Sol Invictus

Firstly, Happy Christmas! I hope you're all enjoying your holiday.

Secondly, Happy New Year (I likely won't be updating this in the next week or so)

and Thirdly, well done on getting Rage Against The Machine to no.1, I think that made my Christmas (along with the presents, holiday, seeing friends and all the other good things that happen this time of year)

Hope you all have a fantastic day / holiday and i'll hopefully see you soon and be back on here in 2010.

Shep.

Rage against the X-Factor.

As you all know by now, through an amazing grassroots movement, Rage Against The Machines' 1992 song 'Killing In The Name' is the UK's christmas No.1 for 2009.

The song sold 50,000 more copies than that of X-Factor winner Joe McElderry's cover of Miley Cyrus' 'The Climb' and set 2 new records.
I could comment here but there's really no need, except than to quote Tom Morello in claiming this to be a 'victory over sterile pop'.
Here however, is Hitlers response to the news...




Shep.

It's The Climb...

Sorry if this blog feels a bit disjointed, it's an issue I'm passionate about...


Hey, sorry I've not updated in a while, I've been busy with uni shit.
but, bar one or two things I'm free till new year now :)

So, what's been happening...

Well the Large Hadron Collider is now working (although it'll be a long while before we hear anything significant from it). The Copenhagen Climate Talks are predictably failing to make any progress, and some bankers think they deserve a nice christmas bonus for all their hard work.

But, i'd like to focus on something a little more important than these things, a battle for hearts and minds if you will.

I am of course talking about the battle for the UK Christmas No.1, between X-Factor winner Joe McElderry (I had to look that up) and his stunning cover of that well loved classic 'The Climb' by Miley Cyrus. And a slightly different band, Rage Against The Machine's 1992 Epic 'Killing In The Name'.

Now this has obviously been spread and discussed all over the media who obviously have nothing better to write about, so i'll just summarise here:

- For the last four years the X-Factor 'winners' have dominated the christmas no.1
- This year, a facebook group opened in an attempt to get RATM to no.1 and usurp the X-Factor (and raise some money for charity)
- Simon cowell calls the campaign "Cynical & Stupid"... more people buy Rage.
- Tom Morello donates all money raised to UK youth charity and encourages people to buy. (calls campaign a 'wonderful dose of anarchy')
- Simon Cowell says he's "done us a favour" by removing crap such as 'Bob The Builder' and 'Mr. Blobby' from the christmas charts. (P.S. FUCK YOU!, I'D RATHER LISTEN TO BOB THE BUILDER).
- Facebook group has so far raised £30,000 for charity and are currently ahead in the charts.
- Simon confident X-Factor will win.
- Bookies Odds are on Rage to win, at 8/11, with Joe at evens.
(NME are keeping a real-time update here)

So, where are we now. Well Rage are ahead in the midweek charts, but today saw the CD go on sale, which the retards who watch x-factor will ultimately buy because they're illiterate and don't know how to download.

In case you'd forgotten here are the no.1's for the last decade.. All shit
2000 Bob The Builder "Can We Fix It?"
2001 Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman "Somethin' Stupid"
2002 Girls Aloud "Sound of the Underground"
2003 Michael Andrews & Gary Jules "Mad World"
2004 Band Aid 20 "Do They Know It's Christmas
2005 Shayne Ward "That's My Goal"
2006 Leona Lewis "A Moment Like This"
2007 Leon Jackson "When You Believe"
2008 Alexandra Burke "Hallelujah"
2009 RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE "KILLING IN THE NAME"

C-C-C-C-COMBO-BREAKER!

Come on! let's do it.
- To Prove Cowell Wrong
- To have one decent Christmas No.1 this decade.
- To say 'Fuck You X-Factor'
- For the lulz
- To end this decade on a fucking high!

Download it now (it's 29p for fuck's sake, and it goes to charity, unlike the x-factor song which all goes to Joe, Simon Cowell and Miley Cyrus. (any rational person would rather fund terrorism than pay them!))

