Channel Islands at War will be showing exclusively on the TV channel Yesterday at 10pm starting Monday 28th June. Following this another two parts will be showing consecutively on Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th of June, both at 10pm. It’s the third part in a series of programmes commissioned by Yesterday to commemorate the ‘Spirit of 1940’ in this 70th anniversary year.

Written and presented by actor and historian John Nettles, Channel Islands at War is an emotional examination of the German invasion and occupation of the Channel Islands and the lasting legacy it left on the islands.

From June 1940, when the Nazis arrived, until May 1945, the inhabitants of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney & Sark lived through years of oppression, terror, collaboration and near starvation that’s left an indelible scar still evident 70 years later. With a ratio of one German to every two islanders and a lack of remote hideouts, there was no organised resistance. The treatment of the islands’ Jewish population was, and remains, especially controversial. Things deteriorated in 1944 when the islands were cut off from the rest of Europe and food and fuel supplies dried up. Life in the Channel Islands became intolerable with both islanders and the German’s suffering from starvation.

Above all, John pays tribute to the people of that time, ordinary people who trod a perilous path through an epic conflict and assesses how their lives paved the way for ‘the Jersey Way’ of today.

The TV channel Yesterday has been compiling an online library of stories and memorabilia from WW2 as part of their ‘Spirit of 1940’ season. Help contribute to this great collection and ensure that your stories are not forgotten. You can send yours and your family and friends’ memories in any format by email and we’ll pick the best to display on the Yesterday website for all to see. You could even record a wartime story on your new iPhone, and submit a sound bite! Getting involved is easy, simply go to www.visityesterday.co.uk or email your stories to your1940story@uktv.co.uk

Tune in to Channel Islands at War exclusively on the TV channel Yesterday: Sky 537, Virgin 203, Freeview 12 on 28th, 29th and 30th June at 10pm. For more information go to www.visityesterday.co.uk

FACEBOOK GROUP STAGES INTERNATIONAL ‘BLACKOUTS’ TO PROTEST CANCELLATION OF FLASHFORWARD

The ABC TV network has recently made the decision to cancel the TV show Flashforward. Many fans are upset and frustrated about this, especially as the ending to Season One was so open ended.

To protest the decision to cancel the show, and encourage the uptake of new season, a number of fans have decided to stage their own ‘mini blackouts’ for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, mimicking the blackout from the Flashforward TV show. The group, which was created on Facebook, is one of a number of sites that are protesting and petitioning about the cancellation of the show.

The staged blackout for 2 minutes and 17 seconds has been planned to take place around the world with groups in New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, LA and London. Videos and photos from each of the cities participating in the protest will be sent to ABC along with the many other petitions to ‘save’ the show that have been started on the internet.

The London event has been scheduled to take place on Wandsworth Common with the blackout starting at 6.30 and lasting for 2 minutes and 17 seconds.

LOCATION: Wandsworth Common
DATE: Thursday 10th June
TIME: Blackout begins at 6.30

See the Facebook site at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125954670758099 or the official website at http://www.preventtheblackout.com/

Get Him to the Greek reunites Jonah Hill and Russell Brand with Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller in the story of a record company executive with three days to drag an uncooperative rock legend to Hollywood for a comeback concert. The comedy is the latest film from producer Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Funny People).

Aaron Green (Hill) gets things done. The ambitious 24-year-old has been given a career-making assignment. His mission: Fly to London and escort a rock god to L.A.’s world famous Greek Theatre for the first-stop on a huge comeback tour. His record mogul boss, Sergio Roma (Sean Combs), gives him one warning: “The artist is the worst person on Earth. Turn your back on him at your own peril.”

British rocker Aldous Snow (Brand) is a brilliant musician, but due to a bad break up and nose-diving career, has fallen off the wagon and is now a drunken disaster. Weary of “yes men” and scared he’s entered the “greatest hits” moment in his career, Snow’s in the midst of a nihilistic downward spiral. When he learns his true love, model/pop star Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), is in Los Angeles, Aldous makes it his quest to win her back…right before kick-starting his world domination.

As the countdown to the concert begins, one innocent young man must navigate a minefield of London drug smuggles, New York City brawls and Vegas lap dances to deliver his charge safe and, sort of, sound… all while trying to remain faithful to his med student girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss). He may have to coax, lie to, enable and party with Aldous, but Aaron will get him to the Greek.

