Dante's Handcart

Dante's Handcart has moved

2006-12-24T11:22:00.000Z

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Kicking up an N*Stink

2006-07-28T18:05:00.000Z

Far be it from the muso-queer spotters here at Dante's Handcart to jump on the proverbial bandwagon, but the slightly lubed news that N*Sync's oh-but-we-all-guessed-ages-ago highlighted pop hooligan Lance Bass has emerged from the closet as an out & proud homosexual demands reporting.

"But why?" we hear you giggle, coquettishly, like so many pleat-skirted Japanese schoolgirls fresh from those hentai magazines you & your cousin found under your dad's bed. "Surely his sexuality is his own business and of no interest to us?" And obviously you're right. Except that in this case, our sources tell us Bass' bottom-fancying revelation might have unhinged an important piece of the internet.

While the boyband fans foam at their collectively screaming mouths, the emo kiddies are doing some screaming of their own - only this time because art-photo-friendly gloss gallery Myspace has been sporadically offline since last weekend. Government spokespeople have called for calm amongst the 16-24 demographic, and denied that there is a need to stockpile hair product, hooded clothing and photographs of yourself from a variety of dubiously-flattering angles.

Is it too much to assume that the gay in N*Sync and Myspace going down the sink are devilishly connected? Our hype-monkeys don't think it is. In fact, currently being run up the paranoia pole is the idea that the combined masturbation of gleeful gay men together with the frothing of slash authors has created some sort of super-heated electromagnetic pulse, responsible for scything Myspace from the face of the net.

The only solution, it would seem, would for all non-heterosexual popstars to either live permanently in the closet or accept a life in industries such as hairdressing, airline stewardship or VCR repair (all traditionally "gay friendly"). Only in this way can we prevent pipe-jamming calamity that next time might decimate an even more important site; online banking, for instance, or that one where all the hamsters dance.

Giving the Community Credit

2006-07-25T17:03:00.000Z

Flopping unsteadily from the zeitgeist sphincter comes Adam Phillips' newest diatribe on happiness and the laughably blinkered attempts we make at achieving it. A Child Psychologist turned Freud fancier, Phillips' latest book Side Effects (published July 27th) is a mental frottage on human desire in which he argues, citing the myriad banals of pornography as example, on the demands of personal appetite and consumerism's attempts to sate it.

"It's like the way pornography steals people's dreams. It gives you pictures of sex scenarios and so, unlike more imaginative forms of literature, stops you creating your dreams. Instead of having your own sexual fantasies the porn industry does it" (Guardian 19/07)

In Phillips' world we are constantly developing our taste for choice and, evolving alongside that, the capitalist supply chain grows to dazzle our aimless lusts. Dante's Handcart worry-possums fear that this masturbatory niche'ism is leading to greater and greater segregation, splitting not only along demographic lines but individual ones as well.

As a particularly aged and papery grandparent can tell you, in the Olden Days there was only one option. People drank PG Tips, listened to the BBC World Service, wiped themselves with Andrex Toilet Tissue and travelled each Summer for a six-day week in Brighton. Everybody was in the same, cheery boat and problems such as street-violence, Hepatitis and sodomy were unknown. The community spirit was still solidarity and not Vodka & Red Bull. Roll forward twelvety years or so and witness the growth of tailored market forces, a global shopping list from which even the lowliest pleb can assemble a lifestyle according to the minutiae of their so-called "needs". Pride events for every culture, websites such as "Rate My Penis Gourd", even the ostensibly harmless lesbian funeral are all indicative of segregation by the tiniest peccadillo.

Accuse us of being sweeping and over-simplifying if you may, but we believe a return to the ethos of hardship can only be a good thing. A sweeping and over-simplified excision of unnecessary treacles and luxury whimsy will allow every single sodding one of you moaning bastards the opportunity to whinge at your hearts desire. And if there's an inhabitant of this fair and speckled isle that wouldn't choose a good spleen-venting over and above a 74 inch colour television with stand, then bring them out and let's stone them to death.

Love thy neighbour

2006-07-09T16:32:00.000Z

While suffering the night flight on the way back to Blighty, inflatable Empire State hat under my arm and sporting a "You Killed the Two Towers So I Couldn't See Them So I'm Gonna SUE You Bin Laden" t-shirt, this Dante's Handcart ponder-monkey couldn't help but think about minorities and the way people express their prejudices. Given the news that my Lib Dem namesake has handed in his resignation after telling a pro-Israel correspondent to "wallow in your own filth", Bill Bennet's eye-watering (if expected) stance that gay people should really be content with their birth family and not expect to have one of their own, and that Wiccans are being hounded out of their jobs, it looks like we're in dire need of a better way to demonstrate our narrow-mindedness.

Given the high altitude, the best idea to birth its grimy way out of the Dante's Handcart brain canal was a duty-free style system of personal allowances. Individuals would be permitted a number of "hates" based upon their personal similarity to societal norms, with the more "normal" people obviously having more (as is apparently the standard way it works). Different numbers of "hates" could be cashed-in for various methods of discrimination and vitriol - two for a simple tongue-lashing of a single-mother, perhaps, moving up to fifteen to tell a black person to move on the bus, and escalating upward through lynchings, tarring and feathering.

Anybody found exceeding their alloted "hates", however, would immediately be deemed a lawbreaker, therefore moving them away from what is considered "normal" and reducing their number of permitted "hates". Eventually such individuals would earn "negative-hates", and either have to hug gays or maybe lick a foreigner, something like that.

