Sir Winston Churchill appeared at an auction house and entered a gruelling bidding war to try and win back his spectacles – or rather his lookalike did.
The former Prime Minister’s double, who goes by the name of Derek Humbert when he is not impersonating Churchill, was in Northamptonshire to try to reclaim the tortoiseshell spectacles on behalf of their original manufacturers. The plastic-framed reading glasses, which once perched on the end of Mr Churchill’s nose, were made in 1954 by CW Dixey & Son for the former Prime Minister who was often seen wearing the distinctive spectacles when appearing in public.
Complete with a blue leather-covered case, they were sold by auctioneers JP Humbert yesterday for £11,200. But Mr Churchill’s double was unlucky in his attempt to win back the glasses, eventually losing out to a telephone bidder. (PA)
Killer leopard
A leopard not previously thought to be dangerous has killed a member of a German television crew making an episode in Namibia of a popular series, production company NDF has said.
“The animal was thought to be completely docile. Some members of the team even stroked him before,” a spokesman said after the deadly incident outside the former German colony’s capital Windhoek.
The 46-year-old victim was part of a team preparing an episode of Um Himmels Willen (For Heaven’s Sake), a light-hearted and long-running series set in and around a Bavarian nunnery.
“He completely unexpectedly went for her throat,” Ulf Tubbesing, a Namibian-German TV vet who owned the farm where the tragedy took place, told the Bild daily.
The woman died of her wounds at the scene. (AFP)
Flight panic
Nigerian authorities said yesterday they arrested a suspect over a bomb threat call that caused panic on a flight before takeoff.
The secret police said the call had been traced to a five-star hotel in Abuja and a man had been arrested there.
“During interrogation, the subject claimed that he called the passenger based on a vision from God,” the statement said, adding, “He also claimed that he is Jesus Christ who died 2,000 years ago. It then became apparent that he is mentally unstable.”
An emergency evacuation of a flight before takeoff in Port Harcourt was ordered on Wednesday after a Nigerian actress, Hilda Dokubo, received a call warning her that explosives had been planted on the aircraft carrying 98 passengers. She said it was an unknown caller who “asked me and other passengers to immediately disembark because the aircraft was infused with explosive devices that would explode when we’re airborne.” (AFP)
Lifetime award
Novelist Julian Barnes has been honoured with a major award for a lifetime’s achievement in literature.
The writer, whose novels include Flaubert’s Parrot and Arthur And George, was given the £40,000 David Cohen Prize for Literature at a ceremony at the British Library in London.
He said: “The measure of a literary award’s value lies in its list of previous winners.
“Over the last 18 years the David Cohen Prize has established itself as the greatest honour a British or Irish writer can receive within these islands. It is also conducted with proper secrecy and dignity. So it is a matter of sober delight to be added to the list of prize-winners.”
Previous winners include Harold Pinter, William Trevor and Doris Lessing. (AFP)
Age limit
Male foreigners over the age of 50 have been outlawed from marrying Cambodian women in the country under new rules designed to crack down on sham marriages and human trafficking, the government said yesterday.
Foreigners who earn less than $2,550 per month are also barred from wedding local women but the restrictions do not apply to weddings taking place overseas.
Marriages between old men and young women are “inappropriate”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said, and foreign men who wish to marry nationals must earn a high salary to ensure that “Cambodian women can live a decent life”.
However, Kek Galabru, president of a human rights group, said the new guidelines go against the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women as, “women will not be allowed to marry men who are over 50... while Cambodian men can marry any foreign woman they choose.” (AFP)