We bring you the chic and unique, the best and most bizarre shopping offers both online and offline. We offer you tips on where to buy, and some of the less mainstream and crazy, individual and offbeat items on the internet. Anything that can be bought and sold can be featured here. And we love showcasing the best and worst art and design.
“Just got a PR email about a Cockney themed immersive supper club in an “authentic Hackney pub”, tweets Tom Armstrong. “It’s £55. This is one of the press shots.”
Just got a PR email about a Cockney themed immersive supper club in an “authentic Hackney pub”. It’s £55. This is one of the press shots. pic.twitter.com/Vws8XpiFu0
The Cockney’tivity is a Christmas dining experience like no other featuring three short acts of hilarious festive drama around three courses of delicious food all based in an authentic east end boozer. Walk through the doors of The North Star, take a seat at the Christmas dinner table and watch as the drama unfolds around you. Culminating in a raucous finale that will have you dancing on your chairs with your hands in the air.
New Orleans-based collector Sam Malvaney takes us on a tour of his well-decorated home in the city’s French Quarter. Welcome to the “Museum of Bad Taste”
Jamie Oliver has fiddled with food every since Tony Blair realised the chef was popular on the telly and grabbed him for a conflab. Oliver has been raging against sugar for some time now. But signs are that it’s not working:
Jamie Oliver’s 10p tax on sugary drinks sold in his Italian restaurants has resulted in a significant drop in sales, a study has found.
Oliver gathers up all the 10ps and invests them in “food education and water fountains in schools”. He’s a food colonialist teaching the slack-jawed and sugar-toothed how to drink from a standpipe and worry about food. Sod the toque blanche and get the lad a pith helmet.
Now the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health tells us thatsugar-sweetened drinks flogged in Jamie’s Italian-style eateries fell 11% in the first 12 weeks of the levy. At the end of six months, sales were 9.3% lower than before the tax was brought in.
The odd bit is that fruit juice sales were up 22 per cent – you know, those pricey drinks packed full of sugar.
The study, however, does not tell us how Jamie’s faux Italian outlets have fared as a whole over that period. I did have the misfortune to visit Jamie’s Italian at Gatwick Airport just the other week, and can reveal that his cooked breakfast (‘The Full Monty’) was greasy, unsatisfying, badly presented (it came on an oily skillet), mean (3 nasty little mushrooms; two splats of cherry tomatoes; a drool of beans; two undercooked sausages; innersole bacon; charred squares of potato; missing onions; a dry slice of black pudding; and poached eggs that were well cooked but trimmed to the size of tic-tacs) and expensive (£10.25).
Professor Susan Jebb of University of Oxford tells the Times, Jamie’s experiment was “encouraging news for public health ahead of the introduction of the soft drink industry levy”.
Oh, and this:
Jamie Oliver is to close six of his Italian restaurants after tough trading and the “pressures and unknowns” following the Brexit vote.
Oliver intends to close Jamie’s Italian restaurants in Aberdeen, Exeter, Cheltenham, Richmond, Tunbridge Wells and Ludgate Hill, near London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, by the end of the first quarter of the year.
Why not alarm your Nazi neighbours this Halloween by dressing up in an Anne Frank costume (for girls)?
The costume has now been pulled from shelves.
Public Relations Specialist at Fun.com, Ross Walker Smith went on Twitter to explain:
“We sell costumes not only for Halloween, but for many uses outside of the Halloween season, such as school projects and plays. We have passed along the feedback regarding this costume, and it has been removed from the website at this time.”
Just a clerical error, then. Thanks for the feedback. Who knew flogging a murdered child for Halloween was anything by fun?
If you buy an online sex toy online in Alabama, you’ll have to do so blind. You get to see a fair deal of the ‘marital aid’, but the gaps have been plugged.
Alabama law prohibits selling products that are “primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs”. This is down to “the state’s interest in preserving and promoting public morality provides a rational basis for the challenged statute.”
You mugs drinking water for ‘hydration’ deserve all you can get. Fruit and vegetable juice are the drink of choice for the health conscious, especially when they’re rebranded as cider, wine and beer. And now via Bloomberg more news to chill water drinkers:
Nestlé Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For
But as Tim Worstall notes, it’s not still free when it arrives at your table or sports bag:
So, let’s consider that other essential for life, oxygen. Say you’re in hospital, and need an extra supply. The people who stuck that compressed oxygen into that bottle and transported it to where you need it not to die. They got it for free! Just sucked it out of the common atmosphere they did!
