From far and wide
TODAY a wrap-up of news snippets from far and wide. It is astonishing what people get up to.
When his .38 calibre revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot peered down the barrel and pulled the trigger again. This time it worked.
The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat slicing machine and submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, suspecting negligence, sent out one of its agents to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and also lost a finger. The chef ’s claim was approved.
A man who shovelled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. He went to a nearby bus stop and offered those waiting there a free ride.
He delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception was not discovered for three days.
A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K shop, put a $20 (R240) note on the counter, and asked for change. When the counter assistant opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and demanded all the cash in the drawer. The robber then fled with the contents of the cash drawer – $15 (R180) – leaving the $20 on the counter.
An Arkansas man planned to throw a cinder block through a bottle store window, grab some booze, and run. So he heaved it, but the cinder block bounced back and hit him on the head, knocking him unconscious. He came to in the back of the paddywagon.
As a woman left a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her handbag and ran. A counter assistant phoned 911 and the shopper was able to give the police a detailed description of her assailant. Within minutes he was apprehended and brought to the shop and told to stand and wait for a positive identification. At which he An Egyptian cotton candy and balloon vender waits for clients at el-Moez Street in historical Fatimid, in Cairo, this week. said: “Yes, officer, that’s the lady I stole the bag from.”
A man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5am, flashed a gun and demanded cash. The cashier said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. The man ordered onion rings. The cashier said they weren’t available for breakfast. The gunman then walked away in frustration.
This fellow attempted to siphon petrol from a motor home parked in a Seattle street by sucking on a hose.
But he plugged into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. Police found a very sick man retching into the gutter, spilt sewage everywhere. The motor home owner declined to press charges, saying the guy had given him his best laugh in ages.
Great guy
THIS week’s piece about Brian Irvine, former Natal rugby captain, opened the memory boxes for reader Chris Taylor.
“It was not reported much, but Brian was also a keen and not untalented cricketer. He and I opened the batting for Durban Collegians in the early ’50s.
“What a nice guy – trusted , loved, respected by all who knew him. Also a laugh a minute.”
Giant eel
DELIGHTED squeals proclaimed that eels … Er, no, sorry, that’s The Good Ship Venus, a well-known rugby song. This was the good ship Hope, a trawler off the coast of Devon, England, that hauled in a monster conger eel, 6m in length and weighing 80kg. It was sold for £40 (R720) to the local fish and chips industry.
Our conger eels can be pretty scary if you’re out on the rocks looking for crayfish in the gullies, but never anything approaching this size. As the old ocean charts used to say: “Here be monsters”.
Tailpiece
“What can I get you to drink?”
“Anything, but make it a double. I’ve had a terrible week.” “How so?” “First my husband got run over by a bus. Then I lost my job as a bus driver.”
Last word HERE’S a rule I recommend: Never practise two vices at once. – Tallulah Bankhead