What's happening in England?

It's 11 pm and I'm so tired that I lay in bed, close my eyes, and I start to dream as soon as I fall asleep. Suddenly, I find myself in an old house, huge, I would say it's a mansion instead of an ordinary house. I know the people who live there; they are not from my real life, but from my dreams. I open a window and I see a green lawn and a few cows grazing in the middle of a gray day, what better image of England. However, a new element bursts into my idyllic landscape. It’s a helicopter, a metal bird that heads rapidly towards my window. I have no time to run. The helicopter is coming and its deafening noise prevents me from hearing my own screams...

I wake up feeling a great sense of relief after realizing it has been a dream. Quickly, I forget the details of the nightmare, but the helicopter buzz still resonates in my head. After 15 minutes of buzzing I realize it's not my imagination: a helicopter is flying over our neighborhood. Because of the helicopter, or the nightmare, since that moment I can’t fall asleep over the rest of the night.

The next morning I wake up with headache. I need a coffee. I go downstairs, to the kitchen and when I open the door I realize that TV is on, even though no one is watching it. I'm about to turn it off, but a succession images catch my attention and I forget even my coffee: streets on fire, hooded guys smashing windows, kids throwing bottles at a group of policemen, a gang of youngsters looting an electronics store… images don’t end and I can’t stop watching. Three days later, I still stay glued to television:

I see British Prime Minister David Cameron, not looking very friendly, saying that we have seen the worst of England.

I hear another woman, not looking very friendly either, complaining about the police budget cuts announced months ago by the British government.

I watch dozens of policemen fleeing from the objects thrown by a gang of young people.

I hear the possibility of bringing the army.

I see an old man wondering why all this has happened, trying to figure out the mistakes of a system that has allowed thousands of young people destroy their community.

I see a picture of a person, apparently killed by a policeman, and the reason of the beginning of the riots in the streets of London.

I hear riots have spread to other cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or Bristol.

I watch a couple of young men initially helping a bleeding boy and then stealing what he has got in his rucksack.

I see how Hindus clean their corner shops, shattered after the street riots.

I listen to a police officer advising parents to keep their teenagers at home during the wave of violence.

I read that three people have died during the riots in Birmingham.

I hear that more than 1000 people have been arrested.

I listen to another police officer saying that there were riots thirty years ago which raised the issue of racism, but the riots of these days are just criminal acts without any justification.

I see a man visibly shaken, crying on camera that riots means the insurrection of the masses in response to the yawning gap between upper and lower classes and to the social spending cuts.

I see a young boy hooded, leaving behind a ransacked establishment, with a plasma TV in his arms.

I hear dozens of times the words "gang culture" and "loss of values" in a materialistic society increasingly dominated by the statement "you are what you have".

I turn off the TV and go out. Walking through the streets of Bristol, I try to draw conclusions from what I've seen and heard, but everything is still unclear. My thoughts spin like the helicopter blades which didn't let me sleep a few days ago and the more aware I am that I do not understand anything, the greater the feeling of sadness that takes over me.

I feel sorry, very sorry to see how hundreds of young people destroy, steal and attack without the slightest hint of remorse or guilt. I feel sorry for all those who can't give nothing better of themselves. To see so many young people disoriented, with no voice and no future.

While the British political class, the "elite" formed in prestigious institutions like Oxford or Cambridge, is trying to decipher what is happening in their country; those juvenile delinquents who have been part of the riots still think they have nothing to lose. Ignored and now hated, perhaps this is more they could expect of themselves.

The threat of far right-wind terrorism

Norway rarely hits the headlines. Regarded as a peaceful country, a clear example of welfare state, with a thriving economy and an unemployment rate of less than 4%, Norway has remained far from bad news headlines. When last July 23 we knew about the car bomb explosion in Oslo and a mass shooting on the island of Utoya, many of us were surprised and we wondered, why Norway?

The constant media blitz on the threat of Islamic terrorism and the modus operandi of the first attack (explosion of a boom outside a government building in downtown Oslo) were more than enough to point out Islamic terrorist by those who are impatient to find answers –among which I include myself- . However, doubts started when we were informed of the shooting that had happened in the island of Utoya, where a group of young people was attending a summer camp organized by the ruling Norwegian Labour Party. A man –white skin, blond hair, Norwegian?- dressed in a police uniform opened fire and killed 69 people, mostly youngsters. Along with the explosion in Oslo, where 8 people died, the death toll was 77.

