More Weird Shorts

Residents of the English town of Castleford in Yorkshire were probably delighted to hear that UK TV station Channel 4 was to film a documentary of the ongoing urban regeneration scheme, up until their local council decided to rename a local landmark ahead of filming. The popular local landmark had been known as “Tickle Cock Bridge” since Victorian times - probably due to its popularity as a trysting place according to one local historian – but prudish council members decided to put up signs for the more polite “Tittle Cott Bridge” for the cameras. However local objections have been so vocal that the officials have been forced to back down and restore the feature’s original “rude” name (Metro).

And if you fancy taking a trip to Tickle Cock Bridge, why not make a grand tour of it and take in some more of Britain’s rudest place names (Telegraph).

It’s always worth making sure you have plenty of the local currency on holiday, but for one German tourist this became more of a life-saver than a simple convenience. Dominik Podolsky was just riding the ski-lift back down in Hochzillertal in Austria as darkness fell when it was suddenly switched off, as it is every dusk, leaving him stranded. As temperatures dropped to minus 18° Celcius (0° F) Mr. Podolsky began to set light to whatever was to hand to attract attention, starting with paper napkins and some business cards before in desperation he was forced to set fire to his money. He had just burned his last euro when he was finally spotted by a cleaning crew and rescued (Orange).

Perhaps he would have done better to visit the Swiss side of the Alps instead. If not on the mountains, at the very least he would have been better looked after in that country's brothels. Principally because, with an increasing number of elderly clients packing a well-known anti-impotence treatment, Swiss brothels are training their staff in the use of defibrillators in an effort to stop the pill-popping pensioners become clog-popping corpses. "Having customers die on us isn't exactly good publicity" said one sex-club owner. Funny, I would have thought the opposite was true (Telegraph).

But trained as they may be, Swiss working girls will never have the edge on their American competitors. At least that’d be the conclusion you might draw from the results of a recent poll which placed America at number one on the list of countries with the most attractive people (Switzerland didn’t even make the top 20). So rejoice America, from the wild and wanton women of Walmart to the sultry street-girl sirens of Chattanooga, your beauty is unsurpassed (Herald Sun).

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Thu Feb 18, 2010 - Comments (5)
Category: Architecture, Government, Officials, Money, Odd Names, Political Correctness, Goofs and Screw-ups

Beyond Belief Extra – Fiat Novitas!

Next month will see the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne in Australia, where several thousand of the faithful faithless will gather to hear the like of Dawkins, PZ Myers and AC Grayling hold forth on enlightenment, reason, truth and science. Oh and they may mention God and religion once or twice. But isn’t it a little weird for a bunch of atheists to start acting like a religion? Maybe a bit, according to the head of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, David Nicholls. “[Atheists] do not believe in shoving views down thoats. They mistrust group-think and are suspicious of institutions. […] Atheists are, by definition, not joiners.” Individualists or not, over 2500 will congregate this March to swap thoughts and ideas, as a group (Sydney Morning Herald).

And if you can have an atheist congregation, how long will it be before there’s an atheist preacher? Well this is exactly the situation the Dutch Protestant Church found themselves in recently after one of their number, Klass Hendrikse, published a book called Believing in a God who does not exist. Surprisingly, they have decided to do nothing, concluding that Hendrikse’s beliefs, which include that God is not a real being but just a word for people’s shared feelings, are not so different from many other liberal theologies (RNW).

Slightly less tolerance was shown to Mark Edward Tynan of the Christian faith group “Servants of Jesus” this week when the Australian health watchdog banned him from practising any form of mental health medicine. The Psychologists Tribunal sadly took a dim view of Tynan’s opinion that dissociative identity disorder was caused by demons, and that one child’s mental health problems were due to her parents having dedicated her life to Satan. His innovative treatment plans of prayer and exorcisms were also roundly disapproved of (Telegraph(AU)).

