Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

Egg-walking man pulls car with ears

A Chinese man has managed to pull a car while walking on eggs without breaking a single egg.
Not only did he pull the car 20 metres, he actually did it with his ears!

The 38-year-old probably has the strangest talent ever seen, but he sure drew a big crowd while he was pulling the car in Dehui, Jinli.

The onlookers were astonished by the man's performance. Zhang says he started learning the stunt when he was only 8 years old.

Another amazing thing this Chinese can do is pick up a 25 kg bicycle with his mouth while, of course, standing on eggs.

We can't figure out what his talents are good for, but they sure are amazing.

Teacher: What is the axis of the earth?

Student: The axis of the earth is an imaginary line which passes from one pole to the other, and on which the earth revolves.

Teacher: Very good. Now, could you hang clothes on that line?

Student: Yes, Sir.

Teacher: Indeed, and what sort of clothes?

Student: Imaginary clothes, Sir.

Turns out, even beheaded rattlesnakes can be dangerous. That's what 53-year-old Danny Anderson learned as he was feeding his horses Monday night, when a 5-foot rattler slithered onto his central Washington property, about 50 miles southeast of Yakima.

Anderson and his 27-year-old son, Benjamin, pinned the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel. A few more strikes to the head left it sitting under a pickup truck.

"When I reached down to pick up the head, it raised around and did a backflip almost, and bit my finger," Anderson said. "I had to shake my hand real hard to get it to let loose."

His wife insisted they go to the hospital, and by the time they arrived at Prosser Memorial Hospital 10 minutes later, Anderson's tongue was swollen and the venom was spreading. He then was taken by ambulance 30 miles to a Richland hospital to get the full series of six shots he needed.

The snake head ended up in the bed of his pickup, and Anderson landed in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon.

Mike Livingston, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, said the area where the Anderson's live is near prime snake habitat. But he said he had never heard of anyone being bit by a decapitated snake before.

"That's really surprising but that's an important thing to tell people," he said. "It may have been just a reflex on the part of the snake."

If another rattlesnake comes along, Anderson said he'll likely try to kill it again, but said he'll grab a shovel and bury it right there.

"It still gives me the creeps to think that son-of-a-gun could do that," he said.

Tractor fan factory shock

A tractor fan drove his 44-year-old machine on a 700-mile pilgrimage from Germany to the factory where it was made - only to find it had been knocked down.

Wolfgang Mueller, 65, had dreamed for years of taking his red Massey Ferguson MF35 back to Coventry, reports the Daily Mirror.

Two weeks after retiring, the farmer left Stuttgart, chugging at less than 30mph towing a caravan through Luxembourg and France and catching a ferry at Calais.

He took country lanes and B-roads to Basildon, Essex, to look at New Holland tractor-makers, then to get a photo of his vehicle at London Bridge.

But when he reached the spot where Massey Ferguson had been based, he saw rows of houses called Bannerbrook Park.

Wolfgang said he plans to spend a week or so touring Britain.

He added: "I'll make my way home via Paris. I want to park my tractor in front of the Eiffel Tower."

We used to have a Massey Ferguson factory here in Doncaster that used to manufacture tractors and combined harvesters. Things could have been a lot worse for Wolfgang...he might have attempted to drive a harvester all the way here.

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.

The sprinkled powder forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store Thursday.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were both charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a worldwide group that bills itself as a "drinking club with a running problem."

"Hares" are given the task of marking a trail to direct runners, throwing in some dead ends and forks as challenges. On Thursday, the Salchows decided to route runners through the massive IKEA parking lot.

Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns.

Daniel Salchow biked back to IKEA when he heard there was a problem and told officers the powder was just harmless flour, which he said he and his sister have sprinkled everywhere from New York to California without incident.

"Not in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate anything like that," he said.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.

"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," she said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."

Robbers snatch dog poo

A Chinese woman has told how robbers snatched a parcel of dog poo wrapped in newspaper out of her hand outside a bank.

Mrs Chen, of Laohekou city, was waiting in the bank to withdraw money when nature suddenly called for her dog.

"While I was waiting in the queue, my dog had to poo. So I asked for several pieces of newspaper to wrap the poo," she said.

After wrapping it, Chen left the bank, and was waiting to cross the street to throw the parcel into a rubbish bin when the robber struck.

"A motorcycle stopped swiftly before me, the man on the rear seat seized the package from me, and they sped away," she said.

Police are investigating the case while "laughing at the stupidity of the robbers", according to Chutian City Papers.

The judge says to a double-homicide defendant, "You're charged with beating your wife to
death with a hammer."

A voice at the back of the courtroom yells out, "You bastard!"

The judge says, "You're also charged with beating your mother-in-law to death with a
hammer."

The voice in the back of the courtroom yells out, "You bastard!"

The judge stops and says to the guy in the back of the courtroom, "Sir, I can understand
your anger and frustration at this crime. But no more outbursts from you, or I'll charge
you with contempt. Is that understood?"

The guy in the back of the court stands up and says, "I'm sorry, Your Honor, but for
fifteen years, I've lived next door to that bastard, and every time I asked to borrow a
hammer, he said he didn't have one."

When I got on the bus this morning there were eight pensioners and myself, and as I was paying my fare I realised I had paid more than everyone else combined, and for a few seconds wondered why I was so important.

Of course, it's all due to the concessionary fares scheme operated by South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority; whereby pensioners (who aren't all necessarily poor) pay only 35p, yet unemployed people such as myself (who by definition are all poor) are required to pay full fare.

It's a mad world.

I used to really like them, so I'm glad that Cadbury is re-introducing them.

Sweet success for Wispa campaign

Cadbury is to bow down to an internet campaign and bring back the Wispa chocolate bar.

Fans of the old favourite have been using websites such as Facebook and MySpace to demand its return, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Cadbury will make an initial run of 23million bars in October and gauge interest from there.

The company says customers often ask for old favourites to be brought back, but said the numbers joining the internet campaign to re-launch Wispa were unprecedented.

Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough said: "We get letters about the Aztec bar and the lime barrel in the Dairy Milk tray. But this is on a whole different scale.

"This is the first time we are going to give the internet a chance to prove itself and see whether it is all hype or genuine."

Wispa was first brought out in 1981 for a trial in the north east. The bar with a bubbly centre was seen by many as a rival to Nestlé's Aero bar with the slogan "Bite it and Believe It".

Its popularity began to wane in the 1990s and it was finally ditched in 2003 as Cadbury concentrated on other brands but die hard fans of Wispa demanded its return.

Networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube have groups, with thousands of members, dedicated to the veneration of he Wispa bar.

And, earlier this year, two fans stormed the stage at Glastonbury during Iggy Pop's set to hold up a 'Bring Back Wispa' banner.

Smith goes to see his supervisor in the front office.
"Boss," he says, "we're doing some heavy
house-cleaning at home tomorrow, and my wife
needs me to help with the attic and the garage,
moving and hauling stuff."
"We're short-handed,Smith," the boss replies,
"I can't give you the day off."
"Thanks, boss," says Smith, "I knew
I could count on you!"

Miss Jones, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married. She was
much admired for her sweetness and kindness to all.

One afternoon, the pastor came to call on her, and she showed him into her quaint sitting
room. She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea.

As he sat facing her old pump organ, the young minister noticed a cut glass bowl sitting
on top of it, filled with water. In the water floated, of all things, a condom!

When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat. The pastor tried to stifle his
curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of
him and he could no longer resist.

"Miss Jones," he said, "I wonder if you would tell me about this?" pointing to the bowl.

"Oh, yes," she replied, "isn't it wonderful? I was walking through the park a few months
ago, and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on
the organ, keep it wet, and it would prevent the spread of disease."

"And you know... I haven't had a cold all winter."

I've just read a report in The Sunday Times which says that, despite all the heavy rain, statistically speaking this summer hasn't been that bad: a bit wetter, cooler and cloudier than usual - but nothing unexpected. Apparently maximum temperatures have been quite low, but minimums haven't (due to cloud cover.)

The weather here this morning is lovely. It's sunny, but a bit cool in the shade; I'll have to wait until after dinner to spend a bit of time in the garden though- by then it will be in direct sunshine...I hope the neighbours are going to be quiet and not having an outdoor party or be burning rubbish as both sets of neighbours did yesterday.

A widow recently married a widower. Soon after
the marriage she was accosted by a friend who
laughingly remarked - "I suppose, like all men
who have been married before, your husband
sometimes talks about his first wife?"
"Oh, not any more, he doesn't," the other replied.
"What stopped him?"
"I started talking about my next husband."

A noted sex therapist realizes that people often lie about the frequency of their
encounters, so he devises a test to tell for certain how often someone has sex.

To prove his theory, he fills up an auditorium with people, and goes down the line,
asking each person to smile. Using the size of the person's smile, the therapist is able
to guess accurately until he comes to the last man in line, who is grinning from ear to
ear.

