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.
Mansplaining: Do not put wasps nests in your vagina, doctor warns
If you’re keen on vaginal rejuvenation, Canadian gynaecologist Jen Gunter says it’s best not to stuff a dried wasp’s nest up there.
Oak galls, created when wasps lay eggs, can, as it is claimed, be good for your vagina when ground into a paste. If anyone comes after you with a flicked kitchen towel or spatular, you’ve only got yourself to blame.
‘Love what you’ve done with the place, Mavis”
Dr Gunter tells us: “Drying the vaginal mucosa increases the risk of abrasions during sex (not good) and destroys the protective mucous layer (not good).”
Hands up who wants to stick their bellend into a wasps nest? Oh, that many.
Spotter: Indy
Posted: 2nd, June 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Job advert typo fail: 8 hour what?
Spotter: Reddit
Posted: 1st, June 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Rare black lion spotted in Leicestershire: panthers warned to be vigilant
A Black Panther is loose in British woods. The “beast” was spotted by a “terrified mum”. She was left “paralysed with fear”. Emma Adam, 29, is quoted in the Star: “Now I’m scared to even leave the house.”
On page 15 of the Daily Star, Emma tells us about coming “face to face” with the black panther in Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Leicestershire. She says it was “eating something, ripping it apart. My mother-in-law and I froze.”
And…? And that’s it. But it’s enough to make front-page news on the Star. We do get to see a photo of a black panther, but not the one Emma says she saw. There are no photos of that beast.
The Star’s scoop is rooted in a story in the Burton Mail. Emma tells it:
“We were having a late barbecue and I felt a bit bloated so we decided to go for a walk.
“It was getting late, so we decided to take a torch – there was just about enough light to walk. As we were coming along the path, I saw something lying down and I was trying to figure out what it was.
“I kept looking at it, and I realised its head was going up and down because it was eating something, ripping it apart. My mother in law and I froze, and we just walked backwards. Luckily it didn’t see us.”
She continued:
“People were saying why didn’t you take a picture of it, but in that moment you are too frightened to take a picture. I always thought they would be very stocky, but this was much thinner.
Like a domestic cat, perhaps. Or a dog. Or a jihadi? Or a rare panther-eating black lion?
Posted: 1st, June 2017 | In: Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment
Burqa Babes: Daily Telegraph identifies jihadi bride of the month
Working on the Telegraph’s picture desk is a skilled task. To illustrate the story that “British jihadi brides are returning home after being widowed, or being sent away by husbands preparing to make a final stand with the Islamic State group”, the paper publishes this:
“A woman believed to be British female jihadi Asqa Mahmoud, 20,” is the figure in the “centre”. She is “pictured with friends”.
Their identities are unknown. Although the one on the right is ringer for Lord Lucan whilst the other could be Shergar.
Posted: 31st, May 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True | Comment
Liverpool has the friendliest hackers in the world
To the Liverpool One Shopping Centre, England, where hackers have issued a directive: ‘we suggest you improve your security – sincerely – your friendly neighbourhood hackers – #JFt96’.
Spotter: Reddit
Posted: 30th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Mic Drop: winner declared in New York City’s Post It Wars
When someone wrote the word “Hi” on a New York window using Post-its, two office blocks engaged in a contest. The @Postit war between @havasnyc and @harrisonandstar was on.
And the winner was clear:
Here’s the mic drop:
Posted: 30th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Thanks to Bic even women can light a candle
@JusteBro quips about this Bic fire lighter for women: “Finally my fragile female hand will be able to light a candle too!”
Things to note about the pink one:
1. Miss Bic – but neither Mr Bic nor Master Bic. Sexism?
2. Is the Miss Bic fire lighter meant as a present, perhaps to go with the hoover or small gift you bought her indoors at Christmas?
Posted: 29th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Here is a whale creating a rainbow. Enjoy.
Here is a whale creating a rainbow. Enjoy.
