the times | Saturday February 27 2021 1GM 43 World Get hitched in a hurry with the self-service wedding machine China check-in terminal, to scan their identifi- 15 minutes. “It has greatly improved our The number of marriages fell to bring potential risks to a couple’s life cation documents, input further per- work efficiency,” Liu Xiao, who heads 8.13 million last year, compared with after marriage.” Didi Tang Beijing sonal information and have images of the marriage registration office in the 13.47 million in 2013. Divorces rose to Others were enthusiastic. In Xing- It may not be many couples’ romantic their faces taken. city of Xinghua in Jiangsu province, more than four million couples in 2019, hua about 200 couples have already vision of their ideal wedding but a It then automatically reviews the said. up from 3.5 million in 2013. received their marriage certificates Chinese province has introduced a self- application and prints a marriage cer- The self-service marriage registra- Not everyone was impressed with from the terminal, prompting a local service terminal where the marriage tificate. All the newlyweds then have to tion terminal arrived after Beijing the new wedding technology. Xu Shan- television anchor to urge young people process can be completed in minutes. do to complete their legal bond is put ordered local government to use tech- shan, a lawyer from Shanghai, told the to act now. “For those who have not ap- Couples can use the machine, which their fingerprints on the paperwork in nology to improve public services. It Global Times: “The lack of careful con- plied for the [marriage] licence, wait no resembles an airport’s automated front of an official. Done and dusted in might also lift marriage and birth rates. sideration before getting married may more,” she said. “Hurry up.” Adventurer dives TAMARA STUBBS/REUTERS; YURI KOCHETKOV/EPA deep for latest test of endurance United States Garriott’s dive Jacqui Goddard Miami Sea level Guam He has journeyed to both poles, orbited the planet, explored jungles, peered Challenger into volcanoes and hunted meteorites. Deep 5,000ft h Now Richard Garriott, 59, is heading enc na Tr for the rarely visited depths of the Maria 15 miles Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean to become the first person to have trav- Triton 10,000ft elled to Earth’s four extremities — the 36000/2 North Pole, South Pole, beyond the submersible atmosphere and the deepest point in its hydrosphere — the ocean. 15,000ft Garriott, a Cambridge-born British- American computer game entrepre- neur, will dive next week to Challenger Deep, the lowest known point in the 20,000ft world’s oceans, in a titanium-shelled Triton submersible, Limiting Factor. MARIANAMAR The sub will be piloted by Victor Ves- TRETRENCH covo, an American explorer who re- 25,000ftt corded a depth of 35,853ft (10,928m) ChallengerChhala le Deep after traversing the sea floor and find- the deepest known ing that it sloped, taking him deeper point in the Earth’s oceans than the 35,787ft (10,908m) recorded by 30,000ft James Cameron, the Hollywood film Maximum depths recorded director during a solo dive there in 2012. James Cameron It is known as the Hadal zone, where 35,787ft (10,908m) light never shines and it is so deep that 35,000ft Victor Vescovo A submersible will take Richard Garriott, who spent ten days in space in 2008, into the Mariana Trench. He will the water pressure equates to 100 ele- 35,853ft (10,928m) phants standing on a human head. carry with him a digital gallery of artwork inspired by his journey, including Gus Brooks-Simpson’s skateboard “What I enjoy about all these incredi- ble extreme environments I’ve been to ocean pollution and the presence of of Space Adventures, an “or- tivities that include a poetry contest run testants stamped with certification that is that it really does feel like you’re in an microplastics. “We’re pretty close to bital tourism” company in with the National Association of Teach- they journeyed to the bottom of the alien world,” he said. “You’re in a pro- 100 per cent confident they will be 1998 and spent ten days on a ing English and the Ideas Foundation. ocean. He will also take a digital art gal- foundly different physical environment there in unfortunately large abun- mission to the International “We’re going to be in a metre-and-a- lery submitted by the London-based and I find those moments to be awe dance,” he said. “We have polluted Space Station in 2008. He is half sphere, two of us, with life support arts agency Disrupt Space, which inspiring