Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #438

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Cash-strapped Rome Eyes Up Trevi Fountain Coins
ROME (AFP) - Sign of the times in Rome: the city's cash-strapped administration is eyeing up the coins tossed by tourists into the celebrated Trevi Fountain.
Previously swept up and handed over to Catholic charity Caritas, the coins, which can add up to as much as a million euros a year, will now be claimed by Mayor Virginia Raggi for projects to be
decided by a city hall working group, according to reports in the local media on Friday.
Legend has it that anyone who lobs a piece of change into the nearly 300- year-old fountain while facing away from the Baroque masterpiece is guaranteed to return to the Eternal City.
The tradition is as strong as ever fol- lowing the land- mark's restauration
two years ago and thousands flock there almost every day to see where Anita Ekberg took her famous dip in Federico Fellini's 1960 film, "La Dolce Vita".
Snaffling coins is not the council's only revenue stream from Rome's fountains: this summer Raggi introduced on-the- spot fines for any- one tempted to emulate Ekberg by cooling off in the municipal waters.
Chinese Company Offers Single People a Lifetime Supply of Alcohol For £1,275
A Chinese compa- ny may have found the recipe for a happy single life: a never-ending sup- ply of alcohol to keep customers warm on those long and lonely nights.
As part of Alibaba’s annual Singles Day shopping holi- day, the world’s biggest, one online retailer is offering a lifetime supply of baijiu liquor for a single payment of 11,111 yuan (£1,275). The price refers to the date of the retail event, where online shops slash prices on 11 November each year, a date chosen for its col- lection of lonely number ones.
The first 33 cus- tomers to buy the lifetime supply of booze will receive 12 bottles of baijiu every month until
their demise, and can leave the steady stream of alcohol to a family member if they die within five years of their purchase.
Baijiu is a fiery white spirit usually made from sorghum or rice and can easily contain alcohol content well above the standard 40%. It is typically drunk as a shot and a common sight at Chinese banquets. Despite several major pushes to sell the liquor abroad, it has largely failed to become popular outside of China.
The one day pro- motion is a signifi- cant reduction from the normal price of 99,999 yuan, while a single bottle of Baijiu usually sells for 196 yuan.
However, the deal
could be nullified if the company went bankrupt, said a lawyer interviewed by the Beijing Youth Daily news- paper, pointing to the potential havoc it could wreak on the company’s long-term profits.
The annual retail extravaganza has become a major event with Alibaba hosting a gala that last year featured David and Victoria Beckham and Kobe Bryant.
Sales in
2016 topped US$17bn, easily eclipsing similar holidays like Black Friday in the United States. The shopping day was supposedly started by university stu- dents in the 1990s, celebrating their bachelordom by buying themselves presents.
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