Toshiba UM-5 - a lost battery format

Not sure of the authenticity of this email and its claims, but we're not going to let facts get in the way of uploading a few photos of batteries - especially batteries of an unusual size.



"Thought you might like this battery as I haven't seen its size or type anywhere since about 1989. It's rather small - I included some 'reference objects' for scale, like a proper wanky photographer. I found it and its half-pint brethren inside various Japanese promotional items - disposable razors, torches, suit fuzz removers and the like, from a clear-out of the deepest corners of the warehouse."



"Given its diminutive size and usage it was a rival format to AAA at the time, but lost out in the face of the 'AAA Consortium' and Duracell's relentless PR barrage and questionable commercial tactics. Much like HD-DVD lost to Blu-ray, then. Toshiba must feel history repeating itself."



"Apologies for the dreadful picture quality - taken on a Sony Ericsson K810. I don't recommend it for taking high-res pictures of batteries, or anything for that matter - Coolmuel."

UPDATE: Hi-res skin-pressing photos obtained

Another productive weekend spent Googling mobile phone product numbers.



Click on it. You can see her finger going right in. She's touching bone.



Very, very pleasing images. We're going to be extremely sad when Korean women start standing up for themselves and refusing to do this sort of thing.

Women working in a battery farm, 1943

This was sent in by a reader who has access to certain photographic libraries. It shows women working in a battery factory in 1943. You never hear that much about these brave 'Battery Girls' who helped the country stay powered up during the dark days of the war.



"Battered wives working in battery-farm conditions making batteries in Stamford Hill, October 1943."

LG illustrates "skin-like" buttons

LG's new phone has a silicon layer that feels like human skin. It illustrated this by getting some of its girls to touch each others' skin. And show a lot of skin. Genius thinking.



She's pressing her face like it's a button. Brilliant interpretational work. Definite contender for Product Display Photo of the Year.



So if you got four of these phones, taped them together with the skin on the inside, you might have a realistic skin-like tunnel with ribbed buttons.



Can't imagine a use for a small, skin-lined tunnel with ribbed buttons.

Have you ever wondered how Vinnic batteries are advertised in Hong Kong?

Come on, you must have. Everyone's spent a few hours lying awake, wondering how Vinnic batteries are advertised in Hong Kong.

Sleep easy tonight - the answer is "on buses."



"They're so proud of Vinnic in Hong Kong that they plaster the buses with propaganda for them. Sorry, I was too excited to get closer, for fear of losing the moving hoarding from my camera's focus. Promise to get better closeups of batteries in their native surroundings in the future - James."

Rotel RR-901 remote

RR stands for Rotel Remote. 901 is the number that Rotel's marketing manager thought sounded the coolest. He's not far wrong. 708 is the only better number that immediately springs to mind.



"It's a Rotel RR-901. It makes my CD player do things."



"It's old enough that it doesn't have a 'power' button. In the olden days, there was no such thing as 'standby'. If you wanted to turn something off, you had to get an electrician to come and do it."



"I've photographed it with a daffodil because I felt it gave a certain erotic frisson. As does the partly-open battery cover, I think - Rik."



Jesus, yes. This is extremely arousing. We were hoping you'd pop the cover and show us her batteries. It seemed to be leading up to it.



But no. The set ends here. They are right - it IS more exciting when something's left to the imagination. Imagine if there were a couple of tatty old Duracells in there. Would ruin the magic.

CANON FASHION WEEK: EOS 450D

Featuring one of those odd-looking models. No idea how she got employed as a model. Prettier girls than this serve us chips every Friday night.



Robot?



Fully poseable fashion mannequin?



EMEA region managing director's daughter who's wanted to be in fashion since she was nine, but no one's had the heart to tell her yet?



Not sure how she came into being. All we know for sure is her bizarre face and body is doing that hot DSLR no favours at all.

Gadgets with FACES #21: The Mega Drive II

The bloody Mega Drive II only went and had a bloody face.



Not a patch on the original design. Perhaps it knows, which is why it looks so miserable. And fat from the comfort binge eating. Sent in by "Dave W from Tunstall" who says it looks like an angry gorilla.

Dave also apologised for the image quality - a disclaimer that features on just about every email we get these days.

CANON FASHION WEEK: IXUS 950

The theme for this set is "versatility." From high-fashion to council estate chic, the Ixus 950 is an ideal accessory whatever side of the north/south poverty divide you fall in.



It's ideal for posh ladies what go to horse races.



And it is ideal for poor ladies what distribute hand jobs after closing time behind the bins.

