In a New York art gallery, seven house plants have spent the last seven weeks watching Strange Skies, probably the first travel documentary for a vegetable audience.
The movie by conceptual artist Jonathon Keats consists of idyllic Italian skies ,condensed into a six-minute dawn-to-dawn span. Sitting attentively in cinema-like rows, the potted audience basks in an electric version of Italian sunshine.
Mr Keats said, "...There are many more plants than people - that were not being serviced. I wanted basically to provide plants with what companies such as Disney or MGM provide humans."
The movie has no sound and the plants do not applaud. Other than an alarming loss of leaves among the ficuses there is no discernible reaction. But Stephen Squibb, a fellow at the AC Institute, which hosted the installation in a Chelsea gallery, said these viewers are unusually riveted. (AFP)
Last supper in landslip house
An artist hosted a "last supper" in a house teetering dangerously on top of a cliff in a bid to highlight issues such as the environment and politics.
Kane Cunningham, 48, invited 12 guests, including former Labour minister Clare Short, to the dinner at the house at Knipe Point in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
He said has a "finite life span" and could collapse over the edge of the cliff any time.
He bought the property for £3,000 in December last year and said he decided to use it for it as a venue for the event as it encapsulates many of society's desires but also highlights its failings. (PA)
Train service on the wrong track
An advertisement for a new luxury train service embarrassed India's rail ministry yesterday by placing the country's capital, New Delhi, inside the territory of arch-rival Pakistan.
Other gaffes made in announcing the inaugural run of the Maharajas' Express placed Kolkata, the Buddhist pilgrimage centre of Gaya and the Bandhavgarh Tiger reserve in the Bay of Bengal.
The agency which designed the ad - promising to show passengers "an India like never before!" - amended a version approved by Eastern Railways last Friday, a rail company's spokesman said.
The Maharajas' Express, aimed at wealthy tourists, is a joint venture between the rail ministry's IndianRailway Catering and Tourism Corporation and the Indian arm of the international tour operator Cox and Kings. (AFP)
Black humour
A 16-year-old boy who police said made an announcement ordering all black people to leave a Walmart store in Washington Township, New Jersey, has been charged with harassment and bias intimidation, authorities said.
The boy, whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile, grabbed one of the courtesy phones and calmly announced: "Attention, Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now," police said.
The youth was arrested and released to the custody of his parents. (PA)
Police turn to spirits in drug war
Police running scared from drug gangs in Mexico are using bizarre rituals involving animal sacrifice and spirit tattoos to seek protection from raging violence on the US border.
In secret meetings that draw on elements of Haitian Voodoo, Cuban Santeria and Mexican witchcraft, priests are slaughtering chickens on full moon nights, smearing police with the blood and using prayers to evoke spirits to guard them as drug cartels battle over smuggling routes into California. Other police in Tijuana tattoo their bodies with Voodoo symbols, believing they can repel bullets.
Badly-paid Mexican police have long prayed to Christian saints before going out on patrol in Mexico. Cops are part of a messy war between rival trafficking gangs and the army as cartels infiltrate police forces, offering officers cash to work and even murder for them or a bullet if they say no. (Reuters)