Most random celebrity career changes

The Scotsman, 15 March

Gourmet chef: Coolio recently launched his own weekly web-based cookery programme, Cooking with Coolio. Wrap star. Spa-ghetto Bolognese…
Airline pilot: Iron Maiden frontman, Bruce Dickinson now pilots a Boeing 757 for charter airline Astraeus. Terrifying.
Model railway salesman: Godfather of Grunge Neil Young takes his love of toy trains so seriously that he owns […]

Fast Facts

Magnetic children: ski schools in Courchevel, France are testing new Magnesticks which are magnetic safety bars designed to stop kids falling off chairlifts. The new devices hold children in place, only releasing them on arrival at the top of the lift. It is hoped the invention will prevent dozens of accidents involving children falling out […]

Number Crunching

£370m: the cost of removing the litter from Britain’s streets, waterways and open spaces every year.
- The Guardian, 10 March
£5m: the cost of moving shopping trolleys from rivers alone.
- The Guardian, 10 March
122: tonnes of cigarette-related litter is dropped each day across the UK.
- The Guardian, 10 March
£80: the current spot fine for littering.
- The […]

Fast and Factual

A shark bit an Australian fisherman’s leg so tightly, that a fellow fisherman had to cut its head to set him free. The shark was three metres long and weighed about 90kg. The bite-victim was flown straight to hospital, and was quickly stabilised.
- The Guardian, 28th January
A digital children’s book retelling the tale of the […]

The new online English

New Scientist, 2nd February
Henchgoon: noun, administrative assistant
Non-bugnuttery: noun, sanity
Anti-Fonzie: noun, not cool.
Nanoblahblah: noun, nano-technoblabble. Very, very, tiny nonsense.
Celebufreak: noun, a freak with fame.

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Lost in translation: words you’ll never hear again

The following words are all from languages which no longer have a single native speaker:
Unrihtwillnung: improper love – Old English
Istamaasdu: Listen, you in the plural! – Hittite, Turkey
Ebauthoo: Water – Beothuk, Newfoundland
Kälymentwam: path of heaven – Tocharian, Central Asia
Tehonannonronkwanniontak: they greeted him with respect, (literally, they greased his scalp many times) – Huron, Ontario
Molatuendalaas: God’s […]

Kenya: recent dates worth remembering

The Guardian, 1st February

Dec 27th 2007: Kenya’s elections
Dec 30th 2007: Riots of Mwai Kibaki’s disputed presidential victory.
Jan 1st 2008: Thirty Kikuyus killed in church fire.
Jan 4th 2008: The UN says that the rest has uprooted 250,000 people.
Jan 7th 2008: John Kufour, the African Union chairman and president of Ghana, arrives for fruitless mediation.
Jan 17th 2008: […]

Countries highlighted for particularly poor human rights records

The Guardian, 1st February
North Korea: Human rights were summed up as ‘abysmal’
Burma: A ‘deplorable’ record, with a ‘denial of basic freedoms’
Zimbabwe: ‘Torture in police custody is common’.
China: The government ‘continues to deny or restrict its citizens fundamental rights’.
Afghanistan: More than six years after the US invasion, life of the average inhabitant ‘remains short, miserable, and […]