Well that's bullshit, is what you're probably thinking. I understand. And much like the announcement of remasters for both the original Dead Island and its expansion Riptide, coming in May, you're probably asking, if not begging: why?

There's no easier way of saying this, so I'll just go for it: I really enjoyed Dead Island. The 2011 game has a lot of faults, and there's a lot of player confusion about it. But give me these few minutes and I shall try to explain why this title from Dying Light developers Techland, which was over five years in the making, is actually worth your time. And maybe even your money, what with that "Definitive Edition" on the horizon.

I need to begin by clarifying that I first played Dead Island in its "Game of the Year" edition. Now, if you know a little about how video games marketing works, you're probably well aware that these GOTY-branded versions, which come out some months (or years) after the first retail wave, aren't really the recipients of real-world awards. No publication declared Dead Island to be the game of the year, of any year. Go and have a Google. All GOTY editions represent, typically (as some of these things do win awards, after all), is the vanilla game in question plus a selection of downloadable extras in one box. And I'm thankful Dead Island received such a treatment, because if it hadn't I'd never have played the Ryder White DLC missions.

Dead Island suffered at launch because of poor communication. Players were wowed by some of its marketing—that announcement trailer, I mean, really—but when it came to what you did in the game, that information got a little lost in translation. Perhaps the interest in that incredible debut trailer was partially to blame for derailing the conveyance of how the game worked, as beyond sharing the same location as the end product and the presence of zombies, there's little else to link the events of the clip and what the player was tasked with upon commencing their campaign.

It's hardly surprising to learn that the trailer was produced by an external agency, rather than Techland themselves. It certainly turned heads, but it generated a level of hype for the game's release that the reality of the experience in store could never live up to. Once you were playing the game, with its B-movie-like cast of characters with accents that owe more to daytime soap operas than comparable-budget video games, and an emphasis on swearing to look cool, you saw how removed the marketing was from the base tenets of play. All that was really replicated on the interactive side was the luxurious tropical island retreat of (the entirely fictional, located off Papua New Guinea) Banoi.

At the time of Dead Island's release, we were still over a year away from exploring Far Cry 3's totally tropical climes, and Techland's setting was a delightful virtual world to get lost in (those face-chewing zombies aside, obviously). Okay, so it didn't move all that smoothly—but people almost commend Bethesda for the wobbliness in their open-world games, so why not cut the Dead Island team a little slack, too? The awful motion blur is a distraction, sure—but stop and appreciate the scenery for a second, and you'll appreciate how this game gets its location so very right.

When you look at the ideas, the design, and execution, Dead Island is an incredibly gorgeous example of world building. The Royal Palms Resort, the game's introductory area, is a beautiful juxtaposition to what waits beyond it, where the wealth, decadence and Westernization that infects all overseas hubs of luxury tourism is so very far from relevant. The main town of Moresby (Port Moresby is the real-world capital of Papua New Guinea) is a wonderful collision of cultures, much like its you-can-actually-go-there equivalent, in one of the world's most culturally diverse countries. It's not exactly right, as it feels more Cuban than Commonwealth on occasions; but the population certainly comes from seemingly everywhere. It's all bright, colorful and gives the impression of being alive—or at least of having been alive fairly recently.

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Related: Watch VICE's new documentary, 'Walking Heavy'

Which is something a lot of the zombie games of the time never totally got. Just because the Zombie Apocalypse is happening doesn't mean that every single wall has to immediately become 30 different shades of grimy brown. The sun comes up, it shines, the world still spins and buildings don't suddenly become broken-down hovels. Looking at the two games that Dead Island obviously takes its gameplay cues from, Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead, you can see the need for a normal and relatable setting, much like the Romero-inspired mall in the former, combined with the dark and scary situations that the latter provides. Dead Island goes some way to gluing together the best of the humor split between both of these pillars of zombie-slaying thrills.

The relative freedom and silliness in the game's weapon modification options and crafting was definitely something that added another layer to my enjoyment. Baseball bats with nails in, electrified katanas, a pipe with a motorized saw blade attached to it, gas canisters that exploded regardless of what you throw at them (fir cones, bootlaces, snotty tissues)—it wasn't the huge splat fest that Dead Rising was, but it did enough and felt incredibly cathartic. Picking it up again, I activated the "fury mode" to punch zombies to (a second) death, and they just exploded into chunks. These poor, innocent ex-holiday makers were now nothing more than a meal ticket for carrion eaters, thanks to my incredible fists.

But then you get the repetition of the fetch quests and cutscenes that put all four playable characters into the conversation, as it desperately reminds you that this should be a co-op experience. And here's where the game begins to falter. Its later stages see the gameplay shift from a sometimes-hilarious hodgepodge of bloody knuckles and bananas melee weapons into a generic FPS slog. This confusing move from survival thriller to sci-fi plague prevention simulator can irk the player—it's easy to feel that you've ended up playing two different games, and the second one is nowhere near as strong as the first.

To get that far into proceedings though, you need to invest yourself somewhat in the story—which, sadly, isn't much more than the usual clichés strung together in a slightly different order. There are immune survivors, mad scientists, trigger-happy and grief-stricken soldiers, and pretty much everyone else is in denial and wondering if they can claim anything on their travel insurance. But the need for raw realism has dissipated as the quality of gaming visuals have improved, oddly. We happily suspend all need for it in Until Dawn, we revel in the bombastic despots of Far Cry, and the most interesting character in Fallout 4 is a 1930s detective robot that looks like a broken porcelain doll. Who needs believability?

What you need, though, is clarity. Cliché is great so long as everything's resolved, but Dead Island ends in an entirely confusing way, with new characters thrown into the mix far too late on for them to feel worthwhile, leading to the sensation that nothing you've done has really had an effect on the story. You never had access to it, and you've not understood what's really going on. But this is where the Ryder White missions come in. Without spoiling anything, these extras not only introduce their (now-playable) titular character properly, but also join all those dots that felt like they were skipped over before. It all leads to an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the whole piece, which wasn't delivered by the original game "proper."

The remastered package arrives at a fairly good time. Dying Light has received a massive expansion, The Following, and efforts are probably shifting to a sequel to that game, so there's a zombie-shaped gap in the gaming market (for once). It surprised me to discover, given that Dead Island 2 is in the hands of British studio Sumo Digital, that Techland itself is behind the remasters. Given everything the team's learned making Dying Light, this could mean we really get the definitive Dead Island, better than it's ever been.

Dead Island never delivered the drama its announcement trailer teased. But we did get a gorgeous paradise gone to shit, brilliant weapon design, and a rough-about-the-edges campaign that, until its tonal shift, was never less than enjoyable. With the zombie game market becoming increasingly focused on early access survival games on PC that never seem to be fully released, you could argue that we haven't really moved that far on from Dead Island. Now is a good time, then, to be reminded of its peculiar charms, and leave its negative qualities in the past, where they belong.

Dead Island: Definitive Edition is released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 31. More information at the game's official website.

Follow Sean Cleaver on Twitter.

Vidya Bal. Image by Frances Smith

Being a woman in the Republic of India is a dangerous prospect thanks to entrenched misogyny that influences everything from violence on the street to extreme orthodoxy in religious institutions.

According to the India's National Crime Bureau, crimes committed against women have been increasing since 2009. Between 2013 and 14, there has been a 9 percent increase in rape cases, a 10 percent increase in kidnapping and abduction of women, a 4.6 percent increase in dowry deaths, a 16.3 percent increase in assault cases on women with intent to outrage her/their modesty, and a 3.4 percent increase in cases of cruelty by husband or his relatives. It's so bad, women aren't even safe in religious institutions. Instead, their right to profess, practice, and propagate their religion guaranteed by the country's constitution is regularly stymied.

In Mumbai, Muslim women have been denied access the Haji Ali dargah's sanctum sanctorum, and Hindu temples (and their regulating trusts) in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have denied women the access to certain temple areas. Hindi temples have even suggested that women pilgrims go through a scanning process so the temple could prohibit "impure" ladies from entering. In November 2015, a woman entered a "male only" zone at the Shani Shingnapur temple. She climbed over the barricade surrounding the temple idol and offered her prayers. An instance beyond the priests' wildest beliefs, they later "purified" the area using milk.

Fighting against these and other causes of gender discrimination is veteran feminist activist Vidya Bal. Bal entered the world of feminism first as a writer and editor with popular woman-centric magazine Stree (the hindi word for woman). Her articulate deconstruction of India's gender bias practices later propelled her to founding the Nari Samata Manch (Women Equality Forum) in 1982. Since then, Bal has gone on to create, support, and counsel groups for women (and men, too), and attempt to amend sexist Indian laws regarding custodial rape, divorce, and the dowry.

Ball was involved in fighting the landmark case of Bhanwari Devi, a government official who was gang raped in broad daylight as form of retaliation for reporting a case of impending child marriage. While Devi has still yet to get justice, the intense agitation in support of her has led the government to pass a law against sexual harassment in workplace.

I visited Bal at her home and spoke with her in her living room, where photographs of Maya Angelou, Dr. B R Ambedkar, Mohandas Gandhi, and Virginia Woolf lined the walls. Bal told me about her early days as an activist, how the patriarchy hurts men, and why the Indian government has opposed her cause.

VICE: What was your first plan after setting up the Nari Samata Manch?

