Wu-Tang Clans next album is to be presented in a museum, not sold on iTunes. From Becks sheet music to the Flaming Lips chocolate skull, here are five other unusual albums
So, Wu-Tang Clan are to release their new album in a one-ofa-kind, hand-carved nickel-silver box, which is apparently sitting in a Moroccan vault.
The songs will never be sold on iTunes or streamed on Spotify: if you want to hear Once Upon a Time in Shaolin youll have to head to one of the galleries, museums or festivals it will be taken to, pay for admission and listen on closely monitored headphones. The group later hope to sell the album for millions.
Zero waste, lower transport costs and recyclable materials is 3D-printing the future of housebuilding? Dutch architects are putting the process to the test for the first time in Amsterdam
Treacle-black plastic oozes from a nozzle at the bottom of a small tower in Amsterdam, depositing layer upon layer of glistening black worms in an orderly grid. With a knot of pipes and wires rising up to a big hopper, it looks like a high-tech liquorice production line. But this could be the future of house-building, if Dus Architects have their way.
On this small canal-side plot in the north of the city, dotted with twisting plastic columns and strange zig-zag building blocks, the architects have begun making what they say will be the world's first 3D-printed house.
A parody site set up by Dutch developers uses Google's map data to share tips on where to catch forty winks
We've all done it. Last night was just a bit too good and your head is sinking ever closer to your desk you need a nap, but wheres the nearest bed, bench or comfy patch of grass?
Enter Google Naps, a parody of the venerable Google Maps, that lets users share the best places in towns and cities around the globe to grab a quick bit of shuteye. Think of it as Foursquare for beds.
Dear Sergey & Larry (and other Googlers)
Hello, please don't be mad this is just a joke, a parody. We don't mean to damage your brand or anything, we just want to bring a smile on the faces of Google fans. So please don't take this to court, we only have a few hundred Euros in the bank. And we also don't want to go to jail because we're too busy with other things at the moment. But whenever you are in the Netherlands you can have a nap on our couch if you want, just email us. We can also make coffee and bake eggs if you like that (for a small price).
I am jealous of and disgusted by women with more experience than me and think that these issues will only grow stronger as I get older. What can I do to break this cycle?
I am 23 years old, male, and have had sex with only three women. Most people would agree this is very few, especially considering I have only been in two relationships. I have not had sex for more than a year. I recently got to know someone close to my age, and we got on well. I found out, however, that she had slept with more than 50 men and was unable to put this out of my head. I find myself feeling disgusted and jealous towards women who have slept with many more people than me. But, at my age, it seems all attractive women are well into double figures. I feel trapped and that the older I get, the more extreme the issue will become.
When leaving a message on this page, please be sensitive to the fact that you are responding to a real person in the grip of a real-life dilemma, who wrote to Private Lives asking for help, and may well view your comments here. Please consider especially how your words or the tone of your message could be perceived by someone in this situation, and be aware that comments which appear to be disruptive or disrespectful to the individual concerned will be removed.
Mark Hughes keeps Stoke grounded, John Stones is rock solid for Everton and Liverpool aim for a straight eight
What to make of Mark Hughes's first season at Stoke City? There's certainly been no radical revolution, rather a gradual evolution away from the hoof-ball Tony Pulis served up to such great effect. "It will take time," Hughes said in August. "On occasions we'll make mistakes but if we want to play in a certain way that's what we have to do." And there have been hiccups along the way, but the players have adjusted and are on course for the club's best ever Premier League finish something the Welshman should be rightfully proud of. Not only is the style of play benefiting from the manager's methods but the team are also scoring more goals. They already have 36, two more than last season's total, and 10 behind their highest under Pulis in 2010-11. It's an impressive feat given the relative modesty of Hughes's additions to the squad. There's likely to be more money to spend in the summer, and with Premier League survival all but assured the manager can focus on building for next season, with Ivica Olic already in his sights. The veteran Croatian striker is enjoying a strong season at Wolfsburg, and has revealed that he's tempted by a move to English football. "When I was talking with Hughes, I told him; 'My neck will hurt with your long balls, who on earth is going to catch them all'. He said to me: 'We don't play like that any more, we want to play a European style of football'. That's OK for me but so far I have not yet decided." A strong finish and the continued development of that continental style will not only please the fans, but it will go a long way to convincing better players, like Olic, to join the club in the summer a virtuous circle of tactics and transfers that can lift Stoke into the top half next season. TM
Letter from Zadie Smith, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie and other writers says Turkey's social media ban is an 'unacceptable violation of the right to freedom of speech'
Turkey's Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has said that the situation in his country "is going from bad to worse and even towards terrible" following the government's attempts to block access to Twitter, as a phalanx of major writers, from Zadie Smith to Günter Grass, line up to state their "grave concern" about "the freedom of words" in Turkey today.
