from j.k. to j.k.

by Aaron McCarthy J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series of books, the films of which star Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role. Daniel Radcliffe went out with Rosie Coker, who helped with the cast production of Les Misérables. Les Misérables was written by Victor Hugo who also wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame which was made into a film starring Tom Hulce. Tom Hulce acted alongside Jamie Lee Curtis. She also wrote books illustrated by a woman called Laura Cornell. Laura Cornell works forHarperCollins who published Cheryl Cole‘s autobiography in 2012. Cheryl was born Cheryl Tweedy but changed her surname after her doomed marriage to Ashley Cole. Ashley is a footballer on Chelsea and so is Fernando Torres. Torres appears in a music video by El Conto del Loco who have been nominated for three MTV Europe Music Awards. The second MTV Europe Music Awards was hosted in France and in 2009 the then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy presented a Legion of Honour Award to a British author. That author was called J.K....

From FIFA to FIFA

FIFA’s president Sepp Blatter hasn’t always been everyone’s favourite person. In the aftermath of Ireland’s famous loss to France at the hand of Thierry Henry, John Delaney of the FAI sheepishly asked for Ireland to be included as the thirty-third team competing in the World Cup in South Africa. Oscar Pistorious the Olympian, a South African, is accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkampf by shooting her. As a result, he lost his lucrative contract with Nike. Snoop Dogg, strangely, bought shares in Celtic Football Club who are sponsored by Nike. Celtic were knocked out of the UEFA Champions’ League recently by Juventus. Michel Platini, a former Juventus player, is the President of UEFA. He also played with France for many years, with distinction. In the 1986 World Cup Semi-Final, Platini missed a penalty by firing it over the bar. That contest featured Diego Maradona who, with “the hand of God“, defeated England in the other semi-final and that contest was run by...

From Sean Penn to Sean Penn...

  Sean  Penn was once married to Madonna who as everyone knows is a famous pop-star. She has also done a bit of acting in her day, Evita being one of her better movies. Evita was Argentinian which is in South America but so is Venezuela. The president of that country was until very recently Hugo Chavez (described by Vice President Joe Biden as well as others as a “dictator”) who is famous for upsetting the Americans by being friends with Fidel Castro, nationalising the oil industry and being nice to poor people. Chavez is known for many other things; one thing he did was to show support for Iran which, along with Iraq and North Korea, comprised the Axis of Evil propounded by George Bush‘s administration.  In a movie called Team America by the makers of South Park the Film Actors’ Guild (or FAG for short) come out in support of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The movie depicts the do-gooding actors as naive liberals who sympathise with brutal dictators and frustrate the efforts of Team America to rid the world of tyranny. The main offenders are Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, though Matt Damon is quite annoying too since all he says throughout the movie is “Matt Damon”. But one member of FAG in particular speaks out in support for Iraq: “Last year I went to Iraq. Before Team America showed up it was a happy place; they had flowery meadows and rainbow smiles and rivers made of chocolate…” That actor is the puppet version of…Sean Penn.  ...

From Clint to Clint

Go from one thing to another in no less than 15 references. Clint Eastwood was in a movie called Gran Torino. In it he plays a veteran of the Korean War. That same war is the subject of the hit comedy series M.A.S.H which starred Alan Alda, a respected and well-known American actor. He in turn starred in a Woody Allen movie called Crimes and Misdemeanours. Now, Woody Allen started out as a stand-up comic and has said that writing jokes always came easy to him. One of his biggest fans is Larry David who saw Allen’s movie Bananas while he was in the military. He knew then that comedy was for him. He spent a long time as a stand-up, unsuccessfully for the most part, until he hooked up with Jerry Seinfeld. Together they created the hit TV series Seinfeld which ran for about ten seasons. One of the guest stars in that show was Brian Cranton, the guy from Breaking Bad. In Seinfeld he plays a dentist. Jerry is accused of being an anti-Dentite by Kramer. The guy who plays Kramer, Michael Richards, himself a stand-up, was recently in trouble for making racially prejudicial comments. Kramer wrote a book about coffee tables and had the idea to give each edition of the book legs so that it could be used as a coffee table! There were even plans for it to be made into a movie. He’s not the only comedy character who had an idea for a book: Will Smith‘s character in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air had one called Celebrity Houses: At Night! In that episode he filmed Jay Leno pouring oil down a drain; it turned out to be coffee. Jay Leno recently made fun of an ageing...