Photo by Mimi LaMontagne from 'Untangling Australia's Complicated Sex Laws at a Gold Coast Swingers Club'

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

For the first time since a naturist spa in Kent announced it would be hosting an orgy/cancer research fundraiser, Britain's swinging community has hit the headlines. On Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported that a man named Roy Maggs had unsuccessfully attempted to sue the annual three-day sex festival Swingfields after he was refused entry to the event last July.

Turns out that although Maggs had shelled out $182 for an "earlybird gentleman's ticket," he had failed to read the small print stipulating that would-be single males needed to provide two character references to guarantee entry.

The thought of a disappointed Mr. Maggs skulking off from the Swingfields site, crestfallen, the pockets of his leather coat weighed down with unused lube and rubbers, is a very sad one. So sad, in fact, that it felt necessary to compile a guide to swingers etiquette, in the hope that no other unfortunate soul ends up committing a sex party faux-pas and being turned away before they can even take their clothes off.

1. BE HYGIENIC

A no-brainer, surely? Apparently not. There are people out there—grubby bastard people—who step out of the house in search of indiscriminate sex without showering first.

"Freshening up your bits is essential," says Charles, a man I met last year while researching an article on Club 487, the South London porn cinema. "Here's a tip: Bring a can of talc with you, and dab it on before you hit the venue. It'll dry you out, and make you smell of lilacs. Lovely!"

2. WRAP UP AND BRING YOUR OWN TOYS

Another no-brainer. Most clubs have condoms discreetly placed around the place in handy bowls, so you should be OK, but make sure you bring your own stash just in case. There's no point in going to a sex party if you can't have sex with anyone.

Another note on preparation: Don't rely on the venue to supply vibrators, nipple clamps, or any other paraphernalia you might require. Bring your own. And don't get too eager. As Nina, a regular attendee of swingers events in Manchester and London, says: "Toys have their place at an orgy, but always ask before using them on anyone."

3. HAVE A HIGH DISAPPOINTMENT THRESHOLD

Don't go out expecting Eyes Wide Shut, or, for that matter, anything resembling the idea you have in your head; you're much more likely to find a room full of people who look like your aunts and uncles. While there are many very beautiful people into swinging—and upmarket events that cater to them, such as Killing Kittens and Elite Parties—chances are your average local sex party will be a little more low-key.

Realize, too, that group sex is not always what it's cracked up to be. Dave, another swinger friend, says: "I had a threesome on two occasions, both of which rank very high on my list of most profound regrets."

4. GET THE MOST ATTRACTIVE PARTNER TO APPROACH OTHER COUPLES

Assuming you go as a couple (going as a single guy isn't a great look, and going as a single girl will invite mass attention, which you may or may not be comfortable with), it's a good rule of thumb to get the most attractive of you to approach the other couples in the room.

"Ange always goes in first," says Charles of his wife. "Charms them. She's not a bad looker still, and that reels them in."

5. LEAVE YOUR SMARTPHONE IN THE CLOAKROOM

Perhaps unsurprisingly, devices with built-in cameras and social media apps are not at all welcome at swingers events. Photographing and then sharing a scene—even if it's one you are involved with—is not OK.

"Even putting out a clip on Snapchat is a no-no," says Charles.

6. LEAVE WHEN YOU'RE DONE

The whole point of anonymous sex is that it's anonymous. After you've finished with another couple, don't make the mistake of trying to hang out with them. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all. And it's also just kind of awkward and weird—nobody likes a hanger-on, especially when they're naked and grinning at you.

On the same note, don't let your conversations before or after get too deep–much better to leave things shallow and superficial, according to swinger Bern.

7. NO MEANS NO

The final rule, but quite obviously the most important. Swingers events may be populated by people who are generous with the physical expression of their sexuality, but they are never a free-for-all. Unless you get unequivocal consent, then back the fuck off.

As Nina says, "I'm always in a good mood at parties, but try to touch me without my consent, and I will Indian burn your ball bag."

Follow John on Twitter.

Check out Ed's website, Twitter, Instagram, and buy his book on Fantagraphics.

The author, left, at an afterparty

Afterparties always seem like such a great idea at the time. Everyone milling about on the sidewalk after being unceremoniously ushered out of the bar, traffic in the street growing thinner. To those who are still standing at this time, news of an afterparty is like a death sentence commuted on the walk to the chamber. The next few hours will be heady. Time, in the traditional sense, won't exist. The next morning everyone will pray for death, but now is the time stories that will be told for years are born and bonds that feel unbreakable are made between strangers who will never see one another again. This column is about the things that happen during those special hours.

You're standing in the narrow booze aisle at the bodega: a mass of sweat and grim focus. It's 4:37 AM. Your jaw in electric communion with your optic nerve; your tongue reacquainting itself with the enamel on your molars. You've been standing there, staring at the multicolored jumble of cans and bottles for... how long now? Ten minutes? Five? Half an hour? Fuck alone knows. It's starting to get light outside, but that doesn't matter. It's always fluorescent in here. But the light—artificial or otherwise—isn't your primary concern. You've got a big responsibility to fulfill, don't you, Mr. Benevolent Boozerun?

You slap a 12 pack down on the counter and decide that you might as well take that liter of tonic, too, just in case there's any gin left. Two packs of Camels, just so they last. But after the ritual double bagging, just before the double beeps of the exit—you act out the same primitive one-act play every week with the guy behind the counter—something makes you turn around, break character, veer off the script.

"It was my birthday, tonight, man," you say. Half a nod back. He isn't the type to be interested in birthdays, but you've stuck your hand somewhere under his face, so he has to shake it. When you finally retire on Sunday night, you'll scream into the pillow remembering that handshake. For now, daylight's breaking, but you know in your bones it's the time of night when the darkness doubles.

The author, right, on a night out that probably led to an afterparty. Doesn't look like anyone's listening to "Marquee Moon" yet.

Ten minutes and two cigarettes later, you're back at the apartment. Nothing's changed in your absence. There are still 15 walls of conversation competing for ears. The dusting of white is a bit thicker on the DVD case, and you do your bit for the collection.

Minutes melt. Hours. Pockets of sincerity are expanding, swelling, ready to swallow and engulf the fragile elephant-on-cheese-wire social compromises in the room. The "Why's he next to her?"s and "I'd love to punch that fucker in the face"s. There are more monologues, some boastful, a few semi-tragic, most of them routine ego splurges straight out of central casting. Then it's your turn. Yeah, the bar's not ultimately where you want to be, but cash in hand, good for tax reasons, you know. Yeah, hours aren't great, but summer's coming, right?

Wrong. Where the fuck is the laptop when you need it? Where are the tunes? There's a clumsy round of pass-the-Toshiba, and it comes to nestle on your lap. The thing is with these nights, they need a soundtrack. Without a soundtrack, they're just noise. Just bad, boring, frustrated noise.

So, what do you put on? There is, as your trendy English lit lecturer told you all those years ago, "no right answer." Except there is. The right answer is "Marquee Moon."

Like any other art form, the post-3 AM YouTube song selection has its own rigid etiquette, its unique set of codes and guidelines. Only the veterans, the masters of the form, are permitted to bend or break them. Get it wrong in the pressure cooker of the weird hours, and you'll become the after-hours Oppenheimer: skeletal reaper, destroyer of vibes.

"Marquee Moon" is a—maybe the—masterpiece of the genre. The essential quality here is length. Anything under five minutes, however appropriate and perfect you think it to be, means a revolving carousel at the touchpad. There are few more effective ways to break the spell of chemical earnestness than to enlist a gaggle of wide-eyed fiends, all convinced of their poise and righteousness, to pick the next tune, leaving what seem like vast oceans of silence between each track. We're always at our best when we don't have to choose, have to think. You don't want your choice to immediately melt into an afterthought. It's got to clock in at long enough to make its mark without inching up to staleness. So swerve the hour-long Fela Kuti epics unless you absolutely have to. Think very carefully before you put on "Maggot Brain." Are you 100 percent sure you're that guy?

Don't, for the love of all things sacred, go down the jokey route. Sticking on "Baby One More Time" or "Mambo No. 5" was fine maybe four hours ago, back when there was still a bit of humor in the room. Look around you now—all the darting eyes, Desperate Dan jaws, and nervous, sweaty hands. The restless asses on faux-leather seats, each under the impression that by squirming and perching they can suppress the powerful urge to lob the coffee table at the wall. This is not the time to joke. This is categorically not a laugh. It's a fucking hostage situation. What do you think the "Cha-Cha Slide" is going to do to this room, full of these freaks, right now?

The author, right, in what looks like a fairly grim situation

"Marquee Moon," or at least the studio version you'll find first on YouTube, runs to 10:40. There are more ideas stuffed into those ten minutes than most of us will have in the duration of our adult lives. There's something in the first minute that's enough to put your ears and teeth on a natural edge. Where do those riffs even think they're going? They seem to be running in different directions. As for the bass, it doesn't seem interested in mediating a reconciliation. It just plods, jogging on the spot, occupying the gaps. It's a start couched in confusion—disjointed, ugly, dysfunctional. It's a sonic divorce, the hard-nut uncle you've always suspected might be harboring satin sheets in his post-divorce bachelor pad. There's a reason Patti Smith described Tom Verlaine's guitar sound as "a thousand bluebirds screaming."

Tom Verlaine. Tom Verlaine's voice is, in diplomatic language, "an acquired taste." None of us are diplomats, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Tom Verlaine's voice sounds like the inside of my waking nightmares. It's an insistent, slightly choked twang both powerful and needy, conjured from somewhere between his nose and his larynx. It's a voice for conversions. It's a vision-sufferer's voice. It's the voice of a mad person with a skill for convincing other mad people to do mad things. It's a tough voice to like, but an easy voice to love.

