All things grand for the little one

Burberry, Versace, Dior, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren—name a designer who sells baby clothes—and this newborn from Britain has it

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 52, and his fiance Scott Hutchinson, 27, have reportedly purchased a $2.8million (approx R22 crore) yacht and $34.6K (approx Rs 28 lakh) wardrobe for their newborn baby. The yacht, as of now, remains anchored by the bay of Miami.

Barlow and Hutchinson welcomed their son Romeo Tarquin on August 12, 2022 via surrogacy. Since then there has been a barrage of gifts with eye-watering costs being showered upon baby Romeo. “We want to give him the same start in life as the other kids so we have set up a trust fund for him. Tony (Barlow’s ex) gifted him (Romeo) $1.15 million and I matched it for him,” says Barlow, further stating that he and his fiancé have literally bought every designer people can imagine for the baby already. “Burberry, Versace, Dior, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, if a designer sells baby clothes, we have snapped them up.”

Barlow and his ex-husband Tony Drewitt, 56, have a combined fortune of $204 million, which they continue to share even after their 2019 split. The pair made history in 1999 as Britain’s first “gay dads,” when they became the first same-sex couple to be listed as “parent one” and “parent two” on their twins’ birth certificate instead of “mother” and “father.” Barlow shares children Saffron and Aspen, both 22, Orlando, 18, and twins Jasper and Dallas, 11, with his ex.

Baby Romeo’s conception is considered to be unconventional as Barlow, Hutchinson and Drewitt, all three of them donated their sperm to have another baby. Romeo’s gender has been chosen by Barlow and Hutchinson through the process of sex selection.

Maut ko di maat

English man ditches death in the living room as lightning strikes him while playing video games

UK-Based Aiden Rowan was happily playing video games on his PlayStation when he heard a loud crack followed by a “heavy jolting sensation.” “So, I am absolutely not one for sympathy posts, I had to share this because of how insane it is,” the 33-year-old writes on Instagram. “It took about a minute to come back to my senses, I felt very, very confused,” Rowan states. “I went upstairs and asked my husband for a wet towel as I didn’t know what had happened but my arm was burning.” Rowan’s husband was shocked to witness the gamer’s state and then they immediately rushed to the hospital. “We just couldn’t really process it at the time,” Rowan said, further stating that it was after a few days that the event started to mentally affect him, making him realise that he could have died. Ironically, when Rowan was struck, he had been playing a game called Stray where one controls a stray cat who is lost—in a thunderstorm.

Everything ain’t worth your (over)time

Canadian Pilates instructor Norah Allison posted a video shedding light on how replaceable people can be—claiming she was replaced in a matter of just three hours after she quit a corporate role. Allison remixed the video with another TikToker who asked, “What’s something you were not prepared for about the corporate world?” In the 29-second clip, Allison states that she used to work overtime constantly, giving up weekends and evenings to do her job, but all that wasn’t worth it, warning others not to do the same. The clip has been viewed more than 4.2 million times.

Your back isn’t agreeing to WFH

If your home ain’t having your back lately, you’re not in this alone. A new poll conducted by the British self-care campaign Mind Your Back has discovered a new phenomenon among young adults: the Work From Home Back. The survey conducted had 1,000 adults across the United Kingdom participating in it. It aimed to see how the COVID-19 pandemic had changed daily habits and found that two-thirds of Brits aged 18 to 29 have been experiencing back pain they didn’t have prior to the pandemic.

Sacred slurping

Nittanosho Kanzantei, a small Japanese eatery in the city of Ota, Gunma Prefecture, has been selling a unique type of rectangle-shaped  noodles—one with Buddhist Sutra printed on them. The sacred noodles feature the complete Heart Sutra, one of Buddhism’s most sacred texts. The Heart Sutra embeds the concept of emptiness and is often chanted by monks at funerals or memorial services, or as a meditative practice at temples.

Money over mommy

A Spanish woman faked her kidnapping to obtain $50,000 (approx R29 lakh) from her mother. The unnamed woman conspired the entire scene with her boyfriend to trick her mother into thinking that her daughter has been abducted. Police decided to question the unnamed after knowing it was the second time that her mother was conned for money like that.

Car-powered vasectomy

Texas-based urologist Dr Christopher Yang powered a vasectomy operation with a patient using his car’s battery, as the clinic faced a power outage just before the surgery. According to the doctor, the patient was adamant about not rescheduling the procedure because he had already taken time off work for that day. Yang powered the surgery by running an extension cord from the car park all the way to the patient’s room.

Because boss said so

A TikToker who goes by the name Annie, with only 170 followers, posted a video last month claiming that her ex-boss took away her chair and made her stand for eight hours just because it looked better to the boss. Amidst all that, she was not even allowed to use the bathroom or her phone. She refused to spill out the name of the company she worked at, and the name of her ex-boss. The video now has surpassed 42,000 likes and 2,90,000 views on the app.

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