Ukip has made thousands from merchandise on its online store. What could the other parties learn from it?

It can't be easy trying to fund a political movement in the current climate, when politicians are about as popular as a wasp in a submarine. You'd have more luck organising a whip-round for President Assad. That's why politicians are forced to suck up to billionaire donors, who expect them to tailor their policies accordingly, thereby further widening the gulf between parties and the public.

But wait. Not all parties are alike. The Daily Telegraph has revealed that, last year, Ukip made a whopping £80,000 from flogging branded merchandise to the public from its online store.

I decided to introduce my son to video games. We soon found one he liked … and I mean really, really liked

So I decided to introduce my two-year-old son to the world of video games. Before you accuse me of hobbling my offspring's mind, I'd like to point out that a) television is 2,000 times worse, so shove that up your Night Garden and b) I also decided to counterbalance the gaming with exposure to high culture. For every 10 minutes of Fruit Ninja during daylight hours, he'd get 10 pages of a critically acclaimed novel at bedtime. We're currently halfway through The Magus by John Fowles, which he's enjoying immensely. He finds some passages so moving that his protracted sobs drown out my reading completely, and when I return to the beginning of the chapter to start again, he leaps up screaming, trying to snatch the book out of my hands with delight.

Like any self-respecting 2014 toddler, he can swipe, pat and jab at games on a smartphone or tablet, but smartphone games aren't real games. They're interactive dumbshows designed to sedate suicidal commuters. And they're not just basic but insulting, often introducing themselves as free-to-play simply so they can extort money from you later in exchange for more levels or less terrible gameplay. Either that or they fund themselves with pop-up adverts that defile the screen like streaks on a toilet bowl.

Russia v Ukraine, Isis, Boris Johnson, Cliff Richard and Ebola – there's not much to be cheerful about right now, though the ice bucket challenge is working overtime

Ah. Right. Looks like I picked a bad week to draw inspiration from current affairs for this knockabout comedy column. The news is rarely a warehouse of carefree chuckles but at the moment it's like an apocalyptic playlist on perpetual shuffle, with one harrowing crisis overlapping another. Palestine, Libya, Syria … it's all horrifying and upsetting. Not a single nice thing has happened all year, except the recent stealth launch of Cadbury's Wispa Biscuits, and even "stealth launch of Wispa Biscuits" sounds like a terrible euphemism for breaking wind.

The planet is currently playing host to countless alarming crises. There's the nail-biting tension of Russia v Ukraine, a depressing standoff overseen by facial-expression-avoider Vladimir Putin. I don't know if all the strings connecting Putin's face muscles to his brain were accidentally severed during a tragic smiling accident years ago, but I've seen brickwork convey more emotion.

The all-new iPhones and Apple Watch can be easily avoided but there’s no escaping iOS 8

The past few weeks haven’t been great for Apple. First they were implicated in the stolen celebrity nude photo disaster, which reminded everybody how easily clouds leak. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the iPhone is generally marketed as a diabolical timewasting device with the potential to wreak a grotesque and devastating invasion of your personal privacy. They tend to focus more on all the cool colours it comes in.

Then they launched the horrible-looking Apple Watch, which does everything an iPhone can do, but more expensively and pointlessly, and on a slightly different part of your body. Only an unhealthily devoted Apple fanatic could bear to wear a Apple Watch, and even that poor notional idiot would have to keep putting their iPhone down in order to operate the damn thing. It’ll scarcely be used for telling the time, just as the iPhone is scarcely used for making calls. It’s not a watch. It’s a gaudy wristband aimed at raising awareness of Chinese factory conditions. Or a handy visual tag that helps con artists instantly identify gullible rich idiots in a crowd.

Exaggeration is the official language of the internet. Only the most strident statements have any impact. Oversteer and oversell, all the time

The other day I was talking to a music fan who’d recently gone to see one of Kate Bush’s widely praised live appearances. Naturally I was keen to hear a first-hand account of this era-defining event, so I asked what it was like.

“The first half was great,” she said. “But the second half got a bit boring.”

It’s a stealth adventure with nowhere to hide and hundreds of respawning enemies waiting to attack you the moment you stand out in any way

I haven’t always been the kind of man who plays videogames. I used to be the kind of boy who played videogames. We’re inseparable, games and I. If you cut me, I’d bleed pixels. Or blood. Probably blood, come to think of it.

