A glance at the week that was
Ker-ching Beijing
Some Chinese vases went up for auction in Sheppards of Durrow, Co Laois this week, and there was a hint that they may be worth more than the €150 estimate when a woman flew from Beijing to bid on behalf of her husband. Sure enough, one pair went for €41,000 and a single vase sold for €110,000. They went, though, to a London antiques dealer, Richard Peters (right), who outbid his Chinese rival. The vase had been made for the personal collection of Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century. “I got a bargain,” said Peters.
The numbers
1.26
the number of microseconds by which the Chilean earthquake may have shortened the day, having been so strong as to alter Earth's axis
4%
of mortgages are 90 days in arrears
456
The number of pages in the Professional Golfers' Association's disciplinary file on John Daly
Famine faux-pas
There are many ways to mark the 150th anniversary of the end of the Famine, but not everyone was impressed with a US fast-food chain’s decision to use it as a selling point. Denny’s ran an ad featuring a happy eater saying that to mark the 150th anniversary of the end of the Famine the chain wouldn’t run out of anything, including pancakes. Irish-Americans complained and the company apologised.
We now know
Voice recognition computers find men harder to understand than women.
Dinosaurs walked the earth 10 million years earlier than previously thought
Ireland is one of the 10 friendliest countries in the world, according to Lonely Planet. The other nine are US, Malawi, Fiji, Thailand, Samoa, Vietnam, Indonesia, Scotland and Turkey.