Today's eclectic bundle of upbeat news nuggets from around the world.
Saucy Diana
Greeting cards featuring adult jokes sent by Princess Diana to Constantine II, the last king of Greece, have been sold at an auction. One of the cards features a naked image of the biblical Adam with the caption: “Adam came first. Men always do!” Inside one of the cards, Diana had scrawled: “I couldn't decide which card to send and then thought you'd enjoy both!” They sold for $8,677 dollars, noted UPI.
Remarkable Result
Bangladesh has just pulled off one of the most successful disease elimination efforts of all time. In 2001, lymphatic filariasis, a crippling and disfiguring neglected tropical disease, was endemic in 19 of the country's 64 districts, with an estimated 70 million people at risk. The WHO has just confirmed that the disease has been completely eliminated.
Extraordinary!
A Gurkha soldier veteran who lost both legs in Afghanistan has achieved mountaineering history after reaching the top of Mount Everest. Hari Budha Magar, who lives in Kent, England, reached the summit of the world’s tallest mountain at 3pm on Friday, having started the climb on 17 April - exactly 13 years since he lost his legs after an IED explosion. Throughout the challenge, he was supported by a team of Nepalese climbers, led by Krish Thapa, also a former Gurkha and SAS mountain troop leader. Budha Magar became the first double above-the-knee amputee to summit the world’s tallest mountain.
Agatha's Hideaway
Burgh Island, a windswept marvel off the coast of Devon on England's south coast, is on the market for £15 million ($18.8m). The 21 acre coastal retreat includes a pub, a beach house and its crowning centrepiece: the spectacular 25 bedroom Burgh Island Hotel. An Art Deco dream perched on the water’s edge, the hotel is considered one of the finest examples of working Art Deco architecture in Europe. The Great and Good have flocked to the rugged landscape over the years. However no guest’s legacy is greater than that of Agatha Christie, whose novels And Then There Were None and Evil Under the Sun were both inspired by Burgh. Indeed, Christie even had a writer’s retreat built on the island that still remains intact today.
Woolybubs
These are definitely part of the footwear of the future. Created by parents Megan and Jesse Milliken, the shoes (which, sorry, grown-ups, are currently just for babies) can literally dissolve in water when they’re no longer wearable. Here’s how it works: boil some water, place the shoes in the water and let them sit for 40 minutes, then pour the now-shoeless water – which is safe and free of microplastics – down the drain. The shoes are just one of the countless clever inventions keeping plastic out of our oceans, landfills, and bodies.
Cook-a-thon
A Nigerian chef launched a bid to set a new world record by “cooking up a storm in her kitchen”, said Guinness World Records. Hilda Baci started cooking dozens of Nigerian delicacies last Thursday afternoon and carried on for 100 hours, until Monday evening. President Muhammadu Buhari tweeted his congratulations to the 27-year-old chef on her achievement, which he said marked a “great day for Nigeria”. If confirmed by Guinness, her new record will smash that set by Indian chef Lata Tondon, who cooked non-stop for 87 hours and 45 minutes in 2019.
Codex Sassoon
A 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible that is one of the world's oldest surviving biblical manuscripts has been sold for $38 million in New York. The Codex Sassoon, a leather-bound, handwritten parchment volume containing a nearly complete Hebrew Bible, was purchased by former U.S. Ambassador to Romania, Alfred H. Moses, on behalf of the American Friends of ANU and donated to ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, where it will join the collection, Sotheby's said in statement.
Gloriously Silly
One of the most gloriously silly projects in the automotive world is set to launch within the next few months. The Tamiya Wild One Max is a faithful replica of a hugely popular R/C toy from the '80s, upscaled to a two-seat, street-legal electric buggy. Obviously this runs completely contrary to how things normally go; plenty of real-world dream cars have been miniaturized for kids to play with, but we're not aware of any other project designed to bring a car designed first and foremost as a kids' toy up to full size for the young at heart. For more, see WildOneMax
"One man can make a difference and every man should try." Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
On this Day
23 May 1785: Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals.
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