Oh, and in case you've missed it, here's the inevitable internet viral:


Shep.

Kaleidoscope

This song is awesome:

Kaleidoscope (feat. Jónsi) - T...

From Pitchfork:

"The name Tiësto may conjure images of big-room, heart-tugging trance music, but the world-conquering DJ is gunning for some rock cred with his forthcoming LP, Kaleidoscope, due October 20 on Ultra. The record's guest list includes Bloc Party's Kele Okereke, Metric's Emily Haines, Tegan and Sara, Kianna Alarid of Tilly and the Wall, and Sigur Rós' Jónsi Birgisson, who lends his angelic pipes to the title track to this seven and a half minute epic-- which is available on iTunes right now-- enjoy!"

Jealous, Much?

Apparently, the new My Chemical Romance album is a "scathing attack on reality TV music shows like American idol and the UK’s X Factor".

The reason given for this is that they don't believe that people with no talent should have stuff handed to them.

Pot, meet Kettle.

Lead 'singer' Gerard Way goes on to say that... "Rock 'n' roll is dangerous and rock 'n' roll should piss people off. Right now, there's not a lot of that happening. What it is is a lot of people trying to be famous. That seems to be the goal"

well My Chemical Romance certainly achieve their goal of pissing me off.

Just in case you'd forgotten how bad they are before the new album come out and tweens dressed in black start going on about how they are the "BeSt BaNd EVeR!!!" again, here's them raping Bob Dylan's 'Desolation Row'...

Note, the irony of the "Sold Out" sign 15 seconds in appears to have passed them by...

Shep.

Digital Economy Bill: A Punishing Future

From The Guardian:

"The digital economy bill is misnamed. A more honest title for the legislation, recently introduced in the Lords, would be the copyright protection and punishment bill. It is less about creating the digital businesses of the 21st century than protecting the particular 20th century business models used in music and film.

The bill is narrow in vision but dangerously broad in creating sweeping ministerial powers to punish digital pirates. It boils Digital Britain down to three Ms – media, music and movies – myopically ignoring the pioneers of new technology, and showing a blind spot for all creativity outside the so-called creative industries. Digital Britain is much more than digital media – there are the start-ups of London's Silicon Roundabout, the great success story of Cambridge chip designer ARM and the small businesses all over the land using the net to open up opportunities. Instead of empowering digital Britons, the bill follows the lead of music and movie corporations, who already apply a presumption of guilt to their customers. Instead of treating the web as a platform of possibilities, it recasts it as a tool for mass theft.

The only digital thing about this bill is the cut-and-paste facility it grants the secretary of state to redefine the copyright laws and increase maximum penalties. The government may argue, with some force, that itneeds flexibility to ensure the rules keep pace with technology. But granting this administration – or any future one – such latitude to rewrite crucial laws on the fly, with only the merest figleaf of parliamentary oversight, is a dangerous precedent, and one sure to inspire future abuses – of democratic as well as digital rights.

Vague laws create opportunities for unintended consequences and offer an open invitation for aggressive lobbying. If it is understood that the secretary of state has it within his gift to change the rules on a whim, then Rupert Murdoch, for instance, could soon be advancing his war against Google in Whitehall.

While Finland enshrines web access as a human right, this bill legislates plans to deprive users of access. It will force internet service providers to become copyright police, obliging them to provide lists of violations to copyright owners. After warnings, violators will have their service crippled, or even cut off. All this will drive up the costs of web access, by piling duties on providers. Add the more defensible surcharges to pay for next generation services, and Digital Britain risks becoming a land beset by an even deeper digital divide. Instead of building on a positive vision of Digital Britain, the government has capitulated to the fears of music and movie moguls struggling to defend their multimillion-pound businesses."

I can't agree more. on the plus side, the petition against mandelsons three-strikes policy now has 26,953 signatures, making it the 5th largest petition on the parliamentary website.

Sign it here and end this absurd abuse of power.

