If you DO choose to do the horizontal sex-pump outside of wedlock, you will almost certainly break Purity Bear’s heart. And every time a bear’s heart is broken, a swan gets a sharp pain in its neck. And every time a swan gets a pain in its neck, a puffin explodes. And every time a puffin explodes, an angel is disfigured in a celestial chip pan fire. Is that what you want?

Nintendo weren’t a raging success in 2011. What was the problem? Those stupid Wiimotes that didn’t sufficiently double up as a joypad, leaving old-school gamers cold? Maybe it was a lack of great in-house games?

Nope. Mario is getting the blame.

A Japanese newspaper has claimed that Mario and his pals are hampering the company’s ability to evolve into the digital age. It has even been called the “curse of Mario”.

Sankei News reports: ”As the game market evolves, Nintendo seems unable to move beyond creating games that rely on the image of Mario.”

You may think this is all theorising and conjecture, but Nintendo need to do something about the rot which is about to take the shape of an announcement noting that the company will be posting huge losses for the fiscal year passed, as well as shares dropping below the ¥10,000 (£80) mark for the first time in nearly a decade.

There have been problems shifting 3DS devices off the shelves, but now, people are looking at Nintendo’s famous mascot to take some responsibility.

Mario is one of the most recognisable characters in pop-culture, but alas, one thing that is looking a little out-dated concerning him at the moment is the fact he’s stuck on one platform. Sonic the Hedgehog got a second lease of life after becoming available on all formats, leaving Mario looking a bit old-fashioned.

If Mario become available on the PS3 and XBOX, would Nintendo fans puke in disgust, vowing never to buy another Ninty product ever again? Messing with Mario is a big risk, but it seems like Nintendo need to do something soon for fear of going the way of Sega.

Worse still, each shop you buy clothes from seems to have a complete disregard for the standard sizes they offer. A size 12 at one shop will be a size 16 somewhere else. What to do?

Well, mercifully for you ladies and cross-dressers, there’s an online calculator called What Size Am I? which has been developed by a lady called Anna Powell-Smith.

Anna says: “You think you’re a certain size, like a 10, and you could end up with something that won’t zip up or that hangs off. It made me realise sizes vary so much. When you look at all the shops’ websites, they all list measurements, so I’ve put them all in one place.”

“People might go to the same shops over and over again because they’re used to them, but knowing other places might flatter them more, this might encourage them to shop in different places. I couldn’t believe Next was the smallest.”

If you log on to sizes.darkgreener.com, enter your bust, waist and hip measurements, you’ll be able to see calculations of what dress size you are at a variety of high street shops. Again, if you’re a man with a lady-partner, you might want to be considerate for the first time in your life and send her a link to this article.

[@falcolhism]

We speak of course of the mighty Grand Theft Auto, in its recently-incarnated iPad incarnation. GTA III and GTA: ChinaTown Wars have both been converted to the Apple device that they’re all calling the ‘pleasure plate’, but for a limited time only, you can be playing them both after handing the late Steve Jobs the paltry sum of just 69p per game. Within minutes you’ll be behaving in a way that would send your poor parents to an early grave – just don’t try it in real life kids.

WAIT! THERE’S MORE….!!!

* Breville stainless steel jug kettle (red) – down from £59.99 to £17.99.

* Logitech X-530 PC 5.1 multimedia home theatre speaker system (70 watt) – yours for just £39.99.

* Borderlands: Game Of The Year Edition for the Xbox 360 – just £10.00.

* Sony Playstation Vita – only £196.98 @ Asda from 22nd February.

*  Half price or better offers from Tesco.

* PS3 320gb console with Final Fantasy XIII-2 or Batman Arkham City – £199.99 delivered.

* Toshiba Stor.E Canvio portable hard drive – 750GB, black USB 3.0 – just £64.99 (web only).

* Magicka @ Steam – only £1.99 (75% off)

* Mario Kart pack of 2 pyjama set – was £14.99, now only £6.99 delivered.

* Microsoft wireless mouse – two designs to choose from – only £4.99 each.

FREE KINDLE BOOK: ‘Teach Anyone To Read: A No-Nonsense Guide’. Once you’ve taught someone to read, you could read some FREE THRILLER EBOOKS and some FREE GHOSTY EBOOKS.

