A brilliant industrial design (IMO) for a slimline UK power plug. The UK plug is an exceptionally chunky and large lump; a real pain in the computer satchel. This video shows what appears to be a manufacturable design that turns it into an elegant device. SLYT. [more inside]
posted by five fresh fish on Nov 4, 2009 - 103 comments

Comparemyradio.com analyses the playlist data from all the major UK radio stations. If you want to know who's playing the current number one, what's the overlap between Radio One & Two or whether you should bother checking out Radio Six, this is the site for you.
posted by Hartster on Oct 27, 2009 - 6 comments

The Guardian's Review of the Decade. "It all started 96 hours after 9/11". [more inside]
posted by ClanvidHorse on Oct 17, 2009 - 38 comments

The Works of Swede Mason: "Jeremy Clarkson," "Get in the Back of the Van," "Jungle All The Way," "Bill Wyman's Metal Detector," "Put the Lotion in the Basket, *" "Got The Sucka," "The Gobshite, *" "Squashed Thingy," "Spare Me The Madness," and the pair of tracks based on Neighbors deaths "Coffee And Croissants" and "Todd....Dead." [more inside]
posted by flatluigi on Oct 13, 2009 - 14 comments

The British postcode system, one of the things which Britain arguably does better than anyone else, is 50 years old. The system divides the entire UK into alphanumeric postal districts organised in a hierarchy, with the first one or two letters denoting a postal area (typically a city or the environs of one, though London has several). Unlike systems elsewhere (such as the US, Australia, and most of Europe), it doesn't stop at the neighbourhood level, with each 5-to-7-character full postcode denoting a segment of a street. This makes it useful for applications other than addressing mail, such as navigation; as such, you can enter a postcode into Google Maps or a satellite navigation unit and be shown exactly where it refers to. [more inside]
posted by acb on Oct 3, 2009 - 126 comments

The Home Office, the UK government department responsible for immigration control, has initiated a program to test the DNA from of potential asylum seekers in an attempt to confirm their true nationalities. The initial program is a six-month pilot limited to claimants arriving from the Horn of Africa. The program, currently using forensic samples provided on a voluntary basis, could potentially expand to other nationalities if successful. The Home Office spokeswoman said ancestral DNA testing would not be used alone but would be combined with language analysis, investigative interviewing techniques and other recognized forensic disciplines, but many are decrying the "deeply flawed" program, from refugee support groups to scientists in the genetic forensics fields (via). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Sep 30, 2009 - 55 comments

Spaced is 10. Fried gold!
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Sep 24, 2009 - 72 comments

This month marks the 25th aniversary of Elite, the groundbreaking 3D space trading game. The making of Elite. More on the making of Elite from The Backroom Boys. Emulate the original BBC Micro version. The Dark Wheel.
posted by Artw on Sep 19, 2009 - 29 comments

The stories of now. An essay by Kim Stanley Robinson on the remarkable pool of SF talent currently working in the U.K.
posted by zardoz on Sep 18, 2009 - 37 comments

George And Lynn Explained (George And Lynn Explained, explained) Mildly NSFW cartoon nudity
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Sep 12, 2009 - 31 comments

UK government apologizes to Alan Turing. It might be a long time overdue, but it's a really nice apology. [previously]
posted by lupus_yonderboy on Sep 10, 2009 - 128 comments

New Documents from the Soviet Archives reveal that as the Warsaw Pact was falling apart, Margaret Thatcher called Gorbachev to inform him that:

The reunification of Germany is not in the interests of Britain and Western Europe. It might look different from public pronouncements, in official communiqué at Nato meetings, but it is not worth paying ones attention to it. We do not want a united Germany. This would have led to a change to post-war borders and we can not allow that because such development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security. In the same way, a destabilisation of Eastern Europe and breakdown of the Warsaw Pact are also not in our interests.

