Patpong Museum: Who was Coppola's real-life Colonel Kurtz?

If you've ever seen the 1979 film Apocalypse Now you'll truly remember Colonel Kurtz, the enigmatic character played by Marlon Brando. It's said that Francis Ford Coppola was inspired by Anthony Poshepny, more simply known as Tony Poe.

Tony Poe fought for the US Marines on Iwo Jima in World War II before receiving two Purple Hearts and being discharged as a sergeant. Not one for shying from a life of action and intrigue, Poe joins the CIA and becomes active in the Korean War. Here he participates in the CIA's Paramilitary Operation Branch, training refugees for sabotage missions behind enemy lines. 

Struth! World's largest meat pie

Swiss precision sees meat pie record

FOUR Swiss chefs have found themselves on the front pages of their nation's newspapers, simply because they cooked a meat pie in the lead-up to Christmas.

And obviously not just any meat pie.

Because just like we'd do at home, their's had a pastry base filled with meat and other goodies (in this case beef and pork, bacon, garlic, onion and red wine, ) and on coming out of the oven sported a topping of crispy pastry all nicely folded and tucked to save any dribbling and spilling.

But any resemblance between ours and theirs ends-up there, for the Swiss job was a whopping 160cm long, 78cm wide and 11cm thick… and scaled-in at 86.75kg. (If you've not yet come to grips with metrics, that's 5ft 3ins long, 2ft 6ins wide and 4.3ins thick… and 191 pounds.)

All big enough to put the pie's makers, from the Swiss hotel management school Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, in the books of the World Record Academy for the world's largest-ever traditionally one-piece meat pie.

After a day to assemble and 40 hours to bake, the massive pie was put on public showing – and then cut up and given away to charities for the needy and homeless at Christmas.


PHOTO CAPTION:

[] ANYTHING but pie-eyed, these four Swiss chefs created the world's largest-ever traditionally one-piece meat pie, and after showing it off gave it away to the needy and homeless. (Hoteliere de Lausanne)

Struth! World's longest rail tunnel now open.

Swiss open longest, deepest rail tunnel

THE world's longest and deepest railway tunnel has officially opened to link Switzerland's north with its south, running an amazing 57km through the Swiss Alps at a depth in places 2.3 kilometres below the tips of the highest mountains above it.

Construction of the Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT), which is actually two parallel single-line tunnels, began in 1999 and took seventeen years to complete at a cost the equivalent of 16.5 billion Australian dollars.

And on December 11 it officially went into use with high speed passenger trains flashing through it at speeds of up to an incredible 250kmh on an almost-flat route from Erstfeld in the north to Bodio in the south.

And those trains take just 17 minutes to cover the whopping 57km length, with another tunnel to open in 2020 meaning for a reduction then of over an hour in current rail travel time between the major cities of Zurich, Lugano and Milan.

But the new GBT is not just a time-saver for rail passengers  – Swiss Federal Railways say the tunnel will be used by new freight trains as well, saving an incredible 1-million lorry journeys a year on roads through the Swiss Alps, thus reducing environmental damage enormously.

FOOTNOTE: When the Swiss Federal Railways decided to offer 1,000 free tickets on the first official train through the Tunnel last Sunday, they held a lottery to pick the lucky 1,000 travellers – and over 160,000 locals rushed to buy tickets in the lottery in the hope of getting one of those 1,000 seats.

(David Ellis)

                                                    …………………………….

PHOTO CAPTION:

[] TRAINS like this will flash at speeds of up to 250kmh some 2.3km deep in the Swiss Alps with the opening on December 11 of the world's longest and deepest rail tunnel.

    (Swiss Chamber Commerce & Industry)

World's shortest ferry ride

No need for a seat on this ferry

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that when it comes to ferry rides, the Canadian city of Toronto takes the cake for having the world's shortest.

Because the distance from Downtown to the city's Toronto Island with its City Centre Airport, is all of 121 metres (that's less than 400 feet) and takes the ferry a mere 90 seconds to complete.

Until July of 2015 when an underground pedestrian tunnel was opened, the ferry was the only means of public transport to the Airport in Lake Ontario, and which sees 2.5 million passenger movements a year on flights to and from 22 centres in Canada and the USA.

