In 1953 Mark R. Sullivan, director of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, wrote that "In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch
today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk. Who knows but it may actually translate from one language to another."
Sullivan lived long enough to see the first commercial mobile phone go on sale, although it was hardly comparable to a watch; the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X weighed 28oz (790g), was 10" (25cm) high (plus a rubber aerial),
had an LED numeric display, gave 30 minutes' talk time between 10-hour charges and cost $3,995 in 1984 [$9,952 (£7,270) at 2020 prices]. ● Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's state newspaper, is claiming that
Kim Jong-il, father of current leader Kim Jong-un, invented burritos in 2011. The first known reference to modern burritos - described as "Tortilla arrollada, con carne u otra coas dentro" (a rolled
tortilla with meat or other ingredients inside) comes from the 1895 Diccionario de Mejicanismos (Dictionary of Mexicanisms) by Feliz Ramos i Duarte, although it is known that the Mayans wrapped food in tortillas
as early as 1500 BCE.
IN BRIEF: A "strange and irritating noise" coming from the River Ribble in Yorkshire was eventually traced to boards creating vibrations in the water as it flowed over a weir. ● Several older
models of Honda and Acura cars are marking 2022 by resetting their clocks to 01:00 on January 1st 2002 every time the vehicles are started. ● Meghan Markle was awarded damages of £1 ($1.37) in
her lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday newpaper over its publication of a letter she had sent to her father. ● Communities Secretary Michael Gove, en-route to an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today,
got stuck in a Broadcasting House lift for 30 minutes. [We hope they piped in some dance music for him... -Ed] ● The Welsh Ambulance Service has revealed some of the time-wasting calls it received last year,
including someone wanting a lift to A&E and another person suffering a paper cut to their arm. ● Research published in BMC Psychology last year has found that people who are obsessed with celebrities
and Hollywood gossip tend to have below-average intelligence. ● The Millenium Tower in San Francisco, opened in 2009, is tilting 3" (7.6cm) a year. ● A set of 93 Star Wars figurines bought from a Tesco
supermarket's bargain bin in 1983 and kept unopened has sold at auction for almost £50,000 ($68,443). The set included a Princess Leia figurine with a ~100,000% return and a Return of the Jedi Sebastian Shaw
Anakin Solo figurine (Shaw was edited out of later versions, replaced by Hayden Christensen). ● A lorry was left dangling over a cliff edge on a mountain road in China for three days until it could be hauled
back onto the road. The driver and passenger had managed to escape unhurt. ● Bodycam footage has recorded the rescue of a pilot whose small aircraft had crashed onto a train track in Los Angeles. He was pulled
to safety by police moments before a train plowed into the aircraft. You can view it here [Twitter/LAPD]. ● The president of
Turkmenistan has ordered that the "Gateway to Hell" - a crater where natural gas has been burning off since at least the 1980s; there are various stories about how it formed - be extinguished. The last
attempt to put out the fires was in 2010. The "Gateway", officially renamed the Shining of Karakum in 2018, is one of Turkmenistan's most popular tourist attractions.
CORONAVIRUS ROUND-UP: An Indian man named Kovid (Sanskrit for 'learned') has become something of a celebrity online after sharing his experiences of living with his name. ● A Texas teacher has been arrested
after allegedly locking her COVID-positive son in the boot of her car to protect herself as she drove to a testing site. ● A group who posted videos of themselves partying maskless, dancing and drinking in the
aisles while on a chartered flight from Montreal to Cancun on December 30th were condemned by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and found their return to Canada delayed as no airline was
willing to carry them until they agreed to terms including sober boarding and no alcohol aboard the plane. The group of 27 were also told that they were liable to be fined up to C$5,000 (£2,900; $3,970) each
per offence. ● QAnon follower and anti-vaccine podcaster Doug Kuzma died of COVID-19 after attending a three-day "ReAwaken America" right-wing rally last month. The last photo of Kuzma posted online was
of him holding a phial of ivermectin, the equine antiparasitic drug mistakly taken by some vaccine deniers as a cure for COVID-19. ● Kelly Ernby, Deputy District Attorney for Orange County, California, has
died of COVID-19. Enrby, a Republican activist who spoke against vaccination mandates at a right-wing student group Turning Point rally last month, was 46.
UPDATES: The Banksy model stable left at Merrivale Model Village in Great Yarmouth last August is to be auctioned. It is estimated that it could raise "up to a seven-figure sum" for the attraction
which was badly affected by lockdown regulations last year. ● Ben John, 21, who was ordered to read classic literature as part of a sentence for possessing a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook has made
"encouraging" progress, according to Judge Timothy Spencer QC. ● NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has successfully completed its deployment and will arrive at its destination near the Earth's L2
Lagrange Point (a gravitationally-stable location in the orbit of the Earth-Moon system) four times further away from the Earth than the Moon in the next two weeks. It will then spend about five months being fine
tuned. Unlike Hubble, which astronauts had to visit to install a fix to correct a fault in its mirror, each hexagonal segment of the JWST's mirror can by finely adjusted remotely.
