Monday, June 7, 2010

An acrobatic group known by the name of Spelbound has been declared as the winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2010, a televised variety talent show competition broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom. As the winning act of the show, Spelbound have won £100,000 (US$144,580, €120,313, A$175,079) and a place at The Royal Variety Performance, an annual gala evening that is attended by senior members of the British Royal Family.

In no particular order, the top three acts were revealed to be two dancers known by their stage name of Twist and Pulse, gymnastic group Spelbound and Kieran Gaffney, whose act involves playing on the drum kit. After Kieran Gaffney was revealed to be in third place, Anthony McPartlin, who hosts Britain’s Got Talent with Declan Donnelly, said to Kieran: “Well done Kieran. Kieran, you’re a star, you came back, you got all the way to the final. I know you’ve loved this. You’ve loved this, haven’t you?” In response to this, Kieran Gaffney stated: “Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone for supporting me. Thank you.”

Shortly afterwards, on the episode that was broadcast live on ITV1 on Saturday, Anthony announced: “After tens of thousands of auditons, five semi-finals and an amazing final, this…this is it. One of you is about to walk away with £100,000 and a place at this year’s Royal Variety Performance. The winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2010 is…Spelbound!” Glen Murphy from Twist and Pulse commented about finishing in second place, stating: “Yeah, it’s amazing. I can’t even believe it. I can’t believe it at all.”

Alex Uttley, a 24-year-old member of Spelbound, commented on the gymnastic group’s victory, commenting: “Oh, my god. This is unbelieveable. We just want to say thank you to everyone out there. It just shows that all our hard work has paid off.” One of the coaches of Spelbound, named Neil Griffiths, stated about Spelbound: “Oh, they’ve worked so hard over the last few weeks. Um, since the semi-final, we…we really had to pull out the stops to try and up the game. They’ve not known they’ve worked in the gym from six in the morning till twelve…twelve o’clock of the night. I couldn’t have asked for more. Um, it’s a team of coaches. I don’t take all the credit myself. There’s, uh, two people up there that know who they are who’ve been fantastic.”

Spelbound consists of 24-year-old Alex Uttley, Nicholas Illingworth, aged 24, Adam Buckingham, aged 21, 20-year-old Adam McAssey, 19-year-old Douglas Fordyce, 18-year-old Edward Upcott, 18-year-old Leighanne Cowler, 17-year-old Katie Axten, 17-year-old Lauren Kemp, 15-year-old Jonathan Stranks, Abigail Ralph, aged 15, 13-year-old Hollianne Wood and Amy Mackenzie, aged 12. Bookmakers had previously predicted that Spelbound would be the most likely act to become the winner of the series.

The running order for the final started with Twist and Pulse. The second act to perform was Liam McNally, a 14-year-old singer. The running order subsequently continued with 40-year-old impressionist Paul Burling, singer Christopher Stone, aged 28, Tina & Chandi, a woman and dog dancing act, Connected, a five-piece singing group, Kieran Gaffney, aged 12, 22-year-old Tobias Mead, a dancer, 80-year-old singer Janey Cutler and Spelbound in that particular order.

Earlier on in the final, Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has stated to Spelbound: “We are hosting the 2012 Olympics and I think ‘what a brilliant opening act’.” Fellow judge Piers Morgan also commented that “[t]he purpose of this show is to identify hidden great British talent. You are that act.” After Spelbound won in the final, another judge, named Simon Cowell, stated that “the right boys and girls won on the night” and that he could “only say on live TV that that was one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen. Seriously.”

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The Bathurst Regional Council has begun preparing the Mount Panorama motor racing circuit for the inaugural Bathurst International Motorsport Festival (BIMF) to be held between April 13 and 16, 2006. The Mount Panorama motor racing circuit is considered to be the home of motorsport in Australia.

Council’s staff have been busy cleaning the facilities, erecting signage, checking pedestrian bridges and inspecting the track surface for the past few days.

The BIMF will be the first event to be held at the 6.2 kilometre circuit over Easter since 2000. In 2000, Event Management Specialists held the first motorcycle racing event since 1990, but due to EMS going bankrupt a short time after their 2000 event was ran and the inability of the then Bathurst City Council to find another promoter, the Easter event was canned.

The BIMF is inspired by the Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival in the United Kingdom. The Bathurst Regional Council and event promoter Global Entertainment Team promise that the event “will cater for all motoring enthusiasts, collectors and historians”.

