Restaurant Mark Greenaway, Edinburgh: 'Posho ambition and technique at London gastropub prices.' Listen to this: a green "cannelloni" tube filled with white crabmeat, sweet and spritzed with lemon. We're prodding the tube – it's not pasta. What could it...
Category Archives: Weird
Travel news: new flights, Festival of the North East and a Barbie Dreamhouse …
Beach near Olbia, Sardinia. Photograph: Alamy Escapism EasyJet (easyjet.com) has launched a new twice-weekly flight from Luton to Olbia in Sardinia, this week, from £35 one-way, and a new daily route from Gatwick to Bergen, 'Gateway to the Fjords',...
Provence just got closer
Cézanne immortalised the Mont Sainte-Victoire 87 times – and even purpose-built his studio to ensure a good view of it. Photograph: Kevin Rushby Soon after we emerge from Le Tunnel, we start the time-honoured litany of English folk on...
Red’s True Barbecue, Leeds: restaurant review
'Dishes are cheap but not in a good way': the diner-style Red's True Barbecue. Photograph: Gary Calton for the Observer Cloth Hall Street, Leeds (0113 834 5834) Meal for two £60 It was when they put the galvanised-metal dustbin...
A new music festival in Tuscany, Italy
The hills are alive: cypress trees in La Foce, Tuscany. Photograph: Jeremy Woodhouse/Spaces Images/Corbis A hush falls over the moonlit courtyard. The rhythmic percussion of countless cicadas is replaced by the sweet pulsations of a dozen violins, their melody...
Travel tips: visit a museum at night or book a spring break
Costume drama: children bed down for the night at a Dr Who-themed sleepover at John Rylands Library in Manchester. Photograph: John Rylands Library Take me there: museums at night A kids' sleepover at Kensington Palace, an all-night poetry workshop...
Chinese move on from snapping up fine wines, to buying the whole vineyards
Wealthy Chinese people are buying up French vineyards. Photograph: Michal Krakowiak/Getty Images As a reflection of shifting economic fortunes, it takes some beating. Christie's auction house is opening the world's first estate agency for wealthy Chinese people who don't...
Woman Calls 911 "Because She Was Lonely"
Indian River Sheriff's Office Fleurette French A central Florida woman was arrested after she called 911 while drunk "because she was lonely," authorities said. Fleurette French, 64, of Vero Beach, faces a charge of abuse of 911 after authorities...
Beer taster who’s ALLERGIC to ale: Landlord now has to sip not sup to avoid feeling sick
13 Apr 2013 00:00 When his family complained about his daily coughing he took an intolerance test, which revealed he was allergic to the yeast in beer Sup's up: No swilling ale for Alastair stock.xchng it’s the sort of...
Tortoise that went missing for 10 months is found when JCB digs him up
13 Apr 2013 00:00 The owner hadn’t seen pet Sydney since June last year and spent weeks searching for him – even using a sniffer dog Safe: Sydney with owner Paul SWNS A tortoise that vanished 10 months ago...
Louisiana City Bans Saggy Pants
AP A “saggy pants” crackdown could begin any day now in a Louisiana city. A “saggy pants” crackdown could begin any day now in a Louisiana city. The Terrebonne Parish Council passed an ordinance that prohibits people from wearing...
Sophie Dalzell: Soft porn TV presenter refuses to wear ankle tag because it would cost her work
12 Apr 2013 16:34 She was ordered to be fitted with the tracking device for not doing community service but refused to let G45 fit it because it was an “eyesore” Let off: Sophie Dalzell was fined but does...
The tragic little girl whose head has swollen to THREE times it’s normal size
12 Apr 2013 15:41 Roona Begum has a rare medical condition that sees build-up of fluid inside her skull (Warning: Shocking pictures) View gallery Reuters Runa Begum, who suffers a condition that causes abnormal accumulation of fluid in cavities...
Letter from Papua New Guinea: heavens above
A highland settlement in Madang province, New Guinea. Photograph: Alamy It had all started with an innocuous conversation high up in the hills above Simbai village in Papua New Guinea. A 70-year-old, extensively tattooed man called Sampson had described...
Behind the scenes at Italy’s legendary Il Palio horse race – video
The people of Siena prepare for Italy's most hotly anticipated horse race, known as Il Palio. Each year local 'contrada' groups, representing different areas of the city, enter a horse and jockey into a competition, with the hope of...
Cape Town public art festival – in pictures
Mamela Nyamza performs in Okuya Phantsi Kwempumlo This show celebrates the ability of young South Africans to 'subvert and transform instruments of oppression and denigration into expressions of ecstasy and beauty'. It reflects on relationships between generations of women...
World’s strangest orchestra – a foghorn, brass bands and 50 ships
Fog on the Tyne. Maybe you'll be able to hear the foghorn requiem in Chollerford, pictured here. Photograph: Paul Kingston/North News & Pictures A requiem has been written to mark the passing from use of the UK's remaining land-based...
