The other storys are funny as well
And the TV show prize is ... your wife takes you back
A reality TV show has set itself a hard task: reforming useless husbands. Fight for Your Wife will take 12 men thrown out by their partners for being
couch potatoes, unfaithful or gruntingly uncommunicative, and attempt, over 10 weeks, to improve them. Despite the absence of cash prizes, the show
has attracted 5,000 applicants. It launches in Germany in September and climaxes when the winner, picked by viewers, asks his wife on air: "Will
you have me back?" Wouldn't it be fun if she said no?
Schmooze and snooze
We can hardly raise the energy to tell you this, but the inaugural Convention of the Idle has taken place in Italy. It included an exhibition on
indolence through the ages, a display of labour-saving items and a brief seminar on how to be lazy. The rest of the agenda was devoted to a siesta.
Plane stuck on cliff sparks major rescue operation
When a small plane was spotted stuck 200ft up a cliff in North Yorkshire, an emergency operation was launched. The local lifeboat and its four crew
were scrambled, two police officers were called and 12 coastguards were involved, two of whom at one point abseiled down the cliff. But if the rescue
was full-scale, the plane was not. It was a toy made of balsa wood. The rescue cost pounds 5,000, the plane just pounds 20.
Feeling hot, hot, hot ...
The world sauna-sitting championship has been won by a Finn. Leo Pusa withstood the 110C (230F) heat for fully 12 minutes, before leaving the cabin.
Natalya Tryfanava from Belarus won the women's title, in eight minutes. The event was held in Helsinki, capital of a country that has one sauna
for every two citizens.
Killer kebab
And now, from Glasgow, the land of the deep-fried Mars bar, comes what experts are saying is the most lethal fast-food item in Britain: "the
Stonner", a fried pork sausage kebab which weighs in at 1,000 calories. It contains 46g of fat, and is twice as fattening as a Big Mac.
Accolade for drinker turned thinker'
Lawyer of the week is Roderick Murray, a Scottish-born prosecutor in Hong Kong. He wins the accolade partly because, as a judge tried to sentence a
gang of smugglers, he donned sunglasses, sighed loudly, drummed his fingers and giggled; partly because he applauded the judge's speech; partly
because he later told a reporter: "I'm as drunk as a monkey"; but mainly because he then posed for photographers as Rodin's
Thinker.
You think you're fat ...
Weightwatcher of the week is Patrick Deuel of Nebraska. Back in June, he weighed 76 stone. But thanks to a strict hospital diet, he has shed 23 stone
in eight weeks. He aims to lose 34 more stone, and so occupy one bed rather than the present two.
Cousin eaten at wedding
At a wedding near Manila last month, the father of the bride felt that a cousin insulted his daughter at the reception. So he and three others
abducted and killed him, cooked his remains, and then took them back to the wedding feast and served them to the guests.
Detroit teenager beats up mother for trying to get him out of bed at 2pm Norwegian teachers complain fundamentalist headmaster is always trying to
exorcise them Prostitutes in Swiss city of Basel now soliciting on inline skates so they can better escape police patrols Four men banned from
Australian cattle show after they gave cows udder implants Dutch pressure group wants thin' banned from Dutch dictionaries because it's
insulting to underweight people' US suspects on parole for drugs offences offer infant school pupils $ 5 in exchange for clean urine sample
Japanese racehorse retires after losing 113 races in a row
I don't care how many times I have to be operated on, I just want that record
Mexican model Sabrina, who is claiming a world record after undergoing her ninth breast enhancement operation. She plans four more, which, she hopes,
will take her from a 42GG to a 42XX
Martin Rowson is away
Escape from Alcatraz? Easy if you're fit and no one's firing
If you prefer your myths unshattered, you may not wish to read this.
If, on the other hand, you've always suspected that the invincibility of Alcatraz was oversold, then prepare for good news. A man has swum from
the old prison island to San Francisco with his hands and legs bound.
He is Alberto Cristini, an Italian pharmacist in his mid-forties. Last week he had his hands and legs tied with thick rubber bands, entered the water,
pointed his conjoined hands forward, and began kicking his "tail" towards the far shore. An hour and 50 minutes later, he arrived - cold,
very tired, but the first person in more than three decades to make the swim while shackled.
He was following in the wake of one Jack La Lanne, now 89, who, in 1955, swam the one and a quarter miles handcuffed. Twenty years later, he repeated
the venture on his 60th birthday, with, just for good measure, his legs bound and while towing a 450kg boat.
Making the swim across the notorious narrows unshackled is now routine. A 10-year-old girl has done it, a race from the island to shore is held every
year, and health club trainer Pedro Ordenes is one of seven men and two women to have done it more than 100 times, and has just recorded his 238th
crossing.
Thus the unconvicted have a far better record than Alcatraz's more famous residents. Many prisoners attempted it, but they were either
recaptured, shot, or - in the case of the five unaccounted for - missing presumed drowned. They are deemed to have fallen victim to the currents (up
to 8mph), the cold, or the fact that they were undernourished and had limited opportunities for training. Or the man-eating sharks? No.
Another myth. The bay's sharks are leopards - bottom-feeders, not Jaws.
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