Fed: Oddities of the week

AAP General News (Australia)
04-27-2007
Fed: Oddities of the week

SYDNEY, April 27 AAP - Oddities of the week:



+ Two men who set up their own sovereign state in a Queensland suburb and made up
their own currency to pay bills have been ordered by a court to stop operating as a bank.

In evidence put to the Federal Court in Brisbane, the men made fake currency and cheques
valued at more than $500,000 and used it to pay bills including rent, mortgage repayments,
phone bills and legal fees. The currency was created under the authority of their own
Independent Sovereign State of Australia, of which one of the men is the self-styled attorney-general
and chief justice and the archbishop of the Church of Love and Peace. The pair also set
up their own parliament at Kalbar, west of Ipswich.



+ Anzac Day is a solemn day when diggers dress up and display their medals proudly.

But people in Byron Bay dressed down for the occasion and displayed something very different.

More than 200 nudists and their families met at Tyagarah Beach, just north of Byron Bay,
to pay their respects to the diggers who fought for their freedom. After marking the moment
with a minute's silence, a naked Australian beach cricket team got down to the serious
business of defending its title against New Zealand.



+ The first blind pilot to fly half-way around the world touched down in Darwin, calling
it a "fair dinkum place". Miles Hilton-Barber, a 57-year-old motivational speaker from
Derby in England, set off on his epic journey from London in a small microlight plane
on March 7. He is expected to complete the final leg of his journey to Sydney before the
end of the month, when he will soar into the record books as the first sight impaired
pilot to clock the 21,722km trip. So far, he has traversed 18 countries and weathered
a windchill factor of minus 25 degrees Celsius while above mountains in Lebanon.

AAP sg/cjh/cdh

KEYWORD: ODDITIES

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