DAVID ADAMS looks at the odder side of life…
• Remember the unsuccessful campaign to name a British polar research vessel Boaty McBoatface (the name was eventually used for a boat on the ship which was named the RRS Sir David Attenborough)? The New South Wales State Government has reportedly announced that it will name a new Sydney ferry, Ferry McFerryface, after hundreds of people nominated the name in a public poll to find monikers for six new vessels. Transport Minister Andrew Constance said of the name: “This one is for the kids” and added that while Boaty McBoatface had topped the poll, the name was already taken and so they’d decided to go with the second most popular. While some have expressed their delight, there has been criticism that Sydney has come rather late to the party, simply the latest to jump on a now well-trodden path which, among others, has seen Sweden name a train Trainy McTrainface and an Australian horse named Horsey McHorseface.
Soon to be seen in NYC. PICTURE: Unsplash/Mitchell Orr
• Time to get your dancing shoes on! New York City authorities have recently voted to repeal a 91-year-old law that banned dancing at most city public spaces that sell food or drinks. Known as the ‘Cabaret Law’, it was introduced in 1926 during Prohibition and banned people from dancing in any room, place or space that lacked a “cabaret license” – something which was apparently quite hard to get with only about 100 of the 2,500 restaurants and bars in NYC reportedly managed to obtain it. And don’t think it was never used – one music venue owner was reportedly cited under the law in 2013 for “unlawful swaying”.
• 2017 was a record year for spotting the so-called Loch Ness monster with eight “official” sightings. Gary Campbell, recorder of the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, told The Express that the recent sighting of what was said to be a fin had been accepted as the eighth for the year, the most of any this century but still well below the 17 sightings in 1996. The first recorded sighting of the monster is said to have been by Irish missionary St Columba in 565 AD.