Get Him to the Greek (cert 15) is in cinemas from June 23.

For more information visit www.gethimtothegreekmovie.co.uk

Also…

Want to see the rock legend that is Aldous Snow? You could be in with a chance of winning if you call him up and then crack the code.

If you want to simply hear the beautiful cockney voice than call Aldous directly on his mobile 07585 064258* Woo hoo – it really is him!

*Charges are based on the caller’s standard cost of a call from a fixed or mobile line. The cost of calling will vary depending on your standard calling charges to mobiles and it is your responsibility to check charges before calling. Callers must have the bill payer’s permission before calling. For full terms and conditions visit www.gethimtothegreekmovie.co.uk/fan

Auditioning for the star role of ‘Derecq Twist’, a West Country morris dancer, these two world famous celebs just don’t cut the mustard for Morris.

We’ve found two videos that will truly show the dark side of a life in show-biz…

Simon Pegg

Sendhil Ramamurthy

Check out the awesome gameplay trailer:

Also have a read of IGN’s very cool progress report detailing the gameplay at the start of the game.

Begins Friday 2nd April at 9pm.

On the 3rd April 2010 we’ll see a brand new Doctor, brand new writer and a brand new logo (audible groans). I hope it’ll be OK, like I hoped it’d still be OK when I first saw Tennant’s manic grin and it was. Of course it helped that after coming out of a coma in his first full-length episode he quoted the Lion King and kicked an arse/skull-faced alien loon into oblivion.

I’m just not sure about Matt Smith, the transformation thing was horrid and he looks much too young to be wearing the bow-tie and tweed get-up. Also, what’s with the permanent look of suprise/gormlessness in the trailer? Ho hum, time will tell. He could be awesome.

The Death of Bunny Munro is Nick Cave’s second novel following his unrelated 1989 début book “And the Ass Saw the Angel” (which, god-willing, is on its way through the post as we speak). You may need a strong stomach to digest this book, but if you’ve read Trainspotting and/or Porno by Irvin Welsh, you should be desensitized enough to get through it just fine. Bunny Munro’s brilliance comes with Cave’s descriptive genius – if you’ve heard his music it should be quite easy to imagine the fine arrangement of words Cave has for us here. It’s a moving and in places terrifyingly funny book (I caught myself guiltily “LOL”ing at some of the filthier portions more than once).

The story sees sex-crazed and morally-challenged Bunny Munro, a door-to-door beauty product salesman and his son, Bunny Junior travelling around Brighton in the wake of Bunny’s wife, Libby’s suicide. Her death – unquestionably a culmination of Bunny’s unrelenting adultery and a lifetime worth of lies, triggers Bunny’s eventual decline and fall.

As they cruise around in their Punto, Bunny goes door-to-door selling products from his suitcase and pretty well bonking (or filling?) every unfulfilled female he meets. But things are changing. A man dubbed the Horned Killer on telly terrorises women with a trident and works his way through the country to Brighton. Libby’s mum and Bunny’s dad plague him, but worst of all he keeps seeing his dead wife. Of course he still sees the lady-bits of every woman he meets in his head too, and some from women he has never met (namely Kylie Minogue’s and Avril Lavigne’s), but he can’t help feeling a sense of impending doom.

Conversely Bunny Junior is a bookish, gangly and neglected nine-year-old, seemingly unblemished by his father’s extra-marital frivolities and regular barrages of expletives. This comes as a bit of a relief, and despite (thankfully) not knowing quite what the man’s up to he worships his dad. The unorthodox, negligent and yet very special father-and-son relationship within The Death of Bunny Munro reminds me a lot of the two central characters in Mick Foley’s (yes, the Wrestler) book, Tietam Brown. And forget the equation wrestler+authorofbook=shite for a moment because it’s an amazingly well crafted little tome. But I digress, that’s the wrong bloody book. The Death of Bunny Munro is great too, just go and read it.

I was going to quote-ify this post but I thought I’d just attach this clip of Nick Cave reading chapter 3. Warning, it’s pretty (i.e. a lot) perverse and filled with expletives. You’ve been warned!

The Death of Bunny Munro, chapter 3, read by Nick Cave: