Good old vinyl

Having converted your cassettes to MP3, now you can do the same for your records, with this.

The collective graffiti revolution

Social doodling, at mydrawings.com.

Don't have nightmares

Not the biggest story in the world, but just a tickle of interest perhaps for the fact that Kirsty Young is joining Crimewatch.

Taped on MP3

Convert your old, old cassettes to MP3 via this USB casette deck.

Through the lens of Matthias Pabst

Just a gorgeous photo blog.

The key that could have saved the Titanic

Sold at auction for £90,000 - the key to the binoculars cabinet on the Titanic. If the lookout had had it, he might have seen the iceberg. But the key wasn't on the ship.

Spicy and exotic

If you like strong coffee, I guarantee you'll like this from Java via Waitrose.

Origami for you

As the Readymech website says: "Readymechs are free, flatpack toys for you to print and build. They are designed to fit on an 8.5"x11" page and printed with any printer. You’ll need double-sided tape, thick matte paper, and 10-15 minutes for build time."

Omnia omnibus ubique

A zoo for the roof of Harrods.

Whirly

I've always loved this stuff. Here's a Meccano helicopter.

Welcome to the tumblelog

A new style of blog from tumblr.

Young Shakespeare

With the aid of computer imagery, see the resmblance between William Shakespeare and Daniel Radcliffe, here.

EcoPlus DAB

The Pure Chronos II - an eco-friendlier DAB clock radio.

Books by email

Classic tales, divided into tiny emails, and sent to your inbox by http://www.dailylit.com/. Why would you want to read novels by email? Here are the answers. You can elect to receive the story chunks, which take about five minutes to read, each day, or you can speed it along (if you're on the train, for instance, and reading via your blackberry) by asking for the next installment immediately.

Red Leicester doing the business

Fresh from the news of Wedginald on the blog this week, even more cheer for British cheese lovers - sales are up, as our fare outpaces the French. Hurrah.

Pukka

From Royal Worcester, the Jamie Oliver range, including a range of cheeky mugs, and a selection for entertaining.

Music you're about to love

Amazingtunes.com is being described by some as "iTunes Unsigned" - it's a new website, offering fame and fortune to unsigned bands. You can listen in real time for free, but to download you need to pay, with 70% of the revenue from the downloads going to the artists.

Crunchy

To mark the passing of Marcel Marceau, these words of his:

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

Restart me up

Never get stuck with a flat battery again, thanks to this glove-box-sized device from Black & Decker.

Celestial Skies

Now here's picturesque.

Chocaholics

Your yearning for chocolate is not an addiction. It's all society's fault.

Find me anywhere

So, normally, when your keys are lost, you find out where they are.

Now, when you're lost, your keys find where you are.

This is the bluetooth GPS receiver on your keyring. Your mobile phone houses the Sat Nav software, but you still need the little GPS gadget which works out where in the world you are. So, you attach the GPS thingie to your keyring, and it talks to your phone via bluetooth. Marvellous.

Marginal revolution

I can't remember how I came by it, but the Marginal Revolution blog is a fine way to pass some spare time.

Big pumpkin

This story, from WAVY-TV, needs no more than a simple cut-and-paste. They've said it as well as I ever could do:



HUTCHINSON, Kan. - It's one gargantuan gourd. This year's Kansas State Fair blue ribbon-winning giant pumpkin weighs nearly a-half ton. At more than 976 pounds, the pumpkin tops the previous fair record by nearly 300 pounds. Grower Brian Stanley says he's now hooked on mammoth vegetables. Next year he says may try growing a giant tomato.

"Love stories with a jagged edge"

As a new biography of Agatha Christie is released, a quick word for the crime writer's alter ego, Mary Westmacott, under whose guise Christie wrote six novels of psychological romance. They're to be found now in two collections - here and here.

Culinary salvation

It's a London thing, but Deliverance will offer you fresh food fast, just when you need it. Picnics to, if you'll brave the autumn outdoors.

Claim blame game

From elephant.co.uk, news that people called Armstrong are statistically the least likely to make an insurance claim. Frasers and Davidsons are pretty safe too. But if your name's Gill or Mills, oh dear. 23% more likely than average to make a claim for an accident.





(Gills are most likely to live in Twickenham, if this is causing you concern.)

Touching

Don't be shy to take a good look. There's nothing wrong with wanting one. iPod touch. Only days away.

Cheese screen

Rejoice. This is a cheddar cheese maturing, live. Its name is Wedginald.

