The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  TRAIN MOONER DRAGGED HALF NAKED ALONG TRACKS

  A German student mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his pants caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked for 200 metres along the station platform and onto the tracks. The 22-year-old had shoved his backside against the window of the train as a protest after staff had thrown him off at Lauenbrueck for travelling without a ticket.

  MAN JAILED FOR SELLING OWN URINE

  Kenneth Curtis of South Carolina was jailed for six months for selling his urine over the Internet to people facing drug tests at work. For $69 customers received Curtis’s drug-free urine, a small pouch, tubing and a heating pack.

  FARMER FORGOT TO TELL STAFF ABOUT BOOBY TRAP

  A Hungarian farmer nearly killed one of his labourers after wiring his barn door to the mains to stop thieves stealing animal food at night. The labourer suffered a heart attack and severe burns from the electrical booby trap installed by farmer Laszlo Miklos to combat a series of thefts. Miklos said: “I have an electric fence around parts of my farm to stop the animals getting out and that gave me an idea that I could use electricity to stop the thieves getting in, but I forgot to tell my staff.”

  PRISONER TRIES TO HANG HIMSELF WITH DENTAL FlOSS

  Prisoner Richard Barber tried to kill himself in his Iola, Kansas, jail cell in 1996 by wrapping dental floss that he had patiently collected around his neck and jumping off a ledge. But he succeeded only in cutting his neck. Ironically Barber was in jail for having killed a dentist.

  PENSIONER DESTROYS ANTS AND APARTMENT BLOCK

  A Polish pensioner destroyed an entire apartment block when he poured insecticide down a ventilation shaft to get rid of ants. Marcin Bartosz, 74, used gallons of insecticide but when it appeared to have no effect, he threw in a burning towel for good measure. The resultant explosion reduced the block of flats in Lubin to rubble and left him in hospital with third-degree burns.

  POLICE SEE THROUGH INVISIBILITY SCAM

  An Iranian paid a holy man the equivalent of over $1,000 to make him invisible. Convinced that he couldn’t be seen, he then went into a Tehran bank and snatched a wad of banknotes. The first inkling he had that he had been duped was when police arrested him.

  DRUNK TRIES TO REVIVE LONG-DEAD OPOSSUM

  A 55-year-old Pennsylvania man was charged with public drunkenness in 2010 after he was seen attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a long-dead opossum he had found on a highway.

  SHIT HITS THE FAN . . . LITERALLY

  Appearing in court in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on theft charges in 1998, a defendant smuggled in a quantity of faeces in a plastic bag and hurled them at a police officer. However he missed and hit a spinning ceiling fan instead, thereby splattering everyone in the court.

  NAKED MAN GETS TRAPPED IN CLOTHES DRYER

  Following a drinking session with friends in 2009, Dave Chapman, from Waipopo, New Zealand, decided to change his clothes and started to look for a clean pair of underpants in his tumble dryer. Naked below the waist, he peered into the darkest recesses of the dryer in an attempt to find the elusive underpants, which he was certain were in there somewhere. To obtain a better look, he climbed in but although he managed to get his head and shoulders inside, he then succeeded in wedging his upper torso in the door opening. To make matters worse, as he tried in vain to extricate himself, the dryer, which was hot from recent use, then fell to the floor on top of him. It took friends, ambulance staff, a police officer and two fire brigades to free him.

  BOY CLEANS PUPPY BY FLUSHING IT DOWN LAVATORY

  When his week-old cocker spaniel puppy got muddy after going on a walk, four-year-old Daniel Blair, of Northolt, Middlesex, thought the best way to wash him was to put him in the toilet and flush it. Luckily the dog survived being trapped in a waste pipe for almost four hours.

  STUDENT BRINGS GRENADE TO SCHOOL

  Four hundred children had to be evacuated from a school in Dennis, Massachusetts, in 2008 after an eight-year-old boy brought a Second World War hand grenade into class for a show-and-tell session.