After the arrest of Anders Breivik Behring, the man who carried out the massacre in Norway, questions began to dissipate. The murderer, a 32 years-old Norwegian right-wing extremist and islamophobic, left the Islamist terrorism offside to show a new threat: the rise of the extremist right-wing as a new form of terrorism.

Although Breivik’s mental health is not yet known, it is evident that his plan was developed conscientiously to carry out a marketing campaign to
spread his fanatic right-wing ideas. His manifesto was posted on the Internet and sent by bulk email before the attacks, and it explains everything: from the justification of the attacks based on an imaginary Islamic invasion of Europe, how to make booms, to an interview to himself and a previous diary to the terrorist attacks. In this manifesto, the terrorist says he is not alone in his peculiar crusade against Islam, Which should alert the prospect of organized groups who share their hate for Islam, immigration and cultural conservatism taken to extremes.

The rise of xenophobic parties in Europe

The macabre ideology written by the murderer in his manifesto, takes its base in the right-wing parties which have proliferated in Europe in recent years. The rapid migration experienced in the economically developed countries (in some of them their ethnic composition has changed up to 30% of non-Western immigrants) and the lack of effective policies for integration, have resulted in an increase of fear, conflicts and rejection of “multiculturalism” as a response to strong demographic changes.

The radical right-wing parties in Europe have found its gold mine in this rejection of immigration and, by a populist and nationalist discourse, they have gained more and more followers. Thus, in Norway, the Progress Party (where the confessed author of the massacre was a member for several years) became the second largest group, winning one in five votes at the last election in 2009. In neighboring Sweden, the Sweden Democrat party membership increased by 4571 people in 1010 (26% more than the previous year) with a discourse which focus on the expulsion of immigrants.

In France, anti-Islam discourse has led to Le Pen’s National Front party to hold the third political force in the country. “Islamophobia” has also gained ground in the Netherlands and finds shelter in the third largest political group representing the country, the Party for Freedom. Far right-wing is also the third force in Finland and Denmark.

Right-wing extremist terrorism

Although it is not known yet whether the terrorist acted alone or not, it is clear that his ideology has found coverage in the far-right “institutional” parties increasingly visible in Europe and other “extra-parliamentary” groups: the so-called neo-Nazi groups or racist bands. The basic difference between them is that, while the first condemn violence, the neo-Nazi bands see it as the way to defeat the immigrants considered as the “enemies”. These violent groups have no institutional representation (since they just want to destroy democracy) and, because of their tendency to dissolve and transform themselves, it is very difficult to trace them. However, the radical right-wing is visible on the Internet, in some websites and discussion forums where they share their xenophobia, anti-socialist ideas and paranoid against a democratic government.

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway participated often in these platforms and, after his first appearance in court, he claimed of accomplices, which he described as “two more cells” in an organization. Does this mean that Breivik was part of an organized terrorist group? So far, police rule out this hypothesis and the latest information suggests that the murderer acted by his own.

Whether fear is unfounded individually or under the shelter of an organized terrorist group, does not change that this twin attack in Norway is part of a fanatic right-wing terrorism, which remind the shooting occurred on last January 8 in Arizona, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fired against a crowd of people in a Democratic Party event and killed 6 people and injured seriously more than a dozen, including the US Congresswoman Gabrielle Griffords.

So far this year, we have witnessed two acts of terrorism perpetrated by fanatics fed by the ideology of the radical right-wing. Will be needed more terror so that we begin to realize the danger they pose? As well as politicians and the media have warned us about the threat of Al Qaeda, they have now a golden opportunity to expose this new form of terrorism and foster public debate about the far-right parties responsibility when they launch their apocalyptic, xenophobic and anti-Islamist discourse.

News of the Word says goodbye

News of the World tabloid scandal looks as if it was taken from its main pages, with titles in capital letters and five columns. It could have been one of its “juicy” stories that its nearly three million readers, hunger for morbid news, used to flip though. Corruption, phone hacking, politics cornered by the press, “dangerous liaisons”... what a great story. But it couldn’t be. This time, News of the World has been making headlines in other newspapers and, such is the scandal that, after 168 year in the market, the tabloid has been closed.

The crisis in the tycoon Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid started in 2005, when it was published an article about a knee injury of Prince William. After suspecting that the royal family was victim of phone hacking, a police investigation was carried out and it was revealed not only phone hacking, as well bribing police officers for information. Two years later, the royal family correspondent of the newspaper and a detective who collaborated to get information illegally, were imprisoned. The editor of News of the World, Andy Coulson, assumed his resignation.