Roxy Freeman was born into an Gypsy family. For years, her family travelled around Ireland in a horsedrawn wagon, without electricity or formal schooling, getting by on picking fruit and selling horses they bred, before settling in Norfolk. Roxy taught herself to read, devoured books, and, after travelling the world for a number of years, decided to go to university, a move which would require her to completely change her way of life. Living in a flat in Brighton, a way of life which she finds bizarre and alien, she has written about her childhood, her family's culture and the difficulties and prejudices she encountered, for the Guardian. [more inside]
posted by acb on Sep 7, 2009 - 14 comments

Punctuality, privacy, dead time, concentration: all dead or dying at the hands of the Internet, according to this list in the Daily Telegraph.

Only at festivals with no Wi-Fi signals can the gullible be tricked into believing that David Hasslehoff [sic] has passed away. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Sep 5, 2009 - 55 comments

"If you think you can get fucking angry, I can get fucking angry." [more inside]
posted by Jakey on Sep 1, 2009 - 43 comments

There is no God. [more inside]
posted by Christ, what an asshole on Aug 25, 2009 - 61 comments

A new BBC version of Dennis the Menace tones down the iconic British comics character. Or does it? It's another "political correctness gone mad" myth embellished by the media says cartoonist Lew Stringer.
posted by Artw on Aug 25, 2009 - 29 comments

When the future was 2000AD by Garth Ennis. Thrill-power invested illustrative examples courtesy of Simon Gurr.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Aug 25, 2009 - 37 comments

Filament aims to be a different kind of women's magazine. They plan to "cover a wide range of topics [but absolutely no beauty or diet articles] that inspire and engage , and [give women] gorgeous boys the way [they] like to see them." Their first issue is out and featured a mix of articles, fiction, poetry and pics of shirtless boys. For their second issue, they want to include a pic of a man with erection, but their printer bailed because the printer was afraid of a backlash. The magazine has also had issues with distributors because many of them don't want to deal with a women's magazine with a man on the cover. Via (NSFW) Erotica Cover Watch (NSFW) which is a blog dedicated to ending the preponderance of (naked) women on the covers of erotic books, and is trying to get more men and couples on the covers.
posted by nooneyouknow on Aug 13, 2009 - 82 comments

You've heard of the Swedish Pirate Party. You may have seen their their elected MEP, and their 50,000 members. You may even have heard of the German Pirate Party's thousand members. But now the Open Rights Group does not stand alone in the UK's digital rights movement. On June 30th, the British Pirate Party was registered. Press reaction is here. [more inside]
posted by jaduncan on Aug 12, 2009 - 47 comments

The Guardian ran a series of articles looking at the state of high-speed rail travel today. France intends to double its length of track over the next decade, and China is planning a massive rail-building programme, including a high-speed line which will halve the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai to 4 hours. In Germany, domestic air travel is rapidly going extinct, and Spain's network has made day trips between Madrid and Barcelona a possibility. The USA, which has long neglected its rail network, is planning up to 10 high-speed lines. Meanwhile, Britain's only high-speed line goes to France, but there is talk of a 250mph line from London to Birmingham and beyond, possibly by the early 2020s. Meanwhile, the CEO of France's rail operator, SNCF, weighs in on what the UK should do.
posted by acb on Aug 7, 2009 - 49 comments

Do you qualify to be a UK Citizen? From the looks of Twitter it seems that many UK Citizens don’t.
posted by Artw on Aug 4, 2009 - 92 comments

RIP Benson The Carp, 'the people's fish'... yes, it's the Silly Season again.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Aug 4, 2009 - 12 comments

The Daily Express reports on a UK Government Announcement to expand the use of Family Intervention Projects. However, the Daily Express exaggerates the report somewhat, the article stating (apparently wildly incorrectly) that the UK Government "plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV supervision in their own homes". Other reports in the UK press make no mention of CCTV. Nonetheless, the alarmist Express article is widely picked up and discussed on the internet, pushing many people past 10 on the Orwellometer. Then Mefite FfejL uses Twitter to ask Ed Balls, the minister responsible, if the CCTV aspect of the Express article is accurate. [more inside]
posted by memebake on Aug 4, 2009 - 34 comments

