Two children aged three and ten were left on their own in a third/fourth floor apartment in Grenoble, France. Somehow a fire broke out and they were locked in and unable to leave. The older one called from the window shouting that they couldn’t get out, they didn’t have keys. A 25 year old student Athoumani Walid ran over on hearing the commotion and was joined by other neighbours, he called to the child to jump telling him they would catch them. The older boy dropped his brother first who was caught by the men below who had formed a human shield for them to jump into. The ten year old then hung over the ledge and let himself fall into the arms held out below. Neither of the boys were injured but two of the rescuers had broken arms from the impact on catching them. Athoumani said at first he was scared of not catching them but then just concentrated on the boys. Heroes for sure.
A man was sacked from Southampton railway station after selling a ticket to a traveller to help out. He usually worked on the gates but was on restricted duties due to a broken ankle. His colleague was away from the ticket office, maybe gone to the loo or to buy his lunch, or maybe he was a smoker and went for a quick puff, really doesn’t matter. A customer wanted a ticket and our man decided to help out and sold it to him. Next thing he knows, he’s investigated by Southeaston Rail (I bet that was fun) and they sacked him. An employment tribunal lated overturned the ruling and said it was unfair. The union said the man had always been an exemplary worker who was appreciated by both his colleagues and customers. I wonder how much this little comedy cost the public. The man received £25,000 and there’s all the people involved in getting him off.
Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon has just added thirteen billion dollars to his fortune in 24 hours. Yes, I did say billions and not millions. It’s quite obvious that the pandemic has benefitted some people, or at least one person. We are all to blame as we all, or nearly all, like to go online and order something we sometimes don’t even need. The man is now worth 171 billion dollars and hardly pays tax in the UK as his company is registered in Luxembourg. Neither has he given much to charity although this year he pledged ten billion dollars to tackle climate change. He is making billions daily so why does he need all that money? Well I guess it’s mostly in shares but Bill Gates manages to give much of his fortune to his charitable foundation. Will I stop buying from Amazon? I doubt it, it’s much too useful. 😴💤😴