Latest news with #Lollipop
Scotsman
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Start your engines! Escapes announces free family screenings of animated blockbuster Grand Prix of Europe
Ahead of its official release, Escapes will host free nationwide screenings on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th August for feel-good fun for families to enjoy whilst school's out Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Escapes, supported by the BFI awarding National Lottery funding, continues its mission to celebrate the magic of independent cinema with its latest joyful release Grand Prix of Europe, a high-octane animated comedy packed with heart, humour and an all-star voice cast. With two exclusive screenings on Monday 4th August and Tuesday 5th August, ahead of general release, families across the UK are invited to buckle up for a fast-paced and unforgettable cinema adventure - entirely for free. Starring prominent British names such as Gemma Arterton, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Hayley Atwell, Lenny Henry and Rob Beckett, Grand Prix of Europe follows Edda, a young mouse with dreams of racing stardom. When a twist of fate puts her behind the wheel in the legendary Grand Prix of Europe - disguised as her idol - she must navigate wild challenges, rival racers and unexpected traps to prove that courage, friendship and believing in yourself can carry you across the finish line. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Filled with excitement, laugh-out-loud moments and a powerful message about chasing your dreams, Grand Prix of Europe is a heartful animation ideal for families. From mini motorheads to fans of feel-good storytelling, this fun-filled feature is the perfect way to kickstart a summer holiday to remember. The Surfer at Escapes Releasing in the heart of the UK summer break, Grand Prix of Europe offers a high-energy, zero-cost afternoon out for families looking for something truly special. Whether you're after big laughs, inspiring heroes or simply a great afternoon out, Escapes has your ticket - and it doesn't cost a penny. Since its launch in February 2024, Escapes has brought over 115,000 people back to local cinemas with bold, conversation-starting films and free nationwide screenings. After hits like The Surfer with Nicolas Cage and the recent crowd-favourite Lollipop, the ride continues with Grand Prix of Europe - a film that puts pedal to the metal on fun and following your dreams.
Mint
23-07-2025
- Mint
How your Android phone can alert you about an earthquake (and how to enable it)
With recent earthquakes rattling cities like Delhi and tremors felt across North India, knowing a quake is coming, even a few seconds early, can be the difference between panic and action. Most Android smartphones already have a built-in system to alert you before the worst of the shaking hits. You just need to know how to turn it on. Your phone's accelerometer, the same sensor that knows when you rotate the screen, can detect the early tremors of an earthquake, known as P-waves. These are fast but not destructive. Once detected, your phone shares anonymous location and motion data with Google's servers. If enough phones in an area pick up similar signals, the system confirms a quake is happening. Before the slower but more dangerous S-waves hit, the server sends out an alert, giving you precious seconds to react. This system is being rolled out in phases across India, with alerts already active in many large cities and quake-prone regions. If you use an Android phone running version 5.0 (Lollipop) or above and have Google Play Services enabled, you're likely covered. The alerts are automatic in supported areas, but you need to have them turned on in your settings. Follow these quick steps to activate earthquake alerts: Step 1: Open the Settings app Step 2: Scroll down to 'Safety and emergency' (on some phones, it may be under 'Location'). Step 3: Tap on 'Earthquake alerts' Step 4: Toggle the switch to Enable alerts Make sure your location is turned on. The system works best when your phone knows where you are. The data sent to Google is anonymous and used only for quake detection, not for tracking you. To check if alerts are active, search for 'Earthquake' in your Settings app and verify the toggle. If your phone buzzes with a quake warning: Drop, cover, and hold: Get under a table or sturdy surface. Stay away from windows and objects that could fall. Don't panic or run: Use the few seconds to secure yourself. Even a five-second heads-up can be life-saving. You'll need an internet or mobile signal for the alert to reach you. Remote areas with weak coverage may not benefit fully. This system is a supplement, not a replacement, for official government alerts or emergency protocols.
