Strange But True Category
Weird, offbeat and bizarre news from around the world. Funny, strange & odd news stories that make you wince, laugh and fear for humanity.
Buy And Cell: Man Smuggles Ball Gowns Into Prison
TO Everthorpe Prison, East Yorkshire, where a delivery is being made.
A person on the outside is carrying a ladder. He is using it to conquer a 20ft perimeter wall. In his hand he carries a large bag.
And in the bag are knickers, ball gown, drugs and mobile phones. Prison currency.
He climbs the wall. And then hauls up the ladder to climb down on the other side. He walks with the ladder across the yard. He props the ladder against cell windows and makes his deliveries.
Says prison governor Gary Monaghan: “As a result of intelligence relating to the smuggling of drugs and other contraband, staff at Everthorpe initiated a dynamic investigation which led to the identification of the prisoner involved.”
Intelligence. Dynamic. The sound of a lilting music and voice simpering, “Why, Mr Hardnose, I’m really not that kind of a girl”…
Posted: 10th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (4)
South Africa’s Dumbest Criminal
A MAN walks into a police station in Pretoria, South Africa.
He says he has been held up at gunpoint by a gang who had stolen his mobile phone.
The detective dials the number of the stolen mobile. Ring. Ring. It is in the man’s pocket.
“The shock left him speechless for a few minutes,” says police spokesman Eugene Opperman. The man was arrested for “perjury”.
Posted: 9th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Bride Chidi Ogbuta Gets Lifesize Replica Wedding Cake
CHIDI Ogbuta is a bride in Texas. That’s her on the left.
She ordered a wedding cake to be mouled to look just like her…
Would you eat it?
Posted: 8th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
Fiona Graham Is Japan’s First Western Geisha
AS reported: “A Western woman has been allowed to enter the mysterious world of Japan’s geisha for the first time.”
Fiona Graham, originally from Melbourne, first came to Japan at the age of 15 on a school exchange programme.
Fiona Graham makes her debut as Sayuki, the first Western woman to become a geisha
Impressed by the culture, she graduated from a Japanese high school, attended Keio University and then Oxford before completing a doctorate in social anthropology.
“I started my geisha training in April and it has been a long year because it took more time than I expected to be able to make my debut,” she said.
“Even though I have been in Japan a long time and have a good grasp of the culture, this has been very difficult.”
True to tradition, Sayuki – her professional name – will not reveal her age…
Most just go on an exchange programme and get off with some of the locals and buy cigarettes. But Fiona is from Oz. She’s the geisha in the white face paint – aka the sun block…
Posted: 7th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
The Museum Of Laziness Bogota
A MUSEUM dedicated to laziness has opened in Colombia’s capital, Bogota.
Marcela Arrieta, the museum curator, told Associated Press news agency: “We always think about laziness as an enemy of work.
“So we wanted to explore that and make people think about the social issues implied in taking a nap, in being jobless or in feeling that maybe we are wasting time – so we want to ask ourselves about that.”
The Museum’s other HISTORIA DE LA ENERGÍA EN BOGOTÁ
Posted: 6th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (3)
China Trunk Man Robs Tourists
AS the China Daily reports: “About halfway home, the driver received an ‘urgent call’ and told Lei that he would have to drop her off and turn back. He waived her fee, unloaded her luggage and helped her get another taxi.”When she returned home, Lei discovered that her notebook computer had been removed from her luggage and called police.
“After a month-long investigation, police determined that the driver had hid somebody in the trunk specifically to steal luggage. Both the driver and the ‘trunk man’ were arrested.”
Posted: 5th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Nuclear Blast Hoax On Czech TV
CZECH TV is not all trippy cartoons and tractor factory updates. The Prague-based Ztohoven group has been illuminating the airwaves.
The gang hacked into television broadcasting with images of a hoax nuclear explosion.
They have been arrested and charged with…spreading false information.
As reported: “On June 17, viewers of a Czech television channel watching a Web cam program monitoring weather in various Czech mountain resorts could see a nuclear explosion taking place in the Krkonose or Giant Mountains in the northern Czech Republic.”
Posted: 4th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Man Attacks Himself With Frying Pan
IN the Mirror: “David Constantine “stabbed himself in the chest with a kitchen knife and beat himself with a frying pan in an attempt to win compensation payouts”.
From whom?
Posted: 4th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comments (5)
Use The Force: Boys Uses Star Wars Lightsaber To Defend Mum
TOYS and boys: “AN 11-year-old boy demonstrated The Force when he defended his mom by hitting an attacker with a toy lightsaber,” reports Fox News.
The man, in his 30s, fled after being confronted by the youngster outside a bakery in Swardeston, near Norwich, England.
Police said the boy hit the man with his toy after the man had punched and verbally abused his mother as she approached her car.