At this point the stewardess interrupted offering me the choice of chicken or beef, and so I only had time to throw my in-flight magazine at a mixed-race couple before settling down to some nice, English food.

Snack attack

2006-06-28T18:14:00.000Z

Here at Dante's Handcart we are 105% against doing a sex-wee in the face of a tiny child. So you can imagine that, if there was such a terrible thing, we would be at the front of any ordered queue to point a finger of deathly blame in the faces of the men-pervs and lady-beasts that might do it. And then we'd go back about our daily lives, washing our cars, pre-moistening the backs of stamps and trundling idly through the supermarket.

But wait. Wait. WAIT. What if we told you that the supermarket, long a place for children to dance and skip and experiencing 20% rises in beer sales in both the Czech Republic and Hungary, was in fact a growing arena for pro-paedo coddling of the young. What if we blew the cover of a series of "it's our little secret" names and slogans lacing the products facing our boys and girls over the breakfast nook and in their packed lunches.

Seen to the right is a popular American youth-snack, branded with a name commonly assumed by perverts of the male gender. Is this the kind of "friendly face" you want your offspring to oggle during their noonday snack? The jaundiced character on the packaging gestures crudely to his crotch, casting a look of depraved joy up to the blatant number 6 - a number which is also used to describe the age of a six year old child.

On the left, in a photo also taken by Dante's Handcart imagespies, is the blurb on the back of a carton of milk. Think about it, this blurb could be facing your child's eyes while he or she or it consumes an otherwise healthy breakfast of sugared cereal hoops. Pay particular, horrified attention to the final line:

"But don't tell anyone!"

This is a well-known cajole-cum-threat of the pervert. Witness also the shady appearance of the cartoon character, sporting his identity-concealing dark glasses and hat and happily espousing the "cool games" any child who follows him can join in with.

Take care of your children, ladies and gentlemen. Watch them like hawks, examine their food and glossy magazines for signs of perversion or tampering. Stroke their hair and encourage them to be violent toward strangers. After all, it takes a whole nine months to make a replacement.

The law-lords at Dante's Handcart would like to make perfectly clear that no implication is intended that these or any product, supermarket or pervert might intend harm, sexual or otherwise, to a child or child-like animal. Assumptions otherwise are your own filthy imagination, and you should probably report yourself to the appropriate authorities before you molest someone or something.

Ride 'em, cowboy

2006-06-27T17:18:00.000Z

We know what you're thinking - Dante's Handcart is unnaturally obsessed with S&M, leather fetishism and pseudo-sexual dominance playtime. And you're right. But the world keeps pumping out the sexy toys and we keep linking to them. Amen, brother.

The latest BDSM-crossover to get linklove is the high-lariously named Daddle, a leather saddle for tender children to ride their father with. The pony-play connotations of this one are almost too easy, but we'll ink those dots (NSFW) in for you anyhow.

As previously noted, bondage has its own silky way of traipsing into modern culture. The New York Times, incidentally the titular paper of the city that today's blog post comes from, recently raided the fantasy-play scene for an article on mainstream fashion's borrowing of high-kink style. We like to think that they only did it because we did. Products like the Daddle just grease that transition.

God Loves Choice

2006-06-21T18:12:00.000Z

Having hitched up the skeletal horses, Dante's Handcart has travelled to beautiful Michigan and brings this latest entry from sunny Kalamazoo. Peering through their RayBans, the Zealot Spotters amongst us have been excited to see the sheer quantity of churches in the area. These buildings, often resembling call centres, animal feed stores or the head-office of some regional telecoms company, slop happily in the landscape, with faux-friendly signs proclaiming their affiliation and, usually, some gloried epithet.

While consumers are generally happy with economical competition and increased choice, worry-warts at Dante's Handcart are more than a little concerned, like half-stoned college students rewiring a toaster, that as each divisional ecclesiastical slice scrambles for a unique selling point some are going to be left holding a jugfull of wank, as they say in Sunday School. Old favourites like "God Hates Fags" and "Jesus Could Do Better Than Your Mom" have long been adopted by old(ish)-skool fundamentalists, leaving meagre pickings for Lord-fearing upstarts.

Lest the US courts face pandemoniumm as pastors turn on each other in legal battles over copyright and primacy, leaving little-to-no room for fat people to sue fast food pimps for their cholesterol, we suggest a rolling hate register of anti-minority protests. Churches would be allotted one theme for a 3 to 6 month period, after which time themes would cycle. A pleasant lemon-scented and individually wrapped for your convenience side-product would be that different religious communities would learn about each other in the spirit of open-minded acceptance.

Do (sh)It Yourself

2006-06-16T19:24:00.000Z

Shania Twain half-hammered down my front door last night, stinking of brandy and slurring like a cheap pianist. In-between the potty-mouthed cuss talk and the kind of sexual filth you'd expect only of a navvy, she managed to stutter something about this year's top-selling Father's Day gift being DIY Songs. "Nonsense" I replied, being a contrary bastard, but the harlot was right.

Music Mongols at Dante's Handcart would like to heap a lavish dollop of sage-scented praise onto the label responsible for this monstrous belch of shite, EMI Virgin, and establish a candle-lit vigil in anxious anticipation of what barrel-dredging wank they conjure next. If we were cynical sorts then we might suggest Rock Music: Music to Rock Back & Forth like a Romanian Orphan To, Mopping the Floor Tunes and, my personal stiffie-starter, Number Ones for Number Twos, a collection of the best hits to accompany the squeezing out of a great, marshmallowy turd.

Buy it for your Dad, I'm sure he'll love it. Or, alternatively, give him what he really wants - a coffee enema and a copy of Razzle.

