DAVID ADAMS looks at the odder side of life…
An Alabai dog. PICTURE: Halalosirambankiskecskek (licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Turkmenistan celebrated a new public holiday on Sunday, the first dedicated to its national Alabai dog breed. The new holiday, which took place on the same day as a festival celebrating the Akhal-Teke horse breed, reportedly featured a contest to discover the best of the breed – which are among the world’s largest dogs and which are traditionally used for guarding livestock herds – with first prize, awarded by President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, going to a guard dog who works with the country’s border service. The declaration of the national holiday follows several other tributes to the dog including the unveiling last year of a six metre tall gilded Alabai statue in the capital, Ashgabat, and an ode to the dog written by the President (he’s also reportedly written a 272 page book about the breed).
• A man recently walked almost 650 kilometres – from Los Angeles to San Francisco – dressed in a bear suit. Jesse Larios, who completed the walk a couple of days ago, reportedly said he undertook the journey, which attracted attention from around the world, thanks to what he described as an “impulsive decision”. Having set up a GoFundMe page, the 33-year-old, who named his bear suit ‘Bearsun’, said he planned to donate the money raised by his walk to a charity which would be decided upon by a vote. “I just want to help people out,” he said. Larios, who slept, still wearing the suit, where-ever the end of the day found him, chronicled his journey on Instagram.
• Fancy swimming in a transparent pool strung between two towers 10 stories above the ground? Developer EcoWorld Ballymore is reportedly about to open what’s described as the world’s largest freestanding acrylic pool structure at its new Embassy Gardens development in London’s Nine Elms. The 25 metre long “Sky Pool”, which was manufactured in the US, is suspended between two 10 storey buildings, some 35 metres above the ground. “Once you swim off, you can look right down. It will be like flying,” Brian Eckersley, director of Eckersley O’Callaghan, told CNN.
