The Book of the Year Read online

  ROME, ANCIENT▶

  Scientists finally worked out why ancient Roman concrete is better than ours, but can’t make it because we’ve lost the recipe.

  The mystery of why 2,000-year-old ancient Roman sea walls and piers have remained standing, while modern-day concrete ocean structures corrode within years, has finally been solved. Astonishingly, it turns out that Roman concrete gets stronger over time.

  Scientists at the University of Utah found that the material undergoes a rare chemical reaction. Every time the seawater corrodes a bit of it, new crystals are formed which make the structure stronger until it’s rock-like. Unfortunately, despite knowing what elements make up the walls – the ingredients include, among other things, volcanic ash – we’ve lost the instructions on how to bake it. Scientists are now trying to reverse-engineer the process to discover how it’s made. If they’re successful, we could revert to using the ancient technology on our shorelines.

  In other ancient Roman news, a ban on centurions standing outside the Colosseum was overturned after they won a battle with the local city council. The ban came about last year following numerous complaints that the centurions, who make their living posing for photos with tourists, were getting into fights with each other and with the tourists. However, a court overturned the ban following an appeal by the Centurion Street Artists Association, and so once again the centurions are free to roam Rome. The council haven’t given up yet, saying, ‘The city cannot be held hostage by centurions.’

  A 2000-year-old collection of buried ancient Roman letters was found under Hadrian’s Wall. Letters include one from a man named Masclus who wrote to his boss asking for time off work. Masclus has been known to historians for years, thanks to a previous letter in which he asked his boss for more beer.

  RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

  Dan: So one of the many people now investigating Donald Trump’s ties to Russia is a man called Bobby Three Sticks.

  Andy: Obviously, I’m already hooked.

  Dan: Well, his real name is Robert Mueller III, hence the nickname ‘Bobby Three Sticks’.

  James: That’s fantastic. Was he the guy who took over after Comey?

  Dan: Sort of. He’s now leading one of the many investigations into Trump’s links to Russia, at any rate. Trump fired James Comey, the former FBI director, and claimed it was because of Comey’s investigation of Hillary’s emails; but a lot of people think it was because he wouldn’t let the Russian investigation drop.

  Andy: You know when he was fired, Comey actually thought it was a joke. He was giving a lecture to his FBI staff, and he saw it on TV in the background and he thought he was being pranked.

  Anna: He and Trump didn’t exactly see eye to eye; apparently when Trump kept talking to him about Russia, he went to the Attorney General, basically America’s chief lawyer, and said, ‘Please don’t let me be left alone with him any more.’

  James: Yes. And the other thing is that Comey found Trump so unnerving that when they were in the Oval Office, Comey supposedly tried to camouflage himself by wearing a blue suit and standing in front of a blue curtain.

  Anna: I’m not sure I’d trust a man to be head of the FBI if he sees a curtain and thinks, ‘I’m going to hide in front of that, rather than behind it.’ He sounds like an idiot.

  Andy: And they’d have had to be tall curtains, because Comey is 6 foot 8. He’s 4 inches taller than Trump’s personal bodyguard. As you’d expect, he quite likes basketball.

  James: So because of this whole investigation we now know that during the election campaign Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr, met with Russians to discuss some dirt that they might have on Hillary. The guy who organised it was called Robert Goldstone, but he didn’t try to keep it secret by any stretch. He even checked into Trump Tower on Facebook on the day of the meeting.

  Dan: Did you know that Russia weren’t only accused of meddling in the US election? They were also accused of meddling in the Stoke by-election.

  Anna: Well, it was the obvious next step after the US. They tested their techniques in America and then decided to go for the big guns.

  Dan: Exactly. So what happened is that fake-news makers who were previously sending out positive stories about Donald Trump were now sending out stories about Stoke.

  James: I can see that anyone spreading positive stories about Stoke would immediately arouse suspicion.