Shep

Dear Mandy [an open letter to Lord Mandleson]

By Dan Bull

Shep

PETA mistreats women...

Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women

A Nasty Discovery.

Meet Matthew Roberts, Age 41, from Los Angeles.

He was adopted as a child and, like many adopted people, wanted to know more about his biological parents. And so, 12 years ago, he began doing research into them.

After first managing to contact his mum, Terry, he thought things were going well. although she wasn't confident about giving him details of herself and her life at first, she eventually opened up and told him the whole story.

What follows isn't pretty...

In 1967 she fell into a bad crowd (to put it lightly), and was transfixed by a young man.

She went on a bus to San Francisco with this man and his friends, known to themselves as 'the family'. Where, in a drug fuelled orgy she was raped by this man.

She returned home and on March 22nd 1968, Matthew was born. she had nothing more to do with that man or the family and put Matthew up for adoption.

However, this was not the end of events, a year later that man would earn himself notoriety through a five week spate of brutal murders, including that of Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski.

For those of you still who still don't know who this man was, his name was Charles Manson.

Obviously this was pretty shocking news. Matthew became depressed after discovering this.

However, he recently gathered the nerve to get in contact with Manson, this lead to a series of letters between them. Manson always signs off with a swastika.

You gotta feel sorry the poor guy and how conflicted he must be:

He's my biological father - I can't help but have some kind of emotional connection. That's the hardest thing of all - feeling love for a monster who raped my mother. "I don't want to love him, but I don't want to hate him either."

The full article available here.

Shep

Magic Boobs

Behold, I bring proof of breasts so awesome they can bend matter.

Don't believe me...

Wonderous aren't they.

What's that??

Sorry, can't hear you...

You think they've been photoshopped?

Damn, foiled again. but the quest for magic boobs can never be stopped!

Shep

Storms...

Storms batter south coast...

...lead to amazing picture:

Stolen from The Guardian.

Shep

Why We Do What We Do

This has just been drawn to my attention from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference.

It's 20 minutes long but well worth a watch...

You can download it for iPod format here.

Shep.

Dear Children; A Christmas Warning.

Shep.

£4bn device foiled by bread...

More news this week from the CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Yep, it's been held up again.

Scientists discovered that one of the cooling units required to keep the device at just above absolute zero (the coldest temperature theoretically possible, or −273.15°C) had failed.

Was it a human error, computer failure, problem with a sensor, sabotage. No.

upon further investigation they found a baguette on a high power installation that powers the cooling device.

As to how it got there?... The best guess is that it was dropped by a bird, either that or it was thrown out of a passing aeroplane.”

Maybe you should build a really expensive machine on a scale never before seen to test this theory... or fix the one you already have.

Read the full article here.

Shep

Stop Scaring George Orwell.

So, it would appear that the repercussions of events 8 years past are still with us:

In the UK last year the government proposed a large database of every phone call, internet search and email sent within UK territory and, predictably, there was an outcry at a 'Big Brother society'. Shortly after this the plans were toned down, instead making ISP's and Telecommunication companies hold said information and make it accessible to the Government when requested. It would seem we were lucky.

The US however, may not have been so lucky.

After 9/11 the Bush Administration the scarily Orwellian sounding 'National Security Agency' was given billions in additional funding. meaning that recently it's operations have taken a step up, one such 'improvement' is the creation of a $2 billion building, a third larger than the US capitol buildings and requiring an energy consumption equal to that of Salt Lake City.

What, you ask, is to be stored in this super-structure?

Well, exactly what the UK government wanted to hold. details of all phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails: web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital 'pocket litter'.

This information will add up to 'Yottabytes of data' by 2015.

does that not mean much to you?, probably not. well, here's some perspective:

A Yottabyte is equivalent to 10²⁴ Bytes. Or, a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text.

The scale of this is so large numbers past Yottabytes have not yet been named!.

And, to give us some credit, at least our Government announced this to the public, and then scaled it back when they realised it was unpopular.

