World briefs
Britons’ eccentric requests
Silencing a noisy cockerel and supplying Olympic tickets were among the more unusual requests made to British consular staff abroad last year.
In Rome, a man asked Foreign Office (FO) staff to translate a phrase for a tattoo he wanted.
A woman requested that consular staff in Tel Aviv in Israel order her husband to get fit and eat healthily so that they could have children, while FO staff were often asked where was the best place to watch football. Over the period 2012/13, the FO handled more than a million consular inquiries and supported some 52,135 British nationals in difficulty abroad. (PA)
Young lamb’s ears severed
A three-week-old lamb has had its ears cut off in a “horrendous act of animal cruelty”, the RSPCA has said.
In the shocking incident which took place in Gotham, Nottinghamshire, between May 5 and 6, the young animal’s ears were severed cleanly from its head and resulted in it being abandoned by its mother.
An RSPCA inspector said: “This is absolutely horrific and I cannot believe that someone would deliberately cause such an awful injury to an innocent animal. Sadly, as a result of the injury, the mother abandoned the lamb. The lamb is recovering but this is a horrific attack on a defenceless young animal and it must have been incredibly painful.” (AP)
Bedroom’s colour has it
Britons who sleep in a blue-decorated bedroom regularly get the best night’s sleep, a study suggests.
People sleeping in blue get seven hours and fifty two minutes sleep per night, the survey of 2,000 British homes by Travelodge found.
Other bedroom colours that aided Britons in sleep were some shades of yellow, green, silver and orange. Britons who sleep in a yellow bedroom were getting an average of seven hours and forty minutes shut-eye per night, the survey found. (PA)
One Direction world tour
Boy band One Direction have announced plans for a stadium world tour next year.
The chart-toppers released the first details of their Where We Are Tour at London’s Wembley Stadium, which is due to host the group for one of five dates in the UK and Ireland.
The announcement brings to an end intense speculation on the internet, after the British-based boy band hinted at “one big announcement” on their official Twitter page, which included a link to an online countdown to yesterday’s unveiling.
The first leg of the tour will see the What Makes You Beautiful singers visit Latin America, opening in Colombia on April 25. (AP)