The "Bexel"

It's a filler update. Can't have too many on here of women all in a row, else all the female readers (3) complain. Mind you, now all the male readers (14) are going to complain about having a battery update. Honestly, this blogging world is a tight-rope act sometimes.



"Interestingly, the orange highlight colour is at the negative end and not the positive end as is the case with Duracell and the like. Nice to see them bucking colour scheme trends over in South Korea - Paul."

CANON FASHION WEEK: IXUS 960

Cars. The Future. Glamour. Sexy shoes. This one has it all!



This scene falls apart under analysis. She would appear to be taking a photo of the photographer, who is standing above her on a ladder. This breaks down the "fourth wall" and as a result would be disqualified from any competition.



Don't like this one, either. They could be empty shoes, shoes that are being held in place by a fat man from Canon.



Finally delivered. Eye contact. Mouth contact. Nice use of wrist-strap, too. Reassuring on a sub-conscious level. Was worth sticking with this set.

CANON FASHION WEEK: Ixus 80 and big hair

Good lord. You couldn't make this stuff up. Even if we had a budget, a photographer and access to some willing and ironic models/prostitues, it'd be tough to match this level of insanity from Canon's "fashion" range of product shots.



It's a nice and solid pincer hold, but the eye is drawn to the hair and model's bloodied eye rather than the product. This breaks rule #1 of Olga Konetskaja's famed Laws of Holding.



Nice extended pincer, but, again, the potential camera-buyer is much more likely to be staring into the eyes of the model wondering how much she'd be for a two hour girlfriend experience than thinking about the product.



Intricate hold, but, again, the viewer is much more likely to be wondering if the model's wearing a bra that's been rolled down out of shot or is actually topless than looking at the actual product.



Clearly she's a Top 10 world-class holder - if only there wasn't so much fluff.

Philips "Multi-Life" batteries - and a remote

Remote control fever is KICKING OFF right now, with this - our second email about remote controls in nearly a whole week. Never before has the public imagination been captured with such vigour.



"Hey there, I have just purchased a new Philips answerphone to kit my flat out in Amsterdam (working over here for TomTom) with only the very best of modern technology (do you know people can actually leave you messages when you are not there?). Anyway, that is besides the point."



"Upon opening the box I found the attached batteries (well I attached some pics of the batteries, and not the actual batteries, apologies for any upset this may have caused). Yes, yes, I know Philips batteries are not very rare, but "Multi-Life"! They can die and then be reborn, again, from scratch. How many times it doesn't say... maybe nine?"



"Apologies for the poor pic quality, they were taken with my new 8GB Nokia N95 (obviously this was free from my employers, and I did not pay for it... I would NEVER pay for a Nokia, I would like that printed on your site, thanks)."



"Then I remembered something that was in the flat when I originally moved in. Just look at that remote, it's a retro remote-lover's dream. Great shaping, perfect curves, and the fade on those buttons is almost perfection. If there were a Page 3 for remotes, then this would be Keeley Hazell... please don't tell the missus I know who she is - Steven."



Are you sure you want to go giving away so much detail about yourself on the internet, Steven? We could easily track you down in about five minutes using that lot.



Definitely some sort of face, too. Nothing beats the feeling of having your boxes so thoroughly ticked first thing on a Tuesday morning.

*Jingle* Promotional image of the weeeeek

An amazingly tight lawn. This is how tight the lawns of Berlin were mown during the height of the Nazi regime. Stunning uniformity, even up to the borders.



Imagine being old. Imagine your only concern being how straight the lawn is mown. Instinct says this sort of straightness can only come from decades of practise.

Gadgets with FACES #20: Pagani stereo (male and female)

Gadgets with faces DOING IT! The one below even looks a bit sad and uncomfortable with the situation, just like in all the best porn.



"The male lies on top, furiously extending its optical lead into the unshielded receptor on the rear end of the female - David Attenborough."

Old women also entranced by G.E.M.M.A. project

It's not just men with five minutes of unsupervised web browsing that are hitting up Gemma Atkinson. Everyone's hooked.



"Mine were never like that, Marjorie."



"How does she get them to stick out so much? She must have socks in there."



"Maybe it's one of those modern super-bras?"



"Did yours ever look like that?"

Something for everyone with Canon

And no, predictably enough, we are not talking about its range of new cameras. It's a women-objectification special!



Sorry. Is this too much for a Wednesday lunchtime?



If you've spent the morning wanking yourself raw over Asian babes, this is probably the last thing you want to see over your spaghetti hoops.



