QUIRKY WORLD ... A daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories
A teenager who ran up an eye-watering £1,158 (€1,383) phone bill voting on TV show I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! has had to forfeit a chunk of her Christmas money to help pay the cost.
College student Nicole Hassall was unaware she was incurring charges when she repeatedly rang the ITV show’s voting line on her mobile, with the enormous bill only becoming apparent when her telephone operator sent her mother a warning by text message.
The 18-year-old’s mother, Eileen Hassall, who is also the bill payer, said she wanted people to be aware how quickly charges can build up, after now facing the prospect of paying a huge bill at Christmas time.
Meanwhile, mobile phone company Orange said it would halve the bill as a gesture of goodwill.
Reports that a child will be forced to wear a helmet while on a donkey playing Mary in a nativity pageant are taking everyone for a ride, an organiser is claiming.
“Elf and safety” outrage has found a new focus in the latest example of the nanny state apparently ruining a time-honoured tradition. But an organiser insisted that some reports of the pageant had been partially “sexed up” in pursuit of another tradition — health and safety bashing.
Far from being forced to take unnecessary steps, he has acted independently to ensure the safety of a schoolgirl Mary, he said. The public nativity pageant will take place in Neath, South Wales, involving a real donkey ridden by a local eight-year-old. While the need to wear a riding hat might detract somewhat from the overall effect, the protective headgear is likely to be shrouded under a costume.
A new breed of cockroach that can withstand harsh winter cold and has never previously been seen in the US has been found in New York.
Biologists said the species periplaneta japonica is well documented in Asia but had never been confirmed in the US.
They said it was too soon to predict the impact of the discovery but there is probably little cause for concern because the insects will compete with existing cockroaches for space and food.
Typewriters and a desk from the home of the original author of the Nancy Drew mystery books, along with a book detailing how the series was created, have been auctioned in Ohio.
The sale featured a lifetime of mementoes that belonged to Mildred Wirt Benson. She wrote 23 of the 30 original Nancy Drew stories using the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Benson died in 2002 and left her belongings to her daughter, who died this year.
A copy of Rediscovering Nancy Drew inscribed for her daughter went for $2,150 (€1,567).
A runaway reindeer broke free from Santa Claus at a US shopping centre.
While Santa was inside La Riva Mall in Dillon, Colorado, listening to children’s Christmas wishlists, the reindeer jumped out of its enclosure, leading police on a jog through town.
It was found on the far side of a nearby reservoir and officers used another reindeer to lure it back into a trailer.
Although rain couldn’t stop Gene Kelly from singing and dancing, an ice storm has postponed the auction of the Hollywood star’s gray wool suit.
Heritage Auctions spokesman Noah Fleisher says accumulated ice cut the power to the auction house, so there’s no way the suit Kelly wore as he joyously danced in a downpour in Singin’ in the Rain could be auctioned as scheduled.
Heritage expects the suit to sell for more than $20,000.
Memorabilia collector Gerald Sola has owned the suit for more than four decades. He bought it for $10 at a 1970 sale of MGM props and wardrobe items.
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