ABRACADABRA

A barber @ US$ 10900 a month!

Paris: Short on the sides and thinning on top, French President Francois Hollande’s hair is kept perfectly groomed at a cost of almost 10,000 Euros a month, the Canard Enchaine weekly has reported.

The unpopular leader’s hair has never been the topic of scrutiny, unlike other high-profile male politicians such as US presidential candidate Donald Trump or former London mayor Boris Johnson. 

However the publication of the contract of his hairdresser, identified only as Olivier B., by the investigative newspaper had the French bristling over such extravagant spending by a Socialist president.“Everyone has their hair done, don’t they?” said French government spokesman Stephane Le Foll, who confirmed the hairdresser’s steep salary of 9,895 Euros (USD 10,900) a month.

PHOTOCHROMATIC T-SHIRT

New Delhi: Apparels based on your favourite television series will soon be passe with the recent launch of a new range of T-shirts that change colour and pattern as you move out from indoors into the sunlight, reports PTI.

A brainchild of indigenous apparel brand ‘Girggit,’ the unique collection of men’s t-shirts, “change their designs and colours with exposure to sunlight.” “The same T-shirt looks different in design and colours when the person shifts from indoor to the outdoor environment and vice versa. It almost seems magical,” the brand says.

One of the T-shirts, for instance, has a sketch of a girl lazing around besides a boy playing with a joystick on a white background. The illustration is topped with the text, “Your Tee Has No Colour.” However, as soon as it is exposed to light, the sketch becomes colourful and another text, “What Say Now?” pops up below the drawing.

According to the brand the idea behind bringing out this range is to cater to the section of customers that is looking to is to “wear something out of the box.” In an added advantage of this one-of-a-kind venture that blends quirk and fashion, a single T-shirt from the collection serves as two t-shirts, says Himanshu Thakur who has founded the start-up.

“As the design and colours of the T-shirt change with the change in location, a consumer pays for one but buys two different products in the real sense. It is a new concept and people are loving it,” he says.

The collection which is currently limited to men’s wear only, has been designed by the brand’s “ingenious team of young fashion designers.” “The fit and pattern of these t-shirts are snazzy as well as comfortable and are priced very reasonably,” the brand says.

We could have been Venuslings instead of Earthlings

Washiongton DC: Turns out, if conditions had been just a little different an eon ago, Venus, not Earth, would have been our home, says ANI. The idea isn’t so far-fetched, according to a hypothesis by Rice University scientists and their colleagues. Researchers maintain that minor evolutionary changes could have altered the fates of both Earth and Venus is ways that scientists may soon be able to model through observation of other solar systems, particularly ones in the process of forming, according to scientist Adrian Lenardic. The paper, he said, includes “a little bit about the philosophy of science as well as the science itself, and about how we might search in the future. It’s a bit of a different spin because we haven’t actually done the work, in terms of searching for signs of life outside our solar system, yet. It’s about how we go about doing the work.”

Killer escapes jail in veil

Jakarta: An Indonesian child murderer has escaped from jail by putting on a woman’s Muslim veil, make-up and sunglasses and walking out past unsuspecting guards, an official said.

Anwar bin Kim An, who raped and murdered a schoolgirl, made the bold breakout from a Jakarta prison by quietly changing into a woman’s outfit allegedly smuggled in by his wife when she visited during the Muslim Eid holiday.

“The wife gave him the woman’s clothing and he just changed his clothes in the meeting room where all the inmates meet with their families,” Jakarta police spokesman Awi Setiyono told AFP.

“He put on some lipstick and later walked away as a woman accompanied by his wife and their two children.” Prison CCTV footage obtained by local media showed the convict, in his 20s, walking out of the prison dressed as a woman and wearing sunglasses while holding one of his children.

Setiyono said Kim An managed to quietly change in the visitor’s room in the Salemba prison in central Jakarta as it was crowded and there were just a few guards.

It happened during Eid, when many people typically pay visits to jailed relatives. Setiyono admitted there were no security checks for female visitors at the jail, unlike for male visitors.

Police have launched a hunt for the escaped prisoner, who had been sentenced to life in jail but had been behind bars just four months.

His wife has been interrogated on suspicion of helping her husband escape but has not been detained, as she has two small children to look after, the spokesman said.

Kim An was convicted of the October rape and murder of the schoolgirl, who was reportedly 12 years old.

Breakouts are common in Indonesia’s prisons, which are overcrowded and poorly guarded.

And it is not the first time that an inmate has disguised himself as a woman to sneak out of prison — in 2012, a terror convict escaped from a high-security jail by wearing a full-length Muslim burqa.