on me. I had to do everything in concerts, I can’t. But I just had to see
my power to not let my post-illness dad. And this weekend we just had one
weakness show. I practically learnt show. Now we return to do a show in
my steps during the shows. I just had Houston.
the last three-four nights to first
watch the acts and then try to learn
Q: How is it dancing with Madhuri
them.
Dixit?
A: For the two of us it’s like old times
Q: You must be torn between the again. We felt we were both back to
anxiety for your father and the doing Devdas together.
ecstasy of dancing live?
A: I am. My father is such a strong
Q: You hadn’t forgotten your Dola
man. And so is my mother. They’re both re steps?
going through his illness and
A: You know muscle memory never
recuperation together. My father is the lets a dancer down. If you’re a dancer,
strongest man I know. His faith in the you never forget steps for a song or
power of healing is so strong. I feel his dance you’ve done before. When the
strength and also the love of all those music plays the body just takes flight.
who have sent their genuine concern. He And that’s the best way to dance.
has gone through his second cycle of
chemotherapy and now he’s going
Q: Dancing with the whole family –
through his third. It’s not easy is that a new high?
QUESTION: It seems jetlag was for us.
A: It’s a wonderful experience. We’ve
invented for you and Abhishek?
danced together on screen and also
ANSWER: Ha! I grabbed this
Q: Wouldn’t you’ve preferred to performed together. But we’ve never
opportunity to come back home because stay home at this time?
been on a concert tour together. These
Abhishek had to attend an event. I came
A: My father wouldn’t allow that. My concerts are special because we’re
back to see my father. That’s been a parents are made of incredible doing them as a family and it’s the first
gnawing concern all through ever since substance. When I was toying with the concert Abhishek and I are doing after
my father fell ill. The first couple of the idea of backing out of the tour, they put marriage. Even the audiences all over
Unforgettable shows were really difficult their foot down. My dad was like, ‘No now respond to us as a couple. They
because I didn’t get enough time to way. Life goes on. There’s no way I’ll keep showering us with blessings and
rehearse. But after that it’s been fantastic. let you take steps back’.
good wishes.
ISHWARYA RAI, who is currently busy with the Bachchans’
Unforgettable concert, says that
as a co-star she had often asked
Abhishek to experience a world tour.
And when he finally agreed to it, they
are dancing as husband and wife.
“You know, when we were co-stars, I
always told Abhishek a world tour is
something he must experience. In fact,
for one of my world tours I had even
asked my organisers to ask him to come
onboard. He’d say, ‘Not yet, not yet’.
And who would’ve thought when he’s
finally ready for his first world tour,
we’d go together as husband and wife,”
Aishwarya said in an interview.
“It’s a wonderful experience. We have
danced together on screen and also
performed together. But we’ve never
been on a concert tour together. Even
the audiences all over now respond to us
as a couple. They keep showering us
with blessings and good wishes.”
The actress took a break from her tour
and flew back to Mumbai with
Abhishek to meet her father who is
unwell.
Excerpts from an interview:
A
Q: In spite of the fact that you
couldn’t rehearse enough?
A: I was ill for three weeks before we
left. I was on antibiotics throughout. I
barely had five days to rehearse before
we left.
And when we perform to the “Guru”
song, you should hear how they coo and
clap. You know, when we were co-stars,
I always told Abhishek a world tour is
something he must experience. It’s just
such a high to connect on such an
intimate basis with your audience.
In fact, for one of my world tours I
had even asked my organisers to ask
him to come onboard. He’d say, ‘Not
yet, not yet’. And now who would’ve
thought when he’s finally ready for his
first world tour, we’d go together as
husband and wife.
Q: Your best shared moment
during the concerts so far?
A: After the performance at
Amsterdam, I looked at Abhishek and
asked how it felt. And he reminded me
that I had urged him to go on stage from
long before. ‘And now we’re on stage as
husband and wife’, he said. That was a
memorable moment.
Q: A section of your friends in
Mumbai continue to believe the shows
aren’t doing well?
A: What do you do? I’ve spent a
entire career fighting off false
perceptions about my life and career.
Q: Do you improvise in the
programming for each concert?
A: Well, we added Dola re in the US
when Madhuri came on board. Abhishek
and I have also added a romantic act.
Most of the show is pre-set, but we’re
modifying it here and there. As the
number of performances increases
we’re having more and more fun. We’re
getting more and more interactive with
the audience.– IANS
Aishwarya Rai… enjoys dancing.
Money, money everywhere but Bollywood slipping
By Priyanka Khanna
HILE the stars of the Hindi
film industry are demanding
and getting stratospherically
high prices and entertainment conglomerates are registering over 200%
growth, the quality of cinema seems to
be getting ugly.
The A-list stars are asking for anything between Rs100mn to Rs500mn
for each film. Salman Khan has reportedly asked for Rs500mn for Amar
Akbar Anthony and Akshay Kumar
demanded Rs400mn for an Anees
Bazmi movie, leaving Hrithik Roshan,
who till recently was the highest paid
actor, far behind.
W
One-film-old Imran Khan of Jaane
Tu Ya Jaane Na fame has a price tag of
Rs70mn and his contemporary Ranbir
Kapoor who debuted with the not-sosuccessful Saawariya has been signed
up by the who’s who of Bollywood and
quotes about Rs60mn.
Even Darsheel Safary, who is the
youngest star of Bollywood to get nominated for the best actor award, has
been apparently offered Rs7.5mn for a
film. Katrina Kaif, Mallika Sherawat,
Shahid Kapoor, Emraan Hashmi,
Shiney Ahuja as well as the likes of
Ritesh Deshmukh and Aftab
Shivdasani have all upped their going
rates.
