Yes:
Unapologetic Tattoos
As a glance at the reputable modern role-model, Ms Amy Winehouse, will show, big brassy tattoos make no excuse for their presence. They make your tiny nautical stars look more ridiculous by the day. Reacting against the trend of shame for that hideous thing you had etched on some shrouded part of your anatomy, it displays your taste for pin-up girls/horseshoes/your significant other for the rest of us to judge. You might appear to be a raving idiot, but you’ve got our respect for it. [LC]
Intelligent Toilet Graffiti
There’s something surreal about sitting in a toilet cubicle (don’t get embarrassed, it happens to all of us) and being faced with an erudite discussion on topics diverse as (but not limited to) last night’s football and poetry criticism, as opposed to the usual tripe about who’s either gay or a slag or just looking for a good time. People with nothing better to do than spew the intriguing and sometimes downright disturbing workings of their minds over the four walls (and yes sometimes even the toilet itself) of toilets throughout Glasgow have been doing just that, and we thank them. Beats taking a paper in any day. [DB]
Water Bears
As far as it’s possible for a microscopic invertebrate to be cute, the water bear, or tardi is right up there with a YouTube video of a kitten falling asleep. They’re chubby little fellas with eight stumpy legs, a heart of gold and a can-do attitude. What’s more, they’re hard-fucking-core. You can shoot them into space, freeze them to absolute freakin’ zero, chuck them into a nuclear reactor, even starve them of water for as long as you like, and they’ll still keep on doing this sweet little waddly walk and whistling a little song. If you were at a party and it was raining outside and you were out of beer, the tardigrade is the kind of dude who would be like “It’s cool, guys, I’ll go,” and you’d be all like “Man, that tardigrade, he’s okay.” So here’s to you, water bear: you’re officially GUM’s favourite of all the Panarthropoda. [PM]
Paper Shoes
Japan is a country famed for origami, high fashion and advanced technology. Fashion retailer Onisuka Tiger have combined all three to create the world’s first origami shoes which you, dear reader, can make yourself! A cheap, if slightly impractical, approach to fashion. Make at least 18 pairs out of this issue, with our pretty paper. http://shin.onitsukatiger.co.uk/ [JW]
Wispas
The re-emergence of our favourite bubbly chocolate, like, ever, has probably made our very year. OK, so it’s just an Aero made with significantly better chocolate encased in an aesthetically superior wrapper, but it’s the childhood memories it evokes – a time when a chocolate bar cost less than 60p – that make it. The only problem is finding a shop that sells them. We still think 60p and a 3 mile round-trek is a price we’re willing to pay for a chocolate love-explosion. [DB]
He Shoots, He Scores
“It will make men’s hearts leap and make the women’s league give a loud groan.” Manufacturers of the fastest cars and the finest biers, the Germans are at it again. This time they’ve combined the beautiful game with the call of nature. The KloKicker, translated literally as the Loo Kicker, is a green plastic inset for a urinal that incorporates a mini football goal on top. A football dangles in front of the goal and the ‘aim’ of the game (see what we did there?) is to hit the ball into the goal as accurately as possible. Upon completion of said task, the ball even changes colour! Guaranteed to be ‘a lot of fun for top goal scorers’, the KloKicker is available now in your local German Brauerei. Next stop: Glasgow. We hope. [JW]
No:
Freeview
Everyone knows that watching TV nowadays is a long, deathly trudge through a dire trench of stupidity, fear, hate and Hollyoaks. Right. That’s just TV. But Freeview is TV’s retarded second cousin who likes to rub himself up against table legs. Searching for something to watch on Freeview is like getting lost in the desert. You wander for days through the ravaged hinterland of cancelled shows and repeats, hoping for the meanest morsel to sustain you, until you stumble across a decade-old repeat of Friends. You gingerly raise it to your mouth. You grimace. But after those hours of cultural deprivation, you have no choice but to swallow. Five hours later, your skin has taken on a waxy complexion, your friends don’t recognise you and you’ve got a strange compulsion to consolidate all of your existing debts into one easy monthly payment. You are wretched, living death. And you’re still more entertaining than watching E4. [PM]
Festival Wristbands
Ok, we get the picture. You want everyone to know you went to a festival this summer and had a really, like, amazing time. That’s great, we’re really pleased for you. Just take off the damn wristband already. The germ count on that thing is probably verging on dangerous biohazard levels. [JM]
Kids in Restaurants
Listen up, parents.Just because you once read a parenting book that told you to never restrain your child or else they’ll never blossom into their full potential doesn’t mean I gotta put up with it.If you never tell your kid to shut up, that kid will grow up to be the loudest, bigoted asshole on the planet, or even a politician.Now, sit that kid in a chair like a normal human being or I’m ‘a slap you. [AM]
Bad Poetry
My melancholy detects no horizon
So I diffuse it
Over lines
On Myspace
For it’s all I can accomplish
Sad face.
[LC]
Flag-planting
Earlier this year, the western world guffawed as a Russian submarine planted a flag in the seabed, claiming the North Pole the Christopher Columbus way. How we laughed. But as it turns out, we’re busy doing the same thing in the South Pole. The UK is claiming a 1m sq km area of the Antarctic seabed for oil and other prospecting. Never mind that Argentina also claims the same area, and that this is bound to stir up some bad blood just months after the 25th anniversary of the Falkland Islands conflict.We’re just against planting underwater flags. [AM]
Ikea
They tempt you in with those shiny models of perfect homes, both in their catalogues and in their gargantuan labyrinthine showrooms, where you make the fatal error of thinking that yes, you too could take a stab at interior design.Several hours and much blood, sweat and tears later, all you’re left with is the same, slightly sad-looking flat, but with new cushions and throws that clash horribly with the sofa, a bookcase inexplicably named BØNK lying in pieces on the floor where you gave up building it half an hour ago, and a general hatred of all of mankind. [DB]
