Designer Chen Mingzhi lies in his huge leather shoe, 1.9m in length and 0.7m in width in Wenling, Zhejiang Province of China. Chen spent two months making the shoe, after he made a bet with his friend. (Photo by Sun Jinbiao/ChinaFotoPress)

HERE ARE THE things you need to know as we round off the day in three easy steps.

THINGS WE LEARNED

#AMBIENCE: A total of 17 people including 16 men and one woman are being held in connection with an investigation into dissident republican activity. Operation Ambience involved the seizure of imitation guns, mobile phones, and computers in raids across Dublin, Meath and Kildare today.

#COST OF LIVING: Inflation has risen by 2 per cent in the last year according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office out today. The cost of living rose by 0.6 per cent in August with education and transport costs rising significantly.

#STABBING: Two people remain in Garda custody this evening in connection with the fatal stabbing of a man in Ballymun this morning. Three other people were also injured in the incident.

#HILLSBOROUGH: There have been calls for criminal prosecutions in the wake of the police cover-up of the Hillsborough disaster that was exposed yesterday. Meanwhile the former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez told us that yesterday’s revelations provided for the families of victims of the disaster to continue their fight.

#CONSULTANTS: Hospital consultants have agreed to talks at the Labour Relations Commission to discuss Department of Health proposals for wide-ranging reforms of work practices and hours. A deadline of Sunday has been set in the hope of reaching an agreement.

#LIFFEY: A body has been recovered from the river Liffey in Dublin tonight. The body was recovered from Victoria Quay by emergency services.

THINGS WE LOVED

• You may be familiar with the idea that the actor Kevin Bacon is closely associated to every other movie actor in the world. If not, read more here, and then play Google’s Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The challenge? Find someone who is more than threes steps away from the Footloose star.
• The Guinness Book of World Records always throws up some weird and wacky records like the man with the world’s bigguest ‘guns’.
• We quite like this picture of Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin today. Shadow Enda…

Julien Behal/PA Wire/Press Association Images

THINGS WE SHARED

• This extraordinary story of the world’s first colour moving pictures, dating from 1902, has been doing the rounds today. The extraordinary shots were found in an old tin in Bradford, England recently.
• Yesterday we had the launch of the iPhone 5 with the Guardian doing a round-up of what the tech experts think of Apple’s latest smartphone and here’s a video of a phone made entirely out of fruit:

YouTube: topfruitbytes

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