Irish Examiner
23-06-2025
- General
- Irish Examiner
'You have to smile': Lollipop person of the year says he enjoys the craic with all his little charges
'My two knees are knocking, I'm just blown away by it all,' Lollipop person of the year and Corkman Ger Gleeson said after his win. The retired firefighter is now hoping for a 'double win for Cork' with the hurling final in the coming weeks, he said with a grin. Mr Gleeson has worked as a much-loved lollipop man at Bunscoil Mhuire in Youghal, Co Cork, since 2015. His wife died after a long illness almost 11 years ago and the job 'did help me cope' with her tragic loss. Lollipop man Ger Gleeson celebrates with children at Bunscoil Mhuire, Youghal, Co Cork, after he was named the Tonstix Lollipop Person of the Year 2025. Picture: Dan Linehan 'Work keeps the mind going, keeps the body going, and keeps everything going,' he said. 'We married when we were 19 years old. We were together ever since, we were together in the heydays. But she got sick at 43 and died when she was only 56, so she was a very young woman.' Previously, Mr Gleeson served his local community as a firefighter in Youghal for almost 30 years. 'I had been retired from the local fire service for 12 months when I saw an advert for the lollipop job," he said. Senior infant Luke Cliff with Lollipop man Ger Gleeson at Bunscoil Mhuire, Youghal, Co Cork. Ger says of Luke: 'He has own little lollipop stick with a 'stop' sign on it that his mum and dad made for him. And he has his own lollipop jacket that's similar to mine.' Picture: Dan Linehan With 'a small few fumes still left in the tank' post-retirement he decided to apply. 'Luckily I got it,' Mr Gleeson said. 'I'm there since. 'I have five grandchildren myself and I love them with all my heart. So I get on with kids. You get to know all the children, all the parents, grandparents over the years. I've made so many good friends. "It's like a men's shed sometimes. You meet so many people down there.' Mr Gleeson was announced the winner in the Tonstix Lollipop person of the year competition at a special ceremony at the school on Monday. Bunscoil Mhuire principal Eoghan O'Neill playing the drums after lollipop man Ger Gleeson was named the Tonstix Lollipop Person of the Year in Youghal, Co Cork. Picture Dan Linehan He received a trophy, a plaque and a €1,000 travel voucher. 'Hail, rain or shine,' he's out there to help the children safely cross the road in the east Cork town every school morning and has developed particular bonds with some of the children in the schools autism classes. Tonstix Lollipop Person of the Year 2025 Ger Gleeson helping children from Bunscoil Mhuire, Youghal, Co Cork cross the road safely. Picture: Dan Linehan 'You need to be sociable,' he said. 'You can't go to work with a sour face. You have to smile. The kids are going to school every morning and you don't want to ever see a child upset going into school." All the children know his name and call him Ger. But one 'very special little fella' called Luke who has become a major fan of Mr Geeson's calls him 'granddad'. 'He has own little lollipop stick with a 'stop' sign on it that his mum and dad made for him. And he has his own lollipop jacket that's similar to mine. Sinéad Crowther of Tonstix with Ger Gleeson at Bunscoil Mhuire, Youghal, Co Cork where he was named Lollipop Person of the Year 2025. Picture: Dan Linehan 'He has to watch me every morning and evening." 'He's just adorable. 'There are a lot of really special kids there.' Retirement can be lonely for many people and Mr Gleeson said that a job like this can really keep people connected and engaged in their community. 'It gets you out of the house every morning, keeps you going," he said. You can get into an awful rut if you retire and you have no hobbies. 'I cycle at the weekends and school holidays, the greenway in Waterford is fantastic. 'I'm living close to my grandchildren, they all come down to me nearly every day so I'm lucky.' Read More Retired fireman in the running to be named Ireland's best lollipop person
Extra.ie
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
FILM REVIEW OF THE WEEK: Lollipop
Daisy-May Hudson's Lollipop is a fierce and necessary fiction feature burning with the truth of lived experience. In this impassioned story of one mother's post-prison struggle to regain her children, Hudson lays bare the punitive systems that punish poverty, pathologise emotion, and criminalise the survival strategies of women who are already navigating impossible odds. Drawing on her own experiences of homelessness in Half Way (2015), Hudson's debut fiction film sits squarely in the tradition of Loach and Arnold, but with a vital, distinctly feminist eye that frames this story as not just one of injustice, but of structural betrayal – particularly of working-class, single mothers. Molly, brought to life in a raw and incandescent performance by Posy Sterling, is a young woman released from prison into a world that offers neither welcome nor restitution. Her crime remains unspecified – a deliberate choice, perhaps, to underline how often women are criminalised for acts of desperation tied to poverty, domestic violence, or mental health crises. The statistics support this: most women in prison are there for