Thread: Strange News

You being deloused before heading to the Shetlands Mendy?

• New bill would make the ‘shaka’ an official Hawaii state gesture

The story of aloha starts with a shaka! A newly introduced bill is looking to make the shaka an official state gesture.

“The spirit of aloha is embodied in this particular gesture,” stated Sen. Glenn Wakai. “It just adds to the allure and the mystique of Hawaii.”

The bill aims to share the pride of Hawaii by claiming the shaka. State officials believe Hawaii would be the first to officialize a state gesture if the bill passes.

“It’s one of the symbols that truly separate us from anywhere else across the world,” stated Rep. Darius Kila.

A documentary being made in support of the bill will go back 110 years to when the shaka was first believed to have been used. ID8 nonprofit Chairperson, Steve Sue, has been researching the shaka for the past five years for the film.

“There’s multiple origin stories to the Shaka,” stated Sue. “They all have different points in time that they start from. There’s different meanings of the word, there’s different gestures.”

Sue said the shaka origin story reflects a melting pot of countless groups in Hawaii who gave meaning behind the gesture and spread it.

“There’s a whole era in the seventies, the Japanese had a hand in it, so many people had a hand in it,” stated Sue.

The iconic symbol is known worldwide, but according to a study, 91% of locals don’t know much about the shaka. If the bill passes, officials hope the shaka will remind native Hawaiians of their roots.

“It originated from here and if people here don’t even know where it came from, then we really have some work to do to ensure that Hawaii is credited for this gesture, that the Hawaii meanings are imbued to it and used around the world appropriately,” said Sue.

• Roman egg found in Aylesbury still has contents after 1,700 years

Archaeologists and naturalists astonished to find yolk and albumen that may reveal secrets about the bird that laid it

It was a wonderful find as it was, a cache of 1,700-year-old speckled chicken eggs discovered in a Roman pit during a dig in Buckinghamshire.

But to the astonishment of archaeologists and naturalists, a scan has revealed that one of the eggs recovered intact still has liquid – thought to be a mix of yolk and albumen – inside it, and may give up secrets about the bird that laid it almost two millennia ago.

The “Aylesbury egg” is one of four that were found alongside a woven basket, pottery vessels, leather shoes and animal bone in 2010 as a site was being explored ahead of a major development.

Despite the experts extracting them as carefully as possible, three broke, producing an unforgettable sulphurous smell, but one was preserved complete.

Edward Biddulph, the senior project manager at Oxford Archaeology, which oversaw the excavation, said it had been amazing enough to find what is thought to be the only intact egg from the period in Britain. “We do often find pieces of shells but not intact eggs,” he said.

Discussions were being held last year about how to display the egg when Dana Goodburn-Brown, an archaeological conservator and materials scientist, suggested they scan it to help decide how best to preserve it.

Biddulph said: “The egg turned out to be even more amazing. It still contained its liquid, the yolk and the white.” The yolk and albumen appear to have become mixed together.

“We might have expected it to have leached out over the centuries but it is still there. It is absolutely incredible. It may be the oldest egg of its type in the world.”

Biddulph said the egg had been deliberately placed in a pit that had been used as a well for malting and brewing. “This was a wet area next to a Roman road. It may have been the eggs were placed there as a votive offering. The basket we found may have contained bread.”

The egg has been taken to the Natural History Museum in London. Biddulph said it had felt a little daunting riding on the tube and walking around the capital with such an extraordinary and fragile egg in his care.

Douglas Russell, the senior curator of the museum’s birds’ eggs and nests collection, was consulted about how to conserve the egg and remove the contents without breaking it.

There are older eggs with contents, such as mummified ones, but Russell said it was believed to be the oldest unintentionally preserved egg. A tiny hole may be made in the egg to extract the contents and try to find out more about the bird that laid it.

Goodburn-Brown said: “The egg ranks as one of the coolest and most challenging archaeological finds to investigate and conserve. Being the temporary caretaker and investigator of this Roman egg counts as one of the major highlights of my 40-year career.”

• Paul McCartney reunited with guitar stolen 51 years ago

Sir Paul McCartney has been reunited with the bass guitar he used on Beatles hits including Love Me Do and She Loves You, 51 years after it was stolen from the back of a van in London.

The news that the long-lost instrument was found was leaked by the family’s 21-year-old son, Ruaidhri Guest, who posted a pic of himself holding the legendary bass with a cheeky expression on social media.

The Höfner bass was found in a family's attic in Sussex thanks to a search by a project called the Lost Bass.

Sir Paul bought the guitar in 1961. It was taken in west London in 1972.

A spokesperson for the former Beatle said he was "incredibly grateful" for its return.

The hunt began after the star urged Höfner to find his beloved instrument. The bass was used on Love Me Do and She Loves You.

Following an appeal for information by the Lost Bass search project, a family living in a terraced house in Sussex contacted the team remembering they had an old bass guitar in their attic.

It was reunited with Sir Paul in December.

His spokesperson said: "Following the launch of last year's Lost Bass project, Paul's 1961 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned.

"The guitar has been authenticated by Höfner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved."

Speaking to BBC News, the team behind the Lost Bass project said they were thrilled to solve the case they dubbed "the greatest mystery in the history of rock and roll".

"There were no leads, no evidence really where it might be," said journalist Scott Jones, who alongside his wife and fellow journalist Naomi last year joined the search headed by Höfner bass expert Nick Wass.

"To have found it quite quickly is amazing and we've heard how thrilled Paul McCartney is to have it back.

"That's just the icing on the cake to know that bloke we all love is smiling tonight because his old guitar is back."

The guitar was retrieved in late September and verified by experts to confirm it is genuine.

Luckily the bass was complete and still with its original case, but will need some repairs to make it playable again.

During their investigation, the team received tip-offs about the theft from the back of a van in Ladbroke Grove in October 1972.

They found it was then sold to a landlord of a pub in the area, before it made its way to Sussex, where it was sitting in a family's attic.

Speaking on why people came forward, journalist Mrs Jones said: "People wished McCartney well and wanted to help, because of that we had all these people come forward.

"The search wasn't about attributing blame. We were saying to people you can speak to us on an anonymous basis."

The guitar, originally purchased for £30 in Germany in 1961, has not been valued, but the Lost Bass team think it would be worth more than the most expensive guitar ever sold - a Kurt Cobain guitar which sold for a record $6m (£4.9m) at auction in 2020.

John Lennon's stolen guitar sold for $2.4m (£1.9m) when it resurfaced half a century later.