Unique Markings

2006-06-13T21:10:00.000Z

Dribbling like so much inverted corn syrup from the palsied man-pap of TDavid comes today's statbelch: apparently, recent research shows that 24% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 50 have at least one tattoo. As the wholesome dude himself scrawls:

"Assuming this study is accurate, odds are 1:4 of you [readers] are [tattooed]"

Skip with me like tinkling faeries over to that bastion of pomp the BBC and we also learn that, in their recent poll, a mere 17% of the nigh-on-nine-thousand questioned agreed that the UK should have ID cards. Allowing ourselves a little greasing of extrapolation in the trends of inking on either side of the Atlantic, dwellers of the Dante's Handcart thinktank might dare to suggest that Tony, the eminently sexy John Reid (himself spunking headlines like a sick snake lately over his political paedo-prison-pressure) and their cast of biometric bigwigs should perhaps look not to laminated cards but to developing tat-map technology.

In our experience the tattooed are even more keen on showing off their markings than an MP with a new riding crop; there should be little trouble guiding them through a complicated rig of cameras and thus immortalise their unique patterning. Add in the studded possibilities of piercings and there's another way to differentiate the proletariat. Before you know it, rather than queueing up to punch Mr Reid you'll be seeing him on the front of Skin Deep.

Wrong side of the tracks

2006-06-08T06:50:00.000Z

Amid the general newsthrob and gossip burble gushes word that the French government and their state railway have been fined a landmark $80,000 for their role in transporting Jews during the second World War. SNCF, a militant faction of the original cross-European train network that still holds French commuters in a death-grip, was found to be complicit in "crimes against humanity" in a case some believe marred by lawyers' incompetence:

"I'm amazed by the ruling. I can't understand it," a lawyer acting for SNCF said.

Nonetheless, the trembling question of reparations is once again buffed into life, especially given Berlin's controversial memorial proving to be, as the Combined Jewish Philantropies warbled, "a tourist magnet". Suggest-meisters here at Dante's Handcart are stiff believers that, while pretty, simple fines fail to satisfy the public lust for comeuppance. Instead, we would like to see each juicy SNCF train equipped with a memorial carriage filled with bronze Jews, to symbolise in a deeply symbolic way the whole palaver. It'd be nice to see indie rock mongeese Silver Jews perform at an inaugural ceremony, but perhaps that's just being greedy.

The Mane Event

2006-06-05T17:53:00.000Z

Horse-riders, young girls and lesbians all over the world are waking today to the frightening news that the Ministry of Defense, the UK governments chief weapon in the fight against not having a ministry that would deal with defense, is sending to the skies a fleet of sky-horses. The existence of the steeds, which are believed to number in the hundreds, was leaked in a poorly written story by Grampian TV:

"The Ministry of Defence and the British Horse Society may seem at first to be an unusual partnership, but it is a partnership which is borne out of a desire for safety"

Silent, sturdy, and low-maintanance in comparison to the current fleet of spy-planes and UAVs, sky-horses are believed to be the latest two-fingered salute to "electronics boffins" who, in this dull and over-egged travesty of a report by The Australian, are credited with mindfucking Air Traffic Control systems using a pottage of wires, transponders and less-than-Christian attitudes.

Dick Smith, notorious salesman, practical joker and show-off pilot, released this gusty quote from his newsbuttocks:

"As we all know, criminals create viruses for computer networks which have cost the world hundreds of millions of dollars"

It is difficult to fathom which brain-cell collided with the microphone in this case, and experts around the country are attempting to ascertain just what the deep-fried douchetramp Dicky is rambling on about. Smith himself was unavailable for further comment.

When challenged like a cheap whore with doubts surrounding the effectiveness of illuminated flying ponies, Bill Semple, Chief Executive of Air Traffic Control, is believed to have sucked his thumb and looked distant. In a 1997, unconnected interview he made this statement:

"The minimum we got down to was two ... I think with the benefit of hindsight we might have done more earlier"

It's difficult not to see simpleton Semple as the bad-guy here, and to be sodding honest I wouldn't dissuade you. Not that you'd take much dissuading, you slack-thighed numpty.

A first class gamble

2006-06-03T13:34:00.000Z

It's got to be tough being Adam Crozier, glossy chief executive of the Royal Mail. Since the 17th century Royal dictate that every piece of first class mail should "receive first class treatment", he personally sorts through each of the 81 million items posted daily. Rumour has it that Crozier had the swarthy hands of a great ape surgically transplanted on to his supple wrists to better palpate the letters, small packets and parcels, in an illegal backroom operation in the Russian hinterlands. Now, the fecking Guardian takes the long arcing piss of fresh news in reporting that the UK government is preparing to crap up to £1.3bn into Crozier's grubby purse, a foetid effort to resurrect the leaking, palsied dullard that is our postal service.

With the Post Office business losing £111m a year and pension deficits of £5bn, Crozier and his cronies could do worse than to take a butchers at high-gloss tackshack Las Vegas. There, architects like Paul Steelman have spent the past 20 years developing the ideal cash current to keep leisure-suit-wearing gamble bunnies circulating and spending. As the barf trouts at Wired News are warbling, carefully dovetailed retail and casino zones have flipped the dollar spouts to max:

"most new Vegas Strip resorts earn more than half of revenue from nongambling activities: shops, theatres, restaurants and trade shows"

"All well and good", I hear you grumble like sodomised toads, "but how does this make a cock sot of difference?" Oh ye of little faith. What we foresight-mites at Dante's Handcart envision is a Post Office Entertainment multiplex. Picture your urine-stained grandmother, wheeling her hemorrhoids in to collect her pension and then, excitingly, bused on a travellator into a luncheon-lounge-cum-bar-cum-bubble-wrap-emporium. Slightly tipsy on sherry she peruses racks of novelty bargains and loss-leader spangletat, before being encouraged by showgirls and a man wielding a tiger to post said-items to friends and family using, you guessed it, the Royal Mail's own Parcel Force. It makes perfect sense and, frankly, if they don't do it then they deserve a punch in the snatch.