"Twice a day," the therapist guesses, but is surprised when the man says no. "Once a day,
then?" Again the answer is no. "Twice a week?" "No." "Twice a month?" "No." The man
finally says yes when the doctor gets to "once a year".

The therapist is angry that his theory isn't working, and asks the man, "What the heck
are you so happy about?"

The man answers, "Tonight's the night!"

Germans are lining up to rent farm animals to help with the gardening as part of a new green scheme.

Werner Kiwitt, who runs an ecological park in Schleswig-Holstein, is offering sheep to cut the grass and ducks to eat the slugs.

He said: "You get free fertiliser provided by the animals as well, so it's not a bad deal."

Mr Kewitt said he was getting orders from all over the country after a plague of slugs nationwide following recent heavy rains.

Kiwitt, who rents the birds out for £20 a time, said: "Some people think this is just a gag but the ducks are really good at getting rid of the slugs. It beats using poison, especially when there are children or other aninals in the house."

Survey says stars should be paid less Aug 25 2007

THE British public thinks Premier League footballers, company directors and the Prime Minister should get paid less than they do, a new report reveals today.

But experts warned a drop in salaries could lead to a brain drain as top employees – stung by lower wages – left for better pay abroad.

Public opinion lists sportsmen as the most overpaid group of workers, according to the poll by the Fabian Society, a left of centre political think tank.

The average salary of a Premier League footballer is around £676,000 a year, but most people think they should only take home £60,000.

And they believe Prime Minister Gordon Brown should be on around £135,000 – significantly less than his £187,000 pay packet.

Tom Hampson, editorial director at the Fabian Society, said, “This research shows how the British public feels the gap between the richest and poorest workers should be narrower.

“Our polling shows that the public thinks it is reasonable for Gordon Brown to be at the top of the earnings league above JK Rowling, managing directors of FTSE-100 companies and especially Premier League footballers like Wayne Rooney.”

Although a managing director of a top company can earn £1m or more with bonuses, the 3,000 survey participants put the acceptable income level at £120,000.

But David Blackaby, professor of economics at University of Wales, Swansea said, “If you try to restrict their salaries you’re going to get a brain drain.

“If you reduce a managing director’s salary for example, they’re just going to go to America where their salary might be better.

“In a world where people can move across countries it doesn’t matter what we think they should be paid, it’s what they can get that’s important.”

He added, “Many young individuals want to be footballers but only a small amount make it. Those that do make a lot of money, those that don’t, don’t make any money from it.

“In economic terms we talk about risk – those people that make it make fantastic salaries, the rest of us don’t necessarily make the same money but it’s easier to get into our jobs.”

The Fabian/YouGov research showed that the British public felt that the lowest paid workers deserved more money.

Research author Rachael Jolley said, “There is a sense that society works more fairly in countries where the gap between the richest and poorest is closest.

“People believe in a fair wage for the work that they do.

“Progressive political politics should acknowledge that the public want the unfair gap between the rich and poor to be narrowed.”

Nursing was one of the salaries which people believed needed to be increased.

A senior nurse was put at a level of £33,000 where in reality they earn an average of £24,000 across the UK.

Penny Philips, 48, who works at Bryn-y-Neuadd Hospital in Llanfairfechan, North Wales, has been a nurse for 20 years and earns £24,500.

She said, “If you were to compare us to teachers – and I think we should be compared to teachers and policemen – it takes a nurse 30 years to get up to the equivalent of someone of equal experience and an equal knowledge base.

“I choose to keep working on the wards so I work anti-social hours and I work nights because I haven’t gotten into management.

“But, as a staff nurse, you can’t get paid any more than me as a band five staff grade.

“If I went into management I would go into a different band and I would get paid more but I prefer to stay with the patients.”

She added, “I can see there being a genuine problem with students.

“Student nurses aren’t going to go through three years of working very hard just to earn what I do when they could become dentists or doctors or teachers.

“I really worry that we won’t be able to staff the wards in a few years.”

A sex mad Scottish koala bear is in demand after an experiment in which he was asked to show an Austrian bear the facts of life.

Managers at Vienna's Schoenbrunn zoo had despaired their own male koala would ever get to grips with the bear necessities.

But five-year-old Chumbee, on loan from Edinburgh zoo, has succeeded where romantic music, erotic koala movies and aphrodisiac foods had all failed.

Zoo manager Helmut Pechlaner said: "Chumbee hasn't stopped since he got here, it has been almost non stop sex in the koala enclosure ever since, and now even our own male is joining in.

"We are confident we will soon be seeing the padding of tiny koala paws."

And zoo veterinarian Hanna Vielgrader added: "The only break is to eat or sleep, other than that there's no stopping them.

"The heat has probably helped but we doubt it would make much difference whatever temperature it was for the Scottish koala. Chumbee can't restrain himself at all."

The zoo is expecting a baby koala will be born sometime next year, and in the meantime said several other zoos wanted to loan Chumbee to invigorate their own koala colonies.

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.
"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon,a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."
"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."
"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

A Serbian pensioner has celebrated his retirement by moving into a house that he built entirely out of plastic bottles.

It took five years and 13,500 bottles for Tomislav Radovanovic, from the central town of Kragujevac, to build the 60 sq m house.

He told the national news agency Tanjug that he hopes to enter the Guinness Book of Records.

Only the foundation of the property is concrete, and all other parts of the house are made of plastic bottles that he had been collecting for years.

Even the kitchen furniture and windows are made of plastic bottles.

Radovanovic, who worked as a professor of mathematics before he retired, said his former students had helped him build the property by collecting bottles.

Arm-wrestling machine recalled

A Japanese arm wresting machine has been recalled after three players broke their arms.

The Arm Spirit arm wrestling games enable contestants to battle opponents including a French maid, a drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua dog.

Distributor Atlus said it would remove all 150 Arm Spirit arm wrestling machines from Japanese arcades after the injuries.

However, the company blamed customers for misusing the device, reports the Daily Telegraph.

"The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it," said Ayano Sakiyama, an Atlus spokeswoman. She described the recall as "a precaution."

"We think that maybe some players get overexcited and twist their arms in an unnatural way," she added.

The company was investigating the incidents and checking the machines for any signs of malfunction.

Players of Arm Spirit advance through 10 levels culminating in a final showdown with a professional wrestler. The arcade machine is not distributed overseas.

A young executive was leaving the office at 6pm when he found the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in hand.

"Listen," said the CEO, "this is important, and my secretary has left. Can you make this thing work?"

"Certainly," said the young executive. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

"Excellent, excellent!" said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine. "I just need one copy."

A woman and a man are involved in a car accident on a snowy, cold Monday morning; it's a bad one. Both of their cars are totally demolished but amazingly neither of them is hurt. God works in mysterious ways.

After they crawl out of their cars, the woman says, "Wow, just look at our cars! There's nothing left, but we're unhurt! This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace for the rest of our days".

Flattered, the man replies, "Oh yes, I agree with you completely, this must be a sign from God!"

The woman continues, "And look at this, here's another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of wine didn't break. Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune." Then she hands the bottle to the man.

The man nods his head in agreement, opens it and drinks half the bottle and then hands it back to the woman. The woman takes the bottle and immediately puts the cap back on, and hands it back to the man. The man asks, "Aren't you having any?"

The woman replies, "No. I think I'll just wait for the police...."

The earth is expanding and we don't know why
Let us taunt the geologists now with an idea that many of them consider to be nonsense.
The Expanding Earth Hypothesis goes back to at least 1933, a time when the Continental Drift Hypothesis was accorded the same sort of ridicule. Now, Continental Drift is enthroned; and ironically many of its strongest proponents are vehemently opposed to the Expanding Earth, ignoring the lessons of history.
The data that suggest that the earth has expanded significantly over geological time come from the pleasant pastime of continent fitting. If one takes the pieces of continental and oceanic crust and tries to fit them together at various times over the past several hundred million years, taking into account the production of crust at the midocean ridges, the fit gets worse and worse as one works backward in time. Great gaps (or "gores") appear between the pieces of crust which geologists believed existed at these periods. (Of course, one can play this puzzle-piece game only at passive continent-ocean boundaries where the oceanic crust has not slid under the continental crust. The South Atlantic is a good place to work.)
These embarrassing, grotesque gaps can be made to disappear almost as if by magic by assuming that the earth was smaller in the past. This seems, on the surface, to be a crazy idea. Why would an entire planet swell up like a balloon? Hugh Owen answers in this way:
"The geological and geophysical implications of such Earth expansion are so profound that most geologists and geophysicists shy away from them. In order to fit with the reconstruction that seems to be required, the volume of the Earth was only 51 per cent of its present value, and the surface area 64 per cent of that of the present day, 200 million years ago. Established theory says that the Earth's interior is stable, an in ner core of nickel iron surrounded by an outer layer that behaves like a fluid. Perhaps we are completely wrong and the inner core is in some state nobody has yet imagined, a state that is undergoing a transition from a high-density state to a lower density state, and pushing out the crust, the skin of the Earth, as it expands."

