With travellers frazzled by hundreds of flight cancellations, Germany’s busiest airport has hired clowns to help them and their children pass the hours, a spokesman said yesterday.
“Four clowns are performing in the terminal halls,” the spokesman for Frankfurt’s international airport said.
“We came up with the idea for the kids, who are finding the delays particularly trying.”
The clowns started working over the weekend, when heavy snowfall led to hundreds of flights being scrapped amid chaos in the European air traffic network.
More than 1,000 stranded passengers had to spend the night from Sunday to yesterday at the airport, where camp beds were set up in the terminals. (AFP)
Crocodile rock
Sonic booms created by Israeli warplanes speeding across the sky are having the unintended consequence of launching hibernating crocodiles into mating mode, the daily Maariv has reported.
According to the newspaper, each time warplanes break the sound barrier over a crocodile breeding farm in the Golan Heights, the randy reptiles begin emitting their ritual mating cry.
“The powerful squealing noises, reminiscent of the sound of a car braking, can be heard from hundreds of metres around,” David Golan, head of crocodile breeding at the Hamat Gader park, said.
The calls appeared to be a response to the sonic booms, which seemed to convince the crocodiles that other males had begun making mating signals.
There are around 100 crocodiles at the park, which is underneath airspace used by the Israeli air force for training runs. (AFP)
Mobile calls cut
A business dispute between Turkmenistan and Russia’s biggest mobile provider threatened yesterday to leave the ex-Soviet republic without most of its mobile communications for a month.
The MTS carrier said it had been notified that its licence would be suspended effective today.
Its Turkmen branch MTS-Turkmenistan owns 80 per cent of the country’s 2.5 million mobile phone contracts, making it a major presence in the five-million-strong Central Asian state, where communications have been poor for decades.
MTS said the state offered no explanation for its decision but that the move came amid Turkmen efforts to win a 50-per cent stake in MTS-Turkmenistan. MTS has been present in the isolated former Soviet republic since 2005.
Under its current contract, besides taxes, MTS-Turkmenistan pays 20 per cent of its profits to local government coffers. (AFP)
Silent Night wins
A 200-year-old Austrian carol has beaten more modern tunes such as White Christmas to be named the most-recorded festive song.
Silent Night – first performed on Christmas Eve in 1818 – tops a list of Christmas recordings registered with UK royalties body PPL.
And of the 170 different versions of the song, the most played is a 1978 recording by US punk band the Dickies. (PA)
Bionic eye trial
Recruitment has begun for the first UK trial of a bionic eye which can restore sight to blind people.
The microchip implant has been tested in Germany, where it allowed patients to read letters and recognise objects.
Surgeons at King’s College Hospital, London, are now preparing for a follow-up study in the UK and hope to select six patients for the trial, with another six patients treated at Oxford Eye Hospital. (PA)
Tough times
The American Merriam-Webster dictionary has chosen “austerity” as its 2010 Word of the Year.
It beat several other finalists after people flocked to the internet searching for its meaning during the Greece debt crisis.
Runners-up included “pragmatic”, “moratorium”, “socialism”, and “bigot.” (PA)
No Ho Ho Ho!
Santas across the US say they have fewer – if any – bookings this season, largely because of the struggling economy.
People apparently do not want to spend $125 an hour or more for a Santa to visit a party.
Nicholas Trolli, the president of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, said many were halving their hourly rates. (PA)