south africa

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