Welcome to this week's Games Update, our weekly summary featuring all new product arrivals from the last seven days.

Releases this week is a little calmer than last week, but still there is a number of sensational products. The true classic Chrono Trigger DS US version is released a week after the Japanese one.

For those who have played the game in the SNES era, you can now play it on your favourite portable system again and relive the fun, and for those who has never played it, you are missing out a lot and is in need of a quick remedy to that.

The decadently glamourous and dangerous place, Liberty City is expanding its territories into the PC landscape. While the English versions are out already, to allow more people to enjoy Grand Theft Auto 4, Simplified and Traditional Chinese versions are coming out within these few days. For more information, please see this special news entry.

Besides the ultra modern cities like Liberty City, ancient cities has its charm and its fair share of danger. Explore Persia in Prince of Persia on your third generation console. Neither the action nor the plot is linear this time round.

By exploiting the graphical capabilities of systems and the creativity of the script writers, the developers bring the hordes of monsters, landscape and plot alive before you.

While Prince of Persia weaves a labyrinth out of Ancient Persia, 428 Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de is an intricate network of plots that surrounds a case of kidnapping. Scoring a 40 out of 40 in Weekly Famitsu, this visual novel is a must see for all those who enjoys deep plots and have the tendency to delve into the bottom of things.

Enjoy some light hearted action after playing the nerve wreakingly exciting visual novel. Kaze no Kuronoa is a game for everyone. Explore the dream world and find out about nightmares. Jump, skip, run and throw, the simple controls and wholesome nature of the game ensures that your whole family can enjoy it.

Play a game of baseball with your family via Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 [PlayStation3, PlayStation2 vers.] and your favourite baseball stars from the comfort of your living room. The newest data and records on this season's matches are all collected and incorporated to produce this game, giving you a feeling that the national matches are carrying on.

As 2008 approaches an end, Dragon Ball Z announced their last game, Infinite World on the PlayStation 2 platform. This game incorporates all the coolest elements of the series on the last generation platform and is a must have for all fans of this manga/anime converted fighter.

The simple and innovative controls and the smooth, cheerful pastel graphics won Loco Roco many fans when it first came out in 2006. Inheriting the interface, Loco Roco 2 [Asian & JPN vers.], the second installment of the rolling platform game comes with more songs and action. Roll and bounce through this holiday season as a cheerful blob.

As usually, here's a summary of all new releases from this week, followed by a quick preview of what is expected to be hot next week.

Xbox360™
Fallout 3 JPN US$ 78.90
Naruto: The Broken Bond ASIA US$ 49.90
Prince of Persia ASIA US$ 49.90
Saints Row 2 JPN US$ 68.90
Sonic Unleashed US US$ 64.90

PlayStation3™
Assassin's Creed (UBI the Best) JPN US$ 34.90
Brain Challenge ASIA US$ 39.90
Prince of Persia ASIA US$ 59.90
Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 Kanzenban [First Print Limited Edition] JPN US$ 79.90
Saints Row 2 JPN US$ 64.90
The Eye of Judgment: Biolith Rebellion Set 3: Booster Pack US US$ 4.90

Nintendo Wii™
428: Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de JPN US$ 64.90
Cooking Mama 2: Taihen! Mama wa Ooisogashi!! JPN US$ 59.90
Hori Classic Controller (Light Blue) JPN US$ 29.90
Kaze no Klonoa: Door to Phantomile JPN US$ 49.90
Skate It US US$ 54.90
Ultimate Band US US$ 54.90
Wii Speak JPN US$ 39.90

PlayStation2™
Dragon Ball Z: Infinite World JPN US$ 64.90
Hisshou Pachinko * Pachi-Slot Kouryoku Series Vol. 11: Shinseiki Evangelion - Magokoro o, Kimi ni (Special Price) JPN US$ 34.90
Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 Kanzenban [First Print Limited Edition] JPN US$ 68.90
Real Rode JPN US$ 68.90
Real Rode [Limited Edition] JPN US$ 89.90
Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi (PlayStation2 the Best) JPN US$ 34.90

