Stimulating some healthy competition in the local music scene, this collaboration between The Bunker and The Ivy House is an all year contest for artists and bands to be in the chance to win £1,000 and  a single release.

It is the perfect opportunity for bands and artists to showcase their talent, as well as a great place for music fans to discover new music or support their favourite local act.

Every week on a Thursday at the Ivy House – five minutes walk from the Bunker – three acts will play an acoustic set to display both their songwriting and musicianship.  Then, at the end of each night those watching the performances will be asked to vote for who wins, and then the winners’ names are added to the Bunker online leaderboard.

At the end of the year the 16 top bands and artists will go into knock-out rounds and feature on Stripped Back 2012’s Compilation CD. The final four will then go on to compete for the prize fund of £1,000 and a full digital release package for a single with press, promotion and distribution.

Already three weeks in and the competition has been great so far with acts taking the title with only one or two votes between them and the other acts.

Those currently on the Bunker leaderboard include Eli, Black Goose and last week’s winner Amy Holford.

If you are interested in performing at one of the Stripped Back 2012 rounds then contact info@bunkeruk.com and they will tell you with the next available date.

For more information and rules go to Stripped Back 2012 Facebook Page.

News of our new website is fast spreading and quite rightly so. I’m not one to brag but it aint half pretty isn’t it. The Student Radio Association have already whacked up an article about the next gen site and you can expect more news to appear very soon as we add a boat load of exciting new features.

It’s been a funny old week especially if you’re a ‘sleb and especially so if your name is Cheryl Cole. She’s had a bit of a twight (twitter fight) with none other than MC Harvey. Classy. He’s been spreading a rumor that the pair have been getting jiggy with it and naturally Chezza isn’t too happy. So this is what happens when Simon Cowell fires you. I can’t imagine what will happen to Nicole Sherzinger the recently fired X Factor USA judge. Staying on the subject of Simon and his TV shows, Dermot has yet to sign a new contract to host the next series. I think I’m free this summer. Some crazy individual has given Tulisa Contototototostavlos a 3 book deal. I’m sure it will be enthralling reading.

Back in the real world, by the time you’re reading this we could be buried under a blanket of…. dare I say it…. snow. Cue major travel disruption and mass panic over some partially frozen water. I also had to watch a total of seven people at different points on the South Hylton line try to exit the metro train through a door that was clearly out of order. Obviously a big red sticker on a door that says OUT OF ORDER doesn’t mean what it used to mean.

Don’t forget you can catch Sam, Matt and Rach every Thursday and Friday morning from 7am.

This morning Rachel criticized Sam’s singing despite the fact he could be the next Adele! This leads to various discovery’s of Bluetooth misuse (Scandalous!):

What’s your caption?

Let us know what it is!

However, this all changed upon the release of the lead single from the new album, My Heart Skips a Beat. Whether it was the collaboration with Rizzle Kicks or his recent stint as the new Xtra Factor presenter, either way this number one certainly showed his progression as an artist.

The lead single opens the album that seems to be centred generally on the theme of a failed relationship. The song alone had the power to make me bust some serious moves on the dance floor which is a challenge in itself. Oh My Goodness quickly moves the album on from the urban vibe to pop. The best track on the album is This Song is about You, a must-listen-to for anyone going through a bad break up. The song drastically slows the pace of the album and reveals a more serious side to Murs that’s a far cry from the cheeky-chappy Essex-boy fans are used to seeing. It was the difference in genres I found good about this record; from the upbeat 60’s vibe of the second single, Dance with Me Tonight, to the sombre closing track, I Need You Now, ending the album on a more serious note from the jolly, sometimes ironically used dance beats on the majority of the tracks on the album.

However, the downside to this is that some of the tracks do end up rolling into one. Personally, I found it a good listen but would have preferred to see Murs explore more urban sounds that echo the lead single.
This album is a must have for avid pop fans and anyone who can’t resist a good foot tap to an upbeat tune.

After a spectacular and record breaking 2011 season, baby-faced wunderkind Sebastian Vettel looks to keep his vice like grip on the Driver’s World Championship, and his formidable drinks team Red Bull look to maintain the Constructor’s Championship.  In Australia, the race is on.

Adrian Sutil Faces Jail
Coming out of a stellar 2011 season, it was a surprise to hear from the newly branded Sahara Force India that they would be dropping lead driver Sutil, to replace him with Nico Hulkenberg.  Hulkenberg is quick, showing from his one year at Williams, but Sutil is a known and established quantity in and around F1.  However, Sutil was facing possible jail time after an incident in a Shanghai nightclub following  Hamilton’s win in the Chinese GP.  An incident involving himself and Eric Lux (Owner of Team Lotus.)  A German Court handed Sutil an 18 month suspended sentence, and a €200,000 fine, to be paid to charities.  This will make it hard for Sutil to return to F1 and is almost certainly why he was dropped .

