Mystery deepens as seventh foot is found

Published on Saturday 15 November 2008 18:42

NICK Drainey's World View

CANADA

Police are carrying out tests to see if a running shoe found near Vancouver contained the seventh human foot to have washed ashore in the region in the past 15 months.

The couple who found the left foot shoe in a tidal flat area along the Fraser River said it contained a sock and what appeared to be human remains. These are now undergoing DNA tests.

Five disembodied feet have floated ashore in the Canada's Georgia Strait since August 2007, and a sixth foot was found three months ago in adjacent US waters near Port Angeles, Washington. One shoe found later turned out to be a hoax.

AUSTRALIA

It would never happen in Largs. An Australian holiday resort will hold a month-long, nudist, "anything goes" party to combat an expected economic downturn.

"Tough economic times call for stiff measures," said Tony Fox, the owner of the White Cockatoo resort in Mossman, in tropical Queensland state. "It will be a hedonism resort, where anything goes for a month. It doesn't take rocket science to work out what it means."

The controversial "clothes optional" resort made headlines three years ago when police were called to end partner-swapping parties after a barrage of complaints.

THE NETHERLANDS

The inspiration for the most famous of Alexandre Dumas' three musketeers may have been found in a church in Holland.

Researchers spent five years looking for the grave of the man behind the hero d'Artagnan, and they have been led to St Peter and Paul Church near Maastricht.

Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan, who was engaged in cloak-and-dagger operations for Louis XIII, died during the Siege of Maastricht in 1673 and was buried in a nearby church.

Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers after reading about d'Artagnan's exploits 150 years after his death.

RUSSIA

Wanted: one missing Russian church. Last seen in July. Reward for its return.

Orthodox officials in a central Russian region say an abandoned church building that was to be put back into use has been stolen by locals.

Orthodox priest Vitaly of the Ivanovo-Voskresenskaya diocese says officials last saw the two-storey Church of Resurrection intact in July. In early October, however, people from the village of Komarovo, north-east of Moscow, dismantled the building, he said.

Villagers sold it to a businessman for one ruble (about 2p) per brick, Vitaly said.

The 200-year-old building, which no longer housed any icons or religious valuables, was a school for disabled children during the Soviet era before it was closed down in 1998 and turned over to the church.

MALDIVES

The president-elect of the Maldives, a nation of 1,200 low islands in the Indian Ocean, is planning to establish an investment fund with some of its earnings from tourism so it can buy a haven for its citizens should global warming raise sea levels at a dangerous pace.

Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner who is the country's first democratically elected president, has named Sri Lanka and India as possible spots for a refuge.

Nasheed's spokesman, Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, said the new government had to take action. "Global warming and environmental issues are issues of major concern to the Maldivian people," he said.

"We are just about three feet above sea level. So any sea level rise could have a devastating effect on their very survival."

MOVERS & SHAKERS

JENNIFER ANISTON

At last, it's all out in the open. In the three years since Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston ended their Hollywood marriage, Aniston has barely said a word about the break-up and the woman who stole Pitt's heart, Angelina Jolie. But in an interview for the December issue of Vogue magazine, Aniston finally talks about the split and the Oscar-winning actress who is now Pitt's companion, saying the way Jolie revealed details of her relationship with the Ocean's 11 star was "really uncool".

WILLIAM SHATNER

Who knows what stardate this will go on until? William Shatner is continuing to feud with former Star Trek co-star George Takei.

In his latest online video, Shatner says: "George has been mean to me for a long time – I mean, decades and decades."

Shatner complained in a previous video that he wasn't invited to Takei's September wedding to Brad Altman. Takei and Altman have said he was invited.

MADONNA

Madonna plans to launch a directing career to rival that of her estranged husband, Guy Richie, according to her brother, Christopher Ciccone. "Apparently she wants to be directing and that's what she'll be doing. Two directors in the family is never going to work."

The 50-year-old pop queen made her directing debut with Filth And Wisdom, to mixed reviews, this year.

ARETHA FRANKLIN

She's already the Queen of Soul, but now Aretha Franklin has been named the greatest singer of the rock era in a poll conducted by Rolling Stone. Franklin, 66, won against Ray Charles at No. 2, Elvis Presley at No. 3, Sam Cooke at No. 4 and John Lennon at No. 5.

REALLY

Heard the one about the man who walked into a US bar with an alligator?

At Johnny's Saloon in Orange County, it was more than a joke when a man arrived with a 3ft alligator on a lead. By the time officers arrived at Johnny's, the animal was back in the man's vehicle in the car park. Officers followed him home, where another alligator was found.

Both creatures were impounded. Alligators are not native to California, and it is illegal to keep them as pets.