Greetings cards written by Britain's late Princess Diana have sold for $3,800. The two cards - which belonged to former royal chef Mervyn Wycherley who worked for the royal family for 23 years - were expecting to fetch around $1,500 but a bidding war broke out when they went on sale at auction house Reeman Dansie in Colchester, Essex on Monday. Auctioneer James Grinter said: "It's a very buoyant market, it has not been affected at all by the credit crunch. People would rather invest their money into something they can keep in their home and enjoy and which will hopefully rise in value. "

Jordan's Queen Rania has urged her country's people to stick to a healthy eating regime during Ramadan, an Islamic holy month where eating between dawn and sunset is forbidden. The queen is concerned that people are tending to overeat after sunset because they have deprived themselves of food during the day, and is backing the government media campaign to encourage people to steer clear of heavy, rich meals in the evening.

orld-popular cartoon characters The Smurfs are now 50 years old and Belgians have prepared a big birthday bash starting early this week. The celebration will cover key European cities including Paris and Berlin. The Smurfs, the diminutive blue-colored forest dwellers, were created by late Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, fondly called 'Peyo,' through a comic strip in the late 1950s-back then, they were still called Schtroumpf. In the early 1980s, Smurfs debuted on US television and became hugely popular worldwide since then.

In Redwood Middle School in Northern California, students are now allowed to wear socks with their favorite cartoon charactersSchool officials have relaxed their dress code, thanks to a student who wore socks with the "Winnie the Pooh" cartoon character Tigger on the first day of school last year.

With its toilet-shaped seats and napkins dispensed from toilet rolls, a restaurant is attracting throngs of customers in the upbeat city of Taipei in Taiwan. The innovation, according to Modern Toilet owner, Wang Tzi-wei, is quite a hit among young and adventurous diners.