DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
• Residents of the New Zealand city of Dunedin, long touted as home to the world’s steepest street, will not be happy. The Welsh town of Harlech has officially taken the title from them with Guinness World Records recognising the winding Ffordd Pen Llech as the world’s steepest street with a gradient of 37.45 per cent or one metre of vertical distance for every 2.67 metres of horizontal distance (Dunedin’s Baldwin Street has a gradient of 34.97 per cent). The move comes after residents reportedly campaigned for months to have the street recognised – something that Gwyn Headley, who spearheaded the push after realising how steep the street was during a summer drive, told Guinness World Records made the win all that much sweeter. “I cannot say how pleased we are that Ffordd Pen Llech has now been recognised as the steepest street, not just in Wales, not just in the UK, not just in Europe, but in the entire world,” he said. They’re going to have to change the signs in Dunedin.
• A bunch of red grapes sold at auction for $US11,000 in Japan last week, making them the most expensive bunch of grapes on record. The Ruby Roman grapes are prized for their high sugar content, low acidity and extreme juiciness. The bunch was reportedly bought by Takashi Hosokawa, the owner of a chain of hot springs hotels. He said he paid 1.2 million yen for the grapes (equating to $US11,000) to mark 12 years since the grapes first came on the market and to celebrate the first auction in Japan’s Reiwa era. Only about 26,000 bunches of the grapes are expected to be sold this year.
• A Lithuanian couple have won the annual World Wife-Carrying Championships for the second year in a row. The event, which was held for the 24th time in the Finnish town of Sonkajarvi earlier this month, sees couples from around the world dash along a course which includes a water trap. Vytautas Kirkliauskas and his wife Neringa Kirkliauskiene reportedly won their second consecutive title, completing the 253.5 metre course in just one minute and six seconds. The sport apparently draws inspiration from the 19th century legend of Ronkainen the Robber, who had prospective members of his gang prove themselves by carrying sacks of grain or live pigs over a similar course.
