Serving up a treat

Youniverse is enjoying something of a sporting feel at the moment with its new cricket site, and I'm continuing that now with tennis. I'm enjoying the first Slam of the year for quite a few reasons.

Firstly, the women's final has the potential to be something of a belter, with Dinara Safina looking to nab the trophy her brother won in 2005, while Serena Williams has proved that while she may not play that many tournaments, when it comes to the big ones she's till the one to beat.

There was also an emotional return to Australia for Jelena Dokic, whose unbelievable run to the quarter finals saw her depose of seeded players Alisa Kleybanova and Caroline Wozniacki and was fantastic to watch. 

Assuming Nadal (who has yet to drop a set this tournament, even when not at his thundering best) beats Verdasco tomorrow, we're on for another Federer vs. Nadal session in Sunday's final. I'm hoping it's as epic as it promises to be...

There has been a loss felt keenly among some supporters at this year's tournament, though- a new, more grown-up T-shirt design means Nadal's arm muscles have not been as... well, let's say pronounced... as in previous years. A sad loss indeed for female fans.

And all this entertainment comes in a scorching Australian summer heatwave (something Wimbledon organisers can only dream of)... Here in wintry London, I take my woolly hat off to them. 

Calling all cricket fans...

The Youngistaan Youniverse is now live, so click here to take our cricket and personality quizzes. Find out more about you, your passions, perceptions and aspirations- then compare yourself to the Pepsi cricketers!

Are you a finger-crossing fan or itching to get out there and be the next Sachin? Find out how you love your cricket at youngistaan.youniverse.com ... 

The Creative Youniverse: Part Four

Visually creative and armed with a brilliantly sharp wit, purplelotus is a creative photographer and writer (check out her blog for some hilarious anecdotes of moving house which make even a broken boiler in the middle of winter look like a minor inconvenience). Here she is in her own words:

"I find inspiration in many different places and for different things. For my photography, it started as a need to hang onto a piece of what I'd seen and wherever I went, I always found myself thinking, 'I wish my family were here to see this and share it with me'. That's what started the ball rolling, I think, and then I just really started to enjoy finding an angle for a photo that made the whole place look different to all the 'regular' pics you see of it.

"I want to remember every single blade of grass, every breath of wind, every peak and every moment the sun warms my back. When other people take pleasure from my photos, I'm just happy to share places, things, expressions.

"As for writing... when I was a kid, I was 'different'. I now know I had Asperger's and depression all along, so I understand it better, but back then I was just 'different'. I didn't have the close friends the other kids had. I wasn't invited to parties like they were. Not till I was in my teens, anyway. I just found it really hard to make, and keep, friends. This is a really long story cut very short, but the upshot was that I found it easier to make friends if I made them laugh, if I was the clown, and what's more- they came back! 

"So I made up songs and stories and acted the fool, and I could see on their faces that they found what I did and wrote funny- so I wrote more. Soon I was seeing my stories and rebellious ranting passed around school. Bingo- I'd made it! I was on the 'popular list'. The only thing wrong with success and popularity is that it never lasts- if I had a 'down' time where I wasn't producing my daftness for them, my 'popularity' took a nosedive and no-one wanted to know me... until I wrote another story and made people laugh again. That's how it started.

"I also have a younger brother who is now a successful musician, but as a youngster he went through a couple of years of illness- so to cheer him up I would make up stories for him (all about talking mushrooms... ahem). They made him smile, giggle and roll with laughter. I also took the stories I wrote for him and on an old, huge, clunky tape recorder I read the stories out loud, then I sped them out, recorded them at treble speed and, hey presto, high-pitched, fast-talking mushrooms!

"I was threatened with expulsion at school for 'distracting' other pupils. I only wrote the stuff, though, I had no power over when my fellow schoolmates READ the crap I wrote- it was nothing to do with me if they read them in the classroom instead of working! I was also threatened with expulsion for the caricatures I drew of various teachers on the rolling blackboards, so that when said teacher entered the room and rolled down the board, a huge (and I'll admit, none too pleasant) cartoon of them would appear for all the class to howl at.

Sometimes I was 'naughty', sometimes just 'misguided' or 'misunderstood', but everything I did was for a laugh, to make people smile, to brighten someone's day. In a nutshell, it's always been about making people smile, giving them just a moment of hysterics if possible, and to gain some 'popularity'."

Alternatively, she says another view of her creative output could be... "Lise uses this site to spout garbage when she's not having some kind of mental breakdown. We can only hope and pray that someday she gets her act together, p*sses of and leaves us all in peace!" 

