British Comedy Guide

Weird things you have read about. Page 51

Quote: sootyj @ January 23 2009, 3:31 PM GMT

Can I steal that pun, unless you want to send it to 118 118.

Be my guest; I do not aspire to be a writer. The last think I need is another source of income to add to the confusion of these stupid tax forms that I'm filling out.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090126/twl-skoda-crashes-through-church-roof-3fd0ae9.html

I hope the police had video in there car, I'd love to see this on Traffic Cops or something. :)

Flipping Norah! :O

Mexicans turn to voodoo to help team beat the US

Jan 27 03:07 PM US/Eastern

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A Mexican sports daily is pinning its hopes of beating the United States in a World Cup qualifying match on voodoo. Mexico is play the United States on Feb. 11 in Columbus, Ohio, in the first match of the last round of the CONCACAF qualifying. Mexico has not won at the United States in a decade.

The Record sports newspaper is encouraging readers to take part with a headline Tuesday that reads: "Help end the losing streak so Mexico advances."

Readers are instructed to cut out a page and take it to an electronics store in exchange for a U.S. team voodoo doll.

Mexico has not won at the United States in a decade.

Really? That surprises me a lot, Mexico have always been a good side, and US just isn't that interested unless you're a child or a woman.

Quote: Moonstone @ January 27 2009, 11:45 PM GMT

Really? That surprises me a lot, Mexico have always been a good side, and US just isn't that interested unless you're a child or a woman.

It's still an overlooked sport as far as most adults are concerned, but youth soccer/football is burgeoning and we have a steady influx of fans from Mexico and Asia who serve to increase interest in the sport. With more than 300 million inhabitants, it can't be that difficult to field a decent team in the U.S.

Quote: DaButt @ January 27 2009, 11:49 PM GMT

It's still an overlooked sport as far as most adults are concerned, but youth soccer/football is burgeoning and we have a steady influx of fans from Mexico and Asia who serve to increase interest in the sport. With more than 300 million inhabitants, it can't be that difficult to field a decent team in the U.S.

If interest ever grows to the level it is in the rest of the world I have no doubt you would have an awesome side. From what I've seen, it's alright now, but by no means anything special.

Interest peaks during the World Cup - especially if the U.S. is playing and/or matches are being played in the States - but teams have a hard time drawing fans and you'll never see them on television for the most part.

(CNN) -- Liberia's president has declared a state of emergency after hordes of ravenous caterpillars infested the country.

Tens of millions of the worm-like larvae have appeared in the northern part of the country, where they are destroying green crops like cabbage and collard greens and contaminating the water supply, Liberian Information Minister Laurance Bropleh told CNN Wednesday from the capital of Monrovia.

"I am not aware that they have been here before, ever, and certainly not in this great number," Bropleh told CNN. "That is why it was so overwhelming initially when we first discovered it."

The state of emergency covers the three northern Liberian counties of Bong, Lofa, and Gbarpolu, Liberian officials said.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told legislators Monday that 350,000 people in 62 communities in those three counties may have been affected.

There are also indications the bugs have spread to neighboring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, Bropleh said.

"This is indeed a crisis," the president said Monday. Johnson Sirleaf said she appointed a task force, including members of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to identify the species and commence spraying.

Investigators suspect the caterpillars are African armyworms, the FAO said.

The infestation is "quite alarming," said Winfred Hammond, the FAO representative in Liberia.

Hammond said the caterpillars started showing up sometime during the week of January 12 but spread quickly. In just a week, he said, the caterpillars had spread to 50 villages.

The pests multiply rapidly and adult moths are able to fly long distances at night, the FAO said.

Worsening the situation, the area's water supply has been contaminated by the huge volume of feces dropped by the caterpillars, the FAO said.

"The plague is being described as Liberia's worst in 30 years," the FAO said. "The last African armyworm outbreak in the sub-region occurred in Ghana in 2006."

