saturn's weird hexagon changes colour the mysterious hexagon at saturn's northern pole has changed colour from blue to gold, scientists have said. the hexagon is essentially a rotating cloud pattern; its shape may originate as the result of large differences in the speeds of saturn's winds. the observation was made by nasa's cassini spacecraft, which has been exploring the sixth planet since 2004. the change in colour is thought to be the result of seasonal changes on the planet. in particular, the amount of sunlight falling on the poles affects the production of suspended particles aerosols in the atmosphere. scientists think the shift from a bluish colour to a golden one may be due to more aerosols being produced through reactions involving sunlight and the atmosphere. this could be happening as the planet's north pole reaches its summer solstice in may. cassini was despatched to saturn in 1997, to better understand the processes operating on saturn and perhaps other giant planets. using computer simulations, scientists have shown that small perturbations in winds flowing around the north pole can form a hexagon shape rotating at speeds close to those of the real one. hillary clinton aide brands her weird in damning leaked email fresh embarrassment was heaped on hillary clinton today as new leaked emails revealed one of her closest allies blasting her as weird. wikileaks, which notoriously publishes private and classified information, released the stolen e mail which describes the presidential hopeful’s over laughter as “authentic weirdness”. according to the e mail from clinton campaign chairman john podesta’s gmail account, strategist luke albee says: “she sometimes laughs a little too hard at jokes that aren’t that funny.” to which, podesta replies: “laughing too hard is her authentic weirdness.” the clinton camp have previously neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of the e mails published by wikileaks. laughing too hard is her authentic weirdness clinton’s over laughing has been used to fuel conspiracy theories about her health some suggest laughter at inappropriate moments is proof she suffered a neurological or psychological problem. damning e mails also reveal how president barack obama knew about clinton’s private e mails while claiming he didn’t. in an interview in march 2015, when asked when he learned about clinton’s use of “an email system outside the us government for official business”, obama replied: “the same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.” however in a hacked march e mail released by wikileaks, clinton spokesman josh schwerin says: “you probably have more on this. but it looks like potus just said he found out hrc was using her personal email when he saw it in the news. details about hillary clinton's campaign have come out in the leaked emails express pictures looks at the extraordinary life of hillary clinton. hillary clinton speaks on stage during the annual unicef snowflake ball at cipriani wall street on november, in new york city. former secretary of state hillary clinton delivers remarks while being honored during the children's defense fund's beat the odds celebration at the newseum november 16, in washington, dc. hillary clinton speaks to the children‚äôs defense fund in washington hillary clinton addresses her staff and supporters about the results of the u.s. election at a hotel in new york democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton, with her husband, former u.s. president bill clinton, (rear) arrive for her concession speech to president elect donald trump in new york, u.s. the emails suggest president obama knew about clinton's use of emails outside business clinton’s former chief of staff at the state department, cheryl mills immediately replied in a private email to podesta saying: “we need to clean this up. he has emails to her they do not say state.gov.” the e mails also discussed how to react bill clinton’s sexual assault allegations and boosting clinton’s public image. they also shed some light on the frayed relationship with long term aide doug band after he branded the clintons’ daughter as “spoiled brat”. commenting on the veracity of the documents her spokesman glen caplin said: “we are not going to confirm the authenticity of stolen documents released by julian assange who has made no secret of his desire to damage hillary clinton." fancy some pinecone juice? the weird world of ben fogle's new lives in the wild the adventurer’s series follows those who opted to leave the modern world behind. this week he has a close encounter with an amorous swedish punk first things first: apologies to ben fogle, whose series the guardian has managed to ignore for its four previous seasons. i can only assume that everyone working here has been so busy swiping left and drooling in a digital stupor to give this simple, sweet rejection of the hyper connected world the props it deserves. new lives follows fogle as he lives with people who have abandoned modern luxuries for soil and, frequently, solitude. you might consider it part of a wider trend for “digital detox” retreats, in which people hooked on the dopamine hit attained from an accidental snapchat faceswap with a baby/walnut are forced to lie in a bath filled with rice until their brain is reconfigured. none of that faddy crap for the focus of this week’s episode, though. swedish eco warrior lynx vilden is the real deal. she strictly follows stone age survival rules while living in a frozen forest in seattle, promoting a radically self sustaining existence that mainly involves being really cold and really dirty. fogle first meets vilden deep within the woods, where she makes her entrance on a stout horse while wearing a pointy pixie hat. the sexual tension is electric. “you look amazing,” says fogle, whose “ursula andress wading through the ocean in a white bikini” fantasy appears to be a punk dressed in animal skins and straddling a pony. her archaic existence also involves drinking boiled pine cones and washing her teeth with twigs. sunday morning at glastonbury, essentially. throughout the rest of the episode, we see fogle cook, chat and keep fires alight with vilden, a former hedonist whose new life has propelled her towards a different kind of extreme. at one point, fogle is woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of her taking a slash in a bowl. he seems bewitched, and i can see why. vilden’s unvarnished qualities are aspirational. she’s the person you smirk at for having blonde dreads and wearing a felt zelda costume at a party, but by the end of the night you’re half naked up a tree with a tattoo of an acorn on your arse. she made you ceremonially stamp on your iphone earlier, and you’ve agreed to babysit a bevy of otters for her next weekend. you also might be a bit pregnant. with her twins. while other shows about the wildeg. anything bear grylls affiliatedare riddled with chest thumping machismo, there are ethical, environmentally driven intentions to new lives in the wild that make for wholesome, if sobering, tv. but there is personal tragedy in this episode, too: vilden lives alone. she has a daughter, who was brought up for a while in the wild but now lives in the city. at one point she gives a desperate plea to camera, calling for a caveman to sweep her off her feet. you suspect she might want him to be fogle. much to my dismay, the likelihood of romance on is low. according to our presenter, lynx has a “unique odour”. in an act of defiance she shows him her bath to prove she does wash. it’s an iron pot heated by a fire, which she calls the cannibal tub. “i really thought you were going to eat me!” shouts fogledressed now in a pair of small blue pantsas he joins her to soak in years’ worth of dead skin and pubic hair. “the evening’s not over,” vilden smiles. for the first time, fogle looks nervous, like he wishes he wasn’t trapped in a cauldron in washington state with a woman who wants to rut him into a pulp and use his leftover skin as a waterproof. or maybe he just misses his iphone. adelaide festival program: cate blanchett and shakespeare get dark, weird and surreal program spanning opera, film, dance, music, performance art and theatre to feature rufus wainwright’s ‘symphonic visual concert’ and neil armfield’s outdoor production of the secret river cate blanchett in del kathryn barton’s spider inspired short film red, which is premiering at adelaide festival. photograph: adelaide festival canadian american singer rufus wainwright, australian theatre production the secret river, barrie kosky’s production of handel’s opera saul and a film by artist del kathryn barton starring cate blanchett mark the highlights of 2017’s adelaide festival. the march festival is the first under the co artistic direction of rachel healy and neil armfield, who worked together for almost a decade at sydney’s belvoir st theatre. the program for the adelaide festival, which is run concurrently with adelaide fringe, adelaide writers’ week and womadelaide, is a celebration of the dark, weird and surreal. thursday’s announcement also featured details of new festival hub the riverbank palais, which will float on the river torrens throughout march. adelaide festival to revive historic floating venue on river torrens andrew bovell’s adaptation of kate grenville’s the secret river, directed by armfield himself, is set to be one of the festival highlights. the stunning first contact story, which won six helpmann awards, will be remounted at the anstey hill quarry, a natural outdoor amphitheatre. “we’re bringing in a sense of ownership for the kaurna people, given that this is happening on kaurna land,” armfield said. the festival will also feature the australian premiere of red, a new short film by two time archibald prize winning painter del kathryn barton and starring cate blanchett. the film is inspired by the bizarre mating ritual of the redback spider, whose males offer themselves up to the female as a post coital meal, and has been described as “a surrealist cinematic offering and a savage tale of female power”. adelaide will also be treated to rufus wainwright’s “symphonic visual concert” prima donna, which will be matched with highlights from rufus does judy, the artist’s recreation of judy garland’s carnegie hall concert which has never been performed outside of the iconic venue; uk company complicite’s immersive theatre experience the encounter, which is also part of sydney festival’s program; and schaubühne berlin’s strange, sinister and adrenaline filled production of richard iii, directed by thomas ostermeier, which healy said was suitable “for anyone who’s fearful that shakespeare is usually served up lukewarm”. thomas ostermeier: richard iii? he's a rock star, a standup comedian richard iii follows on from the company’s production of hamlet, which played at 2010’s sydney festival. the lead performance by lars eidinger, who also played the title role in hamlet, has been described as “mesmerising”. healy and armfield also pointed to betroffenheit, a new dance work about the experience and aftermath of grief by rising dance star crystal pite and canadian theatremaker jonathon young, who lost his daughter as well as a niece and a nephew in a cabin fire in 2009. healy described the piece, which received a five star review in the guardian, as “one of the most memorable and affecting pieces of work that i can remember seeing”. in lebanese british artist tania el khoury’s sound installation gardens speak, audiences will literally dig into the soil to hear the stories of syrians who lost their lives in the civil war. italian intersex performer silvia calderoni will blur fiction with biography and performance art with monologue in mdlsx, an exploration of gender fluidity and identity. armfield, who saw mdlsx in rome, called it an “amazing performance” but one that was “very hard to classifyi suppose you’d call it dance theatre”. the program is packed with classical music, including a one night only performance of one of the first operas ever staged, monteverdi’s l’orfeo, which will be recreated by baroque ensemble concerto italiano; and the festival’s previously announced centrepiece, handel’s opera saul directed by barrie kosky. described by the guardian as “a theatrical and musical feast of energetic choruses, surreal choreography and gorgeous singing” when it premiered in 2015, christopher purves will be reprising the title role, joined by a local and international cast. there will also be a suite of chamber music performances to showcase the new concert hall at the picturesque mount barker summit. curated by anna goldsworthy, chamber landscapes will focus on schubert and be held over six days, with australian composers including calvin bowman, deborah cheetham and william barton responding to the landscape. among home grown productions is the world premiere of theatremakers william yang and annette shun wah’s the backstories, which will explore the asian australian experience with collaboration from prominent south australians including chef cheong liew, football official moya dodd and fashion designer razak mohammed. there will also be a performance of a new experimental dance work by restless dance theatre, held in an adelaide hotel; and 1967: music in the key of yesa musical celebration of the referendum, in which more than 90% of australians voted to remove racist clauses from the australian constitution. for families, manual cinema’s magic city will use overhead projections, shadow puppets and live feed cameras to create real time animated cinema based on the children’s classic by edith nesbit; and adelaide symphony orchestra will join miriam margolyes for a retelling of peter and the wolf. world of weird reviewentertaining, if not exactly edifying pretend vampires, rodent lovers, zentai practitioners, and a man who paints portraits with his genitals. well, it made for an occasionally funny hour of tv tim ‘pricasso’ patch and presenter joel dommett in their painting outfits. there’s a large branch of televisual entertainment that relies on people doing strange and disconcerting things, either as some kind of challenge or ritual humiliation, or as the price you pay for being allowed to call yourself a celebrity when you aren’t really. then there are those folks who do odd things off their own bat, because they’re odd. you don’t have to give them reasons or offer them money. you just have to find them. world of weird is a series that does just that, and it’s a very sturdy formula. the only possible difficulty its producers might have faced is a global shortage of weirdness, but once they tracked down the man who paints pictures with his penis, i’m sure they felt they were away. tim patchaka pricassolives in queensland in a house he built himself. he wears an outsize pink top hat and matching bow tie when he works, and not much else. he produces, he reckons, about canvases a year, mostly on commission, although success in his particular discipline comes at a price. “i go through a lot of skin,” he says. it has been said that half an hour spent in the company of someone who is good at his job is never wasted. as a corollary to that, i would suggest that minutes spent watching a guy paint with his dick will make you feel a lot better about how you waste your own time, with the possible exception of the preceding minutes. to say that pricasso paints with his penis isn’t completely accurate; he also paints with his balls and arse. he has a method for doing the canvas edges he calls “the credit card swipe” that, i must confess, i’m still a little haunted by. pricasso’s paintings are mostly portraits, either of famous people or paying sitters. the best thing i can say about them is that they’re not bad, considering. presenter joel dommett had a go at producing a still life using only his member, which proved, if nothing else, that it’s harder than it looks. i thank you. world of weird also turned our jaded attentions to texan vampire michael vachmiel, who is part of a subculture dedicated to combining gothic fashions with total nonsense. the programme claimed there might be as many as 5,000 vampires in the us, although i would suggest the true figure is much closer to zero. vachmiel calls himself a “sanguinarian”, which means he drinks blood. his sourcea “black swan” in pretend vampire parlanceis a 29 year old woman who goes by the name of blut katzchen. it’s a consensual relationship, although it was unclear what she got out of it, and even less clear after she explained. “for me, it’s a spiritual thing,” she said. “it’s an exchange of energy. it’s growing your own energy ... and one of the ways to regrow energy is by giving it out.” i think if that explanation made any more sense it would violate the first law of thermodynamics. one of the pitfalls of televising weird people is that you could end up with people who are just being weird to get on television. obviously, publicity is a big part of the dick painting business, but i had the feeling that everyone involved in world of weird would persist with their niche enthusiasms whether or not they attracted wider notice. that might not be true of jackie from texarkana, who keeps a capybara as a pet. even as she extolled the joys of having an rat about the house, jackie seemed to be starting down the long journey toward accepting her mistake. chico the capybara is ungovernable, prone to escape attempts and occasionally aggressive. “chico doesn’t necessarily like jeff,” said jackie, as chico cornered jackie’s husband in the kitchen. it was obvious that jeff didn’t like chico either. in a few years, chico will weigh more than jeff, and jackie will probably have a choice to make. world of weird made for an entertaining, if not exactly edifying hour. it has a tolerant, live and let live attitude toward its subjects, and it was occasionally very funny. at the end, vicky pattison of geordie shore undertook an investigation of the japanese practice of zentai, which involves shy people dressing up in skintight, all body lycra costumes for anonymous erotic encounters. gamely perched on the edge of a bed where a zentai threesome were slithering about like snakes, pattison decided it was time to make her excuses. “i don’t think it’s too long before one of these geezers is wearing this lass like a hat,” she said. world of weird: a pale imitation of tarrant on tv: review world of weird was like tumbling down a rabbit hole and ending up in the early nineties, a pre internet world when we relied on shows like eurotrash or tarrant on tv to bring us faintly titillating clips from around the globe. world of weird isn’t so much an update of those formats as a wan imitation. this opening episode of the second series comprised four films randomly bolted together. woefully unfunny comedian joel dommett travelled to australia’s gold coast to visit pricassothe world’s only artist to paint with his penis. he wore a pink stetson with matching bow tie, which was never properly explained. pricasso recently painted a portrait of donald trump, which seemed apt. over in texas, blue peter alumnus ayo akinwolere investigated america’s vampire community, including self styled “vampire king” michael and his “black swan” (a sympathetic donor) blut, who let him suck her blood. we also met local rednecks jackie and jeff, who kept a pet capybara. it turned out, unsurprisingly, that the world’s largest rodent made a terrible house pet. finally, vicky pattison (the winner of last year’s i’m a celebrity...) headed to tokyo to become a zentai, who dress in full body lycra and exploit their new found anonymity by writhing around in “love hotels” with strangers. the irritatingly squeamish presenterspattison was the only one who was halfway tolerablesquirmed, giggled, gurned to camera and failed to ask insightful questions. the voice over script substituted gratuitous swearing for wit. a running time of one hour felt far longer. this was the kind of derivative schedule padding you’d expect to find on channel or in some far flung corner of cable television. channel is obliged, by charter, to take risks. airing tired nonsense like thisor, indeed, spending £75m on bake offisn’t enough. helen czerski: ‘physics isn’t all quantum weirdness. it’s about daily life’ she’s a ‘bubble scientist’ on a mission to broaden understanding of the physics of the everyday worldtake the foam on your cappuccino… helen czerski has the coolest job in scienceshe’s a bubble scientist. or, to give her her full title, she’s a physicist and oceanographer at university college london. when she’s not doing that, you’ve probably seen her on telly as a science presenter for the bbc. she has just finished her first book, storm in a teacup: the physics of everyday life, and if that’s not enough she also plays badminton competitively. sitting at her kitchen table, just returned from a morning coaching session and still wearing her racket club’s black and red polo shirt, she laughs as the observer opens with the obvious question... bubbles? yeah, nobody quite knows what to make of it when i tell them, but they’re always interested. bubbles are like the dolphins of the physics world, right? they make people happy. but scientifically they’re also fascinating. they’re in champagne, they’re used in medicine, they’re in the oceanthey’re the unsung heroes of the physical world. this business of having two phases togethera liquid and a gas interactingis such a useful thing. it gives you something that neither a gas or a liquid can do on its own. as the sea ice retreats the arctic ocean is more exposed… i’d like to go and study the bubbles underneath breaking waves like what? take the foam on top of a cappuccino. it’s just milk and air. put a spoon on top of a column of just coffee or just air and it’ll fall through, but whip them both up into a cappuccino and the spoon will rest on top. understanding what’s going on when bubbles form has all sorts of applications, like understanding how oceans breathe or how light and sound travel through oceans. why do people need to know about the physics of everyday life? isn’t it just good enough to know that things work, like a smartphone? it’s about knowing the rules of the world so you don’t get exploited. whether it’s a politician or a salesman, you need to know the rules they’re playing by. it doesn’t mean you have to be an expert on weather systems or on double glazing or cars or mattresses or phones, but if you know the basics it gives you the confidence to ask the right questions. say someone is trying to sell you a swanky smartphone case to make your reception better, or a magnetic bracelet they say will cure your wrist pain, you can ask “well, how does it work?” and if you know the basics you can tell whether they know what they are talking about or whether they’re just making things up. a satellite image of the arctic shows comparative ice melt but a lot of people shun physics because it seems so complicated and irrelevant. i know. i don’t think we’ve done a good job in talking about physics. people get the impression that it’s all about quantum weirdness or stars and time and the universe, but it’s also about quite basic things. physics is about patterns that are folded into our everyday lives. it’s much more accessible than people think and we should be telling them that. but nobody else is, so i am. do you have an example from your book? ok. how about the way that tea sloshes around when you walk helping to explain why mobile phone signals don’t interfere with each other? tea sloshes at different rates in different size mugs, faster in little mugs and slower in bigger ones. the reason you spill tea when you walk is that it just so happens that the walking speed of a normal human is almost exactly the same as the slopping speed in your average mug. the walking speed exactly reinforces the slopping speed, so you spill the tea if you walk normallywalk slowly or with a tiny mug or a gigantic mug and you won’t spill a drop. mobile phone signals work on the same principle. they’ve each got a really precisely tuned resonanceor electron slopping rateso that you can have two people sitting next to each other on two phones having two different conversations and they won’t interfere with each other. i see choosing to have an adventure as a rational decision, even though it might look irrational is there a tension between being a scientist and being a television presenter? the biggest tension is time. it’s definitely more than one job, however you want to add it up. there are benefits: i learn a lot. i’ve definitely met people and learned things that i otherwise wouldn’t have if i stayed in my lab like a lot of scientists do. there are similarities between the two, too. the most important thing, whether it’s doing scientific research or presenting or writing, is understanding the situation clearly enough to be able to pick out exactly the right question. to organise all the ideas into a hierarchy and say: “this jabs at an imaginary point with her finger, this is the important thing that it all hangs on.” it must be tough to make time for yourself? not really. i manage to do some kind of sportbadminton or running or canoeingalmost every day. one of the things that i find mystifying is that people tend to think of scientists as somehow “other”, somehow alien. i’ve sometimes not been invited to normal, mundane things that i’d enjoy because people assume i’m off doing something higher. it’s true that i read a lot of books and play with ideas but the washing machine breaks for me, too! so what’s your biggest non science, non sport guilty pleasure? i guess i’m not allowed to say reading, am i? no. erm... chocolate. dark chocolate with hazelnuts. of what are you most proud in your career? overcoming being extremely shy. i was too shy to speak as a child and it’s something i only really began to overcome around the time of my phd in experimental explosives physics at the university of cambridge. academically, i’m probably most proud of building instruments that go out into the open ocean and measure things that we have never been able to measure before. there’s something quite satisfying about drawing a ridiculous machine on a piece of paper and then a few years later having this monstrous thing sitting in front of you, pushing a button and it working. if money or logistics were not an issue, what would your dream experiment be? i’d like to go to the arctic and study the bubbles underneath breaking waves there. as the sea ice retreats the arctic ocean is becoming more and more exposed, so we need to understand better how gases and particles are exchanged across it. bubbles are the vehicles that allow this exchange. finding out what keeps us and our planet aliveand what might not keep us aliveis becoming increasingly important. carlo rovelli: ‘science is where revolutions happen’ science is all about evidence and acting rationally. what is the most evidence free or irrational area of your life? i suppose i’d say i was a compulsive opportunity taker. i see choosing to have an adventure as a rational decision, even though it might look irrational to others. so if someone asked you to go on a one way trip to mars to study bubbles you would go? i feel like i’ve got a bit more living to do on earth first. anyway, nobody’s solved the radiation problem yet. if they figured out a way to send people there without giving them incurable cancer then i’d think about it. i reckon i’ve got at least another two or three decades before it becomes a possibility. hang on, are you saying that the mars one expedition is not going to set up a colony on mars by like they say they will? you see! knowing some basic physics can help you make important real life decisions. weird bonuses and sales reviews deutsche bank. deutsche bank ag might need to raise capital. one thing that makes it hard for banks to raise capital is that banks know what is in them and no one else does. there is a market for lemons problem. banks are opaque and complicated, and if there is one thing the last few years have taught us, it is that there is always some new scandal lurking. the banks know what they own and what they're up to, and what scandals are lurking, but the investors who might buy their equity don't, or at least, they don't trust that they know everything they need to. and banks tend to raise capital when their risks and scandals are most off putting. "here, have some of this bucket of writhing goop," the banks offer, and the investors turn up their noses. on the other hand, if you are already immersed in the goop, maybe you'll think that it's not that bad? that's the main logic behind stuff like this: deutsche bank ag, europe’s biggest investment bank, is exploring alternatives to paying bonuses in cash as chief executive officer john cryan seeks to boost capital buffers and shore up investor confidence, according to people familiar with the matter. executives at the german lender have informally discussed options including giving some bankers shares in the non core unit instead of cash bonuses, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. another idea under review is replacing the cash component with more deutsche bank stock, they said. this trade is essentially a price arbitrage. if you sell deutsche bank stock to outsiders who don't know or trust the bank, they won't pay you that much for it. but if you give it to insiders instead of cash for their bonuses, those insiders know and trust the bank because they work there and have had a hand in making the goop or at least they have to act like they do anyway. so you can get more bang for your buck by paying employees in shares than you can by selling shares to the public and using the proceeds to pay employees in cash. and this is especially true of the goopiest of the goop: shareholders might dramatically discount the price of non core operations, and raising capital by selling non core equity directly to investors is particularly unappealing, but the bankers who understand the weird non core stuff might be thrilled to own it. there is a counter argument that deutsche bank employees should value the goop less than the market does, because after all they are already swimming in it, and they can't diversify away their exposure to deutsche bank the way a regular investor could. these plans could "make retaining top staff more of a challenge," says bloomberg intelligence analyst arjun bowry. but this idea has worked great for credit suisse in the past, where bonuses paid in "toxic securities" that no one else wanted gave employees huge returns. generally, the arbitrage should work if the bank is embattled and fundamentally sound, that is, if there's a big enough disconnect between how the public values the bank's weird stuff and how the employees do. making employees eat the bank's cooking is fine, if they find it delicious. if they think it's poison, and have to eat it, they should quit. but if they think that then they shouldn't really be selling shares to the public either. meanwhile in retail banking. in some ways the wells fargo & co. fake accounts scandal was too easy: wells fargo bankers opened millions of accounts for customers without telling the customers, and that is just straightforwardly bad, so wells fargo is in trouble. but in the aftermath of that trouble, it seems increasingly like the big problem at wells fargo was not so much the fake accounts which mostly didn't charge fees and which many customers didn't notice but the real accounts that wells fargo opened for customers who didn't understand what they were getting. the outrage at wells quickly moved on from "opening fake accounts" to "aggressive sales tactics," with those tactics driven by strict sales goals that forced bankers to constantly push products on customers. but a whole lot of aggressive sales tactics are distasteful, and even harmful, but not illegal. opening three checking accounts for an unsophisticated customer without telling him is illegal. opening three checking accounts for an unsophisticated customer because you have convinced him that he needs "separate accounts for such purposes as traveling, grocery shopping and saving for an emergency" is pretty much just as bad, but legally much grayer. anyway to ensure wells fargo & co.’s scandal over unauthorized customer accounts isn’t being repeated at other lenders, regulators are poised to start reviewing data and talking to employees inside the biggest u.s. banks, according to a person familiar with the matter. wells fargo’s largest competitors have received regulators’ formal requests for information and have been preparing for their practices to be scrutinized by examiners in the coming days, said the person, who requested anonymity because the process isn’t public. but what do you scrutinize? if the test is, do other banks let their employees create millions of fake accounts associated with e mail addresses like, then it seems like a pretty easy test. if the test is, do banks only sell products to customers that the customers understand and that the banks think are in the customers' best interests, then that would be a pretty radical regulatory change. elsewhere in wells fargo news: drinking hand sanitizer is really bad for you! and the scandal has been tough on random people named john stumpf and wells fargo. is banking fun? “i know a client who went on a cruise and told the bank he was traveling,” says andy pringle at london recruitment firm circle square. “the problem for senior bankers is that it’s difficult to quantify what’s work and what’s not,” he adds. ” often, your clients will be your friends, so if you go shooting with them or have a meal with them, is that work or is it pleasure?” hsbc seems to be asking just that question. matthew westerman, the former goldman sachs banker who took over as head of hsbc’s global banking division in may is reportedly compelling his bankers to use a system that tracks exactly how they use their time, exactly how many clients they visit, and