Well, I for one don't want to be left in peace.

Howzat!

Coming very soon to Youniverse... a brand new cricket website! Featuring brand new quizzes which are just perfect for any budding Tendulkars, Warnes or Chanderpauls out there (or just their fans)...

Incidentally, Wikipedia's entry on appealing for a wicket is delightfully quaint- definitely worth a look!

The online eyes of the world focus on one man...

Every day create your history,

Every path you take you're leaving your legacy.

         - History, Michael Jackson.

Yeah, especially when that path leads to the front door of a certain 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in the city of Washington DC. As if even making it to reside in that address wasn't legacy enough, the history created today has been great enough to inspire 'Obamamania' (across most of the States, at any rate) and worldwide coverage of today's proceedings in more media than ever before. 

Obviously time will tell how much of the hope in Obama's campaign message can be realistically introduced in his policies and how soon they can begin to take effect. Picking up the reigns in an economic downturn (but still able to have a $150m inauguration party...), with controversial foreign policies in Iraq and Afghanistan to deal with too, admittedly makes his job more difficult right from Day 1. His being elected does however show that an important hurdle has already been cleared... America is (for the most part) ready for the change he embodies.    

There's a massive choice of ways to keep up with the day's events online- live television streaming for a start, and bloggers, Twitterers and Flickr photographers will be going mental... 

I don't envy the guy, I have to say. With that many of the world's eyes on me, I just know that at some important point I'd stumble... arms would flail wildly (almost in slow motion)... and I'd go flying into a cameraman/important world leader/Joe Biden/A.N. Other...  

Unlike me, though, Obama has all the cool of the proverbial cucumber, so it's a good job he's the one making history today... 

We Are One- style and substance unite in Michelle Obama

The photos from Sunday's 'We Are One' inauguration concert are pretty spectacular and inspirational- thousands of people from all walks of life have turned out for these historic days.

What (or rather who) really stood out for me though, and has done so throughout the whole campaign, is Michelle Obama. Strange, I know, given her 'Supporting Actress' role in the whole thing, but not so surprising if you really think about it...

She's an intelligent woman, with a successful career in her own right and a delightful family- which sounds good on paper. What's more, she looks good on paper too- her outfits have constantly oozed seemingly effortless sophistication and style, and none of them have received the barrage of criticism which was directed at Sarah Palin's wardrobe fund. As for Hillary, well, fashion was never really her strong point anyway...  

I'm focusing on Michelle Obama's style because, for me, in her role supporting Barack, image was probably the most important means she had of presenting herself both to America and to the world in a period of intense media attention. Little wonder the Republicans went to such expensive lengths to kit out Sarah (albeit in a different sort of 'Supporting Actress' role)...

"Behind every successful man is a woman", and this woman is not only successful in her own career and family life, she knows how to look the part in her husband's success story.

A time of hope even for humour?

Across the U.S., many are gearing up for perhaps their biggest change in a decade. It's going to be a seismic shift, and even though they've been building up to it for a while, it's going to hit hard when it happens- and that's going to be at Barack Obama's inauguration...

These people are... comedians.

With the departure of George W. Bush, a seemingly endless supply of material will dry up faster than a shallow puddle in summer sunshine (perhaps a symbolic miniature of an ecosystem where, who knows, maybe human beings and fish could indeed coexist peacefully). 

They know it too, and the fact that George W. is being replaced by somebody who can actually be taken seriously (for the moment) does nothing to soften the blow. Comedians' blogs all over the States have been lamenting this and I, for one, feel for them. I mean, it's going to be hard giving up a wealth of material that includes these gems:

They misunderestimated me.

There's an old saying in Tennessee- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee- that says, fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me- you can't get fooled again.

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literary test.

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

Articulate, huh? Obama's claim to have visited 57 of America's states (with one more to go!) gives a glimmer of humorous hope, but it just cannot be denied that his inauguration could herald massive changes in American satyrical comedy. 

A President who can communicate coherently and resist making a fool of himself? How will the world cope? Well, chances are it could turn out to be a good thing...

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

Rain on your wedding day? Unlucky, but not too much you could do to prevent it.

A free ride when you've already paid? Sounds like you've been conned...

The good advice that you just didn't take (but which, it turns out, figures)? Well, what exactly is this 'good advice' anyway? Maybe that's a post for another day... 

