Words Dept.: category

Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, which was launched last November, appears to be undergoing what might be called a soft relaunch with the help of the Guardian. Apparently, nobody likes the expensive, horrible-looking gadget but it’s rated as Bloody Great by, er, Amazon. According to the paper’s report from the US BookExpo trade fair, Amazon CEO [...]

Since Simon Cowell rolls his eyes and tuts like a bored suburban housewife following virtually every act that appears on Britain’s Got Talent (which his company, Syco, co-produces), why doesn’t he just piss off and do something else for a living? Just a thought. Similarly, am I the only person who finds it faintly disturbing [...]

Can there be anything more depressing than the new British film Three and Out? I haven’t seen it, of course, because it’s shit. How do I know it’s shit if I haven’t seen it, you ask. Well, just look at the poster (I reply) – in fact, just look at the font used on the [...]

Just in case you were struggling to imagine what a child hidden in a drawer under a bed looks like, the Daily Mail is pleased to help out. Next week in the Mail: a delightful cutaway diagram showing how asylum seekers prepare swans for the oven. Mmm. Swans. [Dribble.]

Jamie Hewlett, of Gorillaz and Tank Girl fame, has created the art and costume design for a new production of a Chinese “circus opera” to be staged as part of the Manchester International Festival, which starts next week. It’s called Monkey: Journey to the West and features music by Damon Albarn. Dazed & Confused has [...]

I’ve just been reading about so-called “murder simulator” Manhunt 2, a game which has been banned this week in the UK and looks to be heading to a global ban, thanks to what the BBFC calls its “casual sadism” and “unremitting bleakness”. The game was earmarked for the Wii, which would mean stabbing people to [...]

This is the office of Three Rings Design, a games company in San Francisco. Surely all offices should look like this. It contains “an attacking octopus couch, a secret lounge hidden behind a bookcase, captain’s quarters and a steampunk bike rack”. I work from home and, needless to say, my back bedroom contains all these [...]

Would you look at that? A massive 4ft designer toy by in demand artist KAWS. Not sure where I’d put this – perhaps it could stay in the window to scare away burglars. It retails at around £1,250. Not that unreasonable for an artwork on this sort of scale. Consider, for example, that Damien Hirst [...]

Marks & Spencer is launching a £150 suit that allows you to control your iPod using a controller hidden in the lapel and wires concealed within the lining, reports the Daily Mail. I can’t possibly imagine why anyone would want such a thing, other than to mark themselves out as the biggest prat in the [...]