Northern lights: spectacular footage captured in Iceland – video
This footage of the northern lights was filmed on 17 March near Gullfoss and Skaftafell in Iceland with multiple DSLR cameras. The northern lights, or aurora borealis, is one of the most sublime and magnificent natural phenomena on Earth....
Man Fired For Wrestling Shark While on "Sick Leave"
Paul Marshallsea grabbed the dusky whaler shark (not pictured) by the tail and guided it to deeper waters. A Welsh charity worker on “sick leave for stress” was vacationing in Australia where he made headlines after wrestling a shark...
Golfer Plunges into Sinkhole on Course
Teen Runs from Cops — Into Officer's House After hopping one too many fences, a teen running from police met a neighbor willing to help him hide out. At least that's what he thought. An off-duty officer standing in...
Naked Man Captured After Taking Baby: Police
A man is caught on surveillance video, running through the streets of Bridgeport, carrying a baby. Police in Connecticut arrested a man they said was high on PCP as he ran naked through the streets of Bridgeport and an...
Man Fined for Laughing Too Loud in His Own Home
A 42-year-old Long Island man is facing a $500 fine or 30 days in jail for laughing too loud in his own home. Robert Schiavelli of Rockville Centre received the tickets for "disturbing the peace" on consecutive days in...
Thomas Cook axes 2,500 UK jobs and shuts 195 high street travel agencies
Thomas Cook said the job cuts would hit the back office hardest. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA Thomas Cook, the world's oldest travel firm, is cutting 2,500 British jobs and closing 195 of its high street travel agencies. Peter Fankhauser, Thomas...
What’s new in Paris
After a recent expansion Palais de Tokyo is now the biggest contemporary arts space in Europe Palais de Tokyo Possibly our favourite place in Paris, the Palais de Tokyo reopened in 2012 after a significant expansion (it's now the...
Ikea to open budget hotel chain
A 'capsule hotel' designed by the furniture group Ikea on a French motorway. Ikea will not provide furnishings for the new chain. Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty It has given homes around the world the Billy bookcase, the Poang chair and...
Wet and Wild Van Robber Arrested Naked
FILE - Getty Images A bridge crosses the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A naked man was arrested in Pennsylvania Sunday after driving a stolen vehicle into the Susquehanna River, bringing an end to a high-speed car chase. At...
Ikea hotels welcome you!
Why not choose an Ikea hotel for your honeymoon? Romantic Australian flat-packers Chad Martin and Lynne Klanbida were married at this Ikea store in Sydney. Photograph: James D Morgan/Rex Window blinds The operation of the window blinds is as...
Dunkin’ Donuts Worker Stops Robbery With Hot Coffee
Amanda Raus, Chris Podosek When a man tried to rob a Dunkin' Donuts in West Haven, an employee acted quickly and stopped him with the closest weapon available hot coffee. A quick-thinking worker at a Connecticut Dunkin' Donuts threw...
Boy Suspended for Pointing Gun-Shaped Breakfast Pastry
A boy was suspended for pointing a breakfast pastry (not this one). A 7-year-old Maryland boy is expected back in class Tuesday after being suspended over a breakfast pastry. The student at Park Elementary School in Glen Burnie, Md.,...
Elephant Statue Headed For Noah’s Ark
Reinol Fernandez's elephant statue was loaded onto a trailer and driven away from his home Sunday after The Hidden Ark offered it refuge. Damaris Fernandez and Reniel Aguila spoke about the match many might say was made in heaven....
Anything to declare? Oscar Wilde and me in America
'Acquired showmanship and repartee' in the US … Oscar Wilde in 1882. Photograph: Jerry Tavin/Lehtikuva Entering California at LAX is never exactly pleasant, though recently the immigration officers have seemed less surly and invasive. So I was not expecting,...
Win a weekend for two in Milan – competition
In these last throes of winter, when the mornings are chilly and the evenings still dark, you could probably do with a little bit of comfort in your life. After all, winter has probably taken its toll on your...
Ice hockey in the Himalayas
Leh local Tundup Namgail coaches one of the city's under-18 junior teams. Photograph: Jakob Horstmann The final of the 2013 Friendship Ice Hockey Cup was a very tight affair. The London Spitfires were trailing the German-Finnish team Geronimo 1-2,...
Cornwall: Britain’s new foodie capital
Atkinson's Cornish Orchards … at the heart of the region's food revolution. Pleasingly, Deli Farm in north Cornwall has been called Deli Farm – or something recognisably like it – since around the time of Domesday; the fact that...
Panda eyes focused as Yang Guang and Tian Tian seek each other out
Yang Guang bulks up with more bamboo inside his enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images As is the case with its occasionally more subtle human counterparts, it seems that in the spring a giant panda's...
