DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
Not for sale. A community in Greenland. PICTURE: Filip Gielda/Unsplash
• There were few who treated US President Donald Trump’s ruminations that he would like to buy Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, as serious at first. But his decision to cancel a trip to Denmark after Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the idea as “absurd” reveals that apparently he was. Trump tweeted on Monday that while “Denmark is a very special country with incredible people”, based on the PM’s comments “that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland” he would be postponing their meeting scheduled for early September. Trump had expressed interest in buying the world’s biggest island (after Australia, which is also a continent) last week and then added on Sunday that while it wasn’t a priority, the US would be interested in what he called the “large real estate deal”. It’s not the first time America has floated the possibility – it did so in 1946, even going so far as to offer $US100 million for the territory. It seems that for the moment, however, there’s no likely to be a deal, at least not if the rather emphatic comments of the territory’s premier Kim Kielsen are anything to go by: “Greenland is not for sale.”
• A sculpture of a hand with a face on it is reportedly disturbing people in the New Zealand capital of Wellington. The sculpture, called Quasi, is the creation of New Zealand-born artist Ronnie van Hout and has been created based on scans of the artist’s body. But its location on top of the City Gallery Wellington has apparently spooked some with one Twitter user describing it as the “ugliest and most disturbing” piece of art she’d ever seen. The statue, which was previously located in Christchurch, will sit atop the Wellington gallery for three years. If you do want to see the sculpture (but be forewarned, it may be scary), head here.
• A recently opened time capsule, stored for 50 years in the US town of Derry, New Hampshire, proved a bit of a disappointment – it had nothing inside. The time capsule had reportedly been kept in a safe in the town’s library for the past few years and prior to that was held in the town’s now demolished municipal building. But when the library’s director Cara Potter opened it recently to mark 50 years since it was sealed in 1969, there was nothing inside (and nobody has a list of what was there). “We were a little horrified to find that there was nothing in it,” Potter told WMUR9. Indeed.