FREE UBUNTU FOR ANDROID: An installation programme that allows you to run Ubuntu on your Android phone. We don’t know what this is.

FREE EYE TEST: You’ll also get a 10% discount off a purchase – presumably of eye-spectacles.

FREE CAB RIDES: In That London, in special cabs. We mentioned this earlier this week but here it is again.

FREE CIRCUITS AND ELECTRONICS COURSE: As ran by the boffins at MIT. Get brainy quickly for free.

FREE CREDIT REPORT FOR LIFE: It’s basically what it says it is. Recommended by Sir Martin Lewis too.

FREE INTERPRETOR APP: Usually £69.99, you could soon be doing swears in 14 languages for nothing.

FREE CAT FOOD: 225g of James Wellbeloved cat food to be precise. Give it to your cat or something.

(freebies found by HotUKDeals members Madman82, Boz, q44q, Jas10, lewymd, ShaunnyBwoy, andy182, antdav and choc1969)

Today is the turn of EDF to reveal to a flabbergasted world that they’ve made a profit of £1.6 billion in 2011, up from £1.4 billion the previous year. Weirdly though, their revenues dropped from £7.7 billion to £7.1 billion in the same period, meaning that although they raked in less money, more of it was turned into profit.

Meanwhile, we imagine that the bills of EDF customers rose during that period. Weird isn’t it? The French energy giants say that earnings were boosted by increased nuclear output and a drop in wholesale gas prices. Bizarre.

But EDF have said: “In 2010, one of the coldest winters in living memory, we froze our prices. Last year, we were the last of the major suppliers to raise our prices and did so by the lowest amount.” Aww, you can’t not love them can you?

Recent reports that the head of the Student Loans Company, Ed Lester, was receiving his six figure salary in the form of untaxed payments into a limited company drew outrage, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, was quick to stamp out the practice, assure us this was a rarity, and an unusual case because Lester was a contractor before becoming an employee. He urged Whitehall departments to unwind similar schemes as quickly as possible, telling the Guardian: “When we all have to pull in the same direction to tackle the country’s financial problems it is essential we all pay our full and fair share.”

Yesterday, however, the paper revealed a further 25 such head honcho types, this time in the Department of Health, were also using limited companies to (probably) sidestep PAYE and national insurance. The Guardian’s investigation revealed that the single largest non-salary salary payment was £273,375 and that nineteen of the staff are paid more than £100,000. In the majority of payments, the fees were paid to companies with the same address as the home address of the staff member. The Department of Health claims the 25 were not civil servants, or technically even staff, though many have been employed for many years and hold very senior positions. The arrangements, which were first questioned back in December, will now be subject to review by the Treasury.

Today, the head of the senior civil service union, Jonathan Baume, has come out challenging the practice of tax avoidance, while also saying these people just need to be paid more.

Baume, the general secretary of the First Division Association, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We now need to be very transparent, very clear that this cannot continue, but at the same time grasp the very difficult political nettle which is to address pay at the senior levels of the civil service. Frankly, it’s a shambles. Ministers are going to have to raise the salaries.”

He added: “Under the last Labour government there was a big push to bring people into the senior levels of government, from in particular the private sector … in certain cases because the market rate was so much greater than the salary that would have been offered in the civil service, various deals were being done and some of these are now being exposed.”

So, what he’s saying is that, really, we only have ourselves to blame. If we had only paid the poor little blighters the going rate in the first place, they wouldn’t have had to worry about avoiding tax. Yeah, right.

Research from Confused.com has concluded that satnavs have caused over £200 million worth of damage to drivers on UK roads, thanks to accidents caused by misleading directions.

68% of drivers have worked out that they’ve ended up doing longer journeys after following the directions given by their gadgets. 45% have felt angry and frustrated while behind the wheel thanks to satnav-rage (which needs a much catchier name), leading to 31% of British motorists spending between £100 – £500 on satnav related car damage.

As Gareth Kloet, Head of Car Insurance at Confused.com, says: “As car insurance costs continue to rise, it’s never been more important to keep your motoring costs as low as possible. Our research has shown that the satnav is not always the blessing it was once hailed to be and increasingly, motorists appear to be sighting the device as a source of frustration and danger!”

