Gateway - the Final Frontier?

Advantages: Great characters and cleverly structured
Disadvantages: The domestic violence bit sticks out like a sore thumb

...Gateway, by Frederik Pohl, is very much in the grand tradition of 'hard SF'. Whereas much of what gets put in the science-fiction section of bookshops is actually little more than fantasy with lasers instead of swords, Gateway is part of the Arthur C Clarke, Bradbury and Asimov school that seeks to extrapolate fantastic worlds from real current science, and examines how science and technology could affect the peoples of those worlds. In the future, Earth is massively over-populated - and starving. Food is synthesised from hydrocarbons, and there's not enough to go around. Life is brutal and grinding poverty is everywhere. For the bravest, however, there's an incredible opportunity - Gateway. A relic of a vanished super-race, Gateway is a huge space station filled with alien ships. Huge amounts of money are promised to brave...

Olly_Plimsoll 22.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Gateway - Frederik Pohl

Travel to the top of The Gateway Arch Mork-style - in an egg.

Advantages: Elegant architectural icon. Magnificent vies and photographic opportunity.
Disadvantages: Lenghy queues. Only partially accessible for disable visitors.

...be seen as you queue to travel up the top of the north leg of the arch or you can see the film ?Monument to the dream? showing in one of the theatres in the arch (for a fee). The arch opened to the public on 24th July 1967. Sadly, Saarinen died of a brain tumour in 1963 and never saw his design completed. The arch stands on the exact border between Missouri and Illinois and is the centre-piece of the Jefferson Natural Expansion Memorial Park which is landscaped to reflect the curves of the arch. Getting to the entrance of the arch necessitates a longish walk through the park. Pathways ensure that it is wheelchair accessible and there are seats dotted along the paths to enable walkers to rest - these were most welcome. Our trip to America followed my being newly diagnosed with secondary progressive MS. The walk, I don?t think would pose...

MAFARRIMOND 28.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Gateway Arch, St Louis, Missouri

Wife in the north

Advantages: Some humour
Disadvantages: Not much happens

...As a wife in Northumberland myself, I was keen to read Judith O?Reilly?s book, wife in Northumberland. I had seen the book for sale in Waterstones but thought I would borrow it from my local library. There was a long waiting list (obviously others wanted to read a book with a local connection) After a wait of 3 weeks I was very keen to start reading! The cover of the book with its cartoon family suggests that this is a humorous book. To confirm this there is a quote from Jenny Colgan saying that she howled with laughter at every page. This sounded like my kind of light read. However this book was not what I had been expecting. There is a lot of humour but it is also a very poignant and moving book. The book is written in diary form and plots Judith?s reluctant move from London to north Northumberland. The opening entry describes...

anwar 02.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Wife in the North - Judith O'Reilly

The North Pier, Blackpool

Advantages: Lots of fresh air, fully accessible by disabled visitors
Disadvantages: A small admission charge

...If you think about the main English seaside resorts then the chances are that they will have a pier. There is something very quintessentially English about seaside piers and in Britain they are largely restricted to England, with a handful in Wales and none at all north of the border in Scotland. Blackpool in the north west of England is unusual because it boasts three different piers. The North Pier, Central Pier and South Pier. As its name suggests The North Pier has the most northerly location of the three. It is also the oldest pier in the town and at 503 metres long it is also its longest pier. Eugenius Birch was drafted in to design The North Pier. He had been responsible for the design of Britain's first seaside pier at Margate. This was his second pier project and following its success he would go on to design a further...

micksheff 11.11.2008 (12.11.2008) · Read review
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Review of The North Pier, Blackpool

We Love You America!

Advantages: cute
Disadvantages: retired

...As a child who loved all things soft and cuddly, I was a huge fan of the TY beanie babies. My friends and I were obsessed, always buying them with our pocket money. Between us I think we would have had every single one! There are all sorts of animals to collect in the TY range, and quite a selection of Beanie Baby Bears. Needless to say, these are a wide variety of bears of all sorts. Not the grizzly or polar type, but the teddy bear type! One of these bears I had was America the bear. He was the bear that, well, represented America! There were various country bears and this was one of my favourites. Sitting down, he looks quite cute. He is a sky blue colour, with the american flag on the right of his chest. Around his next he has a little bow the colours of the American flag: blue, red, white. His little face is so adorable...