exactly how many deals they bring in. seemingly gone are the days when you could mooch into the office at 11am before leaving for a ‘client lunch’ and reappearing at 4pm for two hours. hsbc bankers are said to be unhappy as a result. meanwhile, wells fargo has eliminated strict numerical sales quotas for retail bankers because of, you know. the challenge for banks is that, if you want to build deep and meaningful relationships with clients, you have to give those relationships some room to breathe. bankers can't be selling all the time; sometimes they have to just spend time with the clients, building human connections without the pressure of an immediate transactional quota. but if the bank is too tolerant, the bankers will just hang out with their buddies all the time on the bank's dime, and never bring in any revenue. one solution is to make banking an exciting and lucrative job with highly variable compensation, so that smart ambitious people will be bankers and use their aggressive best judgment about how to build relationships that will bring in lots of revenue. that approach maybe worked better . another solution is, you know, time tracking and quotas. is doing a rights offering on the blockchain “this is the culmination of over two years of true innovation and hard work,” said overstock ceo patrick m. byrne. “through this public issuance of blockchain based securities the history of capital markets is entering a new era, the era of blockchain based securities.” overstock has been blockchain obsessed for a while, and has a trading technology subsidiary called (a lower case t and a zero, it's confusing) that is providing the platform for this. the blockchain interest may be related to overstock's famous battle against naked short selling: if all of your shares are tracked on an immutable public distributed ledger, then you can always be sure that no one is naked short any "phantom shares," and you will sleep better at night, if naked shorting is the sort of thing that keeps you awake. (it has that effect on some people.) for now, the offering seems to be just for fun it's for up to a million voting preferred shares, at a to be determined price, and is intended "primarily to enable t0 to demonstrate the operation of the t0 platform, while providing overstock’s stockholders of record the opportunity to participate" but if it works, you can imagine overstock one day removing itself entirely to the blockchain. here is some correspondence between overstock and the securities and exchange commission, which includes a series of diagrams about how the blockchain issuance and trading will work. it is not what you might call a pure blockchain trading system, in which every participant helps to maintain a decentralized ledger of ownership and transactions, and in which trades are confirmed by consensus of everyone on the system. instead, there's a central party pro securities ats, the alternative trading system where the shares will trade that will maintain its own proprietary central ledger of transactions. but after each transaction, it will take a snapshot of that ledger and do a teeny bitcoin transaction, using "software to embed the snapshot anchor data within that transaction," to essentially save its own encrypted ledger to the bitcoin blockchain. (overstock's transfer agent will then check that the ledger matches what's on the blockchain.) so there'll be a public, verifiable, immutable record of each overstock blockchain stock trade. but the trades themselves will happen in pro securities' matching engine and registry, not quite "on the blockchain." limits to merger arbitrage. if the proposed merger between at&t inc. and time warner inc. closes as planned, time warner shareholders will get cash and at&t stock worth $107.50. yesterday time warner closed at that's ... less. there is some reasonably straightforward arithmetic that you can do to translate that price gap into a market implied probability that the deal will close wall street is giving the deal just a 28% chance of closing at the stated terms as of tuesday’s market close, according to macro risk advisors. so if you think there's a percent chance of the deal closing at its stated terms, i guess you should buy time warner stock. but the people who are in that business are capacity constrained the average u.s. deal size hit an all time high of last year, and there were a record deals over , according to dealogic. over the same period, the total assets controlled by hedge funds dedicated to merger arbitrage have stayed roughly constant at around , according to hfr, meaning their firepower hasn’t kept pace with the mergers and acquisitions boom. and "the averageplus deal that has been agreed upon but not yet closed has been pending days, the most," so more money is stuck in pending mergers. one fun puzzle here is: does that percent implied probability of the deal closing mean that "the market" thinks that there is a probability of the deal closing? or has the market's mechanism for expressing that probability broken down a bit, as merger arbitrageurs just don't have enough money to express their views about the probability of giant mergers closing? if deal activity has grown much faster than merger arbitrage funds, and if those funds are locked into deals for longer, then the "arbitrage" part of merger arbitrage breaks down: if you think there's a chance of warner closing, but you think some other deal is even more mispriced, you might focus your firepower there. on the other hand, if there was really too little money invested in merger arbitrage, and if arbitrage opportunities were going begging, the strategy would be performing better ("merger arbitragefocused hedge funds are up this year, half the gain for hedge funds overall"), and more money would be coming into it. maybe the reason there's so little arbitrage money is because the expected probabilities really are so low. britney. a thing that bond salespeople sometimes do is go to a potential buyer and say "hey i have a seller of these bonds," and go to a potential seller and say "hey i have a buyer of these bonds," and convince the buyer to buy and the seller to sell , and collect an embarrassingly gigantic spread. and one of my favorite puzzles in finance is: is that illegal, or what? on the one hand, bluffing and misdirecting to try to maximize your profit is an ancient and beloved part of trading. on the other hand, directly lying about this stuff does seem to meet the technical definition of fraud. prosecutors and regulators frown on this sort of thing these days the leading case, whose result is still uncertain, is the prosecution of former jefferies trader jesse litvak so it's probably not worth doing, if you are a bond trader. on the other hand, if you are in the business of negotiating product placements for britney spears videos, maybe give it a go? that is not legal advice: britney's lawyer fired off a threatening letter to adam kluger, claiming he went behind britney's back and negotiated with bumble to fund her new music video. according to the letter, obtained by tmz, kluger allegedly told bumble he had authority to rep britney for an deal that would put the bumble name all over her new vid. the lawyer says bumble agreed and gave kluger . kluger then made a deal with britney's label, rca, to pay them for the bumble product placement promotion. britney's people say what kluger did is fraudulent, because he never repped britney. they also say his fee more than of the deal is ridiculous and way above what agents charge. i don't know, it sounds like he lined up a big trade that both sides were happy with, and kept the spread for himself? "he says his company is a creative agency that puts people and companies together, which is exactly what he did here." he'd have been a good bond trader, in an earlier, more innocent time. insider trading cartoons. here is a story about a former securities and exchange commission lawyer who makes youtube cartoons about insider trading law. "someone legally prohibited from trading is shown with a padlock over the head, while volatile inside information is depicted by an exploding mushroom cloud," that sort of thing. they are pretty funny. elsewhere, u.s. attorney preet bharara rang the closing bell at the new york stock exchange yesterday. as far as i know he didn't arrest anyone on his way out. people are worried about unicorns. it's okay, unicorns, you can come out of the enchanted forest now, the weather is great out here: investors have shown intense interest in new shares that have come to market in the past month, especially technology issues. the average first day pop for the eight u.s. listed tech initial public offerings since is, according to dealogic. that has helped lift the average first day gain for new tech issues, higher than in any other year. supply is a factor: "as of tuesday, tech companies had gone public , compared with on average at that point in each of the past five years," so the unicorns are still pretty wary about wandering outside. but as one venture capitalist says, "it’s motivational for companies when they feel like there’s a prize out there." you stack enough unicorn treats along the borders of the enchanted forest, and eventually they'll come out. oh and kobe bryant is a venture capitalist now bryant had a field goal percentage the number of shots taken that went in—during his career. asked if he’d be comfortable with a success rate that is more common among vcs, bryant didn’t hesitate. “i’m going to shoot higher than that,” bryant said. super. people are worried about bond market liquidity. the cfa institute surveyed its members about what they think about bond market liquidity, and i guess it is fair to say that they are worried? at least in the americas and europe, the middle east and africa, where they reported decreases in liquidity, decreases in the number of dealers making markets, increases in the time to execute orders and more unfilled orders. the asia pacific region reported that liquidity is fine, so that's a bright spot. things happen. mozambique approaches creditors over debt restructuring. argentina’s debt bonanza buys time, raises risks. uneasy calm grips markets suddenly silent before u.s. vote. goldman hopes you won't notice how many people it's laying off. megamergers face delays from heightened eu scrutiny. as deals boom, delaware judges are leaving shareholders’ bar in the cold. the sec’s beef with shadow banks could be bad for some businesses. academic financial researchers tend to like high frequency trading. shareholder wealth consequence of insider pledging of company stock as collateral for personal loans. investors pull $2 billion from janus funds as revenue drops on lower fees. donald trump’s campaign has spent more on hats than on polling. "i don’t like to analyze myself because i might not like what i see," says donald trump. trump takeover. nightmare machine. terminator conundrum. digital whiteboard. power poses. the second best baseball team in belarus. the most interesting man in the world. the smartest dog in hollywood. fbi: man wearing cat "mugshot" shirt robs oklahoma bank. if you'd like to get money stuff in handy e mail form, right in your inbox, please subscribe at this link. thanks! full moons, alpacas and nightly fireworks: the weird world of turkey farming it doesn't take much to spook a gang of turkeys. in cookham dean, berkshire, copas turkeys have been rearing christmas dinners since 1957. if you're passing by in the weeks up to november, alongside thousands of turkeys and a few alpacas, you might get to see a fireworks display. farm manager, steve hellings, is setting them off every day. as it gets closer to fireworks night, the daily show will get bigger and louder, it will also get later. for turkey farmers like hellings, one of the biggest problems is making sure the frightful birds don't get spooked. "we keep going into the night time," hellings tells ibtimes uk, "so that by the time fireworks night arrives, they just basically are enjoying the show." wedding bells for michael phelps: olympics star secretly married fiancee nicole johnson in june john mcdonnell: theresa may will ignore small businesses with bankers' brexit plan why advertise with us "we're at the stage where we're still letting them off around dusk so this week and next week we'll be ramping it up and they'll be fully acclimatised to all the noise and bangs." hellings says that turkeys are essentially herd animals, so if one gets spooked and runs, they all follow. "they'll run to the corners in their sheds and they'll suffocate each other," he says, and those that don't die will be left with scars and scratches. so you don't want to spook the turkeys, but here's the thing: a lot of stuff spooks turkeys. take, for example, full moons. hellings has to plan for full moons, "when you've got a full moon, it casts shadows so that can upset the birds," he says. when driving around at night, the team will sometimes flash lights at the birdsnot for countryside high jinks, but because there are footpaths through the farm and walkers with torches could scare the birds and lead to a frenzy. "we just try and acclimatise them to every eventuality that can arise," says hellings. sometimes he'll let off his shotgun: "i can shoot the shotgun in the yard and judge the turkey's reaction and calm them down if need be." and how do you calm down a turkey? "we talk to them. because i'm in the sheds three or four times a day and with the turkeys and they know me, they know my voice, and you just talk to them, just like you would to a dog that's scared of the fireworks, just reassure them." along with preparing for fireworks night, the farm is starting to get ready for the christmas period, where their staff with go from to around 200. with all the extra activity that's coming, the turkeys are getting a dose of kiss radio each morning so they get used to the background noise: "if you've got people shouting and screaming and stuff that can upset the turkeys so we'll play the radio just to get them used to the noise really." and while all of this is happening, there are alpacas keeping watch. if alpacas seem like an odd choice for guard animal, they're not. "they get very territorial, so if you put them in a field they will protect that territory," says hellings, "we have two in each field and they will sit back to back and they've got really good eyesight." he's even seen them chase out a fox: "they were chest out, head up, trotting over to it, and it ran out." the turkey's have their next test that afternoon. "in about minutes we've got a group of schoolchildren coming down," says hellings, "high pitched screams can upset the turkeys so we're about to test the theory." but with all the preparation, the attempts to make the turkeys fine with shocks, you can't really prepare for how they're going to fare. whatever you do, turkey farming is taking each day (and each new turkey fear) as it comes: "something that upset the turkeys one day, they won't take any notice of the next day, so it's quite a strange way to react." anna kendrick was so broke she couldn't buy shoes when she was nominated for an oscar being an oscar nominated actress will make you successful, but it might not make you rich anna kendrick has publicly bemoaned the effect of rbf on her life the critical success that precedes an oscar nomination is not always accompanied by financial security. anna kendrick said that after being nominated for an oscar for her role in up in the air in 2009, she was still stone broke. “my stylist told me i had to wear the perfect shoes for an outfit, and because the movie isn't out yet, nobody really knows who you are," kendrick, 31, told ellen degeneres. "'the shoe places don't want to loan you the shoes so can you buy a pair of louboutins?' “i was like, ‘i’m still poor’. so it was this weird combination of like all these great things are happening but at the same time nothing has changed so, it was a weird dichotomy.” this was nowhere more evident than when she was being placed in expensive hotels during promotional tours for the film. “at one point i was like, if we do another trip to new york can you put me up in a less nice hotel room and then i could keep some of the cash?.” the answer was a disappointing and categorical 'no'. winning an oscar isn’t guaranteed to grant instant happiness either, as anne hathaway recently recalled. instead, her win prompted a backlash. “i kind of lost my mind doing that movie and it hadn’t come back yet," she said. "then i had to stand up in front of people and feel something i don’t feel which is uncomplicated happiness. it’s an obvious thing, you win an oscar and you’re supposed to be happy. i didn’t feel that way. i felt wrong that i was standing there in a gown that cost more than some people are going to see in their lifetime and winning an award for portraying pain that still felt very much a part of our collective experience as human beings.” magic cake: how to make the simple three layer dessert magic cake is taking the internet by storm yet again a three layer dessert known as the magic cake is taking the internet by storm. it is appealing due to its incredible simplicityit needs one bowl and no odd ingredients or weird techniques. to make it, you use the basic ingredients used for a normal cake; eggs, water, flour, sugar, milk, and butter. but by baking the loose batter at a lower temperature, two layers are created: a thick, fudge like base layer, and a custard centre. whipped egg whites are added to the batter last which create a textured topping. variations of the cake have been circulating on the internet for years now, but from time to time the dessert gets a random resurgence. after various peaks over the past five years, the number of google searches for magic cake soared dramatically last monthpresumably as the autumn weather arrived and people wanted warming comfort food. it could be down to its visual appeal, because while it looks high effort, it involves very little elbow grease. baking bloggers have put their own twist onto the simple recipe, tweaking their own with chocolate, pumpkin spice, peanut butter, lemon, and gingerbread. others have experimented with butterscotch, eggnog, matcha powder and rhubarb for some interesting concoctions. a basic recipe sees four eggs separated, and the whites whisked until stiff. in a separate bowl, the egg yolks are beaten with sugar, water and vanilla until light. melted butter is then added , plus flour, milk and the beaten egg whites. cooking temperatures and times vary, but a finished magic cake typically takes around one hour. before eating, it needs to cool in the pan for at least three hours. code word campaign helps people escape bad dates by alerting bar staff discreetly the scheme has been praised for highlighting problems people can face with upsetting or unsafe dates a campaign against sexual violence has come up with a genius way of helping people escape bad dates where they feel unsafe. posters put up in bars and other social areas by lincolnshire rape crisis instruct anyone on a date which makes them feel upset or unsafe they can go to the bar and ask to “speak to angela”. the phrase is a code word to alert staff to the situation and help them diffuse it and ensure the person is safe. the posters advise: “are you on a date that isn’t working out? is your tinder or date not who they said they were on their profile? do you feel like you’re not in a safe situation? does it all feel a bit weird? “if you go to the bar and ask for ‘angela’ the bar staff will know you need help getting out of your situation and will call you a taxi or help you out discreetly without too much fuss.” hayley child, substance misuse and sexual violence & abuse strategy coordinator for lincolnshire county council, told the independent: “the 'ask for angela' posters are part of our wider nomore campaign which aims to promote a culture change in relation to sexual violence and abuse, promote services in lincolnshire and empower victims to make a decision on whether to report incidents. "sexual abuse and violence is an national issue and all councils have a responsibility to tackle abuse. this was lincolnshire community safety partnership's first awareness raising campaign on this issue. “we have had a really positive response to the campaign, including thanks from victims of abuse for the work that's being done. the campaign has been supported by many professional partners in the county and we will be relaunching nomore in february to tie in with the national sexual violence and abuse awareness week.” 'we just clicked': how britain fell in love with online dating a woman spotted the poster in the gender neutral toilets of a bar in lincoln and posted an image of it online. she wrote: "i saw this in a toilet and thought it was important and should be a thing everywhere not just lincolnshire". the poster has since gone viral, amassing over on twitter. the campaign has been inundated with praise as well as calls for it to be rolled out on a wider basis. one user tweeted: “i think it’s a great idea and could save lives.” another wrote: “what a great idea! hope it catches in other places”. a north korea themed bar in catalonia and the pub at the end of the world: the weirdest places to order a beer on your travels thought a north korea themed café in tarragona was weird? have we got news for you... owner alejandro cao de benos at his pyongyang café in tarragona getty just when you thought it strange enough that tarragona, a pretty port city in catalonia, recently opened its first north korea themed café, you then realise its owner is a kim jong un supporter and president of the korean friendship association. when we first heard about pyongyang café, which opened this summer, we assumed it was a joke themea huge north korean flag hanging behind the bar, propaganda posters from pyongyang plastering the walls, and asian beers in the fridge. but then we realised the owner, alejandro cao de benos, is an avid fan of north korea, who claims the country is a victim of a smear campaign by the west. not only that, but he apparently hopes to turn pyongyang café into a “cultural centre” celebrating all things north korean, with film screenings, in depth talks and traditional dishes all on the menu. the countries that are worse to visit than north korea suddenly a trip to pyongyang café sounds less fun. there are, however, still plenty of other bonkers themed bars around the world where you can snap your selfie, enjoy a few stiff drinks and yet not be lectured in the wisdom of kim jong un. here are a few to add to your list. tokyo: golden gai if you’re interested in exploring tokyo’s nightlife scene, be assured that shinjuku’s golden gai area is an absolute highlight. it’s a mini maze of six narrow alleys stuffed with teeny bars all piled one on top of the other (almost of them), each with their own theme and space for just a handful of guests. while many bars have a strict locals only policy, some are foreigner friendlyyou just have to be brave and ask. and it’s worth the steady stream of rejection until someone takes pity, as each bar is a truly unique characterlike tachibana shinryoushitsu, a surgery themed spot with worrying sounding cocktails such as the “enema” served in surgical beakers, a collection of decorative anatomical models and a barwoman dressed as a nurse. limpopo province: baobab tree bar an oldie but a goodie, the baobab tree bar situated inside a baobab tree in south africafirst opened in the late eighties. it might be inside a tree, but that doesn’t stop it from being kitted out with all the bar essentials, including a dart board and a flat screen tv. the tree is large enough to comfortably seat customers inside its hollow trunk, and is set on a scenic mango farm where visitors can also hire quad bikes or go hiking. berlin: madame claude the fact madame claude bar is a former brothel in berlin’s too cool district of kreuzberg isn’t the most interesting thing about itnot by far. no, no, the oddest thing about madame claude is that it’s an “upside down bar”, which means everything you’d expect to be on the floor is actually glued to the ceiling. with tables, chairs and rugs hanging above you, it’s all a bit confusingbut we have it on good authority that this is not necessarily the strangest thing you'll see on a night out in berlin. 48 hours in new york manhattan: genuine liquorette as with any cocktail bar in nyc deemed worthy of the prefix “cool”, genuine liquorette is hidden within a fast food jointthis time it’s genuine superette, essentially a burgers and fried chicken spot, nattily positioned as “a take on the classic california roadside stand”. but more interesting is the basement bar dressed up like a neon lit california liquor store, where cocktails are mixed with the help of a “cha chunker”a hole punching contraption that upends a mini bottle of liquor into a canned soft drink. sounds daft, but it looks great. paralysed man feels through robotic fingers in world first breakthrough 'the ultimate goal is to create a system which moves and feels just like a natural arm would,' scientist says a 28 year old man left paralysed after a car accident has been able to feel as though he was touching something with his fingers after a robotic arm was connected directly to his brain in a world first breakthrough. nathan copeland, who was injured after crashing his car on a rainy night in pennsylvania when he was just 18, spoke of experiencing a “really weird sensation” as he touches things. he said it felt like “my fingers” were being touched or pushed. copeland is able to feel using the robotic arm because it is connected to microelectrodes about half the size of a shirt button that were surgically implanted in his brain. paralysed patient walks again in astonishing medical breakthrough partially paralysed man missing half his head 'declared fit for work by dwp' paralysed man now able to play guitar hero thanks to computer chip in his brain chinese pensioner cares for paralysed wife for years after promising to 'look after her forever' before the operation, imaging techniques were used to identify the exact places that corresponded to feelings in his fingers and palm. the discovery that people can regain some sensations using a so called 'computer brain interface' could revolutionise the treatment of paralysis. earlier this year the walk again project in brazil discovered people left paralysed by severe spinal cord injuries could recover the ability to move their legs after training in an exoskeleton linked to their brain. that project was designed to enable people to walk by controlling the exoskeleton with their minds, but one of the subjects was able to walk again using crutches. professor robert gaunt, of pittsburgh university, who led the team that treated copeland, said they were trying to make use of the brain’s natural abilities. “the ultimate goal is to create a system which moves and feels just like a natural arm would,” he said. “we have a long way to go to get there, but this is a great start.” his colleague, professor andrew schwatz, said the most important finding was that the system could create a “natural sensation" but he added: “there is still a lot of research that needs to be carried out to better understand the stimulation patterns needed to help patients make better movements.” when his accident happened, copeland was in his first year of college studying for a degree in nanofabrication. he tried to continue his studies, but his health problems forced him to put them on hold. one of the first things he did after he was injured was to enrol on the pitt school of medicine’s registry of patients willing to participate in clinical trials. ten years later, that led him to have the operation to fit the implants in his brain and rediscover what it is like to reach out and touch things. “i can feel just about every fingerit’s a really weird sensation,” he said, speaking a month after the operation. “sometimes it feels electrical and sometimes its pressure, but for the most part, i can tell most of the fingers with definite precision. “it feels like my fingers are getting touched or pushed." in a video interview, copeland, who can move his upper arms, but has no sensation or movement in his lower arms and hands, added: "i usually feel it in the base of my fingers, in my finger pads, usually a tingle or some pressure like someone was squeezing. "a couple of electrodes feel like they are on my knuckles ... there are a couple of electrodes that feel like a regular touch. "it's never been painful. it's just kind of a tingle, it's not really pleasant or unpleasant." while he can feel pressure through the fingers and gauge how strong it is to an extent, he is unable to tell whether something is hot or cold. in tests, copeland was able to tell which of the robotic hand's fingers were being touched despite being blindfolded. a sense of touch is one of the key things currently missing in robotic devices. this is particularly important for picking something upsomething heavy and solid like a brick requires a different approach to the delicate pressure control needed when handling a slice of cake, for example. scientists found curious cloud shapes over bermuda triangle strange hexagonal clouds spotted over the bermuda triangle called as “air bombs” by scientists have been dubbed as the root cause of all mysterious vanishing of planes and ships at the doomed patch in the atlantic ocean, surrounded by florida,bermuda, and puerto rico. according to meteorologists, the hexagonal clouds can trigger 170mph hurricane like force, capable of destroying planes and ships in no time. air blasts running at a speed of plus can sink ships and crash planes without a trace. signaling the danger levels, meteorologist randy cerveny called the satellite imagery “bizarre.” he said hexagonal shapes in the sky signify potential microbursts from “blasts of air.” theories on sinking ships and vanishing planes bermuda triangle mysteries have already claimed at least lives in the last years. the scare is further compounded by the fact that even today four to five aircraft and yachts go missing in that sea patch. the legacy of strange events at bermuda triangle dates back to 1493. even the first journey of great explorer christopher columbus had its reference on bermuda triangle as the explorer’s compass stopped functioning and he saw strange lights in the sea. one of the biggest tragedies was the drowning of the uss cyclops in march. the navy cargo ship carried passengers and sank between barbados and the chesapeake bay. the most surprising fact was that there was no sos call from the captain and the search yielded no wreckage of the ship. similarly, two more naval cargo ships vanished on the same route in. yet another mystery was the vanishing of five u.s. navy torpedo bombers “flight” in carrying men from florida while flying on a training exercise. two search planes were sent but only one of them returned. more intriguing was the wreckage of flight that was never found. tornado like force? now the hexagonal cloud theory joins a slew of reigning theories on bermuda triangle occurrences. others include the presence of a fierce gulf stream, weird compass behavior, and violent weather changes including methane pockets. videos released by science channel on wednesday sought to explain the mystery by taking of experts who attributed the hexagonal holes as the prime villains. the scientists discovered the “bizarre” hexagonal clouds at the sea front having miles of width, using radar satellite imagery. according to experts, in simple terms, microbursts produced by hexagonal clouds are comparable to tornadoes but they differ on the impact as the effects will be more localized with the latter and will be felt within a radius. harry potter movie marathon: i watched every film in a row and now i think i'm a wizard a blow by blow account of worth of the wizarding world and one descent into magical hysteria we all love harry potter but to what level of commitment? that was a question i was about to put to the test in a manner i wasn't entirely sure i'd survive marathoning each of the eight installments of the harry potter franchise over the course of one night and one day. for the mathematicians in the house, that's a straight hours and minutes of magical goodness; which turned slowly into hours with breaks, because i am human and my eyeballs are the weakest of my organs. so, to celebrate s host of harry potter celebrations: from the anniversary of the release of harry potter and the philosopher' stone, the release of fantastic beasts and where to find them, and the return of the entire franchise to cinemas i attempted the improbable and overdosed on the wizarding world in true style. here follows my account of the proceedings. harry potter and the philosopher's stone and so it begins. i'm already humming the theme music. dumbledore (richard harris style) is dropping off little baby harry at privet drive, with mcgonagall transfiguring out of her cat disguise into human form. which probably would have been some kind of mind blowing special effect at the time, but we're low key going to get dragons in about three films so i'm trying to conserve my awe for now. “you're a wizard, harry.” and with that, a thousand childhoods instantly made and ruined; in the knowledge that we'd never hear those words, even though they were the only thing we desired in our young, feeble lives. harry is choosing a wand. he gets one with a phoenix feather inside, which is very cool but makes me think there must be a lot of insecurity in the wizarding world. think about it, you're constantly having things chosen for youyour wand, your house, your patronus etc. what if you end up a hufflepuff with a toad patronus and a wand with some kind of stink root in it? how do you live with yourself then? only hollywood could make king's cross station look like some exciting, wondrous place and