DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
• It could prove a lucrative find – €100,000 in €500 and €100 notes spotted by a boy as they floated down a river in Vienna last weekend. Police are trying to work out where the money – which the boy jumped in to retrieve – has come from but have reportedly said that if no-one comes forward it could be claimed by the boy. Under Austrian law, if the money is not claimed within a year, he could have it all.
• Next year’s calendars are out and amid all the buff bodies typically on show, 12 fully clothed and bearded Russian Orthodox priests have taken a different approach by posing with their pet cats. Called ‘Pop i Kot’ or ‘Priest and Cat’, the black and white calendar has proved a surprise hit with the 1,000 initially printed reportedly expected to sell out. The calendar was apparently the work of a Russian Orthodox website and is the first of its kind (though, perhaps not surprisingly, it’s not officially endorsed by the Russian Orthodox Church). It grew out of a photographic project to depict the priests in their normal, everyday lives.
• Carol singing choirs and fir trees are part of Christmas in many parts of the world. But for the past 30 years or so, a group in the US has combined the two in a “singing Christmas tree”. The Mona Shores Singing Christmas Tree is reportedly a 20 metre high tree adorned with 25,000 Christmas lights and 15 tiers upon which stand about 220 choir members, at least one of whom (there were two this year) is selected to stand at the top of the tree as the “tree angel”. A further 50 or so students sing at the base of the tree.
