Bad luck. Everyone gets bad luck. However, there are some people who are desperately unlucky and get barrows of misfortune after living the high life. Once you get to the top, there’s an awfully long way to drop.

And sometimes, bad luck is tied in with good luck. Look at King Midas. Everything he touched turned to gold, which means that, should he jump into a swimming pool, all the water would turn solid, leaving him with a broken jaw. Probably.

So what about those with the Reverse Midas Touch?

The Reverse Midas Touch applies to those who see everything they touch turn bad.

There’s a lot of people out there with rotten fortune and, no matter how hard they try, all their dreams fall and tumble around their ears like falling meteors.

One such poor sod is the chap in the new Skittles commercial who sees everything he touches turn into sweets. While that sounds great, just think about him trying to wash his face in the morning. Think about him trying to caress a lover.

Bad form. Watch him in action here.

Now you’ve seen that, go and visit facebook/skittles.uk if you like. Now what was all this about bad luck?

Henry Ziegland

Poor old Henry Ziegland. He had some outrageous good luck initially. Ziegland split up with his girlfriend who committed suicide, which saw her brother putting a bullet through him. The brother then took his own life with the same gun. Alas, the bullet had brushed past Ziegland and had lodged itself in the tree behind him. Super luckym, right? Well, sadly, some years later, Ziegland decided to get rid of the tree. He blew it up with dynamite and the resulting explosion sent the bullet back out of the tree and straight into poor Henry, who died on the spot.

William ‘Bud’ Post

Bud post won a massive $16.44 million on the lottery in Pennsylvania. Great, right? Within a year, Post was $1 million in debt. He was sued by an ex, pressured into business investments that lost amazing amounts of cash and, to add insult to injury, his own brother hired a hit man to have him killed so he could get his hands on the filthy lucre. Post then shot a bill collector and got himself in all kinds of bother before he just gave up on life, passing away due to respiratory failures. A true reverse Midas.

Josh Sharp

Poor ol’ Josh. He received the good fortune to get through the screening process of Australia’s Deal Or No Deal and then, defying the odds, managed to get from behind the boxes and to centre stage! That’s when everything he touched went bad. Host Andrew O’Keefe looked on in astonishment as Josh became the most unlucky gameshow contestant in recent history. Watch his misfortune here.

Evelyn Adams

Evelyn was another lottery winner… not once, but twice! So why does she now live in a trailer? Well, Adams lost her $5.4 million by doling out her money willy-nilly and somehow managed to throw most of it in the slots in Atlantic City. “I was a big-time gambler,” admits Adams. “I didn’t drop a million dollars, but it was a lot of money. I made mistakes, some I regret, some I don’t. I’m human. I can’t go back now so I just go forward, one step at a time.”

John DeLorean

He rose from humble factory worker to the man who contributed to the world’s first muscle car and created the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 sports car, which you’ll recognise as THE car from Back to the Future with the batwings. He dated Raquel Welch and Ursula Andress and made millions and millions… before it all went horribly wrong when he decided to do business with a coke dealer at the expense of a banker who wanted to invest in him. He then declared bankruptcy while defending himself against the drug trafficking charges claiming that he was being entrapped by feds. He continued to have ‘legal troubles’ and once more, declared himself bankrupt in ’99 before dying of a stroke. Bad form.

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Rapping isn’t easy. Your average hip-hop track has an album’s worth of words, which across the whole of a hip-hop long player, is an astonishing amount of lyrics and themes to tackle. The best switch between styles, influenced by reggae toasters, jazz scats and some even invent their own envelope to push.

However, there’s a whole host of really rotten rappers out there who spit the prose in the most clunky, rhythmless manner. It’s pretty bad when you, a bona fide hip hop superstar, can be outrapped by The Anfield Rap.

No matter though! You would-be superstars of hip hop need not worry because we have a list of dreadful MCs to look at so you can learn from their mistakes. Avoid what they do, and you could be the next Tyler the Creator or Rakim!

But first thing’s first. How do you rap fast?

Well, nerd-hop superstar in the making, Watsky, has got together with a goat in SanFran and delivered a super quick advert for the Samsung SH100 in what may well be the fastest how-to guide ever made.

Basically, it’s a dinky device which is WiFi enabled, so you can snap and share your awful photographs really easily. Almost like a mobile phone.

So, here’s our nerd-hop star rapping really quickly about a camera. With a goat.

So, you’ve seen someone rapping really speedily. What about the slowest of the slow? Well, if you think we’ve missed any out, feel free to swear at us in disgust in the comments. Here’s our pantheon of lame.