Terry Pratchett: I'll die before the endgame
posted by Artw on Aug 3, 2009 - 74 comments

What if we condensed the UK into a village of 100 people? The Independent experiment with demographics.
posted by mippy on Jul 21, 2009 - 111 comments

A group of respected British children's authors and illustrators will stop visiting schools from the start of the next academic year, in protest at a new government scheme that requires them to register on a database in case they pose a danger to children.

Tony Blair wants to be president ...of Europe.
posted by Artw on Jul 15, 2009 - 64 comments

"Working in art film or commercial cinema is like dancing through a mine field, and every broadcaster is now racing down market in a desperate attempt to survive. But what is happening at the BBC is the real scandal: it is bigger than all the rest combined, it is free from direct commercial pressure and its public service obligations carry cultural responsibilities. There are no excuses." Veteran producer Tony Garnett, has launched a blistering attack on the current process of drama commissioning at the BBC
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Jul 15, 2009 - 17 comments

Matthew Robson, aged 15 years & 7 months, was asked to describe how he and his friends consume media by the London research branch of Morgan Stanley, where he is a summer work intern. The teenager spent a day on the briefing note, after polling some friends by text message. His write-up impressed the right people (direct link to pdf report). "Without claiming representation or statistical accuracy, his piece provides one of the clearest and most thought provoking insights we have seen. So we published it." After being published, the note had generated five or six times more feedback than the team's usual reports. Lauded by professionals, his claims were met with disagreement from some peers. (via)
posted by filthy light thief on Jul 14, 2009 - 41 comments

In the wake of Torchwood: Children of the Earth (screening on BBC America on the 20th for those in the US not inclined to muck about with the internets) critic Patrick West declares the British incapable of making decent television science fiction. (via)
posted by Artw on Jul 11, 2009 - 172 comments

An investigation by the Guardian newspaper has uncovered a trail of hacking and other illegal "Dark Arts" at the News of the World. Rupert Murdoch, the paper's owner, is reported to have shelled out over £1m in out of court settlements [more inside]
posted by Acey on Jul 9, 2009 - 49 comments

Controversy has erupted in Britain after it emerged that Prince Charles used his personal influence with Qatari royalty to sack modernist architect Richard Rogers from a development in London. Charles has been an outspoken critic of modern architecture and advocate of neo-traditionalist styles, and even created a model village to showcase his ideas about "proper" architecture. Charles' preferred replacement for Rogers is Quinlan Terry, known for his neo-classicist leanings. [more inside]
posted by acb on Jun 16, 2009 - 95 comments

Brian Blessed presents Have I Got News For You. [more inside]
posted by permafrost on Jun 12, 2009 - 42 comments

The far-right, whites-only British National Party (BNP) has won two seats (Andrew Brons, Nick Griffin) in the European Parliament. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Jun 8, 2009 - 224 comments

For Graham Greene he was "unquestionably our best thriller writer". John le Carré once called him "the source on which we all draw". With the six novels he wrote in the years leading up to the second world war - five of which have just been reissued by Penguin Modern Classics - Eric Ambler revitalised the British thriller, rescuing the genre from the jingoistic clutches of third-rate imitators of John Buchan, and recasting it in a more realist, nuanced and leftishly intelligent - not to mention exciting - mould. - The writing of Eric Ambler
posted by Artw on Jun 6, 2009 - 14 comments

