Islingword Street

YesButNoButYes: Who Did You Think I Was?

A professional photo retouching service has some before and after photos (click 'portfolio') of various celebs, some of which have gone through some fairly major retouching. via YesButNoButYes.

One for the prurient

WNBC New York has slideshows comparing the appearances of male and female entertainment stars as they have aged.

Harry Potter Book Disguises

Link: Harry Potter Book Disguises. (via MeFi)

National Gallery, reimagined at B3ta

A great B3TA image challenge: updating the pictures at the National Gallery, here.

Star Wars in 30 seconds with bunnies.

Just what it says, here. Via MeFi.

The original Crystal Maze

I'm in Paris this evening, and have come home after dinner (I have an early train to Barcelona) to a bizarre but rather engaging French game show on France 2 called Fort Boyard. It's a puzzles-and-physical-challenges show set in a real Napoleonic fort on a sandbank off the Normandy coast. Top that, Countdown!

It was, apparently, the original for the UK show the Crystal Maze, and I have to say it's quite a bit better - as is perhaps shown by the fact that this is series 17!

EU III

Oh goodness me! Paradox Interactive have announced Europa Universalis III. Let joy be unconfined! Let time wasted be infinite!

Enigmo 2

A fun game just released for Mac users out there. Enigmo 2 is one of those simple-concept, difficult-execution games.

You have to use mirrors, magnetospheres (yes), guttering, etc., to get water drops, laser beams or plasma (yes) from the source to a defined finish point. Starts simple, but there are 50 levels of rapidly increasing fiendishness. Fantastic graphics, and appropriately noodly new age music.

Free demo available, and trailers, via the link above.

Anthea Turner: Woman on the verge of nervous breakdown?

The latest reality show format on BBC3 is perhaps the strangest ever. It's called Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife, and for the life of me I can't work out whether the subject under the microscope is Anthea Turner or the two non-Antheas in each episode.