DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
• If you’ve ever wondered how a cat sees the world, you need do so no more. The city of Onomichi in Japan’s Hiroshima prefecture has created a new interactive map which provides a cat level view of the city in a manner similar to Google’s “street view”. The map – part of a tourism initiative – shows shops and local landmarks as well as the locations of 11 of the city’s cats. Meanwhile, while we’re talking about cats, a new study has shown that the stereotype as cats as being independent creatures seems to have some foundation. The research, by Daniel Mills, a veterinary behavioral medicine researcher at the University of Lincoln in the UK, apparently doesn’t show that cats don’t love their owners just that they don’t look to them as a “source of safety and security”.
• A flower show in the UK is using DNA testing to ensure that a rogue variety of tomato doesn’t win its giant tomato competition. The Harrogate Autumn Flower Show is reportedly offering a £1,000 prize for the winner of its Gigantomo class tomato contest (and a further £5,000 if the fruit sets a new world record). Dutch experts will DNA test the fruit to ensure all is as it should be.
• Burger King has proposed to bury the rivalry with McDonald’s for a day in honour of the UN’s International Day of Peace on 21st September. It has proposed, via a specially created website as well as full page newspaper ads in the US that the two companies create a combined burger known as the McWhopper which would feature the “tastiest bits” of a Big Mac and a Whopper. It would be available for that day only in Atlanta (a location halfway between Chicago, home of the McDonald’s HQ, and Miami, home of the Burger King HQ) with the proceeds donated to charity. McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook has reportedly responded by saying the two companies could do something “bigger” and said he would be in touch. Stay tuned.
