The bejewelled and feather-dressed Samburu tribesmen must have laughed all the way home when Italian journalist Riccardo Orizio gathered them together a decade ago and told them of his plans to turn a couple of lumpy granite outcrops in the heart of Samburu country into a luxury game lodge overlooking the searing, acacia-speckled plains of northern Kenya.

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Epic in its own way, The Hobbit starts as light as a feather and never manages the level of impending doom that the Lord of the Rings trilogy reached.

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"This final is a feather in Germany's cap and the way that country has developed both their national team and the Bundesliga the past 10 years, " Lalas said.

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