The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  A burglar broke into the home of two farmworkers in Fresno, California, and woke them by rubbing spices on one and hitting the other with an eight-inch sausage. A 22-year-old man was arrested after being found hiding in a field wearing only a T-shirt, boxers and socks.

  BLIND MAN TRIED TO ROB BANK

  When a 48-year-old man, obviously blind, shuffled into a bank in Memphis, Tennessee, he accepted the guard’s kind offer to escort him to the cash teller’s window. There, according to police, the man, who was unarmed, slipped a note to the teller. At first she thought his blindness might be an act but when she waved her hand in the air and he didn’t react, she mouthed to the guard: “It’s a robbery.” She handed the man some cash, at which point it suddenly dawned on the guard that he was standing by while the bank was being robbed by a blind man. So he stepped in and apprehended the suspect as he was going out of the door. The police said the man was apparently surprised to be caught.

  GUARDS ARE DISTRACTED BY RABBIT

  When five guards spotted a rabbit raiding the vegetable garden at Kotido prison in Uganda in 2002, they instinctively gave chase. In their absence, 31 prisoners seized the opportunity to escape. The rabbit also made a clean getaway.

  SUSPECTS MAKE UNWITTING CONFESSION

  Two men appeared in court in Amarillo, Texas, in 2003 on a charge of beating and robbing a woman. When the District Attorney asked the victim, “And are the two perpetrators of this terrible crime present in the courtroom today?” both defendants raised their hands and said: “Here, your honour.” The pair were convicted.

  ARMED ROBBER IS ALL FINGERS AND THUMBS

  A man was arrested in Modesto, California, in 2002 after trying to hold up a bank without a weapon. He used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun but forgot to keep his hand in his pocket during the raid.

  MAN DEMANDS TO BE KICKED IN THE GRO

  On at least seven occasions over a two-month period in 2007, Jarrett Loft of Guelph, Ontario, approached women in the street and asked to be kicked in the groin. After being sentenced to 60 days in prison, Loft, 28, said he was simply curious. One victim, saying that she feared what Loft might do if she refused, kicked him several times between the legs, after which he thanked her and rode off on his bicycle.

  DEAD MAN WINS ELECTION

  A candidate won election to a North Carolina county board in 2006 – despite having been dead for a month. Sam Duncan polled 12,000 votes more than his opponents to gain election to Union County’s Soil and Water Conservation Board. County officials knew of Duncan’s death before the election, but nobody had informed the voters.

  FEUDING MAYORS DECLARE STREET ONE-WAY IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS

  Rival mayors from neighbouring suburbs of northwest Paris caused traffic mayhem in 2009 by declaring the same road one-way – but in opposite directions. First, Patrick Balkany, the Conservative mayor of Levallois-Perret, made the D909 road one-way through his district to reduce the amount of commuter traffic. This angered Gilles Catoire, Socialist mayor of neighbouring Clichy-la-Garenne, who complained that the measure increased congestion in his area. So he declared his section of the D909 one-way, but in the opposite direction. With contradictory road signs in place, the inevitable result was gridlock and road rage, and municipal and national police were called in to divert traffic away from the area. Central government eventually stepped in to resolve the feud and ordered Clichy to re-establish two-way traffic on its part of the road.

  CANDIDATE BEGS PEOPLE NOT TO VOTE FOR HIM

  For weeks, Doug Couvertier did his utmost to persuade people in the small Florida town of Southwest Ranches to vote him onto the city council at the 2000 election. He campaigned door-to-door, advertised heavily and sent out hundreds of letters in search of votes. But he then discovered that under a Miami-Dade County charter, if he were elected to office, he would have to quit his job as a fire chief. Horrified at the prospect of losing his job and with officials ruling that it was too late to remove his name from the ballot, 54-year-old Couvertier abruptly changed his message to the voters and began begging them not to vote for him. He called newspapers, friends and neighbours and told them that he would resign immediately if elected. He was therefore hugely relieved when he polled just 74 of the 1,700 votes cast.