Nintendo DS™
Age of Empires: Mythologies US US$ 34.90
All Star Cheer Squad US US$ 34.90
Blazer Drive JPN US$ 48.90
Boku to Sim no Machi Kingdom / MySims Kingdom JPN US$ 48.90
Chou!! Nep League DS JPN US$ 39.90
Chrono Trigger DS US US$ 44.90
Custom Battler Bomberman JPN US$ 48.90
Drawn to Life: Kamisama no Marionette JPN US$ 48.90
Eiyuu Senki Leavadein JPN US$ 48.90
Gokuhou!! Mecha Mote Iinchou: Mecha Mote Days, Hajime Masuwa! JPN US$ 54.90
Hajime no Ippo The Fighting! DS JPN US$ 48.90
Hello Kitty Daily US US$ 34.90
Hisshou Pachinko*Pachi-Slot Kouryaku Series DS Vol. 3: Shinseiki Evangelion - Yakusoku no Toki JPN US$ 48.90
Hisshou Pachinko*Pachi-Slot Kouryoku Series DS Vol. 1: Shinseiki Evangelion - Magokoro o, Kimi ni (Special Price) JPN US$ 29.90
Itouke no Shokutaku DS JPN US$ 39.90
Kageyama Hideo no Hanpuku Ondoku DS Eigo JPN US$ 39.90
Katekyoo Hitman Reborn! DS: Mafia Daishuugou Bongole Festival JPN US$ 48.90
Kikiite Hajimaru: Eigo Kaiwa Training - KikiTore JPN US$ 39.90
Kirihara Shoten Kanshuu: Daigakusei Ryoku Kentei DS JPN US$ 39.90
Monster Lab ASIA US$ 29.90
Mori no Cafeteria DS: Oshare na Cafe Recipe JPN US$ 48.90
Motto Hayaku! Seikaku Ni! Suu Sense Keisan Ryuoku Up Training - SuuTore JPN US$ 39.90
Neopets Puzzle Adventure US US$ 34.90
Prince of Persia: The Fallen King ASIA US$ 29.90
Princess on Ice JPN US$ 48.90
Sally's Salon DS US US$ 34.90
Sekai no Gohan Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi JPN US$ 39.90
Skate It US US$ 34.90
Ultimate Band US US$ 34.90

Nintendo DSi Accessories™
Fit Pouch DSi (Black) JPN US$ 12.90
Fit Pouch DSi (White) JPN US$ 12.90
Hard Pouch DSi (Black) JPN US$ 10.90
Hard Pouch DSi (White) JPN US$ 10.90

Sony PSP™
LocoRoco 2 JPN US$ 48.90
LocoRoco 2 ASIA US$ 42.90
Monster Hunter Pig Pouch JPN US$ 24.90
PlayGear Pocket Slim JPN US$ 19.90
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (PSP the Best) JPN US$ 29.90

PC Game
EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey (DVD-ROM) US US$ 44.90
Fallout 3 (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 44.90
Grand Theft Auto IV (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 44.90

Guides & Magazines
Arcadia Magazine [January 2009] JPN N/A
Famitsu PSP + PS3 [January 2009] JPN US$ 10.90
Famitsu Wave DVD [January 2009] JPN US$ 16.50
Famitsu Xbox 360 [January 2009] JPN US$ 10.90
Fantasy Earth: Zero Armdedion Official Setting Sourcebook JPN US$ 32.90
Kanuchi: Shiroki Tsubasa no Shou Official Visual Fan Book JPN US$ 37.90
Prince of Persia Collector's Edition: Prima Official Game Guide US US$ 34.90
Prince of Persia: Prima Official Game Guide US US$ 19.90
Ryuusei no Rockman 3 - Databook - Secret Satellite Server JPN US$ 8.90
Super Robot Taisen Z Perfect Bible JPN US$ 27.90
Super Robot Taisen Z The Complete Guide JPN US$ 26.90
Weekly Famitsu No. 1043 (2008 12/12) Special Issue JPN N/A

Video Game related Soundtracks
Devil May Cry 4 Original Soundtrack US US$ 15.97
Fable II Original Soundtrack US US$ 15.97
Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari No Ken Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 21.90
Halo Trilogy - The Complete Original Soundtracks US US$ 29.97
Place Of Period (Higurashi No Nakukoru Ni Kizuna Vol.2 Theme Song) (~Mio Isayama) JPN US$ 11.90
Too Human Original Soundtrack US US$ 15.97

Here is a preview of what are expected to be hot next week:

PlayStation3™
Hakuna Matata (English / Chinese Version) ASIA US$ 49.90
Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! (PlayStation3 the Best) ASIA US$ 29.90
Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! (PlayStation3 the Best) JPN US$ 34.90

