Princess Diana: Memorabilia on Tour

by Jamie Rhein on

Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer has given a thumbs-up to Diana, A Celebration, an exhibit at the Western Reserve Historical Society Museum in Cleveland. He thinks the museum is well suited to showcase the items he helped to curate. The exhibit, which is also raising money for charities funded by Diana’s Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, is a chance to see different parts of Diana’s life through the memorabilia she once owned and wore. According to the exhibit’s description, it looks like one of the nine galleries loaded with stuff is devoted to the wedding, complete with tiara, wedding gown, shoes and bridesmaids’ dresses. Besides being a fashion retrospective, this traveling exhibit also gives insight into her childhood, her comings and goings as royalty and her charity work.

The exhibit will be in Cleveland until June 10. Since I missed this when it was in Dayton, Ohio I might just have to take a trip north. It would be a lot cheaper than going to Althorp in England, the Spencer family ancestral home where the exhibit has been on display since 1998. Considering the admission price ($25.50 with an audio component, $20 without) is partly going to charity, the price doesn’ t seem as steep. If you feel compelled to find out if the exhibit is worth it, there’s a preview and a detailed description of what you will see on the website. You can also shop!

Luxury Public Toilet in London

by Justin Glow on

We seem to talk a lot about toilets here at Gadling, mostly how gross and disgusting some of them are. Here’s the opposite: a luxury, ladies-only public toilet in London: the WC1. Dubbed “a glamorous urban sanctuary,” it is the “world’s first LADIES’ LUXURY TOILET and POWDER ROOM. It has been designed with impeccable hygiene and the pursuit of beauty in mind.”

The first and only current location (they’re expanding, apparently) is on Oxford Street and costs £5 per, uh, tinkle.

[via trendhunter]

Message in a Bottle Service

by Justin Glow on

Ahh, the old message in a bottle — an S.O.S. maybe, or the world’s slowest and most random personal ad for love — people for thousands of years have been scribbling notes and placing them in bottles to be tossed out to sea hoping that one day the message will be found.

But what if you live in, say, Kansas, with no ocean nearby, yet you still want to take part in this age-old tradition? Just send Stuart Conway of the UK an email.

Stuart loves tossing bottles out to sea… so much so that he created a website that allows anyone to enter a message, and specify the type of bottle (he lists his inventory), and he does the rest: printing out your note, putting it in the bottle, and chucking it out into the ocean. Include your email address and he’ll even “email you at splash time,” so you know when you’re message is on it’s way. Best of all it’s free.

I can’t imagine how many bottles are floating around the world’s oceans with tips on how to “ENLARGE UR PEN1S.”

Actually, some people are trying to stop Stuart — mainly his home town. They’ve sent him a cease and desist, urging him to recycle the bottles because it can “cause serious injury when broken glass is washed up on the beach.” Injury? I can come up with a better reason than that: What about pollution? Well, what do you say? Should this “incurable romantic” have the right to continue his services?

[via metafilter]

Photo of the Day (3/9/07)

by Neil Woodburn on

“Yay for bonkers clouds.” I’m stealing LocalSurfer’s own description for this great shot he has titled Dunkery Beacon Looking Proper Apocolyptic. Not quite sure where Dunkery Beacon is, but according to Wikipedia this mysterious looking place lies somewhere in merry olde England. The clouds, however, come and go depending upon what evilness happens to be going on at Dunkery Beacon.

Geek Alert! Comic Shop Locator

by Neil Woodburn on

When I travel, I like to seek out book stores. I guess I’m a bit of a geek in that way.

I’m pleased to discover, however, that even bigger geeks walk among us. There are actually those who visit other cities–probably for some geek fest or something–and seek out comic book shops.

Since geeks tend to be socially inept and cower at the thought of asking some stranger for directions to the nearest comic book store, some geek engineer designed a Comic Shop Locator. Simply type in a zip code and the Comic Shop Locator will pull up the nearest comic book safe haven. The cool thing is that it even works in Ireland and the UK.

And what happens if you don’t have a computer, PDA, or WiFi enabled cell phone handy? Well, first off, you’re probably not a geek. Perhaps, you’re just looking for some geeks to beat up. If that’s the case, you can access the Comic Shop Locator by simply calling a toll-free number: 1-888-266-4226.