And the things he uses it to say ("sing" isn't quite right, is it?)—all the gnomic stuff about the darkness doubling, the recollection of lightning striking itself, the vision of the titular marquee moon. The cadillac pulling up to the graveyard. Replace Tom Verlaine's voice, replace the grim insistence of those guitars, and you're perilously close to the realms of a sixth-former writing French symbolist rip-offs to unsuccessfully woo a university-aged lover. Put it all together in the greasy nightmare pot that is "Marquee Moon" and a room past dawn full of coked-up strangers, and you get the poem T.S. Eliot might have written if he'd lived to 90 and moved to Hell's Kitchen for a few skaggy twilight years.

There are better songs, whatever that means. There are better songs for feeling better about yourself, your job, your personal crises, financial chasms, tattered "love" life, and life in general. But, let's face it, there are plenty of better people, leading better, more fulfilling lives than you and all the satanic "friends" that you have packed into this living room, in this God-forsaken apartment, in this God-forgotten corner of a city that will never be home.

It should be easy, surrounded by all these people, by all this noise, to escape being lonely, being scared. But all that noise is just that: noise. And noise can only ever be made by other people. So next time, when the light comes fingering its way through the beige-white blinds, there's only one way to cloak it: with a "Marquee Moon."

Follow Francisco on Twitter.

Read: We Spoke to Charles Manson's Guitarist About Making Art While Serving Time for Murder

Leslie Van Houten was recommended for parole on Thursday after spending nearly half a century in prison for her role in two Manson Family murders, the Associated Press reports.

Van Houten was "numb" when, after a five-hour hearing at the California Institution for Women in Chino, the panel gave her a thumbs-up for release. Her attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, said she's ready for freedom, adding "it really should have happened a long time ago," though the inmate still faces another hurdle or two before getting out.

Commissioner Ali Zarrinnam told Van Houten she's done her time, and that her behavior speaks for itself. "Forty-six years and not a single serious rule violation," he said.

Van Houten wasn't always so well behaved, obviously. On Thursday, she gave a graphic account of how, in 1969, she helped murder Leno and Rosemary La Bianca one day after the Manson Family killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others at her Hollywood estate.

The woman said she helped tie a pillow to Rosemary's head with a lamp cord and held her down while another Manson follower stabbed her. Van Houten then took up the knife and stabbed the woman repeatedly herself.

She was 19 at the time of the murders.

Van Houten would be the first Manson cult member to be released on parole, but the panel's recommendation still faces administrative review, and Governor Jerry Brown has the final say on her release.

Louis Smaldino, the nephew of Leno La Bianca, said Thursday that "the Manson family are terrorists" and pleaded that she remain behind bars.

In the early-2000s, mobile manufacturers tried to make handsets as small as possible. In the 2010s, smartphones were sold on how big their screens were. In 2016, the tide might now be turning once again: Apple's newest phone model, the iPhone SE, boasts a relatively minuscule 4-inch screen. But Apple have some distance to go before they can match the Zanco Fly.

With a 0.66-inch screen, the Fly is apparently the world's smallest mobile phone. It's not the only nanophone in existence, but they're all made by companies you've never heard of, and you won't find them in major electrical retailers. You might, however, find them stuffed among chargers for Nokia 3210s at your local phone unlocking booth, and they're all over Amazon and eBay. They cost about $40.

Some features—like three-day standby—seem rather good. But if you're really wondering what edge these phones have over the latest touchscreen smartphones, try getting a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 up your ass.

Yes: if you hadn't guessed already, these phones are going up prisoners' butt holes.

If you think this sounds like wild extrapolation—after all, lipsticks are around the same size, and you don't get articles about whacking those up your nether regions—have a look at how some of these phones are sold. Many, for instance, claim to be 100 percent plastic, or come with a "beat the BOSS" tagline, which is to say they claim to be undetectable by body orifice scanners.

The full range of Xekü BOSS scanners, screengrab via

Amazon customer reviews for various brown-phones range from the subtle to the straightforward. One reviewer reports that the phone is "very small and easy/painless to hide," but is concerned that this model isn't 100 percent plastic, so won't necessarily beat the BOSS. They give the phone just one star, "as I imagine that most people will want a phone like this for a certain purpose."

Another user, Sean, is more blunt. In a five star review deemed "helpful" by 23 people, he notes: "No anal problems!!! Didn't hurt my bum at all thanks guys :)"

Similar phones were in the news back in 2013 when handsets shaped like BMW key fobs—also largely plastic, and in a convenient pellet shape—appeared. Those keyfob phones are apparently illegal now—if only due to trademark infringement of that BMW logo—but phones in prisons remain a big problem. In January it was reported that seizures of mobile phones had hit a new high in England and Wales: almost 10,000 phones or SIMs had been confiscated in one 12-month period, significantly outnumbering drugs confiscations.

"Phones are everywhere," says former inmate Carl Cattermole, whose prison survival guide at prisonism.co.uk provides a fascinating insight into life behind bars. "Staff bring them in, or you could buy one from another inmate by doing them a favor or giving them something, or you phone up someone outside and they pay cash to someone else. People normally use them in their cell with people looking out, but it gets to the point where people are just using them in the changing rooms for the gym like it's the outside world."

Carl adds that cavity searches do occur on your way into prison, so bumphones might not be practical when you're on your way in, but there are plenty of other ways to get things into prisons. Having stuff chucked over a wall is one spectacularly basic method; going fishing is another—last year someone was given two-and-a-half years for tying drugs, a knife, and a McMuffin to fishing line that a prisoner was hanging out of a window. But regardless of how they get in, once phones are inside the prison, they need to stay hidden.

Phones up butts are frequently reported in the news. Last summer, for instance, a guy beginning a 16-month stretch for fraud was found with a phone, plus charger, up his ass. This February, a triple killer in a New South Wales maximum security prison went on hunger strike for 12 days in an attempt not to eject a phone detected by a BOSS unit (the phone eventually emerged on February 25). A year before that, the butthole of a guy being admitted to HMP Manchester was found to contain four mobiles, four sim cards, and four chargers. Then there's André Silva, whose anus was the portal to an Aladdin's Cave of contraband: according to one report, Silva's back passage contained "two mobile phones, two batteries, pliers, two drills, eight pieces of a hacksaw, five nails, and three SIM cards."

Those, of course, are just the phones that have been found, and perhaps that's where these $40 buttphones come in; they're not only hard to detect, they're quick and easy to get hidden, too. Obviously it's possible to get reasonably large items up your bottom, otherwise fisting wouldn't be such a popular hobby, but for the purposes of easy storage and retrieval, you're going to want to go as small as possible. "Things like iPhones are rare in prison," Cattermole says. "Most phones go up a bum at some point or another, so fuck an iPhone 6 Plus, or, rather, don't. You'd look like Spongebob Squarepants: a rectangle with limbs hanging off. Having said that, I knew a dwarf who plugged a Blackberry."

And yes, on one hand it's all very amusing that some fella's doing his best not to shit out the latest Samsung. Equally, if someone told you that you couldn't speak to your loved ones whenever you wanted, you'd probably do the same. Christ—considering the blind panic most of us experience when our battery drops below 30 percent, we'd probably be eyeing up the lube if we were facing a single day without Facebook. "I think this is something you don't understand unless you've been to jail," says Carl. "It's the emotional segregation. I'd find a way to put a phonebox up my bum if it meant staying in contact with my loved ones."

Some of the uses may be innocent—last year, two prisoners at HMP Birmingham were given an extra nine months each for shooting a rap video while inside—but it'd be naive to think there's nothing dodgy going on. "Predictably, people also organize crime on the outside," says Carl. "Just like El Chapo still ran the biggest drug cartel in the world from his prison cell, Phil from Gartree will use a mobile to organize his mates to carry on doing whatever it is they do."

One remaining question is whether buttphones actually work properly. My first step is to buy one off Amazon—the phone works on all networks except 3, and considering 3's main pull is free international roaming that'll probably be fine for all but the most ambitious prisoner.

The logical next step would be an unsavory hands-on, phone-in personal odyssey, but nothing of note's been up my butthole for the best part of a decade and things aren't about to change now, so it's off to the grocery store.

As you can see, a chocolate ring donut allows ample room for maneuver:

And how about the cavity test? Well, the guy at the Sainsbury's meat counter couldn't help with "the nearest thing to a human bottom," so I just had to go for a chicken. In many ways, this is the classic of the cavity world. In went the phone.

GREAT NEWS: I'm pleased to report that having been left overnight, the butth still worked the following morning.

But are these phones explicitly made for anal retention, or are they just like aluminum foil: made for one thing, occasionally used for another?

I tried to track down the company that made my phone, but given the subtle phrasing—or explicit claims—made by some resellers, it's perhaps unsurprising that the people behind these phones are hard to track down. My model, the Zanco Fly phone, is apparently made by Zini Mobiles Ltd, a company established in the UK in 2013, but struck off and dissolved last summer. It was registered to a forwarding address with just one director, who still appears to be selling the phone through online trading site Alibaba (minimum order: 3,000), where Zini is listed as a British company whose purported total annual revenue exceeds $100 million. Other online sources claim Zini employ, or employed, over 300 people.

Eventually I manage to speak with a Adam, a guy in Birmingham who started flogging these phones on eBay, then built the website smallestmobilephones.co.uk. He's dealt with Zini, and is keen to point out that his own website contains "nothing about prisons and nothing about arseholes." But does he know how the phones are being used?

