The Know Daily - Thursday 11 January 2024

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One elephant, two elephants… London Zoo has started 2024 with its annual animal stocktake, counting everything from Galapagos giant tortoises to Sumatran tigers. Despite describing the count as a “mammoth” task, the zookeepers made it look pretty fun for residents and visitors alike.

📮 Sub-postmasters exonerated

Hundreds of sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal are to have their convictions quashed by parliament this year.

Tell me more. 
On Wednesday, PM Rishi Sunak told the Commons that a new law will be introduced to ensure those wrongly convicted are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”. 

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for fraud relying on data from the faulty Horizon software. Widely regarded as the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history, to date fewer than 100 people have had their convictions overturned.

What’s the compensation?
While full details of the law are yet to be published, anyone who has their conviction overturned will be given an upfront offer of £600,000. £75,000 will also be awarded to 555 workers who took their case to the High Court in 2019, which resulted in the Post Office agreeing to pay damages.

Why now? 
The news follows a “two-decade battle for justice”, noted The Independent, and a recently-released ITV mini-series called Mr Bates vs the Post Office which “prompted a public outcry”.

Alan Bates - the drama’s titular character - welcomed yesterday’s news. “This was the decent thing to do,” he told The Times, but added: “There’s still a lot of work to do.”

Anything else?
Senior lawyers expressed concern at the government’s announcement, The Guardian reported, stressing that the decision to pass a bill overturning court verdicts should be seen as a one-off.

And a former Post Office investigator will later face questions at the public inquiry into the scandal, which has been underway since 2021.

💒 Saying “I do” to the buddymoon

A growing number of newlyweds are ditching the traditional honeymoon in favour of a big holiday with their pals.

Sorry - a whatmoon?
You heard us! Buddymoons - celebrating the post-wedding period with friends as well as your spouse - are all the rage, if Instagram and TikTok are anything to go by.

What’s more, as many as one fifth of couples would now consider having a buddymoon after the big day, according to new data by wedding planning company Hitched. 

Why is this now a thing? 
With many couples now living together before tying the knot, post-wedding travels have become more of an opportunity to discover a new place with friends, one psychologist told The New York Times. 

The post-pandemic desire to spend as much time as possible with loved ones may also have something to do with it, said Hitched’s editor Zoe Burke. “You have the rest of your life to be just the two of you,” she noted.

What do people make of it?
The buddymoon trend has proved divisive. In an op-ed for The Times, Carol Midgley said she wasn’t fan and criticised the “entitlement” of newlyweds who expect friends to spend money (and annual leave) on extended celebrations.

Writing for the i newspaper, Rebecca Reid had a similarly negative take. “Call me old fashioned, but if you need 23 other people on your honeymoon with you, then you’ve married the wrong person,” she said.

But former buddymooners have flocked to defend the trend. “We now have amazing memories of a whole holiday with our best friends, not just one hectic wedding day,” one told The Guardian. It’s hard to argue with that!

🗑️ Could this BE any more exciting?: The original scripts from two famous Friends episodes - The One With Ross’s Wedding Part I and II - are going up for auction 25 years after they were discovered by chance in a bin. 

👚 Boohoo exposed: The fast fashion retailer has apologised after a BBC Panorama investigation found that it had put “Made in the UK” labels on thousands of items of clothes actually made in South Asia.

👐 Sharing is caring: An Austro-German heiress has made headlines for her plans to randomly select 50 Austrians to determine how she should redistribute £21.5m of her inheritance across society. 

🍺 Brewdog backlash: The brewer and bar operator known for its Punk IPA beer is facing a backlash after dropping its pledge to pay staff in the capital the “£13.15 London real living wage”. 

🏅 World’s Ugliest Lawn winner: A woman in Tasmania has won the first ever World’s Ugliest Lawn competition for her “exhausted tufts of withered yellow grass”. Her garden is certainly no looker - but for an important reason. 

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Trivia answer: A) Essex County Council apologised for spelling “Chelmsord” without an “f” on a large sign on the A131. Fortunately, the other locations were spelt correctly…

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