Crazy World: Mini-clad cops curb speedsters...

Mini-clad cops curb speedsters

(AGENCY)

Authorities say life-sized cardboards of female police officers in miniskirts placed alongside roads have managed to slow down speeding drivers in several central Czech towns.

The mayor of the town of Mrakotin, Miroslav Pozar, said today drivers, including him, automatically slow down when they see such officers.

Mr Pozar dismissed allegations this was because the drivers want to look at the officer's legs, rather than her uniform.

In nearby Myslotin, a local radio recently provided a hat and an anorak to help such officers get warm, but they were stolen in a day.

Others made off with the cardboard officer itself.
 
 
$6000 sent through shredder, repaired

(AFP)

Taiwanese puzzle-loving public servant Liy Hui-fen fixes 200 shredded NT$1000 bills LIY Hui-fen spent seven days completing a puzzle with a payoff - by far the most difficult she's ever attempted as the Taiwan Justice Ministry official in charge of helping citizens piece together currency that has been mangled.

With an aide, Liu cobbled together thousands of tiny paper money pieces worth 200,000 New Taiwan dollars($A6750) in total and returned them to their owner today.

The man, who only gave his surname, Lin, said he accidentally dumped a plastic bag containing 200 NT$1000 bills into an industrial scrap machine last month - and each were torn into some 20 pieces. He later went to the Justice Ministry's Investigation Bureau where Liu works to ask for help.

Stymied at first by the unwieldy pile of scraps in front of her, Liu soon found a way to attack the problem. She located the Chinese character "guo" or country, on each bill, and then worked outwards.

When the job was finally done she said it was the most difficult she'd ever accomplished, but said she also had a lot of fun helping Lin out. Liu usually investigates handwriting samples, but has a special brief to work on cases dealing with wrecked money - handling 247 of them in the past five years.

"I was so happy whenever I was able to put a piece into its right place," she said.

Under Taiwanese law, people can claim replacement bills from the central bank as long as at least 75 per cent of the original is pieced together.

A chastened Lin expressed his sincere gratitude for Liu's perseverance.

"I'm sorry the job brought her so much trouble," he said.
 

Santa Claus fired for telling 'naughty' joke

(AFP)

Supermarket Santa Claus John Toomey was fired from his job after telling a naughty joke that didn't impress his grown-up customers.

The 68-year-old Macy's worker had been a popular St Nick in San Francisco for over 20 years, losing his job right at the start of the holiday season when a complaint was made about the inappropriate quip - one he insists he's been telling for years without a problem.

'When I ask the older people who sit on my lap if they have been good and they say, "Yes," I say, "Gee, that’s too bad",' he explained.

‘Then, if they ask why Santa is so jolly, I joke that it’s because I know where all the naughty boys and girls live,’ the retired caretaker continued to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Everything was going okay until this couple came in. I don’t know why they reported me. I don’t think I said anything untoward.’

Toomey emphasised that he only ever rolled out the joke around grown-ups, with a number of Macy's employees labelling his dismissal an 'overreaction'.

Horse tried to eat ‘my hat’

(AFP)

A woman has recounted her terror after a horse attempted to eat her holly-adorned festive hat because it thought it was a bush that would be nice to eat.

Eileen Samme was hospitalised after the bizarre attack which happened as she walked her Jack Russell dog Mickey across the horses' field.

Mrs Samme, 55, was wearing a novelty Christmas pudding hat which had a sprig of holly on the top when the hungry horse saw her.

She said the animal must have thought the headwear was a holly bush and made a beeline for her before attempting to munch it.

As it did so it kicked Mrs Samme in the leg, leaving her writhing around in agony.
 
 
 
Robots to replace pretty nurses in this proposed hospital

(AGENCY)

Robots will supply drugs and food for patients in the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, according to a report in The Herald Sun.

The new hospital will be built as a public private partnership by the SA Health Partnership consortium although full details of the final cost have not been released, the daily said.

The robots will draw drugs and other medical goods from central stores, package them and then deliver them to nursing stations while also delivering meals to patients' rooms.

It will mean savings on non-essential nursing staff.
 

Fergie cocks a snook at snoods

(AFP)

Lightweight scarves known as snoods may be sweeping the playing fields of the English Premier League, but Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson has banned his players from wearing them.

Former United striker Carlos Tevez has sported a snood while playing for Manchester City in recent weeks, with Arsenal midfielder Samir Nasri another convert.

However, despite temperatures plunging in snow-hit Great Britain, Ferguson has reportedly told his players that the snoods are unmanly - and forbidden them for wearing them in either games or training.

"You won't see a Man United player wearing a snood," wrote United centre-back Rio Ferdinand on his Twitter page.
 
 
Berlusconi offers to pick out train 'hostesses'

(AP)

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday joked he would personally select female train attendants for a new high-speed rail line as he inaugurated a station in Rome.

"If you change your mind and you decide to put hostesses on the high speed trains, I'm volunteering to do the casting," Berlusconi told rail managers on the sidelines of the ceremony in Rome's Tiburtina station.

Berlusconi has become notorious for his off-colour and often sexist jokes.

