ABRACADABRA

When X'mas left Britons poorer


London: Christmas has left millions of Britons in debt, as one in four-22 percent-said they would not have been able to afford Christmas without borrowing.
A survey by consumer group found that nearly half of Britons — 46 percent — used credit cards, overdrafts, store cards or payday loans to fund the festivities, the Daily Express reported.
Average borrowings were 301 pounds but six percent took 500-1,000 pounds while two percent borrowed more than 1,000 pounds.
Five percent had to borrow from friends or family.Despite this, 56 percent spent less on Christmas this year than last year, with 43 percent cutting back significantly, the daily said.
Soaring food prices meant 48 percent did not buy as much to eat and 45 percent bought lower quality food.
With energy and food costs rising, the survey also found that people don’t feel positive about the New Year, with 54 percent expecting their household budgets to be squeezed even tighter.


With vodka, stranded elephants roar to life


Two Indian elephants, owned by a travelling Polish circus, were transported from Novokuznetsk to Omsk, an official said. The hay in the truck caught fire from the diesel engine heating the cargo section, where the elephants were.
The truck had to be stopped and the elephants promptly released. They escaped the fire unharmed, but were left stranded on a Siberian highway in winter.
The handler made the animals jog so that they did not freeze, the official said.
Meanwhile, local authorities were alerted and the animals were moved into a heated garage nearby.
As an added precaution, the elephants were served two cases of vodka mixed with warm water.
"They roared like it was the jungle... Must have been happy," the official said.
The pachiderms got away with minor frostbite to their legs and tips of their ears, nothing that would disrupt their performance schedule, a spokeswoman for the Omsk city circus said.
Their handler was hospitalised, also with frostbite.

Now, talking fork that makes bizarre sounds while eating

London : Japanese researchers have developed a new talking fork that speaks different words and plays bizarre sounds while a person eats. The fork contains a micro-controller, a speaker, amplifier and battery within its handle, and generates a variety of sounds depending on the type of food being eaten.
The sounds are apparently generated by the resistance value of the food as it is bitten off the fork – the noise it produces as she eats a chicken nugget sounds remarkably similar to a chicken clucking, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.
The fork is the concept of a research group from the Ochanomizu University in Tokyo. A video about the instrument shows a woman enjoying bites of numerous types of foods as the fork produces some rather odd sound-effects and even speaks to her.
When the lady in the video tucks into a piece of tempura the fork proclaims “Garigori” and “Shori” while a stick of cheese produces the word “Paku”. Apparently longer pieces of food will cause the fork to produce multiple sounds and words while they are eaten. As the lady licks ice-cream off it, it produces a rather high pitched and fast spoken “pakupaku”.  Researchers from the Ochanomizu University in Tokyo aimed to inspire people to try different types of food and encourage a more varied diet, the report said. They also suggest the fork be used as a communication tool for couples. 

British neighbours spend $64,000 on feud over a bin

London: Two British neighbours went on to spend a whopping 40,000 pounds (about $64,300) in a legal dispute over a moveable garbage bin.
The legal tangle started after one of the neighbours named Liaquat Ali refused to shift a bin from the drive their neighbours share. It infuriated his neighbour Iqbal Suleman, who complained that the bin blocked his van, The Sun reported.
“My wife and I moved the bin to the widest part of the alleyway at the back where we know any van or car will fit through easily,” said Ali, a computer analyst.
As the matter could not be settled, Suleman engaged lawyers to write to Ali.
“Then we received a lawyer’s letter about ‘damages’ and ‘losses’. We thought it was a joke,” said Ali.
As the battle headed to court, Ali fixed four CCTV cameras to spy on Suleman, 45, and his bin in Edgware town in London. But his costs soared to 36,370 pounds after his lawyers compiled 40 pages of evidence.
Suleman hit back with 300 pages of photos and witness statements. By defending himself, he spent 2,000 pounds.

20% of Britons use bed- sheets for over a month

London : Nearly one fifth of Britons do not change their sheets at least once a month, that could give rise to host of health problems, ranging from asthma to rhinitis and eczema, reports media.
A survey of more than 2,000 people in the UK found that more than half of them sleep in dirty sheets – and women are more lax when it comes to bedroom hygiene, the Daily Mail reported. The research found just two in five of Britons change their sheets weekly – in line with the standards of TV’s cleaning gurus Kim and Aggie.
A further 36 per cent change bedsheets fortnightly, while 17 per cent admit to changing dirty sheets just once a month or even less frequently. Meanwhile six per cent of house-proud people stripped the sheets more than once a week, one per cent of people admitted they were changed just once a year, while three per cent had no idea.
But 40 per cent of men managed a weekly change, and a further eight per cent did it even more frequently than that, commissioned for the home retailer Dunelm Mill. Dr Adam Fox, a paediatric allergist at a leading London teaching hospital, warned that dirty sheets could exacerbate a number of health problems.
“We spend about a third of our lives asleep and this is reflected in the debris that we leave between the sheets. Our bodies shed millions of skin cells each day, many of which rub off in our sleep and are deposited in our beds. In addition to skin cells, our bodies also secrete fluids, sweat and oils during a long nights sleep,” Fox said.




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