  RSPCA▶

  Calls to the RSPCA this year came from a person who was worried about a distressed bird that turned out to be their fire alarm; another who believed they’d discovered an escaped tortoise which turned out to be made of stone; and someone who reported a wound under the tail of a stray cat that turned out to be its anus.

  RUNNER, DOING A▶

  One hundred and sixty people avoided a restaurant bill by doing the conga.

  In February, Spain’s restaurants fell victim to a ‘dine-and-dash’ gang who ate huge amounts of food and drink before running off. In their first hit, a group of up to 160 people paid a deposit of 900 euros, ate a 2,000-euro meal, then fled within a single minute before staff could react. According to one account, waiters didn’t realise the diners were leaving ‘because they seemed to be dancing the conga. They exited the restaurant in a row.’ Next, the gang paid a 1,000-euro deposit at a different restaurant, ate 10,000 euros’ worth of food and drink, and then disappeared in the space of five minutes. A man was later arrested on suspicion of being the gang’s ringleader.

  Elsewhere, an Australian rapper was arrested after he allegedly ran into the sea to avoid paying up. A Queensland court heard that the rapper, known as 2pec (real name Terry Peck), had eaten two lobsters and a baby octopus, and drunk several beers and 21 vodka oyster shots. He was pursued on jet skis by police and, after an unsuccessful attempt to hide underwater, tried to kick the officers as they apprehended him. In court, charged with stealing and assault, he claimed he had actually run out of the restaurant to help a friend who was giving birth on the beach, and that the lobsters had been overcooked anyway.

  Two Canadian men were arrested after allegedly going through a McDonald’s drive-through restaurant on a sofa. The sofa was being pulled by a car. As soon as the police arrived, the driver raced off, taking the sofa but leaving the two men behind. In their defence, they were wearing helmets. A local paper reported that actual criminal charges were ‘yet to be determined’.

  RWANDA▶

  Rwanda’s president claimed victory in the country’s election, a month before the ballots opened.

  There are 11 political parties in Rwanda, but eight of them didn’t bother fielding a candidate, instead backing the existing president Paul Kagame. In his first campaign rally, Kagame told his supporters that he effectively won this year’s election back in 2015 when the country voted to amend the constitution in his favour, allowing him to be president until 2034 if he feels like it. The election went ahead anyway, and Kagame won 98.6 per cent of the vote.

  This year, Rwanda became the latest country to ban the import of used clothing, in an attempt to help local textile industries. It was a particularly difficult decision, as most of the clothes are donated by American charities, and in response to the new law the USA suspended Rwanda’s duty-free trade agreement. American used-clothes lobbying groups say that the ban, which already exists in Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan, causes significant economic hardship to the USA’s used-clothing industry.

  Rwanda also announced it’s delivered over 2,600 units of blood by drone over the past year as part of a new push to get medical supplies to rural areas. Doctors request blood for patients via a WhatsApp message. The blood is then loaded on to a drone that flies autonomously to the destination at up to 100km/h, texts the doctor when it’s arriving, descends to 10 metres above the ground, drops the package and returns to base. The blood is attached to a parachute to ensure a safe landing.

  SAINTS▶

  Santa went on tour for the first time in 1,000 years.

  One of St Nicho
las’s bones was allowed to leave Italy for the first time in nearly a millennium. He’s been lying in a church in southern Italy since 1087, but this year a tiny bit of his rib went on tour to Russia, on a specially chartered flight.

  In order for St Nick to leave at all he had to be surgically extracted: his crypt in Italy is only accessible via a 6cm-wide hole. The church hired a surgeon to look inside with a video camera and carry out a laparoscopy (aka keyhole surgery), plucking the piece of rib out with tweez-ers. When St Nicholas got to Russia, over a million people visited him, many of them queueing through the night.

  The other big saint news of the year was that part of St John Bosco’s brain was stolen, when a thief posing as a pilgrim took it from its basilica in Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Italy.* Investigators were worried it would be used for ransom or even in satanic rites, as there’s almost no market for saints’ brains.

