Welcome

Well hopefully you will be as interested as I am in the funny and unbelievable stories (sometimes not funny but just unbelievable) that just some times make it into the news, or indeed don't. I will try to keep abreast of the news as it happens, but to start off with here is a taster of some gems from the past.

Accident - Steeplejack
Quite a few years ago I remember reading about the steeplejack who fell off the kerb of the pavement and broke his neck! Now sad for his family yes, but most people chuckled at the story because it seemed sublimely ridiculous.

Accident - Hunter
More recently there was the hunter in Italy who put his rifle on the ground. A badger suddenly ran out from cover and over the rifle pulling the trigger and shooting the hunter dead. Who said Bugs Bunny wasn't based on real life!

Political Gaffs - RR/we're at war
Of course there is also the Ronald Reagan announcement to a press conference '....we have just launched a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union'. I know he slept a lot of the time but that wasn't taken initially as a joke by the reporters who thought he was serious. (Could you tell when he was being serious?)

Animal Liberation - worms are animals too
A few years ago now hooded and masked Animal Liberators broke into a lab at a university in Preston, England. Their aim was to free the animals being so cruelly treated there. Imagine their surprise when all they found was a fish tank being used as a worm farm. Give them their dues though, they did release the worms back into the wild. (I wonder if it had been fleas instead of worms how would they have decided which one of them would release the animals?)

Hitman
There was the story doing the rounds a few years ago about a businessman in Chicago who wanted to hire a hitman to kill his wifes new lover. The business man made inquiries and was eventually put into contact with a hitman. The business was all done by post so that nobody could identify each other. The price was agreed and the hitman demanded payment up front along with the name of the intended victim. The businessman sent off the money in cash to the hitman as instructed. The hitman received the payment and the name and duly the following week shot the victim dead. Unfortunately for the businessman he had neglected to actually give the name of the intended victim but had just signed his own name on a piece of paper so that the hitman would know who the money was from and included that with payment. The wife (or widow now) and her lover married soon afterwards.

Driving - traffic lights
A driver was in court charged with jumping a red light at a set of traffic lights. Several witnesses had stated that the lights were red when the driver when through them. The driver himself was most vociferous and indignant that they the traffic lights were green when he started to pass them. The judge hearing the case gave the driver two options, either he admitted jumping the lights and accept the fine, court costs, and penalty points on his license, or the second choice was that the judge would accept the drivers innocence on jumping the traffic lights but have the man charged with speeding and would fine him one pound for every mile over the speed limit he must have been doing for the driver to see the lights as green and everybody else to have seen them change! The man changed his plea to guilty and was fined for jumping the traffic lights. (Hint, think about your excuse before you go into court, light travels at 186,400 miles per second!)