WORLDLY UNWISE

Growing miraclesHUaXI (CHINA): Local farmers thought officials in Huaxi had gone mad when they invested $72 million to make a garden of supe...

Growing miracles
HUaXI (CHINA): Local farmers thought officials in Huaxi had gone mad when they invested $72 million to make a garden of super-sized fruit and vegetables. Two years on, they are eating their words. Thousands of cashed-up tourists are flocking to this booming Yangtze River delta town to marvel at its 100-kg pumpkins and miniature watermelons. The Huaxi Modern Agriculture Garden is the latest success story in this market town of 36,000 people, where business acumen and unorthodox thinking have combined to reap a rich harvest. Huaxi, in eastern Jiangsu province, has been dubbed “China’s richest village”. The scientific venture has yielded 250 kinds of fruit and vegetables, some in bizarre colours and shapes. Huaxi Garden’s “king pumpkin” weighs about 130 kg. Peppers can be purple and loofah—the tropical vegetable popular in local dishes and often used as a coarse bath sponge—grow up to 2-mt-long.

The early bird earns a fine
ROME: A rooster crowing at the break of dawn has earned his owner a 200 Euro ($295) fine in an Italian court after neighbours complained it was waking them up too early. The rooster’s owner in Bolzano province would appeal the sentence, supported by the local Farmers’ Association, on the grounds that he needs at least one rooster to breed chickens.

At $18.5 mn, Faberge egg a ‘bargain’ for Russian tycoon
MOSCOW: A Russian businessman with a passion for Tsarist treasures said he was behind the record purchase of a Faberge egg in London for nine million pounds ($18.5 million), which he called inexpensive. Alexander Ivanov, a businessman who helped found Russia’s first private museum, bid in person at the tense Christie’s auction in London for the egg, originally made for the Rothschild family. Ivanov, who says collecting treasures is a hobby, set a record with his purchase, and when the hammer fell the audience at Christie’s burst into applause. “This egg was acquired cheaply in my opinion—the price of this egg is nothing compared to its significance and superior quality. It is an amazing and unique piece of work.” Faberge’s eggs have become a symbol of opulence since the jeweller was commissioned in 1885 by Tsar Alexander III of Russia to create one as a gift for his wife Maria. The previously undocumented egg sold at Christie’s is translucent pink and had never been seen in public before the sale was announced. Signed and dated by Carl Faberge in 1902, the egg features a clock with a diamond-set cockerel that pops up hourly, flaps its wings, nods its head, opens and shuts its beak and then crows. The egg was made by Faberge’s master craftsman Michael Perchin and is one of only three known pieces featuring both a clock and an automaton. (Reuters)