Wim Delvoye

I absolutely love these sculptures by Belgian Artist & vegetarian tatooist of pigs Wim Delvoye. He makes Gothic style Caterpillars and trucks made out of laser cut steel shapes (if you look closely at the top two sculptures you can see that he has incorporated Gothic cathedral interiors into them). The bottom sculpture is a cement truck fashioned from carved teak wood, incredible! Check out the amazing website of Wim Delvoye and take a tour round Wim City; the below sculptures can be found in the "Gothic Works".

Lollipop Shoppe

I'd been thinking, it's a while since I've written a "Something for the Boys" post, and then, lo and behold, I stumbled upon these new arrivals in the Lollipop Shoppe online store. Although I have to say no man in my life is gong to get his paws on the below beautiful Basquiat Candle, book on design genius Eames and totally inspired back-to-school pencil "case", well not unless he's really good anyway.

..and now for something a little dark!

This post is a bit of a double whammy as I haven't done a "Something 4 the Boys" post for a while; and also, I keep meaning to do a write up on the website "Culture Label", which I have to confess, I am totally addicted to! Culture Label is simply a site which trawls through the museum shops of all the top UK art galleries and museums, to bring you the bestest stuff ever! Whoever does the selecting has seriously good taste (so good in fact, I usually have to hide my credit card every time I go on the site!) I have selected some slightly macabre, but utterly lovely objects for the men in your life!

"For The Love Of God: The Making Of The Diamond Skull" - Book

"Don't make wild promises you can't keep" bedding - how apt!

Very real looking silver thumb knife rest - you can have a lot of fun with this!

The London Roller Girls

Did you know that there was a womens' flat-track roller derby league that existed in London? No me neither! Well, not until I came across The London Roller Girls website whilst writing up the post about Tatty Devine jewellery (they're sponsors of the league). The main teams seem to be The Steam Rollers, Ultra Violent Femmes and Suffra Jets! The girls themselves have great Cramps-style names like "Liv or Die", "Fox Sake" and "May BeTwisted" and veer from being tattooed rock girls to sports fanatics; but all seem to fit into the sport equally well! Please check out the site for future fixtures and a full explanation of the sport - it looks fantastic - I deffo want to get some tickets for the next game!

Wooden Iphone Case

Now I don't normally like to beg for things, but please, please, please can those lovely people at the Design Museum get some more of these Iphone cases put in their shop! Thankyou. Here's the linky (just so that you can also feel my pain) http://designmuseumshop.com/

May the Kitsch be with you!

I found these unbelievably kitsch plates on Etsy today. They are very reasonably priced and bound to bring a smile to the sternest face! BeatUpCreations are the brainschild of a woman from California called Angela, who describes her work thus: "Unloved, Thrown Out and Abandoned Creations!" Beautiful! http://www.etsy.com/shop/BeatUpCreations

Lord Vader chills out

Che takes a break from the revolution

Sid and Nancy do it their way

Fred & Friends

I found this wonderfully witty US company online today. Not sure if they ship to the UK yet, but I think they are probably going to be big! My favourites include: Inanimate object stickers that you can use to give your stapler, cup (or whatever you want really) a cute face; an "I am not your doormat" doormat and talk bubble paperclips! http://www.worldwidefred.com/

Kapow! Reclaimed Comic Book Chairs, OMG!

I love, love, love decoupage. I really like the nice floral Victoriana variety, but now, there's the totally funky, pop art, comic strip cafe chair variety! Please see below "his n hers" varieties for a bit of extra kitsch, from the utterly brilliant Notonthehighstreet http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/

Excuse me, whilst I go off and swoon somewhere!

Made in Taiwan - Modern Toilet!

O.K. This concept is not for everybody. Modern Toilet is a resturaunt chain in Tawain where you sit on the loo and eat your noodles from porcelain that you wouldn't normally associate with the dinner table. The idea was inspired by a manga cartoon called "Dr Slump on the Toilet"! If that hasn't made you feel a bit queezy already, the whipped chocolate icecream is made to look like, er...well, you can guess  the rest... I think I'll be sticking with Wagamammas! http://www.moderntoilet.com.tw/en/about.asp

Demon Days

OK, so here's a new tag for male friends of mine that are bored of me going on about my blog and being forced to look at girlie fashion and make up stuff! First post up, this wonderful lamp inspired by Gorillaz and Tank Girl illustrator Jamie Hewlett. No self-respecting lair should be without one. Now don't say I'm not good to you boys! http://www.demonlamp.com/

Being Musical

My two favourite TV programmes of all time are "Father Ted" and "Black Books", but not necessarily in that order... am I sounding a bit Nick Horby Here? Anyways, there is one esp inspired episode of BBs, whereby the perpetually inebriated and self-obsessed Fran, sits stroppily at her new piano and declares: "but I MUST be musical...I have hundreds of CDs!"  Ha ha, the words of just about every young, spotty, male muso/journalist, ever! Bless em. I do know how they feel. I've never been gifted with a high level of musical intelligence, but that hasn't stopped me from having a go in the past.

Alongside many other five year-olds that have an attention defficiency, I started out with the humble recorder. After about a year or so of merely spitting into said musical receptacle, I'd managed to get "London's Burning" down to a tee. Unfortunately, my father was less enthusiastic. Even then I was a perfectionist and wanted to get the " fire, fire" bit down just right! That perfectionism probably cost me my musical career. It grated on my father's nerves and he snapped the recorder in half. Much later I moved into the teenage guitar-murdering phase (I think the Teenage Guitar-Murderers would be a great name for a band b.t.w).

Learning to play guitar as a teenager is not about the love of music; it is more to do with trying to cop off with a member of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, learning Burt Weedon's "Play in a Day" is one of the least sexiest activities that a teenager could participate in. It's also one of the most impossible (unless you're John Lennon, Jimmy Page or some other guitar-playing Godlike genius). At the time, I only really wanted to play Smiths and Doors songs, and was rather appalled at being lumbered with "Kumbaya" and "Michael rowed the boat ashore", but, the most annoying thing about the damn book was that these irritating songs could not be learnt "in a day". Weedon should have been done for infringing Trading-Standard laws. Basically, it did not do what it said on the tin!!!!

Now, thankfully I'm done with all of that. If I want to show the world how musical I am, I can spend days putting together obscure and self-indulgent playlists that only I would probably listen to; or I could take up Facebook djing, a condition which compels human beings to tirelessly post endless (and pointless) YouTube clips to all of their totally uninterested and unimpressed friends.

Down with Bert Weedon I say, and Hooray for not being musical in the 21st century!

A guitar-playing Godlike genius.