Tossers! In May, Britain’s Norfolk District Council banned the traditional barroom game of “dwile flonking” just as the inaugural “world championships” were to take place at the Dog Inn pub in Ludham, Great Yarmouth. The game, which some believe has been played since “medieval times,” calls on players to fling a beer-soaked rag from the end of a small stick toward the face of an opponent, and in the event the tosser misses the target two straight times,... [Read more...]
News of the Weird: July ‘10 Zero Love Briton Robert Dee, feeling humiliated at being called the “world’s worst tennis pro” by London’s Daily Telegraph (and other news organizations) sued the newspaper for libel last year. After taking testimony in February 2010, the judge tossed out the lawsuit in April, persuaded by Dee’s having lost 54 consecutive international tour matches (all in straight sets). Fearful of an opposite result, 30 other news organizations had already... [Read more...]
News of the Weird: June ‘10 Nailed Former baseball star Lenny “Nails” Dykstra recently started accepting clients for his investment advice service, charging $999 a year, according to a March Wall Street Journal report. His Web site discloses that while Dykstra is “NOT” (his emphasis) a “registered” financial adviser, his “proven track record has caught the attention of many.” (Dykstra filed for bankruptcy in July 2009 to stave off more than 20 lawsuits... [Read more...]
News of the Weird: May ‘10 Curd Your Enthusiasm It’s a simple recipe, said A-List New York City chef Daniel Angerer: a cheese derived from the breast milk of his wife, who is nursing the couple’s 3-month-old daughter. As a chef, he said, “you look out for something new and what you can do with it,” and what Angerer could do is make about two quarts of “flavor(ful)” cheese out of two gallons of mother’s milk. “(T)astes just like really sweet cow’s... [Read more...]
Uganda: Still Lagging Behind Women’s rights activists in Uganda finally got the attention of the Western press in December, when London’s The Independent verified the plight of Jennipher Alupot, who periodically for seven years had been forced to breastfeed her husband’s hunting dogs as she was nursing the couple’s own children. Farmer Nathan Awoloi of Pallisa explained that his dogs needed to eat, and since he was forced to sell Jennipher’s family two milk cows in order... [Read more...]
Oh Dear A seven-point buck was found dead in Viroqua, WI, in November, apparently after losing a head-butting contest with a cement-statue buck. Ramming contests are common during mating season, and the cement buck was about the same size as the dead one (but weighs about three times as much). Duff Puddings The recent Christmas bonus season was rough at the RF Brookes pizza-ingredient factory in Wigston, England. Workers received only gift containers of pudding (“plum duffs”) with a use-by... [Read more...]
Green Balloons! Rod Jetton, a former speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives and creator of Common Sense Conservative Consulting, LLC, was charged with felony assault in December after visiting a woman in her home in Sikeston, apparently for a sexual encounter. The woman later charged that Jetton punched her in the head and choked her into unconsciousness as his idea of foreplay, but Jetton said the “assault” was consensual, in that she was to utter a pre-arranged “safe... [Read more...]
Abra Cadabra! The first line of “defense” at the 400 Iraqi police checkpoints in Baghdad are small wands with antennas that supposedly detect explosives, but which U.S. officials say are about as useful as Ouija boards. The Iraqi official in charge, Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, is so enamored of the devices, according to a November New York Times dispatch, that when American experts repeatedly showed the rods’ failures in test after test, he blamed the results on testers’ lack of “training.”... [Read more...]
Collared In June, after a monitored, endangered marsupial (a “woylie”) was killed in West Australia, scientists set out to recover the expensive radio collar transmitter it was wearing, but as they approached the signal, a 6-foot-long python swallowed the woylie and collar. The scientists captured the snake, intending to wait for the collar to pass through, but poachers broke into the Department of Environment and Conservation’s shelter and stole the python, surely intending to... [Read more...]
Pumped Up A male Swedish college student, Ragnar Bengtsson, 26, has begun pumping his breasts at three-hour intervals in a 90-day experiment to see if he can produce milk. If he succeeds, he said, it could prove “very important for men’s ability to get much closer to their children at an early stage.” A professor of endocrinology told the daily Aftonbladet that male lactation without hormone treatment might produce “a drop or two,” but suggested that men instead consider... [Read more...]
