Officials order man to pay 50-cent debt
Reporting by Sylvia WestallVIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian authorities sent a debt collector to a man's house after he underpaid his trash collection bill by 36 euro cents, about 50 U.S. cents, a newspaper said on Thursday.
The man, from a village in Lower Austria province, told Kronen Zeitung that he had accidentally overlooked the 36 cents after the decimal place on his bill for 236.36 euros ($315).
The slip-up set the bureaucratic ball rolling, said a spokeswoman from the court which chased the debt.
"We also don't completely understand why the court reacted this way to such a trifling invoice," she said. The bailiff's visit cost the man 5 euros.
Cow wins free pass after escaping slaughter
Reporting by Edith Honan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A cow escaped death when it fled a New York City slaughterhouse Wednesday, running through the streets before being corralled by mounted police.
The escape appears to have earned the cow a free pass -- it will be turned over to an animal care agency rather then sent back to the slaughterhouse in the New York City borough of Queens, police said.
Sleeping and eating - who does it best?
Reporting By Sophie Hardach
PARIS (Reuters) - True to their reputation as leisure-loving gourmets, the French spend more time sleeping and eating than anyone else among the world's wealthy nations, according to a study published Monday.
The average French person sleeps almost nine hours every night, more than an hour longer than the average Japanese and Korean, who sleep the least in a survey of 18 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Despite their siesta habit, Spaniards rank only third in the poll after Americans, who sleep more than 8.5 hours.
And while more and more French people grab a bite at fast-food chains these days or wolf down a sandwich at their desk, they still spend more than two hours a day eating.
That means their meals are twice as long as those of the average Mexican, who dedicates just over an hour a day to food, the OECD's "Society at a Glance" report on work, health and leisure in Asia, Europe and North and South America found.
The Japanese, scrimping on sleep and burdened with long commutes and working hours, still manage to spend close to two hours a day eating and drinking, placing them third behind New Zealanders.
The Japanese like to spend what remains of their scarce free time watching television or listening to the radio. This takes up 47 percent of leisure time in Japan.
Turks, on the other hand, spend more than a third of their leisure time entertaining friends.
The survey showed that the split between work and leisure time within certain countries is striking.
"Italian men have nearly 80 minutes a day of leisure more than women. Much of the additional work of Italian women is apparently spent cleaning the house," the OECD said in a statement.
The OECD has 30 members. The survey covers only the countries for which appropriate figures were available.
Briton wins "best job in the world" on Australia island
Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith
CANBERRA (Reuters) - A British charity fundraiser won the "best job in the world" Wednesday -- caretaker of an Australian tropical island -- after an innovative marketing campaign that highlighted the power of social media.
Ben Southall, 34, was picked from 16 finalists in a highly publicised contest by Tourism Queensland which attracted nearly 34,700 video entries from almost 200 countries and surpassed all expectations in promoting tourism in the Australian state.
The job description? Explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef for six months and report back to Tourism Queensland and the world via blogs, a photo diary, video updates and interviews.
Also, if you feel like it, feed the fish, collect the mail and clean the pool -- and earn A$150,000 ($110,000) for your efforts.
"To go away now as the island caretaker for Tourism Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef is an extreme honor," Southall said on live television from Hamilton Island after being named the winner.
"I hope I can fill the boots as much as everybody is expecting, my swimming hopefully is up to standard and I look forward to all of the new roles and the responsibilities that the task involves," he said, adding he would soon be joined by his Canadian girlfriend on the island.
While the job itself attracted global attention, so did the campaign by state-run Tourism Queensland as it highlighted the marketing potential of websites such as YouTube and Facebook.
"This is probably the first time that a campaign has achieved this sort of reach with so little advertising spend other than a few strategically placed job ads around the world," said Australian marketing analyst Tim Burrowes, editor of media and marketing website Mumbrella.
"This has all been about the power of people passing things on, largely through YouTube. The main lesson to be learned here is that if you have an original, exciting idea that gets people talking you don't need to spend huge on advertising."
The "Best Job in the World" campaign began in January with Tourism Queensland launching an advertising campaign centered around the lure of a job that is more like a paid holiday.
Within days, the campaign was one of the most popular items on the web, as applicants from all over the world sent in 60-second video applications and news of the contest spread on social networking sites.
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