Last year he said that soldiers were needed to protect Italy's "beautiful girls" from rape. He also once advised a woman to marry a millionaire like his son after she described her precarious employment outlook.

The Italian leader has been accused of holding raunchy parties with dozens of young women at his residence in Rome and his villas in Milan and Sardinia.

Berlusconi sparked further controversy in a speech last month in which he said: "It's better to be passionate about beautiful women than to be gay."
 

Indian guru asks climate talks to subsidise love

(AFP)

UN-led talks on climate change are looking at giving billions of dollars to poor countries. But an Indian spiritual leader is telling delegates that they instead should subsidize love.

Shri Shri 1008 Soham, who helps guide the massive Kumbh Mela pilgrimage on the Ganges River, journeyed from his Himalayan cave retreat to the Mexican beach resort of Cancun to spread his message.

Wearing a flowing yellow robe and attached turban - his UN accreditation badge hanging around his neck - the guru known as Babaji questioned if the conference was looking at the big picture.

"We talk about climate change. But what about the climate inside us?" he asked.

"We are all the time talking about subsidizing the fund to the developing countries. It is fantastic. I feel very fortunate.

"But what about subsidizing the essence of human love? Compassion, accepting and respecting each other to share the collective responsibilities of our planet," he said.

Babaji voiced regret that "very little have I seen spiritual masters" at the two-week conference, saying they could encourage respect for "Mother Earth."

"When a mother is taking care of a child, she does not count her time, her frustration, her good mood, bad mood. She is just happy that she is a mother, taking care," he said.

Babaji also asked the talks to look at history, saying that Genghis Khan went on his conquering spree in part to find land for Mongolia's cattle.
"You can imagine what would happen if there is no drinking water," he said.

Babaji gave an example of his love-for-Mother-Earth initiative, hailing as a "great success" his efforts to clean up plastic from the latest Kumbh Mela earlier this year.

The Kumbh Mela, considered the world's largest festival, drew some 80 million people who bathed at the site where the Ganges and Yamuna holy rivers meet in northern India for more than 104 days.

Babaji invited the journalists in Cancun to take part in the next Kumbh Mela in 2013.
 
 
Mogadishu's 'first tourist' puzzles immigration officials

(AFP)

When Mike Spencer Bown disembarked from his flight in Mogadishu this week and described himself as a tourist, Somali immigration officials thought the Canadian man was either mad or a spy.

"They tried four times to put me back on the plane to get rid of me but I shouted and played tricks until the plane left without me," the 41-year-old Canadian told an AFP correspondent in Mogadishu on his hotel's roof terrace.

Somali officials then tried to hand him over to the African Union military force in Mogadishu, refusing to believe that he was in the city for pleasure.
"We have never seen people like this man," Omar Mohamed, an immigration official said Friday. "He said he was a tourist, we couldn't believe him. But later on we found he was serious."

"That makes him the first person to come to Mogadishu only for tourism but unfortunately this is not the right time," he added.

The world traveller claims to have travelled to 160 countries since he sold his business in Indonesia years ago and he had yet to tick Somalia - which has been devastated by a brutal civil conflict for almost 20 years - off his list.

Mogadishu is one of the world's most dangerous capitals, a place where no foreigner can survive very long without heavy protection, but Bown said he had hoped to see Somalia's beaches and landscapes.

"I knew that Somalia plunged into civil strife nearly the day I started travelling but it was still on my list of places on the globe I should tour," he said at the heavily-guarded hotel where he stayed two days.

"I did not know the part of the country the government controls was so incredibly small," he said.

Somalia used to attract some visitors before it plunged into chaos following the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre.

Mogadishu's Italian architecture and tree-lined avenues were renowned but the city is now a field of ruins where life is cheap.

"Somalia is the last and most dangerous country on my list and once I'm here in Mogadishu, I feel I made it," he said, explaining that he' already travelled to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bown flew out Friday and has already posted on his Facebook page pictures of himself in Mogadishu holding an assault rifle or a rocket-propelled grenade under the heading "The first tourist in Mogadishu".

Indian teen memorises calendar of last 500 years

(AGENCY)

Thirteen-year-old Saswat Satapathy remembers the calendar of last 500 years. He can memorize and recite nearly 750 binary numbers, reports The Times of India.

He can recall numbers with 500 digits in no time and can recall them both from start to finish and vice versa. His skill does not end here. Saswat can remember 500 objects and recall them in the same, reverse and random order.

To memorise huge numbers with ease Saswat uses the COMBS technique. Sharing his “memory mantra” with The Telegraph, Saswat said: “I convert two digit numbers into colourful, moving and big images and make a story out of it so that I don’t forget it.”

Saswat was part of the six-member contingent from India which participated in the World Memory Championship (WMC) held at Guangzhou in China from December 2 to 5.

WMC was founded by Tony Buzon and Raymond Keene OBE in 1991 in the UK. Contestants with the best memories take part in the championship held annually in different countries. About 28 contestants from 20 countries participated in various disciplines of WMC this year after winning the national rounds.

Saswat won a silver medal in the names and faces discipline and a bronze medal in the spoken number discipline in the kids' category.

Saswat’s passion for developing the memory skill came into play when he was just seven years old.

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