The story is, of course, that bottled water is for idiots. But you can buy what you like. You choice. In 2009, we read that “wine is now cheaper than water”. In 2015, Meurig Raymond told BBC Radio 4’s Today that “milk… is now cheaper than water”.Surely he meant milk was cheaper than bottled water, some of which retails at £80 a litre.
Look like a pre-depilated Kardahsian with the Dadbag. It’s a bum bag that looks like a bloke’s stomach. Designer Albert Pukies tells Bored Panda:
I made the dadbag because I’m desperate to have dad bod but I’m also very concerned about the health risks associated with it. The solution is quite simple, a bumbag with a proper dad belly printed on it. Now I can put on a dad bod whenever I feel like it and even store my valuables in it.The Dadbag is currently not available to buy, but I’m on the lookout for partners and manufacturers to hopefully go into mass production soon.
Hard luck on Chinese men who enjoy rubber insulated sex with a rubber insulated partner. The sex doll rental service is no more.
“We prepared ten dolls for the trial operation,” a company spokesperson said via email, adding that they received very positive feedback from users. “But it’s really hard in China,” the firm wrote, saying there had been a lot of controversy with the police over the issue.
It’s a supplement linked to a 12 volt battery pack:
Following news of swearing on Mumsnet and how advertisers are being unnerved by it, we spot an advert for Disney on rival site NetMums. The adverts entices readers to:
WIN a VIP family ticket to Disney On Ice presents Passport to Adventure, and be part of the show!
The ad is targeted at readers who arrive on a page on which the topic of discussion is:
Thread: blow jobs and takin it up the bum tmi sorri but need advice
And it’s not just Disney. A search for ‘Anal Sex” brings up lots of tips on how best to lube up – plus adverts for BMW, ALDI (‘Everyday Amazing’) and Nationwide building society.
And the Financial Conduct Authority, which wants to know if you’ve been shafted:
Layered waistbands give these wide-leg Natasha Zinko jeans a modern high-low profile. Contrast side stripes. 7 pockets. Button closure and zip fly at each waist panel. Raw hem.
In 1961 Piero Manzoni sorted his turds into 30 gram piles and placed each serving into one of 90 cans, which he then sealed and signed. And tins of “Merda d’Artista” are changing hands for loads money.
In 2007, the Tate art gallery in London, bought one of Manzoni’s 90 cans for £22,350 ($30,000), and while that may seem like a lot for what is literally just canned crap, they actually got a great deal. In 2007, another can of “Merda d’Artista” was auctioned off in Milan, for a whopping £81,000 ($108,000). Crazy, right? Not really, just another good deal, because Manzoni’s cans of poop are currently worth around $300,000 apiece. Last year, someone bought can no. 54 for £182,500 ($242,000).
Crisis in Venezuela. A Mis-managed economy has created poverty from riches.
Venezuela’s government has urged citizens to see rabbits as more than “cute pets” as it defended a plan to breed and eat them – even as the opposition says this would do nothing to end chronic food shortages.
The questions must be: what do you feed the rabbits; and how do you cook them?
President Nicolás Maduro went on telly to tell the people that “for animal protein, which is such an important issue, a ‘rabbit plan’ has been approved because rabbits also breed like rabbits”.
As we’ve noted, its not rabbits you need, it’s pigeons, feral ones. In Exeter, England, vagrants are catching the vermin for food. It turn out that when you kill a feral pigeon, more replace it. As Trafford Council notes:
…for most pigeon problems, lethal methods are totally ineffective. They simply reduce competition for food and shelter, and the remaining birds increase their breeding rates to compensate. Although there is an immediate decrease, numbers soon recover, resulting in an endless cycle of killing and re-population.
And eating, too.
And there’s another problem with rabbits: they are adorable. Mr Freddy Bernal, the country’s minister of urban agriculture, says that lots of rabbits were given to communities to breed for food. “A lot of people gave names to the rabbits, they took them to bed,” says Mr Bernal.
And lots more can go wrong when you rear rabbit. “Rabbits were introduced to Australia as part of a broad attempt by early colonists to make Australia as much like Europe as they possibly could,” says Greg Mutze, research officer at the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation in South Australia. “It was hoped that they would flourish so that the owners could hunt them.” By the 1920s, Australia’s rabbit population had reached to 10 billion.
The latest health scare is that artificial sweeteners are being linked to an increased risk of diabetes. Can it be that the man-made stuff sold as a safe alternative to diabetes-triggering sugar could raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes?
