DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
• A Japanese comedian whose song – Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen – went viral last year has adapted it to promote the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Pikotaro (real name Daimaou Kosaka) is accompanying the Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida to the UN in New York where they’ll be debuting the song next Monday. A promotional video shows that the song’s lyrices (and the PPAP now stands for ‘Public Private Action for Partnership’) have been altered to such things as “I have a pen, I have a book, UN, education” and “17 goals to save the globe”. The SDG’s, the successors to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, set a series of targets to be reached by 2030 in a fields including poverty, education and health. The 45 second PPAP song was recognised last year by the Guinness World Records as the shortest song to enter the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
• Now that’s a well aged wine. A restoration project at a museum in the US has unearthed almost three cases of Madeira wine dating from 1796. Liberty Hall Museum staff added that they also found 42 ‘demijohns’ – large, glass jugs – which date from the 1820s. The museum has said the value of the wine – produced on the Portuguese island of Madeira – cannot be made public. Madeira was a wine of choice due to the fact that it almost never spoils if stored property – a fact attested to by the museum’s John Kean who reportedly tested the wine and compared it to a sweet sherry.
• Spike is a world-famous artist. No, he’s not a human. Or a monkey. Or even a dog. Spike, who lives in Japan, is a stag beetle. Clasping a texta or marker in his front mandibles, Spike has managed to create a series of drawings while moving around an easel. Having gone viral on Twitter, his works have apparently sold on eBay for as much as $US130 (owner Mandy Bryant says some of the proceeds go to a conservation charity). Good one, Spike!
