FT260

SHARK’S SNACK
A sea angler was more than a trifle surprised when he removed a racing pigeon from the stomach of a 16kg blue shark he had caught off the Cornish coast. How the unfortunate bird happened to arrive inside the shark’s stomach was a mystery. At the time of the report, the fisherman was trying to track the pigeon’s owner. Wildlife Snippets (RSPCA), Sept 1995.

FOX SABOTEUR
Sinister motives were suspected when a number of drivers in West Wickham, Kent, found their brake cables had been cut in the night. Since February 2009, three Mercedes, a BMW, three Fords, a Nissan and an Austin were targeted. Police were stumped, but finally Prof. Stephen Harris, a wildlife expert at Bristol University, identified the culprit as a fox with a taste for glycol, the sweet-tasting chemical used as brake fluid. He matched the chew marks to a fox’s jaw. D.Mail, 9 Dec 2009.

SMOKED BRAINS
Vultures face extinction in South Africa because of a growing trend for smoking their dried brains to promote powers of premonition – specifically, seeing winning lottery numbers. The birds could vanish within 30 years because of their use in muti (traditional medicine). The brains are rolled into a cigarette or inhaled as vapours, which believers claim bring luck and boost exam performance. D.Telegraph, 28 Dec; Guardian, 31 Dec 2009.

YORKSHIRE ALLIGATOR
Peter Lumb, 59, out walking his two border collies on a hillside in the Crosland Moor area of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, came upon the severed head of an allig­ator. Experts at Manchester Museum said the creature could have been 1.8m long without its tail. Skin fragments indicated the remains had not been out on the hillside for very long. The back of the head had been sawn off. D.Telegraph, 13 Nov; York Eve. Post, 14 Nov 2009.

TASTES DIVINE
Hundreds of pilgrims were flocking to see a marble statue of the Hindu goddess Durga that regularly “sweats” honey from one of its hands in Lenasia, South Africa. Pret­oria News (S.Africa), 11 Nov; Sun, 12 Nov 2009.

ANIMALS IN NEED
Calls to the RSPCA emergency line during 2009 included a report that a seagull was looking sad because it was sitting in the rain. Other callers asked the animal welfare organis­ation to help get a spider out of a sink and remove ladybirds climbing a wall. A driver reported a “slow-moving tortoise” on the hard shoulder of a motorway, which turned out to be a deflated football, while a “bat” hanging from a ceiling was a damp patch. A woman complained that the farm next door smelt, and a man wanted advice on why his cat didn’t purr. D.Mail, 15 Dec 2009.

BEAR NECESSITY
A bear broke into a house in San Antonio Heights, California, and gobbled up a 900g box of chocolates from a couple’s refrigerator. The couple returned to find the bear and phoned for help, but it fled before police arrived. It appeared to have pushed aside vegetables and gone straight for the chocs. It also tried unsuccessfully to open a bottle of champagne. [AP] 30 June 2009.

WHEELIE THOUGHTFUL
Maidstone Council decided to remove to “a more appropriate location” from outside the Vintners Park Crematorium building, a wheelie bin that displays the warning “No Hot Ashes”. Downsmail (Maidstone, Kent), Sept 2009.

SEEING DOUBLE
The only two men in Britain called Geraint Woolford ended up in neighbouring beds in Abergele Hospital in North Wales. The pair, who had never met and were not related, had both worked for the same police force. Mr Woolford, 77, who had hip replacement surgery, was a past president of the Conservative Club in his hometown of Llandudno. His namesake, 52, who had a partial knee replacement, is vice-chairman of the Conserv­ative Club 55km away in Ruthin. D.Telegraph, 9 Dec 2009.

TURTLE DEVOTION
A temple in the Indian coastal town of Kendrapara in Orissa was besieged by hundreds of worshippers who believed a rare marine turtle was the incarnation of Lord Jagannath: the markings on its shell were said to resemble the eyes of the Hindu deity. They came chanting hymns and carrying fruit, rice and garlands. One report said the creature ambled into town; another that someone had found it in a nearly river. Government wildlife officials were attempting to rescue the protected creature, but villagers were resisting. Wolverhampton Express & Star, 10 Nov; Metro, 11 Nov 2009.

KEEP IT DOWN
Caroline and Steve Cartwright of Washington, Tyne & Wear, were given an ASBO (Antisocial Behaviour Order) because they made so much noise during sex. Neighbours and the local postman complained about the howling, reaching 47 decibels, which went on for two or three hours, virtually every night. A neighbour said: “It sounds like they are both in considerable pain.” In December, Mrs Cartwright, 48, pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching the ASBO, and was given an eight-week suspended sentence. BBC News, 10 Nov, 15 Dec, 2009, 22 Jan 2010.

ROUND ARK
According to a newly-translated text in ancient Babylonian on a 3,700-year-old clay tablet telling the story of the ark, the vessel that saved one virtuous man, his family and the animals from God’s wrath was not the pointy-prowed craft of popular imagination but a giant circular craft made of plaited palm fibre waterproofed with bitumen. There are dozens of tablets describing the Great Flood, but this is the first to describe the vessel’s shape. The Jews probably learned the ark story during their Babylonian captivity. Guardian, 2 Jan 2010.

THEY SMOKE DUNGHILL
Customs officials on Tenerife in the Canary Islands arrested 12 smugglers who arrived on a boat from China and seized fake cigarettes supposedly worth more than £1 million – filled with rabbit droppings rather than tobacco. Sun, 14 Nov 2009.

BALL-BREAKER
Anthony Clark, 22, was walking in Langley, British Columbia, last September when a young Caucasian woman inexplicably kicked him in the groin hard enough to rupture one of his testicles and send it into his abdomen. It had to be removed and replaced by a prosthetic. It was the latest in a series of three or four similar assaults. (Toronto) National Post, 29 Oct 2009.

GENUINE PREY
A greyhound race in England (location unspecified) had to be stopped when the dogs suddenly lost interest in the mechanical hare that they were chasing after a real hare ran onto the track. No fools, they went for the real thing. This news item from the Ivory Coast paper Soir-Info (23 Sept 1995) was sent in by Ion Will, who commented: “Animal lib agitators? Proto-folklore? Or alchemico-mystic event? Dunno…”

ONE EAR DOWN
Katarine Tolzmann, 17, an inebriated German, found her severed ear in her bra after a disco fight, but hadn’t realised she’d been hurt. It was sewn back on but Bernkastel police spokesman Helmut Kaspar said: “It remains to be seen if it will stay there.” Metro, 30 Nov 2009.