(Owen, Hugh; "The Earth Is Expanding and We Don't Know Why, "New Scientist, p. 27, November 22, 1984.)

I've always been fascinated by all aspects of language and so I've opened up a messageboard to share my interest with other people.

It's called Pen And Tongue.

Here's the first discussion I've started:

Apart from Scots (if considered to be a separate language), no language shares any degree of mutual intelligibility with English. This hasn't always been the case though; before the Norman Conquest and the influence that French subsequently had on the language, English and Frisian [a language spoken in Friesland in the Netherlands] were quite similar, and sailors could understand many phrases in each other's language. However, over the centuries the two languages have drifted apart, English under the influence of French, and Frisian modified by Dutch.

Despite these increasing differences, Frisian is still the closest language to English; however, English is no longer the closest language to Frisian - both Dutch and Low German are now closer. Thus, a state of asymmetry of mutual intelligibility now exists between English and Frisian.

I'd like to open a discussion about asymmetry of mutual intelligibility between other languages. Has anyone got any information.

By the way, Dutch is the second closest language to our own; yet we use the phrase 'speaking Double Dutch' when describing something we don't understand. How ironic.

UAE father of 78 eyes new brides for century target

A one-legged Emirati father of 78 is lining up his next two wives in a bid to reach his target of 100 children by 2015, Emirates Today reported on Monday.

Daad Mohammed Murad Abdul Rahman, 60, has already had 15 brides although he has to divorce them as he goes along to remain within the legal limit of four wives at a time.

"In 2015 I will be 68 years old and will have 100 children," the local tabloid quoted Abdul Rahman as saying.

"After that I will stop marrying. I have to have at least three more marriages to hit the century."

The United Arab Emirates newspaper splashed its front page with a picture of Abdul Rahman surrounded by his children, the eldest of whom is 36 years old and the youngest of whom is 20 days old. Two of his current three wives are also pregnant.

Abdul Rahman said his large family lived in 15 houses. He supports them with his military pension and the help of the government of Ajman, one of seven emirates that comprise the UAE, which includes the Gulf trade and tourism hub of Dubai.

Islam allows men to marry up to four women at a time, though most marry only one. The UAE is a Muslim country but is home to migrants from around the world.

I've just watched the clip, and it seems very amateurish to me; not gory at all.'

An ITV talent show that featured an illusionist who pretended to chop off his hand before cutting open an assistant with a power-saw broke broadcasting rules, a watchdog said on Monday.

Ofcom said Dr Gore's blood-soaked performance on "Britain's Got Talent" was unsuitable for weekend family viewing.

Dr Gore had reached the semi-final of the ITV series to find an up-and-coming act to play before the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance.

The show's hosts, Ant and Dec, warned viewers that he "wasn't for the faint-hearted". Ant said: "He can make an entire audience feel sick in seconds".

Dr Gore walked on stage in black leather biker boots and a blood-stained doctor's coat.

He appeared to slice off his hand with a large knife before asking the audience: "Do you want to see some gore?"

He then took an electric rotary saw to a young helper lying on a trolley and pretended to rip out his organs.

The act ended when the three judges -- Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden -- said they'd seen enough.

Cowell said: "It was horrific. It wasn't even magic."

The show went out at 7:45 p.m. on June 16. Twenty-one people complained to the media watchdog.

Nearly 26,000 people have watched the performance on YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYhevO1LhyE.

The show's makers said they had asked Dr Gore to tone down his act and had made sure the presenters warned the audience about what to expect.

Producers said the act was more pantomime than horror.

A Scottish farmer's wife says her horse saved her life after it fought off a cow that was attacking her.

Fiona Boyd, 40, feared she was going to be crushed to death by the cow after it kicked her to the ground, then rolled on top of her.

She says she survived only because her horse, Kerry, raced to the rescue and kicked the cow until it moved off her.

Mrs Boyd told The Scotsman: "I am in no doubt Kerry saved me. If she hadn't been grazing in the same pasture, I really believe I would have been killed. Kerry was fantastic. She saved my life."

Mrs Boyd, a mother of two, was alone at home on her family farm at Chapmanton, near Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire, when she heard the cries of a young calf in distress.

She went outside to see the calf had become separated from its mother and decided to move the calf and its mother into a shed together.

But as she approached the calf, its mother finally heard its distressed cries and charged at Mrs Boyd, knocking her to the ground.

As she tried to get to her feet, the cow butted her and shouldered her again to the ground, before dropping its full weight on top of her.

As she scrambled for cover, she saw her 15-year-old chestnut mare kicking wildly at the cow. As the horse hit out at the cow, Mrs Boyd managed to crawl 20ft to safety under an electric fence.

Mrs Boyd alerted her husband, Matt, 44, who had been working in another field, and who took her to hospital.

She said: "Cows are normally placid animals, but during calving they become very protective. I shouldn't have tried to move the calf through the herd on my own, and I certainly won't be doing it again."

An elderly couple had been dating for some time and decided it was finally time to marry. Before the wedding they embarked on a long conversation regarding how their marriage might work. They discussed finances, living arrangements and so on.

Finally the old man decided it was time to broach the subject of their connubial relationship. "How do you feel about sex?" he asked, rather hopefully.

"Well, I'd have to say I like it infrequently," she responded.

The old guy paused....then he asked, "Was that one word or two?"

I've just been to see 'The Bourne Ultimatum' at the cinema with my brother. He can be bloody annoying at times though; he arrives at the last minute and then waits until he's reached the front of the queue to get his money out. Of course he doesn't keep his money in a wallet, or even loose change in his pocket like anyone else does; no, he has to rummage in his rucksack for a carrier bag. Inside the carrier bag he then rummages for a plastic bank bag where he keeps his money and then takes an eternity to find the correct amount.

It's fortunate it wasn't busy.

A kindergarten pupil told his teacher he'd found a cat.
She asked him if it was dead or alive.
"Dead." She was informed.
"How do you know?" she asked her pupil.
"Because I pissed in its ear and it didn't move," answered the child innocently.
"You did WHAT?!?" the teacher exclaimed in surprise.
"You know," explained the boy, "I leaned over and went 'Pssst!' and it didn't move."

An Indian suspect was forced by police to eat 50 bananas as a laxative, to retrieve a necklace he was accused of stealing and swallowing.

When the bananas failed to produce the desired effect, police fed Sheikh Mohsin rice, chicken and local bread.

Finally the necklace, which appeared on an X-ray taken on the suspect, was excreted and retrieved, reports the BBC.

Mr Mohsin will appear in court in the eastern city of Calcutta, and could face a prison sentence.

Police say he snatched a gold necklace worth £550 from a woman as she shopped for toys on Saturday.

When cornered by police, he swallowed the necklace.

The suspect was fed 50 bananas on doctor's advice, after the X-ray dealt a blow to his denials.

But only after a further meal did he yield the necklace, Calcutta police deputy commissioner Gyanwant Singh explained.

A Romanian man has been sacked after his mother visited him at work - minutes after he told his boss she had just died.

Florin Radu Hretu, 27, from Pascani in Iasi county, had just asked to borrow some money to pay for her funeral.

He has given the equivalent of £150 but had to immediately pay it back when his mother turned up a few minutes later.

He was also fired and is also being investigated by police for fraud.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Liviu Beceru, said: "The young man tried to defend himself saying he received a call in which he was being informed about his mother death but refused to say who that person was."

At a recent open house at a suburban high school, a parent wandered into a teacher's office that was empty, and looked around the room. Posted on the bulletin board was a list of sentences that the teacher's students have written on exam papers through the years. Other teachers contributed to the collection, too. The parent couldn't resist copying the list of sentences, including these gems of creativity:

Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Spices.

Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats backwards.

The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made men think.

There are three kinds of blood vessels; the arteries, veins and caterpillars.

The dodo is a bird that is nearly decent now.

A thermometer is an instrument for raising temperance.

A litre is a nest of young baby animals.

When you haven't got enough iodine in your blood, you'll get a glacier.

It is a well-known fact that a deceased body warps the mind.

The human is more intelligent than the beast because the human has more convulsions.

To remove dust from the eye: pull the eye over the nose.

For head colds: use an agonizer to spray nose until it drops into your throat.

For snake bite: bleed the wound and rape the victim in a blanket for shock.

For asphyxiation: apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead.

The process of turning steam into water again is called conversation.

A magnet is something you find in a bad apple.

The school is ventilated by hot currants.

To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.

Parallel lines never meet unless you bend one or both of them.

Typhoid fever may be prevented by fascinations.

Algebraic symbols are used when you don't know what you're talking about.

Geometry teaches us to bisex Angles.

The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.

If conditions are not favorable, bacteria go into a period of adolescence.

Dew is formed on the leaves when the sun makes them perspire.

Sea water is has the formula CH20

A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle.

The hydra gets its food by descending upon its pray and pushing it into its mouth with its testicles.

Blood flows down one leg and up the other.

