DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
PICTURE: Alicia Solario/www.freeimages.com
• It was Shrove Tuesday this week and we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the world record pancake-making feat that took place in Russia. A flour company raised the bar for making the “largest serving of pancakes” by making 12,716 of the (we hope) fluffy treats. It took some 16 professional chefs some eight hours to cook the pancakes – using pre-prepared batter – in a tent outside an art gallery in Moscow. The record was verified by Guinness World Records. Now that’s going to take a lot of maple syrup.
• A glimpse of the future perhaps? An airport in China has introduced a security robot, which looks a little like one of Dr Who’s Daleks, to patrol the departure hall of a terminal. Featuring facial recognition technology and a number of high definition cameras, AnBot, which was developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology and unveiled at a tech fair last year, can give directions, spot fires, monitor air quality and take images of travellers’ faces for analysis by human co-workers.
• A 99-year-old woman was able to tick an item off her ‘bucket list’ recently (and let’s face it, the clock is ticking), when she was arrested and placed in a cell. The rather cooperative police in Nijmegen Zuid hand-cuffed and arrested the elderly lady, who was named simply as ‘Annie’, apparently at her request. “In her life she never committed any crime, and thought it would be exciting to experience,” an officer told The Independent. “As you can see in the picture from our [Facebook] post, she found it hilarious to be in the inside with the handcuffs.” Tick.
