Virgin Wines are currently running a promotion where if you buy their Swing Low, Sweet Chariot Case of wine you will receive another case free if England win the rugby on Saturday. The case costs £78.88 and to qualify you need to order it before Saturday. I’m not really a rugby fan but this may have given me an incentive to watch the game.

Further to my post last month on the Infinity razor, I ordered one for my husband. What made me purchase it was the fact that it would never need the blades replacing and also that it is meant to give a really smooth shave. You can see my husband's views on the razor here. It appears he went back to using his Gillette razor because he found it gave a smoother shave.

I was reading an interesting article about virtual money. The concept seems to have started with the popularity of virtual worlds and role playing games and the need to trade within them. A few examples spring to mind such as the QQ coin, a virtual currency created by a Chinese company. The currency allows you to buy and sell things such as magical swords for use in online games. Other online communities use similar currencies for example Second Life uses Linden dollars and World of Warcraft uses something called warcraft gold. It’s interesting that the idea has now become so popular that people are prepared to spend real money in order to obtain virtual goods for use in these various role playing games. World of Warcraft for example now has over 9 million players worldwide who seem happy to spend their money on these virtual goods. With online role playing games becoming more and more popular the market for virtual goods and services is predicted to rise to $4 billion by 2008. There are even companies that specialise simply in selling these virtual products such as GameGoods a European based company that sells among other products World of Warcraft Gold. It is certainly a very interesting concept, although personally I prefer real money.

McDonald’s are going to introduce high speed wireless internet access to most of its 1,200 UK restaurants by the end of the year. Customers will be able to use their laptops, mobile phones or games consoles within the fast food outlets. There are likely to be no restrictions on how long you can use the service for.

Stroke victims could benefit from playing Nintendo Wii games. Doctors have discovered that the game could help to rewire the brain after it has been damaged by a blood clot. Doctors in the US have already used Wii games to help stroke victims regain movements in their arms and legs. Recent tests show that the Wii can be used to help stroke patients re-learn movements whilst also enjoying themselves.

It appears some visitors to the Tate Modern have got a little bit too caught up in the artwork. Since the new crack was installed two people have fallen in. They were said to have lost their footing after stepping into the crack. Personally I could see this coming, if you put a large hole in the floor; people are going to fall into it.

The latest work of art to go on show at the Tate Modern, is a crack in the floor. The crack measures 167m and starts as a hairline crack before widening to a few inches and a depth of about 2ft. The crack is supposed to represent a statement about racism, with the crack representing the gap between white Europeans and the rest of humanity. I guess I must be missing something, it just looks like a hole in the floor to me.

I came across this website called www.moanaboutman.co.uk. Basically it’s a forum where you can do just that. So if the man in your life is causing you trouble and won’t listen to your moaning there are sure to be lots of other users here that will sympathise with you.

This cool new electric car made by Nissan is able to squeeze easily into tight parking spots. For people like me, who generally have problems parking in small spaces it should be great. The wheels can turn 90 degrees and the cabin can rotate in a complete circle meaning that drivers can turn to face any direction they want. This means you can pull up beside a parking space, then simply turn the wheels and drive in. The bad news is it’s likely to be sometime before they are available for commercial sale.

If you live in Bradford you might want to consider giving a home to an unwanted cat or kitten. An appeal has recently been launched because there are more than 100 unwanted cat and kittens at rescue centres in Bradford that need a good home. The RSPCA has recently seen a huge increase in the number of cats being taken in and their facilities are now full. Kittens usually don’t stay in rescue homes very long but adult cats can be hard to re-home. However, giving a home to an older cat can be a rewarding experience. I took on two cats that were about a year old and have now had them around three years. When they came to me they hated people but are now well adjusted and although they still don’t like visitors, they are very friendly with me and my husband. You can view some of the cats wanting a home at the Bradford and District branch website. Some of them include Louis, Ryan and Tilly pictured below.

Ryan


Tilly



Louis

Ikea has started selling flat-pack homes. The homes are on sale at their Gateshead store. They have a timber frame and come with their own plot of land. The concept started in Sweden in the 1990s with around 1,000 flat-pack homes being sold every year. The homes are called BoKlok and are made using renewable materials and featuring solar panels so are eco-friendly. The properties will all be south-facing in order to catch as much sunlight as possible to help warm the house. An area of land has been set aside near Gateshead for an estate of 90 homes. The homes cost between £100,000 and £125,000 for a flat, £132,500-£139,500 for a two bedroom house and £150,000 for a three bedroom house. First time buyers on low incomes will be given priority in the allocation process. If the project is successful Ikea will expand to 12 more sites over the next 18 months. The homes are provided ready assembled, which seems a shame, half of the fun of Ikea’s products is building them.

A new Wallace and Gromit short film is coming to TV next year. It is called Trouble At’ Mill and is about Wallace and Gromit’s attempts to run a bakery. The half hour long film will be screened BBC One late next year. I’m looking forward to it.

I read this article the other day that suggests one in ten British adults has been a victim of mass marketing scams. The most common scams include Nigerian pen scams and notifications of winning a foreign lottery. More than 3.2 million people have been conned out of their hard earned cash by one of these scams according to the Office of Fair Trading. Many of the gangs who run these scams are based in English speaking parts of Nigeria and West Africa and use their profits as funding for drug trafficking, according this article. In a month long investigation in Nigeria investigators seized more than 4,500 fake cheques, postal orders and bank drafts with a value of around £8m. Most of the scams involve the victim having to pay an advance fee to claim a prize or to have a large amount of money transferred to their account. As always if it seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

I read this article about a computerised pillow designed to stop snoring. The pillow is attached to a computer which analyses snoring noises, it then reduces or enlarges compartments within the pillow to help nasal airflow and minimise snoring. I wonder what it does with a really bad case of snoring that it can’t stop; maybe it gives up and suffocates the user…Job done.

I read this article about how Ebay and Paypal are working to try and cut down on fake emails. They are currently working with Yahoo using their anti-phising technology to try and block fake emails by validating the sender with a digital signature. The emails they are targeting are the ones that look exactly like an email from Paypal or Ebay but if you click on the link you are directed to a completely different website that looks the same. They are designed to fool you into entering your user name and password into their fake site, thus compromising your account. Personally I never click on a link from any email that looks like its come from Paypal or Ebay. Instead I tend to log into my account, if there are any issues that need my attention I will have received a notification about them. However, 99% of the emails are spam.

Boots have started selling a product called Expert Sensitive Facial Spritz. The product costs £3.99 for a 125ml can. The can contains only one ingredient, water. It claims that it can protect the skin from dryness. It appears though that you could create the same effect for nothing by simply putting some tap water into a spray bottle.

John Lewis is branching out into the grocery business with the opening of a food hall in the basement of their Oxford Street store. It is designed to cater for local workers and shoppers and is part of the stores £64m makeover. John Lewis has linked with Waitrose to launch the new department, which if successful could also be extended to other locations around the country. The store targets the increasing market for premium food and will have an in-store bakery with 40 different types of bread, over 109 lines of fish on its fish counter and 115 cheeses half of which are British. And if you fancy a bottle of champagne you will have more than 80 to choose from. It sounds great.

A grant has been given by the lottery fund to try and help Britain’s bats. All 17 species of Britain’s bats have declined since the end of the industrial revolution. The Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £600,000 to conservationists is designed to increase the awareness of the sorts of conditions bats need to survive. The project has been called England Bat Count and will give people training in how to spot bats as well as information about how to encourage them back to their former territories.