not a hellfire of sweat, rage, day old vomit, and delays. what is up with hermione in this first film? sure, she evens out and turns feminist icon by the end of the series; but she's kind of abhorrent to everyone here, especially ron. which kind of makes me think she's one of those psychopath gene people; meaning she'll either end up owning a billion dollar company or murdering ron and stuffing him in a car trunk. malfoy just got detention from mcgonagall because he snuck out of bed to tell on harry & friends. i love that hogwarts works on prison rules. snitches get stitches. the philosopher's stone has finally been uncovered and professor quirrell's been turned to ash; meaning harry's killed in cold blood for the first time. excellent! it's one film down and i'm feeling magical in every fibre of my being. what an absolute, sugary sweet delight philosopher's stone is; the kind that relishes in the airy joy of being a true children's classic. but let's move oni've already eaten half the snacks i bought but, hey, i'm feeling good. harry potter and the chamber of secrets the kids age super quickly between these first two films. it's abrupt, and almost kind of terrifying. like, who is this old man potter? where did that tiny, squeaky voiced boy go? is this really how unforgiving and brutal the ravages of time are? is there hope for any of us? but, dobby! he's here now, so all is good and nothing hurts. he's smashing his head into a chest of drawers. now he's smacking himself in the face with a lamp. i relate to dobby a lot. not only does chamber of secrets introduce all time legend dobby into the game, but it also features maybe my favourite character of allwork with me on thisgilderoy lockhart. he's spectacular. none of the women in this film can handle the luscious curled bangs of kenneth branagh. it's like looking straight into the sun. “they can't cancel quidditch!” hermione just got petrified, but it's good that oliver wood's keeping his priorities straight. dude's got to be unbearable off the quidditch pitch; like guys who keep talking about their gains at the gym, oliver loves to corner girls at parties and tell them about how many bludgers he took down in his last match. right, it's time for the terrifying monster spider to turn up, which is the perfect cue for me to leave and make my first cup of coffee for the evening; because, when i do eventually sleep, i would like that sleep to be largely nightmare free. if i ever get to that point. also, what is up with aragog setting all his spider babies after harry and ron when the only reason they were there in the first place was to help aragog's supposed buddy hagrid? burn your friendship bracelet, hagrid. nope. just walked in again and the forest is entirely a blanket of giant spiders and they're crawling over everything. nope. ginny's been taken by the basilisktime to step in and save the day, gilderoy lockhart! now is the hour of need! or just go back into your office, that is also fine. or just betray harry and then completely backfire your spell so you knock yourself unconscious and lose all your memories, it's all good. oh, come on tom riddle; your glorious, floppy bangs don't fool me. we all know the true lesson of the chamber of secrets and that is don't trust people with really great hair. that's why everyone in slytherin looks like they just stepped out of toni&guyibecause their hair was tainted by the devil's curler. harry may have defeated riddle, but he's now afraid his gift for parseltongue, amongst others things, means he's been tainted by his enemy and was in fact always destined to be a slytherin. personally, i don't know what he's so worried about because his hair is average at best. harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban we're officially entering potter puberty now. you can tell because the warner bros. logo is all dark and moody. plus, harry's experimenting with his wand under the duvet. alfonso cuarón directs here so everything gets kind of freaky, kind of fast. we're quickly introduced to the (genuinely frightening) dementors. my sincere congratulations to every hogwarts student who didn't take one look at those soul sucking skeleton ghosts and hightail it straight back home. michael gambon has entered as the new dumbledore. followed swiftly by emma thompson, as the producers of harry potter stalk up and down the hallways of bafta, dragging out every brit actor they can find by the collar. i'm thankful, though, since one of the best things about the entire series has always been watching these legendary actors hang loose and have the time of their lives on screen. lupin has always been a fan favourite for good reason. he's maybe the most chill individual in the entire wizarding world, and someone i would just feel really comfortable getting a beer with. you can tell he's really chill because he always wears a lot of cardigans. gary oldman is yelling a lot. it's just a master class of yelling, this performance. the design of werewolf lupin in this movie is magnificent. like many fans, azkaban is my favourite of the series, precisely because of this kind of visionary stuff so good job, cuarón. plus, i feel sane and awake enough right now to actually appreciate it. i am not, however sane or awake enough to really get my head around the paradoxical logic of the time turner; specifically whether buckbeak actually died the first time around we see events or whether events had already been altered and he was saved, meaning harry and hermione's actions with the time turner were always destined to work? j.k. rowling, help me. and so ends the azkaban adventure, a marker of the major tone shift for the series from wide eyed children's classic into the eventual fantasy epic we get by its close. harry potter and the goblet of fire look, here's david tennant here to welcome us into the next chapter. he's dressed like a goth ticket scalper. harry is bizarrely dumbfounded by the weasleys' tardis style tent at the quidditch world cup. he's just spent three movies battling giant snakes, spiders, and werewolves; but, my god, this extra floor space is everything. new year, new defence against the dark arts teacher. just make this an online course already, will you? that said, i do like mad eye moody's methods of yelling facts into students' faces, then traumatising insects. ah, we reach the great mystery of the harry potter movies. what on earth is the dashing successful popular cedric diggory doing in hufflepuff? did he crap his pants during the sorting hat ceremony or something? what happened there? poor harry's being forced to compete in the tri wizard cup even though he's underage and didn't submit his name to the goblet. it's just like when you walk into a room at a house party looking for your phone and next thing you know you've lost a drinking game and someone's trying to pour anonymous fluids down your throat. “i think i'd rather take the dragon.” poor harry time continues as he struggles to find a date for the yuletide ball. oh, he may be the chosen one, but he still gets rejected by cho chang will standing in a tower surrounded by owl crap, because the dude couldn't get his act together and ask her earlier. so, voldemort's back and cedric is dead. rip cedrictime to move on to your next life as a sparkling vampire babe. cedric's probably the first hardcore death of the series, too. no one's taking it well, but i kind of wish i could just gently touch them all on the shoulder and be, like, “buddy, it's about to get a whole bunch worse.” harry potter and the order of the phoenix i've officially passed the halfway point. my sanity is somewhat intact, though words and actions are starting to blur into one magical fever. harry is sitting on a swing and staring into nothingness and that sort of sums up how i feel right now. dudley's transformed into some silver chain wearing thug. we're in deep teenagerdom now. dolores umbridge's defence against the dark arts lesson plans being theoretically based rather than practically based when all the students know it won't prepare them for facing voldemort feels like a very, very sick burn against the current education system. nice one, j.k. on the other hand, those are some really nice decorative kitten plates. i'd definitely take backhanded bribes from voldemort for a set of those bad boys. the most essential part of forming dumbledore's army is getting everyone to queue up and put their names down on a sign up sheet. that's how all great rebellions were formedremember the sign up sheet they tacked to the front of the bastille? this scene where they interrupt umbridge's exam session with a bunch of fireworks is every student's dream, isn't it? i feel like pink floyd needs to be playing right now. all followed by some sweet, centaur flavoured justice for umbridge; even though we know all this celebration will be short lived because this is latter day potter and somebody's about to die. and, there we go. rip sirius. there's a lot of slow motion crying. harry's having a moral crisis over whether to revenge murder bellatrix lestrange; which i'm half onboard for becausehow dare shehalf against because helena bonham carter is a very cool lady. “you'll never know love or friendship. and i feel sorry for you.” turns out, voldemort's just as insecure as the rest of us; which is almost a comforting thought. oh man, remember when our biggest problem was living in a cupboard? i miss those days. but we've got friendship; sweet, restorative friendship pouring out of our ear holes. and thus ends order of the phoenixwith the idea that everything's going to be fine, because friendship. harry potter and the half blood prince the warner bros. logo is so dark now it's like batman designed it. we're truly through the rabbit hole now and, yes, lack of sleep is 100% making me more emotionally distraught about this than i should be. i'm getting to the point where i can't separate the stakes in my own liferunning out snacks, drinking so much coffee my heart explodesand the stakes of the film, like voldemort plunging the wizard world into an age of darkness and everyone getting murdered by death eaters. snape is in so deep right now with voldemort's crew; it's stakes on stakes on stakes on stakes, and i feel like i'm going mad with the level of investment i have with what's going on right now. it is sort of great, however, that pretty much all you need to do to infiltrate the death eaters is wear a lot black. look like you fell out of a hot topic and i guess everyone just assumes you're evil. hermione's talking about this super powerful love potion that's giving off an irresistible smell, but i'm pretty sure she just described lynx aftershave. am i right? where's my sponsorship deal? let us pause the horror for a brief intermission of teen antics. hey, remember quidditch? when it was a fun sport to play before all the murder started? or going to the pub to get a butterbeer with your pals? or describing the respective quality of your crushes' skin with your best pal, as ron and harry are doing in this painfully awkward example of teenage dude chat? why is being a teenager so weird? harry and malfoy are duking it out in a bathroom. why does so much of the action in harry potter happen in bathrooms? that's maybe the least magical place you could find in this largely magical castle. anyway, malfoy is grievously injured because harry utilised one of the spells he found in the half blood prince's book and everyone's mad about it; even though malfoy and his dad are clearly death eaters, and why is malfoy even allowed to attend this school at this point in time? everything just got very quiet. and... dumbledore is dead. slow motion. regretful snape. tears, endless tears. bellatrix is jazzed. everything is sepia now. it's just going to be a constant stream of death from now onwards; which worries me, because my soul has been weakened from sleep deprivation and i'm starting to worry i won't make it. harry potter and the deathly hallows the final stretch. usually, i'm glad the deathly hallows is split up into two films because that means more harry potter; but right now i'm kind of horrified. what if harry potter just keeps going and going and going and i'll have to watch him raise his kids and pay his mortgage? hermione just obliviated her own dentist parents. harry's waving goodbye to his little cupboard house. look how far we've come; it's like life in that cupboard is now but a sweet, distant memory of child abuse. where the hell did domhnall gleeson come from? was this some weird sort of father son duty he had to carry out for brendan? did the harry potter producers only just notice he had red hair and told him, sorry, you're playing a weasley now? and you're married to this french chick. don't ask how or why. they've escaped the wedding attack and headed straight to sirius black's old haunt, grimmauld place. no one else is there because everyone is dead. there is only a very angry house elf left, who is a strong contrast to dobby because he is neither adorable, nor does he smash himself in the face with lamps. speaking of, dobby's returned. yay, dobby! let's not think about the fact he's only turned up, after being absent for half the franchise, so that he can die and make everyone cry. i just had to google whether martin freeman was in any of these films, because it feels like he should be and i've been waiting around hours for him to turn up and it's not happened. turns out he is not in any of these films. this google session also marks the beginning of a long section of this film in which harry and hermione wander around the woods with various levels of angst. the locket horcrux is trying to murder harry in an ice lake, which begs the question: why do people always wear cursed objects around their necks? these kids are having exactly the same problem as frodo baggins; just because there's a chain, doesn't meant you have to wear it. just put it in your pocket or something. dobby to the rescue! dobby is so bad ass. i love him and i'm not prepared for what's about to happen. bellatrix is yelling a lot, as usual. who is the better yellersirius or bellatrix? oh god, dobby. no, dobby why is this so unnecessarily cruel, j.k. rowling? he was just a little house elf. he had his one moment to shine and then you straight up murdered him in cold blood. the distant look in his eyewhy is this death so emotional? he looks like gollum banged et banged a bunch of ear wax; yet, still, this is the worst and most tragic thing to have happened in the entire harry potter universe. who will stop these tears from cascading down my eyesit burns. burns with the rage of injustice placed upon this sweet, princely house elf whose taste of freedom was so short but who gave himself up so willingly to sacrifice. sorry, but that grave they dig him at the top of a hill is not enough. not enough for dobby, he deserves a viking funeral. he deserves fire and tears and sad chanting. you will be avenged dobby, i promise you this! harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2 the home stretch. the final frontier. i feel strange and emotionalmy reality has broken down. i am potter and i am not potter. this deeply eerie opening isn't helping with all these dementors flying around hogwarts and snape standing there likeho, ho what's my motivation? you'll soon find out. i am still sad about dobby. helena bonham carter's performance as emma watson playing helena bonham carter is fabulous. although, it's really strange that no one in gringotts is catching on that this isn't actually bellatrix, but hermione polyjuiced as bellatrix i mean, she's doing zero yelling. not convincing at all. there's time to squeeze in one more brit actor before we wrap up, so here's kelly macdonald as helena ravenclaw's ghost. she is mad as balls about her mother's diadem becoming a horcrux. 1pn and hermione are making out because there's nothing sexier than destroying a horcrux and annihilating a part of somebody's soul. actually, pretty much everyone's declaring love for each other: ginny and harry, neville and luna. the scent of death is truly the world's greatest aphrodisiac. here comes the rip locomotive. again, what are the spiders doing here, fighting for voldemort? come on, what's their motivation in this franchise? traitors. anyway, lavender brown's dead and no one will probably mourn her. and there goes severus snape, murdered so voldemort can take possession of the elder wand. i'm sad, but not as sad as i should be, because snape's storyline is super complicated and i'm too tired to understand what he's up to in dying right now. time for some more rips. one of the weasley twins i forget which, honestly. over there, tonks and lupin; with their hands sort of touching but not touching, because this movie wants to mess with us as much as possible. everybody's crying. i'm crying. someone on the street below my window is probably crying. everyone's back as a ghost, though. which is nice. they're all here to support harry as he destroys himself, the last horcrux. it's kind of like coming to your kid's football game, but you're dead and you're here for your kid's death. the afterlife is king's cross station. there are no trains, but there are never any trains at king's cross station anyway. harry can just mournfully sit on his luggage and eat a cold burrito now, i guess. all the death eaters are laughing at neville longbottom; which is awful, but he's also probably used to it by now. dead harry isn't dead anymore he's living his own "surprise bitch, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me" meme before making a runner for it. voldemort's been turned into wizard confetti. and it's done. i feel exhausted, hysterical but also filled to the brim with magic. a feeling of magic so intense that's it's making my toes tingle. or that could just be the sleep deprivation. for straight hours, though, i have indulged myself in a dream world that's enraptured the globe and i couldn't understand why any better than now. i want to wingardium leviosa my life away. thank you life, thank you love, thank you potter. the weirdest things uttered by sleep talkers including pickles, space travel and mustard flying cows, plans to deal with the impending apocalypse and michale jackson also cropped up in the most bizarre things spoken by sleepers a hunt for the oddest thing said by a sleep talker unearthed the gem: “if they come here asking about the pickles, say nothing.” bed partners also told of their other half blurting out: “meet me round the corner and bring the mustard,” and “i’m a rocket man take me to the moon .” they were the top three bed firm time4sleep picked from examples sent in. julie kenny, of liverpool, whose hubby garry gibbered about the pickles, said he also snored“so i’m lucky to get any sleep”. she added: “i always tell him next morning what he has said and he claims it’s me dreaming. i once taped him to prove it.” why you should sleep on your left hand side and it's not just good for your back psychologist elena touri said of people sleep talk but added: “while disturbing and embarrassing, it is not a serious condition.” sleep talkers' top weird gems i they come here asking about the pickles, say nothing! meet me round the corner and bring the mustard i’m a rocket man take me to the moon michael jackson is in the wardrobe duck, duck, the flying cows are coming! the cow is on the footbridge! i’ve tried and tried but i still cannot lay an egg don’t wash the mushrooms use a mushroom brush the force, the force is strong it’s the apocalypse....but don’t worry i have a plan travelodge reveals weirdest guest requests and some of them are very bizarre a man wanted bagpipes as a wake up call and another guest asked for philosophy books to make the room "look like home" staff budget hotel chain travelodge have lifted the lid on some of the most bizarre requests from guests from wanting a unicorn to help with vat returns. the exasperating queries this year ranged from a younger guest asking what time the tooth fairy was visiting and a man wanting bagpipes as a wake up call to philosophy books placed at the end of the bed to “look like home”. despite its value for money rooms, travelodge has attracted a string of well heeled guests with equally bizarre demands from a helipad for the boss and a run down of the stock market figures to an english into spanish translation for a presentation. some of the requests have been downright crazy like a guest in oxford wanting a circular quilt or one in coventry who asked for a white stallion to take him to his wedding ceremony. equally barmy was the earnest man in bath who was keen to find a unicorn to carry an engagement ring to his girlfriend. and one businessman in leeds cheekily asked if a hotel worker could pop to the shops and buy his wife a birthday present and wrap it too. visitors also took some popular spots literally with questions like “where can i find the queen on the royal mile?” in edinburgh and “where are the limes at lime street station?” in liverpool. travelodge spokeswoman shakila ahmed said: “with over million customers staying annually across our uk travelodge hotels, our hotel teams receive thousands of unusual requests from business and leisure travellers. “where possible, the hotels teams go above and beyond to help customers however, there are some requests that they cannot help with. “for example finding a unicorn to help one romantic with his wedding proposal, ensuring there is a blue sky on the day of an important strategy meeting for an executive and moving a travelodge room to the roof of the hotel so that the customer could sleep under the stars.” the strangest debate of the weirdest election ever it wasn’t much of a surprise when the candidates skipped the customary handshake at the beginning. democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton, left, and republican presidential nominee donald trump arrive before the second presidential debate at washington university in st. st. louis— in this weirdest of all possible elections, we’ve now had our first quantum debate, for which the only fitting summary is: anything that can happen will happen. one of the strangest things happened before the debate even started. two hours before the broadcast began, trump staged a surprise “debate preparation” event featuring three women who have long accused bill clinton of sexual assault, and one woman who was raped and whose rapist, represented by a very young hillary clinton over years ago, was freed on a technicality. for those of us wondering whether, in response to the firestorm of criticism provoked by his language on the now infamous access hollywood recording, trump would “go there” in the second debate, the answer, delivered live on trump’s facebook page, was clear: yes, he would. “ trump may have said some bad words, but bill clinton raped me and hillary clinton threatened me,” said juanita broaddrick, who like the other women spoke only very briefly at the event, but attended tonight’s debate as trump’s guests. so it was not much of a surprise when neither candidate offered the customary handshake at the start of proceedings. nor did it take long for the topics of trump’s tape—and bill clinton’s own history as an alleged sexual predator—to surface in the debate itself. though the first question from a member of the audience—“do you feel you are modeling appropriate and positive behavior for today’s youth?”—gave both candidates enough room to avoid the obviously intended topic, which they did, anderson cooper soon made matters explicit: “you brag that you have sexually assaulted women. do you understand that?” in response, trump admitted “locker room talk,” but denied ever actually assaulting women—and neither clinton nor the moderators mentioned the pending lawsuit accusing him of rape. trump then went on to claim that bill clinton repeatedly abused women, who were then smeared by his wife. to which hillary clinton replied by saying that trump was “unfit to be president.” yet that was far from the most bitter exchange of the night. on the very next question, when clinton suggested that trump needed to apologize not just for his crude language on the hot mic tape but also for “the racist lie that president obama was not born in the united states,” trump began on familiar ground with his claim that the “birther” phenomenon originated with the clinton campaign—only to swerve into a stunning threat regarding clinton’s e mails: “if i win, i am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.” and when clinton responded, “it’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” trump interrupted: “because you’d be in jail.” thanks to the town hall format, though, there were also substantive exchanges: on health care, energy policy, and the supreme court. in each case trump hewed to current republican orthodoxy, promising to repeal obamacare, loosen controls on oil companies (and also declaring, “coal will last for a thousand years”), and repeating his pledge “to appoint judges very much in the mold of justice scalia.” but environmentalists will have been disappointed to hear clinton repeating the fracking industry’s line that “producing a lot of natural gas...serves as a bridge to more renewable fuels.” and civil libertarians should be distressed that, instead of denouncing trump’s demand that american muslims prove their loyalty by acting as informants—“muslims have to report the problems when they see them” clinton effectively echoed the suggestion: “we need american muslims to be part of our eyes and ears on our front line.” there was even a moment of light relief, on russia, with trump first claiming, “i know nothing about russia,” then immediately clarifying: “i know, i know about russia, but i know nothing about the inner workings of russia.” for me the strangest moment came at the end, when, in response to an audience question challenging each candidate to “name one positive thing” about the other, clinton praised trump’s children—and then trump, sounding for all the world like a clinton campaign ad, called her “a fighter” who “doesn’t quit.” at which point the two candidates shook hands. perhaps next time they’ll sing a duet. why pokemon sun and moon has more outrageous creature designs compared to previous pokemon titles we have to admit, exeggutor alolan form is quite hilarious. but why the weirdly cute designs for pokemon sun and moon? one thing about pokemon games that made them so popular with players of all ages are the weirdly cute pokemon themselves! imagine dragonite looking like the usual dragons portrayed in fairy tales, it would look scarier and not something you'd want to capture, or even encounter in the wild. or would you have thought of bulbasaur carrying something different on its back? the bulb actually made him more different in a cute way (mind the countless times we are going to hear "cute" today). then, of course, these are the pokemon we have grown to love and with the upcoming 3ds game, pokemon sun and moon, expect to see a few more adorably designed pokemon. pokemon sun and moon's exeggutor pokemon fans can barely hold their laughs in whenever they see exeggutor. we have to admit, it definitely has one of the silliest pokemon designs with a bunch of eggs in its first form. then it turns into a tree trunk that resembles a coconut tree. however, the pokemon sun and moon's version of the exeggutor is even weirdly hilarious. pokemon sun and moon exeggutor grows over five times taller in the alolan region due to the abundance of sunlight. with its thinner and longer neck (and multiple funny looking heads), it now resembles a palm tree. pokemon sun and moon director, shigeru ohmori, explained to kotaku on the basis of their crazy pokemon designs, "when the designers first came up with the idea, the background is that the sun in alola is so strong, that [exeggutor] just keeps growing and growing. for the anniversary, we wanted to have a lot of special surprises...we wanted a funny element. at the same time, we had to find a balance of cool ones, serious ones. we looked at the alola region as a whole and thought about that ecosystem." how did fans react with alolan exeggutor's design? according to kotaku, pokemon sun and moon's exeggutor alolan version is a big hit and they are either loving the new design or they are simply making fun of it. either way, it's still good media for the upcoming rpg game. pokemon professor shirtless when asked why kukui, the newest pokemon professor is shirtless when he's a man of science, pokemon sun and moon producer, junichi masuda (yes, the man behind the masuda method), simply answered, "it's the temperature." makes sense. pokemon sun and moon is set for a release. get your nintendo 3ds ready! spotify makes billboards to highlight strange listening habits of users we all have our guilty pleasures, but those usually stay private. spotify is currently putting the strangest listening habits of its users on blast with billboards placed in major cities in the united states, united kingdom, france and germany, reports mashable. the campaign illuminates the playlists of spotify users who were clearly going through some stuff, like one listener who played the song “sorry” by justin bieber times on valentine’s day. “what did you do?” spotify asks on the billboard. spotify also put up an ad highlighting a resident of new york’s theater district who listened to the soundtrack of “hamilton” times over the course of if you lived so close to the richard rogers theatre and still couldn’t get tickets to “hamilton,” you might go a little crazy, too. among the other outings that spotify has put up on its billboards: a person who started getting into the winter holiday spirit in june and the nearly brits who played “it’s the end of the world as we know it” by r.e.m. on the day of the brexit vote. the ads are surely just a small sampling of the habits users exhibited over the course of , and spotify is no stranger to oddities taking place on its platform. the company’s internal music intelligence team has previously highlighted musical genres that got weirdly specific. included in the mix assembled by the team’s music experts were genres like aussietronica (electronica from australia), spytrack (music that sounds like what you’d expect to hear in a spy movie), and wrestling (music by and featuring wrestling stars). none of those genres, nor the questionable streaming choices of users, quite top some of the other strange happenings that have taken place on spotify. take for example the ann arbor, mich. based band vulfpeck. the group uploaded an album comprised entirely of silent tracks and encouraged its fans to stream it endlessly at night. the stunt racked up in royalties from the record. new york based band ohm and sport came up with their own way to earn a little extra cash from spotify plays by building an app that continually plays second clips from an artist’s back catalogue—the minimum amount of time for a listen to count as one spotify has to pay the rights holder for. it’s probably safe to say none of these types of schemes were behind the listening habits that made it on spotify’s billboards—justin bieber and the cast of “hamilton” are probably generating enough listens on their own, after all. but it’s still interesting to see the company dig into the extensive data it tracks and having a little fun with it. the world's weirdest ski slopes, from a power plant in copenhagen to a hawaiian mountain as copenhagen prepares to open a ski slope on the roof of a power plant next year, we bring you the most unusual places to find powder the new copenhagen power plant will have ski runs on its roof bjarke ingels group (big architects) everyone knows there's good snow at big ski areas like whistler and the swiss alps. but did you know it'll soon be possible to ski down a power plant in copenhagen, or even in hotspot hawaii? here are the slopes that will give you bonus social media show off points. on a power plant in copenhagen, denmark in a move that makes total sense for the country we have to thank for ace ideas like lego, innovative danish architects bjarke ingels group are making the concept of a power plant a lot more fun. a metre slopedue to open next year on the slanted roof of what will be the world's greenest power plant, designed to turn waste into energywill cater for skiers at four different levels, and includes a metre black run. you'll reach the slopes via a lift on the inside of the plant, and it should be well worth having a nosey while you're therethe plant has been designed to burn tons of waste every year, converting it into enough clean energy to power homes. on lava in mount etna, sicily skiing on an active volcano in winter is daring enough, but tackling mount etna's slopes in summer gives a whole new meaning to the term "black run". there isn't much snow in the warmer season, so thrillseeking skiers whoosh down charcoal coloured solidified lava that's been left over from past eruptions instead. we should probably add that etna still erupts visitors will take a lift to the top of a power plant in copenhagen and then ski back down on a tropical island, hawaii more traditionally known for beaches, surfing and, er, a love of spam, hawaii gets top marks for being the most unlikely place to take a pair of skis. mauna kea, a dormant volcano, gets decent enough snowfall in january and february for skiing. there are no resort facilities or lifts, so you have to make your way up in a. but where else can you be gunning down the powder towards après ski sundowners on a tropical beach? a scandi trend too far? after hygge, now skiing with a baby in sub saharan africa, lesotho yes, you can ski in sub saharan africain lesotho, a land locked country enveloped by south africa. it's perfect for skiing, altitude wise: the entirety of this mountain kingdom lies above km. its resort afri ski is 3,322km up in the spectacular maluti mountains, which get snow from june to august. the less skilled can even go "bum boarding". how