Games get a bad press compared with, say, opera – even though they’re obviously better, because no opera has ever compelled an audience member to collect a giant mushroom and jump across some clouds. Nobody writes articles in which opera-lovers are mocked as adult babies who never grew out of make-believe and sing-song; obsessive misfits who flock to weird “opening nights” wearing elaborate “tuxedo” cosplay outfits.

If the fashion industry truly cared about the future of our planet, it would issue a solitary line of unisex, one-size-fits-all smocks, then shut down for good

So then. Alongside “eating a sandwich” and “holding up a copy of a newspaper”, we now have to add “wearing a T-shirt” to the growing list of Ordinary Things Ed Miliband Somehow Just Can’t Do. The other week he was pictured in Elle magazine wearing the Fawcett Society’s “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt. Last Sunday the Mail claimed those T-shirts are stitched together in a Mauritian sweatshop by women earning 62p an hour.

A T-shirt. He can’t even wear a T-shirt without somehow condemning both himself and any surrounding witnesses to ridicule. What’s going to trip him up next? A doorknob? Next week he operates a doorknob so badly he fractures his wrist, and as the medics wheel him to the operating theatre, they accidentally knock an ageing war veteran off a waiting room chair, leaving him groaning in pain on the floor, at which point Miliband insists they stop his gurney so he can lean over and help the guy up, but he forgets about his fractured wrist, so as the 96-year-old decorated-war-hero-and-humbling-inspiration-to-us-all gingerly grabs his hand, Miliband abruptly screeches a barrage of agonised obscenities directly into his face, causing him to hit the floor again, fatally this time, in front of the world’s media, oh and also Miliband does a frightened little wee at the end, and they film that too.

The John Lewis and Sainsbury’s ads have kickstarted an earlier-than-ever festive season in which we’ll shop or click our way to bankruptcy chasing 15% off the top Christmas products. But beware of My Friend Cayla …

Hey, remember when Christmas used to last 12 days? Now it’s so bloated it’s virtually an epoch, lasting twice as long as the year it falls in. The early-warning signs keep changing: not so long ago the start of the holiday season was signified by the release of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times. Now it’s the annual unveiling of the John Lewis ad, which this year features a boy arranging for a trafficked overseas bird to be smuggled into the country inside a small container and presented like a gift-wrapped object to the laddish penguin mate who exists only in his troubled mind. They say psychopathic murderers often start their “careers” by doing ghastly things to animals: hopefully they’ll keep the storyline going year after year, as his illusory brain-penguin commands him to carry out increasingly hideous yuletide ceremonies, until eventually the advert consists of nothing but him appeasing the Penguin King by dancing in the moonlight wearing a necklace of ears and eyeballs, all of it seen through the sights of a police marksman positioned on the roof of a neighbour’s evacuated home.

But this year, the John Lewis ad has been overshadowed by gargantuan supermarket and noted humanitarian anti-war campaigner J Sainsbury PLC, and its tear-jerking period piece in which a perfectly good war is ruined by a tragic outbreak of football.

From flooding to Benefits Street, the rise of Ukip to the Apple Watch, the year was filled with huge, grim events. We could all use a lie-down over Christmas

So 2014’s almost done, and unless you got married, or had your firstborn, or won a Subaru filled with Maltesers in a radio phone-in, it’s unlikely to be a year you’ll remember fondly. It was filled with huge, grim events. So is every year, of course, but in 2014 it seemed there were fewer light moments to offset the enveloping dread. And everyone seemed angry, all the time. A whole planet, gritting its teeth. Hundreds protesting. Thousands marching. Millions waiting to attach their internalised rage to a hashtag at a moment’s notice. We could all use a lie-down over Christmas.

The year started badly for Britain when the sky decided to waterboard the lot of us. It rained incessantly throughout early January; big grey raindrops the size of cupboards. The government issued snorkels to anyone under 5ft 4in, while areas of Devon were submerged for so long the residents evolved gills and blowholes.

Products I’ve made up for the sheer giddy thrill of it include Total Farage Plus, which skilfully Photoshops the Ukip leader into whatever you’re looking at

This week it’s the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, an annual opportunity for tech companies to unveil their latest gizmos during January’s traditional slow news week, thereby picking up precious coverage that might otherwise be spent detailing something – anything – more important than an egg whisk with a USB port in the side.