Confused have created a satnav blackspot map, where you can enter details of the ones you’ve discovered or know about, which they hope “will not only help reduce risk, but we also hope that frustrated drivers get back behind the wheel a little happier.”

There is also legislation due, which means that satnav manufacturers will have to update their maps more regularly to prevent this misdirection.

Well, after hell broke loose, Tesco have now appeared waving a white flag and shushing everyone while they do their best impression of remorse.

A Tesco spokesman insists that the advert was an honest mistake, and should have been for work experience, rather than a permanent job role.

He said: “The advert is a mistake caused by an IT error by Jobcentre Plus and is being rectified. It is an advert for work experience with a guaranteed job interview at the end of it as part of a government-led work experience scheme.

“We take our responsibility as Britain’s biggest private sector employer seriously. This includes giving young people valuable experience of the workplace, and 300 young people have so far gone on to get permanent employment with us as a result of work experience in recent months, but not as a replacement or substitute for our permanent staff.

“In general, Tesco staff receive a higher level of basic pay than any other supermarket, without exception.”

Are you buying that?

We’re not feeling the fire of any particularly incredible offers today, so we’ll try and tickle your bargain buds with a round-up of a few discounted games that you might like to get into your empty lives.

Battlefield 3 has been around for a while now on the Xbox 360 and PS3, but has it ever been as cheap as £23.99? We very much doubt it. Well worth the meager investment for some hardcore US Marine action. For the Nintendophiles, there’s more raging flightiness to be enjoyed in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D for the Nintendo 3Ds – yours for only £9.97. Finally, if you’ve got a PSP and are (crucially) into Toy Story, Toy Story 3 can be had for your trusty handheld gaming gizmo for the laughably low £3.99. Now run along and play, eh?

WAIT! THERE’S MORE…!!!

* Michael Jackson: This Is It (Blu-ray) – yours for only £2.00 delivered.

* Silver Xbox 360 wireless controller with Play and Charge Kit – just £29.71 delivered.

* The Darkness 2 (PC DD) – just £19.99.

* Puma Men’s Poly Tricot Suit (Black) – only £12.99.

*  400g tub of Sudocrem – only £4.99.

* Fancy dress costumes from only £8 (with South Park Chef or Kenny for just £12).

* 8×330ml cans of Coca Cola – £3.85 but with buy one get one free.

*  All Pizza Express 8″ pizzas – buy one get one free (two for £4.00).

* 50,000 Travelodge sale rooms just released – for £15 each.

All those and more can be found over at HotUKDeals…

But if we wanted to, we could do it. That’s because Barclays bank have unfurled a new app, called Pinigit, that allows their current account holders to send and receive cash using only their mobile phones. You can use it to send cash up to the aforementioned sum of £300 to anyone as long as you have their mobile number.

How doth it worketh? Simpleth – users call the recipient’s mobile number via the Pingit app, key in an amount between £1 and £300, and hit send. The money is moved between the two current accounts using the Faster Payments service taking as little as 30 seconds.

Barclays say that it will be useful in circumstances such as splitting a restaurant bill or paying for lapdances. Sorry, that should have been paying the window cleaner or other small tradesmen. Pingit is available for iPhone, Blackberry and Android-powered phones. Impressively, they say that although non-Barclays customers can only receive payments at the moment, they’ll shortly be able to send them as well, meaning that Pingit could become the standard app for this sort of thing.

Yep, that’s right, Tesco are actually punting a NIGHT SHIFT job for NO MONEY. Vile. The Twitter storm is already gathering pace and we’re expecting this to be withdrawn by noon. Unless someone’s taken the job by then.

Profits for the 28 weeks to January 7th have dropped to £618,000, compared with £8.3m in the first half. Promotions and discounts slashed margins, but alas, not seen customers dashing through the door.

It seems, in a recession, there’s not much call for luxury chocolates or toffee that yanks your fillings out.

Profits before tax fell to £3.1m, which is poor considering the fact we’ve just come through the Christmas period.

Jonathan Hart, the chief executive, said the “economic and retail environment will remain challenging and uncertain for the foreseeable future, certainly through 2012″.

Can it survive?