Cheap Quotes Online

Anyone who operates a minibus service for their living will be aware that finding low cost insurance with comprehensive cover can be a challenge, not many mainstream insurance companies offer cover at affordable prices usually due to the lack of competition. It’s worth remembering that minibus insurance premiums are often much higher when compared to car or van policies although this is not the case when requesting cheap quotes online with reputable brokers. A specialist broker will take into consideration your individual driving record and normally offer discounts for drivers who can prove they have a safe driving history of multi-seated vehicles.

Insurance For All Minibus Drivers

It doesn’t matter what you use your minibus for, for instance taking passengers to a Christmas party, social gatherings, business meetings or charity events, brokers can offer a wide range of policy benefits and some great discounts too. Using a minibus for transport can be very convenient for passengers however the driver must be insured and have sufficient insurance in place if anything untoward was to happen. Check out online brokers for minibus insurance, they have a user-friendly website so it couldn’t be easier to find a quote to suit your particular requirements. Everything is explained clearly, no complicated jargon and no hidden surprises either.

Speak To An Insurance Adviser

Speak to an adviser today for a quotation, they’ll be confident they can find you the right policy at a low price. They’ll take into account what you use your vehicle for, the value of it, the people you transport as well as the person who drives it, a value-for-money quote will then be offered to get you insured immediately.

First Class Insurance

Reputable online brokers can offer specific insurance policies for motorhome owners at very competitive premiums. First class insurance cover can be provided at a cost that won’t make a dent in your wallet; the policy will cover most motorhome makes and models. Many motorhome drivers do like to take their vehicles abroad so arrangements can be made to include insurance that covers continental travel, also a three hundred and sixty five day European motorhome policy as standard. An optional extra, especially when travelling in foreign lands, is breakdown cover for any size motorhome vehicle.

Policy Benefits

A motorhome lifestyle can be very attractive, many people spend a lot of time in their vehicles so motorhome insurance Northern Ireland should be purchased before setting off. Check out some of the benefits and the following motorhome insurance keypoints.

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• Generator cover
• Trailer cover
• Protection of personal effects
• Optional full UK and continental breakdown cover
• Limited mileage discount
• Comprehensive, third party fire and theft as well as third party only cover
• Club members’ discount

If you do have a specific question regarding motorhome insurance then complete an online enquiry form or speak to an adviser on the relevant contact number.

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To request an online quote just complete the necessary fact form, you’ll be asked for the start date of your policy, personal and vehicle details, any additional cover required as well as method of payment. It will only take a few minutes for your query to be answered to get you up and running with an insurance policy that will cover all aspects of a motorhome.

Additional Information

For motorhome owners there’s plenty of additional information online via well-known insurance brokers too, for example motorhome reviews, blogs, chat rooms along with customer testimonials concerning motorhome insurance Northern Ireland packages and products.

Page last updated at 08:34 GMT, Monday, 26 April 2010 09:34 UK Avatar will be re-released at the cinema this summer with new footageAvatar has become the fastest-selling home entertainment release of all time in North America, shifting 6.7 million DVDs and Blu-rays in four days.

James Cameron’s 3D sci-fi epic, released in the US on 22 April, sold 4 million DVDs and 2.7 million Blu-rays. The sales brought in $130m (£84.1m).

The previous record holder in the US and Canada was The Dark Knight in 2008.

Avatar is being released in the UK on Monday. Some stores opened their doors to fans at midnight.

Film studio 20th Century Fox said the movie was also the fastest-selling release on the Blu-ray format alone in North America.

It was released on 22 April – “Earth Day” in the US and Canada as well as other countries – to chime with Avatar’s environmental theme, Fox said.

Summer re-release

The science-fiction adventure, about a marine who infiltrates a race of giant blue aliens, is reportedly the most expensive film ever made, with a budget of at least $300m (£185m).

In January, it became the highest-grossing movie of all time, overtaking the $1.843bn (£1.19bn) taken by 1997′s Titanic – also directed by Cameron.

The figures were not adjusted for inflation or the higher cost of Avatar’s 3D film tickets.