about planning a safari ski combo trip? there aren't many places you can do that. much more glam than the fake slopes in milton keynes, ski dubai is home to both baby slopes and the world's first indoor black diamond run, all part of square metres of faux piste. the temperature is turned way downto degrees celsiuscreating the perfect environment for drinking your hot chocolate, and there is colony of real penguins here, too. and when it's all over you can thaw out again in degrees celsius outside. hillary clinton’s proposed campaign slogans, ranked hillary clinton holds a news conference in front of her campaign plane in white plains, new york, buried in the emails stolen from the account of john podesta, chairman of hillary clinton's campaign, is a list of proposed “principles slogans." (the freebeacon's lachlan markay, who dug it up, graciously counted the total as because it includes “it's your time” twice.) the list is very hillary clinton y: exhaustive, often corny and subject to group debate. there are a few broad categories, including “fighter,” “future forward,” “fairness families” and “basic bargain making america work.” the slogans are often riffs on those categories, and they are often very bad. (donald trump's slogan, “make america great again,” is also very trump y. he settled on it right after mitt romney lost in and then quickly trademarked it.) as a public service, i wasted a few minutes ranking the proposals from most to least terrible. the actual choice, “stronger together,” ended up at on my list, which really isn't that shabby. i assure you that i was not a member of the focus group that weeded through the final options. where appropriate, i have added comments about why the slogan earned the ranking i gave it. those are provided in italics. rise up. you know who says “rise up”? robots and chilean freedom fighters. who does clinton want america to rise up against? the moneyed elites in washington? probably not. (it has been brought to my attention that this maybe has something to do with the play “hamilton,” so i'm glad it's in dead last.) because your time is now. why not just, “you will soon die; vote clinton”? it's about timeand it's about you. there's nothing less about me than someone else running for president. keep moving. the tsa plans to use this for when it runs for president. it's about you. a fair chance to get ahead. secure the future. i believe this is the tagline to a shailene woodley movie. next begins with you. no, it begins with n. you've earned a fair chance. move ahead. i like to reinforce that america is basically a 320 million person line at a deli counter. you've earned a fair shot. putting america to work for you. a fair fight for families. progress for people. what about ponies? america gets strong when you get ahead. this seems like it could be subject to some awkwardness. your family is her fight. time for a better bargain. head to aisle to learn more. stronger at home. and then everyone thinks, “weaker abroad.” your family. her fight. i'd recommend that candidates avoid the suggestion that they'd like to beat up my family. a fair chance for families. fairness worth the fight. a stronger america for a new day. this is two slogans, frankensteined. your future is her fight. fight doesn't work in these! but your future. her fight . this is a better way to formulate it. putting fairness first. a promise you can count on. fighting for fairness. fighting for you. fairness first. american strength from american families. another bit of advice: try to avoid soylent green snowpiercer implications in a campaign slogan. hillary for fairness. for families. why this one in particular mandated the inclusion of clinton's name is a mystery lost to the ages. the ideas we need and the strength to deliver. a better bargain for a better tomorrow. a new promise for a new time. fairness for all our families. together we're strong. this is a good example of how slight rewordings can make an idea much better or much stupider. building a fairer future today. building a fairer future. why are these separate? was there a lengthy debate over whether to include “today”? it's your turn. this is what clinton said to barack obama in june, if i remember correctly. go further. our families, our future. it's your time. don't turn back. good for halloween. a new bargain we can count on. strength for all our families. a fair shot and a fair deal. and a chicken in every pot and peace and prosperity and i like ike. your future. your terms. this sounds like the middle of a verizon ad. a stronger america one family at a time. starting with the clintons! neat! renewing our basic bargain. getting ahead together. progress for the rest of us. this one is pretty close, but the “us” serves as a reminder that the clintons are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. it evokes clinton walking up to give her first state of the union address and proposing a “give speeches to big businesses” jobs program. for an america that leads. unleash opportunity. this is from a bmw ad, i think. move up. better than “move forward.” from this point on, they're a bit better. a fighting chance for families. she's got your back. progress for all. new solutions real results. the lack of a comma is intriguing. get ahead. stay ahead. lifting us up. moving us forward. strength and fairness. this one does seem as if it's from the “hunger games.” though that vibe is sort of hard to avoid, i guess. a stronger america working for you. real fairness; real solutions. for your family. for america's future. building a better tomorrow. making america work. together. families first. a better bargain. for all. this would have echoed trump in a weird way, which i like. america's strength. america's promise. building tomorrow's america. it's about you. it's about time. strength you can count on. an america built for you. moving ahead. together. stronger together. the winner! a future worth fighting for. a new bargain for a stronger america a force for families. good lucasfilm tie in opportunity. own the future. an america that works for you. climb higher. this is weirdly so much better than “move forward,” etc. maybe because it combines effort with upward progress? it's a good example of the nuance that goes into this nonsense. renewing america's promise. making america work for you. a stronger tomorrow. “tomorrow” versus “together” is probably a subjective call, but i like the future looking version better than the “we are friends” version. and the winner: no quit. this is so jarringly weird that it was really the only good choice. clinton kaine: no quit. imagine standing in a suburb outside columbus, ohio, and looking up to see clinton's campaign plane pass overhead. no quit, it shouts at you, with all of the grace and effect of tony montana spotting the blimp in “scarface.” how could you quit after that? and how could you not vote for the person who embodies that principle? it's perfect. this slogan is the only reason i wrote this article. hillary clinton’s proposed campaign slogans, ranked buried in the emails stolen from the account of john podesta, chairman of hillary clinton's campaign, is a list of proposed “principles/slogans." the freebeacon's lachlan markay, who dug it up, graciously counted the total as because it includes “it's your time” twice. the list is very hillary clinton y: exhaustive, often corny and subject to group debate. there are a few broad categories, including “fighter,” “future forward,” “fairness families” and “basic bargain making america work.” the slogans are often riffs on those categories, and they are often very bad. donald trump's slogan, “make america great again,” is also very trump y. he settled on it right after mitt romney lost in and then quickly trademarked it. as a public service, i wasted a few minutes ranking the proposals from most to least terrible. the actual choice, “stronger together,” ended up at on my list, which really isn't that shabby. i assure you that i was not a member of the focus group that weeded through the final options. where appropriate, i have added comments about why the slogan earned the ranking i gave it. those are provided in italics. rise up. you know who says “rise up”? robots and chilean freedom fighters. who does clinton want america to rise up against? the moneyed elites in washington? probably not. (it has been brought to my attention that this maybe has something to do with the play “hamilton,” so i'm glad it's in dead last.) because your time is now. why not just, “you will soon die; vote clinton”? it's about timeand it's about you. there's nothing less about me than someone else running for president. keep moving. the tsa plans to use this for when it runs for president. it's about you. a fair chance to get ahead. secure the future. i believe this is the tagline to a shailene woodley movie. next begins with you. no, it begins with n. you've earned a fair chance. move ahead. i like to reinforce that america is basically a million person line at a deli counter. you've earned a fair shot. putting america to work for you. a fair fight for families. progress for people. what about ponies? america gets strong when you get ahead. this seems like it could be subject to some awkwardness. your family is her fight. time for a better bargain. head to aisle to learn more. stronger at home. and then everyone thinks, “weaker abroad.” your family. her fight. i'd recommend that candidates avoid the suggestion that they'd like to beat up my family. a fair chance for families. fairness worth the fight. a stronger america for a new day. this is two slogans, frankensteined. your future is her fight. fight doesn't work in these! but your future. her fight this is a better way to formulate it. putting fairness first. a promise you can count on. fighting for fairness. fighting for you. fairness first. american strength from american families. another bit of advice: try to avoid soylent green/snowpiercer implications in a campaign slogan. hillary for fairness. for families. why this one in particular mandated the inclusion of clinton's name is a mystery lost to the ages. the ideas we need and the strength to deliver. a better bargain for a better tomorrow. a new promise for a new time. fairness for all our families. together we're strong. this is a good example of how slight rewordings can make an idea much better or much stupider. building a fairer future today. building a fairer future. why are these separate? was there a lengthy debate over whether to include “today”? it's your turn. this is what clinton said to barack obama in, if i remember correctly. go further. our families, our future. it's your time. don't turn back. good for halloween. a new bargain we can count on. strength for all our families. a fair shot and a fair deal. and a chicken in every pot and peace and prosperity and i like ike. your future. your terms. this sounds like the middle of a verizon ad. a stronger america one family at a time. starting with . . . [pulls card from hat] . . . the clintons! neat! renewing our basic bargain. getting ahead together. progress for the rest of us. this one is pretty close, but the “us” serves as a reminder that the clintons are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. it evokes clinton walking up to give her first state of the union address and proposing a “give speeches to big businesses” jobs program. for an america that leads. unleash opportunity. this is from a bmw ad, i think. move up. better than “move forward.” from this point on, they're a bit better. a fighting chance for families. she's got your back. progress for all. new solutions real results. the lack of a comma is intriguing. get ahead. stay ahead. lifting us up. moving us forward. strength and fairness. this one does seem as if it's from the “hunger games.” though that vibe is sort of hard to avoid, i guess. a stronger america working for you. real fairness; real solutions. for your family. for america's future. building a better tomorrow. making america work. together. families first. a better bargain. for all. this would have echoed trump in a weird way, which i like. america's strength. america's promise. building tomorrow's america. it's about you. it's about time. strength you can count on. an america built for you. moving ahead. together. stronger together. the winner! a future worth fighting for. a new bargain for a stronger america a force for families. good lucasfilm tie in opportunity. own the future. an america that works for you. climb higher. this is weirdly so much better than “move forward,” etc. maybe because it combines effort with upward progress? it's a good example of the nuance that goes into this nonsense. renewing america's promise. making america work for you. a stronger tomorrow. “tomorrow” versus “together” is probably a subjective call, but i like the future looking version better than the “we are friends” version. and the winner: no quit. this is so jarringly weird that it was really the only good choice. clinton kaine: no quit. imagine standing in a suburb outside columbus, ohio, and looking up to see clinton's campaign plane pass overhead. no quit, it shouts at you, with all of the grace and effect of tony montana spotting the blimp in “scarface.” how could you quit after that? and how could you not vote for the person who embodies that principle? the lost albums loved by the starsfrom ecstatic gospel to italian prog what’s your favourite underrated lp? we asked sean paul, hot chip, jarvis cocker, chase & status, petula clark and more to reveal the records you really must hear i hesitate to recommend this record because i know that bob lind himself hates it and that it did a lot of harm to his career but i love it, so here goes ... his is the story as i understand it: lind had a massive global hit with elusive butterfly in . someone crawled out of the woodwork and sold some acoustic demo recordings he had made a few years earlier as a teenager to verve records. verve decided to add bass, drums and strings to the songs, which consisted of voice and acoustic guitar only, in order to make them sound more like the single he had in the charts. the whole affair reeks of the worst side of the exploitative music business of those days and yet ... somehow they made something beautiful. it’s like a weird, inverted form of sampling: instead of cutting and pasting the vocals and guitar over a steady rhythm track as would happen today lind’s performances speed up, slow down, have irregular bar counts, and the bass and drums just have to follow him as best they can. so the songs end up with very modern sounding, unusual structures. the dislocation between the various elements emphasises the loneliness in the songs. it has an absolutely unique atmosphere the voice is swathed in a reverb, the instrumentation and string arrangements are very, but when they lock into a groove and trance out it could have been made last week. it’s not only my favourite bob lind album; it’s one of my favourite albums, full stop. go figure. ala.ni is from london but lives in paris and she has sung with damon albarn and mary j blige but i love her own music. it reminds me of old songs such as dream a little dream of me. i saw her playing in this bar, like some cool nightclub, and she started singing at really low volume, and it was so beautiful i fell in love with her. a few years later i was on the eurostar and i saw her walking past and i was like: “oh my god, it’s the girl from the bar!” so i said hi and told her i loved her music. then i saw her again at a festival and she was incredible. the sounds she uses, the mic she uses, it’s really “old” and the way she sings is really conversational. she even uses her hands in a really elegant way. listening to her is like having a big hug; you feel like you have had a massage. you would expect us to be constantly listening to drum’n’bass, the prodigy, biggie smalls and bashment but we have a wide spectrum of music that we love. we were touring america in for our no more idols tour and our frontman mc rage put this on our tourbus and this incredible tune called big jet plane came on. the beautiful music and combination of male and female voices really touched me. it became the soundtrack to the tour and since then i’ve followed their career and got all their records. fans of folky funk with classic songwriting and modern productionbon iver fans, for examplewill love it. she doesn’t have the recognition that she’s due. other people, such as barbra streisand and the dimension, had hits with her songs: she was a bit of a carole king. this was her second albumshe was at the time. she had so much passion in her songwriting, her voice and her arrangements. very theatrical, in a way: she clearly influenced kate bush. i love the changes in tempothese are songs of many parts. her singing style was a mixture of jazz, gospel, soul and pop. but she had a real fear of performing live that stemmed from a disastrous appearance at the monterey festival. she retreated from the limelight after that, although she carried on making records such as the cover versions album gonna take a miracle, with labelle, which is another brilliant album. phil spector produced six of the tracks; i’m a big fan of his wall of sound. spector was drinking a lot and quite fucked up when he was making this record. dion disowned it and he faded into obscurity. he described it as “funeral music”. i think it’s a great pop record: grand and epic. it’s got that be my baby sound, with a lot of the wrecking crew on. i love only you know and in and out of the shadows, which were both co written by spector and gerry goffin, who used to write with carole king. it was actually james skelly of the coral, who produced our album, who put me on to it. musicians love it, such as bobby gillespie and pete townshend. and bruce springsteen, who visited the studio during the recording of it. it’s got an uplifting melancholy to it, a euphoric heartbreak an atmosphere i’m always trying to recreate. this album charted when it was released, but over time has slipped gently into quasi obscurity. simple minds went on to become a stadium rock band, leading most people to forget that before super stardom they were idiosyncratic, electronic and bowie influenced. i first heard this in early when i was a junior at high school in darien, connecticut, and for me it was everything that suburban america in was not. it was atmospheric, weirdly european and disco influenced at a time when radio in the states was all shiny american pop and pedantic rock. it’s a remarkable record that deserves its place in the canon of great bowie inspired albums. this is without doubt one of my favourite albums. before its release, robert wyatt was known to me as drummer and co vocalist of soft machine, through listening to john peel, who almost single handedly championed him throughout his solo career. peel brought wyatt further attention, particularly in when his original version of elvis costello and clive langer’s falklands war inspired song shipbuilding reached no in his festive 50. by that time, i was already well under the influence of nothing can stop us. it was on my walkman throughout that summer, usually as i hoofed it on a daily basis from paddington up to shepherd’s bush, where my mates and i were busy occupying ourselves with the recording of a bunch of songs that would be released as new gold dream. i loved listening to the album in its entirety, and repeatedly so. i still do. why? you could begin by listening to at last i am free, followed by strange fruit, and then the aforementioned shipbuilding. and perhaps like me you, too, will get a lump in the throat listening to what was surely a purposefully pale and wan rendition of red flag. i don’t think robert wyatt knows how great an artist he really is. this was given to me by a writer i met in new york in about 1982: this recording of rapturous devotion to god has abided with me ever since. it’s so good … it almost passeth all understanding. taped live in at detroit’s bailey cathedral, elbernita “twinkie” clark with her four sisters and their mother, group founder dr mattie moss clark, perform some of the most ineffably sublime music i have ever heard. as funky as grandpa’s drawers and with an ecstatic sense of yearning, the sisters’ goosebump inducing singingsometimes fragile, sometimes fearsomeis put to the service of eight exquisitely crafted paeans to the lord. you can find a clip of the sisters in their floor length pastel chiffon gowns performing a version of the album’s title song on youtube, which is magnificent but only hints at the record’s treasures. in 1983, the clark sisters performed at the grammys, provoking the ire of their church, which forbade mattie moss from ever performing with her daughters again. her singing of they were overcome on this album is one of the loveliest things i know. a couple of years after i was first given the record, the sisters came to london to sing at [the] westminster hall. after their astonishing appearance i approached them to express my admiration and gratitude. i was invited to visit the family next day at a house in tottenham, or maybe it was finsbury park. i’m sure i was a nuisance but they were gracious and i was blessed with some albums from their back catalogue. is my living in vain is an exalted delight and is up there with the venerated best. i was recommended these sisters by a female uber driver in la; i’d just played my song baby love to her. it was my best musical ride. she heard the gospel vocals in my song and said: “you’ve got to hear these girls!” they’re sisters who sing these big gospel songs with so much energy and love. it’s inspiring to listen to as it gives me ideas. i love the rawness of the recordings from those days. go find them … you won’t regret it. i was in the sixth form when i came across this. i was working in watford wh smith in the music department, and i’d get discount, so i ordered it in and used to listen to it on my playstation because i didn’t have a cd player. i was fascinated because sawhney was british asian, too: i didn’t think it was possible to make asian sounds and still be cool. on the surface, the album was about nuclear weapons, but really it was about a personal quest to find yourself, with lots of songs about love. it’s quite dark, but the lyrics are full of light. he was refusing to be bound by any rules. he combined flamenco music with qawwali, jazz with drum’n’bass. it made me ultimately brave. once i’d finished sixth form, i was ready to start my journey as a composer and producer. being boxed in wasn’t an option because of this album. i bought this at the derrick harriot record shop in kingston, jamaica. it was one of the few stores that would carry albums as soon as they were released; they used to rent movies on vhs as well, so it was a popular spot. when it came out, buju was already a dancehall superstar but it took him to a different level. most dancehall albums at that time were usually a collection of hits that were already out but this was made up of new material. when i got home and put it on the stereo, it was mind blowing. buju was in full on rasta mode and every single song was absolute fire. the consciousness was turned all the way up. even on the party songs and girl tunes he was talking from a higher perspective. champion and murderer may have been the hardcore boom shots that everyone knows but til i’m laid to rest and not an easy road spoke to me deeply and truly inspired me even more to pursue music. everyone needs to listen to this dancehall reggae gem and see who buju banton really is. this is one of my favourite psychedelic recordsand one of the rarest. get it now! it has the visceral edge of the velvet underground in places and the wistfulness of syd barrett in others. faine jade is effectively a solo project from chuck laskowski, a long island based singer and guitarist who previously released one single with the rustics in . barrett similarities run through the record; one of my favourite things about syd’s songs is the feeling that they could go in any direction, at any moment. they are totally tense, raw and unpredictable, and the songs on introspection follow a similar creative path. laskowski claims to have been unaware of pink floyd at the time, which is totally believable as the tracks never stray into homage territory. while seeking to emulate some of the british psych sounds of the time, introspection retains the identity of late 60s amphetamine driven us garage. don’t hassle me captures the spirit of rebellious youth, and ballad of the bad guys is a burst of garage rock that between the buttons era rolling stones fans will be into. the tension reaches its height on people games play, a song that combines the “ostrich guitar” strumming of lou reed with familiar percussion and unsettling, monotone vocals. there’s definitely a bit of the byrds in here as well. the lyrics are fairly typical of the timothy leary era, with mystical lines such as, “trim the wick with scarlet scissors,” but they fit the mood. laskowski went on to release an album with the country rock band dustbowl clementine in but has since been largely inactive. more recently, faine jade gained wider exposure as mgmt covered the folk rock title track introspection on their debut oracular spectacular. laskowski even gave his seal of approval by appearing with them on the closing date of their accompanying us tour. herb alpert produced this album, mostly in la and paris. it was a hugely expensive project, a mixture of jazz, rock, symphonic, with fantastic people on itbill medley, paul williamsand some great jazz musicians. it’s one of those masterpieces that isn’t what you’d call a commercial record, but it’s one of my favourites. i love herb, and michel, who was a great composing talent. it was a bit of a love in! there’s some amazing music on it: very movingthere’s a song on it called emmanuel, for michel’s son, who died very youngbut it also rocks like mad. it was very personal to michel, who was a very unusual musician. he was often in another place, another world. it was made for pure pleasure. you could call it a kind of folly. it’s progressive rock but more short song based than overblown rock like yes, genesis or elp. he’s a composer and songwriter who’s still one of italy’s best known musicians; a sort of italian peter gabriel. he moved away from this strange experimental record towards a more poppy, new wave direction; foetus is his first solo album. it’s a very beautiful sounding, analogue synth based record, but also very pop: the songs are very immediate, melodic and easy on the ear. the italian version was the first one i really loved; then i came across the english version and that suddenly opened it up; now i knew what the songs were about. it’s a very original take on describing your place in the world; not your usual singer songwriter confessionals. it’s similar to the experimental pop approach of a brian wilson mixed with someone like jim o’rourke from underground chicago. the numero group collect really old compilations from obscure labels no longer in existence. this album is all of the tracks from a soul label based in miami called deep city; most of the music is. a lot of the players were part of florida marching bandsthe cover of the album shows them wearing the most sick, badass uniformswho later went on to run more successful studios that released funk and disco. this predates that stuff; it’s tracks that had no commercial success, but it does feature artists such as betty wright. it’s similar to what was going on in detroit, only a little funkier. it’s a little rough around the edges, but if you like old soul, it’s great. this is a record that has even evaded diehard fans of arthur russell, who played keyboards in the group during their short lifespan and wrote two of the album’s best songs: driving and talking at the same time and more real. when i listen to event horizon, i marvel that it isn’t one of the most influential records in rock music. but it didn’t make the impact it intended to, and was forgotten by sire and eventually by fans. russell went on to a celebrated solo career after quitting the band by jumping out of the van at the mouth of the holland tunnel in new york, while on the way to a gig in new jersey. but this is a record that needs to be examined further by anybody interested in this era of rock music. it’s an elusive missing piece to the lore of the downtown scene. everyone who walks through the door of my apartment is subjected to and is changed by it. it’s a shining example of an activist musician using art as a weapon. the guy who got it together is pat andrade, who organises indigenous resistance, helping aboriginal people, with songs about native rights issues and the way corporations own the government. in the punk days, people tended to wear politics like a haircut, but pat actually walks what he talks. he was influenced by us [pop group/on u sound] to a certain extent. there are loads of guestsaugustus pablo, chuck d, mikey dreadon this album. he’s a real internationalist; a dub activist. it’s resistance through reggae. what he’s talking about is really real. when people talk about artists who don’t get the recognition they deserve, aereogramme are always the first band i think of. it’s a stunning record, so different to anything i’d heard before: atmospheric, with beautiful melodies and really heavy riffs. i got into mogwai through my brother when i was and i thought it would be great to have that sort of music with vocals and aereogramme did just that. i love the contrast of light and dark. it was definitely an influence on fightstar. funnily enough, iain cook the guitarist, is now in chvrches, so he did finally get some recognition. they were my peers growing up in edinburgh. i had a massive crush on giles, the singer with the thunderbolt hair: she was like a rock star, with incredible charisma and an image that would still look killer today. back then she appeared to come from mars: she was like a female david bowie to me. i worked in miss selfridge and she came into the store one day and i kept staring at her. later i got introduced to her at a club and became obsessed with her and her band. i still think they deserve more recognition; they were a fantastic pop band. the record was produced by tony visconti and martin rushent, and the result is a strange mix of white funk, jangly guitar, catchy pop and synths, with girl group harmonies and some “alternative” flavour. they flamed brightly for a few minutes then seemed to disappear, but they’re really unique. she used to sing with dead can dance. she is kind of classical and sings in her own language that she makes up. she works a lot with hans zimmer and she’s just unreal. she did the theme from gladiator, now we are free. that made me want to find out more about her. i really like the song sanvean (i am your shadow). it’s quite dark; heavy and emotional. it creates a mood and it’s moving. to me, she’s one of the best vocalists of all time. if someone went on the x factor and sang now we are free, it would be unbelievable. it’s whether the audience are ready for that. this was carole king’s album before tapestry, which i don’t think anybody bought apart from me and a couple of other people. she made an album before it, in 1968, with a group called the city because she didn’t really like being a frontperson. but writer was significant because it was the prelude to tapestry. there are some wonderful songs here such as up on the roof and goin’ backcovers of her own songs. but the album only sold about or whereas tapestry sold or 20m! james taylor is on it, and [guitarist] danny kortchmar; a lot of the same people who were on tapestry. it’s a really lovely album. it definitely influenced my writing, particularly the chord sequences on child of mine. if i’d grown my hair and worn jeans and a denim shirt i would have easily fitted into that category of singer songwriter. but i dared to be different and chose an unusual image. this is the only record i own that i love that has jokes on. i tend to like miserable, depressing, pretentious music. abner jay was a one man band, who classed himself as an entertainer“the last great southern black minstrel show,” as he described himself. he’d move from town to town, selling vinyl records and cassettes that he published on his own label. it’s folk blues; the kind of thing that, when you hear it, you can’t believe it hasn’t sold a million copies. it’s a guy singing his heart out, playing amazing music. the songs are absolutely incredible, poignant, dark, really captivating and wild. he wrote them about vietnam, cocaine, the moon landing. my favourite one on this album is i’m so depressed. that’s the one that blew me away. i’m not sure if it’s a joke, but it’s really moving. rish abroad: tell us about the weird and wacky food where you live send us your stories and recipes for irish times food month irish times food month kicked off in the irish times this week, and we are looking for our readers overseas to tell us about the speciality dishes where they live. what has surprised, delighted or disgusted you about the foods on offer, or local attitudes towards growing, buying and eating, or dining out? what weird or wacky dishes have you sampled or come to love since moving there? shane warne shocked by 'weird decision' to name test team early shane warne described the decision by cricket australia to name the team for the second test during the middle of the first test as 'weird'. this weird globe folding map isn’t perfect, but it’s close creating a proportional map of the world is tricky because the world is a sphere and a map is flat. that creates visual distortions, which explains why mercator projections shrink africa and super size greenland. designer hajime narukawa found a clever solution to this problem: triangles. narukawa’s authagraph world map, which recently won the grand prize in japan’s biggest design