Still, you have to admire holding like that. She's made her left hand into a little table, with the thumb extended in case a sudden movement jolts the camera to one side. There will be no droppages here!



The Asian Cheryl Tweedy.



The Asian Pauline Quirke.



Always good to see sisters operating together at such a high level. It's eerily reminiscent of Hannah and Judy Wang, the naturalised British twins who took the UK's only medal at Athens '78. Let's hope this pair doesn't meet an equally tragic end.

Our Motorola request #1

Decreasingly popular fringe online advertising portal Idiot Toys is asking if Motorola - or any of its readers - have decent photographs of old remote controls.

Well, Idiot Toys, here you go! Straight from the Motorola archives...



It's not that old, or interesting, but is the best Motorola had. If you have a particularly old remote control, please send us a photo of it. Anything pre-1990 would do.

Your Motorola requests #10

Reader "Jon Hood" wanted some more corporate mixed-sex awkwardness that underlines the case for single-sex workplaces. Hopefully from the 1970s.



The workplace of... THE FUTURE.

WANTED: Photos of your old remote controls

Right. Let's DO THIS.

As ever, it's supreme reader and regular in-joiner "Phorenzik" who's kicking it all off, with his selection of remote controls - and their batteries!



"Hello, I've got a new job."



"Whilst at my new job, I found a box full of old remotes that were about to be thrown away. You'll never guess what was inside the old remotes either."



"BATTERIES! That's what!"



"I filtered out the rubbish ones and only bothered pinching the funny ones."



"Imagine my delight when I excavated a KORANDO from one of the remotes. It was just like Christmas, the good Christmas where you get presents and stuff, not the bad Christmas where you have to stay with your uncle and 'join in' with his friends."



"I even risked getting caught by my new boss and took a couple of covert pictures of the best remotes."



"I haven't bothered cropping them or anything as I have to work 50 hours a week and haven't got quite as much spare time as I used to have."



"If you run out of funny captions to write you could always paste a few adverts in-between. Cheers then, Phorenzik."








Thanks, Phorenzik. You are the model reader. You really should start your own blog. Perhaps base it around this "boss" you mentioned up there? He'd surely see the funny side of it if he ever found out.



Hopefully this will open the floodgates to lots more photos of old remote controls! Stay tuned, remote fans! This is gonna blow up BIG TIME.

WHAT WE LOOK FOR IN A REMOTE CONTROL PHOTO:

AMSTRAD branding

Leaking batteries

Proprietary technology, such as "RangeMax" or "DistaChange"

Ingrained food/skin

Evidence of damage from domestic abuse

A worn favourite button

Shininess

Cardboard boxes with FACES #1

This photo arrived with a cryptic message about a face. Is it the car? The shape at the windscreen? The man? Is the car door meant to be an ear? It makes no sense.



We had almost given up and discarded "Jiffysquid"'s email and classified him as a lunatic when realisation hit. It's the cardboard box. He meant the cardboard box.



Happy? Sad? Desperately trying to communicate a warning about its deadly contents and unwilling part in the whole scheme? Or just where you put your hands so it's easier to lift as you put way too much stuff in it?

Your Motorola requests #9

Reader JMe requested "an image of someone who looks like he is called Robert."

This Robert enough for you, J?



Could be a Tommy, thinking about it, but we'd be quite happy putting two quid on him being a Robert.

ROUND 1: Changing the ring tone

Can she do it? She's thinking about it... she's thinking about it...



She's definitely thinking about it... could she? Has she found the right menu? Come on, Hai-Lin! It's in there somewhere. Relax and think back to the manual. Remember the manual.



Yes! Success! Brilliant to see! Well done Hai-Lin! We'll have to see how well she does in the next round - the challenging POP3 email set-up test. Always separates the women from the girls, that one.

Gadgets with FACES #19: A very sad little orange car

Its little headlight washers are squirting out sticky washing-up liquid tears. You'd think the designers would've noticed. Who wants a car that looks like Thom Yorke?



"Not strictly a gadget, But boy does it have a face. Wonder why it looks so sad, though? Maybe because it costs over 100k and no one NO ONE will ever buy one? - Ian F."

Unexpected promotional image joy: The Samaritans

Yes, The Samaritans has a promotional image archive. It features some old men, a variety of logos and one of our most favourite things in the world - a ropey old slapper called Gemma with big old tits. Gemma Bissix. Our second-favourite Gemma.



What is it about Gemmas? They're all super-sized large-chested sex machines. There must've been a top secret government genetic engineering project, called The Gemma Project, that ran for a brief period in 1983. We are only now seeing these awesome Gemmas reaching maturity and entering the mainstream.