Someone else to lose their job over a wacky belief this week is Baroness Jenny Tonge, shadow health spokesperson for the UK’s Liberal Democrat Party. Her problems started when an American blogger called Stephen Lendman resurrected the old “organ harvesting” myth in an article that accused Israeli medical teams sent to Haiti of doing just that. The allegations appeared in the Palestine Telegraph ,of which Tonge is patron, but it was for her suggestion to the Jewish Chronicle that an inquiry should be held to “dispel any rumours” that she got into trouble. Unfortunately for her, Liberal Party leader Nick Clegg did not feel the Israeli doctors should have to prove themselves innocent of any and all nonsense flung their way, and promptly removed her from her post (Spiked).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Tue Feb 16, 2010 - Comments (8)
Category: Disasters, Eccentrics, Government, Medicine, Religion

A Little Light Weirdness – 8

A would be bank-robber in Austria was foiled in his robbery attempt when the bank closed early for a staff training session. The man came equipped with a Barack Obama mask and gun but was stopped at the first hurdle when the locked door refused to open for him. Staff inside initially thought it was part of the training or a joke, and their laughter aggravated the criminal until he eventually fled empty-handed (Digital Spy).

More successful were the thieves that managed to steal several US landmarks, including the Palace of Fine Arts, USS Pampanito and Ghirardelli Square. Models of course, part of an exhibition of Mark and Jannet Benz’s Lego creations on display at the Palo Alto Museum of American Heritage, and worth several thousand dollars. A reward of $500 has been offered by the Benzes (SF Weekly).

But if Jan and Mark are thinking of upping their home security, they should perhaps avoid following the example of Alexander Skopintsew of Primorye in Russia, who decided to deter intruders by planting homemade landmines around his garden. He was inevitably found out when a trespasser was injured when setting off one of these devices, and charged with possession of illegal weapons, receiving a suspended sentence (ABC News).

Of course another alternative might be to have nothing worth stealing. Perhaps something similar occurred to retired lorry driver Ken Strickland, who amassed a collection of over 3000 watering cans, each meticulously documented. Sadly Mr. Strickland died last month aged 78, bequeathing the entire assortment to his niece, who is at a loss as to what to do with them and may in fact sell them on behalf of a charity. One watering can however will not be up for sale, it contains her uncle's ashes (Metro).

Meanwhile hundreds of other women up and down the UK might be feeling a little let down this Monday, after British department store Debenhams recorded a 76% surge in sales of their range of “anatomy boosting” underwear for men ahead of Valentine’s day. Turn around is fair play, I say (Reuters).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Mon Feb 15, 2010 - Comments (5)
Category: Buildings and Other Structures, Crime, Stupid Criminals, Eccentrics, Collectors, Explosives, Geeks, Nerds and Pointdexters, Government, Officials, Kitsch and Collectibles, Weird Theory, Goofs and Screw-ups

Beyond Belief – Weirdness in Religion

First up, a UK judge has spoken out to say children should be allowed to take knives to school. Not all children mind you, just Sikh children. Justice Mota Singh, a Sikh himself, is talking about the kirpan, a ceremonial three-inch knife worn as a show of faith by devout Sikhs, the wearing of which by one boy was banned by a North London school earlier this year. Singh later supported the boy's family's decision to withdraw him rather than accept their compromise offer that he carry a 'disabled' equivalent claiming the school's refusal was discriminatory (BBC News).

Meanwhile another UK court last week ruled that particularly pious Hindu Davender Kumar Ghai can have the open-air cremation he fervently desires. It's been a long battle for Ghai, who found his proposal to site traditional funeral pyres on land outside Newcastle blocked by the city council in a decision later upheld by England's High Court. Now the UK Court of Appeal has said that the open-air ceremonies can go ahead, and that the requirement that all cremations occur 'within a building' could be met by any reasonable structure and did not dictate that structure have walls or a roof. Davenda Kumar Ghai, who is 76 and in poor health, can now go ahead and build his roofless crematorium, once he gets planning permission to do so, from Newcastle City Council (Times).

