U2’s six homecoming gigs in Ireland sold out in about half an hour.
Tickets for the two shows in Belfast and four in Dublin appeared on reselling websites shortly afterwards with the biggest mark up hitting more than €3,408 for a pair of seats directly in front of the stage.
U2 management said the concerts sold out as fast as the sales could be processed. Despite doubts over the suitability of venues in Ireland for their Innocence + Experience shows, U2 only last week revealed plans to bring the tour home.
The band will play Belfast’s SSE Arena on November 18 and 19 before four nights at Dublin’s 3Arena on November 23 and 24 before breaking for a few days to return to the stage on November 27 and 28. Priced from €30 to €185 in Dublin, before added charges, hundreds of tickets began appearing online within hours at multiples of the face value.
Explorers head for no man’s land
Researchers are setting off on a 6,000 mile journey marking the centenary of the First World War to explore “no man’s lands” from England to Africa.
The expedition will travel through 18 countries from Nomansland, England to Bir Tawil, a disputed territory on the border between Egypt and Sudan, taking in borderlands and historic gaps in territories from the Western Front to the UN buffer zone in Cyprus.
The team aims to explore the origins and development of no man’s lands - a term dating back 1,000 years in the English language to describe pieces of unowned or unwanted land, cracks between international borders or disputed ground between armies.
Don’t have a cow, Mr Pynchon
It’s been a guessing game that has fascinated the book world all week: Did Thomas Pynchon write a campus farce called Cow Country and publish it in April under the pseudonym Adrian Jones Pearson?
The question was first raised in Harper’s magazine, which on Wednesday ran a long essay by the respected critic Art Winslow, who called the book “side-splittingly funny” and found enough similarities to Pynchon to make it plausible that the author of Gravity’s Rainbow had also written Cow Country.
The Associated Press traced the book’s publisher, Cow Eye Press, to an address in the Western United States and determined it was written by Anthony Perry. The AP then confirmed Perry’s identity with the literary scholar Steven Moore, who contributed a blurb to Cow Country.
True cost of pyramid scheme
Prosecuting the women who operated and promoted a £21 million pyramid scheme cost taxpayers at least £1.4 million - but those convicted paid back as little as £1 each.
The get-rich-quick con, named Give and Take (G&T), fleeced at least 10,000 people as it spread across Britain between May 2008 and April 2009.
One paid back £20,143, and two others were ordered to hand over just £1 as they had no realisable assets, but figures released following a Freedom of Information request by the Press Association showed it cost “not less” than £1,465,000 for the prosecution.
Snap decision on pond intruder
A man in Maryland in the US found a small alligator in his backyard pond. The man called 911 to report his discovery, telling the operator in a recording released by police: “This may sound a little crazy, but we have an alligator in our pond in the backyard.”
Montgomery County police and animal control officers responded with Maryland Natural Resources Police to the home in Brookeville, about 15 miles north of Washington, DC. After draining the pond, police say officers caught the three-foot alligator. It was taken to the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Frederick County.
Tall problem on midwest roads
For drivers in Midwestern farm country, the growing season brings a special danger on the roads: tall corn that can obscure other vehicles until its too late.
The plant’s broad leaves and thick stalks can stand up to 12 feet high, forming a wall of foliage that turns rural roads into narrow corridors of green, yellow and brown. Many junctions have no stop signs.