LaLaLa: Can't Get Her Out of My Head: A Kylie Minogue Trivia Book

My friend Etienne di Cosimo has written a new trivia book, about international pop superstar Kylie Minogue!!! 

Pop Goddess. Diva. International Superstar. Soap Star. Fashion and Style Icon. Gay Icon. Sex Symbol. Humanitarian. Cancer Survivor. Fair Dinkum Aussie Girl. These superlatives can be used to describe only one person: The incandescent Kylie Minogue! Can't Get Her Out of My Head: A Kylie Minogue Trivia Book by Etienne di Cosimo is the ultimate love letter written for Kylie's millions of fans from across the four corners of the globe and is the perfect gift for all "Lovers"...

US Kylie fans can order the book through Amazon US: Can't Ger Her Out of My Head: A Kylie Minogue Trivia Book while UK fans can order the book here!

Changing of the Guard: Prince Andrew Mistaken for Intruder by Armed Officers at Buckingham Palace

There are some red faces at Buckingham Palace in London today after it was revealed armed security guards mistook Prince Andrew for an intruder on the grounds of the royal residence and ordered the prince to prove his identity!

The 53-year-old Duke of York had apparently decided to take a stroll on the well-manicured grounds of the royal palace to enjoy the gardens and the early-evening sunshine when he was approached by two police officers with guns.

A royal insider has claimed that the officers pointed their guns at Prince Andrew, and ordered him to the ground before realizing who he was, but Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard insist that no weapons were ever brandished. The police force released this official statement: "On Wednesday, September 4, at approximately 6PM, two uniformed officers approached a man in the gardens of Buckingham Palace to verify his identity. The man was satisfactorily identified. No weapons were drawn and no force was used." The statement does not mention the identity of the man.

The incident comes less than 48 hours after an intruder who had scaled the security fence around the palace was discovered by officers on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The man was arrested and is currently in jail awaiting charges.

Needless to say, Prince Andrew is not very happy about the embarrassing incident, but at least the Royal Family know that the security officers given the responsibility to protect them are doing a very thorough job...

Nanu Nanu! English Politician Claims He Fathered Alien Hybrid Child!

We have heard of some interesting sex scandals involving British politicians over the years, but this story is definitely out of this world! 

Simon Parkes, an elected council member for the town of Whitby on the Yorkshire Coast, England, claims that he is the father of an alien/human hybrid daughter named Zarka! Apparently, Parkes knocked some intergalactic boots with Zarka's extraterrestrial mother, whom he refers to as The Cat Queen (Crazy Cat Lady, more likely).  Parkes also claims that his real mother is a "nine foot tall green alien with eight fingers" (is that total fingers or fingers on one hand?), according to an interview he gave for an upcoming documentary Confessions of an Alien Abductee for England's Channel Four Network (in an obvious effort to get one over on the BBC when it comes to quality, highbrow entertainment). 

The 53-year-old says that he has been receiving random booty calls from his alien friend with benefits about four times a year for a number of years now. Apparently, Parke's human wife (how did he ever land one of those?) isn't too happy about the extra-terrestrial/extra-marital hanky panky, but she has accepted it because the sex is "not on a human level" (We bet!)...

He describes the sexual encounters in a fairly clinical manner: "What will happen is that we will hold hands and I will say 'I’m ready' and then the technology I don’t understand will take us up to a craft orbiting the earth," he told  local online news site The Northern Echo. No word on whether Zarka is expecting any hybrid siblings anytime soon.

You can listen to Parkes give details of his alien love life in the following video (be warned, it's pretty snoozerific, so no sexy, alien porn here!):

Eye of the Beholder: "Hideous" Gargoyle Statue Brings Big Money at Auction

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder after a "hideous" gargoyle statue recently sold at auction for a record-setting £66,000 ($105,000 US).

Despite the statue's grotesque appearance, people fought to obtain the unique objet d'art when it hit the auction block this week at the Wooley & Wallis auction house in Salisbury, England. The statue was created by the prestigious pottery manufacturers the Martin Brothers circa the turn on the 20th Century. 

The figure depicts a squat, smiling gargoyle holding onto its ample chest with gnarled fingers, with a beaming smile on its porcine like face. Auctioneers attribute the record sum paid for the figurine to the upcoming release of the new film The Hobbit, the prequel to the Lord of the Rings saga based on the classic books of J.R.R. Tolkien. 