Standard & Poor’s changed the UK's credit outlook from stable to negative a few days ago, and warned that there is a chance the UK could lose its AAA rating. Meanwhile, Moodys, another of the big 3 rating agencies, has warned that the US might also eventually lose its AAA rating. The UK announcement caused sterling to drop by 1% and the FTSE by 2%. However, many blame the same rating agencies for their part in triggering the subprime crisis. The irony of this is not lost on the Wall Street Journal, who note that "After all, those governments are jacking up spending, in part, to bail out the financial firms who gobbled up those 'AAA' asset backed securities duly blessed by the credit ratings firms." [more inside]
posted by memebake on May 26, 2009 - 38 comments

"The BNP represents Britain's workers? They don't even represent basic British craftsmanship" - a response to the recent political broadcast by the UKs far right extremists the BNP, who are currently trying to exploit expenses scandals hiting the larger parties. Weirdly despite demanding British jobs for British workers their advertising uses American models.
posted by Artw on May 18, 2009 - 83 comments

Is Doctor Who too scary for kids? Parents surveyed by TheBabyWebsite seem to think so. But is being scared a good thing? (via io9)
posted by Artw on May 15, 2009 - 120 comments

The Obama administration has repeatedly threatened to conceal future information of terrorist threats from the British government, unless the British government disobeys the High Court ruling requiring them to release information about the US government's acknowledged torture program. This may be a breach of the Convention Against Torture. Glenn Greenwald has new evidence. Previously.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on May 12, 2009 - 282 comments

In last night's Sony Radio Awards - the UK's radio equivalent of the Oscars - Electric Radio Brixton won four prizes, including 2 gold awards. The kicker? It is broadcast for and by inmates in Brixton Prison 24 hours a day, part of an ambitious project by the Prison Radio Association. Some background here. [more inside]
posted by MuffinMan on May 12, 2009 - 25 comments

In a landmark defeat for the UK Government, the House of Commons has voted to allow all former and existing Ghurkas the right to live in the UK. [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave on Apr 29, 2009 - 70 comments

Craig Murray (Previously: 1 2) Attends the Formal Evidence Session on UK Complicity in Torture on Tuesday 28 April 1.45pm UK time. You can (hopefully) watch it on Parliament TV. If you want to have a good look at UK / US complicity in torture, this might be a good place to start... Please note he has said "There is absolutely no way I am going to kill myself. Just thought it might be wise to get that out in public!". Hopefully statements like that won't be necessary.
posted by debord on Apr 28, 2009 - 9 comments

London police are now deleting tourists' photos because "photographing anything to do with transport is strictly forbidden."
posted by plexi on Apr 16, 2009 - 85 comments

BigBrotherFilter: Estimates place the number of CCTV cameras in the UK at 4.2 million, but how can these images all possibly be watched? Researches in Turkey have an answer: an eye-gaze tracking system placed on the CCTV operators themselves which can "then automatically produces a summary of the CCTV video sequences they have missed during their shift". [more inside]
posted by tybeet on Apr 15, 2009 - 32 comments

'Roy Of The Rovers' is back... The footballer* has returned to the newsagents in a one-off special. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Apr 6, 2009 - 14 comments

"The editor's guidelines are as follows: First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend. Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes. Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a cop-out." - Swearing in The Guardian: A chart
posted by Artw on Apr 3, 2009 - 31 comments

Following Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's expenses claim for pornographic films watched by her husband, which came hot on the heels of an investigation into expenses claims for MPs' second homes, the Guardian has published data on each MPs' claims. Now, it's been combined with data from They Work For You to create a map showing MPs' expenses claims, revealing interesting anomalies.
An investigation into MPs' expenses is forthcoming. [Previously]
posted by djgh on Apr 3, 2009 - 25 comments

Prince Charles has been a notable critic of architecture over the years. Now he's had a go himself, designing a fire station in the village of Poundbury. Whilst the reception to the Prince's efforts has not been overwhelmingly positive at least the commentators at the Daily Mail like it
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Mar 31, 2009 - 110 comments

Has the UKs GCSE Science exam been dumbed down too far? See how well you do for yourself.
posted by Artw on Mar 27, 2009 - 100 comments