Shaquille O’Neal

Shaq was under the illusion of greatness when he performed ‘I Know I Got Skillz’. That may well have been true on the basketball court, but on the mic… well… see for yourself.

Dee Dee Ramone

More ill-advised than Shaq was the Ramones’ Dee Dee who, under the name Dee Dee King, made one of the most hilariously awful rap records ever. Not only that, but his voice sounds less like an easy, rhythmical flow, but rather, Cartman in a headlock.

Kanye West

Kanye is a slow, slow rapper. This is underlined in this friendly freestyle battle with Mos Def. Watch Mos’ polite laugh and praise as Kanye trips over his ego and tongue repeatedly.

Mr T

Ah, Mr T. The archetypal bad rapper. Perhaps this is the worst tribute to mothers around the world, ever.

Turbo B

“I’m the lyrical Jesse James” cried Turbo B of Snap! Jesse James was shot in the head while dusting by a man with TB who topped himself in a tent. Mad skillz.

Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl Shuffle

Sports stars should rarely sing. This Chicago Bears rap is probably the worst of the bunch (only marginally pipping this atrocity from Basil Boli and Chris Waddle). Just kick back and drink all this in.

Nelly

He had a band-aid on his face. This signified that his brain was held together by sticking plasters, hence the rap prowess of someone on a ward, coming out of heavy sedation.

Soulja Boy

Perhaps the slowest rapper of them all and, mystifyingly, a gigantic success. Honestly, no offence intended, but he raps like Marlee Matlin.

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You didn’t forget did you? There’s a Royal Wedding on tomorrow and our editor Mof Gimmers and staunch Scot Michael Park will be liveblogging events with Super Kris manning the twitter account.

We’re as sick of it as you are, but hopefully, we’ll be funny/nasty/libellous/overcome with emotion at it all. So join us or we’ll set the Michael Jackson fans on you.

Three. It’s a special number isn’t it? It is saucier than two, despite people saying that it’s a ‘crowd’. What the devil is wrong with a crowd? Nothing. Crowds are fun. Anyway, there’s a plethora of fine trios in the world which make us very happy.

And why are we talking about threesomes (stop being dirty)? Well, Lucozade have a film/adspot out called ‘YES’ which features the trio of Travis Barker, Tinie Tempah and Katie Taylor

Two of them make a racket while the other shadowboxes like she’s the GZA from Wu Tang Clan. Doing a rousing reworking of ‘Simply Unstoppable’, they got us thinking of the ace trios that exist in the world.

There’s more threeoh fun to be had if you really, really like drinking Lucozade over at facebook.com/lucozade. There’s even a game you can play. Games are fun.

Anyway, you’re probably wanting to listen to Tinie Tempah rapping while a tattooed man beats a drum kit half senseless, while a hard nut lady beats the ether up.

It’s all good fun right?

But what about our favourite triplets? Well, there are many in the world (feel free to submit your own in the comments or, indeed, just call us horrible names for running an advertorial) and here’s some off the top of our head.

Three Stooges

Moe, Curly and Larry managed to forge a fine vaudeville career out of constantly beating each other up. In this video we’ve chosen, they show remarkable violence. The kind you don’t see on television anymore. Sadly.

Bob Dorough

Everything that comes in threes is great. Just ask Bob Dorough who created this ditty to the wonder of the trio. So good is this tune is that De La Soul sampled it and had one of their biggest hits.

The Three Amigos

The Three Amigos need little introduction. Suffice to say, anything with Chevy Chase AND Steve Martin in is worth watching. The other guy is pretty cool too.

Trio

Trio biscuits. They were amazing, had amazing adverts and John Peel did the voiceover for ‘em. And they don’t exist anymore, leaving us with a bunch of other lesser biscuit treats. Even Fox’s ‘Triple’ don’t fill the void. BRING BACK TRIOS NOW.

Crosby, Stills & Nash

Quite possibly the finest singing trio in rock history. They became marginally worse when Neil Young joined. Here’s a video of CSN playing Woodstock and they’re irritatingly good.

Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds

Think about it. Dogtanian was a little git. He was Scrappy Doo in a red hat. The coolest three were the proper Muskahounds. They constantly bailed out dumb ol’ Dogtanian and could hold their ale better.

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Remember those Evian babies? They skated, danced and clung onto a wire mesh fence like they were performing adults… in nappies? Remember those guys? Well, they’re back – kinda – with a new dance routine, only this time, with adult heads.