The cerebrum is a cavity in the head.

The hookworm larva enters the human body through the soul.

Question: What do Catherine the Great, Attila the Hun and Jabba the Hutt have in common?

Answer: The same middle name.

Little Johnny was only 12-years-old. He had been hearing a lot about courting from the older boys, so he asked his mother what and how it was done.

She told him to hide behind the curtains one night and watch his older sister and her boyfriend. This Johnny did, and this is what Johnny told his mother later.

"Sis and her boyfriend sat and talked for awhile, then they turned off the lights, all but the blue one. Then the boyfriend began kissing her and putting his hand under her blouse.

"Pretty soon they began to pant and get out of breath, and then he took his hand from inside her blouse and put it under her dress. When he did this, Sis began to moan, sigh, squirm, and scoot down toward the edge of the couch, until soon she was lying down. Then he unzipped his pants and pulled out a big eel about 10" long. It was standing up and he had it in his hand to keep it from getting away. Sis started to help him and they both wrestled it. Finally, Sis held it while he took a muzzle out of his pocket and slipped it over the eel's head to keep it from biting. Sis had both hands on it, and she spread both her legs to she could get a better hold on it.

He helped her by laying on the eel. Soon they got the eel between them, and Sis wrapped her arms and legs around her boyfriend and they started to wrestle that darned eel between them, and that eel put up one hell of a fight. Sis squealed and her boyfriend almost upset the couch, and for a minute I thought the darned thing was going to get away from them, but Sis grabbed it just as it was going to get away from them and stuck it back between her legs. Pretty soon they gave a big long sigh and grunted and stopped moving.

"Her boyfriend got up and they sure had killed that eel because he hung, limber as a hot water bottle, with some of its insides hanging out. Sis and her boyfriend were all tired out from the battle. They started loving and kissing again, and by gosh, that eel came out and wanted to fight again. Sis gave a squeal and grabbed it in record time, and the way they both wrestled and battled with it-it was the best wrestling match I ever saw. This time they had a longer struggle, but Sis and her boyfriend finally won!

They really killed him this time because her boyfriend pulled its skin off and flushed it down the toilet."

A woman who plays cards one night a month with a group of friends was concerned that she always woke up her husband when she came home around 11:30.

One night she decided to try not to rouse him. She undressed in the living room and, purse over arm, tiptoed nude into the bedroom - only to find her husband sitting up in bed reading.

"Dammit woman!" he exclaimed. "Did you lose everything?"

I was waiting for the bus last night and it didn't stop for me. It wasn't late, and it wasn't full; the driver just completely ignored me. Fortunately, I only had to wait five minutes for the next bus.

Did the first bus driver know that the second bus was only a few minutes behind him? I don't know.

Yep. It was the brakes all right. A motorist whose brakes were "acting strange" and wanted them checked drove through the front window of a tire store when the brakes failed as he was pulling into a parking slip, Longview police Officer Erik Hendrickson said.

No one was injured in the Monday morning incident at a Les Schwab store on Longview's Ocean Beach Highway, although "six or eight feet of the car was inside the store," Hendrickson said.

The driver of the Cadillac DeVille was able to stop by throwing the transmission into park, Hendrickson said. No citation was issued because the driver was seeking assistance for the problem and there was no intent to cause harm, he said.

The car was towed to another shop for repair.

"This is probably the third time in 15 years" that a car has crashed through the store's front window, Les Schwab manager Ken Millus said with a chuckle. "It's pretty much the same spot, too. When you hear it, you're not even surprised anymore."

Insurance would cover the cost of repairs, estimated at $4,000 or $5,000, Millus said.

An eccentric tea shop owner is causing a stir by barring people who flout a strict set of rules.

David Daly warns customers they will be asked to leave his Brighton shop if they dunk their biscuits.

Other rules include not putting your elbows on the table, not insulting the Queen, never handling sugar cubes and not sipping from teaspoons, reports the Brighton Argus.

Customers have jokingly described Mr Daly as a Fascist and even set up a website and discussion forum.

One described Tea Cosy Rooms as "the scariest place ever" while another said she had witnessed ejections for "biscuit wetting".

Another customer said: "If you dare talk when the piano lady is performing you are out."

Banging a teaspoon against a cup and using a mobile phone is banned outright, as is talking "louder than two shakes of a tea cup".

Mr Daly says the menu and setting is based on high tea at the Ritz.

The 30-year-old says he is far from being a Fascist and is actually "very nice" in real life..

He said: "People have to obey the rules and if not they are asked to leave. It is the art of tea drinking - this is not going to Starbucks with a mug of coffee."

Two really old guys decided they would go out and try to play a round of golf together. They get on the first tee and the first old guy says to the second, "My eyesight isn't what it used to be. Can you watch my ball for me?".

The second guy says, "Sure! I see fine. Go ahead and hit."

So the first old man steps up to the tee and really hits it. He turns to his buddy and says, "Did you see it?".

"Sure!", says his buddy.

"Where did it go?", the first guy asks.

The second old man thinks for a minute and says, "I can't remember."

Two dyslexic skiers are arguing at the top of the piste. One is insisting that they zig-zag down the slope, while the other is sure that the correct term is zag-zig. They see a man approching them and decide to ask his advice. "Excuse me," one says, "but we wish to ski down this slope, and don't know whether to zig-zag, or zag zig. What to you think?"

The man says, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you - I'm not a skier, I'm a tobogganist."

"In that case" says one "can you sell me twenty cigarrettes?"

John and Joe were twins. John had a boat. Joe had a wife. On the same day, John's boat sank and Joe's wife died.

An elderly woman ran into John downtown. She told him (thinking he was Joe) how sorry she was to hear of his loss.

John replied,"Oh, don't be sorry- I'm not. She was old and smelled like fish. She had a big hole in the back and a large crack in the front, and every time I used her that hole got bigger and she leaked. But I think what did her in was when I rented her out to six guys that were just out looking for some fun. I told them that she wasn't in very good shape and that her bottom was covered with slime, but they wanted to try her out anyway. From what I heard, all six tried to get in her at once, and split her in two."

The old woman fainted.

Everything's now up-to-date.

I've finally managed to scan in all of my published poetry and post it on my poetry blog, Lost Among Equals. It's amounted to 165 posts in total.

From now on I'll just be posting in the blog when I have any new poetry published.

A baby was born in Liverpool at 8.08am on the eighth day of the eighth month weighing 8lbs after her mum endured eight hours of labour.

Mel Byrne, 31, gave birth to Lulu with help from Chinese-born midwife Bea Fung, who helped deliver eight babies that day, reports the Daily Mirror.

Mrs Fung said: "In Chinese culture the number eight is considered very lucky. I was watching the clock as the birth approached and was counting the minutes and she arrived at just the right time.

"Straight away I told Mel and Pete their daughter was very lucky indeed."

Mrs Fung, who has been at Liverpool Women's Hospital for 33 years, added: "The number of eights linked to Lulu is incredible. I consider myself very lucky to have been there."

The couple, from Woolton, Liverpool, already have a two-year-old daughter, Maisy.

Photographer Peter, 30, said: "Bea was very excited and kept telling us how lucky we were and how lucky Lulu is.

"I think I will be letting Lulu choose the lottery numbers as soon as she is old enough."

A guy goes up to this girl in a bar and says, "Would you like to dance?" The girl says, "I don't like this song, but even if I did, I wouldn't dance with you." The guy says, "I'm sorry, you must have misunderstood me, I said you look fat in those pants."

The second item on the news headlines this morning is the 'A' level results. So what? They are announced at this time every year...some pupils pass, and some fail. The real news story, which is rarely reported, is the declining standards.

Overweight residents of an Italian town will be paid to lose weight, the mayor said on Monday.

Men living in the northwestern Italian town of Varallo will receive 50 euros ($70) for losing 4 kg (9 pounds) in a month, Mayor Gianluca Buonanno said. Women will get the same amount for shedding 3 kg (7 pounds).

If they can keep the weight off for 5 months, they will get another 200 euros ($280), he told Reuters.

"Lots of people are saying, 'I really need to lose some weight but it's really tough.' So I thought, why don't we go on a group diet?" said Buonanno, who said he was about 6 kg (13 pounds) overweight.

The town of 7,500 people started the campaign on Friday and some residents have already signed up, he said.

Around 35 percent of Italians are overweight or obese, according to European Union figures, with waistlines expanding as the country's healthy Mediterranean diet has given way to processed foods rich in fat, sugar and salt.

A 54-year-old man continued to drive a large motorcycle about 2 kilometers Monday after hitting the crash barrier on a motorway and losing his right leg below the knee in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, police said Tuesday.
Kazuo Osada, a salaried worker, was unaware of the loss of his leg until he drove the distance apparently because his attention was focused on the strong pain he felt from the crash, the police said.
The police said Osada failed to negotiate a left turn and hit the barrier in a west-bound lane of Route 1's Hamana bypass in Hamamatsu at around 6:30 a.m. Monday.
Osada, who was on his way to Gifu Prefecture in a group of about 10 friends, did not fall in the accident and continued the ride before noticing part of his leg was missing, the police said.

