Mar 28 – Peruvian magician Princess Inca leaves onlookers spellbound as she seemingly levitates in mid-air.

Claudia Pacheco, aka Princess Inca, drew a multitude of fans for the event staged in the central Plaza de Armas square in the coastal capital city of Lima.

Although Princess Inca doesn’t reveal how she achieved the levitation, one way that illusionists perform this trick is to sit on a seat that is anchored by a rod that eventually connects to the pole.

The rod can be hidden under flowing clothing.

Sky-high costs to use a toilet?

LONDON (Reuters) – Ryanair’s chief executive said Europe’s largest budget carrier might start charging passengers for using the toilet while flying, but his spokesman cautioned Michael O’Leary often just made things up at will.

“One thing we have looked at in the past and are looking at again is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might actually have to spend a pound ($1.43) to spend a penny in future,” O’Leary told BBC television.

He said this would not inconvenience passengers traveling without cash. “I don’t think there is anybody in history that has got on board a Ryanair aircraft with less than a pound.”

A spokesman said the airline had considered the fee as a possible source of extra revenue since passengers had the option of not using the toilet on board, but added that “maybe O’Leary was just taking the p*ss this morning.”

“Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along and while this has been discussed internally there are no immediate plans to introduce it,” Stephen McNamara said in a statement.

O’Leary has a reputation as a cost-cutter, expanding Ryanair by offering low headline fares and charging extra for items such as additional luggage.

Last week, Ryanair announced it was to shut all check-in desks at airports and have passengers check in online instead.

“We’re all about finding ways of raising discretionary revenue so we can keep lowering the cost of air travel,” he said.

(Reporting by Tim Castle and Andras Gergely; Editing by Dan Lalor, John Stonestreet)

($1 = 0.7004 pound) reuters.com

Jan 30 – In India’s southern Karnataka, a monkey prevents the authorities from demolishing a roadside temple by attacking officials who venture near the temple premises.

The bizarre incident saw the monkey defending the temple dedicated to Hindu monkey god ‘Hanuman’.

The authorities in the Kolar region of the state are planning to demolish the temple to widen the national highway on which it is located.Locals said the monkey normally does not harm anybody but surprisingly turned hostile towards the officials who came with the intention of demolishing the temple.

Jan 28 – Jako-parrot Emil has learned many things during his 10-year-long life, but the most unusual is how to use the toilet.

The parrot, who lives in southern Sweden with owner Yasmin Mughal and her partner, was taught to use the loo when he was four months old.

“We noticed that every time we took him out of the cage, he had to do a poo and then we thought we might as well place him on the toilet otherwise there is poo all over the place, so we placed him on the toilet and told him to make a poo, which he did and from that moment he has known that if he goes to the toilet, makes a poo, he can come up,” she said.

Jan 24 – A 39-year-old Thai woman has set a new world record after spending 33 days and nights living with 5000 poisonous scorpions.
Kanchana Ketkaew, was attempting to break her 2002 world record, when she lived with 3,400 scorpions for 32 days inside a tiny glass room.
Neena Dhaun reports.

Take off for Jumbo hostel
(01:27) Report

Jan 14 – For the travellers who love planes and want to stay close to the airport, there is now a hostel built especially for them – The Jumbo Jet hostel.

The hostel is a refurbished Boeing-747 which opens this week near Stockholm’s Arlanda airport.
The 450 seats have been removed and there are now 25 bedrooms and a honeymoon suite in the cockpit.
The wedding theme doesn’t stop there. Couples who want to get married can tie-the-knot on one of the wings.

Helen Long reports.