  MAN SHOOTS HIMSELF WHILE CHANGING WHEEL

  A 66-year-old man had been repairing his Lincoln Continental outside his home in South Kitsap, Washington State, for two weeks in 2007 but was having problems removing one nut on the right rear wheel. Eventually in desperation and frustration he fetched his 12-gauge shotgun and decided to loosen the stiff nut by shooting it. However the blast peppered him with buckshot and he was rushed to hospital with random pellet injuries stretching from his chin to his feet. The man was said to have been perfectly sober at the time.

  DALMATIAN LOVERS PAINT HOUSE IN SPOTS

  After their beloved pet Dalmatian dog Bingo was run over by a car, Goran and Karmen Tomasic decided to commemorate him by painting the exterior of their house in Pribislavec, Croatia, white with black spots. “We have to admit that at first we were afraid of what the neighbours would say,” said Goran, “but we loved Bingo so much we had to do it.”

  POLICE CHIEF STARTS FIRE TO IMPRESS EX-GIRLFRIEND

  In 2002, John Tuchek, police chief of Lanesboro, Minnesota, deliberately started a fire behind a general store in the historic downtown area so that he could impress his former girlfriend, who lived above the store. He hoped that by saving her from the fire, he could win her back with his heroism. Alas the fire got out of hand, destroying two nineteenth-century buildings and taking 16 hours to bring under control. And Tuckek, who was by then the former police chief, ended up being sentenced to six years in prison for arson.

  BOY ON TOILET SETS FIRE TO AEROSOL

  A boy sitting on the toilet was blasted through the bathroom window after setting fire to an air freshener can. Thirteen-year-old Dennis Bueller, from Recklinghausen, Germany, had sprayed the smelly toilet with an aerosol but then decided to play with a lighter. “Suddenly there was this big orange flame,” he recounted. “I woke up outside with my clothes burned off me and smelling like a barbecue.” His father said: “He realizes he was a bit dim.”

  BUDDING ENTREPRENEUR TRIES TO SELL FOG

  In 2002, Italian Giorgio Valentinuzzi came up with the idea of selling fog from his home village of Rivignano. He grabbed the fog in coffee tins which he then sealed and attempted to sell for $2.50 a time. He saw the business opportunity after being told that Rivignano’s fog was the wettest in Italy.

  WOMAN THROWS OUT MATTRESS CONTAINING $1M

  Deciding to surprise her elderly mother with a new mattress, a woman in Tel Aviv, Israel, threw out the old one, only to discover that her mother had hidden her life savings inside – a cool $1 million. When she went to look for the mattress, it had already been collected by garbage men, prompting a frantic search of local landfill sites. One dump manager warned: “The mattress will be hard to find among the 2,500 tons of garbage that arrive at the site every day.”

  PIGEON TRIBUTE FAILS TO TAKE OFF

  For a 9/11 memorial service in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 2002, organizers planned to release 80 white doves or homing pigeons in a symbolic gesture, the idea being that the birds would soar high in the sky and then return to the owner’s roost. But all the professional birds had already been hired for use in other services that day, so the organizers decided instead to buy their 80 pigeons from Newark poultry market. The trouble was that the young market birds were bred for eating, not flying. Indeed, having spent much of their short lives squashed in small cages, most of them could barely fly at all. As a result, the ceremony turned into a blur of feathers and confusion. A number of the birds plunged into the Hudson River, while others smacked into plate-glass windows on office buildings or careered into the crowd, getting tangled up in people’s hair. One sat on top of the hard hat of a construction worker whose company had helped clear ground zero. “I don’t know how anyone could be so short-sighted, especially for 9/11,” said a member of staff at a local bird hospital that was treating some of the injured pigeons. Amid the chaos, chief organizer Guy Catrillo searched hard and manage
d to find a positive. He said of the hapless birds: “Without a doubt it beats what could have happened to them. They were squab; they were soup birds. I like the idea that I helped these squab get another chance.”

  SUSPECT SEES THROUGH PC CUNNINGTON’S CUNNING PLAN

  When police detectives in London were experiencing problems executing a search warrant on a house with a solid steel door, PC Dean Cunnington volunteered to borrow a postman’s uniform and knock on the door in disguise. Hearing the knock, a voice inside the house called out: “Who is it?” “It’s the police,” replied PC Cunnington.

