Saturday, September 30, 2006

This was the week that Anna Nicole Smith reacted to the revelation that her son died because he took a cocktail of psychotropic drugs by doing what anyone in her situation would do: she immediately married her lawyer. If you were reading the important headlines this week you’d already know that Star Jones claimed to be emotional and stressed out because for some reason the tabloids keep reporting that her husband, Al Reynolds is gay and you probably also noticed that Dustin Diamond of Saved by the Bell fame this week released a Dirty Sanchez sex tape. On purpose.

But here’re the things you probably didn’t know that happened during this the 40th week of 2006.

Three records were broken this week in the areas of hair, nails and lobster rolls when 65 year old Lee Redmond, from Utah, qualified for the 2007 Guinness World Records after her fingernails reached a combined length of 7.5 metres. 16-year-old Massachusettes native Aaron Studham achieved the same when his mowhawk reached a height of 53 cm, and famed Japanese professional eater Takeru 'Tsunami' Kobayashi came out on top in Boston's first-ever lobster roll eating challenge. Kobayashi ate 41 lobster rolls in 10 minutes - the previous world record was 22.
But the inexplicable eating didn’t stop short in Boston with reports emerging from India this week that 80 year old grandmother Ram Rati has been eating 3 and a half pounds of sand every day since she was a kid and doctors say she’s completely healthy. "When young, I tried it for fun once,” she said. “Since then, I am used to it.”

Barbie and Hitler both went under the hammer this week when the world's biggest private collection of Barbie dolls were put to auction in London for £111,000 and so were collection of 21 watercolours thought to have been painted by Adolf Hitler before he went into politics and attempted genocide.

In Stateside art news, it was reported this week that a graffiti artist is recreating the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel through graffiti art in a warehouse in Iowa. So far he’s spent 7000 dollars on cans of spray paint alone.

A team of Canadian scientists this week claimed to have solved the mystery of the odd nature of the Mona Lisa’s smile. Apparently the model had just given birth. And when you think about; if there’s one thing that would make a woman smile it’s giving birth to a child during a period in history which more or less predates all painkillers, medical sterilization standards, and while we’re at it ALL civil rights for women. Investigators say that it’s clear she had given birth because underneath the final layer of paint on the Mona Lisa she was painted to be wearing a bonnet. And if Amish people and the witch trials is Salem taught us anything at all it’s that, no matter what the scenario is, a bonnet makes everything hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious antics, this week a disgraced army goat (the more disciplined cousin to the infamous Party Goat), who was stripped of its rank after running amok during the Queen's birthday parade, was reinstated after shining on parade.

The goat: Honorary Lance Corporal Billy Windsor, who when you think about, outranks other military personnel despite being a goat, was demoted for refusing orders to march and stay in line during the parade - and for trying to headbutt the drummer in front of him. Human Captain Simon Clarke, of the Battalion, said: "Billy performed exceptionally well because he has had all summer to reflect on his behaviour at the Queen's birthday and clearly earned the rank he deserves."

In further animal news, reports out of Germany this week claim that a rare black swan has fallen in love with a plastic swan paddle boat that is for hire on a German lake which essentially makes this the German swan equivalent of a human falling in love with a blow up sex doll prostitute.

Research in Australia this week that claimed that 76 per cent of women who slept with another woman reached orgasm, compared to only 69 per cent who did so when they slept with men. Reasons behind the findings were that men were selfish and concentrated mostly on themselves.

As our hearts bleed relentless empathy after finding that out, a parsnip resembling a science fiction creature, won the title of Ugliest Vegetable in England this week. Food Choices Officer for the National Trust in England was quoted as saying, "This competition was designed to show that we shouldn't judge a vegetable on its looks and we should challenge the image of the cosmetically perfect and well-formed vegetables found in many of our supermarkets.”

And during this time of war, political corruption and global warming, isn’t it nice to know that an entire government organization in the UK has allocated extensive resources to ensure we know the importance of mildly unattractive vegetables?

Following in the theme of political statements, the president of Tajikistan this week announced he would ban state employees from wearing gold teeth to improve the country's image.

"Teachers complain about small salaries, but still wear golden teeth," he said. "How can international organisations believe in your poverty, when the mouth of a teacher is full of gold?

If the decree goes through 50% of state officials will have to resign or have teeth replaced.
And finally, engineers are investigating what went wrong this week when Members of Parliament in Scotland were treated to a shocking display of breasts and penetration as Adverts for adult channels such as Red Hot Wives, Playboy TV and Spice Extreme popped up on 320 TV monitors in the Scottish parliament’s TV system.

"The channels have now been removed," said a Parliamentary spokesperson. "There is no way anybody could watch porn in parliament any more."

Yeah. There sure isn’t.

