Look out, bankers! It's Lily Cole and her (Brit taxpayer-funded) WISH-PRINTING ATM

Millionaire model Lily Luahana Cole has been promoting her British taxpayer-supported "wishing well" website on a coast-to-coast tour of the United States. We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't update you on its progress. So how's it doing? The United Nations and Harvard's New Age think-tank the Berkman Center both rolled …

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for this...

...I am now boycotting 'Wishes'.

I will have to just live with 'Demands' and 'Entitlements' instead.

[Brenda McViking]

Re: Just for this...

Two. Hundred. Thousand. Pounds.

£200,000.

For this?

WITH TAXPAYERS MONEY?!

My head just exploded.

[JetSetJim]

Re: Just for this...

Go on there and wish for Ms Cole to give the £200K back to the taxpayer, as she clearly doesn't need the financing

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just for this...

Who's the idiot - the person who asked for 200K for some load of online rubbish , or the muppets who gave it to her? Perhaps Cole isn't quite the airhead she seems. More likely to have been laughing all the way to the bank - Coutts probably.

[Kane]

Re: Just for this...@Brenda McViking

"Two Hundred Thousand Pounds! Two Hundred Thousand Pounds!! Two Hundred Thousand Pounds!!! Two Hundred Thousand Pounds!!!!

Two Hundred Thousand Pounds!!!!!"

"Why do you keep saying 'Two Hundred Thousand Pounds'?"

"Because I've never had the opportunity before to say 'Two Hundred Thousand Pounds'!!!!!"

[big_D]

Re: Just for this...

Lily Who?

[James Boag]

It's a Bloody Printer, Hack-a-thon my bloody arse !

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Exactly what I thought. I just hacked the Lexmark to print a python module manual. F34R MY 1337 5¦<1LL><0R

[Mtech25]

......

-------------------->

That is All

[wowfood]

I wish

the government would stop wasting money on BS like this and actually put it somewhere more useful.

[Chris Miller]

Re: I wish

Wishing for governments to stop wasting money is like wishing for a pachyderm small enough to keep in your pocket or a vegetarian tiger. It's not actually logically impossible, but don't expect to see one any time soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I wish - @Chris Miller

Too late to withdraw that post now, the grant funding applications are being written even as I reply.

Cabinet wasting money on something because, Shoreditch, Johnson, it's got "internet" in it - useless but within the mental grasp of MPs and civil servants. Sadly, your proposals are equally easy to understand and have the same voter-winning "ooh ahh" factor.

Vegetarian tiger would be a popular zoo attraction, and if people can have miniature house pigs I'm sure that the odd billionaire would pay over the odds for a micro-elephant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I wish

I SO want a pocket Pachyderm.

A Pockyderm.

My wife, though, she would want the Tiger. I do try and point out that being awoken by the current domestic variety by them walking on her head would redefine her current desire to own a Tiger, but she doesn't get it.

I should get one, just to prove my point.

[John Styles]

Re: I wish

Also known as a mimmoth

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: I wish

Chris Miller,

Correct. In the absence of snowballs in hell, or bears utilising the smallest room rather than the woods, there's very little point in wishing for a government that only spends our money efficiently.

Therefore I shall fall back on the advice of Dogbert. A guru who all should follow. "Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

I take this advice to mean that if it's pointless to wish for efficient government, I'm better to wish for an inefficient government to waste some tax-payers' money, by giving it to me.

[circusmole]

Followed the link...

...and I couldn't figure out what the fcuk it was about. So, it must be wonderful and a bargain for us tax payers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Followed the link...

That's all right. I've never been able to work out what HP software products do, despite or perhaps because of reading the white papers. If you can't understand it, people must be willing to spend big bucks on it.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Followed the link...

Arnaut the less,

Sir! Sir! I know this one sir!

I can tell you what HP software does. It's easy-peasy.