Musical Chairs
Even though the top teams have their drivers firmly established, below that there has been significant movement of Drivers throughout the field.  Toro Rosso spectacularly ditched both drivers, to replace them with two new Red Bull proteges, Jean Eric Vergne, a Red Bull Team reserve, and Daniel Ricciardo, formerly of HRT.  The seat at HRT has now been filled by Pedro De La Rosa, someone considered profoundly average, and quite old. Lotus now have former World Champion Kimi Raikkonen, and veteran of 7 F1 races, Romain Grosjean.  To do this, they have had to drop Bruno Senna.  He has finally found a seat at Williams, to the behest of Rubens Barrichello, the most experience F1 driver ever.  Bruno is most famous for being the nephew of Aryton Senna,whose last drive was in a Williams F1 car.  Other new drivers include Charles Pic.  He’s French.

Kubica Is Broken
Robert Kubica, the Polish F1 driver who has a startling resemblance to The Count from Sesame Street, missed the 2011 season due to serious injuries which occurred during a rally he was competing in outside of F1.  His forearm was practically destroyed, and he had a seriously broken leg, amongst other injuries.  While some expected a return in 2012, an unfortunate fall on ice at his home in Italy has broken his leg in the same place, further pushing back his recovery.  He is now out of contract with Lotus (formerly Renault).  Such is F1.  I like Kubica, he is clearly a man who pushes all of his machinery to the absolute limit, and likes to live fast.  Here’s to a speedy recovery and return to F1.

Jenson Can’t Act
Some movie stars are fast drivers, and can make you weep with their portrayals in cinema and television, and some very fast racing drivers have appeared on the big screen.   Jenson Button, however, left us all weeping with laughter (or possibly shampoo suds?) after his Head and Shoulders advert was voted the worst celebrity advert of 2011.  We haven’t seen acting this wooden since the bench in Forest Gump.  I still went and bought some though, I’m a sucker for the British drivers.
Not much has changed in the rules for 2012, with the main item being the ban on exhaust blown diffusers, a device used by the teams to create serious amounts of downforce.  Some of the smaller times didn’t have this working to full capacity, so this should help them close the gap, but I wouldn’t hold out hope for HRT or Marussia Virgin.  Caterham, on the other hand (formerly Lotus, the green and yellow variety) should make a leap into the midfield, and challenge the likes of Toro Rosso and Sauber.  The other noticeable rule change will be the lowering of the nosecones, which is supposedly to improve protection in the case of an impact.
Will Red Bull have the best car again?  In all likelihood, yes.  But, the big teams will not be very far behind, and perhaps, we could have 4 teams fighting this Championship out to the end, as Mercedes made a huge push in the off season regarding technical staff.  Ross Brawn proved what he can do with a team at Ferrari, so they, for me, will be the ones to watch this year.
The driver I believe this year will be champion is Lewis Hamilton.  Perhaps it’s my sense of national pride and general love for the man, but after a poor year, I believe he wants to prove to the entire grid that he is as good as many, many people believe he is and should be.  If Mclaren put the car beneath them, he is an unstoppable force.  But so is Vettel.  And Alonso.  And Raikkonen.  Oh my. Bring on Melbourne, the first race on the calendar, 18th March.

There’s a wonderful story that explains why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decided to kill-off his magnificent consulting detective. Writing home to his mother, Doyle revealed he was to end the great Sherlock Holmes because he was weary the books’ successes were distracting him from “better things”.

While Doyle may have considered his detective stories to be nothing more than an “elementary form of fiction” (again, his own words), they remain to this day his most famous work, leading to hundreds of adaptations, though I’m sure there has never been such ardent interest in his now 125-year-old characters than there is today.

There’s a Holmes in the cinema, played by Iron Man’s rather conceited Robert Downey Jnr, which seems more like a reboot than an adaptation. Then there is a Holmes on TV, remarkable in that – among other things – it’s set in modern-day London.

One is far superior to the other, and in this case, the mystery is the small screen is trumping the big.

Herein lies a problem for Hollywood. In recent years cash-hungry moviemakers have peddled remakes of a number of fictions; Spiderman, Batman, James Bond, Planet of the Apes – I could go on – and what’s being made obvious with each new film is that quality is not found in simply rebooting.

Re-imagining is the key.

