Carpet-fitter ‘solves mystery of Stonehenge’
And other stories from the stranger side of life
A carpet-fitter from Wales insists he has solved the mystery of Stonehenge. Steven Tasker claims a “long-forgotten machine” was used to transport the giant stones 180 miles from Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire to their final resting place on Salisbury Plain. He has recreated the contraption, which features a circular board balanced on planks. The 66-year-old claims it can “move any weight” and has already managed to lift a third of a tonne.
Woman hires ‘fake mum’ to spare grandmother grief
A woman in China hired an actress to pretend to be her mother for 13 years to fool her grandmother into believing her dead daughter was still alive. Cheng Jing recruited the woman to spare her grandmother from grief after her only child, Cheng Congrong, died of lung cancer aged 69. Initially the grandmother was sceptical because the impostor’s voice was unfamiliar, however, Jing said she had a cold. The family was able to maintain the illusion until the grandmother’s death.
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Denmark builds world’s tallest sandcastle
Its football side may have failed to reach the finals of Euro 2020, but Denmark can boast a different victory after it built the world’s tallest sandcastle. At an impressive 21.16 metres in height, the castle is more than three metres taller than one built in Germany in 2019, according to the Guinness World Records. On top of the sandcastle is a model of the coronavirus wearing a crown because, says the designer, the virus is “ruling our lives everywhere”.
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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
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