Remotely desirable

I'm trying to find a remote control to replace all remote controls. How about this collection of lovelies?

Your fantasy

How successful would your fantasy radio station really be? Here's Fantasy FM. Check out the results of the trial too.

House

Let's celebrate the creativity of Britons in naming their houses, with this top 3 - "Most popular house names":

1. The Cottage
2. Rose Cottage
3. The Bungalow

N for Nokia

Nokia phones have lost some of their buzz over the years - but here's the N95.

Dirk

A whole wealth of material in the website of the Dirk Bogarde estate, launched today. Some films and pictures in the archive section have never been seen before.

Me: Moir

Vic Reeves plans to publish a collection of short stories, and a smartly-titled autobiography.

Claybound in Canterbury

We like to feature new gadgets on the blog, but here's a very old one. It's a calculator from the 14th century. It went for £138,000 at Bonhams.

Beaky magnetometer

How do homing pigeons do it? With their beaks, perhaps.

Hop

Here's another recommended cheap-flight-finder: dohop.com

Now with zinc and magnesium

Diet Coke Plus - with added "essential" vitamins and minerals.

Packed flat

Ikeafans - for fans of Ikea. (Hence the title, I guess.)

Caught

John's blog has featured useless criminals in the past - here's the one who fell asleep, and just last week this was the one who left his prison ID card at the scene. Now, from Germany, the burglar whose credit card snapped in the lock. Can you guess what happened?

Grooming

Freshening your head - special wipes for bald guys, from Bald Guyz

(Never forget, hair is over-rated. As a friend once said, the Lord could only make so many perfect heads. The rest he covered in hair.)

Helicopters and dancing

16 things it takes most of us 50 years to learn

Legacy

George Bush wants to raise $500 million to create his presidential library at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. These plans, says the Economist, "were bound to be dogged by jokes about the President's literacy. Get a Bible and a beanbag and call it a day, you might say".

34mm

They say it's the world's smallest USB stick.

Bloggy

James Cridland's blog.

Disco inferno

Fresh from a starring appearance in John's blog on Sunday, we learn that Bryan Ferry could have a little local difficulty.

Lassie

It's a Japanese machine for rescuing victims from fires.

It's good to know

How Stuff works. Like fibre optic cables. And women.

ID

Never a week goes by without another candidate for the the title "World's Stupidest Criminal". Here's the story of the man on parole who broke into a house using a plastic card to spring the lock. His prison ID card. Which he left at the scene.

Traffic peers

Getting up-to-date travel news in the future, as previewed at the CeBIT exhibition, will involve vehicles talking to each other.

Even the horn section

Now here's the website of an iconic band. BBC4 told Blondie's story in a documentary "One Way Or Another" the other week - a programme worth seeing if it's repeated. It included a story told by their producer about a video shoot in the early 80s, by which time drugs were killing the band.

"The horn section that they brought in to play on Island of Lost Souls, they were all a bunch of junkies. They were Puerto Ricans, great players, and they were all junked out of their mind the whole session, sweating profusely and disappearing into the bathroom and coming back, and it was like, 'No, even my
horn section are junkies'."

Fresh

Police in the Indian city of Ahmadabad are getting new uniforms which smell of roses and glow in the dark.

"We think that by end of the year, you will notice a new fresh look when you are intercepted by one of our men," said a force spokesman.

Slacking

Slacker is another music website hoping to create your perfect playlist. The difference with this one is that it's promising American users they'll be able to update their portable device with a fresh selection of songs automatically via wireless or satellite. Here's more.

Edit

Picnik.com - the brand new online photo editor.

Induced

Is another Marilyn Monroe conspiracy theory worth reporting? Possibly, when it involves a new FBI file, and the story that she was tricked into committing suicide.

Rento-feng

Rentokil's going into the Feng Shui business. The press release is solid stuff, but there's also a website for their newly-branded arm Ambius, creating "harmonious environments". One of their things is "acoustic artwork", coming soon with the promise that it "not only enhances office environments visually, but also dampens background noise in open plan offices, together enhancing the workplace for employees". For a look at what the company has already done, there are galleries here.

King of cool

I've only just discovered that the Marks & Spencer ads featuring Bryan Ferry were taken by Bryan Adams. His website is good but is all about the rock music, not the photography, but here's a brief mention of his other side.

From the devil

Football authorities are thinking about introducing penalty shootouts at the end of drawn league games, with two points for the winner and one for the loser. There's more on the story here, and here you can see that a large number of Planet Football readers think the idea is "moronic" (87% at the time of writing), but my favourite response comes from Jimmy Hill, who says:

"This idea has come from the devil and not from God."

