Family Entertainment Blog

She might have a penchant for fast food - but it’s certainly hard to tell from these photos of Wag Abbey Clancy, as she struck a series of typically raunchy poses for a new ad campaign.

The model girlfriend of lanky footballer Peter Crouch is the star of a new campaign for men’s deodorant range Lynx.

And she’s bound to set their pulses racing with this series of raunchy shots
Model Abbey famously turned her back on fame and fortune in the US to stay in England with her footballer boyfriend.
US model agencies were falling over each other to sign Abbey after she appeared in her Living TV reality series last year — Abbey & Janice: Beauty and the Best.

But the 22-year-old said she could not stay in America because she would miss her Liverpool footballer boyfriend Crouch too much.
She even turned to cheeseburgers, comfort eating because of the separation. Abbey told The Sun: “I got really homesick and missed Peter like mad.
“I had a breakdown and I comforted myself by scoffing cheeseburgers.”

Abbey and Crouch, 27, are said to be “head over heels in love” living together in footballer’s haven, Alderly Edge, Cheshire.

Although her ambition had been to be a successful underwear model, smitten Abbey revealed: “Obviously I really love modelling and I’d love to make it big.
“But it’s not a decision which can be made overnight and my life is fulfilled with my relationship — my modelling career is a bonus.

She added: “I’m happy with Peter and that’s enough for me.”

And no doubt he’s quite happy with her!

It is one of the greatest achievements of archaeology to have discovered ancient civilisations which were unknown to the world. Their discovery opened the gates of information which brought a radical change in the outlook of history. So far, it was believed that human past was dark and backward compared to the present. Therefore, it was argued that it was only in the modern period that man achieved progress and sophistication of culture.

This perception proved totally wrong when the wonders of the past civilisations emerged from underneath the earth and dazzled the world. Such discoveries also proved that different civilisations learnt from one another and developed as a result of sharing and integration of human knowledge. An important feature that brought together these civilisations was traders
 

and merchants who exchanged not only merchandise among nations but also introduced foreign ideas and thoughts in their own homelands.

Another important factor was human migration. When people migrated from one place to the other, they took along with them their cultural values and traditions and enriched their new adopted country with their heritage.

With the discovery of ancient civilisations, new knowledge either refuted most of the myths which were prevalent or proved that some of them were indeed facts of history. For example, Homer writes about the city of Troy which had no proof of its existence before that but which was believed to have been a great city in ancient Greece. Later on archaeologists excavated it and proved its existence.

Knowledge of ancient civilisations raises a number of questions. One of the important questions was the phenomenon of the rise and fall of a civilisation. Historians and thinkers made attempt at analysing these processes and try to find concrete answers. Some hold that there are specific laws which operate in the process of the rise and fall of civilisations. Others argue that there are no laws and every civilisation has its own process which cannot be applied to others.

However, the study becomes a fascinating subject and historians have brought lot of information to prove their points of view. Some discuss the evolutionary process of civilisation and point out that every great civilisation developed as a result of passing through different stages. However, the stage theory cannot be applied to all civilisations because some of them stopped at one stage and disappeared from the scene. There are few which passed through all stages described by historians to reach their maturity.

Civilisations and rivers

All Bronze Age civilisations, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hrappa and China were developed on the banks of rivers; however, rivers alone were not the major factor for their advancement. They were the people who as a result of their labour and hard work made rivers useful for irrigation.

For instance, they dug canals from the Euphrates and Tigris, the Nile and Indus, and the Hawing-Ho rivers and supplied water to their fields. This made cultivation possible. The surplus agricultural produce provided them with the opportunity to relax and take part in cultural practices.

Therefore, it is wrong to say that “Egypt was the gift of the Nile” or that “Indus made Sindh prosperous”. Credit for such advancement should go to the peasants and cultivators of the time who tamed these rivers and evolved an efficient system of irrigation, and hence civilisation by the river

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The end of the Hollywood writers strike means the Oscar show will be the usual star-studded, fashion-filled extravaganza, organizers promised.
“The strike, the bad news, is past us,” Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said Thursday.
The 80th annual awards show will be held Feb. 24 at the Kodak Theatre and will feature a host of A-list stars. Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Hudson, Miley Cyrus, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman will be among the presenters. Others include Denzel Washington, Martin Scorsese, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks.
Had the three-month writers strike not ended Tuesday, the Academy still would have put on a “B” show — one without the glitter of the nominated actors, virtually all of whom said they would not cross a picket line.”The ‘B Show’ was going to have the musical numbers, and there was going to be a lot of energy to that,” telecast producer Gil Cates told AP Television. “But it
 
was going to rely mostly on film clips, mostly on historical clips, because it is the 80th year of the Oscars.”The “A” show will feature performances of the year’s five nominated songs. “Enchanted” star Amy Adams will sing “Happy Working Song,” one of the film’s three nominated tunes.
Kristin Chenoweth and Marlon Saunders will perform “That’s How You Know” and Jon McLaughlin will sing “So Close,” also from “Enchanted.”

The stars of “Once,” Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, will perform their song “Falling Slowly.” Jamia Simone Nash, along with the IMPACT repertory Theatre of Harlem, will sing “Raise It Up” from “August Rush.”

Jon Stewart was previously announced as the show’s host.

