Helsinki is most honest city in the world Monday, September 30, 2013. Ivan Radford @ themovechannel Today’s other Travel and Tourism news: P&O unveils UK’s biggest cruise ship Helsinki is the most honest city in the world, according to a new study carried out by Reader’s Digest. The magazine dropped 192 wallets around the world in 16 different cities to see what would happen. Each wallet contained the equivalent of $ 50, plus a telephone number, a family photo, coupons and business cards. The city to return the most? Helsinki. Finland’s capital city brought back 11 of the 12 “lost” wallets, which were left in parks, near shopping centres and on pavements. Finns are naturally honest, said Lasse Luomakoski, a 27-year-old businessman who returned one of them. We are a small, quiet, closely-knit community. We have little corruption, and we dont even run red lights. Mumbai came in close second with 9 of the 12 wallets returned, ahead of Budapest in Hungary, where 8 of 12 were returned. “I remember being in a car, when my dad noticed a wallet by the side of the road,” one 17 year old student explained. “When we reached the owner he was very grateful: Without the papers in the wallet he would have had to postpone his wedding which was to take place the very same day!” Reader’s Digest continued: “However, a woman in her early sixties opened the wallet, and then entered a nearby building. We never heard from her.” New York also returned 8 out of 12 wallets, followed by Moscow and Amsterdam (7) and Berlin and Ljubljana (6). Londoners returned 5 of the 12 wallets, alongside Warsaw in Poland. The least honest city was Lisbon, which returned only 1 of the 12 wallets, just behind Madrid, where 2 were returned. The one wallet that was returned was not even returned by locals: they were a couple visiting from Holland. In total, 47 per cent were returned. The surprising conclusions include that there is no set pattern to those who return lost wallets. “Age is no predictor of whether a person is going to be honest or dishonest; young and old both kept or returned wallets; male and female were unpredictable; and comparative wealth seemed no guarantee of honesty.” The bottom line? “There are honest and dishonest people everywhere.” P&O unveils UK’s biggest cruise ship It is 66 feet longer than The Shard, costs €559 million and 130 feet longer than the Concordia. Yes, it is the UK’s biggest ever cruise ship. Unveiled this week by P&O Ferries, the Brittania will enter service next spring, single-handedly boosting the company’s capacity by 24 per cent. The vessel, which is only 20 feet shorter than the world’s largest cruise ships, will boast 13 bars, 13 restaurants and cafes, 15 passenger decks and no less than four swimming pools. The engine will be the equivalent of 70 Challenger tanks or 86 Bugatti Veyrons.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 05:31:16 +0000