Offbeat

Firecracker CD for Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year revellers in Taiwan’s capital Taipei are to be given free CDs featuring the sound of exploding firecrackers, in the hope of reducing the deafening noise and mess created by the real thing.
“Lighting firecrackers will not only cause noise and air pollution but used firecrackers will make the environment dirty. We urge people to refrain from doing it,” said the Taipei city government, which is behind the proposal.
Setting off firecrackers is an age-old Chinese custom based on the ancient belief that the sound scares off evil spirits to ensure a safe new year.
The practice is illegal in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, where only government-organised firework displays are permitted, but the rules – mostly imposed for reasons of public safety – are not always observed.
Lunar New Year starts on the eve of January 23 this year, ushering in the Year of the Dragon.

Largest Dutch clog goes missing

Dutch police in the eastern town of Enter are investigating the theft of the country’s largest clog after it disappeared without trace from its main street, a police spokeswoman said Tuesday.
“We don’t know who stole it, but it’s disappeared,” Rosita de Vries said of the clog, which at four metres (13 feet) in length about two metres high, and weighing almost two tonnes is the largest example of the Dutch icon, police said.
“It is a joke. We even received an email announcing that the shoe will probably be back after Carnival,” in mid-February, she told AFP, adding it was believed the shoe disappeared Friday night or early on Saturday.
Police however failed to trace the email and inquiries lead to nowhere, De Vries said adding even if it was done as a joke, the thieves will “answer in court.”
Still worn today, clogs are carved from a single piece of wood and are as emblematic to the Netherlands as cheese, tulips and windmills.