' Magnificent' Robert Macfarlane Winner of the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Our lives depend on shipping but it is a world which is largely hidden from us In every lonely corner of every sea through every night every day & every imaginable weather tiny crews of seafarers work the giant ships which keep landed life afloat These ordinary men live extraordinary lives subject to dangers & difficulties we can only imagine from hurricanes & pirates to years of confinement in hazardous if not hellish environments Horatio Clare joins two container ships on their epic voyages across the globe & experiences unforgettable journeys As the ships cross seas of history & incident seafarers unfold the stories of their lives & a beautiful & terrifying portrait of the oceans & their human subjects emerges ' Tremendous' The Times ...

It is the driest flattest hottest most desiccated infertile & climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents & still Australia teems with life
- a large portion of it quite deadly In fact Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else Ignoring such dangers
- & yet curiously obsessed by them
- Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia & promptly fell in love with the country & who can blame him? The people are cheerful extrovert quick-witted & unfailingly obliging their cities are safe & clean & nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold & the sun nearly always shines Life doesn't get much better than this


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Sometimes popular music registers our concerns & anxieties more lucidly than we realise This is evident in the case of an ideal of childhood innocence in rapid decay in recent decades So claims Down with Childhood as it takes in psychedelia's preoccupation with rebirth & inner-children the fascination with juvenilia amidst an ebbing UK rave scene & dozens of nursery rhyme hip-hop choruses spawned by a hit Jay-Z tune As it examines the often complex sets of meanings to which the occasional presence of children in pop songs attests the book pauses at Musical Youth's ' Pass the Dutchie' & other one-hit teen wonders the career paths of child stars including Michael Jackson & Britney Spears radical experiments in free jazz & Black Panther influenced children's soul groups In the process a novel argument begins to emerge relating the often remarked crisis of childhood to changing experiences of work & play & ultimately to an ongoing capitalist crisis that underlies them ...

Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play When best-selling feminist author Barbara Novak (Zellweger) becomes the target of dashing playboy Catcher Block (Mc Gregor) the sparks they generate will fly you to the moon & back! Set in the early sixties every frame pops with 60&s technicolour ...

Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 or region free DVD player in order to play When best-selling feminist author Barbara Novak (Renee Zellwegger) becomes the target of dashing playboy Catcher Block (Ewan Mc Gregor) these sparring would-be lovers generate enough sparks to fly you to the moon & back In other words the ultimate catch has just met his match! ...

Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play April 1945 a nation awaits its Downfall Not since GW Pabst&s 1956 effort & Letste Akt& (The Last Act) has a German film attempted to tackle the subject of their most famous leader Adolf Hitler Breaking a long-standing taboo the director Oliver Hirschbiegel has made a film that has sparked much debate in Germany & the rest of the world Downfall features an astonishing performance by Bruno Ganz as history&s most notorious figure Providing an unprecedented & controversial insider&s perspective the film is a gripping insight into the madness & desperation of Hitler in the final hours of the war as the Russian Army closes a ring around Berlin Beautifully photographed & brilliantly acted this tour de force is at once dramatic harrowing & remarkably authentic The basis for the screenplay by writer-producer Bernd Eichinger came from two key sources Joachim Fest&s book " Inside Hitler&s Bunker The Last Days of The Third Reich" the recognition that the horrifying epic of Hitler & his people during his twelve years in power was reflected in those last twelve days in the bunker; & the memoirs of Hitler&s private secretary Traudl Junge in Melissa Mueller&s book " Until The Final Hour Hitler&s Last Secretary" which provided an invaluable insight into the character of the man & those final fatal few days of the war Actors Bruno Ganz Alexandra Maria Lara Ulrich Matthes Corinna Harfouch Juliane Kohler Heino Ferch Matthias Habich Christian Berkel & Ulrich Noethen Director Oliver Hirschbiegel Certificate 15 years & over Year 2004 Screen 178 Anamorphic Widescreen Languages German
- Dolby Digital (51) ; DTSSubtitles English for the hearing impaired Duration 2 hours & 35 minutes (approx)
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Please note this is a region B Blu-ray & will require a region B or region free Blu-ray player in order to play Charting the final days of World War II in Nazi Germany DOWNFALL shows what went on in the bunker where Hitler (Bruno Ganz) his secretary (Alexandra Maria Lara) & a few close colleagues waited for their inevitable demise ...

Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play Controversial & award-winning German drama about the final days of Adolf Hitler & the Nazi regime Bruno Ganz plays the German dictator who as the Russians close in towards Berlin retreats to his bunker with his fianc?e Eva Braun (Juliane K?hler) his private secretary Traudle Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) & his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes) His mood ranging from violent rage to pessimistic defeat Hitler attempts to deny the inevitable as the other occupants of the bunker deal with the prospect of their impending death at the hands of the Russians Goebbels kills his family before committing suicide while Hitler finally marries Eva Braun in a ceremony that precedes their own suicide by hours With only Junge surviving the Red Army closes in & takes the capital ...

Two new tracks & six new powers to turbocharge your game of down Force late in the season when every race counts the tour heads East to two of the toughest tracks any driver can face Both tracks offer tantalizing choices for down Force players looking for a more challenging racedanger circuit is an expansion for down Force A copy of down Force is required to play Expansion to Downforce the game of high stakes speed Adds two new tracks & six new racer powers The game ends when all cars have crossed the finish line A copy of Downforce is required to play Suitable for 2-6 players aged 8 ...

High-stakes bidding on million-dollar race cars Frantic bets placed in secret even as the cars race around the track & to the victor the biggest purse of all But in the world of motor racing the margin between victory & defeat can be a single moment a steep banked turn tires screaming & spitting out smoke & the downforce pressing you down in your seat & keeping you on the track as you make your move inside to pull ahead Downforce is a card-driven bidding racing & betting game for 2-6 players based on Top Race the award-winning design by the legendary Wolfgang Kramer Players first bid to own the six cars in the race then they play cards from their hand to speed them around the track However most cards will also move their opponents& cars So figuring out just the right time to play a card is the key to victory Along the way players make secret bets on who they think will win the race Whoever has the most money from their prize money winning bets & remaining bank wins This is a game whose design needed no attention Years of play & multiple versions have honed it to near perfection On the contrary one of the design challenges was figuring which of the many rules modules to incorporate to create the most fun version Downforce also adds variable player powers to improve replayability But mostly it improves the look of the game to make it gorgeous & easy to play Special attention was paid to the colors the layout of the cards the design of the cars the details on the board & more Ages 8 Players 2-6 Playing time 30 minutes ...