iPod goes down the toilet

Next time you see the man standing next to you at the urinals fiddling in his pocket, don't worry - he might just be looking for his iPod.

One company has decided what Londoners really need is a good toilet guide - for use with the world's most popular digital music player, obviously. The guide to London's best bogs, innovatively titled the pPod, can be downloaded for free from www.nykris.com to a Mac or PC.

There are 114 text reviews of London's loos, some with audio commentary and with a few carefully selected musical accompaniments - Handel's Water Music, for example, and Cosmic Winds.

Users can find out when their choice of public convenience is open, how clean it is and where you can find it. Those looking for London's loveliest loos will find them in Hyde Park, according to the pPod, while the toilet that failed to even meet bog-standards was Piccadilly Station's - it was closed when Nykris' toilet inspectors went to take a look.

Outside Piccadilly's WCs is not the only place iPod users have been forming huge queues this week.

Japanese consumers in Tokyo were so desperate to get their hands on one of the coveted iPod minis, they formed a half-a-mile-long queue outside Apple's Ginza store before the device's launch, according to reports.

One mini-mad lad even slept outside the store overnight to make sure he was first in line.