"Out of this world" is probably the best way to describe the style and content of Westlife's home-coming live performance in Dublin, Where Dreams...... more

"Out of this world" is probably the best way to describe the style and content of Westlife's home-coming live performance in Dublin, Where Dreams Come True. It's also a fair description (in the inter-galactic sense) of the short film that opens the concert, when Shane, Kian, Mike, Nicky and Bryan are beamed down to Earth (or more precisely to their native Ireland) from deepest space. Decked out in white for the opening and closing segments of the concert it's easy to see why some fans view the five guys as modern-day angels. Appropriately for the song "Flying Without Wings" the guys manage to perform the song strapped to a scaffolding hoist that gently floats above the audience. Overall the concert is a spectacular all-singing, all-dancing affair that showcases their biggest hits and selected album tracks, aided by an amazing set and stage effects. In places the performance does seem rather twee, especially their rural-themed rendition of "Seasons of the Sun" when the group emerge from behind the set decked in stylish country-wear. The moves performed by the all-female dance troupe to "I Have a Dream" are also plain awful. Tour favourites "When You're Looking Like That" and "Uptown Girl" are the hot highlights of this stunning live release.On The DVD: there are plenty of added extras on this DVD including two documentaries, "Access All Areas" and "World of Our Own". However, neither of these featurettes represent the group in a particularly positive light, with the boys spending most of their time crowing about the numerous number ones they've had and how wonderful they are. The "Access All Areas" documentary depicts the guys in a particularly cruel light--playing football outside their concert arena whilst fans torturously watch on behind a wire fence. The exclusive When Dreams Come True website, which can only be accessed through the DVD-Rom link, is amazing though, with state-of-the-art graphics, animations and content (eg: lyrics of top Westlife songs, multi-media biographies and interviews with the guys). Look out for the bonus music video for "When You're Looking Like That" (never released as a single in the UK).--John Galilee

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1-Oh, Boy! 2-I'm Looking For Someone To Love 3-Hold Your Head High 4-She Don't Understand Him Like I Do 5-He's Got The Whole World In His Hands 6-It's Love Baby...... more

1-Oh, Boy! 2-I'm Looking For Someone To Love 3-Hold Your Head High 4-She Don't Understand Him Like I Do 5-He's Got The Whole World In His Hands 6-It's Love Baby (24 Hours A Day) 7-When You Walk In The Room 8-Over You 9-Don't Turn Back On Me 10-Be Good Baby 11-What The World Needs Now Is Love 12-A Lifetime Of Loneliness 13-I Remember The Boy 14-Come And Get Me 15-Splendor In The Grass 16-Are You Ready For This 17-Will You Love Me Tomorrow 18-Windows And Doors 19-So Long Johnny 20-I Can Make It With You 21-To Be Myself 22-Come On Down (From The Top Of That Hill) 23-Find Me Love 24-The Wishing Doll 25-Where Does The Sun Go? 26-I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do (2011/ACE) 26 tracks Liberty/Imperial 1964-67 with 20 page booklet.

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1-Oh, Boy! 2-I'm Looking For Someone To Love 3-Hold Your Head High 4-She Don't Understand Him Like I Do 5-He's Got The Whole World In His Hands 6-It's Love Baby...... more

1-Oh, Boy! 2-I'm Looking For Someone To Love 3-Hold Your Head High 4-She Don't Understand Him Like I Do 5-He's Got The Whole World In His Hands 6-It's Love Baby (24 Hours A Day) 7-When You Walk In The Room 8-Over You 9-Don't Turn Back On Me 10-Be Good Baby 11-What The World Needs Now Is Love 12-A Lifetime Of Loneliness 13-I Remember The Boy 14-Come And Get Me 15-Splendor In The Grass 16-Are You Ready For This 17-Will You Love Me Tomorrow 18-Windows And Doors 19-So Long Johnny 20-I Can Make It With You 21-To Be Myself 22-Come On Down (From The Top Of That Hill) 23-Find Me Love 24-The Wishing Doll 25-Where Does The Sun Go? 26-I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do (2011/ACE) 26 tracks Liberty/Imperial 1964-67 with 20 page booklet.

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1-Buddy 2-Heaven Is Being With You 3-You Won't Forget Me 4-Needles And Pins 5-Hellos And Goodbyes 6-When You Walk In The Room 7-Till You Say You'll Be Mine...... more

1-Buddy 2-Heaven Is Being With You 3-You Won't Forget Me 4-Needles And Pins 5-Hellos And Goodbyes 6-When You Walk In The Room 7-Till You Say You'll Be Mine 8-Breakaway (prev. unreleased) 9-Should I Cry (alternate take) 10-I Remember The Boy 11-Dream Boy 12-Don't Turn Your Back On Me 13-What The World Needs Now Is Love 14-A Lifetime Of Loneliness 15-Come And Get It 16-Splendor In The Grass (version 1) 17-For Granted (`C'mon, Let's Live A Little') 18-Windows And Doors 19-I Can Make It With You 20-500 Miles From Yesterday (prev. unreleased) 21-Where Does The Sun Go? 22-It Shines On You Too 23-Reason To Believe 24-The Weight 25-Come And Stay With Me (remix) 26-Put A Little Love In Your Heart 27-Love Will Find A Way 28-Brighton Hill (1994/EMI) 28 tracks 1958-70 with album & single discography !

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Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a...... more

Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a thrilling pilot episode in which a jetliner traveling from Australia to Los Angeles crashes, leaving 48 survivors on an unidentified island with no sign of civilisation or hope of imminent rescue. That may sound like Gilligan's Island meets Survivor, but Lost kept viewers tuning in every Wednesday night--and spending the rest of the week speculating on Web sites--with some irresistible hooks (not to mention the beautiful women). First, there's a huge ensemble cast of no fewer than 14 regular characters, and each episode fills in some of the back story on one of them. There's a doctor; an Iraqi soldier; a has-been rock star; a fugitive from justice; a self-absorbed young woman and her brother; a lottery winner; a father and son; a Korean couple; a pregnant woman; and others. Second, there's a host of unanswered questions: What is the mysterious beast that lurks in the jungle? Why do polar bears and wild boars live there? Why has a woman been transmitting an SOS message in French from somewhere on the island for the last 16 years? Why do impossible wishes seem to come true? Are they really on a physical island, or somewhere else? What is the significance of the recurring set of numbers? And will Kate ever give up her bad-boy fixation and hook up with Jack? Lost did have some hiccups during the first season. Some plot threads were left dangling for weeks, and the "oh, it didn't really happen" card was played too often. But the strong writing and topnotch cast kept the show a cut above most network TV. The best-known actor at the time of the show's debut was Dominic Monaghan, fresh off his stint as Merry the Hobbit in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The rest of the cast is either unknowns or "where I have I seen that face before" supporting players, including Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, who are the closest thing to leads. Other standouts include Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn (who's made a nice career out of conspiracy-themed TV shows), Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Maggie Grace, and Emilie de Ravin, but there's really not a weak link in the cast. Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Alias), Lost left enough unanswered questions after its first season to keep viewers riveted for a second season. --David Horiuchi Lost: Season TwoWhat was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That's right: Just when you say "Ohhhhh," there comes another "What?" Thankfully, the show's producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant's pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it's an island; you never know who you're going to run into.) First, there are the "Tailies," passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone's already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer's departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season's end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom "my life is an open book" never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season's conclusion. But hey, that's the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart's content. --Ellen Kim Lost: Season ThreeWhen it aired in 2006-07, Lost's third season was split into two, with a hefty break in between. This did nothing to help the already weirdly disparate direction the show was taking (Kate and Sawyer in zoo cages! Locke eating goop in a mud hut!), but when it finally righted its course halfway through--in particular that whopper of a finale--the drama series had left its irked fan base thrilled once again. This doesn't mean, however, that you should skip through the first half of the season to get there, because quite a few questions find answers: what the Others are up to, the impact of turning that fail-safe key, the identity of the eye-patched man from the hatch's video monitor. One of the series' biggest curiosities from the past--how Locke ended up in that wheelchair in the first place--also gets its satisfying due. (The episode, "The Man from Tallahassee," likely was a big contributor to Terry O'Quinn's surprising--but long-deserved--Emmy win that year.) Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a lot of aforementioned nuisances to get there. Season 3 kicks off with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the Others; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) on a mission to rescue them; and Locke, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in the aftermath of the electromagnetic pulse that blew up the hatch. Spinning the storylines away from base camp alone wouldn't have felt so disjointed were it not for the new characters simultaneously being introduced. First there's Juliet, a mysterious member of the Others whose loyalty constantly comes into question as the season goes on. Played delicately by Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia, ER, Frequency), Juliet is in one turn a cold-blooded killer, by another turn a sympathetic friend; possibly both at once, possibly neither at all. (She's also a terrific, albeit unwitting, threat to the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which plays out more definitively this season.) On the other hand, there's the now-infamous Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), a tagalong couple who were cleverly woven into the previous seasons' key moments but came to bear the brunt of fans' ire toward the show (Sawyer humorously echoed the sentiments by remarking, "Who the hell are you?"). By the end of the season, at least two major characters die, another is told he/she will die within months, major new threats are unveiled, and--as mentioned before--the two-part season finale restores your faith in the series. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FourSeason four of Lost was a fine return to form for the series, which polarized its audience the year before with its focus on The Others and not enough on our original crash victims. That season's finale introduced a new storytelling device--the flash-forward--that's employed to great effect this time around; by showing who actually got off the island (known as the Oceanic Six), the viewer is able to put to bed some longstanding loose ends. As the finale attests, we see that in the future Jack (Matthew Fox) is broken, bearded, and not sober, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is estranged from Jack and with another guy (the identity may surprise you). Four others do make it back to their homes, but as the flash-forwards show, it's definitely not the end of their connection to the island. Back in present day, however, the islanders are visited by the denizens of a so-called rescue ship, who have agendas of their own. While Jack works with the newcomers to try to get off the island, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), with a few followers of his own, forms an uneasy alliance with Ben (Michael Emerson) against the suspicious gang. Some episodes featuring the new characters feel like filler, but the evolution of such characters as Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) is this season's strength; plus, the love story of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Penny (Sonya Walger) provides some of the show's emotional highlights. As is the custom with Lost, bullets fly and characters die (while others may or may not have). Moreover, the fate of Michael (Harold Perrineau), last seen traitorously sailing off to civilisation in season two, as well as the flash-forwards of the Oceanic Six, shows you never quite leave the island once you've left. There's a force that pulls them in, and it's a hook that keeps you watching. Season four was a shorter 13 episodes instead of the usual 22 due to the 2008 writers' strike. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FiveSince Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), live again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes more sense if you're drunk." --Kathleen C. FennessyLost: Season SixIts taken a long time to get here, but finally, the last season of Lost arrives, with answers to at least some of the questions that fans of the show have been demanding for the past few years. In true Lost fashion, it doesnt tie all its mysteries up with a bow, but it does at least answer some of the questions that have long being gestating. In the series opening, for instance, we finally learn the secret of the smoke monster, which is a sizeable step in the right direction.In terms of quality, the show has been on an upward curve since the end date of the programme was announced, and season six arguably finds Lost at its most confident to date. Never mind the fact that its juggling lots of proverbial balls: theres a very clear end point here, and the show benefits enormously from it. Naturally, Lost naysayers will probably find themselves more alienated than ever here. But this boxset nonetheless marks the passing of a major television show, one that has cleverly managed to reinvent itself on more than one occasion, and keep audiences across the world gripped as a result. Theres going to be nothing quite like it for a long time to come --Jon Foster