Police are hunting a seven-foot tall man dressed in black…
Posted: 4th, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Fire Crotch: Massive Knickers Save House From Burning
LIAR. Liar. Pants on fire. Or, in the case of Jenny Marsey, pants putting out a fire.
To Hartlepool, Teeside. And the kitchen of Marsey’s home in Meryl Gardens.
Mrs Marsey’s son and nephew are frying some bread. A knock at the door. They move to answer. The bread begins to fry. So the pan. Fire!
To the side is a pile of washing. Knickers. Water. And tossed on the fire. Fizzzz! Hurrah! Success.
Says Mrs Marsey: “My £4.99 parachute knickers have come in handy for something. We’ve had a good laugh that they were a bit like a fire blanket.”
She goes on: “When they found the pan on fire they did what most people do and panicked. But they found a pair of my knickers in a washing basket and basically used them as a fire blanket to put out the fire.”
Says a spokesman for Cleveland Fire Brigade said: “They did the right thing in the end. We advise everyone to get fire safety advice.”
And buy sensible and reassuring underwear…
Posted: 2nd, January 2008 | In: Strange But True | Comment
The State Of Privacy Map: They Are Watching You
THEY are watching you – The State of Privacy Map:
EACH year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection.
The most recent report published in 2007, available at http://www.privacyinternational.org/phr, is probably the most comprehensive single volume report published in the human rights field. The
report runs over 1,100 pages and includes 6,000 footnotes. More than 200 experts from around the world have provided materials and commentary. The participants range from eminent privacy scholars to high-level officials charged with safeguarding constitutional freedoms in their countries. Academics, human rights advocates, journalists and researchers provided reports, insight, documents and advice. In 2006 Privacy International took the decision to use this annual report as the basis for a ranking assessment of the state of privacy in all EU countries together with eleven non-EU benchmark countries. Funding for the project was provided by the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Follow this link for more details of last year’s results.
Lots of black bits…
Posted: 31st, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comments (6)
Human Being With Moving Tail
OLEG Polovski of Moscow has a tail he can wag:
World Most Funny Deformation – The most popular videos are a click away
Happy New Year…
Posted: 31st, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
Pulling A Christmouse Cracker
WHAT was in your Christmas cracker?
A New Zealand woman who pulled apart a Christmas cracker found a dead mouse inside.
“I had said to my granddaughter ‘what’s the smell’ and we couldn’t work it out until we pulled the cracker,” says Betty Lawrence.
“It ruined my appetite for the rest of the day.”
Christmas crackers usually contain paper hats, non-edible toys and jokes.
Of course not all inedible Christmas nasties are found in crackers.
Another Anorak Luxury Christmas hamper means workers at our local Oxfam and/or Africans in Rwanda will be tucking into Pineapple Preserve, Mocha Shortbread Olive Tapenade, crystallised ginger, Turkish delight and marrons glace…
Posted: 27th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Priests Fight The Good Fight In Bethlehem
AT this time it is good to realise what Christmas is all about.
Arguing about whether the real Jesus looked more like David Bellamy, ZZTop (not the drummer) or David Icke.
Debating if Armani’s role of Archangel Gabriel in the school nativity play gives parental bragging rights over the role of Mary, and if any child made a townsperson is doomed to a life of mediocrity and aspirations limited to a starter home on the outskirts of Salisbury.
And fighting.
To Bethlehem we go. Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests are in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The Greek Orthodox priests have set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is said to be built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.
But the ladders are in space governed by the Armenian priests. With no roadmap for peace there is but one recourse: fight!
As reported over the newswires: “For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.”
“As usual the cleaning of the church after Christmas is a cause of problems,” Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh told AFP, adding that he has offered to help ease tensions.
“For the two years that I have been here everything went more or less calmly,” he said. “It’s all finished now.”
Jesus was, of course, born in a stable. Or a converted barn, as modern tellers have it. And anyone who say otherwise will feel thy wrath…
Posted: 27th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comments (4)
Making Speed Cameras Work for You
TAKE one Gatso speed camera.
One maketing plan.
And wait…
Posted: 27th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Doctor Buys Train Ticket To Nowhere
YOU pay your money, you take your chances. So goes the motto of First Great Western, the train company where thanks to a lack of competition First is also Second and Last.
Sadly, Pamela Thompson, from Tuckenhay, was unaware of the system. And when she bought her son and his partner return tickets from London to Totnes, Devon, she did so in the belief that what it said on the ticket bore a link to reality.
It has come to pass that the train service he has a ticket for does not exist. And, as is the way of First Great Western, the ‘customer’ has nonetheless paid for the experience.
“I’m extremely angry,” says Mrs Thompson. “My son is a hospital doctor and has to be back as there are always a shortage of doctors around the holidays.”