Free for passengers and with a small charge for a limited number of cars, the ferry operates every 15 minutes, nineteen hours a day. But with often long queues of waiting passengers during peak periods, it was decided to supplement it last year with the pedestrian tunnel 30 metres underground, and with two moving footways in each direction.

Including descent and ascent by lifts or escalators, and travel on the 240m long footways, that whole tunnel journey takes around six minutes… and overhead the ferry continues to operate unaffected on its unique 121 metre, 90 second journeys.




[] YOU won't get a shorter ferry ride than this – a mere 90 seconds to cover all of 121 metres. (PortsToronto)

Bank of England haunted by ghostly nun

STRUTH!

Sarah's haunting love for her brother

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that bizarrely, people in London still claim today they've been asked by Sarah Whitehead the same repeated question: "Have you seen my brother?"

Bizarrely, because Sarah's brother was hanged in London in 1812 for forgery at The Bank of England where he worked, and Sarah herself died 25 years later.

But to this day, people swear they've been stopped near the bank on Threadneedle Street by a little old lady dressed in widow's weeds of long black gown and black veil from another era, and asked that question.

Knowing how close Sarah was to her brother Paul (often misidentified in the media as Philip,) family members withheld from her that he had been hanged, and she began going regularly to the bank to ask his whereabouts when he didn't return to the home that they shared.

No one would say, until a clerk finally blurted out the truth, and at that moment Sarah's mind snapped. She donned widow's weeds and every day for six years returned asking to see Paul, ultimately also demanding money she said the bank now owed her.

In 1818 the bank agreed to pay her a significant amount on condition she not visit them again, and Sarah agreed. But after her death, her ghost – dubbed The Black Nun – began appearing regularly in the bank and along Threadneedle Street, with scores of sightings of her continuing to this day, 179 years after her death.

And each time she politely asks those she encounters the same question: "Have you seen my brother?" and when told "No," simply vanishes…



PHOTO CAPTION:

[] A SKETCHED likeness of Sarah Whitehead, London's ghostly Black Nun, and The Bank of England she reputedly haunts to this day. (Wikimedia)

Rebuilding the world's longest car

Struth! 100-footer was world's longest car

IN its hey-day, the 26-wheel, 100ft long American Dream carried its own helicopter, and needed a driver in both front and rear. (New York Autoseum)

David Ellis

STUDENTS at an automotive college in America's New York State have set themselves a massive task – they're rebuilding the world's longest car, a Cadillac-badged monster that's a whopping 100 feet, or just over 30 metres long.

The flamboyant auto was built in Burbank, California in the late 1980s by car buff Jay Ohrberg, who is both a collector and a specialist-vehicle builder for local movie and TV studios.

Basically a super-stretched 1970s Cadillac Eldorado and named American Dream, the monstrous 26-wheeler (with those wheels not only in front and back, but centre as well) had a special swivel in the middle so it could navigate around corners, and be taken apart for transporting on a low-loader to filming sites.

FORLORN: how it was found after being abandoned in an open carpark after Hollywood lost interest in its novelty value. It is now being rebuilt by students at an auto teaching museum in New York State. (New York Autoseum)

And on the road it needed specialist drivers both at the front and the rear.

Luxuries included a "living room" with a lounge and multiple-seat dining table with candelabra, a king-size bed, heated Jacuzzi tub, and an extended boot with splash pool and diving board covered by a folding landing pad for its own helicopter.

When Hollywood eventually lost interest in the American Dream it was simply abandoned in an open carpark and slowly stripped; in 2012 the New York Autoseum automotive teaching museum in the village of Mineola bought the forlorn-looking wreck at auction, and today it is being slowly rebuilt as a teaching project for students.

And that project, staff say, could take years.

The day Swedish drivers swapped sides

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that when Sweden decided to change to driving on the right side of the road 49 years ago this month, over 80% of drivers opposed the idea saying it would result in roadway carnage.

After all, they argued, Swedes had been driving on the left side of the road since the first horses and buggies hit the streets 233 years before in 1734.