At the time of writing, the show is yet to kick off, although some of the offerings have already been unveiled – such as “Belty”, the world’s first “smart belt”, which monitors your waistline and tells you when it’s time to lose weight, just like a mirror or a close friend might. More excitingly, it adjusts to your girth (again, like a close friend might), and will tighten or loosen itself according to your current level of blubber. No word yet on whether it’s possible to pop a Belty round your neck and order it to squeeze you into the afterlife, but there’s no reason they can’t incorporate that feature in Belty 2.0, except maybe on basic ethical, moral and humanitarian grounds.

Researchers have created a version of Mario that experiences basic emotions – now he needs a purpose that affects the real world

• It’s-a-me, Mario! And soon I’ll be playing my games without your help …

January is traditionally a fairly sleepy month, current affairs-wise, but a horrified gawp at the news confirms that 2015 has already had one heck of a morning. Clearly it takes a lot to knock a garish underage sex allegation involving Prince Andrew off the news agenda, but the Parisian terror attacks managed it, partly because the horror of it all warranted such blanket coverage, but also because the resulting conversation about freedom of speech is taking up so many column inches, there’s scarcely room to run anything else. There hasn’t been this much furious debate about the merits of a cartoon since the introduction of Scrappy Doo.

(Fun imaginary scenario: in a bid to revive their flagging ratings, ITV launch a live, feelgood Saturday night version of Celebrity Pictionary. But chaos ensues when Paddy McGuinness pulls the first card from the deck to discover it requires him to sketch the Prophet Muhammad.)

What sort of person can’t decide who to vote for, but can rate how much they like whatever they’re hearing out of five, and wants to sit there tapping a button accordingly?

As the general election scuttles closer, the campaign grows more confusing by the moment, so it’s good that last week’s seven-way leaders’ debate brought some much-needed mayhem to the situation. Not so long ago we were bemoaning the lack of choice in a two-party system. Now we’ve got option paralysis.

It had its moments. Nigel Farage complained about foreigners with HIV who enter Britain and immediately start wolfing down expensive medicine: greedy as well as sick. You’d think Farage might welcome immigrants with grave illnesses on the basis that they’re less likely to hang around as long, but apparently not. Say what you like about him – say it, write it down, daub it in 3ft-high cherry-red letters up the side of a prominent overpass on his regular commute if you must – but it’s undeniably refreshing to see a politician determined to speak his mind, indifferent to the absurd constraints of spin or basic human empathy. Never mind HIV sufferers – how much is Britain spending on refugees with cancer? Maybe he could put that statistic on a sandwich board and patrol the country in it, perhaps while ringing a bell and loudly commanding passersby to picture a nation under his command.

As the anthology series Black Mirror returns, its creator explains what fuels the show’s twisted tales – and tells us where we’re going wrong with technology

A sadistic version of The X Factor where contestants perform for their own freedom. An immersive experience where criminals are subjected to the same terrors they inflicted on their victims, in front of a baying audience. A grotesque cartoon demagogue using TV and social media to obtain power. No, these aren’t scenes from the first term of a Donald Trump presidency, but something only marginally less traumatising, and infinitely more likely to happen: Charlie Brooker’s techy anthology series Black Mirror, a show its creator describes as made up of “deliciously horrible ‘what if’s”.

Related: Black Mirror review – Charlie Brooker's splashy new series is still a sinister marvel

Related: Modern tribes: the Pokémon Go aficionado

The Black Mirror creator invents exciting products to transform your life – from the workout that makes you feel like a saint to the world’s cleverest toilet

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but happiness is in sharp decline. Many people blame technology for our woes, and it’s not hard to see why. The internet is nothing but deranged screeching and fascist memes sitting atop a plateau of moldering desperation masquerading as ironic meaninglessness. No one has smiled in real life since 2011. But wait! Silicon Valley is waking up to the negative effect its products can have on us, and like the good Samaritans they are, they’re unveiling a whole new range of products aimed at making us feel good about ourselves. Here is an exclusive look at just a few of the cool gizmos and rad gadgets due to be unveiled at next year’s CES Consumer Electronics Show and featured in news reports, and then in shops, and then in your house before you even know it.

Pro Tag ein Foto, und das ein ganzes Jahrzehnt lang: Der US-Amerikaner Dustin Bowen hat seine Tochter Julie seit ihrer Geburt täglich fotografiert und daraus ein Video gemacht.

Sie hatten den europaweit härtesten Corona-Lockdown. Wie sich die erste Woche der "Phase 2" in Italien anfühlt, beschreibt unser SPIEGEL-Korrespondent vor Ort.

In an interview, 17-year-old American pop star Billie Eilish discusses the stress of fame, a time she feared was a never-ending black hole and the best coping mechanism.

