Welcome to the Council of Elrond!

Mathew Lyons, a London journalist, has written a book, There and Back Again: In the Footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien. The book locates places that may have inspired locations in Lord of the Rings. A review can be found here.

Have you ever wondered when your favorite star from Lord of the Rings will be on TV? Now you can know! The CoE TV Guide will list almost all of the shows featuring actors and actresses from Lord of the Rings, and what channel their show will be on (US only). All times EST.

On 7th July, the New Zealand Post is releasing a set of eight stamps to commemorate the landscapes of Middle-earth. The stamps feature some of the locations in New Zealand that were used in the filming of the LotR movies and include Skippers Canyon, the setting for the Ford of Bruinen scene in FotR. You can view the stamps at the New Zealand Post website here.

For a chance to win a copy of the RotK DVD signed by Andy Serkis enter the competition at CBBC. There’s also a link on the page to an interview with Andy in which he talks about how techniques used in the creation of Gollum will be used in PJ’s next film.

Ithillinde has just returned from Los Angeles where she represented CoE as a guest of Electronic Arts for their Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle Earth Community Day. EALA hosted a select few from the online community, consisting of sites including RTS (Real Time Strategy) game sites and J.R.R. Tolkien fan sites. There they unveiled for the fans alone a brief glimpse of their new game, The Battle for Middle Earth. Not even the main press has seen what EA showed to us and no one outside of the production team has even played the game, but we were allowed a rare opportunity to get our hands on it and play out one of the missions. Keep your eyes peeled over the next few days for an exclusive four-part series reporting on this exciting upcoming game!

The poll results at CBBC show that LotR is slipping down their charts. According to the site, “Just a few months ago it used to dominate almost half the chart, but now it’s struggling to keep up with Potter mania.”

A 75 minute programme on a year in Sir Ian McKellen’s life will be shown on Sunday 27th June, on The South Bank Show. There’s further information at Sir Ian’s official site including that shooting began in June 2003 and covered re-shoots for LotR and the promotional world tour for the film.

The show will air on the UK TV on ITV at 22.45.

The First International Conference on Tolkien’s language will be held on 4th-8th August 2005 at the University of Stockholm. The conference proceedings will be published in a new publication, Arda Philology. There are further details here.

Enter the prize draw at H Samuel for a chance to win a sterling silver and enamel Elven leaf brooch (worth £79). There are 5 brooches to be won and 5 runner up prizes of LotR goody bags.

The closing date is 31st July and you have to register at the site to enter the draw.

Electronic Arts have updated their site with 17 new screenshots from the forthcoming game, the Lord of the Rings – The Third Age. You can view the screenshots and read more about the game at eagames.com.