Ten things which raised an eyebrow this week
Ten things which raised an eyebrow this week
EP brings you a brief round-up of some of the news items which were perhaps as surprising as they were enlightening
- Including slavery, death, witchcraft, junk food, evolution, rats, roaches, lice, spiders, the age of the solar system, Halloween, running away, politics, religion, dieting, divorce, violence and anything (potentially) offensive, the extraordinarily long CAHSEE list of topics banned from school exams in California leaves very little on the approved syllabus
- Victoria University in New Zealand is so overrun with vermin that the Student Union Bar is offering a free pint in return for dead rats
- At a rate which equates to about 340 times the average Chinese income, a Tibetan mastiff puppy has become the world's most expensive dog, having been sold for 12 million Yuan - approximately US$2 million
- "Hell hath no fury like ... a buyer scorned!" Ed Joseph was so irate at a Gumtree seller who failed to deliver the games console he'd purchased that he exacted revenge by texting him the entire works of Shakespeare - all 30,000 words of it, delivered in 29,305 individual messages!
- Feeling better? A 62 year old woman in China has had a 2.5in bullet removed from her brain after suffering chronic headaches for 48 years having never realised she'd been hit by stray shrapnel as a child
- Palaeontologists working in the Dakotas have discovered a "new" particularly ugly breed of dinosaur and dubbed it the chicken from Hell
- With a new "evening menu" including bacon-wrapped dates, truffle mac n’ cheese and chocolate fondue customers will soon be able to purchase wine and beer at Starbucks
- The end of the corner shop as we know it? An engineer in the Derbyshire Dales has designed, built and installed the country's first fully automated local store
- With wrought iron designer beds, food served on fine bone china and a gourmet menu available all day, mother of two Emma Sedden has opened The Longcroft Luxury Cat Hotel in her back garden
- And finally, ever had one of "those" days? With over $207million cash in the walls, hundreds of antiques pistols, revolvers and gold plated machine guns, a menagerie of exotic animals and a man-made cave with built-in hot tub, police in Mexico got rather more than they bargained for when they raided a drug lord's villa