Twin strangers Shannon Lonergan and Sara Nordstrom shock their own families

Students Shannon Lonergan, 21, from Ireland, and Sara Nordstrom, 17, from Sweden found each other via a website which links up people to identical strangers.
The pair were stunned when they first laid eyes on each other as they could pass for twins.
Even Sara’s friends have trouble choosing between them, while Shannon’s father did a double take when he saw them together.
She said: “When my dad first saw myself and Sara he did not know where to look. He kept looking at her than me and looked so confused.
“His facial expressions were hilarious and showed how shocked he was. He honestly needed a moment to see who was who.”
Sara and Shannon share identical long blonde hair, parted on the same side, oval faces and full mouths.
They met via website TwinStrangers.com, which Shannon signed up to earlier this year.
It allows users to search for their secret ‘twin’, but at first Shannon had no luck.
She hadn’t logged on for a while when Sara got in touch with her — the teenager had only joined the site in November and quickly came across Shannon.
It was agreed that Sara would fly to Dublin, Ireland, with the teen admitting she was initially “nervous” in case the similarity wasn’t so stark in real life.
Shannon was also wary, but was blown away when she came face to face with her doppelganger.
“The scariest thing was how our noses, mouths, lips and eyes were so incredibly alike,” Shannon said.
“It frightened me a little bit, but in a good way. As I spent more time with Sara I noticed how our expressions and ways of moving were exactly alike.”
Swedish teenager Sara is shier than her doppelganger, although they quickly bonded after getting over their shock.
“It felt a bit surreal when we finally met, a bit like looking at yourself,” Sara said.
“We seem to see things the same way — there was a bathroom underneath the stairs in the house where we were staying and at different times we both commented: ‘It’s just like in Harry Potter!’”
Twin Strangers initially posted a picture of the two girls on Facebook, and it was flooded by comments from readers who couldn’t believe how similar they looked.
A spokesman for Twin Strangers said: “It sure is happy holidays after another incredible doppelganger match was brought to us this festive season.”
Since Twin Strangers began seven months ago, the site has more than 500,000 members from Albania to Russia and Madagascar, and is growing daily partly down to the explosion of social media.
“I just think it’s like this weird kind of natural phenomenon,” founder Niamh Geaney said. “It’s something that was always probably happening. Throughout history people have had doppelgangers but it’s only with the age of the internet and the age of social media that we’re beginning to see these stories.”

Photographer criticised over image where females have their mouths taped up

Most of the shots were lovely, showing a mother, father and their three children smiling. But in one of the images, the mother and two daughters wore bright green duct covering their mouths and the father held a sign saying ‘Peace on Earth’. Their son’s mouth was duct tape-free.
The image was shared on Reddit yesterday and was slammed on social media.
“I can’t believe this sort of offensive photography is tolerated in our society. Poorly composed, overexposed, uncreative. Your photography is bad, and you should feel bad,” wrote one user on Ms Hawkes’ Facebook page.
Another said: “I can’t believe a female photographer would take part in something so demeaning and damaging to women and girls. Women being deprived of their voices by men is no laughing matter. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t humorous. It was horrifying.”
Ms Hawkes defended her photo on her Facebook page, after the image was removed by Facebook.
“I have been called every name in the book, and have received some very hateful and vulgar comments and messages,” she wrote.
“I would like to say that as a female I do NOT and have never promoted violence to women! I do not support abuse, or the degradation of women.
 “My controversial photo was taken by request by the family, and was in no way meant to promote abuse. This photo was taken with humour in mind, and was meant as a comical Christmas photo. I personally know this family, and have known them for many years.
“They are not abusive to their children in any shape or form. Also, I would like to add that no one was harmed during the process.”
But Ms Hawkes’ Facebook community weren’t having a bar of it.
“The photo was appalling. Probably best to apologise, learn, and move on. You do yourself a disservice defending it,” wrote one user.
Another said: “You’re a disgrace to other women that have had to suffer things like this. You have not only offended me, but also numerous other victims like me and some of the people in my family.”

LONG-WINDED TRAVEL STORIES

Practice your travel “elevator pitch” and reduce your must-see destinations into a couple of snappy sentences. If you get our attention quickly, we’ll ask for more detail and the floor will be yours to share stories of “really local” Moroccan adventures. But if you jump right into a lengthy oration of your “life changing” journey, we’ll vague out.

PREGNANCY AMONGST THE NON-PREGNANT

Creating life is undisputedly amazing and you should absolutely celebrate the kicks and lament your cramps. But there’s a line that a gaggle of pregnant women can cross that leaves the empty-wombed feeling left out and unappreciated, so feel free to broaden the scope a little.

SELF-DIAGNOSED ILLNESSES

If you’ve managed to leave the house then it’s not the flu — it’s a cold — and moaning won’t make you (or me) feel better.

DRUNKEN RECAPS

Gutter vomiting stories are a dime-a-dozen, and like the unfunny kids stories, can we request you limit your “epic” tales to ones that are far outside the box? Until you can give me recounts of near-deaths, cringe-worthy foot-in-mouths or waking up with barbecue chicken pieces in your ears and your sneakers (true story) then let’s move this conversation along.

NOT-SO-FUNNY KIDS STORIES

We need a system (and a social media platform) to separate toddler antics that are worth repeating and those that are only funny to the child’s parents. Some kids — like my friend’s little girl whose attempt to be mean was shouting, “You big fairy princess” — are funny on a Ronny Cheng level and deserve to be quoted. But your kid’s mispronunciation of words is going to have to resemble a particularly vulgar expletive if it’s going to get my attention.

DREAMS

Yes your dream might have been vivid/scary/weird but I wasn’t there and no, I can’t quite imagine how your house turned into a river and you were eating cupcakes. Pick up a dream dictionary, work out what it meant then talk to me about what’s really on your mind.

WEIGHT LOSS

Whether you’ve lost 10g or 10kg, I love you anyway. Be happy, be vivacious and rock your body but throw out the scales for god’s sake — they’ve hijacked your voice box.

CALORIE COUNTS

Yes thankyou, I do realise that this pizza has more calories than a typical day of food but I’m still going to inhale it. Go ahead and gloat over your tabouli.