Monday, September 25, 2006

During the week where Barbra Streisand more or less flashed the entire world when she took of her jacket at a fundraiser for Clinton Global Initiative and the explanations of the cause of death for Anna Nicole Smith’s son was inconclusive you would be easily forgiven if missed out on some of the following life altering happenings from around the world.
Two world records were set this week when a 1.8 tonne helicopter landed on the back of Austrian strongman Franz Muellner and he held it up for almost a minute AND Marco Hort also set a record when he fit 264 drinking straws in his mouth to beat his old record of 259 straws.
The theme of putting things in your mouth even though they maybe shouldn’t necessarily be put there continued in China this week when a drunk man climbed into the pen of a sleeping 6-year-old male panda at the Beijing Zoo, was bitten by the startled panda and promptly bit that panda back. Zhang, a 35-year-old labourer from central Henan province, said:
"I bit the fellow in the back. Its skin was quite thick.”
Ill-conceived animal based initiatives that trump even those championed by the Chinese were also uncovered this week in Romania when five Romanian farmers were arrested after police discovered they were feeding their cows cannabis. The farmers, aged between 57 and 82, claim they didn't know they were doing something illegal by growing the drug in their field
One of Britain's biggest hotel chains announced this week that they will offer pets their very own beds. AND a British jam maker has marked its 125th anniversary by producing the world's most expensive marmalade. F Duerr & Son's Fine Cut Seville Orange Marmalade with Whisky, Champagne and Gold costs £5,000 a jar. That means it would cost about a hundred bucks US to spread it on just one slice of toast.
And just in case you hadn’t spent a shit load of money on something as ludicrously unnecessary as a hundred buck smeer of cooked fruit, it was announced this week that a luxury mobile phone with diamonds as control buttons is to go on sale for $380,000. Only five are being made and the phone is expected to be available from early next year so any thinking person would be advised to start saving now.
In a moment of what was clearly unadulterated inspiration, a British arms giant announced this week that it is planning a new range of 'environmentally friendly' weapons - including lead-free bullets. BAE Systems said this week that it wants to design bullets without lead because lead bullets 'can harm the environment and pose a risk to people'. Imagine?!
And in further news about hilarious war profiteering Two Cambridge entrepreneurs were criticized this week for launching a board game based on the war on terror. Jacqui Putnam, a survivor of the London bombings, said the game, in which players launch suicide attacks and plant dirty bombs, was "sick", "dangerous" and "insensitive".
And speaking of sick, dangerous and insensitive a poll in England brought the collective consciousness back to thinking about the theme of naked English people having sex when it showed that four out of ten English people would actually be prepared to give up sex if it meant they could live to be 100.
Almost half of the women polled said they would take up celibacy to reach a hundred. But while the English were busy thinking about giving up sex, scientists brought back to life seeds which had been stored away since the time of George III.
And finally, an Argentinian robber was caught this week after he lost his false teeth during a raid on a house. In his hurry to escape with jewelry and cash, the robber left the false teeth behind. They were handed over to the police who analysed them and caught him based on dental records.
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This week was all about out with the old and in with the new while Britney Spears squirted out a new Federletus and Chris Klein was rumoured to be the father of Suri Cruise. It was certainly out with the old and in with the new for Anna Nicole Smith who, moments after giving birth to HER new daughter in the Bahamas, found her 20 year old son mysteriously dead in a chair in the next room.
But, while all this high profile and STANDARD news fare was being served up here’s what else happened slightly under the radar:
Texans confirmed that they really have no regard for the body’s nutritional needs whatsoever this week when the Texas State Fair unveiled and then gave an award to Abel Gonzales Jr’s new intestine assaulting food manifestation of self abuse: “deep fried coke”. The “dessert” for want of a better word is made up of deep fried coca cola flavoured batter drizzled with coca cola fountain syrup and topped with whipped cream.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, three 20 year old boys dug up the corpse of a 20 year old girl in the hopes of having sex with it. The three had stopped at a store on the way to the cemetery to buy condoms."Just when you think you've seen it all,” the local sheriff was quoted as saying. “something strange like this happens,”

And speaking of something strange, over the pond in London, Timmy the Bichon Frise and Muffin the Shih Tzu got married in store at Harrods as part of Harrods Änything is Possible season. The wedding follows on from a publicity stunt where a businessman gift wrapped a helicopter for his wife.

In further expressions of romantic attachment in Europe – or rather, in this case DE-tachement, a genitally obsessed German widow cut off her dead husband’s dick as part of her plan to have it pickled as a reminder of their relationship.
In Scotland, an exceptionally ugly fish at the Royal Museum under went surgery to remove an unsightly growth from it’s eye in response to multiple complaints from customers who found it offensive to look at. The fish now has only one eye but at least the universally beautiful Scots who wander past it each day eating their sheep stomach lunch don’t feel uneasy looking at it and isn’t that’s all that counts?
In India, a three year old German Shepherd has reportedly taken up yoga.
And in larger attempts to keep the peace A Russian mayor has called for prostitution to be made legal in a bid to wipe out a rising tide of extremism. Igor Shpektor, mayor of Vorkuta, said it would give men another way to spend their time rather than getting involved in racist attacks.
Greenpeace Netherlands has issued a statement warning sex toy lovers not to shove the "Spectra Gel Anal Plug" or the "Crystal Jelly Double Dong" inside themselves. As these sex toys apparently contain "extremely high concentrations of phthalate plasticisers which allegedly pose a risk to human health and the environment".
In a move that shocked the world, organisers at Madrid's fashion week turned away underweight models after protests that girls and young women were trying to copy their rail-thin looks and developing eating disorders.
Thousands of people are flocking to a Malaysian village to see a 'ghost tree' which has reportedly sprouted a human face. Housewife Noraziah Zakaria added: "I was curious and shocked to find that the curves indeed look like a human face."
And finally, A Serbian man needed emergency surgery after he had sex with a hedgehog on a witchdoctor's advice.
Zoran Nikolovic, 35, from Belgrade, says the witchdoctor told him it would cure his premature ejaculation.
A hospital spokesman said: "The animal was apparently unhurt and the patient came off much worse from the encounter. We have managed to repair the damage to his penis."