competition, retains the proportions of the continents and oceans—so much so that you can fold it into a three dimensional globe. like magic! he achieved this by dividing the globe into triangles and projecting them onto a tetrahedron, preserving the proportions of water and land. then he unfolded the tetrahedron into a rectangle, where the sections created a map resembling the surface of the original globe, only flat. the general shapes of the continents are consistent with more familiar maps, but their orientation is not. on the authagraph map, continents curve upward like a smile. africa and the americas look like they swapped places. and longitude and latitude are no longer a tidy grid. but all maps require tradeoffs. you want an equal area map? prepare for distortion. you want a mercator? you’re living a lie. the authagraph isn’t perfect—the creators concede that it needs “a further step to increase a number of subdivision for improving its accuracy to be officially called an area equal map” the project creators write on their website—but it’s pretty damn close. tragic, funny and weird: donald glover's atlanta is a new high for tv comedy with its woozy vignettes and bracing violence, donald glover’s sitcom shatters all the moulds for the genre, without ever forgetting to be funny ha ha! sob. what place for regular tv lolz in 2016, when nobody can afford anything, all our heroes have perished and the world is on fire? good news! the modern us comedy is here to help, offering an escape from our misery into someone else’s. louie planted the seed, girls squatted down and watered it, and now these downbeat half hours are everywhere, following their own rules about how depressing and uneventful comedy can be. and here we have another peak for the form with the tragic and hilarious, loose and often plain weird atlanta, which finally airs in the uk this week. showrunner and star donald gloveraka troy the expressive nerd in communityis earn, a late 20s loser in the georgia suburbs. earn is smart but his millennial non job in sales doesn’t cover his rent. van, the mother of his child, only lets him stay with her out of sexual convenience and pity. when earn’s cousin alfred achieves local notoriety rapping under the name paper boi, earn spots an opportunity: he’ll be alfred’s manager. it’s a role that turns out to be akin to managing someone else’s farts with a net. the united states is thousands of little places, and the best of this new generation of micro coms have a unique sense of location. glover, who’s from the atlanta suburb of stone mountain, shows us dark, still streets with none of the dangerous energy of the inner city. this is the slower death of the outskirts. on the upside, such areas have space for eccentrics and absurdity. you know that feeling when you’re cradling your sleeping daughter on a night bus, and the man opposite insists you share his sandwich, and you don’t because, although you’ve failed at life, you’ve not yet hit the level of being fed by bus randoms; but then he vanishes, and perhaps wasn’t there in the first place? no? in atlanta, woozy vignettes like this feel more natural than punchlines. but blasts of violence underline that young, black america is on a precipice. take earn at the police station, waiting to be bailed and trying not to provoke the screw ups all around him: edgy farce briefly becomes unbearably sharp when a white cop brutalises a mentally ill suspect. the moment would feel groundbreaking in a drama; being able to swerve into racial politics and back out into comedythere follows a silly scene where two people in the seats either side of earn have an intimate chat as if he isn’t thereit’s even more remarkable. glover has rejected claims made for his shattering of moulds and capturing of zeitgeists, and atlanta does have some traditional sitcom bones. earn is the sane man in the room, forever peering with tired incredulity at buffoons, mainly alfred’s hanger on mate darius (keith stanfield), a classic comedy savant full of stoner wisdom, such as his theory that malcolm x is alive becauseheysince the funeral, nobody’s seen his body! having fame as his goal gives earn an endless supply of idiots to cry laugh at. like a negative image of entourage where nothing has gone right instead of everything, the boys drift on the edge of the music scene, bumping into pomposity and corruption whenever they go in. alfred is already jaded at being even slightly famous, annoyed by his fans and aware that his tough alter ego is a construct. in this world, it’s probably not worth all the bullshit an artist has to cut through to remain authentic. with voices like glover’s speaking clearly, though, 21st century sitcom is managing. let’s cling to that. listen to glixel podcast: the weird challenges of making virtual reality games tune into our weekly video games podcast the latest episode of our gaming podcast is now available. listen and subscribe to the podcast on itunes, google play or check it out below. this week john davison, simon cox and rachel weber are joined by cy wise from virtual reality game developer owlchemy labs to chat about some of the weird stuff designers have to think about when making vr games. how do you stop people falling over? why is elbow tracking important? plus, we ponder the really important questions like what do you call someone that's actually in vr? are they a player? a user? a participant? a vrgonaut? also: we enthuse about and needlessly grumble about sony's shoddy playstation pro packaging. little sister defends her brother with autism after student called him 'weird' when a student in her class made fun of her older brother, who has autism, one couldn't stand idly by. instead, she wrote a letter to the school, requesting that students learn about invisible disabilities. lex camilleri took that letter to the school's student council and later read it aloud to her class before having a discussion about autism and what it means. lex's mother, sophie, was informed of the letter by a teacher who approached her after school. that's when she posted it to facebook and the handwritten letter quickly went viral. in the note, camilleri wrote: "on monday i felt very sad because a girl in my class said that my brother was weird. my brother has autism and is not weird. i would like it if we could learn about all disabilities in schools so that everybody understands that some people are different, but we should all be treated the same." explains her autism during school's morning announcements sister on autism spectrum inspires her and friends to develop app british mother of three sophie camilleri, 44, said she's "so proud" of the way her daughter handled the situation. "frank is older than her and that's all she's ever known," the mother added. "she's only known autism so she doesn't see it as different. she's lived and breathed in from the beginning. that's just how it is." camilleri recalled that a teacher described what happened after lex read her letter aloud. the teacher asked the students if anyone knew what autism was and "not one child knew what it was. this is why she wants it out there and taught more in schools." the family hopes to take their request all the way up to their member of parliament to see if it can be taught in schools country wide. "we need to educate children, as young as nursery, to discuss disabilities that aren't so visible like autism, dyslexia and people that may have a hearing impediment just so that children are aware and so children can understand it," sophie camilleri added. lisa goring, the chief programming and marketing officer at autism advocacy organization autism speaks, told abc news in a statement that increased understanding of autism is needed in u.s. schools. "with an estimated children diagnosed with autism, the need for acceptance and understanding for people with autism is vital," the statement read. "many schools do provide information about autism, but we know that this is not done in all schools. to further the acceptance and understanding, autism speaks provides a school community tool kit to help those in the school community support students with autism. we also have a tool kit specifically for elementary school children to learn more about autism." the weird and beautiful war poetry of solmaz sharif solmaz sharif has been nominated for a national book award for "look," her first book of poetry. one poem lists american military operations: beastmaster, hickory view, riverwalk, etc. another lingers with dark, dry humor on “warhead mating” and “height holes.” a third injects missile technology lingo into the book of ecclesiastes: “for what is your life? it is even a thermal shadow.” the poet responsible for these verses is solmaz sharif, and when i meet her at a fashionable oakland, california, café, she looks like one of its fashionable denizens, not someone who, by next week, could be the winner of the national book award for look, her first book of poetry, which is political and confessional—and which relies heavily on terminology from the u.s. department of defense’s dictionary of military and associated terms. not even the title of the volume is exempt from this intriguing confluence of the personal and the martial. look is an invitation to the reader, but this most quotidian of words also describes, according to the military dictionary, “a period which a mine circuit is receptive of an influence.” for emily dickinson, life was “a loaded gun.” for sharif, it is a mine primed to blow. the title poem (which contains the ecclesiastes reference) moves from a moment of intimacy, to a hellfire missile being fired on iraq, to a kind of unease about the american project, as befitting a poet born in turkey to iranian parents who settled in los angeles. as far as poetry goes, this is closer to apocalypse now than john ashbery. which is how sharif wants it. the job of a poet, she says, is to be “a bane to the republic. because the republic is built on a destruction of language. a kind of obliteration of language that will enable and excuse violence against bodies. my job is to interrogate and agitate that as often as i can.” moving between the personal and political, her poetry is always in a state of tumult—a state of war. every one of the words from dictionary of military and associated terms are rendered, as above, in all caps. the effect is a muraled wall riddled by gunfire, photographed and turned into art. sharif tells me that she wanted the military terms to act as “these little disruptive markers of violence” that would remind readers that war is a constant presence in our lives, as much here as it is over there. she points to the varnished table where we sat, to her crumbled scone and my avocado toast. war was happening here too, she says. only we need the courage to see it. perhaps because of her ethnicity, or her convictions, sharif sees it everywhere: my father is not afraid of sedition. he can seize a wild pigeon off a santa monica street or watch seizures unfold in his sister’s bedroomthe fbi storming through. although the first person voice throughout look is not always sharif’s, the poems do follow her family’s journey. some of the poems are about her uncle, who was killed in the iran iraq war. sharif never knew him, yet she evokes him with the kind of battle worn sorrow that the ancient greeks lavished on their war dead: just, destroyed. died of wounds received in action. yes, there was early warning. you said you were especially scared of mortar rounds. sharif is a child of conflict, born in in istanbul because her parents had fled iran after the overthrow of the shah in 1979. they then moved to the united states, her mother going to the university of alabama, her father working odd jobs in the northeast. she imagines his experience—the classic immigrant tale—in a poem that has her father “driving a cab in poughkeepsie, lifting lumber in rochester...my baba downing bud light by the hudson.” the image, like so many in look, is precise and evocative, the poetic equivalent of a drone strike. sharif’s parents eventually settled down in los angeles, where sharif spent most of her childhood. she went to college at the university of california at berkeley and graduate school at new york university. back in los angeles, when she was helping a photographer friend with a project, she became enthralled with the military dictionary. the early curiosity became a book that took sharif eight years to write and publish. recent man booker prize winner paul beatty had his novel the sellout rejected times by publishers; sharif estimates she got as many rejections for look, maybe more. “and i want to send thank you notes to all of them,” she says, laughing. her manuscript was finally acquired by graywolf press, the revered independent minneapolis based press that has published the essayists leslie jamison, maggie nelson and eula biss, as well as the poets tracy k. smith, who won the pulitzer prize in 2012, elizabeth alexander, who read at president barack obama’s first inauguration, and claudia rankine, whose citizen has been lauded for its take on intractable racial issues. “sharif disrupts our assumptions about what constitutes poetry and simultaneously makes a poetry of protest and of lyric devastation,” says graywolf executive editor jeff shotts. “there is nothing like this work.” critics have agreed, with the new york times calling the book “excellent.” bookforum noted that “there’s something automatically evocative about the bureaucratic language of war, in the particular mismatch between the casualness of some words, the technological specificity of others, and the death hiding behind them all.” tellingly, that review was written by a national security reporter for the intercept, where glenn greenwald, who wrote about the edward snowden documents, is an editor. to be on the national book award short list has been “bizarre” for sharif, given how many rejections look received along the way. even more bizarre: “trump might be president during the ceremony.” we are fretting over the polls in north carolina and new hampshire when sharif considers an aspect of the trump presidency that i had not contemplated before: “who’s that inaugural poet going to be?” we sit there, at a loss, wondering who might to do for trump what robert frost did for john f. kennedy in 1961, endowing his first moments as president with moral authority. then, suddenly, the answer occurs to me. he is not a poet, exactly, but he does work in verse, whiskey bottle in hand: kid rock. eli apple: giants are not pressuring me to silence mom's opinions east rutherford, n.j. the mother of new york giants first round pick eli apple has put her son in a "little awkward" situation, apple said thursday. this is the result of annie apple's outspoken nature in her sports illustrated columns and presence in mainstream media. annie apple also works for espn as a contributor to sunday nfl countdown. she has written in recent weeks about the josh brown situation, as more details became public about the former giants kicker's domestic violence arrest. annie apple wrote about her personal experiences with domestic violence, and she criticized giants co owner john mara for comments he made. in her most recent sports illustrated column, posted late in the afternoon on wednesday, annie apple wrote about being "livid" with the giants because of her belief that the team was leaning heavily on her son in an effort to control her. she also wrote about deciding to skip the giants' most recent game against the los angeles rams, even though she made the trip to london a move that "definitely hurt" her son. eli apple remembers it as being the first game his mother has missed since he was in high school. apple was asked seven minutes' worth of questions thursday, exclusively about his mother, her columns and their relationship, rather than anything about this week's matchup with the philadelphia eagles. he said he expected it but also denied that the team was leaning on him to keep her quiet. "i'll tell her they're not pressuring me," apple said. apple said he didn't yet read his mother's latest column, titled, "why i will never stop speaking out against injustice from the giants, the nfl or beyond." none of his teammates had said anything to him about the situation as of thursday afternoon. the situation has put the cornerback in a strange position as he tries to get his rookie season on track. apple has missed two of the giants' first seven games and left early in two others because of hamstring and groin injuries. he was prepped by giants personnel thursday that he would be facing questions about his mother and her most recent column. "it's definitely a weird position, of course. you want to just focus on football and have football be your main focus," apple said. "sometimes when things like this come up, it makes it a little bit hard because you're thinking about it a little bit. but you just have to move on from it, talk to her a little bit and try to speak your mind a little bit and move forward." but there is only so much he can do. apple isn't about to reprimand or silence his mother. "that's my mom," he said. "she's going to check me, big time." annie apple is her own person, and like eli, she has her own career, he said. it's up to the two of them to make sure they can co exist. eli apple thinks it can happen. "i know how to talk to her a little bit," he said. "me and my mom have been going at it for a while, of course. so i'm going to come correct, of course. i'm going to come as her child." the conflict of interest between columnist and player was always a potential outcome, with the mother's and son's careers so intertwined. "i knew there were going to be some things that come with it because i know how she is," apple said. "she loves to be vocal and certain things and she has a big voice and definitely gets out to a lot of people. "so i just expected things like this a little bit. it's all good." weird and wonderful jobs in: the high flying life of a wingwalker whether she is performing aerobatic routines over the palm islands in dubai or taking part in summer shows with her sister across europe, every day is an exciting one for wingwalker emily guilding. in the video below, guilding takes you on a tour of the skies above gloucester, travelling at speeds of up to miles an hour atop a vintage biplane. “the most difficult part is the fact that it's extremely physically demanding," reveals guilding. "from the ground, it looks quite elegant when you’re watching it and sort of graceful, but if you ever have a go yourself you will realise that actually the wind pressure, the turbulence, it all creates a very difficult environment.” guilding, who works full time for the breitling wingwalkers alongside her sister stella, traded her traditional 9 to 5 in favour of the high flying role several years ago. “i had a very conventional career in a office based job and i just thought one day there has got to be more to life than sitting in an office," says the. "i heard they were recruiting for a new wingwalker, i decided to apply and three years later here i am.” asked what she loves about her role, guilding replies: "travelling up to 160mph, the feeling that that gives you is just absolutely incredible." "it is the best job in the world." future episodes in this series will give you a behind the scenes glimpse at some of the nation’s most fun and unusual jobs, including a stunt driver and a librarian at the world famous bodleian libraries in oxford. in last week’s episode, the star of charlie and the chocolate factory took viewers on a tour of the popular west end show. the weird "warm" body part you should apply perfume to if you want it to last longer perfume isn't cheap, so if you want better bang for your buck, you need to get creative with where you spray it uh oh. another day, another thing we're failing at as human beings . the good news is, this time, it's just cosmetic. whether you regular splash out on and apply your favourite scent, or if you tend to just binge sample every perfume in duty free once in a while all together now you've been doing it wrong. because when we give ourselves a fragrant spritz , we tend to aim for the neck or wrists. maybe behind the ears if you're feeling fancy. bearing in mind scent is not exactly cheap, there is a way you can get better bang for your buck and make you eau de parfums, toilettes and colognes go a little further. it's just that it sounds a little strange. for best results, steven claisse, a senior perfumer at fragrance company takasago, suggests dabbing a few drops on the bellybutton. speaking to the independent , steven advises the bellybutton because it radiates heat, apparently. he told the site, "any area on your body that radiates heat will enhance a scent, and your belly button does just that." if dousing your naval in joop doesn't really tickle your fancy, however, steven also recommends spraying your hair, because it holds scent well and leaves an enticing "trail of scent" as you go about your daily business. the downside of this though, is that you risk drying out your hair. other good areas are behind your knees, inside your elbows and on your inside calves if you're wearing a dress, because of the friction will give of warmth and an enhanced, longer lasting scent. so if the thought of applying perfume to your bellybutton makes you feel a little odd, there are other options. did she escape from the birdcage? woman's fluffy orange suit takes first prize in the punters who missed the mark competition at flemington the melbourne cup is always a stylish occasion, with spectators glamming up to the nines ahead of the race melbourne cup didn't disappoint, with many punters donning weird and wonderful outfits some of the strangest ensembles were first through the gates at on tuesday morning among the costumes on show are a fluffy, orange two piece suit, a witch's costume and a tartan kilt the race will kick off at 3pm on tuesday afternoon it is attended by more than people for the style set, the melbourne cup is an opportunity to flex their sartorial muscles and show the nation what their fashion nous is made of. and though thousands of impeccably dressed, stylish race goers descend on flemington every year, there are always just as many who turn up as if they're still rocking their halloween costumes. and this year's bizarre punters' outfits have not disappointed so far. from co ordinating superhero suits to glammed up spectators sporting fishnet tights and feathered headpieces, and even one woman sporting an all fluffy, all orange trouser suit, melbourne cup once more showed it is as much a celebration of fashion as it is the weird and the wonderful. some of the first excited punters through the gates at on tuesday were some of the most strangely dressed. one woman channelled a big bird aesthetic, thanks to her all fluffy, all orange outfit, while another opted for a witch's hat, purple sunglasses and what looked to be stockings on her arms presumably the remnants from her halloween costume from monday night. others came dressed according to the time of year, too, such as one group who rocked ghoulish attire, face paint and stockings. another group of women sported identikit black wigs, red feather boas, fishnet tights and heart shaped sunglasses. one eccentric fashion lover even donned a huge hat featuring elements from the melbourne cup as details including horses, jockeys, foliage and spectators. it wasn't just the women cracking out their finest attire for the most prestigious race of the spring racing season , either. flemington's men were also dressed to the nines in honour of the occasion. while a group of four males sported co ordinating two piece, superhero suits, another punter painted his face and paired a singlet style top with a tartan sash and kilt. another group seemed to be dressed as jockeys, complete with yellow shirts, bow ties and orange headpieces. th race kicks off at on tuesday and is the most prestigious race of the spring racing season. attended by close to people from all over the country, it is known as 'the race that stops the nation'. the melbourne cup is also widely perceived to be one of the richest prizes in australian sport. the visiting privilege by joy williams reviewweird and wonderful these singular stories, spanning years, reveal why the american is unparalleled in creating worlds where humour and horror coexist in an unexpected burst of enthusiasm in the trouble with being born, em cioran declares that everything by emily brontë “has the capacity to overwhelm me. haworth is my mecca.” i feel the same about the american writer joy williams, it’s just that this mecca is not so easy to locate. now , she seems to spend her time in key west, tucson and points in between. the stories drift all over the us, with occasional forays south of the border. in one set in tallahassee, florida, a young woman called audrey is telling her friend tommy about wuthering heights. “everything’s in that book,” she says. to which tommy replies: “tell me the whole book.” that, i guess, is what i’m supposed to do here. but how to tell the whole of a collection of stories spanning more than years? especially when i really want to just exclaim, “oh, oh, oh!” in a state of steadily mounting rapture. so let’s start with a variant of that. overhearing an adopted baby’s first attempt as speech as “uh oh”, the narrator of lorrie moore’s a gate at the stairs concludes that “she already knew both the sound and language of things going wrong”. things go terribly wrong in williams’s world, as wrong as they do in flannery o’connor. in congress, to take a mid period example, jack, a forensic anthropologist, is asked to examine a hand discovered in the stomach of a shark off the gulf coast of florida. his conclusions could hardly be more drastic: “the shark was most certainly attracted to the rings on this hand. this is a teen’s hand. she was small, perhaps even a legal midget, and well nourished. she was a loner, adventurous, not well educated and probably unemployed. odds are the rings were stolen. she would certainly have done herself a favour by passing up the temptation of those rings.” then carl, a student of jack’s and a keen hunter, gives him four cured deer feet with the suggestion that he make a lamp out of them. this seems a fine idea to jack who not only makes the lamp but also gets into hunting, with bow and arrow. unfortunately, on one of these expeditions, he falls from a tree and one of his own arrows “passes through his eye and into his head like a knife thrust into a cantaloupe”. severely disabled, as one might expect, “he tended to resemble, if left to his own devices, a large white appliance”. carl devotes himself to the invalid’s care while jack’s wife, miriam, develops an intimate friendship with the lampdespite a few disagreements. “the lamp had witnessed a smattering of kierkegaard and felt strongly that thought should never be confused with existence.” adapting to this new situation, the four of themcarl, miriam, jack and the lamptake a road trip together. the car breaks down and they end up in a small town where there’s a museum of taxidermyafter which things get very weird indeed. it’s a moot point whether williams’s stories have gotten weirder or less weird (in terms of form, not just content) since sustained immersion in them so thoroughly recalibrates notions of what a story might be that faithful transcription of the real takes on the quality of full blown dementiaand vice versa. all the whileand this is crucialwilliams displays the observational sensitivity and subtleness of less wayward masters of the genre. even a glimpse can yield a full portrait: “she was tall and dishevelled and looked the very picture of someone who recently had ceased to be cherished.” so after dwight, the proud owner of a restored but rusty ford thunderbird, takes the car to a garage with his wife, lucy, it seems quite natural for the mechanic’s prognosis to morph into something way beyond an estimate of parts and labour: “rot like this cannot be stayed. this brings us to the question, what is man? with its three subdivisions, what can he know? what ought he do? what may he hope? questions which concern us all, even you, little lady.” reconciled to the car’s terminal lack of roadworthiness dwight installs it in their living room. there’s a bunch of other stuff i haven’t mentioned that dwight had decided lucy would be his wife when he was and she was a four month old baby; that one of dwight’s old girlfriends had recently suffered the amputation of a legwhich “was in ashes in a church garden, waiting for the rest of her”and that there’s a vignette of a snorkelling trip in a cove so overpopulated with tourists that “the fish could scarcely be seen for all the suntan oil floating in the water”. oh, and there’s a dog, naturally. a thesis will one day be written on all the dogs in williams’s work. in one of the earliest stories a mother and daughter are desperate to take home a dog advertised for adoption because, as the mum explains, the kid lost her own dog the week before. “kicked to death by one of the horses. must have broken every bone in his fluffy little body.” on the up side, turner, a dog that has fallen overboard on a ferry crossing, is miraculously plucked from the waves and reunited with its grateful ownerswho then announce that it’s not turner after all and leave the boat to heckles. witnessing the rejection of this poor creature, a witness concludes: “i never saw a dog looked more like another dog in my life.” so, yes, light turns to dark and dark to light but the distinction is hard to sustain. three quick examples: “suddenly, there was a deceptive light in the darkness. a light that blackly reminded the lonely of the darkness.” “the sky had pieces of black running through it, like something that had died during the night.” “daylight was just beginning to flourish on the city of jacksonville. it fell without prejudice on the slaughterhouse, dairy queens and courthouses, on the car lots, sabal palms and a billboard advertisement for pies.” is there perhaps an echo of the famous description of snow falling at the end of joyce’s story the dead here? and when constance descends the stairs after a long anticipated visit to the lighthouse “she did not know, exactly, what it was she had expected but it had certainly not been black heavy duty truck batteries”is there maybe a deadpan allusion to virginia woolf? i can’t be sure but i can say, with confidence, that as a writer of dialogue her only peer is don delillo (a fan, naturally). take this little exchange, from the title story, between a visitor to a mental hospital and a patient who tells her about a room mate ‘she attacked this guy. she gouged out one of his eyes with a spoon.’ ‘she gouged it out?’ ‘i didn’t think it could be done, but boy, she knew how to do it.’” at which point, since we’re hearing echoes and dropping names, we may as well go real big and cite g wilson knight’s essay king lear and the comedy of the grotesque, for while williams’s imaginative world is ravaged with “existential horror”, it is simultaneously redeemed by ravishing hilarity. as a character decides at the end of the story fortune: “things had to be funny.” or as muirhead explains to his daughter when she asks if they were really selling postcards of the grotesquely preserved mummies at a cemetery museum in mexico: “yes, sweetie pie, they were. in this world there is a postcard of everything. that’s the kind of world this is.” lsu will upset alabama, if you believe in weird historical coincidences no. lsu hosts no. alabama on saturday night with a chance to snap its five game losing streak to the crimson tide and give interim coach ed orgeron a huge accomplishment to put on his résumé should he seek a permanent job as the tigers’ coach. lsu is listed as just a 7.5 point home underdog, which is something considering that the tigers fired les miles earlier this year, alabama hasn’t been favored by less than points all season and the crimson tide has won all but one game by at least points. [college football tv schedule and preview: can lsu’s leonard fournette finally solve alabama?] but lsu definitely has a chance here, and not simply because running back leonard fournette is once again a human wrecking ball. consider the following, as noted by master_shake on lsu’s sports message board: — there were two nfl games that ended in ties. — the cleveland indians advanced to the world series, losing the seventh game in extra innings. — there have been two nfl games that ended in ties, for the first time since . — the cleveland indians advanced to the world series for the first time since , losing the seventh game in extra innings. that’s noteworthy because also in , florida came to death valley averaging nearly points per game. the gators had beaten their five previous opponents by an average of points per game if only this year’s tigers were ranked in the ap or college football playoff polls to complete the coincidence. they are no. in the coaches’ poll, however. spooky. teen wakes up from coma speaking fluent spanish: ‘it was weird’ a georgia teenager who suffered a life threatening head injury last month while playing soccer awoke from a coma speaking fluent spanish for the first time in his life. rueben nsemoh, shocked family members and doctors when he opened his eyes after a three day coma and began uttering sentences in spanish, despite having known only a few words before his accident. “it started flowing out,” the teen told time on monday. “i felt like it was like second nature for me. i wasn’t speaking my english right, and every time i tried to speak it i would have a seizure.” “it was weird,” rueben added. “it was not scary at all. i actually liked it a lot. it was really unique to me.” another teenager accidentally kicked rueben on the right side of his head during a game on sept.after rueben dove for a loose ball, he said. rueben, an aspiring professional soccer player, suffered a severe concussion, went into shock and had to be airlifted to a hospital, according to his mother, dorah nsemoh. days after being treated in the intensive care unit, rueben finally started stirring again. he began moving his hand and gesturing for food. and then he blurted out: “tengo hambre,” or “i am hungry” in spanish. “i was very shocked. that’s something he’s never done before. when he got up and he started speaking spanish, i was confused,” said nsemoh, a high school teacher who is from nigeria. nsemoh then ran out of the room to find help and brought back a nurse. “a nurse asked me what language does he speak. i said, ‘i speak english. he speaks english. we’re not spanish based people,’” nsemoh said. doctors have not told the family why rueben woke up speaking perfect spanish, although they have sought consultation with a neurologist. it’s not unprecedented for patients to start speaking a different language or using different accents after a major trauma. in june, a texas woman made headlines after she had surgery on her lower jaw and then suddenly started speaking with a british accent. that case was diagnosed as foreign accent syndrome, a very rare condition in which people speak with a different accent, usually after head trauma or stroke, according to cnn. severe cases of traumatic brain injury and concussions can also cause changes in language function, according to the centers for disease control and prevention. rueben says he could recite just a few phrases in spanish before his accident. the only ways he had heard spanish were from his brother, who had previously studied in spain, and his spanish speaking teammates. in the weeks after the accident, rueben gradually recovered the ability to speak english, and now he speaks both languages fluently, although he says the spanish has begun to fade. doctors say rueben’s brain scans suggest he will fully heal, but the family has been overwhelmed by mounting medical bills in the range, nsemoh said. a gofundme page for rueben has collected more than to go toward the teen’s medical costs. “definitely, it’s a miracle,” nsemoh said. “my son is awake, i don’t care what language he’s speaking. whatever went on, he’s alive today and i believe in recovery.” adelaide festival program: cate blanchett and shakespeare get dark, weird and surreal program spanning opera, film, dance, music, performance art and theatre to feature rufus wainwright’s ‘symphonic visual concert’ and neil armfield’s outdoor production of the secret river canadian american singer rufus wainwright, australian theatre production the secret river, barrie kosky’s production of handel’s opera saul and a film by artist del kathryn barton starring cate blanchett mark the highlights of 2017’s adelaide festival. the march festival is the first under the co artistic direction of rachel healy and neil armfield, who worked together for almost a decade at sydney’s belvoir st theatre. the program for the adelaide festival, which is run concurrently with adelaide fringe, adelaide writers’ week and womadelaide, is a celebration of the dark, weird and surreal. thursday’s announcement also featured details of new festival hub the riverbank palais, which will float on the river torrens throughout march. andrew bovell’s adaptation of kate grenville’s the secret river, directed by armfield himself, is set to be one of the festival highlights. the stunning first contact story, which won six helpmann awards, will be remounted at the anstey hill quarry, a natural outdoor amphitheatre. “we’re bringing in a sense of ownership for the kaurna people, given that this is happening on kaurna land,” armfield said. the festival will also feature the australian premiere of red, a new short film by two time archibald prize winning painter del kathryn barton and starring cate blanchett. the film is inspired by the bizarre mating ritual of the redback spider, whose males offer themselves up to the female as a post coital meal, and has been described as “a surrealist cinematic offering and a savage tale of female power”. adelaide will also be treated to rufus wainwright’s “symphonic visual concert” prima donna, which will be matched with highlights from rufus does judy, the artist’s recreation of judy garland’s carnegie hall concert which has never been performed outside of the iconic venue; uk company complicite’s immersive theatre experience the encounter, which is also part of sydney festival’s program; and schaubühne berlin’s strange, sinister and adrenaline filled production of richard iii, directed by thomas ostermeier, which healy said was suitable “for anyone who’s fearful that shakespeare is usually served up lukewarm”. richard iii follows on from the company’s production of hamlet, which played at sydney festival. the lead performance by lars eidinger, who also played the title role in hamlet, has been described as “mesmerising”. healy and armfield also pointed to betroffenheit, a new dance work about the experience and aftermath of grief by rising dance star crystal pite and canadian theatremaker jonathon young, who lost his daughter as well as a niece and a nephew in a cabin fire in 2009. healy described the piece, which received a five star review in the guardian, as “one of the most memorable and affecting pieces of work that i can remember seeing”. in lebanese british artist tania el khoury’s sound installation gardens speak, audiences will literally dig into the soil to hear the stories of syrians who lost their lives in the civil war. italian intersex performer silvia calderoni will blur fiction with biography and performance art with monologue in mdlsx, an exploration of gender fluidity and identity. armfield, who saw mdlsx in rome, called it an “amazing performance” but one that was “very hard to classifyi suppose you’d call it dance theatre”. the program is packed with classical music, including a one night only performance of one of the first operas ever staged, monteverdi’s l’orfeo, which will be recreated by baroque ensemble concerto italiano; and the festival’s previously announced centrepiece, handel’s opera saul directed by barrie kosky. described by the guardian as “a theatrical and musical feast of energetic choruses, surreal choreography and gorgeous singing” when it premiered, christopher purves will be reprising the title role, joined by a local and international cast. there will also be a suite of chamber music performances to showcase the new concert hall at the picturesque mount barker summit. curated by anna goldsworthy, chamber landscapes will focus on schubert and be held over six days, with australian composers including calvin bowman, deborah cheetham and william barton responding to the landscape. among home grown productions is the world premiere of theatremakers william yang and annette shun wah’s the backstories, which will explore the asian australian experience with collaboration from prominent south australians including chef cheong liew, football official moya dodd and fashion designer razak mohammed. there will also be a performance of a new experimental dance work by restless dance theatre, held in an adelaide hotel; and: music in the key of yesa musical celebration of the referendum, in which more than of australians voted to remove racist clauses from the australian constitution. for families, manual cinema’s magic city will use overhead projections, shadow puppets and live feed cameras to create real time animated cinema based on the children’s classic by edith nesbit; and adelaide symphony orchestra will join miriam margolyes for a retelling of peter and the wolf. these brilliantly weird show stopping cakes have won three gold awards the cakes, made by two women from blaenau gwent, are based on goblins, krampus and minecraft some of these cakes might not look like they were meant to be eaten, but these weird and wonderful designs are award winning. emma phillips and jay humphris, both from ebbw vale , were presented with three gold awards between them for their sweet creations at the sugarcraft, cake decorating and baking show, held at the nec in birmingham on saturday. 'grotesque' goblin like creature sat on a tortoise in a muddy bog emma won one of the gold awards for her design called tully the bogglett, and featured a “grotesque” goblin like creature sat on a tortoise in a muddy bog. emma said: “he’s just a figment of my imagination this time around, rather than being inspired by alice in wonderland or the books of terry pratchett as my last two competition pieces were. “i even ended up writing a short biography of him, as he seemed such an interesting character as i was sculpting him.” she added: “as physically unpleasant as he is, with horrible teeth and a runny nose and spotty bum, there’s a warmth and friendliness in his eyes which is very endearing. 'bogglett kept me company' “he kept me company during the many late nights while i was working on him.” jay won the other two awards for her krampus themed christmas cake and a head sculpture based on the work of artists tomasz strzalkowski and h.r. geiger. jay’s son toby also achieved a certificate of merit for his minecraft inspired cake design. it’s not the first taste of success for baker emma, who has previously won silver awards at the last two competitions, and jay, her former sugarcraft pupil, has gained a silver and a gold. 'a crowning achievement and testament to their enormous hard work' the pair said this year’s haul of prizes is “a crowning achievement and testament to their enormous hard work and talent in this specialised field”. emma runs her cake design business from home in ebbw vale, as well as teaching sugarcraft through a number of classes run with anuerin leisure trust in ebbw vale and brynmawr . jay is a bar manager in ebbw vale and used to attend emma’s classes. emma said “the standard of competition is incredibly high every year, but this year it seems to have increased massively. jay and i are thrilled and delighted to not only have gained recognition for our work yet again, but to have achieved gold with each of our competition pieces. "i’m so pleased for my students to have gained recognition for their skills too. it hasn’t quite sunk in yet.” some of emma’s current students also entered the competition this year, with bronze prizes being awarded to denise bryant and victoria bryant, and a certificate of merit going to meg musa for her work. 'this is crazy!' tommy hilfiger reveals details of weird meeting with michael jackson in neverland 'throne room' and says his kids were dressed like the von trapp children tommy hilfiger has revealed details of a very strange encounter with michael jackson. the king of pop contacted the designer when he wanted to create a branded clothing line. tommy, was summoned to the singer's palatial neverland ranch in los olivos, california, for the surreal meeting, according to his new book, american dreamer: my life in fashion & business. the designer took along his daughter ally, now 31, and brother andy, according to an excerpt published in page six on tuesday. the trio landed on the lawn in a helicopter and were picked up by 'a choo choo train, with a conductor and everything,' tommy wrote. ''we were driving through neverland, and no one was there. as we passed the ferris wheel, it started up. every seat was empty. we saw teacup rides and a racetrack and an amphitheater, all deserted. 'we pulled up in front of the house, and a butler came out wearing white gloves. 'hello,' he said. 'michael will be coming; he is expecting you.' 'we were standing in front of this massive gingerbread style house when a giraffe walked by, followed by a string of baby elephants. ally and andy were looking at each other, like 'this is crazy!' ' and when tommy met michael in his office he was wearing sunglasses and 'was sitting in an enormous gold and burgundy throne...his face was heavily made up and he had a band aid across his nose. 'he was fidgety. he said, 'we really have to do this clothing line together. i have millions of fans all over the world who are waiting for it.' he spoke in the same wispy voice we had all grown accustomed to.' meanwhile, tommy said michael's kids prince, now 14, and paris, were dressed bizarrely like the von trapp children in the sound of music. 'they came barreling down the stairs dressed...in velveteen knickers, dirndl jumper, ruffled blouses, patent leather shoes, each in full makeup, their hair bleached blond with dark roots. blanket was an infant in nanny's arms.' tommy said he and his partners passed on the deal with the pop icon, who died of a drug overdose. he said they had 'bigger deals in mind' at the time and were negotiating to buy calvin klein. 'michael continued to call and ask us to reconsider, but our decision was firm, and he never did the clothing line,' tommy wrote. saturn's weird hexagon changes colour the mysterious hexagon at saturn's northern pole has changed colour from blue to gold, scientists have said. the hexagon is essentially a rotating cloud pattern; its shape may originate as the result of large differences in the speeds of saturn's winds. the observation was made by nasa's cassini spacecraft, which has been exploring the sixth planet. the change in colour is thought to be the result of seasonal changes on the planet. in particular, the amount of sunlight falling on the poles affects the production of suspended particles aerosols in the atmosphere. scientists think the shift from a bluish colour to a golden one may be due to more aerosols being produced through reactions involving sunlight and the atmosphere. this could be happening as the planet's north pole reaches its summer solstice. cassini was despatched to saturn in , to better understand the processes operating on saturn and perhaps other giant planets. using computer simulations, scientists have shown that small perturbations in winds flowing around the north pole can form a hexagon shape rotating at speeds close to those of the real one. scientists say weird signals from space are ‘probably’ aliens a team of astronomers believes that strange signals emanating from a cluster of stars are actually aliens trying to tell the universe they exist. the study, which appeared in the publications of the astronomical society of the pacific, analyzed the odd beams of light from starsa fraction of the million that were observed. the bizarre beacons led the paper’s authors, ermanno f. borra and eric trottier from laval university in quebec, to conclude that it’s “probably” aliens. “we find that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an extraterrestrial intelligence signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this hypothesis,” wrote borra and trottier. they also note that their findings align with the extraterrestrial intelligence hypothesis, since the mysterious activity only occurred in a tiny fraction of stars. the hypothesis also suggests that an intelligent life force would use a more sophisticated optical beacon than, say, radio waves to reveal its existence. researchers sifted through data collected by the sloan digital sky surveyan 8 foot diameter telescope in sunspot, new mexicoto separate natural signals from ones that appeared generated. but there are more skeptics than not, including the authors themselves, who acknowledge the hypothesis still needs work. for starters, the data need to be verified by at least two other telescopes and all natural causes need to be ruled out. “although unlikely,” the study notes “there is also a possibility that the signals are due to highly peculiar chemical compositions in a small fraction of galactic halo stars.” breakthrough listena global effort to hunt for alien life, backed by stephen hawking and mark zuckerberg said the signals are worth additional research, but not to get too excited. “it is too early to unequivocally attribute these purported signals to the activities of extraterrestrial civilizations,” the organization said in a statement. “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” weird al yankovic moderates fiery auto tuned version of the final presidential debate al poses some excellent questions with the abundance of sound bites to come out of wednesday’s presidential debate, it seems only fitting that weird al yankovicparody songwriter extraordinairewould step in to create an auto tuned spoof of the night’s discussion. in his new video for “bad hombres, nasty women,” the singer replaces chris wallace as the moderator of the final showdown between hillary clinton and donald trump, interspersing his own mocking commentary with the two candidates’ remarks. notable lyrics include, “can everyone achieve the american dream or should they sign up for my ponzi scheme?,” and, “to stop a cold war what should we be doingwould you go thumb wrestle vladimir putin?” the weird and wonderful tales from irish tv history what do opera singing dogs, the seventh son of a seventh son, a fairy tree, a hunt for monsters in the lakes of connemara, a ufo in mullinahone, a stretcher race and a magician priest who balances his niece on a sword all have in common? they are all among the oddities captured by rté, ireland’s national broadcaster, throughout its decades of broadcasting. their along among the clips featured in rté archives weird and wonderful collection released today on the official unesco world day for audiovisual heritage. rté archives, the largest audiovisual archive collection in ireland, has marked the day delving into the vaults to fish out a collection of videos, which illustrate some eccentricities and nuances of irish life in the the archives hold ireland’s largest audio visual collection, with over thousand hours of moving image and sound recordings together with significant collections of photographs, manuscripts and administrative documents. the rté archives maintains and preserves a unique record of irish life in the interest of the irish public. curator at rté archives, liam wylie, said “we really enjoyed putting the weird and the wonderful collection together. it is a presentation of some of the more offbeat or bizarre stories of irish life captured by rté that will make you smile. we also hope it will make you think about the value of preserving audiovisual content for the future.” unesco declared october as the world day for audiovisual heritage to raise awareness of the significance of av documents and to draw attention to the need to safeguard them. every year, activities are organized by different institutions worldwide around a theme. the theme for is “it’s your storydon’t lose it.” commenting on the world day for audiovisual heritage, bríd dooley, head of rté archives and newly elected president of the international audio visual professional representative organization fiat ifta said “the archives abound with stories which clearly connects our audiences everywhere. unesco world day for audiovisual heritage is a great opportunity to showcase the importance of keeping these memories intact for future generations and to shine a light on the fantastic work of the audiovisual archive sector and the continued need for funding to preserve these precious collections.” the weird and wonderful collection is presented on rté archive’s website, where content from the archives is published daily. so far this year, over 1,000 stories have been made available with the site attracting million visits to date in 2016. to keep up with the latest stories from the archives follow on facebook and twitter. 'he's going to have such a warped perception of life': zoe foster blake says her son's fame is 'weird'... and reveals a second child is on the horizon with high profile parents, hamish blake and zoe foster blake, it's no surprise that two year old sonny has become a social media sensation. speaking to tv week, zoe, 36, said as parents she and hamish obviously think their son is 'awesome' but weren't expecting his sudden rise to fame. the mother of one worries that her son may have a 'warped perception of life' but has no intention of depriving her instagram followers of adorable snaps. 'it's so weird. we think he's awesome obviously, but total strangers come up to us in the street. he's going to have such a warped perception of life. 'he'll think everyone is super friendly and knows his name. he's never going to know what it's like to be an anonymous child.' the year old also revealed that it's no secret that she wants more children but says that she hasn't gotten round to it yet. 'i make it no secret i'd like more, but i always said i'd wait until sonny was two. he's just turned two so i'll get around to it.' but zoe revealed her initial pregnancy was tough with her hip 'breaking' making her hesitant to have another child although she wants more. meanwhile, zoe's book the wrong girl has inspired a new hit television drama on channel ten which will see the talented author cameo as an intern. zoe, who is the show's associate producer, has admitted to using her role and author title to land the appearance in an upcoming episode to air next month. 'i asked to do a cameo,' she recently told the daily telegraph. 'it was very arrogant and indulgent of me but i was like, 'it would be so much fun!' the wife of radio star hamish blake, will star alongside her husband, who portrays tv weatherman hamilton, and actress jessica marais, who plays producer lily woodward. 'for me coming in, not being an actor, not knowing how to hit marks, i was going, 'don't mess it up!'' she said. the channel ten drama premiered last month to glowing reviews and it also stars actor ian meadows, who plays jessica's on screen lover pete barnett. meteor or alien ship? mystery surrounds bright green 'orb' spotted in the sky mystery surrounds a bright green “orb” which was filmed flying over japan. the fireball left a trail of sparks as it travelled in the city of niigata in the north of the country in the early hours of monday morning. the flying orb appeared in the sky for about seconds before it disappeared. some experts believe the bright ball of light, which was filmed by nippon tv’s weather camera, is actually a meteor. one astronomer told nbc the fireball could have been caused by space debris, such as satellite fragments burning up as they reentered the atmosphere. the american meteor society told gio the fireball was “brighter than normal” and its green hue indicated high levels of nickel. “it has the same brightness as the planet venus in the sky in the early morning or at night,” it said. but some ufo hunters remain sceptical, claiming the sighting was in fact, of an alien ship. scott c waring, who runs the ufo sightings daily blog, said: "this ufo tried hard to disguise itself as a free slowing meteor over japanhowever, it made some amateurish mistakes. some believe it was an alien ship from another planet "firstly, it’s glowing a colour most meteors don't glow... green. secondly meteorites do not fly horizontal while that low to the planet. "thirdlyand this was the stupidest mistake the aliens made the main ship turned off its glow for only one tenth of a second. meeting tribal kings and hungry hippos on holiday in guinea bissau this forgotten west african nation has been through more than its fair share of coups but a visit reaps unexpected rewards for the intrepid traveller a carnival procession in guinea bissau's capital city, bissau explore worldwide i wasn’t sure who was most surprised to see us: the funeral party, the king wearing a red bobble hat or the herd of hippos. we didn’t bump into them all at the same timethat would’ve been really weirdbut they each formed a memorable encounter during my week travelling around guinea bissau. this small, welcoming and, yes, safe patch of west africaa former portuguese colony, and now a land of tribal kingdoms and sacred islands delivers a daily dose of the unexpected. and not just for those passing through. tourists are a novelty in these parts. almost everywhere i wentevery village, market, church and beachresulted in quizzical glances, curious conversations and high energy displays of hospitality. west africa hasn’t had the easiest of times. lacking the big game parks that draw visitors to other african nations, the region has always been a niche holiday destination. the shores and resorts of the gambia have attracted decent numbers, while others opt to holiday on the waterways of neighbouring senegal and a few trickle south to ghana but that’s about it. even this modest tourism was hit hard with the outbreak of ebola in, spelling an end to overseas visitors almost overnight. despite cases only occurring in a handful of west africa’s countries and not a single one in guinea bissauthe aftermath of the scare was felt far and wide. “there are many misconceptions about this place,” my guide, augusto m’tambe, explained. “people think it’s dangerous and full of disease but it’s not.” to discover the truth and experience a corner of the world slowly remerging from the darknessthough political difficulties remain in a country that has experienced nine coups or attempted coups sincei joined a group of intrepid minded travellers on a new tour offered by explore worldwide. the plan: to travel south from the busy capital, bissau, for several days sailing around the sacred bijagos archipelago, a sprinkling of untouched, off shore islands in the atlanticsteeped in age old traditions and home to some very unusual residents. before we set sail, however, a long day on bumpy dirt tracks beckoned. the ruler straight road, lined with giant trees with twisted limbs, shimmered long into the hazy distance. the dusty town of canchungo was in mourning when we arrived unexpectedly. we had only intended to make the briefest of pit stops, to buy a bottle of the local tipple canaa rum like spirit with sugar cane and cashew nutsas an offering to the local king we would soon meet. “you never go empty handed,” advised augusto. but the need to source gifts was swiftly sidelined as we stumbled upon the most private of gatherings. the dearly departed had been laid to rest and the sniffling funeral partymany wearing t shirts featuring the face of the deceasedhad congregated in a sandy square just off the main street. heavy set women in bright and colourful tribal dresses cried into their hands but the sobbing paused abruptly upon sight of this group of out of towners. traditional dress and an elaborate rum flask in guinea bissau we stood on the fringes, shifting awkwardly in the dust, but the grieving family did not take umbrage at our presence. instead they beckoned us to join them. but our intrusion felt inappropriate, so we offered our condolences and gently retreated. and, so, onwards to the bijagos islands, a sprinkling of semi tropical isles encompassing two national parks, a unesco listed biosphere reserve and the most important turtle nesting site in all of africa. but its significance extends beyond the flora and fauna, with remote communities still governed by tribal chiefs. after cruising through the largest mangrove forest in west africa, spotting pelicans, storks and river dolphins, we stretched our legs on land at the village of elia. at the end of a raised embankment made of crushed oyster seashells, which scraped underfoot like shards of shrapnel, was the royal residence. you can spot dolphins in the country's rivers less of a palace and more of a simple mud house, with low ceilings and iron pots placed over a crackling fire, it was home to king gika jata. a laconic man with stained teeth and long grey hairs dangling from his chin, he wore frayed shorts and a red bobbly hat in place of a crown. he came to power around years ago. “i can’t remember exactly when,” he said, his voice as low as a whisper and almost drowned out by the snorting piglets running around on the other side of the wall. we sat on wooden blocks and discussed his life. “i never expected to be king,” he said. “it’s a calling. the elders consult a fortune teller and the spirits choose someone with a clean heart.” the next few days passed in a blur of ghost towns and age old initiation ceremonies, including the menacing vaca bruto ritual, in which young men in heavy wooden masks modelled to look like bulls' heads battled each other on all fours. bolama all crumbling colonial mansions and grand houses now strangled by twisting tree trunksserved as the nation’s capital when the colonising portuguese relocated it in a bid to escape malaria on the mainland during the century. it remained the seat of power until. today, it’s a largely forgotten place with a modest population, most of whom seemed to be sitting in the shade in the main square near a statue deposited by mussolini when an italian seaplane crashed nearby. one of the archipelago’s southernmost islands is uninhabited poilao, which forms part of the joão vieira and poilão marine national park. deemed a deeply spiritual place, the interior of the island wild and untamed and a place for male initiations is strictly off limits to all but select elders and tribal leaders. luckily, though, the miles of sandy shoreline that border it are well used to receiving guests. most nights between august and february, the beaches play host to green sea turtles who haul themselves across the sand to dig large nests and lay dozens of eggs. reports suggest there are upwards of reproducing females, some travelling from as far as mauritiana, who come here to give birth on the same beach on which they were born. we camped near the sand and stayed up into the early hours, until the unmistakable silhouette of a giant turtle emerged from the darkened ocean and sloped across the moonlit shore. we only returned to our sleeping bags after having helped rangers release thousands of newly hatched turtles, scurrying across the beach like marbles fleeing from a jar. it didn’t come as any major shock that most of the accommodation in guinea bissau leaned towards the basic. but our accommodation on the island of rubane drew gasps. we docked at ponta anchaca ecolodge after a long day at sea (the skipper got lost and without a gps had to rely on passing fishermen for directions), and immediately settled down for a much needed g&t at a bar built upon raised stilts by the infinity pool. the tide was out and the amber glow of sunset settled on a nearby row of small wooden fishing boats with patchy paintwork and names like in god we hope. hidden almost out of sight amid the dense foliage that backed against the long beach was a row of plush seafront lodges. think thatched roofs, four posted beds, rainforest showers and lots of african art; levels of luxury i’d dared not dream about. but guinea bissau had one final surprise up its sleeve. the rice farmers of ilha de orango are locked in a bitter battle with their fearsome neighbours. “they cause a lot of problems, ransacking the fields. people have had to install electric fences,” said augusto as we trekked through neck high grass and across boggy marshes en route to see the ravenous rice munching creatures in question: the hungry hippos of bijagos. the rice farmers of ilha de orango are locked in a battle with local hungry hippos we eventually found a herd of the rare saltwater hipposthey inhabit the island’s swampy lagoons and are often seen strutting their stuff on the beachafter an hour’s sweaty hike. we huddled quietly, a little too close to the creatures for comfort, and watched as they wallowed in the mud, all louds grunts and giant yawns. they, too, eyed us with intrigue and suspicion before emerging from the water, prompting us to make a hasty exit. surprises come in all shapes and sizes in guinea bissau. the financial reason some gang members cover their bodies in tattoos gangs like the mara salvatrucha have spread their influence all over the western hemisphere, and one of the clearest signs that you're dealing with their members is the garish tattoos that often adorn their bodies. the designs of those tattoos can often vary, specified by individuals and their gangs, but there's an underlying reason that people get them, and it makes perfect business sense. "there's a weird economic reason for these tattoos: it makes these employees much easier for the cartel or the gang to keep hold of," tom wainwright, author of "narconomics" and former economist reporter in mexico city, told business insider. "if you picture one of these gangs in el salvador, where many of the members have tattoos, literally from head to toe, it's much much harder for those employees to go and find a job somewhere else," wainwright added. the mara salvatrucha, also known as, is most closely associated with the head to toe tattoos. prisons in el salvador and honduras, where is based, are full of current and former gang members coated with ink identifying their loyalties, whether to ms 13 or another central american gang like barrio, which is regarded as one of main rivals. while the inkings are often inscrutable to outsiders, members of the gang world are familiar with their meanings. this helps them identify compatriots and prevents members from straying. "these guys can't find work anywhere else," because the markings make it difficult for them to switch allegiances, wainwright told business insider. "they can't find work with a rival cartel, and so they have to stay working for the gang that they started off with. this makes them much cheaper and it means that the gang can treat them how they like." as these gangs have spread to places were anti gang law enforcement efforts are more robustlike the suburbs of washington, d.c. the tattoos have become a less central part of gang life. tattoo removal programs have also cropped up, as government and civil society efforts to pull people away from gangs have ramped up. but for and other gangs, where proof of loyalty is vital, tattoos aren't going anywhere. "it's something that's strongly encouraged," wainwright said. "and i think if you want to join a gang like the mara salvatrucha in el salvador, you can't join unless you get the tattoos." a woman on reddit