Here's one of her on a bed. If everyone got five minutes with her on the bed, we'd imagine The Samaritans would be able to close immediately.



Here's one of an old man being very understanding. Frankly, we'd rather nuzzle Gemma. That would make everything seem instantly OK!



This man's very sweaty. He's probably talking a teenager down off a bridge somewhere in South Wales. It could go either way. And the call is being recorded for training purposes, so he'd better not fuck up.



But that's enough about depression intervention. You should read this moving story about how Gemma rejoined EastEnders this year. It involves amazing scenes of her nearly getting it on with Ian Beale.



Can you guess what's going to happen next?



Yep. She purposefully poured wine on herself. To this day, no one has managed to make a wine spillage look convincing on TV. Anyway. That's probably enough of this. We're dangerously off remit.

WHAT WERE WE GOOGLING WHEN WE FOUND THIS?

"Old man phone"

"Ways to kill self"

"Gemma Bissix hi-res bra"

The MUSTANG!

Fantastic muscle-battery. Ideal for putting in electric razors. A real man's energy cell, even though it's a thin and ladylike AAA.



These photographs arrived without any accompanying words whatsoever. Clearly the battery left submitter "BiscuitMonkey" speechless!



Nice use of "personal injury" in the warning field. The maker is covering all possible bases.

Gadgets with FACE #17: The Frog

Think this is some sort of concept media PC. Or the DISMEMBERED HEAD OF A GAY ROBOT WITH LIME GREEN HAIR.



It is eating a frog.

ACTUAL photos from CeBIT 2008!

Someone actually went. And took photos. They're not the best photos in the world, but they do feature the sort of things we like - blatant corporate sexism, sad men, batteries, and things that look like faces. Never before has a reader got so far beneath our skin.



Our favourite company Skins Mobile was at CeBIT! Our reporter cleverly focussed his efforts on its booth for quite some time.



Skins Mobile had a reassuringly sexist display, featuring women in a jacuzzi demonstrating the waterproof nature of its product. It's this sort of imagination that has seen Skins Mobile emerge as a true contender in the accessories market.



This is as close as our reporter dared get.



It's just about close enough.



"The display booth of 'Skins' or 'Skinz' or 'Skin2', or now that I look at it more closely, it could also be "Sk1n2" only all in capital letters but I can't be bothered to go back now and change my own text. The first four images were (poorly) taken with my Canon EOS 400D, the rest with my friend's cellphone. He seems to be better at taking pictures than I am but mine come in higher resolution so let me know if you want them bigger (no pun intended)."



Fantastic.



Such an intimate and personal series.



It's like you're in the room with them, only they're not screaming "GET OUT! WHO ARE YOU? GET OUT OR I'LL CALL THE POLICE. DON'T HURT ME."



Yes, there are more.



We hereby award the photographer the The St. Idiot Toys Cross for Bravery and Shamelessness in the Field. Triple-A lechery.



And now it's about to get ever RUDER and HOTTER!



"The particularly (un?)impressive booth of 'Shenzhen Betterpower Battery Co., Ltd.'. Only they wrote: 'SHENZHEN BETTERPOWER BATTERY CO., LTD.'. As I have learned from your site (and as common sense implies), capital letters always mean that something is important - so I decided to take a picture. Also, note how the walls are designed with an unobtrusive battery outline in red on white. Classy."



"I think they make batteries. Or LSD in battery-shaped containers, couldn't quite make it out but the last picture implies something of that nature. Unfortunately there was no staff around that I could've asked."



"And of course the obligatory "Gadgets with Faec... Faces". One taken with, one without flash (you guess which is which)."



"It looks like the one with the silver accents is kind of "indifferent"... or perhaps just "idly alert" (if there is such a thing... it seems to be waiting for you to ask it to do something... it's only able to act so innocently because it can't see the mangled body of the bronze-accented one on the right. Or maybe that one's breakdancing."



"Had to include these. A photographer photographing. How ingenious. And a photographer telling me to "get the f*ck out of the picture". Only in German. This concludes my little voyage into the outskirts of idiot-dom. Or was it idiot-ism? Idiot-icity? I'm sure you can figure it out. Best regards, Marcel M."



THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Marcel. Genius work. It's this sort of effort that we're more than happy to take credit for.

The distance between us and them

It's four feet. Minimum. Or, for our European friends, 122 centimetres. Never cross the line, or the personal rape alarms get deployed even if you're just moving in to shake hands and there are loads of other people around.



US - grey, misshapen, distressed, taking a photo.