Nintendo Wii™
Samba De Amigo JPN US$ 49.90
Taiko no Tatsujin Wii JPN US$ 89.90
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Stick JPN US$ 79.90
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes JPN US$ 68.90

PlayStation2™
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories US US$ 34.90
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (w/ Soundtrack CD & Artbook) US US$ 44.90

Nintendo DS™
Personal Trainer: Cooking US US$ 24.90

PC Games
Grand Theft Auto IV (Simplified Chinese Version) (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 29.90

http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...9-en-84-n.html

Tim Burton et Johnny Depp tourneront leur huitième film "Dark Shadows" l'été prochain. (04/12/2008)

D'après les dires du producteur Richard D. Zanuck, le prochain projet de Tim Burton après Alice in Wonderland sera Dark Shadows.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/40522?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Tories+sack+10%25+of+party+HQ+staff+as+credit+crunch+bitesch=Politicsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Conservatives%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CBusiness%2CPolitics%2CUK+newsc5=Credit+Crunch%2CBusiness+Markets%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=David+Henckec7=2008_12_04c8=1128982c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Conservativesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FConservatives" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Conservative party is making more than 10% of its staff at party headquarters redundant as a direct result of the economic downturn, guardian.co.uk can reveal./ppThe casualties include members of the party's policy section, which provides research and ideas for the next general election manifesto./ppThe decision follows a slackening off in donations as the global financial crisis bites. Some 24 staff at the party's Millbank headquarters were told on Monday that they could be made redundant. /ppIn a separate move the party is also closing the arm's-length Constituency Campaigning Services – based in Coleshill Manor, in the West Midlands – which provides campaigning material and acts as a call centre for constituency parties. Some 40 people there have been declared redundant./ppThe two divisions bearing the brunt of the redundancies in London are the party's external affairs and policy units, which are in effect being run down. A third division, the party's business relations department, was also facing closure, but sources say the department has been saved by a big Tory donor, Alan Lewis, chair of the Hartley Investment Trust and a former treasurer of the party, who agreed to bankroll all the staff. /ppThis department has links with two key Tory organisations, Conservative City Circle and Conservative City Future, and has strong links with the City of London. /ppIt is chaired by the MP Richard Spring, the vice chair of the party with special responsibility for business and entrepreneurship, and advises George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, on small business issues./ppThe decision to slim down the policy section some 17 months before the last date of an election is a surprise. The section writes and researches draft policy for the party – and works closely with Oliver Letwin, the former shadow chancellor appointed by David Cameron to head the party's policy review. /ppThe West Dorset MP is also, alongside Cameron, a former member of the party's policy unit, after working closely with Margaret Thatcher. /ppThe external affairs department is run by George Eustace, David Cameron's former press secretary, and liaised with Christian and Muslim groups and local party associations. Sources said yesterday that Eustace was not one of the people to be sacked./ppMost of the staff facing the sack are footsoldiers, brought in to strengthen the party's work to win the next general election. /ppNone of the highly paid big hitters, including former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, the party's director of communications and planning, and marketing guru Steve Hilton, the director of strategy who is still helping the leader while working from California, are affected. /ppNor is the party's communications directorate or any of the departments bankrolled by Lord Ashcroft, the deputy chairman of the party, including the campaigning section./ppThe changes have been initiated by Andrew Feldman, the new chief executive of the Tory party, with the backing of Giles Inglis-Jones, the party's head of human resources. /ppThe closure of CCS, funded by millionaire Tory donors, comes after the political funding watchdog the Electoral Commission cleared the organisation of being controlled by the Conservative party. Registered as a body independent of the Tories, it has received nearly £2m in donations since 2004, mainly from the Midlands Industrial Council, a Tory funding body, whose members include Robert Edmiston, a car importer and property developer. /ppIt had been under investigation for two years by the Electoral Commission after the Labour party complained that it was really part of the Conservative party and was subsidising campaigning in marginal seats by millions of pounds. /ppThe Electoral Commission did a U-turn in the middle of the investigation. Its initial findings, sent to David Wall, chair of both the CCS board and of its main donor, the MIC, said the commission believed the centre was "heavily subsidised"./ppLisa Klein, the director of party and election finance at the Electoral Commission, says in the letter (seen by the Guardian): "There may have been under-reporting of donations and election expenses by candidates, agents and the Conservative party accounting units who have benefited from the subsidised rates. These potential breaches are of concern to the commission, as the rules on donation reporting are fundamental to the transparency of party and election finance in the UK."/ppA Conservative party spokesman said: "The Conservative party was in discussion with the Electoral Commission in early 2008. These were clearly initial views prior to full information being provided and before a full investigation had been completed. The Electoral Commission has since concluded that CCS's charged rates were comparable to commercial rates. On this basis there is no evidence that donations should have been declared by the party and the commission decided to take no further action."/ppHe said: "Ahead of elections next year the Conservative party will be setting up an in-house campaign centre, which will coordinate the party's campaigning work across the West Midlands."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/conservatives"Conservatives/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/apyr8aPAaXZmzqIjGuEDCMQfNQo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/apyr8aPAaXZmzqIjGuEDCMQfNQo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

