At The Awl, TG Gibbon collects unsettling British television Commercials, "Just the sort of thing you might expect from a country with the rich asshole from an '80s teen movie where its Barack Obama should be". Embedded above, a life insurance ad with a delightful twist ending.
Having seen the aspirational consumption-dreams of the nation, I'm sure you'll know what to expect from its public information films.
1) The dormouse, a little rodent species you'll find in Britain, hibernate in the winter in nests they hide on the ground.
2) The dormouse spends up to one-third of its life in hibernation, and typically begin that winter "sleep" when the first frost hits, and their food sources are gone.
3) They lose about a quarter of their body weight during hibernation.
The Periodic Table of Swearing isn't just a saucy JPG: it's a real-life interactive box that gets down and dirty with everyday English. It was built by Modern Toss—the duo of artists Jon Link and Mick Bunnage—with the design studio Clay. Made with buttons from eightliner-style U.K. fruit machines, the phrases included offer the fullness of British culture, you cock garage.
At The Awl, Maria Bustillos authored an excellent feature about the Keep Calm and Carry On poster, which became a huge hit 60 years after it was first printed by the British government. An entrepreneur recently obtained a trademark on the phrase and is already firing papers at competitors, even those who popularized the vanishingly rare poster before he did. — Rob
Britain will crack down on gangs and may call in army support if this week's riots are repeated, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday, saying he would not allow a "culture of fear" to exist on the streets.
The government will also give the police powers to demand people remove face coverings after many looters who ransacked shops during riots in London and other English cities this week wore masks to avoid being identified.
For what criminal activities (such as looting) is the appropriate response to demand someone remove a mask, instead of being arresting for the crime?
• Instant messaging services will be reviewed. "We are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality," he said.
• The police will have new powers to order people to remove facemasks. "On facemasks, currently [the police] can only remove these in a specific geographical location and for a limited time," Cameron said. "So I can announce today that we are going to give the police the discretion to remove face coverings under any circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that they are related to criminal activity."
• Curfew powers will be reviewed. "On dealing with crowds, we are also looking at the use of existing dispersal powers and whether any wider power of curfew is necessary," he said.