Dominican Yankees and Mets stars are working with Pedro Martinez to respond to the coronavirus pandemic in their homeland.

Ruby Walsh believes enforcing social distancing should not prove too much of an issue when racing eventually resumes.

Kyle Walker claims he is being "harassed" after admitting that he breached lockdown rules to visit his sister and parents.

We model optimal e-cigarette regulation and estimate key sufficient statistics. Using tax changes and scanner data, we estimate relatively elastic demand and limited substitution between e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes. In sample surveys, historical smoking declines for high- and low-vaping demographics were unchanged after e-cigarettes were introduced; this demographic shift-share identification also suggests limited substitution. We field a new survey of experts, who report that vaping is almost as harmful as smoking cigarettes. In our model, these results imply that current e-cigarette taxes are far below the social optimum, but Monte Carlo simulations highlight substantial uncertainty.

Aleksey Tsvetkov, 40, blew up while an Assistant U.S. Attorney recited his criminal history during his sentencing hearing in Brooklyn Federal Court on racketeering charges..

Wilfredo Cervantes, 52, an artist and poet from Puerto Rico, was found dead inside his second-floor apartment on Jefferson Ave. near Ralph Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Wednesday evening.

New Yorkers leave messages of hope through the coronavirus pandemic.

CUNY officials hope the new relief effort — started with two $1 million donations from the Dimon and Petrie Foundations — will eventually grow to $10 million.

Dominican Yankees and Mets stars are working with Pedro Martinez to respond to the coronavirus pandemic in their homeland.

A new analysis of a skull found in Greece decades ago suggests that early humans may have been in Eurasia as early as 210,000 years ago.

The burnt ruins of a Maya city in what’s now Guatemala hold clues to its untimely demise at the turn of the 7th century.

D'fhéadfadh go mbeadh coimhlint ghéar ag Stobart Air le haerlínte eile ag solathár seirbhísí aeir réigiúnach do Aer Lingus, na seirbhísí idir Dún na nGall agus Baile Átha Cliath san áireamh.

Amid a public health emergency, it's unconscionable for California to allow dozens of state-owned homes to stay empty.

In a 133-92 blowout win, the Clippers dealt Cleveland its largest margin of defeat at home in Cavaliers history as Marcus Morris had several highlight plays.

Kawhi Leonard scored 25 points, Montrezl Harrell added 22 and the Clippers snapped a three-game losing streak with a 124-97 rout of the Memphis Grizzlies

The Clippers and L.A. artist Mister Cartoon release a collection of two T-shirts and a hooded sweatshirt to benefit local coronavirus relief efforts.

The Lakers decided to praise rookie sensation Ja Morant and the young, desperate Memphis Grizzlies and accept their own shortcomings after a 105-88 loss.

A baking boom is driving thousands of homebound Americans into their kitchens to knead dough and bake cookies as a way to cope with life under quarantine. Watch it play out on social media, particularly #baking Instagram.

Former USC quarterback and Green Bay Packers safety Willie Wood, one of the first college football players to break the color barrier and a Pro Football Hall of Famer, died Monday at age 83.

The Supreme Court has made clear repeatedly that governments can regulate businesses to protect the public interest.

Ryan Buchter was signed to a minor league deal after being non-tendered by the Oakland Athletics. He could fill an essential role in the Angels' bullpen

Anthony Rendon is optimistic about the Angels' outlook; Griffin Canning is expected to start the season on the injured list with elbow discomfort.

New Angels reliever Mike Mayers was effective for the Cardinals two years ago but struggled in 2019. He's now a front-runner for a spot in the bullpen.

Angels general manager Billy Eppler says his players are "checking that 'Drive to Compete' box" as they wait out the coronavirus season delay.

Congress pushed employers to cut hours rather than lay off workers. Now some may get more in federal aid than if they had worked the lost hours.

FEMA won't release state-by-state information on where masks, gowns and other protective equipment have been delivered.

In a federal lawsuit, students accuse Florida Career College of breaking promises about career training and job placement. The for-profit school has been allotted $17 million in federal pandemic aid.

Congress set aside $350 million to help colleges with "significant unmet needs" related to the pandemic. Most of that money has gone to small schools that serve just a fraction of U.S. students.

The Times has hired an editor to lead a newly created desk that will focus on online news coverage.

Natalie Kitroeff has joined The Times as the Business section's California economy reporter.

After a "lot of discussions," NHL general managers have decided to not to make any changes regarding the deployment of emergency goaltenders in games.