World Briefs
Dutch modern-day Noah
A faithful reproduction of Noah’s ark, using the dimensions in The Bible, has just opened to the public in The Netherlands.
It was constructed by the Dutch creationist and millionaire building contractor Johan Huibers, after he dreamt that Holland would be flooded once again.
He used the ancient measurement of the cubit – the length of a man’s arm from the elbow to the fingertips – to build the craft according to Biblical proportions.
In Genesis, the ark is described as being 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, so the mammoth effort took him and his team of five just over four years to finish.
Using Mr Huiber’s arm, the craft, which is moored in the southern Netherlands town of Dordrecht, is just over 450 feet in length, dwarfing buildings along the waterfront. He has filled it with a plastic menagerie of animals – as well as a few species of live birds – to recreate the story of Noah for paying visitors and to make The Bible more “touchable”.
Buttocks stunt backfires
An Australian man suffered severe and painful burns to his bottom after he placed a firework between his buttocks in a misconceived party trick, a report said yesterday.
Police in the sparsely populated Northern Territory said the man was taken to hospital after the stunt backfired at Darwin’s Rapid Creek around midnight on Saturday.
“It appears that a party was in full progress when a young male decided to place a firework between the cheeks of his bottom and light it,” local police spokesman Garry Smith told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“What must have seemed to be a great idea at the time has obviously backfired and resulted in the male receiving quite severe and painful burns to his cheeks, back and private parts.”
It is illegal to let off fireworks in the Darwin area except on Territory Day on July 1 and people face on the spot fines of Aus$282 (€241) for possessing and discharging them at other times.
Longest football match
A group of footballers have broken the record for the world’s longest match after playing for 52 hours and scoring an incredible 1,700 goals. The teams, representing Peterborough and Reading, kicked off shortly after 10 a.m. on Friday and did not finish until 2 p.m. on Sunday.
They smashed the previous world record for the longest match, set by the same players this time last year, by 10 hours.
Reading won the game, in aid of charity Free Kicks Foundation, after scoring 895 goals to Peterborough’s 808.
The two teams each had eight players playing on a rotation system, which meant they could only snatch a few hours sleep through the night.
Largest ukulele ensemble
More than 2,000 musicians strummed ukuleles in a Japanese port city over the weekend to set a new world record for the largest ever ensemble of the Hawaiian guitar.
Their effort was recognised by Guinness World Records officials who listened to them play Aloha Mahalo A Hui Ho, a song written by Hawaiian-born former sumo wrestler Konishiki, in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo.
The ensemble consisted of 2,134 people, eclipsing the previous largest ensemble in Sweden in August last year, which was made up of 1,547 players.
The Japanese performance was part of Ukulele Picnic Week which also featured hula dancing.