EXTREMELY RARE ANTI MASTURBATION DEVICE DATING FROM c1880. THE COPPER SHAPED DEVICE WAS ATTACHED TO A BELT AND WORN BY BOYS AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS. VERY MUCH AN INDICATION OF SOCIETIES VIEWS ON ONANISM IN THE 19TH CENTURY. THIS IS THE FIRST EXAMPLE WE HAVE OFFERED FOR SALE IN 24 YEARS. THE CONDITION IS EXCELLENT 3 ½ INCHES TOP TO BASE.

A mere snip with a starting bid of $1,500.

And no, we don’t make them. Well, not so big.

When I were a lad student protest had slightly more knackers to it than spouting a few conspiracy theories at a failed Presidential candidate and squealing like a girl when the filth got a bit heavy handed.

I doubt if you’re going to have to quell too many uprisings with a rallying cry of “Don’t Tase Me, Bro”. I’ve no idea what the Chinese is for “Don’t run over me with those tanks, bro,” but I’m fairly sure it didn’t pass by The Unknown Rebel’s lips during that day in 1989.

Trying telling me that this:

isn’t a far cooler protest than this:

Anyway, I got round to thinking about possible metal taser vests in case people wanted to engage in civil conspiratorial debate without the fear of looking faintly ridiculous in the process. Something that would cause the taser barbs to make a slight tinging noise and drop harmlessly to the floor whilst showing you off to have a well defined set of pecs could be a certain winner. Then I remembered you could probably get yourself the top half of a suit of armor instead.

However, I did manage to come across something truly useful in the metal vest category - the vest pocket ashtray

With the onset of the smoking ban, what better than your own personalised stainless steel ashtray to put in your breast jacket pocket. I honestly can’t see it failing.

Unless you happen to be wearing a t-shirt.

Not to be confused with:

Might you be sitting on a million dollar goldmine?

One of the tightest things I have ever heard of in my entire life was during a stint at an industrial supplies place. We had some farmer come in for a few nails for some fencing project, which we bagged for him and charged the extortionate amount of (why do yankee keyboards not have a pound sign, or why do they insist on calling this ‘#’ a pound sign) 112 pence.

Three days later and cue self-same farmer with a crumpled half-empty brown bag. He simply plonked it on the counter and asked to be refunded for the nails he hadn’t used totally devoid of any shameful glint in his eye.

Let’s just say it didn’t happen. Also, what’s the betting he had a brand new tractor?

But perhaps the Pentagon should start employing tight Yorkshire farmers. It simply beggars belief how they managed to be stung for nearly a million dollars for a couple of washers.

The owner of a hardware company has admitted to defrauding the Pentagon, in one case charging almost $1m (£(oh - could’ve copy and pasted this one)500,000) for shipping two washers costing a mere 19 cents.

Prosecutors said among the fraudulent charges made by the sisters were $998,798 to ship two lock washers costing 19-cents, $492,097 to ship an $11 threaded plug, and $499,569 to ship 10 cotter pins - industrial steel pins - worth $1.99 each.

This would be quite funny apart from the fact that one of the sisters who owned the hardware company committed suicide over the affair and the other is facing a twenty year stretch.

Obviously the key is to invoice on Haliburton-headed paper that you’ve acquired from elsewhere (ba-doom-tish).

Oh my giddy (she’s epileptic y’know) aunt.

So you throw £400,000 at a bunch of branding specialists to encapsulate the essence of the London Olympics and they manage Bruce Forsyth on steroids. And is the colour scheme not all a little bit Timmy Mallet?

Of all the logos in all the world that could’ve benefited from a Blue Peter competition this was surely it. You could even have widened its scope across the channels and held a nationwide phone poll (rigged or not). At least you would have a built-in excuse for it being crap. And you might have raised a healthy amount for a possible medalist to boot.

Truly outstanding stuff.

You have a few poxy jobs that pretend to have patron saints but that doesn’t come close to actually having your own God (monotheistic deities apart).

HEPHAISTOS was the great Olympian god of fire, metalworking, construction and the fine arts. He was usually depicted as bearded man with hammer and tongs, the tools of a smith. He was also often shown riding on the back of a donkey, presumably to suggest his crippled legs.

So an ugly, bearded fella with wibbly-wobbly legs - sounds a bit like our very own Jasper.