UK police were yesterday trying to trace the owners of a bag containing letters, driving licences and cards dating back to 1919.
Nottinghamshire Police said the blue and yellow Nike bag was found at a bus stop outside council offices in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Notts, at about 3.10 p.m. last Wednesday. A spokesman said the bag, which was handed in to Ashfield Police station, contained a pair of leopard print slip-on ladies’ shoes and a white and black tin with pink flowers on it.
The tin contained a number of letters, army payslips and drivers’ licences in the name of Bernard Webster, from various addresses in the Ashbourne area. (PA)
Pupil power
Police were called to a school after up to 300 pupils staged a protest against changes to lunch arrangements.
Officers were called to Dover Christ Church Academy in Dover, UK which teaches youngsters between the ages of 11 and 19, after pupils began walking out of lessons and began protesting.
Head teacher Richard Williams later said in a statement: “The protests by students over time-tabling, in particular a split in the lunch break period, has been unfortunate for all concerned.”
Message in a bottle
A message in a bottle sent by a Florida high school student as part of his marine science class has come ashore in Ireland.
Corey Swearingen put the bottle into the Atlantic Ocean in April 2009 and it followed the current all the way to the small fishing village of Kilbaha, in County Clare, on the western coast of Ireland.
Stephen Flannery and his son, Adam, found the bottle and responded via email to the letter, which had urged the reader to write with details of the bottle’s location. Mr Swearingen told Melbourne newspaper Florida Today he didn’t expect the bottle to be found.
Gibson guitars to honour John Lennon
The Gibson guitar factory in Montana is finishing a project to honour what would have been the 70th birthday of Beatles singer and guitarist John Lennon.
Gibson Acoustic’s director of sales and marketing, Robi Johns, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that Yoko Ono asked the company to release a limited number of J-160Es – the model of guitar her husband played.
Mr Johns says the company is releasing three models with suggested retail prices of between $4,700 and $15,000.
The company made 70 of the all-white Imagine model and 70 replicas of Lennon’s J-160E as it was when he was murdered 20 years ago.
Missing the point
An attempted plug by Paul Daniels for British bangers almost blew up in his face when viewers com-plained he was being homophobic.
The conjuror, currently starring in Strictly Come Dancing, told one of the hit BBC show’s judges, Craig Revel Horwood, not to give up “his day job eating sausages”. The line was a reference to openly gay Revel Horwood replacing Daniels as the face of a campaign celebrating British Sausage Week, but a BBC spokesman confirmed that “a handful” of viewers complained he was being homophobic.
The sharp-tongued dance judge tried to clear up the confusion on micro-blogging site Twitter, writing: “Paul Daniels naturally was referring to my being crowned King of the Sizzle for sausageweek!”
Drama on stage
A production at one of London’s most critically acclaimed theatres has been suspended after an actor suffered an on-stage eye injury from a fake gun.
David Birrell is being treated in hospital following the accident during a matinee performance at London’s Donmar Warehouse.
A number of shows have now been cancelled but theatre bosses are hoping the production, Passion, will resume on Thursday.
Pet alligator seized
A pet alligator has been seized from a liquor store on New York’s Long Island.
The Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the three-foot, illegally kept alligator was removed from Alpine Wines and Liquors in Wading River.
Authorities said two employees were issued tickets for possession of an illegal animal. The American alligator will be sent to a sanctuary. The store’s proprietor told Newsday newspaper that an employee had asked her to take care of it while he was apartment hunting and that she believed the animal was a monitor lizard, not an alligator.