THEM - pink, upright, alert, holding a pamphlet.

ROBOT SHAGGING UPDATE: They're still all getting it regularly

This little robot SHIT was spotted having several feels and getting at least one of its cold, hard ends away in the Italian edition of Marie Clare magazine.



At least he doesn't have the necessary emotional responses to actually enjoy it.



He'll still be in the confused and frightened stage, and wondering why he's not enjoying it as much as the people doing it in films seem to enjoy it.



Sent in by "APC," who says he found it on an underground blog called 'BoingBoing'.



It has to stand on a table in order to do kissing. Robots still have a lot of developing to do. What's going to happen when she needs a lightbulb changing, eh? It'll be REAL MAN FROM NEXT DOOR TIME and you'll be packed away under the stairs, you metal tosser.



Nice flat. It must be earning quite a lot assembling Hondas on a Welsh industrial estate to afford a place like that.



Boo hoo, you can't go outside because it's raining and you'll BREAK. Come and frolic with us in the rain instead, pretty lady! We are fully waterproofed!



Dancing and cuddles?



Now it's started crying. Robots are still rubbish.

The Sony SUPER RED

A companion to the SUPER SONY - it's the Sony SUPER RED. For charity? Or to nicely match the fire they will inevitably trigger that will be the last thing you ever see?



"Check out these beauties! I'm prepping an old Handycam for eBay and found these hidden within the remote control."



"Sony aren't superlative free on their batteries either! They're super and red... All at the same time! Cheers, Rob."



Red = DANGER.



Would you be interested in a series of updates in which we get readers to send in photos of their really old remote controls? It could have legs and might even go viral, big time.

Your Motorola requests #8

Someone who wishes to remain anonymous has asked if Motorola has any high resolution images of bearded men from the 1970s. This was not a pleasant search to perform, but we are always pleased to suffer for your amusement:



Motorola: Where your dad used to work before his breakdown.

Promotional image of the weeeek

This one illustrates the moment a father starts to regret taking his idiot son into the family business, as he's only gone and wasted a whole sheet by cutting out the wrong-sized hole AGAIN.



Third time this month. But what can you do? Turf him out on the streets and he'll only start bringing all the local alcoholics back to the family home after closing time again. Of course, it's his mother that really suffers. She must never know. It'd kill her.

Yes! Turn your iPhone into a DJ turntable!

Awesome! You could totally rock the party and keep the joint jumpin' with just your iPhone! Imagine scratching over the top of your MP3 collection! Any social gathering would be instantly transformed into a kicking party - with YOU at the epicentre!



It's the MixMeister Scratch. It's not available yet. When it does become available, you will feel a chill. It will be as if a billion souls all cried out at once, then disappeared.

Your Motorola requests #7

Our fourth CONFIRMED female reader "Kerry Woods" asked if Motorola has any positive images of females from the 1980s that show women at ease in a traditionally male-dominated environment and that could possibly also double as lesbian pornography. Result:



Motorola: Empowering women since 1988.

Vespa pulls off sensational PR coup

Check this photo out. Rollerblading AND basketball in the same shot. If only there was someone breakdancing in it it'd be the perfect moronic "lifestyle" scenario.



This means we have acquired the passwords to the Vespa PR library, by the way. An apocalyptic update featuring about 50 fashionable young Europeans on/near garish mopeds will follow shortly. This is just the teaser trailer.



That's better. Could also do with a few women sitting on a sofa taking photos of each other on their practically unusable touch screen iPhone knock-offs.

"...and then there's the ACME"

You can't do this! You can't go sending us a photo of your batteries, then, casually, at the end, mention the BEST ONE in a throwaway fashion. It's torturous. Please send more photos of the ACME, it looks fantastic - and is called ACME.



"Attached is a picture of two Australian batteries and two other batteries. New leader is pretty lame, not sure why I included it but in its defence it does have leaves on it. Incidentally, those leaves in the background belong to a palm tree (my favourite kind) and a gum tree (ugly, oppressive).

"Conopower has almost nothing going for it but tries to appeal to our national pride or something. Pathetic, really. I found Wincell sunbathing at the beach during summer. It originally had a red stripe but it got bleached to green and gold; colours of great cultural significance. All in all a true blue battery (ie. vulgar, sexist, racist).

"And then there's the ACME."

Your Motorola requests #6

Keen reader "Kevin Kerkerkovicz" asked if Motorola had any images which show a woman trying to work out which button she has to press to make her car heating start working. You're in luck, Kev!



Motorola: Briefly dabbled with car gadgets in the 1980s.

