Tourist sparks bomb alert after accidentally ordering a 'grenade'
And other stories from the stranger side of life
A tourist triggered a bomb alert at a Lisbon restaurant when he mixed up the Portuguese words for "pomegranate" and "grenade" while trying to order a fruit juice. A language app gave the man from Azerbaijan the wrong word and he quickly found himself handcuffed and surrounded by armed police. His day got worse still when he was ordered to lie face down on the ground in the street as five officers immobilised him, then cuffed his hands. He was later released, reported The Telegraph.
Taylor Swift pumpkin completed
A US artist has made a model of Taylor Swift using a giant pumpkin, noted The Guardian. The item, made by Ohio-based Jeanette Paras, is called the 'Taylor Swiftkin'. It took 10 hours to paint and weighs 399lb (181kg). "This is probably my favourite character so far," said Paras, who has also painted gourds of Ted Lasso, Kim Jong-un and Rudy Giuliani. "I really think Taylor would like it."
Tiny police station opens in Crawley
Britain’s smallest police station has opened in Crawley. The 8ft by 6ft space, the size of a garden shed or small bus shelter, has been created in the town centre in response to recent stabbings and shoplifting. "Owing to its narrow nature" it has "room only for a couple of seats and has no cells in which to hold anyone placed under arrest", said The Times. "I've heard there have been cutbacks but this is ridiculous," said a local.
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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
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