You may have seen a Paul Smith bike in select stores around the UK for the past few years, but Paul Smith has now created two new bikes, designed to actually be ridden. Destined to be a professional cyclist himself when younger, Paul Smith knows his bicycles from his tricycles, and by collaborating with Mercian, the Track bike and the Touring bike are now available in stores. Each bike is carefully hand made, sure to reach the standards of any bike enthusiast, and they look great too.

You would have to have been living in a dark hole to not have heard about the drama surrounding the PlayStation 3. Well, it came out in time for Christmas over in Japan and the US, and with a few teething problems (many have been recalled), but maybe, just maybe, they will be absolutely perfect when it reaches the UK in March. It seems like a long way away, but it should definitely be worth the wait. However, is it going to be better than the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii? The Xbox has the HD DVD Player going for it, and the Wii has a rather weird wireless remote controller that promises to increase gaming pleasure, complete with motion sensor technology. What's more, the Wii hasn't had the problems that the PS3 has had. Whilst the PS3 features Blu-Ray, many machines have had to be recalled because the Blu-Ray chip is faulty. Maybe it will all just come down to where your loyalties lie, if you grew up as a PS, Sony or a Nintendo child.
www.wii.com
www.xbox.com

Winter is still coming on strong and there are a few months of coldness yet to endure. If you share the problem of so many women who can't find boots that fit, be it because their calves are too thin or too large, then search out the Buckles and Bows website. The range of boots is pretty much identical to the ones you'll find on the high street, and they are more likely to be in stock later on in the season.

We've seen it proved when it comes to cars, now Britain and Germany have united for the clothing industry with this new range of trainers. German-born Puma designer Peter Schmid has come up with these high and low-tops as the perfect canvass for British t-shirt designers T-Book, who've laser-burnt declarations of love on the surface. They are available in a whole range of colours: gold, silver, blue, mauve and white and with the choice of two slogans: "Don't kiss goodbye" and "I love you", and are released next month.

Oh dear, we’ve all finally bought our DVD Players, replaced all of our videos with DVDs, meaning that we have two copies of The Matrix, and now they tell us that we are going to have to do this all over again. But now we are back to the problem of the VHS and the Beta Max war, only this time it's between Blu-Ray (BD) and High Definition (HD). They both hold a huge amount more data than the average DVD (although note, that if it gets damaged, then that’s more data lost), and BD holds more than HD does (for highly complicated and boring reasons) and they also cost more. This may sway you to HD, but be warned before you go out and buy: the HD DVD titles that have been released include 'Into the Blue' and yet more atrocious films that no one wants. So don't panic just yet.

www.tacp.toshiba.com/hddvd/

 

Some of you may have seen Flowbots around before, but these little guys have recently celebrated their birthday, so they are worth a mention. JK5 designed these nine vinyl toys, with the help of Kidrobot. However, these are not to be treated just as toys, apparently: "Each one is a symbol, an archetype, (and) an art form," according to the man himself. Well, the stripy one does seem a bit arty.