UK woman ‘marries’ pet dog
London: Puptial knot! A 47-year-old divorced woman in the UK has ‘married’ her pet dog because the canine had all the qualities she needed in a life partner.
Apparently dismayed by men, Amanda Rodgers, from south London, married her loyal pet terrier called Sheba.
The wedding ceremony took place in front of 200 people in Split, Croatia in August 2012, ‘Metro’ reported.
“Sheba had been in my life for years, making me laugh and comforting me when I was feeling low,” Rodgers said.
“I couldn’t think of anything more I’d need from a life partner,” she said. Rodgers had married a man 20 years ago but the relationship ended within a few months, the report said.
“I got down on one knee and proposed. I could tell by her tail wagging that she said ‘yes’,” Rodgers said, adding she wanted things to be just right this time.
“I’d dreamed of a perfect wedding dress since I was small, I made it myself for the ceremony. The day was wonderful, more fun than the marriage. I gave her a kiss to seal the deal and then everyone threw confetti. It was a wonderful moment,” Rodgers added.
Rodgers said the wedding to Sheba may not have been real in the legal sense “but it was a nice way to mark what Sheba means to me”. (PTI)
Sarkozy seeks publication ban on recordings
Paris: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his singer-songwriter wife are asking a judge for an emergency injunction today barring any publication of private conversations secretly recorded by a former aide.
The recordings also included discussions between Sarkozy and his inner circle while he was in office in 2011, and were revealed last week in a French newspaper and website.
The website has since taken down the recordings in which Carla Bruni – Sarkozy’s glamorous wife – teases him about being a kept man. Two days after the recordings were published, it emerged that French judges were also monitoring Sarkozy’s conversations with his lawyer in a probe that dated to his 2007 campaign. Those recordings were made after Sarkozy left office in 2012. The Paris bar is protesting, citing attorney-client privilege. (AP)
Steve Irwin’s final words were ‘I’m dying’
Melbourne: The cameraman present at Steve Irwin’s death has revealed that the wild life expert’s final words were “I’m dying”.
Underwater cameraman Justin Lyons spoke publicly for the first time about Irwin’s last moments as he was the sole witness to his death when both of them were filming wildlife on the Great Barrier Reef in 2006, News.com.au reported.
Lyons has revealed that the ‘The Crocodile Hunter’ suffered a fatal stingray attack during the shoot for a documentary called ‘Ocean’s Deadliest.’
The cameraman further added that all of a sudden stingray propped on his front and started stabbing him wildly with its tail and it went through Irwin’s chest like a hot knife through butter. Lyons asserted that the Australian wildlife expert just sort of calmly looked up at him and said that he was dying. (ANI)
4,000-year-old burial changes British Bronze Age history
London: A 4,000-year-old burial has been discovered at White Horse hill, Dartmoor, England which has rewritten the history of the British Bronze Age.
About 4,000 years ago, a young woman’s cremated bones – charred scraps of her shroud and the wood from her funeral pyre still clinging to them – was wrapped in a fur along with her most valuable possessions, packed into a basket, and carried up to one of the highest and most exposed spots on Dartmoor, where they were buried in a small stone box covered by a mound of peat, the Guardian reported.
The bundle contains a treasury of unique objects: a tin bead and 34 tin studs, which are the earliest evidence of metal-working in the south-west; textiles, including a unique nettle fibre belt with a leather fringe; jewellery, including amber from the Baltic and shale from Whitby; and wooden ear studs, which is the earliest examples of wood turning ever found in Britain.
The ear studs were made from spindle wood, a hard fine-grained wood often used for knitting needles; and the unique arm band, plaited from cowhair and originally studded with 34 tin beads which would have shone like silver.
The charred scraps of textile may have been the remains of a shroud, and fragments of charcoal from the funeral pyre. Jane Marchand, chief archaeologist at the Dartmoor National Park Authority said that any one of the artefacts would make the find remarkable. (ANI)
Prince Andrew dating younger swimwear model?
Washington: Speculation is rife that Prince Andrew is going out with swimwear model Monika Jakisic 20 years his junior after the duo was photographed together three times in three weeks.
The couple celebrated the Duke of York’s birthday at a Mayfair restaurant and two days later were seen having a cozy dinner at an exclusive club.
The divorced prince was recently seen kissing the Croatian beauty, who happens to be George Clooney’s former girlfriend, on the cheek in London. An onlooker told Us Magazine that the pair walked together towards a hotel door and were smiling as she put her coat on. The eyewitness asserted that the duo chatted in the lobby for a while and then he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, adding that both of them looked happy. (ANI)
New method for ‘talking’ to animals
London: A Scottish scientist claims to have devised a method for ‘talking’ to animals that can allow owners to ask questions to their pets about how happy they are.
Professor Ian Duncan said his aims are similar to those of Dr Dolittle, the fictional character who could talk to animals, but says his methods are strictly scientific.
“We are devising ways of ‘talking’ to animals and putting questions to them about their welfare and happiness,” Duncan, based at Guelph University, Canada, told The Sunday Times.
“Each species has to be treated differently but the common factor is to devise tests where the animals are offered a choice. If they make the same choice repeatedly it shows what they want from us,” he said.
Duncan said he is ready to set out his methods publicly after years of work across a host of livestock and pet species. He said there is much more to the lives of livestock animals – even farmed fish like trout or salmon – than many people realise.
Duncan will set out his ideas at a conference on animal thinking and emotion in Washington. (PTI)