National Headline Comment page by Miranda Schunke.

Brit Brats!

Brit brats square up at awards ceremony in a tradition true to form, the 2002 Brit Awards provided the usual feast of stars with more than a generous helping of controversy. The annual event that 
sees the music industry let its hair down and invariably misbehave took place last week with many of the pre-ceremony favorites taking the plaudits.  Mr. Brits himself, Robbie Williams, collected the 13th Brit Award of his career for 'Best British Male Solo Artist'. While the two belles of the ball were unquestionably Dido and Kylie Minogue, each collecting two awards. The ever-bashful Dido scooped the awards for 'Best British Female Solo Artist' and 'Best Album' for 'No Angel'. Kylie was on hand to collect her awards for 'Best International Female Solo Artist' and 'Best International Album'. But the true star of the show, however, was Westlife's Bryan McFadden. Bryan's stock has gone through the roof after he threw a drink over So Solid Crew as Westlife made their way to collect the award for 'Best Pop Act'. The Crew, who are rapidly becoming the biggest joke of the music scene, justified their hardcore image by retaliating to Bryan's attack by calling him 'fat'. The thirty-strong crew had already raised a laugh earlier in the evening when they spent several minutes removing all the gold jewelry that had sent Earl's Court metal detectors into overdrive. Fortunately, Dane Bowers was on hand to act as peacekeeper as the dispute between Westlife and the So Solid Crew threatened to get out of hand. 
Bowers, who is a friend of McFadden, raced to his aid and punched one of the 
Crew. Bowers said, "I punched one of them to break the fight up. Another 
of them went to hit me but when they saw it was me they stopped." 

Go to the top of the page.

The 'Bad Boy' hierarchy remains intact. The show closed with Sting collecting the 'Outstanding Contribution' award, going on to perform a medley of his most popular tracks. The award had initially been offered to Madonna but was turned down by the 43-year-old star. Madonna is understood to have rejected the award because she was worried it might make her look old and ready to retire. The fact that Sting chose to accept the award has been viewed as a very positive sign.

Mars A DAY keeps the Doc away?!?

A Mars a Day is good for you, so its good news for beer and chocolate-loving fans everywhere, the news came last week with claims that eating chocolate and drinking beer could actually be good for you. Research conducted by American scientists proved that chocolate can lower high blood pressure as cocoa contains a group of chemicals that can increase production of the essential nitric oxide.  Norman Hollenburg, Professor of Medicine at Harvard University claimed, "Nitric oxide plays a very important role in the maintenance of healthy blood pressure and, in turn, cardiovascular health." Nitric oxide, also called flavones, can be found in both milk and dark chocolate.  If that was not enough, in an attempt to minimize alcohol-related disease, drink firms have been looking into adding vitamins such as Thiamin or as others may know it Vitamin B1 to alcohol. The Executive document named Plan For Action, states: "adding Thiamin to the beer is an effective way to  prevent some forms of alcohol-related brain damage."

Plans are also being made to include the units of alcohol contained in the products in order to combat the growing problem of alcoholism. Therefore, as long as this plan goes accordingly, we can all sit down and relax knowing that the next time we crack open a tin, sup a pint or unwrap chocolate we are doing our bodies some good

Back to main page!