  ROWDY PARTY NEARLY TRIGGERS RUSSIAN NAVAL ATTACK

  A noisy wedding party almost sparked a Russian naval attack in 2008 after guests fired pistols and flare guns into the air on Georgia’s disputed Abkhazian coast. Believing it was coming under fire from Georgian forces, a Russian amphibious assault warship radioed for permission to open fire on the aggressors. But just as the engines of the Azov had been fired up to head for deeper water and her guns’ optimum range, her crew was informed that the “attack” was just a traditional Georgian wedding party. “Nerves are very frayed in this part of the world,” admitted a Georgian official. “We are now working to calm down our wedding celebrations in future.”

  ESTONIA INTRODUCES FART TAX ON CATTLE

  The Estonian government announced in 2008 that it was slapping a flatulence tax on farmers to compensate the country for the methane gas produced by cows. A single cow produces an average 350 litres of methane and 1,500 litres of carbon dioxide a day from flatulence and burping. Cattle are said to be responsible for up to 25 per cent of all methane gas emissions in Estonia.

  “BIGGEST DICK” REJECTED AS SAUDI ARABIA AMBASSADOR

  A leading Pakistani diplomat who was nominated in 2010 for the post of his country’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia had his application rejected because his name translates into Arabic as “Biggest Dick”. Akbar Zib had previously been rejected for similar posts in two other Arabic-speaking nations, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, due to the unfortunate translation of his name.

  BEER-LOVING GOAT IS TOWN MAYOR

  The Texan border town of Lajitas traditionally has a goat as its mayor. Back in the 1980s Tommy Steele, a visitor from Houston, was named mayor of Lajitas – a decision which irked local man Bill Ivey who said that someone living in Houston was no more suitable to be mayor than his goat. Subsequently Ivey put forward his goat, Clay Henry, for election and it won a landslide victory. He has since been succeeded by two more four-legged, bearded mayors, Clay Henry II and Clay Henry III. The latter holds court at the town bar where he drinks his favourite bottled beer, having overcome a health scare a few years ago when he was castrated in revenge for drinking a patron’s beer. The mayor’s testicles were apparently found in the fridge of a hotel mini-bar. It means that when the next election comes around, Clay Henry III has a little less to lose than his opponents.

  POLITICIAN HAS HER LEGS STRETCHED

  An Australian politician had her legs surgically stretched so that she could become three inches taller and be taken seriously. Hajnal Ban, a councillor in Logan City, Queensland, had feared that her height of 5 foot 1 inch would damage her credibility. So she paid a Russian clinic over $35,000 to break both her legs in four places and stretch them slowly on a daily basis. Despite enduring nine months of excruciating pain, she insisted the surgery had been worthwhile, adding: “But I don’t want to be remembered solely as the girl who got her legs lengthened.”

  TOWN DECIDES ELECTION WITH DECK OF CARDS

  An Arizona town turned back the clock to the days of the Wild West in 2009 by deciding a deadlocked election with a deck of playing cards. Thomas McGuire and Adam Trenk each polled 660 votes in an election for a seat on the Cave Creek council, but a recount was considered too expensive. Instead town leaders invoked a 1925 statute that calls for such eventualities to be settled by a game of chance – in this instance drawing from a deck of cards. Under the watchful eye of the town’s judge, McGuire drew the six of hearts, only to be outgunned by his younger rival who drew the king of hearts. The victorious Trenk said: “In an ideal world we’d have had another run-off, but this is what the state legislature mandates. I’m happy with the result. A king of hearts is pretty good.” McGuire, who moved to the town in 1999 from New York, said h
e immediately knew Cave Creek was different when he went into a bar and found a horse inside.

  COUNCIL FORGETS TO ORDER BOOKS FOR NEW LIBRARY

  South Gloucestershire Council had to inform residents of Emerson Green, Bristol, that the new $2.5 million local library could not open as planned in 2003 because the council had forgotten to order any books for it.

  MAN HELD AFTER SNATCHING MP’S WIG

  A man was detained in Taiwan in 2008 after snatching the wig of a member of parliament who had complained about former president Chen Shui-bian’s release from jail on charges of forgery and money laundering. A supporter of the president grabbed Chiu Yi’s toupee, exposing a mostly bald head, according to media reports. Chiu himself said of the incident: “It felt like someone pulled my pants down in public.” The wig snatcher was later released on bail as police officials struggled to find a name for his crime.