"We don't say nothing to nobody about that," he tells me. "If that's what they want to do, they can, but we've never tested the phones to see if they set off those scanners; some of them are mainly plastic, but they're not going to be 100 percent plastic—they still need to have a circuit board."

Adam's endearingly frank about some of the phones: while the Zini phone's pretty good, one of the others is "not very good, to be honest," and when it comes to batteries, he adds that some manufacturers "don't exactly put the best stuff in there." For that reason, he urges caution on the butt front.

"Mate," he laughs. "If someone rang me and said, 'I'm going to put one of these up my arsehole,' I'd say don't. I've heard of people saying they've had some of these small phones on charge and they've blown up." He adds, by way of comfort: "But it won't make a big explosion."

I don't know how to break it to Adam that one of my unwritten—until now—life rules is that it's best to avoid any sort of explosion, big or otherwise, in the ass area. I'd say that's a fairly straightforward rule to live by. That said, I might keep my buttphone within easy reach: I illegally downloaded a lot of music back in the day, and you never know how things might pan out.

Follow Peter on Twitter.

How does this man still have a job? Photo via Facebook.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is questioning why a Progressive Conservative MPP still has his job despite having made gross, sexist jokes in public and, more recently, being caught faking endorsements on his website.

Frankly, we should all be a little concerned that the walking public relations nightmare that is Jack MacLaren is holding public office.

MacLaren's poor taste came into question when, at a March cancer fundraiser held in his Ottawa riding Carleton-Mississippi Mills, he made fun of Liberal MP Karen McCrimmon's sex life in front of the crowd of 350 people. After calling McCrimmon, one of the few women in attendance, up to the mic, MacLaren reportedly quipped, "I'm not getting behind you" and proceeded to joke about her sex life with her husband, leaving guests stunned into silence.

About two weeks later, he sent McCrimmon an apology, though he didn't publicly admit he fucked up.

But then again, judging from audio clips that surfaced Friday, in which MacLaren is heard at last year's fundraiser telling anecdotes of a similar nature to roaring applause, he was really just staying on brand.

The highlight reel, obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, includes granddad jokes like, "My wife and I don't think alike—she donates money to the homeless and I donate money to the topless" and a description of a 50-year-old woman's breasts as "like onions... you see them and they make you cry."

He also told a story about a married couple, in which the husband says, "All I wanted to do is fuck your brains out and suck your tits dry," and then, after seeing his wife naked, adds, "It looks like I did a pretty good job."

As if all that weren't bad enough, this week MacLaren also fessed up to posting bullshit constituent endorsements on his website. The photos featured beside said endorsements were actually stock pictures and the names used weren't real, according to the Citizen. MacLaren claimed he was making shit up to "protect the privacy" of those supposedly giving him positive feedback. (I wouldn't want to be outed as one of his supporters, either.)

Wynne told reporters MacLaren's conduct "fuels misogyny" and that she probably would've booted him from the Liberal caucus. But PC leader Patrick Brown has only demoted MacLaren from being the PC caucus eastern Ontario representative.

If he ever does get fired, though, I'm sure Ottawa Lions clubs would be glad to have him do standup.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

They sat in the centre of the poorly lit bar when we walked in.

We had been instructed to meet at Cranberries Lounge in the Edmonton Radisson Hotel for 7 PM. The group was twelve or so strong, with about half of the crew wearing shirts with the insignia of a Norse man with a Canadian flag for a beard.

Emblazoned on the front, with a biker-like design, was "SOO."

The two of us were the last to arrive and after shaking hands with the leader, a man named William, he called for the meeting to move over to the pool table.

It was time to introduce the newbies to the established members of the Edmonton chapter of the Soldiers of Odin.

The international group has been described as everything from a far-right vigilante group and neo-Nazis—two descriptions they actively dispute—to heroes keeping the streets clean. Despite its historic name, the club has a very short history, forming in October of 2015 in the small northern Finnish town of Kemi as a response to an influx of migrants. It's since expanded to many more towns and countries across Europe.

At the heart of all of these cells exists a burning anti-immigration sentiment.

The group gained infamy for their patrols, group events where they gather and march through the snowy streets of Finland as a show of intimidation to the refugees. There haven't been any reported acts of violence; the group has publicly stated they consider the patrols "observe-and-report styled patrols" but, if necessary, they will "come to the defense of anyone who may need us."

Petteri Orpo, the Finnish interior minister, has said that the group harbours obvious racist and anti-immigration sentiments, that their actions "do not improve security," and that police have to waste resources monitoring them.

Now, the group named for the Norse god of death and war (but also wisdom and culture) has come to Canada.

The badge for the Canadian chapter of Soldiers of Odin (photo via Facebook)

The Roots of Odin

Operating in a structure very similar to a motorcycle club, the group has opened chapters in Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, British Columbia, and possibly more in the past two months.

This was only the second meeting of the Edmonton chapter. One of the Ontario chapters only held its first meeting earlier this month, and others are still figuring a date out.

In the club's Canadian charter, they explain its reasoning for forming in the great white north:

"Between the allowing of illegal aliens into this country and giving them the ability to vote and drive, accepting refugees from countries that hate us while Canadians are on the streets, releasing confirmed terrorists back to their organizations to cause more harm against Canada, and demonizing anything that has to do with European Culture to try and create racial tensions to turn citizens on one another; we as Soldiers Of Odin realize that it is time to take back our streets, provinces, and country."

The Finnish founder of Soldiers of Odin, Mika Ranta, is a self-described neo-Nazi who has a history of violence against migrants and was convicted in 2005 for a racially motivated assault against migrants. Ranta has said that even though the group was formed by him, the views he expresses don't reflect the group as a whole.

"White Supremacists are welcome to join the Odins, but only five percent of Odins hold these views," Ranta told the Daily Mail in February.

"On the other hand, not a single one strongly disagrees."

The Daily Mail, which gained access to a Finnish cell, reported that the clubhouse they saw was filled with Nazi memorabilia and there was open talk about ethnic cleansing (though, not everyone agreed on the subject).

Photo via Facebook

Infiltrating the Alberta Cell

The group in Edmonton, on the surface, didn't seem to be nearly as extreme as their Finnish brethren. Instead, they were extremely concerned with image and preached strict adherence to their charter. At one point, one of the leaders hinted at why this is the case.

"The guys in Europe, they're dealing with some real shit, we might not see that here for ten or so years. When that happens we want to look as good as possible."

While they assured the group that patrols will happen, the meeting focused primarily on volunteerism at a local homeless shelter and cleaning up garbage. The men around the pool table seemed dedicated to staying on the straight and narrow.

"We're not criminals, and we're not fucking vigilantes," William told to the group.

Edmonton's Soldiers of Odin is made up of men who said they love Canada "the way it is." The men were nice, charming at times, to my friend and I—albeit we were two white men—but it was also obvious that these were not men to cross.

They came from all sorts of backgrounds: truck drivers, retired army men, riggers. One of the members claimed two cops had joined the BC chapter a few days ago.

There was camaraderie in the air.

A post of burning mosque and the response by members of the Edmonton chapter's closed page (image via Facebook)

Like many organizations, the chapters organize and primarily recruit online.

When I initially tried to join the group, I was blocked almost immediately. I decided to see if I could get in with a different profile. I created one with a stock Soldiers of Odin profile pic and used a promotional photo of the notoriously racist band Skrewdriver as a cover photo.

I gained access to three chapters within an hour; I was invited to the meeting within two.

Canadian Racism

While the group publicly states that they are not a racist group, in the group's closed Facebook page, anti-Islamic sentiment is strong and makes up the vast majority of posts.

A post in the Alberta chapter's Facebook group was an article about the arson of a mosque in San Bernardino: Three comments below it read "Good work," "Only 20,000 more to go," and "Hopefully it was full."

Two of the specific points in the Canadian charter, section 14 and 16, specifically outlaw racism and "religion bashing." It goes on to say "once you put on the Odin's Head you leave it all at the door and can pick it up when you take off the Odin's Head."

The Finnish chapter has said that personal views aren't of concern to the group as long as members follow the rules.

The people behind the website "Anti-racist Canada" found that several members, including higher-ups in some chapters, either are, or have ties to, white supremacists—some are connected to Blood & Honour and the Creativity Movement.

Amira Elghawaby of the National Council of Canadian Muslims explains that this isn't the first time that a foreign anti-immigration, or anti-Islamic, group has come to Canada and tried to establish itself. She references the anti-Islamic group Pegida that came here but couldn't find any traction. She says that "gives a lot of Canadians a lot of hope."

Elghawaby cites stories like the Ontario community of Peterborough rallying around the Muslim community after a mosque was torched, and people gathering to clean up after someone spraypainted "Go Home" on a local mosque in Cold Lake, Alberta.

"I think there are positive stories all around us but... there's a negative sentiment," said Elghawaby. "An Angus Reid poll came out last March that showed 44 percent of Canadians held a negative view of Muslims. That is a significant number of Canadians."

"They're a minority, but they're a sizable minority."

Statistics Canada published its latest numbers regarding hate crimes earlier in this week. The numbers show a stark increase of hate crimes perpetrated against Muslims, doubling in three years from 45 per year to 99.

Canada has taken in around 25,000 Syrian refugees, which, like in Finland, is the spark that ignited the movement and keeps it burning. The Belgian attacks, Cologne sex assaults, and, specific to Canada, the embarrassing Chronicle Herald debacle has only added fuel to the flames.

