German carmaker Audi makes special horns for its vehicles sold in India where local drivers hoot so much as they fight their way through chaotic traffic.
Michael Perschke, director at Audi India, told yesterday’s Mint newspaper: “You take a European horn and it will be gone in a week or two. With the amount of honking in Mumbai, we do on a daily basis what an average German does on an annual basis.”
Mr Perschke said the horns are specially adapted for driving conditions in India, a booming market where Audi is one of many foreign car brands competing for increasingly wealthy customers.
“The horn is tested differently – with two continuous weeks only of honking, the setting of the horn is different, with different suppliers,” he said.
Bin Laden’s wives in court
A Pakistani court will next week charge Osama bin Laden’s widows and two of his grown-up daughters with illegal entry and residency, their lawyer said yesterday.
“The court will frame charges against five family members on April 2” in connection with illegal entry and residency in Pakistan, Muhammad Aamir said.
If the women are convicted, they are liable to be deported or imprisoned, Mr Aamir added. Under Pakistani law, the maximum sentence is five years. Bin Laden’s two Saudi and one Yemeni widows, together with their children, have been living under the protection of the authorities in Pakistan since the Al-Qaeda chief was found and killed by US Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011.
Still feeling young at 80
Veteran entertainer Des O’Connor has denied he was “selfish” to become a father so late in life. The 80-year-old says his seven-year-old son Adam kept him young.
He told Hello! Magazine: “I want to be with him for as long as I can, and that’s another reason to keep myself in good shape.
“I don’t have a strict health regime but I do think you have to take care of yourself... I exercise but nothing too strenuous. I try to keep myself in good nick.”
He says he was not concerned about the criticism aimed at him when Adam was born and when he married his second wife, Jodie, who is 37 years his junior, adding, “I had people saying I was selfish. But what’s selfish about that? How can you say to a woman you’ve been with for 15-odd years, ‘No, I’ve got four and we’re not having any more?’ That would be selfish.”
Mr O’Connor claim:, “There are no rules, no regulations, no time limit on love. You either want to be with someone or you don’t.”