34 h. ago Sperm Racing spokesman Dick Gay reveals wild reason for the sport's conception

Last month saw the world's first sperm race take place, with 4,000 live audience members and many more watching virtually while placing bets, and now the origins of the event has been exposed

Politics

60 h. ago We’re having sex inside Moby Dick! The wild architectural world of Japan’s love hotels

From cruise ships to UFOs, from King Kong to a giant whale, half the sex in Japan may take place in its dazzlingly imaginative love hotels. But have some become just too seedy? Our writer checks inDo whales make you horny? How about UFOs? Maybe you’ve always dreamed of having a tryst in a fairytale castle, or making love inside a gigantic biscuit tin? Whatever your weird fantasy may be, it can probably be catered for on a roadside somewhere in Japan, if a new book on the curious phenomenon of love hotels is anything to go by.French photographer François Prost has been on a 3,000km pilgrimage of passion, driving from Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, to the island of Shikoku in the south, to document Japan’s unique architecture of furtive liaisons. What he found spans from manga-embellished motels and Christmas-themed love nests to pastel-hued stage sets worthy of Wes Anderson. And some things stranger than your most eccentric kinks could dream of. Continue reading...

Events

61 h. ago Love London Love Culture’s Dream Hotel Stays: Marrakech (2025)

Love London Love Culture’s Dream Hotel Stays: Marrakech (2025)  Love London Love Culture

Politics

9 d. ago Dunelm shoppers 'in love' with 'classy' table lamp that gives home a 'regal touch'

'In love, adds a little extra elegance to our bedroom! With a real hotel feel. Love the touch on/ off feature too.'

Politics

2 w. ago I stayed at the UK’s ‘best beach hotel’ with a surprising Love Island connection

It was just minutes away from the sea

Society

2 w. ago Bog standard? Tokyo’s spectacular public toilets – in pictures

Public toilets are rarely thought of fondly – that is unless you’re talking about those in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. Commissioned in 2019, creatives including renowned architects Shigeru Ban and the late Fumihiko Maki designed 17 beautiful, functional, meticulously clean public toilets, some of which featured in Wim Wenders’s 2023 film Perfect Days. Hong Kong-based photographer Ulana Switucha came across the toilets, each unique, while working on a project about Japanese architecture in 2023, and went back to photograph them the following year. “These structures are works of art,” she says. “They shine as beacons in their urban setting and demonstrate that public design can go beyond functionality to represent cultural and artistic value.”Ulana Switucha is the winner of the architecture and design category of the Sony world photography awards 2025 Continue reading...

Politics