According to the BIMF website, the on-track program consists of:

• Manufacturers showcasing their vehicles and track times
• Historic touring car races
• Aussie racing car races
• Australian GT sports car
• Parade laps by car clubs
• Parade laps and races by “Legends of Motorsport”
• Stunt car and bike events
• Rally cars
• Displays of cars from all eras of Mount Panorama’s history
• The chance for patrons to purchase a ride around the circuit in a race car.

Off the track, the organisers have promised manufacturer displays, merchandise stands, music, joyflights, Off-road demonstrations and joyrides, autograph sessions and interviews with influential people in the Australian motor industry.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Dell Inc. announced on Tuesday that it will partner up with the Microsoft-Nortel Innovative communications alliance (ICA) team to sell Unified Communications and VoIP products.

The announcement on Tuesday the 16th of October 2007 includes Dell selling VoIP, data and wireless networking products from Nortel and the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and other unified communications products.

The partnership with both manufacturers should allow Dell to provide a pre-integrated solution.

In March 2007, competitors IBM and Cisco announced they would join in the competition for developing unified communications applications and the development of open technologies around the unified communications and collaboration (UC2) client platform an application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by IBM as a subset of Lotus Sametime.

“We want to make it simple for our customers to deploy unified communications so their end users can get access to all their messages in one place – whether its e-mail, phone or mobile device. This will pave the way for more business-ready productivity tools,” said vice president of solutions, Dell Product Group, Rick Becker.

• Customers have four options:
  • Core Office Communication Server 2007 – provides instant messaging and on-premise Microsoft Live Meeting.
  • Office Communication Server: Telephony – enables call routing tracking and management, VoIP gateway and public branch exchange (PBX) integration.
  • Audio and Video Conferencing – allows point-to-point conference, video conference and VoIP audio conference.
  • Exchange Unified Messaging – provides voicemail, e-mail and fax in Microsoft Outlook, and anywhere access of Microsoft Outlook Inbox and Calendar.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Yesterday, the Royal Dutch Football Association (Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond; KNVB) announced Ronald Koeman as the new manager of the men’s national team. The 54-year-old signed a four-and-half year contract, which is under “immediate effect up to and including the 2022 World Cup” ^{((nl))Dutch language: ?onmiddellijke ingang tot en met het WK 2022} , KNVB’s official statement read.

Koeman has previously managed nine football clubs, and his most recent spell was in England, where he managed Southampton FC and Everton FC. In 2016–17, he guided Everton to a seventh place finish in the first season in-charge, but was sacked in October.

Featuring in 78 matches for the Dutch national team, Koeman won the Euro 1988. KNVB also appointed 49-year-old Nico-Jan Hoogma as the director. After signing the contract, Koeman tweeted, “I am proud to finally announce that I am the new manager of the Dutch national team. Happy to be here and serve the country in our road to UEFA Euro 2020”.

Netherlands had finished as the runners up at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and third at the 2014 World Cup under management of Louis van Gaal. But The Oranje failed to qualify for the UEFA Euro 2016 under Danny Blind’s management, and last year, they failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup in Russia. That was their second consecutive failure to qualify for a major tournament.

Koeman, who succeeds Dick Advocaat as the manager of the national team, is to face England in a friendly match to be played on March 23 in the Dutch capital Amsterdam.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Chelsea football team today won the English Premier League for the first time since 2006, with an emphatic win over Wigan Athletic. Chelsea, who went into the game top of the table, knew that Manchester United had to beat Stoke City to have any chance of catching them.

The first goal came early, with French striker Nicolas Anelka scoring from a Florent Malouda knock on, despite calls for offside, in the sixth minute. Just after the half-hour mark, Frank Lampard was pulled down in the box by Wigan defender Gary Caldwell. This earned the defender a straight red card, and the resulting penalty was scored by Lampard. After half-time, a third goal came from Salomon Kalou, before Alenka converted an Ivanovic cross to extend the lead to four just minutes afterwards.

Didier Drogba, Chelsea’s top goalscorer this season, finally got onto the scoresheet with Chelsea’s hundredth goal of the season, heading in from Lampard’s lofted ball. When Ashley Cole was fouled in the area by former Chelsea man Mario Melchiot, Drogba stepped up to take the penalty, scoring Chelsea’s sixth. On 80 minutes, Drogba completed his hat-trick with a close-range rebound, as this became the third time Chelsea had scored seven in one game this season. Ashley Cole scored the eighth just before the end of the game with a low shot under the goalkeeper.

