From the Vault: The Ward - Bitesize Movie Review

Alarm bells rang straight away, right? You’d be right in thinking you recognise the lead actress if the words ‘Never Back Down’ entered your mind. The Ward does everything your typical horror would - the jumpy cuts, first-person camera angles, a freaky-ass dead girl running around causing murderous havoc, and a few odd-jobs thrown into a mental hospital, all mashed up to create the perfect formula for a good old-fashioned slasher movie.

The idea might be a little frayed – think the off-spring of a One Flew Under The Cuckoo’s Nest/Shutter Island concoction. Although, the fact that of the five in-mates, you’d be proud to take home three of them on looks alone to the parents, is too big to just oversee. That said, the film ticks all the boxes a horror should, with protagonist Amanda Heard leading a respectable cast to their deaths in surprisingly entertaining fashion, with an all-too-familiar twist that leaves you hungrily digging deep in the popcorn bucket for more film with your snack.

Although The Ward has nothing on the horror greats, it’s not a bad punt in the horror genre for director John Carpenter. But from a director whose resume includes Halloween and The Thing, it’s fair to say more could have been done. Still, Amanda Heard in any film is worth a watch. The girlfriend will probably watch, too.

Snoods and Football

So it's that time of the year again - Ice collects on your windscreen, you spend that extra few minutes showering since you're scared of the cold lurking outside, and any venture outside without gloves is unheard of. Winter has arrived and is set to stay. For the most of us football fans, it's understandably quite the task to sit frozen solid in a small, hard, plastic seat to watch two teams battle it out on the pitch, and that half-time cuppa can never quite come soon enough.

The thought of playing sport at this time of year may be greeted with ridicule for some of us, but as the keen sportsmen (and women) would tell us, it's not long until those Winter jitters are swept away, and instead sweat - actual sweat - accumulates on the brow and your body actual gets warm.

Watch any football match on television, and if you can find a single person (goalkeepers, for now, excluded) that isn't visibly sweating then I will personally hand-deliver you a Christmas present. Personally an early morning run, the cold air snapping at your cheeks as you briskly jog on, or a cycle ride down the promenade in Bournemouth is something I genuinely look forward to. Once you brush away those initial feelings of cold, and you realise your body is actually doing the complete opposite of turning to ice, sport in the Winter is actually one of the most exhilarating times for me.

Set your minds back 12 months ago if you will. Remember when footballers started wearing snoods? Those scarf-turned-body-warmers were all over the Premiership, regardless of the amount of criticism snood-wearers would get from the media. As soon as March came, snoods were quickly nestled away in closets or, as I prefer to imagine, burned in a mass fire on the training ground.

Well, turns out they're coming back. I saw one last week, in a Championship match, worn by a starting player. I don't want much for Christmas, but right now all I really want to ask for is for the snood to stay firmly out of football. Snoods don't make you more of a man, they don't add skill, and professional athletes cannot honestly believe that added warmth for three or so minutes will be a game-changer - heck, the name even sounds soft.

Footballers who warm up properly should already be warm - this including their muscles and their body temperature. Gloves are acceptable when you're throwing a ball, or breezing down the wing experiencing just as much of a challenge shrugging off the ice of your fingers than you are the full-back - but what do snoods bring to the game?

The beautiful game has been around for centuries. If snoods were needed, they would have been worn decades ago, not in the 2010s. We can all but pray they don't return.

Sam Waley-Cohen: Alternative Sports Personality of the Year 2011?

Dentist turned global superstar, amateur jockey Sam Waley-Cohen has made leaps and bounds since his arrival in the horse racing scene this year. Rarely can someone boast winning one of the greatest horse races at the greatest horse racing festival whilst riding their father’s horse, especially whilst being an amateur – but Sam can. 

A dentist at heart, Sam Waley-Cohen gets minimal chance to ride competitively in-between managing a full time dentist practice. If he’s lucky, he’ll be booked to ride one of champion trainer Nicky Henderson’s horses a few times a week – if not, it’s back to training on the mechanical exercise horse in his living room. Determination soon paid off, as he became the first amateur jockey in three decades to win the £475k-rated Cheltenham Gold Cup on the prestigious Long Run, just months after the pair scooped the King George VI Chase beating home the legendary Kauto Star.

The feat was almost repeated as Sam finished second aboard Oscar Time in a 40-strong field at the John Smith’s Grand National back in April. Just months after riding countless point-to-point races, the 30-year-old amateur is now one of the hottest properties in the business. Although jump racing is a jockey’s worst nightmare – as Sam puts it, “a field of broken hearts more than dreams” – Sam Waley-Cohen has broken through effortlessly, and with a fine 2011 form the amateur is quickly becoming a formidable force in the horse-racing scene.

Earth reaches 7bn - But what is our effect?

NOTE: If image is too small, click HERE for the full weblink. 

This is a rather remarkable infographic from the people at Discovery.com. From the word go, every fact has some kind of surprise element. For a start, just check out the weight of the entire population of ants, the birth rate around the world vs. the death rate per second, and perhaps more alarming, the population growth rate in Africa...