The authors, who also include Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Grass and Pamuk's fellow Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, have added their names to a joint letter from PEN International and English PEN which calls last week's ban on Twitter "an unacceptable violation of the right to freedom of speech". The Turkish government restricted access to the micro-blogging website, and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan indicated the ban could be extended further, saying he would not "leave this nation at the mercy of YouTube and Facebook" and pledging to "take the necessary steps in the strongest way".
Hot Tech Today has hit on what it thinks is the innovative idea of combining technology news with naked women. It's another setback for those battling misogyny in the tech world
You know when you're looking for information about a new gadget or technology trend, but you just can't concentrate without a pair of breasts to leer at while you do your research? Well, panic no more, because a new website, Hot Tech Today has solved all your problems. Yes, the self-described "Tech blog meets Maxim magazine" has hit on what it seems to think is the innovative idea of combining technology news with naked women ta daa! And unfortunately, so far, it hasn't been revealed to be an elaborate spoof.
The site's video promo for its upcoming April issue is the easiest way to get a feel for the digital magazine; a bikini-clad model perched on a sofa awkwardly recites a few tech-related snippets before going on to pose for photographs. And just in case you hadn't yet worked out where Hot Tech Today thinks women belong, there's a helpful section showing her dressed as a maid, complete with feather duster. There's even a laptop in the shot with her at one point, but the closest she gets to the keyboard is dusting it daintily in her bra.
"'Hi, I'm the senior computer tech here, looking at the motherboard.' 'You opened the computer? What a clever girl!'"
"At a dinner for theatre technicians, newcomers were introduced. Each of the men were introduced by the shows they had worked on and tech-related interests and skills they had. I was introduced as 'This is Grace, looking smoking. Don't worry, you'll all get a chance to hit on her later.' No mention of my theatre or tech skills whatever."
"At a networking event, representing my company (me being a certified and pretty awesome technical resource for the company), a guy from one of the biggest prospective customers said he was responsible for deciding if they chose my company or not. He asked what could we offer him in THAT tone that makes you feel uncomfortable Ignoring his tone, I started talking about the company, he then interrupted me, got closer and said: 'You don't get it, we are one of the biggest companies here and I am asking what are YOU offering me?'"
"I am an IT professional and have been told I am too pretty to be a programmer, while being patted on the head like a puppy."
"I once worked as an outside IT consultant Despite the fact that I had, on average, five years more experience and two years more education than any of the men on the team, took only the challenging service calls and those that involved cleaning up messes made by some of the more junior men on the team, and consistently outperformed everyone else on the team by every measure, I was paid $2 less per hour than even the entry-level guys. Management rationalised this to me (and themselves) by claiming that it was simply 'risky' to hire women in IT.
"The manager, however, let me know my true worth every day that I came in to file reports. He'd instantly jump in with a back massage the moment he saw me in a chair, constantly told me how he'd love to date me, and even once directly propositioned me while I was actively working on a computer at the repair bench, in the front of the store. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing before I realised he was dead serious."
"I'd routinely show up at customer locations to be greeted with anything from mild scepticism to overt doubt from men and women alike. 'I didn't know women could fix computers!' was a greeting I expected to hear on at least 30% of my service calls. I had the pleasure of responding: 'This is just an easy part-time student job I have while I'm finishing my degree in high energy physics and distributed computing.'"
