Thierry Henry's €300,000 "dream" aquarium

As reported in Britain's Daily Mail - so you know it must not only must be true, but also completely accurate - the 34-year-old has slapped in an application to remodel his ever-so-modest London pad in the British capital's swanky suburb of Hampstead.

Apparently Henry wants to knock down the 1999-built €6million (or in local currency £7,2 million) house and replace it with something even bigger, better and more clearly suited to his needs.

That includes everything the modern-day man requires of course, such as a bar, a cinema a swimming pool and - the accessory that has tongues-a-wagging and journalists a-writing - a €300,000 mammoth aquarium running the entire height of what would become a humble four-storey home.

You can read the full details of the giant fish tank (although that seems the most inappropriate description) the 34-year old would like to install as well take a look at the plans he has submitted to the local council in the Daily Mail.

They're also available in euros in a report in the French daily Le Parisien and the weekly French celebrity gossip magazine Closer (yes it has attracted the attention of the serious sectors of the media).

But it's hard for anyone of regular means surely to get past some of the financial stats that come, not only with the initial price tag, but also the estimated heating, cleaning, stocking, lighting, feeding and maintenance costs.

Yes we're talking silly figures here.

Henry's application might run into a few problems though from those considering on the council who might consider giving him the green light.

Sir Richard MacCormac is against the project. He's the man who designed the current house that Henry wants to tear down, and whose construction is described by those "in the know" apparently as "one of the finest examples of modern day architecture in the United Kingdom."

And The Twentieth Century Society, a British charity which campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards, is reportedly considering slapping in a request for the building to be listed, which would effectively scupper Henry's application.

The motive behind what would appear to be the most absurd of building projects is apparently Henry's desire to maintain a "pied à terre" in London so that he has somewhere to stay when he's over from the States to visit his daughter Téa who lives with his ex-wife Claire Merry.

Henry currently plays for New York Red Bulls and will be returning Stateside after a short spell on loan for one of his former clubs Arsenal.

Thierry Henry's New York loft (screenshot BFM TV)

Some of you might remember that Henry splashed out a miserly €11 million for a New York apartment when he first left Europe in September 2010.

Clearly the man has more money than sense.

Paris apartment rip-off - 3m2 for €29,000!

Thinking about buying an apartment in Paris? Here's one that's definitely worth avoiding.

A three square metre Paris apartment for €29,000 (screenshot from De Particulier à Particulier advertisement)

Property prices in Paris and its immediate suburbs have stood up well to the general economic downturn.

Although there has been a slowdown in the increase in recent months, it's still hard to find a bargain of any sort with two-room apartments being especially sought after.

Studios for the capital's large student population are also at a premium, a factor which has not gone unnoticed by what can only be described as one money-grabbing vendor.

In what the French men's magazine website Gentside describes as being "surely nothing more than a scam" an apartment measuring just three square metres is on sale in the French capital for the princely sum of €29,000!

Maybe a few extra exclamation marks should be added - here goes.

!!!!!!!!!!

Now let's get this straight - three square metres in estate agency speak in France doesn't even usually count as being big enough for a room (the minimum norm is nine square metres).

So what do you get for your money - apart from not even enough space for a bed let alone to swing the proverbial?

Well according to the ad' which appears in the weekly French magazine De Particulier à Particulier for those wishing to buy and sell privately without going through an estate agent, there's an electric radiator and a meter - presumably to tot up just how much heating and lighting the future purchaser will have to shell out.

There's also the possibility to install a skyligh,t although permission will have to be gained first from the syndic or the organisation comprising other apartment owners in the building.

Shared loo and washing facilities are also a feature of the "space" described as being "ideal for residential purposes or archive material" but at least it's in perfect condition and in a totally quiet location.

More exclamation marks please.

!!!!!!!!!!

Extra costs include property taxes (around €36 a year) and monthly maintenance costs of €2.

And before you rush out to make an offer, don't forget to factor in the initial and obligatory costs of going through a notaire (around €240 for a property on sale at the advertised price).

Outrageous and a rip off most certainly - and let's just hope nobody is foolish enough to buy it.

Frenchwoman survives three weeks stuck in the bathroom

Here's a perhaps daft question.

What would you do if you found yourself locked in a bathroom? Not just for a couple of minutes or even an hour, but for a few weeks?

You're probably thinking it couldn't happen. After all someone would be bound to notice that you had gone to spend a penny and ended up forking out several pounds, to keep the idiom going.

Joking aside though, that's exactly what occurred to a 69-year-old woman in an apartment block in the town of Épinay-sous-Sénart just south of the French capital.

She was reportedly trapped inside her bathroom for almost three weeks without food and survived only by drinking tap water.



Her ordeal began on November 1 when, according to the national daily Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien , the woman accidentally locked herself inside her bathroom.

She didn't have a mobile 'phone, there was no window and she was basically helpless.

The only way she could think of calling for help was to bang on the bathroom pipes during the night.

That brought no response - or at least not the one she had clearly hoped for.

And it wasn't until one of her neighbours contacted the police last week to say that he hadn't come across the "nice lady in the building" for some time that the emergency services were alerted, firefighters called in and the woman freed from her 20-days confinement.

She was alive, but as the the paper describes it, emaciated, shocked and needed to be hospitalised.

The most telling part of the tale maybe is what the woman's neighbours did - or perhaps didn't do - while she was trapped inside her bathroom.

Even though someone had come to read her meters and left a card on the mat outside her door, it took a week for anyone to think that there might be something wrong.

And then there's the reaction to her tapping on the bathroom pipes during the night.

The only response that brought was for a petition to be circulated complaining about the nocturnal noise; one for which they were suitably shame-faced when they discovered what had really happened.

"We put a note under her door saying how unbearable the constant banging during the night was," one neighbour told Europe 1 national radio.

"Now I'm definitely more than a little embarrassed," she continued.

"The woman could have died. I'll certainly pay more attention to my neighbours in the future."

"Miracle" baby survives seven storey fall in Paris

If you need one of those uplifting "miraculous" type of tales to brighten up your November day as you go about your business, then this is surely one to do it.

On Monday an 18-month-old boy fell from the seventh floor of a building in Paris.

But the toddler survived unharmed after the fall was broken by a restaurant awning before landing in the arms of a passerby.

It was an extraordinary turn of events that took just a matter of seconds to play out and was more than a double dose of luck for the toddler who had, according to reports, been left alone just for a few moments with a young sister playing on the apartment's small balcony.

But a few moments was all it took for events to unfold.

At one point, according to witnesses, the boy got a little too close to the edge and slipped, before falling.

It was at that precise moment that the "saviour" happened to be around, although he was more than humble in his explanation of what occurred, telling reporters that it had been his son who had alerted him to the danger.

"My son told me he could see a young child playing on the balustrade just outside of the apartment," Philippe Bensignor told reporters.

"And just as he said that, the child fell and bounced off the awning (of the café underneath) and I was able to catch it without any problem."

"It was like catching a rugby ball," he continued.

"It really was pure chance."

And the hero's profession? A doctor, who just happened to be in the area walking with his wife and son.

Emergency services arrive (screenshot from "Le Parisien" video)

After checking that the child was unscathed he handed him over to the emergency services who had arrived on the scene and it was taken to a nearby hospital for a full check-up.