Okay, that might sound a bit terrifying, but this isn’t some kind of Fly-style experiment gone wrong.

Rather, the babies are appearing in stop-frame animation and are looking for co-stars. That means you could appear with some gyrating toddlers. That’s right! All your dreams will come true!

A whole two years have been and gone since we last saw the roller babies and, in that time, it broke all kinds of records for being the most viewed ad online. Presumably, Evian are hoping for something similar with their new Live Young campaign.

And you, dear consumer, have a chance to become a part of the campaign.

You can create your own version of the video over at LetsBabyDance.evian.com. And people have already had a go (and half the time, don’t understand the whole ‘match your body up to that of the prancing toddler body’ thing, but that doesn’t matter as its supposed to be fun, right?). The whole idea is to make the longest music video ever, all soundtracked by ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ by Tom Tom Club, remixed by DJ Mehdi with Uffie.

Visit Facebook.com/evian for updates and stuff.

And all these prancing children got us thinking. Who are the best child performers like, ever, ever, ever? There’s a whole bunch of them knocking around at the moment and there’s been some fine ones from the past. And so, while these choices aren’t strictly babies, they may as well be.

Let us peek at some of the best child singers who ever graced a stage. And no, there’ll be no Justin Bieber.

Little Stevie Wonder

Little Stevie Wonder (or ‘Really Quite Big Stevie Wonder’ as he’s known now) was once a child singing sensation! Yes indeed! Many thought he’d be a flash-in-the-pan novelty act, like a mini Ray Charles (what with his penchant for shades), but how wrong they were!

Frankie Lymon

Frankie, lead singer with The Teenagers, was a young superstar in the ’50s, famous for singing the wonderful ‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love?’ (a question no-one has yet answered sufficiently). Alas, like a lot of young stars, trouble wasn’t far away and by the age of 25, he was found dead in his grandmother’s bathroom from a heroin overdose. Cheery.

Willow Smith

When people heard that Will Smith’s daughter was releasing a single, many expected a big fat pile of dross. However, Willow went and surprised everyone by releasing one of the most monstrous pop-singles of the last decade. There’s a very, very strong chance she’ll never top ‘Whip My Hair’.

Helen Shapiro

At the age of fourteen, Shapiro went to the toppish of the charts with the aptly titled ‘Don’t Treat Me Like A Child’ before getting a brace of number one hits in the shape of ‘You Don’t Know’ and ‘Walkin’ Back to Happiness’. That said, she was still a whole year older than Frankie Lymon who hit the top spot in ’56. The old biddy!

The Dilly Sisters

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! Sorry, these young scamps from The Banana Splits show will be going round your head all day now.

Michael Jackson

Perhaps the greatest child singer of them all. There’s no point talking about him because you invariably know everything you need to know about the Jackson family. Here he is belting out ‘Sugar Daddy’.

New Edition

Featuring a young Bobby Brown, New Edition were seen as an ’80s equivalent to the Jackson 5. They had a smash with ‘Candy Girl’ and… well… they pretty much vanished after that. Bobby, of course, went on to have a great but short career when he got older. Then, like all good child stars, went nuts.

Jimmy Boyd

Jimmy Boyd was a child-actor and singer, who had his first hit at 13 years old. He performed with country and western troupes before hitting it big with the first version of ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’, as well as performing with George Clooney’s aunt Rosemary.

Lil Bow Wow

The most potty mouthed of our child stars, Lil Bow Wow (presumably plain ol’ ‘Bow Wow’ these days) was a protege of Snoop Dogg and rapped his way into the hearts of youngsters, selling 3million+ of his debut LP. He then grew up and everyone lost interest.

George Dawes

He’s a baby! He’s a baby!

Remember the lady, falling from an aeroplane while a voice screamed “WHOOOOOAAA! BODYFORM! BODYFORM FOR YOOOOOU!” Remember? Of course you do. It was one of the most iconic commercials of the ’90s.

Well, if you’ve ever sang along and figured that you’d be a really great Bodyform singer, there’s some good news for you!

That’s right! You can compete with presumably lesser mortals and sing your little lungs out and become the voice of ladies sanitary products! And who didn’t allow themselves the chance to dream about that opportunity at some point in their life, huh?

You might be thinking of leaping in, recording yourself and bunging your carefully recorded CDR into a jiffy bag marked ‘Bodyform Mansions’, but you need to hold your horses!

Why?

Well, we’ve got a helpful guide on what to do to maximise your performance when offering yourself up to the creatures that run Bodyform in musical form like some false sacrifice to a unforgiving God.

