Still, this doesn’t change the fact that crazed consumers are trampling over each other to buy the stuff and you can’t argue with that from a business point of view, shame Top Shop had to sacrifice its style to do so.

This is clearly an attempt to reach the yoof of America and, well, as uncomfortable and out of place as all politicians seem in youthful forums, I was still tempted to take a look and judging by the encouraging posts on his wall (with excessive use of exclamation marks) I wasn’t the only one.

I started wondering if the same were true in Iraq. It’s difficult to move beyond the devastation of war there and today saw one of the worst single attacks on civilians since conflict began, leaving over 200 dead in Baghdad.

However, in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous province in the North of the country, there is little conflict. One of the region’s main economic staples is tourism. You won’t hear many stories of people travelling there, but this journalist writing for Vanity Fair took his son there over Christmas and found it to be a safer and inspiring region.   

I don’t mean to detract from the severity of the conflict in Iraq but it’s important to acknowledge that the country is continually striving to move forward. Even though Kurdistan is a separate region with its own government, both the President and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq are Kurdish, Erbil’s streets are still patrolled by the same American soldiers and one day this region will hopefully play a part in the regeneration of the whole country.

You can fly from Vienna to Erbil with Austrian Airlines. For up to date information check out iraqupdates.com

It was revealed this week that Costner is suing the management of ’The Kevin Costner Band’ (O-rig-i-nal!) for not promoting them enough after they had been promised a lucrative and high profile deal.

I have to admit I hadn’t heard of KCB until I did a quick google just now and turned up this little gem on youtube.

As I’m meant to keep these blogs short I won’t start to dissect ‘Porch Song’. You decide for yourself….

17 year old Rachael Bell claims that her MySpace account was hacked and an invite posted, leading to over 200 people crashing a party at her parents house while they were away.

Some, um, ‘guests’ travelled over 100 miles to attend the party in County Durham, which got out of hand fairly quickly and resulted in over £20,000 worth of damage being done to the unsuspecting house.

I feel sorry for everyone involved here. I’m sure Rachael and her parents are mortified that classic-parental-nightmare-scenario number 8 actually happened and this is exactly why I never dared have any illicit parties while I was a teenager. There was far too much expensive china lying around my parents house, I was a complete wuss and judging by what happened to some of my friends and now Rachael, you really never know who’s going to show up…

I feel quite proud living in London but this makes me feel pretty insignificant, particularly when I imagine how many people are wearing the same shirt from H&M as me right now within a 20 mile radius.

I might consider moving to the Highlands as there are only about 8 people per sq kilometre  on average, but I expect there are less overpriced ‘trendy’ cafe bars up there and I might not be able to get TV reception to watch Hollyoaks. Tough one.

It’s a great idea. Over 200million people have downloaded Google Earth since it was released in 2005. This potential to reach so many people in one go demonstrates why it’s important for education to collaborate with popular technology.

This certainly raises a lot of issues about what goes into your web profile and what restrictions this naturally imposes on bloggers (ie. most people under 45).

It can seem retrograde and ultimately damaging to have no web presence at all but, if a quick google search turns up an angst ridden teen blog or a series of drunken pictures, despite demonstrating obvious technological abilities, this won’t bode well for a job interview.

I’m not quite sure how to tackle this. As a journalism student I am perpetually terrified of writing something defamatory and this does a good job of censoring my writing here. However, I would still like to feel I can make a joke about Tony Blair or David Cameron without writing off a career in the public sector. I should point out that I like and respect them both equally and also that I have never done anything bad ever and got all As in my GCSEs… 

Of these, 157 were Iraqi journalists and the yearly death toll continues to rise. All 16 journalists that have died up until March this year were Iraqi. 

The Union was only formally recognised by the Iraqi government in February and two days later its offices were raided by US troops who confiscated 10 computers. 

It’s hard to work out whom in authority is on the side of the journalists in Iraq or who has the power to protect them, but shouldn’t we all speak out for them as without their efforts we would know none of the realities of this war? 

It’s tragic that so many have died to provide what is an essential service, but it’s inspiring that journalists continue to risk their lives to write about their country and keep the world watching. There is surely something hopeful in this.