Polling booths have opened in the election of the next London mayor.

There are eight mayoral candidates: Siobhan Benita (Independent), Carlos Cortiglia (BNP), Boris Johnson (Conservative), Jenny Jones (Green), Ken Livingstone (Labour), Brian Paddick (Lib Dems), Lawrence Webb (UKIP) and The Famous Magical Unicorn (Firebox).

Ballot counting starts on Friday and the winner is expected to be announced late on Friday night.

We wish the candidates the best of luck!

Our esteemed Customer Service Chief, Joe Hurn (above) may look like an ordinary man but he is really an extraordinary man.

In almost four years (that is over 1000 working days) he has managed to NEVER miss a day of work through sickness. Some accomplishment and, thus far unbeatable within the Firebox camp.

Joe’s secret? Enjoying a Burger King XL Bacon Double Cheeseburger every Friday. (“No, there hasn’t been an eclipse, that’s just our XL Bacon Double Cheeseburger blocking out the sun” boasts the King).

And never walking up the stairs.

“My theory has always been that if you treat your body like s**t (feeding it bad food / doing no exercise etc), it is in constant survival mode, always alert, always ready to fight off the next infection. A battle hardened, Rambo-esque immune system.

If you spoil your body with salads and exercise, it gets complacent and useless, giving it a false sense of security.”

How do you solve problems, like this?

Simple. With plane parachutes of course! Yo Gao from China shows off her ‘game changing’ idea at this years International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva.

[via Metro]

“We are GREAT because of companies like Firebox!”

John Brown, April 2012

This is an iPhone case with a difference. Yes, it is extraordinarily chunky and impractical and there has been no apparent thought with regards ergonomics. Well that is because it has been designed to withstand a shot from a .50 calibre machine gun. Yes, it is bulletproof. 

We’d love to hear from anyone who has actually had their iPhone smashed to pieces by a machine gun bullet. Maybe this is quite common in Japan for, say, a member of Yakuza or someone from one of these cities in Mexico. On second thoughts, please don’t get in touch. 

Congratulations go to the winners of our #fireboxnatureinstagram competition: more details of which are here.

So……we’re doing another competition! All you folks who have entered and failed to win, why not give it another go. And of course, we welcome all newcomers to our flock. Doing something as simple as changing the filter could be enough to sway our idiot expert judging panel.

So the topic for our new Instagram competition is ‘British’. This time, we really want you guys to be creative. No boring pictures of London buses, Union Jacks or bulldogs.

What does ‘British’ really mean to you? Visiting your local market or butchers? Watching your football team getting hammered on a wet Sunday afternoon? Devouring a kebab at 11.30 on a Friday night after a couple of quiet beers?

As we want you to pull out all the stops, we’re offering one winner a whopping £200 gift voucher. You read it right – a massive £200. You might think it’s unbelievable, but it’s not – £200 (etc.)

We all make mistakes. We obviously didn’t read our #fireboxnatureinstagram terms and conditions closely enough. Who really reads terms and conditions on competitions anyway??! Well, clearly not us even though we actually wrote this particular set of ts & cs. (*sigh*). We’ll pay closer attention next time.

Anyway, we won’t bore you with the details but we’re we’re delighted to announce ANOTHER runner up for this competition.

So congratulations to @stellipop. You’re a runner up too and will receive a £25 Firebox gift voucher. Enjoy!

Drum roll…….Whooa!! We have a winner for our #fireboxnatureinstagram competition.

Well done @blackpearl. You win a £50 Firebox gift voucher. Why not splash out on few sets of our brand spanking new Polargrams, launched this week. No pressure though. You can spend it on anything you want really. You could even put it towards a Caran D’Ache 1010 Diamonds meaning you’d snap it up for just £854,950. YOU decide.

The two runners up each win a £25 gift voucher. Well done @scrappynw and @bazza1510.