Last week, Cameron told the Los Angeles Times that Avatar, which mixes live action with digitally-created performances, would be re-released this summer with an extra six minutes of footage.

He also told the paper the sequel to the film would be centred around the ocean on the planet Pandora.

Page last updated at 13:01 GMT, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 14:01 UKBy Liam Allen
Entertainment reporter, BBC News
Sendhil Ramamurthy has confirmed that he has left US show HeroesBritish TV bosses should spend less on reality shows and more on drama to turn around the “sad and depressed sector”, Heroes star Sendhil Ramamurthy says.

The US actor, 35, who studied drama in London, said his UK acting friends were struggling because “there’s actually nothing for them to audition for”.

“It’s such a shame when talented people are not allowed to do what they want to do because of money”, he said.

Ramamurthy also confirmed he had left the hit sci-fi show Heroes.

The actor, in London to promote Gurinder Chadha film It’s A Wonderful Afterlife, appeared in four series of Heroes, which is shown in the UK on BBC Two.

Ramamurthy made some of his first TV appearances on British shows including Casualty and ITV1′s SAS drama Ultimate Force.

He said he had recently been lined up to appear in a BBC drama but “the funding went south – it was a real shame”.

‘Brilliant shows’

“I think that people need to concentrate more on programming here and I hope that’s what happens,” he said.

“I don’t think that the audience wants all reality television and that kind of thing and I hope that the people in charge know that.”

He added: “They’re putting out what they think people want to watch so I hope people will speak up and say, ‘listen, we would like more scripted drama’.”

Ramamurthy, who lived in London for six years and is married to former Spooks actress Olga Sosnovska, said: “There are some brilliant shows that have come out of here – I mean, unbelievable – like Waking The Dead and Spooks, all these shows.”

Last month, ITV announced it was dropping police drama The Bill after 27 years.

And in July, Jimmy McGovern, creator of The Street, shown on BBC One, announced that the drama was ending because of cuts at the Manchester base of programme-makers ITV Studios.

Speaking last year, British actor Dominic West – star of US drama The Wire – told BBC News he thought British TV “lacks the high end of drama”.

“If you turn on American TV, there’s a huge choice of nothing you want to see and, unfortunately, I think that’s the case here now as well,” he said.

The first generation model has wi-fi but not 3G connectivity, and unlike other tablet devices, it is not yet available outside the US.

The New York Apple store in Manhattan opened its doors to a 500-strong crowd at 0900 EST (1400 BST).

Queues for the new iPad were considerably smaller than the crowds which gathered for the launch of the iPhone in 2007, according to reports.

However people had travelled to the US from around the world to purchase a device.

‘Huge hit for some’

Apple took pre-orders online but some early adopters began queuing outside stores the day before its release.

The company’s co-founder Steve Wozniak joined a queue outside an Apple store in California on Friday evening.

He said he had pre-ordered the device, which is retailing in the US at $499 – $829 (£328 – £545). European prices have not yet been announced.

“It’s going to be a huge hit among a very small section of the public – Mac lovers and early adopters,” said the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

“The bigger question is whether there is that big a market between the smartphone and the laptop for it to fill,” he said.

“Newspapers and magazines are certainly hoping so but the jury’s still out.”

In Palo Alto, California, tech expert and former Microsoft “technology evangelist” Robert Scoble, who spent the night outside a store with Chatroulette creator Andrey Ternovskiy, said there were only around 30 in the queue.

Greg Packer and Cheline Lundin are reported to have been the first in line in New York and Chicago respectively. Mr Packer began his wait outside Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Apple store on 30 March.

The device appealed to him because it is “like a mini laptop,” he said in a YouTube clip.

AFP reported 15 people waiting outside the Apple store in New York on Friday afternoon, including a mother, daughter and grandmother.

Mother Jeanney Mullen said she was planning to buy one for herself and her 11 -year-old daughter Giovanna.

Her own mother had come along to buy a third for Ms Mullen’s boss, as store customers were limited to two devices each.

Mixed reviews

However not everybody shares their enthusiasm.

Journalist and sci-fi author Cory Doctorow has attacked the iPad for being too locked-down.

