Latest 7 magazine

Reality TV has a lot to answer for. There’s been largely forgettable one-hit wonders emerge from the likes of Pop Idol and The X Factor, but cast your mind back to 2002 when Pop Stars: The Rivals graced our screens. It was boys versus girls and while the name of the boy band has slipped off everyone’s radar, the girl band that emerged are still going strong today. They are Girls Aloud and they have successfully managed to leave their ‘wannabe’ roots behind to emerge as superstars.

In 2007, the Guinness Book of World Records listed them as the Most Successful Reality TV Group, while the 2008 edition lists them as having: The Most Consecutive Top 10 Entries in the UK by a Female Group.

Now, the fab five are back with a new single and fab new tour, appearing at the Brighton Centre on Tuesday 13 May. Latest 7 went along to the Radio Reverb fundraiser auction last month and bid to bag a pair of tickets to Girls Aloud in Brighton. Now, dear readers, we are offering the pair of tickets to you – no bidding and no payment required. Just answer the entry question below and you could be going to see Girls Aloud at the Brighton Centre. You and a friend could find yourselves sitting in the front row of the balcony, with a fantastic central view to the stage. What are you waiting for? You’ve got to be in it to win it!

To be in with a chance of winning tickets to see girls Aloud at the Brighton Centre on Tuesday 13 May, tell us:
What language do Girls Aloud claim not to speak in their new single?

To be in with a chance of winning, email competitions@thelatest.co.uk with ‘Girls Aloud tickets’ in the subject line. Leave your answer to the question in the body of the email, along with your name, address and telephone number. Alternatively, write to us at the address on the contact page.

Closing date for entries: Monday 5 May 2008.

Award-winning Stanmer House is the perfect business and conference destination

Situated in the historic Stanmer Park, Stanmer House takes great pride in hosting all types of conference and corporate events, offering unrivalled facilities and state of the art technology. The restoration of Stanmer House won the Sussex Heritage Trust Award 2007.

The flexible corporate meeting and conference rooms are built to cater for all training, meeting and conference needs, whether you need an intimate meeting space or a theatre style set-up, rooms can be customised and technology utilised to your requirements.

Your timetable is their timetable. The staff will strive to do all they can to make sure you have a hassle-free meeting. Throughout your time with Stanmer House you’ll have direct communication with your meeting host and if required, an agreed messaging service that ensures prompt attention and minimum disruption to your day.

The library and grand lobby make comfortable pre-function spaces preceding the meeting rooms and allow for a wonderful atmosphere for networking, small impromptu gatherings, registration, or food and beverage service. Furthermore, after your day you can meet in the bar to discuss the day’s events, or just kick back and relax.

Read the rest of this article »

Rachel Pegg meets Trinny and Susannah as they take to the road to alter Britain’s perception of body image

So here I am, stripping off for Trinny and Susannah. Having pledged to myself not to take off my clothes when covering the Brighton leg of their body image roadshow, it didn’t take long for me to crack.

Within minutes of meeting them I am wearing a lovely shiny-purple full-body leotard and parading in front of a TV camera, two photographers and a roomful of people. It’s not how I usually spend my Sunday mornings, but Trinny, Susannah and their team are very persuasive.

Their latest ITV programme is all about Britain’s body image. The Great British Body roadshow travelled around the country auditing the vital statistics of thousands of people and asking them personal questions about how they feel about their figures. The point is to get an accurate picture of how we Brits see ourselves and what the average shape is really like.

“If you have a squidgy-widgy nose, 3,000 other people have it. If you have massive breasts, you’re not the only one”

Hundreds of people turned up to the Dome to have themselves measured, weighed and photographed. Most, like me, were not exactly supermodels. But all were happy to let strangers scrutinise their lumps and bumps in the name of scientific research – or was it the lure of getting on television?

Some had sad stories to tell. Helen Taylor, 31, from Burgess Hill, attended because she is a huge fan of Trinny and Susannah and wanted their advice on her body problems. Read the rest of this article »

What makes a good story? Rachel Pegg spoke to award-winning crime author Val McDermid

How do you feel about A Place of Execution being chosen for Brighton City Reads?
It’s very exciting for me I have to say, the notion of the whole city reading my book.

Where did the idea for the book come from?
I had always wanted to write a book set in the White Peak. I moved to live in Buxton in 1979. I suppose I fell in love with the White Peak at first sight and spent a lot of time walking in the limestone countryside. I really wanted to write about it but I couldn’t figure out how because it couldn’t be one of my regular detectives coming in, because that wouldn’t allow me to write about it in that emotional, felt way. It took me a long time to figure out that if I wanted to write about it properly, I had to write about it in a way that was somehow almost organic, a story that could only happen here, so I was casting about trying to find something that might fit. I was doing an event with Douglas Wynn, who writes true crime, and he was talking about murder cases that involved no body. I found that really exciting, a lightbulb came on in my head. The event was in Hull and I was driving back down the M62 thinking: “No body but you can still have a trial… no body but you can still have a murder… the body’s so well hidden you can never find it…“ That was the starting point for a story that was quite different from what he was talking about but nevertheless has its roots in that idea that disposing of a body doesn’t mean you get away with murder.

What kind of research did you do?
I started reading about cases where there had been no body because the body had been disposed of thoroughly. I wanted there to be high stakes involved so I wanted it to be set at a time when there was still the possibility of hanging. The latest I could leave it was 1963, 64. I wanted it to be close enough to the time I was writing so there could still be living witnesses so I had to find my space and time quite precisely. It dawned upon me as I was doing my research that was when the first victims of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley had gone missing. That tied in with the subject of my book so I had to find a way to negotiate that without being in any way exploitative.

Did you do lots of historical research, perhaps about police methods at the time?
My preferred method is always to find somebody who knows what they’re talking about because that way you don’t only get the answers to your questions, you get the background knowledge that makes your information real and alive and not some dry, dusty fact. One of my neighbours had been a policeman in the Lancashire force from the 1960s onwards so I was able to sit down with him with a bottle of whiskey and hear about what it was like doing the job, as opposed to: “These were the ranks, this is what we had authority to do,” in a dry, factual way. I got information from my neighbour, Bill, that you wouldn’t necessarily get from a historical account. Things like the wives of the police officers only socialised with each other. Newspapers are useful because they give you a sense of what people thought was important. Also from the ads in the newspapers you get a sense of what people had in their homes, how much it cost, say, to buy a washing machine or a pint of beer, so that was all good stuff. Music often captures an era, so listening to the music of the time is good for having a sense of the feel of the time. I was only eight years old in 1963 so what I remember from 1963 is not terribly useful for writing a crime novel: “What were my favourite stories in Bunty and my favourite sweets?”

Read the rest of this article »