*Jingle* Promotional image of the weeeek

A company did a survey about bedtime habits. This is how it chose to illustrate the fact that people often use gadgets in bed.



The whole press release now follows. It's a good one, plus it's almost certainly quite relevant.

PS:
The GEMMA ATKINSON PROMOTIONAL PHOTO ALERT has just been sounded on UKR. She's holding a variety of game controllers, although, sadly, there is a man in a few of the images.

BRITS SWAP SEX DRIVES FOR HARD DRIVES

Sex drives are being swapped for hard drives as a quarter of British couples admit to sleeping separately on a regular basis.

According to the results of a survey by The Sleep Council for National Bed Month (March), the British bed is in danger of becoming more of a communications hub than a place for sleep as eight out of 10 people boot up a variety of hi-tech gadgets before bedtime.

The survey, to discover how The Great British Bedtime is changing, found a glass of water and separate beds are replacing cocoa and cuddles at bedtime.

After cleaning their teeth with an electric toothbrush and setting the alarm on their Blackberry or mobile (22%), the average adult slips, exhausted, into bed between 10 and 11pm. 40% rarely or sometimes go to bed at the same time as their partner while one in four couples admit to always or regularly sleeping separately.

The bed itself is now more likely to be a bedstead (40%) than a divan (39%) with mattresses featuring such luxuries or modern innovations as pocket springs (30%) memory foam (11%), no-turn (10%) and anti-allergy options (6%). And before people lie down, charging up electrical appliances (22%) has definitely taken over from prayers (10%) as part of our bedtime routine.

"Busy night time routines are driving couples' bedtimes and even their bedrooms apart," says Jessica Alexander of The Sleep Council, "Nine per cent of those questioned admitted to always sleeping separately from their partner."

Hardly surprising when you discover what people do in bed. One in three of us makes phone calls and sends or receives text or emails in bed. A further one in five keeps busy checking up on social networking sites such as Facebook, playing a computer game or listening to MP3 players.

Whether separately or together, bedtime for many (40%) on workday nights is between 10 and 11pm although for one in eight shattered souls 9pm is nearer the mark. 25 - 34-year-olds are the most likely to fall into this category. 56% of that age group describe themselves as usually very tired or shattered when they go to bed.

It may explain why that age group, more than any other (38% as opposed to the average 32%) is most likely to own a bed less than five years old. "If people aren't taking any notice of advice to keep the bedroom as a sanctuary of quiet and rest, then they at least understand that a decent, regularly replaced bed equals a decent night's sleep," said Jessica.

Advice on what NOT to drink at bedtime often goes unheeded too. While water - tap, bottled or sparkling - is the single most popular drink among a third of those questioned, many others admitted to taking coffee (9%), alcohol (9%) or sugary drinks to bed. Traditional hot chocolate and milky drinks remain popular but another sign of the times is the emergence of smoothies and fresh juices as nightcaps.

Said Jessica: "Our survey results provide a pretty accurate snapshot of our lives today. It also shows more than half of us (52%) regularly feel so tired at work that we would like to go home, with one in eight people feeling that way three or four times a week."

But some things about The Great British Bedtime don't change: the eponymous British 'Jim Jams' remain the most popular bedtime apparel with women (37%) outnumbering men (21%) in wearing them. Men are almost twice as likely as women (40% as opposed to 22%) to wear nothing at all. And a minority 1% of men questioned claim to wear a nightie!

The Great British Bedtime survey was conducted online by tickbox.net between February 27 and March 3 2008. 1,408 people took part.

