QUIRKY WORLD ... A daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories
A superfit grandfather has been “humbled” by the support he has received after he managed to run the length of Britain with a 42.5kg fridge on his back.
Tony Phoenix-Morrison, 49, pulled off the epic John O’Groats to Lands End feat in aid of the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, which funds cancer research. Better known as ‘Tony the Fridge’, the fundraiser took 41 days to cover the 1,624km — almost a marathon a day — with the heavy appliance on his back.
Tony, from Hebburn, South Tyneside, has carried out other fridge-based challenges and last year ran 30 half-marathons in 30 days similarly weighed down for the foundation.
He also ran for 24 hours for the good cause. The final total of what he has raised is not yet known, but the foundation estimated it to be in the tens of thousands. Fridge manufacturers Smeg, who sponsored him, have handed over a £40,000 (€47,522) cheque.
It’s the ape equivalent of Google Maps and Facebook. The night before a big trip, Arno the orangutan plots his journey and lets others know where he is going with a long, whooping call.
Advance trip planning and social networking aren’t just human traits. A new study of 15 wild male orangutans in the forests of Sumatra finds that they routinely plot out their next day treks and share their plans in long calls, so females can come by or track them, and competitive males can steer clear.
Researchers closely followed the males during the 1990s. The results were published in the journal PLoS One.
Typically, an orangutan would turn and face in the direction of his route and let out a whoop, sometimes for as long as four minutes. Then he’d go to sleep and 12 hours later set out on the heralded path, said study author Carel van Schaik, director of the Anthropological Institute at the University of Zurich. “This guy basically thinks ahead,” the author said.
“They’re continuously updating their Google Maps so to speak. Based on that, they’re planning what to do next.”
A holidaymaker who plunged 100ft off a cliff was saved when his clothing caught on brambles.
The 80-year-old, from Australia, slipped off a cliff path in Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall. But he narrowly avoided falling down the last vertical drop onto rocks when his clothes became snagged.
Passing yachtsmen heard the man’s cries for help and raised the alarm.
Emergency services rushed to the scene, where they found the man slowly slipping towards the vertical drop. He was placed on a stretcher and transported across Plymouth Sound to a waiting ambulance at Mill Bay.
Diggers had to be called in to help residents dig out from several feet of hail that fell in the Denver area.
In the suburb of Lakewood some residents were trapped for a short time because of hail piles, officials said.
Persistent rainfall topped a daily local precipitation record.
A Massachusetts school district cancelled classes for the day yesterday because of slippery floors.
The Amherst Regional School District announced on its website that its six schools closed because of “weather-related building issues.”
Amherst Regional High School principal Mark Jackson said there had been 22 reported falls throughout the district on Wednesday because of slick floors.
He had not heard of any serious injuries.
He says the schools’ floors were waxed during the summer and Wednesday’s high temperatures melted the wax and made the floors slick.
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