Home for a massive rabbit

Seven-month-old Atlas is currently being cared for by staff at the Scottish SPCA centre in Cardonald, Glasgow, after his owner could no longer look after him. The charity is appealing for potential new owners for the continental giant rabbit to get in touch.

Centre manager Anna O’Donnell said: ‘Atlas is already about the size of a westie and is still young with some growing to do. He is a very friendly rabbit who loves attention and getting cuddles. Atlas is also an inquisitive boy who makes everyone laugh with his mischievous character.

“We are looking for a specific home for Atlas due to his breed and size. A standard rabbit hutch won’t do so his new owner will need plenty of space for him. Atlas needs an owner with the knowledge to properly care for him, so ideally someone who has kept a continental giant before.”

Mice ‘eat’ plans to fix Brussels’ traffic problems

Repair and construction work on roads and underground tunnels to tackle Brussels’ continuous gridlock traffic got late because mice consumed the plans.

During a special hearing, former head of the city’s infrastructure agency, Christian Debuysscher, said original plans to fix the problem were “apparently eaten by mice”.

The plans were reportedly stored inside a bridge support for 20 years before being unearthed in an attempt to place them in a more adequate storage facility.

Until Brussels officials can redraw new plans to combat the city’s failing underground tunnels and surrounding infrastructure, local mice will take the blame for the area’s notoriously difficult rush hour traffic.

Crying tears of stone

A Chinese woman in Lufang village, East China, has been mysteriously producing stone tears for seven years and has turned to the media for help because doctors won’t take her seriously.

Ding Aihua noticed a pain in her eyes about seven years ago and her husband, Liang Xinchun, was shocked to discover a stone under her eyelid. She has been producing them ever since.

When the stone is removed, she feels okay for a while but then he had found another stone. The hard, silvery white stones are difficult to remove. He said he needed to use a wire to ease them out, and claims to have gathered 10 of the small stones produced in his wife’s eye socket.

Despite going all over the country looking for treatment, doctors usually refuse to accept that he and his wife are telling the truth. Liang claims that no doctors have been able to explain the bizarre phenomena. After the latest stone, instead of going to medics her husband turned to the media, and he showed one of the stones in his wife’s eye socket to convince them of the problem.

Journalists who then accompanied the couple to hospital admitted they were baffled as to what the possible explanation might be, and the report has now gone viral in China.

Job for the lazybones!

A theme park is advertising for lazy people to apply for a job as a panda — as long as they can handle ‘wearing a warm, thick coat all day’.

Bosses at Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey, England say the successful candidates will ideally be ‘able to sit around for the majority of the day’.

It also says they should be happy being ‘pandered to’ all day, have a keen interest in wildlife and ‘enjoy being admired for several hours a day’.

The ad says the successful candidates should be ‘colour blind, wild at heart, be comfortable wearing a warm, thick coat all day long’ — and be able to live on a ‘high fibre diet of 14 kilos of bamboo each day’.

This position is for the theme park’s new show, called Pandamonium, set to open later this year.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 26th, 2015