FT265

PULLING THE WOOL
Maximiliano Pereyra, 25, and Ariel Diaz, 28, serving time for robbery, broke out of an Argentinean maximum-security prison in La Alameda and stole sheep hides from a ranch. They then managed to evade the 300 police on their trail by dressing in the fleeces, complete with heads, and lying low among farm flocks, that can be up to 1,000 strong – despite locals seeing them running through fields at night. They were still at liberty after more than a week. Sun, 13 April; Sunday Times, 18 April 2010.

STATUE PANIC
Antony Gormley’s 2007 art installation, Event Horizon, featuring 31 life-size statues strategically placed on buildings, was transferred to Manhattan in late March. The trouble was, citizens kept mistaking the figures for real people about to jump (particularly the one on the Empire State Building), and repeatedly called the police, who were obliged to take all the calls seriously. Each one took several hours to investigate and record. “It’s a total pain in the ass,” said an officer. The statues are scheduled to remain in place until 15 August. NY Post, 15 April 2010.

GIVE THE DOG A PHONE
Callers to a Sydney business number are greeted with a normal automated message: “If you have an account query, press one” and so on. However, the third instruction is more unusual: “If you want to hear a dog bark, press three.” And if you do, it does. (Melbourne) Herald-Sun, 29 Jan 2010.

DREAM FULFILLED
Jodie Smith, 31, of Bridlington, East Yorkshire, had a nightmare about her fiancé being shot in the left foot in Afghanistan. She sent a Facebook message to Scots Guard Martyn Brown, 29, about the premonition, but he had already set off for the front line. A week later, he telephoned her to say he had been shot in the left foot. D.Mirror, 31 Mar 2010.

RIBALD JOKE CUE
A news report on the Times website, headlined “Vienna Boys’ Choir caught up in sex abuse scandals”, had the unfortunate byline “Roger Boyes”. Perhaps a pseudonym would have been a good idea. Times online, 18 Mar 2010.

GORDON BENNETT!
The European Patent Office has allowed German marketing executives Stefan Fellenberg and Florian Krause to launch a beer called Fucking Hell, named after the Austrian village of Fucking [FT188:9], near Salzberg. ‘Helles Beer’ (light beer) is the German for lager. The Austrian village was founded in about 1070, apparently named after a 6th-century bloke called Focko. Independent, 31 Mar; Irish Times, 1 April 2010.

CORPSE ABUSE
Police found “grossly offensive” photographs on the computer of Andrew Dymond of Mumbles, South Wales – including one of a man performing intercourse with a dead animal, “thought to be a squid or an octopus”. And a London policeman faces disciplinary action after simulating intercourse with a dead fox. Sergeant Blyth Stephen, 32, found the animal in a police station yard. He is also alleged to have cut off its head and put it on the bonnet of a police car. Sun, 5 Mar, 22 May 2010.

‘BAT MAN’ HALTS TRAIN
Trains were halted for two hours on 28 April after a Swedish man was seen hanging upside down “like a bat” over a live rail in Horsham, West Sussex. The man, 40, did somersaults on the 4.6m high gantry as police tried to talk him down. He was finally restrained and taken to hospital. Sun, 30 April 2010.

HELPFUL GHOST
After buying a flat in a converted orphanage in Ports­mouth, schoolteacher Louise Wright, 25, began seeing a ghostly young girl who (she believes) twice saved her life: she was woken by the spirit after leaving her oven on and felt a strong gust of wind which blew out a fire started by a candle, despite no windows being open. Later, while talking to the ghost, whom she calls Morticia, she was told she would meet a man called Paul at a party. She did, and at the time of the report was dating him. Metro, 1 June 2009.

SURREAL LAW
Since 1951, South Carolina has had a law requiring anyone who wants to overthrow the government to register their intentions officially and pay a 5 dollar fee. News of this law only recently emerged and led to the first few applications being filed. A senator has now proposed a bill to scrap the statute. Independent, 13 Mar 2010.

WEEDS FINGERED
Police stopped a car that was driving erratically in Bethel, Connecticut, and found canna­bis and drug paraphernalia in the car. Gregory Weed, 18, and his brother Timothy, 19, were charged with possession. Tom Stienstra, 55, was busted last April after police found 60 cannabis plants growing in his barn in the town of Weed, California. Danbury (CT) News-Times, 5 Dec 2006; (Adelaide) Sunday Mail, 4 April 2010.

THORN LOSER
Trevor Collins, 68, planted six prickly bushes to deter thieves at his home in Gravesend, Kent – but 90 minutes later they were stolen. Sunday Mirror, 18 April 2010.

HEAD CONTESTED
A Colorado family and Alcor Life Extension Foundation of Scottsdale, Arizona, are fighting in court over possession of the head of a woman who died in February, along with a 55,000 dollar annuity she left behind. Mary Robbins, 71, had wanted her head frozen in the hope that future techno­logy could bring her back to life, but her family said she changed her mind before she died. MX News (Brisbane), 22 Feb 2010.

SAVING DEW
A 30cm sturgeon dropped at night from the sky (probably by a heron) on a lawn in Worcester, was found alive the following morning. The homeowner took it in a bucket to a nearby pet shop, where staff named it Stan. Boss Chris Longstaff said that it must have survived from the moisture on the grass. Sun, 6 Mar 2010.

SAVED THIS TIME
Panicking sailor Mark Corbett, whose vessel was sinking near the island of St Kitts in the Caribbean, phoned the only number he could remember – his best friend back in Aberystwyth, lifeboatman Alex Evans. Mr Evans was able to coordinate a rescue operation via his mobile. The vessel was a 1,700-tonne yacht called the Titanic, owned by White Star Ltd, a company with the same name as the cruise line that owner the original Titanic. Corbett was part of a skeleton crew taking her from Grenada to Puerto Rico for a refit. D.Mail, 7 April 2010.

ROGUE VIBRATOR
A woman in Bochum, Germany, phoned police after hearing “suspicious noises” in her flat. The noise was so loud and strange, even over the phone, that police sent a patrol car round. An officer opened a wardrobe drawer and found a “very personal, battery-operated object which had obviously switched itself on… The tenant’s face abruptly changed colour.” [AFP] 5 Mar 2010.

MAN MARRIES CUSHION
A Japanese (or Korean) man married a ‘dakimakura’ (hugg­ing pillow), showing a life-sized cartoon of his favourite sexy anime cartoon character Fate Testarossa. Lee Jin-gyu, 28, fitted out the cushion with a wedding dress for the service in Tokyo, in front of a local priest. “He is completely obsessed with this pillow and takes it everywhere,” said a friend. See FT155:24 for another ‘2-D lover’. Ananova, Metro, 9 Mar 2010.

SOME CHANCE
Buddy, California’s last wolverine, was discovered roaming the Tahoe National Forest in 2008, almost 90 years after the species was declared extinct in the state. Recent pictures show him marking his territory to attract a mate, the nearest of which is 1,300km away. Independent, 20 Mar 2010.