Goo goo g' joob

2006-06-02T16:08:00.000Z

Iconic rap-putz Jay-Z left me an awfully long voicemail this morning. In amongst the wheedling, cajoling and general begging for me to lapdance for him, I could make out some sort of crazed mumbling about declining numbers of walrus. Now, here in my World Watch Tower several miles above the upper-left corner of the globe, I can see he was right to be worried.

Several news sources have confirmed what my telescope tells me - that the Atlantic walrus, famed for its sexually-potent tusks and long the mascot of Elle MacPherson, has diminished until some worried bastards believe there only to be five left. Of that five, with a 40/60 gender split, one female is known to be infertile and at least one male believed homosexual or at least bi-curious. Dr Andrew Trites, bearded, made the following statement:

"We're concerned that the population is low [but] global warming is not the culprit"

Trites, previously famous for sitting next to someone on a bus who had a moulded polypropylene groin and offered to show it to him for a dollar, has not contacted us to make any useful comment, an act that can only count against him at this time.

Sources close to Dante's Handcart have instead revealed, exclusively, that celebrity walrus-human symbiotes are being "called home" to replenish the dwindling stud stock. These genetically engineered half-man, half-walrus chimera were the result of an ill-fated 1950s tryst between Russian biologists and British zoologists, and have in many cases reached dizzying heights of power due to their advanced mammalian brains. We suggest that avid readers might keep their eyes open to notable decision-makers taking a sudden step backwards from their responsibilities, and who also might bear uncanny resemblance to our Arctic friends.

Virulent Violence

2006-05-31T16:56:00.000Z

While quietly urinating in the magazine aisle of Borders the other day, I couldn't help but browse through a copy of Ebola Monthly (free celebrity madam with issue one; normal price £8.95). I say I "couldn't help", it's not like there were armed guards or anything, it's just a turn of phrase like "clap wankered" and "bitchin' like a marmoset". Anyhow, what should drop out but a free-as-in-gratis issue of GQ (aka softcore for softlads). The jaunty photo of a balding, moustache-clad prancing man in a fetching red lycra leotard drew me in...

...only to find Respect MP George "Hermione" Galloway claiming that the assassination of HRH Tony Blair would be "morally justified". The vaginaless politico, who claims to find the British PM "deeply repugnant" and is famous for bedding Greeks (who are anecdotally credited with the invention of gayness), later went on to grumble that he would report any plot he knew about "to the authorities". At this point it is unknown whether George was referring to the police or to Clare Spottiswoode, non-executive Director of the Biofuels Corporation plc, known for being something of an authority in Gas Regulation.

Reeling with shock, I stumbled into the in-store coffee shack to settle myself. Imagine my surprise to find a thinly veiled threat at the bottom of my otherwise lovely receipt.

"just one won't HURT YOU!!!"

With violence lurking in every mochachino and behind the psychotic pate of every maverick politician, is it any surprise that the government would like to stencil a barcode into our cheeks and catalogue us by bowel size? I foresee a wave of aggression sweeping the blogosphere. Try telling me otherwise and I'll give you a thick ear.

Pants Stance

2006-05-29T17:21:00.000Z

Skulking like some feathered nonce into your step-daughter's room comes news that Orange Skin - a neo-Starckian mashup of contemporary design cum zeitgeist flippancy - is selling Triple B Studio's paraiconic UndyRug for a startling $30. Before you slide out your debitable finest, however, let's turn with surprising swiftness to those clockwork culture varmints at Sensory Impact and see what they splutter...

"Ignore the blurb -> ‘Perfect for the little boys room or even the big boys who are little boys at heart!’ This underwear shaped bathroom rug is the last thing a ‘little’ or even a ‘big’ boy would be caught dead with in his room"

Yikes, that's some bile, babies! Forgive me if I dress as the proverbial cat's anus and wave my query prong underneath your sexy noses, but given a quick googling (safe search off, natch) tells us that there are over two and a quarter million hits for "men underwear fetish" I'd wager there are plenty of boys big, small and in-between who'd quite fancy a massive pair of pants on their bathroom floor.

If anything, this opens up bathware to all sorts of fetish avenues. Take my hand for a moment and let me lead you down a sullen little bitch of an avenue where lovers of gas masks (NSFW) and avisodomists can decorate their wetrooms with absorbent, deep-pile representations of their particular penchant. Think of it as equal opportunities if you must, or at the very least a new and vaguely more interesting item to drip your toothpaste spittle onto.

Tomorrows' Spokesman

2006-05-22T13:09:00.000Z

Unless you've been squatting over a cattle grid with two handfuls of grit for common-sense all decade, you'll have heard of Mike Wickstrand. Coquettish Mike, who shares a surname with the drummer in unsigned Swedish Death Metal band Slaughtercult, heads the Market Expansion Group at Microsoft and, from his supple lips, gushed news of the software giant's latest tentative tiptoe into the generally-PC-less developing world.

