DAVID ADAMS reports on the odder side of life…
The Canadian Space Agency reported a new find on Mars.
• April Fool’s Day was overshadowed by Easter this year which means you may have missed some of the pranks (apart from our mention of VW last week). So, here’s a couple to keep you going until 2022. First up, it’s Chosen Foods which announced it was releasing a guacamole-flavoured toothpaste, known as ‘GuacPaste’, while hambuger chain BurgerKing said they were “putting everything” in sourdough sandwiches including minishakes and chocolate chip cookies. In Australia, police in the state of South Australia announced a dog operations initiative which involved dropping sausage dogs into people’s backyards using drones while the Canadian Space Agency announced NASA’s Perserverance rover had made a shocking discovery on Mars – where all the missing socks from the dryer end up. Meanwhile, Lego joined in the fun by announcing it had developed a new “SmartBrick” which would automatically scatter away from unprotected feet (and thus prevent those nasty Lego brick injuries to soft soles) and language app Duolingo announced a new toilet paper that would enable people to “turn your bathroom into a classroom”.
• A new ordinance will take effect in the Japanese prefecture of Saitama later this year requiring people to stand still while on an escalator. The draft ordinance, which is scheduled to take effect from 1st October, bans people from climbing or descending on the escalator while it’s moving. The move is reportedly being taken to prevent injuries to users – the Japan Elevator Association reported 805 incidents of people being injured as a result of moving on escalators between January, 2018, and December, 2019. No penalties have reportedly been put in place for those who breach the new law.
• As COVID-19 vaccination centres are popping up around the world, we’ve noticed some are a little stranger than others. They include some of the world’s grandest churches – including the likes of Westminster Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral – as well as a barbershop in the US state of Wisconsin, sporting facilities ranging from baseball stadiums like the home of the Mets in New York, and Epsom Downs racecourse in the UK, Singapore’s Changi Airport, and, of course, Disneyland in California. Stay tuned.
