QUIRKY WORLD ... Python, sex toy, headstone found in cars left for repair

A pet python, a sex toy, and a headstone are among the strangest items discovered in cars by a repair-and-servicing company.

Kwik Fit says its technicians have also found a prosthetic hand, a £10,000 (€13,000) engagement ring, and a bird’s nest.

The firm has built a giant hamster wagon to celebrate rescuing a pet rodent from behind a glove box. Dhiren Master, marketing director at Kwik Fit, says: “Rescuing Jaffa the hamster was a fantastic example of how our technicians are prepared to go the extra mile for customers to show they care.”

This is a list of the 10 strangest items discovered by Kwik Fit technicians (location in brackets):

1. Headstone bearing customer’s name (back seat); 2. Python (passenger footwell); 3. Prosthetic hand (back seat); 4. Sex toy (glove box); 5. Hamster (behind glove box); 6. £10,000 engagement ring (under passenger seat); 7. Cockerel (rear footwell); 8. Bird’s nest (under bonnet); 9. Kitten (under bonnet); 10. Set of false teeth (dashboard)

Record-setter

India: A man obsessed with setting Guinness world records got 366 flags tattooed on his body, and had all his teeth removed so he could put 500 drinking straws and 50 burning candles in his mouth.

Har Parkash Rishi, who claims to have set 20 records, now calls himself Guinness Rishi. He first got into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1990, when, with two friends, he rode a scooter for 1,001 hours. The compulsion to get his name in the record book led to bizarre acts, including delivering a pizza from New Delhi to San Francisco, and gulping a bottle of tomato ketchup in less than four minutes.

He even got his family involved — his wife, Bimla, holds a 1991 record for writing the world’s shortest will: “All to Son”. While it is his tattoos — more than 500 in all — that have brought him fame, Rishi, an auto parts manufacturer, says the toughest task was stuffing the straws in his mouth.

“I am the world record holder of 496 straws in my mouth ... For that record, I needed space. I had to remove every tooth, so that I could put maximum straws in my mouth,” Rishi told Reuters Television, before re-enacting the feat on camera.

Send in the clowns

US: A public hearing on a proposed wild-animal entertainment ban in Pittsburgh, which would keep circuses out of the city, became a circus of sorts, complete with clowns who begged the city council not to enact the measure.

Outside the City-County Building, clowns held signs that said: “We love our animals,” and “Councilman Kraus makes clowns cry!”

That referred to Democratic councilman, Bruce Kraus, whose bill was supported by animal rights activists at Tuesday’s public hearing. Supporters of the bill say that animals don’t enjoy jumping through fiery hoops. “They perform out of fear of what will happen to them if they don’t,” says Brian Bonsteel, founder of Humane Action Pittsburgh, an animal rights group that helped draft the legislation.

City council president, Darlene Harris, says she’ll vote against the bill and says circus animals are motivated to perform by the good relationships they have with their trainers.

“I have never seen any animal do a trick for a person who abuses and beats them. Never,” Harris says. “If I hit my dog, do you think she would sit up and roll over and dance for me?”

The bill is modelled on a similar, San Francisco law that prohibits the performance of wild or exotic animals for public entertainment or amusement. Lions, tigers, bears, camels, elephants, monkeys, and other animals, are banned from performing at circuses or similar shows.