HP software checks for updates. Then fails to connect to the server (for various different reasons). HP software then plasters warnings all over your screen that it's failed to update - then disappears. HP software then waits a couple of days, only to ambush you again with 5 pop-ups and hysterical demands to be allowed to update. Repeat. For ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Followed the link...

Hewlett-Packered? Still working on getting that one into a dictionary of rhyming slang...

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Is it me?

Or should that "impossible" website be labelled "Unsuitable for diabetics" (and it's not just the presence of cookies)

My conclusion is: "I do not know about impossible, I prefer things that are very, very, improbable

[gloucester]

What?

I for one welcome our new supercranially-enhanced felinequoid overlords.

[Random Coolzip]

Unikitty sez

"Think PAWSitive thoughts!"

What an awesome movie!

[Rob]

Re: Unikitty sez

I second that awesome-ness

[Ralph B]

Re: Unikitty sez

Sounds PURRfect!

[a well wisher]

I Wish ......

She would pay the money back,or someone would have the balls to take it back off her !!

Cheeky mare !

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: I Wish ......

Just another witless* clothes-horse.

* Though, she's the one that just got £200k for a printer - maybe not so witless :(

[ld0614]

I thought I'd make a wish and see if it gets answered http://www.impossible.com/WJyqPflPt4ReGVJzIQndXpYT84kkcRk73

[I ain't Spartacus]

That's some properly horrible fonts they've used on that website.

[AbelSoul]

Enough to give you the...

.... boak.

[Andrew Moore]

"The walls are crying..."

[Alistair]

Chelsea and Lilly got together?

So, ... thats when "Selfie" was recorded.....

[NogginTheNog]

I love the idea

...that a site dedicated to people doing things for free expects to make some money out of them (at some point?).

[Greg D]

see icon

Sums up the thought processes here nicely.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what Biznis Kitty would make of it

But I'd like to see what Angry Kitty would make of it.

[Amazon Wageslave]

Re: I don't know what Biznis Kitty would make of it

Angry Kitty was my favourite part of the Lego Movie. That, and the Terminator reference: "Come with me if you want to not die".

Well worth babysitting the nephew in order to blend in at the cinema.

[Semtex451]

Oh bless

In the name of the FSM, cant you all stop picking on the poor lass. This is last years money we're griping about, its time for El Reg, and us all to move on.

The child is at least "trying" to do something "positive" and she found some dopey well meaning civil service types to smile upon her.

I cant wait for the TED talk- cough

[eagleeye]

Re: Oh bless

Oh no, not some well meaning civil servant types but Jimmy Wales, advising the Cabinet Office, on how to be more transparent and also advising Impossible.com, don't feel sorry for the poor child - Lily Cole is a mistress of self promotion and manipulation of gormless older men who presumably feel flattered that someone described as a model shows some interest in them. Good on you Register for exposing this misuse of public funds. Could the reason NESTA have not provided information on the application be that no formal application was made?

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Oh bless

Explosive One, I'm not sure if you missed some tags, but I downvoted you just in case you are serious. There is *nothing* good about this at all.

[Dave Robinson]

Accessible?

Is it just mean, or does the website printer need a new ribbon?

Complete waste of time, although I have no complaints about Lily Cole, because I used to work with her cousin.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Accessible? @ Dave Robinson

"... I have no complaints about Lily Cole, because I used to work with her cousin."

From that I infer that her cousin is a very frightening person*, and knows where you live.

* Strangely, the image of a crazy enforcer relative makes me feel a bit more comfortable about the world, because there is no way that woman could have become as successful as she is on any of her own merits ...

[Steve Evans]

"the historic meeting of Chelsea Clinton and Lilly Cole 98 views as we write"

Ooooh, only two more and she can collect another £200k for demonstrating impact at uberscale...

*jeeez*

[Jim84]

BBQ.com

I think this is the twenty teens version of BBQ.com being valued at millions of dollars by investors at the turn of the century..