The Soldiers of Odin supporter group released this image of their breakdown of Ontario. Image via Facebook

Organizational Rules

With IRL meetings already happening, the group has clearly benefited from having an organizational structure to build off. The group is broken up into two divisions per province. Each one of those sections will have a division leader who will report to the national president. If the section is large enough, there will be regional leaders. Every section, including the national charter, will have a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and sergeant at arms, which should be familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of Sons of Anarchy.

The group's charter outlines a strict "prospect" process to become a member, which includes complete obedience:

"Membership qualification number eight—prospects must do anything another member tells him to do, that a member has done or would be willing to do himself."

The charter lists many rules for the club, such as a minimum age of 18, that "if you go to jail for some reason, notify an officer or member so he can try to arrange for your bail," and that "the only altercations tolerated by this group are self-defense scenarios."

The group also demands complete silence about the club. Unsurprisingly, ranked Canadian members of Soldiers of Odin did not respond to VICE for comment.

Where Will Odin Go Now?

It's hard to say where the group will go from here and if Canada will see group of burly men, raised on biker shows, vigilante comics, and right-wing anti-immigration media, patrolling its suburban streets.

All I know is the wannabe Soldiers of Odin I've met made me deeply uncomfortable and nervous.

Under the pool lights in the hotel lounge, the group chatted openly with each other about how they've talked to the Hells Angels and other biker groups about their patch, and how it might be too similar to other designs. At the end of the meeting, the chapter head pointed at my friend and I and told us they would need to see some ID so we can prove we were over 25—a rule particular to Edmonton.

"It's always safe to check, if we find out people are too young or aren't who they say, it's never good," he said.

"Yeah, we might have to show up at someone's house," joked the man to the right of him.

This shook us up immediately. We'd given them fake names, so we lied and said that we left our IDs in our vehicle—a rather suspicious thing to do in a bar.

Looking at us closely, he nodded and told us he "would follow us to the truck" at the end of the meeting to check. A few minutes later, the group called for a smoke break and the two of us said we were going to grab a beer and meet them out there.

The minute they were out of sight we fled through the kitchen. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Soldiers-Of-Odin-Canada-Bylaws.docx by SOO

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Video still from 'The Kitchen,' 2016 (courtesy of Gallery 44)

What is it like to have a grandmother who underwent CIA mind control experiments? For Sarah Anne Johnson, a Winnipeg-based artist who has been making time-based work on this subject for the past ten years, it's gaining a better understanding of the unpredictable mood swings and abrupt temper tantrums she grew up with.

Whitney Bell, next to her wall of dick pics. All photos courtesy of Whitney Bell

Warning: This article contains a lot of photos of dicks.

Ah, the unsolicited dick pic. Technology has made it all too tempting for men's penises to pop up on a woman's phone while she's reading on the train or walking home from work. This is a fairly recent invention, because who would've taken their rolls of film to the local drug store to get their dick pics developed? But now that everyone has a camera phone, dick pics are ubiquitous, despite the fact that most women really, really don't want them.

Whitney Bell is one of these women. Last weekend, she premiered her Los Angeles–based art show "I Didn't Ask For This: A Lifetime of Dick Pics," which showcased the magnitude of the unsolicited dick pics she's received.

Upon entering through the exhibit's front doors, I noticed white walls adorned with framed art, like a traditional art gallery, where work from 30 contributing artists was displayed. Behind another door, Bell had recreated her home, where framed dick pics hung around her stuff. About 200 dicks, to be exact. Bell said she wanted the unsolicited dick pics presented this way to show exactly how pervasive they are. Even when she's alone, in the privacy of her own home, she's not safe.

We sat down on her couch, pretending it was her actual living room, and got to talking about everything dick—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

VICE: So tell me how this all started.
Whitney Bell: It all sort of began with a really beautiful dick shadow picture I was sent by a guy I was seeing. I sent it to one of my friends who said, "That picture is so beautiful it should be in a museum." That's when I thought of having a gallery of dick pics.

Wait, the inspiration for this came from a dick pic that you actually thought was beautiful?
Yes! The thing is, this isn't dick-hating or man-hating. I love a good dick. I just don't love harassment. That's what this needs to start being seen as. All of these dicks are unsolicited. They didn't come from requests. I've asked for dick pics personally. But I don't want to see a dick from some guy I've never met, or someone I went on one date with when it's not condoned.

How did you get all these pictures?
Most of the photos were sent to me and other women unsolicited. I reached out to women I know, feminist organizations, and spent a little bit of time on Chatroulette and Reddit, talking to these guys who send them. I was on Reddit mainly to talk to these guys—to gather some knowledge about why they do it, trying to learn the psychology behind the dick pics—but once the doors to that conversation were open, a lot of men just sent the pictures, without any provocation. And on Chatroulette, the dicks were just there, sort of shoved in your face. All the photos on display here were sent unsolicited.

Whitney Bell's recreated living room. Photo by Michael Mendoza for Rony's Photobooth

Why do they do it? Did you find anything startling?
It's really what I thought it would be. All harassment. It's not about sex. It's about power. It's about these guys wanting to exert that control. These guys, they get off knowing that they forced some girl to see it. They know that girl is not going to turn around and say, "Let's go on a date."

It's not a pick up. It's like screaming at a woman from a car. You're just doing this because you can, and because the world has taught you that that's OK.

To be expected, even.
Yes, and that's something I would like feminism to change. I think a lot of people view feminism as this aggressive thing when in reality, all it is is equality. That women are equal to men, and in the same right, men are equal to women. This patriarchy that says men can't control themselves and all they can do are these lewd advances, that they can't help but harass women, is wrong. It's feminism that holds that men are more than that. They're better than that. That's what I want to show.

Do men try to defend these dick pics by talking about times they've received unsolicited, I don't know, tit pics? Does that even happen?
Here's the thing about that, because I've thought about this too: When I get a dick pic from a guy I'm dating, generally it's like some body. It's not just a close up of his taint. When women send sexy photos, I'm not spreading my labia. No one wants that. I feel like that's the difference. These are just focused on the penis, and that's the aggressive part. I do think there is a difference between a woman sending a scantily clad picture versus a guy sending one. It's systematic. It's not that women can't sexually harass men—

It's just different.
Yes, it's different. When it's unwanted, and when it's to exert your control, that's when it's bad. It's harassment.

How many unsolicited dick pics do you think you've gotten?
About four years ago, I had a ridiculous prank pulled on me, and for months, I was getting unsolicited dick pics from private emails. I thought I had some weird porn virus or something. Finally, after four months of this, I was visiting my friend in San Francisco, and she asked if I had been getting any weird emails and I was like, "Funnily enough, yes I have." Turns out any time a man had asked her for a sexy picture on OkCupid she said, "pic for pic," and sent them my email address. That's definitely what sort of spurned my hatred for the dick pics. But I don't have any of those photos anymore; I deleted those emails immediately.

"I love a good dick. I just don't love harassment." — Whitney Bell

There are some interesting dicks on display here. Do you think these men actually think their dick pics look good? Like, what's going on in this one?
That's his thumb, I think. Strangling his dick. My friend said that one looked like a ball of dough with a toupee on it. This one was DM'd to me on Instagram, which meant I could click on his profile and see his whole life. His wife and his children. His face is in the actual picture, but I had to remove it for this.

Wow. So obviously the internet has made dick pics easier to send, but do you think there's anything more to account for the rise of this?
Yeah, it's definitely the anonymity guys feel behind technology now. Even if that's not true, it feels more anonymous than flashing on the subway. Guys who would probably never do that have the balls to do it now behind the guise of their phone or computer.

It's just because they can. I think that's it. These guys have never had anyone call them out on their abusive, harassing behavior before. They feel like there are no consequences. Now I'm trying to show maybe there are.

Do you think there should be a punishment for this sort of thing?
Yes. It is indecent exposure, and I understand it will likely never happen that it's put into law, but I do think these men need to be held accountable.

Like shaming?
Right. That's what I'm trying to do—shame them. The internet gives people the ability to be their worst selves if they want to be. A lot of dudes just don't think it through, because they don't need to. No one ever told them that they can't act like this. That applies to more than just dick pics. We're taught as women to protect ourselves and to avoid things, but men aren't taught about consent.

What would you tell a woman to do in this situation, when she receives an unwanted dick pic?
Send back a picture of a better looking dick.

I Didn't Ask For This: A Lifetime of Dick Pics will be on view at Rhabbitat in Los Angeles through April 17.

Follow Alison on Twitter.

Mike Diver and Emma Quinlan have both been playing the new Ratchet & Clank, on PlayStation 4. It's a reimagining of the first title in the Insomniac Games-created series, released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2, and also ties into the imminent arrival of the debut movie to star the space-traveling Lombax and his robot friend, in cinemas at the end of April. It's also really, really good. The game, that is. The film? Who can say? Anyway, here's Mike and Emma chatting about one of the year's best video games, so far.

Mike Diver: Hey, Emma. How much of the game have you seen, so far? I'm quite near the end, and I'm completely surprised by just how much I've loved the experience. I appreciate that video games have changed in many ways since the first Ratchet & Clank came out in 2002, that the ways in which we use the interactive medium to tell stories and stir emotions has come on leaps and bounds. But, you know, some days all I want to do is smash crates with a wrench and splat gooey enemies in the sewers of a fantastical sci-fi city. And this new R&C totally delivers those more, I suppose, base thrills, albeit in a way that feels very now in terms of how it's presented, its packaging. Basically, it looks and sounds amazing. What are your first impressions of the game?