“Buying an iPad for your kids isn’t a means of jump-starting the realisation that the world is yours to take apart and reassemble; it’s a way of telling your offspring that even changing the batteries is something you have to leave to the professionals,” he wrote on website Boing Boing.

While Apple has pitched the iPad as a “third” device between a phone and a PC, the tablet does not synchronise easily with the two according to Ian Fogg, an expert analyst at Forrester.

“Apple has left too much in the hands of consumers to transfer and manage manually,” he wrote in a blog post.

“Tethered sync is a 20th Century product feature.”

Speaking to Screen Daily, the film-maker said the movie, set in 2085, would be “the dark side of the moon”.

Sir Ridley, who directed the original Alien film in 1979, paid tribute to Cameron’s technological innovation.

“Jim’s raised the bar and I’ve got to jump to it,” said the 72-year-old. “He’s not going to get away with it.”

‘Gods and engineers’

Sir Ridley’s latest film, Robin Hood – starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, will open the Cannes Film Festival on 12 May.

Speaking about the Alien prequel, which is set five years before the original, the British film-maker said it is about “gods and engineers… engineers of space”.

“And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would actually go in and clean up a planet?”

“It will take place in the years before that, when they first come across this thing on a planet called Zeta Reticuli, he added.

“And it will ask who was that guy in the first film lying in a chair with his chest blown outwards when they first go into the giant spacecraft.”

Sir Ridley has not made a sci-fi movie since 1982′s Blade Runner and was not involved in any of the Alien sequels or two Alien vs Predator spin-off films.

The original Alien movie, which starred Sigourney Weaver, won the Oscar for best visual effects in 1980.

Page last updated at 08:31 GMT, Friday, 7 May 2010 09:31 UKJamillah Knowles
Online reporter
Judith Lewis of London Girl Geek Dinners

Women may still be a minority in the technology industry but they are establishing strong support networks to stay connected.

An event at London’s recent Sci-Fi film festival was aimed at women and produced by women – with the aim of supporting female comic book artists and creators.

The presentation included an appearance by Judith Lewis of London Girl Geek Dinners, a not-for-profit organisation designed to bring together women with a personal or professional interest in technology.

The group meets regularly in various venues around London to network and listen to female speakers. Men can only attend if they are accompanied by a “girl geek”.

Global phenomena

Girl Geek Dinners has grown from a London-based gathering to groups all over the world including Australia, Canada, America and throughout Europe.

Similar organisations also host events designed to encourage women in technology.

Leslie Fishlock created Geek Girl Camp in the United States. Its projects include donating laptops to women in need and repairing old laptops to give to women returning to education.

However the organisation is best known for its boot camp – a full day of workshops covering all sorts of technology from social media, PC and Mac maintenance, podcasting and programming.

Most of the women who come the camps are like Ms Fishlock’s mother who is now in her seventies.

“Technology flew by her, it was not something she could go to school for, she didn’t work with it so did not have a lot of computer skills and all she wanted to do was make a spread sheet for her swim team,” Ms Fishlock told BBC News.

Tech-feminism

It may sound like a classic case of feminism in action but the groups are cautious of the association.

“The feminist movement was incredibly important to people like my mum who had to argue with people like my programming teacher so that I could stay in my course,” explained Judith Lewis.

“To her the word feminist means something different. In a sense [Geek Girl Dinners] is a feminist movement as it aspires to a lot of the same ideals but I don’t want it to be seen as something that is feminist as this can be seen as something marginal or negative.

“We’re not trying to be radical or disruptive, but to show that women have a place in technology.”

Geek label

The term geek is also controversial. Some in the tech world are happy to embrace it while others find it insulting. How do women feel about being called a geek?

Julie Roads works with Leslie Fishlock at the Geek Girl Camps as a speaker, blogger and tech evangelist. She thinks the term has positive connotations.

“It’s Geek Girl, not Geek Woman, it’s alliterative and it’s meant to be fun. Our logos are all pink and that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. It’s friendly but it walks the line between the serious issues and gathering to have fun.”

Ms Fishlock also believes that it has been accepted by her group with good humour.

