This week's Hot and Not

It's time for the recap of what's been going on or what we've noticed this week. The top 5 things that are hot... And the top (or bottom) 5 that aren't:

HOT
1. Online poker about to get big in the UK, check our previous post for more.

2. Beginning to look through brochures for holidays

3. Going to the cinema and seeing trailers for all those films that are to be released soon (best time of the year for films)

4. Realising that last year's swimming shorts are more than suitable for this... again.

5. Planning which festivals you will be attending this year.

NOT
1. The focus on the race between Manchester United and Chelsea when what's going on at the bottom of the table has been far more exciting!

2. Spiderman 3... Not much else to say... Read our review for more

3. The change in weather... Just as we're all getting geared up for a long summer, the heavens open!

4. The summer and autumn long wait for the new Pro Evolution game

5. The realisation it is an odd summer (2007) meaning no football tournament to tide us over.

Big Brother...8? oh frankly who cares what number?

'Less than a month to go!' Squeals most Big Brother fan-sites. I'd be tempted to go for the headline of 'Not that time again!'

I'm unable to believe there are still enough people watching for this show to be about to commence its eighth series and as it's the last one at Elstree studios we're all in for some fantastic viewing...

An insider source has said: “It’s set to be a long hot summer of shocks, surprises and twists. Nothing’s been set in stone yet. But whatever they’ve got up their sleeve, it’s gonna be explosive.” And at 94 days it's the longest yet! The wait is unbearable isn't it? This is probably referring to the rumour that the house is set to be blown up at the end, whatever next?

The biggest talking point so far is the new eye design, (above) okay so it looks quite cool but again it raises the question in my head: "So what?" For me Big Brother is Davina McCall, running around as if she cares about these latest 'celebrities,' a term which i use VERY lightly... what is there to enjoy about that? I mean she must be about 40 by now, so there's not even any eye candy!

If you're still reading perhaps you are interested, so here's one potential spoiler:
After 48 hours there will be a surprise..... Oh sorry, you mean it gets more interesting than that? We'll see.
(ps, notice I don't label this as 'entertainment')

The return of Command and Conquer

Fans of this long-running series seem to be impressed with the latest instalment. IGN describe it as 'the most beautiful package to date.'

Personally, I lost interest in the series after the original Tiberium Sun game, but after what I read of the new one am certainly tempted to give it a go.

Players will recognise the two factions, GDI and NOD, but this time they are joined by a new race of aliens, Scrin. With a once again in depth campaign, players can further enhance their experience with the Skirmish and multi player modes after completion.

I cannot say much more without playing it, other than it is available for the 360 and PC. For a more in-depth review take a look at IGN's full review, or watch their video review here.

The Sartorialist

It's always a refreshing change when you look towards the general public for fashion tips, rather than celebrities or the runway. That is exactly what The Sartorialist is about, posting pictures he has taken of 'regular' people on the streets of the World's big cities.

Having worked in the fashion industry, The Sartorialist creator certainly knows what looks good and what doesn't, so who better to take advice from? He says himself: "When I worked in the fashion industry (15 years), I always felt that there was a disconnect between what I was selling in the showroom and what I was seeing real people (really cool people) wearing in real life."

Take a look at his blog and you will likely get ideas that you may never have thought about, or just to get some insight of what styles people can somehow pull off!

Save the cheerleader, save the World

As we all know, the US produces classic TV shows time and time again. The list is endless: Lost, Prison Break, The OC, 24 and so on and so on... Guess what? They've done it again, with the simply named 'Heroes.'

The only show I can mention which is vaguely familiar is Smallville... I know, I didn't like it either, but there really is nothing out there quite like it. Think of a superhero show and what comes to mind? Invincibility, invisibility, time travel, flying... Everything you can think of is covered and in fine detail too.

Don't expect anything like X-Men with superhero action left, right and centre, instead you will appreciate the deeper stories as our 'Heroes' work out their powers slowly and begin to learn their role in saving the world. It all comes together brilliantly to leave you on the edge of your seat, waiting for the next episode.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly why this is so good, but in my mind it definitely surpasses most of what I've seen on TV for years, it really is that good. We're lucky enough to know people who can get us the episodes as they are shown in the US, but the rest of you will have to wait until it is shown on BBC 2, after the Sci-Fi channel has shown it, having already paid for the rights... Until then here is a compilation from YouTube to get your mouth watering with anticipation!

Chuck out the house brick phone

If you're growing concerned about the comments about your 'brick' of a phone, perhaps you need to swallow your pride and get a damn upgrade! It's the easiest thing in the world to do with phone shops everywhere you look and on the web, they don't have feelings, just get rid.

