Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Bizarro Earth

UK: Dying man wins gamble on his own life

A dying man who literally gambled on his own life plans to spend his bookie's winnings on booze, fags and death-defying theme park rides!

"Well, why not?" said pragmatic Jon Matthews who has been living on borrowed time ever since he was diagnosed with an untreatable asbestos-linked cancer more than two years ago.

The 58-year-old widower, who cares for his two elderly parents at his Woburn Sands home, also plans to give away a chunk of his £5,000 winnings to Macmillian cancer care charity and Hula animal sanctuary.

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©Unknown
Jon Matthews

Bizarro Earth

US: Can you spell 'education?' This school can't ...

A Cleveland-area principal says he's embarrassed his students got proof of their "educaiton" on their high school diplomas.

Westlake High School officials misspelled "education" on the diplomas distributed last weekend. It's been the subject of mockery on local radio.

Bandaid

House of Yahweh Leader Predicts Doomsday, Sells Food

Nuclear war will begin next Thursday, June 12, or sooner, according to the latest prediction of self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl "Buffalo Bill" Hawkins, the founder of a religious sect in Abilene, Texas.

Life Preserver

Pennsylvania crews rescue nude man stuck in portable potty

LEBANON - Rescue crews had to cut apart a portable toilet to rescue a man who got stuck naked inside the potty. Authorities say the 31-year-old man used his cell phone to call 911 on Sunday from inside a portable toilet.

Key

Don't abandon car in motion, says Cyprus motor code

Nicosia - Drivers in Cyprus have been told not to abandon their car in motion, or wave their hands and legs out of car windows.

Take 2

Germany: Armed police raid rap video

An armed police SWAT squad who raced to a shoot-out between armed drugs dealers found gangsta rappers making a music video instead.

Worried residents in Dortmund, Germany, called police when they thought they saw a cocaine dealers' gunfight going on outside their homes.

Question

Swedish couple win the right to call their child Lego

Ikea isn't acceptable, but a boy in Sweden now has the right to be named Lego.

The decision comes from the Administrative Court of Appeals in Stockholm, reports the Pointlex legal news service.

Both the Swedish Tax Authority and the County Administrative Court had earlier denied parents the right to name a child after the famous coloured building blocks for children.

Both referenced an earlier ruling which forbid the name Ikea.

Bizarro Earth

Taiwan: Boy, 4, in rehab for cigar addiction

A four-year-old boy is in rehab in Taiwan after he became addicted to smoking his father's cigars.

The father, of Gaoxiong city, started taking his sons, aged nine and four, to a rehabilitation centre after catching them stealing his cigarettes and cigars.

"The answer was what I had expected, but the hardest to accept," he told China Times.

The boys admitted stealing and said they did it because they thought their father looked "cool" when he smoked.

Pumpkin

Eighties fashion 'violates laws of nature'

Lopsided haircuts made popular by 1980s pop stars not only risk making those sporting them look silly but also go against the evolutionary process itself, according to a professor of mathematics.

Even 20 years later many still cringe at the decade's excesses from Flashdance legwarmers to shoulder pads, New Romantic frills and excessive eyeliner.

Now Prof Marcus du Sautoy, of Oxford University, says that as well as being in questionable taste some of the more bizarre haircuts of the 1980s actually run counter to the path of evolution.

Over the centuries people have developed to find symmetry attractive but the decade remembered for yuppies, mullets and ra-ra skirts saw a host of stars choosing daring asymmetrical haircuts, which flies in the face of nature's rules of attraction.

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©Getty Images
Eighties fashions: Cyndi Lauper (left) and Flock of Seagulls (right)

Crusader

Australia: Pope's visit to boost sex industry, says study

Australia's sex industry is preparing for a business boom arising from the Catholic Church's World Youth Day in July.