Cas is taking a short break so it’s a Moose flavoured roast this week. Let me reassure everyone (parental units especially) that she is fine, She’s eating healthily – roasted vegetables for dinner, yuk! – she’s up and about not mopeing in her room. As I write she is busy sorting out her room. She just didn’t feel like roasting this week.

I shall start with a little news item from today’s Observer.

“Olympian, 80, warned over exercising on escalators – Former Olympic hurdler Peter Hildreth, aged 80, who represented Great Britain in the Games of 1952, 1956 and 1960, has been baned from running the wrong way up the escalators in a shop inb Farnham, Surrey. Hildreth said he wanted to prove his fitness.”

A recent study from the University of Portsmouth has apprently discovered that the wrong bra can ruin your breasts. Tell us something we don’t know. How many more studies like this are they going to do? What we really need is proper training for shop staff so they can help us find the right bras.

A report that finds there is no gender gap when it comes to maths is no surprise to me. But I am surprised that other people are surprised. Back when I was in high school (more than a decade ago now) there were equal numbers of girls and boys in top set maths, and almost as many girls as boys took A Level maths. I knew a lot of girls who took A Level sciences. One of my female friends has a PhD in biology. A few years ago I worked for someone whose daughter was just going to university to study engineering. No-one in the predominantly male office we worked in thought this was strange. The gender stereotypes have been slowing erroding for years. The only ones who apparently haven’t noticed are the ones studying gender stereotypes!

I love watching tennis, but as it’s rarely shown on British tv this means I gorge myself during Wimbledon. I’m particularly loving the BBC interactive service which means I don’t have to watch the plucky Brit losing (they are always plucky, and they always lose), and can watch more interesting matches with a hit of the old red button. This year Cas got dragged into my incessant viewing and became something of a Rafa fan (I think it was the rippling muscles that did it), which is why she was so gleeful this morning when she told me that he’d trounced Murray yesterday, again.

We may be coming up the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, but this is perhaps still too soon!

A Guardian blogger has been testing out the theory of a Canadian academic, who claims that if you want to know whether you’ll like a book try reading page 69. I’ve tried it on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and in the edition I have it was a particularly exciting page where someone was hiding behind a door with an axe, ready to kill anyone that came through. It has definitely made me more inclined to read it.

The model for next week’s Sunday Roast?

Not many trailers this week. Apple didn’t have anything worth linking to at all.

There’s this slightly blurry teaser for Yes Man. Very loosely based on a book by British comedian Danny Wallace. The book was hilarious, but I’m not sure about the film.

How to lose friends and alientate people. One scene in this had me howling with laughter, enough to bring a perplexed Cas in from the other room to find out what was happening.

Terminator Salavation teaser. Brad Fiedel’s theme still sends shivers up my spine.

This week we have a Moose flavoured roast for your delight. The reason? Cas felt like taking a break so last week she asked me to take over for a couple of weeks. She then tried to take it back, but I refused. The roast is mine, all mine! Mwah, ha, ha, ha! Anyhoo, I’ve been a busy little beaver all week collecting titbits for your amusement. You’ll notice a distinct difference – I don’t do tech stuff. Twitter is something little birdies do as far as I am concerned. You’ll also notice that most of my stories come from the BBC. I know I should try and get a more varied view on life, but meh.

In a couple of months time it will be one of my favourite events of the year – the Eurovision Song Contest. A time when we get to mock our European cousins for their taste in music and fashion, as they mock us for ours. Apparently, the Irish have chosen a puppet called Dustin the Turkey for their entry this year.

The Vatican is going to make it harder to become a saint. I’m curious, if the criteria changes what happens to all the current saints? Do they become saintlets?

British and American scientists have uncovered the fossil of a giant frog in Madagascar. They have named it the frog from hell, which I personally feel is a bit mean. How do they know it was a nasty frog? Just because it shares some similarities with the modern day horned toad, doesn’t mean it acted like one. It might have been a gentle giant. I think they may be jumping to conclusions based on it’s size, which is discrimination. I’d report this to the Commission for Froggy Rights (CFR), if we had one.

But while we don’t have a CFR, we do have a British Toilet Association. Is any other country in the world as obsessed with public toilets as we are? The government is currently proposing a scheme where businesses allow non-customers to use their toilets, to help with the shortfall of public facilities. There’s no real point to linking to this story, I just like that we have a British Toilet Association, and that the scheme in Westminster is called ‘SatLav’.

A little game to test your geography. This has had me enthralled for the past week. I can find most of the European ones, don’t do too badly on the Americas (except for the Caribbean), need a bit of work on Asia, but am completely useless when it comes to Africa.