But with all neighbouring countries driving on the right-hand side of the road, and the majority of Sweden's vehicles being left-hand drive imports, the government swept aside public opposition, and decreed in 1963 that driving on the right-hand side of the road would become law at 5am on September 3 1967.

A massive education program was initiated called Dagen H (Dagen meaning "day" and H for Hogertrafik "right-hand traffic.") Dagen H logos were printed on everything from milk cartons to bras, 130,000 Dagen H reminder signs erected along roadways nationwide, and Dagen H stickers slapped on anything that moved.

One-way roads, crossings, roundabouts and flyovers had to be redesigned, and 360,000 road signs were changed country-wide. Traffic lights were reversed and road lines repainted during the night before the change-over– and buses had to have new passenger doors cut into their right-hand sides.

Then on September 3 only essential vehicles were allowed from 0100 to 0600, with these forced to stop at 0450, and at 0500 to cross carefully to the other side of the road.

And on the first "working Monday" after, there were 125 non-fatal traffic accidents nationwide – compared with 198 normally.



[] CHANGING from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right-hand side had its confusion for drivers in Sweden in 1967, but the country survived.

Struth! ride the world's longest escalator

Longest escalator rises to the need

IF you want to add riding the world's longest outdoor escalator and moving footway system to your list of achievements, you'll need to go to Hong Kong to do so because the one there is without doubt the world's longest, and takes an extraordinary twenty minutes to ride from end to end.

Covering a whopping 800 metres (around 2,600 feet) and with a vertical rise of 135 metres (443 feet) between bottom and top, it joins the lower Central business district of the city with the higher residential Mid-Levels district by way of eighteen inter-connecting escalators and three inclined moving footways.

Opened in October 1993 at a cost of HK$240m (AU$41m) and more than 150% over-budget, the system was forecast to carry 27,000 people a day, but within ten years double this number were patronising it daily. And currently its closer to 90,000 daily – over three times more than the original forecasts.

Because the route that it follows is so narrow between Hong Kong's high-rises, it has only one "lane" and thus can run in only one direction at a time… so that's downhill from 6am to 10am to get people from the residential Mid-Levels to work and shopping, and then uphill from Central from 10am to midnight to get them home again.

And with locals and the millions of tourists who use it each year also having to get off and then back onto the system where it breaks for the roads it encounters, restaurants, bars and shops have flourished around each of these break points.

- David Ellis

PHOTO CAPTION:


[] HONG KONG boasts the world's longest escalator and moving footway running 800 metres down the side of this narrow pedestrian way between the Mid-Levels residential area and lower Central Business district. (Photo courtesy Maucaine)                                    

Mario's life at sea is his business

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that while most of us like talking about our week or two going cruising every year or so, businessman Mario Salcedo instead talks about the week or so he spends going ashore every year or so…

Because for the last twenty years, Mario has lived and run his investment advisory and management company year-round from aboard 5-star cruise ships, most of them the luxury liners of Royal Caribbean Lines.

And he reckons he's done nearly 1000 cruises in those 20 years, chalked-up around 6000 nights at sea, and spent in the vicinity of US$1,400,000 doing so. And all after being bitten by the cruise bug at age 45 when he "wanted to discover the world," and setting up his own company to do so.

Booking interior staterooms because he says he only uses them to sleep in, shower and dress, Mario eats only two meals a day for his weight's sake, and does a lot of walking and scuba diving when in port to keep fit… and loves socialising at night either dancing or while enjoying an after-dinner cigar and a cognac.

Mario spends 50 weeks a year at sea, with the other two made up of travel between ports to change ships – or to see his doctor or the bank.

And bizarrely he maintains a condominium in home-town Miami – complete with a maid he drops his laundry off to whenever a ship he is on visits town, and a car he likes to keep handy in the event he might need it on one of those ship visits.


[] MARIO Salcedo has lived and run his investment advisory business year-round from aboard cruise ships for the past twenty years. (Royal Caribbean Lines)

Struth! Southern Highlands tulip Wonderland

                                                                                    

IN his continuing search for the more eye-catching in this world, David Ellis says that if you're a green thumb and into all things florally and Springtime, the place to head this month is the NSW Southern Highlands.