 Gargoyles first began appearing over 2000 years ago, originating in Ancient Greece and Egypt. They became popular cathedral and building adornments during the Middle Ages, as they were used to decorate buildings and to provide a spout for rainwater to drain. They also became popular as a good-luck charm, as many people believed that placing gargoyles atop structures would help keep evil spirits at bay.

  

No Man Is an Island: 20K People Want to Become Citizens of "Nowhereisland"

The poet John Donne said "No man is an island, entire of itself" but a British artist has decided to create a unique art project by having a small, arctic island towed by boat around the world.

Dubbed "Nowhereisland" (or Nyskjaeret in Norwegian), artist Alex Hartley discovered the unmapped island off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, in 2004. (You are correct, grasshopper...Svalbard is the home of the infamous "Doomsday Seed Vault".) He then asked the Norwegian government if he could haul the 144-foot chunk of rock south, which they agreed to allow him to do.

The aim of the art project is to " encourage people to think about what it would be like to start up a completely new nation," Hartley tells The Telegraph, "to get them to make proposals for what life should be like on Nowhereisland, what the constitution should consist of, and so on."

In that vein, over 20,000 people have requested "citizenship" of Nowhereisland. After requesting to become a citizen of the tiny chunk of rock and ice, potential immigrants can then suggest measures and laws to pass, to make the "country" a unique, safe and happy place to live. Some more inspired suggestions from asylum-seekers include a ban on all telemarketers, a free after-dinner drink for all citizens as well as a national currency based not on money but rather "the ability to tell a good story".

If you would like to request citizenship of this Nirvana-in-the-making, you may visit Nowhereisland's official website here.

UK Faces Summer Olympics Wash-Out

While a majority of the United States withers under a record-smashing, sweltering summer, the United Kingdom is suffering through its "worst-ever summer", as cold weather and torrential rains and flooding continue to put a damper on things.

The wet weather already made the Queen's Jubilee a wash-out in June, and now threatens to do the same to many upcoming events for the Summer Olympic Games in London. The UK meteorological office has already issued its advance forecasts, which calls for a continuation of the heavy rains and cool temperatures, meaning summer is effectively over for the island nation.

Gloomy forecasts suggest dire weather will continue as officials last night put Britain on flood alert after torrential downpours yesterday wreaked havoc. The meteorological agency last night issued 51 flood warnings after monsoon-like downpours drenched 85,000 music fans at the T In The Park festival in Kinross, Scotland, and 28,000 Formula 1 spectators camping out for the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone.

The meteorological office has predicted that the dank, dreary weather will continue through at least August, meaning many events planned for the Summer Olympic Games could be adversely affected by the inclement conditions. The Games are set to begin Friday July 27, running through Sunday, August 12.

The Abyss: Bizarre, Mysterious Sea Creature Filmed

A mysterious, unidentified creature caught on camera deep underwater has scientists scratching their heads as to what exactly the beast could be!

The cameras caught sight of the strange-looking creature deep beneath the surface of the ocean off the coast of the United Kingdom, on an oil drilling site. The beast is a brackish brown in color and appears to have scales. It moves much like an octopus or squid, but looks as if it has several strange appendages poking out. It also appears to have what should be internal organs on the outside of its body.

Some scientists claim that the animal is a Deepstaria enigmatica jellyfish, with others speculating it could be a mass of expelled whale placenta floating in the water.

There is also a mystery surrounding the origins of the video, as the video was originally uploaded to YouTube without any explanation of the contents or when and where the film was shot. To take a look at the strange creature of the Abyss, you can watch the video below:

Am I Blue? English Football Fans Dress Up as Smurfs

Photo Courtesy: The Daily Mail

English soccer fans are known for their intense devotion to their favorite teams, and one group of dedicated fans showed just how True Blue they are!

Hundreds of Hartlepool United football supporters became a viral sensation after descending on London to support their team  dressed as loveable cartoon characters the Smurfs. The group of true blue fans caused crowds to break out into spontaneous applause and howls of laughter as they hit the Tube in London to travel to where their team was playing the final game of the season against rival team Charlton Athletic.

Video taken of the totally smurfy fans hitting the town immediately went viral on YouTube and other social media sites. 

This isn't the first time fans of the team have gone all out in a show of support. Last year, fans dressed as Oompa Loompa's, Willy Wonka's tiny helpers, from the classic children's film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. 