Tate & Lyle, a major British company, is switching all it’s sugar production to Fairtrade over the next few years.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, has made a bit of a booboo. He referred to the UK government sponsoring students to go to Auschwitz on educational trips as a gimmick. Silly boy. Such a rookie mistake. Everyone knows that you can’t criticise something to do with the learning about the Holocaust without major (justified) backlash.

Argentinian teenager gives brith to triplets, again. She’s 16 years old and now has 7 children in total. Wow.

Especially for Abi, as many trailers as I could find.
Indy IV – I can’t believe Cas didn’t link to this last week!
CJ7 – like Flubber with hair.
The Happening – the lastest from M. Night whatisface. Looks good, as his trailers usually do. Warning for Firefox users, this kept crashing my browser. Could just be me, but I can only view it in IE.
Smart People – oh those crazy messed up academics, eh.
Redbelt – not something I would normally go for, but it does have Chiwetel Ejiofor who is a very good actor, and not bad eye candy either.
Street Kings – one word, Keanu.

And finally, a plea to the Great British public – please, please stop voting for Greg and Linda on Dancing on Ice! They are not up to the standard and shouldn’t be in the competition any more. Thank you.

Yes, it’s Moose again. Cas is off bear hunting this weekend in the wilds of Bedfordshire; I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it when she gets back. This has left me in charge of the meadow for a couple of days (the power, the power!). As she might not be back in time to dish up a roast tomorrow I thought I’d treat you to a little snack.

Boy survives two hour flight to Moscow hanging on to plane wing. It may be a cheap way to fly, but you’ve got to be pretty desparate to try it.

In London this week burning chillis sparked a terrorist alert. Is it comforting that people are so aware of terrorism that they are alert, or worrying that we live in such a climate of fear that people panic when they smell something they don’t recognise?

Spoiler alert – Don’t click on this link unless you’ve seen the film Serenity. There’s a rumour that there might be a Serenity sequel.

And finally, especially for Abi, some trailers that have caught my eye this week.
Sweeney Todd – Mmmmm, Johnny Depp. (though I was having a few technical difficulties getting it to play – not sure if that was the site or my pc)
Southland Tales – starts off normal then quickly moves into ‘what the…?’ territory.
Youth Without Youth – no, I don’t understand it either, but I’m intrigued.
Be Kind Rewind – Jack Black and Mos Def making their own versions of popular films.
No Country for Old Men – the Coen brothers. Nothing more to say.

Oh, and the title? Apparently that’s my role in the office.

And so the baton has been handed over to me. Yes, it’s Moose here. I’ve been lurking in the background for the past few days, making sure no-one has been caught in moderation, deleting spam etc. But it’s Sunday, so time for a roast.

I’m a big film fan and something that has always irritated me is the Hollywood tendancy to overlook everyone outisde the US when it comes to film websites. Most (not all, but most) film websites are geared towards the US audience, which means US release dates, US only competitions, US restricted access even on some sites. I was glad to read this week that I’m not the only person who thinks that when you put something on the internet it’s unfair to restrict it to one country.

Last week was the inaugural Slavery Memorial Day, prompting a tearful apology from London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Teaxs has just executed its 400th person since the death penalty was re-introduced in 1976.

It was GCSE time this week. (national exams everyone takes at the age of 16 for any non-Brits reading). Once again the media knew the results before the students did, leading to stories like this one being posted the night before the results were due. I always think this is unfair on the kids that tried their best but didn’t do that well. Not everyone is academic; that doesn’t make them stupid, but the media going on and on about how easy the exams are probably does.

One of the scariest road junctions in the UK has been voted the top roadside attraction/distraction in a poll by the RAC. Spagetti Junction in Birmingham is a pretty impressive site from the air. Not sure I’d actually want to drive through it though.

If this keeps up, one day monkeys could take over the world. Better go warn Charlton Heston.

And finally, film trailers that have caught my eye this week:
Alvin and the Chipmunks – for 2 reasons: 1, my brother used to have an Alvin and Chipmunks record when we were little, and 2, what has happened to Jason Lee’s career?
Rendition – it’s interesting to see how quickly Hollywood is picking up on political/war stories these days.
The Last Legion – because ‘fantasy action adventure’ and ‘Colin Firth’ are not words that normally go together.
Enchanted – because it made me laugh, particularly James Marsden and the bicycles (near the end of the trailer)
The Nines – because I have no idea what’s going on here, but it still made me want to see it.