If your claim is "I can't be bothered to find a new one, this does everything I need..." Firstly you're wrong, you DO need a phone with all the latest gadgets, it's sexy and secondly... Look at our list here, all the hard work is done, there is now no excuse!

Nokia N95 - Here you have your portable Sat-Nav, digital camera, wireless Internet connection... Oh, and you can make phone-calls as well. Nokia have taken another huge step in advancing mobile technology with their latest instalment to the N series. In theory, there is no need to bring a laptop and digital camera around with you, thanks to the Internet connection and massive 5 megapixel camera, this phone does it all. So you are just vain like a lot of us, and just want to look cool at the office with your latest gadget then we highly recommend this. Varying in price from O2.

Samsung U600 - Onto Samsung's latest attempt at the Ultra Generation phone. The U600 is simpler than its Nokia counterpart, but being much thinner and lighter it is super cool. Also, is unlikely to freeze as much as the Nokia whose predecessors had a habit of doing so. Its 3.2 megapixel camera is still high for today's standards and will take a great picture but is definitely far more suited to the user who wants a phone to look good rather than do everything. If that's you, then give it a try. Available from free from O2.





Prada phone from LG - The style conscious among you will probably want to go for the new Prada phone from LG. Not boasting the latest technologies, only a 2 megapixel camera, but Prada owners are unlikely to care I'm sure. This is definitely a phone for the stylish and probably people who don't text a lot because touch-screen buttons can be insanely hard to get used to. Also, as a fashion phone it is very costly, costing up to £400 non-contract, so think wisely if you just want to look good or have a phone that can double up as a desktop computer! Also available from O2.

West End - The shows to see

Whether a regular occurrence in your life, or a one-off, seeing a show in the West End should always make for a good night out. Here, the Style High Street recommends what shows to see with the help of London Theatre reviews.

Avenue Q - Humans and puppets combine in this musical comedy. The story follows Princeton, a broke college-graduate new to the neighbourhood. We see his story of self-discovery unfold for this jobless, homeless sex maniac in one of the few places where un-PC-ness is still fashionable (the theatre). Anyone I've spoken to who has seen this has fully recommended it so we'll pass those recommendations onto you.

The Lion King - Disney's classic on stage is talked about every year, and will continue to do so for sure. There is no reason not to see the menagerie of over 40 performers is what continues to be one of the most popular West End shows. I won't explain the story, lets face it if you don't know there's not much hope... Hailed by many critics for its special effects and giant costumes, we feel everyone should see this spectacle at some point.

The Reporter - Moving onto drama if musicals aren't your thing, we have The Reporter. Opened only late February it has had much success already. Labelled 'absorbing' it won't force you to bounce, instead is likely to wear away the edge of your seat. The play follows BBC correspondent James Mossman between the years of 1963 and 1971 searching for the truth behind his suicide. Just a warning - I've heard it has an ambiguous ending, so only watch it if you like to think.

There should be something for everyone there and even if shows aren't your scene it is worth booking into a hotel and giving it a go. They can make for a fun evening. Tickets can be purchased from Covent Garden Life and lastminute.com.

Top 5... Albums due out

Quite a number of bands have brand new albums in the pipeline, second and third attempts are preparing to be judged... Here is our pick of albums due for release before July (in no particular order.)

1. Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight
Always a successful band who continue to produce excellent quality albums and high selling singles. They will be back with album number three and, apparently have gone in a different, less screaming direction. Everyone will see after the 14th of May whether it will be a successful change...

2. Chris Cornell - Carry On
If you saw Casino Royale, think back to the song at the opening credits, that is Chris Cornell and he has an album coming out on the 28th of May. That one song is all I have to go by so this release will be shrouded in mystery until that date...

3. Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long
Definitely a catchy band with their simple and easy listening tunes. It's been a while coming but Maroon 5 are almost back with their second attempt. If the rest of the songs are like their recent single 'Makes me Wonder' then this should work out well for them. Find out on the 21st of May.

4. Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night
The Chemical Brothers have produced a bucket-load of songs and albums over the last 15 years and they return again on the 18th of June...

5. Editors - An End Has A Start
Editors have their second album in roughly 18 months, released on the 25th of June. Their last album wasn't as successful as the singles were but nevertheless was high quality music. The new one, despite having only ten tracks is expected to travel along the same tracks as the previous. But again, time will tell...

80's kids... T-shirts

If, like me you are an 80's kid, I'm sure you'll appreciate some of the t-shirts at Urban Outfitters.

There is a lot of 80's gear around at the moment as it is; retro designs are all over the place, so if you're into the style or if you want to show off your pride then take a look at some of these t-shirts.

