QUIRKY WORLD ... A daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories
Farmers are offering marijuana tours to tourists. The technically illegal journeys to some of the island’s hidden cannabis plantations let them sample such strains as purple kush and pineapple skunk.
The tours pass through places like Nine Mile, the tiny hometown of reggae legend and cannabis-smoker, Bob Marley.
A giraffe at a safari park has given birth to its 18th calf.
Officials at the Samsung Everland safari park in Yongin, in Gyeonggi-do province, said the birth set a new world record. They said the mother giraffe, Jang-Soon, previously shared the record with a giraffe in Paris. Past record holders also include giraffes from Melbourne and San Diego that had given birth to 16 calves.
Everland said it plans to have the record certified by a group that keeps a global database on zoo animals.
The birth came on Jang-Soon’s 27th birthday. Giraffes have an average life expectancy of 25 years, although captive giraffes live longer.
The National Trust is to open up TV’s Big Brother house to the public.
The custodian of many of the UK’s most important properties will give visitors the chance to visit the custom- built house across two days later this month.
But the plan has drawn scorn from former MP Ann Widdecombe, who said she was “saddened” by the move and said the trust should concentrate on properties which had “stood the test of time”.
Former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has a new piece of equipment accompanying him on his latest tour — a cap fitted with electrodes that capture his brain activity and direct the movements of a light show while he is on stage.
The sensor-studded headwear is from a collaboration between Hart and a University of California neuroscientist who studies cognitive decline and prevention.
The musician has been interested in the subject since the late 1980s, when he saw his grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
Queen Elizabeth’s son Prince Andrew has accepted an apology from the police after armed officers stopped him in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, days after two men were held in a security breach at the monarch’s London residence.
Police shouted at the 53-year-old prince, fifth in line to the throne, to “put your hands up and get on the ground”. The officers had apparently failed to recognise the prince, who was strolling the grounds in the late afternoon on Wednesday.
In a statement, Prince Andrew said: “The police have a difficult job to do balancing security for the royal family and deterring intruders, and sometimes they get it wrong.
“I am grateful for their apology and look forward to a safe walk in the garden in the future.”
Germany’s physiotherapist suffered two injuries as he ran on to the pitch to treat a player during Friday’s World Cup qualifier against Austria.
Klaus Eder tore a muscle in his left leg as he went to tend to Marcel Schmelzer, causing him to fall over and break his finger. “I now have to put into practice what I always tell my patients,” the 60-year-old told the German federation’s website, www.dfb.de.
“Patience is important and you should not expect a lot of progress too soon. The way the players reacted was very comforting,” he said. “Philipp Lahm brought me the ice pack, Mesut Ozil, and Miroslav Klose held me and led me off the field.”
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