Circle of Life
We’ve all read the news, seen the viral videos and memes, heard from the experts; and no, we’re not talking about Covid-19 so much as the crisis it caused in the toilet paper industry. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus made its way around the world, we were inundated with visuals of empty grocery store shelves and panicked shoppers fighting over rolls of toilet paper, which reports told us was the first thing to run out, with new stocks getting bought up almost instantaneously.
Forget gold, we should have invested in three-ply. Perhaps with that in mind, and with dwindling sales as customers eschewed stepping out to get a bite to eat, German baker Tim Kortuem began making cakes in the shape of toilet rolls. “We thought, we should just create toilet rolls for eating. And that’s how the idea emerged,” Kortuem told Reuters Television, adding, “The customers are totally crazy about it. Most people just like it as it adds some fun to these times.” The dessert is certainly a hit as the bakery is dishing out 200 a day, which still run short.
Life is Art
Bored at home? Filled with creative zeal? Want revenge on your fourth-grade art teacher who made fun of your summer project in front of the whole class? Okay, the last one may just be me, but in any case, the world-renowned Getty Museum is looking for the world’s next renowned artist, and it may just be you. Getty is inviting people stuck indoors due to quarantine/lockdown to tap into their inner creative genius and come up with some new artwork. Best of all, it’s to be homemade. The museum posted on its Twitter handle, saying, “We challenge you to recreate a work of art with objects (and people) in your home. Choose your favorite artwork; Find three things lying around your house; Recreate the artwork with those items; And share with us.” So go ahead, get creating.
Living in a Bubble
Speaking of grocery shopping, customers at a supermarket chain outlet in the English county of Kent had a ball after a woman entered the store in a zorbing ball in an attempt to pick up some items. Perhaps inspired by the film Bubble Boy (starring a very young Jake Gyllenhaal as a young man with no immune system who’s forced to live in a plastic bubble) the unidentified woman roamed, er, rolled around the store in the transparent plastic bubble apparently looking for goods, before she was escorted out of the store by an employee, sans any purchases. Onlookers were left bewildered and or amused, if footage of the incident, taken at a Morrisons in Herne Bay, Kent, is anything to go by.