Clare's Collection of Unusual Tales and Pictures

[Dark One]

£5,000 - to mow the roof

Bosses of an acclaimed new government building with a grass roof were shocked to find it will cost £5,000 to have it cut.

The £13million Scottish Natural Heritage HQ, praised for its eco-friendly credentials, includes a roof garden, reports then Daily Record.

But health and safety regulations mean scaffolding and other safety measures must be installed when people are working above ground.

It's believed one scaffolding firm tendered an estimate in the region of £5000.

It raises questions about the cost implications of the green credentials of Great Glen House in Inverness, opened last month by First Minister Jack McConnell.

Local councillor Jimmy MacDonald said: "It seems the extra costs to cut the grass will make this building not as eco-friendly as first believed."

An SNH spokesman said: "The roof was chosen due to its low-maintenance regime, which is why it is so popular for green roof projects."

[Dark One]

Woman crashes car after driving test

A US woman completed her driving test - then crashed into the examiners' office.

Jessica Krasek, 20, smashed into the Portage License Bureau office in Indiana, reports the Post-Tribune.

She wasn't hurt when her Ford Taurus car struck the front window of the license branch office.

But a bureau worker suffered a hip injury and was examined by paramedics.

Portage Assistant Fire Chief Mike Bucy said Krasek was pulling into a parking space when she hit the accelerator, instead of the brake.

Susan Williams, manager of the Amazing Travel shop next door, said she thought there had been an explosion.

"We jumped up and we went to the door and saw the car half in and half out of the license bureau," Williams said.

[Dark One]

23 girls brawl over handsome boy

Police were called in Bulgaria after a mass fight broke out between 23 teenage girls over a handsome male student.

The girls, aged between 15 and 18, used brass knuckles, chains and beer bottles to fight over the lad whose name was not revealed.

The girls, from the Bulgarian capital Sofia, agreed to fight it out and skipped school to meet up in a local playground in the Gorublyane district of the city.

Several girls suffered minor injuries and dozens of passers-by reportedly witnessed the incident.

But the alarm wasn't raised until after the fight when a father of one of the injured girls called the police.

[Dark One]

Men spend six months ogling women

The average British male spends six months of his life ogling women, a new study reveals.

Researchers claim men will target eight different girls every day and spend two minutes eyeing up each one.

The first thing the average bloke will look at is the breasts before working down to the bottom and then the legs.

Girls do it too but they are not as prolific, picking only two men a day for 90 seconds at a time - for just one month of their life.

And women look first at a man's eyes - before taking a quick look at his bum.

More than half of the men questioned saw nothing wrong with a bit of ogling - but a third say they have been caught in the act.

The study was carried out by glasses firm BuySpecs4Less.co.uk

Boss David Morgan said: "Eyeing up is a vital part of the dating game."

[Dark One]

Fire station goes up in flames

A fire chief has told of his embarrassment after a station without a smoke alarm went up in flames.

The building and a fire engine were destroyed in the blaze at Arundel Fire Station in West Sussex.

Neil Odin, southern area commander for West Sussex fire service said it showed it could happen to anyone.

"Unfortunately, we had severe damage to our fire station, which is embarrassing," he told the BBC.

He said a brand new building would need a smoke alarm.

But he added: "Automatic smoke detection wouldn't have made any difference."

Nobody was injured in the fire which was tackled by 30 firefighters in six fire engines from neighbouring towns.

The station is served by retained firefighters, none of whom were in the building at the time.

[Dark One]

World's wittiest lonely hearts ads

A collection of witty and eccentric lonely hearts ads from the London Review of Books have been brought together for a new book.

David Rose, the review's advertising director who launched the personal ads in 1998, is behind They Call Me Naughty Lola.

It features some of the most brilliant and often absurd ads from what's been billed as the world's funniest - and most erudite - lonely-hearts column.

Here's a selection of the funniest, beginning with the one which inspired the book's title:

'They call me naughty Lola. Run-of-the-mill beardy physicist (M, 46).'

