KEY POINTS:
The General Lee - well, a General Lee - from the TV show Dukes of Hazzard has sold for just shy of US$10 million ($13.5 million), the second-highest price paid for a car. Actor John Schneider, who played blond heart-throb Bo Duke in the show, sold the 1969 Dodge Charger car, which was not featured in the original show but carries the signatures of the cast. Top car auction spot is held by the 1987 sale of a 1931 Bugatti for US$11 million.
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Murray Cannons, from Cambridge, writes: "Being a keen gardener I take pride in my knowledge of the subject. One day while working at my flower garden I came across the most beautiful flower just starting to bloom. I was amazed at such an exotic plant. I monitored its progress - I wanted to give it every chance to grow further. But after 10 days I noticed its progress was practically nil. Upon a closer inspection I was jolted to find it was made of plastic. my wife had washed and dusted her plastic flower arrangement near my flower garden. One of the beautiful flower heads had fallen off. I never did confess to my wife how I had watered the plastic flower regularly, and while tending it had often said how beautiful it was."
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Japanese inventors have developed a pack of rice called "Hotto! Raisu", which is cooked by adding cold water. "By subjecting rice to 4000 times normal atmospheric pressure, the developers were able to preserve rice for long periods in a soft form that holds moisture. When water is poured over an exothermic agent in the pack, steam warms the rice contained within, and after about 15 minutes, the dish is piping hot." (Source: boingboing.net)
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Nineties star Des'ree has been voted the writer of the worst pop lyric: "I don't want to see a ghost/It's the sight that I fear most/I'd rather have a piece of toast/Watch the evening news," she sings on Life. It was the runaway winner in a listener poll for BBC6 Music's Marc Riley show. Second was the astonishingly awful lyric from Snap's Rhythm Is a Dancer: "I'm as serious as cancer/When I say rhythm is a dancer." Current chart darling Razorlight was third. On the 2005 hit Somewhere Else, Johnny Borrell sings: "And I met a girl/She asked me my name/I told her what it was." (Source: PA)