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Book Description: John Rain is back. And the most charismatic assassin since James Bond (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable...... more

Book Description: John Rain is back. And the most charismatic assassin since James Bond (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable enemy yet: the nexus of political, military, media, and corporate factions known only as the Oligarchy. When legendary black ops veteran Colonel Scott Hort Horton tracks Rain down in Tokyo, Rain cant resist the offer: a multi-million dollar payday for the natural causes demise of three ultra-high-profile targets who are dangerously close to launching a coup in America. But the opposition on this job is going to be too much for even Rain to pull it off alone. Hell need a detachment of other deniable irregulars: his partner, the former Marine sniper, Dox. Ben Treven, a covert operator with ambivalent motives and conflicted loyalties. And Larison, a man with a hair trigger and a secret hell kill to protect. From the shadowy backstreets of Tokyo and Vienna, to the deceptive glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and finally to a Washington, D.C. in a permanent state of war, these four lone wolf killers will have to survive presidential hit teams, secret CIA prisons, and a national security state as obsessed with guarding its own secrets as it is with invading the privacy of the populace. But first, theyll have to survive each other. The Detachment is what fans of Eisler, one of the most talented and literary writers in the thriller genre (Chicago Sun-Times), have been waiting for: the worlds of the award-winning Rain series, and of the bestselling Fault Line and Inside Out, colliding in one explosive thriller as real as todays headlines and as frightening as tomorrows. Personal Safety Tips from Assassin John Rain  (Written by Barry Eisler)Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA, then worked as a technology lawyer and start-up executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler's bestselling John Rain thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year, have been included in numerous "Best Of" lists, and have been translated into nearly 20 languages. Read on for personal safety tips from assassin John Rain:All effective personal protection, all effective security, all true self-defense, is based on the ability and willingness to think like the opposition.I'm writing this article on my laptop in a crowded coffee shop I like. There are a number of other people around me similarly engaged. I think to myself, If I wanted to steal a laptop, this would be a pretty good place to do it. You come in, order coffee and a muffin, sit, and wait. Eventually, one of these computer users is going to get up and make a quick trip to the bathroom. He'll be thinking, "Hey, I'll only be gone for a minute." He doesn't know that a minute is all I need to get up and walk out with his $3,000 laptop. (Note how criminals are adept at thinking like their victims. You need to treat them with the same respect.)Okay. I've determined where the opposition is planning on carrying out his crime (this coffee shop), and I know how he's going to do it (snatch and dash). I now have options:avoid the coffee shop entirely (avoid where the crime will occur);secure my laptop to a chair with a twenty dollar Kensington security cable (avoid how the crime will occur--it's hard to employ bolt cutters unobtrusively in a coffee shop, or to carry away a laptop that has a chair hanging off it); andhope to catch the thief in the act, chase him down, engage him with violence. Of these three options, #2 makes the most sense for me. The first is too costly--I like this coffee shop and get a lot of work done here. The third is also too costly, and too uncertain. Why fight when you can avoid the fight in the first place? This is self-defense we're talking about, remember, self-protection. Not fighting, not melodrama. As for the second, yes, it's true these measures won't render the crime impossible. But what measures ever do? The point is to make the crime difficult enough to carry out that the criminal chooses to pursue his aims elsewhere. Yes, if 27 ninjas have dedicated their lives to stealing your laptop and have managed to track you to the coffee shop, they'll probably manage to get your laptop while you're in the bathroom even if you've secured it to a chair. But more likely, your opposition will be someone who is as happy stealing your laptop as someone else's. By making yours the marginally more difficult target, you will encourage him to steal someone else's. Which brings us to an unpleasant, but vitally true, parable: If you and your friend are jogging in the woods, and you get chased by a bear, you don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun your friend. Except at the level of very high-value executive protection (presidents, high-profile businesspeople, ambassadors and other dignitaries), you are not trying to outrun the bear. You are trying only to outrun your friend. Let's combine these two concepts--thinking like the opposition, outrunning your friend--with an example from the realm of home security. And let's add an additional critical element: that all good security is layered. If you wanted to burglarize a house, what would you look for? And what would you avoid? Generally speaking, your principal objectives are to get cash and property, and to get away (home invasion is a separate subject, but is addressed, like all self-protection, by reference to the same principles). You'd start by looking at lots of houses. Remember, you're not trying to rob a certain address; you just want to rob a house. Which ones are dark? Which are set back from the road and neighbors? Are there any cars in the driveway? Lights and noise in the house? Signs of an alarm system? A barking dog? Thinking like a burglar, you are now ready to implement the outer layer of your home security. By some combination of installing motion-sensor lights, keeping bushes trimmed to avoid concealment opportunities, putting up signs advertising an alarm system, having a dog around, keeping a car or cars in the driveway, leaving on appropriate lights and the television, and making sure there are no newspapers in the driveway or mail left on the porch when you're away, you help the burglar to decide immediately during his casing or surveillance phase that he should rob someone else's house. If the burglar isn't immediately dissuaded by the outer layer, he receives further discouragement at the next layer in. He takes a closer look, and sees that you have deadbolt locks on all the doors, and that your advertisement was not a bluff--the windows are in fact alarmed. If he takes a crack at the doorjamb, he discovers that it's reinforced. If he tries breaking a window, he realizes the glass is shatter-resistant. Whoops--time to go somewhere else, somewhere easier. Okay, the guy is stupid. He keeps trying anyway. Now the second layer of security described above, which failed to deter him, works to delay him. It's taking him a long time to get in. He's making noise. At some point, the time and noise might combine to persuade him to abort (back to deterrence). But if heinsists on plunging ahead, the noise has alerted you, and you have bought yourself time to implement further inner layers of security: accessing a firearm; calling the police; retreating to a safe room; most of all, preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for danger and possible violence. Now another example, relating to personal protection from an overseas kidnapping attempt. Like everything else, this form of protection starts with you thinking like the bad guy. Your objective is to kidnap a foreigner. Not a particular foreigner (high-value targets are a separate problem, although again subject to the same principles), just any old foreigner. So what do you need to do to carry out your plan? First, you need to pick a target. This part is easy--any foreigner will do. Next, you need to assess the foreigner's vulnerability. Where will you be able to grab him, and when? To answer these questions, you need to follow the target around. If he's punctual, a creature of habit, if he likes to travel the same routes to andfrom work at the same times every day, you will start to feel encouraged. But what if instead, during the assessment stage, you see the target go out to his car and carefully check it for improvised explosive devices. Your immediate thought will be: Hard target. Security-conscious. Too difficult--kidnap someone else. If you're the potential target, do you see how your display of security consciousness becomes the outermost layer of your security? But suppose the would-be kidnapper wants to assess a bit further. Now he learns that you never travel the same route to and from work. You never come and go at the same times. He can't get a fix on your where and when. How is he going to plan a kidnapping now? Note that, by putting yourself in the opposition's shoes, you have identified a behavior pattern in which he must engage before carrying out his crime: surveillance. Before you are kidnapped, you will be assessed. Assessment entails surveillance. Now you know what pre-incident behavior to look for. If you were trying to follow you, how would you go about it? That's what to look for. Perhaps the would-be kidnapper will discover choke points - a certain bridge, for example--that you have to cross everyday on your way to the office. This would be a good place for him to lay an ambush. But because you know this too, you will be unusually alert as you approach potential choke points. As he watches your choke point behavior, he realizes again that you are security-conscious, and thus a poor choice for a target. Again, deterrence. If he is rash and acts at this point anyway, the inner layers of your security-locked and armored vehicle; defensive driving tactics; presence of a bodyguard; access to a firearm; again, most of all, preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for danger and possible violence--all have time to come into play. Other examples: if you needed fast cash, where would you look to rob someone? Maybe on the potential victim's way from an ATM? If so, what kind of ATM would you pick? Where would you wait? What if you wanted to steal a car? Assuming you're not a pro who can pick locks and hot-wire ignitions, where would you go? Maybe outside a video store, or a dry cleaner's, a place where people leave the keys in the ignition because they'll "only be gone for a minute"? Now, armed with a better understanding of the criminal's goals and tactics, how should you behave to better protect yourself? One common element you might see in all of this is the vital need for alertness, for situational awareness. Understanding where threats are likely to come from and how they are likely to materialize will help you properly tune your alertness. If you are not properly alert to a threat, you almost certainly will be unable to defend yourself against it when it materializes. Notice that so far the discussion has included no mention of martial arts. This is because martial arts, self-defense, fighting, and combat, while related subjects, are not identical. The relationship and differences among these areas is outside the scope of this article. For now, suffice it to say that martial arts can be thought of as an inner layer of self-defense. If you have to use your martial arts moves, then almost certainly some outer layer of your security has been breached and you are in a worse position than you would have been had the outer layers held fast. To put it another way: Thinking like the opposition; taking threats seriously and not being in denial about their existence; and maintaining proper situational awareness, are infinitely more cost effective for self-defense than is training in martial arts. Note that I have been doing martial arts of one kind or another since I was a teenager. I love the martial arts for many reasons. I do not dispute and am not discussing their value, but rather am emphasizing their cost-effectiveness in achieving a given objective--here, effective personal protection. No matter what her martial arts skills, the person who recognizes in advance and can therefore steer clear of an ambush has a much better chance of surviving it than does the person who wanders into the ambush and then has to fight her way out. So practice thinking like the opposition, and you'll have a better chance of lasting as long as John Rain. This article also appears in Crimespree Issue #4

