Les novelles britanniques

So random but oh so fantastic bits of news for those of you interested in the goings on in the British entertainment world (and yes some of this is so last month, but I've just heard of it):

(1) Michael Sheen is in the much anticipated New Moon. Isn't he just precious!?!



I mean, he already had a few nice roles in, oh, I don't know, Bright Young Things, The Queen, and Frost/Nixon but this will really kick-off his career.

(2) My much beloved Primeval has negotiated itself back to life after an apparently unprecedented routine of corporate acrobatics. We could even go so far as to call it an **anomaly** (Har har har). The powers that be have also taken steps to "ensure that the spectacular special effects that have made Primeval such a huge success will continue throughout the new season." Cuz where would we be without those? Oh time traveling dinosaur show. We love you.

(3) Gavin & Stacey, which has managed to remain frustratingly absent from youtube, has been picked up by ABC. Thank God!

(4) Russell Brand is in love with Katy Perry. They are dating. It is magical.

As someone who in a fit of madness actually read two thirds of Brand's remarkably enjoyable autobiography this summer, this bit of celebrity gossip cannot help but make me go "Awwwwwww." Despite his being blatantly un-PC and vile, the Western mainstream media consumer still seams to adore him--- as if we know that underneath that gruff sex and drug addicted exterior is a just a quirky, talented teddy bear. (To be quite honest, his book does revealing as quite a lot more lucid and sensitive than he may appear.)

If love of a good woman can turn Brand from his nefarious and self-gratifying ways, well then what more evidence do we need that love conquers all and that there just might be hope for the rest of us?

To the happy couple!

L'amour sans retour

Once upon a time there was a princess, and she had everything she could wish for, and a great deal more. Now, near the palace there was a cottage in which lived a poor, little, tiny woman, all alone. She was not old, but quite young. And one day, the princess stopped at the cottage and said to the tiny woman, "Let me see what you keep there."

So the tiny woman opened a very secret place and showed the princess a shadow. It was the shadow of someone who had passed by many years before.

"And you keep watch over this every day?" said the princess.

"Yes," said the tiny woman, because no one so good or kind had passed that way ever since.

And the princess realized that of all of gold and silver, her diamonds and rubies, she had nothing so precious to her as that shadow was to that tiny woman.

--- an abridged version of a story told by Amy from Little Dorrit (Dickens)