UK Singles Sales at Record High

2009 has been a very good year for singles sales. So far this year around 117 million singles have been sold in shops all around the UK. Artists such as Lady Gaga, Black Eyes Peas and La Roux have been amongst the top five artists for singles sales. Not only has the record been broken (and I don’t mean CDs by Records), the number is still increasing with ten weeks left till Christmas. The big question is who will get the Christmas No.1? The way we get music in the last couple of years has changed as more and more people are buying music digitally online. 98 in every 100 CDs or songs are downloads. When I Gotta Feeling came out it went to No.1 in almost every country.

Most of the top five have had number ones in lots of countries but In for the kill by La Roux had massive single sales but didn’t get anywhere past 11 in the charts in other countries. Although it did come in at Number 2 in the UK charts.

Some singles have sold well but some haven’t but in the end for Artists who have released singles have come together and made up this brilliant achievement.

Chris Hoy wins Sprint Title after injury

Triple gold Olympic medallist Sir Chris Hoy has made a phenomenal return to competitive cycling. He has won his first British Sprint title. He has returned to cycling after having a hip injury from a crash. He beat defending champion Matt Crampton in the 200 metres final. He also set a new track record time of 9.99 seconds. He said he was really pleased with it. They have had the world championships there three times and no one has gone that fast. They had the championships at the Manchester Velodrome three times now and this is the first time someone has gone that fast.

He was in the competition with some of the cyclists that competed with in the Beijing Olympics such as the three brothers Jason, Kenny and Ross Edgar but beat them.

Mcfly Played up high in the sky

Some NASA astronauts got the chance to listen to some Mcfly music while they orbited earth. It was played a wake up song for the people in the National Space station. This is after fans of the band kept asking NASA on their Twitter page. Thirty-five of the fans were given the chance to speak to the astronauts but they just wanted the song to be played. Danny Jones said on his Twitter that it was “a dream come true”. In later tweets to NASA they sent a thank you saying “Thank you for playing our song in space. It’s definitely one of the coolest things that’s happened since being in a band… Amazing.”

Here is the Video

The song went straight to No.1 in 2006 but this is much more of an achievement to have your song played in space.

Martin Stanyer Pulls a cracker for ASBAH

Martin Stanyer from Naked Sunday is raising money for ASBAH (Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus) by releasing his new CD called Pull my cracker. He wrote the song in 2008 and it will be released soon. It will be selling for two pounds and has two other songs on it. One with a very strange name but I won’t reveal what it is and you will have to buy the CD to find out. It’s available to download on MEmusic for 79p. You can also support him on the Facebook group called Christmas song pull my cracker by Martin Stanyer. You can also preview it on that site. If you search pull my cracker on YouTube you should be able to find the video of him performing it.

This is a picture of him Performing his song that has come from his video on YouTube. I asked him why he had done the single and he answered saying “yes the reason i have done the song is because i had a sister who had Spina Bifida and died at 6 weeks, and so 30 years on i thought it was time to raise some awareness and make some money for the charity.”

He is only selling the CDs in Stafford but you can download it online and the information for that is earlier in the article. I hope the CD does well and I will be keeping you up to date with the latest on his new song as it comes so keep a look out!!

Blue Peter Kicks off it’s appeal

CBBC show Blue Peter are launching their new appeal which will help children in India born with a cleft which is a gap in their lip or the roof of their mouth. Although they are very common they are also easy to cure but that’s where Blue peter will help. The appeal asks for people to send in old clothes. The old clothes can be made into gowns for the children to wear while being treated. This will save money that can be spent so more kids can be treated.

 

Pop band The Saturdays have got involved too. You can decorate the gowns as each gown costs £3 and an operation costs £150. There are places round the country to drop them off, for example in your local PC world store. For every fifty gowns sent in, one more child can be treated. There will be events happening around the UK for you to come to decorate and customize the Clothes although it’s mainly T-shirts that they want.

Blue Peter have teamed up with Operation Smile who are a non-profit medical service organization based in Norfolk, Virginia in the US but still help people with cleft lips and palates. So far they have performed surgery to get rid of clefts on over 100,000 children and young adults in 30 different countries. So they are a very good thing to raise money for.

