YOU know the news stories which are just so unbelievable it causes a double-take? We at Super Living are huge fans of the weird and the wonderful, so here’s the top five quirky stories that caught our eye during the week.

What’s a mollusc to do?

Now the world cup is over, and international supporters have filed out of South Africa, the star of the tournament is being treated like a hero in Spain. No, I don’t refer to Xavi Hernandez or Iker Casillas, but instead Paul the Octopus.

Since Paul the Octopus shot to fame during the world cup for his seemingly clairvoyant predictions, he has fielded so many requests for appearances that he’s had to hire a PR consultant.

The latest request comes from O Carballino, in the northwestern Galicia region in Spain. They want him to be the guest of honour at the region’s annual octopus festival on August 8. The mayor of the Spanish town recently travelled to Paul’s home in Oberhausen, Germany, to present the clairvoyant mollusc with gifts and adulation.

A word of warning for Paul, though. Octopus is considered a delicacy in that part of the world where it is often sliced up and served in olive oil, garnished with paprika.

The drop that lasted 200 years

A group of divers exploring a shipwreck off the Baltic coast have stumbled on what’s thought to be the oldest drop of champagne in the world.

Christian Ekstrom and his crew, on discovering the bottle, did the natural thing and took a swig.

He said it had a sweet taste with a hint of oak.

Ekstrom said the divers had found the bottle on their first dive down to the wreck, and that the promise of more to come was tantalising.

The bottle has since been sent to France for expert analysis.

That hasn’t stopped speculation as to what the drop could be though, with some experts claiming it could be a Veuve Cliquot, which currently costs about $77,000 per bottle.

Making a faux guard

Two armed robbers in the form of Walter Pozo and Cesar Andres are on the run in the Neuquin province of Argentina after plotting a daring escape against their captors.

They made their bid for freedom by leaping over a wire fence and climbing down a wall.
You’d figure that such a brazen attempt would have been spotted by a guard on duty or at least caught on camera, but there was a snag.

The guard wasn’t real and the cameras hadn’t been working for quite a while.

A source inside the prison told The Telegraph that a shortage of staff and budget cutbacks meant they had to improvise and construct a dummy in the hopes of fooling the prisoners.

“We've made a dummy out of a football and a prison officer's cap, so that the prisoner see its shadow and think they're being watched,” the source said.

The source also confirmed that the dummy on duty was named Wilson.

Scaredy-bird

A blue and gold Macaw had Adelaide in a flap last week, as the bird flew away from its Adelaide Zoo home after being spooked by zoo patrons.

The bird was being trained to fly to a new perch on Wednesday, when it became confused and flew toward a member of the public instead of the perch.

The bird then realised the person was not his trainer, and subsequently took off.

It flew to a tree near the zoo’s panda enclosure, where no amount of coaxing would get the colourful bird down.

The bird then moved to a pine tree in the botanic garden. To make matters worse, the crows in the tree took offense at the new presence in their tree and tried to chase him off, adding to the macaw’s anxiety.

On Thursday morning, the macaw made another move, this time to a palm tree in the Torrens parade ground.

Not happy with its new accommodation, the bird then flew to a low-hanging tree on the nearby University Drive where it was finally wrangled by the zoo’s bird handlers.

Adelaide Zoo bird keeper Trena Carney told the assembled media (who had been following the saga) that the bird suffered the odd affliction of being scared of heights.

"He is a little bit scared of heights. They do actually have to learn how to descend from that level and he hasn't had a lot of practice at it so he's in unfamiliar territory," she said.

Bleeding onto the page

Finally, Indian cricket sensation Sachin Tendulkar is a man for firsts. He was the first man to score 200 runs in a one-day international, and now he’s the first cricketer (to Super Living’s knowledge) to release a book with their blood in it.

You’re reading that correctly.

The Tendulkar Opus, out in February next year, contains previously unpublished photographs and material, and signed copies will go for about $2200-3200.

In that edition, you’ll get a copy of Tendulkar’s genetic profile but that’s not the edition that has everybody talking.

Ten copies of the so-called “blood-book” have already been snapped up on pre-order for about $85,000 with the proceeds going to charity.

Publishers of the book, Kraken Media, told The Guardian that "the signature page will be mixed with Sachin's blood – mixed into the paper pulp so it's a red resin. It is what it is – you will have Sachin's blood on the page,"

"It's not everyone's cup of tea, it's not to everyone's taste and some may think it's a bit weird. But the key thing here is that Sachin Tendulkar to millions of people is a religious icon.”

Send to Friend

Printable Version