Latest dancehall craze: Clarks!

Just when you were about to throw away your dog-eared Wallabies this happened ...

Hawt for summer '10: Pineberries

Love the look of stawberries but simply hate the taste? Love the taste of pineapples but hate the (Jason Lee) look? Relax - help is finally at hand.
For the next five weeks, Waitrose are selling pineberries, a white strawberry that tastes of pineapple.
According to the Daily Mail, They were discovered growing wild in South America and rescued from extinction by clever Dutch farmers.
Get your 125g punnet for £2.99 until April 13. They then skyrocket up to £3.99. I have no idea why. Maybe they are ltd ed?

Coasteering

I'd put jumping off rocks into water right up there with eating chilli con carne and watching QPR beat Chelsea in my list of most fun things to do on planet Earth.
So, imagine my excitement when I discovered the new 'sport' of coasteering. Born and bred in Wales ...

For more info click here

Giant Isopod: northern Taiwanese delicacy/stuff of nightmares

Ever what happens to a whale when it pops it's clogs? Imagine a 20-foot KFC megabucket landing in central Detroit.
When a whale carcass hits the sea deck, an almighty feeding frenzy starring the most spine-chilling creatures on the planet breaks out.
The scariest monster of the lot has to be the giant Isopods, seen here "like giant marine woodlice a third of a meter long, are ripping into the rotting flesh" ...

According to Gawker, a submersible robot recently returned to the surface with a 2.5 foot long Isopod clinging on. Apparently, Ridley Scott, Spielberg and Cameron are locked in a bidding war for its image rights.
p.s they eat these monsters in northern Taiwan.

Fixed Gear San Fran

I've wanted a fixed gear bike for ages and this vid of a geezer named Massan 'bombing hills in his hometown of San Francisco' has done little to dissuade my enthusiasm. Effortlessly cool ...

Massan for Leader Bike from Dan Arel on Vimeo.

Via Dave's Quality Meats

The Ray Carver look

This month, I've been racing through Raymond Carver's wonderful 'All of Us - The Collected Poems'. It is impossibly well written and very moving. All the poems are so good it is very hard to pick a fave but Jean's TV is a real beaut ...

Jean’s TV

My life’s on an even keel
these days. Though who’s to say
it’ll never waver again?
This morning I recalled
a girlfriend I had, just after
my marriage broke up.
A sweet gvirl named Jean.
In the beginning, she had no idea
how bad things were. It took
a while. But she loved me
a bunch anyway, she said.
And I know that’s true.
She let me stay at her place
where I conducted
the shabby business of my life
over her phone. She bought
my booze, but told me
I wasn’t a drunk
like those others said.
Signed checks for me
and left them on her pillow
when she went off to work.
Gave me a Pendleton jacket
that Christmas, one I still wear.

For my part, I taught her to drink.
And how to fall asleep
with her clothes on.
How to wake up
weeping in the middle of the night.
When I left, she paid two months’
rent for me. And gave me
her black and white TV.

We talked on the phone once,
months later. She was drunk.
And, sure, I was drunk too.
The last thing she said to me was,
Will I ever see my TV again?
I looked around the room
as if the TV might suddenly
appear in its place
on the kitchen chair. Or else
come out of a cupboard
and declare itself. But that TV
had gone down the road
weeks before. The TV Jean gave me.

I didn’t tell her that.
I lied, of course. Soon, I said,
very soon now.
And put down the phone
after, or before, she hung up.
But those sleep-sounding words
of mine making me feel
I’d come to the end of a story.
And now, this one last falsehood
behind me,
I could rest.

I like it so much I want the shirt! I figure his Pendleton Salt Creek shirt is just what Ray would have wore sitting on his porch looking out to sea.

