Vin Diesel

Mark Vincent (born July 18, 1967 in New York City), better known by his stage name of Vin Diesel, is an American actor. Diesel is multi-racial, a fact upon which he based his well-recieved 1994 short film Multi-Facial , about a struggling actor who is rejected for part after part because he doesn’t look “black/white/Jewish” enough.

He’s quoted as saying his mother is descended from the Sinclairs of Scotland. Also, he has a dog, a mastiff. Diesel, who was cast in 1998’s Saving Private Ryan on the strength of Multi-Facial, broke through to mainstream audiences with the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious and the 2002 film xXx. In 2004 he reprised his role as Pitch Black’s Riddick in The Chronicles of Riddick, and will thereafter take on the titular role in Hannibal , as the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps by elephant to attack Rome.

Diesel has his own film production company , One Race Productions , with long time producing partner George Zakk . In 2002, he founded Tigon Studios , a video game production company; it is named after the tigon, the hybrid offspring of a male tiger and a female lion.

Diesel is also a long time fan and player of Dungeons & Dragons and other role playing games, a fact that he proudly states in various interviews. He occasionally places references to D&D in his films, such as in XXX where one of the tattoos on Xander Cage (Diesel’s character) read “Melkor,” the name of one of Diesel’s old player characters. (Melkor is also the original name of the Satan-like character in The Silmarillion and other Tolkien stories.) He has also written the forward to the commemorative book “30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of D&D ,” which chronicles the history of D&D through various stories and essays written by various authors and developers.

Ansel Adams

Ansel Easton Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902. An American photographer, Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco, and originally trained to become a concert pianist. As a teenager he was a regular visitor to Yosemite National Park in California.

Ansel Adams became a professional photographer in 1927 and Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras, his first portfolio was published. In 1928 he began to work as an official photographer for the Sierra Club, which had been established to promote the preservation of the environment of the Sierra Nevada.

Ansel Adams invented a method of exposure and development called the ‘zone system’. He also founded the f/64 group devoted to taking photographs in sharp focus.

In the mid-1930s Adams moved into the Yosemite Valley and made trips throughout the Southwest with Edward Weston, Georgia O’Keeffe, and David McAlpin.

In 1940, Adams helped establish the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where, in 1944 his photographs of interned Japanese-Americans, Born Free were exhibited.

In the 1950s onwards as well as Yosemite, Adams produced portfolios featuring Alaska, Hawaii and Maine. In the 1970s Adams gave up active photography. Instead he revised his Basic Photo-Books series on technique, and published books of his life’s work.

Ansel Adams died in 1984.

Bryan Adams

Singer, Bryan Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario on 5 November 1959. Adams’ parents were emigrants from Britain.

In 1983 Bryan Adams had his first major hit: “Straight From The Heart”. His third album, “Cuts Like A Knife”, brought greater success. It included the hits “Straight”, “Cuts Like A Knife” and “This Time.”

In 1984 “Reckless” became a No. 1 album. It contained six top 20 singles, including Adams’ first-ever No. 1 single, “Heaven”.

But it was in 1991 that the astonishingly succesful music from the film Prince Of Thieves propelled Bryan Adams to yet another level. “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” was a No. 1 for seven weeks in the US, and an amazing 16 weeks at No. 1 in the U.K. It was the biggest-selling single in the history of A&M Records.

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Christina Aguilera

Christina Maria Aguilera was born on 18 December 1980 in Staten Island, New York.

Christina Aguilera grew up with a violent father. In a song, from her album Stripped, she described “living in a war called home”.

Aguilera supported the Scottish Executive’s domestic abuse campaign, donating artwork featuring lyrics to her song “I’m OK” for an exhibition.

Christina Aguilera said:

“My own experience has shown that you can survive after going through terrible times at home and I give my utmost support to those women and young people living with the threat of domestic abuse… Don’t suffer in silence because help is out there.”

Christina Aguilera appeared on the Star Search show when she was 8. At 10 she sang the national anthem for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates. A couple of years later, like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Aguilera presented TV’s Mickey Mouse Club.

In 1998, Aguilera recorded Reflection for the soundtrack of Disney’s full-length animation Mulan. She gained a contract with RCA and a host of hits were to follow, including Genie In A Bottle, What a Girl Wants, Dirrty, Beautiful, and Survivor.

Christina Aguilera’s diverse work includes the album Mi Relejo, recorded in Spanish. She won a Grammy for best new artist in 2000, for best pop collaboration (Lady Marmalade) in 2002 and more recently for best female pop vocal performance (Beautiful).

Eminem referred to his fling with Christina Aguilera in The Real Slim Shady. In February 2005 Christina Aguilera announced her forthcoming marriage to music executive Jordan Bratman.

Al Alvarez

Al Alvarez was born in London 1929.

Alvarez was educated at Oundle School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

He was poetry critic of The Observer from 1956 to 1966 and is a poet and novellist, but some of his most famous works are in the realm of non-fiction: The Savage God: A Study of Suicide; and Biggest Game in Town, about poker players.

He says of his Penguin anthology, The New Poetry: “I had attacked the British poets’ nervous preference for gentility above all else.”

In her study, The Silent Woman – Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Janet Malcolm provides an analysis of Alvarez and his relationships with Plath and Hughes.

Alvarez’s recent publications include Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats (2000), his autobiography Where Did It All Go Right? (first published 1999, Bloomsbury paperback 2002), and Feeding the Rat, the story of climbing legend Mo Anthoine.

You can look up Al Alvarez’s poker record on our celeb poker pages. According to the aforementioned, Biggest Game in Town, Al Alvarez plays poker every Tuesday.

Keith Arthur

Keith Arthur presents ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ on Talksport Radio every weekend between 6 and 8 a.m. I have to admit to not being in the least interested in angling, but I find that there’s nothing better after a very late night than sipping a cup of strong tea and listening to Keith Arthur. Not really ‘listening’ – just background wallpaper!

This morning (19 December 2004) however a couple of things Keith said did make me sit up a bit. The first was a reference, that I will paraphrase, that they should cut off the testicles of polluters; and the second was a phrase that I hadn’t heard before (no doubt people will tell me that it is very common) – referring to the height of a great fisherman who had recently passed away, Keith Arthur said:

“He would have to stand on a tanner to see over a thruppenny-bit”

Keith Arthur also presents Tight Lines, Sky Sports’ angling show.

Keith Arthur started fishing at four years of age. From 1990 to 2002 Keith wrote a column for the Angling Times.

Rosanna Arquette

Rosanna Lauren Arquette was born on August 10, 1959 in New York.

Arquette was born into a show-business family and made her acting debut in Los Angeles when still a teenager in a theatrical production of Metamorphosis.

As well as acting in such films as “After Hours”, “Desperately Seeking Susan” and “The Big Blue” she has also directed and shot the film documentary ‘Searching for Debra Winger’ in 2002, which included interviews with 25 actresses including Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Sharon Stone and Vanessa Redgrave.

According to a book called Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot:

“Another gifted psychic who can see the aura in great detail is Los Angeles-based ‘human energy field consultant’ Carol Dryer … her client list includes many celebrities such as Tina Turner, Madonna, Rosanna Arquette, Judy Collins, Valerie Harper, and Linda Gray.”