A South Korean court has rejected an attempt to prosecute Seoul taxi drivers for one of their scariest habits – watching television while driving.
The Seoul Administrative Court has ordered a district office in the capital to cancel a fine of 600,000 won (€342) imposed on a cabbie.
The city government last year passed a local ordinance banning the use of digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) systems while driving. But the court ruled that the ordinance, which allows local authorities to regulate public transport, is illegal because it is based on a 1961 law that was later superseded.
A minority of taxi drivers in the congested capital convert dashboard screens used for global positioning systems so they can receive TV programmes.
More than 21 million DMB devices have been sold since South Korea started the world’s first such service in 2005, according to a state committee. The number of DMB users soared to 17.25 million by the end of 2008. (AFP)
Firm to pawn luxury handbags
A Hong Kong firm has launched a series of television commercials offering personal loans in exchange for ladies’ luxury handbags, a report said yesterday.
Yes Lady Finance will pay cash-strapped socialites up to 70 per cent of the bag’s value with 28 per cent annualised interest, the South China Morning Post said.
A Louis Vuitton handbag valued at €1,750 in the second-hand market would fetch a €1,200 three-month loan, the paper said, adding that owners would lose the bags if they failed to settle the debt on time.
“It is a good fund-raising option for some tai-tais,” company co-founder Wallace Tung was quoted as saying, referring to a slang term for the wives of wealthy Hong Kong businessmen. “They may not want to sell their handbags, which may be a gift from husbands and mean a lot to them.” (AFP)
Talent show
Holiday company Butlins is launching an X Factor-style search for new Redcoat entertainers.
The public will be able to look at would-be Redcoats’ audition videos online and vote for their favourites.
The company, which introduced Redcoats when Butlins began in the 1930s, wants hopefuls to upload their audition videos to YouTube, with the best 300 going through to the next round of interviews. (PA)
Fast food
A motorway service station has landed a highly respected award for its food.
The Tebay service station in Westmorland, Cumbria, was awarded The British Academy of Gastronomes’ Grand Prix of Gastronomy.
The Grand Prix is annually awarded for anyone or anything that has done most in the previous year to improve the quality of food in the UK. (PA)
Marilyn crypt auction fails again
A second attempt to sell a crypt on top of Marilyn Monroe’s final resting place has failed, with not a single bid received for the burial spot in a celebrity-filled Los Angeles cemetery.
Widow Elsie Poncher is trying to sell her husband’s crypt to pay off the mortgage on her Beverly Hills home. On selling the crypt, Mrs Poncher had planned to move her husband, who died in 1986, to an adjacent crypt intended for her.
But a $4.6 million (€3.1 million) bid submitted through online auctioneer eBay Inc in August fell through when the unidentified bidder pulled out.
A second auction on eBay with a reserve price of $500,000 (€337,000) also failed, with a notice on the online trading website saying it had closed with no bids on the marble mausoleum where Ms Monroe was laid to rest in 1962. (Reuters)
Our daily gingerbread
The Archbishop of Canterbury has revealed his recipe for ginger biscuits which forms part of a new cookbook bringing together dishes from a range of Christian groups.
Dr Rowan Williams’s tasty treats are the Church of England’s contribution to Loaves, Fishes and More – a 70-recipe collection which aims to raise funds for Christian Aid.
The 128-page book was launched with the help of celebrity chef Kevin Woodford. Those behind collection say it is the first publication of its kind involving some of the UK’s key church leaders. (PA)
Ferret weapon
A homeless Florida man stole a ferret by stuffing it down his trousers.
Rodney Bolton, 38, has been charged with theft over the £100 animal police say he took from a pet store in Jacksonville Beach.
He also pushed it in a teenager’s face which makes the ferret a “special weapon” under state law and he faces a further charge of dangerously wielding it. (PA)
Postal exposure
A man has been given two years probation for sending sexually explicit Christmas cards of his ex-girlfriend to her relatives.
David Simmons, from Tennessee, was accused of surreptitiously taking pictures of his ex-girlfriend while she performed sexual acts on him.
After an acrimonious split, Simmons sent one of the pictures to the woman’s relatives as Christmas cards. (PA)
Mystery feet
Another mystery foot has washed up on the shores of Canada’s pacific coast province of British Columbia, the seventh in the last two years.
Of the six others found since August 2007, only one has been identified as belonging to a man believed to have committed suicide.
The other feet include a female pair, a male pair and a male right foot. (PA)