I've just spent half an hour trying to replace a broken light fitting, but I've given up because my arms ache and I was beginning to feel dizzy. I've taped it up to make it safe and informed my landlord. He's got a young lad who does many of his minor repair jobs for him; it might be a while until he gets around to doing it, but it's not a priority: I've got a desk lamp that I'm using at the moment.

An Australian man has told how he spent a week up a tree in a crocodile-infested swamp and lived to tell the tale.

David George, a Cape York stockman, was finally rescued by helicopter in the bush near Coen, in the state's remote far north.

"Every night I was stalked by two crocs who would sit at the bottom of the tree staring up at me," Mr George told The Courier-Mail.

"I'd yell out at them, 'I'm not falling out of this tree for you bastards'."

Dazed and bleeding after a tumble from his horse, Mr George found himself in the heart of a swamp - and then fell straight into a crocodile nest.

"I couldn't go back, it was too far and too dangerous, so I headed to the nearest high ground and stayed there, hoping someone would come and find me before the crocs did," he said.

He tried in vain to attract the attention of airborne search teams, including flashing sunlight off his tobacco tin, waving his shirt on a stick and spreading toilet paper in the tree branches.

Three days into his ordeal and his food supply of two meat sandwiches was gone.

"If I hadn't seen the crocs circling me, and if I hadn't fallen into the croc nest, I would have made a push for it. But I knew the safest thing was for me to sit tight and wait."

On the eighth day of his ordeal, the missing stockman was found after a search involving the Australian Army, police and Aboriginal trackers.

There was an old cowhand who owned a small ranch in Montana. The Montana Wage & Hour Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.
“I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” demanded the agent.
“Well,” replied the rancher, “There’s my ranch hand who’s been with me for 3 years. I pay him $600 a week plus free room and board.”
“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $500 per week plus free room and board.”
“Then there’s the half-wit who works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night.”
“That’s the guy I want to talk to, the half-wit,” says the agent.
“That would be me,” replied the rancher.

A Sunday School teacher asked her pupils, "Now, children, do you all say your prayers at night?"

A little boy answered: "My MUMMY says my prayers."

"I see," said the teacher, "and what does your Mummy SAY?"

Replied the little boy: "THANK GOD HE'S IN BED!"

I've called this blog 'Minimalist Poet, Minimalist Lifestyle' because these words aptly sum up my life.

For example; so far this year the furthest I've travelled is twelve miles, and I've not been in a car or made a mobile phone call.

I don't live my life like this because of any strongly held beliefs or principles - I'm certainly not an environmentalist even though I've calculated my carbon footprint and it seems to less than half the average.

In truth I'm just quite poor and don't have many social contacts, or much of an imagination either.

Jane was a first time contestant on the $65,000 quiz show, where you have to answer questions to win the cash prize.

Lady luck had smiled in her favor, as Jane had gained a substantial lead over her opponents. She even managed to win the game, but unfortunately, time had run out before the show's host
could ask her the big question. Needless to say, Jane agreed to return the following day. Jane was nervous and fidgety as her husband drove them home.

"I've just gotta win tomorrow. I wish I knew what the answers are. You know I'm not going to sleep at all tonight. I will probably look like garbage tomorrow!"

"Relax, honey," her husband, Roger, reassured her. "It will all be OK."

Ten minutes after they arrived home, Roger grabbed the car keys and started heading out the door.

"Where are you going?" Jane asked.

"I have a little errand to run. I should be back soon" he replied.

Jane waited impatiently for Roger's return. After an agonizing 3 hour absence, Roger returned, sporting a very wide and wicked grin. "Honey, I managed to get tomorrow's question and answer!"

"What is it?" she cried excitedly.

"OK. The question is: 'What are the three main parts of the male anatomy?'

And the answer is 'The head, the heart, and the penis.'"

Shortly after that, the couple went to sleep, with Jane, now feeling confident and at ease, plummeting into a deep and restful slumber. At 3:30 in the morning, however, Jane was
shaken awake by Roger, who was asking her the quiz show question.

"The head, the heart, and the penis," Jane replied groggily before returning to sleep.

And Roger asked her again in the morning, this time as Jane was brushing her teeth. Once again, Jane replied correctly. So it was that Jane was once again on the set of the quiz show. Even though she knew the question and answer, she could feel the butterflies conquering her stomach and nervousness running through her veins.

The cameras began running and the host, after reminding the audience of the previous days events, faced Jane and asked the big question.

"Jane, for $65,000, what are the main parts of the male anatomy? You have 10 seconds."

"Hmm, uhm, the head?" she said nervously. "Very good. Six seconds." "Eh, uh, the heart?" "Very good! Four seconds."

"I, uhh, ooooooohh, darn! My husband drilled it into me last night and I had it on the tip of my tongue this morning..."

"That's close enough," said the game show host, "CONGRATULATIONS!!"

One of my favourite films was on TV last night. Unfortunately it didn't start until eleven o'clock, and by 10:20 I was feeling really drowsy and so went to bed. I couldn't record it either because I haven't got a VCR coupled up to the TV set.

The film's called 'From Dusk Till Dawn.' It's a bit difficult to explain what it's about; the plot of the film is rather complicated and convoluted. Basically, I describe it as a camp, Mexican, vampire, zombie, horror gangster, porno road movie.

A professor was asked to give a talk on "Sex".

When his turn came, he stood, walked to the podium, adjusted the microphone just so. He said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure . . ."

He then sat back down.

The only thing that the IRS has not yet taxed is the male penis. This is due to the fact that 40% of the time it is hanging around unemployed, 30% of the time it is hard up, 20% of the time it is pissed off and 10% of the time it is in a hole. On top of that, it has two dependents and they are both nuts.

Effective January 1st, 2004 your penis will be taxed according to size. The brackets are as follows:

10"- 12" Luxury Tax..........$30.00
8"- 10" Pole Tax.............$25.00
5"- 8" Privilege Tax.........$15.00
4"- 5" Nuisance Tax..........$3.00

Males exceeding 12" must file under capital gains. Anyone under 4" is eligible for a refund. PLEASE DO NOT ASK FOR AN EXTENSION!!!

Sincerely, Pecker Checker IRS

*NOTE*

We are still waiting for answers for the following questions:

- Are there penalties for early withdrawals? - What if one's penis is self employed? - Do multiple partners count as a corporation? - Are condoms a deductible expense as work clothes? - Is there an additional tax if you are not circumcised?

Woman hit by falling cat to sue 200

A Chinese woman knocked out by a cat falling from a block of flats is to sue 200 residents because none will admit responsibility.

Tang Meirong, 53, of Chongqing city, was sent to hospital after being hit by the cat, reports Chongqing Business News.

"I was walking on the footpath under the building, and suddenly a heavy object hit my head. I remember nothing afterwards," she said.

After regaining consciousness, Tang called police but the building manager told officers it would be very difficult to identify the cat owner.

Tang says she will sue all 200 residents whose flats face the street if none of them come forward to take responsibility.

The cat was killed by the fall.

At the moment I'm suffering with a rash that covers my neck and shoulders. I'm not sure what causes it, but I seem to get an outbreak one or twice every summer - it must be something to do with the hot weather.

My skin starts out as red and clammy and then becomes dry and flaky.

I use emollient cream on it, which seems to help...but I'll be stuck with the symptoms until the rash runs its course.

What's dumb? Instructions on toilet paper.
What's dumber than that? Reading them.

What's even dumber? Reading them and learning something.

Dumbest of all? Reading them and having to correct something you've been doing wrong.

Road with 100 cameras plagued by crime

A crime-ridden high street in north London has been branded the most spied-upon road in Britain.

It is watched over by more than 100 closed circuit television cameras, reports the Daily Telegraph.

In one 650-yard section of Holloway Road, that runs from Archway to Highbury Corner, there are 29 cameras mounted on shops and lampposts, a church and a courtroom.

There are 102 CCTV cameras monitoring crime on the two-mile road, as well as a further seven checking for speeding cars and vehicles straying into bus lanes.

Civil liberties groups are alarmed by the number of opportunities for the state to watch people in Holloway Road.

Mark Dziecielewski, of Watching Them Watching Us, said: "Politicians like cameras because they are seen to be doing something but, just like you see birds perched on scarecrows, the hoodies and dealers come back once the novelty has worn off.

"Having so many cameras in one place actually makes police investigations harder because they have to divert so much manpower into checking footage from every single camera."

Police recently disclosed there had been 430 offences committed over six months on Holloway Road, including 29 serious assaults, 15 robberies and 32 burglaries.

Britain has 4.2 million CCTV cameras, one for every 14 people, more than in the rest of Europe put together.

Harry and his wife are having hard financial times, so they decide that she'll become a hooker.

