Tat's Fantastic - The iFone

Are you the sort of person who wants to stay ahead of the gadget game, but with little regard for quality? Are you the sort of person who'll buy something but not really care where it's from or if it'll last more than half an hour? Do you holiday at Disleyland, eat at McDolands and wear clothes made by Lacontse, Levi Streuss and Bill Shedman?

Then why haven't you bought an iFone yet? They're way cheaper than the (admittedly more popular) Apple iPhone, are manufactured in reliable old Taiwan, and for all we know their insides are made from ice, dried moss and chicken feathers.

You can get one at DealExtreme for just $165, which sounds too good to be true. But then, so did the satin sheets that we bought from Netto just before Christmas and they're languishing at the bottom of the shit drawer now.

Proceed with caution people.

Topical Tune - Thursday

As the extended Heathrow makes an unofficial and unexpected early appearance, here's The Primitives making the leap from the indie ghetto to the top 5 back in 1988 with Crash.



If this whets your poppetite, you might want to seek out last year's cover version by Matt 'Dead-Eyed King Of The Jungle' Willis but, well, it's shit actually.

257 Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know - No. 1: A Thing About The Brain

Popular myth suggests that if you cut a brain in half it has the word ‘Brain’ written in it.

In fact, if you do cut a brain in half you’ll find the words ‘Cheeky Peter’ there, in red neon letters.

As yet, no-one knows why.

What Not To Not Watch - Tuesday

A double-bill featuring men who it’s hard not to hate this evening.

If you’ve ever longed to see Michael Portillo in extreme physical discomfort then tonight’s HORIZON is just for you (BBC2, 9pm). In How To Kill A Human Being, the reinvented Tory stormtrooper explores the various methods of execution used in the United States and reveals the many different ways in which they can go horribly wrong.

All of this leads Mike to ponder the use of a new and more humane way of bumping off criminals, and however cuddly his new image might be, there’s got to be some pleasure derived from seeing Portillo with a face full of CS gas.

Following that and in his first major TV appearance since being released from prison, Chris Langham is grilled by Pamela Stephenson as her head-exploring series SHRINK RAP starts a second run (More 4, 10pm). Those who are still unsure as to how much of the truth Langham told in court will get an opportunity to scrutinise him at closer quarters. Although the fact that he fesses up to being a ‘congenital liar’ at one point isn’t really going to help him claw back a great deal of public sympathy.

John Terry, You Are Nothing

Here's Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens defending his teammate, quarterback Tony Romo, in the face of criticism over Romo's relationship with Jessica Simpson. Maybe he's heard that Simpson likes the more 'sensitive' kind of man and is making a play for her.

Either way, if John Terry had stood up and defended the slagging that the WAGS got in 2006, then we might not be sitting here twiddling our thumbs and wondering whether to support Spain or frigging Switzerland in Euro 2008. Terry, you're nothing.

Single Of The Week: Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place

Hey everyone, it's okay to look at them again. They've stopped being boring.



(We paid £12.49 by the way. That's how much Our Price would have been knocking it out for.)

"All Linked Up Young Man?"

Generations collide. Arsenal!

Shit Clowns We've Met Abroad

NO.1: BETJE AND EDDA – AMSTERDAM 2003

WHO ARE THEY? Two middle-aged girl clowns we met during a quiet thirty-man weekend in Amsterdam at the height of summer. We were outside a pub, they were wandering about promoting some show they were in.

WHAT SORT OF SHOW? Probably involved them inserting rotting fruit into each other while the ringmaster pizzled on them both from the high-wire. Amsterdam you see.

WHAT’S THEIR PROBLEM? Fucking schizos, the pair of them. Happy to come and talk to us and sign autographs, the atmosphere quickly turned sour as we tried to teach them a joke about bees, convinced it would enhance their standing as clowns.

DID THEY GET IT? No. They spoke no English. So we tried to explain the mechanics of the joke to them in a kind of pan-European bundeslanguage. ‘He doesn’t like bees! Understand?? Ich nichten lichten bees!!!!’. At this point they got angry and stormed off. In their big flapping shoes. One of them seemed to be crying.

DID THE MISERABLE CLOWNS HAVE ANY MAGICAL POWERS? Maybe. Just after they’d gone, the second hand of one bloke’s watch started whirring backwards at high speed.

THE BEEKEEPER JOKE:

Two beekeepers are having a drink at a beekeeping convention. The first one says ‘So, how many bees do you keep then?’
The second beekeeper replies ‘Actually, I have 50,000 bees in 10 hives.’
‘Oh, that's very impressive, good work.’
‘How many bees do you keep then?’ says the second beekeeper.
‘I have 500,000 bees.’
‘Jesus, that's a lot of bees! You must have a lot of hives.’
‘Nah, just the one.’
‘What? 500,000 bees? All in one hive? Isn’t that a bit cruel?’
‘Yeah... but fuck 'em.’

The Worst Festival On Earth

Registration for the chance to maybe get to go to Glastonbury opens in a couple of weeks. Well sod that - we’re not going to Glastonbury - we’re not that sociable and anyway, there’s no fucking electricity. Here’s how we’d run one of them things…

THE BURNING TYRE STAGE – Up and coming bands must pay their dues by playing a set on this stage, which is precariously balanced over a pit filled with burning tyres. One freak gust of wind could see tomorrow’s James Blunt rocketed down into a giant stinking fiery bath of molten rubber.

THE PANDA TENT – Controversial venue with an entrance but no exit, housing six giant pandas permanently doped up on faulty tranquiliser drinks. Expect to be heavily mauled; if you survive your loved ones won’t recognise you and your closest friends will deny you ever existed. Formerly known as the Kong Tent.

THE STILT-SHITTER – Protected by some obscure bye-law that no-one can accurately quote, this man wanders around the festival site for the whole weekend. Fine, if it wasn’t for his chronic diarrhoea and the unveiling of his anal torment across the heads and upper necks of the innocent for seventy-two tear-stained hours.

THE STAIRLIFT TO HEAVEN – Costing over half a million pounds to construct, this idiot’s rollercoaster climbs two hundred feet into the sky before ditching its human cargo in the heights of a dying tree. Gravity and nature’s weakness means that you’ll soon be hurtling earthwards and landing just behind the most popular veggie kebab van. Suspicious.

Site For Sore Eyes - Roy Orbison In Clingfilm

It's simple and it's brilliant. A site containing a collection of stories in which the very dead crooner Roy Orbison ends up swaddled in clingfilm as a matter of course.

Example: "Now it is just me and Roy Orbison and the cling-film. I start from the ankles and work up to the trademark dark glasses, wrapping slowly and carefully. Soon Roy Orbison is completely wrapped in cling-film. He is like a big black beetle wrapped in a silvery cocoon. The satisfaction is unparalleled by anything in my previous existence."

Emanating from the borderline-sociopathic mind of Ulrich Haarburste, the best of the website's tales have been joined by some brand new adventures and published in a book. The sort of novel you can really get wrapped up in. Arf.

Amish Road Rage

From Australia's Shaun Micallef. Might as well kick this thing off with something funny...