Jon Burton and his team at TT games have worked on video games from licensed franchises for many years. They have worked with film properties, and mascot video game characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot. It would be fair to say that TT was another run of the mill middle tier developer, that was until 2005 when they released Lego® Star Wars: The Video Game.

This title was another licensed game, only this one had two parents to please – both LEGO® and the Star Wars people. Despite the restrictions, TT games managed to infuse the game with original ideas; unique, lovable humour; and fresh gameplay mechanics that more-or-less singlehandedly revitalised couch co-op. Lego® Star Wars was a fan favourite and critical darling that has spawned sequels and what feels like a genre unto itself, as each year another intellectual property gets the Lego® video game treatment.

Jon Burton was the creative director on that first Lego® Star Wars game, has since gone on to direct man...

He may be able to recognise some of his own neuroses in his most famous character’s fusty mannerisms, but off-screen Kelsey Grammer’s life has been one of near-constant turmoil, heartache and rebellion. And yet, in accepting his faults, opening himself up to faith and looking beyond the next work project, you sense the 62-year-old is emerging out the other side a better man, as Sorted discovers.

When Kelsey Grammer’s uptight psychiatrist character from hit bar-based sitcom Cheers was chosen as the star of a spin-off from the successful original series, even he was a little surprised. But the runaway ratings of the subsequent Frasier – in which Grammer played the eponymous former bit-part now made front and centre – vindicated the choice to give the egotistical intellectual his own show.

And with several Emmy Awards safely stowed away in the bedside table as a result of his portrayal of Dr Frasier Crane, Grammer’s career post-Frasier has definitively been built off the back of thi...

From his teenage ascent to the top of the snooker world, to his current status as a bona fide legend of the holy baize, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s career has also been marked by a temperamental streak – in and out of the sport. But now, The Rocket says, he’s in a better place than ever.

In every sport, there’s an individual whose natural ability marks them out as a star from a tender age – and in snooker, that precociously talented teen was Ronnie O’Sullivan. From the moment the spiky starlet made his first century break aged just ten, there was a clear path to the pinnacle of professional snooker set out for him. And by the age of 19, the young upstart had won the UK Championship and his first Masters.

But while ‘The Rocket’ – so-named for his speedy playing style – was wowing fans and commentators alike, away from the table his occasionally tetchy temperament was developing too. Ever one to speak his mind, the seven-time Masters winner has often divided opinion. At times, it almost se...

Ex-rabble rouser and provocateur Russell Brand believes the teaching of only one man can save us from a vacuous existence. 

Russell brand has gone through many incarnations during the 18 years of his unpredictable and often controversial career. Television presenter, comedian, writer, actor and activist are all words which have preceded his name, along with other titles which have been insinuated but not necessarily verbalised, such as drug addict, sex pest and bigmouth. Of all his manifestations, though, his latest is possibly the most surprising, as he becomes ever more articulate about his religious beliefs, his deeply personal feelings about Christianity, and the big guy himself. So insightful are his views, and more importantly, so accessible, one has to wonder if the 42-year-old Essex intellectual could one day become the mouthpiece Christianity needs to push it into the 21st century.

“My personal feeling is the teachings of Christ are more relevant now than they’ve ev...

It’s the time of the year when deliveries arrive daily in our office and we’re wearing new Baffin boots to test their fit. Meticulous preparation for a crossing of the Patagonian Icefield has begun with the arrival of the first maps. Not laminated OS maps but cut-out flimsy papers, laid on top of each other and stuck down with Sellotape.

The whole feel of the expedition is like this. Less certain, less straightforward, lots of thinking laterally. There is not a lot of information in general, and none of this complete or trustworthy enough to base main decisions on. It’s the opposite of typing in ‘climb Mt Blanc’. All of this is also one of the main appeals. A summer crossing brings its own complications. On the east side you tend to get a lot of snow and on the west, a lot of rain. Snow we could deal with, but rain and being damp sounds like a less desirable proposition.

The expedition uses multiple modes of travel, which adds enormously to its complexity: boat crossings and port...

Imagine the scene; it’s early September 2004, a glorious evening over the Tamar Valley, and a deep pink-orange sky is touching highlights of Cornwall to the west, Dartmoor to the east, Plymouth Sound ahead and the rolling fields of north Cornwall behind us. Descending quickly from 5,000ft I was attempting to hit a friend’s field below.

I braced myself for a hard thump, but with a short prayer, a light brush through the tree tops, the basket slowed and we were gently delivered to a freshly cut field. Here, in the middle of nowhere, it was Harvest Festival at a nearby rural chapel; the sounds of worship were on the breeze, and pausing to give thanks for our lot, it was the moment that the vision for the Jesus Loves You hot air balloon first came.

I’d been around ballooning for years, but only recently progressed to a commercial rating for corporate advertising, special shapes and stunts. Trinity Balloons was born out of that corporate ballooning journey. Friends from church trained...