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Funny old world: The week’s offbeat news

October 23, 2021 People's Tonight 300 views

PARIS (AFP) — From a war-mongering Corgi dog to a cross-country wife-carrying contest… Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

No longer a wiz

New Zealand is sacking its official sorcerer. After 40 years of spellbinding service to the city of Christchurch, municipal wizard Ian Brackenbury Channell is being sent to the broom cupboard.

But the charismatic 88-year-old, who has been paid $11,300 a year for half of that time “to provide acts of wizardry and other wizard-like-services” such as casting spells to influence rugby matches, is seething.

The modern Merlin was arrested when he first began wizarding in the city wearing a long, black robe and pointy hat.

But then his public spells and speeches became a tourist attraction and the council put him on the payroll.

This week the wizard denounced the council as “a bunch of bureaucrats who have no imagination.”

“I don’t like being cancelled,” he added.

So far he has not officially cursed them. But days after the announcement New Zealand was shaken by an earthquake…

Dogs of war

Who says the world would be safer in the hands of the young? The runner up in the animation category of this year’s Student Oscars is a movie called “Barking Orders”, which seems to play to the base bellicose instincts of Brexit Britain.

In it one of the Queen’s Corgi dogs inherits the throne and declares war on France with whom relations have grown somewhat tense since Britain voted to the leave the European Union.

“Nuking France wasn’t exactly a popular thought in the pitch room — they had a couple issues with that one,” joked director Alexander Tullo.

Get me to the temple on time

An Indian couple abandoned a wedding car and travelled to their marriage in a cooking pot after the southern state of Kerala was hit by deadly floods.

The pair enlisted two men to push the cauldron through the flooded streets and made it to their partially flooded venue on time.

In a video of the newly weds that went viral, a man can be heard saying, “Should have booked a boat instead of a car…”

Man’s burden

Whatever the discomforts of travelling by pot, it’s certainly more dignified than the North American Wife Carrying Championship in Newry, Maine which was won by US couple Olivia and Jerome Roehm for a record third time.

The cross-country race involves women being carried upside-down, thrown over their partners’ shoulders, getting the odd ducking in water obstacles as their heads trail through the mud.

Team spirit

A Northern Irish goalkeeper was sent off for decking one of his own defenders after their team conceded a late goal.

Glentoran’s Aaron McCarey swung at team mate Bobby Burns after he gave the ball away allowing Coleraine to equalise.

He then grabbed him by the shirt as he lay spreadeagled on the ground.

“Aaron’s held his hands up in the dressing room” afterwards, said Glentoran boss Mick McDermott. That way at least his teammates could be sure of getting out the door safety.

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