Belle & Boo Royal Party Parade Tape

There's a palapable sense of wedding fever gathering momentum as we get ever closer to April's Big Event. Whilst a royal wedding isn't for everyone, there is a nice sense of nostalgic patriotism evoked by the occasion which this Royal Party Parade Tape from RTG favourites Belle & Boo perfectly encapsulates.

This whimsically illustrated tape in red, white and blue will make a great addition to all your packages and parcels in the run up to the nuptials - and great for taping down paper tablecloths if you're hosting one of the many street parties planned up and down the UK.

You can buy a whopping 66 metre roll of tape for £8.20 form the Belle & Boo shop here.

OPC Computer Amplifier Speaker by Orange Amplifiers gets priced and detailed

We featured this some time back when details were scarce, but now Orange Amplifiers has announced the details of its retro-styled OPC computer/amplifier.

Available from August 2010, this bizarre hybrid has been designed to deliver playing, recording, editing and computing capabilities to musicians and music aficionados, with a 24 Bit audio interface with both guitar and microphone inputs and over £700 of digital recording music software to help you along the way. Audio is via a 15 watt RMS per channel stereo amplifier and 2x JBL 6.5” 55 Watt RMS dual concentric speakers, both mounted into an optimised cabinet for 'enhanced cooling and acoustics'. Oh yes - there's the computer part too.

The Times offers free Mr Benn and Captain Pugwash DVDs

Looking for a way of killing time this weekend? You could watch some classic kids TV shows.

The Times is giving away a Mr Benn DVD on Saturday, with Captain Pugwash available with the Sunday Times. And if you're a fan of Mr Benn, you can go to the Times website and enter a competition to win some limited edition artwork - Mr Benn Waves (pictured above).

It's a limited edition of just 200 worldwide, sized at 20 x 21 inches and signed by Mr Benn artists David McKee. If you want to  be in with a chance of winning it, just follow the link below.

Enter the Mr Benn artwork competition

Guardian Weekend magazine - retro edition

In case you missed it (or don't happen to be in the UK), The Guardian Weekend magazine was a retro edition this weekend, with features on each of the last five decades, along with features on food, fashion and cars, not to mention articles on people who live their lives in period homes.

If you did miss it, here's the good news - everything is online, with one big exception - none of the pictures from the magazine are reproduced online (for reasons best known to themselves).

Still, the articles make interesting reading. Nothing new or particularly essential there, but a good way to pass a lunchtime at work. It should be there until next Saturday.

Read the retro edition of The Guardian Weekend magazine

How to... be retro

Something I intended posting up last week (but forgot) was this article, which appeared in last week's Guardian magazine by Guy Browning titled How to... be retro.

It intellectualises "retro" in a way we never would - because we're too busy spending cash on cool retro items to sit down and theorise it. But it's worth a read and does have the odd interesting point, even if it is a bit high brow.

And we've used an image of a Spacehopper because they did.

Read How to... be retro