I think it's improved by the look on the face of the guy in the bottom left-hand corner.

5/7/03 - I said that Eric Cantona had really let himself go (although it seems there's a non-cream-cake related answer):

5/7/03 - Some stunning photographs from around the UK taken at night. (via Footprints)

5/7/03 - Boca Raton doesn't mind being spam capital of the world, but god forbid that Krispy Kreme display their 'Hot Doughnuts Now' sign. (via Obscure Store)

29/6/03 - Sheffield United's great chant:

"You fill up my senses
Like a gallon of Magnet
Like a packet of Woodbines
Like a good bit of stuff
Like a night out in Sheffield
Like a greasy chip butty
Like Sheffield United
Come thrill me again"

29/6/03 - Witches ointments from the Encyclopaedia of Psychoactive Substances:

"There do not seem to be accounts of accidental self-poisoning by witches using these ointments, which is quite striking bearing in mind the great number of potentially toxic plant extracts contained in them. This may suggest that the recipes were handed down so that the health risks were minimized. Karl Kiesewetter, who seems to have been the first modern investigator to try out the ointment recipes on himself, accidentally died as a consequence of administering a lethal preparation.
...
An eccentric English experiment is rather tame by comparison... The members of the coven made an ointment from bear's fat, not for the purpose of flying but to keep themselves warm in the forest at night, whilst performing their rituals 'sky-clad', that is to say naked.

The ointment does not seem to have been particularly successful as on one cold night in 1940, whilst the witches were performing a ritual designed to thwart Hitler's planned invasion of Britain, several of the older members died, apparently of pneumonia, thus giving their lives, albeit in the most bizarre of ways, for the war effort."

"The blue spot on the cheek - usually a crude ballpoint pen stab - was once the traditional mark of the borstal boy. Eighty per cent of the mutineers on the Bounty are said to have been tattooed, and if you see a man with a swallow on the base of his thumb, it means he's sailed for 5,000 miles."

"One reason: In checking passengers against the No Fly List, some airlines use techniques that were designed decades ago, and for an entirely different task: to let agents find passenger records quickly without having a full name or a name's precise spelling.
...
One name-matching technique that airlines have used, called Soundex, dates back more than 100 years, to when it was invented to analyze names from the 1890 census. In its simplest form, it takes a name, strips out vowels and assigns codes to somewhat-similar-sounding consonants, such as "c" and "z."

The result can be bizarre. Hencke and Hamza, for example, have the same code, H520. If there's a Hamza on the No Fly List, a traveler named Hencke could be pulled aside for a background check before being allowed to board."

29/6/03 - Another great cartoonist, Tony Husband in Private Eye:

29/6/03 - R.I.P.aLarry.

28/6/03 - Talking of trumps, how about Top Trumps Cunts: (via linkmachinego)

28/6/03 - Robin trumps my watches with his Wi-Fi detector.

28/6/03 - Sort of a retro-style gadget, Icecube of Sweden:

"Take a carefully selected rock over 400 million years old, freeze it thoroughly and then add what you would like to drink. The result is a well chilled drink without any slushy ice."

"Thanks to Rachel Ravey for letting us know that, coming out of a newsbreak about Denis Thatcher's death, Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 yesterday played... Maggie's Farm. The man is a god."

28/6/03 - One of the winners of the 6 Music Worker's Playtime competition to reinterpret album covers, Roxy Music's Country Life:

Some found the original cover to be too offensive so an alternative just featuring the foliage was produced!