Christened FlexGo, Mike and his sexy silicon cronies have visions of a pay-as-you-go system of computing where dollar-shy techslags flop out a few cents every time they want to write, say, a Word document or groom teenage hussies on MSN Messenger. In a somewhat repetitive interview with CNet News, our man Wickstrand parroted the following soundbite with varying success (and relevance):

"The real goal of FlexGo is to make that dream of owning a full-featured PC a reality"

Admirable aims, you dashing minx! But regular victims of Dante's Handcart know that a sound scheme can never be allowed to pass through without a garnish, topping or demeaning facial of some sort, and Mikey-boy's is no goddamn different.

Imagine an AdWords-style system of sponsored content whereby the financially-faltering have their computer time funded, either partly or in full, in return for mentioning key commercialised phrases. Since you're likely drunk as a bastard and stoned off your socks on magic plimsoll dust, I'll give you an example. Heaven knows you don't deserve it.

Picture me as a contented Russian, generally happy with my lot but all the same desperate to write an email to my American penpal Brad. Oh, to be able to afford a Sony Vaio or Apple ~~Spectrum~~ MacBook! But no, instead her majesty Martha Stewart steps in and offers this succulent bargain... mention, verbatim, "Martha Stewart Homewares make my genitals perky" in my email and she herself will subsidise my computer time by 75%. A bargain all round!

The spoils of the proletariat are not limited to ex-felons, of course. Anybody would be at liberty to sponsor an emerging user, potentially tapping into many millions of pornography advertising dollars. A quick testimonial about the miracle of Unique Water or the non-intrusive safety of dental dams beneath your salutation line and your letter to Auntie Jasmine is free. Can anybody say fairer than that?

Beanz Meanz Familiez

2006-05-21T16:42:00.000Z

Freshly gurgling from the news that Heinz are preparing to launch pre-packed Beans on in Toast on an unsuspecting, undesiring public, those wholesome souls at The Guardian have whored their dictaphone around various head-chefs for a "who cares" soundbite. The Dante's Handcart award for Greatest Over-Reaching-Reaction on the Part of a So-Called Professional goes to the dismayingly named Skye Gyngell of the Petersham Nurseries Café. Skye, pictured just over there (gurning like a freshly-gutted salmon), came out with this juicy little nugget:

"I find this sort of thing awful - dumbing down food to that level. I think it's so disconnecting. It disconnects families. It disconnects communities. Everything now is so fast - we all demand things instantly, from instant internet access to instant food. Things like this have far-reaching effects. When everybody has to have everything instantly, where is the family? Where is sitting down and talking to each other? Where is preparing food together - even washing up together?"

The winner of Time Out London's Best Alfresco Dining 2005 obviously hasn't taken a look at pages 475-476 of the Spring/Summer Argos catalogue, else she would've seen the latest in four-slot toasters. These beauties, each glistening with variable browning controls and, in many cases, real chrome highlights, allow a family of four (or five if one family member is a staunch anorexic) to gather together and communally prepare delicious Heinz snacks.

It's tricksy to discover the average length of the modern "family meal" but few of you bitches would deny, I'd wager, that in today's hectic world such moments of togetherness are shrinking as rapidly as an elderly man's withered genitals. Is it not a super idea to fast-stream group meal preparation, leaving more time to discuss text messaging, pre-teen pregnancy and the rising number of homosexual death squads roaming the streets? I think it sodding is.

Zilog Inside

2006-05-18T09:40:00.000Z

Wyclef Jean hit up my digits the other day, which was a bit of a surprise because he's normally more of an IM hound. Anyway, in between telling me how hot my ass is (and I'm all "yeah yeah dog, you say that to all the boys, holla") he wanted to know if I'd seen the latest MacBook from purveyors of hi-lust sleekery Apple.

"Of course I have, Wyclef" I told him, "what do you think I am, Jade-ferchristin-Goody?"

Looking closely at the shiny little bastard (the Mac, I mean, not the Jean) the thing that struck me was the keyboard. Now Steve's copysluts describe it as

"a unique new keyboard design that sits flush against the bed for a sleeker, lower profile. Plus, you’ll find a firmer touch when typing. That ought to make your fingers happy"

but I'm thinking that instead they've recycled the classic rubber keyboard of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a 3.50 Mhz powerhouse stacked with up to 48kb of RAM.

Now a little basic google sleuthery tells us that sans-case the sparkly Spectrum would happily fit inside a MacBook case, which makes me wonder whether in fact Apple have simply stuffed one in and adjusted for inflation from the original 80s £125 launch price. So this afternoon I shall be hitching a ride down to Old London Town with the least-sodomising trucker I can find and taking an axe to the first laptop I see in the Apple store. All in the name of science investigation, of course.

Light Entertainment on Lockdown

2006-05-15T21:15:00.000Z

From the dregs of the grime barrel today comes news that those canny Australians, long known for paying perverts, rubbing their children in slime and milking dogs sexually, have taken the latex-clad dong digit of Hollywood with their latest attempt at copyright law.

Apparently our Antipodean friends are now legally only permitted to watch or listen to recorded television and radio once, before being required to delete it.

"Does this mean I can record my favourite television or radio program to enjoy later?
Yes. For the first time you will be able to record most television or radio program at home to enjoy at a later time. This will allow you to watch or listen to a program as it was made available to the public at the time of the original broadcast.
How long can I keep the recording?
The recording must be deleted after one use. It will not be possible to use the recording over and over again."

Before you retire to your sniggering room with a glass of cat milk, please take my hand as I bludgeon you with the implications. Brainbox experts have varying opinions as to the average attention span of a human adult, pegging it as anything from twenty minutes to a measly seven seconds; hardly enough at best to manage an episode of your favourite ill-advised soap opera, never mind attempting the marathon that is A Touch of Frost staring glottal wanker Sir David Jason.