-ends-

Note to Editors: Regional variations follow

REGIONAL VARIATIONS

- People in Scotland are more likely than any other (79% as opposed to 71% national average) to read a book or magazine in bed
- People in the North East and South East (both 49%, average 43%) watch most television in bed
- People in London (43%, average 28%) listen to the radio more than those in any other region
- People in East Anglia are the most likely (32%, average 26%) to make phone calls/ or send/receive texts messages
- People in the South East most (27%, average 22%) use the alarm facility on their Blackberry or mobile
- People in the North West are more likely than others (16%, average 10%) to listen to an MP3 player in bed
- People in Yorkshire use their Blackberry/laptop to send/receive emails more than those in other areas (14%, average 8%)
- People in Northern Ireland are by far the biggest group of people questioned to say prayers at bedtime (39%, national average 10%)
- People in Scotland are more likely than others (11%, average 7%) to go to bed after 1am on a workday evening
- People in Yorkshire are the most likely (5%, average 1%) to go to bed before 9pm on a workday evening
- People from the North East are more likely to drink a fresh juice at bedtime (9%, average 5%) while Smoothies are most drunk at bedtime among Londoners (10%, average 2%). Nearly a third of people in Northern Ireland (31%, average 22%) don't drink anything at all at bedtime
- Twice as many people in Northern Ireland as those in other areas (39%, average 20%) said they rarely went to bed at the same as their partners
- More people in Wales than anywhere else admit to always sleeping separately from their partners (13%, average 9%)
- People in East Anglia are more likely than others to sleep on a bed more than five years old (only 25% said they had a bed under that age, against an average of 32% of those questioned)
- People in the South East are more likely to have a bed containing pocket springs than those in other areas (38%, average 30%); those in the Midlands are more likely than any others (47%, average 39%) to sleep on a divan bed
- People in London are more likely than others to be either very tired at bedtime (48%, average 37%) while those in the North East are the most likely to say they are exhausted at bedtime (12%, average 9%)
- People in the North East and London (both 15%, average 13%) say that on three or four occasions each week they get so tired at work they would like to go home
- People in the South East are more likely than any others (36%, average 28%) to go to bed wearing nothing but a smile!

-ends-

The Sleep Council is a generic body that aims to:
• Raise awareness of the importance of a good night's sleep to health and wellbeing.
• Provide helpful advice and tips on how to improve sleep quality.
• Provide helpful advice on choosing the right bed for optimum sleeping comfort.
The Sleep Council is funded by the National Bed Federation, the trade association for British bed manufacturers.
The Sleep Council, High Corn Mill, Chapel Hill, Skipton, BD23 1NL
Tel: 01756 791089. Web. www.sleepcouncil.com

Your Motorola requests #5

This one's for "Barry Buttlack" who wanted to know if there are any photos of women who look a bit like Lucy Liu in the Motorola archive, as he really likes Lucy Liu and still does no matter how many people take the piss out of that fact on the internet.

Yes, there is, Barry! As you well know.



Motorola: Easily as ethnically diverse as Apple.

Apples not as good as Korean ladies

Cheaper, just as easy to manipulate, but not quite as visually arresting. Especially when it's a boring old Royal Gala. They could've at least gone the extra 10p required for a Pink Lady to show they mean business.



Or paid the extra £120 an hour for an actual pink lady.

A REQUEST
The above image was found while researching small but powerful desktops. The Idiot Toys Dell is due for decommissioning and replacement this year before it becomes a fire hazard, and something small-yet-powerful is required. Suggestions? Cheap is also better. A mid-range Core 2 Duo is all that's needed. There's no real need for a big graphics card, either, so the "form factor" can be "small."

All the hardware forums we've looked at so far are full of terrifying men who replace their CPUs twice a year. Can't ask them. They'd laugh or, even worse, suggest building one from scratch.

Your Motorola requests #4

This one's for "Paul Hill" who wanted to know if Motorola had any photos of low-paid workers using a Motorola device to scan in cucumbers in a large retail facility. Your luck's in, Paul:



Motorola: Keeping your business at the front of the Cu.

EVEREADY and the flying saucer detector

A reader discovered this in an image archive. It is supposedly a "UFO detector" and it's powered by a staggeringly old and oddly-shaped Eveready.



Now that's a battery! Are train sets still powered by such antique cells? Surely only the most hardcore of enthusiast would still have access to the bulky old things.



And that's what the insides of a UFO detector look like. Clearly this invention was "hushed up" by the military, lest we all start detecting UFOs and the nation descends into the sort of chaos not seen since Ikea last had a sale.

UPDATE:
Here's where a "missing component" belongs, as spotted by reader "Anonymous" who has unearthed yet another conspiracy.



UFO cover up, or abysmal 1950s engineering?

Your Motorola requests #3

This one goes out to "Tom Hoobington" who requested any images that hint at underlying awkwardness and sexual tension between colleagues on the factory floor.

Will this do, Tom? You'd need a Motorola BX-001 Industrial Band Saw to cut through the tension on display in this particular scene, which could also pass for the opening moments of the worst porn film in existence.



Motorola: Breaking down the "glass ceiling" since 1976.

New fetish discovered

Any fans of thigh indentations out there?



That's going in AT LEAST eight millimetres! Dirty cow.

The FIFAPOWER!

It looks like they're using green and the FIFA name to somehow associate themselves with football. Is this the first battery aimed at men who like football?



"FIFAPOWER SUM-4 AAA batteries from my Polaroid HDTV. Didn't know Polaroid made TVs? This model is why. Also - IKEA AA batteries. Didn't come in a flat pack. Ho ho ho! Pics taken on my Nikon D40x, which I bought on the understanding that a fairly expensive camera would make me a fairly decent photographer. I was wrong.