centerimg id="image1675" src="http://rhizome.org/imagebase/article/2151/5_taking_downfinal.gif" alt="5_taking_downfinal.gif" //centerbr / pDepending upon the utopian or dystopian narratives to which you might subscribe, the internet is a bit like heaven or hell--with the pearly gates of cyberspace welcoming you to a world where you want for nothing or a fiery apocalyptic dungeon big enough to house all your nightmares. Either vision is intense and exactly the sort of stuff that religious iconography was once made of; yet the wide distribution of devotional messages broadcast on the web seems only to have cast a dim shadow upon the net art community. More recently, spiritualities new age and old school have been forceful fodder in contemporary art, while glossing over a true connection to the divine. Italian curator a href="http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/"Domenico Quaranta/a suggests, "take Martin Kippenberger's crucified frog, for instance, or the cross submerged in the urine of Andres Serrano, or Maurizio Cattelan's Nona ora, or the Virgin Mary blackened with elephant dung by Chris Ofili, or Vanessa Beecroft's recent Madonnas. All of these works are undoubtedly imbued with their own form of 'sacredness,' yet they would hardly be hung in a church." Quaranta's exhibition, "For God's Sake," installed now at Nova Gorica, Solevenia's 9th annual a href="http://www.pixxelpoint.org/forgodssake-e.html"Pixxelpoint/a festival, looks at the simultaneous increase in religion-themed work and the ever wider distribution of mass-mediated sermons and religious messages, through new technologies. The question is whether this amounts to an increase in religious devotion, or rather a diluted or muddied conflation of spiritual values in a time of mixed forms and mixed messages arriving in convergent media. As with ZKM's "a href="http://www02.zkm.de/mediumreligion/"Medium Religion/a" show, which we covered a href="http://rhizome.org/editorial/2136"last week/a, Quaranta's show (and in particular his poignant a href="http://www.rhizome.org/discuss/view/41041"curatorial statement/a), look at attitudinal shifts parallel to media developments. The long list of international media artists he's selected present us with mostly web-based works that offer insight into the present status of the sublime and the potency of devotion, on the internet--whether their subject is G-O-D or Andy Warhol, whether they are revering the ancient form of the crucifix or the moon walk. The show is only up through December 12th, but images and more information about each work can, of course, be found a href="http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/pixxelpoint2008.html"online/a. - Marisa Olson/p piImage: Markus Kison, Crucifixion, 2006, Installation. /i/p p class="more"a href="http://www.pixxelpoint.org/forgodssake-e.html"Link raquo;/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rhizome-fp/~4/474843828" height="1" width="1"/

A few simple CSS tricks to add some flavor to your typical bland images, such as a Watermark or Shadow effect.

h4And Speaker's 'speedy' enquiry goes slow/h4 pHome Secretary Jacqui Smith told the House of Commons she had no prior knowledge of the police investigation into Tory shadow minister Damian Green..../p

Virtual goods were all the rage a while ago, but nowadays I don’t hear that much about them. Perhaps everyone got bored of Second Life, companies stopped opening virtual headquarters in virtual worlds, and WoW players…well, they’re a lost cause anyway, tormented creatures always destined to live in the shadow (also, Blizzard does not allow off-site trade with virtual money or goods from the game).

This doesn’t mean that the marketplace for virtual goods does not exist; it’s just not that hip anymore. PlaySpan wants to change this, and they’ve launched the PlaySpan Virtual Goods Marketplace which will contain items from popular MMOs such as EVE Online, Gunz, Kal, Knight Online, Saga, Shaiya, Silk Road, Soldier Front, Trickster and War Rock. This is not a black or grey market, though: only publisher-approved items will be sold at PlaySpan.

