Odd News

Jean Preston's spartan Oxford home contained works of art of international significance, carefully acquired over a lifetime and randomly displayed. You could not even guess it from outside because it's an ordinary, red-brick house in a terraced row, not unlike tens of thousands of others scattered across Britain. Indeed one must never judge by merely appearances; hidden treasures lay where one would never think. Don't mistake the person mentioned above with the senator Jean Preston. The person who has amazed everyone is a mere librarian who has never done any thing more than ride the bus to work and take frugal meals. Still she, a 77-years old spinster, succeeded to stun art experts and auctioneers and her relatives as well by gathering exceptional works in her modest home. Many of the works were inherited from her father, a keen collector. Her relatives were stunned by the artworks she had tucked away. Guy Schwinge of Dukes art auctioneers in Dorchester, which helped with the sale, told Reuters that he did not expect to find in a house so modest from outside and inside too so many masterpieces. In the bedroom they barely spotted two paintings by Fra Angelico, the 15th century Italian Renaissance master, that were the missing pieces of an eight-part altar decoration; while in the kitchen was a 19th century watercolor by pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and in the sitting room, above an electric fire, a work by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (the latter ones estimated to be worth $2 million, have been saved for Britain and are expected to go on display at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum). Another hidden treasure was a rare edition of the works of Chaucer that because it did not fit on Preston's bookshelf and was found buried in a wardrobe and eventually sold for nearly $150,000. The auctions have sold everything for about 4 million pounds ($7.95 million), according to valuers, about 20 times the price of the house they were kept in. This proves that prejudices are not good and we may lose more in life than we might think. Jean Preston will definitely be remembered for a very long time among collectors and the Uffizi Gallery, Florence's famed art museum.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080129/od_nm/trove_odd_dc;_ylt=Asg9YYMeuHfUhEUHYauJqiGs0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

"Hello, this is me. Would you mind calling me a bit later? Right now I'm somewhat dead." If you don't like sarcasm and this kind of a humor, you may call this a very bad joke. But it's usually life that's joking like that whether you like it or not. One man from Poland was identified as a drowned man and was buried (what's an usual procedure when you're dead). The only trouble is, he's still alive. Polish man became famous because of being dead while being alive. And being alive can cause much more troubles that you would expect. Once you are formally dead, you cannot work, pay insurance, pay taxes and bills, you just don't exist. Or have you ever seen working dead man? (Corpse can do some haunting or things like that, but working? This doesn't fit to what zombies usually do). But there's not only funny side to the "dead man alive" case. It's kind a ridiculous when officials say that you don't exist even if you are in front of them, talking, breathing, arguing, explaining this strange situation and persuade them to fix it. Once the paper says that you are dead, there's no help. You can't fight the bureaucracy and dullness. All that dead-alive man from Poland can do is to struggle with bureaus and hope that somebody relevant will notice soon where's the difference between being dead and being alive. At the moment, at least he can pick up the phone like this "Hello, this is me. Would you mind calling me a bit later? Right now I'm somewhat dead."

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080129/od_nm/dead_odd_dc;_ylt=AlqrsnJn_98A0SWufPDwgwas0NUE

by Kamila Moravcikova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

Every month about 200 sights of UFO are reported in America. The most of them in California, Colorado and Texas. Usually seen by one or only few people is marked as a concoction and soon being forgotten. The last UFO report from Stephenville,Texas differ with the fact, several dozens people claim they saw an flying object which looked like nothing they have ever seen before. They describe it as a large silent object,mile long, about half a mile wide with bright lights flying low and fast. The lights were changing configuration and some of them believe it was chased by fighter jets. In the same time mechanist Ricky Sorrell saw similar flying object in Dublin. He said he observed it several times. "It feels good to hear that other people saw something because it means I'm not crazy." continued Ricky. UFO was noticed during several weeks with several tens of people in several countries. They all describe it so alike. Very often the flying aircrafts are considered to be an UFO in the night, but the witnesses are sure the aircraft make much more noise as this object did . Mjr. Karl Lewis, spokesman of 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Forth Worth said no aircraft from his base was in this area at the January 8 when most of people reported UFO. But in his opinion it could be two commercial aircrafts and the sun rays during the sun set caused the lights seemed unusually bright. This case is still investigated with organizations dealing with UFO and no official statement have been issued yet.

by Ivana Bruderova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

Humanity is obsessed with words and why wouldn't it be? After all, we communicate through words, not only expressing opinions, but also revealing ourselves. Therefore there should be a contest that awards the favorite word of people. Well, now it is. The Macquarie dictionary, Australia's top dictionary, started a poll for readers to vote for their favourite new word in the latest annually updated online volume, offering a total of 85 words or phrases in 17 categories which are not specifically Australian, but reflect global trends in fields such as technology, health and the social scene. Some of the new words created as a result of expansion, intercommunication and worldwide technology development, are cyberathlete (a professional player of computer games), digital native (a person who grows up using digital media and communications systems, and thus has complete familiarity with them), globesity (the frightening phenomenon of fatness spread all over the world), which generated the words slummy mummy (mothers of young children who have abandoned all care for their personal appearance) or yummy mummy, tanorexia (an obsessive desire to have tanned skin, placing the sufferer at risk of skin cancer), manscaping (a grooming procedure in which hair is shaved or trimmed from a man's body, as from the back, legs, chest), etc. The fast pace of technology generated words like password fatigue that means a level of frustration reached by having too many different passwords to remember exposing the computer slave to data smog (electronic information as by emails, internet searches, etc., which, by its volume, impairs performance and increases stress). The voting takes place in the last weeks of January and at the beginning of February, the winner will be announced. Don't waste any more time, your word might be the lucky one. In any case you'll have a blast just reading the terms and their definitions. Recommended to those suffering of password fatigue as a way of relaxation. Enjoy!

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080110/tod-australia-language-internet-offbeat-37b0eca_1.html

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

Police in Warsaw, Poland, couldn't believe their eyes. They had to arrest one 14-year-old teenager who tried to derail city trams in Lodz. The most serious on the whole situation was fact that this boy used homemade device which made all by himself! He tried to switch tram tracks from distance using infra-red and remote-control and caused that three times were these tracks really switched and once even the tram jumped the tracks. As polish officers found this device in suspect's home he will be probably indicted from others derailments in Lodz. Boy couldn't do anything else than to confess and take his responsibility for problems he caused to polish tram depots and now he is placed in a detention centre for juvenile delinquents. But he was the only teenager who tried similar dangerous things and caused problems. There are also other cases. Children are still more and more active, and in these days most of them is just bored by playing PC games or watching television. They want more action! And that's why many of them are just entertaining themselves by making various devices which in many cases hurt someone. It is also no problem to find instructs how to build up similar "inventions". There were many stories about how teenage boy made for example a bomb & just like one 16-year-old boy from Holland who just didn't want to go to school and that's why he threatened to let the school explode. Sometimes also happens that some child just calls to the school and says there is a bomb. Children are more and more shifty. That's why parents should be careful and should talk to their children not just to know them better but also to educate them and show them there are better ways how to play and entertain themselves!

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080109/tod-poland-accident-offbeat-7f81b96_1.html

by Barbora Misakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.