A glance at the week that was
Stately tales
This week saw the release of State papers from 30 years ago and, as usual, there were some colourful revelations. For instance, civil servants were told to wear more clothes to save on heating bills during the oil crisis, and the department of foreign affairs paid £4,000 to transport an elephant to Ireland that was sent from the Tanzanian president to Irish president Dr Patrick Hillery.
Meanwhile, alcohol was secretly shipped to the Irish embassy in Saudi Arabia because even the Saudis expected that booze would be served up at any diplomatic functions.
Asteroid alert
While most of us are looking forward to this year, the Russians have set their sights a bit farther afield – the 2030s. That’s the decade that an asteroid is due to make a few close passes by the Earth, so the Russians have announced that they are going to try and deal with this global problem by figuring out ways of diverting it.
It only has a one in 250,000 chance of hitting the planet, the risk having been downgraded by NASA, but according to the head of Russia’s space agency hundreds of millions should be spent to save the world from potential catastrophe.
Completely and utterly without foundation
Van Morrison on news reports, following the hacking of his website, claiming he had fathered a fourth child
The numbers
€85m
U2’s ticket sales in the US last year, making them the most lucrative concert act
26.1 secs
The new world record time for a hand-folded paper airplane staying airborne
We now know
About three million people are to get public service identity cards from next year
A German scientist and 24 hackers have cracked the encryption code used to prevent eavesdropping on 80 per cent of the world’s mobile phones
Under-18s are twice as likely to get swine flu as adults, according to a study