'Cello scrotum' exposed as a hoax

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A medical ailment that has worried male members of string sections across the music world for over 30 years has been exposed as a hoax.

A senior British lawmaker confessed to making up the condition known as "cello scrotum" -- which relates to chafing from the instrument -- after reading about another musically-related ailment called "guitarist's nipple" in the British Medical Journal in 1974.

Elaine Murphy, who is a member of The House of Lords and a trained doctor, came clean about the prank she devised with husband John in a letter to the BMJ published on Wednesday.

She said: "Perhaps after 34 years it's time for us to confess that we invented cello scrotum.

"Reading (Dr) Curtis's 1974 letter to the BMJ on guitar nipple, we thought it highly likely to be a spoof and decided to go one further by submitting a letter pretending to have noted a similar phenomenon in cellists, signed by the non-doctor one of us.

"Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realize the physical impossibility of our claim."

Murphy's confession may have been hastened by the fact that cello scrotum was referenced by a medical researcher in the BMJ late last year.

The article, entitled "A symphony of maladies," focused on health problems among musicians and contained references to such ailments as fiddler's neck, flautist's chin and cellist's chest.

Fiona Godlee, editor of the BMJ, told Britain's Independent newspaper: "It seems the BMJ has been deliciously hoaxed. It is wonderful it has been going all these years and no one realized.

"We frown on misconduct and medical fraud is taken very seriously. But in this case I hope I am right in saying that no harm has been done."

Murphy was made a life peer in 2004 and is active on mental health and ageing issues in the House of Lords.

Man smears feces on his lawyer, flings it at jury

Jan 28 03:39 PM US/Eastern

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A San Diego judge has declared a mistrial in a kidnapping and assault case after the defendant smeared excrement on his lawyer's face and threw it at jurors. The judge boosted defendant Weusi McGowan's bail from $250,000 to $1 million after the Monday incident.

Prosecutor Christopher Lawson says McGowan was upset because the judge refused to remove public defender Jeffrey Martin from the case.

McGowan had smuggled a bag of feces into court and spread it on Martin's hair and face before flinging the excrement at jurors. No jurors were hit.

McGowan has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping for robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and other counts in connection with a 2007 home invasion.

Quote: DaButt @ January 28 2009, 9:29 PM GMT

Sick Sick Sick Sick Sick Sick Sick Sick

This is going to be big news:

The CIA's station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

Officials say the 41-year old CIA officer, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. Ambassador, David Pearce, in October after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September.

The discovery of more than a dozen videotapes showing the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with other women has led the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include at least one other Arab country, Egypt, where the CIA officer had been posted earlier in his career, according to law enforcement officials.

The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=6750266&page=1

Quote: DaButt @ January 28 2009, 9:32 PM GMT

This is going to be big news:

No surprise to me. It happens to women everyday.

Super Bowl porn hits US viewers

US sports fans in Arizona got a surprise when their TV coverage of American football's Super Bowl was interrupted by a pornographic film.

Tucson-based KVOA-TV said it was "dismayed and disappointed" after some cable viewers had their match coverage disrupted towards the end of the game.

The company said the material was only seen by viewers of one cable network.

"KVOA will investigate what happened and make sure our viewers get answers," company president Gary Nielsen said.

"When the NBC feed of the Super Bowl was transmitted from KVOA to local cable providers and through over-the-air antennas, there was no pornographic material," he added.

Comcast, the cable company whose viewers saw the material, said it was investigating.

Local media outlets reported that they received calls from furious viewers.

The clip showed a woman unzipping a man's trousers, followed by a graphic act between the two.

"I just figured it was another commercial until I looked up," viewer Cora King told the Arizona Daily Star.

"Then he did his little dance with everything hanging out."

The interruption happened just after the last touchdown by the Arizona Cardinals, who lost the match to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

"Then he did his little dance with everything hanging out."

Laughing out loud Laughing out loud Laughing out loud I'm so using that in a cartoon or script one day.

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