More music

Just how many household devices can be integrated with an iPod? Here's a tool bag with speakers to play your tunes.

Earth dream

Honda have set up a website to celebrate their 2007 F1 car, which has no on-car sponsors this year, raising awareness of the environment instead.

Take the strain

Three fact-filled paragraphs from China Daily, bringing us good tidings of 10,000 people in a tug-of-war competition.

Travelling data

This USB drive has an integrated card reader - two gadgets in one.

TV-am's Christmas Tape

This'll bring back happy days, if only for the theme tune and Gordon Honeycombe.

Suspect hat

It's only a fortnight since a Tyneside great-grandmother aroused suspicions with her purse. Now, from Aldershot, news of another who was told to remove her woolly hat for security reasons.

Shopping

The automated shopping list assistant - SmartShopper.

Picnic

The technology blog of David Pogue in the New York Times. In this post he tells us about "Picnic, a favourite muttered response from IT helpdesk analysts. "Problem in chair, not in computer."

Fallen Madonna

'Allo 'Allo - filming one more time in Manchester this month.

Coast

Just a coaster from Muji.

Back then

The Institute of Historical Research, jam-packed with stuff.

Dying out

Things that are vanishing: bees and darts.

The bees thing is a bit of a worry, judging by the words of an expert on Radio 4's Broadcasting House last week - "no bees, no planet".

At least we can do something about the darts problem, here. It's a divisive issue, though, with Jeremy Clarkson and Prince Charles apparently on different sides of the chasm.

30 gulps

Cannisters of oxygen from Bodykind. They tell us that it's good for brightening you up before a meeting, whilst exercising or first thing in the morning, and helping you get over a long flight or a hangover.

Quicker to walk

If you're in London and you're never sure whether it's quicker to walk or take the tube, here's the Shortwalk Map, devised and researched by postgrad students at the Central St Martins College of Art and Design.

Healthy Britain

Mineral water's getting more popular - 17 million households in the UK buy at least one bottle a month. It now makes up 9% of the soft drinks market, with sales up 11% in a year.

Dispensing class

Taking the silver bag out of the winebox is, I've always thought, a bit like taking the lid off a Dalek. Apart from all the obvious differences. Anyway, that's what you'll need to do if you want to feed your winebox dispenser.

Pimp your homepage

The Free Dictionary gives you a customisable homepage - but even if you don't customise it, it's quite cute.

From above

Man tries to cash £25,000 cheque from God.

On your head, Jim

See that little lead with the plug on the end of it? That plugs into your Ipod nano. Then the sound comes through the hat. It's a hatphone.

Big ears

Walkears, from those crisps people, for Comic Relief.

The 80 lb burger

That's the world's biggest burger. And don't they look proud.

Ear wear

Most bluetooth headsets are a bit clunky and lacking in design. Not this one.

Hot

Now, I haven't quite worked out how this works, but Hot UK Deals seems like a pretty cool place. It's partly a forum for people to post good prices being offered by online retailers. It has a search function as well, so it functions partly as a price comparison site.

Eight doctors stumped

From Florida, the woman who's had hiccups (in the style of an abrupt scream) for eight months.

Zone

Simple but perfectly formed, the Time Zone Clock.

Car or cash?

Fewer companies are offering a cash alternative to the company car, according to new figures from GE Commercial Finance. A year ago, 52% of "essential" car drivers were offered money instead - this year, it's 38%. The corresponding figures for non-essential users show that 40% were offered the cash alternative last year, falling now to 33%. Most companies expect company car usage to grow in the next year.

A very overdue book

Richard Schiff's on the West End stage at the moment in Underneath The Lintel - I heard him interviewed on 5 Live, and the reviews have been great. He's Toby from the West Wing, but the play couldn't be more different. It's a one-man show, with Schiff as a librarian trying to find out how a book came to be returned 113 years late. It's on until the middle of April.

Two favourite things

Guinness marmite. Allegedly.

2020

Here's 2020 Vision, the website set up by Charles Clarke and Alan Millburn that's causing a bit of a stir in the Labour party.

Waiting for that day

George Michael will play the first gig at the new Wembley Stadium. (I know that's the old logo. It's there for old time's sake.)

Let it shine

Make your Ipod shiny with Griffin's mirrored case.

Perfect prints

There are plenty of websites offering to print your digital photos and pop them in the post, but this one's really good.

In the post

That's the postcard that took 90 years to reach its destination, sent from the trenches in World War II, and finally delivered to Chippenham, where the 86-year-old daughter of the soldier's girlfriend received it with curiosity. The story's here, and some quotes from the eventual recipient are here.