Keep your enemies close

Not much time later, Coulson was hired as press secretary of the Conservative Party led by James Cameron. Surprise? Not at all, is better to keep your enemies close. That’s why James Cameron and Gordon Brown didn't miss Rebekah Brooks’ weeding –the former editor of News of the World and The Sun- the same year in which she became director of News International, the British division of the media empire News Corporation which operates under the direction of its founder, Rupert Murdoch.

Once in the power, Cameron was photographed with his wife, going to a Christmas intimate dinner at Rebekah Brooks’ home. If the recent scandal wasn’t come out, for sure the British Prime Minister would attend the traditional summer party organized by News International. Signs of friendship were obvious, as also is evident the interests between politic power (Cameron) and the press (Brooks). In fact, Murdoch’s tabloids in the UK –the now-shuttered

News of the World and The Sun- not only provide juicy gossip and rumours, also act as genuine political campaigns for the candidate that best meets the interests of the media empire. A clear example of this was the campaign launched by The Sun against the Labour’s Neil Kinnock in 1992, loosing against all the odds in favour to the conservatives.

The beginning of the end of News of the World

After the imprisonments and resignations in 2005, calm seemed to have returned. But two years later, the newspaper The Guardian return to the fray and revealed which politicians and celebrities were victims of illegal phone hacking when Coulson was editor of News of the World. These disclosures didn’t shock the British, after all these people are public figures and it’s increasingly difficult to distinguish between their public and private sphere.

The British Parliament was less permissive than the public and in September last year, police was pressured to initiate an investigation on phone hacking by News of the World. Prime minister’s secretary press Coulson couldn’t cope with the pressures and he had no choice but resign. Besides, a high-ranking position in the newspaper was fired in an attempt of clean up the image of the Murdoch’s empire British tabloid.

However, the bomb that blew up News of the Wold into a thousand pieces came this month when The Guardian revealed that Milly Dowler, a 13 years-old girl who was kidnapped in 2002 and killed on the same dates the tabloid spied the voicemail from her mobile phone. The paper not only spied the voicemail illegally, but also erased some of the messages to ensure new entries which, on the one hand, gave false hope to the family of Milly who was killed by that time and, on the other hand, involved the destruction of evidences that could have been vital to the police.

The publication of this information would mean the beginning of the end of News of the World. Its readership wouldn’t forgive the lack of scruples showed in the newspaper so it lost credibility and advertising, the foundations of journalism and journalistic enterprise, respectively. There was a drop in the value of News Corporation shares and a withdrawal of 33 important advertisers from the newspaper. The ship was sinking. On top of that, the takeover bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting by News Corporation (it currently holds a 39% stake) was in danger due to the scandal broke. What to do?

Well, to shutter the tabloid has been the fastest solution. And emotional front page –“Thanks and goodbye”- and a print-run of nearly 5 million copies which revenues –of course- have gone for charity, would complete the move.

The “Three Musketeers” of the empire News Corporation –Murdoch himself, his son and future successor James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks- have given evidence in the phone hacking investigation. In their statement, their statements, their strategy is to deny any knowledge of what happened in the newspaper until proven guilty. Apart from Rebekah Brooks’ resignation as a News International director and the withdrawal of the takeover bid to control BSkyB, it seems that the earthquake that shook Murdoch’s News of the World is not going to collapse his media empire. Not to be surprised, “citizen” Murdoch is the media tycoon most powerful in the world.

South Sudan: new country, same challenges

If a country has huge oil reserves, fertile land and a privilege geopolitical position, I’d think this is a rich country, with a healthy economy due to the exploitation of its natural resources. However, isn’t surprising to see how many countries with a great economic potential are victims of men’s greed, intolerance and selfishness. This is the case of Sudan.

For 50 years Sudan fought against the British and Egyptian colonial power and since its Independence in 1956 this country has suffered two long civil wars where more than 2 million people died in a conflict motivated not only by economic reasons, but also by ethnic and religious problems.

On July 9, Sudan made headlines again. This time not for its conflicts or people’s misery, the news was the independence of the southern region and the subsequent creation of a new state: South Sudan.

Secession has drawn a new map and the country has spited into two. To the north, there is a smaller Sudan with capital in Khartoum and a population dominated by Arabs and Muslims. In the south, the new country with its capital in Juba is the home of a majority of black African.

