Tips, tips, tips! Perfect your look with MAC’s face and lips tutorial

11th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

With smouldering, come-hither eyes – all that you need to complete your A-list look is flawless, perfectly sculpted skin. Forget unwanted shine, uneven foundation or ‘just tangoed’ bronzer and think porcelain, peachy and natural…

MAC make-up artist supremo, Neil Young, tells us how to get a peachy, even-toned complexion – with tips on everything from choosing the right foundation, to applying bronzer and blusher. Using just a few products, Neil creates a dewy, shimmering look that’s perfect for the red carpet. As he says, he is full of “tips, tips and tips!”.

For anyone looking to smoulder and glimmer like Angelina Jolie, Sienna Miller or Penelope Cruz these exclusive tips are not to be missed.

Get red carpet worthy with MAC smoky eyes makeup tutorial

11th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

As fascinating as award ceremonies, film premiers and A  list parties are – the real fun is predicting how the stars perfect their red carpet looks – are they wearing false eyelashes? Eye cream or powder? Lipstick or liner?

Well, t5m have teamed up with MAC make up artist extraordinaire Neil Young not only to dispel any beauty myths you may be harbouring, but also to give you a step-by-step guide to perfecting the holy grail of red carpet make up: the smoky eye.

Using just two products, Neil transforms our presenter Izzie into a true starlet with smouldering, sexy eyes to match.

Glastonbury, T in the Park or Latitude? A festival run-down

7th May 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

At t5m we have decided recession or no recession this summer will be a great one. So ditch the long haul-flights and expensive hotels and have fun at an array of great festivals happening throughout the UK.

For those who were not so quick off the mark; Glastonbury, has sold out of tickets. Neil Young will be headlining, joined by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Blur, Franz Ferdinand, Lily Allen, and t5m favourites Fleet Foxes! Here’s hoping to better weather than previous years, although mud fights are always fun.

Next up is the big name festival – T in the Park. This is kind of a guilty pleasure festival; it has all the names you want to see, but sometimes don’t want to admit to. Kings of Leon, Snow Patrol, The Killers and Blur are headlining, and then there are the artists who you expect to see in more intimate gigs, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Saturdays, White Lies, to name but a few. Enjoy spotting the occasional big-name celeb, and hopefully some Scottish bare bottoms (kilts people, kilts!). Read more »

Jambo! Kenyan Boys Choir bring sunshine vibes to London

29th April 2009 | 3 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Click below to enlarge images:

Last week London was alive with the sounds of the Kenyan Boys Choir, the supremely talented singers who had performed at Obama’s inauguration in January, and who signed their record deal with the largest record company in the world, Universal Music, based on a YouTube clip.

Executives at the record label managed to track the Choir down in an airport lounge. There had been a lot of work done with the Choir and management beforehand, but the contract was signed there on the spot before they travelled back to Nairobi. Since then they haven’t stopped working on their debut album The Spirit of Africa due for release on the 29th June.

The story behind the Choir is even more impressive, with their founder Joseph Muyale giving up his own job in order to give the boys a better start in life. Not an easy feat in a country without social welfare and when you have a wife and two daughters to support.

The Choir represent not only Obama’s historic election as US President, but also an emerging optimism about the future of Africa, representing a new generation of African children with hope. The Choir perform a wide-ranging repertoire – from traditional Masaai and Samburu chants to contemporary pieces from around Africa.

Jon Cohen, who produced the album, describes the unique and ‘unorthadox’ approach he took to recording the Choir out in Kenya. Read more »

Nick Van Bloss, pianist with Tourettes plays first concert since 1994

29th April 2009 | 2 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

London’s Cadogan Hall last night witnessed a note in history, as prodigal concert pianist Nick Van Bloss performed two concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra for the first time in 14 years.

An exceptionally gifted pianist, Nick also suffers from a chronic form of Tourettes Syndrome, so severe that he suffers from 40,000 ticks each day, forcing him into a life of isolation, living in a crumbling mansion in Lisbon and playing to no one but himself. Read more »

James Blunt on music, Kosovo and Ibiza: Exclusively on t5m

24th April 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Singer, songwriter, musician and former officer in the British Army, James Blunt has done it all. Since his debut album, Back to Bedlam and the single which needs no introduction ‘You’re Beautiful’, James has seen his career go from strength to strength, winning two BRIT Awards, two Ivor Novellos and being nominated for a staggering five Grammys.

