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This week we look at showy hands and the most famous place in the world to hitch a ride. Also, for the geeks out there, make friends - automatically. We're all 'rapped up' as Saddam does Eminem. What would it be like if the whole world voted  next month?

 
Sleight of hand

Do you remember making a silly-looking shadow-animal with your hands as a child? Well, here is a site with lovely reproductions from a Victorian book published in 1859. Get a bright lamp, print out the pages, put the kids in their pyjamas and have fun! www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/2/9/6/12962/12962-h/12962-h.htm


Surreal friends

FOAF-a-Matic stands for friend of a friend and is part of something Tim Berners-Lee - inventor of the World Wide Web - has come up with. This is for webaholics with their own webpage. You enter your details and then let the fun begin. My advice: only go to this site if you are seriously addicted to the Web and want to meet others electronically. In other words, if you haven't got a life, this is for you. www.ldodds.com/foaf/foaf-a-matic.html  


Voice of reason

When Douglas Adams created this radio programme, he changed forever the meaning of the verb 'to hitchhike'. It was a brilliant idea, a terrific broadcast and eventually a reasonable television programme. It was essentially, however, radio at its best. The BBC is now bringing it back to life. Well worth a listen. www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/newseries.shtml


Who's your Baghdaddy?

What happens if you take the world's most despised and detested dictator - Hip-hop Hussein - and give him a rap to the tune of Eminem? Well, this is what happens. http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=real_hussei…

 
Why wait?

Want to vote now for the United States president? You can go to this site. It allows people from all over the world to cast a vote. It is amusing but hardly surprising that John Kerry gets 86 per cent of the worldwide vote. Considering how much influence the US president has on the lives of everybody on this planet, this is not such a crazy idea. www.betavote.com/ 

Found something funny on the Web? Send it to Esc Sequences at esc.sequences@scmp.com



ESC Sequences