Decades of struggle and Islamic repression

The independence of Southern Sudan has been the result of a long and difficult road that led to a peace process in 2005, which put an end to the longest and bloodiest African civil war.

That war erupted in 1983, the same year in which the president at that time, Numeiri, introduced the Sharia law in order to impose the Islamic doctrine. Popular discontent was evident, as many ethnic and religious groups live in Sudan: Muslim sunnis make up 70% of the population, African animists with 25% and Christians, 5%. To this dissatisfaction, must

be added the inequalities created during colonialism, when investments were injected into the northern forgetting the south, which led a legacy of inequalities that still remain.

After decades of struggle between the ‘rebels’ non-Muslim and the Muslim power –and under diplomatic pressure from the US, Europe, Africa and China– the government gave its approval to the referendum held on January in which 99% of the population voted for the independence of southern Sudan. The war had been too long and devastating: more than a million dead people, a 38 billion dollars foreign debt for weapons and a parallel conflict in Darfur (still in progress) on racial grounds.

The conflict in Darfur is particularly bloody. Rape is used as a war weapon, there are many cases of tortures, an increasing number of 400,000 dead victims and thousands of refugees have tried to settle in the neighbouring Chad. This brutality has been reported by the UN and, as a consequence, the president of Sudan, Al Bashir, has been accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

After independence, the horror continues

Despite the important step for its self-management, the independence of southern Sudan hasn’t solved by far all the problems. First, there is still no agreement on oil (located in the south but piped out through the north), neither on the division of the borders in “hot spots” as, for example, the oil-rich border region of Abyei, an area annexed by the north in May, although most of its habitants are allied with the south.

According to Time magazine, the result of secession has led to the creation of two weak sates and more conflict. After the independence, the government of Khartoum (northern Sudan) is conducting a terror campaign to force rebels and non-Muslim civilians fleeing the country to the south. These pockets of people “unwanted” in areas like the Nuba Mountains and South Kordofan (also rich in oil) are the target of indiscriminate aerial attacks that could be defined as crimes against humanity.

In South Sudan things aren’t better. The struggle for the exploitation of oil resources is manifested not only between the north and the south, but also between armed militias and the Dinkas, who makes up the largest ethnic group in the area. The militias are living in areas with oil and claim that are unfairly dominated by the Dinkas.

This clash of interests is compounded with corruption, concentration of power in the central government dominated by the SPLM party and huge control of the economy by its armed wing, the SPLA. The lack of resources translates into 85% of illiterate population and 90% living with less than a dollar per day.

As it can be seen, there are so many problems in Sudan that it’s not difficult to loose hope. However, it must be admitted that independence has created a symbol, something to benefit after years of struggle, repression and deaths that, unfortunately, are still far from just being memories.

The dark side of tourism in Thailand

Who hasn’t dream of going to Thailand on holidays? A destination that offers first class hotels at a bargain price, beautiful beaches, a wide range of leisure activities and some of the biggest parties around the world... Tourism is having a massive affect on Thailand but, at what price? The documentary screened by the BBC ‘Thailand: Tourism and the Truth’ try to give answers to this question.

After touching down in Pucket, the host Stacey Dooley stays in one hotel of the island, where enjoys first class facilities for only 30£ per night. Massive swimming pools, luxury rooms, no-end to sight free buffets, and tropical cocktails make a dream vacation that, unfortunately, ends as soon as the working day starts for the hotel’s workers. The staff usually works around 8 hours per day, 6 days per week. The maids earn 4.5£ per day, which means, approximately, 80£ over the legal minimum wage. Although the hotel provides to the staff accommodation in a shared room, food and transport, they almost scratch a living, as it is usual that a worker supports an entire family.

In spite of the economic growth in Thailand, there are huge inequalities between rural and urban areas, that’s why it can be seen an important rural flight to those areas improved by tourism. The most of the people who decide to emigrate to find a job in the tourism sector, leave their families in other regions and support them in the distance, by sending them the money earned at the hotel. In the particular case of the maids, plenty of them are mothers who can spend even two years without see their children.

Some of the hotel workers, who earn a bit more money than maids, can afford to rent accommodation by their own. They prefer to live outside the hotel because they can enjoy more freedom as visits at the accommodation for staff provided by the hotel are not allowed. The problem here is that, because of the massive tourism, rentals in the town are really expensive for the locals so they just can rent domestic properties far away from city centre and in a inadequate sanitation. Rats, cockroaches, unpaved streets... is the other side of the coin when it is offered a luxury holiday at bargain prices.