Because just an hour or so south of Sydney, one of Australia's oldest and most-visited floral festivals will attract something like 65,000 visitors for the 65th annual Tulip Time from September 13th to 25th.

Ablaze at Bowral's famed Corbett Gardens will be 75,000 tulips and 15,000 annuals, and with a theme of Alice in Wonderland, garden bed displays will cleverly depict such scenes as the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, the Cheshire Cat, Big Clock, Playing Cards and more.

And a further 40,000 tulips will add more rainbows of colour to parks and gardens across the Southern Highlands' other major towns of Mittagong and Moss Vale, and a score of surrounding picturesque villages.

On Saturday September 17th a Street Parade through Bowral will include marching bands, floats, vintage farm equipment, street performers, a procession of classic cars – and 140 cyclists who'll have just pedalled down from Sydney raising money for brain cancer research.

As well a heritage steam train will bring scores of other visitors from Sydney for not just the gardens, but the region's internationally-famed street dining and shopping, and a Tulip Time market-place crammed with local foodstuffs and beverages, home-wares, clothing and jewellery… while awaiting wine buffs will be the area's famed boutique wineries.

It's a long way from Bowral's first 500-bulb Tulip Time in 1960; for information and free assistance with booking accommodation call1300 657 559, or visit southern-highlands.com.au to book online.


[] 75,000 tulips and 15,000 flowering annuals in Bowral's Corbett Gardens will be the centre-piece for this month's 65th Southern Highlands Tulip Time festival. (Courtesy Southern Highlands News)

Struth! World's smallest hotel rooms in NYC Skid Row

Smallest hotel rooms toe the line

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says you would think that a hotel with the world's smallest rooms, and in the heart of its city's once-Skid Row, would need to do some pretty fancy footwork to promote itself.

But not The Bowery House Hostel in New York City's now-famous The Bowery, that from the 1940s to '90s was home to that city's Skid Row, it's Bowery Bums, notorious street gangs and flophouses.

Because today's The Bowery House concedes that its 110 historic and "compact" rooms have just enough space to shuffle 'tween beds and walls and that some of those beds have even had to be cut-down to under six feet (around 175cm) to fit in. They are even called 'cabins'.

And that while stowing your luggage can be a juggling act, and toilets and showers are shared down the corridor, there's a great rooftop terrace with city views, and there's free Wi-Fi.

NOW that's a small hotel room: One of New York's tiniest
Bowery House Hostel rooms - but location and price
are a magnet for the budget-conscious. (BoweryHouseHostel)

Thus budget-conscious travellers flock to this circa-1920s hotel whose rooms were sub-divided into multiple temporary digs in the 1940s for troops returning from WWII and are still only just big enough today for a single or double bed and side table.

But no longer is the surrounding Bowery district Skid Row, instead its now all trendy shops, bars, cafés and galleries, and just a short stroll to the Lower East Side, Little Italy, SoHo and Chinatown. And with plenty of other major attractions only minutes away by subway.

Prices start from just AU$102 for The Bowery House's most minuscule single-bed rooms. See  www.theboweryhouse.com

Struth! bizarre tests for China's glass deck bridge

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that in one of the more bizarre acts of confidence, builders of a bridge in China that has a glass decking so users will have the feeling of walking in space, are going to have volunteers try their hardest to actually shatter that bridge's see-through decking before it officially opens in July.

On the 25th of this month, with scores of TV crews and newspaper journalist watching-on, the volunteers will be given hammers to try to break panels of the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge, and when that hopefully fails, twenty of them will jump up and down on the hammered glass panels – and finally a car laden with passengers will be driven onto it.

The bridge designer, Israeli architect Haim Dotan say that all this will prove just how strong is the glass on the 430m (1,400ft) long bridge, and while an upper layer may possibly crack, the layers below will not (because if they do, those undertaking the tests know they will have a horrible 300m fall to the river below.)

The Zhangjiajie bridge will be the longest and highest glass-deck bridge in China when it opens next month 60km south-west of Zhangji in Hunan Provence, and according to Mr Dotan will be strong enough to carry 800 users at a time.

