Nadya Vessey lost her legs as a child but now she swims like a mermaid. Ms Vessey’s mermaid tail was created by Wellington-based film industry wizards Weta Workshop after the Auckland woman wrote to them two years ago asking if they could make her a prosthetic tail. She was astounded when they agreed. She lost both legs below the knee from a medical condition when she was a child and told Close Up last night her long-held dream had come true. “A prosthetic is a prosthetic, and your body has to be comfortable with it and you have to mentally make it part of yourself,” she said. Mermaid dream comes true thanks to Weta

She may have waited 15 years, but as Kate Winslet accepted her first Oscar for best actress, she didn’t forget to mention the person who helped launch her career Wellington director Peter Jackson. Winslet, who worked with Jackson in her first feature Heavenly Creatures, filmed in New Zealand, won her first ever Oscar yesterday for her role in The Reader. Down under featured throughout the ceremony, highlighted again when Australian presenter Hugh Jackman amused the crowd as he quipped about New Zealand. “Everything is being downsized because of the recession,” Jackman said. “Next year I’ll be starring in a movie called New Zealand…” Heavenly creature Kate Winslet wins

Tamer from www.incgamers.com writes: I just thought you might like to know that we’ve done an interview with the Saul Zaentz Company, the guys that hold the license for the Tolkien Estate’s digital and videogame arm, regarding recent LotR titles for consoles and PCs, as well as the variety of things they license from board games to shop names. It’s a really insightful interview and can be found here. Saul Zaentz Company Interview

vtboyarc writes: I am a student at Benedictine College in Kansas, I got this email today, and it is also posted on the college website. Here it is: “Benedictine College will host a special presentation on the famous Inklings English literary group of the early 1900s on Monday, Feb. 23. Mark Colin Havard will deliver his presentation, The Lewis and Tolkien I Knew: Memories of an Inklings Son, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the OMalley-McAllister Auditorium on the college campus. The event, sponsored by the English and Theology Departments, is free and open to the public. Continue reading “Inklings Talk at Benedictine College”

lotrcrazy sends this in from the Sunday Feb 22 comic strip “Prickly City”.