First off, watch this video, made by our loving editor, Mof Gimmers. He’s got very useful tips for you as well as holding a guitar on his knee, covered in rubbish doodles.

After watching this, you’ll never need to seek the advice of Simon Cowell or Louis Walsh ever again.

And now, here’s the official line from those people at Bodyform with details on how to enter your voice in a competition that may well see you becoming a star of television! Quite possibly, you’ll appear in the commercial break between Jeremy Kyle and Loose Women!

How great is that?

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Even though Bob Geldof and Bono may go on with themselves like they have single handedly solved the problem of Africa (that’d be famine and debt, rather than them generally not liking the whole continent), the fact remains that there are still huge problems out there.

Of course, in the Western world, we have our own problems too. Slow internet connections, updates on our computers, a lack of signal for our mobile phones and, of course, the fact that we’re all hugely obese and all joining the type 2 diabetes club.

However, amongst these two main problems is a solution. You can donate your fat to the malnourished people of Africa, thereby saving their lives and making us look beautiful and thin. And really, really smug.

You don’t have to wait for ageing Irish rockstars to be the saviour of entire continents. You can be the person to help save lives without donating a single penny.

With the help of the Klaxon Institute, you can look good and feel better.

They’ve pioneered a new way to help flabby folk like us do good with revolutionary reverse liposuction techniques. Basically, they can take the excess fatty tissue from you – the patient – and inject it into the bodies of starving people in the third world.

This means they are able to live off it for months at a time without having to struggle to feed themselves. This documentary footage, as shot by the Klaxon group themselves, shows the immense benefits of their work. To find out more about this process, visit www.klaxoninstitute.com

‘Never trust a man with a beard’, states the old adage. This is particularly true of our listless editor, Mof Gimmers, who you can see here, modelling one of hecklerspray‘s wonderful t-shirts in the ‘spray bedsit. Unfortunate looking sod isn’t he?

Well, if you’d like to see him getting some hilarious plastic surgery, leaving him looking like Jocelyn Wildenstein, then start buying our many t-shirts. There’s Leslie Nielsen tributes, pandas and ponies, Beatle jokes and, of course, Dr Conrad Murray’s favourite shirt, ‘I Killed Michael Jackson’. AND MORE.

Click here to buy them.

If you were watching TV last night you will have found it hard to miss T-Mobile’s latest flashmob-based ad, which took place in Heathrow’s Terminal 5, in London.

The ad was shown simultaneously on 86 channels at 10.15pm, meaning that around one in six people in the UK will have seen it. In the event that you didn’t, here it is:

The mobile firm has a history of inviting people to flashmobs for a spot of public dancing. It then films them and turns them into ads. This one was filmed, edited and broadcast within 36 hours.

Hecklerspray hates hanging around in airports, but this would have provided some light amusement, in a Bobby McFerrin kinda way.

The T-Mobile flashmob ads have been seen by more than 26 million people on YouTube. What do you think of the latest one?

Scientists have long established the fact that Bill Hicks is the de facto moral guardian of the human race. His time on earth was short, but his impact was fierce, frank and seemed to reek of the truth.

Here we have collected a series of Bill Hicks interviews, most of which we can remember vividly from the time they were first aired. Enjoy them and do seek out his DVDs if you’re unfamiliar with the man. Everything he says remains relevant almost 20 years on…

If you wield any kind of power in the workplace then maybe you should take a leaf out of Intel’s book by strategically dropping unfortunate staffers from a great height.

This ‘Bass Jump’ video basically involves Intel Romania, a bunch of stunt cushions, and air horns. The result is the weirdest take on the Intel tune that you’ll probably hear / see. Take a look…

Last year the company tried a similar trick, by firing employees out of a cannonball – the viral ended up with more than a million views so we thought we’d give you a quick look at this year’s campaign.

This is basically 101 Ways To Leave A Gameshow meets The Office. Maybe we’ll see David Brent in next year’s stunt…

Last night Pixies played a secret gig at Village Underground in Shoreditch to support the launch of the Minotaur box set. It was an invite-only affair and there were only about 300 lucky people allowed to witness the event. Hecklerspray was invited to attend, and we took a few readers with us. Our collective ears are still buzzing.

It started with individual Pixies wandering around the venue prior to the show. This surpassed the already high expectations for the intimate gig: pressing the flesh is one thing, but crowdsourcing a setlist is quite another. Yet that’s what Pixies did: they invited the audience to request their favourite songs, and we met them all in the process.

