Quirky World: Chinese cut a lung story short with a healthy alternative to Welsh placename tongue-twister
But the Chinese have come out with their own way of describing Llanfair PG (to give its short name) by referring to it as Healthy-lung Village (or Jian Feu Cun), in that a lot of puff is required to pronounce it.
The Anglesey village is one of 101 famous points of interest in the UK provided with names by the Chinese public as part of a campaign by VisitBritain.
Other UK names given Chinese monikers include:
Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset — the huge figure in an excitable state has been dubbed Big White Streaker (Bai Se Da Luo Ben);
Stoke-on-Trent — the Potteries are called Diverse Ceramics (Wan Bo Tao Ci);
The Shard in London – the Chinese see the 1,017ft building as a tower allowing us to pluck stars from the sky (Zhai Xing Ta);
Loch Ness Monster – perhaps hedging their bets a bit as to Nessie’s authenticity, the Chinese have come up with The Loch Ness Shadow (Ni Si Hu An Ying);
Highland Games — with reference to the kilt, the Chinese have plumped for Strong-Man Skirt Party (Qun Ying Hui).
The groundhog jokes continue in snowy New Hampshire, where there appears to be no end to winter.
A ski resort is offering asylum to Punxsutawney Phil after police in Merrimack posted a gag on Facebook looking for the Pennsylvania groundhog who predicted six more weeks of winter.
A spokesman for the Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford said on Saturday that the resort is enjoying a great winter and is concerned with “the sensationalist attack on one of America’s true winter heroes”.
Merrimack police chief Mark Doyle says the joke campaign to get Phil was an attempt to lighten the mood after a series of snowstorms buried New England.
Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf responded by saying the state would do what is necessary “to protect our beloved weather-predicting groundhog”.
The Spanish airport authority says a wild boar that broke through a perimeter fence at Madrid’s international airport caused runways to be shut briefly and two landings delayed.
The beast set off security alarms late on Friday and when cameras focused on the spot, operators observed it turning around and loping off through the hole it had made.
The incident happened 100 meters (330ft) from the nearest stretch of runway. It delayed an incoming flight from London by 20 minutes and a domestic flight from A Coruna by 10 minutes, the airport authority’s statement said.
A family says a dog who ran away from home turned up at a hospital where her owner was recovering from surgery.
The dog, Sissy, went missing from home in Iowa last Saturday. The miniature schnauzer travelled almost two miles to get to the Mercy Medical Center where the dog’s owner, Nancy Franck, was.
A hospital security guard used Sissy’s tags to call Franck’s husband, Dale. He said Sissy was on a mission to see her mom but simply couldn’t find the right lift to take.
The family is still perplexed as to how Sissy sniffed her way to the hospital. But they think she might have known her way around from car trips where Nancy Franck was dropped off for work next door.
A Pennsylvania school district superintendent says five middle school students were mistakenly handed word search puzzles based on Fifty Shades of Grey with such terms as “leather cuffs” and “spanking.”
The Valley Independent reports that Monessen Schools superintendent Leanne Spazak issued a statement apologising and saying the puzzles were “mistakenly and unknowingly” put in a stack of worksheets given to five students last Monday.
Spazak didn’t say how that happened or whether any employees were disciplined.
A staff member collected the sheets from the five students once they began sniggering at words like ‘bondage’, ‘submissive’ and other even more explicit terms.
One student kept a copy, however, and posted it on social media, which prompted parent complaints and media inquiries.
