if it’s news to me, it must be news to you!
Jonah of the Week: 73-year-old former SAS trooper, Tom McLean, is planning to cross the Atlantic in the belly of a home-made whale. Nicknamed ‘Moby‘, the 65 foot craft has taken 20 years and £100,000 to complete and McLean’s plan is to sail it to the Azores where real whales congregate just to see what happens.
One that got away: I missed this one last week – Time Magazine named Evelyn Waugh among the top 100 most read female authors and presumably excluded George Elliot for the opposite reason. As one wag commented: ‘When Evelyn Waugh is trending on Twitter, you know that somebody did something stupid.’
Black is black: But it isn’t Vantablack, a black so black that it’s makes black holes look wishy-washy. Okay, not really, but it can make the wrinkles in tinfoil ‘disappear’ as you can see from the photo on the right. And a row is brewing in the artists’ community because Anish Kapoor has been given exclusive rights to its use in his art work.
What the hell was that?: Is it a meteor? Is it a UFO? Is it a shooting star? And why are so many motorists filming their journeys through Scotland?
Meanwhile in Romania: The migrant crisis in Europe deepens as alien refugees are spotted on Google Maps.
Role-model of the week: As if body-conscious women didn’t have enough pressures put upon them, they now have to see how they measure us against the new Barbie Fashionistas range. Barbie trivia: she was originally modelled on the German Bild Lilli doll which was marketed at adults and definitely considered unsuitable as a children’s toy.
Swear box of the week: Swearing and profanity that is judged to be offensive to the good burghers of Salford can now result in an £80 fine, which is actually pretty good value compared with a $68,000 fine in the UAE.
War-torn world of the week: The Dutch project Nodegoat has used the Wikipedia database to create a map of every battle ever fought, on the basis of which I’m considering a move to Antarctica or possibly Greenland as a safer place to live.
Kim Kardashian’s Bottom: That is the nickname of the Airlander 10 which brings the airship concept up to date for civilian and military use. At 100 yards long, it can fly at 100 mph, stay aloft for up to three weeks if flown remotely and land on any flat surface. Airlander makes its maiden flight over England this month. (see this Daily Mail article)
It’s true what they said about Hitler: At least according to the New York Post. You’d think that after all this time they’d let this one drop.
Father Jack
Brief lives: Tony Warren, creator of Coronation Street, the UK’s longest running tv soap; Oscar wining actor George Kennedy; Frank Kelly who played Father Jack in the Father Ted; Martin Crowe, former captain of New Zealand and the finest batsman in their cricket history; Peter Marlow, photographer of iconic images, such as the one below of a burned out children’s playground in Liverpool.