From the Australian Vegemite fan laying it on a bit thick to Ronaldo making millions happy… Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.
– Vegemite’s a human right –
Having to eat Vegemite might seem like cruel and unusual punishment to some, but one Australian prisoner is suing the state of Victoria for the right to spread it on his toast.
Murderer Andre McKechnie argues that eating Vegemite is part of “his culture as an Australian”. The funky yeast-laden spread is banned in jails in the state for fear it could be used to brew illegal alcohol known as “pruno” or “hooch”.
Inmates also smear Vegemite — first concocted because of wartime shortages of British Marmite — on contraband to fool sniffer dogs.
Not everyone is a fan of the spread. It was included in Sweden’s Disgusting Food Museum alongside fermented herrings, monkey brains and maggot-infested cheese.
– Ronaldo the spreads joy –
Soccer superstar Ronaldo has been spreading happiness wherever he goes, taking time out from a lavish White House dinner to make young Barron Trump’s day.
“My son is a big fan of Ronaldo,” US President Donald Trump told guests at a banquet in honour of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“I think he respects his father a little bit more now… that I introduced you,” he told the ageing Portuguese striker, who now plays for Saudi club Al Nassr.
Ronaldo had earlier kept Ireland’s World Cup dreams alive by helping their deeply unfancied side beat Portugal 2-0 by getting himself sent off after a fit of pique in Dublin.
That red card meant he couldn’t play against Armenia on Sunday, though Portugal racked up a record-equalling nine goals without him, to qualify. Curiously, the last time they scored so many, against Luxembourg in 2023, Ronaldo was also suspended.
– AI’s aye yi yi Christmas –
Christmas and AI was bound to be a marriage made in Hell. And so it turned out when a seasonal mural in a posh London suburb horrified locals, with a half-drowned Santa Claus surrounded by feral dogs looking like he had barely survived a flash flood at his grotto.
At first glance, the AI-generated tableau stretched across several riverside restaurants in Kingston upon Thames appears to be full of Christmas cheer. But closer inspection reveals an Hieronymus Bosch freakshow of disturbing scenes, with bird-headed hounds and people laughing at a man as he pokes around with what appears to be a severed lion’s paw.
“The entire thing is horrendous,” wrote a local wrote on social media.
“It beggars belief that if you’re going to use AI you wouldn’t even take a fraction of the time you’ve allegedly saved in producing whatever this is to at least check it a bit,” another said.
But some gloried at the awfulness of this latest example of “AI slop”. “It’s worse every time you look,” one quipped.
– ‘Revenge’ beyond the grave –
Sometimes it is possible to feel a tiny bit sorry for Britain’s King Charles. Thirty years to the day his ex- Princess Diana gave her famous “There were three of us in this marriage” interview to the BBC, the Grevin waxwork museum in Paris unveiled its first statue of the “Queen of Hearts”.
And what is she wearing? Only the stunning black “revenge dress” she wore to sock it to her then-husband when Charles’s decades-long affair with the now Queen Camilla was finally revealed.
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