A flower show is using DNA technology to ensure a £1,000 giant tomato prize is not won by a cheating grower.
Organisers of the Harrogate Autumn Flower Show have responded to competitors’ concerns that an unscrupulous gardener might sneak in a rogue variety of tomato to the championship.
The show is running a Gigantomo class, with a £1,000 top prize sponsored by a mail order plant specialist, which means entries must be from that strain of the plant.
Golfers do a hole-in-one double
Two golfers achieved an amazing double when they both sank a hole-in-one on the same hole.
Mark Avis and Aaron Saddleton were playing at the Royal Norwich Golf Club when they achieved the rare feat on the par-three ninth hole. Bookmaker Paddy Power said the odds of two amateur golfers scoring aces at the same hole were 25 million to one.
Mr Saddleton, 29, from Norwich, was the first to tee off at the 135-yard hole and was delighted to sink an ace. But he had little time to celebrate as Mr Avis, 43, of Attleborough, Norfolk, quickly stepped up and repeated the achievement. (PA)
Early Christmas for firefighters
Two fire crews rushed to a home after a Christmas pudding caught fire.
Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service was called to the flat at Barum Court in Litchdon Street, Barnstaple.
Crews discovered a “small fire involving a Christmas pudding within a microwave”, a fire service spokesman said. The damage was confined to the Christmas pudding and crews made the area safe before ventilating the property. (PA)
Deer get munchies for cannabis
Deer got the munchies at an industrial hemp crop in southern Oregon in the US when they accessed the plants after bypassing barbed wire fencing.
“Generally, I don’t think they like cannabis. They liked ours though,” said Cliff Thomason, an estate agent who is the steward of the first industrial hemp crop in Oregon, which was planted near Murphy.
The company planted roughly 1,000 plants in the section the deer got into, and Mr Thomason said there are only about 40 left. Industrial hemp has a low level of THC, the psychoactive property of marijuana. (PA)
Warrior king’s spear is missing
Part of a spear belonging to the statue of warrior King Kamehameha in Hawaii has gone missing.
Police on Hawaii’s Big Island are asking the public for help locating the top section of the spear that is part of the statue in Hilo.
The bronze spear with a golden tip is about 6ft long. Kamehameha the First is known for uniting the Hawaiian islands in 1810. (PA)
Zuma dodges Zulu dancing girls
South Africa’s annual Zulu Reed Dance ceremony was disrupted by hallucinating girls who swarmed the country’s president, according to a Johannesburg newspaper.
Teenage girls dancing in the annual cultural festival heard voices and rushed towards the area where president Jacob Zuma and Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini were seated during the ceremony in KwaZulu-Natal province. The president’s bodyguards escorted him away from the thousands of colourfully clad dancers, according to The Star.
Mr Zuma’s spokesman, who was at the ceremony, said the newspaper reports were exaggerated. “There was no danger to the president,” Bongani Majola told the Associated Press. The Zulu king is reported to have told the crowd: “There are some of you who came here with evil spirits to spoil this event.” (PA)