Noisy loo conflict resolved after 20-year battle

A conflict between neighbours over a loud loo has been resolved after nearly 20 years. In 2003, four brothers installed a lavatory in a seaside apartment on Golfo dei Poeti, off Italy’s north-western coast. The husband and wife who lived next door complained, claiming the loo’s noisy flush kept them up at night. As the warring parties refused to back down, the case was heard in court, the appeal court and then Italy’s Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the couple. “In far less time than this case took, Albert Einstein wrote the theory of relativity, explaining the whole Universe,” wrote the Italian newspaper Il Giornale. “At the judicial level, we are a great big, gigantic clogged loo.”

A remarkable ‘DI-Fly’ project

An Essex man and his family beat lockdown boredom by building their own four-seater propeller aircraft from scratch. Ashok Aliseril, an engineer and trained pilot, and his wife and two children spent nearly two years building the plane with just the instruction manual and YouTube videos for guidance. The entire project cost £155,000 and took 1,500 hours to complete.

Academic ‘sacked because she has loud voice’

A senior academic who claimed she lost her post at a university’s physics department because of her loud voice has been awarded more than £100,000 after winning a claim for unfair dismissal. Dr Annette Plaut told The Guardian she had a “naturally loud voice” and claimed it was the combination of her being “female and loud” that had led to her dismissal from the University of Exeter. During the hearing, Plaut was described as a “Marmite” character – liked by some but considered too much by others.