Research led by Australia’s Adelaide Medical School in Australia, and presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Lisbon, concluded that taking sweeteners for just two weeks is enough to make a difference.
Lead author Prof Richard Young explains: “This study supports the concept that artificial sweeteners could reduce the body’s control of blood sugar levels and highlights the potential for exaggerated post-meal glucose levels in high habitual NAS [non-caloric artificial sweeteners] users, which could predispose them to developing type 2 diabetes.”
“This study addresses a very important global human health issue, as artificial sweeteners are food additives commonly used not only by patients with diabetes but also by healthy individuals aiming to manage their sugar intake,” adds Dr Inês Cebola, from Imperial College London, a member of the Society for Endocrinology. “Although generally thought as safe and even beneficial, artificial sweetener consumption has actually been previously associated with weight gain and development of glucose intolerance, which can lead to development of type 2 diabetes.”
The test wan’t all that large – just 27 people were involved.
Emma Elvin, clinical advisor at Diabetes UK, is circumspect. “This is a small study with interesting results, but it doesn’t provide strong evidence that artificial sweeteners increase the risk of type two diabetes,” she says. “We need to see the results of larger trials testing in settings more true to real life before we’ll know more. Consuming lots of sugary foods and drinks is very damaging to overall health and can increase risk of type two diabetes. We would advise people to reduce their intakes of sugar, and artificial sweeteners could be an option to help some people achieve this.”
Interesting, no, that the war on sugar might be creating more problems than it solves. Sugar is a source of dietary energy in many foods. If you eat it excessively it can cause problems, just it can be damaging to take in very large amounts of bread, pasta, oranges and even water. This activist-led campaign to cast sugar as a peril to public health is based on much theory and little fact. Choice is good. Sugar isn’t bad.
Can it proven that fast food makes you fat? Researchers at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) examined 1,500 state primary school pupils aged four to 11, looking at their postal addresses and weight. Turns out that the kids living closer to fast food outlets – within around half a mile – were more likely than their peers to gain weight during the primary school years.
This is, of course, all about protecting children from being fat – a physical state that once marked you as jolly but now casts you as a mentally negligible victim.
So can it proven that fast food makes you fat and is a danger to children’s health? Or is this more about correlation than causation? Poorer people eat the most fast food. Relocate the eateries, or make them sell just salads and watch the fatties slim down. Or better yet, turn the fried chicken shacks into gyms and therapy suites.
And what of the business angle? If you’re going to open a fast food franchise or fish and chip restaurant, you’ll do best locating where poorer people live and the rents are cheaper. Unsurprisingly, the study noted a higher density of fast food outlets – i.e. cheap food – in poorer areas.
In July, Cambridge University’s Centre for Diet and Activity Research counted 56,638 takeaways in England. And it too noted that fast food shops are more prevalent in England’s poorest areas.
NHS employee Matthew Pearce, who led the research, tells media: “We know from national data that the number of children classified as obese doubles between the first and last year of primary school. Understanding the reasons for this is important to protect the future health of children. Obesity is driven by many complex factors. Our study adds to existing evidence that the neighbourhood environment plays an important role in the development of obesity.”
“While ultimately it is down to individuals on how they choose to live, it is widely accepted that we live in environments that make managing our weight increasingly difficult,” Pearce adds. “We therefore need national and local policymakers to take decisions that support more favourable conditions that enable people to eat healthier and become more physically active.”
So what’s the plan, then? Put simply: tell the idiots how to live. Much harder to implement is the other plan: let’s get richer.
Porn is ubiquitous. You can even get it on your fridge. A Samsung Family Hub at Home Depot was set to browse PornHub videos.
Samsung’s expensive fridge can do all sort of things: “With a connected touchscreen, the Family Hub lets you plan meals, coordinate family schedules and even entertain, helping you organize your home and live better every day.” You can “connect the whole family: Share calendars, photos, notes and more between your refrigerator and your family’s smartphones,
so you can touch base anytime, anywhere.”
All that on your fridge. And where lettuce and tech leads, porn very soon follows.
What Samsung may not have thought of is how to advise people setting up the Family Hub in a shared area. In which many unrelated people pass through. At different times of the day. Without anyone else being there.