And in yet another landmark decision, the councillors in Reading, England have given the local Muslim community permission to carry out their own burials in the borough's cemeteries at weekends, which council gravediggers do not work. Many Islamic traditions favour burial very soon after death, and the delays caused by the weekend closures was cited as a significant cause of stress for relatives. In response, the council have agreed to dig some graves beforehand for later use in a pilot scheme expected to last one year, or until the first Saturday night drunk falls in one and sues (GetReading).

Mind you, even once you're in the ground you're not always safe. A row over the siting of a new museum on a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalen has boiled over this week with families who claim to have relatives buried there petitioning the UN. The cemetery, which dates back several hundred years, is due to be excavated to make was for a new “Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance” being built by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who dispute the families' claims. “The Museum of Tolerance project is not being built on the Mamilla Cemetery. It is being built on Jerusalem’s former municipal car park, where every day for nearly half a century, thousands of Muslims, Christians and Jews parked their cars without any protest whatsoever from the Muslim community,” said founder Rabbi Marvin Hier (Telegraph).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Sun Feb 14, 2010 - Comments (12)
Category: Ceremonies, Customs, Death, Government, Regulations, Law, Judges, Philosophy, Religion

A Little Light Weirdness – 7

It’s an election year in the UK, and politicians there are suddenly more image conscious than ever. None more so than incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who - at his wife’s suggestion - has swapped his regular Kit-Kat munching habit for a diet of bananas in an effort to slim down a bit. While it’s nice to know that the British PM’s wife is perhaps a reader this blog, she’s obviously not a regular one, or she’d have known that portly politicos are more trusted. Now if only he’d show the common touch by going on a bacon binge (Orange News).

Mind you, Mr. Brown is not the only statesman trying to avert a bleak future this week, an unnamed Arab ambassador got the shock of his life when he finally lifted his new bride’s niqab, only to find she had cross-eyes and a beard. The groom immediately went to court to have the marriage annulled, claiming he had been tricked into the marriage and that the bride’s parents had used pictures of her attractive older sister to deceive him. The court found for the groom and dissolved the marriage, but turned down his demand for $150000 compensation (Daily Mail).

But perhaps he’s been a bit quick to judge by appearances. Two Chinese men certainly were when the found a hoard of 20 clay artefacts in an old tomb they discovered in a field near their home, only to later sell the whole lot to a collector for less than $2000. Unfortunately for the pair, theirs were rare finds from the Sui-Tang Dynasty, making the collection over 1000 years old. One item alone, a pottery figurine, recently reached $150,000 at auction (Daily Times).

More fortunate was Wendy Jones of Aberglasney in Wales, who took the old plate she’d had perched on her sideboard for years – except on those odd occasions it had fallen off it - to a TV antiques show, in a plastic carrier bag, only to be told it was part of a rare, Prussian royal service worth over £100000 (Telegraph).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Wed Feb 10, 2010 - Comments (3)
Category: Boats, Cops, Crime, Stupid Criminals, Food, Government, Officials, History, Obscenity, Pirates, Politics, Retail Establishments, Theater and Stage, Facial Hair, Goofs and Screw-ups

Tragedy or Hope?

Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 06, 2010 - Comments (1)
Category: Government, Politics, PSA’s, Rants, Warnings, Jeremiads, Prophecies and Cassandra-like Figures, Riots, Protests and Civil Disobedience, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1970s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows

Weird Science – Above and Below.

Tonight is the night of the Yule moon, also called the “wolf moon” (the first new full moon of the year), and coincidentally will be the largest and brightest full moon of 2010. This is because the Moon’s orbit is not a perfect circle but an ellipse, with its nearest point to Earth some 31 thousand miles closer than its furthest. And occasionally the full moon will coincide with this closest approach, which is enough for the moon to appear 14% larger and 30% brighter than at any other time this year. Incidentally, this also means the previous new moon was very nearly the smallest it could have been, which is why – along with occurring with Earth at its nearest to the Sun – the solar eclipse on January 15th was annular (Space.com).