But not in Totnes…
Posted: 27th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Russian Fish Food: Mystery Tin Night
A RUSSIAN family from Ekaterinburg city were looking forward to their fish dinner.
OK, looking forward is bit much. They were giong to eat tinned fish.
The tin was opened. And the daughter said: “Hey mommy, it’s not a fish!”.
But what is it? Answers to the usual address…
Posted: 26th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comments (3)
Sahra Wagenknech’s Lobster Puts Her In Hot Water
SAHRA Wagenknecht, one of Germany’s top communist politicos is at table:
Writes the Guardian: “By the time she had realised her mistake – that as one of Germany’s top communists she should probably not be seen eating lobster – it was too late.
“There was no time to switch from the £16 “rich man’s dish” to a more modest platter of kippers, because Sahra Wagenknecht had already been caught on camera in the act of betraying her own political ideals.
And how did Comrade Wagenknecht react? She told an aide to get the camera and erase the images.
Says Wagenknecht: “I don’t do anything that I say others shouldn’t do. On the contrary, I’m fighting for a society in which everyone can afford to eat lobster.”
And why did she erase the pictures? Says she: “I didn’t like them.”
Lobster for me, lobster for you – forward with lobster!
Posted: 26th, December 2007 | In: Politicians, Strange But True | Comment (1)
When Santas Attack A New Zealand Cinema
“AS they ran through the complex they wrecked everything they could, the Christmas tree – they bowled everything over … (they were) just absolute fools,” says Derek Rive, manager of New Zealand’s Hoyts Cinema complex.
He added that the “hooligans” abused astonished cinema-goers, chanted obscenities, ripped down posters and knocked over cardboard figures advertising films.
He asks: “How often do a bunch of Santas just go and wreak havoc?” Once a year?
The question is rhetorical, as Rice answers: “It was a random act of stupidity that upset moviegoers.”
Kate Gorman was waiting to see the film Enchanted with her two children when she saw the fifth Santas running amok: “They were kicking things over, ripping down posters and smashing everything in sight. They were all dressed as Santa and shouting ‘Ho (expletive) ho.’”
Her children turn to her. “They asked me, ’Are they Santa’s helpers gone crazy?’ and I said ‘No, they are just idiots.’”
Or elves…
Merry Christmas from everyone at Anorak
Posted: 24th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Paul Karason Is America’s Amazing Blue Man
PAUL Karason is blue. He has been on ABC news:
ANCHOR: His name is Paul Karason, and he is – blue.
REPORTER: Believe me, it’s not makeup or paint, Paul Kerason’s skin is a deep, blue, purple color. The 57-year-old started making the transition from fair skin and freckles to this about 14 years ago.
PAUL: The change was so gradual that I didn’t perceive it, and the people around me, likewise, it was just so gradual no one really noticed. It wasn’t until a friend I hadn’t seen in several months came by to my parent’s place to see me and he asked, “What did you do?”
REPORTER: What Paul did is use a substance called colloidal silver, might by extracting silver into water with an electrical current and drinking it. It’s billed as something that will cure just about anything that ails ya, and Paul swears by it.
REPORTER: After it turned your skin blue, you’re drinking it.
PAUL: Yes, but much less.
He adds later: “I do tend to avoid public places as much as I can.”
Posted: 20th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comments (4)
Old Nazi Eric Steidtmann Is Nostalgic For The War
ERIC Steidtmann “is a former SS officer who committed mass murder in the war”.
So reports the Sun, which shows a young Herr Steidtmann stood among a group of men in feldgrau. He is made more identifiable by the epithet “evil” and large circle being placed about his head, like a noose.
The confession is rooted in a book written by Lisi Urban, an autobiography in which she tells of her affair with a German Army captain in Prague 1942. To the syncopated backbeat of firing squad, boots on cobbles and Songs of the Antichrist, she fell pregnant. There was talk of marriage. But then the German jilted her and married another woman.
Urban named the soldier Captain Eike. But Steidtmann believed the man was him and launched a libel action to have it proved so.
He wants the records to be correct. So the book’s publishers investigated and discovered that Steidtmann was a German tasked with exterminating the Warsaw ghetto in 1943.
We should thank Steidtmann for his owning up. It is ever harder to spot a bona fide Nazi these days. While old British fighters will be only too happy to turn a yarn about HMS Amethyst and their gallantry and suffering, German ex-soldiers either have to pretend to have spent their youth operating as resistance operatives, disguised as a tree or writing the libretto for the Sound of Music.
Of course, if guilty Herr Steidtmann should be taken from this place made to dig his own grave and watch his children raped and then shot. We can surely indulge an old man this moment of nostalgia…
Posted: 19th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment
Man Sentenced To Remain In Someone Else’s Home
SHANE Sims has been convicted of two assaults. He has now breached a probation order and fitted with an electronic tag.
