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Throughout the ages it seems that to be truly immortalised you have to die young. Dying an old and natural death just isn’t very sexy. Plus it means that you’ve had time to get old and not be cool or worse, get old and think you’re still cool. There’s evemn a club of musicians that died at the age of 27 called 27 club or Forever 27.

Since the beginning of time, myth and legend has followed those who died young. If you look at all the Greek myths, the one person who stands out the most would be Achilles. Maybe that’s just pedantic but the next one can’t be denied. A whole religion got started around him. Jesus. By dying young he became immortalised.

Then there was Gaius Julius Caesar. He was murdered by his oldest friend and his name is now in the annals of history and will never be forgotten. Many countries have a variant of his name as the word for king, like, Tsar, Kaiser, etc.

But let’s bring it forward a few thousand years to a time that people care about more. Have a look at the world of film and undoubtably two of the most iconic people of the 2oth century. Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. James Dean died in car accident at the age of 24. His last words were, “That guy’s gotta stop… He’ll see us.” As for Monroe, she died of acute barbiturate poisoning which led to the coroner recording a death of “probable suicide”.

Even more recently we’ve had the 27 club. This was the name given to a group of musicians who all died at the age of 27 within 2 years of each other. They were Janis Joplin, Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison of the Doors. Later Kurt Cobain joined the club by committing suicide when he was 27.

The allure and subsequent immortality with dying young is no doubt in part to the fact that you never grow old. Obvious as that may seem, it means that these people are always remembered as youthful and vibrant, at the top of their game. It’s an attraction that may have led to Cobain’s suicide.

And if you don’t think that’s the reason then imagine what Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse will look like when they’re old. They’ll fade in amongst everyone else. If either had have died at the peak of their careers then they would have been imortalised. Now they’ll be fond memories for us and musicians our kids will listen to to be cool when we’re 50.

Nature documentaries are great. Life, Natures Great Events and Blue Planet are all classics. Almost like works of fine art they enlighten and educate us about the natural world around us. But all the titles that I just mentioned were narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

David Attenborough is a national treasure. Not only is he a Sir but he also has a fair amount of initials after his name. Thery read like this, “OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA”. To you and I that’s;

Member of the Order of Merit
Companion of Honour
Commander of the Royal Victorian Order
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellow of Zoological Society of London

That’s pretty hardcore.

His career as a presenter of nature documentaries has spanned 50 years and he has been to every continent on his endeavor to discover and uncover the natural world around us. He’s also written 24 books as well as his popular nature films.

But he’s aging at the age of 83 and as much as we would all love him to, he can’t go on forever. But I came up with a plan. If we could get David Attenborough to read the entire dictionary then we could have him narrate nature documentaries for the rest of time.

On a more serious note, the man is a legend and let’s hope that he continues hs great work for a long time to come.

Once again the papers have been blighted with daily reports from ‘the jungle’. We read about z listers hardly anyone has heard of. But why do we again have to put up with this?

It’s often said that television in Britain is being dumbed down. Reality TV shows are slowly but surely numbing the brains of the masses. And “I’m a celebrity” is the worst offender.

In fact, you could go so far as saying “I’m a celebrity” epitomises everything that is wrong in Britain today.

The masses voting for people they’ve barely heard of while ignoring elections. The desperate burn outs from the wreckage of celebrity trying to reinvent themselves and cling onto the lime light for a little longer.

The show spawned one of the most nauseous, column filling couples on the planet, Peter Andre and Jordan. People so disgusting and malfunction that people are still infatuated with them.

But more so than that, it’s a formula that hasn’t changed of evolved. It’s the village idiots in the stock except in our day and age we don’t even have to expend energy by throwing rotten vegetables. They merely pick up the phone to see them ridiculed and humiliated.

Jordan said today that she would punish us by not stripping. God forbid, we’re being punished enough by having so see it on papers and having it use up space on TV.

In Bungalow 8 a small man sits drinking seemingly unaware of the furor around him. People whisper to each others and talk of his films. Though he is not a famous actor. He is, according to Total Film, the 12th greatest director of all time, Quentin Tarantino. And there he was in Bungalow 8.

