Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

A thief stuck a pistol in a man's ribs and said, "Give me your money."
The gentleman, shocked by the sudden attack, said "You cannot do this, I'm a United States Congressman!"
The thief said, "In that case, give me my money!"

First it was killer sharks. Then it was killer bees. Now American holidaymakers heading for the beach this summer are being warned to watch out for another lethal hazard: killer sand castles.
The US bucket and spade brigade went on full alert yesterday after research by a top physician revealed that people falling into holes dug in the sand had accounted for more fatalities in the US since 1990 than shark attacks - 16 as opposed to 12.

The article, written by Dr Bradley Maron in the New England Journal of Medicine, said sand holes and tunnels, the byproduct of building sand castles and other juvenile beach fortifications, could turn into deathtraps with horrifying speed.
Although such incidents were extremely rare, Dennis Arnold, who runs a beach patrol at Martha's Vineyard, off Cape Cod in Massachusetts, said lifeguards were under orders to stop children digging deep holes. Occasionally some parents protest, he said. "They'll say 'You're ruining my kid's day!' and I say 'I don't care!'," Mr Arnold was quoted as saying.

A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole.

The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers.

It had a surface area of between 4 and 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer pitches.

"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal ... we went again in May and to our surprise we found the lake had completely disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation CONAF.

"The only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," he told Reuters.

CONAF is investigating the disappearance.

One theory is that the area was hit by an earth tremor that opened a crack in the ground which acted like a drain.

Southern Chile has been shaken by thousands of minor earth tremors this year.

A hen party literally brought the house down in Serbia after climbing on roof support pillars to get a better look at a male stripper.

The group that included female bank directors, lawyers, and even a local MP were among 200 women who piled into the club in Novi Sad, northern Serbia.

No one was hurt when the roof collapsed and spokesman for the club, Nenad Savic, said: "We thought they would all go home then, but they demanded the show go on to the end."