Ned Kelly walks again

Hunted down and hanged 127 years ago – Ned Kelly has given Aussies the slip again

TOM CURTIS IN PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

NED Kelly, Australia’s most famous outlaw, has given the authorities the slip again – 127 years after his death.
This time, it is his headless skeleton that has eluded investigators.
Kelly, whose exploits and evasion of the police made him an enduring folk hero, was thought to lie in a burial area at the former Pentridge Prison in Victoria. But historians now believe his body was interred in another mass grave nearby, which was unknowingly dug up for sewerage works in the 1950s or 1960s.
Archaeologists have been unable to find any human remains there, and it is thought what had been left of Kelly was discarded during the pipe-laying.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 21-May-07 00:16 BST

Rubbish!

Cleese clocks up rubbish ‘honour’

JOHN Cleese has been “honoured” by a New Zealand city, which has unofficially named a rubbish tip after him. A sign saying “Mt Cleese” appeared recently at the Awapuni landfill in Palmerston North following the British actor’s remark last year that he hated the city.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 21-May-07 00:16 BST

Strip art




Strip dances 'are not art'

VISITORS to strip bars in Norway are facing a price hike, after Finance Minister Kritin Halvorsen decided the dances were not art.
Now they will be subject to a 25 per cent increase to cover VAT.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 19-May-07 13:55 BST

Coffee to go, please

Hello police? Get me coffee

A MOTORIST has been banned after drunkenly phoning the police and demanding that officers deliver a cup of coffee to her vehicle.
Officers arrived to find Linda Harrison, 50, sitting in the driver’s seat of her Nissan Micra and smelling strongly of alcohol in a residential area of Coupar Angus, Perthshire.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 17-May-07 01:00 BST

Fruity story

2m yen for a pair of melons has shoppers licking lips

THEY are perfectly shaped, succulent, just ripe – and valued at a whopping two million yen.
A pair of melons has fetched a record price at the Sapporo central wholesale market and went on sale for the equivalent of £8,700 as the prize product at a local department store.
The record-breaking pair come from the town of Yubari, in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and are being sold at the Marui Imai store.
A spokeswoman said: “Yubari melons are a popular gift at chugen [the summer gift season] and we sell a lot.”
The shop says one of the melons has already been bought.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 16-May-07 01:00 BST

Mummy!

Buyer finds mummified body of flat’s ex-owner

DANIEL WOOLLS IN MADRID

A MAN making his first visit to a house he bought in a foreclosure auction found the mummified body of the former owner sitting on the living room sofa, Spanish police said yesterday.
Coroners estimate the woman’s remains had been there since 2001, when she stopped making payments on the house in Roses, Catalonia.
The body mummified rather than rotting because of the salty seaside air.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 15-May-07 00:33 BST

Grit your teeth

£4,500 for worker who slipped on ice

A SHOP worker has won nearly £4,500 in compensation after falling on ice she was employed to grit.
Isabelle MacKenzie, 50, was out of work for eight months after injuring her shoulder in the fall outside the Co-op store in Fortrose, Ross-shire.
The supermarket chain told Dingwall Sheriff Court the shop supervisor had been responsible for gritting the ice on which she fell at about 6:30am on 31 December, 2002. It also claimed Mrs MacKenzie had been drinking the evening before and may have been unsteady on her feet.
But Sheriff Alasdair MacFadyen ruled she was not intoxicated or unsteady on her feet.
He said the Co-op had failed in its duty to ensure the entrance was gritted but added: “The accident was also caused partly by the fault of the pursuer in that she failed to take reasonable care for her own safety.”

This article: New Scotsman

Last updated: 14-May-07 00:44 BST

Low flyer

Pilotless planes to hit crime

RESEARCHERS are developing unmanned aircraft to tackle crime and terrorism.
Tony McNulty, the policing minister at Westminster, confirmed the Home Office was exploring using the pilotless drones for a “range of policing and security applications”.
Unmanned aerial vehicles are already widely used by the military for a range of missions such as surveillance and identifying targets.
In a Commons written answer, Mr McNulty said the Home Office continued to “explore” policing applications for such technology. He added that an area of “overriding concern” for the use of such drones would be public safety and the Civil Aviation Authority placed strict restrictions on their use.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 15-May-07 01:00 BST

I Spy …

Bond writer ‘framed the last witch in Britain’

PAUL KELBIE

A HOUSEWIFE from Dundee who became the last woman to be jailed in Britain for witchcraft was framed by a team of British intelligence officers who worked with or for James Bond creator Ian Fleming, according to new research.
Her technique was to go into a trance and produce ectoplasm through her mouth and nose which would form human shape and speak.
However, on 19 January, 1944, during a sitting in Portsmouth, Duncan conjured up a sailor from HMS Barham to talk to his surprised mother – who didn’t know he was dead. The sinking of HMS Barham had been kept a secret by the navy for three months for operational reasons.
Only months before D-Day, Duncan was arrested and put on trial at the Old Bailey accused of contravening the Witchcraft Act of 1735.
On the basis of the evidence, much of which Dr Hartley claims appears to have been fabricated or at least exaggerated, Duncan was convicted and jailed.

This article: New Scotsman

Last updated: 14-May-07 01:44 BST

Time, gentlemen,please

Blast from past as gun marks time again

MICHAEL BLACKLEY

FOR almost 150 years it has waited silently on the historic Half Moon Battery.
But now Edinburgh Castle’s original One O’clock Gun is to be heard across the city once more to mark the start of the Leith Festival.
Master Gunner James Findlay, along with astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth and clockmaker James Frederick Ritchie, set up the time service and the one o’clock gun in 1861.
The idea was to offer an alternative to the crane ball at Calton Hill. The ball showed when it was one o’clock so that ships on the Firth of Forth could adjust their times and coordinates. But “Auld Reekie” Edinburgh was often very smoky and cloudy, so people had trouble seeing it.

This article:New Scotsman

Last updated: 14-May-07