PlaySpan focuses on the young audience who might not have access to credit cards (more specifically, their dads told them they’ll throw them out in the street if they touch their wallet again). Therefore, they’ve set up a number of alternate micropayment methods to give the little rascals what they crave. Need a time code, a cool item, or some virtual money? No problemo, you can buy them here if you have access to either a credit card, PayPal or PayByCash. If you’re not convinced, PlaySpan sweetened the deal with an introductory offer: new Marketplace customers will receive 100 free points on registration.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Your One Day Virtual Goods Summit: October 10th, San Fran
Habbo and Paramount Pictures to Sell Virtual Movie Paraphernalia
Stardoll’s Virtual World Reaches 10 Million Members
Live Gamer is eBay for MMOG Virtual Goods
There.com Gets CosmoGIRL for Virtual Parties & Shopping
eBay Gets Sued For Selling Counterfeit Goods
IMVU Reaches 20M Users, Virtual Economy Still Strong

Centré sur The Shadow Odyssey

div class="center"div class="image"a href="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/big_show.php?/avaxhome/23/fb/0009fb23.jpeg" target="_blank"img src="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/23/fb/0009fb23_medium.jpeg" id="external_img_654115"//a/divbr/ bWorlds of Shadow: Teaching with Shadow Puppetry/bbr/ 225 pages | Teacher Ideas Press (November 15, 1996) | ISBN: 1563084503 | rar'd html | 4,5 Mb/divbr/ The Wisniewskis, codirectors of the acclaimed Clarion Shadow Theatre, have modernized and simplified the techniques of the ancient art of shadow puppetry and created this easy step-by-step guide. After a brief overview of light and screen options, the authors show you how to introduce concepts of light and shadow to students. Stage directions, puppet patterns, scripts, projected scenery ideas, and a full range of astounding but readily achieved special effects help you quickly master any performance-from simple songs and rhymes to full-blown stories and plays. The special effects use such common materials as wax paper and colored plastic, and no art skills are needed. Suitable for the novice as well as the specialist, the guide has chapters on intermediate and advanced techniques for those who desire a more varied and complex production.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/93673?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Speaker%27s+investigation+into+Damian+Green+raid+will+not+begin+for+monthsch=Politicsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Michael+Martin%2CDamian+Green%2CPolitics%2CUK+news%2CHouse+of+Commons%2CHarriet+Harman%2CPolice+%28politics%29c5=Policy+Society%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CUnclassifed+Contributorsc6=Deborah+Summersc7=2008_12_04c8=1128526c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Michael+Martinc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FMichael+Martin" width="1" height="1" //divpSpeaker Michael Martin's committee into why police were allowed to raid an MP's offices without a warrant will not begin its investigation for months, it emerged today./ppThe Speaker of the House of Commons looked increasingly isolated today as the Tories claimed that the inquiry, as detailed by Harriet Harman, the leader of the house today, bore "no resemblance to the immediate and speedy inquiry" MPs were promised yesterday./ppIt was claimed during business questions that the committee would adjourn soon after its first meeting to await the outcome of the police inquiry – in effect kicking the matter into the long grass for months./ppPressure on Martin is mounting following the arrest and police raid on Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, last Thursday./ppTwo senior Labour ministers have so far refused to give the speaker their ringing endorsement./ppHarman repeatedly declined last night to openly express confidence in the Speaker or the serjeant at arms, Jill Pay, who consented to the raid./pp"I am not saying I have full confidence in anything or anybody; I'm just telling you what the procedures are," she told BBC2's Newsnight./ppMargaret Beckett, the housing minister, today also refused to endorse the Speaker, insisting it was not for the government to either back or criticise him./pp"It is not for the government to pronounce on the Speaker; the Speaker is elected by the house."/ppShe told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was "unfortunate" that many people were looking for someone to blame other than the person accused of doing something wrong./pp"It didn't sound to me yesterday like this was all the Speaker's fault, or all the serjeant at arms's fault. It sounded like a singularly unfortunate set of events./pp"I don't blame Harriet for not wanting to be put in the position whereby she is somehow taking responsibility which is not hers."/ppPressed to say whether she thought Martin was doing a good job, Beckett added: "I thought he handled things yesterday with dignity in very, very difficult circumstances."/ppBut Labour MP Stephen Pound acknowledged that Harman had been "equivocal" in her position on Martin and Pay./ppSpeaking before Beckett's interview, he said: "I would say only the leader of the House of Commons on the government benches has been so equivocal."/ppAsked why she had been, he said: "I haven't a clue. It's not something that's collegiate or comradely but I'm sure she has her reasons."/ppHe accused the Speaker's critics of being "wise after the event" but also appeared to admit that the issue could have been handled better./pp"With hindsight, there should have been a group of people - everyone, the clerk of the house [Michael Jack], the Speaker, the serjeant - should have been gathered together and worked out a protocol. But being wise after the event doesn't help."/ppAmid fury among MPs about the whole episode, one Tory MP, Richard Bacon, last night openly called on Martin to quit, accusing him of having "failed in his fundamental duty"./ppEven before last week's events, the Speaker's position had been questioned for many months, especially after rows over his expenses and attempts to keep all MPs' claims under wraps./ppIn an extraordinary statement to the Commons yesterday, Martin said the search of Damian Green's office had been authorised by the serjeant at arms without his express permission./ppHe told MPs that Pay signed a consent form for the search last Thursday without consulting him or the clerk of the Commons./ppAnd he said that officers "did not explain as they are required to do that the serjeant was not obliged to consent or that a warrant could have been insisted upon"./ppMartin is now appointing a committee of seven experienced MPs to look into the seizure of Green's papers, computer and mobile phone following the shadow immigration minister's arrest in connection with Home Office leaks./ppAttention will shift to the role of senior ministers when Jacqui Smith delivers her own statement about the issues raised by the affair to MPs today./ppThe home secretary has already insisted that she did not order the police probe into alleged leaks of documents to Green and had no prior notice of his arrest./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/michaelmartin"Michael Martin/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/damian-green"Damian Green/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/houseofcommons"House of Commons/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/harrietharman"Harriet Harman/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/police"Police/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/HrTIBOjLc5UOyJN_WhdG2pfcsbc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/HrTIBOjLc5UOyJN_WhdG2pfcsbc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Le successeur du Shadow d'HTC (distribueacute; notamment par T-Mobile) ne devrait ecirc;tre autre que le Shadow II, que le FCC nous a gentiment preacute;senteacute;. L'objet ressemble au premie...img width='1' height='1' src='http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/303/f/4267/s/27e96d9/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2_fr.html?title=HTC : Shadow, le retourlink=http://www.mobifrance.com/news/2008-12-04/id13648/HTC-Shadow-le-retour/" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/partagez.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark_fr.cfm?title=HTC : Shadow, le retourlink=http://www.mobifrance.com/news/2008-12-04/id13648/HTC-Shadow-le-retour/" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853548709/u/49/f/4267/c/303/s/41850585/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853548709/u/49/f/4267/c/303/s/41850585/a2.img" border="0"//aimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PdafranceNews/~4/474270325" height="1" width="1"/