  TEDDY BEAR KILLS 2,500 FISH AT MAINE FARM

  About 2,500 rainbow trout died from lack of oxygen in a hatchery pool at Milford, Maine, in 2006 – and the culprit was a teddy bear. The child’s bear, dressed in a yellow raincoat and matching hat, had somehow become lodged in a pipe that led fresh water to the pool. The deaths prompted the hatchery to post a warning notice to visitors: “RELEASE OF ANY TEDDY BEARS INTO THE FISH HATCHERY WATER IS NOT PERMITTED.”

  COUPLE RECEIVE RUDE MAILOUTS

  Linda and Frederick Hinrichs failed a lawsuit in 1992 after a clerk at a motor dealership in Aurora, Colorado, put an abusive name on their ownership records, which were later used as the basis for mailouts. The couple said they subsequently received two mailouts from the Mazda Motor Company addressed to “Buttface Hinrichs”.

  LIFEGUARD RESCUES AIR MATTRESS INSTEAD OF WOMAN

  When a woman toppled off an air mattress into the sea off Sydney’s Bondi Beach in 2002 and began to drown, a lifeguard instantly sprang into action . . . but inadvertently rescued the mattress instead of her. The hapless lifeguard, who was subsequently sacked, explained that without his contact lenses his eyesight was so bad that he was unable to tell the difference between the woman and the mattress, especially as the latter “had all the bumps in the right places”. Fortunately a passing motorboat driver rescued the drowning woman.

  FLOOR COLLAPSES AT WEIGHT WATCHERS MEETING

  The floor of a Weight Watchers clinic in Vaxjö, Sweden, collapsed beneath a group of 20 slimmers who had gathered to find out how many pounds they had shed. As the dieters lined up in 2010 for their weekly weigh-in, the floor started to rumble ominously before collapsing completely. One of the group compared the sensation to an earthquake. Happily the only things hurt were the dieters’ feelings.

  CROSS-DRESSING SCHOOL PRINCIPAL IS BUSTED AS HOOKER

  Having apparently decided that his pay as principal of a West Virginia elementary school was insufficient, a 55-year-old man was accused of taking up a second job – as a prostitute. Police said that, sporting a black wig and lipstick, he tried to drum up business by undercutting the prices of the more traditional street-corner hookers. Unfortunately in interrupting one transaction, he allegedly offered oral sex to two undercover police officers.

  SACKED EMPLOYEE DUMPS PORCUPINE DUNG OVER COLLEAGUES

  Sacked for poor job performance, Empire, Michigan, postal worker James Beal returned to the office carrying three buckets filled with porcupine dung and worms, which he then threw over three of his colleagues. “It was in their pockets, it was in their shoes, they were covered from head to toe,” said Assistant US Attorney Mark Cowtade. Sixty-two-year-old Beal, who was jailed for 18 months for the assault, admitted: “I let my anger with this sort of overrule my judgements.”

  CASINO EJECTS SMELLY POKER PLAYER

  A Brooklyn gambler kicked up a stink in 2008 after being thrown out of a casino on account of his bad body odour. When Michael Wax went to the restroom at the casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a poker room manager followed him and informed him that his fellow players were complaining about his smell. Wax then tried to retake his seat at the table, but was ordered to leave. The 31-stone punter did not deny that he stank but said that he had been playing poker for 17 hours and had not had time to clean up.

  EXOTIC DANCER PROTESTS OVER AGEISM SLUR

  A 52-year-old exotic dancer from Toronto, Canada, complained that a local strip club violated her human rights for firing her because she was too old. Shirley Zegil said: “It’s a human rights issue. It’s discrimination. I’m fighting for the rights I’m supposed to have as a Canadian.” A spokesman for the club said: “She was fired for being ugly. She’s not only bad, but her body is too hairy. She looked like she was wearing somebody’s toupee.”

  WORKER LOSES TWO FINGERS IN GUILLOTINE

  In 2002, 25-year-old Keith Sanderson lost the tip of his thumb while operating a guillotine at a factory in Newcastle upon Tyne. Hearing his cry of pain, his supervisor ran over to ask what had happened, whereupon Keith demonstrated with his other hand . . . and severed half of his index finger. Surgeons managed to repair the thumb but were unable to save the other digit.

