10 Of The Deadliest Drinks Known To Man
So, it's late, you're not totally sure where you are, and your friend is ordering some drink you've never heard of for you. He's insisting that he was told by someone, who heard from their uncle, who...
View ArticleD.B. Cooper: The World’s Greatest Hijacker
Forty years ago, a man known only as D.B. Cooper boarded a flight in Portland, ordered a bourbon and soda, lit a cigarette, handed a note to a stewardess announcing a hijacking, and -- after a...
View ArticleMeet The British Man Who Left His House And Business To Fight ISIS
Until early 2015, Tim Locks lived a comfortable life running his successful construction business and enjoying the swimming pool it had enabled him to incorporate into his home. Like most of us he was...
View ArticleThe Top 10 Condiments Of All-Time
Before I launch into this list let’s clear the pathway to ensure a smooth ride by defining the word “condiment”. The dictionary will tell you it’s an umbrella term that includes everyday sprinkling...
View ArticleFallen Glory: History's 5 Greatest Lost Buildings
5. The Hippodrome of Constantinople The Roman Empire was responsible for some of history’s greatest displays of architectural grandeur, power, arrogance – and even vulgarity. It exported buildings...
View ArticleConfessions Of A Muslim Squaddie Part 2: Denouncing The War Took Real Bravery
RAF Brize Norton, England, 2003. Brize Norton looked like any other airport; big warehouses and one-way roads except all the people who worked there wore RAF blue and all of us who were flying out wore...
View ArticleSubbuteo: The Game That Made Heroes Of Us All
While it is apparently possible to master Subbuteo and implement swerve, spin and intricate passing moves, to most of us it was an ill-tempered game that lacked pattern, was littered with errors and...
View ArticleAn Ode To The Pre-Festival Party Train
It starts with an ironically named WhatsApp group: ‘Festival Dicks’, ‘Bangs Out For Bestival’, ‘NoClassTonBury’, ’sprREADING’, or ’Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Turds.' “So you’re getting the 10.40,...
View ArticleStreets Of Rage 2 Is Still The Greatest Video Game Ever Made
The first level dropped you bang in the middle of the neon-lit, rain sodden streets. Evil megalomaniac Mr X had taken control of the city, backed up by a gang of thugs in double-denim with names nobody...
View ArticleAlessandro Moreschi: The Last Castrato
Luckily, or indeed unfortunately if you're reading this in the context of having watched X Factor recently, having one's balls cut off isn't a prerequisite for a successful singing career these days....
View ArticleThe 10 Easiest Fiction Books to Read In One Sitting
Here are 10 books that are not only fantastic works of literature, worthy of study and dissection and all the rest of it, but are also ripping yarns that command your attention from the first page to...
View ArticleThe Day I Saw Somebody Shoot Off His Own Face
In the springtime of 1987 I was working as an assistant to a fine artist called Christina Woodhouse (R.I.P) in my home town, Hull. Most Friday lunchtimes I would have a pint and a game of pool with a...
View ArticleAn Ex-Spy Told Us The 16 Best Ways To Interrogate Someone
In the movies one spy or prisoner knows everything; if the interrogator breaks him/her, the critical intelligence and the truth all tumble out. That’s show biz! In reality, real interrogation work...
View ArticleWhy I'm Doing A Sponsored Smoke For Cancer Charities
Vicky was close to death. She laughed as I told her about my sponsored smoke. Her eyes twinkled, That’s so you… Awkward twat. ‘If these things make your illness so much more difficult, there must be...
View ArticleWhy Uzbekistan Could Be The World's Next Trouble Spot
Such concerns are understandable because the world could certainly do without another source of violent instability in a sensitive region (in this case, between China and Russia and north of...
View ArticleMasters Of Vertigo: Watch This Incredible 360° Video Of Severn Bridge Engineers
This is a sponsored post from The 7th Chamber As part of their 'Masters at Work. Masters of Workwear' campaign, Scruffs took a helicopter up to the Severn Bridge to celebrate the expertise and...