put out a call for wedding photographers to share their thoughts about the couples they photograph and the moment they realised they might not last the distance. has compiled their stories and compiled them into a handy guide: what you want to avoid at your wedding (in order to avoid divorce), according to the photographers™. death staring your spouse focusing on the wedding, rather than the marriage successiveapprox: "my photography business partner and i talk about this a lot. we spend or more hours in a day looking at the bride and groom through a frame that isolates them alone and together, largely stripping away the broader context and focusing on their interactions. we are looking specifically for moments of contact, of intimacy, of emotional connection. it pretty quickly becomes evident when those things are there, and when they are not. "we also spend a lot of time listening to the language they use in pre meetings, engagement shoots, on the wedding day, etc. it becomes pretty clear in a short time what the focus is. many couples, particularly young couples, pretty clearly have in mind a wedding but have put little thought and planning into a marriage. the difference we see between a young couple and an older second marriage couple is pretty significant." there are many other little things (like once when there was more sexual tension between the groom and the best man than between the groom and the bride) that factor in, but those are the main things that jump out. that's not good, obviously. being undecided about children "we do wedding videography, and last year we shot the wedding for a couple that were together for a few years prior to it, and had a kid together. they honestly seemed like they would truly last. just weeks ago, my partner, who is friends with the groom on facebook, told me they are getting a divorce. truly saw no signs. only thing i can think of is he didnt give her another baby which she claimed she wanted in the video." told my partner though we need to offer up divorce videos in the package for half price. legitimate business idea. showing zero affection "my very first wedding was a couple who was getting married by the art museum in philly. i had my friend whose been a wedding photographer for ten years with me to show me the ropes after doing a lot of second shooting with him. so he poses a kissing shot of the couple, and when he asks them to kiss the bride goes “oh, no, no thank you” in this weird little mousey voice." he has shot over a weddings and said he never saw a couple so not into each other as much as they were. "the whole thing was weird. the groom didn't even bother to properly make himself look presentable on his wedding day, it was literally the first time both sides of the family met that day." "usually during the romantic pictured they have no obvious signs of affection to each other. perhaps this is just the couples i work with but when we tell them to kiss and hold hands and be affectionate, the couples that have no problem being close usually last. there are so that are very timid and almost afraid the other partner is going to bite their head off. those are the couples that won't last." offering yourself to the wedding photographer "when i first got started i assisted for a photographer who was a good lookin fella. during the reception the bride told him they were going to have an open marriage and basically offered herself up to him, which he politely declined. not sure how their marriage has turned out..." flirting with all the guests "the groom, as far as i could tell was just naturally flirtatious with women. didn't matter, he was a shameless flirt who had women blushing and probably dreaming about the honeymoon all night. "the bride wound up crying at the bar, apparently she assumed that once the groom said 'i do', his personality would magically transform, and he'd never look at another woman again. "turns out, harmlessly flirting with bridesmaids and their grandmothers wasn't what she needed to worry about, since the groom was equally as flirtatious with his best man (who was openly gay). the marriage lasted less than months, until according to rumour the bride discovered her new groom flagrante delicto with the best man. last i heard, now that gay marriage has been approved here, those two are planning a wedding of their own. being on your phone at the crucial moment "don't know if they are still together, but one groom was on his phone while walking down the aisle. and he was in jeans. she wasn't the happiest (sadly i did not get any of her reaction shots)." there is a time and a place for candycrush. bride walking down the aisle? not it. acting like a "jerk in general" "i also wonder about the brides & grooms who make snarky remarks during the day. like, if i only know you for eight hours, but i know you're upset your new spouse didn't let you plan any of the wedding, then i'm not sure you have your priorities straight." and i wonder about their relationships when they're just jerks in general. did you make your groomsmen all get different suits the day before the wedding? did you spend the morning making misogynist comments to your photographer? you're probably difficult to be in a relationship with. jazz4: "also done a lot of wedding work in the past. i also got that feeling of 'how on earth are you two together'. he/she is an absolute ass and i've only met you for a few hours." being kind of dead inside hopopo: "i was a second shooter at the high profile wedding. both bride and groom are lawyers and absolutely emotionally dead. they looked like business partners. strangest thing of all was that at the end of the ceremony there was no kiss or exchange of rings. her family member did ceremony and just skipped the whole thing. whole ceremony lasted less than 5min." weirdest hillary clinton conspiracy theories democratic hopeful accused of being everything from a murderer to a body double the united states goes to the polls today to vote for their next president, with democrat hillary clinton enjoying a slight edge over her republican rival, donald trump. her campaign has been dogged by its fair share of controversies, most notably the prolonged investigation of her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. but while every career politician has skeletons in the closet, clinton has also been the subject of dozens of extreme and bizarre conspiracy theories. here are some of the most outlandish. clinton has her opponents killed rumours that vince foster, a senior white house staffer and boyhood friend of bill clinton who committed suicide in 1993, was actually a victim of the power hungry clintons have been a staple of right wing talk radio for decades, despite five official investigations confirming he killed himself. similar accusations followed the death of seth rich, a democratic national committee (dnc) employee shot dead in a suspected attempted robbery in july. blogs from both extremes of the political spectrum speculate he "may have been silenced for threatening to expose some kind of massive voter fraud", inquistr reports. others suggest rich was cooperating with hackers leaking dnc emails. the metropolitan police department said there was "no indication that seth rich's death is connected to his employment at the dnc". clinton has a body double conservative media had a field day when clinton collapsed at the 9/11 memorial in new york while suffering from pneumonia, diagnosing her with everything from parkinson's disease to multiple sclerosis. the democratic nominee re emerged on the campaign trail a few days later in seemingly rude health. could it be that she was, as she said, actually in fine fettle? nope, they said, she must have a body double. body double before & after just a theory, but nose looks very different. professional clinton impersonator theresa barnwell was bombarded with tweets suggesting she was standing in for the politician during an appearance in new york. after first joking that "maybe" she was in the city that day, barnwell then issued an unequivocal response. ok people, calm down. i was in la today, all day. was just messin' with your crazy conspiracy minded little heads. go to bed. clinton faked a blood clot in december 2012, clinton was hospitalised with a blood clot not long before she was due to testify at a congressional hearing into the attack on the us embassy in benghazi, libya. glenn beck of fox news was sceptical, however, asking whether it "just a scam so that we didn't talk about". he also added: "if she really had some weird thing in the hospital, then it should prohibit her from ever becoming president," reports mother jones. in one of the most bizarre twists of a bizarre election season, beck, who has built his tv career on whipping up conservative hysteria, has now said he will vote for clinton, calling her the "moral choice" compared to trump. clinton's campaign manager kidnapped madeleine mccann the theory that john podesta, clinton's campaign manager, and his brother mike were responsible for the kidnapping of madeleine mccann in gathered steam on message board 4chan yesterday, with the two men compared to computer generated renderings of two suspects released by portuguese police three years ago. last seen with hillary clinton's campaign manager john podesta. while clinton's campaign team is highly unlikely to even acknowledge the outlandish claim, it has been debunked by at least one unlikely sourceright wing news blog regated, which says the similarity to the brothers is "shocking", but "the police sketches are actually just one person". pitzer college professor brian keeley, a conspiracy theory expert, told the daily beast such outlandish theories offer "a deep sense of hope" for their believers as they provide a coping mechanism for those who are "baffled that we've ended up with clinton and trump as the democratic and republican candidates for president". the five weirdest conspiracy theories about the us election this has been perhaps the strangest us election in history and the rise of social media and online news has made it easier than ever for oddball conspiracy theories to spread. here are some of the crackpot claims circulating about the election. when will we know who the next us president is? it's already happened some think the whole election is rigged... the person spreading this conspiracy theory is none other than donald trump himself. he may not accept the election if clinton wins, because it has been "rigged by the media, in a coordinated effort with the clinton campaign, by putting stories that never happened into news!" the media has not needed to "put stories that never happened into news" there is plenty of video evidence of the presidential candidate being controversial. the election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing crooked hillary but also at many polling places sad and that the media is in on it people on the far left and far right both echo the opinion that one shouldn't believe the "biased msm" and should instead trust blogs and wikileaks. the "maddest left wing website in the world", the canary, has decided to publish an article hinting the election is rigged. the canary joins in on the trump "rigged" election conspiracy theories, based on one test post of the results a major media outlet just revealed who won the us election… a week in advance is the election being rigged? this article focuses on the fact a news site appears to have accidentally published their test article for the election results day and it says hillary clinton will win. the canary writes: "but what does this most recent leak actually prove? we know that mainstream media outlets influence public opinion, and that they often have connections to the rich and powerful. but would they really go to the extent of rigging election results? "on, we’ll discover who has won the election. and we’ll see if the numbers match those leaked by wrcb. only then will we have the answer to the questions above." rumours that hillary clinton is ill or even dead hillary clinton had to admit to having pneumonia in september, cancelling some appearances until she recovered. however, some conspiracy theorists thought the situation was far more grave. sources, including website the inquisitr have claimed the presidential candidate could be using a body double. and there are plenty of videos on youtube claiming clinton is seriously ill and even dying due to tiny pieces of inconsequential "evidence" seemingly hoping to prove she is unfit to be president. unfounded claims that clinton is a satanist wikileaks took time off exposing corruption to spread a rumour that hillary clinton was linked to a ritual called 'spirit cooking', which allegedly involves "blood, sperm and breast milk". the podestas' "spirit cooking" dinner? it's not what you think. it's blood, sperm and breastmilk. but mostly blood. this is because in an email allegedly from campaign chairman john podesta's brother tony, the phrase "spirit cooking" is mentioned. the website then linked to a video which shows artist marina abramovic doing a presentation called spirit cooking, which mentions the human bodily fluids. obviously, alt right blogs latched on to this rumour and decided to spread around that hillary clinton takes part in a "satanic practice" despite not sending or receiving any emails to do with spirit cooking. the website snopes has debunked this conspiracy theory spirit cooking is not satanic but it is an art project by ms abramovic, and the dinner she cooked did not include blood, sperm or breast milk. 5. and many claim trump is a plant working for clinton do you every get the feeling that donald trump is a "plant" by the clinton's? many appear to think the donald has been told by the clinton camp to be as controversial as possible to deter people from voting republican and hand her the victory. the strange 'funnel' on mars that scientists say could be the best place to look for alien life researchers spotted depression in a crater on edge of the hellas basin new analysis shows it was likely formed by a volcano underneath a glacier they these conditions could host liquid water and chemical nutrients a bizarre funnel like depression on the surface of mars could hold the ‘key ingredients’ for life. it’s been thought that the feature known as the hellas depression may have been formed by a volcano beneath a glacier, but now, researchers have conducted an in depth analysis using stereoscopic images and digital elevation models. the new investigation suggests the depression does have many signs of volcanic origins similar to ‘ice cauldrons’ on earth, meaning it could create an environment warm enough to host liquid water and chemical nutrients. a bizarre funnel like depression on the surface of mars could hold the ‘key ingredients’ for life. the hellas depression is pictured on left, while another feature known as the galaxias fossae depression is shown on right was martian life found years ago? in a recent study, researchers examined the results from the viking labeled release experiment, which at the time was said to have found extant microbial life. the results showed simiarities to responses seen in terrestrial soil, including data from samples collected in california, alaska, and antarctica they also evaluated non biological hypotheses which have suggested that the results were ‘most likely caused by a non biological soil oxidant.’ but, no such oxidant that could satisfy all of the findings has ever been identified, and there have been no further metabolic experiments on the red planet. the researchers determined that the findings from the viking experiments are ‘consistent with a biological explanation,’ suggesting microorganisms on mars adapted and evolved to meet harsh environmental conditions. the site was first detected, when researchers noticed that the crack like features in images captured by the mars reconnaissance orbiter were similar to ‘ice cauldrons’ in iceland and greenland. on earth, these structures are created when volcanoes erupt under an ice sheetand on mars, these conditions have the potential to host life. ‘we were drawn to this site because it looked like it could host some of the key ingredients for habitabilitywater, heat, and nutrients,’ said lead author joseph levy, a research associate at the university of texas institute for geophysics. the strange, funnel shaped depression was found inside a crater on the rim of the hellas basin, and it’s surrounded by ancient glacial deposits. the researchers also noted another depression in the galaxias fossae region with a similar appearance. ‘these landforms caught our eye because they’re weird looking,’ levy said. ‘they’re concentrically fractured so they look like a bull’s eye. that can be a very diagnostic pattern you see in earth materials.’ magpies will try to peck your eyes out and nobody drinks foster's: british woman reveals the most surprising things she's learned living in australia pom living in australia lists best things she has discovered down under birds make up three of the discoveries, with swooping magpies on the list after two years in australia, she never saw anyone drink fosters beer she also learns a golden gaytime is an ice cream, not a bizarre sexual act from living with the constant threat of magpie attacks to describing redheads as 'rangas' a british expat has provided an insight into australia's peculiar traits. the behaviour of a certain black and white bird during nesting season had a place on her popular reddit post, along with controversially named coon cheese, fairy bread, eating a sausage outside a hardware store and never drinking foster's beer. 'australian magpies swoop and try to peck out your eyes,' she said. a british woman living in australia learnt a thing or two about how a swooping magpie will try to peck out your eyes during the nesting season she wrote australians don't appear to think it strange how a popular ice cream, known as the golden gaytime , doesn't sound like a sexual act no matter how popular it may be in the uk, australians don't drink foster's beer speaking of being annoyed, blogger 'thirstyfortea' was amused at how australians say it 'gives them the sucks'. 'every time i take it literally and laugh,' she said. australia's taste in ice cream was another laughing matter, with the british woman discovering a golden gaytime is actually a toffee, cookie coated treat and not a sexual act. australia's peculiar traits, as seen by a pom a nigel has no friends in australia while a billy in uk is someone with no mates when australians are annoyed, something 'gives them the s***s' a golden gaytime is a popular ice cream, and no one thinks it strange it sounds like a sex act a grass trimmer is a 'whipper snipper' not a garden strimmer as the english say fairy bread, with hundreds and thousands on white bread, is so strange and also a national treasure. second lowest fire rating is high and sydneysiders go 'meh, bushfires' brush turkeys are wild and roam around magpies swoop and try to peck out your eyes cockatoos are like uk pigeons except they're massive and sound terrifying like dinosaurs when they fly over. a sausage sizzle is basically a bbq outside every b and q (hardware store). amazing australia lost a prime minister harold holt who went for an ocean swim, disappeared and then they named an aquatic centre after him. cruel 'ranga' is a ginger. 'pom' is a brit. neither is offensive australians say 'heaps' in every single context. i'm heaps tired everything is abbreviated. someone told me they shorten words because there's so much dust australians think it's weird how brits have pancakes for dinner the 'bush' is anything rural while 'bush' becomes 'outback' at some indeterminate inland point british greetings don't go down well. 'alright?' is more an expression of concern, getting looks of confusion every now and then you go out and get smacked in the face by the kind of heat usually only felt when opening an oven australians use terms that would be obscenely offensive in the uk. the term 'wog' is thrown about, and 'coon cheese' is a thing i've never seen anyone drink foster's. ever 'everyone loves golden gaytime ice cream and no one thinks it strange,' she said. drinking fosters beer, however, would be considered strange in australia, despite the beverage being a common sight in british pubs. 'i've never seen anyone drink foster's. ever,' she said. australians would also never call a grass cutter a garden strimmer, as the english say. it's a whipper snipper. a sausage sizzle in australia is grabbing some barbecued meat outside a hardware store nobody in australia drinks foster's beer, the british expat found. they are much more likely to be downing vb, like these sunbathers at sydney's coogee beach australians also love having barbecued sausages outside hardware stores, she said, referencing a common british chain. 'sausage sizzle is basically a bbq outside every b and q. amazing,' she said. white bread with margarine and hundreds and thousands, known as 'fairy bread' is a national treasure. 'so strange,' she said. a particular cheese, which sounds like a derogatory term for a black person, doesn't seem to have racist connotations. 'australians use terms that would be obscenely expensive in the uk,' she said. 'the term ''wog'' is thrown about and ''coon cheese'' is a thing.' on the subject of being unpopular, a billy has no mates in england and a nigel has no friends in australia, she discovered. red heads in australia are known as 'rangas' while a brit is a 'pom'. 'neither is offensive,' she said. birds made up three observations on the reddit list, with roaming wild brush turkeys a surprise and native cockatoos likened to annoying pigeons in the united kingdom. 'except they're massive and sound like terrifying dinosaurs when a flock fly over,' she said. coon is a popular cheese in australia, despite some derogatory and racist connotations white bread with margarine, topped with hundreds and thousands is known as 'fairy bread' which the british woman found strange a british expat in australia was taken aback by fire warnings signs listing 'high' as the second lowest alert level with summer approaching, bushfire season and the high temperatures were intriguing to the british woman. 'there are fire danger signs at the side of the road and the second lowest fire rating is high,' she said. 'sometimes sydney is so smokey, and everyone's like "meh, bushfires" without a care. 'every now and then you go out and get smacked in the face by the kind of heat usually only felt when opening an oven.' the naming of a swimming pool in melbourne after harold holt, the prime minister who drowned, was something the uk expat found 'cruel'. a bushfire raging at swan bay near port stephens, north of sydney, at the weekend a petrol powered grass cutter in australia is known as a whipper snipper, not a garden strimmer as the english call it redheads like former home and away actress isla fisher are referred to as 'rangas' native cockatoos are likened to uk pigeons except 'they're massive and sound like terrifying dinosaurs when a flock fly over' australian prime minister harold holt shortly before he drowned at victoria's cheviot beach. the harold holt memorial swimming centre in melbourne was named in his honour after the area's former local member. the uk expat found this strange the british woman was intrigued at how wild brush turkeys roam around a rural location is described as the 'bush' while a more remote area inland, like this spot in australia south would be referred to as the 'outback' doors open days: weird and wonderful places to visit doors open days, getting under way next month, will allow free public access to rare historic sites across scotland. from seeing a tower for nesting owlets to creeping under the stage of a famous theatre, here are our weird and wonderful picks. see puppies being put through their paces at any one point 80 100 pups will be getting trained at the guide dog scotland centre in forfar. a training school for puppies, the guide dog centre in forfar will be welcoming in the dog loving public. at any one point, to pups could be going through vital assistance dog training and you could get a chance to see it happen. be a dentist for the day visitors can take in tours and try out being a dentist. visitors can really get their teeth into a "doors open" trip around dundee dental hospital. tours of the building will take in rarely seen artwork by james mcintosh patrick, as well as stunning stained glass windows by douglas strachan. the event is part of the dental hospital and school's centenary celebrations. explore the remains of a crypt and medieval hospital image caption the site at soutra aisle was once the highest monastery in britain soutra aisle, dating back to 1686, is a family burial vault which was built when the scottish church banned monuments inside churches. visitors can explore the macabre unlocked crypt and marvel at what was once the largest hospital in medieval scotland. the site sits at an altitude over metres and was the highest monastery in the british isles. barn owl activity has been recorded at the cote. the traditional looking owl cote tower was built as a nest site for wild barn owls. it looks like it has been a success this year as research from shows there has been barn owl activity. the question is, will you spot one of these feathery residents when you enter the ayrshire brick and bottle built round house? catch a courtroom drama a group of actors will provide high drama in sir walter scott's court room. the thrilling sir walter scott court case re enactment will have crime, drama, mystery and intrigue. visitors can watch as sir walter scott presides over a court case involving robbery and a secret liaison. stage fright or star struck? (glasgow) visitors can get to see what goes behind the scenes at glasgow's iconic citizens theatre. sneak backstage and find out what goes on behind the scenes at glasgow's vibrant citizens theatre. film buffs can make their way to the projection room for the inside cinema scoop. greenock waterfront cinema will be where it's at for those intrigued by how the big films get on the big screen. guests will have the chance to tour the projection rooms and find out the ins and outs of how they work. before the smart phone max femmich's collection shows the days before the mobile phone put together by telecommunications enthusiast max flemmich, the darvel private telephone museum celebrates years of the telephone and includes working installations where visitors can dial on the phone or try tapping out morse code. a coal mine with a makeover: crawick multiverse has been transformed into something unique crawick multiverse was an open cast coal mine, but it has now been transformed by charles jencks into a breathtaking landscape celebrating space, astronomy and cosmology. cromarty lighthouse visitors can hear about aberdeen's research on seals, dolphins and seabirds. cromarty lighthouse was decommissioned in and now the lighthouse tower, keeper's cottage and old buoy store are used for marine research and teaching by the university of aberdeen. visitors will be able to tour the building and meet staff and students to hear about their research on seals, dolphins and seabirds. doors open days are running throughout scotland every weekend in september and are co ordinated by the scottish civic trust. head to their website for the full programme. lily bevan often says 'quite weird things' to strangers comedian lily bevan has co written a play called talking to strangers, which is a series of monologues in which characters talk to strangers. she told the bbc radio 's the world tonight that she talks to people she does not know and it "can be really endearing". us election 2016: russia's weird victory celebrations there is consternation in many places at the prospect of a donald trump presidency, but one place that has welcomed the news is russia. vladimir putin wasted no time sending his congratulations while some russian companies invited their clients to mark the republican billionaire's success. many russians are openly gleeful that their favourite candidate won. sarah rainsford reports from moscow. golden bus created for olympic diver chris mears the bus was unveiled on friday at the pride of reading awards a gold bus has been created for olympic gold medallist chris mears in tribute to his rio success. the single deck bus will primarily run along the lime route, which serves mears's village burghfield common, near reading, but will also be available for use on other routes in the town. it comes after a fake golden postbox was installed in his village in august. mears and his diving partner jack laugher won the men's synchronised springboard event. chris mears gets an olympic gold... bus he described seeing himself pictured on a bus as a "surreal experience". "my old friendship group use this service, so it's going to be weird for them getting on the bus and seeing me on the side of it," he said. he added that he hopes the younger generation in the town will be inspired by his achievements in rio and for the sport of diving. image caption mears and his diving partner jack laugher won the men's synchronised springboard event jake osman, of reading buses, said: "after the great exploits of london, the gold medal winning athletes were celebrated with gold post boxes in their home towns. however, this was only for those olympics. "as chris will not get a golden post box in burghfield common we thought we could step up and give chris something to demonstrate that the people of burghfield, and reading are proud of his achievements." the bus was unveiled at the pride of reading awards on friday. image caption a fake golden postbox was installed in chris mears's home village of burghfield common after his rio success the weird world of negative interest rates the idea of paying to have money in the bank seems unfair, and frankly just plain weird. it is indeed a strange idea for strange economic times. let me take a moment to explain why anyone would want to do this. banks have bank accounts of their own with the central bank. in the uk's case that is the bank of england. for countries that use the euro it's the european central bank. the central bank pays their banks interest for any spare money they have got on deposit with it. by lowering interest rates, the central bank makes it less attractive to park that money on deposit and encourages the banks to do something more profitable with it like lend it to individuals and businesses to spend thus boosting the economy. when banks are really reluctant to lend, a bigger stick is required. and so in europe, the ecb has introduced negative rates which doesn't just encourage lending but punishes the banks if they don't. if there isn't anyone who wants to borrow that money, the banks end up paying the penalty and that cost could get passed on to customers. that is what rbs and natwest are saying could happen here if the bank of england cuts rates from the current to below zero. that's quite a lot of caveats and why it is very unlikely to happen anytime soon. bank of england governor mark carney has gone on the record saying he doesn't believe negative interest rates work, precisely because they punish banks, making them weaker and can pass on additional costs to customers, which in turn makes the economy weaker. the real story in rbs and natwest's message is the rise in the cost of business banking by an average of £8 per month. rbs and natwest have around million business customers, as they have traditionally offered cheaper business banking than some of their rivals. in a world where they can't make any money on those deposits themselves, they are having to find income elsewhere. the business of banking is pretty simple. you pay interest on deposits at one rate and you lend it out at a higher rate. when interest rates are this low, the difference between those two rates gets squashed and so do the banks. this move by rbs and natwest is the sound of the banking pips squeaking. critics find bowie lazarus musical 'weird' he musical features the songs of david bowie lazarus, the new musical featuring the songs of david bowie, has opened to mixed reviews in new york. inspired by bowie's starring role in the cult film the man who fell to earth, he co wrote the show with irish playwright enda walsh, the award winning writer of once. time out, gave it, saying it "lacked originality and depth." but the guardian described the production as "unapologetically weird... and oddly intriguing". image caption the show is about a stranded alien living on earth telling the story of a human looking alien who comes to earth, the production is directed by belgian ivo van hove, whose recent productions include the sell out a view from the bridge starring mark strong. the cast includes michael hall, who starred in hit tv series dexter and cristin milioti, who starred in the stage version of once. rolling stone said that although lazarus bears "all the earmarks of a bad idea" being a continuation of another story, with a single artist soundtrack, "the plot is coherent, the songs are great and the performances are kinetic". it praised the show as a "surrealistic tour de force." 