Poor Snoop Dogg can't enter the United Kingdom to save his life. The hip-hop icon was again denied a visa to enter and perform in the U.K. and has had to cancel scheduled concert performances in the country with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. The rap stars are currently on a joint European tour that's already proven costly due to the enormous entourage expenses alone. Snoop Dogg's trouble with immigration authorities in the U.K. date back to a few years ago when members of his group were involved in a brawl at a British airport.

Japanese fashionistas will soon be able to get their Ghetto-fab cell phone bling on when NTT DoCoMo releases a limited edition gold Motorola RAZR phone branded with the "D&G" of Italian design duo Dolce and Gabbana. The phone was jointly "developed" by D&G, Motorola and NTT DoCoMo. Dolce and Gabbana themselves created four ringtones that are unique to the phone. The device is offically called the M702iS DOLCE & GABBANA and will sell for about US $800.00. The Italian label also designed the carrying case for the phone, which will have a D&G-branded screen. Hmm ... no thank you.

From the Global Graphica file ... there's a bunch recent photos of a new, massive mural being painted in Soho, New York City, that features Madonna in an ad for the H&M clothing store chain.

Bike messengers, bicycle enthusiasts and hipsters converge at a park in the Lower East Side of New York City for some urban, two-wheel polo. The game originated in Ireland. If you love traditional polo but can't afford a stable of horse, bike polo may be the next best thing. This realtively obscure sport has its own association, the BPAA, in the U.S. and its own cup competition.

In her week of community service, sweeping floors in her own glamorous style at the Department of Sanitation in New York City, supermodel
Naomi Campbell proves she is the living embodiment of the fashion world that made her rich and famous. Campbell was sentenced to community service by the court as punishment for an assault on her maid -- the supermodel threw her cell phone at the maid in a fit of rage.

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These strikingly urbane kicks by Brazilian designers OEStudio are an innovative reconcept on the look and feel of the sneaker, something we're seeing more and more of these days when the variety and volume of sporty foootwear designs and models seems inifinite.

This is one of the sickest Adidas sneaker designs on the planet right now. The graphical design on this shoe is inspired by a classic Japanese woodblock print -- or ukiyo-e -- called "The Great Wave" by Hokusai. Give Adidas extra points for the high-top form factor on this "Adi Color" series model known as the "Winner." These torquoise-chalk trainers will set headz back a mere U.S. $550.00 from Fight Club New York. (Yup, there that special.)

Hot damn! Japanese lifestyle-goods chain Mujirushi Ryohin, or "Muji," will open it's first U.S. store this fall in New York City. We're pretty excited about this, being big fans of Muji for a many years.

Over the past decade, we've been buying Muji's minimalist furiniture, clothes, stationary and household goods on visits to Japan, Paris, and London (where Muji opened it's first shop outside of Japan back in the arly 1990s).

For the past couple of years, Muji has been selling a limited line of products in the U.S. through the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) Stores in New Yok City, where they've become something of a cult hit. Prior to MoMA, if you wanted your Muji you had to either go overseas or hunt the stuff down in small boutiques where "unoffically" imported merch (bought by small shop owners at retail prices in Japan and smuggled into the U.S.) could be found for sale at massive mark-up).

The first store in America will be located in the new New York Times Building, which was designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano. Mujirushi Ryohin at Time Square will be the company's U.S. flagship shop.

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From the Global Graphica site ... fresh street art from NYC, including new images of works from Neckface on the Lower East Side of New York City. Rock it.

We've just finished reading "Among The Thugs," Bill Buford's remarkable and page-turning book about crowd violence during the dark days of English and European football/soccer hooliganism in the 1980's. The book is a work of non-fiction, but reads like a highly personal piece of well-researched first-person journalism.

Buford befriended some of the most notorious of the hardcore members of the various team "firms," including that of the Manchester United football club. The author witnessed countless acts of crowd violence at soccer matches across the U.K. and Europe while living in London in the late 1970s and through the '80s . Buford was himself beaten severely by Italian police when thousands of English supporters went on a rampage outside a World Cup match in 1990. The book is a meditation on the nature of crowds, psychology and culture. It's absolutely fascinating, yet disturbing.

"Among The Thugs" was written and published in the early '90s at a time when English football hooliganism inside the top-league stadiums was gradually being eradicated following the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 people were killed in the standing-area terrace of a stadium.

Since then, police crackdowns on violent football fans, better surveillance and policing, the introduction all-seating areas and the removal of all-standing terraces in British stadiums, among other things, has all but extinguished crowd violence at matches and made attending games in the U.K. now a far safer experience than it was when Buford wrote "Among The Thugs."