"Mind you, doing these pictures made for a much more entertaining afternoon than doing my job. I guess it serves my employer right for allowing a slacker like me to work from home. Hope you can use the pictures on the site. All the best, Matt."



Obviously we're not using the common Ikeas or the even more common Japan Tech pics you also sent, but thanks for the ace FIFAs, Matt.



OK, just one of the Ikea, as it was rather nicely arranged and shot, and that's one impressively minimalistic rear. Interesting that there's no safety advice on them - is Ikea flouting battery regulations?

A fully interactive woman of your own

You literally HAVE to go here for at least five minutes today. Then maybe ten minutes later tonight before bed. It's like actually having a woman prisoner in a box! Only she's smiling.



She's admiring all that lovely advertising! We haven't managed to unlock the nudity cheat yet. It must be in there. Why else would someone go to so much effort?

CeBIT 2008: Man explains difference between 1HE and 2HE

"It's bigger" being the most obvious. It is probably also more expensive, and the remote control might have a few more buttons. Maybe the 2HE has 32 types of surround sound filtering, compared to the 1HE's 16?



Hopefully the man on the right is mentally working out how many people he could kill before vigilantes in the crowd overpowered him. That's what our mentally working out how many people we could kill before vigilantes in the crowd overpower us face looks like, anyway.

The North American silverblack RITE AID

Not sure about this. Sure, "Rite Aid" batteries may seem exotic and exciting to us, but they are no doubt commonplace in America. So even if their sighting is not of global significance, we can at least admire the distance they have travelled to get here.



"I work in a pub and while sweeping up the piles of vomit and sawdust after closing time last night, I found this solitary "Rite Aid" battery under one of the benches. Made in the USA! Looks a bit rubbish though. Taken with a Canon Powershot S5-IS - Sarah (your other female reader, you know, the one with the e-vic, which, incidentally still works and is still a bit rubbish and the size of a brick.)"



That's the THIRD email we have had from a woman in the last two and a half years!

PREVIOUS EMAILS WE HAVE GOT FROM WOMEN:

The one about shopping trolley porn

The one about the E-vic

Gadgets with FACES #16: A car dashboard

A car dashboard that's been brought to a state of ecstasy by having its nose tickled.



The gear stick (not pictured) would complete the scene by appearing to be an erect "member."



Will never be able to watch dad changing gear again.

CeBIT 2008: Men feign interest in lenses in order to be near moderately attractive woman for a bit

Maybe one of them even asked her a question about the lenses. It will be a day he'll never forget!



The one in the red is looking at the lenses, but clearly pointing his camera at the woman. Or he might just be testing a lens. But he looks the sort.

CeBIT 2008: Reporting LIVE!

Well, sort of live - we're reporting live from the CeBIT 2008 press image archive. Photos uploaded as and when we stumble across anything interesting. Some may be from CeBIT 2007. We're that meticulous.



This one's interesting! It's "hands free and eyes free" email for your vehicle! It's also a man explaining something boring to another man, with both men bravely managing to look interested and keen and motivated. We would like to see how they look in three days time, after doing this solidly for 12 hours a day. Trade shows rock.

FLICKR BATTERY MINING: The SUPER LUSTY

THERE ARE SO MANY VERY BEAUTIFUL BATTERIES ON FLICKR!



It is sad that we will almost certainly never get to hold a SUPER LUSTY. It's also clearly based on/a clone of the SUPER LONLIFE. So much brain filled with useless battery facts.

Walkers crisps are "Divine with Wine"

Those big bags of Walkers crisps have panels on the back of the packs encouraging you to drink wine. Is this even allowed by law?



So if you spend your evenings having wine and crisps for dinner, you are no longer a weirdo - you're an actual demographic! You exist and have been validated. Society, and major corporations, recognise you and are selling stuff at you.



We did a bit of "digging around" (Google) and found that it's due to wine producer Gallo. Gallo reckons that "20 percent of evening Sensations consumption is accompanied by wine consumption, and this figure is growing at 23 percent year-on-year."

Jane Hunter, E&J Gallo Winery's marketing director, said: "Gallo Family Vineyards and Walkers Sensations were made for each other. We think so and we’re sure our consumers will too. What could be more perfect for our consumers than enjoying a good quality glass of wine with some delicious snacks?"

Dunno. Having something nutritious for dinner instead? Something that won't trigger a downward spiral into middle-aged alcoholism?