Is it too much to suspect that the Australian government is being sponsored by the US Army, tasked with taking the PR apocalypse that is Guantanamo Bay and rebranding it as the ideal way to focus your entertainment-hungry mind without external distractions? With TV one-chance-or-you've-lost-it, who wants to take the risk that a wretched friend or mother might telephone at the fulcrum of your chosen drama? In such a situation, the Americans are willing to wager you'd spend a pretty penny for a total-isolation sensory deprivation experience (with complimentary popcorn).

Now I'm not the kind of gaudy, hyperbolizing schlockster who might overegg a pudding for the sake of a decent story and three kinds of Sunday veg, but don't be surprised if you see full-page ads in your Radio Times for an open ticket to the most closed of prisons sometime wretchedly soon.

Hair of the (horn) dog

2006-05-07T20:37:00.000Z

Amateur occultist, Dieter Palestine, scrawls:

Chrissy-boy, you sly-one. My sweet lady friend she says my groin-girder ain't shown off to his best advantage, she wants I should get the Mach 3 a slip-sliding where the crown jewels sway. Help a fella out, what's the best way to prune the poker?

Well, Dieter, just for you I jotted down a few notes while ladling piss out of my handbag this morning. Excuse the stains.

Even the shittiest of Boney M fans knows that a freshly-shawn crotch is considered de rigeur in polite society. Once upon a time it was the pubes that separated man from boy, but if there's one thing that all those foetus models have taught it's that grotesquely underexagerating your age is this seasons' gotta-gotta.

First off, take some 'before' photos for your MySpace profile. Remember, this is only fashionable if people know about it - otherwise you're just a lonely guy with cold nuts. Crank up the central heating a notch and apply a thin layer of shaving cream and/or gel. With a fresh razor and holding the skin taught, carefully swipe off the hairs, rinsing often. Afterwards - and with a liberal hand - slap on a couple of coats of soothing balm. Now take your 'after' photos.

Some dudes complain about their newly-nude boy boulders sticking to their inside-thighs; if this is the case with you, sailor, then might I suggest some tooty leather testicle stirrups (NSFW). These sexy straps will keep the scrotum elevated, separated and isolated, with the handy side-effect of making you appear permanently distended.

Today's 'kuKast is in your honour, Dieter.

Right-Click & Save as... (0.2mb)

Let's all put on some headphones

2006-05-02T18:00:00.000Z

Blog reader and raconteur, Yassar Caravan, writes:

Dear Chris, yes and what of it, I'm trying to go to the gym, isn't it we all, and am dead leazy [sic] only do a minute or so on damn crazy treadmill it blows. Why not a podcast for us old swaggers, me cocker?

I'm always open to suggestions (clean or otherwise) from readers, so without further ado (or much consideration) here is the inaugural Dante's Handcart Haiku Podcast or, to be sodding jaunty, Dante's 'KuKast.

Right-click & 'Save as'

Weighing in at 0.2mb and 13 seconds, it's ideal for those quiet moments of solitude in-between, say, the pleasurable warm wetness of a gentle pantswetting and the shuddering coldness of your soggy knickers.

Catch me if you can

2006-04-24T12:33:00.000Z

The news is awash with the launch of the government's Child Exploitation & Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, its latest rubber cosh with which to thwack the unhealthy tumescence of maladaptive internet perverts. Sly-winking supremo, Jim "lath me with unguents" Gamble, is cock of the walk, helming a 24hr team of police officers who will perpetually lurk in chatrooms and the like to monitor and collect paedophiles.

It's difficult to find solid estimates of how much this "bringing together [of] law enforcement officers [and] specialists from children's charities and industry" will cost, but it doesn't seem unfair to assume it won't be cheap. Perhaps what's needed is a little 'outside the (prepubescent) box' thinking...

Our stately internet is full of legal, consenting adults indulging in a variety of frotting, gurgling, pants-down activities which, unless you're a Southern US state, is perfectly reasonable. One of the problems such individuals face is finding meatspace partners to act out their online fantasies. I suggest a grand database of fetishists be constructed, based on Microsoft software running on AOL's hardware resources and leveraging VISA's age-checking facilities (all three being CEOP partners), pairing up the compatible who would pay for such a service by volunteering a chunk of their time to monitor & report child-grooming minxes online. The "charge" would be determined by ease of pairing and uniqueness of proclivity; research estimates that 24% of men and 36% of women have had a rape fantasy, either perpetrating or experiencing, and it seems reasonable to assume that some of these would gladly exchange time for opportunity.

If it works then I fully expect a peerage.

Love with a key

2006-04-20T17:39:00.000Z

If I were editor of Vogue magazine my mantra would be "Fashion Follows Fringe". This seasons' "new black" always seems two steps behind the chosen garb of whoever is edgy and slightly unusual - witness geek chic, gypsy style and frumps'-favourite boho. I guess it gets harder to find untapped seams of fresh creativity, judging by Cartier's latest jewellery collection.

This, lovers, is the Cartier Love bracelet - a band of gold fastened by a tiny, ornamental screwdriver onto the wrist of your comely wife or obedient mistress. Pictured below it is a polished stainless steel slave collar, available from Bondage Collars.com (NSFW), purveyors of fine BDSM equipment. It fits neatly around the neck of your slave and unlocks with, you guessed it, a tiny screwdriver.

