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.
Fairground workers say Norwich Cathedral ride is rigged
The country’s fairground workers might wonder how fair it is that Norwich Cathedral has installed a full-size helter skelter ride in the nave. The cathedral says the ride is “a creative way to share the story of the Bible”, particularly Proverbs 32 – 7-9: ‘£2 per person per ride. One rider per mat. No refunds.’
Says one fairground worker: ‘At least you know our games are rigged. With this mob you only find out if they’re above board when you’re dead. i wish we’d have thought of it first.’
In other news: the central aisle of Rochester Cathedral has also been converted into a crazy golf course.
Posted: 9th, August 2019 | In: News, Strange But True | Comment
Did Israeli lander leave life on the moon?
When in April an Israeli lander crashed on to the moon’s surface, it was carrying dehydrated tardigrades, aka ‘water bears’ – microscopic creatures with a unique protein that enables them to survive intense levels of radiation. These things can survive in space.
Aerospace Industries’ Beresheet lander was the first private spacecraft to land on the moon.
Operated by Arch Mission – “a non-profit organization that archives the knowledge and species of Earth for future generations” – the launcher is part of “Earth’s backup plan”.
The mission was carrying a “lunar library”, an archive featuring 30 million pages of information, DNA samples (human), and thousands of tardigrades. And – get this – tardigrades that have spent up to 10 years in this dehydrated state have been revived.
At least know we know for certain: there is life on other planets.
Posted: 9th, August 2019 | In: Strange But True, Technology | Comment
Poetic justice: speeding Devon driver delivers defence in rhyming couplets
Spotted driving at 91 mph on the 60 mph A361 North Devon Link road in 2011, Martin Cassini appeared at Barnstaple Magistrates Court. He deliverd his plea in a series of rhymed couplets:
Before you today stands a man in the dock
To whom this bleak chapter’s a terrible shock
Kind and aware on the road as a rule
He tripped up that day and transgressed a rule.
The outlandish speed was but a short burst
On a dual lane stretch to get up there first
To the top of the hill to avoid getting stuck
Down the single lane stretch by a slow moving truck.
If you averaged my speed over hillock and dale
You’d find it to be not at all yon the pale
The law’s quick to judge if you’re over the limit
No praise if you’re under — one sided, innit?
The design of the road is dubious at most
It’s the link for Pete’s sake from M5 to coast
Why only three lanes? There was good room for four
The vision was lacking, the carriageway’s poor.
The limit is 60 for one lane downhill
And 60 — the same — for two lanes uphill
Until this dark day my licence was clean
Too late for considering what might have been.
They say that speed kills, but throughout these lands
Inappropriate speed kills, or speed in the wrong hands
I wasn’t lacking due care and attention
Indeed I was using true care and attention
I was watching the road, not checking the speed
Could this be a safer, superior creed.
Result? A £175 fine. “I wanted to challenge one-size-fits-all regulation that ignores the spirit of the law, and at the same time recognise that I had disobeyed the letter,” he told the Daily Mail. But “Now I’m taking greater pains to follow the letter of the law.”
Posted: 30th, July 2019 | In: Strange But True | Comment
You’re gay because your pregnant mum liked anal sex
You’re gay because when you were in your mother’s womb she enjoyed anal sex. If she not did not enjoy anal sex, you’re straight. So reasons the Bishop of Morphou Neophytos. During an address at a primary school in Akaki, Cyprus, the bishop reportedly claimed:
“It happens during the parent’s intercourse or pregnancy. It follows an abnormal sexual act between the parents. To be more clear, anal sex. ‘[Saint Porfyrios] says that when the woman likes that, a desire is born, and then the desire is passed on to the child.”
Men play not part in the process.
Posted: 27th, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Anti-vegans fined for eating raw squirrels in public
To the Soho Vegan Food Market in Rupert Street, London, where Deonisy Khlebnikov, 22, and Gatis Lagzdins, 29, are biting chunks of raw, dead squirrel. One of them wears a T-shit carrying the message “Veganism = malnutrition”.
Fast forward a few months and at City of London Magistrates’ the men deny using disorderly behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Lagzdins is fined £400 plus costs and a surcharge, while Khlebnikov is fined £200 plus costs and a surcharge for.
