World Briefs
‘Scared’ by Atlantic swim
TV adventurer Ben Fogle admitted yesterday that he feels “scared” as he prepares for his most punishing challenge yet – swimming across the Atlantic Ocean.
The presenter will spend up to 12 hours a day in the water, swimming the equivalent of the Channel, to make it in his target of 100 days. He will also face the risks of icebergs and sharks during his 4,828-kilometre journey from the US to Cornwall.
The 38-year-old said: “It does scare me because I really don’t know what is going to happen. Only one person has done this but that is what attracted me towards this.”
Mr Fogle – who first found fame as a participant in the BBC series Castaway in which he lived on the island of Taransay - will be accompanied by a yacht for sleeping and eating. He will log his starting and stopping points each day.
Two-fly rule for toilets
Beijing’s public toilets must not exceed two flies, according to new standards handed down by zealous officials striving to clean up China’s notoriously filthy loos.
The unusual rule applies to lavatories in parks, railway stations, airports, hospitals, malls and supermarkets in the capital, said the Beijing News yesterday.
More conventional demands from the municipal committee in charge of the image of the city include an order that there is no accumulation of urine or water in the capital’s public toilets and that bins aren’t overflowing.
It is not clear if failing washrooms will be punished and if so how.
Mountain lion in city centre
A mountain lion ventured into the centre of a crowded Southern California city on Tuesday, and was shot and killed when authorities had trouble corralling the animal in the courtyard of a building, police said.
It was not immediately clear how the three-year-old mountain lion, weighing about 34 kilos, ended up in the middle of the beachside city of Santa Monica, which lies just west of Los Angeles.
Venomous snakes warning
Walkers in the UK have been warned to leave snakes in the countryside alone after dozens of incidents of bites caused by people picking up venomous adders.
People sought advice over adder bites 196 times between 2009 and 2011, figures from the Health Protection Agency’s National Poisons Information Service showed. In around half the cases, a person had picked up an adder, the only venomous snake living wild in England, Scotland and Wales.
Adder bites deliver venom causing localised pain, tenderness, swelling and bruising. Almost all poisonings from adder bites produce relatively minor effects, but more serious cases could involve kidney failure in children, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, serious heart effects and rarely death.