He released his second album, All the Lost Souls in 2007 and has also lent his support to charity ‘Médecins sans Frontières’ (MSF), which is famed for providing emergency health care in war and conflict zones – attending meet and greets and publicising their cause.  And then, when it all gets too much, James can retire to his palatial villa on the island of Ibiza – we’re very jealous.

t5m caught up with James for an exclusive interview, where he talks about everything from what motivates his music to his time serving in Kosovo. Revealing, honest and charming – the James Blunt Exclusive Profiles are not to be missed.

To see James Blunt as you’ve never seen him before, check out his ‘Exclusive Profile’ on his channel here on t5m.

Live long and prosper: Star Trek premieres in London

21st April 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

The film event of the year is finally here, in the form of Star Trek, and last night Leicester Square was packed out with fans desperate to catch a glimpse of Eric Bana, Simon Pegg and Zachary Quinto.

Of course t5m are never one to miss a premier, which is why reporter extraordinaire Tabitha Goldstaub was there, bringing all the action from the evening’s event…

Not being a Trekkie, I entered the daunting Leicester Square premier with trepidation – but I left a fully fledged Vulcan. Or did I want to be a Human? Or someone who hangs out with Scotty? Read more »

Susan Boyle’s got talent and got us talking

20th April 2009 | 3 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Possibly the most heartwarming and cheerful story around at the moment is the overnight explosion of public support for Susan Boyle, the unlikely hero of Britain’s Got Talent who wowed judges and audience alike with her rendition of Les Miserables ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ last Saturday.

Since then, Susan has been propelled into superstardom – the 48-year-old church volunteer from the former mining village of Blackburn, West Lothian, has now performed via live satellite for the CBS Early Show, NBC, ABC and Dutch TV. She has won the hearts of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, as well as being invited to appear on Oprah. Oh yes, and we mustn’t forget the 26 million views of her audition on YouTube. It seems the world is rather taken with this ungroomed, unbotoxed songstress who has harboured her breathtaking talent all her life. Susan stands as a lesson to everyone who thinks that a female performer has to be nipped, tucked and airbrushed into nubile perfection.

It is probably safe to say that when Susan finally auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent, in memory of her mother with whom she lived in West Lothian and who died two years ago, she had no idea she would provoke such public debate. The sceptical reactions of the BGT audience illustrates the obsession with youth and aesthetics in our celeb-saturated society, but Susan has highlighted just how ‘talented’ Britain can be, as well as providing everyone with a tear-jerking media moment.

The Sunday Times published a feature-length interview with Susan – with the sort of fine combed research they reserve for their most celebrated of subjects, whereas the Guardian have been leading coverage of Susan all week – with comment on everything from her media pulling power, the ugly response of the jeering audience and whether she should have a makeover. Of course, the red tops have been pioneering Susan’s cause –with the Sun describing her as having a ‘voice of angel’ and documenting her rise to stardom, and she has even had her first ‘kiss and tell’ (the preserve of any major star) in yesterday’s News of the World.

Susan’s appearance on Britain’s Got Talent is now so much more than just a winning performance, she has proven that the impossible really can happen – that 48 year old, grey-haired women’s dreams can come true, that ambition isn’t only a preserve of the young and that the targets of bullies – both her audience at Britain’s Got Talent and her classmates at school – can have the last laugh.

Ethan Hawke and Diane Von Furstenberg back urban rainforest in the sky

14th April 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

It takes a special imagination and vision to transform an overgrown, potentially unsafe rail track into a cultural phenomenon and landscape-altering floating garden. Robert Hammond and Joshua David have managed to do just that.

To some, the overgrown ‘High Line’ track was something to be torn down and forgotten, a ’some’ which included former Mayor Guiliani – to Robert and Joshua, it was something that had to be saved. Having met at a community meeting, the pair decided to form ‘Friends of the High Line’, a campaign to save the structure – last used in 1980.

And it was there that the pair discovered that in it’s 20 years of abandonment, the High Line had become overgrown with plants, grass and trees – with one section even being covered in temperate rainforest.

“It captured my imagination” says Hammond, a former magazine writer who was working on a piece on the local area when he first noticed the line. “It seemed like an amazing opportunity to create something that would allow people to experience the city in an utterly new way. To go and tear it down without considering how we could use it seemed a waste to me.”

With the backing of local celebrities such as Edward Norton, Diane Von Furstenberg and Ethan Hawke ‘Friends of the High Line’ had a design competition for the reuse of the site, which was won in 2004 by Field Operations and Diller Scofodio + Renfro. Read more »