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Wind or rain, sun or snow, the weather is always changing, but why? Where does it come from? What is a hurricane? And...... more

Wind or rain, sun or snow, the weather is always changing, but why? Where does it come from? What is a hurricane? And where is the wettest place in the world?

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This box sets has the same contents as the box set available on Amazon.com.Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two...... more

This box sets has the same contents as the box set available on Amazon.com.Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a thrilling pilot episode in which a jetliner traveling from Australia to Los Angeles crashes, leaving 48 survivors on an unidentified island with no sign of civilisation or hope of imminent rescue. That may sound like Gilligan's Island meets Survivor, but Lost kept viewers tuning in every Wednesday night--and spending the rest of the week speculating on Web sites--with some irresistible hooks (not to mention the beautiful women). First, there's a huge ensemble cast of no fewer than 14 regular characters, and each episode fills in some of the back story on one of them. There's a doctor; an Iraqi soldier; a has-been rock star; a fugitive from justice; a self-absorbed young woman and her brother; a lottery winner; a father and son; a Korean couple; a pregnant woman; and others. Second, there's a host of unanswered questions: What is the mysterious beast that lurks in the jungle? Why do polar bears and wild boars live there? Why has a woman been transmitting an SOS message in French from somewhere on the island for the last 16 years? Why do impossible wishes seem to come true? Are they really on a physical island, or somewhere else? What is the significance of the recurring set of numbers? And will Kate ever give up her bad-boy fixation and hook up with Jack? Lost did have some hiccups during the first season. Some plot threads were left dangling for weeks, and the "oh, it didn't really happen" card was played too often. But the strong writing and topnotch cast kept the show a cut above most network TV. The best-known actor at the time of the show's debut was Dominic Monaghan, fresh off his stint as Merry the Hobbit in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The rest of the cast is either unknowns or "where I have I seen that face before" supporting players, including Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, who are the closest thing to leads. Other standouts include Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn (who's made a nice career out of conspiracy-themed TV shows), Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Maggie Grace, and Emilie de Ravin, but there's really not a weak link in the cast. Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Alias), Lost left enough unanswered questions after its first season to keep viewers riveted for a second season. --David Horiuchi Lost: Season TwoWhat was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That's right: Just when you say "Ohhhhh," there comes another "What?" Thankfully, the show's producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant's pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it's an island; you never know who you're going to run into.) First, there are the "Tailies," passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone's already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer's departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season's end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom "my life is an open book" never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season's conclusion. But hey, that's the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart's content. --Ellen Kim Lost: Season ThreeWhen it aired in 2006-07, Lost's third season was split into two, with a hefty break in between. This did nothing to help the already weirdly disparate direction the show was taking (Kate and Sawyer in zoo cages! Locke eating goop in a mud hut!), but when it finally righted its course halfway through--in particular that whopper of a finale--the drama series had left its irked fan base thrilled once again. This doesn't mean, however, that you should skip through the first half of the season to get there, because quite a few questions find answers: what the Others are up to, the impact of turning that fail-safe key, the identity of the eye-patched man from the hatch's video monitor. One of the series' biggest curiosities from the past--how Locke ended up in that wheelchair in the first place--also gets its satisfying due. (The episode, "The Man from Tallahassee," likely was a big contributor to Terry O'Quinn's surprising--but long-deserved--Emmy win that year.) Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a lot of aforementioned nuisances to get there. Season 3 kicks off with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the Others; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) on a mission to rescue them; and Locke, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in the aftermath of the electromagnetic pulse that blew up the hatch. Spinning the storylines away from base camp alone wouldn't have felt so disjointed were it not for the new characters simultaneously being introduced. First there's Juliet, a mysterious member of the Others whose loyalty constantly comes into question as the season goes on. Played delicately by Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia, ER, Frequency), Juliet is in one turn a cold-blooded killer, by another turn a sympathetic friend; possibly both at once, possibly neither at all. (She's also a terrific, albeit unwitting, threat to the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which plays out more definitively this season.) On the other hand, there's the now-infamous Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), a tagalong couple who were cleverly woven into the previous seasons' key moments but came to bear the brunt of fans' ire toward the show (Sawyer humorously echoed the sentiments by remarking, "Who the hell are you?"). By the end of the season, at least two major characters die, another is told he/she will die within months, major new threats are unveiled, and--as mentioned before--the two-part season finale restores your faith in the series. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FourSeason four of Lost was a fine return to form for the series, which polarized its audience the year before with its focus on The Others and not enough on our original crash victims. That season's finale introduced a new storytelling device--the flash-forward--that's employed to great effect this time around; by showing who actually got off the island (known as the Oceanic Six), the viewer is able to put to bed some longstanding loose ends. As the finale attests, we see that in the future Jack (Matthew Fox) is broken, bearded, and not sober, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is estranged from Jack and with another guy (the identity may surprise you). Four others do make it back to their homes, but as the flash-forwards show, it's definitely not the end of their connection to the island. Back in present day, however, the islanders are visited by the denizens of a so-called rescue ship, who have agendas of their own. While Jack works with the newcomers to try to get off the island, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), with a few followers of his own, forms an uneasy alliance with Ben (Michael Emerson) against the suspicious gang. Some episodes featuring the new characters feel like filler, but the evolution of such characters as Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) is this season's strength; plus, the love story of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Penny (Sonya Walger) provides some of the show's emotional highlights. As is the custom with Lost, bullets fly and characters die (while others may or may not have). Moreover, the fate of Michael (Harold Perrineau), last seen traitorously sailing off to civilisation in season two, as well as the flash-forwards of the Oceanic Six, shows you never quite leave the island once you've left. There's a force that pulls them in, and it's a hook that keeps you watching. Season four was a shorter 13 episodes instead of the usual 22 due to the 2008 writers' strike. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FiveSince Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), live again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes more sense if you're drunk." --Kathleen C. FennessyLost Season SixIts taken a long time to get here, but finally, the last season of Lost arrives, with answers to at least some of the questions that fans of the show have been demanding for the past few years. In true Lost fashion, it doesnt tie all its mysteries up with a bow, but it does at least answer some of the questions that have long being gestating. In the series opening, for instance, we finally learn the secret of the smoke monster, which is a sizeable step in the right direction. In terms of quality, the show has been on an upward curve since the end date of the programme was announced, and season six arguably finds Lost at its most confident to date. Never mind the fact that it's juggling lots of proverbial balls: there's a very clear end point here, and the show benefits enormously from it. Naturally, Lost naysayers will probably find themselves more alienated than ever here. But this season nonetheless marks the passing of a major television show, one that has cleverly managed to reinvent itself on more than one occasion, and keep audiences across the world gripped as a result. There's going to be nothing quite like it for a long time to come. --Jon Foster

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1-Buddy 2-Heaven Is Being With You 3-You Won't Forget Me 4-Needles And Pins 5-Hellos And Goodbyes 6-When You Walk In The Room 7-Till You Say You'll Be Mine...... more

1-Buddy 2-Heaven Is Being With You 3-You Won't Forget Me 4-Needles And Pins 5-Hellos And Goodbyes 6-When You Walk In The Room 7-Till You Say You'll Be Mine 8-Breakaway (prev. unreleased) 9-Should I Cry (alternate take) 10-I Remember The Boy 11-Dream Boy 12-Don't Turn Your Back On Me 13-What The World Needs Now Is Love 14-A Lifetime Of Loneliness 15-Come And Get It 16-Splendor In The Grass (version 1) 17-For Granted (`C'mon, Let's Live A Little') 18-Windows And Doors 19-I Can Make It With You 20-500 Miles From Yesterday (prev. unreleased) 21-Where Does The Sun Go? 22-It Shines On You Too 23-Reason To Believe 24-The Weight 25-Come And Stay With Me (remix) 26-Put A Little Love In Your Heart 27-Love Will Find A Way 28-Brighton Hill (1994/EMI) 28 tracks 1958-70 with album & single discography !

