A swimwear manufacturer in Britain has come up with an innovative idea to give you an even tan-a bikini that reminds sunbathers
to turn over so they don’t get sunburnt.
The Tan-Timer Bikini has an electronic timer that beeps every 15 minutes to remind its wearer to roll over or seek shade, depending on the settings. With research revealing that 59 per cent of the beachgoers in the United Kingdom have a tendency to fall asleep in the sun, the company hopes to find a large enough market for the £20 (Rs 1,500 approx) bikini.
The bikini will be available at the New Look stores, Britain’s third-largest women’s clothes retailer. A New Look spokeswoman said a male version is likely to be designed and launched in the near future. Imagine wearing a timer in your boxers or briefs!
The next time you walk past a sunbathing beach beauty in Goa or Kerala and hear a beep, it would probably be the timer going off…
Rowling’s Howler
J K Rowling, author of the billionaire Harry Potter series, has been called a “Luddite fool” for inadvertently encouraging fans to pirate the latest Harry Potter book only hours after its official release.
The sixth instalment of the popular series was released on July 16 and is expected to further enhance what has become a multibillion-dollar publishing phenomenon. But within hours, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been scanned and put online by an underground collection of fans capitalising on Rowling’s decision not to release an official e-book version.
By midnight of July 16th, hundreds of users were already reading the book thanks to Potter fans who organised over Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to scan and distribute the book.
Potter fans co-ordinated a worldwide effort to turn the book’s 672 pages into a home-brew digital copy-now available on most file-sharing networks.
Just 11 hours, and all the secrecy maintained for months went down the drains of the Internet! Wonder if Harry has any tricks to stop these muggles!
Death Becomes Him!
In weird goings-on at eBay this month, we have two cases of corpses being put up for sale. Not just any old corpse, but the bidders’ own corpses.
A UK man called Daniel O’Dee put up a listing where he offered his own corpse for sale. Such auctions are usually pulled down quickly by eBay, but often this happens a little too late. In this case, a response got to O’Dee from a German who called himself ‘Donnie, the Hannover cannibal’.
Donnie said he’d pay £2,000 (Rs 1,60,000) if O’Dee could get him a “fresh corpse.” O’Dee later got a death threat after he failed to reply to this message. Talk about bringing trouble upon oneself…
But that’s not all in the eBay department this month. 24-year-old Andrew Beutin, a “dangerous-sports fanatic with a morbid sense of humour”, put up his corpse for sale as well. Beutin claimed to be in good health, and said he “didn’t have any reason to expect his demise any time in the near future.” But he cited some of his “dangerous” habits in his item description:
“You are bidding for the sole right to advertise on my corpse… as soon as my corpse is discovered and otherwise legally available to you. As the winning bidder, you will have the right to advertise on my corpse, definitely during the funeral. You are welcome to photograph the ad after it is finished as well as attend the uneral.”
That got all of us wondering who would bid on this ‘item’. GoldenPalace.com is a likely candidate. This, as you may remember, is the company that had the winning bid to advertise using a tattoo on a girl’s forehead.