Bride asks for entrance fee from guests to make up for expenses
Washington D.C: An American bride asked for money from her invitees so that they can be on the ‘exclusive guest list’.
Weddings can be surely expensive. But is it feasible for one to charge the guests to make up for the expenses?
According to Fox News, that is exactly what happened in a recent American wedding. A 19-year-old shared on Reddit that her cousin was getting married on Sunday and announced that she would charge 50 dollars to those who wanted to attend her wedding.
“She said that they can Venmo her money so there won’t be no [sic] problems and everyone who paid will be added onto the ‘exclusive guest list’ which basically means you won’t have to wait in line while other guests pay,” wrote the user named DaintySheep.
While she refused to pay for entry into her cousin’s wedding the bride-to-be contacted the elders in the family which ended up in an embarrassing situation.
“She wanted to get the money she spent on her special day back. I told her I wouldn’t be able to come because this was outrageous and that I wish her well on her special day. She contacted my aunt and my aunt called me cheap and rude. My parents offered to pay for my entry, but I refused,” continued the disheartened girl.
While in almost every nook and cranny of the world gifting the bride-groom with money is a tradition, asking for money from friends and family to replenish the money spent on a wedding is can be said to be a rare scenario. (ANI)
Two men make ‘Earth sandwich’, 20,000 km apart
Wellington: Two men in New Zealand and Spain have created an “Earth sandwich” by placing slices of bread on precise points, either side of the planet, it was reported on Monday.
The man behind the sandwich, Etienne Naude from Auckland, told the BBC that he wanted to make one for “years”, but had struggled to find someone in Spain, on the other side of the globe.
He finally found someone after posting on the online message board, Reddit.
The men used longitude and latitude to make sure they were precisely opposite.
The first “Earth sandwich” is credited to the American artist Ze Frank, who organised two slices of baguette to be placed in New Zealand and Spain in 2006.
Others have since followed, although not all reported examples have been bona fide, opposite-point Earth sandwiches.
“It was quite hard to organise since it’s 12-hour time difference,” Naude told the BBC, adding: “And there’s lots of things to arrange, such as the kind of bread, the time, the (precise) location, et cetera.”
Naude only had to travel a few hundred metres to find a suitable public spot on his side of the world. His Spanish counterpart had to travel 11 km.
Using a “near top of the range laser cutter”, he burnt an “Earth sandwich” design onto 20 slices of bread, then used one slice to mark his exact, tightly-defined sandwich spot in New Zealand.
His counterpart used nine slices of unmarked bread to make sure he covered the exact spot.
The scientific name for points opposite each other on the Earth’s surface is antipodes – a term sometimes used to describe New Zealand, as it is roughly opposite the UK.
According to World Atlas, only around 15 per cent of “territorial land” is antipodal to other land. The UK, Australia and most of the US do not have antipodal land points – the other side of the world is water. (IANS)
Chinese theme park forces pig to bungee jump
Beijing: A Chinese theme park has triggered a wave of outrage on social media after it forced a pig to bungee jump off a 68-metre high tower, it was reported on Monday. The incident took place on January 18 at the Meixin Red Wine Town theme park in the sprawling Chinese municipality of Chongqing, the BBC said in a report.
The publicity event, which organisers called the golden pig bungee jump, was held to celebrate the opening of the theme park’s bungee attraction.
The pig, which according to local reports weighed 75 kg, is seen being pushed off the tower with a purple cape tied around its shoulders. In one video of the incident, what sound like pig squeals can be heard.
What happens to the pig afterwards is not shown, though many local media reports said that it was eventually sent to a slaughterhouse.
Though a handful of people defended the incident on social media, saying it wasn’t any different to “killing a pig for food”, the majority of users condemned the company’s actions.
“This is a super vulgar marketing tactic,” said one commenter, while another said: “Killing animals for consumption and treating them cruelly for entertainment are two different things… There is no need to torture them like this.” Animal protection organisation Peta condemned the incident, calling it “animal cruelty at its worst”.
“Pigs experience pain and fear in the same ways that we do, and this disgusting PR stunt should be illegal,” Jason Baker, Peta senior vice-president of international campaigns, told BBC News.
The theme park has since put out a statement, saying that it accepted the “criticism” it had received.
“We sincerely accept netizens’ criticism and advice and apologise to the public,” it said. “We will improve (our) marketing of the tourist site, to provide tourists with better services.” (IANS)