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Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a...... more

Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a thrilling pilot episode in which a jetliner traveling from Australia to Los Angeles crashes, leaving 48 survivors on an unidentified island with no sign of civilisation or hope of imminent rescue. That may sound like Gilligan's Island meets Survivor, but Lost kept viewers tuning in every Wednesday night--and spending the rest of the week speculating on Web sites--with some irresistible hooks (not to mention the beautiful women). First, there's a huge ensemble cast of no fewer than 14 regular characters, and each episode fills in some of the back story on one of them. There's a doctor; an Iraqi soldier; a has-been rock star; a fugitive from justice; a self-absorbed young woman and her brother; a lottery winner; a father and son; a Korean couple; a pregnant woman; and others. Second, there's a host of unanswered questions: What is the mysterious beast that lurks in the jungle? Why do polar bears and wild boars live there? Why has a woman been transmitting an SOS message in French from somewhere on the island for the last 16 years? Why do impossible wishes seem to come true? Are they really on a physical island, or somewhere else? What is the significance of the recurring set of numbers? And will Kate ever give up her bad-boy fixation and hook up with Jack? Lost did have some hiccups during the first season. Some plot threads were left dangling for weeks, and the "oh, it didn't really happen" card was played too often. But the strong writing and topnotch cast kept the show a cut above most network TV. The best-known actor at the time of the show's debut was Dominic Monaghan, fresh off his stint as Merry the Hobbit in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The rest of the cast is either unknowns or "where I have I seen that face before" supporting players, including Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, who are the closest thing to leads. Other standouts include Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn (who's made a nice career out of conspiracy-themed TV shows), Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Maggie Grace, and Emilie de Ravin, but there's really not a weak link in the cast. Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Alias), Lost left enough unanswered questions after its first season to keep viewers riveted for a second season. --David Horiuchi Lost: Season TwoWhat was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That's right: Just when you say "Ohhhhh," there comes another "What?" Thankfully, the show's producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant's pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it's an island; you never know who you're going to run into.) First, there are the "Tailies," passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone's already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer's departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season's end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom "my life is an open book" never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season's conclusion. But hey, that's the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart's content. --Ellen Kim Lost: Season ThreeWhen it aired in 2006-07, Lost's third season was split into two, with a hefty break in between. This did nothing to help the already weirdly disparate direction the show was taking (Kate and Sawyer in zoo cages! Locke eating goop in a mud hut!), but when it finally righted its course halfway through--in particular that whopper of a finale--the drama series had left its irked fan base thrilled once again. This doesn't mean, however, that you should skip through the first half of the season to get there, because quite a few questions find answers: what the Others are up to, the impact of turning that fail-safe key, the identity of the eye-patched man from the hatch's video monitor. One of the series' biggest curiosities from the past--how Locke ended up in that wheelchair in the first place--also gets its satisfying due. (The episode, "The Man from Tallahassee," likely was a big contributor to Terry O'Quinn's surprising--but long-deserved--Emmy win that year.) Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a lot of aforementioned nuisances to get there. Season 3 kicks off with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the Others; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) on a mission to rescue them; and Locke, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in the aftermath of the electromagnetic pulse that blew up the hatch. Spinning the storylines away from base camp alone wouldn't have felt so disjointed were it not for the new characters simultaneously being introduced. First there's Juliet, a mysterious member of the Others whose loyalty constantly comes into question as the season goes on. Played delicately by Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia, ER, Frequency), Juliet is in one turn a cold-blooded killer, by another turn a sympathetic friend; possibly both at once, possibly neither at all. (She's also a terrific, albeit unwitting, threat to the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which plays out more definitively this season.) On the other hand, there's the now-infamous Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), a tagalong couple who were cleverly woven into the previous seasons' key moments but came to bear the brunt of fans' ire toward the show (Sawyer humorously echoed the sentiments by remarking, "Who the hell are you?"). By the end of the season, at least two major characters die, another is told he/she will die within months, major new threats are unveiled, and--as mentioned before--the two-part season finale restores your faith in the series. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FourSeason four of Lost was a fine return to form for the series, which polarized its audience the year before with its focus on The Others and not enough on our original crash victims. That season's finale introduced a new storytelling device--the flash-forward--that's employed to great effect this time around; by showing who actually got off the island (known as the Oceanic Six), the viewer is able to put to bed some longstanding loose ends. As the finale attests, we see that in the future Jack (Matthew Fox) is broken, bearded, and not sober, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is estranged from Jack and with another guy (the identity may surprise you). Four others do make it back to their homes, but as the flash-forwards show, it's definitely not the end of their connection to the island. Back in present day, however, the islanders are visited by the denizens of a so-called rescue ship, who have agendas of their own. While Jack works with the newcomers to try to get off the island, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), with a few followers of his own, forms an uneasy alliance with Ben (Michael Emerson) against the suspicious gang. Some episodes featuring the new characters feel like filler, but the evolution of such characters as Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) is this season's strength; plus, the love story of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Penny (Sonya Walger) provides some of the show's emotional highlights. As is the custom with Lost, bullets fly and characters die (while others may or may not have). Moreover, the fate of Michael (Harold Perrineau), last seen traitorously sailing off to civilisation in season two, as well as the flash-forwards of the Oceanic Six, shows you never quite leave the island once you've left. There's a force that pulls them in, and it's a hook that keeps you watching. Season four was a shorter 13 episodes instead of the usual 22 due to the 2008 writers' strike. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FiveSince Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), live again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes more sense if you're drunk." --Kathleen C. FennessyLost: Season SixIts taken a long time to get here, but finally, the last season of Lost arrives, with answers to at least some of the questions that fans of the show have been demanding for the past few years. In true Lost fashion, it doesnt tie all its mysteries up with a bow, but it does at least answer some of the questions that have long being gestating. In the series opening, for instance, we finally learn the secret of the smoke monster, which is a sizeable step in the right direction.In terms of quality, the show has been on an upward curve since the end date of the programme was announced, and season six arguably finds Lost at its most confident to date. Never mind the fact that its juggling lots of proverbial balls: theres a very clear end point here, and the show benefits enormously from it. Naturally, Lost naysayers will probably find themselves more alienated than ever here. But this boxset nonetheless marks the passing of a major television show, one that has cleverly managed to reinvent itself on more than one occasion, and keep audiences across the world gripped as a result. Theres going to be nothing quite like it for a long time to come --Jon Foster

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Book Description: John Rain is back. And the most charismatic assassin since James Bond (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable...... more