My friend, who dealt with the clean-up, says that it might have been construction workers or other folks who were responsible, but somebody — somebody! — drew dicks all over virtual sticky notes across all the swipe-through screens. This was discovered when the organization’s head toured a visitor through the office, and wanted to show off a streaming feature on the Samsung fridge. My friend writes:
dicks swipes dicks. swipes dicks
The head finally gets past the dicks, brings up the browser, and it starts streaming high-definition porn from a Web site.
Now wash your hands in that built-in water dispenser.
Walid al Damirji’s sharp eye is what makes his pieces for By Walid so covetable. Sourcing vintage treasures to incorporate into handsome thoughtful pieces, texture, colour and shape define his collections. Clothing from the past is transformed into pieces with modern sensibility.
And the £798 trousers you can see in the photo above and below:
Walid’s lightweight tonal-brown and navy silk-poplin Boro-print Morton trousers are artfully ripped and patchworked together for an offbeat lived-in feel. They suspend from an elasticated waistband into a slim-fitting shape that tapers at the knees, then are lent a further discerning twist by the extended raw seams. Runs true to size.
Putting the wally in Walid
Or as Nigel Meister puts it:
[Dept. of Contemporary Obscenity] So, these trousers (by Walid) are described as “offbeat and lived in”. They are made of silk. They retail for $951. I doubt anyone who had un-designed trousers that looked anything like these would describe them as “lived in” or “offbeat”. There is something deeply distasteful about this kind of poverty porn (IMO). That the economic misery that an (indubitably artful) design like this implies or references could be worn as an expression of 1% luxury is, to my mind, obscene. It magnifies and exemplifies the economic disconnect rampant in our world. It is vivid symptom of a kind of moral rot at the heart of late-stage capitalism in the 21st century.
Goes well with hat (£3,545), artisan stick (£8,986) straw (£98) and bare feet (model’s own):
Anyone who drinks Carling pretty much get what they deserve. The revolting, fizzy pisswater Anwar Sedat and other urophagiasts (people who drink their own urine; as opposed to perverts (people who drink everyone else’s and flavoured cider)) would eschew as too weak is even worse than it appears. We hear the allegation that Molson Coors, the company that makes the stuff, has realised Carling drinkers are fools. The Mail reports:
Carling is marketed in Britain at 4 per cent alcohol strength, but brewers Molson Coors have admitted it is weaker for tax reasons. Court documents reveal the lager has been made to a strength of about 3.7 per cent for the past five years.
But Molson Coors did not change the strength recorded on Carling labels to prevent drinkers from ‘demanding a slice’ of the saving, tribunal documents said. The brewer insists customers have not been misled and its labelling was ‘entirely consistent with the law’.
The details emerged in a tax tribunal brought against the beer makers by HMRC over an alleged unpaid multi-million-pound duty bill.
We’ve been here before, of course. In the 1970s, Watney’s introduced Star Light – “this beer was so weak in strength that a 1971 Sunday Mirror investigation discovered that it could have been legally sold in the United States during Prohibition.”
Star Light had an alcohol content of about 1.4%.
Carling said: “Due to their natural ingredients, all beers are permitted to have a slight variation between the finished product and the alcohol content stated on the label. For most beers, the allowed variation is 0.5 per cent.”
Lucky, then, that the change was down not up. Drink drivers take note. “The beer was lying to me, occifer.”
Did the eclipse touch your home and garden? If it did, you could be rich. Your patch of ground touched by the celestial wonder is worth a load of money:
This is a Jar of soil from the area of greatest duration of the eclipse in Carbondale Illinois. This dirt seen total darkness as the moon traveled in front of the sun (2 minutes and 40 seconds). Plant your special seeds in this dirt and let the magic begin. Ok seriously, it’s just dirt, but it is everything I said it is. Hey, if nothing else help a guy out I need new tires for my wife’s car 😉 Seriously, I mean it!!!
If an Australian tourist offers you a cup of tea, take care to eye the brown brew and pay special attention to any small lumps of dark matter floating on the surface. Are those undissolved instant coffee granules? Maybe. Or are the left overs from a spot of tummy trouble?
Gizmodo tells us that Australians are boiling their underwear in hotel room kettles. Hey, it saves on tea bags:
I reached out to some experts on the matter to find out if the simple fact the underwear is literally boiling means this actually a safe thing to do, or nah.
Dr Heather Hendrickson is a Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biosciences at the Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at Massey University in Aukland…
“It is super super super super gross,” Dr Hendrickson says. “Please tell your friend to knock it off! Boil the water and pour it into the sink for washing items. Don’t put your dirty underwear into the kettle!”
