Lek looks nervously at the Patong sea shore as he describes the passengers who climbed into his tuk tuk minivan late at night on 6 January. “Go to Kata Beach”, the seven foreign tourists told him, after agreeing on a 200 baht fee. He drove a while, but then felt numb all over his body. Looking around he saw the cab was empty.

He had had what he thinks was an encounter with the ghosts that many say are haunting the beaches and resorts on Thailand’s Andaman coast. And the religious charms he wears around his neck are not helping him overcome his fears. “I can’t get over this. I’m going to have to get a new job. I have a daughter to support, but I’m too scared to go out driving at night,” he said.

Other apparitions which have been reported include a foreign woman, whose screams echo through the night from the wreckage of a hotel that was particularly badly hit. A security guard on the site has already left his job because he could not bear it anymore. In Khao Lak, a local family say their telephone constantly rings through the day and night. When answered, the voices of friends and relatives cry out to be rescued from the flames of the crematorium…

Here.

[related: the Art Harbour, his "lost radio/found sound" project]

AIFF audio format. Horrible.

Draw a W on the back of your left hand. Place the palm of that hand over your left eye. Take a photo.

Send it to me.

Because I require amusement and bizarre displays of allegiance on a Monday evening.

Google looks set to launch a free telephone service that links users via a broadband internet connection using a headset and home computer.

The technology that will enable Google to move in on the market has been around for some time. Software by the London-based company, Skype, has been downloaded nearly 54 million times around the world but no large telecommunication firms have properly exploited it.

Google telephone service could be made to link with the Google search engine, which already conducts half of all internet inquiries made around the world. A surfer looking for a clothes retailer could simply find the web site and click on the screen to speak to the shop.

The basic cost of making calls across the internet is almost nil. The real cost is in developing the software; after that, the service exploits available internet capacity…

Nipple Enhancers have suddenly become the hottest “breast improvement” must-have among Japanese women.

“We set up an online sales page in July last year. We didn’t sell a single set. Then, in about October last year, we slowly started to move some. Sales started trickling through right about the time the tennis world started taking notice of Russian star Maria Sharapova, who was becoming known in the local media for her tight shirts that always showed the outline of her nipples,” Takashi Fujiki, president of JT Kikaku, the company that has been importing Nipple Enhancers to Japan for the past two years, tells… “We put in an additional order for another 500 pieces right at the end of last year and they sold out immediately. We get about 10 orders a day, but our stocks are depleted. We’ve put in additional orders for another 1,000 sets in January alone.”

JT Kikaku imports Nipple Enhancers from Canada and sells them at a retail price of 1,200 yen apiece. Nipple Enhancers are made from polyurethane, have a circumference of some 4.5 centimeters and weigh about 1 gram. The circular center part of the project protrudes. Nipple Enhancers are equipped with adhesive that allows them to be attached to bras or directly onto the skin…

The secret of an African herb that helps drug addicts and alcoholics kick the habit has been discovered. The finding could lead to safer and more effective medications for treating addiction.

Since the 1960s, many addicts have reported that even a single dose of ibogaine, a hallucinogenic alkaloid extracted from the root of an African shrub, helps them kick their habit by reducing their cravings for drugs. And there is hard evidence to back these claims, as well. However, troubling side effects – including heart problems and several deaths – have kept ibogaine from being widely accepted as a medical treatment. Instead, a few researchers have begun searching for ways to deliver ibogaine’s benefits without its risks.

A few previous studies have suggested that becoming addicted to a substance lowers the production of a nerve growth factor called glial cell-line derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF…

Football matches and pop concerts may be banned and people confined to their homes if there is a flu pandemic. The measures are likely to be included in the government’s contingency plan, which will be published in the spring.

Ministers have been warned an outbreak of a deadly flu virus is long overdue – the last one was in 1968.

Experts fear Avian flu, which has killed 32 people in south east Asia, could mutate to allow it to be passed from person-to-person. The virus can only be passed to humans by infected birds at the moment. But it is thought the strain of the virus could easily acquire the characteristics of human flu and become much more infectious.

Last year, the World Health Organization said an flu pandemic was “inevitable” and countries across the world should start preparing…

[Related: Suspected human-to-human birdflu transmission in Viet Nam]

A British Army major has told the court martial of three soldiers on abuse charges that he did not order his men “to beast” Iraqi looters.

The alleged “beasting” involved prisoners being made to run up to three miles with a milk crate on their head. But Major Dan Taylor told the court in Osnabruck he gave no such order and also denied allowing “trophy photos”.