Book Description: John Rain is back. And the most charismatic assassin since James Bond (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable enemy yet: the nexus of political, military, media, and corporate factions known only as the Oligarchy. When legendary black ops veteran Colonel Scott Hort Horton tracks Rain down in Tokyo, Rain cant resist the offer: a multi-million dollar payday for the natural causes demise of three ultra-high-profile targets who are dangerously close to launching a coup in America. But the opposition on this job is going to be too much for even Rain to pull it off alone. Hell need a detachment of other deniable irregulars: his partner, the former Marine sniper, Dox. Ben Treven, a covert operator with ambivalent motives and conflicted loyalties. And Larison, a man with a hair trigger and a secret hell kill to protect. From the shadowy backstreets of Tokyo and Vienna, to the deceptive glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and finally to a Washington, D.C. in a permanent state of war, these four lone wolf killers will have to survive presidential hit teams, secret CIA prisons, and a national security state as obsessed with guarding its own secrets as it is with invading the privacy of the populace. But first, theyll have to survive each other. The Detachment is what fans of Eisler, one of the most talented and literary writers in the thriller genre (Chicago Sun-Times), have been waiting for: the worlds of the award-winning Rain series, and of the bestselling Fault Line and Inside Out, colliding in one explosive thriller as real as todays headlines and as frightening as tomorrows. Personal Safety Tips from Assassin John Rain  (Written by Barry Eisler)Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA, then worked as a technology lawyer and start-up executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler's bestselling John Rain thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year, have been included in numerous "Best Of" lists, and have been translated into nearly 20 languages. Read on for personal safety tips from assassin John Rain:All effective personal protection, all effective security, all true self-defense, is based on the ability and willingness to think like the opposition.I'm writing this article on my laptop in a crowded coffee shop I like. There are a number of other people around me similarly engaged. I think to myself, If I wanted to steal a laptop, this would be a pretty good place to do it. You come in, order coffee and a muffin, sit, and wait. Eventually, one of these computer users is going to get up and make a quick trip to the bathroom. He'll be thinking, "Hey, I'll only be gone for a minute." He doesn't know that a minute is all I need to get up and walk out with his $3,000 laptop. (Note how criminals are adept at thinking like their victims. You need to treat them with the same respect.)Okay. I've determined where the opposition is planning on carrying out his crime (this coffee shop), and I know how he's going to do it (snatch and dash). I now have options:avoid the coffee shop entirely (avoid where the crime will occur);secure my laptop to a chair with a twenty dollar Kensington security cable (avoid how the crime will occur--it's hard to employ bolt cutters unobtrusively in a coffee shop, or to carry away a laptop that has a chair hanging off it); andhope to catch the thief in the act, chase him down, engage him with violence. Of these three options, #2 makes the most sense for me. The first is too costly--I like this coffee shop and get a lot of work done here. The third is also too costly, and too uncertain. Why fight when you can avoid the fight in the first place? This is self-defense we're talking about, remember, self-protection. Not fighting, not melodrama. As for the second, yes, it's true these measures won't render the crime impossible. But what measures ever do? The point is to make the crime difficult enough to carry out that the criminal chooses to pursue his aims elsewhere. Yes, if 27 ninjas have dedicated their lives to stealing your laptop and have managed to track you to the coffee shop, they'll probably manage to get your laptop while you're in the bathroom even if you've secured it to a chair. But more likely, your opposition will be someone who is as happy stealing your laptop as someone else's. By making yours the marginally more difficult target, you will encourage him to steal someone else's. Which brings us to an unpleasant, but vitally true, parable: If you and your friend are jogging in the woods, and you get chased by a bear, you don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun your friend. Except at the level of very high-value executive protection (presidents, high-profile businesspeople, ambassadors and other dignitaries), you are not trying to outrun the bear. You are trying only to outrun your friend. Let's combine these two concepts--thinking like the opposition, outrunning your friend--with an example from the realm of home security. And let's add an additional critical element: that all good security is layered. If you wanted to burglarize a house, what would you look for? And what would you avoid? Generally speaking, your principal objectives are to get cash and property, and to get away (home invasion is a separate subject, but is addressed, like all self-protection, by reference to the same principles). You'd start by looking at lots of houses. Remember, you're not trying to rob a certain address; you just want to rob a house. Which ones are dark? Which are set back from the road and neighbors? Are there any cars in the driveway? Lights and noise in the house? Signs of an alarm system? A barking dog? Thinking like a burglar, you are now ready to implement the outer layer of your home security. By some combination of installing motion-sensor lights, keeping bushes trimmed to avoid concealment opportunities, putting up signs advertising an alarm system, having a dog around, keeping a car or cars in the driveway, leaving on appropriate lights and the television, and making sure there are no newspapers in the driveway or mail left on the porch when you're away, you help the burglar to decide immediately during his casing or surveillance phase that he should rob someone else's house. If the burglar isn't immediately dissuaded by the outer layer, he receives further discouragement at the next layer in. He takes a closer look, and sees that you have deadbolt locks on all the doors, and that your advertisement was not a bluff--the windows are in fact alarmed. If he takes a crack at the doorjamb, he discovers that it's reinforced. If he tries breaking a window, he realizes the glass is shatter-resistant. Whoops--time to go somewhere else, somewhere easier. Okay, the guy is stupid. He keeps trying anyway. Now the second layer of security described above, which failed to deter him, works to delay him. It's taking him a long time to get in. He's making noise. At some point, the time and noise might combine to persuade him to abort (back to deterrence). But if heinsists on plunging ahead, the noise has alerted you, and you have bought yourself time to implement further inner layers of security: accessing a firearm; calling the police; retreating to a safe room; most of all, preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for danger and possible violence. Now another example, relating to personal protection from an overseas kidnapping attempt. Like everything else, this form of protection starts with you thinking like the bad guy. Your objective is to kidnap a foreigner. Not a particular foreigner (high-value targets are a separate problem, although again subject to the same principles), just any old foreigner. So what do you need to do to carry out your plan? First, you need to pick a target. This part is easy--any foreigner will do. Next, you need to assess the foreigner's vulnerability. Where will you be able to grab him, and when? To answer these questions, you need to follow the target around. If he's punctual, a creature of habit, if he likes to travel the same routes to andfrom work at the same times every day, you will start to feel encouraged. But what if instead, during the assessment stage, you see the target go out to his car and carefully check it for improvised explosive devices. Your immediate thought will be: Hard target. Security-conscious. Too difficult--kidnap someone else. If you're the potential target, do you see how your display of security consciousness becomes the outermost layer of your security? But suppose the would-be kidnapper wants to assess a bit further. Now he learns that you never travel the same route to and from work. You never come and go at the same times. He can't get a fix on your where and when. How is he going to plan a kidnapping now? Note that, by putting yourself in the opposition's shoes, you have identified a behavior pattern in which he must engage before carrying out his crime: surveillance. Before you are kidnapped, you will be assessed. Assessment entails surveillance. Now you know what pre-incident behavior to look for. If you were trying to follow you, how would you go about it? That's what to look for. Perhaps the would-be kidnapper will discover choke points - a certain bridge, for example--that you have to cross everyday on your way to the office. This would be a good place for him to lay an ambush. But because you know this too, you will be unusually alert as you approach potential choke points. As he watches your choke point behavior, he realizes again that you are security-conscious, and thus a poor choice for a target. Again, deterrence. If he is rash and acts at this point anyway, the inner layers of your security-locked and armored vehicle; defensive driving tactics; presence of a bodyguard; access to a firearm; again, most of all, preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for danger and possible violence--all have time to come into play. Other examples: if you needed fast cash, where would you look to rob someone? Maybe on the potential victim's way from an ATM? If so, what kind of ATM would you pick? Where would you wait? What if you wanted to steal a car? Assuming you're not a pro who can pick locks and hot-wire ignitions, where would you go? Maybe outside a video store, or a dry cleaner's, a place where people leave the keys in the ignition because they'll "only be gone for a minute"? Now, armed with a better understanding of the criminal's goals and tactics, how should you behave to better protect yourself? One common element you might see in all of this is the vital need for alertness, for situational awareness. Understanding where threats are likely to come from and how they are likely to materialize will help you properly tune your alertness. If you are not properly alert to a threat, you almost certainly will be unable to defend yourself against it when it materializes. Notice that so far the discussion has included no mention of martial arts. This is because martial arts, self-defense, fighting, and combat, while related subjects, are not identical. The relationship and differences among these areas is outside the scope of this article. For now, suffice it to say that martial arts can be thought of as an inner layer of self-defense. If you have to use your martial arts moves, then almost certainly some outer layer of your security has been breached and you are in a worse position than you would have been had the outer layers held fast. To put it another way: Thinking like the opposition; taking threats seriously and not being in denial about their existence; and maintaining proper situational awareness, are infinitely more cost effective for self-defense than is training in martial arts. Note that I have been doing martial arts of one kind or another since I was a teenager. I love the martial arts for many reasons. I do not dispute and am not discussing their value, but rather am emphasizing their cost-effectiveness in achieving a given objective--here, effective personal protection. No matter what her martial arts skills, the person who recognizes in advance and can therefore steer clear of an ambush has a much better chance of surviving it than does the person who wanders into the ambush and then has to fight her way out. So practice thinking like the opposition, and you'll have a better chance of lasting as long as John Rain. This article also appears in Crimespree Issue #4

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This box sets has the same contents as the box set available on Amazon.com.Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two...... more