She's not quite sure what to do, so Harry says, "Stand in front of that bar and pick up a guy. Tell him that you charge a hundred bucks. If you've got a question, I'll be parked around the corner."

She's standing there for five minutes when a guy pulls up and asks, "How much?" She says, "A hundred Dollars."

He says, "All I got is thirty". She says, "Hold on," and runs back to Harry and asks, "What can he get for thirty?"

"A hand job", Harry replies.

She runs back and tells the guy all he gets for thirty dollar is a hand job. He agrees. She gets in the car. He unzips his pants, and out pops this HUGE ......

She stares at it for a minute, and then says, "I'll be right back." She runs back to Harry, and asks, "Can you loan this guy seventy bucks?"

A keen Texas lad applied for a salesman's job at a city department store.
The store was the biggest in the world and sold everything under the sun.

"Have you ever been a salesman before?" the boss asked during his
interview.

"Yes, I was a salesman in Texas," the lad answered.

The boss took an immediate liking to him and told him he could start the
next day. "I'll come and see how you made out after we close up," the
boss said.

The day was long and hard for the young man, but finally it was 5 o'clock.
The boss closed up the store and found the lad sitting, slumped and
exhausted, in a chair. "How many sales did you make today?" the boss
asked.

"One," said the lad.

"One?" said the boss, obviously displeased. "Most of the sales people on
my staff make 20 or 30 sales a day. How much was the sale worth?

"Exactly $101,334.53," said the young man.

"How did you manage that?" asked the boss, flabbergasted.

"Well," said the lad, "this man came in and I sold him a small fish hook,
then a medium fish hook, and finally a really large hook. Then I sold him
a small fishing line, a medium one, and huge one. I asked him where he was
going fishing, and he said he was going down the coast. I said he'd
probably need a boat, so I took him down to the boat department and sold
him that fancy 22-foot Chris Craft with twin engines. Then he said his
Honda Civic probably wouldn't be able to handle the load, so I took him to
the vehicle department and sold him a new GMC 1-ton pickup truck.

"You sold all that to guy who came in for a fish hook?" the boss asked in
astonishment.

"He didn't come in to buy a fish hook," the Texas boy explained. "He came
in to buy a box of tampons for his wife, and I said to him, 'Your
weekend's shot. You might as well go fishing.'

I suffer with inverted nipples. Most of the time this isn't a problem, but when they decide that they want to pop out, they are very sensitive and tender and soon become very sore; so I need to rub vaseline over them to prevent any friction occuring with the material of my shirt.

NEW YORK -- You've had your breasts enhanced and now you have that Jayne Mansfield look. But something's still missing. Your nipples just don't have that perk.

Enter one of the fastest growing cosmetic surgeries in the United States... nipple enlargement. New York-based nipple surgeon Bruce Nadler performs the procedure on half a dozen people a year and says most do it because they want the "teasing look " of an erect nipple all the time.

Still others - mostly men - are nipple fetishists who want their nipples to be the biggest, most desirable nipples possible. The "super-sizing" is done with injections of collagen or cartilage taken from the patient's ear. Dr. Nadler says another popular procedure is nipple reduction surgery, which is done mostly by women who are self conscious about looking nipply in cold weather.

Last night I was undecided about going out to the pub, so I had a look at the TV guide to see if there was anything on to watch - there usually isn't on a Friday night. However, I noticed that they were showing the recent re-make of 'The Stepford Wives', so I stayed in and watched it.

What a strange film! It's not at all as I expected it to be. It seemed to be some sort of camp comedy, and not a serious science fiction treatise at all; nothing at all like the original film.

I've just been and checked on the Internet Movie Database, and it is classed as a comedy on the site.

The film was okay; but ultimately disappointing I would say.

A crocodile survived a fall from the 12th floor of a Russian apartment block after making an escape bid through a window, emergency services said on Wednesday.

Diving out of the window has become a habit for the crocodile, called Khenar, with concerned neighbors saying it was the third time he had used that method to flee, Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported.

The crocodile lost one tooth in the latest fall but was otherwise unscathed, said a spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry in the Nizhny Novgorod region of central Russia.

"It seems the owner was not at home when the crocodile came out of the window," she said.

Emergency services put the crocodile in a local aquarium to recover from his fall. Within a few hours his concerned owner came to pick him up and the crocodile was last seen lying on the back seat of his owner's car.

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days.
Eventually, the Archangel Gabriel found him on the seventh day, resting.
He inquired of God, “where have you been?”
God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds. “Look what I have made Gabriel”, said God.
Archangel Gabriel looked puzzled. “What is it?” he asked.
“It’s a planet”, replied God, “and I’ve put life on it. It’s going to be a place of great balance.”
“Balance?” replied Gabriel, still confused. God explained, pointing to different parts of the Earth. “For example, North America will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, whilst South America will be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hotspot and Russia will be a cold spot. There I’ve placed a continent of white people and over here is a continent of black people.”

God continued, pointing out different countries. This one will be dry and arid whilst this one will be cold and covered in ice.
The Archangel, impressed by God’s work, then pointed to a small but significant landmass and said, “what’s this one?”
“Ah”, said God, “that’s Yorkshire, the most glorious place in my creation. There are beautiful lakes, fast flowing great rivers that go from wonderful dales right down to the sea by golden beaches, silver streams that tumble down from magnificent blindingly white limestone, tall forests, heather-strewn moors, fertile meadows with iron and coal beneath. The people who will live in this God’s own country are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they will be found travelling the world, for they are to be extremely sociable, hard working and high achieving. In fact, they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and bringers of peace and harmony.”
Gabriel gasped in wonder and admiration at his Lord’s awesome creation but then proclaimed, “What about balance Lord? You said there would always be BALANCE!”

God replied wisely, “Wait till you see who I’m putting next door to them in Lancashire!”

A Cockney lady teaching maths in a challenging inner city school
had occasion to chastise one of her female pupils. The girl ran out of
the classroom and went home to tell her mother what had happened.

Very soon afterwards the girl and her mother demanded to speak to the
headmaster. "What's the problem?" he asked.
The mother said to the girl, "Tell him what Mrs.X called you".
The girl then told the headmaster, "She called me a fu**in' lyin' doormat!".

Shocked, the headmaster summoned the teacher to his office. "What, exactly, did you say to that girl this morning?" Mrs.X replied,

"I just told her her faculties were lying dormant"!

Food stalls attached to Beijing's public toilets will be removed in good time for next year's Olympics, state media said Saturday.

Complaints over toilets with poor sanitation and toilet operators turning them into commercial operations led to the ban, which comes into force in October.

"It is not proper to sell soft drinks or snacks right at the toilets," the Beijing News said, citing sources within the Beijing Municipal Administration Commission.

"The city authorities also plan to publish a toilet guide, provide toilet information over the telephone and the Internet and erect more road signs to help toilet users."

Billboards near toilets will also be banned, Xinhua news agency said.

Notoriously polluted Beijing is cleaning up its act before it hosts the Olympics. It has also announced crackdowns on spitting and smelly taxis.

Germans shape up for work

Jobless Germans are being helped to get fit for work by being sent to the gym.

They have to work out for five hours a week to continue to qualify for benefits.

German job centre spokesman Joerg Kraeker said: "Being off the job market does make people ill.

"Chronic unemployment can make people prone to illness, but can also lead them to be pessimistic about their future job perspectives."

He added: "Keeping them fit helps against this. It also increases their social contacts and boosts their self-confidence."

DAFFODILS have burst into bloom in a Scottish garden seven months earlier than normal, an event that has left horticultural experts dumbfounded.
In a year already characterised by weather extremes, the three dwarf-variety daffodils appeared this week in a garden on Royal Deeside.

Experts speculated that the cold summer may have fooled the flowers - which had already bloomed in spring - into thinking they had just gone through another winter.

Charlotte and Jim Donald were taken aback when the flowers appeared again in their back garden in Torphins.

Mrs Donald, a retired pharmacist, said yesterday: "It came as a total surprise because they're not supposed to be there. I don't know how or why it's happened, but I suppose it's another sign things have gone topsy-turvy.

"They're pretty special. So I'm lavishing them with care and attention to see how long they can last."
Experts confessed they were equally baffled by the appearance of daffodils in August.

Peter Brownless, the nursery supervisor at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, said: "Neither I nor any of my colleagues have heard of this happening before. However, nothing with plants is beyond the bounds of possibility because they rely on environmental triggers to make them do something.

"Daffodils react to temperature. They need to know when spring is. When they have had a series of temperatures which indicate it's spring, they flower.
"What I assume must have happened is that we had a mildish winter then a warmish period in April. The daffodils probably flowered before that warm period and then, when the temperature dropped, they probably assumed winter had happened and decided in August that spring has come already."

Newspaper ads can be expensive. As a result, many companies abbreviate
words. Thus "Sry" instead of salary etc. However this company cut just one
corner too many:

"Wanted: Office Ass."

I've just bought some frozen fish; on the box it's described as whitefish fillets - produce of China.