Ganis said some elements of the “B” show also were likely to work their way into the telecast.

Working on both “A” and “B” scenarios has created a time crunch.

“We’re rushing,” Ganis said.

“Instead of working 12-hour days, we’ll be working 13-, 14-hour days,” Ganis said. “That’s OK for the next 10 days.”

Demi Moore covers herself in blood-sucking leeches to keep her skin looking fresh.The actress - who, at 45, is 15 years older than husband Ashton Kutcher - is a huge fan of a detox treatment which involves the unpleasant creatures being placed on her body.

She said: “I feel like I’ve always been someone looking for the cutting edge of things that optimise your health and healing.

“I was in Austria doing a cleanse and part of the treatment was leech therapy.

“These aren’t just swamp leeches though - we are talking about highly trained medical leeches. These are not some low level scavengers - we’re talking high level blood suckers.”

Demi says she now feels very relaxed and refreshed after her treatments but admits it was quite unnerving to begin with.

She added to US talk show host David Letterman: “It detoxifies your blood - I’m feeling very detoxified right now. I did it in some woman’s house lying on her bed. We did a little sampler first, which is in the belly button.

“It crawls in and you feel it bite down on you and you want to go, ‘You b—–d.’ Then you relax and work on your Lamaze breathing just to kind of relax.

“You watch it swell up on your blood, watching it get fatter and fatter - then when it’s super drunk on your blood it just kind of rolls over like it is stumbling out of the bar.”
smh.com.au

Whether it was his close-to-the-earth, home-schooled upbringing in rural California or the formative years he spent in the mountains of Yosemite as a camp counselor, 28-year-old Brett Dennen got a lot of inspiration from his environment. Reminiscent
of the sunny eco-folk of Jack Johnson and the guitar chops of John Mayer (who Dennen recently joined on the Mayercraft Carrier Cruise), Dennen’s sophomore album So Much More is chock full of strummed calls to social consciousness and Dennen’s warm-yet-rough vocals. We caught up with the singer-songwriter to find out a little more about him.

Full name: Brett Michael Dennen.
Born: October 28, 1979.
First memory: My grandma holding me in her kitchen, singing to me in French. My grandmother wasn’t French but her mom was. I must have been two.
Biggest thrill as a child: My biggest thrill was building ramps and mounds out of dirt to jump my bike off of. I spent all day building jumps — in the street, on the sidewalk, in vacant lots, by the river.
Front or back of the class: I was the class. My mom [home-schooled] me, because my parents decided that they didn’t want me to go to school in Oakdale [California]. I think it was my mom’s dream to have little organic babies and grow food in the garden. She wanted to be a teacher.
First record bought: I don’t know if it was the official greatest hits, or a knock-off, but it was the Beach Boys. It had some of the greatest hits songs, but then getting older and buying Beach Boys records, it was like, ‘Why was this never on it?’ It was a cassette tape, really cheap, and something I think I got at Target. I was five or so.
TO GET DOWNLOADS BY BRETT DENNEN AND LOTS OF OTHER ARTISTS, GO TO RHAPSODY.
First concert attended: In high school when I was a freshman, REM and Sonic Youth at the Shoreline Ampitheatre. Outdoors, up on the grass. Borrowed the parents’ car, came home too late because we stopped for pie and hot chocolate and my mom was on the couch waiting up for us.
First date: I did all my growing up at summer camp, so I think my first date was being a counselor, sneaking out and kissing a girl, then maybe on my time off buying her a soda at the general store. It took me a while to get into girls. Without school, I don’t think I had the pressure to do that.
Last book read: The Kite Runner. I loved it. The problem was I finished it a week ago, and I was reading it while I was playing on a cruise [John Mayer’s Mayercraft Carrier Cruise]. I was torn between this really amazing sad story, and all these drunk rich people on a boat.
Last movie seen: The last theater movie I saw was Michael Clayton. I like movies like that — smart suspense movies that are about corruption. George Clooney’s always good for that.
Favorite item of clothing: This military shirt from England that I got at a second-hand shop. It’s missing a button but I still wear it all the time. I probably wear it three times a week. I’ll wear it, then wear it again the next day, then if it’s still clean I’ll wear it later in the week.
Have you ever been starstruck? I used to go to Ben Harper concerts when I was in high school and college. I used to draw pictures of him, and then think that if I drew a really cool picture of him and went to the concert early and gave it to him, he’d be stoked. That was before I understood that that’s sort of creepy.
What was the last good joke you heard? There’s this guy from Afghanistan. He’s one of the world’s best percussionists, but he lives over there and there really isn’t a scene for him. He gets this gig that pays a lot of money. Only problem is it’s in Detroit. It’s bad because it’s far away from home, but it’s good because he can make a lot of money for his family. Between set breaks he calls his wife and asks her how she’s doing. She says, ‘Well my day sucks. I almost got raped. My friend got stabbed. Our house got broken into. And they closed our kid’s school down.’ And he goes, ‘I wish I could do something.’ And she says, ‘You can. You can move us back to Afghanistan.’
Favorite time of day: Probably evening — the colors are changing. It’s not so hot, but it’s not dark.
Hanging on your bedroom wall: I have a giant Bob Marley poster that’s the last of the posters I have from my college days. I think that might be the only thing. I have some art work, that I’ve made or that friends of mine have made.