My favourites are: karate kid, Pepsi challenge and the best Mr men character of all, Mr Bump!

Spiderman 3

Ok, so I've joined the list of people who have been to see this film over the opening weekend, with thanks to my over-eager housemate.... (love him really)

Hot, packed, sweaty cinemas aren't my forte, but I'll look beyond that and comment on the film.

The first two Spiderman films had massive worldwide success so the third one was always likely to have an air of complacency surrounding it, which is evident. Not necessarily lacking in content, rather the approach is somewhat different and it seems rather more experimental, particularly Tobey Maguire's 'darker' character. This isn't a bad thing and certainly adds depth to the film, but this depth could just as easily be read as un-necessary content, creating a longer film than required.

Maguire once again did a good job of playing the 'geek' Peter Parker, although when called upon to be a 'bad-ass' he and most likely the audience too, never felt comfortable. Not entirely his fault, but he did fail to convince me in parts. The rest of the cast however, were solid as usual.

Action sequences and the special effects were once again impressive, but unfortunately somewhat limited and even the final battle was perhaps shorter than it was built up to be. I went into the film with action on my mind and for what there was of it, it didn't disappoint.

So the plot... Annoyingly, very predictable, I found myself calling everything that was going to happen next. I;m not giving anything away when I say a certain to people will end up kissing (you'll see what I mean.) One more thing I will say is just how lucky it was that the meteor that crashed into earth at the beginning came equipped with a silencer...

If we could give half ratings, this would be a 2.5... Unfortunately we can't so I'm going to have to round it down to a 2/5. Worth watching, but don't go out of your way to book seats.

View the trailer here if I've not convinced you to see the movie:

Get your legs out

It's important to feel good over summer, and you won't if you have heavy trousers or jeans on your legs. So shorts are essential, especially for the potential heat that we are in for.

Browns and darkish greens always look good in shorts, and the check style can give good option than simply a plain colour. Those are the kind of shorts you should be after.

To help you, here are a couple, firstly from Topman. For £28 these aren't too light-weight and will look good with a plain t-shirt and sandals (be wary of wearing stripes though, it could create a clash)

Second we have these plainer ones from Burton, at a similar price, £25 they are well worth it and due to the less obvious check pattern could be worn with a stripey top or a lighter coloured plain one.

The Pro Evo Launch

In my previous post about girls and computer games I mentioned about the 'Pro Evo launch' and the rules that will follow in a future post... Well here is that post!

This idea came about during a cheeky game of Pro Evolution Soccer before a night out. We agreed that it could be made a lot more enjoyable if we somehow involved drinking... I know, I know, a fantastic idea and one which I have to take credit for.

Looking at a website containing drinking game rules we decided to give our own one a go, with much success I should add.

We decided on the things that were punishable offences in the great game and decided on the forfeits for them. Simple in premise, simple in practice. Oh... and you need a lot of vodka (or your preferred spirit)

The punishable offences are (in no particular order):
Conceding a goal
Conceding red and yellow cards
Conceding a penalty

A nice start, but just for fun, why not shake things up a little, so punishment for:
Missing a penalty
Scoring a direct free-kick (the bragging rights make up for it)

All above offences are punishable with a single shot of spirit, except a red card, which is 2 (be careful of second yellow, one shot + 2 shots = 3 shots)

And just for even more added spice, a few game set-up rules can be included (for the daring):
Kazuko Ito must be the referee (he blows more than Jodie Marsh)
All players on top form (makes for more goals)
and finally...
Outfield player in goal (prepare to be smashed)

So there you have it, the official rules on the 'Pro Evo Launch.' Feel free to share any stories or ideas for improvement and most importantly... Enjoy your night out! (if you make it)

Portable 50 inch screen

"You what?" I hear you say, but recently browsing iwoot.com I stumbled across these. Now forgive my simple language but This. Are. Cool. Basically, you plug it in to a portable DVD player, put them over your eyes and voila, a 50 inch screen infront of your eyes!

Now, as a student I'm not about to cough up £150 for them and they are not released until next week so I can't say just how impressive they are from experience... But a 50 inch screen that weighs 68 grams? I think you can see where I'm coming from.

Admittedly, lying in bed staring into space (I think) is a lonely experience for anyone and personally I would much prefer an actual 50 inch screen but... Perhaps if you are lonely and enjoy watching films by yourself then go for it, it will be cheaper than the actual thing!

It's quite a big step towards 'virtual reality' and who knows what is coming next, keep checking the new arrivals page to find out.

Calling all oil tycoons...My Football Club

We've not made a post about sport yet, so why not start with this story that has recently broken.

The premise is that 50,000 football fans all pay £35 each in order to raise enough to purchase a football club... No we've not heard anything like it either!

