Black is the new white toilet paper
Upscale bathrooms across Europe can now choose a chic new shade of toilet paper -- basic black. Portuguese paper producer Renova introduced its line of black toilet paper in Spain and Portugal over the summer and earlier this month the line became available in French stores, a company official said this week. The firm plans to launch the product, aimed at designer hotels and restaurants, in the US and Canada early next year after receiving a high number of orders via its Internet site, he said. Renova charges 2.50 euros (US$2.95) per roll, or 6 euros for a pack of six rolls, of the black toilet paper, a color it describes as "elegant, rebellious, alternative and eternally fashionable."
Hong Kong spa burns fat, literally
A Hong Kong health spa has added a desperate spin to weight loss programs by literally setting its customers on fire, a press report said this week. The Life of Life Healing Spa said it can trim down any body part with its fire treatment, where the client is massaged, smothered in Chinese herbs and wrapped in wet towels before being set alight. The spa's manager told the South China Morning Post that one female client had lost 15cm off her stomach in a single treatment. Another lost 9kg after two weeks of daily visits. The spa claimed the fire treatment is based on methods used in traditional Chinese medicine, but traditional Chinese doctor Yiu Yan-man said, "I have never heard of such a thing."
It all makes scents, in the end
Moving beyond the monopoly of sight and touch in the computer world, a Japanese company is offering a service to download aromatic scents at a click of a button. A customer who wants to be surrounded by a new fragrance has a choice of six scent oils ready to mix in a blender, which is hooked up to the computer like a mouse. Workers who look to burn the midnight oil can pay to smell the fragrance called "Scent for working another 12 hours" and those with time ahead of them on the screen can choose "Scent to be an IT winner."
Full metal dog jackets
Now man's best friend can take a round in the chest and live to bark about it too, thanks to a new bullet-proof vest for dogs. Manufactured by the German firm Mehler, the 3kg protective garment is on display this week at a high tech security trade show outside Paris. The vest, available in six sizes, is already being used by four-legged conscripts in the Swiss army, company spokeman Thomas Kulhnlein said. Protection comes at a cost as wholesale prices range between US$950 to US$1,150, but this should not scare off all security forces who use dogs.
Britain takes care of its drinkers
A mobile field hospital is being set up in a northeastern English city to deal with people who drink too much after new licensing laws were introduced this week, health officials said. The Remote Medical Centre, in Newcastle, can cater for up to 50 people, providing portable toilets, water, trolleys, stretchers and treatment for drink-induced injuries. Situated on the Quayside, in the heart of Newcastle's vibrant nightlife district, it will be staffed on Fridays and Saturdays by the Red Cross, first aid volunteers and an emergency-ward doctor.
Hendrix becomes classical music star
When France's high school students sit next June for the exam that determines if they graduate, culture-and-arts majors will be quizzed on a song by 1960s drugs-and-love rock icon Jimi Hendrix, according to the education ministry. "Acting funny but I don't know why, excuse me while I kiss the sky," Hendrix sang in his 1967 classic Purple Haze, taken as a paean to mind-altering substances by the baby-boom generation now approaching retirement. The song, in its original version and in a string adaptation performed by the Kronos Quartet, will figure in one of four sections of the "musical culture" exam, the ministry announced on its Web site (www.education.gouv.fr). The rock legend will be in good company on the national exam, joining Georg Friedrich Handel and medieval composer Perotin, among others.
Lisbon raises its Christmas standard
Europe's tallest artificial Christmas tree came to life this week in a blaze of over two million lights and a fireworks display before a crowd of thousands in the Portuguese capital. It took workers 44 days to set up the 72m, 180-tonne tree in Lisbon's Praca do Comercio in the historic center of the city, organizers said. The tree, whose height is the equivalent of a building of over 20 storeys, will be on display in the busy shopping district until Jan. 8. Officials expect 300,000 people will visit the tree over the holidays.
India's Scottish tea connection is lost
India's northeastern state of Assam has called off a search for the descendants of two Scottish brothers to commemorate their discovery of wild tea bushes more than 180 years ago. "We tried our best through diplomatic and personal channels to identify family members of the Bruce brothers and invite them to the festival. But we simply could not trace anybody," Assam's tourism commissioner S.C. Panda said. Assam, the heart of India's tea industry, was planning to honor family members of Robert Bruce and his brother Charles at a three-day "Tea Tourism Festival" starting Dec. 4. The Bruce brothers first discovered tea bushes in Assam with the help of some local tribal chieftains in 1823. The discovery helped start India's tea industry and end China's position as the world's supplier of the beverage. But after three weeks of searching, Assam, which is trying to promote tea estate tourism, has decided to go ahead without any Bruce descendants. "We still have many interesting and unique events lined up for the festival," Panda said.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built