In the US of course this is all without any public discourse or input. God Bless Democracy.

The Full Article can be read here,

Shep

EPIC WIN

Just found this:

Shep

Omnibenevolent

This video has just been drawn to my attention through Derren Browns blog:



Now, as many of you are aware I am an Atheist. Basically, although I don't believe the existence of God to be impossible (because (unfortunately) evidence cannot rule it out) I do think it is as likely as there being unicorns, pixies, leprecauns and mermaids living amongst us. The only difference between these mythical creatures and God is that we've given God and infinite number of magical properties.
Likewise you are probably atheistic to Zeus, Thor, the Aborigine Gods, the Inca Gods and the Aztec Gods. I just go one God further.

So, imagine my surprise, when presented with this video showing almost conclusive proof of a miracle child. because my first response was that of "BULLSHIT".

This poor child suffers from passages of the Qur'an 'appearing' (I use the word lightly) on it's legs every Friday.
Now here's my hypothesis:
How about the parents write on his legs (in something he's allergic to) verses of the Qur'an?
that mark on his leg looks suspiciously like a rash, and he's said to be uncomfortable when it occurs. I like to think that this is the response of any logical person. however, I appear to be wrong.

This particular child has been attracting thousands of visitors. I attribute this to the area being war torn and the population probably consisting of apathetic people who are being deluded by this promise of hope. I almost pity them.

And for any Christians still reading, if you're thinking your own personal branch of the same religion is above this sort of thing, think again;
firstly, Lourdes:


















And secondly, this sort of thing:


















Before I leave I'd like to put forward one thought; if an infinitely powerful and all caring being wanted to get a message across to an 'intelligent' population of beings, why the fuck would he choose to hurt a baby every week to do it?.
This instantly rules out the all caring clause of his being.

SHEP

Ólafur Arnalds

Wow, 2 posts in 2 days, crazy.

OK, just a short update to let you know about some amazing music I found online.
I found this guy called Ólafur Arnalds, in April of this year he recorded seven songs over 7 days and released them one per day day, for free. known as the 'Found Songs' album.

His music is primarily instrumental piano / string pieces (he supported Sigur Rós and a quote from his website reads: "Breaking classical music out of the tweed jacket and loafers and putting it into a t-shirt and trainers", which should give you some indication of what to expect) and it is some amazing stuff.

Check it out:




Seeing as this music is free I feel no guilt in posting the links for you here (Suck it major labels!):

1. Erla's Waltz
2. Raein
3. Romance
4. Allt varð hljótt
5. Lost Song
6. Faun
7. Ljósið

Spread The Word!

Obviously, you can support him by actually paying for a reasonably priced, high quality download, CD or vinyl from here.

Please do, and remember 'sharing is caring'.

SHEP


EDIT: you can also listen for free on Spotify

Dolphin United F.C.

Just a quick story that's caught my attention and I feel is too good not to comment on.
Dolphins play football!

You heard it hear first folks.

OK, so they use their flippers and jellyfish instead of feet and pigs bladders, but the difference is much the same.
The new behavioural trait was witnessed for the first time when marine biologists studying the dolphins off the coast of Wales found that when bottle-nose dolphins were speeding along in front of their boats (why do they do that?) any jellyfish in their way get head-butted or tail flipped into the air.


The marine biologists believe this behaviour may go back hundreds of thousands of years and may explain why they are so agile with beach balls in captivity.

for those of you who still don't believe me here's proof (video is silent):

pretty astonishing stuff.
I wonder if they've evolved the off-side rule yet?

Read the full article at The Mail Online

SHEP

A Change Of Emphasis

Hello again followers (disciples?).
It's a been a fair old while since I've updated this, so I thought I'd give it a crack, with a slight change of emphasis. Seeing as my past posts have revolved around what I've been up to, and basically, no one cares (including myself most of the time), or, if they do they're following me on twitter.
I'm going to attempt to move my posts to more of a news and my opinions on it outlet (we'll see how it goes).