Emma Quinlan: I've played four or five hours so far, and I love it. I certainly know what you mean about wanting to just hit things with a wrench. That we have such expensive worlds and rich, thought-provoking stories in video games now is awesome; but sometimes you do just want to have some fun, as well as a few laughs. And this game has certainly given a lot of that, me so far.

It does look and sound great, but what I most like about it is how they've stuck to the roots of the original game, while also revamping it. For example, the way the story is told in this one is great, as are the new weapons. It's a fine reboot and I sincerely hope that in the future, a few more classic platformers will get the same sterling treatment that this has.

MD: You mention how they've stuck to the original game's roots, and I see that. But what I like about this R&C is how it stirs nostalgia without being a slave to it. Someone in game development tweeted me the other day, Moo Yu, one of the people making Knights & Bikes, and said how it "matches my memory rather than the reality I experienced," and that it was "nostalgia in the best way," and I totally agree. It's like Insomniac themselves have thought about what player's takeaway impressions of those earlier games was like, unlimited by the technology of the time. Which I think is probably why this game is so eye-popping, because it completely has to live up to those images you keep in your long-term mind's eye.

"Retro gaming" is such a stupid sector of the industry for the most part, with recycled tech given new skins—see that Spectrum handheld—and people charging extortionate prices for old games because grown adults with a little paper in their purses suddenly want to regress to being 11 again. But this R&C achieves nostalgia without pandering to restriction, without going down the throwback art route, or relying too heavily on fourth-wall breaking winks and nudges—although I accept it does have its share. Already, this is a game that both myself and my five-year-old son can enjoy together, albeit him on easy mode, because it's a bit tough sometimes, eh?

How do you feel about its realizing of these quite intangible memories, and what precedent it really might strike for other studios to follow, in bringing back old franchises and IPs?

EQ: I see what you mean. It's not so nostalgic that it's a complete redo of the original, but rather it feels like a game that celebrates what makes the franchise as a whole so enjoyable. I've played three Ratchet & Clank games in my life and it does feel like the experience I had with all of them, especially Tools of Destruction; but it also feels new and fresh, which is why I'm so drawn to it. They've not charged money for an old game with a paint job, which is what many do now, and I agree that that aspect of retro gaming does suck sometimes.

While playing I certainly thought about how my little cousin, who's eight, would love to play this just as much as I am. But yes, on easy, as it's not a game you can just jump blindly into. As soon as I started playing though, I knew the controls immediately. It was like I'd never left the game, which is an amazing considering I haven't played an R&C title in about seven or eight years.

As for its precedent in bringing back old franchises, I think this R&C should be held up as an example of how you should bring old games and characters back into the current gaming fold. I think this game also shows that the 3D platformer genre, a genre which I grew up with and one that I think is sorely missed right now, still has relevance—but you need to do it right. Imagine if Crash Bandicoot got the same treatment as this, or Jak and Daxter. It'd be amazing, and they would sell.

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Related: Watch 'Street Fighter V: KO Dreams,' co-created with Capcom

MD: I think it definitely opens the possibilities of more publishers looking at their 3D platformed IPs of old—Crash Bandicoot is a good example, as we've not had one since 2008—and reviving them. Perhaps there's been the thinking in recent years, certainly in this console generation, that platformers are the preserve of Nintendo, that they're "kids games." R&C disproves this, completely.

You mention there's freshness to this experience versus previous ones—what elements, exactly, stand out for you that, in the contemporary market, might qualify as USPs for this new R&C? I love the zesty dialogue, the self-referential humor—it almost has that Pixar thing going on, of being for parents and their children, simultaneously. Albeit mercifully without the awful puns of previous games, for the most part.

EQ: Absolutely. Just look at some of the jokes in Ratchet & Clank for example, such as the references to "herbal remedies." A kid wouldn't, or shouldn't, know what that means, and so it gives older players their own things to laugh at. Like it reminds you of Pixar, it reminds me of The Simpsons: a bit tongue in cheek, although not to the cartoon's extent. I think there's an adult and kid crossover market for these games definitely, but through new reimaginations like this, not just a $10 PSN game that lets you go back to being 12 for a while.

MD: Also, R&C seems to have flown mostly under the radar in Sony's Big New Shiny Things For 2016 plans, going into the year. I didn't really know much about it until I played some preview code in March, and loved it. Do you reckon Sony have another semi-sleeper hit on their hands? It's a little reminiscent of Until Dawn—I don't think the powers that be at PlayStation really appreciated what they had until after the game was out, and that window for publicity, for pre-release hype, had all but closed.

EQ: I think this will be a word of mouth game, with news spreading fast about it when it comes out. The reviews have been hugely positive and with the price tag not being on the steep side, I think PlayStation have a big hit on their hands.

The humor is certainly a big pull for it, because that's something I think many modern games lack. I really like the weapon leveling system and I can't wait to get my hands on this Pixelizer I've heard about, which changes enemies into pixels. That sounds awesome. In general, I like that it doesn't take itself too seriously, which I think platformers when I was growing up were really good it. It is just straight-up fun, with an easy plot line, easy controls, silly weapons, and it's not trying to convey a message or make a statement about anything. It's just fun.

MD: The Pixelizer has become my close-quarters weapon of choice, hitting the game's final stages. The humor and inventiveness in the game's arsenal is second to none, and while a small aspect of the overall "package," it serves as a compact illustration, a crystallizing of the attention to detail that Insomniac's put into this. And that they're charging a "cheaper" RRP than usual for it is such a bonus—it's under £30 on Amazon, which seems ridiculous when you compare the richness of this against so many other, premium-priced alternatives.

EQ: It sounds awesome, I can't wait to use it. It seems like they've also listened to what the fans want as well, with weapons such as the (enemies-hypnotizing disco ball) Groovitron making their way back into the fold, a weapon I adored in Tools of Destruction. I think the price tag is a really reasonable: it's not a completely new game, but it's expansive enough to warrant a decent enough price tag, which I think 30 quid is.

MD: And on that "richness," the variety of the worlds you visit is genuinely astounding. Okay, so they confirm to long-established game clichés—here's a volcanic world, here's a watery one; here's the Star Wars-style megalopolis that's stretched across an entire planet. What scenes have struck you so far, in your play through? Going outside in space, with Clank, was one time I stopped and just drank in what was on the screen. One of many, to be honest. It's a screenshot sharer's delight. I'm not sure there are many better-looking games on the PS4 right now.

EQ: The ones that have stuck in my head are being on the train and when shooting down the ship near the Hall of Heroes. The gameplay for both scenes were great, and the metropolis scenery around me was gorgeous. The sound is also great. I like how the music adapts to the situations you're in, the upbeat and harsher tones of battle really adding to the whole experience. And I agree, I don't think the PS4 has a better looking game, or the Xbox One for that matter. But it also has substance—the game's prettiness lures you in, but the awesome gameplay keeps you playing.

MD: Any final, summarizing thoughts on the game? I mean, this is going to be right up there with 2016's best, isn't it? That's not just Old People Getting Misty Eyed, is it? Because I am one of those. But I think it's great game for the here and now, too. And I really want to get back on it, ASAP, so if we could just go ahead and wrap up this conversation, that'd be great.

EQ: So far, my PS4 has provided me with my two favorite games of the year: this and Firewatch. It's a genuinely wonderful game in its own right and while, yes, it has some great nostalgic merit, you certainly don't need to be an old fan to enjoy this. I can't wait to get back onto it. It's one of those games that you can finish in a few days because it's just too good to put down. Take note other developers: this is how you make old franchises not just relevant, but great again.

Ratchet & Clank is released for PlayStation 4 on April 22. Find more information at the game's official website.

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This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

German satirist Jan Böhmermann is deeply immersed in some proverbial hot water. The German state granted the Turkish government's demand to potentially prosecute the comedian for reading his insulting poem about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on German public TV—and the international scandal known as the "Böhmermann affair" has entered its second round.

We don't know what the outcome will be for Böhmermann, but the irreverent joker—whose poem said Erdoğan likes to "fuck goats and suppress minorities, kick Kurds, hit Christians, and watch child pornography"—may have set in motion a process that will ultimately grant him and everyone else in Germany greater freedom of speech. Towards the end of her statement on Böhmermann, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced that the government considers the law under which the comedian is to be prosecuted "superfluous," and will abolish it by 2018.

The history of the law in question, which centers on insults hurled at representatives of foreign governments and requires the German state to grant a foreign nation's request for prosecution, goes back almost 150 years. It originated in the offense of lèse-majesté—meaning an insult to the dignity of a reigning sovereign—which was included in the penal code of the German Reich at its foundation in 1871. It wasn't actually illegal to insult anyone but a foreign king or queen, so Germans were free to lay into Prime Minister Gladstone, as long as they kept their mouths shut about Queen Vicky.

After World War II, the law's scope was expanded to include all foreign heads of state. But the first time that paragraph 103 of the penal code was invoked, it was still about royal dignity: the British occupying force forbade the publication of German magazine Der Spiegel for a week in 1949 after it had reported on Dutch Queen Juliana's accession to the throne "in a generally insulting tone."

The paragraph only really became well known to Germans in the 1960s, when it was nicknamed "the Shah paragraph" because the Shah of Iran just couldn't stop feeling offended during his visits to Germany and kept demanding criminal prosecution under the law. In 1964, for example, a Cologne newspaper published a photo montage that depicted the Shah selling his wife to the Saudi king.