non-violent offences linked to poverty or attempts to escape untenable domestic situations. Lollipop doesn't sensationalise this reality; it refuses to moralise. Instead, it insists on the viewer's empathy by making clear how deeply the deck is stacked against someone like Molly. From the moment Molly leaves prison, she is not met with rehabilitation, but with a series of Kafkaesque obstacles. Her mother, played with devastating opacity by TerriAnn Cousins, has turned her children over to social services. Molly is told she cannot regain custody without stable housing, but is refused family housing because she doesn't have custody. This isn't just a catch-22 – it's a trap, one designed to collapse hope. Through quietly devastating sequences, the film exposes the impossible circular logic of social systems that claim to protect children while punishing their mothers for being poor, angry, or alone. And anger, in Lollipop, is as dangerous as poverty. Molly's frustrated outbursts are interpreted as instability, her heartbreak as volatility. The film is particularly astute in showing how emotions, especially in women, are surveilled and weaponised. Her grief is reframed as a mental health risk. Her love for her children, expressed with urgency and fear, is pathologised. This is a system that rewards passivity, even as it pushes women to the brink. One particularly brutal scene sees Molly walk into what she believes will be a reunion with her children, only to face a tribunal of care professionals – each one a woman, each one clearly burdened by the very roles they are forced to play. Hudson doesn't scapegoat these workers, nor does she let them off the hook. Instead, she presents them as caught within the same system, one that uses women to police and punish other women. It is no accident that the men in this story are largely absent or invisible – Molly's exes, the fathers of her children, have vanished from her life, leaving her to bear the full weight of social and emotional responsibility. This is a reality faced by countless single mothers, many of whom are left not only unsupported but actively punished for attempting to cope alone. Lollipop never forgets this imbalance, instead making it central to its critique. Women are expected to pick up every piece, and when they fail to do so quietly, they are deemed unfit. In its themes and emotional force, Lollipop echoes recent Irish films such as Paddy Breathnach's Rosie and Phyllida Lloyd's Herself. Like Lollipop, Rosie follows a mother caught in a brutal housing crisis, moving from car to hotel with her children while trying to hold her family together in the face of mounting bureaucracy and public indifference. And Herself tells the story of a woman escaping domestic violence who tries to build her own home, both physically and metaphorically, only to encounter institutional obstruction at every turn. In all three films, the state presents itself as neutral or benevolent, while quietly maintaining a web of impossibilities designed to humiliate, delay and ultimately erase women who dare to act independently. What Lollipop adds to this cinematic lineage is the particular lens of post-carceral motherhood and the way social control seeps into maternal identity and emotional expression itself. Lollipop is not an entirely miserable tale, and Hudson's vision is filled with tenderness. The friendship between Molly and Amina (Idil Ahmed) is a lifeline for Molly, the audience, and the film's emotional core. Their bond is forged in shared experience and mutual care, from moments of breakdown to bursts of joy. A scene in which Amina responds to Molly's anger with compassion, only for that anger to immediately melt to heart-wrenching grief, is one of the most powerful in the film, showing how empathy, compassion and understanding can unlock anyone's core and model the need for not just kindness, but genuine support. Sterling's performance carries the film with a magnetic, wounded energy. Molly is not a symbol or a victim – she is a person. She is flawed, impulsive, loving, angry. Sterling gives her a rich emotional interior, and Hudson's writing allows those emotions to live on screen without tidy resolution. Even in moments of deep chaos, the film resists melodrama, trusting instead in the authenticity of lived emotion. That authenticity is supported by a mostly female cast and creative team, who imbue the story with a deep understanding of the kinds of violence that don't always leave bruises, but leave scars all the same. The fact that every adult character—council worker, shopkeeper, probation officer—is played by a woman is deeply telling. Lollipop is about what happens to women when the state fails them, and about how that failure is masked by bureaucracy, protocol and procedure. Hudson's film makes clear that this isn't about bad apples or rogue decisions, but a systemic design that makes martyrs of single mothers and invisibilises the men who let them fall. Lollipop is a powerful, furious, and tender-hearted film. It demands not only that we look at the structures which brutalise women, but that we recognise the quiet heroism of those who survive within them. Hudson doesn't just tell a story – she offers testimony. And it is impossible to walk away from this film unmoved.
