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With not much space outside for kids to play, the kids should not limit their physical activity. With such a wide range of products available today you can design a perfect getaway for your kids in a separate room.

There are online stores which offer game tables which you can keep in your game rooms, these also supply home fitness equipment. Your kid’s room can have game tables for air hockey, pool, shuffle board, table tennis. There are 3 in 1, 4 in 1, 9 in 1 and also 14 in1 multi game tables also. These game tables have pool, table tennis, push hockey, football, bowling, chess, backgammon, shuffle board, and draughts with all the accessories included.

While buying, care should be taken to ensure that these are of good height and ergonomically designed otherwise these are bad for kids posture when he will be spending much time on playing games. Stores selling home fitness equipment also keep these game tables. These game tables will liven up your game room and kids will be happy spending hours inside the room. The game room can have kid games like board games, strategy games, and RC toys, classic games like monopoly, scrabble, and trivial pursuit. Even adults can play these games with kids which teach them very important lessons of life.

I seem to be getting so many invitations at the moment. I love going out to places but sometimes wonder how, in this time of economic crisis, how people can afford to have parties and celebrations. I am not begrudging them, I mean it is nice to have something else to think about rather than the state of the world economy and one`s own bank balance but by throwing a party you are likely to be worrying about it even more in the future. I have received two party invitations just this week and I am worrying about the expense of buying a present and a new outfit – goodness know how the people throwing the party will afford everything that they will need.

I guess I should just decide to enjoy it and not worry about that sort of thing for them. I am hoping that I can get a new outfit that will suit both of these parties. I have also received a graduation invitation and if I decide to go, I am hoping that it will be suitable for that as well. Goodness there is so much going on lately and so much socialising to do, it should be great fun!

I am looking for a DVD player to buy for my husband for his birthday. Ours has been ruined by the children stuffing all sorts of things in to t and it makes a nasty noise when it plays DVD’s which is not good. I figured that rather than tell him that the children have broken it, I will buy him a Taiyo Yuden DVD which is one that he has wanted for ages and pretend that it was a special treat to replace the cheap one that we bought before because we were skint.

Hopefully he will not see through my plan and will be so overawed by the DVD Yuden that he will not even bother about chucking the old one away. I will have to make sure that the children look after the new one or perhaps that they are not allowed to touch it at all. Although I can be a bit heavy handed with things myself – maybe I should keep the old one for me and the boys and let my husband be the only one allowed to touch the new one!

My sister is very keen on pursuing fashion as a careen option. I watched Madhur Bhandarkar’s film Fashion and was wondering if the fashion world really is as depicted?-Paramjeet Kaur I wouldn’t say that it’s a badly-made film but the grey areas have been hyper dramatised.

Are we willing to believe that grey areas exist only in the fashion industry? If we were to talk of the hotel industry, the airline industry or the software industry, similar grey areas exist there too, but the difference lies in the fact that the fashion industry is very glamour-based so everything that happens here is exaggerated and talked about. This is a flamboyant industry and hence attracts a lot of negative attention as opposed to examples of silent industries that I have mentioned above.

To be honest, designers spend most of their time churning out from their creative energies at their work shops - choosing fabrics and colours for the season and developing new forms of surface embellishments. As far as working with models is concerned, the clothes are more important to us as opposed to the model wearing them.

Models just add flesh to a garment enhancing the beauty of the ensemble. Like I have said earlier, this industry is just like any other non-glamourous one, with its share of grey areas but at the end of the day, no one can be forced into anything.

It’s entirely the person’s point of view and prerogative that comes into play. It’s the decision one makes for ones self.

We cannot assume that the fashion industry is made up of a certain “species” of people alone. These species, if I may term them, exist everywhere without any bias.

There are always alternate paths to achieving success and we cannot base our judgments on the assumption that the industry, by and large, is a sleaze pit.

D ay 2 of IFW was all about taking inspiration from nature and going back in time. Designer duo Meera and Muzaffar Ali focussed on fashion sensibilities of the Raj - a period where the interaction between Indian and English cultures was optimum.

There was an emphasis on chikan and mukaish work while keeping the silhouette international. Thread embroidery in metallic shades gave the necessary oomph to their garments which were based on a palette of black, white, nude and earthy tones.

Nature was the inspiration for both Sonam Dubal and Small Shop by Jason and Anshu, but the interpretations were different. While Dubal presented a line that said ‘relax and savour every minute and connect with nature’, Small Shop spread the message of ‘technology that’s in tandem with nature.

‘ Dubal went back in time with kimonos, kaftans and flowing gowns, slippers, obi belts and potli bags. At Big Daddy Tarun Tahiliani’s show, the focus was entirely on the interpretation of conventionality.

