The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

BUTCHER FIRED OVER SUGGESTIVE MEAT CUTS

  Butcher Kenneth Black was fired from a South California supermarket after a female co-worker complained that he had intentionally cut meat to resemble female genitalia. Black said it was the first time he’d had a complaint about his meat in 20 years.

  FIFTY-FOOT SIGN REMOVED IN EXCHANGE FOR SHOES

  Seeing a 14-foot by 48-foot vinyl billboard sign that promised, “Bring in this ad and you’ll get a free pair of shoes”, three intrepid coupon clippers decided to do just that. They removed the 70-pound sign from its location next to an expressway in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and contacted Shoestrings to claim their free shoes. The general manager of Chancellor Media Group, which installed the sign, admired the trio’s audacity and agreed to pay for three pairs of shoes in return for the undamaged sign. “How can I prosecute?” she said. “They did what we told them to do!” Shoestrings said they would be placing a disclaimer on their next billboard.

  TOURISTS ACCIDENTICALLY LOCKED IN HISTORIC PRISON

  A retired prison officer and his wife became a historic jail’s first inmates in almost 100 years when they were accidentally locked inside by staff. Pensioners Norman and June Bradshaw were still looking around Ruthin Jail in Denbighsire, North Wales, in 2009 when staff closed up early and went home. Trapped in the souvenir shop, their cries for help were heard by a worker in a nearby building but she could not release them because she did not have the keys. They were eventually freed an hour later. Mr Bradshaw said: “I joined HM Prison Service in 1966 and retired in 2004. During all that time I was never locked inside a prison with no escape – that is until now. My sons and their wives all work for the prison service so it really is quite ironic.”

  ALLIGATOR PHOTOGRAPHER TAPES HIMSELF TO TREE

  A man who got lost in a Florida swamp during a trip to photograph alligators had to be rescued by police after taping himself high up in a tree so that the reptiles couldn’t attack him at night. Gemini Wink had taped himself to a branch so securely that sheriff’s deputies had to climb 40 foot up the tree to free him.

  CHIMP LANDS TOURISM JOB

  A chimpanzee called Bobby has been appointed Tourism Promotions Inspector by the Polish town of Radkow on a salary of $140 a month. Bobby is taken around the regional capital Wroclaw with a sign on his back advertising the nearby Table Mountains range, which has a local beauty spot known as Monkey Rock.

  NEWSPAPER PRINTS OWN NAME INCORRECTLY

  A US newspaper made arguably the most embarrassing typographical error possible – it spelt its own name wrong, in the masthead on the front page. Readers of New Hampshire’s Valley News who picked up the 21 July, 2008, edition were surprised to see the title across the top of the front page read “Valley Newss”. The following day, the editor apologized for the blunder, saying: “Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold themselves accountable for their mistakes, let us say for the record: We sure feel silly.”

  MARATHON WALK WRECKED BY THE FRENCH

  A man who planned an epic two-and-a-half-year walk from Britain to India without spending any money only got as far as Calais before turning back. Mark Boyle set off on foot from Bristol in January 2008 with the intention of eventually reaching Gandhi’s birthplace on the west coast of India, but he managed only 300 miles to the French port before giving up the trek because it was cold and the people there only spoke French! He quickly announced plans to walk around Britain instead.

  EASTER BUNNY ARRESTED FOR BRAWLING IN MALL

  The Easter Bunny was arrested for brawling with an assistant at a shopping mall in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2000. The 15-year-old girl playing the Easter Bunny became involved in an altercation with her 20-year-old sidekick, which ended with punches being thrown and the Bunny falling over her own head.

  STRIPPER ATTACKED AFTER TURNING UP TO WRONG VENUE

  Carlo Pampini, a male stripper from Naples, Italy, arrived at a hotel suite to perform for a hen party in 1997. He stripped off and wedged a large sausage firmly between his buttocks, but when he invited a woman to remove it, he was whacked with a chair. When a dazed Pampini regained his senses, he realized that he had mixed up the room numbers and had in fact been entertaining a meeting of the Catholic Mothers Against Pornography Guild.