So, what's been happening in the world?
President Obama has received the Nobel Peace Prize, Stephen Gately is dead, Copernicus was right etc. etc.

One piece of news that struck me as odd this week was the 'news' that a scientist claims the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being sabotaged... by its own future.
For those not in the know the LHC is a 17 mile long tunnel under the French-Swiss border in which scientists hope to smash two atoms into each other at the speed of light in search of the Higgs Boson (or the 'God Particle'). This scientist believes that the LHC will find the Higgs Boson, but this will create chaos in the universe, as the particles travel through time they disrupt the LHC in the present, preventing chaos in the universe... my opinion? Bollocks.
So there was massive media hype about a black hole being created by the LHC (smashing two tiny things together, no matter how fast, cannot end the universe. FACT), and then there was a helium leak which has caused delays, (and leads to the hilarious scenario in my head of particle physicists running around with high pitched voices). But to say that these problems were caused by a higher power or a self-correctional universe?, what sort of scientist chooses the easy answer like that? Leave it to the religious to blame it on things that have no supporting evidence and cannot be proven, and get on with your job of getting the damn thing working.

The Large Hadron Collider: finally, a time machine

Something else, completely unrelated to this has also recently caught my eye, the 'band' Fall Out Boy have a greatest hits album coming out. now, as surprising as this is (they have hits?) there is a limited edition version also for release, with this will come the usual extra DVD and maybe some nicer packaging (I don't know, I refuse to research it for the fear that facebooks targeted advertising system will believe I'm a fan), what's odd about this is that this limited edition version will come with a lock of Pete Wentz' own hair and will cost £80.
Now, what sort of creepy, stalker type fan base does Fall Out Boy have? I'd always assumed their fans were 12 year olds who are too young to know better, or their older, retarded siblings.
I know its easy to make jibes about Fall Out Boy fans, in the same way it's easy to make jokes about deaf blind mutes (except deaf blind mutes have better taste in music) but I'm not going to stop because I see no other way for them to learn what utter crap they claim to like.
But this does also raise the question, how much of a vain twat is Pete Wentz, does that man honestly believe his fans want locks of his greasy hair? I know if it were one of my favourite bands i'd avoid buying it just to stop the ego that would come with such a purchase; seriously, buying a guys hair will inevitably give that guy the ego of Gene Simmons or Bono.

I feel I'm ranting now so I'm going to draw this to a close, however, I see myself as a fairly kind person who wants to leave the world a better place than when I joined it, so it is with this kindness that I plant a seedling idea: if everybody chipped in say, a quid each, it would only take a small amount of organisation to have Wentz killed.
If this works we could be living in a world without Fall Out Boy, and I think we all agree £1 isn’t much to ask for that.

SHEP

P.S. if you don't agree yet, this WILL change your mind:

Sonisphere 2009.

Wow...

What a festival.
Great Site,

great weather,


great atmosphere,


great bands,

GREAT WEEKEND.
All my images are available HERE.


In other news I have a Lostprophets gig this Tuesday in Manchester, the possibility of another festival next weekend (tba), and Jack's Mannequin next Tuesday also in Manchester.

It's gonna be a good few weeks.
Shep.

1,000,000 Miles Away...

Aren't all nighters fun?
still not entirely sure why I haven't been able to sleep properly recently, but I've given up on last nights sleep so i know i can sleep tonight.

With the boredom of an all nighter comes the chance to update things that I've been neglecting recently, such as this blog and my mixtape podcast.
so, what's been happening.. well firstly i went to china for two weeks with uni,
I'm trying not to babble on about it but lets just say it was amazing.
my pics are HERE, and there's some videos HERE.

Since I've been back from China I've mainly been working in my old job back at Tesco, working as much as I can to fund the level of gigging that I've signed myself up for between now and the end of the year.

so far the list of concerts i'm attending is:
01/08 - Sonisphere Festival (@ Knebworth, London)
25/08 - Lostprophets w/ The Dead Formats & Young Guns (@ Manchester Academy)
01/09 - Jack's Mannequin (@ Manchester Academy)
18/09 - InMe (@ 53 Degrees, Preston)
30/10 - Green Day (@ MEN Arena, Manchester)
12/12 - Placebo w/ The Horrors & Silversun Pickups (@ Manchester Central)
and possibly more...

