DAVID ADAMS reports on the odder side of life…
An emu (it’s not Kevin or Carol but you get the idea). PICTURE: Luisimi Sánchez/Unsplash
• Kevin and Carol have been banned from the pub in the Australian outback community of Yaraka. It’s a big move for the western Queensland pub given the town’s permanent population only numbers 18, but it’s worth putting on the record before anyone gets too worked up that Kevin and Carol are emus. Business owners Gerry and Chris Gimblett said they had to ban the two birds after they worked out how to climb the front steps and enter the pub. Gerry Gimblett, who owns the hotel with her husband Chris, told The Guardian they’d been left with no choice after bad behaviour. “They’ve been stealing things from the guests, especially their food. They’d stick their heads in and pinch toast out of the toaster,” she was quoted as saying. “But the main reason we’ve banned them is their droppings. They’re enormous, very large and very smelly, and they created great stains.” Not a nice image.
• Still talking animals and St Bernard dog – a breed famous for their involvement in mountain rescues – was itself recently the subject of a rescue. According to the account of the Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team on Facebook, Daisy collapsed with pain in her hind legs while coming down Scafell Pike, England’s highest peak, recently, and the 55 kilogram canine subsequently had to be brought down the mountain in what was almost a five hour rescue effort involving some 16 members of the rescue team. Congrats to the team and to Daisy whom they described as the “perfect casualty”.
• Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice is offering “gift certificates” for prisoners to upgrade to a luxury cell during their pre-trial incarceration. The BBC reports that Justice Minister Denys Malyuska promoted the certificates, which are only valid for six months, as a potential birthday present for officials and politicians. The move comes after Ukraine introduced pay or VIP cells in remand centres across the country in an initiative which officials said was aiming at tackling corruption with the money raised going into a special fund to improve conditions in regular cells.