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The Week
The Week
National
Chas Newkey-Burden

Man parachutes off Eiffel Tower

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A man was arrested in Paris after jumping off the Eiffel Tower with a parachute and landing nearby. The experienced climber entered the tower’s perimeter before the opening time on Thursday. Although he was spotted, he managed to get to the top before anybody could stop him, carrying the parachute in a backpack. Attempts to stop him were unsuccessful and he went ahead with his jump, landing on the roof of a nearby sports centre before being arrested by police, said CNN.

Publisher twists Peterson review

There has been criticism of the use of an “extremely selective quote” on the cover of “oddball guru” Jordan Peterson’s book, said The Times. The paper’s reviewer, James Marriott, said “Beyond Order” was “bloated and dead” with prose that was “repetitious, unvariegated, rhythmless, opaque and possessed of a suffocating sense of its own importance”. But the cover of the book features Marriott as saying the book was “the most lucid and touching prose Peterson has ever written”. The paper said publishers can “take the base metal of a stinking book review and turn it into the gold of praise”.

Bonnie Prince Charlie’s face revealed

Scientists say they have created the “most lifelike” reconstruction of the face of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Following his death in 1788, a cast of the prince’s face was taken, and now a team at the University of Dundee’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification used death masks to recreate the Scottish prince’s features. The development offers historians a “first glimpse of how the pimpled prince looked”, said the Daily Mail.

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