The chance to hand-feed the UK’s only pandas is being offered through a new zoo visitor package which takes the public behind the scenes.

Edinburgh Zoo has launched a £1,000 “panda keeper experience” in which people get to see the private area of the animals’ enclosure, which is normally off limits.

During the hour-long visit, participants will meet a panda keeper and learn about their work with Tian Tian (Sweetie) and Yang Guang (Sunshine). If the animals have not eaten too much bamboo during the day, visitors may get to feed them by hand. Up to four people, aged over 16, can take part in the after-hours visit. The £1,000 price includes drinks and canapés for good measure.

Darren McGarry, head of animals at the zoo, said: “We are really delighted to be able to offer people the chance to get closer than ever before to these fascinating, rare and iconic animals.”

The pandas arrived in Scotland from the Ya’an reserve in Chengdu, China on December 4 last year and will live at the zoo for 10 years.

Depardieu in punch-up

Gérard Depardieu is in hot water again after an alleged road-rage incident in Paris in which the French film star admitted he may have gone “a bit over the top”.

A Parisian driver accused Mr Depardieu of punching him in the face after he swerved his car into the path of the actor’s scooter in the chic left-bank quarter of the French capital.

Mr Depardieu claimed the driver’s complaint had been lodged only because of his celebrity status. A year ago Mr Depardieu, 63, generated headlines after urinating in a bottle during a Paris-Dublin flight after being denied access to the toilets as the plane was taking off.

Presidential kiss-and-tell

Barack Obama first kissed the woman who would become his wife outside a Chicago ice-cream shop – and now there’s a plaque to prove it.

Managers of a shopping centre in the city’s Hyde Park area installed the 1,361kg granite marker this week with a plaque reading: “On this site President Barack Obama first kissed Michelle Obama.”

The plaque includes a picture of the first couple and a quote taken from the President: “On our first date, I treated her to the finest ice-cream Baskin-Robbins had to offer, our dinner table doubling as the curb. I kissed her. It tasted like chocolate.”

IT ‘wastes millions of hours’

Workers are wasting millions of hours every day because of problems with office computer systems, says a new report.

Office employees claim they lose almost half an hour on average every day waiting for systems to open or having to deal with programmes crashing.

A survey of more than 1,000 workers by IT firm Modis also found that two thirds said their morale was affected if their computer was not working well.

Many of those polled said their home computers were more advanced than the ones they used at work.

And now it’s Donkey.com

An Israeli attraction meant to immerse tourists in a biblical experience has fitted its donkeys with wireless routers.

At Kfar Kedem historical park, visitors dressed in robes and headdresses ride donkeys learning how people lived in Old Testament times.

But they can also surf the web at the same time.

A spokesman said the online connectivity was aimed at the younger generation.

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