DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
• Didn’t know Pope Francis was a fan of American football? The Pope, we presume accidentally, tweeted support for the NFL team, the New Orleans Saints, when he wrote #Saints, automatically loading the team’s logo. The message, which read “Today we give thanks to the Lord for our new #Saints. They walked by faith and now we invoke their intercession”, was actually intended to inform people about the new Catholic saints being canonised in a ceremony at the Vatican last Sunday. The New Orleans Saints, who did win their Sunday game 13 to six, responded with a tweet of their own: “Couldn’t lose after this. #Blessed and highly favored”.
• Muncipal authorities in the Polish city of Wroclaw were so excited by part-time resident Olga Tokarczuk’s recent win of the Nobel Prize for Literature that they gave free rides to any public transport passengers carrying a copy of her book, Flights. “[W]e wanted to share our joy with all the residents of our city which recently made the writer an honorary citizen,” explained a city hall spokesman, speaking to AFP. He added that the offer, which ran from the time of the announcement on Thursday through to last Sunday, also applied to e-book versions. We’re not sure how many people took it up.
• Comedian-turned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been making headlines of late thanks to a phone call with US President Donald Trump. But last week he caught the world’s attention for another reason entirely – holding a more than 12 hour press conference which the country’s National Records Agency interrupted (at about the eight hour mark) to declare the world’s longest. And yes, the President’s phone call with Mr Trump was among the many diverse subjects discussed in the wide-ranging presser at which hundreds of local and international journalists joined Zelensky around a table, posing questions to him in shifts. The President modestly said no celebrations were necessary.