Don't run while . . .

If you really want to make an impression on your kids, you could show them this:

A woman in Germany who has spent 55 years with part of a pencil inside her head has finally had it removed.

Margret Wegner fell over carrying the pencil when she was four. It punctured her cheek and part of it went into her brain, above the right eye.

The 59-year-old has suffered headaches and nosebleeds for most of her life.

Hello Kitty joins Internal Affairs

Police chiefs in the Thai capital, Bangkok, have come up with a new way of punishing officers who break the rules - an eye-catching Hello Kitty armband.

The armband is large, bright pink and has a Hello Kitty motif with two hearts embroidered on it.

From today, officers who are late, park in the wrong place or commit other minor transgressions will have to wear it for several days.

From the BBC.

Getty strikes deal with Italy

The Getty Museum has reached a compromise with Italy after a bitter dispute over antiquities in its collection that Rome says were looted, the Italian Culture Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The museum will return 40 artifacts to Italy, fewer than the 46 Italy initially demanded but more than the 26 it offered last year when the government threatened to cut ties with the museum.

From CNN. I'm not sure about this passage in the writeup in the International Herald Tribune, however:

Efforts to tackle art trafficking "make looting more attractive" as a tighter black market has raised the value of the booty, Italy's culture minister said Thursday, a day after reaching a historic agreement with the J. Paul Getty Museum to recover some lost treasures.

Deals like the one announced with the Getty to return 40 artifacts to Italy by the end of the year make it "impossible for serious institutions to purchase illegally," Francesco Rutelli said, but it also has the unintended consequence of raising the value of contraband art as it becomes more precious.

"Such a decisive fight against art trafficking makes looting more attractive, in the sense that (the items) have a higher value because there are fewer," Rutelli told a news conference. "An object that a few years ago could be bought for US$400,000 (€290,250), today is worth US$4 million (€2.9 million)."

There's no doubt that the tomb-robbers have scaled back their operations, at least in Italy, and my impression was that it was not just the risk of arrest, but also the difficulty of selling their finds. Prices on stuff can that can be legitimately sold -- items with solid, old, provenances -- are definitely way up. Maybe buyers who aren't picky about provenance are also willing to pay more now, but I have my doubts.

Many happy returns

The science of boomerangs: here's an article in Popular Mechanics, though it is as much about the making of them as the science behind it all.

The World Boomerang Championships will be in Seattle in 2008.

London museum ransacked, Arts & Crafts ceramics stolen

The raiders left a trail of destruction as they looted thousands of pounds worth of exhibits from the De Morgan Centre in Wandsworth, south west London.

The burglary at the museum in the West Hill library, which houses nineteenth century arts and crafts ceramics, happened in the early hours of Sunday.

A glass cabinet containing valuable pieces was smashed and several items by the Victorian ceramicist William De Morgan, a friend of William Morris and founder member of the Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th Century, were stolen. Other exhibits were also smashed during the raid.

Full article here.

Museum raid in Nice

Last time, it was a museum curator who staged a Hollywood-worthy theft of Impressionist paintings by Monet and Sisley before landing in a French prison. This time, the five masked gunmen who snatched the canvases are still at large.

As a handful of visitors milled about the Museum of Fine Arts in Nice on the French Riviera on Sunday, the five men dashed in and made off with four paintings worth about €1 million (US$1.4 million), police said.

The stolen paintings were Monet's 1897 "Cliffs near Dieppe," fellow Impressionist Alfred Sisley's 1890 "Lane of Poplars near Moret," and Flemish master Pieter Bruegel's 17th century "Allegory of Earth" and "Allegory of Water," said the museum's deputy curator Patricia Grimaud.

The first two had vanished from the museum's walls before: In 1998, then-curator Jean Forneris staged a heist in which masked, armed men took him "hostage" and forced him to take them to the museum. The men overpowered guards and tied up the staff members before fleeing with the paintings — in the curator's car.

From the International Herald Tribune.

Upgrade almost done . . .

Next time I'll just pay and have someone else slog through all of it.
Almost there now, though.