Creator Will Brooks hopes to make "fantasy football a reality" and we agree it certainly is revolutionary. Who hasn't wished they had the money to own their own football club?

Decisions such as team selection and who to buy and sell will be made by vote and who knows, this may bring some democracy back into the game after the West Ham fiasco.

There is no way of telling whether this will be a success, or how the fans of whichever club selected will react to being bought by 50,000 fans with no idea of how to run a club... It makes for an interesting 'watch this space.'

To sign up and register your vote for the club you need to go to the website, curently 6,000 people have in just a few days (myself included I should add.)

Why is it...? Girls and computer games

I enjoy having a good time as much as the next person and my idea of fun is different to most others; it’s part of what makes us different. I’m not wholly talking about the guy/girl difference, although…

Now if there’s one thing I’ve noticed in recent weeks, it’s how much girls hate computer games, Ok, the majority do at least. I live with four of them and it never ceases to amaze me how often flicking the Playstation on rapidly empties a previously busy room. I’ll give an example; there’s a group of people, (read: girls) in the communal area, a friend and me decide we want a quick game so we switch said Playstation on. There are two outcomes here: one, they continue talking and we play our game quietly and efficiently, no harm done, or two, which is the most popular option, they fold quicker than an origami artist on speed.

Even after the advent of the ‘Pro Evo Launch,’ a brilliant way to combine three of man’s biggest passions; football, computer games and drinking into one big event, (rules to come in another post) they still fail to share our love for any of it, aside from the drinking of course.

Forgive me if this sounds like a rant, I don't mind at all that they don't join in. I've just been more aware of this lately and it got me thinking. It's good for us to have a bit of 'male bonding' time. I guess all we're asking for is that little bit of respect for being 3-2 down with five minutes to go to come away with an epic 4-3 win... Hmm, some things just don't translate do they?

Summer Rule #1: Comfort

After reading this article on Trendpimp about what to wear on the bottom, in particular the cargos part, i got to thinking...

There's nothing worse on a hot day than wearing trousers which are just TOO heavy! I think we've all made the epic mistake of going out in the morning thinking it won't be hot.... and well, the rest is history.

So... for those days where you can't quite work it out it's a good idea to go for something along the lines of these green roll-ups from Burton; not the height of style, admittedly but on a lazy day off they will cover for both chilly weather or vice versa. They will even double up as shorts if you'd like.

Another option you may want to go for is these cargos from Topman, similar in style and will go with anything else casual in your wardrobe.

Yahoo! More Online Poker

So it seems Yahoo have begun the ISP war for online real money poker...

Up until now only betting or stand-alone poker sites have offered this service and Yahoo have now opened a huge new avenue due to the number of people who use Internet Service Providers.

Yahoo poker will presumably be a part of the Yahoo Games section of their website, and it is good news for UK poker because of the recent US law affecting online poker in the states - i.e. poker sites cannot be based in the country. It would seem, looking at wickedchops and Partypoker blogs, that some Americans aren't all that chuffed with the idea!

It will surely only be a matter of time before other multi-billion dollar companies jump on the bandwagon and we will most likely see a revival of online poker in the not too distant future!

Until this is set up you can play on any one of many sites out there, but to help you decide here is the list of the top ten from pokerlistings.com.

Arctic Monkeys - Too little too soon?

Roughly a year ago, The Arctic Monkeys burst onto the scene, smashing album sales records as they went. But before the sun has had a chance to go down they're back with the tricky second attempt.

It's a brave move by them, in my opinion as for a lot of people 'Whatever people say I am, That's what I'm not' still had legs and wasn't quite in the 'old news' category (Think Kaiser Chiefs' 'Employment').

The album itself contains quite a varied range of songs, and they seem to have moved on from the catchy, bouncy tunes such as 'I bet you look good....' Quite why they changed a winning formula I'm not entirely sure, as now this album has to be given more time to get used to than the original. If you do so however, you'll really appreciate some of the lyrics and will get the feeling that they have, if you like, matured in style.

In fairness, for them to produce an album of such quality after a year is nothing short of amazing and respect has to be given for that, but I can't help but feel even another six months work could well have delivered another mind blower.
It is definitely worth a purchase and The Style High street gives it a solid 3/5

Style Up For Summer

As we've enjoyed such great weather, why not make my first post about how to reflect that sun away from our eyes?

I've seen many people in the aviator style already, but personally I'm not a fan so if you're like me you'll probably want to go for some retro plastic sunnies such as the ones pictured here. At only £12 from Topman they really are a bargain.

I prefer them in yellow but there's a selection of a few so whatever tickles your fancy!