Irish Examiner
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Film Reviews: How to Train Your Dragon makes superb use of Northern Irish scenery
You don't have to be mad to live on the remote northern island of Berk, but it helps if you're the kind of deranged Viking who enjoys nothing more than a good old dust-up with a fire-breathing beastie. The live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon (PG), which is slavishly faithful to the 2010 animation, opens with the teenaged Hiccup (Mason Thames) a frustrated apprentice in the village armoury and barred — despite being the son of the chief, Stoick the Vast (Gerald Butler, reprising his role in the original) — from playing a part in defending the island from the dragons that regularly descend on Berk to pillage its livestock and barbecue its humans. Until, that is, Hiccup manages to snare the most fearsome of all the dragon species, a Night Fury ('the unholy offspring of lightning and death'), at which point a previously unthinkable proposition arises: could human and dragon somehow learn to work together? Written and directed by Dean DeBlois, this version of How to Train… is a lively blend of live action and animation that makes superb use of a variety of Northern Ireland settings (Dunseverick Castle and the Giant's Causeway both feature). Its central message, that of bitter foes learning to co-operate to their mutual benefit, remains intact and as timely as ever, and the action sequences are neatly executed, particularly when Hiccup and his new pal Toothless go swooping through the sea stacks off the Northern Ireland coast. Mason Thames isn't especially dynamic in the lead role, but there's strong support: Gerald Butler gnawing great chunks out the scenery as the Viking chief Stoick, Nick Frost providing comic relief as Hiccup's mentor Gobber, and Nico Parker as Astrid, the fiery warrior-in-training who brings a blowtorch intensity to pretty much everything she does, romance included. Lollipop. Lollipop ★★★★★ Theatrical release Kafka meets Catch 22 in Lollipop (15A), which opens with Londoner Molly Brown (Posy Sterling) leaving prison after serving a four-month sentence. Now living in a tent, and desperate to get her kids out of foster care, Molly discovers that she can't have her kids if she can't provide them with a home, and she can't get a home if she doesn't have any kids to house. An ostensibly straightforward dilemma, but one fiendishly difficult to unravel as Molly grows increasingly frustrated with the various social services, who argue, very reasonably, that her children's welfare is their primary concern. Written and directed by Daisy-May Hudson, Lollipop is a brilliant, stress-inducing slice of social realism featuring terrific performances from TerriAnn Cousins as Molly's alcoholic mother, and Idil Ahmed as Molly's former schoolfriend and a woman who finds herself in a similar plight. That said, the whole film revolves around the superb chemistry between Posy Sterling, who is in blistering form here, and the wonderfully natural Tegan-Mia Stanley Roads and Luke Howitt, playing her daughter and son. Tornado ★★★☆☆ Theatrical release Set in 1790, on the wintry Scottish moors, Tornado (15A) stars Kôki as the eponymous heroine, a Japanese girl who has stolen a sack of gold from a gang of outlaws led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) and Little (Jack Lowden), and is now fleeing for her life. But as the outlaws stride across the lawless moors killing and burning with impunity, they fail to consider one crucial question: what happens when Tornado, the daughter of a samurai warrior, stops running and turns to fight? Writer-director John Maclean (Slow West) recreates the Wild West in the Scottish Highlands, an amoral world where life plays out on a barren, windswept landscape devoid of civilisation and pity. Kôki's performance is a touch stiff at times — to be fair, her young character, recently orphaned, spends much of the film semi-paralysed with mortal terror — but Tim Roth and Jack Lowden have a whale of a time as the dead-eyed sociopathic killers.