The Simpsons celebrate their 20th Birthday

The Simpsons is celebrating its twentieth birthday this week. In those twenty years it has achieved a lot. It’s America’s longest running sitcom, animation and prime – time series. Although Matt Groening always thought the show would be a success he said it felt weird. He felt it was strange but happy about it.

Fans in America are getting the chance to create a new character that will appear in early 2010. If you look at what the Simpsons were like when they first came on our screens in 1989 they look a lot better.

Then Now

Since 2000 they have had their own star on the Hollywood walk of fame. The show has won twenty-five Primetime Emmy Awards, twenty-six Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. It has also been named the 20^th century’s best television series. Homer has also been voted No.1 in The 100 Greatest TV characters. It’s had lots of good comments but none of them as good the greatest TV show of all time by Empire Magazine.

Over the years it’s had its criticisms and Awards but it’s still one of my favourite TV shows. Is it your favourite?

Postal Strike due on Thursday

If you’re expecting any post in the next couple of days you might be a bit disappointed when you here that post men and women around the UK will be going on strike as from 22 October. This is because of workers are unhappy about how much they are paid. Its left nine million letters and parcels stuck in the sorting offices. The strike is because the Royal Mail has had to change some things because less Letters and parcels are being sent because of more people using the internet to stay in touch.

Although this is a problem the bosses and workers don’t agree on how to solve the problem. There have already been smaller regional strikes. Apparently the strikes will be over 48 hours so this isn’t too bad but if it’s longer than that it could cause problems. What do you think of the strike?

Postal strike for Post men and women in the UK

If you’re expecting any post in the next couple of days you might be a bit disappointed when you here that post men and women around the UK will be going on strike as from 22 October. This is because of workers are unhappy about how much they are paid. Its left nine million letters and parcels stuck in the sorting offices. The strike is because the Royal Mail has had to change some things because less Letters and parcels are being sent because of more people using the internet to stay in touch.

Although this is a problem the bosses and workers don’t agree on how to solve the problem. There have already been smaller regional strikes. Apparently the strikes will be over 48 hours so this isn’t to bad but if it’s longer than that it could cause problems. What do you think of the strike?

 

Tommy Cooper's face found on a pie

A pie sold in a chip shop in Caerphilly in Wales had a symbol of the comedian Tommy Cooper. Tommy was in fact born in the town it was sold. Mr. Jones who bought the pie had phoned the pies makers Peters Pies so that they could record his strange pie.

He said he was about to eat his pie with chips and peas and noticed the symbol on the bottom of the pie. He got his daughter to check and had got a picture just in case no one believed him. Tommy was famous for having a red fez and always getting tricks wrong on purpose.

 

This is a picture of the pie which I had to rotate to make out the face but you don’t have to because I’ve done it for you. It’s quite hard to make out but there is actually a face there with the fez. Can you?

Windows 7: Is it as good as it looks?

Windows 7 may be the new operating system but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be brilliant, For example some of the features in Windows Vista that I like they have removed and it has taken several beta versions for them to actually release it. Plus the system requirements for the graphics card are very specific and could cause problems for people. I will be looking at the good and bad bits of this new OS. It will be released on disc on October 22, 2009. This is the final version and not the simple versions that were available to download online but it’s not all bad. There are several really useful features. If you have too many windows you can simply grab and shake the top of the windows and it will minimize. You can also snap windows into place so that you can view one on each side of the screen. They have also brought back compatibility for some XP applications.

The new feature for playing music will now let you preview before you play in a smaller window. You can now stream music directly to other computers. This will also let you listen to music in larger not connected speakers. If you have a touch screen enabled screen you can use it to navigate round your computer now.

Although so far Windows 7 hasn’t had many problems it looks as though XP users trying to upgrade will have problems. To upgrade users using XP will have to back up all their files and programs and swipes the hard drive first. Also the new system isn’t cheap. It will cost you around $200 just to but the upgrade.

It has to compete with Apple Macs new operating System though. The new Mac OS X Snow Leopard was released earlier but a new version of it was release this month. In my opinion I’m sticking with Vista for a while because they have taken some things off that I liked about Vista and it’s also expensive and I can wait until the price has gone down.