A glance at the week that was
We now know
Threatened with extinction within the next 15 years, jungle tigers are surviving safe from poachers in the hills of Bhutan, raising hopes they may be saved.
Moses might not have parted the Red Sea, but a strong east wind that blew through the night could have pushed the waters back in the way described in biblical writings and the Koran.
Underage teens are to be sent into pubs and off-licences to attempt to buy alcohol to help An Garda Síochána catch irresponsible sellers.
Mamma miaow
Abba star Benny Andersson has told the right-wing Danish People’s Party to “bugger off” after it changed the lyrics of Mamma Mia to honour its party leader, Pia Kjaersgaard. “Mamma Pia” hasn’t gone down too well with the liberal Andersson and his co-songwriter Bjorn Ulvaeus, who are threatening to sue the party. “Firstly, you can not just rewrite songs as you like, and secondly, we want them to understand that we have absolutely no interest in supporting their party,” said Andersson.
Verse averse
The poet Rita Ann Higgins has crossed words with her brother, forcing the Salmon publishing house to shred 900 copies of her “part-essay, part-rhyme” memoir. The Aosdána member says she gave an advance copy of the book, Hurting God, to her sister on the way to the airport and got a text back to say it was brilliant. “However, I then got a message to ring home. My brother Joe was very angry about a reference to him in the opening essay.”
She’d never had a cross word with him before, she said. A new edition of the book is being printed in time for today’s official publication in Galway.
"We did a scene with a couple of talking carrots and s**t. It was genius!"
Actor Colin Farrell on his Sesame Streetappearance
The numbers
€188
Monthly net income of former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick
$54 billion
Bill Gates’s worth, up $4 billion from last year
1.2
The percentage shrinkage in the Irish economy in the second quarter of 2010