When a mightily offended Shah demanded justice, the German government agreed to prosecute and the newspaper editors were ordered to pay fines. But the Persian autocrat kept getting his royal knickers in a twist so often that the German government couldn't be bothered to investigate every single case. When, in a show of solidarity, thousands of Germans reported themselves for "insulting the Shah," the courts were overwhelmed and had to drop most of the charges.

After that, the archaic law wasn't invoked for a while, until people almost forgot it existed. It was only in 1975, when protesters displayed a banner outside the Chilean embassy calling the government of dictator Pinochet a "gang of murderers," that the law was applied again. The protesters didn't face charges, but the banner had to be taken down.

Since then, the law has largely been gathering dust. Every so often, German authorities dig it back up, to threaten people who went so far as to call George W. Bush "obviously insane" and "bloodthirsty," or those who condemned Chinese president Li as a "murderer." But since the foreign politicians never actually complained, the paragraph didn't apply.

WATCH: Inside the Strange, Psychic World of Indigo Children

The last time in German history the law was discussed—which now may well turn out to be the final time—was in 2006. Munich police officers stopped a float at the Christopher Street Day parade that showed an image of a grinning Pope Benedict XVI holding up a condom and sporting rainbow streaks in his hair. Investigations came to a halt pretty quickly, one of the reasons being that the image was obviously intended as satirical criticism of the pope's views on condoms.

As this little summary of its history shows, the law has never been particularly useful. It's also rather obvious that it has mostly been used against people who criticize autocrats and dictators at a time when the German government is trying to make nice with them. In that sense, Jan Böhmermann is in good historical company. Though he's likely to be the only case in history whose name is associated with the word "goatfucker."

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK

I don't particularly like David Cameron. I don't like that his party's dismantling our education system; that cuts he's supported have pushed up poverty levels; that he defended the bedroom tax after a court found it to be unlawful, facilitated cuts to support for people living with disabilities, and left a generation with little prospect of comfortably getting by.

When the Panama Papers leak revealed that "Dodgy Dave" had benefited from offshore tax arrangements, I didn't like him even more. Finding out that the bloke who's told a nation we can't afford a welfare state has benefited from his father's dodgy offshore tax arrangements, and not bothered to pay his share got me fuming.

At last Saturday's #ResignDavidCameron demonstration I chanted and sneered too, shouting desperately outside a hotel where Cameron was speaking, as his audience gleefully laughed off his difficult week.

On Saturday, April 16, we'll be marching through London again, pissing off taxi drivers, confusing tourists and adding our voices to the national anti-austerity demo called months before any of this tax business kicked off. It would be all too easy to keep on focusing our anger on #ResignDavidCameron, but we can't let this distract us from what's actually going on.

When thousands line up in London for the People's Assembly's march, we'll be standing alongside those on the front lines of Tory austerity. There'll be the student nurses who risk having their bursaries cut, meaning they'll be paying the government for the pleasure of working 12-hour night shifts. There'll be junior doctors who feel they've been given no other option than to strike, vilified by ministers and the press for trying to secure a future for our NHS. There'll be teachers, steel workers, students, migrants, and social workers all out to say enough is enough on behalf of the thousands of people reliant on food banks and the 53 per cent of us who struggle to pay the rent.

Right now we're seeing the Tories go into overdrive, privatizing schools, shackling the unions, and letting refugees die in the sea. Even Iain Duncan Smith couldn't hack it.

If we let the anti-austerity movement be consumed solely by Cameron-bashing, there's a real risk that nothing will change. When Dave and his chums gained their Parliamentary majority last year, it wasn't because voters thought he was just a bloke like us off the street.

We'd watched him saunter into Parliament practically in white tie and tails; we'd seen the Bullingdon Club pictures and read about the cash-for-access donor parties. This Eton-educated, Oxbridge-graduate, in-it for-himself-and-his-mates Prime Minister was nothing new. The pig allegations came as more of a surprise, admittedly, but that's neither here nor there.

We've been lumbered with this smarmy cabinet because there wasn't a cohesive movement demanding social change, forcing inequality onto the political agenda, and offering something both hopeful and new.

READ: Here's Why You Should Give a Shit About the Panama Papers

If there's one thing we've learnt from the political and economic crisis in Europe over the past few years, it's that changing our society for the better will be reliant on a mass movement of people taking control, and not just lamenting how awful our individual political leaders are. Abi Wilkinson's organization of last weekend's protest is one example of how much that can pay off, but we shouldn't lose focus or momentum.

When Cameron's time is finally up, a campaign for his resignation will then be moot. The prized "dead cat" strategy—distracting us with a single dire act while everything else falls out of focus—is in play. Dave's resignation calls are well and good, but it won't stop the government fighting other world leaders to keep tax evasion afloat.

Saturday's march for health, homes, jobs, and education needs to be focused on these real, progressive aims. The rent strikes, the squatted libraries, the Westfield die-ins, and the mass demands that make us a bit harder to ignore.

I dislike David Cameron, but I hate what he's done to this country more. When he finally pisses off to a happy retirement, we're fucked if we're not properly prepared. Marches like this need to continue, as do the direct actions that see us say enough is enough. #Boris2020 doesn't bear thinking about, and demanding Dave's resignation alone won't stop that.

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Philip Wood, the filmmaker's dad. Photo: BBC, Rare Day, Phillip Wood

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Britain's estimated 120,000 injecting drug users don't have the best rep. They're often seen en-masse as "lazy junkies" and petty criminals who leech off the state in between getting their doors busted down during cops-on-camera TV shows. But to many people they are sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers—and they're dying at record rates.

Living with a family member who has a substance abuse disorder isn't easy. According to drug charity Adfam there are between 200,000 and 300,000 children in the UK living with at least one parent who struggles with addiction, and those kids can be seven times more likely to develop drug problems themselves as a result.

Filmmaker Phillip Wood had been estranged from his heroin-addicted father for 15 years. When he heard last March that the 53-year-old's health was failing, Phillip, now 31, decided it was time he tried to understand his dad. Before then, they'd never had a proper conversation. The result is new film Chasing Dad: A Lifelong Addiction, where Phillip enters his father's chaotic world, with a camera as his witness, for several months. He sees addiction up close while trying to break through his dad's habit of lying and search for some kind of reconciliation for them both.

I caught up with Phillip to ask him what it was like making such an emotionally difficult film on a subject that's so often sensationalized or brushed under the carpet.

VICE: Hi Phillip, the film hits really hard. What made you do it?
Phillip Wood: My dad was careering towards death. I felt that this was my last chance to sort stuff out, and he was so natural on camera that I knew it was the right thing to do. There was a burning desire to get answers to questions I've carried with me for longer than I'd like to remember.

Didn't the camera make it harder?
No, the camera was like an intermediary. I couldn't even face picking up the phone to him, and I really didn't like him, but I thought this was the only way—to have a camera between us. It made the process somewhat easier.

The film depicts your dad's chaotic life: endless "friends" dropping by, police, and his eviction. What was it like being parachuted into his world?
He was a compelling individual to document, and it worked on film because he is unfazed by the camera. I found him magnetic and charismatic, yet equally repulsive and maddening. I wanted to show, beyond the actual addiction of the drug itself, the environment in which an addict can function for over 30 years.

It was quite exhausting keeping up with the daily dramas of his world, but I found the underground economy within which he functions infinitely fascinating. But there's nothing positive or romantic about that world. What you are dealing with is unpredictable, bleak, and gut-wrenching.

Your dad tries to maintain the lie that he is off heroin. How did that make you feel?
Lying underpins the whole film; it's hard to work out what is truth and what's not. One of the reasons that it was hard for me to build a relationship with my dad was because I couldn't trust that he was ever telling the truth. I never knew how long the lies would persist, and it made me question everything about myself.

He said he couldn't be truthful because lying was habitual, and that he feared I'd leave him if he told me everything. I told him that he didn't have to lie and that even though I knew what was going on, I would still turn up.

Father and son reunited for the film, after more than a decade apart

Your dad was addicted to heroin when you were born. What can you remember about growing up?
One of the earliest memories of him was when he came home when I was around four years old with a beautiful puppy—a Basset hound. I think that was the only happy memory I have of him, other than the odd result at the bookies. Like many others in a similar situation, it was pretty obvious growing up that he was in a bad place. The main thing is that I didn't understand why we were left alone to deal with it. We were children.

Did the fact he apologized for being a bad father help you in any way?
It's a difficult question to answer. A lot of people have their own interpretation. He's not a monster, but there are complex and deep issues going on. Maybe the film was his way of saying sorry.

In the film your sister says she pities your father, "for what he could have had, for what he's had and lost, for having a life that no one would want." What did you learn about addiction that you didn't know before?
His world is very chaotic, and although the phone is always ringing and people are always knocking on the door, it's actually a very lonely place to be. I understand him and the wider situation a lot more. It's a very different world and set of rules that they operate in. You can see how you could get trapped in a never-ending circle.

What I understand less is how he's been able to fall through all the cracks of society. For me, his situation also paints a stark picture of how inadequate our understanding of addiction is, and how society deals with it. I don't want to sound like I am defending addicts, but I find it perplexing that there is still an arms-length approach from the authorities for helping long-term addicts. I wish there were more intelligent, comprehensive and evidence-led approaches to help families and addicts dealing with addiction.