Issues of ownership and control aside, in some ways Bondage Collars' finest is better value than its H. Samuel counterpart. For a start it's made-to-measure so that you (or, more accurately, your slave) can wear it 24/7. It also costs significantly less - undercutting Cartier by at least $2400, that leaves you plenty to buy all the NSFW riding crops, handcuffs and (very much NSFW) throat funnels your heart desires.

Where one fashionista goes, the other houses follow. That said, I look forward to measuring my partner for a Swarovski crystal chastity sheath (you guessed it, NSFW) and leaving my aunt a clitoral clip underneath the Christmas tree.

Fucked Thumb Syndrome, or, The Mobloggers Lament

2006-04-17T17:33:00.000Z

With a bang and a flash of LED flame, Helio enters the US carrier market. "Helio?" I hear you mutter, "who the mascara-arse are they?" and rightly so... let's boil them down to "MySpace on your mobile"

Reading engadget.com's interview with the imaginatively-named Sky Dayton, Helio's CEO, one thing is made abundantly clear: milking the concept of "young, passionate consumers" is still going strong. Let's tune into some Sky..

"...social networking is happening, MySpace, etc., but nobody’s taken that mobile. That’s really where people really want to interact with that stuff, is when they’re out in the world, right? They don’t want to be blogging about what they did last night; they want to be blogging about what they’re doing right now. They want to be taking pictures and uploading"

Don't get me wrong, Sky, but when our go-getting social networker is in the midst of his partying/shopping/abseiling isn't s/he going to be more interested in, well, doing that rather than broadcasting it? If you've ever tried to update your blog via a mobile then you'll be familiar with fucked thumb syndrome as your digits spasm riotously while T9 milks your creativity dry. "So upload some photos" I hear you bleat, but how expensive is that going to be? The sort of young MySpacers services like these are aimed at don't tend to have the disposable income to be blasting off chunky jpegs left right and proverbial centre.

I'd quite like to be proved wrong, just so I could be bitter and sarcastic about it, but I don't think I will be.

Stable Partemple's Urban Pottage

2006-04-15T14:33:00.000Z

number three in a series of bulb

While soaping up my underarms this morning I couldn't help but notice Dove's new Campaign for Real Beauty advertised on the side of their body wash bottle. Apparently they're pledging £100,000 to educate girls and women on "a wider definition of beauty".

With 90% of females aged 15 to 64 wanting to change at least one aspect of their body, it seems obvious that something needs to be done. However, is Dove's plan the best one? Some of the studies would seem to disagree...

Research tells us that solidarity in groups is best promoted when that group has a common cause. A 2003 study finds that audiences dislike young, attractive actresses. The obvious solution is for Dove to spend its money on nose and boob jobs for an elite squad of eminently-hateable young women. With an average breast enhancement costing £6000 and a new nose just £4500 that's nine surgically superior uber-femmes for a nation of saggy housewives to scorn. Sacrifice one of our troupe and you could have a coach to take them around the country, thrusting their silicone assets in mumsy faces.

The net result would be an upsurge of vitriol and bile, bringing our women together and encouraging them to get on with whatever it was they were doing before Dove suggested they should have a wash and a good moan.

Stable Partemple is a para-futurologist at the Think Special watchdog sub-committee. He lives in London with himself.

Stop holding my hand

2006-03-13T13:44:00.000Z

A flamboyantly homosexual man walks into a bar. Ouch. It was a violently homophobic biker bar, and he was roundly thrashed.
An old joke

For years "it's political correctness gone mad" has been the favourite buzz-phrase of the Neo-Conservative far-to-middling right. And yet it's a chorus being taken up by long-haired hemp sucking hippies as more and more hand-holding legislation takes away our God (or equivalent) given right to refer to each other as we damn please. Into the limelight steps Sarah Silverman. Proudly Jewish and openly a lady, with the breasts and cervix such a gender often entails, her snippy brand of shock-'til-they-spunk comedy is stunning audiences across America.

In a world where a grown man cannot masturbate discretely during an Aaron Carter concert, we need more people like Sarah Silverman.

Stable Partemple's Urban Pottage

2006-02-03T15:21:00.000Z

number two in a series of bulb

Given that it's all too easy to sleep in, thank Mary, Joseph and all the sticky mongeese that clever people still exist to invent helpful, educational sleep-disturbation technology. This little bastard is the Daily Verses Alarm Clock, which not only stands proud on your bedside table in its silver plastic casing (with integral travel stand & cover, for all your pilgrimages) but can regale you with any of 365 inspirational and touching scriptures from the Bible (not named Time Magazine's nonfiction book of the decade, 1969).

I think this is the beginning of a trend. In fact, I predict that the number one toy under the 2006 Christmas tree will be the Official Peter Falk "Columbo" Daily Just One More Thing Sir Alarm Clock. One press of Peter's cigar-pierced gurning face and you can hear any of 365 motivational and arousing catch-phrases from the successful television show. Married with three beautiful children? Why not buy five and take advantage of generous bulk-buying options (see in-store for details).

Celebrity endorsement is big money - just ask Anne Frank - and you can be sure that where icons go the general public won't be far behind. Watch out for my very own Stable Partemple Nice Centenary Commemorative stamp, released this Fall. I've a strong and warming feeling that there'll be plenty of people willing to turn me over and give me a licking every-time they want to send a letter.

Stable Partemple is a futurology consultant at the Institute of Modern Now, London. He has spoken at a broad range of keynotes, and chairs the focus group Communauté Metro Holistique.

Taboo

2006-01-22T20:12:00.000Z

Pimping is high fashion right now. Whether you're Lil Jon getting crunk, or it's your ride that's pimped, every boy wants to grow up to mesmerise bitches with his gem-encrusted pimp goblet. It's cool to pimp, and it's doubly cool to have your ho's around you, slapping them up when necessary.