This box sets has the same contents as the box set available on Amazon.com.Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a thrilling pilot episode in which a jetliner traveling from Australia to Los Angeles crashes, leaving 48 survivors on an unidentified island with no sign of civilisation or hope of imminent rescue. That may sound like Gilligan's Island meets Survivor, but Lost kept viewers tuning in every Wednesday night--and spending the rest of the week speculating on Web sites--with some irresistible hooks (not to mention the beautiful women). First, there's a huge ensemble cast of no fewer than 14 regular characters, and each episode fills in some of the back story on one of them. There's a doctor; an Iraqi soldier; a has-been rock star; a fugitive from justice; a self-absorbed young woman and her brother; a lottery winner; a father and son; a Korean couple; a pregnant woman; and others. Second, there's a host of unanswered questions: What is the mysterious beast that lurks in the jungle? Why do polar bears and wild boars live there? Why has a woman been transmitting an SOS message in French from somewhere on the island for the last 16 years? Why do impossible wishes seem to come true? Are they really on a physical island, or somewhere else? What is the significance of the recurring set of numbers? And will Kate ever give up her bad-boy fixation and hook up with Jack? Lost did have some hiccups during the first season. Some plot threads were left dangling for weeks, and the "oh, it didn't really happen" card was played too often. But the strong writing and topnotch cast kept the show a cut above most network TV. The best-known actor at the time of the show's debut was Dominic Monaghan, fresh off his stint as Merry the Hobbit in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The rest of the cast is either unknowns or "where I have I seen that face before" supporting players, including Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, who are the closest thing to leads. Other standouts include Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn (who's made a nice career out of conspiracy-themed TV shows), Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Maggie Grace, and Emilie de Ravin, but there's really not a weak link in the cast. Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Alias), Lost left enough unanswered questions after its first season to keep viewers riveted for a second season. --David Horiuchi Lost: Season TwoWhat was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That's right: Just when you say "Ohhhhh," there comes another "What?" Thankfully, the show's producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant's pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it's an island; you never know who you're going to run into.) First, there are the "Tailies," passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone's already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer's departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season's end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom "my life is an open book" never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season's conclusion. But hey, that's the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart's content. --Ellen Kim Lost: Season ThreeWhen it aired in 2006-07, Lost's third season was split into two, with a hefty break in between. This did nothing to help the already weirdly disparate direction the show was taking (Kate and Sawyer in zoo cages! Locke eating goop in a mud hut!), but when it finally righted its course halfway through--in particular that whopper of a finale--the drama series had left its irked fan base thrilled once again. This doesn't mean, however, that you should skip through the first half of the season to get there, because quite a few questions find answers: what the Others are up to, the impact of turning that fail-safe key, the identity of the eye-patched man from the hatch's video monitor. One of the series' biggest curiosities from the past--how Locke ended up in that wheelchair in the first place--also gets its satisfying due. (The episode, "The Man from Tallahassee," likely was a big contributor to Terry O'Quinn's surprising--but long-deserved--Emmy win that year.) Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a lot of aforementioned nuisances to get there. Season 3 kicks off with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the Others; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) on a mission to rescue them; and Locke, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in the aftermath of the electromagnetic pulse that blew up the hatch. Spinning the storylines away from base camp alone wouldn't have felt so disjointed were it not for the new characters simultaneously being introduced. First there's Juliet, a mysterious member of the Others whose loyalty constantly comes into question as the season goes on. Played delicately by Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia, ER, Frequency), Juliet is in one turn a cold-blooded killer, by another turn a sympathetic friend; possibly both at once, possibly neither at all. (She's also a terrific, albeit unwitting, threat to the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which plays out more definitively this season.) On the other hand, there's the now-infamous Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), a tagalong couple who were cleverly woven into the previous seasons' key moments but came to bear the brunt of fans' ire toward the show (Sawyer humorously echoed the sentiments by remarking, "Who the hell are you?"). By the end of the season, at least two major characters die, another is told he/she will die within months, major new threats are unveiled, and--as mentioned before--the two-part season finale restores your faith in the series. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FourSeason four of Lost was a fine return to form for the series, which polarized its audience the year before with its focus on The Others and not enough on our original crash victims. That season's finale introduced a new storytelling device--the flash-forward--that's employed to great effect this time around; by showing who actually got off the island (known as the Oceanic Six), the viewer is able to put to bed some longstanding loose ends. As the finale attests, we see that in the future Jack (Matthew Fox) is broken, bearded, and not sober, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is estranged from Jack and with another guy (the identity may surprise you). Four others do make it back to their homes, but as the flash-forwards show, it's definitely not the end of their connection to the island. Back in present day, however, the islanders are visited by the denizens of a so-called rescue ship, who have agendas of their own. While Jack works with the newcomers to try to get off the island, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), with a few followers of his own, forms an uneasy alliance with Ben (Michael Emerson) against the suspicious gang. Some episodes featuring the new characters feel like filler, but the evolution of such characters as Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) is this season's strength; plus, the love story of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Penny (Sonya Walger) provides some of the show's emotional highlights. As is the custom with Lost, bullets fly and characters die (while others may or may not have). Moreover, the fate of Michael (Harold Perrineau), last seen traitorously sailing off to civilisation in season two, as well as the flash-forwards of the Oceanic Six, shows you never quite leave the island once you've left. There's a force that pulls them in, and it's a hook that keeps you watching. Season four was a shorter 13 episodes instead of the usual 22 due to the 2008 writers' strike. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FiveSince Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), live again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes more sense if you're drunk." --Kathleen C. FennessyLost Season SixIts taken a long time to get here, but finally, the last season of Lost arrives, with answers to at least some of the questions that fans of the show have been demanding for the past few years. In true Lost fashion, it doesnt tie all its mysteries up with a bow, but it does at least answer some of the questions that have long being gestating. In the series opening, for instance, we finally learn the secret of the smoke monster, which is a sizeable step in the right direction. In terms of quality, the show has been on an upward curve since the end date of the programme was announced, and season six arguably finds Lost at its most confident to date. Never mind the fact that it's juggling lots of proverbial balls: there's a very clear end point here, and the show benefits enormously from it. Naturally, Lost naysayers will probably find themselves more alienated than ever here. But this season nonetheless marks the passing of a major television show, one that has cleverly managed to reinvent itself on more than one occasion, and keep audiences across the world gripped as a result. There's going to be nothing quite like it for a long time to come. --Jon Foster

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This box sets has the same contents as the box set available on Amazon.com.Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two...... more

This box sets has the same contents as the box set available on Amazon.com.Lost: Season OneAlong with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a thrilling pilot episode in which a jetliner traveling from Australia to Los Angeles crashes, leaving 48 survivors on an unidentified island with no sign of civilisation or hope of imminent rescue. That may sound like Gilligan's Island meets Survivor, but Lost kept viewers tuning in every Wednesday night--and spending the rest of the week speculating on Web sites--with some irresistible hooks (not to mention the beautiful women). First, there's a huge ensemble cast of no fewer than 14 regular characters, and each episode fills in some of the back story on one of them. There's a doctor; an Iraqi soldier; a has-been rock star; a fugitive from justice; a self-absorbed young woman and her brother; a lottery winner; a father and son; a Korean couple; a pregnant woman; and others. Second, there's a host of unanswered questions: What is the mysterious beast that lurks in the jungle? Why do polar bears and wild boars live there? Why has a woman been transmitting an SOS message in French from somewhere on the island for the last 16 years? Why do impossible wishes seem to come true? Are they really on a physical island, or somewhere else? What is the significance of the recurring set of numbers? And will Kate ever give up her bad-boy fixation and hook up with Jack? Lost did have some hiccups during the first season. Some plot threads were left dangling for weeks, and the "oh, it didn't really happen" card was played too often. But the strong writing and topnotch cast kept the show a cut above most network TV. The best-known actor at the time of the show's debut was Dominic Monaghan, fresh off his stint as Merry the Hobbit in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The rest of the cast is either unknowns or "where I have I seen that face before" supporting players, including Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, who are the closest thing to leads. Other standouts include Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn (who's made a nice career out of conspiracy-themed TV shows), Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Maggie Grace, and Emilie de Ravin, but there's really not a weak link in the cast. Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Alias), Lost left enough unanswered questions after its first season to keep viewers riveted for a second season. --David Horiuchi Lost: Season TwoWhat was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That's right: Just when you say "Ohhhhh," there comes another "What?" Thankfully, the show's producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant's pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it's an island; you never know who you're going to run into.) First, there are the "Tailies," passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone's already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer's departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season's end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom "my life is an open book" never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season's conclusion. But hey, that's the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart's content. --Ellen Kim Lost: Season ThreeWhen it aired in 2006-07, Lost's third season was split into two, with a hefty break in between. This did nothing to help the already weirdly disparate direction the show was taking (Kate and Sawyer in zoo cages! Locke eating goop in a mud hut!), but when it finally righted its course halfway through--in particular that whopper of a finale--the drama series had left its irked fan base thrilled once again. This doesn't mean, however, that you should skip through the first half of the season to get there, because quite a few questions find answers: what the Others are up to, the impact of turning that fail-safe key, the identity of the eye-patched man from the hatch's video monitor. One of the series' biggest curiosities from the past--how Locke ended up in that wheelchair in the first place--also gets its satisfying due. (The episode, "The Man from Tallahassee," likely was a big contributor to Terry O'Quinn's surprising--but long-deserved--Emmy win that year.) Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a lot of aforementioned nuisances to get there. Season 3 kicks off with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the Others; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) on a mission to rescue them; and Locke, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in the aftermath of the electromagnetic pulse that blew up the hatch. Spinning the storylines away from base camp alone wouldn't have felt so disjointed were it not for the new characters simultaneously being introduced. First there's Juliet, a mysterious member of the Others whose loyalty constantly comes into question as the season goes on. Played delicately by Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia, ER, Frequency), Juliet is in one turn a cold-blooded killer, by another turn a sympathetic friend; possibly both at once, possibly neither at all. (She's also a terrific, albeit unwitting, threat to the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which plays out more definitively this season.) On the other hand, there's the now-infamous Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), a tagalong couple who were cleverly woven into the previous seasons' key moments but came to bear the brunt of fans' ire toward the show (Sawyer humorously echoed the sentiments by remarking, "Who the hell are you?"). By the end of the season, at least two major characters die, another is told he/she will die within months, major new threats are unveiled, and--as mentioned before--the two-part season finale restores your faith in the series. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FourSeason four of Lost was a fine return to form for the series, which polarized its audience the year before with its focus on The Others and not enough on our original crash victims. That season's finale introduced a new storytelling device--the flash-forward--that's employed to great effect this time around; by showing who actually got off the island (known as the Oceanic Six), the viewer is able to put to bed some longstanding loose ends. As the finale attests, we see that in the future Jack (Matthew Fox) is broken, bearded, and not sober, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is estranged from Jack and with another guy (the identity may surprise you). Four others do make it back to their homes, but as the flash-forwards show, it's definitely not the end of their connection to the island. Back in present day, however, the islanders are visited by the denizens of a so-called rescue ship, who have agendas of their own. While Jack works with the newcomers to try to get off the island, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), with a few followers of his own, forms an uneasy alliance with Ben (Michael Emerson) against the suspicious gang. Some episodes featuring the new characters feel like filler, but the evolution of such characters as Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) is this season's strength; plus, the love story of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Penny (Sonya Walger) provides some of the show's emotional highlights. As is the custom with Lost, bullets fly and characters die (while others may or may not have). Moreover, the fate of Michael (Harold Perrineau), last seen traitorously sailing off to civilisation in season two, as well as the flash-forwards of the Oceanic Six, shows you never quite leave the island once you've left. There's a force that pulls them in, and it's a hook that keeps you watching. Season four was a shorter 13 episodes instead of the usual 22 due to the 2008 writers' strike. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season FiveSince Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), live again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes more sense if you're drunk." --Kathleen C. FennessyLost Season SixIts taken a long time to get here, but finally, the last season of Lost arrives, with answers to at least some of the questions that fans of the show have been demanding for the past few years. In true Lost fashion, it doesnt tie all its mysteries up with a bow, but it does at least answer some of the questions that have long being gestating. In the series opening, for instance, we finally learn the secret of the smoke monster, which is a sizeable step in the right direction. In terms of quality, the show has been on an upward curve since the end date of the programme was announced, and season six arguably finds Lost at its most confident to date. Never mind the fact that it's juggling lots of proverbial balls: there's a very clear end point here, and the show benefits enormously from it. Naturally, Lost naysayers will probably find themselves more alienated than ever here. But this season nonetheless marks the passing of a major television show, one that has cleverly managed to reinvent itself on more than one occasion, and keep audiences across the world gripped as a result. There's going to be nothing quite like it for a long time to come. --Jon Foster

