PARIS: Our weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world:
You horny devil
Cute, chunky 107-stone female seeks caring Japanese male for companionship and maybe more…
Emma, a Taiwanese white rhino at the country’s Leofoo Safari Park, has been learning Japanese for her first date with a sauve older male called Moran in Japan.
Zoos want to widen the gene of the captive-bred endangered species.
Hitting the scales at 682 kilos, keepers say Emma is a real lady. She’s slim for a rhino and “seldom gets into fights with other rhinos or snatches their food”.
#MeToo clearly in mind, one of the Japanese words Emma has been learning is “No”.
Dead lucky
An Indian man declared dead after a motorcycle crash began to move on an autopsy table as doctors got ready to open him up.
The pathologist saw the body move just before he began to cut into the 27-year-old from Mahalingapur in the southern state of Karnataka.
Officials told AFP that doctors in a private hospital had clearly exercised “bad judgement”.
Smashing fun
With no Greek restaurants open to smash plates in, Californians are getting rid of pent-up lockdown stress by going to “Rage rooms” where they can take a hammer to the furniture.
“I’ve wanted to break something for a long time now,” satisfied customer Mike told AFP, cradling a crowbar. “But we have a toddler in the house who imitates everything.”
It’s also therapy for Erika, who worked up a sweat smashing the place up with a sledgehammer.
“I’m cooped up in my house with Covid, I can’t see my friends, can’t go out, and (am) slowly losing my mind,” she said.
Penguins can finally chill
But it could be worse, she could be a gentoo penguin. Those at Norway’s Bergen Aquarium have been under an uber-strict lockdown since December, banned from sliding on their tummies into their pool or going out to break the ice with their amphibious friends.
They finally got back to penguin normal this week after getting jabs for bird flu — which is even more deadly than Covid.
Wanted: Space cadets
A Japanese fashion tycoon has been dubbed the “Willy Wonka of Space” for inviting eight people to join him on a voyage to the Moon.
Yusaku Maezawa was the first person to book the spaceship being developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The 45-year-old says he wants creative people. “I have bought all the seats, so it will be a private ride,” he added.
But given that his Twitter handle is @yousuckMZ and that he is using crash-dogged SpaceX, even space cadets may be having doubts.
This week another of Musk’s test rockets went up in smoke as SpaceX commentator praised its “beautiful soft landing”.
Such reality-defying elan almost matched Musk himself who tweeted “Mars, here we come!” after his Starship exploded in a ball of flames at a test launch in December.
Saw it coming
A French man who asked his neighbour for the loan of a saw “to get rid of a body” has been arrested for the murder of his lodger.
The body was found wrapped in plastic at his home in the town of Tour-du-Pin in the foothills of the Alps. – AFP