  BUSINESS STUDENTS CHEATED IN ETHICS EXAM

  Twenty-five San Diego State University business students were found guilty of cheating in an exam – on ethics. Ensnared in a trap set by a suspicious lecturer, about a third of those enrolled on the course were caught using answers that had been given to an earlier test. All were awarded failing grades for the course. One student sighed: “What did I learn from the course? You shouldn’t cheat – unless there’s absolutely no risk of getting caught.”

  AIRLINE HIRES BALD MEN AS WALKING BILLBOARDS

  Air New Zealand announced in 2008 that it was looking for 50 bald passengers willing to act as “cranial billboards” bearing temporarily tattooed messages on their shiny pates to advertise new improved check-in services. The airline said it would pay $700 a head to volunteers. Its marketing manager Steve Bayliss said: “How better to tell our customers that Air New Zealand is going to do something about long check-in queues than through messaging they can read while standing in a queue themselves?”

  SPURNED SALESWOMAN DEFECATES ON PORCH

  A spurned cosmetics saleswoman took her revenge on a housewife who refused to answer the door of her Florida home in 2009 by defecating on her doorstep. The houseowner said she didn’t answer the door because she didn’t recognize the car outside, whereupon the saleswoman, apparently angered by the snub, decided to leave an unconventional calling card.

  SCHOOL PRINCIPAL GETS HER ANSWERS WRONG

  The principal of a school in Boerum Hill, New York, was accused of changing up to 119 answers on 14 competency tests in an attempt to improve students’ marks. Officials said it was easy to tell what had been changed because she used a green eraser to remove the old answers whereas all the students had been given red erasers. Furthermore, nearly a quarter of her corrections were wrong.

  LAZY STREET WORKERS PAINT WOBBLY LINES

  Workmen painting double yellow “no parking” lines on a street in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in 2002 could not be bothered to move a solitary traffic cone that was in their way. So rather than stop their machine, they swerved around the cone, creating wobbly lines 18 inches into the road.

  BUNGLING FRENCH ARMY SHELLS MARSEILLE

  Hundreds of Marseille residents were evacuated in 2009 after the French Army conducted artillery practice in hot summer weather with the result that every shell landing on a hillside started a fire. As high winds fanned the flames towards the city suburbs, numerous buildings were destroyed, including a retirement home housing 120 pensioners. Thousands of acres of land were burnt to a cinder. Regional government prefect Michel Sappin branded the army “imbeciles”.

  TALKATIVE ACCOUNTANT THREATENED WITH JAIL

  An accountant in Salem, Pennsylvania, was charged with defiant trespass in 2002 for talking too long at a public meeting – an offence that carried a possible two-year prison sentence. Jim Barbe, 60, committed the crime of speaking for 11 minutes, instead of the allotted five, at a meeting to discuss a new sewage disposal plan, but was spared jail when the case against him was eventually dropped.

  MAN SETS UP NAKED DECORATING BUSINESS

  In 2008, a Lincolnshire naturist launched Britain’s first naked painting and decorating service. Nick Male advertises on naturist websites and eBay, claiming that having a naked decorator around the house oils the creative wheels and makes customers feel less inhibited. “Business is booming,” he said, “and I work more now than when I left my clothes on. The service is a serious one though: I don’t do titillation.”

  COUNTY ADVERTISES FOR KLINGON-SPEAKING APPLICANTS

  A county advertising a job helping mental patients in Portland, Oregon, said it welcomed applicants who were fluent in Klingon, the fictitious language spoken by aliens in Star Trek. Mu
ltnomah County’s purchasing administrator Franna Hathaway explained: “There are some cases where we’ve had mental health patients where this was all they would speak.” However the county later admitted: “It was a mistake, and a result of an overzealous attempt to ensure that our safety-net systems can respond to all customers and clients.”

  WOMAN CALLS EMERGENCY SERVICES TO SOLVE CROSSWORD

  A woman from Grevenbroich, Germany, called the country’s emergency services in 2009 because she was stuck for the answer to a crossword clue. Petra Hirsch explained: “I had finished the crossword except for this one answer and I was totally stumped. I had looked all over the Internet and asked friends. It was really bothering me. The clue was for the full name of a police border protection unit, so I thought they would not mind helping and I called the hotline – but they were really rude. All I wanted was a bit of help and it would only have taken them a second to tell me the answer, but instead I got told to get off the line.” A police spokesman said: “It is called an emergency number for a reason – to deal with emergencies. Crossword solutions are not an emergency.”

