A large part of China’s history is being submerged by the Three Gorges dam – but it makes the subject of a fascinating meditative film.

If you are interested in a break from coercive cinema, signposted cinema, cinema that uses incessant close-ups and a musical score to tell you single feeling you should be experiencing, then Still Life, a deeply felt and quietly impressive film, is for you. Directed by Jia Zhangke, it was the winner of the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice film festival, and features the superb and elegant actress Zhao Tao.

Still Life is a palimpsest of ideas and intentions – a meditation of mortality, a contemporary drama-documentary about an entire city preparing to be downed in the service of China’s Three Gorges hydro-electric dam project, and a portrait of a vast nation preparing for turbo-capitalist superpower status, whilst retaining the autocratic political habits of communism: high-handedly ordering the displacement of a million-and-a-half people, and the abolition of thousands of years of history.
The gigantic engineering project has meant flooding huge areas. It has meant the entire evacuation of the city of Fengjie, where the film is set. The director and the crew appear to have got out virtually as these things were happening; they have used actual, live history as their backdrop.

The story tells of two visitors to Fengjie, each desperate to recover something of the past before it disappears into the water. Still Life is a poignant record of a hidden sorrow in a modern powerhouse, and well-worth experiencing.

It is the most expensive French film ever made: a live-action version if Astérix, augmented by a cast of instantly recognisable Europeans, from Gérard Depardieu to Michael Schumacher.

However, the comic-book characters who are known for fighting off the Romans and bringing glory to Gaul may struggle to succeed with their last assignment – winning over European audiences. The €78m film was instantly met with a disdainful response from French critics; ‘At the premiere there were hundreds of people and not a single person laughed throughout the screening’, one critic said.

Perhaps they’re dancing to keep warm. Or simply thumbing a nose at the more languid moves of the Southern softies. Whatever the reason, a study has revealed that music gets faster the further north you travel in the UK.
Research analysing music-buying habits and attendance at clubs and gigs has also demonstrated that despite the supposedly homogenising effect of modern media, different regions defiantly retain contrasting tastes.

According to Uncut magazine, which combined data from HMV stores and the Official UK Charts Company with analysis of local clubs, country music is most popular in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the folk tradition remains strong in the north-east, the West country is a mecca for world music and jazz, and Sheffield and Nottingham are ‘heavy metal central’.
Analysing the speed of dance music in each region revealed the average number of beats per minute was more than twice as high in northern Scotland, where happy hardcore remains popular, than in Bristol, a stronghold for jazz, dup and trip hop.

The songs of the Beatles have always enjoyed a global appeal. Now one of their best-loved recordings has been beamed into the galaxy in an attempt to introduce the music to alien ears.

NASA broadcasted the song, Across the Universe, through the transmitters of its deep space communications network on 4th February, the 40th anniversary of its recording at London’s Abbey Road studios.
The music will be converted into digital data and sent on a 431 light-year-journey towards Polaris, the North Star, in a stunt that also commemorates the space agency’s 50th anniversary.

The former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, who co-wrote the song with John Lennon and played an extraterrestrial concert from Earth to the crew of the international space station in 2005, said he was excited by the project.
This is the first time any music has been transmitted deep into the cosmos. Nasa will encrypt the song and beam it into space from its Madrid transmitter.

When Tony Blair was running for Prime Minister in 2001, there was only one day when the Daily Star led the front page with politics: the day that Britney sent him signed photo with the message good luck. She was big then. She’s even bigger now, but for all the wrong reasons.

If you enter Britney into google, the search result comes back with 81,500,000 results. This can be compared to other well-known public figures: George Bush – 27,000,000. Tony Blair – 11,900,000. Justin Timberlake – 15,800,000. Even in the celebrity era, it reveals an extraordinary measure of fame.

There are some people who are so famous, so much the focus of media attention and public conversation, that the cease to be viewed as human beings. Britney seems to have joined them. Diana, Princess of Wales, was in the same league and even in death, as the current proceedings at the High Court shows, she remains there.