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Position: full sun Soil: fertile, well-drained soil Rate of growth: average to fast-growing Ultimate size (M26): 2.7x2.7m (9x9ft) Flowering period:...... more

Position: full sun Soil: fertile, well-drained soil Rate of growth: average to fast-growing Ultimate size (M26): 2.7x2.7m (9x9ft) Flowering period: April and May Flower colour: white Other features: first class, juicy, dessert apples (early to mid-October) Hardiness: frost hardy (may need winter protection, particularly in colder parts of the country) Pollination Group: Partially self fertile - but for a bumper crop use a apple from group C - flowering mid season) This fan-trained maiden tree is ideal for growing against a sunny wall, where it will produce white flowers in spring, and juicy dessert apples, which are ready to harvest in October. Arguably the best British eating apple, Cox's Orange Pippin is partialy self fertile so does not need a pollination partner, but for a bumper crop, it can be grown with another apple from Flowering Group C. Garden care: Keep the base of the tree weed free, fertilise at the beginning of each year and water regularly during hot, dry spells. Remove damaged or crossing branches during the dormant season Pollination Information: This apple belongs to pollination group C, so you will need to plant one other different variety of apple to guarantee cross pollination, and a subsequent bumper crop. Ideally this should come from the same pollination group, however it is possible to use one from group B or D as well.

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Show your support for the country with this St. George Cross light up cap. This St. George Cross cap will show your allegiance to the country in no uncertain...... more

Show your support for the country with this St. George Cross light up cap. This St. George Cross cap will show your allegiance to the country in no uncertain terms. Not only does it look smart it also lights up in various sequences, making it the essential attire for the dedicated England fan. It is perfect for supporting the country during those important sporting events, for declaring your patriotism, or just for looking the part on a night out. And to let everyone know where you come from and to keep the sun off your head, why not wear it during your summer holidays abroad? Once more unto the beach dear friends, once more with this super cool light up cap. Now everyday can be St. George's day.

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Book Description: "The characters are memorable, the suspense is visceral and the swashbuckling set pieces are as compelling and well described as the...... more

Book Description: "The characters are memorable, the suspense is visceral and the swashbuckling set pieces are as compelling and well described as the quieter moments of inner conflict and moral dilemma." (Publishers Weekly) --This text refers to the manuscript reviewed as a part of the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest.Set in 1790, A Cruel Harvest tells the epic tale of Orlaith and Brannon, young lovers whose futures are jeopardized when Moorish pirates raid their Irish fishing village. Orlaith and her infant son manage to escape the savage attack, but Brannon is captured. Thrown into the hold of the pirates ship, the young farmer is spirited away to the harsh confines of North Africa. There he is sold into slavery and forced to serve in the army of the sadistic Sultan of Morocco. Back in Ireland, a heartbroken Orlaith faces certain ruin unless she agrees to marry wealthy landowner Randall Whitely. But Whitely is a cruel man, and life with him quickly becomes a waking nightmare. Though separated by thousands of miles, Orlaith and Brannon draw on their great love to challenge the oppression of the tyrants keeping them apart. Stretching from the windswept coast of Ireland to the sun-baked hills of Morocco, A Cruel Harvest is a thrilling novel of adventure, survival, and once-in-a-lifetime love.Amazon Exclusive: Maeve Binchy Reviews A Cruel HarvestMaeve Binchy is the author of numerous bestselling books, including The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club, Heart and Soul, Nights of Rain and Stars, Quentins, Scarlet Feather, Circle of Friends, and Tara Road, which was an Oprah's Book Club® selection. She has written for Gourmet, O, The Oprah Magazine, Modern Maturity, and Good Housekeeping, among other publications. She and her husband, Gordon Snell, live in Dalkey, Ireland, and London. Read her exclusive guest review of Paul Reid's A Cruel Harvest:They dont come more swashbuckling than this. Eyes flashing, swords glinting, heads falling... and ships landing in the South of Ireland in 1790 to scoop up strong, lusty Irish lads for the slave trade. None lustier and braver than young farmer Brannbron Ryan, who is swept off to Morocco one dark night and away from the love of his life, Orlaith Downey, a virtuous and beautiful young widow with a small son to support.These were hard times to be poor in Ireland; it was fifty years before the Great Famine but the harvests were scant and the living was far from easy.Orlaith was finding it harder and harder to pay the rent, the man she loved had been swept away to the hot burning sands of Morocco, so the inevitable happens. Orlaith is beautiful and virtuous, and the wicked landlord thinks of a way that she can pay the rent. And it involves her becoming his wife.So, with a heavy heart, Orlaith becomes Mrs. Randall Whitely, and she and her son go to live in the Big House. Where, as you might expect, they dont know a moments happiness. All the time she holds a little hope that the brave Brannon may still be alive and well and planning to come back to Ireland and find her. But as time goes by this becomes more and more unlikely.Meanwhile we follow Brannons terrifying life in North Africa, where he is sold into slavery, then forced to become a soldier of the sultan of Morocco, his days filled with the sounds and smells of war and violence.The book alternates between the two worlds: Brannon fighting his way through more and more disasters, Orlaith afraid she will wither in the unloving home of the husband whom she can never love.The tension is very well maintained and the pace alternates between the clock ticking slowness of Orlaiths life with its ever increasing unhappiness in Ireland, and the violent, dangerous escapades of Brannon Ryan as he tries to negotiate for the freedom to go back and find the woman he loves.The enemies of Orlaith and Brannon become our enemies as the book goes on. We yearn for a way they can get together, but it seems fraught with problems.They asked for so little compared to all the people they have had to be embroiled with. They didnt want big castle estates in Ireland nor tribal dominance in Africa. Surely these brave people must find each other again?Readers will stay to the very last page of the story to know how it works out.An impressive first novel by Paul Reid that will keep the reader's attention from start to finish. --Maeve BinchyA Q&A with Author Paul ReidQuestion: Tell us about your inspiration for writing A Cruel Harvest--where does one get the idea for Moroccan pirates to invade a quiet Irish port town? Is there real history behind the storyline? Paul Reid: This story found me rather than the other way round. Some years back I was staying in the coastal village of Baltimore in West Cork, and I came across a pub called the Algiers Inn, which is a rather unusual name for a pub in rural Ireland to say the least. So I made inquiries and discovered an extraordinary historical incident, where over a hundred villagers had been kidnapped by pirates in the year 1631, literally seized from their beds. They were taken to Algeria and sold as slaves, most of them never to be heard of again. I was stunned to learn that such a thing had happened in my own county. Further research unearthed many incidences of Irish and British peoples being taken as slaves for the North African market. It was from there that I started to formulate the idea for a novel, which eventually became A Cruel Harvest. It is set much later, in 1790, and the Sultan of Morocco at the time had an Irish mother. Moroccans describe him through history as the "Mad Sultan," for he was a very violent and unpredictable man. It was useful to work him into the story.Question: How did you create the characters of Brannon and Orlaith? Did you base them on people in your own life? Which of the two is your favorite?Paul Reid: The characters are entirely fictional, even though the story of the slave raid itself was based on truth. Brannon came to me early on, and it was through him that I wanted to relay the whole experience of being taken captive and sold into a foreign country. But I also had an urge to keep some of the story in Ireland, and thus Orlaith introduced herself. The idea of a romance between the two quickly took root. I admit Orlaith would be my favourite of the pair. She has to face her own battles, different to Brannon's but just as horrendous. She also has the added turmoil of trying to protect her son from the gathering threats around them, yet she keeps strong and keeps fighting and I admire her for that.Question: You were born and raised in Cork in Ireland and live there to this day. What are some of your favorite haunts in and around your hometown?Paul Reid: I am an outdoors-y kind of person and I'm lucky enough to live on the coast. The sea has always inspired me. It seems to have a haunting, solemn wisdom, as if to say it knows far more than we do. The harbour passage beside my house is where the Titantic made its final stop to take on passengers, and there are many other places of historical interest within Cork. My fiancee Rhona and I will often take a drive at random and find ourselves exploring some ruined castle or braving a stretch of wild cliffs. The county is rich that way, and the famous scenery of West Cork in particular always draws us, where we spend a lot of time in the summers. Outside of that I love to visit the area around Skeenarinky in Tipperary, where my mother's family hail from. It's a place of green glens and mountain lakes and beautiful wooded hillsides. I do a lot of writing there.Question: You havent always lived in Ireland, though for awhile you worked as a ranch hand in the Australian Outback. What was that like and how did you end up there?Paul Reid: It was hot and sweaty! I took a job on a farm in Queensland after I had been living in Sydney for some months, where I had pretty much blown all my money and was facing starvation, eviction, etc., unless I got my act together. The farm was quite an experience. I had never ridden a horse before in my life, but yet by the second day I was mustering cattle on horseback like a regular cowboy. Half of the cattle are probably still lost, of course. It was gruelling work. But great fun.Question: Whats next from you?Paul Reid: I'm currently working on another historical novel, this time set in Dublin and London during the Anglo/Irish War 1919-1921. It's something of a challenge, given the burdened history between Ireland and England, but I'm not a writer with an agenda so I aim to just let the characters speak their own minds.