  LAWYER IS LISTED IN DIRECTORY UNDER “REPTILES”

  Linda Ross, a family lawyer in Southern California, was dismayed to see that in a 2000 edition of Yellow Pages she was mistakenly listed under “Reptiles”. She said she was worried the listing might confirm what people already believe about attorneys.

  JEHOVAH’S WITNESS IS ATTACKED BY RAM

  Visiting homes uninvited in 2003, a South Australian Jehovah’s Witness ignored a “Private – Keep Out” sign on someone’s property and was attacked by a ram. He sued his church over his injuries on the grounds that they had failed to advise him that “Private – Keep Out” meant that he should keep out.

  CINDERELLA AND SNOW WHITE ARRESTED IN DISNEYLAND PROTEST

  Cinderella, Snow White, Tinkerbell and other fairy tale characters were handcuffed, frisked and loaded into police vans following a protest at Disneyland, California, in 2008. The arrest of 32 protesters – many of whom were in costume – was part of a pay dispute among staff at three Disney-owned hotels in the area. The incident left tourists bewildered. One visitor from England said: “Nothing Disney could create could be more surreal than seeing Tinkerbell being handcuffed and bundled into a police van.”

  HERO WORKER HAS WAGES DOCKED

  A baker who received a bravery award after tackling three robbers at the Canterbury, Kent, supermarket where he worked was then docked two weeks’ wages for taking time off to recover from his injuries.

  WOMEN HAVE CHESTS RUBBED WITH HAM AT PARTY

  The Myrtle Beach Fire Department of South Carolina handed back a $2,400 donation in 2000 because the money had been collected at a party where women danced on stage while having their bare chests rubbed with a ham. The department, which wanted the money to buy a new truck, said it had not known what the party would involve.

  SPANISH KING IS REPLACED BY HOMER SIMPSON ON COIN

  A Spanish shopkeeper stumbled across a defaced euro coin where the head of King Juan Carlos had been transformed into that of Homer Simpson. Don Juan Carlos’s regal half-profile topped by a full head of curls had morphed seamlessly into the pop-eyed, big-nosed, bald-headed features of Homer, complete with familiar five o’clock shadow. “The coin must have been done by a professional,” said Jose Martinez who found it in the cash register of his shop in Aviles in 2008. “It’s an impressive piece of work.” Amid fears that the illegal defacement might be part of a republican conspiracy against the Spanish monarchy, thousands of Simpsons fans from across the globe bid over $30 for the coin.

  APPLICANT CREATES SPARKS AT JOB INTERVIEW

  An Australian man built up so much static electricity in his clothes when he walked that he burned carpets, melted plastic and sparked a mass evacuation. Frank Clewer, from Warrnambool, Victoria, was wearing a synthetic nylon jacket and a woollen shirt when he went for a job interview in 2005 but as he walked into the building, the carpet ignited from the 40,000 volts of static electricity that his clothes had created. “It sounded like a firecracker,” he said, “and within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt.” Worried fire crews evacuated the building and cut its power supply in the belief that the scorch marks in the carpet had been caused by a power surge. When the culprit was finally uncovered, fire chiefs said the charge was almost high enough to cause spontaneous combustion. On leaving the building, Mr Clewer scorched a piece of plastic in his car.

  BEWARE OF THE “BMUP”

  In 2003, highway workers in Richmond, California, painted a warning sign in four-foot-high letters on the road. It read “BMUP”. Appropriately while doing this, they had erected a sign saying “Slow Men Working”.

  FIREMAN RUNS SCARED FROM MICE

  An Essex fireman faced the wrath of senior officers after fleeing his duty station when he saw two mice. The fireman locked up the Waltham Abbey station after spotting the mice in the kitchen and promptly drove back to headquarters, telling colleagues he was too frightened to stay on his own at night.