  TICKING GIFTS DISRUPT STAR TREK CONVENTION

  When Illinois attorney-general Jim Ryan shipped a box of clocks as gifts to delegates at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000, he took the precaution of warning the hotel of their impending arrival. Nevertheless a vigilant hotel employee heard the ticking package, alerted the police and the building was quickly evacuated, the guests including a group of Star Trek fans attending a convention in full costume.

  FRENCH POLITICIAN CONFUSES ORAL SEX WITH INFLATION

  Glamorous French politician Rachida Dati had to issue a public apology in 2010 after confusing oral sex with inflation during a radio interview. Asked by the national Europe 1 station about overseas investment funds profiteering during a period of economic uncertainty, the 44-year-old former justice minister replied: “I see some of them looking for returns of 20 or 25 per cent, at a time when fellatio is almost non-existent.” Apologizing for mixing up the French words fellation (“oral sex”) and inflation (“inflation”), she said: “This kind of thing happens if you speak too quickly on this kind of programme. It is unfortunate that this is the only political message that has been received on such a serious subject.”

  PROMISE OF BETTER WEATHER SEES CANDIDATE ELECTED

  Danish comedian Jacob Haugaard was elected to parliament in 1994 on the back of a manifesto that promised better weather and better Christmas presents. The founder of the Union of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements, Haugaard stood in Aarhus where he polled an impressive 23,253 votes and ended up serving four years in the Danish parliament. Among his other vote-winning promises were tail winds on all cycle paths and more bread for the ducks in the parks.

  DOG IS REGISTERED TO VOTE

  A New Zealand man managed to register his dog to vote in the country’s general election. Peter Rhodes sent his Jack Russell terrier Toby’s application form to the electoral authorities, signed with a paw print and listing the occupation as rodent exterminator. The dog was duly registered as Toby Russell Rhodes in the Otago constituency and sent a voter’s card but he made no attempt to vote in the polls. Mr Rhodes said he had registered his dog as a protest against bureaucracy.

  POLITICIAN SNIFFS FEMALE COLLEAGUE’S CHAIR

  Troy Buswell, the leader of the West Australian Liberal Party, admitted in 2008 to sniffing the chair that a female colleague had been sitting on in his office. The woman said she had just finished an interview in December 2005 “and when I got back I walked into the room to pick up my notepad from the desk and Buswell started grabbing the chairs going, ‘Aaahww, which one did you sit in? I’ll be able to tell.’ And then he picked them up and started sniffing them and groaning and making sexually satisfying noises.” Buswell had previously confessed to snapping the bra of a party staffer. His deputy described him as a “rough diamond with a robust sense of humour”.

  MAYOR CREATES STATE OF PANIC

  With time to kill on a quiet afternoon, Mayor Jim Baca of Albuquerque, New Mexico, decided to test the panic button which, he had been assured, would bring security guards rushing to his office in a matter of seconds. Having pressed the button, he waited . . . and waited. After 15 minutes and no sign of anyone racing to his aid, he gave up and prepared to go home. As he stepped out into the corridor he bumped into the security staff, all of whom were frantically searching for the key to his office.

  COUNCIL PAINTS WARNING SIGNS OUTSIDE CLOSED SCHOOL

  Aberdeen City Council in Scotland ordered workers to paint yellow zigzag “school keep clear” signs on the tarmac outside a nursery school in 2009 – forgetting that the school had actually been shut for more than ten years. The workmen carrying out the job failed to notice that the building was boarded up and the grounds overgrown. In a separate embarrassment, the council destroyed its own new hospital markings in the belief that they were the work of vandals. The council ordered workmen to destroy the pavement signs – a blue circle with a white cross in the middle – believing them to be a student prank, but was forced to spend more money spraying new signs back onto the pavement after realizing that the markings were part of its own initiative.