Spotter: @ShakesTweetz
Posted: 28th, May 2017 | In: Gifs, Strange But True | Comment
Didgeridoo sex act is ‘racist’
Is it culturally insensitive to use a cross as a sex aide. How about making the West making MILF – a clear reference to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front based in Mindanao, Philippines – into a comment on fancying mothers? And then there’s all that Latin for foreplay.
The Mail reports that a “gay porn studio has sparked a furious backlash over a film that shows a man performing a sex act using a didgeridoo. The explicit movie has been branded ‘racist’ and ‘incredibly disrespectful to the Australian aboriginal community’ for its portrayal of the wind instrument as a sex toy.”
The studio’s description for the film tells us: “Didgeridoos create a one-of-a-kind sound, and can reach deep into one’s ass.”
It is in every sense a wind instrument, but not one to be played after a night on the Beans.
Spotter: Star Observer
Posted: 22nd, May 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
King Willem-Alexander relaxes by flying passenger jets for KLM
Should Prince William seeks another leisure pursuit or hobby he can present as a working job – an actual job – he can always work as a commercial pilot. We read in the Washington Post:
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands prefers a less leisurely activity. He works as a “guest pilot” for a commercial airline.
The King, who flies KLM’s Fokker 70 planes, tells Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.
“You have an aircraft, passengers and crew. You have responsibility for them. You can’t take your problems from the ground into the skies. You can completely disengage and concentrate on something else. That, for me, is the most relaxing part of flying.”
How about, Wills? At the very least it’s a good excuse for another holiday?
Posted: 18th, May 2017 | In: Royal Family, Strange But True | Comment
King of Thailand threatens to sue Facebook over a video of him in a small yellow crop top
Not long before he became King of Thailand, Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn was on a trip to Munich, Germany. He mooched about a shopping centre with a woman. That’s him in the natty yellow crop top, showing off the tattoos on his tum-tum and back.
Thanks to Somsak Jeamteerasakul, “a prominent Thai historian and critic of the monarchy who lives in France”, the video of Maha’s shopping trip has appeared on Facebook, as The New York Times reports. Apparently, the King has had the video blocked in Thailand. He’s also told Facebook to remove the video or else.
Under the country’s lese-majeste laws, people can be jailed for 15 years for insulting monarchy. But is it an insult merely to show the monarch out and about? And won’t all the cool kids be dressed like this next year?
The video has been blocked in Thailand but was still available outside the country on Tuesday.
Facebook, which opened an office in Thailand in 2015, declined to answer questions about its operations in the country or the pages that the government wants to remove. A spokeswoman, Clare Wareing, said only that the company’s policy was to comply with requests by governments to restrict access to content that officials believed violated local laws.
“When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content,” Ms. Wareing said in an emailed statement. “If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted.”
Spotter: The New York Times.
Posted: 17th, May 2017 | In: Royal Family, Strange But True | Comment
The Sunday Sport: ‘teenage Jeremy Corbyn squashed girl’s pet rabbit with his pogo stick’
The Sunday Sport has news on Jeremy Corbyn. It might not be the current Labour Party leader. It might be a “sex dwarf” look-alike. But someone thinks Jeremy Corbyn “squashed my sister’s bay rabbit with his pogo stick”:
Spotter: @Poshboy97
Posted: 17th, May 2017 | In: Politicians, Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment
Crocodiles eat pastor trying to walk on water at Crocodile River
To Crocodile River, Zimbabwe, where a pastor is trying to walk on water. Pastor Jonathan Mthethwa of the Saint of the last days church was unsuccessful. And is devoured by crocodiles.
“We still don’t understand how this happened because he fasted and prayed the whole week.” said Deacon Nkosi, one of the church members.
Spotter: Zimbabwe Today
Posted: 15th, May 2017 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Warning: ‘You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks’
To Capistrano Beach, California, where the police are issuing a warning:
“You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks. They are advising you exit the water in a calm manner. The sharks are as close as the surfline.”