Le successeur du Shadow d'HTC (distribueacute; notamment par T-Mobile) ne devrait ecirc;tre autre que le Shadow II, que le FCC nous a gentiment preacute;senteacute;. L'objet ressemble au premie...

Six lucky candidates from a field of 5,000 have survived contests across hundreds of Guitar Center stores to compete at the 2008 Drum-Off finals on January 10. But who will walk away the best new skin-pounder in the music game? That's up to the bigshots.

They were announced on Wednesday, and feature some fearsome drummers from across the sonic spectrum, including Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins, Tool's Danny Carey, No Doubt's Adrian Young, Avenged Sevenfold's The Rev and session vet Kenny Aronoff.  Those distinguished musicians will be joined by celebration host and Jane's Addiction slammer Stephen Perkins, The Mars Volta's Thomas Pidgeon, Shadows Fall's Jason Bittner, and Papa Roach, which performs a headliner set.

Meanwhile, lifers making Guitar Center's "Drum Legends" Hall of Fame include the late, great Mitch Mitchell -- Jimi Hendrix's recently deceased timekeeper, soloing in the video at right -- Vanilla Fudge's Carmine Appice, and Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain, who just might be the man who owns the best metal name of all time.

The sticks meet the skins in Los Angeles at The Music Box, with $45,000 in career-enhancing possibilities on the line, including $25,000 cash, $20,000 in gear, custom-designed kits, endorsement deals, a feature in Modern Drummer, shopping sprees and onward. Welcome to the big time, drum nuts.

Got a favorite drummer you think should be at the show? Share it in the comments below.