View ArticleWhen Tony Bennett Saved Rocky Marciano's Life
Tony Bennett: "Rocky Marciano was retired at the time - this must have been '64 or '65 so he'd been retired seven or eight years - and Rocky and I had been friends for a while and we were in a...
View ArticleHemingway: Unearthing The Man Behind The Myth
Whilst putting on the same clothes as yesterday, and the day before, I began considering my new alumni status. With three years inside the literary canon behind me, I began to dwell on who I have...
View ArticleA Good Month For Murder: The Inside Story Of A Homicide Squad
As Del explained to me, his first challenge was gaining the acceptance of the homicide squad’s detectives. “At first they were not super-excited to have me there – they don’t like outsiders much – but...
View ArticleSalvia: The Mind-Blowing Legal High That Sends You Loopy
Just when it seemed like the nanny state had ruined all our fun, someone is selling a mind-blowing plant extract on the high street. It sends you to hell and brings you back feeling like a war-torn...
View ArticleKeith Richards Interviewed About Sex
[img via] I met up with Keef in the bar at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho. At six in the evening he’d already quaffed a few tumblers of his preferred beverage: vodka and cranberry juice. He greeted...
View Article12 Things Having A Puppy Has Taught Me
Last year I got a puppy called Clarence. He’s great and I love him more than I do most humans. Owning him has taught me many things, not least that puppies can take on the worst traits of their owners....
View ArticleIs This The End Of Peace And Democracy?
As the historian Mark Mazower soberly pointed out in the Financial Times recently, it is striking just how many of the conditions that paved the way for fascism (and, less directly, Stalinism) in the...
View ArticleA New Reality For Gaming
2017 will be the year virtual reality (VR) takes the world by storm. With headsets and goggles such as Oculus Rift and Google Daydream View now available to UK consumers, the technology will quickly...
View Article25 Years Of Reeves & Mortimer: More Than Just Comedy
My first experience of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer was in my first year of secondary school. I’d been away on a school trip to the south of France. When my mum and dad came to pick me up from the...
View ArticleWhy Donald Trump Clashing With His Own Institutions Will Have Major Consequences
One of the few things that can be said with certainty about Donald Trump is that there has never been an American President like him. With his narcissism, petulance and bluster, he outstrips even...
View ArticleA Tribute To Backstreet Snooker Halls
[img via] Stop your internal dialogue. I know it can get fucking boring on telly. But trust me, that’s a different game; a sanitised, squeaky-clean imitation of the very real thing. And snooker’s home...
View ArticlePresident Donald Trump: America Is Facing A Democratic Emergency
The scale of the early anti-Trump protests has been impressive. As have the efforts of a few officials to stand up to him, such as the Acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, who was fired for upholding...
View ArticleRites Of Passage: Your First Trip To The Bookies
This moment came for me around eighteen years ago, when as a seventeen year lad, someone in the pub football team I was playing for at the time had been telling us all the reasons why Hibernian were...
View ArticleArtist Ashley Loxton Talks Chicken Boxes And Rave Flyers
We came across Ashley Loxton's paintings at a gallery exhibition in Margate. The sea was lashing in with the rain, doing nothing for the Kent coastal town's resurgence, the sky was the colour of...
View ArticleThe Impact Of Free Speech On Human Rights
Free speech is something that we often take for granted. It is also something that is widely debated and often controlled. There are many parts of the world where free speech isn’t even something that...
View ArticleDating And The Internet: The Perils And Perks
Online dating, though, has not always enjoyed a good reputation. There are things about it that some people just don’t like. However, for many, it has been the answer to prayers, allowing them to meet...
View ArticleWhy Abandoned Children Can Have Hope
The good news in this difficult area is that there are inspiring points of light worldwide, organizations and people who are working each and every day to ensure that no child has to be left on his or...