It was only when he got up and started dancing that i was impressed. The man can throw shapes. And the girls loved him, effectively turning the area around his table into an oven as they cavorted around sweating and undulating. But Mr Tarantino remained cool calm and collected.

He’s in town for the premiere of his new movie starring Brad Pitt, Inglorious Basterds. It’s the story of a group of Jewish-American soldiers who go behind enemy lines to spread fear amongst the Germans. Which sounds pretty awesome. Knowing Tarantino one can only imagine the horrific level of gruesome violence that we’re going to be in store for.

Never has a directors rise been so meteoric. There are very few people with the Midas touch but Tarantino is definitely one of them. His films, all highly stylized, first attained a cult following before coming mainstream.

He started his film career in the most unlikely of places. You’d think it would be film school but on the topic, Tarantino was quoted as saying, “When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘no, I went to films.’” He started out in Manhattan Beach Video Achieves, a small video store where he spent all day every day, watching and recommending films.

And that’s what makes his movies so great. You know that Tarantino has done his homework. He’s watched a lot of films and has drawn a lot from it. He takes the best bits of other movies and amalgamates them into one huge and awesome film.

And what films, Kill Bill, Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, Death Proof, True Romance, all classics. And the best thing is, he’s not that old so he’s gonna hopefully keep churning out films and we’ll devourer them all. And I’m sure that Inglorious Basterds is going to be great too.

Oh, as a sojourn from the piece, I think I worked out why Tarantino likes Bungalow 8 so much. Managers wear white shirts with a skinny black tie which classically features in 5 of his films. I’ll let you work out which. Tarantino movie night anyone?

What do Pax, Zahara, Maddox, Mercy, Daisy and David Banda all have in common with each other? Despite sounding like Clubs they are all names of children that have been internationally adopted by celebrities. Now for those that believe in true happiness and humanity and all that crap this is all very nice and sweet and gives a chance to just one poor, sweet, little, cute baby to have a better life. For us cynics who live in the real world it’s easy to pass it off as a massive publicity stunt. MASSIVE.

The leader of the charge of the international adoption lark was Angelina Jolie. In 2002 she adopted Maddox from Cambodia having filmed Tomb Raider there. She then went on to accrue an assortment of trinkets, sorry, children from her worldly travels. She went on to get a little girl Zahara from Ethiopia and Pax from Vietnam too.

Not one to be outdone by other celebs Madonna is also amassing a fine collection. First in 2006 she adopted David Banda from Malawi and recently, as is being forced down our throat by every paper known to man, she adopted Mercy.

But it isn’t just these two. Meg Ryan and actor James Caviezel have both adopted children from China. Caviezel’s adoptee has a brain tumor and he is getting another with a tumor as well.

It’s just really strange. Why would these celebrities travel the world collecting children. In their defense you could say that it helps children and raises awareness of problems. But it just doesn’t. Have you read one article about humanitarian crisis off the back of Madonna’s adoptions? No. The only articles I read about Malawi seem to be the flaws with the legal system there. And I’m sorry but one child doesn’t make a difference. The term drop in the ocean could have been invented for this situation. So why do they really do it?

Well, it’s easy to say that they do it for the publicity and attention. What do you do when you’re one of the biggest celebrities in the world to draw more attention to yourself. There’s only so many pictures that the public can stomach of you and to drive the brand you need to do something. Sure that sounds cynical but come on, the humanitarian thing?

It seems like over-indulgence of these celebs. I want one, I want one. And now it’s become all the rage. If Brangolina have one and Madonna’s got one you know  it’s going to be the latest celebrity must-have fad. Could you imagine the Beckham’s adopting one? I think not, white working class normally don’t mix with ethnicity. It seems that to go on this global conquest of child snatching you need to be from truly special stock. Are they really bringing the kids into a better life? Or is it out of the pan and into the fire. These kids are going from extreme poverty to having everything and being in the public eye for the rest of their life, trapped in a golden birdcage being assaulted by paparazzi flashes.

And the thing that really gets me on the whole, ‘It’s humanitarian” sell is that there are 160,000 children waiting for adoption in the US and 4000 in the UK. Is it really necessary to travel the world to find a child when there are plenty of kids living in crappy conditions on your own doorstep. If they wanted to change the life of a child they could adopt from their home country. But i guess that wouldn’t get as much publicity.