“Women may not be geeks but they want to be a geek girl.”

Judith Lewis feels that semantics can weigh the issue down.

“Often we get too wrapped up in the naming of things. We have striven to expand what people understand about what the word means and also to try to not make it such a negative word.”

Geek Girl initiative

In organising meetings and social groups worldwide, these organisations cover a wide selection of cultural tastes, skills and ideas. The aim in all cases is to provide support and encouragement where it is most needed.

“The woman of the house should not have to say, I’ll wait for my son to come back from college to put songs on my iPod or fix my computer, it’s making those lessons available so they can do it themselves,” said Ms Fishlock.

“There are many resources online where they can go to learn. In schools, demand that your kids are learning more about technology, in your community, get involved in women in tech programs.”

Judith Lewis hopes that one day groups such as Girl Geek Dinners will no longer be necessary.

“It would be lovely in 20 years for Girl Geek Dinners to be completely pointless as it would be taken for granted that women work well in this sector. With men and women coming to talk about they’re doing and how rewarding it is not just to be a women in tech, but to be working in tech full stop.”

You can hear more about the project in this week’s Pods and Blogs podcast.

The adaptation of Caryl Lewis’s award-winning novel, made for S4C, won the Gold Torc at the festival in Newry, Northern Ireland.

Also at the festival, Radio Wales’ Frank Hennessy was named Radio Personality of the Year.

BBC Cymru Wales’ five-part adventure Torchwood: Children of Earth won the award for Best Drama Series.

The film Martha, Jac a Sianco is based on Lewis’s second novel, about family inheritance and heartbreak, which was named Welsh Book of the Year in 2005.

In 2009, the film adaption of the story of two brothers and a sister living in rural Ceredigion won six Bafta Cymru awards.

Cardiff-born entertainer Hennessy said he was “surprised, elated and pleased as punch” to land the radio personality award.

He has been broadcasting for BBC Radio Wales since 1984 and currently presents Celtic Heartbeat and Frank and Amy.

Alien baddies

The sci-fi drama Torchwood, a spin-off from Doctor Who, began life on BBC Three in 2006.

The five-parter Torchwood: Children of Earth, follows the Cardiff-based alien-chasing team as they battle for the future of the human race against the fiercest force they have encountered, the alien baddies the four-five-six.

The Celtic Media Festival is an annual three-day showcase of broadcasting and film talent from Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.

The aim is to promote the languages and cultures of the Celtic countries on screen and in broadcasting.

S4C chief executive Iona Jones was elected chair of the festival for 2010-2013.

The next festival is to be held in Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in April 2011.

US director Tim Burton will head the nine-member jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Burton, known for his visually arresting and off-kilter movies, will help determine the winner of the Palme d’Or, one of the most prestigious film awards in the world.

Although in great demand now, as a child Burton chose to spend the majority of his time drawing, painting and watching films by himself.

After attending the California Institute of the Arts, he took his first job as a concept artist for Walt Disney.

It was there that he worked on his first movie – The Fox And The Hound (1981) – although he was quickly transferred to work on the darker Black Cauldron because, he said, “my foxes looked like roadkill”.

In 1982, Disney gave him $60,000 (£38,795) to make his first short film, Vincent.

The five-minute stop motion animation was based on a poem Burton had written about his horror movie idol, Vincent Price – who later agreed to narrate the story.

Vincent was showcased at the Chicago Film Festival to critical acclaim – but Burton chose to move into live-action film for his next projects, a Japanese-themed production of Hansel and Gretel and short film Frankenweenie.

The latter, a parody of Frankenstein in which a young boy tries to bring his dead dog back to life, was supposed to be shown in cinemas before Disney’s 1980s re-release of Pinocchio – but was pulled after test screenings reduced children to tears.

Big budget

Still relatively unknown by film fans, Burton had nonetheless begun to cause a stir in the industry.

According to legend, Horror writer Steven King was a huge fan of Frankenweenie, and recommended it to a film studio executive, who in turn played it for TV star Paul Reubens, who was hoping to make a big-screen vehicle for his hit TV character Pee-Wee Herman.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure was among the 20 most successful US films of 1985, making $40m (£26m) – and Burton was approached to direct black comedy After Hours as a result.

