So deadly, in fact, we must be steered away from biscuits deemed too substantial:

Biscuits could be made smaller under plans to cut obesity rates by reducing the amount of fat in the nation’s diet. Ministers are set to demand that food manufacturers, cafes and supermarkets reduce the portion size of items high in saturated fat, such as biscuits, doughnuts, milky coffees and cakes. Under the plans, seen by the Telegraph, customers could be encouraged to buy low-fat options by restricting the availability of less healthy food in restaurants and shops. 

Making it more difficult to buy certain popular items is encouragement, see? The concern for us is touching. Thank goodness The Clever Ones are in charge. 

However, Department of Health officials have suggested there is a risk that smaller portions of items such as biscuits and cakes will simply lead to customers buying more and could fail to reduce their fat intake overall. Customers could also find themselves at risk of being ripped off if retailers charge the same price for less generous portions.

It’s not just biscuits of course. There’s always a list. 

Officials suggested actions that companies could take to help reduce the amount of fat that customers consume, including coffee shops using “low fat milks” as the “default option.” Caterers and shops could also use reduced fat cheese and spreads as standard.

If the Department of Health has time to fret about our use of undiluted milk and the size of our biscuits, perhaps it’s time to rethink the scope, staffing and budget of the Department of Health. A much slimmer one seems in order.

“Kyukyoku!! Hentai Kamen!” Oh yes, it’s real. (h/t, Simen) // Hong Kong inflatables. // Kittens and fish. // Finger tripods for eating messy food. // Paper birds. // Animated atoms. // These nanoparticles are assembling themselves in real time. // Science and bogies, together at last. // The best bit of Iron Man 3. // New York 360. //Further to this, Batman villains reimagined as 1920s mugshots. // A cathode-ray TV and a magnet. // Films and their colour palettes. //Films with smoking in them (and how much). (h/t, Chris Snowdon) // Do not screw with Helen Mirren. // “Women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes.” // Panama City murals. // The newspaper’s long goodbye. // Liu Bolin is difficult to see. (h/t, Andrew Grichting) // Indoor clouds. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) // How much cocaine could you fit inside your body? No, the other end. 

It’s time you philistines were subjected to rewarded with some cultural improvement. It’s for your own good, so I won’t have any complaining.

First up, here’s a little something for the diary:

The first collaboration between tattooist and fantasy artist Loren Fetterman and performance artist Stefanie Elrick, Written in Skin will see the stories of an international group of strangers [being] ‘blood-lined’ across the entirety of Stefanie’s body in one sitting. ‘Blood-lining’ is a semi-permanent form of tattooing without ink, the results of which are akin to scratches visible for weeks that gradually heal and disappear. Literalising the emotional marks we inflict and receive through experience, then transforming them into a customised piece of body art, this project explores vulnerability, intimacy and the regenerative process of love.

It explores. But of course. Oh, there’s more.

As the skin begins to restore itself the following weeks, photographer Jamie Alun Price will document the healing process via an online picture diary.

Written In Skin will be, um, performed at the Cornerhouse Annexe, Manchester, Sunday May 19th, between 11am and 5pm. 

Readers with £15,000 to spare could also consider rewarding artistic greatness by purchasing a pleated white dress, briefly worn by a happening pop artiste named Lady Gaga, and vomited on by the performance artist Millie Brown. Ms Brown’s colossal vomiting works will no doubt be familiar to our regulars.

And those with a taste for even more daring and challenging work may prefer the theatrical stylings of Mr Ivo Dimchev, a “radical performer” acclaimed for his “gripping sensitivity” and whose performance piece I-ON “explores” the “provoking functionlessness” of various objects, before showing us “how to make contact with something that has no function.” Readers are advised that the aforementioned contact-making, which was performed as part of the 2011 Vienna International Dance Festival and is shown below, inevitably includes vigorous self-pleasure with what appears to be a wig: 

(Slightly) animated gifs by Nicolas Ritter: 

The New York Times reports on a breakthrough in cutting-edge eco-friendly parenting:

When Jada Shapiro decided to raise her daughter from birth without diapers, for the most part, not everyone was amused. Ms Shapiro scattered little bowls around the house to catch her daughter’s offerings, and her sister insisted that she use a big, dark marker to mark the bowls so that they could never find their way back to the kitchen… “Elimination communication,” as the diaper-free method of child-rearing is called, is finding an audience in the hipper precincts of New York City. Ms Shapiro, who is a doula, a birth and child-rearing coach, says it is practically now a job qualification to at least be able to offer diaper-free training as an option to clients. Caribou Baby, an “eco-friendly maternity, baby and lifestyle store,” has been drawing capacity crowds to its diaper-free “meetups,” where parents exchange tips like how to get a baby to urinate on the street between parked cars. Parents are drawn to the method as a way of preserving the environment from the ravages of disposable diapers. Many of them like the thought that they are rediscovering an
ancient practice used in other cultures.  

How daringly ethnic. Why, it’s practically like having your very own brown baby. I can’t help wondering if this, um, innovation will affect how often such parents find willing babysitters and dinner guests. To say nothing of how often they get invited round for lunch by friends who may wish to preserve their own environment.