Something for the weekend
'Owzat for a perfect pint?
On Saturday, 13 August during the third test between India and England, Indian cricketer Nitish Kumar hit a six which landed spectacularly in spectator Jeremy Cornwall's pint of Pedigree.
Jeremy is now something of a local celebrity following the distribution of a slow motion video of the ‘lucky’ ball landing in his pint and the resulting social media frenzy during the test match.
After seeing Jeremy's pint spill everywhere on Saturday, Marston's did the right thing - delivered him a fresh pint at his workplace. Darren Primrose, manager of local Marston's Inns & Taverns pub The Ropewalk, was on hand to deliver the perfect pint of Pedigree to Jeremy.
The managing director of recruitment agency Bell Cornwall, based in Birmingham’' Jewellery Quarter, Jeremy is revelling in his 15 minutes of fame and to congratulate him, Marston's have rewarded him with a mini cask of Pedigree.
Des Gallagher, marketing manager for Marston's Beer Company, said: "It's a rare occurrence for someone to hit a six in a match, never mind someone catching the ball in a pint of Pedigree. It’s only fitting that we deliver Jeremy a perfect pint to make up for the spillage and reward his lucky catch.
"The catch certainly caused a stir and once again Pedigree was in the headlines as the official beer of the England cricket team."
Coventry – hovercraft capital of the Midlands
Over the past three weeks, Coventry University has played host to more than 40 students and 12 staff from four European countries who are all taking part in an engineering competition with a difference.
The second Intensive Programme for Embedded Digital Signal Processing (eDSP), which is funded by the European Union, has involved students from Germany, Finland (where the event was held last year) Lithuania and the UK working in mixed nationality teams of four to design, build and evaluate a small remotely operated hovercraft.
On the final day, the teams competed against each other in assessing their hovercrafts’ ability to automatically follow a set path which consisted of painted lines, curves, bends and straight sections.
Jamaki Prasad Koirala, a student from the Helsinki Metropolia Univeristy of Applied Sciences in Finland, said: "This is a new competition for me, and it's very exciting. Last year the event was in Finland, but this year it’s a pleasure to visit Coventry to take part. Building these hovercrafts is a great way to learn and apply the sort of engineering skills that are needed in industry."
Next year, more than ten Coventry University students will travel to take part in the same event in Lithuania and the following year, ten Coventry University students will travel to Germany to participate again. Which begs the question: how many hovercrafts do you need?
Universally challenged
The Birmingham Press Club and CIPR Midlands have joined forces to find the brainiest journalists and PR professionals in the region. That's some task. They're holding a charity quiz night at the Nuvo cocktail bar and piano lounge in BrindleyPlace, on Tuesday 13 September, 6.30-9pm. The quiz will be hosted by TV stalwart Bob Warman.
All entrants will receive a free cocktail of their choice on arrival plus food in the interval, courtesy of main sponsor, Nuvo. There will be prizes for the top three teams and a raffle. We imagine there'll be some sore heads in the morning.
