From flying Finnish hobby horses to the world’s most powerful puss… your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.
– Saddle up your stick –
Finland is the world’s happiest country. And now we know why. Step forward the wonderfully wacky Finnish sport of hobby horsing.
Try not to smile while watching highly-styled riders straddling hobby horses leaping over fences that are nearly as high as in horse jumping.
Yet despite its eye-popping athleticism, hobby horsing is a sport that dares not speak its name.
Finnish officials refuse to recognise it as a real sport in its birthplace.
“We have faced so much bullying and judgement,” rider Nara Arlin, 24, told AFP, swishing her blue ponytail like a thoroughbred.
“I am both horse and human,” said fellow competitor Jojo Hanninen. “My legs are the horse, the top half is me.”
– Under her spell –
Smoke and mirrors are clearly not enough for politicians in the Maldives. The Indian Ocean nation’s environment minister is being held by police amid reports that she put a spell on the country’s president.
Fathimath Shamnaz Ali Saleem “was arrested for putting black magic on President Mohamed Muizzu,” said local media outlet the Sun.
Sorcery is not a crime in the Muslim-majority Maldives, but it can get you a six-month sentence under Islamic law.
Even so many use traditional magic to curse opponents or win favours.
Supporters of an opposition party were once accused of throwing a “cursed rooster” at police raiding their offices.
– Who’s the boss? –
Britain is likely to get a new prime minister next week — it’s fifth in five years — but rest assured the real power still lies with Larry the Downing Street cat.
“The politicians just lodge with me for a bit until they’re fired,” he told AFP via his social media human after celebrating his 10 years at the top.
“They all work out sooner or later that it’s me that runs the place.”
With Larry apparently keen to see the back of Rishi Sunak’s labrador retriever Nova after a series of “heated exchanges” in Number 10, it is hard to see him remaining prime minister after Thursday’s general election.
– Honesty pays, big –
When a homeless man handed over a wallet he found stuffed with 2,000 euros in cash, Dutch hearts melted like Edam cheese on toast.
Hadjer Al-Ali, a father of two, was picking up plastic bottles in Amsterdam to make a few cents when he found the money. Officials rewarded him with a “silver thumb” good citizen award and a voucher worth 50 euros. But the Dutch public was so taken with “Honest Hadjer” that 34,000 euros was raised for him in a single day on a funding site.
The 33-year-old said the money will change his life, allowing him to rent a home. He has even been offered jobs.
“I want to thank everyone so, so, so much… I can’t describe how I’m feeling… I’ve been inundated by people saying the sweetest, nicest things,” Hadjer said in a video post on Instagram.
The good news may not end there. If no one claims the wallet within a year, he will also get the 2,000 euros.
burs-fg/db