I eat a lot of fish, but I don't think I've eaten any caught in Chinese waters before.

The illustration on the box makes it look delicious...I'll be finding out in a couple of ours when I have my dinner [lunch.]

Four fonts walk into a bar.
The barman says,
"Oy, get out! We don't want your type in here."

Two peanuts walk into a bar.
One was a salted.

A jump-lead walks into a bar.
The barman says,
"I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

A woman walks into a bar and asks the barman for a double entendre.
So he gives her one.

I wish I'd written this essay. It neatly sums up how I feel about the dismantling of the county.

Yorkshire is Yorkshire. It has been defined for more than a thousand years and will retain its identity even though politicians and civil servants have caused all sorts of confusion as to its borders over the last thirty or so years.

England’s largest county stretches from the Tees in the north to the Humber and to the south of Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster. East-west it extends from the coast to the Pennines and even beyond; at one point it is only ten miles from the Irish Sea. It contains one-eighth of the area of England and about one-tenth of the population. The West Riding alone is bigger than England’s second county, Lincolnshire.

It was almost certainly the Danes who first divided Yorkshire into three parts, thirds or thridings, which became the Ridings. The county town of the North Riding is Northallerton, of the West Riding Wakefield, and Beverley is the county town of the East Riding.

Geographically Yorkshire includes the Pennines, the Yorkshire Dales, the North Yorkshire Moors, the Wolds, the Vale of York and the Plain of Holderness. Yorkshire’s rivers flow eastwards and southwards. Mickle Fell (2591 feet) is the county’s highest peak though Ingleborough (2373 ft), Whernside (2310 ft) and Pen-y-Ghent (2273 ft) are better known (The Three Peaks).

After the Romans left in 410 AD, the Angles first settled in what became the East Riding. Elmet in the West Riding was the last Romano-British state east of the Pennines to hold out against the invaders. The Danes captured York in 867 and the boundaries of Yorkshire are still essentially those settled by the Danes then, the Kingdom of York. This lasted until 954, Eric Bloodaxe being the last king of York. After that Yorkshire was properly part of the land of the Angles, England.

In the Ridings the Danish wapentakes took the place of the Anglo-Saxon hundreds. Yorkshire’s place names, speech patterns, the shapes of fields and roads and its people’s blood are inherited from the Romano-British, the Angles and the Viking ancestors. In so far, that is, that they weren’t destroyed by the Normans who, of course, added their names, customs, culture and blood to the mix.

Confusion exists because of the administrative areas created in the 1970s. The Heath government, which also blessed us with decimal currency and membership of the European Community, set up new administrative local government areas or ‘counties’ which do not correspond with county boundaries, not least in Yorkshire. South Yorkshire is the southern part of the West Riding. West Yorkshire is the industrial West Riding. North Yorkshire is the bastard child of part of the West Riding, North Riding and East Riding. Part of Yorkshire around Sedbergh was lumped with Westmorland, Cumberland and part of Lancashire to create Cumbria. Cleveland embraced the Middlesbrough area, the north Yorkshire coast and part of County Durham. Humberside was created though now no longer exists, but the administrative East Riding is not the geographic historical East Riding. Part of Yorkshire was shoved into Greater Manchester and the area around Barnoldswick was exiled to Lancashire. Bowes, Yorkshire was placed in a new pudding-shaped County Durham. As a result of these indignities Yorkshire’s identity was violated. Maps of ‘Yorkshire’ nowadays are usually in fact not Yorkshire proper at all but these wretched administrative areas. Even the National Trust, which ought to know better, gets it wrong.

The matter is further confused by the European Union’s region-making which lumps North Lincolnshire with the Yorkshire administrative areas and ignores those parts of Yorkshire in other administrative areas.

The Royal Mail’s post codes also confuse. Nowadays, unlike the skills of the Victorians in codifying things, there’s no joined-up organising. For example, some areas of the North Riding are given the TS code (Teesside), some DL (Darlington, County Durham), some in the West Riding have the code of Lancashire towns. There are other anomalies; Ilkley, in the West Riding, has a Leeds post code even though it is part of the Bradford metropolitan area.

So it is left to us as individuals, assisted by bodies like The Ridings’ Society and the Association of British Counties, to protect Yorkshire’s identity from ignorance and sloppiness which results in a sign as you leave Hull saying that you are entering the East Riding. Our historic counties endure as geographical entities despite the destructive and crass decisions of civil servants in London and Europe.

Yorkshire is Yorkshire. When the historic Yorkshire was butchered in 1974 for local government purposes, Yorkshire County Cricket Club made clear to all in Yorkshire proper that they were still in Yorkshire so far as Yorkshire cricket is concerned. Of course they are. The administrative counties will doubtless change again; they already have since 1974. But Yorkshire is Yorkshire. From shining sea almost to shining sea.

Germany's first ever football league championships has finally been decided 113 years after it first took place.

Hanau 93 and Viktoria 1889 Berlin were to meet to decide the first German football championship in 1894.

But Hanau could not afford the 300 mile trip to the final in the capital - and so the Berlin club was awarded the title by default.

This month, 113 years later, the match was finally held and Berlin won 4-1 on aggregate over two legs.

Head of the German FA, Theo Zwanziger, said: "I think it is a beautiful idea that both clubs played this game to decide who the real, moral winner is after such a long time."

Element: WOMAN
Symbol: Wo
Atomic Weight: 120 (more or less)
Physical Properties: Generally round in form. Boils at nothing and may
freeze anytime. Melts whenever treated properly. Very bitter if not
used well.
Chemical properties: Very active. Possesses strong affinity to gold,
silver, platinum, and precious stones. Violent when left alone. Able
to absorb great amount of exotic food. Turns slightly green when
placed beside a better specimen. Ages rapidly.
Usage: Highly ornamental. An extremely good catalyst for
disintegration of wealth. Probably the single most powerful income
reducing agent known.
Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands.

Element: MAN
Symbol: XY
Common Name(s): Varies anywhere from John to !@#$&*!
Atomic Weight: 180 +/-100 Physical Properties: Solid at room
temperature, but easily gets bent out of shape. Fairly dense and
sometimes flaky. Difficult to find a pure sample. Due to rust, aging
samples are unable to conduct electricity as easily as young, fresh
samples.
Chemical Properties: Attempts to bond with Wo any chance it can get.
Also, tends to form strong bonds with itself. Becomes explosive when
mixed with Kd (element Kid) for a prolonged period of time. Neutralize
by saturating with alcohol.
Usage: None really, except methane production. Good samples are able
to produce large quantities on command.
Caution: In the absence of Wo, this element rapidly decomposes and
begins to smell.

Two neighbouring farmers, John and John, went to the local Farmers Fair , where they both bought a pig. When they got home, John asked John how they would tell who owned which pig as they seemed to be the same size and age.
"Well," said John, "I'll cut off one of my pig's ears. How's that?"
"Fine, I guess," said the other John.
This worked until a couple of weeks later when John stormed into the house.
"John," he said. "Your pig has chewed the ear off my pig. Now we have two pigs with one ear each. How are we going to tell who owns which pig now?"
"Well John," said John. "I'll cut the other ear off my pig. Then we'll have two pigs and only one of them will have an ear."
"Ah there's a good idea," said John.
Again this worked fine until another couple of weeks later when John stormed into the house again.
"John," he said. "Your pig has chewed the other ear off my pig. Now we've got two pigs with no ears. How are we going to tell who owns which pig?"
"Ah this is serious, John," said John. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll cut the tail off my pig. Then we'll have two pigs with no ears and only one pig with a tail."
"Ah that would be good," says John.
Another couple of weeks went by, and you guessed it, John stormed into the house once more.
"John," shouted John. "Your pig has chewed the tail off my pig and now we have two pigs with no ears and no tails. How are we going to tell them apart?"
"Ah, well, John," says John. "Why don't we just make this simple. How about if you have the black one, and I'll have the white one."

A Yorkshireman is drinking in a New York bar.... He gets a call on his cell phone. He hangs up, grinning from ear to ear & orders a round of drinks for everybody in the bar because, he announces, his wife has just produced a typical Yorkshire baby boy weighing 25 pounds.

Nobody can believe that any new baby can weigh in at 25 pounds, but the Yorkie just shrugs, "That's about average up North, folks. Like I said, my boy's a typical Yorkshire baby boy." Congratulations showered him from all around & many exclamations of "WOW!" were heard. One woman actually fainted due to sympathy pains.

Two weeks later the same Yorkshireman returns to the bar. The bartender says "Say,
you're the father of that typical Yorkshire baby boy that weighed 25 pounds at birth, aren't you? Everybody's been makin' bets about how big he'd be in two weeks.

We were gonna call you... so how much does he weigh now?"

The proud father answers, "Seventeen pounds." The bartender is puzzled & concerned.

"What happened? He already weighed 25 pounds the day he was born." The Yorkshire father takes a slow gulp from his pint of Tetley's, wipes his lips on his shirt sleeve, leans into the bartender & proudly says:

"Had him circumcised".