One soldier admits one assault but all three deny charges they simulated sex and violence with detainees on camera…

An Italian pensioner committed suicide after his wife fell into a coma, but just hours after he killed himself the woman woke up, Italian media reported on Saturday…

The rain is turning to snow on a blustery January morning, and all the men gathered in a parking lot here surely would prefer to be inside. But the weather couldn’t matter less to the robotic sharpshooter they are here to watch as it splashes through puddles, the barrel of its machine gun pointing the way like Pinocchio’s nose. The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April.

Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat…

A man who went missing five weeks ago in south-western France has been found alive in an underground cave system where he had got lost.

Jean-Luc Josuat-Verges, 48, told police he survived by eating wood and clay.

He was found thanks to some teenagers who had been exploring the caves, which are normally closed to the public.

Mr Josuat-Verges left his home on 18 December suffering from depression and telling his wife he wanted to be alone for a time, local newspapers said. Taking a bottle of whisky he drove his jeep to an abandoned mushroom farm consisting of a vast network of underground tunnels. But in the pitch blackness he got lost and for the next 35 days he had to survive as he could.

Wrapped in plastic sheeting, he said he ate wood and clay, which may have been the remains of the mushrooms.

On Thursday the teenagers, taking advantage of a teachers’ strike, went to explore the underground galleries which are supposed to be out of bounds to the public. Seeing the man’s jeep, they alerted the police who eventually found him on Friday. He was thin, very dishevelled, but alive. It was like seeing a mummy rising from the dead, one officer told a newspaper.

Eve Radio’s on every Saturday, 10pm-1am GMT. Greg accepts submissions from people who want to hear their record played online, so artists should email him at darkcryst at eve-radio.com.

Go here to listen to and download an absolutely gorgeous cover of the Silver Apples’ “I Have Known Love” performed by Sidecar.

Portland Bike Ensemble: purveyors of fine conceptual spoke-torturing noises. The essential soundtrack to your unmedicated paranoid episodes.

Anyone reading this doing their own live internet-only radio broadcast tonight? Drop me a line at warrene at aol dot com if you are, and I’ll give you a shoutout before I crawl into bed, sometime before 4am GMT…

(Note: don’t be “helpful” and tell me about someone else’s radio station, or one you heard about, etc etc. It just pisses me off.)

“No Strings Attached” by RazorBladeKisses is really good. My previous description of RazorBladeKisses as “tripped, spooky toybox goth” still applies — strongly reminiscent of midperiod Cranes to me — framed by a loping shuffle beat, a spare precise bass, and great walls of fuzzed guitar. I am giving the old people next door nightmares with it as I type. It’s great.

Britney Rears, not to be confused with the mainstream songstress of a similar name, and her debut feature, Britney Rears: Wild Back Stage Sex Party, from X-Play… introduced to the public at the recent Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, signing and posing for photos at the VCA booth.

In a press statement, X-Play’s Jeff Mullen remarked, “It was apparent right from the start that this was a winning project.” The statement continued to describe the release as a “lifestyle movie [featuring] Britney with her sexy girlfriends doing what superstars do naturally. Limos, jets, mansions, concert footage and hot, youthful, hardcore sex.”

The production even features a novelty theme song, which will be released in a “PG” version as part of the marketing plan for the project, which also will have Rears going on a national in-store tour starting in March.

“We’re having fun with Britney, and our potential audience is worldwide,” Mullen said…

[Related: Jenna Jameson advertising iRiver multimedia players and selling phone content.]

The Catholic church defrocked the Irish-born priest who upset the men’s Olympic marathon in Athens last summer by leaping on the front-runner.

“I completely reject this decision,” Neil Horan, 57, said after he was informed of the ruling at a meeting with the Archbishop of Southwark in south London yesterday. “I appeal to the much higher court of heaven and the court of Jesus Christ,” (he said), dressed in his now customary brown kilt, Irish green waistcoat and green beret.

“I now cannot preach, I cannot give out communion – I am little more than a pagan. I feel extremely let down. I have given my life to the church and I feel terrible about how they have handled the whole situation.”

Earlier Horan arrived at the Archbishop’s House armed with press releases and a mini tape recorder. Before going into the meeting he performed an Irish jig and preached the importance of the bible.

Horan was given a one-year suspended sentence by a Greek court last September after leaping on Brazilian runner Vanderli de Lima during the marathon, ruining his chances of winning the gold medal. The Roman Catholic priest claimed that he was highlighting the “second coming” of Jesus Christ.

Horan was cleared in London last October of charges of indecency against a seven-year-old girl in 1991.