Phone world

From The Guardian, news that the UK now has more mobile phones than people, with a cracking 71 million handsets out there. 9% of us own four or more mobile phones. That's too many, even for me, but no wonder that the Guardian website has a whole section devoted to the beasties.

Hat Face

Just a hat, from Fat Face. Well, it is autumn, after all.

Maps on tap

Google Maps will now give you the HTML code to link straight to a map of your choice, so you can pop it straight onto your blog or website. Like this:



View Larger Map

No stamping

Crushing garlic cloves with your boot, before cooking them, is wrong. Particularly in a restaurant.

Backlit

Rilo Kiley are back.

Stuff that matters

I seem never to have recommended self-proclaimed nerdy-news-site Slashdot before. How can that be?

Being served

So, you and two mates are in the middle of a burglary at a sports store in Uruguay. You've locked one of the employees up in a back room, and you're just taking the cash, when a customer comes in. What do you do?



Well, to make everything look normal, clearly you have to serve them. And the next one. And the one after. For half an hour in fact.

Still pink

Don't give up on the pink stuff, just because summer's on its last legs.

How they're connected

In the style of the Tokyo subway map, the 2007 Web Trend Map. Just baffling. The same chaps have these predictions for the immediate future of the internet.

The largest object to be stolen this year

Here's the story of the man who stole a metal bridge over a river, intending to break it up and sell it for scrap.

Shades to match big hair

Neon sunnies are back, then.

Just cool stuff

Here's a blog dedicated to stylish designs, like this clock, which tells you the time with words.

Squeeze me

In Japan, a new trend. Girdles for men.

American news from the inside

If American politics is your thing, here's Memeorandum. Vast amounts of content updated automatically every five minutes.

Are you cheese-some tonight?

Kelly in Leicestershire claims that she's found the image of Elvis in a slice of stilton. I can't see it myself, but you can form your own opinion here.

For the ears

I've always been a Sennheiser man when it comes to spending money on headphones, but these Zumreed jobbies are smart and apparently sound great.

Oven roasted onion and rosemary

If you haven't heard of Walkers SunBites yet, a £3million marketing campaign will fix that. Wholegrain, less fat, and as we can see from the picture on the left, truly on the path to a sunnier horizon.

Stumbled

Here's a whole site just dedicated to recommending great places to go on the web.

Sheepish

Nomadic shepherds make their point in Madrid.

Bring email to life

I haven't tried this for myself but the reviews are good. In 3D Mailbox, avatars represent your email, you can check messages by the ocean, and it's generally gorgeous, so they say.

Beardy

You didn't miss the World Beard And Moustache Championships in Brighton at the weekend, did you?

New new new from Nokia

Aiming to beat the iPhone, here comes the Nokia N81. If the press release looks a bit boring, feast your eyes on the photos.

Bart learning

What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe

Eco life

Online shopping with the environment in mind, from Natural Collection.

Spare any change, guv?

Another great candidate for World's Worst Criminal - the New Yorker who threatened a teenager with a knife and demanded four dollars. The victim only had a tenner, so the robber sent him off to the local pizza place get some change. He was caught just around the corner.

Booze beneath the trap door

Now this is special. If you've got the money, you can build a wine cellar for your home. Well, get someone in to build it, at any rate.

Loving classics

Penguin's new Great Loves theme series.

Dopey

Here on Hokkaido in Japan, they have a problem at Abashiri Prison. The exercise ground keeps sprouting marijuana. It's been growing there for over a year, and 300 plants have been pulled up (and, they hasten to tell us, destroyed), but still they come.

It even has a built in rain sensor

This might seem like cheating. But (if I had a lawn) I think I could live with myself, partly for the fun of it.

Top shop site

Just a really nicely designed website full of intriguing things: Whippet Grey.

Kicking bones

The team behind Life On Mars is going to Bath to make archaeology sexy. If, of course, you don't think it already is.

Write your love letters in your Canadian hut

I wonder if this is for real...

"i-trunk - your office in your pocket ! Men has always dreamed of bringing his own office everywhere. Now it is possible with the I-trunk. It is equipped with the imac intel 20”, the JBL Creature sound system and the Canon IP90 portable printer. Possessing this marvel you can make your account, write your love letters or your last novel and of course send your mails or surf on the net, in your Canadian hut, on an desert island or more simply at your home sweet home. It possess full of drawers and you can always choose among 51 leather colours."

Kitchening

The Le Creuset website.

Happy in England

If one British city were to have beaten everywhere except towns in Holland and Denmark for quality of life, which would it be? Newcastle.