Odd News
103-year-old man marries for third time ‘to have more children’
A 103-year-old Iraqi man with 15 children and hundreds of grandchildren has married for a third time and says he hopes his new wife will give him even more children.
Hajji Mukheilif Farhoud Al-Mansouri, who is from southern province of Al-Diwaniyah and was born in 1919, last week married a 37-year-old woman in the Somar area, 180 kilometres from Baghdad.
One of Al-Mansouri’s sons, Abdul Salam, told Rudaw Media Network that after his mother died 23 years ago, his father remarried but the second wife left and returned to her family this year.
Al-Mansouri waited for few months to see whether she would return, according to media reports. When she did not, he asked his children to find him a third wife “capable of giving birth to more children.”
Abdul Salam said: “Our choice was a nice woman, born in 1985. They got engaged and then a henna party was held, followed by a wedding that was attended by the sons and grandchildren.”
Al-Mansouri told Rudaw that his wife was young and willing to have more babies. He said he did not want anything from his children and just “prayed for God to bless them and to keep him company.”
Al-Mansouri is a novice in the marriage and children stakes compared with his eldest son, Kadhem, 72, who has 16 daughters and 17 sons from nine marriages, and currently has four wives.
The Rudaw report quoted Kadhem as saying that the members of his family had “always honoured life and believe they should not be afraid to marry and have more children.” –arabnews.com
Odd News
Message in bottle floats from Canada to Ireland in 13 years
A message in a bottle launched by visitors to Newfoundland’s Bell Island was found washed up on an Irish beach nearly 13 years later, after apparently crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Kate Gay said she was walking a Dingle Peninsula beach this week when she spotted the wine bottle with a sheet of paper inside.
Gay showed the bottle to members of Creative Ireland NeartnaMacharaí during a meeting at her house that evening, and they broke the bottle open.
The note, written by a couple named Brad and Anita, was dated Sept. 12, 2012. The letter described the couple’s day trip to Bell Island.
There was a phone number on the letter, but there was no answer when group members tried to call.
The Maharees Heritage and Conservation group posted photos of the bottleto social media on Monday, and within an hour group members were messaging with Anita.
Group member Martha Farrell said Anita reported that she and Brad had married in 2016 and are still together to this day. -upi.com
Odd News
Woman earns world record for collection of 15,485 egg cups
A Spanish woman who has been collecting egg cups for over 50 years earned a Guinness World Record when her collection was tallied at 15,485 items.
María José Fuster recruited two witnesses to help her tally her collection at a community center in her hometown of Campo, Spain.
Fuster’s collection includes multiple patterns, colors, designs and even novelty cups bearing the images of characters including Superman, Betty Boop and Garfield.
Fuster maintains two blogs related to her hobby — one to catalog each piece, and one to list the names of the people who have donated egg cups to her collection.
Some of her most prized egg cups, about 1,143 of them, are currently on display at a local museum.
-upi.com
