Something to smile about

Da Vinci mystery solved as experts discover burial place of Mona Lisa

NICK PISA IN ROME

A REAL-LIFE Da Vinci mystery has been solved – historians have discovered where Leonardo’s Mona Lisa was buried.
Art investigator Giuseppe Pallanti made the discovery after poring over hundreds of ancient manuscripts.
Da Vinci experts now hope to locate her coffin so that they can examine the DNA of her remains.
Mr Pallanti made his announcement at a packed press conference in the Renaissance city of Florence, visited by thousands of British holidaymakers every year.
He said that documents showed that Lisa Gherardini – or Mona Lisa – is buried in the rundown ruins of the former Convent of St Orsula in the heart of the city.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 20-Jan-07 01:24 GMT

Ye Gods!

Ancient god is worshipped again

PARIS AYIOMAMITIS IN
ATHENS

AFTER 1,700 years, the ancient Greek god Zeus was honoured once again yesterday, with a group of modern worshippers defying a government ban to celebrate at an ancient temple in the heart of Athens.
It was first known ceremony of its kind at the 1,800-year-old Temple of Olympian Zeus since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman Empire in the late fourth century.
About 200 people attended the ceremony next to the ruins of the temple, which was organised by Ellinais, an Athens-based group campaigning to revive ancient religion.
Ellinais, which has 34 official members – mainly middle-aged and elderly professionals – was founded last year.
It won a court battle for official state recognition of the ancient Greek religion and wants its offices to be registered as a place of worship, which could allow the group to perform weddings and other ceremonies.

Last updated: 22-Jan-07 00:52 GMT

New Scotsman

Homeless Gallery

Antique store sues

New York’s homeless
By Melissa Whitworth in

New YorkLast Updated: 2:26am GMT 19/01/2007 

The owner of a luxury antiques store in Manhattan is suing four homeless people for $1 million, claiming they make the area look untidy and are putting off potential customers. According to legal documents, Karl Kemp is demanding an order that keeps the four unnamed defendants at least 100 feet away from his shop on Madison Avenue, in the heart of New York’s ritzy Upper East Side and yards from high-end retailers such as Gucci, Prada and Cartier. The complaint alleges the four verbally harass and intimidate prospective customers in “old, warn, and unsanitary clothing” [sic] and claims they live in “cardboard boxes and old blankets which they convert into sleeping accommodations.” The city’s homeless organisations say they have never heard of anything like this before. A representative for the Coalition for the Homeless called the lawsuit “preposterous”.

Daily Telegraph

Lively Party

Cannibal couple ate neighbour

A COUPLE in their thirties have been held in Ukraine for killing and then eating their neighbour, a man of 48, after a drinks party ended in a fight – then cannibalism.

A pan with cooked human flesh was found in the house.

New Scotsman

Now you see it, …

Dissolvable dress height of throwaway fashion
By Roger Highfield, Science EditorLast Updated: 2:26am GMT 19/01/2007 

This is the ultimate in disposable fashion. A symbol of our throwaway society – not to mention the stuff of male fantasies. Here is the world’s first dissolvable dress, the culmination of a creative partnership at the University of Sheffield between the award-winning designer Prof Helen Storey and Prof Tony Ryan, a leading chemist, to show off new materials that can make consumer products less environmentally harmful. Prof Storey has worked with the University of Ulster to develop a series of innovative dissolving textiles based on polymers created in collaboration with the Sheffield Polymer Centre. During a forthcoming exhibition, up to eight dresses made from these textiles – minus their wearers – will be lowered into enormous goldfish bowls where they will be left to liquefy. The fabric is knitted from a clear polymer – polyvinyl alcohol – of the kind used in sachets that release detergent in washing machines. The dresses will dissolve and turn into a form that can be recycled as a bottle.

 

Daily Telegraph 

Laying Down the Law

Obsolete laws to be thrown out

IRELAND is to repeal 3,200 laws enacted when the country was ruled by the
Normans and
Britain.

Among the oldest laws to be declared obsolete is one enacted in 1494 by King Henry VII, which demands one God be revered throughout the whole realm.

Last updated: 10-Jan-07 01:17 GMT

New Scotsman

Striking Almost the Right Note…

Harmony at last between the awful orchestras
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish CorrespondentLast Updated: 6:30am GMT 09/01/2007 

A deal to end an unfortunate spat between some of Britain’s worst musicians has been brokered by The Daily Telegraph. Following a period of arbitration, it has been agreed there is room for only one Really Terrible Orchestra. The RTO, which chooses music to suit the notes that its members can play, was formed in 1995 and has been alarming audiences ever since. Its mediocrity is a source of some pride to its founder Alexander McCall Smith, the best-selling author whose gentle Botswanan detective novels became a publishing sensation. He was therefore perturbed to learn that a group of almost talent-free classical musicians from Cornwall were planning to set up their own RTO. Mr McCall Smith said yesterday: “People elsewhere can’t just go around thinking that they can be as bad as we are. There is an issue of trade description here, and I am concerned that these people are probably quite good.” Enter The Daily Telegraph. After protracted negotiations lasting about 10 minutes, the group from north Cornwall came up with a compromise acceptable to both sides. “I think we are going to call ourselves the Seriously Awful Symphonia,” said Liz Rowe, a radiologist who decided to set up an orchestra after reading about Mr McCall Smith’s lack of musical virtuosity. Next year, and not by popular demand, the RTO plans to storm London for one night only.

Daily Telegraph

Affair of State

For £65m, your very own nation
By David SapstedLast Updated: 1:32am GMT 08/01/2007 

A country is up for sale with an asking price of £65 million. Complete with its own passports, currency and stamps, the Principality of Sealand is a self-proclaimed mini-state on a former Second World War fort, seven miles off Harwich, Essex. Sealand became an independent state after ”Prince” Roy Bates occupied it with his family in 1967. The Royal Navy was sent to evict him but Bates saw them off with warning shots. A judge later ruled that, as Sealand lay outside the three-mile limit, it was outside government control. Now the nation, which experienced a devastating fire last year, has been put up for sale through Spanish estate agents Inmonaranja. Anyone who takes on a stake in Sealand, says the brochure, will “be able to share in and become part of the history of the most famous and oldest micro-nation in the world”.

Daily Telegraph

Foreign customs

Car vandals let off because they are foreign
By David SapstedLast Updated: 6:53am GMT 08/01/2007 

Motorists whose parked cars were vandalised by two drunks have been told that the culprits will not be prosecuted because they are foreign and unemployed. The decision only to caution the two immigrants, aged 19 and 29, has appalled the five Norwich car owners whose wing mirrors were smashed. A policeman wrote to explain, saying: “Due to their both being unemployed foreign nationals with no income it was not in the public interest . . . due to the expenses incurred in having a trial. The two men had been arrested minutes after their rampage was recorded on CCTV cameras and later admitted causing hundreds of pounds of damage..”

Daily Telegraph

It’s an Ill Wind …

Breeding is bottom line to cut methane
By Charles Clover, Environment EditorLast Updated: 1:58am GMT 06/01/2007 

Sheep and cows bred to be less “windy” could have a crucial part in fighting global warming, a leading climate change expert said yesterday. Sir John Houghton, the former chairman of the Meteorological Office and of the UN’s scientific panel on climate change, said he had observed trials in New Zealand of genetically modified sheep designed to reduce the amount of methane they emit – from both ends. Sir John told the Oxford Farming Conference that methane from flatulent livestock still represented 20-30 per cent of the global warming problem. A recent study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said that the amount of methane produced by livestock worldwide had a greater effect on climate change than transport emissions.

Daily Telehgraph