What was the hardest scene to film?
At one point, after a hospital visit when they couldn't extract blood from his veins, he was told he would die within 18 months if he continued . We walked to the bus stop and he saw one of his mates there. They had a joke and his mate pulled out some cans of super-strength lager. We were back to where we started, ten minutes after he'd been given a death warning.

What do you think people will take from this film?
One hope of the film is that it can help people see beyond the stereotypes of substance abusers and alcoholics. I think my dad and his girlfriend are both intelligent people who clearly have deep-rooted, complex issues.

It's a film that should get under your skin. I watched every episode of The Sopranos before making it, for Tony and Dr. Melfi's exchanges. They were all talking and talking, both lying to each other—as we all do—to get to a bigger truth. That is the message of the film in some ways: talking and talking and talking can help you see through it, but it requires patience, perseverance, and honesty.

Thanks for talking to me, Phillip.

Chasing Dad is out now on BBC Three.

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In this week's installment of First-Person Shooter, we handed off two cameras to Clara Coquette, a burlesque dancer in New York City. During the day she works in medical science research, but at night she practices her true passion by choreographing intricate and playful strip teases at various bars and art spaces around the city.

Clara is extremely dedicated to her craft. In any given performance, she'll often don an Admiral Akbar mask or dress up as an American Horror Story clown to psyche-out her audience. On the Friday night she tore through her disposables, she documented the behind-the-scenes action that goes on when she's not up on stage.

VICE: What was your day like Friday? Where did it start? What'd you get up to?
Clara Coquette: I started my Friday waking up in my apartment and getting ready for my day job in medical science research. Afterward, I came home, ate a snack, and started prepping for a show at Bedlam Burlesque, which has a rotating cast of performers. It's held on the first Friday of every month at Bedlam Bar.

It looks like you have a good deal of makeup and clothes in your room. What's the process like to get ready for a show?
A few days before a performance, I will rehearse my act and fix anything on the costume that needs mending. I usually pack my bag up the day before my gig by laying everything out to make sure I have everything I need.

My makeup look for each acts varies depending on the costume and feel of the act. Stage makeup builds on the act, helps get into character, and adds glamour. It is heavier than everyday makeup because it needs to be seen from afar and under the stage lights. My routine usually involves a dark smokey eye with the colours of the costume, one or two sets of lashes, heavy blush, dark eyebrows, and red lips. I usually put glitter on my eyes and lips to add some sparkle.

I usually try to do my makeup at home before I go to the gig because backstages can vary with the lighting, mirror availability, and space. I've gotten ready in kitchen prep areas, bathrooms, offices, and a curtained-off corner of the bar—to name a few. I sometimes wear wigs for my acts which I usually wait to put on backstage. Backstage, I also apply body glitter for more sparkle under the stage lights before I get dressed.

How is burlesque different from other type of late-night dance performances?
It differentiates from other types of late-night dance types like go-go and strip-club in a number of ways, but there are overlaps in the scene. For example, there are sometimes go-go sets during burlesque shows, and there are a number of strip club strippers who are also burlesque dancers. Go-go dancers and strip club strippers usually dance to longer sets of music, usually of the DJ's choosing. There is very little choreographed removal of clothing during go-go and strip club stripping, whereas most burlesque shows require a performer to end in pasties and a g-string or merkin (though there are some exceptions). Plus, dancers at strip clubs dance topless or fully nude, depending on the club.

How did you get into the burlesque scene?
I became interested in burlesque after I saw a show at the Mermaid Parade Ball in Coney Island. I started going to more shows and met more people in the scene. I found out about the New York School of Burlesque (NYSB) and took a month-long essentials course and an act development course before I started performing. I started taking classes in the summer of 2011 and made my debut in December 2011. So I will be going on five years of performing at the end of this year. The NYSB is the best way for people to get into burlesque. They have tons of classes ranging from basics to choreography and movement to makeup and costuming taught by highly-skilled and award-winning teachers.

Where can people see you perform in the future?
My performance schedule varies but I usually perform about two to six shows a month and I produce my own shows once or twice a year. My next show in the city is the 'White Elephant Burlesque Presents Star Wars' at Rockbar NYC at 8:00 PM on May 4. The best way to find out where I am performing is through my website.

How did the night end?
After the show, I packed up my gig bag. Had a couple more drinks while chatting with friends. After leaving the bar, I grabbed a late night meal at Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken before heading home. I usually a take a shower before bed to get rid of all the makeup, glitter, and sometimes paint or fake blood.

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Illustration by Adam Waito

When you're young and broke, society gives unwritten permission to live like a dirtbag for a while. You can sleep on a buddy's couch, stay a few extra years in mom and dad's basement, spend a couple more months living with your ex than you should have, or maybe even briefly engage in the time-honoured tradition of "banging for board" (ick).

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a life-sized replica of Hogwarts at Universal Studios Hollywood that took five years of planning, two and a half years of construction, and $500 million to complete.

The last book in the original Harry Potter series was published in 2007, but J.K. Rowling's wizarding empire has continued to expand, with film adaptations of the books, the Pottermore website, the spin-off Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them (the movie version of which is coming out this year), the sequel play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and—why not?—a theme park.

So many people bought tickets for the theme park's opening on April 7 that Universal had to shut down its online ticket operation—a first for the company. When I attended on Sunday, two days after the gates opened to the theme-park-within-a-theme-park, the place was still packed, even though tickets were not exactly cheap at $105 a head. Fans of all ages wore robes and pointy hats as they explored the six-acre space featuring a replica of Ollivander's Wand Shop, Hog's Head Pub, and other magical stuff from the Potterverse. A guest who looked eerily similar to Professor Minerva McGonagall, complete with a crooked witch hat and green robe, nearly crushed my foot with a motorized scooter she'd decorated with dolls of Dobby and Hedwig.

Other fans spent the day nerding out over the intricate park design and easter eggs littered about, such as a recording of Moaning Myrtle in the bathrooms, fake owl droppings outside the Owl Post, and a handful of picture frames featuring moving images.

To Universal's credit, the place truly felt immersive, and the staff was so large that I rarely saw the same costume-clad employee more than once. Even the two musical performances that kicked off in the middle of the park every half-hour would swap out cast members as if there were an endless supply.

After eight hours of exploring, I got lightheaded and decided it was time to leave. As I walked out, I wondered how popular the Wizarding World would be once Disneyland opens its impending Star Wars theme park. I turned back to give the park one more look, and saw a teenager in a Korn shirt vomit into a trashcan.

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Hello, I'm Nick Gazin, VICE's art editor. Although my main thing is art, I also like eating food. I am fascinated by the boxes in the frozen food aisle of my grocery store, and I like to take them home with me and find out if the contents match the marketing.

Last week I reviewed fish sticks. This week I bought some frozen fast food things, including White Castle Cheeseburgers, Pierre's Drive Thru Chicken Sandwich, and Tower Isle's Mild Beef Patties. I think of beef patties as more of a bodega thing than fast food, but who cares? (Beef patties, for the sadly uninformed, are pastry shells that have seasoned ground beef, and sometimes cheese or pepperoni inside.) Here's how it went:

White Castle Cheeseburgers

When White Castle was founded in 1921, Americans were nervous about eating ground meat, mainly thanks to Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle, which documented some of the horrible stuff going on in the meatpacking industry. So the founders of the pioneering fast food joint supposedly made sure their restaurants were as clean as possible as a way of reassuring customers that their tiny hamburgers didn't contain pieces of ground-up humans. Today White Castles are still pretty clean for fast food places, but they have the rep of being the kind of place you go only when you're drunk.

But you don't have to have a boozy night to get White Castle, you can just buy a box of frozen sliders. Six little, steamed meat-cookies come in the box and after microwaving them for two and a half times longer than the box suggests, you get some pleasant little food things.

The box suggested adding pickles and my favorite condiments, so I added pickles and tried out Grey Poupon, Worstershire, horseradish, Tabasco, and sofrito on the different burgers. None of them were perceptible over the trademark White Castle flavor—that dried-out meat taste, mixed with the taste of onions and the floury bun.

I really enjoyed these but I wouldn't recommend eating all six burgers sober as I just did.

Grade: B-

Pierre's Drive Thru Chicken Sandwich

I took the sandwich out of its little plastic bag before I microwaved it. I wasn't supposed to do that so I microwaved it a second time with the bag back on.

It was only slightly spongy and well-spiced. The bread was fine and not too spongy. But nothing was crispy.

Fun fact: Pierre's Drive Thru is not, and has never been, a real drive thru. It's a brand owned by a company called AdvancePierre Foods, which also owns all kinds of other frozen food items that are perfectly edible and safe to consume. This is a good sandwich if you like your meals nondescript.

GRADE: B-

Tower Isle's Mild Beef Patties

The factory that makes these is on Atlantic Avenue, by Highland Park in New York. I know that because my friend Melvin was here when we ate these and he told me. He holds Tower Isle's Frozen Food in high regard.

"They're the oldest beef party brand. They set the bar for what a quality beef patty should look and taste like in both quality and flavor," Melvin told me. "They come in varying spice degrees which are surprisingly accurate."

He's right about everything: The pastry crust was golden and flaky, the meat was hot and delicious and molten like lava. This is better than frozen food has any right to be.

I smoked a joint to honor the ancient Jamaican tradition of me getting high and eating junk. Maybe it's all the Blue Dream, but this is the best frozen meat thing I've eaten. I can't wait to eat the spicy variety. I'm so hiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhh! Well, back to work.

GRADE: A

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