Those who suffer acrophobia (fear of heights,) are advised to give it a wide berth.



[] CHINA'S longest and highest glass deck bridge during its early construction phase; bizarre tests on June 25 will prove just how strong the glass floor panels really are.   (Haim Dotan Architects.)

Struth! World's Longest Bridge with world's fastest trains

China Says Now This Is A Bridge


IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that when it comes to bridges, China's got the rest of the planet beaten by a country mile for having the longest one in the world.

Because it's Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge between the cities of those two names, stretches an incredible 164km, or 102 miles, and took 10,000 workers four years to build using some 450,000 tonnes of steel and 1,800,000 cubic metres of concrete.

On average 31m (100 feet) over lowland farms and rice paddies, canals, rivers and lakes, and winding its way around cities and towns along the way, the bridge was built as part of the 1,300km (811 miles) Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway.

And while it was completed in 2010, a whole year was taken testing it with train after train running its whole length over and again to ensure its stability, and with the first official passengers going aboard on June 11 2011.

The Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge cost the equivalent of AU$11.5b to build, with a mix of thirty-three high-speed and express trains now using it at any one time daily, and offering Second Class, more spacious First Class and luxury Business Class options.

And the fastest trains have only one stop along the 164km journey, helping trains on the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway do that 1,300km trip in just 4-hours-48-minutes at speeds of up to 300km an hour.

                                                         ………………

PHOTO CAPTION:

[] A BRIDGE too far – just a tiny part of China's 164km long Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge, the longest in the world. (Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway)

Struth! Pet therapy for nervous flyers

Nervous flyers go to the dogs

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that jittery flyers at some thirty-odd airports in the United States, and four in Canada, are being helped through pre-flight panic attacks by teams of special pooches that are part of a unique program called PUP… Pets Unstressing Passengers.

And it all came about because a volunteer airport chaplain simply took his dog to work with him for company at San Jose's International Airport after the infamous 9/11: so many nervous flyers patted and befriended the friendly little animal, that the airport officially made it a first-ever "therapy dog."

The concept quickly took off with other airports following suit, PUP owners every week now volunteering an hour or two of their time – and that of their dogs – and with Los Angeles International (LAX) alone having 40 pooches of numerous varieties on its roster for daily visits.

Director of Volunteers at LAX, Heidi Huebner says many things can stress passengers: a genuine fear of flying, crowds, daunting queues, terrorism concerns, flying to a funeral, to visit sick family members, or to attend stressful meetings.

"You can literally feel the stress levels drop when people see and befriend our dogs… those previously nervous start smiling, strangers begin talking to each other, everybody goes on their way feeling really, really good," she says.

"One passenger whose husband of 40 years had just told her he wanted a divorce, saw our PUP at LAX, knelt down and wept on its shoulder… the dog just sat there as she let it all out: he could feel…"

And the parents of a 5-year old with autism now arrange for a PUP to meet her whenever she flies home to LAX, it's greeting immediately relieving the child's pent-up anxiety from the flight.

For more information about the program  look at petsunstressingpassengers.com



                                                            ………………..

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

[] JUST some of the forty PUP volunteers and their pets helping daily de-stress nervous flyers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX.) (Photo courtesy of PUP)

[] PASSENGERS of all ages quickly pal-up with the friendly pooches of the PUP program at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX.) (Photo courtesy of PUP)

Struth! Wrong passenger on wrong flight on wrong airline, but still arrives

WRONG HONG TURNS OUT ALRIGHT

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says it pays to check that boarding pass before you get on your plane, or like Ms. Hong did from Taipei's Taoyuan Airport last month, setting in motion a bewildering chain of events

Because she not only was she given the wrong boarding pass, she was put on the wrong plane and the wrong airline – but did end up in the right city.

The 34 year old's Hong Kong boyfriend had booked her on a flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, but being an inexperienced flyer she went to the check-in counter of Cathay Pacific (CX) instead of the one she was booked on, Hong Kong Airlines (HX).