Amy69 27.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of TY America the bear

Hit The North

Advantages: A veritable page-turner of a travelogue
Disadvantages: Nothing major

...One does wonder if Stuart Maconie dreams up the titles for his books before he even knows what they'll be about. In his follow up to the my-life-with-music-cum-autobiography "Cider With Roadies" our erstwhile doyen of BBC Radio and music journalism ponders the most important questions of our time; does the North, and Northerners, still exist? And if they do, what the hell actually are they? (Well, they're important questions if, like the author and I, you're a semi-Scouser living in a long cold Southern exile). Having gloriously dismissed the South even as a concept in the first chapter (while ironically professing a considerable degree of ignorance of it; mind you, basic ignorance never stopped the South dismissing the North, did it?), the book settles down to be a wry travelogue of a voyage round the North of England, its sights...

greenierexyboy 28.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North - Stuart Maconie

Love Letter to the North of England

Advantages: Great prose, funny and warm hearted - like your archetypal northerner
Disadvantages: A little smug in places

...Stuart Maconie is well known these days as a DJ on Radio 2 and a "talking head" on many TV shows which involve lists, such as the 100 best love songs or whatever idea Channel 4 has to fill the schedule cheaply on a Saturday night. He used to write for the NME and Q magazine and seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and popular culture. He hails from Wigan, a town he describes as hopelessly "hick" and one which seems to instil a great sense of laughter in southerners. I reviewed the book on Amazon last year and mentioned my late husband's mirth and delight at travelling through Wigan North Western railway station, something I failed to understand. To me Wigan meant the Verve, George Orwell, Uncle Joe's Mint Balls and Wallace and Gromit. Doesn't seem so bad to me. My husband was a Londoner and took a different view. In this...

rosebud2001 22.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North - Stuart Maconie

America's Most Smartest Model

Advantages: Entertaining
Disadvantages: On MTV - so if you haven't got Satellite you can't watch it

...When I saw this in Product of the Week, I didn't think many people would have even heard about it or watched it, I love this show so thought it would be great to write and tell you all about my opinion on it, especially as I am a young blonde model, who is always subjected to the dumb blonde model jokes, this was the perfect programme for me! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What is America's Most Smartest Model ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ America's Most Smartest Model is an American reality television show broadcasted by VH1 in America, and has recently been aired in the UK on MTV since 20th January 2008. These days the prettier someone is, the less intelligent they are expected to be, it is assumed that you can't have both and no one has it worse than models. True or not, we all assume that models are stupid. In fact, we...

lilyellowfish 01.04.2008 (31.03.2008) · Read review
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Review of America's Most Smartest Model

North By Northwest

Advantages: Great story, direction, screenplay, very entertaining
Disadvantages: Not as original or thought-provoking as some of Hitchcock's others

...North By Northwest is, at number 23 on the IMDB's greatest films list, one of Alfred Hitchcock's most enduringly popular movies. Made in 1959, it stars Cary Grant as a suave advertising exec fleeing from the police after being caught in the middle of a CIA undercover operation, even though Grant was about 55 years old when it was made! He plays Roger Thornhill, an average kind of guy, albeit with a very well paid job and his own personal secretary. He's going to the theatre with his mother in the evening, but first meeting up with some guys in a hotel for drinks. Suddenly, with no explanation, he is kidnapped and taken to the home of Lester Townsend. Much to everyone's bafflement, they begin calling him by the name George Caplin and asking him how much he knows about their plans. What plans? Who are these people? Who is...

l-m-n-o-p 12.09.2007 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

Gateway to trouble

Advantages: Tech support
Disadvantages: Poor customer support and delivery

...SEE END FOR UPDATED SECTION I got this new computer a couple of months ago; I decided to go with Gateway because they have a better reputation than most. I also looked at Novatech, but as I didn’t know much about them chose Gateway, as the prices for the spec I wanted were almost similar. When I was first looking a getting a new PC, I was looking at gateways, £999.99 deal, but was persuaded to buy the one I now have for 1180 (ish). I didn’t need much persuading as the system had nearly double the spec for only £180 pounds. For the money I got 1Ghz athlon processor, 256MB RAM, 40Gb hard drive, tnt2 32MB video card, creative labs digital sound card, 17 inch monitor, printer, scanner and all the usually e.g. free software mouse keyboard etc… OK this service was great, from the Gateway store in Crawley, but what...

Please_believe_me 17.06.2001 (19.06.2001) · Read review
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Review of Gateway (Shop)