Yet it's still decidedly uncool to be caught making the most of the slut-tastic riches this heavy pimping has to offer; or, at least, it is for the discerning gent that fancies a bit of twink with his breakfast. Mark Oaten, former Lib-Dem leadership challenger, quit frontline politics this weekend amid the news that he had a six-month affair with a 23-year-old rent boy. Mister Oaten, pictured here as a dangerous and manipulative Svengali, has already proved his virility by siring two children, albeit unfashionably with the same woman.

"Friends said they were stunned at the revelations ... three-in-a-bed sex and asking the prostitute to dress up in soccer kit"

Even the most fundamentalist of Christians would notice the bleak double-standard at play here. Want to be like 50 Cent, kids? Fine, you're a budding fashionista. But woe betide if you'd prefer to dip your pimp stick into some barely-legal manflesh of the sort that would make George Duroy salivate. Agree with me that this is a travesty? Then fax your local MP and tell them you want them to sleep with a rent boy. Only this way will we change the blatant prejudice that pervades the fashion and music industries.

Odd bed-fellows

2006-01-17T15:03:00.000Z

We all remember the Trinidad & Tobago Express' most excellent coverage of the Englishwoman who married a dolphin earlier this month. Well, the Japanese are well known for wanting to go just one better, and so I'm pleased to re-report that this week a Japanese man tied the electronic knot with a tiny shiny crimson robot. Victor, as the man is known as, that being his name, told reporters that the diminutive bluetooth-bade biped is the "perfect bedfellow", and that his 90 minute lithium-ion battery gives him "plenty of stamina".

The ceremony, held in a secret location believed to be close to JVC's headquarters in balmy Yokohama-city, is rumoured to form the central plotline to a new Spielberg production that begins filming later this year.

Misunderstood

2006-01-06T16:29:00.000Z

You have to feel sorry for Baptists, always coming up against society's smutty collective mind when they're only trying to do good and convert a lost soul.

Soulful eyes

2005-12-23T20:56:00.000Z

High-kick brown horsey
Ears gone, but still beautiful
'cept for your privates

There are strange things on eBay

Angelzero

2005-12-20T23:02:00.000Z

Recently various sources reported a German man who turned himself in to authorities after an email virus persuaded him that his child-porn surfing had been monitored by the FBI. That started me thinking about the power of belief and the potential for manipulating that faith, with a certain tech-twist of course. Thinking turned itself into the faint rumblings of a short story.

You wanna see big belief? You gotta go small. Yeah, real big belief, real tiny small. Folks don't get that, much.
People assume that stuff like cells and microchips don't have souls. But a chip, a chip has belief, a belief stronger than any fundamentalist preacher. It believes in binary, in the purity of the ones and the zeroes. In the truth that one is always one and that zero is always zero.
Now bumping up against a firewall the other day it turns me down. So I slide out an angelzero, a little prophet who can turn black into white, make that closed-door 1 turn welcome-home 0. Something superspecial cooked up by my pal Grove in among his laptops and his ashtrays. Grove is my investment in genius, my fixit man. Clever little bastard, like all those 100%-proof databrains are.
Anyhows, sweet pretty little angelzero flaps its wings and bats its eyes, gets to what it does best which is a-sermonising and a-lecturing. Hella beguiling to the digitally devout, and you show me which chip isn't. Starts with the "wolves in sheeps' clothing" crud, drops a few subtle false zero hints, really lays it on thick. Mister firewall gets to doubting himself, doubting dogma writ holy since silicon slice. It ain't easy to get with the program when angelzero's crooning creedcode, believe you me!
That chip is a goner, friend, and that firewall comes tumbling down. Some people say that the online world ain't a place for religion, but you & I both know that belief ain't going anywhere, long as they keep churning out the chips with cast-iron conviction. Amen to that.

Stable Partemple's Urban Pottage

2005-12-19T11:37:00.000Z

number one in a series of bulb

Geoffrey Palmer tried to sell me a cellphone the other day. I heard him, snuffling away in the lounge, muttering in a matter-of-fact and terribly reassuring way about LG's new flip-phone. I immediately put the kettle on and sought out our most wartime teapot.

I can imagine Geoffrey calling Dame Judi on his slender handset, hoping against hope to catch her, dripping, as she emerges from the shower. His gnarled, Shakespearian hands calloused against the smooth buttons, wiping grease smears from the camera lens, cradling its industry-breakthrough thinness (for a 3G phone; as of writing).

He is our relic, Geoffrey. He is our WWII romance, our voice of reason. If he can handle such a handset, then surely so can we? The ticking cocoa of his intonation beguiles us... yes, the world is fast and bright and demanding, it says, but this mobile transcends such blather (and Geoffrey would undoubtedly use such a word). Ease it into your pocket and, for all its microchipped intelligence, its predictive video calling downloads, you could just as easily forget that it is there.

Stable Partemple is a futurology consultant at the Institute of Modern Now, London. He has published many articles and books, most recently "Shavings of the Culture Truffle" with Simon Schama

Aiming for divine comedy

2005-12-19T11:23:00.000Z

Inaugural posts are always so delicate, aren't they.

This is and welcome to Dante's Handcart, my own little mezzanine on the journey to Hell (define:Hell A state of netless agony, punctuated by telemarketers). Together we'll puzzle and muse on the detritus, spittle and gurning fact-flesh that the media spews into our brand-shiny-new money back guaranteed no-risk no-downpayment pain free lives.

You're all very pretty.