And somehow the clerk happily accepted her ticket and issued her with a boarding pass in the name of a male passenger with the same surname on the Cathay Pacific flight.

Curiously she was then able to pass through Immigration without anyone querying that she was a Ms travelling on a ticket in the name of a Mr, waited in the wrong airline's passenger holding area, and was checked onto the wrong plane of the wrong airline by yet another clerk who also did not pick-up that she was a Ms on a Mr ticket.

And because she arrived in Hong Kong at roughly the same time she would have on the Hong Kong Airlines flight she was supposed to be on, her boyfriend had no idea of what she had done… until HX called him to say his girlfriend had been a no-show and thus missed her flight.

To their surprise he told them that she was in fact standing right next to him then and there in Hong Kong.

Now both airlines and Taipei Immigration authorities are investigating how the lady could have got through Immigration and flown on the wrong ticket and wrong airline with so many discrepancies in her documentation – and wondering just what happened to the Mr on whose boarding pass she had made her flight.

Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines worked together to ensure the Taiwanese resident made a safe return trip, and she was even granted use of Cathay's executive lounge.

A spokesperson for Cathay Pacific confirmed the incident, saying there had been an 'error in the check-in procedures.'

Struth! Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday gift

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis wonders if anyone has ever given a gift so unique as that bestowed by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson upon a 12-year-old American girl in Samoa in 1891.

For his gift to her was his birthday.

In the hope of improving his poor health Stevenson, his wife Fannie Osbourne and her son Lloyd from a previous marriage had gone to Samoa after living in Sydney for a short time, and there met America's local Land Commissioner, Mr Henry C. Ide – who confided how sad his daughter Annie was that she had never had a real birthday because she had been born on Christmas Day.

So Stevenson penned her a letter commiserating as to how she had been "denied the consolation and profit of a Proper Birthday," and added this deed:

I do hereby transfer to A.H. Ide, All and Whole of my rights and privileges in the 13th day of November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the birthday of the said A. H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise and enjoy the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment, eating of rich meats and receipt of gifts, compliments and copies of verse, according to the manner of our ancestors.

… and I charge her to use my said birthday with moderation and humanity, the said birthday not being so young as it once was and having carried me in a very satisfactory manner since I can remember.

I hereto set my hand and seal this 19th day of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-one.
- Robert Louis Stevenson.

Struth! Hotel lost and found reveals bizarre finds

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says a recent meeting of hoteliers in England decided they'd need a book the size of a metropolitan telephone directory to list the bizarre range of items guests had left in their hotel's rooms.

For in just 12 months they included an urn with the ashes of one man's mother-in-law, a blow-up, anatomically well-endowed sheep, a live 2-metre snake in a parrot cage, and such bodily accessories as staring glass eyes, false arms and legs, hearing aids, and countless sets of false teeth soaking in everything from glasses of wine to, in one case, the hotel's toilet disinfectant.

A live rabbit with a leather collar and walking-lead around its neck was found cowering in one room, a pet tarantula spider in a round glass fish tank in another, and in one hotel's garage an overlooked thoroughbred race-horse was found tied up after a local race meeting that had been held three days before.

And after a week one sheepish guest returned to a country town's budget hotel that was popular with prostitutes, to claim his forgotten car keys – for a $325,000 Porsche.

Staff also found a 2-metre working model of a helicopter left in one pub room, a police car siren connected to a 12V battery in another… and a life-size dummy of comedian, actor and TV presenter, Sir Lenny Henry in yet another.

Hoteliers said they couldn't even begin to estimate the number of sex toys left after one-night stands, and all agreed that the most-often left items were phone chargers… last year in just one major chain alone 42,000 were left plugged into power points by forgetful guests.

Jane Bednall, from Holiday Inn, said: "It's quite unbelievable just how much is left behind by our guests each year. The phone chargers would easily stretch across the English Channel.

"Most items are not re-claimed and after six months we donate anything of value to local charities."



[] PHONE chargers are the most-often left items in English hotel rooms, an amazing 42,000 of them last year in just one major hotel chain alone.

