I T’S A W EIRD WORLD
DOG NATIONAL HOLIDAY Turkmenistan marked a new holiday last Sunday dedicated to its national Alabai dog breed, to which its longtime leader has already erected a gilded monument and written an ode.
e new holiday took place on the same day as a festival celebrating the Akhal-Teke horse breed, which Turkmenistan also considers part of its national heritage.
e Alabai day included a contest to find the best of the large shepherd dogs.
President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who has run the isolated desert nation of six million since 2007, awarded the top prize for courage to a border guard service dog.
e president’s son, deputy prime minister Serdar Berdymukhamedov, presented the award which included a medal for the dog and a car for its handler.
e authorities also organised a race for Akhal-Teke purebreds, horses known for their elegant stature and metallic sheen.
Dogs and horses are sources of national pride in the former Soviet republic bordering Afghanistan, where they are widely used by many traditional herders.
Last year, the government erected a gilded Alabai statue on a busy traffic circle in the capital, Ashgabat.
Another street statue, also coated
Berdymukhamedov horse. — Reuters.
SUPER SIZED TOY COLLECTION
From the age of five, Filipino graphic artjunction in gold, himself, features a of President seated on a ist Percival Lugue has had a passion for collecting toys from fast-food restaurant chains like McDonald’s, Burger King and home-country favourite Jollibee.
Now, nearly five decades later, the 50-year-old has about 20 000 toys packed from floor to ceiling in his home and holds a Guinness World Record from 2014, when his collection reached more than 10 000 items.
“e toy is like a storyteller in itself,” said Lugue, explaining his hobby while sitting among an eclectic mix of toys in his three-storey home. “For example, it gives me a glimpse of that particular period when I got it, the story of what’s going on, what are the incidents that are attached in the acquisition.”
Lugue, who lives in Apalit in Pampanga, a province northwest of Manila, built his home especially to house his collection.
He likens the excitement that getting new toys gives him to Christmas morning.
He has always played with the toys, but even as a child took good care of them and put them on display “unlike the other kids, who would tear up their toys into smithereens”.
While most of his toys were obtained through personal purchases, some were donated by friends and family.
“I would invite my friends to ... have lunch at McDonald’s ... and in one sitting I would be able to complete the whole set,” he said.
One of his most treasured pieces is a “Hetty Spaghetti” figurine, a mascot from the Jollibee chain that his mother gave him in 1988.
His dream now is to eventually put his collection on display for the public or even open a museum to “give others a chance to revisit their own childhood memories”. — Reuters.