  “VACUUM CLEANER SALESMAN CHASED AWAY WITH GUN”

  Police said that Fred Banks, of West Haven, Connecticut, was so annoyed by the persistent attempts of salesman Ricardo Vasquez to sell Mrs Banks a vacuum cleaner that he chased Vasquez out of the house with a gun.

  STUDENT GETS MARKS FOR SWEARING IN EXAM

  A British student who wrote “Fuck off” as his answer to a GCSE English exam question in 2008 was given two marks just for spelling it correctly. He gave the four-letter answer when asked to “describe the room you are sitting in”. Peter Buckroyd, chief examiner of English, said: “It does show some very basic skills we are looking for, like conveying some meaning and some spelling. He would have got even more marks if he had added an exclamation mark.”

  GERMAN MAGAZINE RUNS CHINESE BROTHEL AD BY MISTAKE

  Seeking to illustrate a special report on China with Chinese characters, a respected German research institute mistakenly ran an advert for a Chinese brothel on its front page. The Max Planck Institute had bought the picture of Chinese characters in good faith from a photo agency and had it checked by a Chinese speaker, but when the piece appeared describing China as “a many-faceted, fascinating land”, readers noticed that the text also included a reference to an advertisement for stripping housewives in a brothel.

  MAN WAS SHOT AT FOR HARASSING FISH

  Ut Van Ho of Ada, Oklahoma, was charged in 1992 with shooting at a 22-year-old man who was “harassing” his pet fish by shining a flashlight into the fish tank during an afternoon card game.

  SHOP REFUSES TO MAKE BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR ADOLF HITLER

  The American parents of a three-year-old boy named Adolf Hitler were fuming in 2008 after a shop refused to inscribe his name on a birthday cake. Heath and Deborah Campbell wanted to buy a cake inscribed “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler” at a ShopRite supermarket near their home in Holland Township, New Jersey. The store decided the request was “inappropriate” and also refused to make a cake for Adolf’s sister, Aryan Nation, who turned two in 2009. The Campbells, who said they named their son “Adolf Hitler” because nobody else would be using the name, apparently could not understand what all the fuss was about. “ShopRite can’t even make a cake for a three-year-old,” moaned Mrs Campbell. “That’s sad. They’re just names, you know. Yeah, the Nazis were bad people back then. But my kids are little. They’re not going to grow up like that.”

  BANK APOLOGIZES FOR CALLING CUSTOMER “DICKHEAD”

  A bank apologized to a customer after sending him a debit card bearing the name “Dick Head”. Chris Lancaster of Tiptree, Essex, received a NatWest cash card in 2005 with the wording “Mr C. Lancaster Dick Head”. The 18-year-old said: “I know I’ve been overdrawn a few times but I’ve done nothing to deserve this. The bank said it must have been a worker with a grudge.”

  NEGLECTED LUNCH SENDS FIRE STATION UP IN FLAMES

  Firemen in Florida returned from a 2004 blaze to find their station on
fire. They had forgotten to turn off their lunch that was cooking on the gas oven.

  NOBODY NOTICED WORKER DEAD AT DESK FOR FIVE DAYS

  An employee at a New York publishing firm sat dead at his desk for five days in 2001 before anyone noticed that he had passed away. George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proofreader at the firm for 30 years, had suffered a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers. He died on the Monday but it was not until the following Saturday morning that an office cleaner asked him why he was still working at the weekend. His boss said: “George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all that time and didn’t say anything. He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself.” Ironically George was proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.

  BREAST IMPLANTS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE

  A prostitute in Denmark was allowed to reclaim the cost of her breast implants – over $4,000 – as a tax allowance. The surgery was deemed to constitute a legitimate business development.

  EVERYONE’S A WINNER IN SCRATCH CARD PRIZE DRAW

  When a Roswell, New Mexico, car dealership hired a direct-mail marketing company to send out 50,000 scratch-off tickets to local residents in 2007, the idea was that just one ticket would be the $1,000 grand prize winner. But a typographical error meant that all 50,000 tickets were grand prize winners, as a result of which the Roswell Honda dealership was besieged by people claiming their cash.