Back to the 2000s

Millennium-obsessed woman’s house is a collection of all things Y2K

A british mom of three is so enamoured with everything from the year 2000 that she’s turned her home into a Y2K era-inspired playground. Jemma Murphy, 33, from Solihull in Warwickshire, England, even pulled off the DIY dated decor on a thrifty $1,200 (R1,00,00) budget. “I’m obsessed with the Y2K look—it inspires my house and the way I dress and do my hair,” Murphy said. “I love a girly fem look, which includes anything pink, flowers, hearts and butterflies.”

She said she first rented her house in 2021 and “couldn’t wait to inject some colour” into the abode, which she described as being “drab.” Murphy additionally shares her three-bedroom home with her partner Aaron, 27, and her two other kids, Brandon, 10, Cody, 8. Her boys are a lot less impressed with that doll-themed room, although they like other playful aspects of the house’s design—like her “teddy bear wall.” Murphy said she spent four hours pinning 80 stuffed Care Bears along with Pokémon and My Little Pony toys to a hallway in her home. “I didn’t want to spend a fortune, so about 60 per cent are from charity shops, others were ones the kids didn’t mind me using,” she said of the toy wall.

The bathroom was the first room in the house that Murphy completed—and it took her three weeks to accomplish. She ordered a Bratz doll shower curtain and bathmat from retailer Dolls Kill costing around $30 each (Rs 2,499) and continued to build on that theme. “I found the Bratz doll head on eBay for $21 (Rs 1,750).” In addition to being inspired by the early 2000s, Murphy also loves “goth” decor and painted her living room walls black.

Rs 1,750
Cost of the Bratz doll head that is perched in Murphy’s bathroom

The book that keeps on giving

Why one book club took a casual 28 years to finish James Joyce’s book

A California-based book club has recently finished its first reading of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, a notoriously difficult book that it started reading 28 years ago. The club, hosted by filmmaker Gerry Fialka, has tried to decipher Finnegan’s Wake page by page since 1995, in an attempt to figure out its many mysteries. The book is so difficult to read that no one can truly say they ‘get it’. It’s written in a convoluted mix of reinvented words, puns, and allusions, referencing about 80 languages, and people can’t even agree on where the book is set or who the characters are. Some members left and others joined the group over the past 28 years.

Fly in the intestine

The American Journal of Gastroenterology recently published the bizarre case of a 63-year-old man who had a fly living inside his intestines. The man had shown up for a routine colon cancer screening earlier this year, and doctors at a Missouri hospital conducted a colonoscopy. The physicians found a strange foreign object while exploring the patient’s traverse colon: an intact fly that had somehow survived.

Also read: The surgical serendipity

Cake me to court

A retiring Dutch cook, Mariska, who wanted to say goodbye to her colleagues in a special way cooked a cannabis-infused cake for them. Not knowing what was in the cake, two of her colleagues ate a few slices, and became nauseous and ill. The two took her to court.

Going bananas

A 50-something Japanese man from Kurume City was recently ordered to remove three banana trees he had illegally planted and cared for in the median strip of a busy city road for a couple of years. It’s unclear why the man chose to plant the trees on public property and water them daily.

Moose on the loose

A herd of followers are tracking a moose on the loose in southern Minnesota, hoping the majestic animal’s journey ends safely after it was spotted Tuesday 140 miles (225 km) northwest of Minneapolis. Fans have been tracking the young male moose for weeks and posting updates on a Facebook page that as of Tuesday had more than 18,000 followers.

Loch Ness… algae?

Apparently, the Loch Ness Monster is made of algae, according to DNA samples taken from the waters of Scotland’s Borlum Bay. In one of the largest investigations of the elusive creature, search volunteers Marry Wiles, 49, and Aga Balinska, 42, swear they got a glimpse of the two humps and some sort of third appendage, during an early morning swim in August.

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