View ArticleA Look At Online Gambling In 2018
The gambling industry has continued to thrive in 2017, with a collective income of over £13.bn in the UK alone. However, with the availability and range of online gaming sites and casinos continuing to...
View ArticleGambling On The Go. Is Mobile Gaming The New Black?
Gambling on the go is now as simple as picking up a coffee at Starbucks, but how did we get here? Years ago if you wanted to place a bet on Ascot or your favourite team your only option was to plod...
View ArticleThe Top 3 Casinos In London
We love our casinos and if you are lucky to live in London then there are some truly amazing places to visit and enjoy all the action you could possibly want in superb surroundings for that special...
View ArticleIn The City: Manchester Photographer's Up Close Look At Urban Life
Robert Cappa once said "If your pictures aren't good enough, you weren't close enough", a sentiment that's obviously never troubled Manchester based street photographer David Gleave. Gleave's...
View ArticleThe 10 Greatest Cakes Of All Time
In a supply and demand sense food has always been and always will be fashionable. People have to eat. But last year saw certain foods elevated to superstar status. Thanks to all sorts of angular tweed...
View ArticleThe 5 Strangest Cults in History
The Prince Philip Movement The Prince Philip Movement are an Island tribe from the South Pacific Nation of Vanutanu. Unlike Jesus their ‘son of God’ didn’t get nailed to a cross but instead set off on...
View ArticleI Was A Stripper's Runner In 1970s Soho
It's 1973. There is an oil crisis in the Middle East. The IRA are blowing up anything and everything. Richard Reid the shoe bomber is unfortunately being born and J. R. R. Tolkien has unfortunately...
View ArticleBe Careful What You Piss For: The Diary Of A Type One Diabetic
It’s disgusting, of course. I am disgusting. I think that again and again as I refill my idiotically large cup at a Burger King soda fountain, somewhere just south of Miami. If it hadn’t taken so long...
View ArticleThe 10 Greatest Pies In Britain
As a resident of the official pie capital of the country and home of the World Pie Eating Championships (Wigan) I have always had a strong awareness in the local fascination with pastry products. Yet...
View ArticleSun Life Show Us How Much Life Has Changed In The Last 100 Years
Technology evolves at a faster rate than ever before. So fast, in fact, that it can be difficult to remember just how far we've come in the last 100 years. This new tool from Sun Life gives us a tour...
View ArticleTips For Avoiding Tech Pitfalls In Gaming
There is no doubt that the last 20 years has seen the most dramatic increase in technology. We now all live in a society that would have seemed the stuff of dreams just 50 years ago. Of course the...
View ArticleThe Bonfire Night I Accidentally Burnt An Effigy of Jesus
Brought up a Catholic – now very much lapsed – I can remember as a lad being very shocked when I learnt that every year the good people of Lewes in Sussex burn an effigy of the pope. “Surely,” I...
View ArticleThe Glorious Story Of 'Mad' Jack Churchill
He was born John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, in 1906, but preferred the simple moniker Jack. After school he attended officer training at Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Manchester...
View Article7 Things You Should Never Do At A Casino
1. Don’t Think It’s a Surefire Win Putting the law of attraction aside, if you walk into a casino or log on to a virtual one with the attitude that you cannot lose, you’ve just lost. The house stacks...
View Article5 Fun Ways To Enjoy The Vape Trend
E-Cigars and E-Cigarettes Before vaping really blossomed into its current popularity, e-cigarettes and to a lesser extent e-cigars were known as a potential replacement for people who were attempting...
View ArticleCybersickness: What Is It, And How Can You Avoid It?
For some the threat of cybersickness (VR sickness) has virtually put them off wanting to use their headsets, consigning them instead to the highest shelf to gather dust until either resold or thrown...
View ArticleFive Secrets The Casino Tries To Hide From You
There are all kinds of sneaky tricks casino operators will employ to keep you playing, incentivise you to bet bigger, or to think you actually have a shot at walking out of the place a winner. Here are...
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