QUIRKY WORLD ... Patient warns surgeon not to get carried away
Sixty-year-old Sandy Paton used a felt-tip pen to write ’remember, not the whole knob, just the foreskin!’ on his leg before going in for surgery.
Sandy, from just outside Insch in Aberdeenshire, decided to write the memo moments before he was wheeled into the operating theatre at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, the Daily Mail reports.
That’s the ticket
A Russian car has been given a personalised parking ticket after racking up over 60 fines in central London in less than a year.
Westminster City Council took the unusual step because the high-performance vehicle was repeatedly blocking a side street in a major West End shopping district. Only four of the fines have been paid by the driver, whose Russian-registered BMW M6 is obstructing access to apartments and businesses in Babmaes Street near Regent Street.
The driver’s 50th ticket was stuck to the car’s windscreen accompanied by a letter from the council’s head of parking, Sara Sutton, warning that the authority would launch a prosecution if the vehicle continued to be parked illegally.
Mayor under siege
Protesters angered by attempts to cut their jobs have trapped an Argentine mayor in his town hall.
Concepcion mayor Roberto Sanchez told local media on Tuesday that he has been stuck in the building since demonstrators began setting up flaming barricades with tyres on Monday.
The demonstrators say that the mayor has refused to honour the contracts of hundreds of workers hired by his predecessor. He says the earlier mayor hired people needlessly just before leaving office.
Hitting bottom
Playboy Enterprises has settled a lawsuit by a model who claimed she was hurt when an employee whacked her in the buttocks with a golf club during a Southern California event.
Elizabeth Dickson’s attorney told a judge on Monday that the case was resolved. Her battery and negligence suit said she was helping host the Playboy Golf Finals three years ago when she agreed to be photographed with Kevin Klein, co-host of a Playboy radio show.
The photo was supposed to show Mr Klein poised to hit a teed-up golf ball from Ms Dickson’s buttocks. But Ms Dickson claimed Mr Klein unexpectedly swung the club and hit her.
High-level protest
The owner of a New Hampshire waterpark facing foreclosure has chained himself to the top of a slide tower and is hoping for a financial miracle.
Kevin Dumont said on his Facebook page that he is not looking for a handout, just someone to help him prevent an auction of Liquid Planet in Candia on December 2. In another post he thanks friends for pizza, beer and company and asked if anyone knows how to contact the presidential candidates.
Hands-free car chase
A western Pennsylvania woman has admitted she stole a police car and led police officers on an 80 mph chase — all while her hands were cuffed behind her.
Twenty-eight-year-old Roxanne Rimer, of Chippewa Township, also pleaded guilty in Beaver County Court to an unrelated theft charge.
Defence attorney Steven Valsamidis said she was sentenced to four to eight years.
Authorities say Rimer was handcuffed and placed in the back of the cruiser after being accused of shoplifting in January. Officials said she squeezed through an unlatched opening and crawled into the front seat, then zoomed off and led officers on a nearly 10-mile chase, weaving in and out of traffic, before crashing.
Sticky problem
Crews have begun cleaning up Seattle’s famed “gum wall” near Pike Place Market, where tourists and locals have been sticking their used chewing gum for the past 20 years.
People first began sticking gum to the wall while waiting for shows at a nearby theatre. Since then, the colourful “gum wall” has expanded to other brick walls in the alley, pipes and even the theatre’s box office window.
It’s estimated there are about 1 million wads of gum that need to be removed.
Fired-up elephants
Forest fires difficult to control? Call in the pachyderm patrol.
Officials in Indonesia are using trained elephants outfitted with water pumps and hoses to help control fires that have claimed vast amounts of forest while sending thick haze into neighbouring countries.
For nearly three months, Riau province in East Sumatra has been blanketed by smoke from forest fires
At the elephant conservation centre in Siak district, 23 trained elephants are being used as “forest watchdogs.”
Carrying water pumps and other equipment, elephants and their crews patrol the national forest to ensure that fires don’t reappear after smouldering beneath the peat lands.
