Dangerous Sports No 57 : Football

Goalposts are moved to spare ramblers

By Martin Beckford
Last Updated: 1:59am GMT 23/02/2007

Goalposts have been removed from a children’s football pitch because council officials fear ramblers might bump into them at night. The miniature posts were in the way of a public footpath that cuts across Beech Road park in Alderley Edge. Premiership footballers may also fall foul of health and safety officials when Control of Noise at Work regulations come into force in April. Under the rules, firms must make ear protectors available to all employees who are exposed to excessive noise in order to protect their hearing. The noise levels at many football grounds, caused by tens of thousands of singing fans, are said to be well above those permitted. Officials and even players may have to wear protectors during matches.

Daily Telegraph

Invisible candidate

Female candidate campaigns in mosques

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Last Updated: 1:58am GMT 23/02/2007

A muslim woman running for public office in the Netherlands has refused to be interviewed or photographed and will only campaign in mosques, sparking new claims of attempts of isolationism among the Islamic community.
Ouafaa Abrazi is standing for the Islam Democraten in municipal elections in the Zuid-Holland region, and is the only female candidate on the Islamic list.
“She does not want to give interviews and we must also not give her phone number to anyone,” said Islam Democrat leader Hasan Kucuk.
“She does not want to appear in public and certainly not have her photo in the paper.”

Daily Telegraph

Miss Alliance

Cross-dressing lawyer suspended

A MALE lawyer who appeared in court dressed in women’s clothes as a protest against what he said was New Zealand’s overly masculine judiciary was suspended yesterday.
The High Court found that Rob Moodie, a 68-year-old, balding man who regularly appeared in court in dresses and carrying a handbag, was in contempt for circulating suppressed documents outside the court in one of his cases.
Moodie officially changed his name to “Miss Alice” as part of his protest against the “old boys’ network” which he said runs the nation’s judiciary.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 15-Feb-07 00:21 GMT

Testing the water

Man fined after icy pond test

A RURAL Pakistan tribal council ordered a man to stand neck-deep in a freezing pond for ten minutes to “prove” his son innocent of a robbery charge, but he failed and paid a fine, an official said today.

This article:

Last updated: 16-Feb-07 12:33 GMT

New Scotsman

Dangerous Sports No 21: Fishing

Drunk catches shark with hands

A MAN who caught a 4ft shark with his bare hands off an Australian beach said he only tried the feat because he was drunk.
Phillip Kerkhof was fishing off a jetty at Louth Bay, when he spotted the bronze whaler shark. He said: “I just snuck up behind him, and I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him. It’s amazing what vodka does’.”

Last updated: 16-Feb-07 12:33 GMT

New Scotsman

It’s Only a Game

Polo-playing elephant with a big temper

SIMON GARDNER IN GALLE, SRI LANKA

EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD Abey is unpredictable, has a temper and let his side down badly yesterday when he lost focus on his polo game in southern Sri Lanka and put two team-mates in hospital.
The four-tonne elephant threw off his mahout and American rider as the island’s sixth annual elephant polo tournament got under way, rampaging off the pitch and crushing the Spanish team’s minibus with his head.
“It’s not quite what we were expecting,” said hotelier Geoffrey Dobbs, who organised the annual Ceylon Elephant Polo Association Bowl to help boost upmarket tourism and elephant conservation.

Last updated: 16-Feb-07 02:19 GMT

New Scotsman

Last Post

Postcard delivered 90 years too late
By Nick Britten

Last Updated: 9:40am GMT

When Private Walter Butler posted a card to his sweetheart from the trenches in the First World War, neither thought too much about it when it failed to arrive. Pte Butler, who was fighting on the Western Front with the Dorset Regiment, went on to marry his girlfriend, Amy Hicks, and the pair lived long and happy lives in Chippenham, Wilts. Last week the card mysteriously reappeared when Martin Kay, a postman, found it had been placed in his delivery sack. With Pte Butler and his wife now dead, he tracked down their only daughter, Joyce Hulbert, 86, and delivered it, 90 years too late. Mrs Hulbert said: “I would love to know where it has been all this time.”

Daily Telegraph

Just the Ticket!

Crashed-car ticketers in street mix-up

PARKING attendants who ticketed a crashed car also put the wrong street name on the ticket, the driver has claimed.
Suzie Cummings’ Mazda was badly dented after a joyrider lost control of a stolen car and crashed into it. An over-zealous parking attendant then slapped a parking ticket on the damaged car despite a “police aware” notice.
Parking operators NCP cancelled the penalty notice but Miss Cummings said the ticket wouldn’t have been valid as they put Northumberland Street South East Lane on the ticket, instead of Northumberland Street, where last Sunday’s accident happened.
She said: “The ticket just added insult to injury. The whole episode has been a nightmare but I was really touched by everyone who rallied round after the crash.”

New Scotsman

Last updated: 12-Feb-07 12:58 GMT

5 Things Bloggers Don’t Know about me…

Aha! I’ve been tagged by Gazza to come up with 5 things bloggers don’t know about me. So here goes:
1) My real name is… no, only kidding. I used to be a smoker – there’s nothing like a cigarette without a filter, you can really taste the tobacco! Filter ciggies taste like cardboard in comparison, but addiction is addiction, and when I found I was opening a second packet of 20 in the same day, I reckoned it was time to give up. Still miss it, though.
2) I used to play the violin when I was young – both my sister and I had lessons. I had to pack it in eventually because I couldn’t stand the noise I made.
3) I have written a book – 50,000 words to be precise. For those of you who want to have a go but need a push, try National Novel Writing Month when along with thousands of other hopefuls you will be encouraged to put pen to paper and give birth to that epic you have been dreaming about. Not that mine will ever see the light of day – it’s buried in a chest in the attic next to my violin.
4) I live with a hoarder – there are 269 empty plastic bags stuffed into a dark corner of the larder. When released, they cover 2 square metres and expand to just over a metre in height – a miniatue plastic Everest.
5) I once ran a double marathon – well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Our school used to force us to run cross-country races in Richmond Park during the winter when the pitches were too waterlogged for games, and one particularly damp and foggy day I had fallen behind the pack (stopped for a breather actually) and had to make a special effort to catch up with a dim figure disappearing into the mists. When I finally staggered back to the changing rooms, it turned out I had caught up with the tail-enders of the second pack that was running, and had managed to cover the whole course twice. Ugh!

If they get round to reading this, I want to tag CinR – bit like asking someone to open Pandora’s box I guess – also Knarf – not allowed to mention bicycles – and Liosliath – MUST mention donkeys!

Core!

Pomologists bite off more than they can chew with 200-year-old apple mystery
By Richard SavillLast Updated: 2:01am GMT 30/01/2007 

The identity of an apple variety that has been growing in Dorset for 200 years has left fruit specialists baffled. For generations, the family of Diana Toms has affectionately referred to the fruit as Granfer’s Apple, after her great, great grandfather who planted the tree in 1803. The family has asked pomologists to help establish the cooking apple’s identity but they have so far been unable to solve the mystery. Mrs Toms’ great, great grandfather, Isaac Bugler, grew the tree in an orchard attached to the family home in the village of Beaminster, Dorset. Mrs Toms called in specialists at the Symondsbury Apple Day in Dorset but they could not identify it. David Squirrell, of the Symondsbury Apple Project, said: “Its appearance doesn’t match up with any other variety.”"

Daily Telegraph