Newsgab

Something is wrong in Neverland, gentlemen,” Wendy said. “And that is why we must go back.”

J. M.Barrie gave the rights to his classic children’s book Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital during the 1920’s.

Recently they launched a competition to find an author to write a sequel to the original and this was won by author Geraldine McCaughrean.

Next week Peter Pan In Scarlet is due to be published, and Wendy must take her charges back to the land where pirates and mischievous fairies reign, and sort it all out.

The sequel is set in 1926, and Michael, one of the Darling children in the original, has died in World War I. The others are grown up and troublesome dreams are leaking out of Neverland. Wendy returns to find Tinker Bell and be updated on the situation. She leaves behind John and the twins who as yet do not understand why there dreams are haunted .

For Centuries Debrett’s has guided Britain’s aristocracy through all the social niceties, such as how to eat soup, or is that how to drink it, how to greet royalty, as you do. They have advised on every other nicety, essential to those rich, and privileged enough to just know how to behave.

Now the publishers of this aristocratic bible of blue-blooded behaviour are wandering into the 21st Century, by straying into simply unmentionable areas in the life of a modern gal, their new book will advise on such salubrious items as adultery, toplessness and celebrity gossip

Its editor, Jo Aitchison, says the new book “Etiquette for Girls” is a sign that the traditional arbiters of civility are catching up with the times.

“It’s a nod to the modern day,” she sighed. “We’re pulling Debrett’s out of Victorian times and trying to make it relevant to today.”

The actor Leslie Grantham is better known by millions of British soap opera fans as “Dirty Den” in the long running Cockney soap Eastenders.

As an actor he has hit the headlines many times, in what can only be described as a torrid and turbulent career.

His humiliating sex scandal came about when an undercover reporter called Amanda exposed him taking part in sex sessions, which were publicised on The Internet, via a Web cam.

He has revealed that in the wake of the shame he could not be bear to look at himself in the mirror and attempted suicide three times.

“I let everyone down, my wife Jane, my children and the show. Life didn’t seem worth living,” he said.

His three pathetic bungled attempts included slashing his wrists, hanging himself and drowning, after he waded into water wearing a weighted backpack.

The British author of the Harry Potter Series has once again been included in a list of literary giants. She is Number 1 on the list of the most offensive writers.

In America, between the year 2000 and 2005 there has been over 3000 attempts to remove her books from schools and libraries’. The American Library Association, which claims to be the world’s oldest and most prestigious of the worlds library associations wants her banned.

You may well ask what her heinous crime is? She is promoting the art of satanism! I must have missed something when I read Harry Potter, and for those of you a little bemused I will explain.

The Harry Potter saga tells the tale of a small boy orphaned when very young and taken in by an aunt.

The circumstances surrounding the publishing of the fantasy tale Swordbird in the UK on 5 February 2007, are the stuff that dreams are made of!

An eleven year old, Nancy Yi Fan, living on the picturesque Hainan Island, where there is white sand, dotted with sashaying coconut palms, an azure sky and an extraordinary backdrop of dramatic stones; is not content with this fantasy island, she has created another world.

This other world is all set to go global in February, when her work is published globally. She achieved this mammoth feat by sending her manuscript, by e mail no less, to the Cheif Executive Officer of Harper Collins, at the publisher’s New York office.

As luck would have it, but not very often in the real world, Harper Collins are looking to establish their publishing house in China. They have been able to negotiate a fairytale deal of their own promoting Sino classics.

It is such an agonising decision, completely runny, just set, soft-boiled or hard boiled.

As Prince Charles cannot make up his mind his staff cover all eventualities.

According to Jeremy Paxman, the TV presenter and author, the prince is particularly fond of a boiled egg after a day’s hunting. “Because his staff were never quite sure whether the egg would be precisely to the satisfactory hardness, a series of eggs was cooked, and laid out in an ascending row of numbers. If the prince felt that number five was too runny, he could knock the top off number six or seven.”

Mr Paxman, includes this revelation in his forthcoming book On Royalty, and states his source was one of the Prince’s friends.

Former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey talked openly to Oprah about his marriage and coming out. The interview was given to coincide with the release of his book, “The Confession.”

On the show, McGreevey says he hopes the new no holds barred book will lead to more of the public accepting the fact he has an openly gay lifestyle.

The 49-year-old former governor of New Jersey, told the how he is “stumbling and progressing” on a spiritual journey.

McGreevey: “What I didn’t understand was that being gay, as with everything else, is a grace from God, and that by accepting that grace and by accepting that reality, by embracing that truth, I could authentically be who I was.”

McGreevey is now in a relationship with Australian-born financier Mark O’Donnel.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was a scholar of the English language, specialising in Old and Middle English. Twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon English at the University of Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories, including most famously The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955).

Both these novels are set in a pre-historic era in an invented version of the world which he called by the Middle English name of Middle-earth. This was peopled by humans, Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs (or Goblins) and Hobbits. He has regularly been condemned by the English Literary establishment, with honourable exceptions, but his books were loved by millions to whom he had become a cult icon. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has sold more than 50 million copies and was adapted into three hugely successful films.

The Machines we use to enhance our lives perhaps say more about us than the amount we would ideally want to reveal.

When privacy laws were first discussed and implemented over a Century ago the rage was tabloid newspapers, the telephone and the camera.

Now the PC, mobile camera phones, video surveillance, the Internet, blogging and social network dating sites, have created new challenges.

“If I am a corporate lawyer by day and a Level 10 Elf by night, I am not sure I want everyone to know my different identities,” says David Holtzman, author of a forthcoming book “Privacy Lost: How Technology is Endangering your Privacy.”

Last week Facebook declared that it was introducing a new feature it allowed users to track their friends on line activities.
A vast outpouring of protest amongst the college students forced the company to introduce new privacy features as critics parodied the site as “Stalkbook.”

A new feature of the search engine’s online book programme, means that users will be able to download free copies of copyright free books.

For the last two years Google has been scanning a range of books, including volumes submitted by publishers and others drawn from the libraries, including the New York Public Library, Oxford University library, and the University of Michigan library.

For books made available to Google via publishers including editions from Oxford University Press, Penguin, and Dover the user gets only a “limited preview” of a few pages. In other cases, where Google believes that a volume might be in copyright, but has no relationship with the publisher, Google provides an even more restricted “snippet view.”

Some copies of books read full view, and the complete text is available for download. Before you can dowmload the complete text, it is necessary, to read Google’s explanation of public domain books and usage guidelines.