Also watching the skies tonight may be Luchezar Filipov, Deputy Head of Space Exploration at the Bulgarian Academy of Science. However, Filipov’s interest is not the Moon, but aliens, who he believes are living among us on Earth at this very moment. Filipov and his team claim to be in telepathic contact with the aliens, who he says are friendly, but could not establish a coherent conversation because of our “lack of evolution”. This lack of coherence appears to have only been one way however, as Filipov was still able to state that the aliens were critical of our immoral behaviour, environmental destruction and use of cosmetics and artificial insemination, which they condemned as unnatural – unlike space travel one presumes. The next meeting of minds between Filipov and the aliens is scheduled for sometime in spring this year (Sofia Echo).

But perhaps the aliens are backing the wrong species, because it’s move over Iron Man and make way for Iron Snail. The scaly-foot snail is certainly well protected for its kind, with an iron rich outer layer that deters piercing, a thick organic middle that dissipates the force of an attack and a calcified inner layer that gives the shell sufficient rigidity to resist attempts to crush it. The snail’s armour is so good that it’s attracted the interest of the Department of Defense, who are seeing if any useful lessons could be learned for application in the man-made versions (MIT).

Someone else who could have benefited from some armour is “Macho B”, who was – until his death in February last year, the last known wild jaguar in South West America. Perversely, it wasn’t poachers who did for him in the end but Arizona’s own Fish and Game Department, who deny it was their intention to capture the jaguar despite setting snares around his territory. Now a federal inquiry has concluded that Macho B was trapped deliberately, and the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service is considering whether to bring charges (NY Times).

But even as the jaguar takes one step nearer joining the dinosaurs in extinction, scientists are one step closer to bringing them back, in our imaginations at least. For the first time, a team from China, the United Kingdom and Ireland have determined the colours and pattern of a dinosaur, a metre-long feathered carnivore called Sinosauropteryx. Turns out the bird-like bipeds were orange, with white striped tails and a “mohawk” display crest on their heads. Despite the feathers, Sinosauropteryx was a flightless reptile who most likely used its feathers primarily for display (CBC).

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Fri Jan 29, 2010 - Comments (3)
Category: Aliens, Animals, Government, Military, Science, Goofs and Screw-ups

Weird Divorce

It’s been a weird week for divorcees, starting with an Indian couple from Pune near Mumbai. After years of arguments over the wife’s penchant for Hindi soap operas, the husband finally barred her from watching them any more. She promptly filed for a divorce, which was granted on the grounds of his “cruel treatment” of her (World News AU).

Next is the case of the divorce granted to the Chinese couple who had not seen each other since their wedding, three years previously. The ceremony took place in China’s Machong district and was the result of an arranged marriage by the parents of the couple, called Ma and Mo, who were good friends. But Ma, the groom, left for a job elsewhere straight after and the newlyweds did not even try to stay in touch. With no children or property to argue over, the divorce went fairly uneventfully (China Daily).

Staying in China for a moment, Shoutsee Li and Han Fucheng of that country’s Mentougou district are hoping a judge will annul their marriage so they can marry again, this time legally. The couple originally married in 2006 after meeting nine years earlier, but Li was in China under false papers and now faces deportation. But while the police don’t recognise Han and Li’s marriage, the registrar does, and will not let them remarry until their current marriage is dissolved (People’s Daily).

Not so likely to remarry are recently separated couple Robin Williams and Anthony Hull of Kingsfold in England. Attempts to reach an agreement on how to divide their £500,000 ($850k) house have stalled amid arguments over who keeps the cheese grater and whether paint pots are communal property. The couple have now taken their grievances to Britain’s High Court (Daily Express).