From David Beckham to Rivaldo, via Roger García, Xabi Alonso and a man who must have an Easter Island statue for a head
Before the summer of 1996, anyone who attempted to score from the halfway line was entering forbidden territory that every player dreamt of discovering but few dared to dread. When Pelé went for glory against Czechoslovakia at the 1970 World Cup, people reacted like he had unveiled the first ever jetpack or introduced the world to the concept of the selfie. While Pelé didn't score, it was the kind of effort that would have had Alan Partridge shouting "Shit! Did you see that!". No goal, but full marks for trying.
From a white man in 'blackface' to a black Union soldier and an am-dram society dressed as a lynch mob, Mirror of Race's collection reveals a forgotten world of US race relations
Shocking images from America's race war in pictures
Early photography is more than a window on history. It is an uncanny and disturbing encounter with real people, the light reflected off their faces falling on chemically sensitised surfaces long ago.
The camera has been around now for nearly two centuries. Yet photographs from the 19th century have the same punch as pictures taken digitally today. We are not seeing mere pictures of people, but a trace of the people themselves, as they looked in life.
Disarmament is on hold, Nato has renewed its sense of purpose, Belarus is flirting with the west and 'irredentism' is back in vogue
Vladimir Putin's policies in the Soviet Union's former "near abroad" have gone hand in hand with an increasingly tough nuclear stance. The thaw of the US-Russian "reset" that led to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start) in 2010 has passed and the disarmament process is largely frozen.
Inuit reject Oscar host's anti seal-hunting photo stunt and say practice is humane and sustainable
Canadian Inuit have embarked on a unique form of protest against the decision by host Ellen DeGeneres to highlight an anti seal-hunting charity on Oscars night. DeGeneres' Hollywood megastar "selfie" became the most retweeted snap of all time earlier this month, in the process raising $1.5m for the Humane Society of the United States, which campaigns against the seal hunt.
Ferdinand claims he is wary of critical fans
'It's embarrassing it becomes a personal insult'
United fans planning fly-past protest during Aston Villa game
Rio Ferdinand has branded Manchester United's season "embarrassing", with the veteran defender claiming he is reluctant to leave his own house due to a dismal title defence that sees them 18 points behind the leaders, Chelsea.
With some angry United fans planning to hire a plane to fly over Old Trafford during Saturday's lunchtime game with Aston Villa to protest at David Moyes, Ferdinand's comment will further increase the pressure on the manager. His decision to speak publicly will also be noted by the club executives who so far have remained firm in their backing of Moyes.
ONS figures suggest a rise in the number of 'singletons', but isn't it more a sign that marriage is now a frivolity more than a necessity?
Continuing its admirable tradition of providing the most vital and up-to-date numbers representing life in Britain, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has provided a map of all the single people in England and Wales. Ranging from coupled-up white to the deepest purple of failed relationships, the map pinpoints where all of those single-person households are hiding themselves often among innocent suburban families who might have no idea that their streets are being marred by crazed cat-loving harpies.
Nowhere is safe, it turns out: purple patches turn up from Sunderland to Blackpool, Hull to Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent to Plymouth. Most of all, our fair capital city has fallen victim to a deluge of people who couldn't even stick with a perfectly nice girlfriend, even if she did have a couple of anger issues and was distantly related. "The number of singletons has risen by 3 million in a decade", crows the Daily Mail, pointing out that Islington tops the tables with 57% of women and three in four male residents in the borough proclaiming themselves single.
The US and UK condemn him for Crimea but supported him over the war in Chechnya. Why? Because now he refuses to play ball
Once again, it seems that Russia and the United States are finding it difficult to agree on how to deal with their respective ambitions. This clash of interests is highlighted by the Ukrainian crisis. The provocation in this particular instance, as the leaked recording of a US diplomat, Victoria Nuland, saying "Fuck the EU" suggests, came from Washington.
Several decades ago, at the height of the cold war, George Kennan, a leading American foreign policy strategist invited to give the Reith Lectures, informed his audience: "There is, let me assure you, nothing in nature more egocentric than embattled democracy. It soon becomes the victim of its own propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute value which distorts its own vision Its enemy becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side is the centre of all virtue."
