This style of folding back-pack has been around for a long while. I have one that folds into a small zip-up flat wallet sized bag.

It doesn't take weight and many items well, unfortunately. Unless the material used here is more robust but it looks as thought the one in the photo above on the person's back is filled with paper to make it look full.

There has been an increase in supposed UFO 'sightings' in Wales. A lot of people think it may have to do with lights, night filming and other effects to do with the BBC TV series Dr Who and Torchwood being filmed there.

The CORK SCREW. No mention so far.

I love the list. Very non-worldly democratic, if you get my meaning - very US/European standard for today. No vindictive criticism of that is intended.

Well, fuck me if Hitchens isn't an attention seeking whore in another part of the media that most attention seeking whores don't find attention.

Totally redundant. Or retardant. Oops - there's another idea...

WOW! Such attention to detail - I hope there's real love involved and not just for making cakes.

Very cool and brilliant. But isn't it WRONG to eat them??? ;-)

I now this will sound strange, funny and especially odd but a view of a TARDIS out of context sends me into a slightly sexual thrill. These TARDIS shed people are clearly messing with people of my mind minds...

Adorable. And they mention women! In the 1950s! Clearly these people were high. Love it.

Meh, at least Italians can afford to make a choice of some sort at least (like most of us in the Western world) - so not really a big deal on that score.

It's more interesting that Opec were asked by the G8 to pump more oil in order to off-set current high prices and the trend of buying oil to stock pile which is doing much to rapidly raise the price per barrel. The vast majority of Opec countries said 'no'.

Pumping more oil is not a solution long-term but it would help to relieve oil prices in an interim period and alleviate the trend of the hysterical rises in food and fuel costs world-wide.

Instead, Opec predict that oil per barrel will cost $170 pretty soon. And they really do know!

Sometimes I just come here to read the comments of the one or two retards who deliberately provoke flaming cos they believe they've found an almost criminally negligent flaw with a simple idea. Most entertaining indeed - not always but sometimes worth more than a quick scan.

I love whomever it was who said 'ohh kids, let's 'paint' the windows, kitchen floor and use the lawnmower to 'paint' the lawn too'!. At least that user has a sense of humour.

Hiking is walking

I'm not impressed. There is undoubtedly a lot of artristry and talent in both images but the image of the woman looks like a petrified and prettified blow-up doll (a subliminal message perhaps?!jk) and the male one is confusing. I can't see any message about AIDS per se in either image except for the condom. Maybe it's more akin to South Park's AIDES joke as per the organisation's name.... ;)

Tis a pity cos, as most people, know AIDS and other STD cases are continually rising.

It is very difficult indeed to believe these kinds of stories. Sceptics Unite - if you're not too way of large groups...

I immediately thought of the Henry Root letters when I saw this. That persona didn't write to serial killers, as far I as know. The letters of Henry Root are woderfully hilarious. A journalist in Ireland did a similar experiment in the 90s mainly writing to policitans and goverment miniters as well as well-know personalities or celebs as we call them now. Both of the above writers managed to produce very funny books that were also fantastically satirical.

There have been many hoax letters writers.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Root[/url]

@ -#35-MATHUS - Bear Stearns were helped out with millions by JP Chase Morgan, who essentially bailed then out of deep trouble. This doesn't meant Bear Stearns took any responsibility. The reason they were in such shit was due own stupid bad judgment.

This economic prediction is scare tactics BUT it does have some merit.

It is true that US banks irresponsible mortgage lending has led to a credit problem that is only now being reported in a wider way. Many news reporters and newspapers etc, have been decrying this problem for many months.

What annoys me HUGELY is that the US banks, who are the base cause of this, have not taken any real responsibility for their stupidity and that economists are using it NOW to make the Western world believe there will be a global credit problem or recession because of the US banks stupidity.

Today G7 nations met to discuss the issue - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7342419.stm.

If only all financial problems were so easily brought to their attention. If Western banks (or US banks) had NOT been the cause of this they wouldn't have bothered.

And I still don't believe there is, or will be, a genuine 'global' problem because of this.

It's truly shitty for the people and families involved in house repossessions in the US. But it is not warranted to predict a global problem.

The current high price of rice and the rising price of other foods is a far wider concern but the G7 don't need to discuss that - cos it doesn't concern Western economies directly - yet.

Unfortunately, Channel 4 UK often, regularly and ad nauseum compile horrible and mostly depressing lists of this kind - to broadcast on TV.

It's a cheap way to draw in viewers and usually disappoints - whatever type of list they're compiling. It's based on the list that Channel 4 UK provide and then internet votes from than list. Always a disappointment. Uurrgghh!

Superb! Also, TC's future film project, 'Valkyrie' has been postponed to a much later release window.

These have been around for A-G-E-S - really. Youse US-ians need to catch up...?! ;-)

The ones I've seen and bought are specific to the area in question.

OK - I'm not sure I understand the exact thrust of the study correctly... but...

BUT … I do know that when I used my Irish/European roaming mobile to send txt messages to friends & family on my tri-band mobile phone to and from Seattle, San Fran, & LA three years ago the people I txted in Ireland received my messages, and were able to reply much more quickly than anyone I was trying to txt anywhere in the US.

After I had flown back from the west coast of the US, I found that my tri-band mobile was linked to specific US providers only, which, clearly made these connections more difficult.

