DAVID ADAMS looks at the odder side of life…
• Most eateries have relied on signs, removing chairs and using ever-present dot stickers to ensure patrons maintain social distancing requirements during the coronavirus pandemic. But one Tokyo restaurant has reportedly adopted a somewhat different approach by placing 16 life-mannequins, including ladies in ornate dresses and a girl in a kimono, at tables around the establishment. The Chinese restaurant’s owner Masato Takemine said he had initially removed tables but then decided the restaurant looked at little lonely. Patrons have reported feeling somewhat startled at their fellow diners.
PICTURE: Brian McGowan/Unsplash
• Mickey Mouse and the late Walt Disney have been signing tax refund cheques in the US state of Rhode Island. State officials said a technical glitch led to some 176 tax refund cheques being mailed out bearing the signatures of Walt and Mickey instead of those of state officials. “The invalid signature lines were incorrectly sourced from the division’s test print files,” Jade Borgeson, chief of staff for the Rhode Island Department of Revenue, told TV station WJAR-TV. New cheques are being issued.
• Treasure hunters in the UK have unearthed more than 1,000 silver coins dating from between the 15th and 17th centuries and said to be valued at around £100,000. The three men were reportedly searching a 15 acre field located behind a pub in Suffolk – with the permission of the land’s owners – when, over a three day period, they found some 1,061 silver coins. The earliest coin dated back to the the 1570s in the Elizabethan era.