There was a definite bend towards Grecian forms with flowy silhouettes, asymmetrical hemlines, frills and voluminous forms. Appliqu and #233; and delicate chikankari accented the ensembles.

The collection represented the best of an Indo-Western design sensibility.

Veteran film maker Mani Ratnam, who is shooting his latest multilingual film ‘Ravana’ in the forests of Malayatoor near here, was asked to stop filming after he violated an agreement with the Kerala Forest Department, an official said.

The forest is a two-hour drive from Kochi and is a prime spot for eco-tourism.

Speaking to IANS, Krishnadev Prasad Sahu of the Malayatoor Forest Division said that the director was asked to stop shooting Friday evening because it was found that he had constructed temporary huts in prohibited areas in the forest.

‘We had given him sanction to shoot for 20 days in a two month period and yesterday (Friday) it was the fifth day. Our Principal Chief Conservator of Forest T.M. Manoharan was present at the area of the shooting and he found out that there was a violation by the film crew and hence, he immediately ordered the shooting to be stopped,’ Sahu said.

‘As per the rules, they are not supposed to erect any structures in such areas but it was found out that they had constructed three huts. They explained that it was done to keep their equipment if it rains. Since the agreement was violated, the permission granted was cancelled,’ Sahu added.

The film stars Abhisek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai and they were supposed to arrive next week.

‘Now that this violation has happened, it is very unlikely that sanction would be given again,’ Sahu said.

According to Sahu, Mani Ratnam was not present when the forest officials arrived because he had completed the shooting for the day.

A star studded premiere of the film ‘Hello’ slated for an October 10 release, was held in Mumbai on Thursday. Though the story of the film is not a secret, it has generated curiosity among the movie buffs.

Actor Amrita Arora was visibly excited about the film reporting advance-booking figures. Actor Sharman Joshi said that they have an advantage in that film had already an audience in those who loved the novel.

Hollywood actor Bill Murray says that he would like to add a ‘feminine aspect’ in the third instalment of ‘Ghostbusters’.

Murray, who acted in the 1984 hit flick and in its sequel is reportedly keen on reprising his role in the third instalment, and has branded the possibility of a third part “a great idea”.

“I think it’d be funny to have a girl Ghostbuster. We don’t have a girl Ghostbuster,” The Daily Express quoted Murray, as telling MTV.com.

He added: “I mean, they say like, ‘What if you passed it to Chris Rock?’ And I go, ‘Well, I dunno. Is Chris Rock gonna save us?’ You know, I guess.

“He’s funny. I just think there’s some funny girls I’d love to see be Ghostbusters.”

After eight years on air, Ekta Kapoor’s marathon soap ‘Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii’ is finally bidding adieu to TV viewers Thursday.

Dussehra also falls on the same day and imbibing the true spirit of the festival, the episode will highlight the triumph of good over evil.

Though the actors of the show are ready to move on and content with the long run and success of the show, they say they will miss the revelry and family like atmosphere on the sets the most.

Actress Lily Patel, who essayed the role of Dadi - the eldest in the Agarwal household, is emotional about the soap drawing end.

‘I’ll really miss this show a lot. I have lived this role for eight years and most of the people don’t even know my real name. They all call me Dadi wherever I go,’ Patel told IANS over phone from Mumbai.

‘I will miss the way we used to have lunch together and chat all the time. The best part about shooting with the cast and crew was that even after eight long years, we never had a complex with each other. There was no fight and no misunderstanding. We shared a healthy relation and respected each other,’ she added.

The show relays the ’story of every (Indian) household’ and sagas of a housewife Parvati Agarwal, essayed by Sakshi Tanwar, who immediately shot to fame with the role.

Parvati soon became a household name. Women have laughed, cried, and even sympathised with her character for the past eight years.

Marathi actor Kiran Karmakar enacted the role of Parvati’s husband Om, one of the pivotal characters of the show.

About the show ending, Karmakar said: ‘I think it’s a right decision to end the show if Ekta Kapoor has decided so. I’m not upset, but it’s just that the team will not meet at the sets. Maybe we meet outside or bump into each other at a party, so I’ll miss all that.’

Karmakar says he was closest to Ali Asgar, who plays his youngest brother on the show.

Ali looks back at his journey of playing the dimwit Kamal, to being a responsible businessman and a practical person in life on the show.

‘Rarely in our field will you find a group of co-stars, who would gel as well as our team did. But we honestly had no problem with each other. I gave my family in ‘Kahaani…’ more time than I did to my real life family. It became a habit,’ he said.

Ali said he would miss it most when the team would not meet the way it used to since the last eight years.

‘Now there will be no pack up for the show after we could tell each other - ’see you after seven-eight days’ or anything like that and I will deeply miss all this,’ he said.