Popular Elsewhere
15:12 UK time, Tuesday, 28 June 2011
A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.
Prince Harry could soon be king of Canada if the Monarchist League of Canada have their way. The Telegraph's most popular story says they are campaigning to have a monarch of their own to set up home in Ottawa. It's in response to republican critics who say that they only get a visit from their head of state every two to three years. They've chosen Harry as he has "virtually no chance of becoming king". They are due a visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but it's suggested the majority of Quebecois may be a little bit prickly.
Some scientists aren't shy of predicting we'll find an alien life form. But Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Applied Astronomy Institute, has upped the stakes by putting a time scale on it. He has given twenty years before finding alien civilisations. According to the Guardian's most popular story, his confidence is because 10% of the known planets circling suns are much like Earth. And, much like Earth, he thinks they'll probably look like us as well with a head, two arms and two legs.
Entering competitions can earn you enough to live off according to a popular Daily Mail story. The gloriously named Liz Denial, fresh off winning over £16,000 on Deal or No Deal, has surrounded herself with her winnings from daily competitions for the photoshoot. Only they appear to be lots of tea bags and Rice Crispy Squares. Oh, and there's the life size cardboard cut out of Ricky Gervais. It's not quite clear how she is living off it.
The palms are sweaty and the gaze averted for what is about to be said. Having a quiet think on your own can have its benefits. That's the message from a widely emailed New York Times article. It argues, or rather says in a calm thought-out manner, that shyness is increasingly, and wrongly, being seen as an illness which drug companies are keen to provide a cure for. But introverts, it finds, get better school results despite having equal IQ levels to extroverts.
As if to add to that social anxiety, Boston Globe readers pile in with their most annoying office etiquette offences. People who e-mail and then walk over to make sure you've got the e-mail are high up on the list. Perhaps their readers wouldn't much like working with anyone who's been on the Apprentice as another annoyance is people who insist on talking only on speaker phone.
