Al Gore and His Lucky Number

In July this year, seven will be the number on everyone's lips as seven concerts are held in seven continents on the seventh day of the seventh month in this, the millenium's seventh year.

The concerts are all part of Live Earth - Al Gore's Live Aid for Climate Change. A call to arms for countries to act to prevent global warming.

They will be held simultaneously in London, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Johannesburg, Shanghai and Rio De Janeiro, with an audience of millions watching live as proceedings are streamed on MSN.

Performances from The Police, Kelly Clarkson, Duran Duran, and The Foo Fighters to name just a few will raise awareness of the need to act on climate change and do for climate change what the Live Aid concerts did for poverty.

And that's where suspicion creeps in. What exactly did the Live Aid concerts do for poverty?

Very little really; plastering over the key issues behind word poverty, they provided a relatively insignificant amount of aid which made very little long-term difference. They raised awareness and we all donned white wrist bands and marched on Edinburgh to show our support. But for all the good intentions, very little came from it.

And that's the same worry with Live Earth. The main intention here is not to raise money (shame, considering its £55 for a ticket!) but to create awareness and pressure people into making a change - but at what cost?

With seven concerts on seven continents, musicians and celebritieswill be flown around the world to do their good deeds. This of course will require air travel which, if Al Gore has taught us nothing else, we all know is a major source of carbon emissions.

Only two line-ups have been announced as yet, with US-based bands The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters, Black Eyed Peas and Beastie Boys set to play in London whilst the UK's very own Katie Tunstall will join The Police in New York.

How many round trips accross the Atlantic does that make? You guessed it - 7. A total of 14 flights, travelling a combined 41,433 miles and splutterng a total of 16,158lbs of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

But it doesn't stop there. Artists from the UK and the US are sure to be playing at the other concerts. While the line-ups have not yet been announced, one can assume the following as, at best a very conservative estimate:

Sydney - Two acts from the UK (a 21,106 mile round-trip) and one from the US (19,887 miles)

Johannesburg - One from the UK (22,511 miles) and one from the US (15,934 miles)

Tokyo - One from the UK (11,884 miles) and one from the US (13,506 miles)

Rio De Janeiro - One from the US (9,599 miles)

Shanghai - One from the UK (11,446 miles) and one from the US (14,746 miles)

That comes to a grand total of 203,164 miles - contributing a whopping 79,234lbs of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Suddenly the concert isn't as green as we think, and if you factor in the energy to power the concerts themselves, getting people to and from the show and then all the millions of computers powered up to stream it live on MSN the likey total is probably double that.

Admittedly, this is not a great deal in itself - in fact, even a small undeveloped country such as Tonga produces up to 240million lbs of carbon dioxide each year.

The concerts aren't going to have the seas boiling and the Sahara freezing over, but as Gore himself once said, "If we do not drastically reduce this blanket of global warming polution, the world would likely cross the point of no return."

So perhaps the number on everybody's lips this summer shouldn't be seven, but 79,234 - because that's how many unecessary pounds of carbon dioxide we will be dumping into the atmosphere courtesy of Gore's good intentions.

Click here to see how much carbon dioxide your air travel produces.

You can have one hell of a party on Myspace

When you're 17 a houseparty is the best way to entertain your friends. Too young to go to pubs and clubs, millions of teenagers up and down the country have house parties every week where they can gather and have a drink... or 10. But for 17-year-old Rachel Bell from County Durham it all went rather sour when she broke the golden rule of house parties - never, absolutely never, make it an open invitation.

Just a rumour of a free house would have half the school planning an impromptu party. The key to success was always to keep it quiet - tell only those you want to arrive and tell them not to advertise it:

You got a free house? Having a party?
Yeah, just a small one.
Alright, I'll tell a few people.
Okay but no randoms.
Right-o.

Its one of the golden rules (along of course with no monkey business in your parents' bedroom). The rules developed over hundereds of years of teen house partying and to ignore them is asking for trouble. Otherwise hundreds of teens descend upon the house, keen for somewhere to have a few drinks and the reuslt was always carnege - it's hard enough to control your friends let alone hundreds of 'randoms'.

