An animal welfare charity is trying to trace the owner of a dog found at the top of England’s highest mountain by holidaymakers who took him home to Scotland.
The couple found the male collie cross at the summit of Scafell Pike in the Lake District last Saturday. They tried to get help in England without success so took him home to Maybole in South Ayrshire before alerting the Scottish SPCA.
The dog, thought to be between five and eight years old, is now being cared for at the charity’s animal rescue and rehoming centre in Glasgow, where staff have nicknamed him Scafell.
St Paul’s Cathedral is top of poll
St Paul’s Cathedral has been voted Britain’s favourite building, followed closely by Stonehenge.
The two structures ranked higher than The Shard and Westminster Abbey in a survey of 2,000 British adults.
Sir Christopher Wren’s cathedral, which survived the Blitz unscathed, racked up 38 per cent of the votes, with Stonehenge getting 30 per cent.
Other famous London landmarks also made the list, including the Palace of Westminster with just over a quarter of the vote, Buckingham Palace – picked by a fifth of those surveyed – and The Shard being voted for by 18 per cent of people.
Bit of a car-fuffle in Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his office will provide an official car for the country’s leading Muslim cleric, who returned one following an uproar over his extravagance.
Mehmet Gormez returned his Mercedes after news media reported that his office had spent a million Turkish lira (€350,000) on the vehicle. Now Mr Erdogan has said he will allocate a Mercedes to Gormez, adding: “In response to the rudeness displayed against our head of religious affairs, we said ‘Let’s make a gesture’.”
Conchita wants to meet Putin
Conchita Wurst would like to hang out with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The bearded Austrian cross-dresser said she would “love to spend at least a week with him” because she wants to understand what it means to “be President Putin”, who has clamped down heavily on gay rights in Russia, making public displays of homosexuality punishable by law.
Wurst’s participation last year in the Eurovision Song Contest was widely criticised by thousands of Russians. After her win, Putin advised her not to flaunt her lifestyle.
Slow growth on UK motorways
As drivers in the UK take to the roads for the bank holiday weekend, new figures show that Britain’s motorway network has grown by just 54 miles since David Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010.
This compares with a growth of 191 miles during the seven-year tenure of the previous Conservative prime minister, Sir John Major. The latest data from the Department for Transport shows that Britain’s motorway grew in size by three miles during 2014.
But both figures are an improvement on the amount of growth during Gordon Brown’s three-year stint in Downing Street, which was statistically zero.
Scuba stir in fast food restaurant
A man dressed in scuba gear caused a stir at a northern Michigan fast food restaurant.
The man, who had been drinking, turned up at a McDonald’s in Traverse City. Workers called police, who found the 48-year-old nearby and warned him that the management did not want him at the restaurant. Police did not know why the man was wearing scuba gear. Detective James Bussell said: “As far as wearing scuba gear and having a couple of beers, that’s legal.”