Archaeologists have found a valuable ancient gold necklace being worn by a cashier in a Bulgarian grocery after it was dug up by her husband.

Boris Todorov, 43, from Karlovo in Bulgaria dug up hundreds of fine gold rings from a field on his farm and put them together to make a gift for his wife.

But it was spotted by a group of archaeologists from the Bulgarian National Museum of History who were passing through - and went into her shop to buy provisions.

They immediately identified the necklace as extremely valuable and now say it dates back to 3,000 years BC.

Prof Bozhidar Dimitrov, Director of the Bulgarian National Museum of History, said: "They almost passed out when they saw what the woman was wearing. It is a stunning discovery."

Experts believe a local civilisation buried jewels in fields as part of an elaborate prayer ritual.

A Chihuahua has been hailed a hero after taking on a rattlesnake to protect her owner's baby grandson.

Zoey jumped in the way and took the bites after the snake struck at one-year-old Booker West, reports Metro.

Booker had been splashing his hands in a birdbath in his grandparents' Colorado backyard when the snake slithered up.

"She (Zoey) got in between Booker and the snake, and that's when I heard her yipe," said Monty Long, the boy's grandfather.

The dog required treatment and looked like she might not survive but has since made a full recovery.

"These little bitty dogs, they just don't really get credit," Booker's grandma Denise Long told the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald.

Village cricketers were stumped when all-time great Aravinda de Silva turned out against them.

The Sri Lankan batting legend - who hit 15,645 international runs - made a surprise appearance for lowly Dorset side Sherborne last Saturday after being roped in by a pal.

Hapless opponents Wimborne and Colehill shook their heads in disbelief as the 1996 World Cup winner took to the field, reports The Sun.

De Silva, 41, hit a six and three fours in his innings of 39 not out to help Sherborne to victory.

He also took two wickets for just four runs with some demon bowling.

The retired star made the one-off appearance thanks to pal Steve Page.

Sherborne captain Andrew Nurton said: "We were amazed when Steve pulled up with Aravinda. He was a class act - the ringer of all ringers."

The light from the cell phone screens allowed surgeons to complete an emergency appendix operation during a blackout in a city in central Argentina, reports said on Saturday.

Leonardo Molina, 29, was on the operating table on July 21, when the power went out in the Policlinico Juan D. Peron, the main hospital in Villa Mercedes, a small city in San Luis province.

"The generator, which should have been working correctly, didn't work," a hospital spokesman, whose name was not given, told TN television news station.

"The surgeons and anesthetists were in the dark... A family member got some cell phones together from people in the hallway and took them in to provide light," he said.

Ricardo Molina, 39, Leonardo's brother, told La Nacion newspaper that the lights were out for an hour and his brother's anesthesia was wearing off.

Hospital Director Dario Maurer told La Nacion the surgery was without light a maximum of 20 minutes.

I've only just found this out, but the Robert Ogden School at Thurnscoe, where I grew up, is now the largest school in the world for the education of autistic children. However, depending on what definition you choose to use, Thurnscoe, with a population of more than 10,000, is also the largest village in the country; yet it now doesn't have a secondary school for children who aren't autistic; they have to be bused to the next township.

Peter Tuddingham, Who provided the voice for ORAC in the TV series Blake's Seven.

Boots Randolph, who composed the tune 'Yackety Sax' which was used by the comedian Benny Hill for the chase scenes in his TV series.

A young Florida girl who thought she was calling a sexual assault helpline got the complete opposite on the other end of the phone.

The 8-year-old girl was upset about the inappropriate behavior of another child. So, her mother told her to call the number for the North Central Florida Assault Center listed in the phone book and on the Attorney's General's office website.

The girl had actually called a sex hotline.

"I convinced my daughter this phone call was going to help her, but it made things immensely worse," said the girl's mother, Karen Carter.

It turns out the sexual assault helpline was bought by the company that runs the sex hotline. The number has since been taken off the Attorney's webpage.

A lottery winner doubled his share of the jackpot to nearly 1 million pounds after he mistakenly bought two lucky tickets for the same draw, organizers Camelot said Wednesday.

Derek Ladner, 57, from Cornwall, and his wife Dawn, 60, won with their usual numbers in the mid-week draw, sharing the 2.4 million pounds jackpot with four other tickets.

A week later, he found a second identical ticket in his wallet and realized he had absent-mindedly entered twice.

Their double-share of the jackpot is worth just under a million pounds.

The pair have handed in their notice at work and are taking a break to decide how to spend their windfall.
"It's beginning to sink in," Ladner told a news conference. "We are going on holiday first...and then think about what we are going to do for the rest of our lives."

But Mom! The other 61-year-olds get an allowance!

A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son's house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late.

Tired of her son's misbehavior, the retiree in the central Sicilian city of Caltagirone turned to the police to "convince this blockhead" to behave properly, La Sicilia, one of Sicily's leading newspapers, reported on Thursday.

The son responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook.

"My son does not respect me, he doesn't tell me where he's going in the evenings and returns home late," the woman was quoted as saying. "He is never happy with the food I make and always complains. This can't go on."

Police helped the squabbling duo make up and the two returned home together, with the son's house keys and daily allowance restored.

Most Italian men still live at home late into their 30s, enjoying their "mamma's" cooking, washing and ironing.

My piles have been very sore today; burning rather than itching though, which isn't too bad - at least I'm able to sit still, which is more than I can do when they're itching.

I've got a question for my fellow sufferers of piles; which is the worse, burning or itching?

He wanted a couple of credit cards. He got a couple of thousand. Manhattan accountant Frank Van Buren found himself flooded with plastic in recent weeks, as the ExxonMobil cards kept on coming. Van Buren, who said he has had an ExxonMobil account for his business for 17 years, had ordered two copies of his card because it was expiring.

He got the cards he requested - and then got two boxes with 1,000 cards each. Van Buren said it took hours to shred the cards, which all had his name and account number.

"How could you send me 2,000 cards by mistake?" Van Buren said he asked customer-service representatives.

ExxonMobil Corp. spokeswoman Paula Chen said the Irving, Texas-based oil company was looking into the mix-up.

An elderly woman had just returned to her home from an evening of religious service when she was startled by an intruder. As she caught the man in the act of robbing her home of its valuables, she yelled, "Stop! Acts 2:38!" [Turn from your sin]

The burglar stopped dead in his tracks. Then the woman calmly called the police and explained what she had done.

As the officer cuffed the man to take him in, he asked the burglar,"Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was yell a scripture at you."

"Scripture?" replied the burglar, "She said she had an axe and two 38s!"

A Chinese man who can clap his hands nearly as loud as a helicopter is hoping to get into the record books.

Zhang Quan, 70, of Chongqing city, had his clapping monitored by local environmental protection officials, reports Chongqing Business News.

His claps measured 107 decibels - only slightly lower than helicopter blades which measure 110 decibels.

"When I am clapping, even my own ears feels painful, no mentioning of others. That's why I usually don't clap," says Zhang.

Workers from the environmental protection bureau confirmed that technically Zhang could face arrest for noise pollution if he clapped too often.

A California company has begun offering FlexPetz, a new service for dog-lovers who just don't have the time to care for a pet, or the space.

The "shared dog" service is available in Los Angeles and San Diego. Its founder hopes to open new locations in San Francisco next month, New York in September and London by the end of the year.

Hanging out with man's best friend has a price. The annual fee runs about $100 a year. FlexPetz customers then make a monthly payment of about $50. A per-visit charge runs about $40.

The FlexPetz founder said only dogs with social temperaments are picked for the program. The current 10-dog crew includes Afghan hounds, Labrador retrievers and Boston terriers.

I've just been for a wander around the secondhand market, hoping I might find some cheap DVDs or videos. However, they seem to cost more than their secondhand equivalents do on the regular market.

Doncaster's Wednesday secondhand market is good for books though; they are plentiful and cheap.

Exclamation Point Costs Texter a Win

Oh, no! Don't forget the exclamation point! It could cost you $1,000! Kevin Taylor, 30, of Minneapolis, lost out on a $1,000 first prize in a text messaging contest at the North Dakota State Fair because he forgot the punctuation mark at the end of a phrase that he and his sudden-death competitor had to enter.

So he settled for $200.

Beth Brevik, 32, of Minot, ended up with the big prize at Saturday's contest, tapping out the phrase: "I hope I win the grand prize of $1,000 so I can buy a new phone. Whoo!"

"I was very lucky," she said.

Brevik and Taylor finished ahead of 38 competitors, many of them teenagers. Organizers said the contest was patterned after a similar event in New York, where a 13-year-old girl won $50,000.

Phrases were posted on a screen that contestants text-messaged to the judges, who verified the answers for accuracy. The contest was sponsored by a cell phone company.

Brevik said she thought she lost when Taylor put his phone down in the final round. Seconds later, Taylor realized his mistake and exclaimed, "Oh, no!"