Retro rockers The Darkness won three honors at the Brit Music Awards, the equivalent of the Grammys, while Justin Timberlake and Dido each took two.
The Darkness, a London-based band, won the Best British Group award -- defeating Busted, the Coral, Radiohead and the Sugababes -- the Best British Rock Act, and the Best British Album for ``Permission To Land.''
The group's Atlantic Records debut CD was inspired by 1970s and 1980s rockers. Its music is a throwback to arena rock and the group is known for its over-the-top stage show.
PHOTO: REUTERS
``This is a real privilege, a tremendous honor and a great achievement ... and I have to say, we probably are the best British group,'' Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins told the crowd.
``We should thank our collective parents for bestowing on us the gift of rock,'' he said.
The band provided the most outrageous performance at the show, hosted by Cat Deely at Earls Court in west London.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Hawkins wore a feather-trimmed silver catsuit to perform their chart hit I Believe in a Thing Called Love. The set had an underwater Atlantis theme and at the climax Hawkins was lifted up in the air on a flashing neon column.
``Wow, two in one night, thank you,'' said Timberlake, after winning the Best International Male Award and the Best International Album for Justified at the glitzy showbiz
ceremony.
PHOTO: REUTERS
``This is awesome. This is only my first record, so you guys stick with me,'' Timberlake told the audience
Singer Dido won the Best British Single prize for White Flag, a love song said to be about her ex-boyfriend Bob Page, and the Best British Female award.
The singer missed the ceremony after canceling all her engagements to concentrate on writing and rehearsing for her forthcoming tour.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In a videotaped acceptance speech, she thanked fans and said: ``This is quite a personal song for me. It's not an easy song to write or to sing and that's what makes this even more amazing.''
Busted also picked up two awards: Best British Breakthrough Artist, beating The Darkness, and the Best Pop Act.
In other awards, the White Stripes was named the Best International Group, American rapper 50 Cent took the Best International Breakthrough Artist prize, and Basement Jaxx won the Best British Dance Act award.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Duran Duran was given an award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. The group performed a medley of its greatest hits after receiving the honor from Timberlake.
Beyonce beat Christina Aguilera, Missy Elliott, Alicia Keys and Kylie Minogue to win the Best International Female award. She thanked her British fans, saying, ``I think of this as my second home.''
The Best British Male Solo Artist award went to Daniel Bedingfield. The singer could not pick up his honor because he was in New Zealand recovering from a car accident.
The prize of Best British Urban Act went to former Fame Academy star Lemar.
The ceremony opened with the Black Eyed Peas performing their hit Shut Up. The next performance was from Busted with a cover of Teenage Kicks.
But a highlight stage performance came from Beyonce Knowles. The star appeared in a white Roberto Cavalli dress and ?50,000 (US$475,000) worth of diamonds.
Introduced by hip hop act Outkast, she appeared on stage in a puff of smoke to sing her hit Crazy In Love..
She gasped in mock horror when a cheeky male dancer flashed his Union Jack boxer shorts at her.
50 Cent appeared in a spoof video about the time he was detained by customs officials at Heathrow Airport before coming on stage to perform In Da Club.
Dido was to perform at the ceremony and instead her place was taken by young jazz sensation Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua. The pair did a duet on their own version of the old Cure hit Love Cats.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
RSS