China Dodgems
CCTV cameras pick up some very strange happenings, and having worked in a Police Control Room for close to 18 years, I know that some of the most interesting things happen when you least expect it…

Officers were monitoring traffic at a busy junction in the Chinese city of Taizhou in the Zhejiang province, no doubt bored to tears, when their day suddenly perked up as a man driving two bumper cars (dodgems) appeared on their screens. Yes, that’s correct, two bumper cars!

Straddling the two vehicles, he was seen weaving in and out of the moving traffic as he negotiated the busy junction.

The control room operator, officer Liu Yulin, who later said he thought he was “seeing things” when he caught sight of the two fairground vehicles on the monitor, but he managed to keep his head and despatch officer Xiao Hu, to stop the brightly coloured machines and their driver, one Mr. Zhang.

Road hog Zhang told the officer that the bumper cars were in fact his, and he was using them at a nearby amusement park, but as business was a bit on the quiet side he decided to take the cars home for the day, and rather than leaving one behind at risk of being stolen, he decided to drive both vehicles the short distance to his home.

Officer Xiao Hu explained to the speedy Zhang that it was illegal to drive even one bumper car on a public highway, as they are not considered roadworthy. However, he decided to let Zhang off with a stiff verbal warning… which in police speak generally means, “I really can’t be arsed to even begin the mountain of paperwork this one will involve!”

Bible Time
South Carolina, USA brings us this tale of literary rebellion by the prisoners in Moncks Corner jail, where the County Sheriff, H. Wayne DeWitt, has banned all reading material other than copies of the King James version of the Bible.

The prisoners are therefore denied access to any expressive material, which includes educational materials required to complete correspondence educational courses, or magazines and even legal newsletters.

Sheriff DeWitt now has a lawsuit against him and the US Justice Department are asking South Carolina to allow it to intervene on the matter. Whereas, ‘just slightly more right wing than Hitler DeWitt’ can see nothing wrong with his decision, saying that any actions taken at the jail are justified to preserve health and safety, and to further the pursuit of “legitimate penal objectives.”

Of course some would say, “If you can’t do the time…”

Bridge Penis Prize
In Russia there exists a radical art group called Voina, who have pulled off some amazing stunts over the past few years, none more so than the painting of a 220 foot penis on the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg. Well, the Russians have now awarded the group first price for the best work of visual art, entitled A Penis In KGB Captivity.

Whilst we at the Gazette would never condone criminal activity of any kind, we do love a good dollop of freedom of expression, and these guys have done some hard prison time for their beliefs. The bridge stunt was in protest at heightened security measures in St. Petersburg prior to June’s International Economic Forum. The security crackdown was making the everyday lives of citizens a nightmare, and it just so happened that when the bridge was elevated to allow river traffic to pass, the penis would rise, erection-like, directly opposite the headquarters of the FSB security service headquarters.

The group should scoop around 10,000 euros (in Roubles of course), however, they decided not to turn up at the award ceremony in Moscow and as yet they have not said if they will take the money.

Previously, several of the group’s members ended up in jail after protesting about police officers sleeping on duty rather than protecting the public. Unfortunately, their protest involved overturning several police cars whilst officers slept inside. Now that’s very very naughty!

Tempting Tiger
I saw this picture online and was more than a little impressed to find out that the image was created by painting on human bodies!

The artist, Craig Tracy, wanted to give his work more depth, so he used naked women who he positioned on a canvass, then applied the paint, which is designed for use on human skin, with the whole process taking 24 hours to complete. We are pretty sure that the models were allowed to move around during this time, otherwise there would have been some very sore knees!

The artist hails from New Orleans, USA and has painted over 400 bodies in his career, none of which have been models, “They are all volunteers, I never use agencies or websites to find them, they find me,” he said.

Tracy started out as an airbrush artist, working in a local shopping centre when he was just 16-years-old, and now owns and runs the world’s first art gallery dedicated to body painting, and has sold works all over the world, including to the rich and famous.

The artist has a high opinion of this latest work, describing it as his most successful and important piece.

Cheese Justice
Just occasionally a story comes along that makes you forget how economically difficult times have been lately. In this case it’s the story of an unidentified homeless man in Argentina who was arrested and locked up for stealing four slices of cheese.

The man, who hadn’t eaten for two days, was detained by local shop security when he walked out of the supermarket with the slices of cheese concealed in his clothing, and when stopped had no money with which to pay.

The poor soul has since appeared before a judge on three occasions, the first to confirm that he was to be prosecuted, second to have the first decision confirmed and finally to be acquitted by the very judge who indicted him on his first appearance.

Of course, the decision to acquit the man was not taken out of decency or the right and proper application of discretionary measures… oh, no. It was done on the back of a wave of criticism received from the public and even others within the legal profession, who rightly argued that the case screamed out for the application of the principle of ‘insignificance’ which, in Argentina, can be used to avoid costly criminal trials.

In truth, the incident should have been concluded at the shop, at the time, with a sensible manager approaching the man, giving him some more cheese, some bread to eat with it and a bottle of water, and then telling him to move on and that if he ever entered the store again the police would be called. Sorry if that seems a little too ‘lefty nicey’ but it needed saying!

Snot Funny!
All right, so this one is rather juvenile and petty, but it is also rather funny, in a cringe worthy sort of way.

