Garth Brooks in a wee spot of bother

Country superstar Garth Brooks famously boasted in one of his biggest hits: “I’ve got friends in low places” and it seems they’ve upset some residents near Dublin’s Croke Park stadium who are trying to stop the five sold-out shows Brooks is due to stage there in July.

They are complaining on Facebook that every time there's a big event, they get a "mass influx of country folk that piss and vomit all over." They say they also have to put up with noise, traffic, litter and other bad behaviour.

One homeowner says, "Residents are driven mad by people pissing everywhere, on front doors, cars, walls of homes etc."

Their anger isn’t aimed at Brooks -- who recently said Ireland is his favourite place to sing -- but at the company that runs the stadium. Residents say they were promised no more than three concerts at Croke Park each year -- and nine events are already planned for 2014. Brooks’ concerts sold out in two hours and 400,000 people are expected to see them.

The homeowners are considering legal action ... but say if they can't stop the concerts, they'll demand the city or the stadium put up "portaloos" in their neighbourhood.

The loss of innocence

Interesting (but rather sad) quote from legendary Hollywood child star Shirley Temple, who died this week:

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six, after my mother took me to the store to meet Santa and he asked me for my autograph."

Orient Express heads for a new murder

The Orient Express is about to depart on another murderous journey, after the Hollywood studio Fox picked up the screen rights to the classic Agatha Christie murder-mystery book. Murder on the Orient Express has already been made into a 1974 Oscar-nominated hit, and now Fox has lined up top producers Ridley Scott, Simon Kinberg and Mark Gordon to produce, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

The project adapts Christie's 1934 novel, which featured detective Hercule Poirot investigating the murder of a passenger on a train from Istanbul.

The 1974 movie starred Albert Finney as Poirot and was nominated for six Oscar nominations, with Ingrid Bergman winning an Oscar for best supporting actress.

Scott is currently shooting Exodus, the story of Moses, for Fox, while Kinberg is involved with the X-Men franchise. Gordon has just announced he was developing a new Narnia movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair.

Easy Rider star Karen Black dies at 74

Karen Black, who starred in classic films like Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and Nashville in the 1960s and 70s died in a Los Angeles nursing home on August 8, her husband Stephen Eckelberry announced on his Facebook page. She was 74.

Black was diagnosed with ampullary cancer in November 2010 and had a third of her pancreas removed. She had two more operations this year to minimise the cancer, and her husband said in March that she was “mostly bed-bound” and down to just 6½ stone. 

The couple turned to a crowdfunding website and raised tens of thousands of dollars to pay for an experimental treatment in Europe but Black’s rapidly declining health stopped her from travelling, so sadly she never made it to Europe.

Monkeying around

If there's one thing better than being involved in a successful film franchise, then it's becoming a fixture in two. Well, three if you count the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Yes, that's the excellent fate of Britain's very own Andy Serkis who, after creating the extraordinary Gollum for Peter Jackson's first tilt at Tolkien, has now successfully continued the character in the director's prequel film trio, The Hobbit.

But that's not all: Serkis is also back in simian mode for a further instalment of the Planet of the Apes prequel saga in which he again plays the heroic Caesar, leader of a growing nation of genetically evolved apes now threatened by a human band of survivors of a devastating virus.

Sequel to the blockbusting Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the new Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, is directed by Matt (Cloverfield) Reeves and co-stars Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Toby Kebbell and Judy Greer.

Wild about Harry

As if the imminent arrival on our big screens of North Norfolk Digital's Alan Partridge isn't bizarre enough - after all, his working practices surely suggest a "face for radio" - then you ain't seen nothing yet.

The odd-looking, quirkily-dressed frontman of TV Burp and the voiceover behind You've Been Framed has just gone in front of the cameras for The Harry Hill Movie which aims to be in our cinemas before the end of the year.

The publicity blurb goes like this: "What would you do if you thought your hamster only had a week to live, your chickens are attacking you with machine guns, and your Nan is just not giving you the space to spread your wings?

"When Harry and his petrol drinking Nan (Julie Walters) discover their hamster is seriously ill they set off on a road trip to Blackpool pursued by a lunatic vet (Simon Bird). Along the way, Harry falls in love with an undersea shell person (Sheridan Smith), witnesses canine superstars The Dachsund Five, and meets indie rock band The Magic Numbers - who run a B’n’B. 

"It all culminates in a fight on top of The Blackpool Tower. Who could be behind it all? Could it be Harry’s evil twin Otto (Matt Lucas), who was separated from Harry at birth and brought up by Alsatians?

Now you get the idea.

Elba's Nelson touch

He's played everything from a maverick English cop (Luther) to a ruthless American drugs lord ("Stringer" Bell in The Wire) but now, at 40,  East End raised actor Idris Elba has landed the role of a lifetime.

Elba plays Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, a new biopic of the South African leader who endured 27 years of captivity before becoming the first black President of the new Rainbow Nation.

Now 94, and in poor health, Mandela, known as "Mandiba" has apparently given his blessing to this latest screen version of his life and times which is due to open later this year.

Elba, who was seen last year in the sci-fi epic Prometheus, joins a long line of distinguished actors who have played the living legend. They include Sidney Poitier ( Mandela and de Klerk), Dennis Haysbert (Goodbye Bafana), David Harewood (Mrs Mandela), Morgan Freeman (Invictus) and Terrence Howard (Winnie).

Asked by the Guardian to rate his film, Elba said: "Hands down the best. Not in terms of performance. But my film's about his entire life. Anyone wanting to understand who Mandela was should watch my film."