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life, etc<br />
pounds for ultra-short internet<br />
addresses in a charity auction.<br />
The auction was to raise money<br />
for the Nominet Trust, a charity<br />
promoting safe internet access.<br />
Facebook bought the domain<br />
fb.co,uk, Mercedes Benz<br />
took mb.co.uk. Perhaps surprisingly,<br />
g.co.uk was snapped<br />
up by an internet investment<br />
firm rather than Google. Another<br />
desirable one was hr.co.<br />
uk, bought by the Chartered<br />
Institute of Personnel and Development.<br />
The addresses went<br />
for an average of £39,000 each.<br />
UsA<br />
Wish you had a girlfriend?<br />
Help has arrived: fakegirlfriend.co,<br />
which poses as your<br />
faithful female partner. When<br />
you sign up for the service, you<br />
save the company's number<br />
in your phone under whatever<br />
name you've claimed your<br />
imaginary girlfriend has. Then<br />
when you're with your friends<br />
or co-workers, you text the service<br />
and receive a "girlfriendesque"<br />
message back, which<br />
you can proudly show them<br />
as proof. The messages are<br />
reportedly along the lines of<br />
"Why don't you leave the boys<br />
and come hang out with me?"<br />
which, as Time points out, is a<br />
bit bizarre – is that really likely<br />
to make your friends jealous?<br />
itAlY<br />
Here's a cheery story to brighten<br />
your day. A churchgoer attending<br />
mass in Viareggio,<br />
Amazon Kindle Fire (Reuters)<br />
Italy, on Sunday, horrified<br />
the congregation by standing<br />
up calmly and ripping out<br />
on his own eyeballs with his<br />
bare hands. Aldo Bianchini,<br />
46, then collapsed in a pool<br />
of his own blood. Bianchini<br />
told doctors, who were unable<br />
to save his sight, that he had<br />
heard voices instructing him to<br />
tear out his eyes. It's thought<br />
he must have been motivated<br />
by the Biblical passage which<br />
reads: "If your right eye causes<br />
you to sin, gouge it out and<br />
throw it away".<br />
UK<br />
This week, plans are being<br />
launched in the UK for a spaceship<br />
which would offer consumer<br />
flights from London<br />
to Sydney in one hour and 45<br />
minutes. It's estimated that the<br />
flights will be up and running<br />
within 20 years, with an early<br />
version of the Lynx craft ready<br />
to take tourists to the edge of<br />
space by early 2014. The plans<br />
are the brainchild of Dutch<br />
computer tycoon Michiel Mol,<br />
briefs<br />
who is working in collaboration<br />
with Dutch airline KLM.<br />
London to Tokyo would take<br />
about 90 minutes. No word on<br />
what the jetlag would be like –<br />
or the environmental cost.<br />
UK<br />
We may suffer tornados, but<br />
at least we're not England. The<br />
UK has just experienced the<br />
best of its summer weather –<br />
the hottest few days recorded<br />
in October in a century – but<br />
now must brace itself for a<br />
drop of a whopping 18 degrees<br />
Celsius in the next three days<br />
to see snow hit by the end of<br />
the week. In South Yorkshire,<br />
for instance, it was 30 degrees<br />
last weekend and will be 12<br />
degrees this weekend. That<br />
appears to be that for summer<br />
2011, unfortunately for the<br />
Brits. Try to control your worst<br />
schadenfreude feelings.<br />
AUstrAliA<br />
As if Ugg boots weren't offensive<br />
enough, a new report now<br />
suggests their “uggliness" may<br />
extend beyond their appearance.<br />
Investigators from The<br />
Humane Society International<br />
today revealed that some Uggs<br />
are made of racoon dog fur,<br />
with the creatures skinned<br />
alive in China. The fur is then<br />
labelled either as “wool” or as<br />
“Australian sheep skin”. The<br />
official Ugg company says the<br />
boots in question are made by<br />
fake knock-off groups rather<br />
than the brand itself.<br />
tuesdAY - 4 october 2011