He should not move from his home. But it’s not his home he’s in. It’s the Bristol residence of Glenda and Robert Cole. Sims told the court he lived at the address.
“It’s a disgrace,” says Mrs Cole. “They’ve let a criminal come into our home and there is nothing we can do about it. Who needs to break into a house when the courts will do it for you?”
So Sims does not live at the address. But he has to remain in situ on pain of law. Says Glenda: “He’s taken over the whole place. He sprawls across the sofa and he’s always in the bathroom.” Says Local MP Roger Berry: “It’s scandalous.”
The Probation Service is looking into the matter.
And meanwhile a compromise of sorts has been reached as Sims and the Coles share the sofa, each sitting upright and offering half smiles to the Mirror’s cameraman…
Posted: 19th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Farting Woman Downs American Airlines Jet
TO an American Airlines plane in the airspaces above Nashville. A smell of sulphur is in the air. Is Anthea Turner aboard? No. A bomb? Well, of sorts.
It is the smell from burning matches.
The plane is grounded. Passengers are evacuated and the aircraft is searched. Matches are found on the seat of a woman.
“It was determined that she was trying to conceal body odour,” says Lynne Lowrance, of the Nashville Airport Authority.
The Anorak is minded of the ancient rhymes “Smelt it dealt it” and “He who denied it, supplied it”, and wonders if the woman might have ignored the matter of just scowled at some other persons and so blamed them.
Anorak readers will surely recall the matter of Storer v Bedminster Down Secondary School, Bristol. Ms Storer had been forced to quit her £48,000 a year job because of her chair, so she claimed. As the art teacher explained: “It was very embarrassing to sit on. I asked for a chair that didn’t give me a dead leg or make those embarrassing farting sounds.”
Each time Ms Storer moved there was an accompanying “Phwwwharp!” Ms says the chair became a “regular joke” – “My chair would make these farting sounds and I regularly had to apologise that it wasn’t me, it was my chair.”
Again, it would have been best had Ms Storer just ignored the matter or perhaps even laughed along. She could have offered the retort “He who made the rhyme, made the crime” whenever someone affected to have “smelt it”.
Back on board the place and the unidentified woman makes it know that she has “an unspecified medical condition”.
She has drawn attention to herself once more and is very likely on a database of noxious persons.
What chair she was sat upon is not revealed…
Posted: 17th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comments (4)
Chinese Man Carves 6000 Steps Up Mountain For Love
“MAN Carves Wife a 6,000 Stair Path in Mountain,” runs the headline.
Over 50 years ago, Liu, was a 19 years-old boy, fell in love with a 29 year-old widowed mother named Xu. At the time, it was unacceptable and immoral for a young man to love an older woman.
To avoid the market gossips, the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing area.
In the beginning, they had nothing, no electricity or even food. They had to eat grass and roots they found in the mountain, and Liu made a kerosene lamp that they used to lighten up their lives.
Started the second year of living in the mountain, Liu began, and continue for over 50 years, to hand carve the steps so that his wife could get down the mountain easily.
A half century later in 2001, a group of adventures were exploring the forest, they surprisingly found the elderly couple and the over 6,000 stairs of hand carved ladder.
“My parents loved each other so much, they have lived in seclusion for over 50 years and never been apart a single day.” Liu MingSheng, one of their seven children said, “He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother’s convenience, although she doesn’t go down the mountain that much.”
The couple had lived in peace for over 50 years until last week. Liu, now 72 years-old, returned from his daily farm work and collapsed. Xu sat and prayed with her husband as he passed away in her arms.
So in love with Xu, was Liu, that no one was able to release the grip he had on his wife’s hand even after he had passed away.
China’s answer to Anthea Turner and Grant Bovey…
Posted: 17th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
Alternative Uses For Tabloid Newspapers: The Homeless Person’s Jacket
ALTERNATIVE uses for the Daily Mirror: Canadian designer Lida Baday has created an jacket for the homeless that can be lined with newspapers for warmth. Also works with the Daily Express and the Sun, but not the Daily Mail which can work too well and lead to the wearer becoming incandescent with rage:
The coat is an anorak-style, with drawstrings at the waist and hem. A hood can be folded into the collar. Two pockets in the hood, four on the chest, a large one on the back, and a long one down each sleeve can be stuffed with crumpled newspaper as the temperature drops.
“You stuff or unstuff the pouches as you need to, so the same jacket that keeps you dry in the rain, becomes something that can protect you from extreme temperatures,” Baday says. In warm, dry weather, the entire jacket can be folded into one of the pockets and there are straps so it can be carried as a backpack or used as a pillow.
The newspapers can be burnt or folded into a sun hat…
Source The Star
Posted: 16th, December 2007 | In: Strange But True | Comment (1)