An old man turning 98, winning the lottery and then kicking the bucket the following day doesn't suggest irony to me. It's more like the course of nature (a 98 year old dying, I mean- I don't think Darwinian theory has much influence on state lottery outcomes), but I could have completely missed Alanis's point...

Today, however, I did come across a lottery story with a rather sobering ironic twist.

A $500,000 dollar lottery intended to raise money and awareness for victims of rape in Anchorage, Alaska (the state with the highest proportion of rape cases in the U.S.) was won by... a twice convicted sex offender.  

Rain on a wedding day doesn't sound so bad now.

Looking golden on the red carpet...

The Golden Globes returned last night with a huge dose of glamour and sophistication after their cancellation last year and, boy, did they kick off the awards season this year in style! 

The overwhelming trend of the night was the figure-hugging strapless dress, creating one hourglass figure after another on California's red carpets. 

Beyonce poured her enviable curves into an ivory dress, elegantly sculpted with sequin details and offset with a dramatic diamond necklace. Miley Cyrus looked beautifully mature in a flowing white dress with gold embroidery, while Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress winner Kate Winslet looked every inch a silver screen star in black YSL, accessorized with a black velvet ribbon. 

So much for the good... how about the bad? Well, for the 'worst dressed list'...  nobody really stood out as having made a style howler, but I thought Cameron Diaz's pink taffeta (combined with shoes that looked a bit clunky) was reminiscent of cult 60s show Thunderbirds' Lady Penelope, while Maggie Gyllenhaal's blue leopard-print one shoulder Lanvin number divided sartorial opinion. Loads of people loved it, but it didn't quite do it for me, although I can appreciate that she is individual enough in her sense of style to carry it off in a way that I could imagine few other actresses doing. 

While the fashion was generally sleek and occasionally dramatic (as was the case with Anne Hathaway's navy, Swarovski crystal-embellished Armani gown), last night's hair and make-up was almost without question sleek and soft, focusing attention on the designers' sumptuous creations. Flawless was the name of the game...

So... awards season is officially underway, which means that red-carpet fashion in all its artistry rules for the next couple of months. Let me know whose fashion creativity you think makes them stand out- for all the right or wrong reasons! 

How to be beautiful this winter in the most unusual ways...

Beauty treatments- at what point do you suddenly think something along the lines of... 'Hmmm, my moisturiser seems to be lacking something that only nightingale droppings can provide', before trotting off to a spa for just such a facial?

Unsurprisingly, it is Hollywood stars who lead the way in trying to find ground-breaking beauty treatments that will help them to cope with long hours filming, air miles gained in travelling to promote a new movie, and life under the glare of spotlights and camera flashes. 

Some of the time, however, rather than a several-hundred-dollar-per-miniscule-drop face cream, or some miracle-working plastic surgeon who could make an eighty year old crone look like Reese Witherspoon's younger sister, it's a rather more unorthodox solution that some of them choose. Demi Moore's choice of leeches for detox is a pretty good example. 

I came across these unorthodox remedies, which are (apparently) great for some at-home skin treatment... 

You could, for example, try rubbing cat litter on your face. No, seriously...  Beauty expert Diane Irons swears that mineral clays found in treble-figure dollar spa facials can also be found in a sack of what you use to stop your kitties doing their business all over your kitchen floor. An important caveat, though, is that the bag should be marked '100% Natural Clay'. Otherwise... it doesn't bear thinking about, really... 

Or how about using aspirin on the outside rather than on the inside (another Diane tip)? Apparently it's choc-a-bloc with salicylic acid, an ingredient found in luxury skincare ranges which is excellent for evening out and brightening skin tone. Try crushing some tablets, dissolve them in boiling water and slosh it all over your face. Leave it for a couple of minutes, then rinse off.

I have to ask, though- would you actually try out any such bizarre treatments, or do you find them too... well... bizarre?

The Creative Youniverse: Part Three

This week, I'm looking at the creative work of one of Youniverse's most popular users, jazzyj. You only have to glance at her profile to see that she's really friendly and bubbly- and she's a published poet as well! Here she is in her own words, including one of her poems...

"Well.. most people know that I like to talk. I'm a word girl, there's no end to my ranting!! But when it comes to emotions and the way that I feel, you'll find that I don't really have much to say about that! Some people can talk about what they feel, while others draw, write, paint... well, I write poetry... 

"I like to sit outside, or anywhere I feel at peace, and just let my mind wander... sometimes it goes crazy like my heart, my mind, my soul explode and out comes everything I wanted to say! A lot of what I write has to do with pain, a lot of my pain, things I've endured and things I've watched others endure. Poetry to me is about letting go and baring your soul and saying what your mouth can't, and that's what I do when I write!"

