december-2012

Facts
figures +
Numbers, knowledge
and nuggets of home info
Words: Anna Whitehouse
Illustrations: Sam Vanallemeersch
Fishy tale
26 hours
An Alaskan fisherman was recently
found miles away from home, floating
in a plastic fish crate. After his boat
sank, Ryan Harris, 19, spent more than
26 hours bobbing about until the local
coastguard spotted him. He told the
local emergency services that he sang
songs like Row, Row, Row Your Boat
and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
to keep his spirits up and stayed alive
in the freezing climes by giving himself
a pep talk, saying for hours on end:
“I’m Ryan Hunter Harris and I’m not
going to die here.”
24 Holland Herald
Room service
€50,000 per night
As a home from home goes,
the Royal Penthouse Suite at
the Hotel President Wilson in
Geneva is just the ticket. Not
only does it have bulletproof
doors and windows, it has
a private elevator to whisk
guests to the 12-room
apartment, which has a
Steinway grand piano, billiard
room and personal library. All
for €50,000 per night.
Ghost story
3 ghosts
High and
mighty
$1 billion
HOME
Located in Mumbai,
Antilla challenges
pretty much every
archeological and
financial possibility in
a home. The 27-storey
house has six floors
of parking, a health
level with jacuzzi,
gym and ‘ice room’, a
ballroom level, several
floors of bedrooms
and bathrooms
and a four-storey
garden. The $1 billion
structure is based on
an Indian tradition
called Vastu Shastra,
which is supposed
to be conducive to
movement.
Everyone has heard of haunted houses, but the most
famous of them all is the White House. The most
commonly seen ghost is Abigail Adams, the wife of US
president John Adams. Some claim they have seen her
hanging laundry in the East Room, where she used to
spend a lot of time when she was alive. And Winston
Churchill claimed to have spotted Abraham Lincoln.
“Home life is no more natural to us than
a cage is natural to a cockatoo”
George Bernard Shaw