Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Life Preserver

Czechs trapped by billiard table call rescue squad

Two Czechs stuck in a billiard table while searching for a ball had to call the fire squad and were freed only when rescuers took the table apart, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

People

UK: Brace yourself for Manic Monday when everyone wants a fresh start

So that was Christmas, then, and today is Manic Monday - the day of dread reckoning when we count the terrible toll the festive season has taken on our wallets and our lives, and perhaps do something about it.

As humdrum reality returns, we will be shuffling off the last fortnight's lethargy in a big way, taking our life in our hands and giving it a good shake. It's the day for grasping the nettle of a failed marriage, booking a holiday or starting the search for a new job.

Divorce lawyers are braced for the busiest day of the year, when the strains of Yuletide prove too much for thousands of couples. They call the first Monday after the break D-Day, and expect a deluge of calls from people desperate to untie the knot.

Relate, the relationship support service, receives 50 per cent more calls during the festive period.

Smiley

Colombia: Bogota museum celebrates laziness

People in the Colombian capital, Bogota, have been able to be lazy over the past week, and not feel guilty.

An event organised by the Museum of Bogota had sofas, televisions, hammocks and beds - anything associated with the avoidance of work.

The idea was to get people during the holiday season to think about laziness and its opposite, extreme work, and perhaps reach some balanced conclusion.

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Visitors had to be a bit active to see the show though as it closed on Sunday.

Smiley

Flashback Satire: Image of a piece of toast seen on face of the Virgin Mary

Pilgrims were flocking to the Hampshire town of Basingstoke today after a local woman claimed to have seen a vision of a piece of toast on a picture of the Virgin Mary at her local church. Betty Tilley, 42, was praying silently at the Sacred Heart Catholic church when she looked up to see a ray of light slanting in through the window, illuminating a reproduction painting of the Virgin Mary and as she moved closer she was amazed by what she saw.

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Smiley

Tough street-racing law nabs 85-year-old

Toronto - A new law meant to help crack down on young Canadian street racers in their souped up cars has nabbed an octogenarian in his Oldsmobile.

The 85-year-old man is one of 2,300 drivers across Ontario to be charged under new legislation, designed to combat "street racing, stunts and contests", since it came into effect three months ago -- and he's the oldest.

Star

Pope tells astronomers to pack up their telescopes

The Pope has given the Vatican's Jesuit astronomers their marching orders, banishing them and their infernal instruments from his summer palace and billeting them in a disused convent instead.

Question

Bizarre: Scientists in Antarctica stumble upon statue of Lenin

Scientists trekking across a little visited part of Antarctica have discovered a bizarre relic of the Soviet Union is dominating the South Pole of Inaccessibility.

In the middle of no-where - literally the point on Antarctica furthest from the sea - an imposing bust of revolutionary Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin peers out onto the polar emptiness.

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SOVIET IN THE SNOW: Top: An imposing bust of Russian revolutionary Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin greets scientists at the South Pole of Inaccessibility - the point on Antarctica that is furthest from the ocean. Below: a new marker is placed at the true South Pole, which sits on a shifting glacier and has to be re-marked each year.

Attention

Man using GPS drives into path of train in New York suburb

BEDFORD HILLS, New York - A Global Positioning System can tell a driver a lot of things - but not when a train is coming.

Life Preserver

12-year-old catches 551-pound bull shark in Florida waters

A 12-year-old Connecticut boy may be the new Florida state record holder for catching the heaviest bull shark.

Aidan Murray Medley had a spent a half day at sea Tuesday when he reeled in the 551-pound bull shark just north of the Palm Beach Inlet.

Smiley

Flashback Satire: CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years

A report released Tuesday by the CIA's Office of the Inspector General revealed that the CIA has mistakenly obscured hundreds of thousands of pages of critical intelligence information with black highlighters.