A Day in the Life of a Pet AT-AT

Ok, you can forget your iPhone 4G…I want/need a pet AT-AT.

Watch the short vid below created by Patrick Boivi and entitled 'AT-AT Day Afternoon' and tell me you don’t want one of these cute little fellas too…

Scraping the barrel for female pop stars in 2010?

I’m no doubt going to be deeply unpopular with some of my fellow music lovers for saying this, but I can’t be the only person listening to the radio right now who is thinking this…

What’s with all the dull and dreary, beige sounding (and looking) female pop stars this year?

So far today I’ve heard one-hit-wonder Little Boots, desperate-to-be-different-but-join-the-very-back-of-the-queue Pixie Lott and endured a dose of saccharine drivvle from the so-vanilla-its-untrue Taylor Swift. It’s all very sweet and pretty, but instantly forgettable and passionless chart fodder.

And I achieved something pretty amazing with Ellie Goulding. I hadn’t heard one of her songs until this week. Now I listen to so much music it’s shocking, so this is quite an achievement. And what a bland experience it was (interestingly, a photographer friend who took photos at one of her recent gigs said that it was the most numbing evening of his life).

Listening to Katie Melua is on odd experience. Yes she has an adequately pleasing and mellow voice, but her age sits awkwardly with her bluesy- lyrics. Maybe from a middle-aged divorcee with twelve children it would sound more convincing.

Leona Lewis seems to be a lovely girl – don’t get me wrong about that – but I’m not sure whether she is knocking out identical ballads or producing one long dreary and treacle-thick track. Alexandra Burke also seems nice but she is already faded into obscurity and I doubt that her few mediocre singles will keep her afloat.

Even the stalwarts of the female songstress scene – such as Madonna and Britney - seem to be producing ‘straight to video’ stuff these days.

Katy Perry is trying her hardest to inject a little sexy into her music and bless her heart for trying. Ke$ha is also flying the flag for sexy-cool, although she tends to come across as bratty rather than sexy. Less of the ditzy and more of the smoulder, girls…

I find it hard to criticise Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Rhianna and Cheryl Cole because they are exceptionally entertaining, musically mature and not afraid to try something different. They ‘push the boat out’ with their lyrics, their music videos and their personal style and consequently command constant attention from the press. And therein lies my problem; I don’t want my superstars to be dull, ‘girl next door’ replicas of every single girl who steps over the threshold of Topshop. I probably wouldn’t recognise Little Boots, Pixie Lott or Ellie Goulding if they walked up to me in the street and staple-gunned their names to my forehead. Pop stars, both male and female, should be different from the public, they should be extreme and poles apart from the type of folk that you encounter in everyday life.

We need to stop striving for normality, reboot the music machine and concentrate on producing individuals who are not only musically talented but have those odd eccentricities that make for a fully rounded entertainer. Familiarity, I’m afraid, is incredibly tedious…

Summer Treats: Wine Cellar Sorbets

Summer is nearly here (yes, it’s limping a bit but I can definitely see it dragging its sorry self over the horizon) and with the summer heat comes the annual bout of tricky decision making; which is better - Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream or Häagen-Dazs ice-cream? Most people, including myself, would answer ‘why choose? Where’s my spoon?’ but the options have been further complicated by the appearance of another icy indulgence that has hit the market with a delicious appeal to wine connoisseurs and ice-cream fans alike.

Bret Birnbaum and David Zablocki, two wine lovers and childhood friends from Queens, New York were brainstorming menu ideas for a new restaurant when they came up with a concept for a new type of sorbet; fine wine sorbets. Their sophisticated desserts, Wine Cellar Sorbets, are available in six flavours: Cabernet Sauvignon, Champagne, Pino Noir, Rose, Sangria Rojo and Riesling. They contain 5% alcohol, so don’t get giving them to little Timmy on a hot Sunday afternoon in the garden (get him out of his skull on the E-numbers in the top branded ice-cream instead…). Unfortunately Wine Cellar Sorbets are only available in the US at the moment, so the rest of the world will have to sit in the shade and drool over the idea until they break out of US shores.