  MAN SOLVES RUBIK’S CUBE AFTER 26 YEARS

  In 2009, Graham Parker, from Portchester, Hampshire, proudly announced that he had finally solved his Rubik’s Cube puzzle after 26 years of trying. He bought the toy in 1983 and had since spent more than 27,400 hours and endured countless sleepless nights endeavouring to find the solution. His long-suffering wife Jean said the cube had frequently put a strain on their marriage, causing blazing rows between them. She added that her husband was so obsessed with the cube that sometimes it felt as though there were three people in the marriage. A jubilant Mr Parker said: “I cannot tell you what a relief it was to finally solve it. It has driven me mad over the years – it felt like it had taken over my life. I have missed important events to stay in and solve it, and I would lay awake at night thinking about it. Friends have offered to solve it for me, and I know that you can find solutions on the web but I just had to do it for myself. I have had wrist and back problems from spending hours on it but it was all worth it. When I clicked that last bit into place and each face was a solid colour, I wept.” Erik Akkersdijk of the Netherlands holds the record for the fastest solve of a Rubik’s Cube with a time of 7.08 seconds.

  FISH WERE DYING FOR A BEER

  A worker at the Coors brewing plant in Golden, Colorado, turned the wrong valve in 1991 and sent over 150,000 gallons of beer into the adjacent Clear Creek, killing 3,000 fish.

  PALLBEARER CRUSHED BY COFFIN AFTER FALLING INTO GRAVE

  A pallbearer in San Antonio, Texas, was injured in 2008 after he fell into a grave and the coffin that he was helping to carry crashed down on top of him. Joseph Rivas said he stepped on a piece of Astroturf, which collapsed beneath him.

  BUM RAP FOR ITALIAN PHOTOGRAPHER

  A keen photographer was arrested in Venice in 2008 on suspicion of snapping more than 3,000 women’s bottoms. Italian police became curious when they spotted the 38-year-old carrying a large bag as he followed mini-skirted women through St Mark’s Square. Whenever the women bent down, he appeared to be trying to angle the bag behind them. Police said he was filming through a small hole in the side of the bag and had kept his collection of butt images on a series of DVDs. He later admitted that he had been filming in and around the square for two years.

  MISPRINT SCARES AIRLINE PASSENGERS

  A proofreading error in an advertisement meant that Japan’s JAS airline offered its English-speaking customers “non-stop fright” to Okinawa in 2002.

  GREETER WEARS JUST A WAL-MART SACK

  Dean Wooten, a 65-year-old Wal-Mart greeter from Muscatine, Iowa, was fired in 2005 for welcoming customers to the store with a computer-generated photograph of himself wearing nothing but a Wal-Mart sack. Wooten, who had worked for Wal-Mart for seven years, said: “A friend of mine got the photo of the body off the Internet, and he had a picture of me and he put my head on it. When I first saw it, I pretty near died laughing, and I thought the customers would find it amusing too.” In fact, a number of them complained. Denying Wooten unemployment benefits, a judge ruled that “a reasonable person would know the act of showing a naked body wearing a Wal-Mart sack would not be good for the employer’s business”.

  POLICE SWOOP ON GUN-RUNNING GERIATRICS

  Pol
ice in Slovakia closed down a club for pensioners in 2001 after the members were discovered making machine guns, which they were selling on to criminals.

  JOB APPLICANT IS RULED TOO INTELLIGENT TO JOIN POLICE

  A college graduate who wanted to become a police officer was rejected because he scored too high on an intelligence test. Forty-nine-year-old Robert Jordan took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London, Connecticut, police interviewed only candidates who scored between 20 and 27, reasoning that intelligent people would quickly become bored with police work.

  SCIENTIST FAILS TO LAND STREET SWEEPING JOB

  A jobless South Korean scientist with a doctorate in physics applied for a street sweeper’s job at the height of the economic slump in 2009, only to fail the physical. Applicants for the job in Seoul had to carry two sandbags, each weighing 44 pounds, over their shoulders to simulate stacking garbage bags before running back and forth over 25 yards with another sandbag on their shoulder. But the 36-year-old scientist – one of 63 applicants for five vacancies – was three seconds too slow in the sprint.