Chelsea captain John Terry, whose private life had been the subject of intense scrutiny over the course of the season, was exuberant over the title win: “Forget everything else, this is about Chelsea Football Club and our day today. It has been a hard three years not winning the Premiership and today we deserved it. It’s been hurting inside of me for three years, seeing Man United lifting it season after season.” Carlo Ancelotti, the winning manager, compared the win to that of former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho: “Mourinho did some fantastic work and won two titles consecutively. This is my first and I hope to do the same as Mourinho. Now we have the opportunity to win the double and I hope that my players can, after these celebrations.”

Sunday, September 21, 2008

An email accidentally sent to Jeff Crouse of the Anti-Advertising Agency recently brought the controversial techniques of the advertising firm Kluger Agency under fire.

“I’m writing because we feel you may be a good company to participate in a brand integration campaign within the actual lyrics of one of the worlds most famous recording artists upcoming song/album,” the email read, offering to place Jeff Crouse‘s fake brand, Double Happiness Jeans, into the songs of popular artists. It was posted on his blog along with a reply that mocked Kluger and brought ridicule and criticism against Adam Kugler and his agency. According to Crouse, Kluger emailed him once again to claim it had been an automated email, and later requested that Crouse remove the post and comments criticizing himself and his agency, threatening a $150,000 lawsuit against Crouse for defamation.

Kluger Agency is known for advertising brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Mercedes-Benz, and Nike by inserting the brand names in the songs of popular artists like Mariah Carey, Black Eyed Peas, Fall Out Boy, Pink, Lady GaGa and Ludacris. Kluger, founded in 2006, represents over 170 corporations and focuses on well-known record labels.

Kluger and his PR team have come forward defending the advertising techniques, stating that they do not have songs made just for the products in question and do not infringe on artistic integrity. “Now, we don’t want an artist to write a song specifically to promote a brand, we just feel that if it’s a product that’s admired by the artist and fits his/her image, we now have the capability of leveling out the playing field and making things financially beneficial for all parties involved,” he was quoted saying to Wired.

However, the agency’s website shows video examples of its product placement, with brand images and names often being repeated, pointed at, praised, or being the basis of the song. The website also advertises that “a successful ‘brand-dropping’ campaign will imprint [the] brand name and product into your market’s subconscious”.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Skyservice, a Canadian charter airline, has cancelled several flights from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, with reports that the airline has ceased operations.

The company cites debt levels and changes in the vacation travel market with its decision to shut down operations and file for receivership. At the time of the filing in Ontario Superior Court, Skyservice is said to owe almost $9 million CAD to long-term partner and Thomas Cook subsidiary Sunquest Vacations. This situation exacerbated the debt load already put on the airline by a leveraged buyout in 2007 by Vancouver-based private equity firm Gibralt Capital Corporation. That placed more debt than was workable on the troubled airline, along with Roynat Capital calling in their loans to Skyservice earlier in the year.

Skyservice has stated that it will work with its partner companies and other providers to ensure customers stranded by the airline’s sudden shutdown are dealt with effectively, according to a company representative. In addition to customers impacted by the cancellation of flights for the month of April, approximately 860 jobs are expected to be lost as a result of this shutdown.

Tour operator Signature Vacations, under a contract with Skyservice until 2013, has stated that they were prepared for the airline’s receivership, having joined forces with rival service Sunwing Airlines.

Last year, operator Conquest Vacations declared bankruptcy, allegedly due to the economic downturn and reduced revenues throughout the industry.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Eleven years ago the Panama Ports Company (PPC) got a concession to manage Panamanian Ports at the gates of the Panama Canal — Balboa and Cristobal. They made a contract with Panamanian State to get this concession. This concession began a conflict between ex-workers of these Ports (previously managed by Panamanian State by Port Authority) and PPC.

These Port Authority’s ex-workers says PPC violated a law written in 1992. The law states that during any privatization of State property, including land and enterprises, the workers must be offered to buy shares of the land or company. The contract doesn’t state any offer of shares to the ex-workers.

Representatives of ex-workers claim that they must receive a pay, because the shares were not offered to them.

On the last 3 years, Jose Sanchez (pictured) has set some meetings with PPC representatives. Almost all meeting were suspended because PPC representatives have not attended them.

It may seem that no one in Panama outside the engaged parties knows about the dispute. According to Mr. Sanchez there is a mass media campaign to hide events of this conflict.