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What's New - US Picks - Yahoo! Aust./NZ Picks - Yahoo! Canada Picks - Yahoo! France Picks - Yahoo! Germany Picks
Irish Picks - Scottish Picks - Picks of the Week
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What's New - US Picks - Yahoo! Aust./NZ Picks - Yahoo! Canada Picks - Yahoo! France Picks - Yahoo! Germany Picks
Irish Picks - Scottish Picks - Picks of the Week
We've had fun finding the sites that make Yahoo! UK & Ireland one of the best places to find UK or Irish sites, so we thought we'd share a few with you. If you have any suggestions, please send us a note about them. Also send any general thoughts or comments about Picks of the Week or even suggest sites you'd like us to consider for the next issue. Click here if you only want to view the list of sites.
Wet, cold, miserable, ill. Not even Christmas or New Year to look forward to. This is generally agreed to be the worst time of the year, so if you can't escape misery in your real life, get virtual, with the help of the team here at Picks Central.
The new acronym on the block is SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder. Does it exist, or is it just a case of the pre-millenial, post-Christmas blues? The jury's out, but Alaska Northern Lights manufactures strange light boxes that are said to cure you of winter blues, SAD, working the night shift, jet lag, sleeping disorders and PMS. But what if you suffer from all six? They don't say.
From Seasonal Affective Disorder to just plain sad. It doesn't matter how badly off you are, there's always someone who's feeling worse. True Stories of Sad Love provides a myriad tales of woe, one of the best being the guy whose wife met someone on an Internet chat channel and disappeared off to her new love, claiming she was going to visit her sister for a few days. What these True Stories lack in spelling and grammar they more than make up for in entertainment. Be warned, online romance is a fickle mistress....
Keeping yourself warm and happy will definitely help your mood, and the right food has a big role to play. So give praise, residents of Bradford at least, for the Bradford Curry Guide, a site that every town should have. A group of friends have made it their mission to visit every curry house in Bradford and file their dispatches on the Web for all to see. We wish them well, but would advise caution when ordering a Banglaore Phal.
For those of you crying "I don't live near Bradford!" then Chilli Willie's Spices by Post is on hand. It allows you to order a wide range of Spices, Dhal and Hot Sauces over the web. Keeping warm is suddenly no longer a problem.
Hibernating indoors is always a popular choice at this time of year, and although unlike the Blue Peter tortoise we wouldn't advocate a cardboard box, an evening in front of the telly is always appealing. Couch potatoes with refined tastes have been spoilt for choice since the excellent FilmFour channel came along late last year. With wide ranging articles about featured films and directors, including links to related Web resources, this site provides a lot more than just listings. Stylish design and easy navigation make this essential viewing for all film buffs and bores.
Channel hopping of another kind is the intention of Mike's Radio World, which lists all radio stations broadcasting over the net using the Real Audio Realplayer. Stations are listed according to style or location. From Radio KUKU (playing the best Estonian Adult/Contemporary Rock) to Nau FM (playing the top 40 in Papua New Guinea), there's something for everyone.
In a similar vein comes The Amazing UK Radio Station Searcher. Whilst we think the use of the word 'Amazing' may be pushing things a bit far, it's certainly a useful tool for finding out what you can tune into in your area, not 'alf pop pickers!
Perhaps you might like to lose yourelf in fiction. Have a go at committing finger to keyboard by visiting Exquisite Corpse, a site that describes itself as "a marshy repository for your mental meanderings". It's a collaborative writing site that lets you add to other people's stories, or even start your own. There's plenty of titles available, our favourites being "Cheese - The Key To All Reality" and "I Will Eat This Flaming Mandolin If I Want To!!" While there are no Booker Prize winners hidden in there, it's an entertaining, time-filling site.
If your definition of 'getting away from it all' is a tad more literal, maybe this year you'll be one of the 400,000 Brits who head off to Australia to turn the seasons on their head and escape the winter doldrums. Your first port of call should definitely be the Australian High Commission in the UK. A definite time saver if you're off to Oz, the Frequently Asked Questions section answers most of the important things in life, but omits to give any clue as to why Alf from Home and Away is always in such a bad mood.
Those on a lower budget may be enticed by The Isle of Wight Nostalgia Pages. Although it may seem ironic for people to be writing about nostalgia on the web, the author has spent a lot of time putting this site together. Even if a feature on phone boxes and post boxes isn't your cup of tea, this is a good example of the kind of quality personal interest sites that can be found if you look hard enough.
Which leads rather nicely onto a site that's guaranteed to have you laughing into your screen: the infamous Surrey Stick Figure Theatre of Death. Like the previous pick, it's a personal site, but from the other end of the taste spectrum - somewhere well into the 'sick' zone. After a couple of hours research, we decided upon Pulp Stiction as our favourite.
That's it for this week - wrap up warm, keep out of the cold, and let us here in Picks Central know about any great, odd or interesting sites you come across.