Tourists love picturesque places — if a photo can do well on social media, you know that tourists are going to dig that attraction. However, at the New Forest National Park in southern England, tourists seem to love the pigs that roam the park, almost 600 of them. They seem to be so obsessed that they have befriended them and are constantly taking pictures with them.
The pigs eat the toxic acorns at the park. PICS/NYPOST
Some of them took it to an extreme and took selfies with the phone near their snouts, while other park workers have also noticed the tourists leaping out of their cars and following the piglets down a busy road. While a few other tourists have taken a more respectful and gentle approach. The visitors have now been labelled the “piggy tourists”, a social crime that has annoyed people at the park as well as those in charge of animal welfare.
The reason there are so many pigs in the park is becuse of a yearly ritual called “pannage”, where the swine are released to eat up all the acorns and nuts that could otherwise be toxic to the park’s cattle and ponies.
This year’s pannage season began in September and is expected to go until January 2026 with a heavier-than-usual acorn crop, which means that there’s likely to be a larger horde of piggy tourists this time around. The piggies will be contributing to the park by doing their part, but why they have become celebrities still remains a mystery.
Barking > saying ‘Shut up!’
An Australian man stoops to barking to silence his annoying neighbours
Neighbours can get annoying — especially with their loud chatter. Some reach for the earplugs. the bolder ones try yelling back and asking them to shut up. Australian Jack Cooper came up with a plan to record himself barking, and posted it on Instagram, saying that when his neighbours get too annoying, he pretends that he’s a dog getting irritated by the noise, so they shut up.
He could not have devised a better plan to keep his neighbours quiet. PIC/ISTOCK
Guess what? This genius idea really seems to work for him. In the video, he acted like a dog, and barked very convincingly, after which he yelled “Sashimi, shut up”, showing that he was yelling at his dog to be quiet. To sound believable, he also screamed “The neighbours are going to hear you!” The neighbours definitely heard all of it, and it worked to silence them just fine.
Flip this challenge
PIC/ISTOCK
A trend called flip the camera is going viral on social media, where a group of teenagers ask a person to film them while the camera is pointed towards the person, and then they point and laugh at them, thus making them the punchline of the joke. Most people have called it a clear form of bullying, and it really makes one wonder what Gen Z thinks they’re up to, making fun of strangers for no reason.
Livin’ life like a Disney princess
PIC/INSTAGRAM@yuliiacharm
Influencers have begun a new trend that involves AI — they have begun adding cute animals to their original pictures for them to look like something out of a Disney princess movie. The girls have posed with fake rabbits, pups, and even deer, while one of them has AI-generated 100 Dalmatians into the picture, captioning it “Living my dream.”
Come rain or shine
A luxury travel curator in Las Vegas was tasked with the impossible last week when her client demanded she “stop the rain” during an $80,000 (R70 lakh) vacation. Olivia Ferney says the furious tourist complained the downpour ruined her entire trip and called it the worst vacation ever. Sadly, concierge services don’t yet control the weather.
Tying the ropes of art
PIC/INSTAGRAM@MUSTARDCONTEMPORARY
British artist David Shrigley has proved that modern art is 90 per cent confidence and 10 per cent very expensive rope. His latest exhibition, worth nearly R11 crore, features neatly coiled rope. Called the Exhibition of Old Rope, it invites visitors to stare, pretend they “totally get it”, and tie themselves in knots trying to explain the meaning.
What’s in a name?
REPRESENTATIONAL PIC/ISTOCK
A sixth grader took to Reddit to express how her teacher, Ms White, could not pronounce her Hawaiian name Kau’i, and decided to call her Katherine “for ease”. Kau’i dug deep to find the teacher’s first name — Jessica — and began calling her Jessie, or Jess, or JJ just to make her mad. Revenge, thy name is Kau’i!