BEER PIPELINE KEEPS MUSIC FANS BUZZING
A German music festival is ensuring the suds keep flowing to thirsty metalheads by building a six-kilometre beer pipeline.
At least 75,000 people are expected to attend the annual three-day Wacken Open Air Festival — with each ticket-holder consuming an average of five litres of ale.
To ensure demand is met, organizers will bury the pipeline about one metre underground. They promise concession operators will have enough pressure to pour six beers in six seconds.
The pipeline will also give festivalgoers and musicians more room to move around — and do less damage to grassy fields — as no kegs will be carted in and out of the venue.
“The installation of the pipes and the enlarged drainage is a lasting investment in the infrastructure of Wacken,” a festival official said. “We pave the way for many years of heavy metal at Wacken Open Air.”
The festival kicks off Aug. 5 with scheduled bands including Megadeth, Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson.
Canoe completes trip around world
A traditional Polynesian-style canoe that set off three years ago to travel the world is set to make a triumphant return to Hawaii this month.
The Hokulea, a modern replica of the twin-hulled vessels that once plied the seven seas, travelled more than 40,000 nautical miles (74,080 kilometres) and visited 23 countries, its alternating crews navigating by the stars and the sun, just as their ancestors had done.
Now the epic voyage is to be capped off with a four-day homecoming celebration in Oahu in mid-June.
Hawaii tourism official George Szigeti described the journey as the “greatest accomplishment in modern Hawaiian history” and said thousands are expected to throng Waikiki’s Magic Island when the vessel arrives on the morning of June 17.
The mission of the Hokulea and its Mālama Honua (“to care for our Earth”) Worldwide Voyage was to create a more sustainable world, officials said.
Naturists urge more nude spaces in London
Visitors to some of London’s most celebrated green spaces could soon be sharing towel space with naked sunbathers — if a naturist “action” group gets its way.
The group is campaigning to allow nudity in the British capital’s parks, arguing restrictions against stripping are rooted in “misguided preconceptions and prejudices.”
“There are all sorts of health benefits from exposing the body to the sun in comparison to keeping clothes on,” group spokesman John Paine told the Evening Standard.
Paine said his group has staged two naked picnics and nude photo shoots in the city’s Hampstead Heath, a popular green oasis north of the city, and no one raised a fuss. He’d like to see a situation similar to Germany, “where in Munich it’s been recognized for about 80 years that nudity is accepted in a number of open spaces in the city.”
London officials, however, remain cool to the idea, and nudists risk possible criminal charges if their bare flesh is deemed to have caused alarm or distress.