Fit for a Queen: Ugly Eel from Great Lakes to Be Baked in Pie for Queen's Jubilee

"Okay, I'm not very photogenic. But the Queen wants to eat me!"

A rather hideously ugly creature from the Great Lakes has received a Royal Command Performance from Queen Elizabeth II.

The creature, known as a sea lamprey, is actually quite the menace around the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, but is considered something of a delicacy in the UK, where icky cuisine is the norm. The parasitic lamprey was once common in Great Britain, but is now on the endangered species list and is protected.

The city of Gloucester, which has given the pie as a gift to the monarch since the Middle Ages, made a request for the lamprey to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, which was only too happy to supply them with a case of the ugly beasts. The commission has already sent two pounds of the slimy eel taken from Lake Huron to the UK, where they will be baked into the archaic lamprey pie dish to help Queen Elizabeth celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, which will mark the 60th year of her monarchy.

Sarrah Maccey of the Gloucester Folk Museum says that she and a royally approved chef will bake the pie, and she is researching ancient local recipes. One traditional 15th-Century recipe calls for the lamprey to be cooked in a sauce of red wine, vinegar, cinnamon and its own blood, then baked in a thick, handmade crust. Yum!

The Queen is a real trooper of course, and will undoubtedly consume the "pie" with a pleasant smile on her face!

Bee Gee's Singer Robin Gibb Dead at 62

UPDATE: May 20, 2012: Bee Gee's singer/songwriter Robin Gibb has died in London, his family announced today "with great sadness". Gibb had been in a coma following surgery for a twisted bowel as well as battling liver and colon cancer. He had also contracted pneumonia while in the hospital, which further exacerbated his situation. He made a "remarkable" recovery a week after falling into a coma, but his condition quickly reversed and continued to deteriorate. He is survived by his brother, Barry, his wife Dwina, daughter Melissa, and two sons, Spencer and Robin John.


Robin Gibb, the singer/songwriter and one of the founding members of iconic musical group The Bee Gees, is said to be in a coma in a London hospital today.

The singer, who has been suffering from colon as well as liver cancer, has now been diagnosed with pneumonia. Gibb's family, including brother Barry, his wife Dwina, daughter Melissa, 37, and sons Spencer, 39, and Robin-John, 29, were all said to be at his bedside in a private hospital in Chelsea, West London. It is feared doctors are not optimistic about his chances for a recovery. 


The 62-year-old singer revealed his battle with cancer in 2010, after shocking photographs of his extremely gaunt appearance appeared in the media. He had emergency surgery to treat a blocked bowel, before a further operation to treat a twisted bowel, a condition that killed his twin brother Maurice in 2003. The colon and liver cancers were discovered during the procedure. The youngest of the famed Gibb brothers, Andy, died in 1988 at the age of 30 from a heart ailment. 


The Bee Gees were recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and were awarded seven Grammy Awards over their long career.  The group also can claim one of the biggest selling albums of all time, the soundtrack to the classic 70s film Saturday Night Fever. 

Things Your Mother Should Have Taught You: Don't Pee on an Electric Transformer

A UK man was sentenced to a year in prison after he and an accomplice tried to rob a power station, only to suffer severe, life-threatening injuries after urinating on an electric transformer.

36-year-old Michael Harper of Leicester, England, suffered serious burns after making the mistake of unzipping and hosing down an electrical transformer, which promptly exploded, knocking out power to thousands of local residents and causing more than $50,000 in damages. Apparently, Harper and the accomplice had broken into the substation to steal scrap metal to sell to finance their heroin habit.

Harper's kind accomplice, Richard Boyce, 50, promptly left the seriously-injured man behind to fend for himself, but was later arrested by police officers, with severe burns to his own hands. An English judge sentenced Boyce to four years in jail, but reduced Harper's sentence to one year because of his medical ordeal. "You were seriously injured and very nearly lost your life, and will be permanently disfigured," he told Harper at his sentencing.

Snowed In: Unprecedented Snow Traps Thousands in Europe

Earth Changes 101

Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in their homes, as parts of southeastern Europe face the biggest snowstorm in recorded history!

Emergency services and authorities used helicopters to evacuate the sick and the elderly as well as deliver food to thousands of people in areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has been hit by the heaviest snow in living memory. Hundreds of villages in the country are completely cut off from the outside world after an astonishing six and a half feet of snow fell. The capital of Sarajevo is currently under a State of Emergency, with a record-breaking three and a half feet of the white powder paralyzing the city.