After LA Weekly dubbed the project dead in the water, there have been a few pieces of news that have given us a glimmer of hope for the Warner Bros. adaptation of Dark Shadows, which originally set Tim Burton to direct with Johnny Depp starring. This week Collider caught up with YES MAN producer Richard D. Zanuck who cleared the air stating that SHADOWS is going to be Tims next project after ALICE IN WONDERLAND and theyll be shooting it next summer in London! You can watch the video inside.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/69710?ns=guardianpageName=Stage%3A+%27My+whole+life+has+been+a+black+comedy%27ch=Stagec3=The+Guardianc4=Theatre%2CCulture+section%2CJoe+Orton+%28Playwright%29%2CStage%2CTelevision+%28Culture%29c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTelevision+Media%2CTheatrec6=Catherine+Shoardc7=2008_12_04c8=1128305c9=articlec10=GUc11=Stagec12=Theatrec13=c14=h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" //divpIt has been a while since Doon Mackichan was last hung, drawn and quartered for laughing at the suffering of children. There was a week in August 2001 when you couldn't pass a newsstand without seeing her handsome, sparrowhawk face, forehead partially obscured by the word "evil" or "depraved"./ppThe Brass Eye paedophile special is now mostly remembered as virtuoso satire, so it's easy to forget what a stink it caused at the time. And it was Mackichan, who played TV presenter Swanchita Haze, who bore the brunt of it. People expected that sort of thing from Chris Morris, but Doon was a woman with - gulp - children of her own. "[Mackichan] had seen herself as a major comedy force in the making," wrote the Mail. "She even dreamt of becoming a film star. But with the Brass Eye disaster as her epitaph, all those plans lie in tatters."/ppLooking back, it's hard to say her career didn't suffer. There were two more seasons of Smack the Pony, the girly Channel 4 sketch show with Sally Phillips and Fiona Allen, but to diminishing returns. There were wifely roles in ropey sitcoms. There was theatre. Then came a two-year break for unhappier reasons (of which more later). And now she's back, in a play that, well, laughs at the suffering of children. Adults, too. Especially those six feet under. /ppJoe Orton's Loot, like Brass Eye, is comedy that sets out to shock. Don't be fooled by its age; although the play was first performed in 1965, Loot has weathered better than, say, a TV parody of late-90s news shows. Death doesn't date as a cultural taboo; likewise religion. Rereading Loot is like having a shower when you hadn't realised the boiler's broken: unexpectedly shocking./pp"Yep, it's full on," says Mackichan, eating a tuna sandwich between rehearsals in London. "There's this one line about a really great brothel run by Pakistanis who pimp out their kids for Mars bars." She smiles: an attractive smile, heavy on the lippy. "I'm like, 'Oh we'll cut that, won't we?' Well, no, we can't, because what about all the other things people might find offensive? Cut them all and you won't have much of a play left."/ppOther lines trouble her. Orton's gleeful description of a sexual assault, complete with tooth-breaking detail. "That specific image is just really horrible. Do you lose a portion of your audience when you leave that in? Do people stop thinking it's a great play? Or as my mum would say, 'Ooh, Orton's so kinky; yes, I love all that.' " /ppDoon plays Fay, an Irish Catholic home nurse and a prolific serial killer (87 in one week alone). She has lately buried her seventh husband and has her eighth in her crosshairs, having just dispatched his wife with a syringe of poison. Loot takes place on the day of the wife's funeral, and charts the power struggle between Fay, Hal (whose mother is being buried), Dennis, Hal's boyfriend, with whom he has robbed a bank and put the money in mum's coffin, and Detective Truscott, the sinister inspector who comes calling. /ppOrton's stage instructions put Kay in her late 20s; other than that Mackichan, 46, is a good fit. She is Celtic, by nurture at least. She grew up in Surrey but moved to Fife with her family when she was nine. She survived the transition, she says, by acting, specialising in "posh bitches". This is something she still does: she is a natural authoritarian, physically pneumatic, temperamentally tough - a few years back she swam the English channel with a team of paratroopers. /pp"Yes, I could kill someone," she says, without thinking too hard about it. "It must be so easy to just nip a needle in, or hold a pillow over an old person's face. The power and the buzz you'd get." She has been boning up on True Crime magazine to further understand her character's homicidal motivation. "But I just can't read the books. There's such an orgasm about they way they're written. 