At the same time, the overall cost of
GARFIELD
film production is also at its peak with
inflation pushing up expenditure on
other essential inputs. Movie houses
and corporate big daddies seem to be
the only ones who can afford to make a
film in today’s scenario.
But one look at the hit-to-flop ratio
and one finds that the success rate has
not been too impressive.
According to news reports, the
industry has suffered a loss of Rs2.53bn at the box office in the last six
months. Clearly, the box-office is not
robust which means audiences are not
getting their money’s worth. If filmmakers are still making money it is
clearly because they are tapping into
other avenues, which are now galore.
Little surprise then that this week
Adlabs Films Ltd, announced a 217%
growth in its consolidated revenue. It is
not the only company doing well and
has plenty of company at the top.
Though there is nothing wrong in
everybody making money. But the
influx of corporate funds into
Bollywood had brought with it the
promise of ushering in an era of newage cinema.
Long mocked by serious international filmmakers for its formulaic scripts,
dubbed voices and wooden acting, the
influx of money had given the Hindi
film industry a shot at credibility and
bid for gravitas.
A Hindi film no longer needed to
cater to the lowest common denominator in order to break even. A burgeoning multiplex-going population, lucrative overseas territories, increasing
demand for content from new media
like Internet and mobiles, options like
sale of satellite rights, music rights and
so on, are all new revenue streams
available to filmmakers. These should
have freed them and given them the
wings to go out and experiment.
Barring exceptional efforts like
Aamir and Mithya which used to happen, albeit with much lower pitch,
before dime-a-dozen corporate houses
entered the Bollywood boulevard, the
promise of revival of new wave cinema
remains largely unmet this year. – IANS
TOP 10 HINDI ALBUMS
S. N.
SONG
ALBUM
1.
Sing Is King
Sing Is King
2.
Let’s Party
God Tussi Great Ho
3.
Khuda Jane
Beachna Ae Haseeno
4.
Kismat Konnection
Kismat Connection
5.
Pappu Can’t Dance Sala
Jane Tu Ya Jane Na
6.
Yaad Teri Aaye
Ugly Aur Pagly
7.
Money Hai To Honey Hai
Money Hai To Honey Hai
8.
Hawa Sun Hawa
Ada A Way Of Life
9.
Kabhi Khabi Aditi Zindagi
Jane Tu ... Ya Jane Na
10.
Nobody Like You
Mission Istanbul
Courtesy: Vanilla Qatar WLL
SUDOKU
Fill in the grid so that every
row, every column, and every
3x3 box contains the digits 1
through 9.
Yesterday’s solution
This puzzle is taken
from The Sudoku
Book: An introduction
to Sudoku with 101
puzzles, by Sam
Griffiths-Jones (RRP:
£5.99, Harriman
House). Visit www.dailysudoku.com for a
daily graded puzzle,
online Sudoku
resources and links.
POOCH CAFE
DOUBLE CROSSWORD
CRYPTIC CLUES
BOUND & GAGGED
ACROSS
6. Go miles for this kind of
porcelain (7)
7. Thanks to a shout of disapproval, it’s not allowed (5)
9. Five appearing in lively
dance spree (5)
10. Paying for service is upsetting (7)
12. Honest chaps used as
stooges (8,3)
14. The doggedness shown by
recent spies (11)
18. Moving house? You need
one vehicle to follow another
(7)
19. The scoundrel doesn’t get
in the house (5)
21 and 1Dn. Presumably
they’re not favoured by heavy
drinkers! (5,5)
22. Toxic substance can rise
alarmingly (7)
DOWN
1. See 21 Ac. (5)
2. Unobtrusive manner shown by
a holy man (6)
3. See 20Dn.
4. Noticed a hole in the timberyard (6)
5. Indicator put in the ground by
the Post Office (7)
8. It’s assumed in addressing let ters (7)
11. Army officer in France sounds
warlike (7)
13. Majestic one with a set of dec orations (7)
15. Has wet dressing replaced (6)
16. Wound up the company I was
head of (6)
17. Clear the level ground (5)
20 and 3Dn. Member authorised
to produce a sleeve badge (6)
QUICK CLUES
ACROSS
6. Insignificant (7)
7. Unit of length (5)
9. Intuitive guess (5)
10. Reap (7)
12. English cheese
(11)
14. Lounge (7,4)
18. Regular method
of procedure (7)
19. Eskimo canoe 4. Annoyed, com (5)
monly (6)
21. Iron-based alloy 5. Short, stiff hair (7)
(5)
8. Fortified wine (7)
22. Type of drama 11. Stupid (7)
(7)
13. Rice dish (7)
DOWN
15. Giggle (6)
1. Planet (5)
16. Fruit (6)
2. Savoury tart (6)
17. Garish (5)
3. Not at home (3)
20. Attempt (3)
ADAM
Yesterday’s solutions
QUICK
CRYPTIC
Across: 1 Creativity; 7 Bless; 8
Epitaph; 10 Entrance; 11 Sham;
13 Unveil; 15 Barrel; 17 Only;
18 Cauldron; 21 Scalded; 22
Brass; 23 Instalment.
Down: 1 Chest; 2 Ecstatic; 3
Trench; 4 Vain; 5 Teacher; 6
Obsequious; 9 Homeliness; 12
Fallible; 14 Villain; 16 Sandal;
19 React; 20 Edit.
Across: 1 Regulation; 7 India;
8 Unequal; 10 Carriage; 11
Newt; 13 Silent; 15 Better; 17
Inch; 18 Beetroot; 21 Neither;
22 Order; 23 Art gallery.
Down: 1 Rider; 2 Gradient; 3
Lounge; 4 Ties; 5 Opulent; 6
Discussion; 9 Literature; 12
Bestrode; 14 Luckier; 16 Petrol;
19 Oddly; 20 Whig.
C
M
Y
K