There’s only three episodes until the winner of X Factor 2008 will be announced and it’s getting more exciting by the day (no sarcasm intended).

To make it easier for you to catch up on this week’s gossip,  news and rumours (however tenuous) we’ve placed them all in one easy-to-digest blog post - now you too can sound like an X Factor obsessive!

Britney & Miley

Viewer’s of last week’s show will know that princess-of-pop-turned-loopy-but-I’m-better-now Britney Spears will be performing on tomorrow night’s show (isn’t it weird how all the guest performers have albums coming out?)

But our moles (okay, a Guardian article) tell us that Miley Cyrus will be joining the bewigged performer on stage, which should be interesting considering the parallels between the two (both insanely famous as teens, both worked for Disney and both, umm, blonde).

Words of support from the PM

Newspapers are reporting that Gordon Brown has found time amidst preventing Impending Doom to send out 12 letters of support to the X Factor contestants.

Maybe Louis should watch his back - if this PM stuff doesn’t work out too well for Gordon he may have a new job waiting for him…

Is the show rigged?

The annoying thing about conspiracy theories are that once you hear the evidence for them, they become pretty compelling.

Case in point: The show is set-up for “little Diana Vickers” to win.

The evidence:

• She very conveniently had laryngitis on Mariah Carey week, even though The Mirror has “compelling evidence” that she was filmed TALKING on bonfire night three days previous
• This year’s Winner’s Song will be ‘Hallelujah’ - a song that Laura had sung beautifully in the auditions, much to the fury of the other contestant’s “fury”.
• And, err, that’s it.

Maybe not so compelling after all.

Last week we brought you the new Games section on the site.

We hope you’ve been entertained and distracted sufficiently because of it, and bring you a new game to sink your teeth into: Bubble Tanks 2.

The brief is deceptively simple; you just have to burst lots of bubbles.

But don’t be fooled by the tranquil sea-blue background - those bubbles are harder to catch than you might think…

This week’s Student Money Saving Tips is now live on the Beanzine. The hints and tips you’ll find include the best of the Beanboard, plus some other great offers:

• 20% off New Look and All Saints
• A voucher for a free Classic Burger at Walkabout
• 2 for 1 on main meals at Pizza Express
• 3 months free DVD rental with Lovefilm

For more offers like these, read this week’s article and check out the Beanboard (which is updated daily).

Happy Saving,

The Beanteam

Where The Wild Things Are is one of the few books that most of us remember from childhood (that and The Very Hungry Caterpillar) and has been popular since its publication in 1963.

With a fanbase stretching over 40 years there’s no doubt that the film version of the book will be talked about, but there are a couple of challenges faced by director Spike Jonze.

Firstly, the entire book is ten sentences long.

Secondly, the plot consists of a boy sent to bed with no supper (for causing mischief in a wolf suit!) who escapes to a forest full of ‘wild things’, doesn’t enjoy it after all and goes back to find that his mum has changed his mind (and he has been served supper after all). Would the plot be able to captivate an adult audience as well as a child one - and if the plot is updated, would they retain the childish simplicity of the book?

Finally, it’s a bit of a risk-take. Maurice Sendak’s beloved illustrations are being translated to a live-action film with CGI, animatronics and something weird called Suitmation.

All in all, it’ll be interesting to see how the director and scriptwriters maintain the charm of the original story in a feature-length movie.

Release date: October 16th, 2009

Some bands burn out, some bands fade away and some bands split up. Blink-182 certainly belong to the latter category. Tom Delonge disowned the juvenilia of his former band in order to pursue his inner Bono with Angels and Airwaves. Mark Hoppus’ first song released after the split, ‘No It Isn’t’, was a deliberate slight towards his one time friend and guitarist containing the lyrics ‘This isn’t just goodbye, this is I can’t stand you’. Both founding members used every interview as an opportunity to blame the other for the band’s collapse and Travis Barker, well, he just kept drumming…

So it was with some surprise that I yesterday discovered that in the wake of the horrific plane crash suffered by Travis Barker the band are letting bygones be bygones and patching things up. Whilst in his blog Mark Hoppus didn’t specifically rule in a reunion, officially stating he ‘didn’t know’ whether a re-ignition of their friendship would lead to a reformation, the option clearly wasn’t ruled out. It doesn’t take a genius either to realise that with both post-Blink bands floundering in relative obscurity that a new tour and album would represent a good opportunity to end things on a sweet note and milk a fresh round of filthy lucre from the pop-punk cash cow.

I for one would welcome the prospect of spending an hour or so reliving a small part of my childhood. I missed the opportunity to dance around like a loon to the likes of ‘The Rock Show’ and ‘What’s My Age Again’ as a fourteen year old and at the still tender age of nineteen I certainly would have no shame in taking ensuring I don’t neglect a chance to do so this time around. Certainly I’m not alone in thinking this either, fellow Warwick student Andrew Cole proclaimed the news, perhaps over-enthusiastically, as ‘the best thing ever’.

Admittedly whilst Blink-182 never had any claim to credibility and their albums were patchy at best, the Hoppus-DeLonge combination would always spawn a catchy single without relying on the verse-chant-verse-chant-bridge-chant formula that seems to be monopolised by their British counterparts. Hopefully then, within a year or so the sound of my teenage years will be reverberating around arenas the country wide. Now if only Pete and Carl would do the same…

The politics story that’s had everyone talking this week has been the online leaking of the BNP’s membership list or ‘activists list’ from 2007,  some of whom may no longer be party members or actually never were.