'pretentious... fascinating' the new york times described it as a "great sounding, great looking and mind numbing new musical" and criticised the script, calling it a "flat footed, literal minded exposition". the chicago tribune, and the hollywood reporter also held mixed opinions. the tribune felt all was not "hunky dory" but said it "feels fixable," adding lazarus "has the visual sophistication, the pan sexual weirdness, the historicism, the eclectic musical rush of the gorgeous". meanwhile the hollywood reporter described it as "an alienation alt musical that channels the trippy dream state of an alcoholic extraterrestrial insomniac. so the two intermission less hours of lazarus are predictably strange, often impenetrable and a tad pretentious, but always fascinating, even when distancing". james c nicola, the artistic director of the new york theatre workshop, said the show had been in secret development for some years. bowie surprised his fans in when he suddenly released a new single on his birthday followed by a new album after a hiatus. butler and bacon pleas 'among weird consular requests' officials fielded calls about bacon, plugs and old pound notes in the last year requests for information about recruiting a butler and shops selling english bacon are among the bizarre calls made to british consular staff, the foreign office has said. it has revealed the strangest inquiries of the year to remind the public its helpline should be for emergencies. a call was also taken from a man planning to move to spain who was worried about encountering nudists. but the vast majority were from britons needing genuine assistance. the foreign office said almost half a million calls were made in the last year to its consular service number, which provides emergency help to britons in trouble overseas. it dealt with britons in hospital, who were arrested, and the families of who died overseas. nearly replacement travel documents were issued. making up the rest of the top list of bizarre calls, however, were inquires from: a holidaymaker attempting to find travel advice about coventry a woman asking for the contact details of a british person on youtube a european film maker looking for an english pensioner for a role a woman disappointed the british embassy had not given her a tour of st petersburg in russia a british man asking for assistance to get illegal employment in singapore a businessman looking for information on plug sockets a man in south korea asking what he could do with old pound notes. foreign and commonwealth office minister james duddridge said consular staff "do an amazing job helping out brits in trouble around the world but they are there to help with genuine emergencies and not as an alternative to directory inquiries". head of the fco's global contact centres kelvin green said: "we receive thousands of calls a year, and do all we can to help people who find themselves in difficulty abroad. "but we cannot help people make travel arrangements or lifestyle plans, lend them money or pay medical and other bills for them." roald dahl fans guess the meaning of his weird words roald dahl was the master wordsmith who wrote some of the nation's most memorable children's books. to mark years since his birth, almost of the phrases he used in his novels are going to be published in a special dictionary. the bbc asked some of his biggest fans in manchester what they thought of his language. americans say #imvotingbecause as the world pleads 'do the right thing' americans go to the polls in on social media today: america goes to the polls to pick its next leader and many round the world want a say in who it chooses. in the philippines, a supreme court decision to enable former president ferdinand marcos to be buried in the heroes' cemetery angers many. and here in the uk there's a debate about whether a puppet should wear a poppy welcome to the finale! americans finally choose who wins the white house after months of campaigning that has polarised opinion it's here! the day many are describing as "the series finale of america", the day the united states chooses its president the hashtag #imvotingbecause was trending this morning with more than tweets and the five most retweeted posts were all from hillary clinton's former democratic rival bernie sanders. his key point? "we need a president who will bring our nation together, not someone who will divide us by race or religion," he says. behind him is a raft of donald trump supporters, top among them clint eastwood, who says: "president trump will save america, hillary will just continue her pay to play scheme but on an even larger scale #corrupt." many of these tweets are repeating points that the trump campaign has used to criticise clinton for example over the attack in benghazi, libya when clinton was secretary of state. but many of the tweets also repeat unfounded allegations and lies about her: that she is an alcoholic, for example, or a murderer or a satanist. or they exaggerate or distort reality: "we have homeless americans living on the street, meanwhile illegals get free healthcare, food, and housing," says one. as for the two candidates themselves, clinton has been encouraging people to vote on her twitter account, even leaping on to the bandwagon with one a craze where groups of people stand as if frozen in action, as a camera pans round: while trump has remained uncharacteristically taciturn, offering only a single thought so far: need a quick recap on how we got here? watch this video on the last. "let other people in, listen to your women, stop killing black children, make america great again," sings nadya tolokonnikova in a provocative video it might be america's election but many people from around the world want a voice in it as well. "dear america, please don't screw this up. love every non american on earth," says one popular tweet from south africa today. "come on, america. don't let us down. do the right thing! please!" urges another from the uk. prominent pleas on social media have come from entertainers like bollywood star salman khan, pussy riot in russia, boy george in the united kingdom and fakir from morocco. and, though comments in response both agree and disagree with their endorsements, they all want to see hillary clinton in the white house. marcos "no hero" say many on twitter former president ferdinand marcos used martial law to rule the philippines for several years the filipino supreme court decision to allow the body of former president ferdinand marcos, to be moved to the heroes' cemetery in manila has elicited strong reactions on twitter. more than tweets mentioning his name have been sent since the decision this morning and many of the most popular are aghast. "marcos is not a hero & will never be. his triumphs during his time can never justify the death of thousands. we will not forget. #neveragain," said one. "this is not reconciliation, it is the redemption of the marcos family. their personal wishes over national interest. yet again," was another comment. president rodrigo duterte proposed the move in august to fulfil an election promise to marcos's family. the decision is opposed by many who say it is inappropriate to give a man blamed for thousands of killings, tortures and abductions an honourable burial. "there are literally thousands more tortured and killed during marcos era. tell it to their relatives, to their graves, that marcos is a hero," said another. marcos's family still enjoys popular support in the ilocano region in the philippines but, on twitter, only a few spoke up: "anti marcos advocates expected the sc to rule based on emotion. they wanted the judges to disregard the law just to grant their wishes," said one. cookie monster's poppy among other things, cookie monster talked about his love for british biscuits on the one show and finally care to join the debate on whether cookie monster should or should not have been wearing a poppy on the one show last night? comments on twitter and there have been more than fall into three camps: baffled; outraged that a puppet is wearing a poppy; and baffled that people are outraged a puppet wore a poppy. "hard to get your head around the mentality that thinks there's a need to pin a poppy on cookie monster," said one popular comment. "i'm simultaneously amused, baffled and alarmed by this. what was the thought process of whomever thought 'must pin poppy on cookie monster'?" asked another. "bbc called it wrong i think. papers with headlines like 'cookie monster doesn't wear poppy!' would have exposed how ridiculous it all is," said another viewer. some however thought: "don't know what's more weird, the cookie monster wearing a poppy on tv or the outrage that someone put a poppy on the cookie monster." pop music; giving jerseyana a voice when nick clemente of oldbridge heard that weird new jersey magazine was seeking original songs for a cd about the state's folklore, he knew exactly what to write about: the grave of mary ellis. from a raised plot of land in new brunswick surrounded by concrete walls, she has kept a lonely watch over the raritan river since . ''it's right in the middle of the parking lot of a movie theater,'' clemente said. ''it's really bizarre.'' he turned to an issue of weird new jersey for historical background. he read about mary's romance with a ship's captain who left her to go to sea but promised to return, giving her his favorite horse so she could ride to the edge of the river and watch for him. mary's lover never returned, and when she died, she was buried on the hilltop overlooking the river so she could continue to wait forever. ''it's a great story, whether or not it's completely true,'' clemente said. ''it fits right in with weird new jersey.'' continue reading the main story he called his bandmates in autumns fall, and they convened for a rehearsal. in two hours they wrote ''a place for mary ,'' and the next day they recorded it. their song is a tribute to both the sad lady of the raritan and to the site of her grave, a plot of land that has changed hands and purposes many times since her death. ''mary, the years have changed your world, but you've always held your ground,'' the song goes. ''you weathered storms with angels grace, even with your captain not around.'' ''a place for mary '' was immediately accepted by mark sceurman of bloomfield and mark of west orange, the proprietors of weird new jersey. the cd, ''the sounds of weirdness,'' is a compilation of new jersey pop groups singing about folklore and local history. the cd, which sceurman and describe as an audio companion to the magazine, was released in october. it is available in a number of independent record stores, and they have sold nearly copies through the mail ''it's exactly the same concept as the magazine,'' said. ''it's just a different way to tell a story.'' to solicit songs, sceurman and sent fliers to weird new jersey subscribers and advertised in regional music scene papers like the aquarian weekly, published in montclair, where sceurman works as an art director. they received submissions. ''some of them were pretty scary,'' muttered the usually unflappable sceurman. he and selected songs that, like the magazine, embrace new jersey's untold stories. they range from snapshots of state oddities like ''shades of death road'' and ''the ballad of fred (the five legged frog)'' to quotidian observations and news reports like ''driving in new jersey'' and ''mystery bullets versus the verona kings,'' an account of the unexplained outbreak of stray bullets that plagued verona. each is rooted, in a very personal way, to a specific place in the state. like the pages of weird new jersey, ''the sounds of weirdness'' is crowded with accounts of new jersey's folk tales stories that have been passed down through the generations, often with a smirk. updated for the late century, these urban (and suburban) legends are at once sarcastic and reverent. some of the songs play with schoolyard yarns like the jersey devil; others carefully document the ephemera of local history. ''the world's first airshow,'' by a young group called cosmic avenger, is a psychedelic pop gem that recounts a proud moment in the history of the group's hometown. but the song's origins betray an attitude about historical research that is somewhat different from that of clemente, or of sceurman and . ''on the back of the library card from north arlington public library, it says it's home of the world's first air show, said john pompilio, who sang and played guitar on the song. ''so we just wrote the song about that. other artists on the cd include electraluxx, a garage band that sings about its hometown, garfield; headwound, from ringwood, singing about that perennial weird new jersey feature, midgetville; r. stevie moore, a musical hermit who distributes his music on cassettes through the mail and has produced more than tapes over the years (his ''new jersey games'' was recorded. there is even an appearance by a genuine rock star, dennis diken of the smithereens, whose ad hoc group the anthony wayne sound sings ''the larry doby highway,'' about the meadowlands' rechristened patterson plank road. sceurman and also scattered excerpts from ''the tube bar tapes'' throughout the cd. these legendary prank call recordings containing classics like ''can i speak to al coholic?'' and ''is this the party to whom i am speaking?'' (borrowed from lily tomlin) have circulated on bootleg tapes for years. the location of the tube bar and the identities of the callers has been a mystery for two decades, but weird new jersey broke the story last may in its issue. the calls were made to the tube bar in jersey city, which was near the journal square train path station; the callers, jim davidson and john elmo, now live in florida, driven out of state not by irate tavern owners, but by high taxes. ''the sounds of weirdness'' is more than simply an audio companion to the magazine. it is a compilation of unique voices from around the state, singing about local legends and the kind of history that usually has little chance of being recorded elsewhere. ''we are interested in actual sites, not just urban legends,'' sceurman said. added: ''urban legends need to be brought up to date to tell people that right now they live in an incredibly interesting place.'' jerseyana; weirdest of all, the magazine has caught on they are chroniclers of the creepy, bards of the bizarre. they are mark sceurman and mark , the two men who edit and publish weird nj, the magazine devoted to all things odd or most odd in new jersey. perhaps most odd, sceurman and a study in contrasts themselves seem almost too normal. the slender , who sports a soul patch, is loquacious, while the 46 year old sceurman, solidly built with an auburn goatee, is more taciturn. from abandoned asylums to colorful real life characters past and present, to folk stories of ghosts, monsters, and aliens, sceurman and have created a journal of new jersey's unwritten history. their accumulated tales gain more permanence with a new book, ''weird n.j.: your travel guide to new jersey's local legends and best kept secrets'' . continue reading the main story ''it's a culmination of the last years worth of magazine articles,'' said sceurman, ''except we rewrote and rephotographed everything, and actually did a little more research than the first time around.'' the 272 page compilation in hard cover and full color, from the barnes & noble imprint may come as a shock to longtime fans who recall weird nj's earliest and most primitive incarnation. as far back, sceurman began cobbling together his odd newsletter. ''i collected oddball stories about new jersey places i remembered my brother telling me about, like albino village,'' he said, referring to a fictional place said to be populated by fair skinned freaks. sceurman gave away the typewritten pages to his friends. ''if there were people that wanted them,'' said, ''he'd go down to the copy shop and run off copies.'' after an article on sceurman's peculiar periodical appeared in the record, demand suddenly increased. ''i had to put something together real quickly,'' sceurman stated. ''i put together all these newsletters and called it an issue.'' or mark ii entered the picture , when the freelance graphic artist started contributing letters, drawings, and photographs to the magazine. then in 1996, rutgers university press approached sceurman about creating a weird nj book. but the manuscript he submitted, assembled with 's help, was met with a curt rejection notice. ''they sent us back a letter saying 'we can't publish this! this will compromise our standing in the academic community,''' recalled. the snub only served as inspiration for the two marks. ''that's what fueled our fire,'' sceurman said. ''we thought, 'we can do it ourselves, and prove them wrong.' and we did.'' sceurman invited to be co publisher, and together the pair set out to produce a full fledged magazine. for starters, they took it to such bookstores as the montclair book center and asked if it could be sold on consignment. the circulation began to build steadily: ''that was a big leap," said . by issue, there were copies being printed, and the marks decided to publish twice annually, in may and october, instead of just once. with each successive issue, circulation began to increase by about copies. the quality continued to improve as well thorough research, better graphics, more pages, and more contributions of odd tales from readers. ''it was a snowball effect,'' said . ''as more people saw the magazine, we had more feedback from the general public. the magazine thrives off that. everybody has at least one good story.'' booksellers, comic book shops, music stores, and others started asking if they could advertise in weird nj, according to the two men. while by no means a main revenue source, the money generated from a limited number of ads has allowed color to become more prevalent in the magazine (from color pages in the issue to in the 20th), which costs at the newsstand. from there the franchise grew to include a web site, weirdnj.com; a video; a cd; special themed issues; t shirts and hats' live appearances, and more. as evidenced by the popularity of weird nj sponsored functions, a phenomenon of sorts was under way. christine zardecki of highland park, who attended one halloween party put on by weird nj, said: ''we thought we had great costumes my friend was a dead ringer for carrie. but we didn't even come close to the people that dressed up as the new jersey icons, from the jersey devil to clinton road, that the magazine has uncovered and created.'' it is difficult to classify the people who flock to weird nj events and keep the magazine's circulation rising. (the most recent issue sold copies; including back issues, copies were sold in the past year.) ''we'll be doing a talk somewhere, and there will be sitting on the floor at our feet, and in the crowd, right behind them, someone years old,'' said . ''and the goth kids,'' sceurman interjected. with that, continued: ''they can all relate to it. you wouldn't picture seeing some punk kid sitting next to some old lady in a group, and think that they have something in common, but they do.'' to some extent, the diverse readership mirrors a state that lacks a clear identity. perhaps the magazine's popularity underscores a desire for new jersey to define itself by its very eccentricity. doug kirby, co author with ken smith and mike wilkins of the book ''the new roadside america,'' knows how new jersey's quirkiness quotient measures up to the rest of the nation. ''new jersey offers a surprising number of offbeat sights for its size relative to other states a profusion of odd monuments, museums, and classic roadside attractions,'' kirby said. ''as we've traveled the country, we've found every state has its own weird stories and legends, but the mania to chronicle them in new jersey is particularly intense.'' yet with its relative success, weird nj is still very much a mom and pop, or rather, mark and mark, operation. the men work out of their homes: sceurman's in bloomfield, and 's in west orange. sceurman, who is also a co owner of the aquarian music weekly, handles the production tasks on weird nj, and is responsible for the photography. writing is divided between the two. the rest is kind of a family affair, with sceurman's wife, shirley, and her sister susan dealing with the mail. and a part time associate editor, chris gethard, came aboard years ago. ''we get people all the time sending us résumés for jobs,'' sceurman explained. ''i tell them, 'we don't even have an office!''' then there are the deliveries. though weird nj offers subscriptions, the vast majority of sales are at newsstands. the magazine is available in hundreds of chain and independent stores statewide as well as nearby towns in new york and pennsylvania. because of the personal relationships developed with these retailers, sceurman and deliver the magazine themselves. ''i went to a tower records in cherry hill and dropped off boxes of issues,'' recounted. ''they were, like, 'aren't you the publisher?' i said, 'yeah, who do you think is going to deliver this?''' but with the support of an enthusiastic publishing company, sceurman and will not have to deliver the new book themselves. many publishers had contacted weird nj since the run in with rutgers university press, but the marks said they held out until the project could be done on their terms. ''it chronicles a lot of stuff that isn't around anymore,'' said. ''we're documenting a culture that is fast disappearing in new jersey.'' now that the ink is dry, sceurman and will hit the road for a 21 stop statewide book tour in october and november, and then it's on to the next issue, more books, perhaps, and any intriguing projects that come their way, including talks with television production companies. ''we dabbled in video, we dabbled in music,'' sceurman said. ''i don't know what else there is to fool around with.'' then he added with a smile, ''maybe we'll make little car air fresheners.'' as the interview with sceurman and at the harris diner in east orange wound down, a young married couple, jann and j.g. jones, approached the table. they recognized the two men, and wanted to say how much they enjoyed the magazine. the joneses, who are both in the comic book industry, recently moved to west orange from out of state and discovered weird nj when they saw sceurman and on the travel channel discussing the mysterious clinton road. ''i grew up in florida, and there's no history there,'' . jones said. ''when something gets old they just knock it down and build something else. here, there's a lot of history behind everything. i find that really fascinating, the urban legends and the local myths. i'll read something in weird nj and ask my friends who grew up here to tell me about the land of make believe, or clinton road, or midgetville.'' before sceurman and left, . jones pointed outside the window at the crazy walking man of harris diner. ''he will just walk back and forth past the diner a lot,'' she described. ''we always joke that he should be in weird nj.'' as said, everybody has at least one good story. in person weird. seriously weird. mark sceurman is looking for midgetville. "i keep hearing these stories about this place," sceurman said recently as he sat at his kitchen table here. "it's supposed to be two or three houses that were built for midgets, in edgewater or somewhere in bergen county. really small houses, and even the stop signs were feet high instead of. i think it had something to do with the ringling brothers, who lived in morris county." he furrowed his brow very slightly. "i've hit two spots so far and they've both been called midgetville, but it's not the midgetville i'm looking for." little matter. midgetville the place may well elude sceurman forever, but midgetville the concept has already been immortalized in weird new jersey magazine. for years, sceurman (pronounced sker man) has taken the fruits of a lifetime spent scouring the state in search of the unusual, the unexplained and the almost certainly untrue and crammed them all into theblack and white pages of an annual publication that combines the cheerful credulity of the weekly world news with the boosterism of a local weekly paper. from the lawn of a milk bottles in buena to the lawn of a thousand ornaments in hackensack, sceurman, with help from a small army of like minded contributors, has seen most of it and written about it all. his is a new jersey of toilets and muffler wielding roadside giants and miniature castles rising from the swamps, a state where ghosts and u.f.o. sightings are as common as strip malls. the next issue of the magazine, which has a circulation, is due out in may, and sceurman, who spends his days as art director for the aquarian weekly, a music scene tabloid, is also working on a deluxe four color weird new jersey map. continue reading the main story "i keep thinking i'll run out of things to write about," he said, "and then someone will send me a letter that there's a house in vineland shaped like a teacup or a cookie jar. it never seems to end. there's a lot of things to see in new jersey. well, there's a lot of things in new jersey. i don't know if you'd want to see them." t he first thing a visitor notices about sceurman is how unweird he is. an easygoing, chunky with a light brown beard, he lives with his wife, shirley, in a mostly orderly white house whose cluttered basement harbors no secret darker than a stuffed fish holding a stuffed bird in its mouth. he lives across the street from the house where he grew up, in a town whose claims to weirdness are modest: bloomfield contains what sceurman believes to be the smallest house in the state and is home to the short stop, a colorful diner specializing in eggs where sceurman once had a rubber band shot into his over easies. but sceurman has had an unquenchable thirst for the bizarre ever since a drunken teen age encounter with the dead nun of morristown, encased behind glass along the side of the road. eventually, he began sending out a newsletter to friends listing expeditions he planned. the newsletter also provided an outlet for the odd news clippings from around the state that sceurman had been collecting in an enormous box for years ("drunk driver runs himself over," and the like), and before he knew it weird new jersey was born. sceurman is not merely a devotee of the kitschy and lurid, however. he considers himself a serious folklorist and roadside archeologist he is president of the bloomfield historical society and says his mission is to document precious cultural institutions that are quickly vanishing. "a lot of these roadside attractions are only around for a few years," he said. "they either get plowed over by condominiums or they just get lost. that's what i'm trying to preserve in weird new jersey: the things you won't read about in history books." indeed, many of sceurman's favorite haunts have been destroyed in his lifetime. "in vineland, there was this place called the palace of depression," he recalled. "this man named george trainer built a whole big house out of junk car fenders, pitchforks, car parts, anything he could find and busloads of people would come down and see it. now it's torn down." gone, too, is mahalchik's acres, a colossal jumble of military junk decorated with the anti government slogans of its owner, a cranky perennial presidential candidate, along route in burlington county. likewise the leaning tower of pizza on route. even the dead nun of morristown has been retired; the site's keepers had apparently had enough of uninvited late night tourists. sceurman understands that excessive attention can ruin weird spots for everyone, and he is careful to leave directions to certain sensitive sites, especially those on private property, a bit sketchy. "trespassing is a horrible crime, and you should definitely never do it," he said. "at least, not in the daytime." but the call of the wild still comes, and then the scuermans and a few friends pile into his jeep in search of new frontiers. "sometime next week i'm going down to see a deserted village in the watchung mountains," he said on wednesday. "a friend of mine who's been doing some research there told me about it. i'm also going to see tilt street in haledon, the steepest street in new jersey. 'so steep the sidewalks are steps!' " on less tangible phenomena like the indian curse road of gloucester county or bigfoot sightings in the northwest corner of the state (there have been many), sceurman takes his cue from the international fortean organization, a group founded by a specialist in the paranormal, charles forte, and passes them on to readers without verification. "it's kind of hard to document legends," he said. "i guess if i went to the library and looked it up i could do that, but i don't. if somebody writes it in and i like it and it sounds funny or weird, then i'll put it in." sceurman is an agnostic on the subject of u.f.o.'s but said he had heard too many credible ghost stories and seen one too many inexplicably jiggling doorknobs to doubt the presence of a world beyond. "i don't think that this life is all there is," he said. "i believe there are ghosts, some kind of lost spirit of something that's not settled. there's definitely something there." issue no. will include an interview with bob warth of little silver based society for the investigation of the unexplained, a man whose world view even sceurman describes as "pretty far out." "this guy claims that there are actually two kinds of bigfoots," sceurman explained, "the ones that are related to u.f.o.'s and the ones in northwest new jersey. his theory is that these u.f.o. related bigfoots are like biological robots." he is also planning a feature on a lost tribe of woodbridge that produced a series of wood sculptures recently exhibited at the newark museum. "people think these folks were hessian traders from the revolutionary war who withdrew to the woods," he said. "they had a churchlike structure where people would go to get healed. now it's the parking lot of fortunoff's at the woodbridge mall." although he relies heavily on tips from fellow curiosity seekers ("the guys who wrote the book 'roadside america' are going to put me in touch with a guy in west milford who's built a backwards time travel car"), sceurman has found some of his favorite places simply by walking into a diner in a strange town and asking, "is there anything weird around here?" "if i won the lottery," he said, "i'd open up a diner and cater , garbage men and people like that. that's where you get the best stories." weird new jersey can be reached pop review; my, my, it's the parody guy: ever joking, ever poking . . . weird al yankovic, who brought his song parodies to the beacon theater on sunday night, belongs to an era when no form of entertainment stands alone. in a merrily recursive tangle, songs become videos shown on television to promote movies gaining attention for albums connected to tours and t shirt sales. yankovic isn't the biggest, the most ingenious or the wildest purveyor of cross marketing efforts, but he may well be the most persistent. in a career fertilized by mtv, he has been lightly mocking entertainment products for decades. like mad magazine he has no particular animus; he's after silliness, not pointed satire. he latches onto a pop hit, copies the costumes from the video and comes up with an alternate set of lyrics. onstage he and his band changed costumes for nearly every song. he was a writhing trent reznor worried about ''germs,'' a mumbling kurt cobain and a mock elvis handing scarves to fans as he performed a suffering love song: ''i'd rather rip out my intestines with a fork,'' he sang, holding up a fork, ''than watch you go out with other men.'' parodies take time, and yankovic has a problem staying current amid pop's ever shrinking careers. pop circa begs for lampoons of ricky martin and limp bizkit, but yankovic was still singing about eddie vedder. yankovic's recurring jokes are the polka and food. michael jackson's ''bad'' became ''fat,'' alanis morissette's ''thank u'' had its lyrics replaced by fast food jingles. he's better when he warps a song's context: turning coolio's ''gangsta paradise'' into ''amish paradise'' or remaking madonna's ''like a virgin'' as ''like a surgeon.'' in the best song on yankovic's album ''running with scissors'' (volcano), puff daddy's ''it's all about the benjamins'' becomes ''it's all about the pentiums,'' exchanging hip hop boasts for geek pride: ''while your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin'.'' he and his fans seemed happiest when he did his own media tie ins, using a pop tune to sing about a movie or television show. he recast barenaked ladies' ''one week'' as a tribute to jerry springer and had ''star wars'' summaries: ''yoda,'' set to the kinks' ''lola,'' and ''the saga begins,'' retelling ''the phantom menace'' to don mclean's ''american pie.'' among the video clips between songs were mentions of yankovic from david letterman and ''the flintstones,'' the proof, finally, that he's a media figure in his own right. the case of the weird sisters. by charlotte armstrong. one of the three whitlock sisters is blind, another is deaf and the third has lost an arm, but it is not their infirmities that make them weird. it goes far deeper than that, as alice brennan learns during the few days she spends in their house as an unwelcome guest. media decoder; yankovic sues sony over online royalties adding to the recent wave of artists suing record companies over online royalties, 'weird al' yankovic has sued sony music entertainment, saying he is owed more than million. in the suit, filed friday at united states district court in manhattan, yankovic says the company underpaid him for videos and other expenses, and also incorrectly counted downloads of his music as ''sales'' rather than as ''licenses,'' which pay a higher royalty rate. he also asks for money from industry settlements with napster, kazaa, grokster and other file sharing services, and says he is owed from sony's share of the sale of youtube. sony, universal and the warner music group had owned a stake in youtube, and when that company was sold to google, the labels made a reported. sony, which declined to comment on yankovic's case, last month offered a settlement with musicians in a class action lawsuit over digital royalties. songwriter royalties are up in britain: thanks to a growth in digital music sales and the popularity of british artists overseas, songwriters and publishers there enjoyed a slight gain in royalties last year. prs for music, a collecting agency.