World Briefs

Plans to raise the international profile of Oxford Airport by adding London to its name have upset residents of the British university city, who argue it is famous enough in its own right.

"It is a silly idea. Oxford can stand on its own feet without some funny modern thing like an airport affecting it," said Tony Joyce, chairman of the Oxford Civic Society, a group which promotes the understanding and protection of the city's heritage. He added that the new name was misleading and would leave any passengers expecting a direct link from the airport to London disappointed.

But James Dillon-Godfray, marketing manager at the airport - which mainly serves business customers - said the change was not a result of a lack of awareness of Oxford, but because many people did not realise how close it was (100 kilometres) to the centre of London. (Reuters)

Compensation for infidelity

Every time British businessman Robert Charlton cheated on his wife, he bought her some extravagant jewellery to try to make amends. After 26 years of marriage, long-suffering Elizabeth Charlton had more than 40 glittering pieces.

Mr Charlton's infidelity cost him nearly £300,000, it emerged when his daughter auctioned off the late couple's jewellery collection.

"He bought her a lot of things to keep her happy and to ease the pain of his many affairs," said Clare Durham, mouthpiece for Woolley & Wallis, the auction house that handled the sale. "I think everybody knew it was a fairly open secret."

Over the course of his romances, Mr Charlton, who died in 1974, bought his wife antique diamond earrings, bracelets, rings and necklaces. One piece, a rivière necklace made up of 54 diamonds, was the most expensive item auctioned, fetching £50,000. It was once bought in the 1900s for around £400, a sum that would have made it extremely expensive when Mr Charlton bought it in the 1960s.

Mr Charlton's daughter chose to auction a total of 43 pieces from the guilt-ridden collection after other family members declined to accept them. The family kept other pieces. (Reuters)

Jewel thieves escape on scooters

Four armed thieves held up a jewellery store on Geneva's most prestigious high street, grabbing millions of euros' worth of gems and escaping on scooters, the Lebanese owner said yesterday. The men, wearing hats and wigs and speaking in Russian or another Slavic language, smashed display cases in the daytime robbery at Chatila's jewellery shop.

A female employee set off an alarm, but police arrived after the thieves had fled on scooters.

"Despite my age, I struggled with one of them," 75-year-old Elie Chatila, who estimated his loss at several million francs, said. They left a ring worth more than 500,000 francs. "My shop is in a catastrophic state. I'm waiting for the insurers," he added. (Reuters)

Absent-minded musician

An absent-minded musician left his 18th-century violin in the back of a New York taxi but was soon reunited with the instrument thanks to satellite technology.

South Korean-born virtuoso Hahn-Bin forgot the $600,000 violin, made by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda, in a yellow cab on his way back to Manhattan from a concert, the New York Post and other dailies said.

It was only after the exhausted fiddler had taken a shower in his Chinatown apartment that he realised what had happened.

But the city's taxi authorities had no trouble tracking down the taxi: all yellow cabs are fitted with GPS trackers and the vehicle was found to be at cabbie Dalbir Singh's home in New Jersey.

"Losing an instrument is a greatest fear, even more than making a mistake on stage," Mr Hahn-Bin was quoted as saying. (AFP)

Lottery winner tries to bribe police

A French EuroMillions lottery winner has been found guilty of trying to bribe traffic police after they caught him drunk at the wheel of a souped-up Ferrari. Pascal Brun, a 39-year-old former butcher who began collecting Italian sports cars after scooping a €26-millionjackpot in 2004, was nabbed on France's Atlantic coast near Bordeaux.

Police noticed the millionaire seemed heavily drunk after asking him to move his yellow Ferrari, which was badly parked near the seafront. A breathalyser test showed him to be four times over the limit.

Mr Brun, who has already lost his licence once for drunk-driving a Ferrari, invited the two traffic wardens to his house for an aperitif - and offered each of them €1,000 to turn a blind eye.

Convicted of drunk-driving and of trying to corrupt a public official, the millionaire has been handed a six-month jail sentence, including three suspended, and ordered to pay €500 in damages to each police officer. His driving licence was revoked again and the court impounded his car, a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. (AFP)

Tourist fined for fountain dip bid

A Polish tourist must pay a €160 fine after he got a bit too close to one of the fountains in the Italian city of Florence, police said yesterday.

"The officers spotted him as he was preparing to climb the fountain. But they arrived in time to make him get down," a police official told AFP.

When the police had the would-be mountaineer on firm ground, he claimed he was too hot and simply wanted to cool off in the famous Fountain of Neptune, just a short distance from Michelangelo's David and the Uffizi Gallery. "It happens quite often that people want to swim in this fountain, but usually we can catch them before anything happens," the official said.

The fountain, made up of various marble statues, has suffered a lot of damage since it was built in the 16th century. The last act of vandalism occurred in August 2005 when a young man tried to climb the main statue and snapped off a hand. (AFP)