TITANIC DRUG SPIKE MYSTERY MAY BE SOLVED
PRESTON-ELLIS HUNTER
A RUBBER duck that escaped a failed world record race in Dublin 18 years ago has been found by a teen washed up on shore – 400 miles away.
The record attempt, held in June 2006, was part of “World Duck Race Ireland” – and saw 150,000 rubber ducks released into River Liffey.
Despite organisers’ attempts to collect them all several escaped into the sea. And now one has been found 423 miles away on the island of Stronsay in Orkney, Scotland.
Filip Miller (13) stumbled across the plastic duck whilst walking the dog – and brought it back home to mum Marion, who spotted the telltale writing on the toy.
“The spring tides have been really high recently, and my son was walking the dogs along the shore,” Marion said. “He was finding some bits and pieces and then he said, ‘there’s a rubber duck’.
“I told him he should pick it up and so he took it home he didn’t really look at it, he just put it in his pocket. He put it by the sink, and I had a look at it and saw writing on it.
Excited
“That’s when I saw it said “World Record Duck Race, Ireland 2006” and so we got a bit excited and started Googling it.”
Each duck in the race was sponsored, with the first duck to pass under five bridges being declared the winner.
Other ducks from the race have been found in Morecambe and the Isle of Wight – with one even being discovered in Sweden in 2016.
A MYSTERY that saw 80 cast and crew on the Titanic movie poisoned with psychedelic clam chowder could soon be solved.
A ruling in Canada means new information may be revealed on how their soup was laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP.
In 1996, while filming the film in Nova Scotia, director James Cameron and actor Bill Paxton were among those taken to hospital. Reports claimed crew members raced down corridors on wheelchairs and a “conga line” developed, while others collapsed onto gurneys.
Case
The case was closed in 1999, but Nova Scotia’s information and privacy commissioner Tricia Ralph has ordered the police to release all the information about the incident.
Cameron (69) said in an interview last year he believed it was a dispute with the set’s caterers. He said: “We believe the story is that it was somebody who had a beef with the caterers because the first thing we did was fire the caterers. “Of course, the operating theory was that I was such a psycho maniac that [the perpetrator was] trying to get back at me, but I reject that theory out of hand for obvious reasons.”