It appeared a lot of info (attempted calls, txts,) got 'lost'.

BUT ... It was so much easier to txt my friends/family in Ireland than to search for an address I'd forgotten to include in my info,etc, than to look it up on my WAP/internet connection or to phone a service in the US.

'Black holes'?

The Katz-Bassett/Hubble experiment ignored that, and/or did not to include, or define, this type of data, relating to the computers they specifically used for this experiment? It seems not.

'Goofy' exchange rates? Yer all so ... polite.

Bless.

Comments here are being quite rightly sympathetic to this particular situation BUT there is another issue of the banking system being hugely at fault, and in a very wide reaching manner, by loaning money to people who could not make their payments on any type of property?

This issue of approving loans of significant amounts of money to what appeared to be 'bad' re-payment customers is what's being discussed regularly in this part of the world.

Tis a pity they're not called Feck! Arse! Girls! Elektronika.

Wouldn't it be great if these were Sweded movies from Sweden?

Woudl it be great if these were Sweded movies from Sweden.

#29 - Thanks BEANOLINI. I was about to post an answer #3 UMGREG02 that Oscar & Lucinda is actually based on Peter Carey's superb novel.

If you've read the book you'd be disappointed by the film. Carey's description of the Prince Rupert Drop is so much more powerful than the subsequent visual depiction.

http://www.galwayindependent.com/local-news/local-news/organisers-move-to-stem-father-ted-festival-feud/

@SCOTTFREE - you didn't dream it; there was rivalry between the Aran Islands as to who would get to host the festival and therefore who would profit more.

That is seriously ugly.

Somehow I can see Troy McClure living here.

best amazing house I've ever seen is on one of the canry Island, Lanzarote, where the artist, architect, activist Cesar Manrique built his home and a theatre within lava bubbles that had cooled from a volcanic eruption on the island approx 100 years earlier.

http://www.hoho.co.uk/html/manrique_fundacion.html

Most interesting and cool! It's linked to a TV series called 'City of Vice[' which is well worth seeing or making an effort to see if you're not in the UK TV broadcast area.

It's not the waste of food or 'what is art?' shite that irks me about this it's the 'What I've learned in my life so far' title.

Here's something you can learn in your life for today, so far - the Irish owned company Fyffes buys the entire banana crop of Belize every year. Ta-daa!

My initial knowledge of Edith Piaf stems from a school show performed by one of the pupils doing an excellent impersonation of Edith's voice. Pretty cool for a Catholic girls school in Dublin more than 20 years ago. Since then I've had a fascination & respect for her & her music.

So when this actually recently it shocked me a little (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIf8BBdr1Sk). If the French know about this they'd be horrified. Dead people 'selling' stuff isn't new but still.

Ingenious and brilliant.

What's the difference between an onion and an accordion? No one cries when you slice up an accordion.

I'm a Nokia fan. The N series of phones is excellent.

Joel is right - us Eurosians (!) believe a handset should be a handset. A QWERTY keyboard defeats the fantastic inbuilt predictive txt & dictionary function that makes practical usable sense for a hand held device.

The Sony phone looks good but the QWERTY keyboard is simply not necessary. And the pic immediately puts me off - my thumbs are smaller than the ones pictured above but what a major pain is it to maneuver round such a tiny keyboard with your thumbs and/or forefingers.

There is so much misinformation, misconception and ignorance about depression and mental health. Studies like these actually don't provide any beneficial information. And yup, I have diagnosed clinical depression for nearly 10 years now. I'm 41 - I simply cannot wait to reach my peak...!

Ta, CHICKIE PANTS. The non-imaginative papal names thang does have an historical pattern - it's just JPI (as he was to become known) was very new at the time.

Some nuns at my school adopted (hilarious) names eg, Sister Edmond, Sister Alberta, Sister Columba and my fav, Sister Mary Bernard. I always picture her with a beard but disappointingly, she didn't have one.

That's was Pope John Paul, who became JPI due to JPII not having any imagination in choosing his papal name.

Does anyone know where a Shroud of Turin towel may be purchased? As a co-lapsed (ha!) Catholic I find any Christian tat, or 'gifts' as some people may call them, a constant source of amusement. If anyone is ever in the west of Ireland, in Mayo and near a religious shrine called Knock, skip the shrine part if yer not religious & go to the gift shop instead. One of the funniest places I've ever been.

Ahhh, the Nanny State: promoting a total lack individual responsibility, then wondering why nothing is ever anyone's fault...

Ireland is banning incandescent bulbs from January 2009. Apparently, Ireland is the first country to do such a thing. Oh yeah, the Green Party are in a coalition government here. But before the Green's government involvement Ireland adopted the WEEE Directive into law nearly two years ago.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL0660168620071206

See that man's expression? He's in pain. Not 'skin is peeling from my most intimate areas' pain but he will be soon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2222143,00.html

This is a fantastic story, almost literally! I suspected, as did the newspapers reporting this, something was up when, not only did he re-appear at a police station but that his wife coincidentally decided to emigrate to Panama of all places. Can't wait for the next installment.

I prefer this: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/10/windup-mp3video-play.html - featured in BoingBoing in August. I have one of the original wind-up radios. Trevor Baylis rox! ;-)

My request was in early Sept! Good to see it's fixed - thanks.

This is what happens when you have such an excellent and popular website that people want to be a part of - well done, in a weird way...!