The OC Register adds:
(Orange County Lifeguards Chief Jason) Young said it was not an ocean closure, which occurs when sharks are more than 8-foot long and/or are acting aggressively in the water.
“We haven’t had any reports of anyone being bumped or charged, just observations of them either swimming or breaching,” he said.
Posted: 13th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
The Paleobiology Database Navigator show you where to find fossils
The Paleobiology Database Navigator is a map that shows where the most fossils have been found.
Last week, an approximately 110-million-year-old fossil revealed a new species of nodosaur.
The best-preserved dinosaur fossil ever to be found was unveiled today in Canada’s Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, nearly six years after miners discovered it by accident.
The dinosaur’s remains were so well preserved, that pieced together, they didn’t look real, according to National Geographic.
Fossilized remnants of skin still cover the armor plates on the dinosaur’s remains, which are petrified from the snout to the hips. “We don’t just have a skeleton. We have a dinosaur as it would have been,” Caleb Brown said, National Geographic reported.
Spotter: Kottke
Spotter: @srikardr
Posted: 13th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
‘A sasquatch tried to rape me’: Colorado hunter tells all
Darrel Whitaker, 57, of Glenwood Springs in Colorado, says he was sexually assaulted by a sasquatch. He says it was attempted rape.
Darrel was at his hunting cabin when a “gorilla-like” creature dropped from a tree and punched him in the face. “It was at least 8-foot tall and it’s punches hurt like hell.” says Darrel. “I was knocked right out at the first blow! When I regained consciousness, he had already torn my pants and was tearing through my underwear. I stabbed him in the shoulder with my hunting knife, and that made him run away.”
Back at the Sasquatch lodge you can see the beast regaling his furry comrades with the time-aged tale, “You should have seen the size of the one that got away.”
It is, of course, no joking matter. Glenwood Springs Police Department (GSPD) and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife agency are investigating.
Spotter: World News Daily
Posted: 12th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Computers fines drivers for ‘parking’ in a traffic jam
Computers can be wrong. Yes, we know what the system says but it is wrong. This bit of computer knowing resulted in human beings fined £100 per carload:
Parking cameras went live at the Ashford Retail Park in Kent in April, with signs telling drivers the new maximum stay is three hours.
But motorists got caught in gridlock on Easter Monday, and were trapped in the car park for hours when they struggled to join traffic on adjoining roads.
Says one customer parked in neutral:
Mr Donald continued: “On Monday we received a penalty charge notice from Highview Parking who enforce the three hour time limit on parking at this site.
“They must have had a flood of Penalty Charge Notices from this day.
“What troubles me is that there’s no quality control. It was utter madness. It’s just a money making exercise.
“I find it rather disappointing that these companies apply no common sense or quality control to their issuing of parking fines to innocent motorists who have over stayed due to no fault of their own.”
They apply computer sense.
Spotter: Daily Mail
Posted: 10th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Eating more salt makes you less thirsty and burns fat
Eating salt is bad for you. So goes the message that has been hammered into us for an age. Salt improves the taste of things but a cost to your health. Eating too much salt means dying younger. But more research tells us that science is not settled. This is true to such a degree that we know learn that eating salt makes us less thirsty.
The New York Times reports:
The crew members were increasing production of glucocorticoid hormones, which influence both metabolism and immune function.
To get further insight, [Dr. Jens Titze, now a kidney specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research in Erlangen, Germany] began a study of mice in the laboratory. Sure enough, the more salt he added to the animals’ diet, the less water they drank. And he saw why.
The animals were getting water — but not by drinking it. The increased levels of glucocorticoid hormones broke down fat and muscle in their own bodies. This freed up water for the body to use.
But that process requires energy, Dr. Titze also found, which is why the mice ate 25 percent more food on a high-salt diet. The hormones also may be a cause of the strange long-term fluctuations in urine volume.
Scientists knew that a starving body will burn its own fat and muscle for sustenance. But the realization that something similar happens on a salty diet has come as a revelation.
Eat what you like, then.
Posted: 10th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
