Stop! In the name of love: Dating breakthrough for the tongue-tied

Are there too many ways to date now? (Getty)

There is dating in the dark, speed dating, smell dating and play dating (find your true love over Lego, anyone?), but is there still room in our hearts for all these match-making ideas in the age of Tinder?

Adam Taffler, the man behind Shhh Dating, thinks so. "In the digital world people are making less and less eye contact so silent dating has really come into its own," he says. "There is something you can tell sitting in front of a person in silence that you can't do online or when you are talking. Since we started in April last year we are finding that more and more people seem to like the idea of a non-verbal space, where you can meet someone without the need for chat-up lines or 'What do you do?'-type questions."

As evidence that silent dating works, Taffler, 35, says that he knows at least five couples who first met each other at one of his nights, and he counts his own relationship as one of Shhh Dating's successes. "At one recent event," he says, "we had a couple who just stood up, held hands and left after 30 seconds."

The next Shhh Dating event is on 24 September in London. See shhhdating.com for details.

Hero of the week

You might not have heard of a database company called MongoDB but it is, apparently, one of the fastest-growing tech companies in New York and currently valued at $1bn. But none of that is what concerns us here because last week MongoDB's CEO, Max Schireson, stepped down and explained his reasons for doing so in a blog post.

"Earlier this summer," Schireson wrote, "[The Today Show host] Matt Lauer asked Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, whether she could balance the demands of being a mom and being a CEO. The Atlantic asked similar questions of PepsiCo's CEO Indra Nooyi. As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being a dad and a CEO.

"While the press haven't asked me," he continued, "it's a question that I often ask myself." Schireson went on to detail the things that he enjoys doing with his kids and how in debt he is to his "brilliant and infinitely patient" doctor wife for "finding a way to keep the family working despite my crazy travel. I should not continue abusing that patience. I recognise that by writing this I may be disqualifying myself from some future CEO role. Will that cost me tens of millions of dollars someday? Maybe. Life is about choices."

Sir, I applaud you.

Yourbabysnamehere.com

From the sublime to the ridiculous …. If more evidence were needed that we are living in the end times, last week a German company called Reinast unveiled a product that "merges exceptional functionality with a design that transcends time". The price for this object? A cool £2,500, which would surprise no one if said object did not also happen to be a toothbrush (pictured).

Need more proof that the world has gone mad? How about the news that a website called Awesome Baby Names has just opened for business?

Now, as any parent or prospective parent knows, the naming of your newborn is one of the first and most important decisions you will make for your offspring. But never mind. Because now Awesome Baby Names is here to offer you some choices based entirely on what domain names are available should your child wish to own its own dotcom in years to come.

"These domain names are available right now. But domains can go very quickly, so we recommend that you get it as soon as possible. Otherwise, someone else might register it before you do," the site advises, before directing you straight to a link to buy that URL. And you thought getting a child on to the waiting list for a posh private school was competitive.

Ask me anything (except that)

In the week that Inbetweeners 2 broke UK box-office records you might not have thought that the film's writers, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, would have too much in the way of regrets. But as the pair took to the internet for an online AMA (Ask Me Anything), one user asked the pair how they felt about the US version, which ran on MTV for three months in 2012 before being dumped.

Iain: "We weren't that involved in the creative process, although I did direct the last episode."

Damon: "So quite involved." Iain: "No, because I turned up for two weeks …" Damon: "… and phoned it in."

Iain: "No, but the directors were great, the actors were great. Do I watch it myself? No. Do I wish it had been better? Yes."

No rhyme or reason

Another in a regular series of limericks based on recent events:

Though 'The Bake Off' is roundly revered

And millions of viewers were cheered

To generate tension

The press chose to mention

The fact that one bloke has a beard.

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