Do You Ever Wonder?- jazzyj

Do you ever wonder where your life will lead you?

Do you question what will be a year from now?

Will the world toss your dreams like a pebble in a stream?

Do you ask the angels why they haven't helped you?

Do you challenge God to give you reasons why?

Will you search for new things?

Do you thank the people who have truly saved you?

Do you give credit where it is truly due?

Do you think there will always be more questions?

Do you see the day when finally you'll move on?

When you no longer have to try?

When you're free from wondering why?

When your wings will open freely and you'll fly?

Worst lyrics ever?

One thing I love about a new year is that radio stations and music channels do a couple of weeks of non-stop charts of the top 50 songs of the previous year, or the top 20 boy-bands, or the top 10 feisty females- you get the picture.

I love these charts- I get to listen to loads of songs that I haven't heard for months, and voice my musical opinions loudly at the TV or radio about the people who compiled the chart, and how they did it (sales, airplay, appearances on Oprah etc): 'Whaddya mean, Katy Perry's other song (not the kissing the girl one) is better than Kings of Leon?! Says who exactly???'  That sort of thing. 

Anyway, it was on one of these charts that I first heard the musical offerings of the reformed Irish pop quintet, Boyzone (which I'm not too bothered to have completely missed last year). It was a song called Better, and the opening lines were: 

Our love has changed. 

It's not the same.

Reeeally? I'd never have guessed that if love had changed, then it wasn't the same. Good job they emphasized that. I almost expected the next lyrics to be something along the lines of:

It's different now 

Not like it used to be, somehow

They weren't, but I'd had enough by that point. There are times when I don't mind when a song's lyrics aren't quite top-notch. For example, I don't think 

Love, love me do

You know I love you

I'll always be true

So pleeeeease, love me do

are the most profound lyrics ever- but the song itself is a good, chirpy pop song, so it doesn't bother me. Besides, I do love the Beatles. Same with, U2's One, which contains the lyric

One life with each other,

Sisters, brothers

(Voted the UK's favourite lyric in 2006- I'm not entirely sure why...)

This Boyzone song, on the other hand, is a pretty dull ballad, so the fact that I can't even take some sort of meaning out what's being sung at me means I just lose patience with it.

So I want to know, what makes a good lyric? Are the lyrics of a song even that important for you? Are you looking for beautiful poetry, dazzling wit or cheeky humour? Let me know your suggestions in the comments. Oh, and feel free to add your worst lyrics too! Or your favourite songs of 2008. Let's have a music-fest!

For the record, my top songs of 2008 were:

Viva La Vida- Coldplay

Sex on Fire- Kings of Leon

So What- Pink

I Kissed a Girl- Katy Perry

No Air- Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown

Make yourself happy! It is the new year, after all...

We're nearly a week into January now, and how many sneaky cigarettes/donuts/hot dogs do you suppose have snuck under the 2009 radar (this one doesn't count, right?), how many runs have been 'postponed' (it is, after all, very cold), how many, in short, of those resolutions made on Thursday do you think are still intact? What's more, who's happy with them? 

Apparently, attempts to better ourselves at the start of a new year can actually have the opposite effect, according to the mental health charity Mind. I for one can understand why...

Of all the people I've spoken to about their resolutions for the new year, not one person seems to want to embrace something positive. Or rather, no one seems to be approaching their resolutions in a positive way. Apparently, this time of year is all about proving our will power by completely denying ourselves anything, just like that. Cold turkey- how appropriate for after Christmas...

I just don't get how approaching a target so negatively can ever have positive results.

This is also Mind's view: not only do such 'I must stop this, I must not do that' resolutions create a very negative self-image, they're also incredibly difficult to keep. Then, if they don't succeed, they can create a feeling of inadequacy or failure. I don't know about you, but starting the year feeling deprived or inadequate isn't my cup of tea at all... 

So, I'm going to make a positive start to 2009 by really thinking about me and how I work best, and that starts right here. On Youniverse, actually. Before you ask, we haven't brought out a DVD of the Imagini team doing aerobics (maybe next year), we've just done what we do best (see the positivity)- another awesome quiz! 

This one's all about how you can best approach the new year- find out what your unique VisualDNA means you should be doing more, not less, of this year. After all, new year's resolutions are a very personal thing, so get your personality involved when you make them!