APOLOGIES for the lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks. It's been surprisingly hectic for the silly season when we're usually scrabbling around for things to fill the newspaper. It's times like this when I realise what a diverse job I have - last week was all about the Everyman, that wonderful little theatre that's somehow managed to survive all these years with funding coming and going, and this week was all about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the final film in a series of global blockbusters.

 Image courtesy of Warner Bros

I've written hundred of words on these already so rather than repeating myself I will link to those pieces.

So, first up - the Everyman's closure...

GREAT news that Liverpool-based filmmaker Deena DeNaro-Bickerstaffe has won the One Minute Film Challenge with her short film Reverse the Wave.

Her 'subvertisment' highlights Nokia's provision of technology to the Iranian government. Last June, the mobile phone giant confirmed it had supplied the country with technology needed to monitor, control and read local telephone calls.

ACCORDING to gossip website Realbollywood.com, Brad Pitt is looking for someone to write a bio-pic about John Lennon that he will probably star in. He's been chatting with Yoko Ono about it, who is impressed by his keenness to learn to sing in a Scouse accent.

Too utterly random or destined to be a box office smash? What do you reckon?

WHILE I was writing a column for today's Daily Post about a visit to Mini Hollywood, the film set in the middle of the Almeria desert in Spain, where Sergio Leone filmed his Dollars trilogy, it struck me that it would be more interesting with photos.

So here is an embellished version - illustrated with some pictures and video.

THERE are no spurs on his trainers but this doesn't stop the office worker-turned-aspiring cowboy from striding boldly over to the bucking bronco and leaping, gazelle-like, to its back.

An onlooker places a coin in the slot and we wait, our breath baited and our knuckles white, for the beast to begin lurching about and unseat its unwelcome passenger.

LIVERPOOL actor Margi Clarke is taking part in a Clapperboard Presents event on Monday.

If you aren't familiar with this series of film screening with accompanying Q&A sessions then they are worth checking out as they not only have interesting guests and give you the chance to see the films on a big screen, but they also raise money for charity.