'I've divorced better men than you. And worn more expensive shoes than these. So don't think placing this ad is the biggest comedown I've ever had to make. Sensitive F, 34.'

'List your ten favourite albums... I just want to know if there's anything worth keeping when we finally break up. Practical, forward thinking man, 35.'

'Employed in publishing? Me too. Stay the hell away. Man on the inside seeks woman on the outside who likes milling around hospitals guessing the illnesses of out-patients. 30-35. Leeds.'

'I like my women the way I like my kebab. Found by surprise after a drunken night out and covered in too much tahini. Before long I'll have discarded you on the pavement of life, but until then you're the perfect complement to a perfect evening. Man, 32, rarely produces winning metaphors.'

'My ideal woman is a man. Sorry, mother.'

'Your buying me dinner doesn't mean I'll have sex with you. I probably will have sex with you, though. Honesty not an issue with opportunistic male, 38.'

'Not everyone appearing in this column is a deranged cross-dressing sociopath. Let me know if you find one and I'll strangle him with my bra. Man, 56.'

'Are you Kate Bush? Write to obsessive man (36). Note, people who aren't Kate Bush need not respond.'

'Stroganoff. Boysenberry. Frangipani. Words with their origins in people's names. If your name has produced its own entry in the OED then I'll make love to you. If it hasn't, I probably will anyway, but I'll only want you for your body. Man of too few distractions, 32.'

'Ploughing the loneliest furrow. Nineteen personal ads and counting. Only one reply. It was my mother telling me not to forget the bread on my way home from B&Q. Man, 51.'

'Mature gentleman, 62, aged well, noble grey looks, fit and active, sound mind and unfazed by the fickle demands of modern society seeks...damn it, I have to pee again.'

'very *friendly* person in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom. Woman with mixed priorities (37) seeks man who can toss a good salad.'

'Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks short-sighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite.'

'Romance is dead. So is my mother. Man, 42, inherited wealth.'

[Dark One]

The muck of the Irish

Two Irishmen have set up a company selling dirt to Americans.

Alan Jenkins, 65, from Lisburn and agricultural scientist Pat Burke, 27, from Tipperary, say the demand for the "official Irish dirt" has been "phenomenal."

The pair have just sold their first $1m shipment of muck to the US.

Mr Burke has used his scientific background to patent a way of processing the soil to pass US import regulations, meaning it is disease-free and contains no Irish insects.

An elderly New York businessman has already placed a $100,000 order so he can be fully buried in Irish soil.

The 0.75lb bags of soil sell for $15 each, reports the BBC.

[Dark One]

Self-stirring mug

A mug has been created which means tea drinkers will never have to wash up another spoon.

Inventors have created a stainless steel cup with a tiny battery-powered propeller in the base which stirs the drink at the touch of a button, reports The Sun.

The £12 mugs can even clean themselves, users just have to put hot water and washing up liquid in the cup and press the stir button instead of scrubbing by hand.

[Kangaruth]

But how do you get the teabag out?

[Lina]

Wow the wonders of human laziness never cease to amaze

[Dark One]

Britain's spookiest roads

The M6 has been named Britain's most haunted road in a new Halloween survey.

The M6's spooky reputation follows with reports of phantom Roman soldiers, a ghostly woman and a lorry driving against the flow of traffic.

Motorists have also reported eyes looking out from bushes in Platt Lane, Leigh, Manchester - the scene of a mining disaster years previously.

The A9 in the Highlands was the second most haunted after a family reported seeing an ornate coach and horses, along with bewigged footmen.

The road appears again at number eight in the list, produced by Tarmac, following a sighting of a Victorian-clad man on a horse at The Mound between Dornoch and Golspie.

There were reports of a phantom dog on Great Yarmouth High Street and ghostly children playing in Gloucester Road, Finsbury Park, north London.