Tourists takeover the island

More than 3 million tourists from all over the world visit Pucket island every year, which is almost 10 tourists for every local. Bearing in mind this figures, is easy realize until what extend tourists takeover, literally, the little island of Pucket.

To accommodate so much tourism, investors are building hotels in areas traditionally occupied by local communities. The documentary shows the case of a fisher’s community who arrived in Pucket from China 400 years ago. The lack of rights and the no knowledge of the land’s law among the locals are making things easier for the investors while the locals are seeing how their lifestyle is threaten due to the loose of their land.

Other significant case shown in the documentary is the popular Full Moon party, which takes place every month in a tiny island called Ko Phangan that is “invaded” by a plage of young people, who are eager for party, alcohol and tecno music: over 30.000 people takeover the island in the main season of holidays.

Providing that health centres are far away from the beach where the party takes place and there aren’t enough resources to take care of all tourists, lots of locals volunteer in order to help those drunk or stoned tourists needed from medical attention. In sptite of the effords, the resources of the tiny island are not enough and it’s not new to hear about tourist’s deaths every year during the celebration of the Full Moon party in the island.

Choosing to die

It’s difficult to remain indifferent after watching the documentary ‘Choosing to die’, broadcasted on BBC last 13th of June. It’s not only because the issue attracts a great deal of discussion, but also because at the end of the documentary it’s shown Peter Smedley’s assisted suicide, a 71 years-old millionaire hotelier who was suffering from motor neurone disease.

Peter share with us the moment of his death and drinks the lethal substance that will make him sleep and, then, die. He swallows the poison with no doubt, his hand doesn’t shake. His last words after being asked by the nurse were “I’m sure”. Later, would come the goodbye for his death’s witnesses and a message for her wife: “be strong, dear”. The more awkward moment was just before he fell asleep, when he asked for and was denied water. Those seconds probably made his wife a lump in her throat, who cried after realizing that her husband was slipping and he wouldn’t wake up anymore.

That is how was the end chosen by Peter Smedley, who wasn’t a terminally-ill patient, but it was visible his lack of independence. Maybe it was the main reason that drove him to the Swiss clinic Dignitas in order to end his life, a decision which was made, according to his words, without being depressed, but with mixed feelings.

For 12 years, Dignitas has helped more than 1.000 people to die. The assisted suicides take place in a residency provided by the organization and under the supervision of the assistants, who prepare the drugs, give advice about how it must be drunk, provide psychological support and keep patients company in their last moments of life. Patients must drink the drug by themselves to die within the law. In Switzerland, law doesn’t punish or prosecute people who help others to die, providing that the person who wants to die is aware, repeatedly express their demand to die and consume the lethal drug by themselves.

The legal gap that allows assisted suicide in Switzerland encourages those who live in the United Kingdom -where it’s forbidden- to travel to that country in order to go to Dignitas and die “legally”. However, die within the law is not cheap at all: people who require the Dignitas help must pay more than £10,000. According to the organization, the money is needed to pay the forensic analysis and the expenses for the funeral.

Lack of legal rights

The BBC was flooded with complaints after it screened the documentary, and there were plenty of comments of condemnation pointing out that the film was “pro-assisted suicide propaganda loosely dressed up as a documentary ", as the spokesman for Care Not Killing, Alistair Thompson, said. In spite those critics, the main theme of the documentary doesn’t want to “glorify suicide”, but to condemn the lack of legal rights suffered by those who decide that their life is not worth to be lived anymore and, therefore, want to die.

The lawlessness in the United Kingdom in this issue is forcing these people to hire the expensive services of certain organizations and die in another country, far away from home, in an impersonal residence like that one chosen by Smedley, located in an industrial area near Zurich. The criticized documentary shows that Dignitas is not an ideal option, it would be fairer to have the chance of dying at home or in the particular way a person has chosen.

This is a reality that exists. The easiest is to look the other way, but the government should stop doing this and face up to this problem by working on the regulation.

