Well, I have wondered, via The Guardian: There are a few things that routinely keep me up at night: the futility of life, the inevitability of death, and the mystery of why the US’s chocolate is so disgusting. Readers who have had the misfortune to encounter a Hershey bar will know exactly what I’m talking […]
Ever hear that air-raid klaxon sound on a Friday afternoon? In fact, it is a “test general alarm”, according to Mick Duffy, company quartermaster of Cathal Brugha Barracks. It’s just for the barracks, not for the rest of us. If it were for real, and not just an every-Friday test, it would be a call to […]
A collection of failures, flops and surrealist design curated by Sylvie Sauvignet is opening virtually in Saint Etienne. From a wavy ping pong table to a watering can that waters itself, some of these items are wonderfully absurd, and some are flawed designs that just didn’t work (like the Delorean). The exhibition has dedicated a […]
Rare glimpse of North Korea on a rainy day. Via digg
Toying around with ideas of what Scotland could do to stay in the EU, while also wondering what will happen to Northern Ireland which also voted to ‘remain’, a friend and I ended up considering if the twitter favourite ‘Union of Craic’ would actually work. The idea is that Scotland goes ahead and runs a […]
Good stuff from Donald Clarke in the IT: Somebody is always “just asking a question” about immigration, alien visitation or the “truth” behind 9/11. Back in 2009, the good people at South Park satirised the technique in an episode called Dances with Smurfs. “Because I’m brave enough to ask questions, I come under scrutinies,” the […]
The elder statesman has been wheeled out: The Former Prime Minister John Major is set to issue a thinly veiled attack on Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, warning that Tories leading the campaign to leave the EU risk “morphing into Ukip”. In a speech on Friday Sir John will say that as the economic arguments in favour […]
Newcastle became famous for a day for being the location of a puddle. Streamed live on periscope, it seemed to catch the attention of everyone on what was an otherwise boring January afternoon. I freely admit I joined periscope just for this, as did quite a few others. It kind of ate itself when the […]
Germany and the “civil servant excavators” – the Paternoster lift: Jumping on to one recently with all the prowess of a veteran rider, the editor in chief of the Berlin-based leftwing paper Neues Deutschland referred to the juddering metal cage as “the socialist among elevators”. Together with a slim camera man, Tom Strohschneider squeezes into […]