in the truest sense of awe.” pretty much every corner of our a father of two and the son systems around us and we can’t take showcases black artists’ work. Garriott, known as Lord British in planet.” of Owen Garriott, the late anything extraneous — so we thought “Nerves? . Like going to space, I ex- the computer game world, will pursue He will also look for extremo- Nasa astronaut. ‘Lets give kids a similar challenge,’ ” he pect to absolutely get that butterfly several scientific goals, studying and philes — organisms that have push- His travels on and off the explained. Children have submitted feeling and the sense of enormity of sampling the sea bed and the life that ed the extremes of where life can ex- planet have aimed to edu- cinquains — poems comprising 22 syl- what you’re putting yourself and this inhabits it. Using a robotic arm on the ist and whose presence on Earth cate and inspire. His motto lables, spread across five lines compris- machine through as we swing the sub sub, he will scoop samples of mud and bears important lessons for scientists is “explore, create” and his ing a set pattern — and drawings of out from the ship over the ocean, drop water for marine scientists at the hunting life on other planets. dive to Challenger Deep will what they think he could see. it in and begin the descent,” he said. Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Garriott helped to pioneer private take schoolchildren with Garriott will take the cinquains with “That’s the point when you think to California, to help inform studies into space travel through the co-founding him through interactive ac- him, then mail them back to young con- yourself: ‘This is no small thing.’ ” How Italian superstar conductor paved way for rock’n’roll tours Tom Kington Rome the annals of musician worship and en- the US, taking advantage of a following Arturo Toscanini When they sailed home from New durance. “Toscanini was the 20th gained running the New York Metro- embarked on a York, 2,000 fans turned out as musi- The rock’n’roll musicians who criss- century’s first rock star, he had a fanati- politan Opera. gruelling tour with cians on a boat in the harbour played cross America playing a new city every cal following, there had never been an After warm-up dates in Italy in Octo- his orchestra the US and Italian national anthems. night work hard and play hard for their eight-month tour before and no one ber 1920, the orchestra arrived in New “Toscanini had a maniacal energy place in the mythology of the mega played to 10,000 fans in Kansas City York in December where the only ven- and I think that concert tour still holds tour. like he did,” said Mauro Balestrazzi, ue large enough to hold fans was a cir- the record as the longest and most ex- They may be unaware they are author of The Tour of the Century. cus arena where Houdini performed haustive ever,” Harvey Sachs, Toscan- following in one man’s footsteps. He got his first job conducting an and which had a strong whiff of to stuff the money into her clothing. ini’s biographer, said. He also had an Arturo Toscanini, the Italian con- orchestra in 1886, aged 19, conducted animals. Balestrazzi dug into local “Being a married man, the sheriff was “extraordinary ear”, said Sachs. “If just ductor, played a concert to adoring the world premiere of Puccini’s La Bo- newspaper reports from the time, in- naturally unable to recover the missing one instrument was slightly sharp or crowds on average every 45 hours over hème in Turin a decade later, and be- cluding the Hartford Daily Courant, money,” the paper reported. flat he would hear it immediately.” the course of eight months in 1920-21. came a hero after conducting an or- which reported how a sheriff and law- Crossing America in a special train, A stop-off in London was cancelled A new book seeks to give him, his 98- chestra on Italy’s front line with Austria yer arrived during a concert in Connec- the orchestra discovered the delights of when the promoter ran out of money. piece orchestra and their record-break- in the First World War. ticut to seize the night’s takings — a jazz in New Jersey, with Toscanini en- “When the exhausted members of the ing tour of 125 concerts across the US, By 1920 he was setting up an orches- debt was owed by the theatre owner — tranced by a drummer who threw his orchestra heard this, most will have Canada and Italy their rightful place in tra at La Scala in Milan and heading for only for the women in the ticket office sticks in the air during solos. breathed a sigh of relief,” said Sachs..