From Stephen Lawrence to today's Taser revelations, Britain's forces of law and order have defiled the idea of the public sphere
"The police are the public and the public are the police," said the force's modern founder, Robert Peel, in the early 19th century. Never has a fundamental principle come to sound so hollow. Everything from the treatment of domestic violence victims and the appalling treatment of the Lawrence family to the Hillsborough campaign smears, undercover spying on protestersand today's revelations about Taser use even the stitch-up of a high-level government minister reveals quite the opposite: that the police regard the public as a dangerous, entirely separate thing, to be surveilled, imprisoned and physically restrained wherever possible.
The police force manifestly does not understand itself to be part of this "other" public, but rather a separate agent dealing with an always potentially dangerous mob, some of whom can be pre-emptively singled out on the basis of poverty, ethnicity or opposition to state policy (or a combination of these) and reminded of their place: big brother is watching you, and if you catch him in the act he'll harass, smear and stomp on you until you get back in line. The police are the public, we could say, but not the public of the people, where the term originates, but the public of "public order".
To put an end to horror stories such as that of asylum seeker Josephine, the government must support all pregnant woman
When I was 32 weeks pregnant with my first child, I was excited and hopeful for the future. My partner and I were busy preparing our home for the new arrival, eagerly attending our medical appointments and going on frequent shopping trips to make sure we had all the kit necessary for a new-born.
For Josephine, the experience of being a first-time mum to be was entirely different. She only discovered she was pregnant by chance, after an illness forced her to visit a doctor, who gave her the news. She was already 28 weeks gone when she first saw a midwife.
The prime minister is panicking as corruption claims spill out across social media, and the country is poised to go to the polls
Turks greeted the news that YouTube has been blocked in the country with the grimly raised eyebrows Brits reserve for an unusually bad weather forecast. "So it's come to this", they say, but no one is overly shocked. Internet bans are becoming a weekly occurrence. A week ago Twitter was banned at the personal behest of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, and remains so days after a court order annulled the block.
With only days left until the municipal elections, campaigning is getting more frantic, voters more nervous and political rhetoric more extreme. At the centre of all this is Erdoan, bombastically fighting off corruption claims and trying to stem the flow of phone recordings spreading across social media which allegedly show him and his associates engaging in large-scale corruption, media manipulation and most recently plotting war against Syria. The last bombshell prompted the YouTube ban; it was a desperate attempt at damage limitation.
However inconvenient it may be for adults, we need to protect children from hurtful representations of sex and sexuality
Today the Authority for Television on Demand (Atvod) published research telling us children as young as six are accessing hardcore pornography. If we were to apply their study of 45,000 households nationally, that is 44,000 primary school children and 200,000 under-16s accessing adult sexual material; 112,000 boys aged 12-17 had visited one site alone, Pornhub. These figures aren't even a realistic assessment as mobiles and tablets do not feature in the research. We should be shocked by the scale of the problem before us and galvanised into action. This is not about banning pornography, but protecting children from harmful and often degrading representations of sex and desire.
Atvod suggest forcing porn sites to complete age checks failure to do so would result in an inability to process payments from UK consumers. So critical is the situation before us that Atvod has stressed the urgency of enacting legislation "during this parliament". A spokeperson for the company said: "The material that appears on the free services is placed there by the paid services to attract customers to sign up to subscriptions. As long as the paid service placed content on a free service without age verification it would be in breach of its licensing conditions and so would not be able to access funds from the UK."
NUS data shows ethnic minority students continue to face academic, social, and financial barriers along with overt racism
New figures show that white university students receive significantly higher degree grades than those from minority ethnic backgrounds with the same A-level qualifications. This suggests that higher education institutions are somehow failing black students, which should be a national embarrassment.
Three years ago the National Union of Students (NUS) conducted a study on the experiences of black students. The findings showed that they face a range of barriers in all levels of education, which affect satisfaction and attainment. The figures made for uncomfortable reading. It emerged that one in six black students had experienced racism in their institution, a third felt their educational environment left them unable to bring their minority perspective to lectures and tutorials, and 7% openly labelled their learning environment as "racist".
If Israel really is serious about peace, it will release Bargouti the one man uniquely placed to negotiate an agreement
The death of Nelson Mandela reminds us that often the first step towards the resolution of a conflict is the release from prison of a national leader who has the authority to unite, negotiate and resolve.
