Sole Mates.

In a Succession-defined era of quiet luxury and eye-wateringly exorbitant beige blandness, MSCHF are embracing gaudy garishness in all its maximalist glory – even if they must do so within a somewhat liberal interpretation of legality.

Like the Aldi of the fashion world, MSCHF have made a habit of ripping off other brands’ designs. In fact, they’ve become so notorious for doing so that they’ve kind of managed to make theft a pleasingly oxymoronic ownable brand asset. They’ve done Maccies, they’ve done Nike, they’ve done Amazon, and now they’re turning their attention to Timberlands – plus a supplementary side swipe at Louis Vuitton, just because they can.

This is the new MSCHF 6-inch boot. Look familiar (ish)? And while you’re unlikely to see Big Terry sporting them on site, the prevailing consensus is that these are actually quite nice. It speaks to the insanity of the fashion industry that the joke products are now more-or-less indistinguishable from the serious ones. But if you’re keen, you’d be wise to grab a pair before the inevitable cease and desist spoils the fun.

Count Me Out.

I’m a simple person. It doesn’t take much to convince me that two hulking behemoths throwing leather at each other’s craniums is a sight worth seeing. But if you were on the fence over whether to buy the Anthony Joshua Vs. Francis Ngannou fight this weekend, this promo may be enough to tip you over the edge.

A mix of live action and animation, the ad is an ode to Street Fighter, the 8-bit arcade game released in the 80s. And it’s such a compelling watch that I’ll almost feel bad about illegally streaming the fight later. Almost. Just please don’t tell either of these two rather large men.

Following our gushing endorsement of NEOM last week, we feel obliged to point out that this fight and promo is another Saudi state-funded endeavour – and once again they’ve absolutely smashed it out the park. These fellas simply do not miss. If they keep this up it won’t be long before we get accused of being an industry plant shilling on their behalf. But we assure you we’re not. How dare you even suggest that such a wise and munificent leader as His most-excellent Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would resort to such underhanded skulduggery. And no, we weren’t paid to say that. We have no idea how that bank account in the Cayman Islands came to have our name on it.

Operation Paperweight.

This is the new Coperni bag. It’s 99% air, 1% glass, and 100% F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. I hope nobody I respect reads that. Have you ever made yourself cringe so hard that you had to go for a walk just to try to get away from yourself? It didn’t help that I was sassily snapping my fingers and jutting my head back and forth as I typed each letter.

The Air Swipe bag is made of NASA’s nanomaterial silica aerogel, the lightest solid on the planet. It has previously been used by NASA to capture stardust, so it’s nice to see it now being applied to far more worthwhile pursuits… like handbags.

It might not be the best choice for concealing your personal items, but one can’t help but be impressed by this first-of-its-kind fusion of fashion and science. Even Wernher von Braun would have to salute it. No, Wernher – not that salute. It’s fine, just say you love Mickey Mouse and we can pretend this never happened.

Democrazy.

We’re worried that this week’s coolsh*t has been far too much fun, so we’d like to bring things back down to Earth and get extremely boring by talking about politics for a moment. After all, Aristotle’s principle of the Golden Mean does contend that one must find balance in order to attain Eudaimonia. Oh, look at that – we got boring already. Well done, us.

Winston Churchill once said that “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter”. And John F. Kennedy once said that “the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all” – and shortly after that he also said “Ouch, my head”. The point is that democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got. So, in the spirit of democracy, The Economist have built a model of individual voting behaviour based on the views of nearly 100,000 Britons which allows you to build your very own archetypal British voter.

Using data from WeThink, the model explores 905,520 groups that make up Britain’s electorate, defined according to eight demographic characteristics (region, age, sex, ethnicity, education, employment, housing and population density). So if there’s someone in your life who’s suspiciously reticent with their political opinions, just drop their data into the model to discover the true depths of their dark, depraved soul.

Get Saucy.

If you’ve ever been left metaphorically and literally red-faced by a tomato ketchup-related incident, then we have wonderful news for you: Heinz have just launched the world’s first-ever ketchup insurance policy.

Full disclosure, we initially saw this story and dismissed it as a sort-of-fun-sort-of-dumb gimmicky PR stunt. But then one stat caught the eye, and we simply can’t move on without drawing attention to it. Heinz claim that “48% of its customers regularly face ketchup accidents”. I’m sorry, but you mean to tell me that nearly half of the population are incapable of nibbling on some chips without ending up wearing their lunch? Where did they find these people? I blame TikTok. That Churchill quote has never felt more apt.

But if you do happen to be one of these cack-handed imbeciles, you’ll now have the opportunity to redeem compensation through a range of rewards including home cleaning services, laundry assistance, handyman services, and spa treatments. Ketchup on your shirt? Gone. Ketchup on the walls? Nay bother. Ketchup on your fresh bed sheets? Bit unhygienic and you’re asking for digestion problems, but they’ll sort it. Ketchup on your dead guinea pig’s ashes? No, that really is too far – you’re on your own with that one.

How May We Assist You?

There have been some great ‘Ts’ over the years. Mr T, Booker T, T-Pain, T.S. Eliot, Ford Model-T, T-bone steak, cuppa T. The list goes on. Without wishing to overstate it, the letter T may be the foundational bedrock of our civilisation. And in what may prove to be a portent for the collapse of that civilisation, we now have another name to add to the panoply of Ts.

This is Concept T, a series of robot home assistants engineered by LAYER and Deutsche Telekom. Unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, the line-up includes a holographic hub, an emotive and roving personal assistant, and a modular router. Bet the crowd went absolutely wild. There must have been asthma attacks all over the gaff.

Of all the dystopian droids, the 3D holographic, AI-powered virtual assistant named Emma is undoubtedly the star of the show. It’s like having your very own crystal ball, and it won’t even cost you a fortune. Plus this one won’t be used to distract you while some blokes in a Ford Transit pinch all your copper wiring. I should have known they never had any intention of tarmacking my drive. I live in a flat. Some thefts aren’t so much crimes as they are taxes on stupidity.