I can understand that government run funding schemes can occasionally fund rubbish ideas like this. But... surely there have to be some criteria that have to be passed before money is handed out?

[TheProf]

Maybe nobody else asked.

Meanwhile, far below the throbbing Londonopolis streets in the secret headquarters of NESTA.

I say Carruthers, no-one has applied for a grant and if we don't pay out some of our budget before the end of the year we'll get the chop.

Crikey Fortescue, you absolutely right. We're doomed.

Hold on, what's that stuck to the bottom of your tea cup?

What? Oh! I say! It's a request thingy. Some woman called Lily wants two hundred-thousand pounds.

What for?

Does it matter?

WE'RE SAVED!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that one of the criteria for receiving the funding...

...would be to create a website that at least achieves AA accessiblity?

Nope.

Hideous mess of a website. Apparently inaccessible to all users, regardless of ability.

[Francis Boyle]

I watched the Mythbusters 'impossible' episode yesterday

It was all about squeezing shit into bags. And pigs.

It was, of course, not relevant to anything here.

[Anonymous Coward]

you write digital meritocracy

I read digital mediocracy. That said, what do I know, bloody foreigners, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good to know that the British government has such excellent stewardship of our tax pounds.

Imagine what these politicians could do if the yoke of EU oppression was removed and their hands were untied?

[TheFinn]

The last guidline to wishmaking is...

• Please do not post wishes or answers wishes involving children or minors.

Sorry, sweatshopkids, but Lily needs her dresses!

[Faye B]

Value for money?

I can't believe they spaffed £200K to produce such a crappy website. Not only does it look cheap they have no idea when it comes to usability. Where are the directions, where is the message or goal. They should at least have splashed some of that cash on designing a decent logo or banner.

At 12 year old child could have come up with a better website than this.

[Ian Johnston]

History of Art at Cambridge, eh? The traditional degree for well-connected but dim girls.

[Hilibnist]

Dilemma

Should I visit impossible.com and Youtube videos to form my own opinion, or should I avoid them entirely to reduce the amount of views they can claim? I'm pretty sure I don't want to endorse the site or its claims, but I can't claim to be informed if I don't check.

in the words of Father Ted (although he did see the movie)...

"Down with this sort of thing!"

[Crisp]

Urgh! What a god awful site!

It's slow. So slow. The interface is awkward and difficult to navigate. It looks like someone has decided to use pretty much every single transition known to JQuery to display, move or hide elements (and there's no way to turn it off.). It looks like one of those Web 2.0 websites where every flashy new technology has been used just for the sake of it.

There's no verification of users. Yes, you can create an account with bogus credentials and then upload anything you like. The entire site is full of schoolboy errors like this. I don't know about you, but for £200K I expected more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Urgh! What a god awful site!

I object to your term 'schoolboy errors'. Schoolgirls make errors too! In fact schoolgirl errors are better and more inclusive!

[Gav]

Someone vomited hashtags all over impossible.com

Just a hint for users of this terrible impossible.com website.

#if #you put #hashtag before #every other #word, #it becomes #unreadable and the #whole #purpose of the #hashtags is #lost.

Hashtags are to help denote the keywords for searching/indexing. If practically every word is a keyword, then no word is any more key than any other. The hashes are therefore pointless and you may as well index every word.

[Crisp]

Re: Someone vomited hashtags all over impossible.com

#yes, #but #you #can't #have #a #modern #site #without #hashtags!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish

I had a net worth of £8 million.

[hamcheeseandonion]

Re: I wish

...that's a bit pricey for a net.

[Mint Sauce]

I wish

that El Reg's mobile site wasn't now so fscked that reading / commenting is now almost impossible. Still, I've lost count of the Microsoft Clouds that I've bought due to the tiny, unobtrusive advert that's shown...

He said - from the desktop version of the site ;-)

[Siberian Hamster]

Lily 'slim but dim' Cole...