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Friday, 5 January, 2001, 14:31 GMT
Amazing tales from Planet Tabloid
Our regular look at the outer reaches of the news agenda and what the papers have got to say throws up yet more amazing tales.
BURNING ISSUES OF THE WEEK, AND THE PAPERS' VERDICTS
No. 1:Is it OK to have a boob job at 16?
No. 2: Have tribute T-Shirts gone too far?
EXPLODING PUDDING UPDATE
A leftover Christmas pudding went out with a bang when it exploded, the Newcastle Journal reports.
Firefighters had to be called to the kitchen of a flat in Wallsend, Newcastle, when the pudding burst into flames while being cooked in a microwave.
A fire brigade spokesman said: "It had been left in for far too long and it exploded, setting her microwave on fire. Luckily [the cook] did the right thing by leaving the oven door shut - by depriving it of oxygen the fire burned itself out."
LATEST NEWS ABOUT VERY FAT PEOPLE
A burglar who broke into the house of 350-pound Maria Teresina-Lorca has filed a suit against the queen-size homeowner - because she beat him up and then sat on him until police arrived, reports the Weekly World News of Florida.
"Being smothered under the flabby buttocks of that big woman for so long was a horrible experience," says slimline Miguel Pintado.
GRUSOME MEDICAL MIRACLE OF THE WEEK
A New York man has discovered that - without knowing it - he has had a bullet lodged in his skull for a quarter-century. The New York Post reports the following exchange between the bullet man - William Adrian Milton, 59, "a writer and prominent dachshund fancier" - and his doctor, which took place after a brain scan for a non-bullet related head problem.
Doctor: "Who shot you in the head?"
Mr Milton - who is the organiser of the annual Dachshund Oktoberfest in New York - later remembered an incident in 1976 when blood started spurting from his head, apparently spontaneously.
He had assumed he had been hit by debris of some sort falling from a building site.
He has decided to let the bullet remain nestled in his skull.
Ukrainians are packing shops in a bid to get hold of the latest craze in confectionery - a bar of pure pork fat covered in chocolate, according to the Press Association.
The bars are called Fat in Chocolate and are wrapped in red foil, and show a Ukrainian Cossack with a moustache munching a piece of fat.
Bizarre as this may seem, the manufacturer is reported as saying that while the bars are edible, they are not really meant to be eaten. Despite this, the product is said to be selling well.
But export opportunities are thought not to be so great.
POSSIBLY TRUE BUT PROBABLY A HOAX
Nigerian police are investigating a bizarre claim that a boy has been turned into a yam by a witchdoctor, the Daily Star claims.
Officers have even taken a large yam into custody.
Three schoolboys in Maiduguri told their headteacher their friend had been transformed into a vegetable in front of their eyes after accepting a sweet from a stranger.
As word spread about the schoolboy yam, hundreds of curious people began flocking to the police station to catch a glimpse of it.
An official reportedly said: "There has been a mysterious incident here."
Sooty the sex mad guinea pig has been a tabloid hero since it was reported, last month, that he had managed to have sex with 24 females in two nights.
Like any celeb his activities are now reported in minute detail. The news this week is that Sooty has been let out of "solitary confinement" and has - sort of - got married.
Sooty's owner Carol Feeham says: "I've given him a female guinea pig called Sweep to commit to." His philandering days are thus over.
DEPARTMENT OF "MAN-FIRED-FROM-CANNON-HITS-OWN-WIFE" STORIES
America's Associated Press reports that a Florida man robbed a bank in a fit of rage when he was on his way to an anger management class.
The man had become upset after having a row with his mother. He robbed the bank, got away, mulled things over and then turned himself in to the police.
WORLD GOING TO THE DOGS - LATEST EVIDENCE
Bouncers have been employed to stop vandals as young as eight from running riot and threatening staff at six libraries in Stoke on Trent. (The Sun).
GOOD ADVICE - TABLOID STYLE
The Mirror's 52 health tips for 2001.
No 32: "Drink alcohol only in social situations. Stop using it as a means of stress relief. That means giving up that glass of wine or beer at home with your meal."
This undeniably sound advice was printed adjacent to a Mirror cross-Channel shopping spree offer which promised "massive savings on wine, spirits and beer". It was illustrated by a couple packing at least 300 cans of beer, 20 bottles of wine, 10 bottles of whisky, vodka, gin and other spirits plus, for good measure, a catering-size pack of cigarettes, into a shopping trolley.
All for social use only, of course.
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
Planet Tabloid reader Norbert Cunningham from New Brunswick, Canada sent in the following gem from the Hamilton Spectator, published in Ontario.
"Police say a woman posing as an undercover officer to con johns looking for prostitutes may be duping her victims twice over - she's not a cop, and she might actually be a man.
"For the past month, police here have been looking for a woman who was picked up by at least three men looking for prostitutes. Once inside their cars, the woman claimed to be an undercover officer.
"Each john was told to hand over his driver's licence and pay her a $200 fine, or else she would go to his home and tell his family.
"The men didn't realize they had been taken until they went to the police station to pick up their licences and a receipt to show the fine had been paid."
29 Dec 00 | UK
22 Dec 00 | Prep Obits - Will Not Publish
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