And that's exactly what has happened on a massive scale with the help of Myspace. Rachel Bell, 17, advertised her party on Myspace only to have hundereds of revellers turn up at the house - causing £20,000 worth of damage to her parents' home in Houghton-le-Spring in County Durham.



It happened again this week in both Liverpool and Croydon as people advertised their parties on the social networking site - with equally catastrophic consequences. The house in Liverpool was left in a particularly dire state as people travelled from as far away as London, hell-bent on wrecking the house.

What is most astonishing however, is their reactions. A shocked Ms Bell said: "The party wasn't supposed to start until 10 but at half 9 we saw people pulling up in cars. We didn't recognise them and didn't know what was going on so we bolted the door."

Albeit for me to call someone an idiot.

Perhaps it wasn't the fact they showed up early, but the fact she advertised a party with the tagline "let's trash the house" to an audience of millions of teenagers that caused the ensuing devastation?

Or perhaps she gave the wrong impression in the advert?:

"ok so bring more drink - were gunna run out quick & you will be shitted then. Bring food if you like & SQUIRTY CREAM!

Glowsticks etc etc

If you're on acid or something, take that or whatever you have B4 you come in. Please don't leave it lying around for any unexpected plods arriving"

Doesn't really read like your typical invitation for a cheese and wine evening does it? I mean, Squirty Cream? I've been to a fair few house parties in my time but never has the entertainment been provided courtesy of a tube of whipped cream.

Perhaps its about time the golden rules of house partying were rewritten with the first one being 'DON'T ADVERTISE YOUR PARTY ON THE INTERNET TO AN AUDIENCE OF MILLIONS'.



Or perhaps that's just stating the obvious. Either way, one thing is for sure, she certainly won't do it again - next time use facebook, there's a much nicer class of partygoer on there.

Virgin's New Image Is Wearing Thin

Do you remember Marathon bars? Or perhaps the Opal Fruit? Now of course, they are more commonly known as Snickers and Starburst - a fantastic piece of rebranding so efective that few now know the old names.

But rebranding hasn't been quite so sweet for Ntl. Now Virgin Media, they arrived amid a publicity storm, offering an alternative to Sky: combining TV, internet, mobile and landline phone services in one unique package.

But like an Opal Fruit, or Starburst, or whtever they're known as, it all went quite sour. Sky upped the price of their channels and Virgin Media refused to pay. The result? Well, two comletely diffrent TV packages - one with all the Sky channels like Sky One, Sky News and Sky Sports News and another without.

So instead, Virgin Media is no alternative to sky, it simply doesn't offer the same channels for a start. And if, like me you thought 'I don't watch those anyway, it won't make a difference I still have Sky Sports and the movie channels' then you were quite wrong.

Virgin have taken on Ntl, a company so famous for its poor customer relations it spurned a website, myntlhell.com. And the re-branding has seen no change.

This week I had a V+ box fitted. It's like Sky+ but by Virgin. Quite simple really. The only problem is, mine doesn't work.

I can record programmes to its hard drive, i can watch a plethora of near pointless channels (one, i found this morning offered a programme 'Britain's most embarrassing illnesses' - nice) and I can access most sports. But I can't access the interactive service - the very platform upon which they hope to challenge Sky.

I can't watch movies, because I can't key in my PIN code to confirm that I am old enough to watch a PG-rated film. Similarly I can't watch pay-per-view football, or golf and I can't get movies and music on demand.

But, don't let one faulty box dirty your opinion of Virgin Media I thought. So I phoned them in the hope of finding a resolution so I can get my snazzy new V+ working.

True to their predecessor's reputation however, Virgin Media sent me round the houses in a vain search for a solution. Four phone calls (a total of 2 hours) and three promises of a call back later, I am still no nearer to watching a movie, or sport or anything else for that matter.

As I sit musing over Britains most embarrassing illnesses, I wonder why bother. Sky may be a bit more pricey, and they may attach what looks like a Russian space station to the side of your house, but they at least offer a service that works - and gives you channels you actually want.



myvirginhell.com - if the porn industry hasn't already got it, you might be onto a winner with that one.