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The new innovative Pink Outdoor Solar Powered Butterfly LED Fairy Light set is 3 metres long with 30 super bright pink LEDs which will certainly bring your...... more

The new innovative Pink Outdoor Solar Powered Butterfly LED Fairy Light set is 3 metres long with 30 super bright pink LEDs which will certainly bring your garden to life! What's it like? Brighten up your bushes, trees and garden features by dressing them up in these elegant butterfly solar fairy lights. Constructed on a dark green cable these butterfly lights come supplied with an 8 function mode button and on/off button. These beautifully designed butterflies each have one superior single LED and the battery compartment is sealed for all weather purposes. With a beneficial lead length of 1.5 metres to the first light, the solar panel can be placed in a position where it will receive maximum amount of sun. A certain delight for evening parties and lighting for barbeques, celebrations & birthdays. How does it work? The solar panel will recharge the rechargeable batteries using the sun lights energy during the day. The internal daylight sensor will automatically know that when dusk approaches the light will activate and when dawn approaches the light will deactivate. The typical light time is 6-8 hours when fully charged and running time will depend on the amount of charge received. The solar panel is supplied with a mounting spike which can be placed in an optimum position to gain maximum sunlight. Features Solar Powered- Eco Friendly Large high capture solar panel Multi function (Static, twinkle & fading variations) IP44 rated Easy to use No mains wiring Automatically turns on at dusk and off at dawn Ground spike included Auto photo sensor 12 months warranty Dimensions Light Length- 3 Metres and 1.5 metres from panel to lights Where can it be used? Garden Plants Garden Shrubs Small trees and bushes

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The new innovative Warm White Outdoor Solar Powered Butterfly LED Fairy Light set is 3 metres long with 30 super bright warm white LEDs which will certainly...... more

The new innovative Warm White Outdoor Solar Powered Butterfly LED Fairy Light set is 3 metres long with 30 super bright warm white LEDs which will certainly bring your garden to life! What's it like? Brighten up your bushes, trees and garden features by dressing them up in these elegant butterfly solar fairy lights. Constructed on a dark green cable these butterfly lights come supplied with an 8 function mode button and on/off button. These beautifully designed butterflies each have one superior single LED and the battery compartment is sealed for all weather purposes. With a beneficial lead length of 1.5 metres to the first light, the solar panel can be placed in a position where it will receive maximum amount of sun. A certain delight for evening parties and lighting for barbeques, celebrations & birthdays. How does it work? The solar panel will recharge the rechargeable batteries using the sun lights energy during the day. The internal daylight sensor will automatically know that when dusk approaches the light will activate and when dawn approaches the light will deactivate. The typical light time is 6-8 hours when fully charged and running time will depend on the amount of charge received. The solar panel is supplied with a mounting spike which can be placed in an optimum position to gain maximum sunlight. Features Solar Powered- Eco Friendly Large high capture solar panel Multi function (Static, twinkle & fading variations) IP44 rated Easy to use No mains wiring Automatically turns on at dusk and off at dawn Ground spike included Auto photo sensor 12 months warranty Dimensions Light Length- 3 Metres and 1.5 metres from panel to lights Where can it be used? Garden Plants Garden Shrubs Small trees and bushes

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The new innovative White Outdoor Solar Powered Butterfly LED Fairy Light set is 3 metres long with 30 super bright white LEDs which will certainly bring your...... more

The new innovative White Outdoor Solar Powered Butterfly LED Fairy Light set is 3 metres long with 30 super bright white LEDs which will certainly bring your garden to life! What's it like? Brighten up your bushes, trees and garden features by dressing them up in these elegant butterfly solar fairy lights. Constructed on a dark green cable these butterfly lights come supplied with an 8 function mode button and on/off button. These beautifully designed butterflies each have one superior single LED and the battery compartment is sealed for all weather purposes. With a beneficial lead length of 1.5 metres to the first light, the solar panel can be placed in a position where it will receive maximum amount of sun. A certain delight for evening parties and lighting for barbeques, celebrations & birthdays. How does it work? The solar panel will recharge the rechargeable batteries using the sun lights energy during the day. The internal daylight sensor will automatically know that when dusk approaches the light will activate and when dawn approaches the light will deactivate. The typical light time is 6-8 hours when fully charged and running time will depend on the amount of charge received. The solar panel is supplied with a mounting spike which can be placed in an optimum position to gain maximum sunlight. Features Solar Powered- Eco Friendly Large high capture solar panel Multi function (Static, twinkle & fading variations) IP44 rated Easy to use No mains wiring Automatically turns on at dusk and off at dawn Ground spike included Auto photo sensor 12 months warranty Dimensions Light Length- 3 Metres and 1.5 metres from panel to lights Where can it be used? Garden Plants Garden Shrubs Small trees and bushes

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Heroes finds the self-styled "New Nashville Cat" playing fiddle duets with 14 of his idols. Although the guests come from the fields of jazz...... more

Heroes finds the self-styled "New Nashville Cat" playing fiddle duets with 14 of his idols. Although the guests come from the fields of jazz (Jean-Luc Ponty and Stephane Grappelli), classical (Pinchas Zukerman), worldbeat (L. Shankar), bluegrass (Byron Berline and Kenny Baker), hillbilly blues (Vassar Clements), old-timey (Benny Thomasson, Terry Morris and Texas Shorty), Cajun (Doug Kershaw), Texas swing (Johnny Gimble), country rock (Charlie Daniels) and Nashville sessions (Buddy Spicher), there's a bit of country fiddling in every performance. O'Connor is more interested in the similarities between these styles than the differences, and the common ground is American frontier dance music. Ten of the 14 tracks are instrumentals, and as anyone who recognizes the above names might guess, they're filled with some astonishing virtuoso performances. To hear O'Connor, a four-time National Fiddle Champion by the time he was 22, trade licks with French jazzman Jean-Luc Ponty or the "Louisiana Man" himself, Doug Kershaw, is to rediscover what the violin can do as lightning-fast melodies and variations slide by in long legato phrases. Most of the pieces are built atop a chunky rhythm section, but the fiddles are pushed to the front of the mix, where they can "sing" like vocalists. And "sing" they do, for O'Connor has wisely chosen these pieces for their personality and melodic pleasure rather than their technical challenges. Vassar Clements, for example, could certainly play a more complicated and showy piece than the slow blues, "House of the Rising Sun," but it's unlikely he could play anything as expressive. Likewise, Johnny Gimble can play a whole lot faster than he does on his signature tune, "Fiddlin' Around," but he'd be hard put to play anything as catchy and fun. And it would be difficult to find an instrumental as sweet and eloquent as the airy fiddle lines played by the 85-year-old Stephane Grappelli on Rodgers & Hart's "This Can't Be Love" and Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'." Not all the distinguished guests are fiddlers. Mandolinist Bill Monroe and fiddler Byron Berline reunite 25 years later to reprise their composition, "Gold Rush," with Berline's regular partners, guitarist Dan Crary and banjoist John Hickman. On another Monroe composition, "Jerusalem Ridge," O'Connor and Monroe alumnus Kenny Baker are joined by bluegrass legends, dobroist Josh Graves and mandolinist Sam Bush. And the album's best track, "House of the Rising Sun," features Bush, dobroist Jerry Douglas and guitarist Russ Barenberg behind O'Connor and Clements. To hear the fiddles and Dobro bending notes into weary moans and anguished groans on this old song about a brothel is to understand why some songs just don't need a vocal--and why the fiddle is still American music's best link to its past. --Jeffrey Himes

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