TV reporter Saphia Khambalia works for City TV News in Toronto, Canada, and was reporting on the visit of Charlie Sheen to the city with his Violent Torpedo Of Truth Tour, where she was due to go live on air at around 11pm.

However, just a few seconds into her explanation of how brilliantly Mr. Sheen had been on stage, the biting Toronto wind had a liquefying effect on her nasal passages, causing streams of mucus (snot) to pour from her nose and come to rest on the top of her hand-held microphone.

It just goes to show, you can have money, a top job that puts you in the limelight, good looks, perfect hair and beautifully applied makeup; but when you’re standing in front of millions with a trail of snot hanging from your petit, media nose, you’re just another cold bird on a chilly Toronto street corner.

(Note for readers whose first language is not English: snot, besides being a synonym for mucus, is also a play on the words it is not, which when spoken quickly contracts to just snot. – Ed)

Thieving Theologist
Is nothing sacred? Well, in the town of Tecate in the northwest of Mexico, one man obviously thought even the Bible wasn’t too sacred to use in his crimes.

Posing as a preacher and with his Bible firmly clasped in his hand, the man would win his way into peoples houses by pretending to be bringing them the word of the Lord. Unfortunately, the only thing he really brought into their houses was a light-fingered liking for their cash and valuables.

The 30-year-old man was eventually arrested when some local people called the police to report a robbery, supply a description and vehicle details of the pesky preacher.

When the police eventually stopped the vehicle in the town of Tecate, which is close to the US border, he pretended to be deaf (a ruse I have used many times when the Ed has been asking me for money to buy pizza). The police didn’t fall for the false father’s falsehoods and immediately emptied his car, to find stolen goods from at least 12 similar robberies in recent times.

Going back to the ‘is nothing sacred?’ line… the police also found a replica pistol, hidden inside the aforementioned Bible. Rip his cassocks off!

Pickled Penis
Well, I can only blame the Ed (as usual) for this one, as he sent me the details of the story, so he must want it included… I could have been a real journalist, honest.

The pickled penis of a 95-year-old Icelandic man will become the star attraction at the Phallological Museum in the small Icelandic fishing town of Husavik. I hasten to add, at this point, that the said 95-year-old is, in fact, dead. He didn’t just whip his todger off, pop it in a jar and DHL it to the museum, he pledged his withered willy to the museum upon his death, along with several other Icelandic males, and American, a Briton and a German, but the Icelandic man called Arason was the first to ‘pop his clogs’ and make the museum cock-a-hoop with it’s first and only human exhibit.

This truly bizarre museum already has a huge penis collection, including examples from every mammal on Iceland and also a large number from other mammals around the world.
Museum curator, Sigurdur Hjartarson, described the penis donating Arason as a former worker in the tourist industry who died on January 5th in the nearby town of Akureyri.
We may snigger at the weird collection of formaldehyde phalluses, but the place brings in thousands of tourists every year. That’s some feat, considering he started the place with just 62 specimens which has now grown to 276 and includes such highlights as a 5.5 foot sperm whale example, a huge penis bone from a Canadian walrus and even some rather fetching lampshades made from bull testicles.

That’s the thing with this kind of collection… you start small, just playing around, and before you know it, it’s grown to four times its original size.

Fire Flag
Police arrested a 38-year-old man who climbed a 100 metre high flagpole and then set the national flag of Brazil alight.

These ambitious arson antics occurred in the Brazilian capital, and it should be noted that the extremely high flagpole did have internal stairs, so it wasn’t exactly a climb, more of an uphill slog, all undertaken by our raving mad banner burner, Paulo Sergio Ferreira, who claimed that he was highlighting (think about it) organised crime, and even tried to implicate a senator and the police.

Using petrol, Ferreira managed to ignite a small segment of the 280 m2 flag which is located in the city’s main square, directly in front of the presidential palace, the Supreme Court and Congress.

Firefighters ascended the flagpole and negotiated with Ferreira for over three hours, obviously concerned that he was going to pour the rest of the petrol over himself in a final suicidal protest. However, they finally managed to convince him that he would be safe if he accompanied them to ground level, which he did, and was promptly knocked to the floor and roughly arrested by the waiting police, all in front of local news crews.

The flag suffered very little damage while fiery Ferreira sits in a cell awaiting a court hearing.

Custody Battle?
The custody of children in a divorce case is usually decided quite early on, and rightly or wrongly the mother is normally given custody, with the father getting access rights.
However, in China this has been turned on it’s head by a couple both trying to get the other to take custody of the child involved, says a Chinese news portal.

The mother in the case is saying that she “does not have the necessary skills” to care for her son stating that to get custody of him would impair her ability to work and therefore also be detrimental to the child. The father is also citing similar reasons not to take on the boy.
Chinese society has taken a very dim view of the case and there are accusations that the Chinese youth of today are not responsible enough to be parents and are now further horrified that it appears the case will be ‘won’ by the parent who can come up with the most money, to pay the other to have the child.

However, the case is not unique, with a couple from Zhejiang in the east of the country resorting to an ‘auction’ in 2000 to avoid custody of their daughter, which ended up with the father taking the child on, in exchange for the equivalent of around 40,000 euros.
The only question that remains is how the parents are going to explain their actions to the children when they become young adults.