The BBC’s Sherlock, courtesy of Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, is the brainchild of two men obsessed with the original works of Conan Doyle. With their series, they’ve kept the winning formula of Doyle’s intricate storylines but have smartly moulded them into a string of modern-day thrillers that are brilliant in their own right. The Hounds of Baskerville, the second episode in the second series of Sherlock, made for remarkable television, further proving there’s still value in a good old-fashioned, special effects-free ghost story.

In addition, casting Tinker Tailor Solider Spy’s Benedict Cumberbatch as the oddball boffin, obsessed with details in an almost aspergerish-like fashion, was a stroke of genius. Making loveable Office man Martin Freeman his sidekick? Even smarter.

Even Sherlock’s nemesis is impressively updated. Professor Moriaty has always been the big bearded bad man, but Andrew Scott plays a feline psychopath, less brutal than The Dark Knight’s Joker, but none scarier.

And still the bottom line of quality remains it’s modern twist.
The press, a hot topic if there ever was one right now, played a huge role in the recent series finale and Moffat and Gatiss’ careful writing around the subject made for a storyline bordering on allegory. It was all quite clever.

And, forgive me if I’m out of line here but, isn’t clever what you’d expect of a Sherlock Holmes story?

Apparently not.

As much as it might be fun to watch the sleuth run through a forest while subjected to machine gun fire, like he is in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, that’s not really what the detective is all about.

By all means, Warner Brothers, if you want to make a film about an arrogant genius that saves the world using his head and his fists, go ahead. Just don’t try and pass it off as ‘based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’, because really, it’s nothing of the kind.

And if I’m brutally honest I must admit to wincing at the idea of a third Sherlock Holmes film, but another sequel was always likely. When will Hollywood discover the simple science of reduction and return to making good films and not crap franchises?

When said franchises stop making them wads of dough, is my guess.

1. BE IGNORANT
The British are proud to be lazy at languages. So who needs to know how to speak Bulgarian, when they can speak fluent English?

2. WINGE ABOUT FOOD
Why go to Bulgaria and try their cuisine? I go on holiday to eat. I expect mouth-watering feasts padded with grease and calories. Not to be served fish with heads, cold stew and half-cooked chicken. Stick to the chips.  But, even this leads to a battle with the Bulgarian server. I don’t see myself as a fatty. However, clearly she did, putting me on a limited diet of ten chips per day.

3. GOODBYE SKI SCHOOL
Nobody wants to go to school on their holiday. Therefore, become a ski school dropout and take on bigger challenges. This may result in broken bones and bruises.
However, to the instructor’s amazement, we limped back laughing at the unusual achievement of a snapped ski.

4. FALLS
Delve into the British dictionary and study all the foul language. Then when you lose your balance on a steep slope, use this language freely to warn your innocent victims in front. But if you would rather watch dominos fall, stay quiet and creep up on your victims. Be warned, your belly muscles will ache from laughing and random bruises will appear. I spent most of my falls with my face buried, eating the snow.

5. POTTY PANIC
Unfortunately for our modesty, alcohol dissolves the childhood memories of potty training. And, no holiday would be complete without alcohol. Therefore, become your two-year-old self and leave no territory uncovered. But just remember when you awake from your drunken slumber, not to slip and fall in the puddles.

6. BEWARE CHAIRLIFTS
Chair lifts are the ultimate challenge for the inexperienced skier and their bowls. Enjoying beautiful scenery for twenty-minutes on the chair ride does not sound worrying. Wrong. Imagine being trapped when you’re ill, suffering from the consequences of Bulgarian food and alcohol. As a friend you snigger at their embarrassment. But, the lack of escape route makes you wonder if their white trousers will be white much longer? Another non-escapable symptom is the hangover sickness. Although, take advantage of this and aim at innocent skiers below. Then, just as you think it is all over, you have to battle with skis and poles to fight and escape the end fall of shame. Failure will embarrassingly stop the entire lift.

7. BLAME THE MAID
Experience the luxurious life. Take advantage of your daily cleaner by living from a festering heap of belongings. But, as soon as your troublesome mess gets too big and you lose lingerie, rings and money, blame the maid. It is her revenge for you slob behaviour, until it appears the culprit is your boyfriend. But, don’t feel guilty, just hope he was not modelling them.

8. STEAL EVERYTHING
Set a challenge and gather souvenirs’ from the local pubs. Start discreetly with tinsel and baubles from the Christmas trees. You are doing them a favour really, Christmas decorations should already be down. Then, become experts and slyly steal photographs and coat stands. If anybody questions your actions, simply tell them: “Management asked me to take this outside.”