Edinburgh: An urgent appeal by a Scottish theatre company seeking human urine for a performance has been declared a success. The plea came after a barrel of urine set to be be used in the show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was damaged last week.
The Theatre Cryptic company claimed it had to fill 21 glass bottles with urine before opening night at the weekend. As a result of the appeal 15 to 20 young men came to Scotland's Theatre Gateway to deposit their urine in an array of milk bottle containers.
Those who spent a penny were thanked with tickets to the show, Each And Every Inch, directed by Cathie Boyd, which runs until August 29th at the theatre.
Paddy Cuthbert of Podge Publicity said: "About 15 to 20 guys turned up and filled the bottles. It went really well, we sent them in and gave them a milk bottle and one at a time they filled their bottle. A lot of them were bursting and came in with half empty bottles of mineral water so they had been drinking water so they could go. They went away with free tickets."
Dublin: Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist.
Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilisation developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves.
Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly.
"I am amazed no one has come up with this before, it's incredible," he said. "Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles long, 200 miles wide, and widest across the middle. They both have a central plain surrounded by mountains. I've looked at geographical data from the rest of the world and of the 50 largest islands there is only one that has a plain in the middle - Ireland."
San Francisco: An Italian pharmacist swam from the former prison island of Alcatraz to San Francisco with his hands and feet tied on Friday, the first such feat in more than three decades.
"I'm feeling good but a bit cold," Alberto Cristini told Reuters shortly after completing the roughly 3-kilometre swim in an hour and 50 minutes. "The currents were were strong when I started out but everything turned out well." A resident of Rovigo near Venice, Cristini, 43, had his hands and legs tied with thick rubber bands. He wore a black wet suit, pointed his hands forward and kicked with his legs.
By the time he arrived at Chrissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge, he looked pale and his eye were bloodshot.
Although currents between Alcatraz and San Francisco were said to be so strong and waters so cold that no prisoner could escape, others have made the swim.
Greece: Greece's Orthodox Church said yesterday it was praying for athletes competing in the Athens Olympics not to be lazy. "Athletes and sports fans should spend the days of the Olympic Games abhorring evil, clinging to good, led by brotherly love and should not be slothful," the church said in a statement.
The church says sloth is one of man's deadly passions that should be resisted. "The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece prays also to the Lord for the Games to be conducted in a spirit of mutual love and peace, away from conflict, away from acts of violence and demonstration of cruelty," the church said.
The church's leaders, keen to showcase Greece's Orthodox heritage during the Olympics, have sent out a circular to their black-robed priests to dress properly, tidy up churches and ring church bells sparingly so as not to disturb athletes and fans.
Italy: A southern Italian town is hoping to set a world record with the creation of a 700 metre-long meat and salami sandwich.
Bakers and construction workers in the southern Puglia hilltop town of Mottola baked, stuffed and then cut a 1,500-kilogram (3,307 lb) submarine sandwich into 19,000 pieces.
Some 50 construction workers with cranes were needed to pass the lengthy loaf of bread on a conveyor through a massive oven, which cooked it in sections, before it was stuffed with 300 kilograms of mortadella and 200 kilograms of salami and laid out in the streets.
Seven workers from the local "Catucci" bakery worked together for almost 24 hours to beat the previous Italian record set in the northern city of Milan with a 347-metre sandwich that was filled with Nutella chocolate spread.
"The mega-sandwich required up to 800 kilograms of flour, 400 litres of water and 200 kilograms of salt," said Pietro Catucci, 40, the creator of the competition.