Natalie Clines, from the CPS, goes on the record:
“Deonisy Khlebnikov and Gatis Lagzdins claimed they were against veganism and were raising awareness about the dangers of not eating meat when they publicly consumed raw squirrels. But by choosing to do this outside a vegan food stall and continuing with their disgusting and unnecessary behaviour despite requests to stop, including from a parent whose child was upset by their actions, the prosecution was able to demonstrate that they had planned and intended to cause distress to the public. Their pre-meditated actions caused significant distress to members of the public, including young children.”
There’s a time and a place for eating squirrels, especially the invasive grey ones. The BBC has included recipes for squirrel on its website. An enthusiast “walked us through all the steps involved in hunting, cleaning and transforming a North American grey squirrel into a delicious stew”. Tree rat a la mode.
Posted: 26th, July 2019 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Moped prang gives man nine-day erection
The 35-year-old British man was riding a moped when he crashed. Injuries to his genitals caused a ‘Grade IV’ erection that lasted for nine days – who knew these things were graded? Well, the knob-ometer is officially called the ‘Erection Hardness Score’ and it goes thus:
- Erection Hardness Score (0-4)
0 – Penis does not enlarge.
· 1 – Penis is larger, but not hard.
· 2 – Penis is hard, but not hard enough for penetration.
· 3 – Penis is hard enough for penetration, but not completely hard.
· 4 – Penis is completely hard and fully rigid.
The man was not overly affected by his persistent boner and complained only of “difficulty in walking”. But once his moped is back from the garage, that should be less of an issue.
Like his ride, he’s now ok.
Spotter: The Journal of Case Reports in Urology.
Posted: 17th, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Annette Messager turned dead sparrows into art
In 1971, Annette Messager was invited to participate in a show at Galerie Germain in Paris. She should come up with something to do with wool. She made a lamb’s wool jumper for a dead sparrow.
I found my voice as an artist when I stepped on a dead sparrow on a street in Paris in 1971. I didn’t know why, but I was sure this sparrow was important because it was something very fragile that was near me and my life. Like the people I love, these small birds were always around me, yet they remained strange and mysterious. So I picked up the sparrow, took it home and knit a wool wrap for it. Why? I can’t say. You want to do something and don’t know why – all you know is that you have no choice, that it’s a necessity.”
One dead sparrow in a hand-knitted jumper became part of a collection that the finder and artist Annette Messager in 1972 called ‘Les Pensionnaires’ (‘The Residents’).
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 17th, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
‘Storm Area 51 – they can’t stop all of us’
We’re looking for aliens where where are aliens. Show us the aliens:
The clearly tongue-in-cheek Facebook event page is titled “Storm Area 51. They Can’t Stop All of Us” and states “We can run faster than other bullets.”
It’s inviting users from around the world to join a “Naruto run” into the area. That’s a Japanese Manga-inspired running style featuring arms outstretched backwards and heads forward.
“We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry,” according to the event organizer.
But some social media users expressed concerns.
“Folks, bad news,” Facebook user Jen Petrilli, posted on the event’s discussion page. “This event is planned for September 20th. While I love this planning time, this gives them a lot of time to move the aliens out of Area 51. If we want to get our extraterrestrial pals into safe and loving arms, this needs to ASAP. Love, A friend to the aliens.”
The aliens will be ready and waiting.
More than 1 million people to raid Area 51 in Nevada in quest to see aliens.
Posted: 16th, July 2019 | In: Strange But True | Comment
The science behind tripping up stairs
Missing a step on the way down is jarring; missing a step on the way up is strange and painful if you hit your ankles and shins. In this video we see people ascending a set of subway stairs in Brooklyn, NYC. One of the steps at the 36 Street subway station in Sunset Park is a tiny bit higher than the others, something that causes many walkers to trip on it.
It’s odd how quickly humans sense patterns and adapt to them. We get into rhythm. There’s no need to look at the steps. We think we know what’s coming. Odder still how an anomaly can throw the whole process.
There’s a clear link between your walking speed and your ability to climb stairs. No one flight of steps suits everyone.
Spotter: @fishtopher Kottke
Posted: 7th, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Illegal immigrants rain on London
The body of a Kenya flight ‘stowaway’ has been “found” in a garden in Clapham, south London. The man fell off a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi. The BBC says the “force of the body falling” dented paving slabs. To say nothing for the impact of the body landing on the patio.
