qwghlm.co.uk is back. But you know that already, since you’re reading this…

Wow. Fast trains in Britain? What next?

I find this news strangely disturbing. The fact we’ve been restrictred to slower trains than the continent for so long and the general decrepit state of our railways these days, it seems quite frightening that we have actually now got a rail line as fast as our European friends have.

This could be the start of a high-speed revolution in British railways that finally overturns the supremacy of the car…well, maybe not.

The next time you are in Hoxton, take one of these along with you…

(via memepool)

A Coca-Cola plant has been depleting local farmers of their water supply. In an attempt to appease them they’ve been giving the waste sludge from the plant to the farmers to use as fertiliser. A kind-hearted attempt at compensation to the community? You might think so, until you find out that tests revealed the material was useless as a fertiliser and contained a number of toxic metals, including cadmium and lead.

A US book trying to answer gripes about the French produced for GIs in the Second World War is now a bestseller in France. On the whole the responses are very Francophile, and point out how the French bailed out the American’s arses in the War of Independence.

I wonder why the French have taken this book to their hearts? Is it so they can look back at times when they had Americans stick up for them? Or do they just want to read something that reaffirms the perception of the Americans as boorish occupiers?

Incidentally, not all of the response are so Francophilic. As the article quotes:

“I would like the French better if they were cleaner,” says gripe 48, to which the authors can only reply: “That is perfectly understandable.”

So cool.

More cool things

(Warning: May cause motion sickness of some sort)

Tony Benn’s Greatest Hits is a compilation album of memorable speeches delivered by one of the greatest orators of our time, set to music composed by a 21st century maestro. The first track on the album features a powerful speech made during a House of Commons debate on war in Iraq before the start of the bombing campaign in 1998 - laid over an ambient “groove” that mixes elements of jazz, R&B and classical music.

Christ. Striving a bit too much for the yoof market, isn’t this? Still, it could make the ideal present for the man who has everything.

The perfect pet - It’ll follow your mouse pointer and it won’t shit the carpet.

I’ve been working out how I would program it, which is nice, in a sort of terribly sad way.

Incidentally, if the site runs out of bandwidth then up come some ads that redirect you to a sex site, which is comedy, but be warned…