E.T. The Extraterrestial: 29 interesting trivia

The 30th anniversary of ‘E.T.: The Extraterrestial’ will be next year, which means that I should write a special post by next 11th of June. Obviously the 29th anniversary doesn’t make the news as much as a round figure like 30 years... however, a couple of days ago I saw E.T. and I couldn't resist: I started looking up information on the Internet and I gathered plenty of interesting facts about the Steven Spielberg’s classic film. Because today has been 29 years since its release on 1982, here you have 29 interesting trivia on one of my favourite movies as a kid:

1. The screenplay for the film was written by the Harrison Ford’s second wife Melissa Mathinson.

2. The concept for E.T. was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce in 1960.

3. Spielberg said the film’s main theme isn't the friendship between Elliott and E.T., but the emotional situation of kids when their parents get divorced.

4. Religious parallels between E.T. and Jesus were found by some critics. As Andrew Nigels said, E.T. was crucified by military science and then resurrected by love and faith.

5. Although Spielberg refuses the Christian parable, Universal Pictures appealed directly to the Christian market with a poster that reminds the Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.

6. Henry Thomas, best known as Elliott, auditioned in an Indiana Jones costume and he didn’t perform well. However, an improvised scene convinced Spielberg: Thomas tears caused by thoughts of his dead dog were more than enough to get the role.

7. Drew Barrymore (Gertie) was chosen because her invented story about a punk rock band leaded by her. For Spielberg that story proved her right imagination for the film.

8. E.T. ‘creature’ was created in 3 months and the final cost was $1,5 million.

9. Spielberg declared E.T. was "something that only a mother could love”.

10. The major voice work for E.T. was done by Pat Wels, an elderly woman who used to smoke two packets of cigarettes a day, which gave her that particular voice sound. According to the Spanish magazine Cinemania, she did the voice for every language.

11. The sound effects creator Ben Burtt’s sleeping wife, who had a cold, was used as well for the alien’s voice.

12. Two dwarfs, Tamara de Treux and Pat Billon, as well as a 12-year-old Mathew de Meritt, who was born without legs, wore the E.T. costume. Billon died a few weeks after the shooting and he did the sequence in which E.T. is having a walk with Elliot and Michael, covered by a blanket. The final scene was made by Tamara de Treux and de Meritt did the fridge scene.

13. Looking for funding, Spielberg got in touch with M&M company, but its sales representatives though it wasn’t a good idea that an alien eat the candies. They got wrong: the Reese’s Piece that E.T. eats increased its sales by 65% after the film’s release.

14. The project was filmed under the cover name A Boy's Life, as Spielberg did not want anyone to discover and plagiarize the plot.

15. The film was shot in chronological order to get a better actors’ emotional performance.

16. The film was shot so adults, except for the kids' mother, are never seen from the waist up in the first half of the film, as a tribute to the cartoons of Tex Avery.

17. Spielberg decided to cut a scene featuring Harrison Ford as Elliott's headmaster.

18. ‘Real’ doctors were recruited to play the doctors who try to save E.T’s life.

19. Spielberg liked so much John Williams’ music that the final scene was adapted just to match it.

20. In July 1982 Spielberg and Mathison wrote a treatment for a sequel to be titled E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears. Later, Spielberg decided against pursuing the sequel, feeling it "would do nothing but rob the original of its virginity”.

21. Amblin Entertainment's logo features the silhouette of E.T. riding in the basket on Elliott's bicycle flying in front of the moon. That production company was founded by Spielberg.

22. The 20th anniversary version was criticized as political correctness because the guns feds carried were replaced by walkie-talkies. In a recent interview, Spielberg regrets for those changes.

23. There were allegations that the film was plagiarized from 1967 script The Alien. The Spanish comic drawer Joaquín Blázquez allegated as well that the E.T. design was plagiarized from a comic character he created 7 years before.

24. In an American Film Instute poll, E.T. has been voted the 24th greatest film of all time. It was also listed by Time as one of the 100 best films ever made.

25. Henry Thomas has appeared in more than 40 films but still is best known for his role as Elliott. He was also involved in The Blue Heelers band from the mid to late ‘90s as a player, singer and lyrics writer.

26. Robert MacNaughton, Elliott's brother Michael, gave up acting and works as a mail handler in Arizona.

27. Drew Barrymore is just as well known for her films (Charlie's Angels, The Wedding Singer, Never Been Kissed) as for her pre-teen slide into alcoholism and drug abuse.

28. Erika Eleniak, the girl kissed by Elliot, has become an American Playboy Playmate and actress, perhaps best known for her role in Baywatch as Shauni McClain.

29. The budget was $10,500,000 and gross revenue reached the overwhelming amount of $792,910,554.