From the trenches of screen addiction

Much has been written of late about the growing number of youngsters apparently hopelessly hooked on the web and/or vidgames. A clinic dealing specifically with 'screen addiction' recently opened in London. As is always the case when a new addiction is reported, there are doubters whose simple prescribed cure is a heavy dose of pull-yourself-together-man.
However, if you need proof of the severely damaging effects of screen addiction then read this illuminating tell-all article charting one writer's slide from functioning adult to Grand Theft Auto and cocaine addict. Chilling stuff.

via Gawker

Onthophagus taurus

It's pretty common knowledge that the cheetah is the fastest animal on earth but do you know which animal is the strongest - the Jeff Capes of the jungle? Perhaps the mule? Or the carthorse? Think smaller. Think dung beetle.
According to researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, the little trooper's strength is off the Richter. They can pull a load 1,141 times its own body weight - the equivalent of an average person pulling six fully laden double decker buses.
I also remember once hearing that beetles can be frozen in ice and trot out alive. The Russian army play drinking games based on this phenom. Every soldier takes a beetle, freezes it in an ice cube and then they wait. Whoever's beetle busts out first dodges the trip to the (submarine) bar. All this leads me to conclude that dung beetles will inherit the Earth. Sorry ants.

Via PA

SXSW

The South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas is supposedly hip. But it's still in Texas. Which means there are still rednecks. One owns a bar and he wants to make it clear he wants the yellow-bellied blogging liberals to eff off.

Filler

You used to tune in at certain times to hear the news. Now it is in-you-face 24 hours a day. But who wants or needs that much nooze? Hotel lobbies. And monitors on those robotic trains that spend their whole adult lives ferrying people with lots of bags between terminals at airports.

Passport to the World

One day at school a mother came to speak to us about the danger of cults. Her message was straight from the heart. She'd lost her little one to the clutches of a cult who demanded their new member divorce her fam and friends. The warning was simple: steer clear of cults beacuse they steal all your pocket money and are really hard to get out of. She banged on about de-programming.
I've never joined a cult. Or so I thought. Until I was given a sub to National Geographic as a birthday present. I enjoyed my sub. I read some great stories (esp. the one about the monks of Mount Atmos). But when it came to renewing I decided I could just do without getting National Geographic. Fine, right?
No. They are furious and they want me back bad. They write me enough letters a week to start a large bonfire. Their desperate pleas are making me feel a little awkward. Take today's scary opener:
Dear (cult) Member,
Did you know your membership expired from last month's issue? You are about to lose your passport to the world ... unless you act immediately!
Something makes me feel I'm being stopped at the door of the world's greatest club. I'm scrambling for my wallet. Should I re-up or lose my 'passport to the world'?

5 Minute Major

Ice hockey is nuts. It's dangerous enough ice skating but they insist on trying to push each other over in a really rough, mean way. For example, check out this clip of North Dakota junior (and psychopath) Matt Frattin 'tackling' Minnesota's Kevin Wehrs. Get some!

CyberHoodie

Regular ArchBlog readers will know that clubbing Mecca Cyberdog is a real fave of mine. So, imagine my excitement when I got an email from the Camden HQ saying they'd just dropped some new styles. The pick of the bunch has to be the super-practical Star Sailor Fleece. It ticks all the boxes. Oversized hood. Boob-tube cut. Perfect for slouching at home or wearing under (or over?) a suit for smart.

Big Ambition

An American lady named Donna is past the point of no return and she doesn't care. At 43 stone (and counting) she is the world's fattest mother. But that hasn't sated her whopping appetite for world records. Donna's plan is to double her weight to 70 stone and nail the title of fattest woman on the planet. This involves clearing 12,000 calories a day or $750 of groceries a week. I dread to think what that means in real food terms. As is almost always the case in these cases, her hubbie is a mere slip of a thing, weighing in at 150 pounds. He is what they call in the XXXL community an enabler or chubby chaser. The bills are taken care of by proceeds from a website where enthusiasts can log on and watch her eat (herself to death). Some thoughtful fans send her protein shakes to 'help' .

Photo credit: James Ambler / Barcroft USA

Cheating dogfaces (Crufts 2010)

Dog owners descending on Birmingham's NEC for Crufts 2010 are a bag of nerves.
While their high grade pooches are groomed and trained to near-perfection there's one thing owners can't guarantee: ceaseless good behaviour.
That's because however many hours a day a pug or staffie spends playing the violin and listening to The Archers, a tiny part of its wild animal DNA remains hard-wired to running amok with the pack.
As a result, owners can never be 110% certain that their prize fighter might not lay a huge turd on the podium or sniff another dog's arsehole. This reality has led some truly desperate owners to sneakily graft their dog's head onto their bodies. It's a control thing.

Photo credit: AP