This is, of course, excluding the Nine Inch Nails gig at the MEN last week I attended.
my review?.. fucking amazing.

so glad I'm seeing them twice on this, their last ever tour.

Here's some photo's I took... and here's Hurt from that concert:



In other news my laptop is finally being replaced, after months of it being temperamental and me annoying Nick. i've ordered a Sony Vaio, which should be coming this week... will keep you posted.


I think that's about it from me... (for now)
thanks for reading,

Shep.

Procrastination Prevails.

Could be revising,
Instead i'm watching NIN.

Check it out...




Speaking of NIN, i now have three concerts lined up...
NIN w/ Janes Addiction at the MEN in July.
Two weeks later i'm at Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth seeing NIN (again :D), Metallica, Linkin Park, Bullet for my Valentine, Alice in Chains etc.
and in October, two days before my birthday i'm seeing Green Day.

Add to this that i'm going to China in two weeks and this is growing to be such a great summer.
Now I need a 'summer anthem' currently 'Mercury Summer by Fightstar is a strong contender, but i'll wait and see what the new Green Day and Placebo albums bring my way.

Shep.

Breaking Cover

I’ve decided it's about time I put an update on here…

So, what's been going on?

Well, we’ll start off by taking short journey back through time to the first day of the Easter Holiday. Now as you will obviously remember the weather was fair and the flowers were in full bloom.
I had just returned home from university and received a text from Shoey.

‘Plan’

With this I decided to go and visit the poor fellow in middle-earth (Leece) so I picked Flash up from my Sisters work and set off.
By the time I was driving into Stank I started to notice the handling was a little weird and there was a faint burning smell coming from the engine, when I realised I could put it off no longer I pulled into a gateway and tried to reverse off the road. Only, when I pressed on the accelerator nothing happened, so I tried putting it back in 1st, still nothing.
That’s right, the gears had given up.
And I was blocking entry into a field, so I called the ‘rents and had Flash towed back to Dalton.
The next day he was scrapped, and obviously, since then I have been car-less.


Beyond this the holidays were good. Nice to see everyone, and nice to be able to drink for a change.


Although, towards the end of the holiday my laptop was on the go again, something to do with the memory which Nick kindly fixed, albeit temporarily, as now I’ve got back to uni the hard drive has completely died meaning I can only turn it on but not do anything, therefore i have to use the library to do everything.


Coming up are some things I’m not looking forward to, followed by several I am.
Things I am not looking forward to include a 15min presentation I have to do for university admin about my dissertation, followed, the week after by two exams, at the moment its all systems go… well, it would be if I had any motivation.


Although as long as I can pass through the exams I have a weeks break before jetting off to China, which I really can’t wait for now, I’ve had all my jabs and am half way through getting suitable clothing (I’ve got shorts). All that’s left is the Visa application form which is currently in my inbox and to sort out the exchange of currency.

I’m sure there will be a blog on my Chinese adventures in a month or so, so I won’t bore you (even more) now.


Pending china I have the small matter of looking forward to trying to find a summer job, I’m seriously hoping Tesco will be taking students back on otherwise I’m buggered and won’t be able to fund other activities I’m looking forward to this summer, namely the camping trip that (I’ve?) we’ve arranged for the middle of June, or the two music events, firstly seeing NIN and Jane’s Addiction at the MEN on the 14th July.



And secondly, Sonisphere at the start of August, in which I get to see NIN (yet again), along with Linkin Park, Metallica, Bullet For My Valentine and several others.


Interestingly I’ve even started making plans for as far ahead as Autumn, which, for a guy who doesn’t usually plan anything out more than a month in advance, isn’t bad going.

