Arty

Paint your own cappuccino cups.

Keeping it all online

Great online collaboration software from 37 Signals.

Cycling generation gap

40% more adults are cycling, but 25% fewer children, in the last ten years. Here's the survey.

Glassy

Beer bottle goblets - they're made from recycled beer bottles.

Landscapes with a soul

Outdoor photos

Leaving

The time of year when you're most likely to think about emigrating is at the end of May, says yell.com.

TMS @ 50

Charming, reliable, complete and sometimes funny - reasons to love Test Mast Special, whose producer Peter Baxter looks back in an entry on the programme's blog.

From the home of sweets

Dracula fangs.

Big, white shaggy dog lost

The original shaggy dog story is here. On your behalf, I've taken the trouble to read it in full, and I can tell you it's not funny. But then that's the whole point.

Having the minister to tea

So you'll probably have heard that Asda are dropping the CD single. There was less publicity, though, for the fact that (in their view) the doily has also gone west.

The sound of laughter

Peter Kay's website. Includes the man himself reading Chapter 1 of his autobiography - download it for £1 (or £1.50 by text), proceeds to charity.

Groovy kind of justice

60's pop star Wayne Fontana admitted setting fire to a debt collector's car, but wasn't allowed to keep the fake sword and scales of justice which he brought to Derby Crown Court for the hearing. The dark glasses, though, stayed, as he claimed "Justice is blind". More.

DAB on your iPod

Roberts are bringing out a DAB radio unit to plug into your iPod. Now there's a good idea. Will it be as lovely as their clock radio?

All ears in car

Here's a diagram from a Bose patent application. It's for surround sound in your car. Love Bose, can't wait.

The Force

Star Wars is 30. Here's a page of trivia and visual memorabilia from BBC News.

Fixing the forest floor

How clever are ants? Well, smart enough to use their own bodies to repair potholes along bumpy rainforest floors, say scientists at Bristol University.



When you've got 200,000 army ants on the move, they need a good robust route to march along, and using their skill and cunning they create their own do-it-yourself road repair service, using their bodies to plug holes in the trail.



Researchers say that the ants even match themselves with the holes for the "best fit" and co-operate to fill larger holes - to help speed up the process and benefit their wider ant community.

1

Depending when you read this, John's Blog is probably one year old by now.

May 27th is its birthday, as well as the birthday of Jamie Oliver and Roosevelt's New Deal, plus these notable events.

Here's the first post, a modest little thing, and 823 posts later, we are one.

Walking distance

This website's a little bit clunky, but clever. It tells you how many miles you've walked, using an interface bolted on to Google Maps.

First, you need to get it to the UK. (Next to the "Jump to" box, you need the "Choose" pulldown - if it doesn't appear initially, click on Options - then select UK.)

Now, find your starting point and click "Start recording" on the left. The system works on straight lines, so just double click every time you want to turn. It'll add up the precise number of miles.

Thus we learn, for instance, that the quickest way to walk from Leicester Square to Marylebone Station is up Regent Street and Oxford Street to Regent's Park, rather than up Charing Cross Road, Tottenham Court Road and past the Euston Tower.

And that, in the countryside, I cover a bit less ground than I thought in an average hour's walk. That'll be all the gazing about.

Stand here for reception

That's East Prawle. Why? It's the new home of mobile phone innovation. This from the Birmingham Post, via newstatesman.com:

Mobile-phone users in East Prawle, Devon's most southerly village, have discovered that calls can only be made from one spot and only if they are two feet off the ground.

Up to now they have been clambering on a wooden public bench - which is showing signs of wear and tear from so much use.

Chivelstone Parish Council has now decided to head off damage to the bench by building a "mounting block" to give callers crucial elevation.

East Prawle district councillor Julian Brazil explained: "People don't want a phone mast."

Top TV

Paul Merton in China - just watched the first edition on Sky Plus. Love it.

Channel 5 at 9pm on Monday.