In the neighboring nation of Serbia, hundreds of thousands of residents remain cut-off, as emergency services work feverishly to help clear roads and deliver food and medical supplies to people trapped in their homes. Throughout a large portion of Europe, bitter cold temperatures, heavy snows and strong winds have created nightmarish gridlock and caused many large cities to shut down completely.

Heavy snows and cold temperatures sank as far south as Naples, Italy, and portions of the Mediterranean island of Corsica, usually blessed with mild winter weather, saw eight inches of snow. Landmarks in Rome were shut down from the snow and ice, for fear that tourists would fall and hurt themselves. Great Britain was not spared winter's wrath and hundreds of flights out of London's Heathrow Airport, one of the world's busiest, were cancelled due to heavy snows and winds, creating a travel nightmare.

The overall death toll in the European Deep Freeze currently stands at over 275, with a majority of the deaths comprised of the homeless community, caught unaware by the savage winter storm and bitterly cold temperatures, not seen in some parts of the continent for centuries.

Baby Blue Flag: Singer Dido Gives Birth to Son

UK singer Dido has revealed she (quietly) gave birth to a son...this past July!

The beautiful "White Flag" songstress, who turns 40-years-old tomorrow on Christmas Day, has a son with her husband, writer Rohan Gavin. The super-secretive couple are believe to have married last year and live in relative anonymity in a quiet neighborhood in North London.

In an ironic twist of fate, the name of Dido's son has been revealed as Stanley, which is the name of her signature hit duet with rap superstar Eminem. The highly controversial song about a deranged fan named Stanley who is so obsessed with the rapper that he commits murder and mayhem, topped the charts in 2000 and featured a violent video starring Final Destination actor Devon Sawa as the mentally disturbed young man.

Dido, whose real full name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong, went on to win Grammy awards for her multimillion copy selling album Life for Rent and was nominated for an Academy Award for the song "If I Rise" from that album. 

Break Out the Popcorn: Lindsay Lohan to Check into Celebrity Big Brother?

Lindsay Lohan preparing for her performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream..

Break out the meth popcorn folks, the always brain-dead outrageous Lindsay Lohan has been asked to appear on the UK freak show reality series Celebrity Big Brother!


Producers for the show have allegedly flown out to La-La Land to meet with LiLo, and rumor has it that they've offered her a pretty scrumptious deal with lots of extra zeros. As everyone knows, legitimate work is hard to come by for the cracked out former star, due to her unreliability and sketchy behavior. Surely, LiLo can manage being her normal, annoying self in front of cameras in an enclosed space with nothing being expected of her but to make a spectacle of herself, something she does, even in her sleep! (See photo above.) As fellow space cadet celeb Tara Reid was a contestant on the last edition of Celebrity Big Brother, Lohan's addition would help continue the show's drug-addled track record!

There is one possible snafu in the plan, however: Lohan is still on permanent probation and has to complete her community service sentence, where she's been doing cool things like helping out in a morgue (preparing for her own future on the slab, real-life performance). Execs for the show are hoping a judge will forgo the sentence for a while to allow LiLo to jet away from the United States and to fly off to Jolly Old England. Seeing that a judge allowed Ms. Freckles to go to Italy for a fashion shoot earlier this year, we're sure they'll bend the rules for a "star" once again. But hey, all you mother's in prison out there, don't expect any special treatment when you want to see your children at Christmas! Star perks come first! It's the LAW!!!

As I reported earlier, former Culture Club lead singer Boy George is also being considered for the series, so these two former inmates should have lots to chat about...

Amazing Cliff Collapse Caught on Video

This amazing video of a cliff face collapsing into the Celtic Sea was filmed by an amateur photographer in Cornwall, England, on October 4, 2011. The incredible footage shows a large chunk of the North Cliffs breaking away and tumbling hundreds of feet below, causing a mini-tidal wave.
Engineering Geologist Pete Hobbs with the British Geological Survey told iWeather Online that the rock slide was most likely associated with a “wedge failure”. Mr. Hobbs said the collapsed material comprised “a mixture of slate and sandstone, and was Devonian in age”. The video is one of the best examples of a rockslide I have seen in the UK. Initial estimates would suggest that between 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of earth and rock slid into the sea. It was so large that it produced a wave, which radiated out in a semi-circular front out to sea”, Mr. Hobbs stated.

Full story on Irish Weather Online:

Amateur Video of Large Rockslide in Cornwall, UK