'Women who kill! Viciously!' When it comes to sex and violence, we're an island of obsessives. I mean, how does it help people to know the details of how someone was physically tortured?"/ppTen years ago, Mackichan got her fingers burned over an Anglican sketch on her Radio 4 show, Doon Your Way, but it hasn't left her any more on-message when it comes to religion. "It's been extraordinary finding out what Catholics actually believe!" she says of the research process. "All the rituals and superstition. The whole voyeurism of talking to someone behind a little screen. The idea that you can think, OK, I'll be a bitch, then on Sunday I'll say, 'Oh, I was a bit of a bitch' and then feel great!"/ppShe is not religious herself, "but I don't think I'm in an atheistic universe. I do think there's a higher power". Has she ever prayed? "Oh, I've been down on my knees many times." She pauses and then roars with laughter - it's a genuine, accidental Orton-ism. /ppIt turns out that Mackichan has had an extremely tough few years. Her father recently died. She is in the process of getting divorced from her husband, Common As Muck actor Anthony Barclay, with whom she has three children, India, 11, Louis, 10, and Ella-Rose, four. And, three years ago, Louis contracted leukaemia. Much of the past three years has been spent with him in hospital. He is now in remission, but shadows still hollow out her face. She wells up frequently, and there is something frayed behind the raucous laugh and actorly tics. "I do find authority hard to deal with now," she growls, after an assistant gives us a 10-minute warning that she needs to get back to work. "I feel a bit of an anarchist. I don't think I could work for someone who was an arsehole any more." She gulps down some fruit juice. "I can't actually have confrontations with people. It's too much. I'm a single muvva with three kids and a show to do." She laughs but she's dead serious./ppWhen things were at their worst, she says, her monopoly on heartache was hard to handle. "People would tut behind me in a supermarket queue and I'd have to go, 'Please, go ahead of me, you've obviously got somewhere to go. I'm just going back to the children's cancer ward.' I once had an actress telling me her hair was falling out because of her new kitchen and I thought, I'm not going to say anything, because this is quite interesting, because I remember how I was before it all." And how was she before it all? "Quite selfish, neurotic. Up my own arse. It's made me very tough. I do think I have endurance beyond the pale." /ppWhen Louis was well enough, Mackichan took her children with her to Africa to shoot a BBC2 series, Taking the Flak, loosely based on John Simpson's reporting from poverty-stricken, war-ravaged places. After such harrowing experiences, how she can cope with her relatively comfortable existence? "You walk into your house and you go: I'm a millionaire. I'm a princess; I live in a palace. And you think: I don't have a lot of shoes, but I do have too many shoes. You look at yourself and think: Party's over, mate. Time to be useful."/ppAnd yet she is not an aid worker in Africa. She is in north London, rehearsing a play. "I did think, I can't go back to acting. It's too vain, too ridiculous. I was going to retrain as a play specialist in Louis' cancer ward. But this is what I've done for 20 years. It's what I do." /ppShe's right. Mackichan is a natural born thesp, right down to her floaty black blouse and stripy woollen leg-warmers. Slice her in half and you would see "actor" written right through the middle of her. "I have a real mission now to be in work that will be cathartic for people. [Work] that's really honest about just how fucking hard it is to stay afloat."/ppLoot isn't exactly what she had in mind, she admits, but its no-nonsense attitude to tragedy has been cathartic. "My whole life lately has been a bit of a black comedy." She snorts. Might she consider turning it into one? "There's a lot of mileage in a children's cancer-ward comedy. All the opening curtains and waving at people being sick into bowls. You could set it in the tiny coffin-like kitchen where only the adults are allowed. You see these little bald children running past the window. It was like suddenly being in a war."/ppCould she really bear to return there, even imaginatively? "I don't know. They haunt me, those nighttime corridors. The characters, too: the carers and nurses and staff and the petty quarrels. And getting high on Quality Street till 3am. But I would like to." /ppstrongmiddot; /strongLoot is at the Tricycle, London NW6, from December 11. Box office: 020-7328 1000./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre"Theatre/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/orton"Joe Orton/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/television"Television/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p