However, when the studio’s first choice Martin Scorsese suddenly became available, Burton graciously bowed out.

It was several years later, in 1988, that Burton really made his impact on the film world with low-budget horror comedy BeetleJuice, starring Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder.

The grotesque, bizarre story of a couple who can’t accept they have died, the film won an Oscar for best make-up and was later made into a cartoon series.

A big-screen adaptation of Batman followed in 1989. It was the director’s first big budget movie, but it proved problematic.

Burton clashed with producers over his decision to cast Keaton as the character, because his average physique went against the muscled frame normally associated with superheroes.

But, after being backed by the biggest marketing campaign in film history at the time, the film proved to be a massive success, with both Keaton and Jack Nicholson, who played the Joker, winning critical acclaim.

Burton revisited Gotham in 1992 for Batman Returns, adding a darker tone (and Michelle Pfeiffer in a catsuit) to the comic book stylings of his first attempt.

In between, he co-wrote and directed one of his most enduring movies, Edward Scissorhands.

The fairytale, another spin on the Frankenstein legend, marked the director’s first adventure with Johnny Depp.

Since that first collaboration, the pair have made six more films – Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Alice in Wonderland.

In the autobiographical Burton on Burton, Depp contributed the foreword.

“What more can I say about him? He is a brother, a friend, my godson’s father. He is a unique and brave soul, someone that I would go to the ends of the earth for, and I know, full and well, he would do the same for me.”

Music collaboration

The 1990s saw a string of commercial successes for Burton, including sci-fi spoof Mars Attacks, as well as a return to stop-motion animation in The Nightmare Before Christmas and Roald Dahl adaptation James And The Giant Peach.

In 2001, a “reimagining” Planet Of The Apes became another pivotal movie in the film maker’s career.

Not only was the film a huge hit in its opening weekend at the box office, but Burton also met his current partner, British actress Helena Bonham Carter, during filming.

They have gone on to make five more films together, including Sweeney Todd, which won the Golden Globe Award for best motion picture – musical or comedy.

The couple, who have two children together, now divide their time between Los Angeles and London.

In the past they have talked openly about their unconventional living arrangements – they occupy separate houses next to door to one another.

They have never wed – Burton appears to have been gone off the idea since a short-lived marriage to German artist Lena Gieseke in the 1980s.

He remained similarly unattached to his muse during the 1990s, model Lisa Marie, who also appeared in several of his films – including, awkwardly, Planet Of The Apes.

Success and ability

One of the few modern film-makers who manages to combine a unique personal style with commercial sensibilities, Burton has nonetheless been an outsider for much of his career.

He has never won an Oscar, Bafta or a Golden Globe – despite earning more than $1.6bn at the box office over the last 25 years.

But his talent was recognised in 2007 when he was given a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival.

And earlier this year he received one of France’s highest cultural honours at a ceremony in Paris, alongside actress Marion Cotillard.

He is no stranger to Cannes, either, after Ed Wood was nominated for the Plame d’Or in 1995.

He will return to the Croisette in May to lead the festival’s judging panel, calling the role, “great honour”.

“When you think of Cannes, you think of world cinema. And, as films have always been like dreams to me, this is a dream come true,” he said as the announcement was made.

In a statement, BBC Worldwide said both companies had “mutually agreed not to progress together with a 13-episode serialized Torchwood format”.

However, the BBC said discussions with other networks were continuing and plans to get the show made for US audiences were still in the pipeline.

The sci-fi drama, starring John Barrowman, has been a hit in the UK.

The show, which follows a group of secret agents battling human and alien enemies, began life on BBC Three in 2006.

It proved so popular that it was moved to BBC Two – and attracted another ratings boost when a third series was shown on BBC One last year.

However, the last move resulted in the series being cut from 13 episodes to five – allowing a single continuing story to be stripped across a week of programmes.

At the time, Barrowman criticised the decision, saying he felt like the show was “being punished”.

BBC Worldwide is the commercial arm of the BBC.