Struth! Notting Hill movie park bench secret

MOVIE'S PARK BENCH A PERTH TREASURE

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says there's a park bench in Perth's Queens Gardens that looks like it could be any old-style bench in any gardens in any part of the world.

But this one has fame on its side, if not many visitors are actually aware, for a history that's both equally famous and sad.

Famous because it was the park bench on which Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant talked love in the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill.

THE park bench from the 1999 romantic comedy, Notting Hill –
 now a "treasure" for Perth's Queens Gardens with its history that's
 both richly famous and sad. (ParksPhotography)

And sad because a Perth man subsequently bought the bench after the film had creamed the box office, and gave it as a birthday gift to his girlfriend – and one day when they sat on it, proposed to her.

Unfortunately for him his plea was rebuffed, the relationship ended… and he finished up with the bench, which he decided to give to the Gardens, so that with its history it could be enjoyed by others.

Now considered something of a Gardens "treasure" it still has the words carved onto it from the film: "For June who loved this garden, from Joseph who always sat beside her."

The donor insisted that despite the value of his gift to the Gardens his identity always remain secret, the only clue to he and the lady who rejected his hand in marriage being "Rodd & Nicole 2002," etched behind the bench's top rail.

Struth! World's scariest airport

WHEN their Dutch administrators told them that an airstrip on their tiny Caribbean Island of Saba was "an impossibility," the locals took-to and hand-built this one themselves. (Wikipedia)

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that those who have done it say that landing by plane on the tiny Netherlands Antilles island of Saba in the Caribbean is the most-hair-raising you'll encounter anywhere, somewhat akin they'll tell you, to landing on an aircraft carrier.

Because at just under 400 metres the airstrip is the shortest commercial landing field in the world, it's got steep cliffs dropping immediately into the sea at both ends, an equally deep and sheer drop close to one side, and a towering mountain near to the other side.

And then there's the wind…

And bizarrely when the Dutch government said it couldn't build them an airstrip the 1,850 Sabans decided to do the job themselves, hand clearing the only level spot on the tiny 13sq km blob (5sq miles) – just as they'd hand-built their own road around the island when Dutch engineers told them a road through that mountainous terrain was "an impossibility" too.

Just one aircraft flies the 12-minute route from neighbouring St Maarten Island several times a day, Winair's little 16-seat Twin Otter whose pilots agree that landing and coming to an abrupt stop on Saba so as not to run off the other end, is "something of an art form."

Struth! Worlds biggest pumpkin pie feeds 4000

Pumpkin Pie Big Enough To Feed 4,000

IN his continuing search for the more weird and wondrous in this world, David Ellis says that when the good folks of New Bremen in Ohio were looking for something special as a centrepiece for their annual PumpkinFest back in 2010, they thought what better than an oversize pumpkin pie that would really get tongues wagging.

And wag they did, for that pumpkin pie is still recognised five years later by the Guinness Book of Records as being the Biggest Pumpkin Pie Ever Made, and a fitting tribute in this little farming town that's a major supplier of pumpkins for the American market, and has developed novelty Giant Pumpkins that can weigh as much as 900kg (nearly 2000 pounds.)

For their 2010 record-breaking pumpkin pie, New Bremen's Giant Pumpkin Growers covered an enormous, "pie tray" that was custom-built for the occasion with 440 sheets of pie-crust dough, and for the actual filling had nine volunteer chefs whip together 550kg of mashed pumpkin, 2,796 eggs, 413 litres of evaporated milk, 238kg of sugar, 3.2kg of salt, and 6.5kg of cinnamon.

Then at midnight on the eve of their 2-day PumpkinFest they popped their now-1,678kg pie (that's 3,699 pounds, or 1.7 tonnes) into a specially made oven, cooked it for five hours, let it stand and cool for a further two – and finally after cutting a massive wedge out to display during their Festival, divided the remainder into over 4000 slices for an appreciative crowd of 'Fest-goers.



PHOTO CAPTION:



[] NINE volunteer chefs put together this 1,678kg (1.7 tonnes) Pumpkin Pie at the annual PumpkinFest in the little Ohio township of New Bremen.

(Photo: Greg Reynolds, New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers Assoc.)