Naturally we threw a curve ball at Kim Deal, having requested ‘Ana’: “But we don’t know how to play it! Seriously. You could put a gun to Joey’s head and he still wouldn’t know his way around that one…”

So instead, we opted for the best Pixies song out there: No. 13 Baby, which they played early on, followed by classics like Hey, Tame, Debaser and Bone Machine. Kim was cajoled by Black Francis into performing Into The White and Gigantic, despite telling us that she wanted a lazy night (giving us an impromptu performance of the River Euphrates backing vocals in the process – her reason for wanting to dodge that song in the set). It goes without saying that it was an awesome performance, and great to see Pixies at close quarters.

The band remains a powerhouse, and is very tight, despite one or two slips, notably the UK Surf version of Wave of Mutilation, which they had to restart after Kim forgot her way around it. The audience, which included Kevin ‘My Bloody Valentine’ Shields, helped her out: “It starts in F!”

All in all we’re honoured to have been invited to what was essentially a private party (replete with free bar) for Vaughan Oliver’s stunning artwork, where Pixies showed up and did their friend a favour by playing an on-demand set.

They really seem to be enjoying themselves these days. David Lovering showed us a trick involving rubber bands and talked to us about John Bonham. Joey Santiago made our spines shiver when he played that note in Hey. Black Francis kept us amused with tales of Kim being kicked off RockBand when playing Pixies songs. And Kim grinned from ear to ear the whole night.

It was a blast.

Check out a fan’s video of Gigantic:

You can also check out David Emery’s Flickr slideshow of Pixies at Village Underground.

A competition is underway to find a new name for the Large Hadron Collider, which apparently doesn’t have a decent ring to it. Get your thinking caps on, you mothers of science.

The multi-billion pound machine needs a sexier brand, and scientists have dispensed with their usual methods by simply inviting suggestions from YOU, the GENERAL PUBLIC. How about Large Hardon Collider? Oh no, that’s already been done.

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Richard Pike, a man named after a carnivorous freshwater fish, says “its name fails to reflect the drama of its mission”, and like all scientists he’s bang on. HEY! How about we call it the BANGONOMOTON? Ah, no.

Dammit, this particle accelerator may further our knowledge about the origins of the universe, something that will thrill the Creationists, Christian Right and Godsquadders in general. How about the ADAMANDEVEFINDERDEVICE?

What’s quite clear from the press release issued on the competition is that the chemists are green with envy about the physicists. Back to Mr Pike to explain why:

“As the universe is 13 billion years old, this means that for more than 99.99% of its existence chemistry has played a dominant role. Physics is therefore getting an enormous boost through funding of the LHC, in effect, to explore the first fleeting moments of why we are here.

“I would make a claim that chemistry, if it received pro rata funding, would be up for trillions of pounds to investigate the mechanisms of the origins and development of life, which would have immediate application within the community. That might be the basis of an RSC funding claim next year!”

Holy shit. The world is 13 billion years old? They never taught me that in church. How about we call it THE RELIGOBULLOMOTER?

So, good reader, what would YOU suggest? There’s £500 up for grabs! Note that there is an amusing caveat: “The prize will not be awarded if the Earth is destroyed before this time.”

To submit your entry email Jon Edwards, who is media relations officer at the RSC. Deadline is 17 September. Good luck.

Are you a design wizard? Do you know your way around Photoshop and Illustrator? Or maybe you're a CSS ninja? Or somebody with experience of developing themes for WordPress?

We're on the lookout for somebody to help us smarten up our gaff. If this sounds like you, then send an email to hecklerspray@gmail.com outlining your skills / ideas / portfolio.

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About hecklerspray
Based in London, UK, hecklerspray is an entertainment blog operated by a privately-owned publishing group.

• hecklerspray will be two years old on 1 May 2007. It needs a new birthday suit.
• hecklerspray has plenty of readers: 780,000 unique users in the past 30 days, generating more than 1,100,000 page impressions.
• hecklerspray's readers mainly live in the US and UK.
• hecklerspray is  Google News source and publishes at least 10 stories per day.
• hecklerspray is nominated as best blog in the entertainment category in the soon-to-be-revealed Metro Blog Awards. Previously it has been named 'blog of the week' by The Times, but we haven't won a Pulitzer yet…
• hecklerspray has been featured in many esteemed organs, including The Guardian, The Times, The Observer and The San Francisco Chronicle.
• hecklerspray's advertisers have included CNN, NBC, Fox, HBO, VH1, Turner Corp, 4AD Records, MSNBC, PETA and, sensationally, Snoop Doggy Dogg. Lovely advertisers.