Whatever this document is (some simple Googling should yield the link to it), it makes for fascinating reading. Not only are 12,801 names pulished, but addresses, emails, telephone numbers, ages and even hobbies are also included.

‘Ctrl + F’ has never been such a compelling tool: ‘Do my postcode next!’ my housemates enthused as we crowded round to examine the list. A handy colour-coded regional map also available for scrutiny is useful too. Rather uncomfortably, for me at least, it takes the form of a creamy-yellow expanse, glaringly puctuated by a red splodge: Leeds, with 263 names - far more than any other city.

The hobbies listed range from the bizarre (growing mistletoe, medieval longbow, metaphysics, ’learning to fly’) to the unsurprising (no shortage of body-builders), to the eerily normal (gardening, classical music and boating all crop up regularly).

Other pieces of information give all kinds of insights: someone describes themselves as a ’lapsed MENSA member’ - always worth mentioning! Another name, an artist, is ’willing to paint pictures for raffles, etc’. More chilling, one is ’Willing to give teaching re. BNP home-schooling’.

Should the list have been published? Well, probably not. The inclusion of addresses and contact details has led to many cases of members receiving abuse, which, considering the list’s shakiness, is unacceptable. But published it was, and who knows? It might lead to more cases like that of BG from Cumbria, who ‘Will not be renewing 07 (took offence to newspaper reports about the Party)’ - hmm…

As recession looms over the nation like a great hungry beast and with the economy sinking further into turmoil, I, as finance editor, have the disheartening and ever so slightly daunting task of reporting all the doom and gloom back to you all. Joy of all joys!

Amidst a crumbling property market, huge falls in the value of shares paralleled by the heart wrenching increase in the cost of basic necessities I would like to think that I can go some way to calming the situation…. despite the instability of the current financial climate.

After all, as students we’ve had to cope with being broke for years, why should we let it affect us now!

And although I feel like shedding a tear every time I have to fork out a little bit extra for that cupboard staple  - a tin of Heinz baked beans, I feel that it is my duty to propagate the message to you all- it’s not the end of the world!

With the dreaded credit crunch elbowing its way onto the front page of every newspaper it would seem that there is little to be happy about.

But I assure you, there is light at the end of the tunnel - excuse the cliché, and I will be here watching over you all like some proverbial fairy god mother, spreading all my worldly knowledge in the hope that I can help you all brave and maybe even embrace this crappy state of affairs.

I would relish the opportunity to hear your input;

• What is it that you want to discuss?
• What issues are affecting you personally?
• And what do you think today’s students would be interested in reading?

This new blogging feature provides a great way for me to interact with you and hear your own thoughts and opinions, and I will do my very best to provide articles which will tantalize and excite!

As a student myself, I understand the perils of surviving on a student budget, and hopefully I can go some way to addressing these concerns.

After all, we all need to eat, drink and look good!

Please feel free to leave any comments in the box below; I look forward to hearing from you!

Sian x

Hello jobseekers! My name’s Sarah George and I look forward to receiving your contributions towards the Jobs channel over the next year.

As students we find it hard to juggle both a degree and part time work simultaneously and we are always on the look out for jobs that will suit our hectic lifestyles. I’ve come across a really good website which I think you’ll find useful.

Studentgems.com is a site which allows you to create a profile, stating specific fields of work which you would like to undertake. Employers will advertise work they need doing and if this work crosses over with the work you stated you’ll receive a notification email. You can then contact the employer and negotiate the sort of work at hand.

There’s nothing worse than getting stuck in a dead-pan job that you absolutely hate, so go and sign up to Studentgems.com and partake in the sort of work that couldn’t be more catered to your very own interests.

Additionally, if you aren’t looking for a job, but would like some general work advice, the site offers CV templates and interview information to get you started.

Congratulations - you’ve just stepped into the most exciting, innovative channel on Beanzine. No, really - well done. Because without the wonder that is technology, I wouldn’t be writing this. You wouldn’t be reading this. And what a shame that would be for everybody.

So enough waffle about the joys of technology for today (since there’s going to be plenty of that in weeks to come) - you probably want to know who I am. Well, maybe you don’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway. My name is Aimee Steen, I’m 20 and, just to confirm your already sneaking suspicion that I am indeed a total geek, I study Mathematics at Cardiff University. That’s the boring stuff out of the way.

As Technology editor, I want to make sure there’s stuff on here that you really want to read about; whether it’s how you can find the best PC for your money, what’s going on in the world of science, or why it is that leopard-print hair straighteners appeal to you so much more than black ones, there really is something for everybody in the world of technology.

Oh, and there’ll probably be stuff about Facebook on here too, catering for the addicts who have ventured away from the site for a few minutes but need a bit of a social network-shaped comfort blanket while they’re gone. Myself included.

So watch this space for a world of virtual delights, and until then:

01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01100010 01111001 01100101

(That’s goodbye in binary…I’m not sad. I swear.*)

*Well, maybe just a little.

After many weeks in the making, the games section on studentbeans.com is now live!

Here you can fritter your time away on 80s favourites like Tetris, the curiously addictive Sling Jumper or shoot apples off a friend’s head (see below - incidentally this is our most popular game so far - must be the realistic spurts of blood).

On the other side of the website, the Beanzine (our online magazine by students for students) has evolved to feature blog posts from our ten Channel Editors within the articles section.

So, if you have a random urge to get the Food Editor’s opinion on risotto or find out the Entertainment Editor’s favourite bands you know where to go (plus, you can see what they look like too!)