DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
PICTURE: Video screenshot/Reuters TV
• Often anxious, sometimes crying, but eventually triumphant, a group of people on Saturday learned to overcome their intense phobia of spiders during a special London Zoo program to help cure the debilitating psychological condition. Many people are scared of spiders, but in its extreme form arachnophobia can be devastating: people are at risk of crashing cars, dropping babies or even not moving into a recently purchased house after being terrified by the sight of a spider, according to the zoo’s spider keeper Dave Clarke. London Zoo’s Friendly Spider Programme helps people overcome that fear. Over the course of an afternoon, participants are taught about spiders prior to undergoing a short hypnotherapy session that helps correct a subconscious fear. The participants can then put their new-found skills to the test: first by walking through the zoo’s spider tunnel, then by handling smaller arachnids. The final test comes when they are given a very large hairy spider to hold in their hands. After initially approaching the final event with trepidation, the overwhelming majority of the participants reacted with elation once they held the bird eating spider, realising their fear of the creatures had been overcome. The zoo says it has a 90 per cent success rate for its course, which has run for 30 years. – Reuters TV
A Transformers statue at Universal Studios Plaza in Orlando, Florida, US. PICTURE:
Aditya Vyas/Unsplash
• A Washington DC resident has enlisted the aid of the actors behind the voices of two Transformers characters in his bid to keep two huge sculptures of Bumblebee and Optimus Prime outside the front door of his home in the affluent Georgetown neighbourhood. Billionaire scientist Dr Newton Howard reportedly commissioned an artist to create the two statues from old car parts in January, 2021. Neighbours, however, complained, saying the statues didn’t fit the neighbourhood aesthetic and represented a safety hazard. Washington DC’s Public Safety Committee – which heard from Peter Cullen, who has voiced Optimus Prime in numerous projects, and Dan Gilvezan, who voiced Bumblebee in the original 1980s animated Transformers series – ruled against the statues last week and said they should be removed. But Howard has reportedly said he will continue to fight and is prepared to take the case to court. – DAVID ADAMS
A Patek Philippe Reference 96 Quantieme Lune formerly from the collection of China’s last emperor of the Qing Dynasty Aisin-Gioro Puyi is seen during a preview at Phillips, in Hong Kong, China, on 19th May, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Tyrone Siu
• A watch that was once owned by the last emperor of China’s Qing Dynasty, whose life formed the basis of the Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor, sold for a record $HK49 million ($US6.2 million) at a Hong Kong auction 23rd May. An Asian collector residing in Hong Kong calling on the phone bought the rare Patek Philippe watch that had belonged to Aisin-Gioro Puyi, according to the auction house. The hammer price, which excludes the buyer’s premium fee, was $HK40 million (US$5.1 million). Thomas Perazzi, head of watches at auction house Phillips Asia, told Reuters that it is “the highest result” for any wristwatch that once belonged to an emperor. It was one of only eight known Patek Philippe Reference 96 Quantieme Lune timepieces and was gifted by Puyi to his Russian interpreter when he was imprisoned by the Soviet Union, the auction house said. It easily beat a pre-sale estimate of $US3 million. Other watches owned by emperors and sold at auction include a Patek Philippe timepiece that belonged to the last Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, which sold for $US2.9 million in 2017. A Rolex watch that belonged to the last emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai, fetched $US5 million at an auction in 2017. Born in 1906, Puyi was the last emperor of China’s Qing dynasty, who began his reign at two-years-old. After Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, Puyi was captured at China’s Shenyang Airport by the Soviet Red Army. He was detained as a war prisoner and incarcerated in a detention camp in Khabarovsk, Russia, for five years. The auction house said it spent three years collaborating with watch specialists, historians, journalists, and scientists to research the watch’s history and verify its provenance. Perazzi told Reuters that the watch was the finest Patek made at the time. Journalist Russell Working, who interviewed Puyi’s interpreter Georgy Permyakov in 2001, said he gave the watch to Permyakov on his last day in the Soviet Union, shortly before he was extradited back to China. “These were the kind of things he sometimes did to people that were very special to him,” Working said. – JOYCE ZHOU and JESSE PANG, Hong Kong, China/Reuters
