Quirky World...Frequent flyer lands gold card in five days

FREQUENT FLYER

Adam Rowland, a 30-year-old online marketing manager from Epping, Essex, decided to take on the challenge and document his experience through an online blog, in which he explained that as well as getting a British Airways gold card in less than a week, he also hoped to use the trip as a way of overcoming personal challenges, including a “white-knuckle fear of turbulence” and “seeking pleasure in the company of strangers”.

Writing on his blog, he said: “I’d convinced myself that I would never get to gold the long way round and then I found a way that I could. I’d broken out of the boundary that I’d set myself and the challenge was afoot.”

SMILE TIME

ENGLAND: British employees are most likely to smile at precisely 2.56pm on a Friday.

A study of 2,000 people by oral care brand hello, found they are most likely to get the Friday feeling at exactly that time as the traditional working week winds down.

The research also suggested 27 is the “happiest age”, with 14 described as the least happy.

The brand said its survey rubbishes the notion that British people are typically miserable, revealing almost one in five (18%) people smile more than 21 times a day.

FAKE FINGER

USA: Mel Brooks has given the finger to Hollywood — the extra finger, that is.

Brooks, the writer, producer and actor responsible for classic movie comedies such as The Producers and Blazing Saddles, sank his hands and feet into cement in front of the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood in a ritual followed by decades of movie legends.

But Brooks, who is 88, wore a fake extra finger on his left hand. He said he left the unique mark “just in case somebody from Des Moines, Iowa, says ‘Harry! Harry! Look, Mel Brooks has six fingers on his left hand!’”.

’HUMAN’ RACE

USA: New Hampshire’s House of Representatives may be getting a little more human next year.

A candidate who legally changed his name to “human” is running against incumbent Democratic state representative Rose Marie Rogers.

David Montenegro changed his name to “human” in 2012 but he also made headlines this year when the state’s highest court ruled he could have a licence plate that reads COPSLIE. He had sued after the division of motor vehicles said he could not have the plate because it denigrated police officers.

COVERED UP

FRANCE: The summer is fast becoming a memory, and so is one of its beach sights: topless women.

As few as 2% of French women under 35 now say they want to bare their breasts, according to a poll by Elle magazine. It’s a far cry from the once-ubiquitous scenes of semi-nudity on the French Riviera, epitomised by 1960s bombshell Brigitte Bardot.

“It’s seen as vulgar. People are more prudish these days,” said 60-year old Muriel Trazie, keeping her breasts out of the public eye while sunning herself on Paris Plages, the French capital’s summer beach.

Sandra Riahi, 22, in a bikini, added: “I’ve never done it. I’d be too embarrassed.”

PANDA TWINS

ENGLAND: Two rare red pandas native to South East Asia are settling into their home at a British zoo — and have now been named.

The twins, a boy and a girl, have been called Mya and Anmar following an invitation to name them on Facebook by Drusillas Zoo Park in Sussex.

The names of the 12-week-old animals reflect their origins in the high-altitude forests of Myanmar, or Burma.