  Thankfully, the holy brain was eventually found in a copper teapot, and the teapot’s owner was arrested. Police raided his house after finding his fingerprints at the scene of the crime. The Archbishop of Turin prayed for St John Bosco to forgive the thief, who apparently stole the relic because he thought the gold-painted container it came in might be worth something.

  A bit of saint returned from space in April. The relic – a tiny fragment of St Seraphim of Sarov – was taken from its monastery to the International Space Station by Russian astronaut Sergey Ryzhikov.

  SAND▶

  A New Zealand brewery started making fake sand out of beer bottles.

  Two thirds of the world’s beaches are retreating. The reason is that sand is being extracted for use in construction far more quickly than it is being naturally replenished; and since desert sand is too fine for most builders, it’s being taken from beaches instead. There is a thriving sand black market. In India there’s even a ‘sand mafia’: in the state of Tamil Nadu, 50,000 lorry-loads of sand are mined every day and smuggled to other states. The Times of India estimates the sand-smuggling market is worth £1.7 billion a year.

  New Zealand firm DB Breweries is attempting to fight back with its invention, the Beer Bottle Sand Machine. When a bottle is inserted into the machine, a wheel of steel hammers, spinning at 2,800rpm, grinds it down. A vacuum system then sifts out the dust and the bottle’s label, leaving behind 200 grams of sand substitute. The whole process takes just five seconds, and the sand generated will be supplied to construction companies, national road projects and golf-course bunkers.

  The Cambodian government began its battle for the beaches, too, by announcing it was outlawing all sales of sand. For years, Cambodia has been selling its sand to Singapore (72 million tonnes since 2007), which has been using it to make itself bigger. Environmental experts have pointed out that this seriously damages coastal ecosystems, so the practice is now being banned.

  Paris also made efforts to preserve sand this year when the city council decided that it would not buy the usual 3,000 tonnes of Normandy sand that it places by the banks of the Seine to create an artificial beach. Instead, it filled the space with grass and plants. The council’s motives were more political than environmental. It took the decision after learning that its sand suppliers, Franco-Swiss cement maker LafargeHolcim, had submitted a bid to build Donald Trump’s border wall.

  SATANISTS▶

  A satanist group in Florida started a ‘Socks for Satan’ campaign.

  The Satanic Temple is a group of activists who don’t actually worship the devil, but use demonic symbols to promote their campaign for the separation of religion and government. This spring they collected socks donated by the people of Pensacola and distributed them among the homeless. Fellow atheistic satanist group the Church of Satan hit news earlier in the year when they tweeted to clarify that Donald Trump is not one of them.

  In 2013, the Satanic Temple attracted media attention when they tried to raise enough money to Adopt-a-Highway, hoping their name would be displayed on a road in New York. Sadly they failed, but this year they did successfully erect America’s first ever satanist monument. In 2016, someone in a town in Minnesota put up a metal silhouette of an infantryman kneeling before a cross in a park, leading to objections by residents, one of whom called it a religious symbol that violated the First Amendment (the separation of church and state). After a long argument the town decided to make part of the park a ‘public forum’, open to any group that wanted to honour the town’s veterans. The satanist group took the town up on the offer, and this year a black cube decorated with upside-down pentagrams was installed there.

  According to an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, America has seen a rise in demonic activity, and there aren’t enough exorcists to meet demands. ‘The problem isn’t that the devil has upped his game, but more people are willing to play it,’ Father Lampert said.

  SATELLITES▶

  In August the three brightest objects in the sky were the sun, the moon and a 3-metre-wide Russian satellite.

  The new Russian satellite was called Mayak, meaning ‘beacon’. It was only the size of a loaf of bread while on Earth, but once in space it unfurled a pyramid-shaped mirror, one 20th the thickness of a human hair. It reflected so much light back to Earth that it was brighter than any of the stars, the planets and even the International Space Station. By September, it had burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

  The satellite was crowdfunded, and one of the partners was the advertising company 12.digital. It horrified astronomers. Not only did such a bright light screw up all their observations while it orbited the Earth, but the company hope that the technology will eventually allow businesses to put billboards in space, which would be a disaster for stargazers.