Marwan Barghouti has been in jail since 15 April 2002 when Israeli security agents, posing as ambulance workers, seized him in broad daylight and took him to Israel. In 2004 he was convicted by an Israeli court of involvement in five murders, which he denies.
Let's stop pussy-footing around and get rid of these monsters before they've had their wicked way with us
So what we have long suspected has finally come true; cats are trying to kill humans. Those furry evil geniuses who have been plotting from the comfort of your very own lap have revealed themselves as carriers of tuberculosis trying their best to infect their owners.
For years we've been wondering why they've been staring at us like that, why they are so withholding with their affection, why white cats only ever sit on your black clothes. It is all becoming terrifyingly clear now. First, they came for the sparrows and I said nothing.
Its rhetoric may be softer than the Tories', but the party still puts profit before people. Left Unity offers a new voice
Every day the Guardian publishes accounts of desperate poverty and attacks on welfare provision. We know of the food banks, the plight of disabled people and the housing crisis that affects so many. We know of the propaganda to make the poorest people scapegoats for economic failure. We recognise the hypocrisy of Cameron's "moral mission".
We know that housing support goes to rich landlords, that benefits for the working poor subsidise employers who pay poverty wages. We read that benefit fraud is a tiny fraction of the overall welfare budget, far less than unclaimed benefits, and is nothing compared to the amount lost through tax dodging. But as we rail against the injustice and hypocrisy, we fail to ask one big question. Where is our political fightback? It should be led by the Labour party but therein lies the problem.
I don't think the increasingly strained Iain Duncan Smith intends to cause suffering, but that's exactly what his bedroom tax does
In his 1949 inaugural address, President Harry S Truman said the world had arrived at a better place. "More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery," he said. "For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of these people." To accelerate that, he said, was a job for those who had the power to do so. What would he have made of Iain Duncan Smith?
There is no evidence that the welfare secretary actively seeks to create a modern form of misery, for he seems a decent sort. But his screechy performance on the Today programme earlier this week did create the impression of a tortured soul who knows his plans are unravelling. Fixing the welfare system, which costs too much, but upon which many vulnerable lives depend, is a task requiring dexterity, subtlety, and the sort of insight that distinguishes the possible from the desirable. One cannot see that Duncan Smith has that skillset. He is like a surgeon working in front of a braying mob, using broken glass.
It's a win-win trend for restaurateurs while diners pay the price, says Emma John
There are few more dispiriting experiences than the supermarket queue: the frustrating wait in an unfathomably slow-moving line, while the promise of a delicious meal hangs in the air, unfulfilled. No one, as far as I know, thinks of queueing as a desirable part of their weekly shop. Its not a sign that you really, really rate the own-brand sausages, nor does it make you cooler than your peers (unless, perhaps, youre waiting next to the frozen food aisle).
This is something I ponder when I walk past the shivering, damp lines of punters grimly holding out for a table at a London restaurant an increasingly frequent sight, especially in the narrow streets of the West End, where a no-reservations policy is now de rigeur for new openings. Booking a table and turning up at the appointed time for your meal is irritatingly passé; were all New Yorkers now, waiting in line for the next available seat. Its a win-win for restaurants, who can increase table turnover while enjoying the cachet of the queue itself free advertising for the desirability of their food. The only losers are the diners.
Britain is a step closer to leaving Europe this week. It is high time all who fear an exit from the union spoke out against the liars
Britain inched a step closer to a European exit this week. Simply by giving the UK Independence party a mighty national platform raises the credibility of the "outs". Nick Clegg, dead in the polls, had everything to gain from his strong stand on "in" virtually his last unsullied point of principle. Yet in the process he gifted Nigel Farage, and the act of voting Ukip, an aura of respectability.
But the Ukip ship had already sailed and was well afloat with the political wind behind it, say the Clegg team. The field was being ceded to aggressive sceptics, so it was high time to tackle the European argument head-on. They are right: with backs to the wall there is nothing left to do but fight, Labour and the Liberal Democrats against the rest. For both parties the political decision against a referendum was, as ever, a blend of high principle and low tactics; Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander's unequivocal stance as "We are the party of In" was absolutely essential.