A guardian angel voice allegedly alerted a woman driver of an out-of-control car on the B4293 in Devauden in Wales and a lady in Victorian dress was reportedly spotted on the B3314 near Tintagel in Cornwall.

Tony Simmons, sightings co-ordinator for Tarmac, said: "We compiled the top 10 on the basis of the clarity of sightings rather than just the number of spooky experiences.

"At this time of year it's easy to mistake swirling mist for something more sinister and we wanted to make sure we were listing truly spooky sightings."

The spooky top ten in full:

1 The M6

2 The A9 in the Highlands

3 Platt Lane, Leigh, Manchester

4 High Street and Suffield Road in Great Yarmouth

5 Gloucester Drive, Finsbury Park, north London

6 The B4293 at Devauden, Wales

7 The B3314 near Tintagel, Cornwall

8 The Mound, on the A9 near Dornoch

9 The B1403 near Doncaster, South Yorkshire

10 Drews Lane, Ward End, Birmingham

[Dark One]

Unhappy Halloween for witch

A German witch had a bad Halloween after a Munich court ordered her to refund over £600 for a failed love potion.

Tina Schultz, 37, from southern Germany, paid witch Madam Mitternacht £670 to make her former lover return to her.

But, after he failed to be influenced, the lovesick woman turned to the courts.

They ruled the witch had breached trade description rules by selling a product that did not work and ordered the fee refunded.

The German justice system ruled that a love potion is an "impossible service" and therefore was a false claim.

[Dark One]

Wills 'loses' machine gun

Prince William reportedly lost his machine gun during firing practice at Sandhurst.

Wills, 24, was given a rollicking by senior officers after misplacing the L86 rifle, according to the Mirror.

The prince had been handed the weapon in a morning briefing and told to head to the firing range.

But he managed to mislay it somewhere on the Royal Military Academy campus near Camberley, Surrey.

It turned out that another cadet had picked up his gun and used it instead.

Wills was so concerned that he spent two hours pedalling around on a friend's bicycle in a desperate bid to find it.

The Mirror's source said: "Fortunately there wasn't any live ammunition in it, but losing your weapon is still one of the worst mistakes you can make."

A Sandhurst spokesman confirmed: "In fact Officer Cadet Wales's weapon was picked up and used by another cadet who handed it back a couple of hours later, so it wasn't really missing at all."

[Dark One]

Passengers asked to fix train

Passengers on a broken-down train were shocked when they were asked if they could fix it.

The London to Manchester Virgin train was halted at Rugby station in Warwickshire when a windscreen wiper broke.

The train manageress pleaded over the tannoy for any passengers with nuts, bolts or cable ties to go to the front of the carriage.

Four men stepped forward to help, reports The Sun.

One of them, Damian Gaskin said: "It was unbelievable. I had a few basic tools with me so I went to help. One man had a foot on the platform with his other stretched across the windscreen.

"He was straddling the train. he told me he was a passenger and fixed the electrics on a service the week before."

A Virgin spokesman said: "After several repair attempts passengers got off the train and boarded a later service."

[Dark One]

Tora Bora tourist resort

Osama Bin Laden's secret caves hideout is being converted - into a £5.3million tourist resort.

Hotels and restaurants are being constructed on mountains overlooking the al-Qaeda chief's Tora Bora refuge in Afghanistan, reports the Sun.

Former warlord Gul Agha Sherazi, now a local governor, said: "Tora Bora is world famous - but we want it to be known for tourism, not terrorism.

"It was known as a picnic spot long before anyone had heard of Osama Bin Laden."

Bin Laden, who hid there in 2001 after the Taliban government was ousted, is believed to have fled after a US bombing blitz.

Two journalists were killed there this month but Mr Sherazi insisted: "Tora Bora is 100 per cent safe."

[Dark One]

Wedding list with a difference

A Cheshire couple shocked friends and family with a wedding gift list which included lions, elephants and tigers.

Damon and Joannah Barnard also asked for zebras, monkeys, rhinos and a family of penguins, says the Mirror.