  Ghana also launched a satellite this year, the first time a sub-Saharan African country has done so. The plan is that it will monitor the country’s coastline, but it is also fitted with a device that allows it to broadcast the country’s national anthem from space.

  In June, the record for the world’s smallest satellite was broken by an 18-year-old student from India. He designed the object, which was then flown up by a NASA rocket. It weighs just 64 grams, and is designed to measure radiation in space.

  SATNAV▶

  A troupe of Zulu dancers turned up at a Yorkshire school by mistake after being misdirected by their satnav.

  The Lions of Zululand are a group of dancers from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. On a recent tour of the UK, the dancers were meant to perform at a London school called St Ann’s, but after a mix-up over addresses they followed their satnav 200 miles in the wrong direction to the similarly named St Anne’s school in East Yorkshire. They arrived at 8 a.m. and approached one of the caretakers, asking, ‘Is this London?’ When they found out it wasn’t, they did the show anyway, to a delighted and surprised group of children.

  Elsewhere, a 91-year-old driver in Plymouth who followed her satnav ended up with her car lodged halfway down a flight of concrete steps; a German driver followed his until he got stuck halfway down a ski slope in Austria; and a Chinese driver followed his GPS directions halfway across a river. Independently, scientists at University College London discovered the brain activity that normally plans possible routes for a journey is completely absent when people switch from traditional maps to satnav.

  One of the Queen’s old Bentleys was auctioned off this year. The security fittings have all been removed, and the only personal feature that remains is that the ‘home’ programmed into the satnav is Windsor Castle.

  SAUSAGES▶

  For a sausage party, see Dictionaries; for an Australian who had a sausage delivered to his hot tub, see Drones; for a man armed with nothing but a sausage, see Easter; for the invention of the sausage roll, see Inventions; for an update on the state of the walking sausage, see Stick Insects; and for giant hot dogs, see Tunnels.

  SCHOOLS▶

  Schoolchildren in Bristol were made to wear signs around their necks if their shoes were too shiny.

  Merchants’ Academy in Bristol instit
uted a raft of stricter rules in July, including some that clamped down on any deviations from the school uniform. If shoes are shinier or hairbands more fashionable than the rules allow, students have to wear a lanyard with a card hanging from it that reads, ‘I have 24 hours to sort out my uniform.’ If they fail to wear that lanyard properly, or they don’t meet the 24-hour deadline, they are sent to an isolation room for five lessons. The aim is to reduce disruption in class, and the head teacher reported the new policies were already improving students’ behaviour within a month of being implemented.

  This wasn’t the only school to take a stand on footwear. Finden Primary School in Derby encouraged pupils to wear slippers instead of shoes. The deputy head suggested the policy after reading a paper arguing that shoeless students get better grades. The 10-year study across 25 countries found that when children remove their shoes in lessons they perform better, arrive earlier, leave later, are less likely to bully each other, and are quieter and calmer. It’s thought to make pupils feel more relaxed and at home, and is already common practice in Scandinavia. If the experiment goes well, the school intends to make slippers a compulsory part of the uniform.

  In the US, uniform irregularities created havoc in Wisconsin when Ashwaubenon High School was evacuated after a pupil turned up dressed as Darth Vader. The student was wearing the outfit in celebration of May the Fourth – aka Star Wars Day – but a parent mistook it for something more sinister and called the police. The nearby Parkview Middle School and a local community centre were evacuated, too. The police confirmed later that there had been no actual threat, but school officials re-emphasised their ‘no costume’ policy to avoid such things recurring in future.

  A group of students in Ohio were pepper-sprayed in the face for a school project. Children who want to join the military or the police took part in the ‘lesson’ to give them a taste of what they might be doing to other people. It also involved them being shot with a stun gun.