Friday, March 18, 2011
The see-through dress worn by Kate Middleton at a charity fashion show at St Andrews University has been sold for £65,000 plus £13,000 buyer's fees.
London auctioneer Kerry Taylor had estimated the knitted dress would fetch between £8,000 and £10,000.
The prince was in the audience when Miss Middleton hit the catwalk wearing the dress with black lingerie at the university in Fife in 2002.
The pair, who met at St Andrews, will marry at Westminster Abbey next month.The garment cost the mystery buyer a total of £78,000.
A man at the auction bought the dress on behalf of an individual he would only name as "Nick from Jersey".
He said of the buyer: "He thinks it's an iconic piece and is very happy with the purchase."
'Iconic piece'
Ms Taylor had started the auction at £20,000, with plenty of interest via phone bids, but when the price reached £50,000 it became a two-way battle between the man in the room and some pre-registered bidders.
The dress was sold by Charlotte Todd, who created it while studying fashion design at the University of the West of England in 2000.
She initially intended it to be a skirt, but the show's organisers decided it would be worn as a dress.
Mrs Todd, 31, who works in Bristol as an aquarium retail manager, said after the sale: "I'm completely shocked, I need to sit down and get my head round it.
"I just wanted to get out and get some fresh air during the sale. I wasn't expecting it. I was turning round to see who was at the back of the room and what was happening.
"But I didn't like to get my hopes up, I was thinking it might not sell. I wasn't thinking of a sum of money in my head."
She said she and her husband would probably put the money towards buying a house before joking: "Maybe I should rustle up some more dresses?"
More at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12764123
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Japan tries to cool off nuclear reactors from air, ground
0 comments Posted by Joshua Masinde at 7:01 AMBy the CNN Wire Staff
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan turned helicopters, fire trucks and police water cannons on the No. 3 reactor at the quake-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the pool housing its spent fuel Thursday in its latest attempt to stave off a nuclear disaster.
Military helicopters began dumping water on the reactor Thursday morning, with police and fire trucks opening up after 7 p.m. (6 a.m. ET). Japan's Defense Ministry said the first effort lasted 40 minutes, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company said the efforts would continue throughout the night in order to keep the reactor and its adjacent spent fuel pool from overheating.
"In order to cool the spent fuel storage pool, we have carried out water drop operations and the spraying of water from the ground," TEPCO officials said at a Thursday night news conference. "This needs to continue in several ways. Therefore, we will continue to ask for cooperation of the involved people so we can carry out continuously. The helicopter water dumping operation is something we have asked government to provide us help with, and also the spraying of water."
Friday's earthquake and tsunami has led to damage at four of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, located on the northern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. TEPCO also was attempting to restore power to the facility, but those efforts had not been completed by nightfall Thursday, the company said.
Helicopters made four passes in about a 20-minute span Thursday morning, dropping 7.5 tons of seawater each time on the facility's No. 3 reactor in order to cool its overheated fuel pool. Experts believe that boiling steam rising from that pool, which contains at least partially exposed fuel rods, may be releasing radiation into the atmosphere.
More on CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan turned helicopters, fire trucks and police water cannons on the No. 3 reactor at the quake-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the pool housing its spent fuel Thursday in its latest attempt to stave off a nuclear disaster.
"In order to cool the spent fuel storage pool, we have carried out water drop operations and the spraying of water from the ground," TEPCO officials said at a Thursday night news conference. "This needs to continue in several ways. Therefore, we will continue to ask for cooperation of the involved people so we can carry out continuously. The helicopter water dumping operation is something we have asked government to provide us help with, and also the spraying of water."
Friday's earthquake and tsunami has led to damage at four of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, located on the northern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. TEPCO also was attempting to restore power to the facility, but those efforts had not been completed by nightfall Thursday, the company said.
Helicopters made four passes in about a 20-minute span Thursday morning, dropping 7.5 tons of seawater each time on the facility's No. 3 reactor in order to cool its overheated fuel pool. Experts believe that boiling steam rising from that pool, which contains at least partially exposed fuel rods, may be releasing radiation into the atmosphere.
More on CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
