Ha! World, you may have mocked me, shook your head in weary bemusement, wondered why I had to emulate a stereotypical old woman quite so accurately but now it's time to laugh on the other side of your face. Yes, it's about knitting again. I actually made something "useful" - or at least visible and categorisable. That most needed of garments coming up to a global-warming enhanced British summer - a scarf.

No responsibility is taken by the Poorhouse for any fainting, fits and the like resulting from viewing the creation below.

Britain, for some strange reason, is due to host the Olympics in 2012. Hence now is the time to start dreaming up ridiculous sports that we might have a chance of winning a few medals at. For those whose mind immediately goes to the world of speed mobile phone "texting" (or as Neighbours recently termed it "ess-emm-ess-ing"), well it is a contender but there is already competition out there.

For, dear readers, a couple of days ago it was the US National Texting Championships.

The Poorhouse, scared of appearing too much of a stereotypically masculine he-man, decided to take up a nice new hobby a few days ago more normally associated with strange old women. A practical and creative guru (who may remain anonymous unless they want to out themselves) introduced him into the world of...

KNITTING.

Fluff: The tummy harvest of 1998-99The Guinness Book of Records holds many fascinating achievements (along with the boring "I can run fast" type), including the famous longest nails in the world - just over 6 metres for the nails on one hand, the growing of which later went on to cause disfigurement, nerve damage and deafness.

However none compare to the harmless fun of the record achieved by Graham Barker; who is proud of his navel fluff collection - the biggest in the world, and sourced all on his own would you believe.

Britons be proud! We may not be so good at pointless tasks like propelling inflated balls into wood-framed nets and the like, but when shoved in front of the magic glowy-box-with-keyboard, we know how to make "best use" of the time that the evil machinations of capitalist slavery force us to sit at our office desk. According to a survey done by Tickbox, and interpreted in an article by The Register, the British lead the world in the sheer amount of faffing around on the Internet when they are being paid to do…well…whatever it is you're supposed to do in an office.

1/100000th of the Tew fortuneLackadaisical investors be gutted! Near the beginning of 2006 your opportunity to own some pixels on the Million Dollar Homepage went away…because Alex Tew, aged a disgustingly young 21 or so, sold the final few pixels on said page, hence raising slightly more than an student-fantasy million dollars. Fear not though, other opportunities for squandering your money away on pretty much nothing continue to exist.

Mr Tew's premise was to have a page consisting of a million individual pixels, and charge advertisers (or, more accurately at first, family and friends) $1 per pixel until the grid was complete, guaranteeing that their advert would exist for at least five years. Of course it's a bit hard to see what's being advertised if they only buy a couple of pixels…but it worked for him, and it is something of a piece of net-art now. Rumour has it that it may be available in poster form soon - another entrepreneurial idea from the lucky lad.

Artist at workWhat does true entrepreneurship look like? Well, here's an example.

German ex-rock-concert-promoter Marco Figgen, moved to Thailand in search of spiritual fulfilment only to "accidentally" lose all his money. Dazed, confused and possibly not (just like The Poorhouse) not au-fait with the Thai welfare system, he had the only possible logical thought in the situation. Whilst counting his blessings, he noticed her had a wholly-impracticable lengthy beard amongst his resources. The next obvious step was to invest in some paint (not oil based - turpentine doesn't help beard strength out at all) and become the world's only known beard artist. Cruelly described by the international news agencies as "hardly Van Gogh" he makes his living using his unusually lengthy facial hair to make these pictures priced at 8000 baht upwards and is currently exhibited at the JND Gallery in the Soi Day & Night in South Pattaya