  PM’S UNDERWEAR-STEALING PAST IS REVEALED

  In 2008, the Prime Minister of Australia was exposed as the descendant of a child underwear thief and a convict exiled from England for stealing a bag of sugar. Investigation into Kevin Rudd’s family tree showed that his fifth great-grandmother, Mary Wade, was sent to Australia at the age of 12 for stealing another girl’s dress and underwear. On the other side of the family, Rudd’s fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Rudd, was deported to Australia in 1801 to serve seven years for “unlawfully acquiring a bag of sugar”. Thomas Rudd later married another convict, Mary Cable, who had been exiled for stealing cloth.

  PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE CLAIMS NEGATIVE ENERGY LOST HIM ELECTION

  Mircea Geoana knew exactly why he had lost the 2009 Romanian presidential election – he had been subjected to attacks of negative energy by aides of President Traian Basescu during a crucial debate. The former Foreign Minister said he had seen “people with paranormal abilities” in the conference room where the debate took place, adding that he had previously seen the same people at the presidential palace. “My husband was very badly attacked,” claimed Mihaela Geoana. “He couldn’t concentrate.” Earlier a Geoana aide had accused Basescu of dressing in purple on Thursdays to increase his chance of victory.

  COUNCIL BLINDED BY WINDOW GLARE

  When a worker complained in 2001 that sunlight coming through a window caused glare on his computer screen, Burgess Hill Town Council in Sussex sprang into action. They held six months of discussion, three meetings, sought out several contractors, produced a detailed six-page report, and considered five possible solutions – including spending up to $10,000 to put computer-controlled screens on the outside of the window or coating the window in reflective film – until the Town Clerk decided simply to move the desk away from the window.

  FLORIDA CALLS FOR BAN ON ORNAMENTAL BULL BALLS

  A Florida senator championed a 2008 bill to ban ornamental metal replicas of bull testicles from the rear end of trucks. The dangling replica testicles have become trendy bumper ornaments in the state but Senator Carey Baker labelled them obscene and proposed a $60 fine for any drivers displaying them.

  BRIDGE COLLAPSES DURING ITS BIRTHDAY PARTY

  A civic ceremony to mark the 200th anniversary of a famous wooden bridge in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1995 came to an abrupt end when the bridge collapsed, throwing spectators into the river.

  TRAFFIC JAM SURVEY CAUSES TRAFFIC JAM

  When council officials wielding clipboards stopped motorists in Poole, Dorset, to conduct a survey into traffic congestion in 2006, they merely succeeded in creating a two-mile tailback of morning rush-hour traffic. Hundreds of people were late for work by at least half an hour as Poole Borough Council officials pulled drivers over to the side of the road to answer a questionnaire. In response to frustrated motorists’ claims that the timing of the survey was “ridiculous”, the council’s transport boss explained: “We were aiming to understand drivers’ problems and reduce t
raffic congestion. It was not possible to give advance warning as drivers might have taken alternative routes.”

  PM LOSES SEAT OVER PAPERWORK BLUNDER

  The Prime Minister of the tiny Pacific nation of Vanuatu lost his Parliamentary seat in 2009 because he forgot to hand in a note explaining that he would be away on business. Under the terms of the constitution, Edward Natapei forfeited his seat because he had missed three consecutive sittings without notifying the speaker. In fact he had been attending a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago. A Vanuatu political commentator remarked: “It’s truly unbelievable something as basic as that could have been overlooked. It’s a massive oversight by the Prime Minister’s people. All they had to do was give notice he was away on official business.”

  MAYOR KEEPS PROMISE TO WALK NAKED DOWN THE STREET

  When Jim Whitaker, mayor of North Platte, Nebraska, promised to walk naked down the street in 1998 if $5,000 could be raised for an animal welfare society, he was besieged with angry calls telling him he should be ashamed of himself. But Mayor Whitaker remained true to his word and, with the money raised, he walked down the street . . . fully clothed alongside a dog called Naked.

  VOTERS BARE THEIR FEELINGS AT ITALIAN POLL

  Some 30 people wore nothing but their underwear when they turned up to vote in Italy’s 2000 regional elections. They opted for the minimalist look to enter the polling station in Agrate Conturbia, west of Milan, as a protest against noise caused by planes at nearby Malpensa airport.