QUIRKY WORLD ... A daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories
The taxman has compiled a list of the most “bizarre and flimsy” excuses for sending in a late tax return, including a builder who was mourning the death of his pet goldfish and a trader who claimed his wife refused to hand over his mail.
Also among the oddest excuses seen by HM Revenue and Customs for a late tax return was a woman who claimed she could not concentrate after seeing a story about a volcanic eruption on the news, and a writer from Coventry who claimed he had been far too busy showing his one-man play.
Meanwhile, a London accountant told the revenue body that he had been too tied up submitting his clients’ tax returns to get his own in on time and a man from the south-east said he had been cruising round the world on his yacht and only picked up post when on dry land.
Police are searching for a strong-armed thief who carried a 113kg safe out of a restaurant.
Kevin Hynes says a man walked out of his Stockholders Restaurant in Weymouth, Massachusetts, lugging the vault. Surveillance tape shows the man entering a side door at the rear of the restaurant, heading down the stairs and coming back up carrying a large object wrapped in a rubbish bag.
No arrests have been made. Mr Hynes is not saying how much money was in the safe, but he is offering a $2,500 (€1,830) reward for information leading to the man’s arrest. Now he has bought an even heavier safe and bolted it to the floor.
An aspiring Spider-Man ended up in hospital after being knocked unconscious by a gang of men on New Year’s Eve in Cornwall.
The teenage victim, who was wearing a Spider-Man costume, was attacked in the port of Looe, and was treated in hospital for minor injuries.
Devon and Cornwall police said four or five men set upon the 18-year-old shortly before midnight as he walked to a kebab shop.
A drink-driver was caught speeding at around 160kph just four minutes into 2014, traffic police have said.
Car valeter Omer Karzan was arrested in Birmingham at 12.04am on New Year’s Day after being pulled over in his Jaguar by members of the Central Motorway Police Group.
Karzan, who was born in Iran, pleaded guilty to separate charges of drink-driving and driving without due care and attention. The 32-year-old was granted bail and is due to be sentenced at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court next week.
A small Missouri brewery has responded to a cease and desist letter from Starbucks by sending the coffee chain a cheque for $6 (€4.40) to cover what it calls the profit from use of the word “Frappicino” .
Exit 6 Pub and Brewery in St Louis named one of its brews the Frappicino, with one c instead of the two that Starbucks uses for its blended beverages. That prompted a lawyer for Starbucks to write complaining that Exit 6’s use of Frappicino “is likely to cause confusion, mistake”.
In his sarcastic response, Exit 6 owner Jeff Britton wrote that the brewery “never thought that our beer drinking customers would have thought that the alcoholic beverage coming out of the tap would have actually been coffee from one of the many, many, many stores located a few blocks away”.
Exit 6 posted the letter on its Facebook page and responded with a letter to “Mr Bucks”. The letter said Exit 6 would no longer use the term “Frappicino” and would instead refer to its beer as the “F Word”.
Starbucks said it was glad the brewery agreed to stop using the name.
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