“If it had been two seconds later,” says an eyewitness, “he would have landed on the common where there were hundreds of people – my kids were in the garden 15 minutes before [he fell]. I spoke to Heathrow. They said this happens once every five years.” In 2024, it might be best to remain indoors.
Thoughts, of course, are with the dead man, someone desperate enough to clamber inside the landing gear of a large commercial jet and take his chances. Although maybe he was already dead and someone else stowed him? Whatever the background, the tabloids keep things in perspective.
The Mail warns owners of £2m homes that immigrants might be targeting their properties:
The Sun warns sunbathers that there’s something worse than perverts with camera drones:
The man has yet to be identified.
Posted: 2nd, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment
It’s illegal to take your dog on the New York Subway
America really is another country. Having only recently discovered bribing elite colleges to accept children of the rich and famous was illegal – I thought it was the done thing; and aren’t the rich just college donors-in-waiting? – we today learn that dogs are only allowed to ride the NYC Subway if they fit in a bag, Tupperware pot or coffin.
The rule states: “No person may bring any animal on or into any conveyance or facility unless enclosed in a container.” The container is, presumably, less to keep your dog box-fresh than to prevent the pet from fouling the carriage, causing a nuisance or getting lost.
This man put his big dog in a small bag and attempted to board the train.
New York sure has changed. Once upon a time, pretty much anything went and an obedient dog with large teeth would have been a useful ally on the Subway.
Posted: 10th, April 2019 | In: Strange But True | Comment
This is a Supermassive Black Hole
See that image above? That is a Supermassive Black Hole. It is a photograph from the edge of everything. The single picture of a circle of fire was produced by synchronised radio telescopes around the world. We can’t see the hole. But we can see the stuff around it. Everything in the hole is gone. Where? Why?
The National Science Foundation explains what it is we are and are not looking at:
So how were scientists able to “see” the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy 53 million light years away? …
It is still impossible to image the actual black hole (again, that intense gravity let’s nothing escape) so the data being collected is light from the material around the event horizon of the object — the “point of no return” of a black hole. What we are seeing is truly the silhouette of a black hole.
This is what it is like to stare directly into the void.
There’s black and there’s supermassive blackhole black. Where space leads expects fashion to follow.
Posted: 10th, April 2019 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Desperate poacher killed by elephants and eaten by lions
Shall we unpack the story of the poacher killed by an elephant then eaten by lions? Do you want to hear about the dead man’s impoverished, brutal life, his dear relative’s cancer diagnosis and her urgent need to pay for life-saving treatment, and how having already sold all his duplicate organs, a Chinese investor offered the man a few rand and a gun loaded with a single bullet to slaughter a rhino in a region patrolled by massive elephants and man-eating lions?
Up in the chap seats at the Twitter Colosseum, there’s much baying for blood:
Let’s just smile at events in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and display the human skull and a pair of trousers (very possibly soiled) found after story of death-by safari park hit the police radios as a triumph of animal wit over human greed. Human death and misery is ok by us. One man’s hideous death might even be a sign of God’s love:
“Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise,” says the park’s MD. said. “It holds many dangers and this incident is evidence of that. It is very sad to see the daughters of the diseased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
Note to poachers: steal a van.
Spotter: SanParks
Posted: 7th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Cannabis is full of good shit, bad shit and the smuggler’s diarrhoea
Anyone buying cannabis in Madrid should know that it contains “dangerous levels of faecal matter”. What safe levels of human shit are in your good shit is unsaid. But the fact is that traces of e.coli bacteria and the Aspergillus fungus were spotted in cannabis tested by experts in such things. Apparently the poo is a byproduct of how the cannabis is brought into the country – the smuggler swallows the stuff and then once in Spain takes laxatives to enact a dose of Montezuma’s revenge. Drugs runners, indeed.
Spotter: Forensic Science International
Posted: 4th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment
Peta circumvents porn ban with lactating cow filth
Hold the internet. You can ban routine porn but the niche stuff you’ll never catch. Bearskins doffed to Peta, then, for their latest drive to be noticed, which features a cartoon cow breastfeeding a Joe Biden look-alike. CILF porn is proper dark web content, down there with SILF, GILF and for Australians who can find one DBPILF.