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The work of British designer Thomas Heatherwick relies heavily on engineering and sculptural aesthetics. Heatherwick's creations - a seaside cafe, a canal bridge, and landscape pieces - are mainly works of architecture, but ones sometimes mistaken for art, and there's an argument that some of it is. Sitooterie II (pictured above) is a mysterious and striking object that sits in the English countryside like a giant alien landmark.

Silicon Valley technology entrepeneur Barry J Stiefel visited all 50 U.S. states during his one-week vacation from work. He drove through the 48 contiguous states and flew to Alaska and Hawaii. His website details the journey and his reasons for taking such a trip. It's a fascinating look at planning, travel, logistics and how to maximize the precious vacation few days you have a year.

That gabby, energetic and most animated of filmmakers Quentin Tarantino has written an article for the Timnes of London newspaper about his experience in the movie business. The piece is part of the Times's "Iconoclast" series, wherein celebrities guest write a column for the paper. Tarantino talks about what it means to him to be a film director working inside and out of the Hollywood studio system and how to deal with careerist studio heads when fighting to make your movie your way. Tarantino also talks about which movies he was most passionate about and what they mean to him. Interestingly enough, QT calls himself an "amateur." This is a must read for aspiring filmmakers or anyboody who loves the director's work.

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The ex-supermodel has said that she will never have plastic surgery, unless she was disfigured in a "bad accident." Who gives shit? Well, actually, we do enough for a brief comment anyway...

Naomi Campbell is now 36 years old. That's not even within the "coveted" 18-34 years-old target marketing demographic that advertising wankers are always babbling on about. And Campbell hardly trades in the kind of runway and photo work she used. She is becoming increasingly irrelevant as a media and fashion commodity.

But it doesn't matter -- she looks fucking great! She shouldn't being even thinking about whether or not she needs plastic surgery. Her looks are fine as they are, especially for her age. It's Campbell's personality that needs plastic surgery, not her face and body. She's got to do something about that wicked temper of hers.

Notoriously tempermental super model (or should we say "ex-super model"?) Naomi Campbell has been punished for throwing a cell phone at her maid. To pay for her crime, Campbell will be doing a stint of community service, mopping up floors at a New York City Sanitation Department warehouse on the Lower East Side. (Welcome to hood, Naomi!) One piece of advice, Ms. Campbell: Leave your cell phone at home.

Video and installation artist Rosemary Williams says she had an anxiety attack the first time she visited the famously gargantuan Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As an art project and means to deal with her personal mall-shopping issues, Williams created the "Wall of the Mall," an installation made of shopping bags from store in the MOA. She also a produced a podcast series documenting the project, to which the Rosemary Goes to the Mall website is devoted.
The weekly Consumed column by Rob Walker in this week's Sunday new York Times Magazine explores William's project and the phenomenon of the Mall of America as a place that has transcended being just a place to buy stuff to being a tourist attraction in and of itself, comeplte with souvenirs shops and t-shirts.

It looks like the GEICO caveman may be crossing over from a car-insurance commercial icon to a fully realized character fit for long-form television programming. That's if this clip of the GEICO caveman playing golf with NFL icon Phil Sims is anything to go by. In this nearly four-minute sketch, the caveman goes 18 holes with the former Giants star. If the caveman seemed overly sensitive and ornery in the GEICO ads, he's even more so here. In fact, he comes across in this video as an obnoxious, iritable douche-bag. He's freaking hilarious. The caveman should have his own show on Comedy Central. It could a late-night talk-fest hosted by the caveman that would air right after the Colbert Report. And the whole thing would be sponsored by GEICO, of course. A higher quality QuickTime version of the clip is here.

In this GEICO caveman television ad we get not one, not two, but three bearded long-hair proto-humanoids chatting on the terrace of a luxury condo where a party is in full swing. GEICO insurance itself -- the service the ad is touting -- plays no role in the characters' conversation or the ad's micro-plot. Still, these are very funny. Maybe GEICO should get into the business of producing DVDs of all the commercials strung together and start selling the discs on its website,. Or how about giving the DVDs out for free to prospective customers. or -- wait, wait -- GEICO cavman action figures!!! Now that's an idea even a Caveman can think up.

This recent 30-second ad by GEICO featuring the ever-annoyed Caveman has actually already been running for a while, but we're including here along with some posts of the other latest ads. It's not the best nor our favorite of the Caveman spots so far, but it's still amusing work. Whether it's effective advertising or not, the jury may still be out.