Artists Michael Townsend and Adriana Yoto, and six of their friends, noticed an architectural anomaly in the giant shopping mall being built in their town – Providence, Rhode Island, USA. As the project progressed, it became clear that this added up to “750 square feet of underutilized space inside of the mall.”

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It’s very hard to understand why parents would saddle their child with a ridiculous name. And, in New Zealand, a judge agrees. Read this and boggle.

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The price of scrap metal is rising in the US as well as the UK. Over here it’s church roofs and railways being targeted. Even a Henry Moore sculpture is thought to have been melted down.

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Bournemouth has decided that it would like to be a surf resort, according to The Guardian, and attract all those surfing tourists for who Cornwall is just too inconveniently western. What a distance to travel! To that end it is building an artificial reef out of specially-designed sandbags in Poole Bay in order to take the area’s natural swell and turn it into breaking waves.

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Here’s a very sad tale from BBC News – and a salutary one for all of us that have rolled our eyes on receiving yet another 419 scam email. It’s a story of how Nigerian fraudsters are preying on the hopes of young African footballers with largely unrealistic dreams of making it big:

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Ever had an urge to visit Svalbard? Perhaps after reading Philip Pullman, or seeing pictures of its beautiful location? Just make sure you’re in good health when you go.

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Whoever wrote this article on the nude climbing craze isn’t taking account of the British climate. Or, as anyone engaged in outdoor activities at this time of year knows but too well, the British stinging nettle. Ouch…

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It can only be a very short period of time before the delightful picture that goes with this story turns up recaptioned on a certain cheeseburger-related website.

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Here’s a truly bizarre news item. Jane Espenson is a very highly-regarded Hollywood producer and screenwriter who has worked on shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. She has a blog called Jane in Progress which aims to give writing and career advice to people wanting to follow the same career path.

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Here’s that wonderful thing, an expert with a sense of humour.

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Here’s a shocker from The Independent. Thankfully the gentleman in question doesn’t appear to have been severely injured, and you can see how bellringing might very well be an activity with some risks attached, as the churchwarden acknowledges further down the story.

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Sloths are decidedly friends of this blog, which is why the management was intrigued to read the following masterpiece of scientific research, as reported by BBC Online.

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This little gem, from BBC News, is a few days old – but it only just popped up in a trawl through the feed reader.

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Mortgage rate rising? Global warming. Ken losing in London? Same again. Can’t get a credit card? Blame climate change. England not qualifying for Euro 2008? I think we all know the reason for that… However, you should curb your excessive cynicism. According to The Guardian, the most unlikely phenomena can be attributed to precisely this cause.

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Here’s an old favourite that we must now assume has bitten the dust. Here’s a piece from The Independent on the fate of the last of the Romanovs.

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Just spotted this lovely story on the BBC News website: a Swiss amateur parachutist has made a successful descent using a replica of a parachute designed more than 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. And there’s a video of the jump too so you can see the design – quite different from a modern [...]

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Bloody hell, this one takes some beating. Note particularly the remark of the judge when faced with an apparent no-show by the defendant.

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Kudos to this guy for persevering with his goal in the face of what must be considerable discouragement. Here’s hoping he has more successes in the future.

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Prince Charles and his offspring (real and presumed) really do make you believe increasingly in republicanism, don’t they?

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Here’s an incredible tale from The New York Times – an orchestra falling foul of European health and safety legislation on noise. I knew that sitting in front of the brass section could be a hazard, but it turns out to be vastly more complex than that.

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