If it’s news to me, it must be news to you!‘
Rainy days: Described as the ultimate weather-protecting product, you can buy the umbrella jacket for as little as £11 – if you have the nerve to wear one in public.
Shed your inhibitions: Cuprinol revealed the twenty-four finalists in the 2018 Shed of the Year competition with entries ranging from the inspired to the oddball.
End of the rainbow: Scientists in every field use the ROYGBIV palette to visualise data but it can be confusing on the untrained eye and useless if you happen to be colour blind. The U.S. Department of Energy laboratory has developed a colour scale that is mathematically optimized to overcome these limitations.
Synchronicity: The 2018 European Athletics Championships ended on Sunday with the men’s 4×100 metre relay and representing the Dutch were four men all called Ned. What were the chances, eh?
History: A shipwreck from the only World War Two battle to take place in America has been located off the coast of Alaska.
Oodles of noodles: Thieves in Fayette County, Georgia, made off with $100,000 worth of ramen noodles.
Potty mouth: A parrot that had been stranded on a London rooftop for three days turned the air blue when firemen tried to rescue it.
OAP of the week: Muja the American alligator arrived at Belgrade Zoo on the eve of World War Two and now in his eighties, he is believed to be the oldest of his kind in captivity.
But seriously: I only recently came across this article on the political polarisation in America. It makes for worrying reading as I suspect that the same thing is happening in the UK and elsewhere in the world.
Brief lives: The last of the foreign French Resistance fighters Arsène Tchakarian; Poland’ greatest Olympian Irena Szewinska; ‘Chef of the Century’ Joël Robuchon; hero of English prose V S Naipaul; Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee; UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (remember the big picture and not the detail); Indian cricket captain Ajit Wadekar and; the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin. I have included one of my favourites – Aretha’s version of The Weight – but the video I’ve gone for is Think from the Blues Brothers featuring with Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy who also passed away this summer.