They shunned traditional gifts like toasters and cutlery sets and instead asked friends to buy shares in Chester Zoo's adoption scheme.

Damon, a solicitor, from Warrington, said the £1,120 was money well spent on 27 different species.

He added: "Joannah chose most of the animals and mainly went for the cute, cuddly ones.

"But I did manage to sneak a giant tortoise on to the list."

That wedding list in full:

Rodrigues bats, bush dogs, spectacled bears, bongos, ring-tailed lemurs, capybaras, coatis, chimpanzees, Asian elephants, giraffes, jaguars, lions, meerkats, spider monkeys, orang-utans, penguins, marmots, pudus, red pandas, red river hogs, Californian sealions, black rhinos, tamarins, tapirs, tigers, Galapagos tortoise, Grevys zebras.

[Dark One]

Romanian witches hire English teachers

Romanian witches are hiring English teachers so they can cash in on the country's EU entry by targeting new clients.

Local 'celebrity' white witch Ioana Sidonia is the latest witch to start having English lessons so she can cast spells for new English-speaking clients when Romania joins the EU in January.

She said: "My magic powers told me that not only would Romania prosper from joining the EU, but that it would bring me lots of English-speaking clients.

"There will be lots more foreigners around and by learning English I can help them.

"Until now the only words of English I could speak were the names of different whiskies. I thought I should expand my vocabulary."

[Dark One]

Hackers tell drivers where to go

Commuters in a West Sussex town were told to 'F*** off' by council car park signs - but hardly anyone noticed.

The signs, in Crawley, normally say how many spaces are free in each of the town's car parks but were defaced by a hacker.

The hacker broke into the system at around 6.45am, substituting the rude message and a tag promoting the US totse.com forum.

The messages were on display for more than two hours before council officers told the company which maintains the system - German-owned signage specialist Dambach - to remove them.

The computer system has now been locked down and will have its operating system upgraded.

Council spokesman Allan Hambly said: "We have no idea why Crawley was picked on. Only two members of the public reported it - I even drove past one of the signs myself without noticing it.

"Nowhere is foolproof. If hackers can get into Pentagon computers then I am sure they would have no problem with ours."

[Dark One]

Unborn baby gives thumbs-up

A mum-to-be had her fears eased when one of her triplets gave her the thumbs-up during a scan.

Donna Rider, from Oxford, was rushed to hospital with stomach cramps and was sent for a scan.

Donna, who before the scan didn't know she was expecting triplets said: "I got such a shock. I could clearly see one of the triplets giving me a thumbs-up from the womb.

"It was so clear and just unbelievable. From that moment, I knew it was going to be all right."

Donna, who lives with chef husband Lee, 32, recently gave birth to Henry, Joshua and George.

According to The Sun, she said: "I am so proud of them."

[Dark One]

Rare tigers found in mini-van

Customs officers doing a routine border check opened the back doors of a mini van to discover two fully-grown Siberian tigers.

The male and female tigers were being smuggled into Montenegro from neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The driver and two passengers were arrested for the illegal trafficking of animals, which are one of the world's most endangered species.

The tigers are being temporarily looked after in a local zoo.

Siberian tigers tend to live in snow-covered areas and it is unclear how the animals ended up in the Mediterranean country, or what their final destination was.

[Dark One]

Jilted groom finds fitting new bride

A jilted Romanian man found a new bride by asking which of his neighbours could fit into the wedding dress.

Florin Mazilu, from Malu Mare in southeastern Romania, is now recommending buying the dress first and looking for the wife second.

He claims his stand-in bride has turned out to be the love of his life after original fiancée Adelina Epure dumped him four days before their wedding.

Mazilu spread word in his hometown that he would marry any girl who fitted into the wedding dress and the wedding ring he had already bought.

Within hours he had found 21-year-old local Ana Maria who fitted perfectly into the dress and ring.