The plans past summer so far are to go and see Green Day on Halloween, then go out for the first of several joint birthday nights out to commemorate myself and Hannah turning 21. (nights out will be in both Preston and Barrow, so you have no excuse not to come! (consider this an early warning)).


So, basically, that’s everything that’s happened to me recently and everything I’ve got planned for the future. Hope it’s been a thrilling read (though I kinda doubt it)


Before I go, just a quick plug for you… if you have iTunes subscribe to my random podcast thing here. (EDIT: link may not be working, please see top of page for working link)


Thanks for reading,
Shep.

Strange Sounds.

Yo.

So, I was trying to get to sleep a couple of nights ago, and in my typical insecure way was trying to define myself, or more specifically, my taste in music. It was then that it came to me that I like some stuff many would define as weird without ever really listening to.

With this I decided to make a playlist of the stuff I enjoy that most people will never have heard of, simply titled 'Weird Shit'

Please take a listen if you have some time, if you don't like it don't listen again, if you like a song then please check out the band!





In other news i'll update this thing properly in a few weeks when I have more to talk about, i.e. when I know the finalised details for the China trip, when i've been home for easter, when I know what's happening with the camping trip and, most importantly, when I start revising for my exams, get bored and start procrastinating.

Shep.

A (sort of) Valentines Special

Hello.

And welcome to my first Valentine's Day special.

It’s just going to be a brief one this time.

And, yes there is an issue I’m going to focus on: inappropriate valentine’s gifts, more specifically one that was recently (/unfortunately) brought to my attention:

Now I may be quite inept when it comes to the opposite gender, but, if I was to get someone a gift for St. Valentine’s Day I would (hopefully) come up with something that women like, such as flowers, chocolate, jewellery etc.

Now obviously even I know it isn’t as simple as that, with flowers for example, there are many types, although the Rose is traditional, even then there’s the single or dozen argument, and with chocolate there are similar debates, do you get Truffles, Belgian chocolate, Miniature heroes, Quality street, Roses or Anus...

Yeah, that’s right...

I present to you, the incredible edible anus...

As the website claims "For us, making chocolate is an art, which is why we only produce traditional hand made chocolate of the highest standard. We also believe the anus range can dissolve cultural boundaries of race, gender, and sexual orientation." you heard it, not only are these anus shaped, they are hand-made, belgian chocolates! (Romantic, eh?)

I personally cannot wait for the Marks and Spencers advert when they get hold of these! "These are no ordinary belgian choclolates, no, these are M&S finest quality, hand made, arse shaped, belgian chocolates."

A company with as much pride in itself as this could not sell these these things without some quotes from famous people, unfortunately however, with a product like this the main quote they've been able to find is that of "They’re fab – I want to get my hands on some more!" - Graham Norton. says it all really, doesn't it.

Now, as previously mentioned i’m no expert in the field of gifts for valentines day, but surely, this is just wrong. Although, however much doubt I have over this product, I canot help but feel it is selling fairly well, I suspect this for two reasons:

The first reason being that instead of just selling them singley there is the option to buy a set of three, dark, milk and white belgian chocolates:

Now this in itself may seem extravagant and unneccesary (much like the initial product itself), but this is nothing compared to the second reason I suspect people are buying this, with a degree of apprehension I present to you, the solid silver, engraveable, limited edition anus:

Words cannot express the amount of WTF flying around my head right now, and (yet again) it get's worse, these things are selling for £260 each!

What in the name of all that is holy would possess you to spend £260 on a silver, engraved arsehole. I don't know. But if you think you do know please let me know and i'll refer you to THIS website.

If, however, your opinion differs from mine and you would actually like a chocolate (or silver) anus then please look HERE, and then please feel free to never look at me again.

As you may have noticed, i'm not a fan. I think that should I be doing anything at all for valentines day it will be to stay in and have a romantic dinner, perhaps from this cookbook...

you read that corectly, semen-based recipes!

Now I feel sick!

long Live Internet Romance.

Happy Valentines,

SHEP.