Odd News
Lecturer awarded 100,000 pounds after she was fired for being “loud”
A university lecturer in the UK has won over 100,000 pounds after she took her employer to court on charges of unfair dismissal.
The senior academic, Dr Annette Plaut, had been working at the University of Exeter for over 29 years when she was fired by the institution. She was sacked from her post in the university’s physics department because of her loud voice, she claimed.
The dismissal prompted the academic to take up the matter in court. In her complaint, Dr Plaut not only accused the university of being “institutionally unconsciously biased”, but also stated that she had to seek medical help to handle the stress being brought on by her former employer’s ill treatment.
Dr Plaut said that she had a “naturally loud voice” which she attributed to her European Jewish background. She reportedly claimed it was the combination of her being “female and loud” that had led to her being fired after working at the university for nearly three decades.
She holds the distinction of being the first female academic to join the university’s physics department.
In response to the allegation, the university said that Dr Plaut had been fired over the way she dealt with two PhD students and denied categorically that the removal had anything to do with her background or her sex.
The employment tribunal, however, ruled that she had been unfairly dismissed. The university was then ordered to pay Dr Plaut 100,000 pounds. — ndtv.com
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
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