Posted: 2nd, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment
Uri Gellar : he can’t save Michael Jackson but he can stop Brexit
Renowned spoon bender Uri Geller says he can stop Brexit with the power of this mind – just as he’s stopped Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.
Geller’s powers are mighty but, alas, he has been unable to prevent his old mucker Michael Jackson from being dug up and beaten with sticks:
Jean-Claude Junker dines with the long spoon.
Posted: 23rd, March 2019 | In: Celebrities, Politicians, Strange But True | Comment
Man jailed for removing customer’s ear and nipples without anaesthetic
“He stated that had he known it was illegal, he would never have had the procedure because he certainly was not that desperate to have his ear removed,” Mr Grieves-Smith QC told Wolverhampton Crown court.
The man was only moderately desperate? It should be stated that as far as we know the ear was in fine working order when the man hired Brendan McCarthy, owner of Dr Evil’s Body Modification Emporium in Princess Alley, Wolverhampton, to remove it.
Other customers of Dr Evil’s shop gave written consent for tongue splitting and nipple removal procedures. No anaesthetic was used.
Mr McCarthy has pleaded guilty to three counts of grievous bodily harm and was jailed at Wolverhampton Crown Court for three years and four months.
Which begs the question: whose body is it?
Posted: 21st, March 2019 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Plastic bag walks across the road – video
I say, I say, i say, how did the plastic bag cross the road? First insert a frozen chicken, then warm in the sun and wait.
Posted: 16th, March 2019 | In: Gifs, Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Woman offers umbrella to Python eating a wallaby
“I was driving back up the drive and glanced back across the paddock and saw something big and thought ‘oh no, I don’t like the look of this’,” says Miss Lisa Delany, of Queensland, Australia.
“I parked the car and had a look and from a distance I could see that it was a python. It was starting to get quite hot and I felt kind of sorry for the snake because it was going to all this effort. I went and got a really big umbrella and sort of laid it so it was casting some shade on it.
“I went back later and had a look and it had sort of regurgitated a bit of [it] and was trying to work its way back up the body. Whether it got too hot or it felt threatened, it had just given up … I’ve just been keeping an eye out in the meantime.”
Spotter: ABC
Posted: 11th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment
Found: the first recorded use of the word ‘Fuck’
“It would be impossible to imagine going through life without swearing, and without enjoying swearing,” says Stephen Fry. What’s good for him was good, too, for a 1528 monk., whose line “O D fuckin abbot” is the earliest recorded use of the word ‘fuck’ in the English language.
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 11th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Billionaire with Short Man Syndrome dies in penis enlargement operation
Sometimes enough is enough. He was 65. What a schmuck. Not a big one – well, not as big as he wanted to be. But rest well Ehud Arye Laniado, a billionaire diamond trader who reportedly died during penis enlargement surgery that triggered a “heart attack’ at a Paris clinic for big swinging dicks.
The Sun’s obituary is choice:
According to media reports, Laniado suffered from a so-called Napoleon complex due his short stature. The old friend [no that ‘old friend’] said that Laniado was “always focused on his appearance and how others perceived him”. According to Laniado’s friends, the only time he forgot about his short height was when he asked his accountant to read out his bank statement, something which he did multiple times a day, it was reported.
You can argue about why he grew big in diamonds – rock-hard diamonds prized for quality over size – amongst yourselves.
Posted: 7th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment
TSA stops man with rocket-propelled grenade launcher in bags
To Pennsylvania airport, where a traveller is being met by the traditional refrain “Anything to declare, sir?” Yes and no. He does have a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in his bags. But it’s not working. But it looks as though it might.
The Transportation and Security Administration says the unassembled parts of the launcher and a replica grenade were found on Monday when an alarm went off as the bag passed through security equipment at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, about 60 miles north of Philadelphia.
The man, from St. Augustine, was stopped by police and told officials he thought he could bring the non-functioning launcher onboard in a checked bag.
The items were confiscated and he was able to catch his flight to Orlando.
Rocket-propelled grenade launchers are not yet Government issue in Florida. But give it time.
Posted: 6th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