He said: "I had everything prepared for the wedding but no bride. I was determined to go ahead with a wedding though and while the conditions I set for a bride were unusual I knew that if she fitted the dress and could wear the ring on her finger it would work.

"Ana Maria was the only one of dozens of girls who could fit into the dress perfectly and could wear the ring. It was love at first sight. I knew she was perfect from the moment I saw her."

[Dark One]

Horror fans faint at new movie

A UK cinema chain had to call emergency services three times in one night because of people fainting during a new horror film.

Four people passed out in separate incidents while watching slasher movie Saw III at Cineworld complexes in Stevenage and Peterborough.

One woman was taken to hospital and two other adults were treated by medics after fainting in Stevenage, Herts.

And in a separate case, a man collapsed at a cinema in Peterborough, Cambs, "due to the film's content".

"If you know you're squeamish, don't go," warned a spokesman for the East of England Ambulance Service.

"This is obviously a blood-thirsty film. Some of the scenes are fairly horrific," Matthew Ware told the BBC News website.

The movie is currently number one in both the UK and North American box office charts.

Cineworld have declined to comment

[Dark One]

Granny lands bouncer job at brothel

A 70-year-old grandmother has landed a job as a bouncer at a brothel in Berlin.

According to the owner, granny Waltraud Hotzl, known as 'Mumsy', has no problem turning away drunks and other undesirables who never argue with OAP at theFraulein Mueller brothel in Hermannplatz.

Her boss Johann Vepsi, 41, said: "She's got the business perfectly under control. Mumsy is far and away the best for the job."

As well as ensuring customers are well-behaved, 'Mumsy' settles disputes between the prostitutes.

Vepsi added: "If she hears of a squabble between the girls, she will shout 'children, all quiet on deck please'. Total silence always follows."

[Dark One]

Guy Fawkes axed from bonfire night

A council has decided to dump Guy Fawkes from its annual Bonfire Night party - and replace him with a tiger.

Officials in Tower Hamlets, East London, say the story of the Gunpowder Plot is now too old so there will be no bonfire and no Guy.

Instead officials have spent £75,000 on a celebration in Victoria Park that will centre on a Bengali folk tale called the Emperor and the Tiger.

A mock Bengal Tiger will pace a giant catwalk surrounded by Bangla drummers and dancers. The area has a large Asian population.

John Midgley,spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness, said: "There's a time and a place for everything and November 5 is for Bonfire Night.

"It's time to tell bureaucrats that actions like these undermine our historic occasions and harm community relations."

According to the Sun Tory councillor Tim Archer said: "Bonfire Night is a celebration of our rich and proud history. It's being air-brushed out with an attempt to be politically correct."

MP George Galloway agreed, he added: "Guy Fawkes was one of the few men to enter Parliament with good intentions. It beggars belief that this council should organise a Bonfire Night without a bonfire or a Guy."

Labour-run Tower Hamlets council insisted they had not forgotten the Gunpowder Plot but had decided to try different themes.

A spokeswoman said: "This differentiates our celebrations from other boroughs and our events are proving to be extremely popular. Our sole aim is to stage an exciting event on the traditional Fireworks Night that will attract as many people as possible."

[Dark One]

Convict posts himself to freedom

A prisoner wrapped himself in a large parcel and posted himself to freedom from a jail in Austria.

Bosnian Muradif Hasanbegovic, 36, was serving a seven-year sentence for robbery in the Karlau prison, near Graz.

He escaped from the workshop where he helped package and post parts for lampposts.

The man packed himself up in a parcel, and other convicts loaded him onto a lorry. Once clear of the prison he broke out of the parcel, jumped off the back of the lorry and fled.

The lorry driver told police: "I noticed the tarpaulin had a hole in it just as the prison called me and asked 'Have you noticed anything funny? We are kind of missing a prisoner'."

Prison warden Franz Hochstrasser said: "This sort of thing was not supposed to happen. Guards need to count prisoners at the end of working hours. We are investigating the case."

Hasanbegovic is still on the run.