Pussycat dolls, Jai Ho (from Slumdog Millionaire)

It has been great to hear that the child actors from the movie Slumdog Millionaire have received a heroes' welcome back in Mumbai when they returned from their Oscars adventure in LA (where the movie won 8 awards)

This is especially touching as the movie received such critisism to start with in India, with many people there taking offense with the movie's name.

Two of the child actors have now even been given free housing by the local government, as they were still living in slum conditions, with one of the actor's family living under a tarpaulin by the side of a busy road.

So the story of the movie has now become a reality, in a way. As the film is a rags-to-riches story about the winner of game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.

These child actors will now all receive an education too. Isn't that great? Of course, this is the kind of stuff that is close to my heart as I spent years trying to get disadvantaged kids in Belize an education. So anyway...this kinda stuff makes me happy. I just wished that all children in the world would be fortunate enough to live in a decent, clean and safe environment and would be able to attend school. But at least, these are a few more kids with a better chance of a possitive future.

Here's a track of the movie:

Madonna v. Timbaland?

So apparently Madonna considers recording a Timbaland track for her new album. I wonder if he's willing to produce the track for her though without featuring himself on it. Good old Timbaland...he obviously had enough of just being a superstar producer. These days he wants the groupies to scream for him and not just for the artists he's producing & so now he demands to feature on virtually every track he produces and to be seen in all the videos for the tracks too. He's becoming a bit like modern-day Puffy, isn't he?

For instance, it was so odd seeing him perform 'Wait a minute' with the Pussycat Dolls at MTV's New Year's Eve show. He looked totally out of place in between these long-legged dancing & pouting ladies. It didn't even seem like they enjoyed sharing the stage with each other to be honest. But it looks like Timbaland has made his mind up, he wants a bigger piece of the pie and that's it. Take it or leave it.

But anyway, he's a marvelous producer and, judging by some behind the scenes footage that I've seen of him, he's quite an entertaining exhibitionist too.

I guess this whole Madonna thing will be part of his 'collaboration' album that apparently features artists such as Dr. Dre, Elton John, Fall Out Boy, Nelly Furtado, Ludacris, Chris Martin, Björk, Missy Elliott, and more. Do any of you know when that's meant to come out?