Also in court this week was Stanley G. Hilton of Hillsborough, CA who is suing San Francisco, its airport, every airline that uses it, and the manufacturers of the airplanes landing there for $15 million each for ruining his marriage. All in all Hilton, a former attorney (now disbarred), cites 37 parties as contributing to the breakdown of relations with his wife, which amounts to a cool $555 million in the unlikely event that he wins (Wired).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Mon Nov 23, 2009 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Eccentrics, Frauds, Cons and Scams, Government, Regulations, Religion, Lawsuits, Divorce

A Little Light Weirdness - 3

Brazilian TV presenter, Wallace Souza, has brought a whole new meaning to the term "hit show", by allegedly arranging the deaths of at least four people to boost the ratings of his mid-day real crime show. Souza, a former policeman and prominent politician, is accused of being behind a criminal drug network with an estimated turnover of $25m a month, while the murder victims were all either partners who had fallen from favour or from rival outfits. Once the hit had been set up, it is claimed Souza would receive a tip-off so that camera crews for his program could reach the scene before even the police (Guardian).

Someone else who may be meeting with an "accident" pretty soon is Ginger the kune-kune pig, who is not in pensioner Anne Moon's best books after swallowing her $2500 dollar diamond engagement ring right off her hand. Mrs. Moon, who had gone to pet the pig just prior to the impromptu a-la-main meal, immediately alerted the pig's owner, farmer Paul Caygill, and hopes to be reunited with the ring given to her 30 years ago once nature takes its course (Fox News).

And while Anne Moon is left hanging around dumb animals, in the Norwegian town of Helgoysund, it is the dumb animals that are hanging around. For it is there that a ram managed to get its horns entangled in one of the town's overhead electric cables, before losing its footing, astonishing onlookers as it subsequently abseiled down the hill towards the next pole. Locals suspect that this may have been caused by an over rambitious attempt to reach the ewes in a lower field, and after the ram was eventually towed back to higher ground and released unharmed, he was allowed access by way of compensation for his ordeal (Daily Mail).

Still on the subject of dumb animals, that is presumably what one Parisian store is hoping to attract with its latest creation, a fusball table populated entirely by Barbies. The "Barbie Foot", by French "concept-store" Colette, uses 22 of the ubiquitous dolls, in contrasting uniforms of pink and white in its limited edition table football game, which it hopes to sell for 10,000 euros, that is $14,000, each (Guardian).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Wed Aug 12, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Crime, Death, Exercise and Fitness, Furniture, Government, Law, Television, Goofs and Screw-ups

A Little More Light Weirdness

Just some un-themed oddities that caught my eye:

Plans to chop down a tree to make way for a roundabout in Jaslo, Poland have revealed that the oak was in fact planted to commemorate Hitler's birthday when the town was occupied during World War 2. The town's mayor, Maria Kurowska, called the choice between traffic improvements and the living memorial "simple," but not everyone agrees. "It's a historic curiosity," said local Kazimierz Polak, who was present at the planting ceremony as a child 67 years ago, adding, "It's not the tree's fault" (Reuters).

Two Bengal white tigers in a zoo in South Africa have given birth to a tiger cub that's not only white, but stripe-less (London Paper). Surely that's just called a lion?

A spiritual "healer" in Puerto Rico may want to re-read the manual today, after accidentally dropping a lit candle into the bath of alcohol he had instructed he lady patient lie in. The victim, who was suffering financial and marriage issues, can now add 50% burns to her list of problems (Metro).

The Swiss state of Appenzell went the whole of the second world war without a single German invader, so was perhaps unprepared to come under sustained assault by German hikers dressed in nothing but their socks and boots. Naked hiking, which has become a popular Alpine pastime apparently, has generated a stream of complaints from Swiss locals, and the authorities of the Outer and Inner Rhodes provinces of Appenzell have responded by imposing stiff fines of 200CHF ($175) on anyone caught without clothes, though where they expect the hikers to produce the money from is not explained (Cape News). To publicise the ban, the Swiss officials have ordered signs banning nude hiking, to the surprise of designer Dan Walter, who originally drew the sign as a joke (Metro).

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Tue Jul 07, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Accidents, Goofs and Screw-ups, Animals, Government, Regulations, Health, History, Historical Figure, New Age