The thorn in Trump's side

Meet Michael Forbes,
he is the man standing in the way of one of the world’s most famous billionaires. A gruff, obstinate Scotsman who has refused to bow to the financial might of Donald Trump and his vision for the world’s finest golf course.

Michael Forbes, a humble salmon fisherman whose family has lived behind the sand dunes at Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, for 40 years, yesterday pointed to the boundary of his land and shook his head.

“That’s where the golf course will be,” he said. “Fifty yards away on that side and fifty yards away on the other.”

To say that Mr Forbes, 55, is a thorn in Mr Trump’s side is an understatement. His 23 acres of land sit directly between the tycoon’s two proposed 18-hole golf courses and a planned 450-bedroom five-star hotel. A golf academy and driving range would be next door. Just a few hundred feet away would be the majestic sweep of Trump Boulevard, the main access road to the £1 billion resort.

“I’m right in the middle, you see,” Mr Forbes said yesterday. “I wasn’t against the golf course from the start, but then they just went mental because I wouldn’t sell. They said they’d make my life a misery and they are.”

Mr Forbes’s land, where a saltire hangs in one corner and a barn emblazoned with the words “No Golf Course” greets visitors as they arrive along the single-track unmade road, has become an embarrassing symbol of defiance to Mr Trump.

Richest Britain :- An 11th C Soldier

The richest man in Britain's history is not a steel magnate, trader or football club owner, but a soldier.

Alan Rufus, a French immigrant, who came over to Britain to help his uncle William the Conqueror in 1066, amassed a fortune worth an estimated £81.3 billion ($NZ220.5 billion) in today's money.

It dwarfs Chelsea football club owner £Roman Abramovich's 10.8 billion fortune and steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal's £19.3 billion fortune. It is nearly three times the wealth of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Old money dominates a list of Britain's wealthiest over the centuries, with landowners, traders, bankers, the clergy and the military dominating the top 250 places. Mittal comes in at 20, while Abramovich is at 59.

The list is published in a book called The Richest of the Rich by Philip Beresford, compiler of the annual Rich List for the Sunday Times, and William Rubinstein, professor of history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Published by Harriman House, it excludes monarchs, whose wealth is difficult to calculate.

When Rufus died at 53 he had a fortune of £11,000, thanks largely to the huge swathes of land he was given by William for suppressing Saxon rebellions in the north.

Beresford and Rubinstein, using figures from probate records and ancient documents, calculated that the sum represented more than 7 per cent of the net national income of the time. With an equivalent percentage today, he would be worth £81.3 billion.

Rubinstein said: "The further back you go, the wealthier the wealthy were. It was easier to become wealthy in the past than it is now. Plainly the wealth was based on land and trading before the industrial revolution. Since then much more of the rich have come from the City of London. The biggest surprise was how much the rich were affected by tax and death duties during the mid-20th century. It squeezed the wealth out of them."

Other figures who feature in the top 20 of the rich list include the soldier and landowner Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel, (1307-1376) who used his £59.4 billion fortune to help bail out the king; Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket (1120-1170) who had an estimated fortune of £24.6 billion and James Craggs (1657-1721) who made £20 billion thanks to his army clothing contracts.

Among living Britons are the 6th Duke of Westminster, who owns hundreds of acres of the most exclusive commercial and residential property in central London, comes in at 102 with £7 billion and retailer Sir Philip Green, who is at 140 with £4.9 billion.

Man saved by drink

Australia - Mackay Base Hospital has successfully used alcoholic beverages to treat a 24-year-old Italian tourist who ingested litres of a poison commonly found in anti-freeze.

After running out of pharmaceutical-grade alcohol used to help stop the poison turning toxic in the stomach, staff of the north Queensland hospital had to give the man rounds of rum, scotch and vodka.

Dr Todd Fraser says while unconventional, the patient was given three standard drinks every hour for three days.

"Fortunately for him he was in a medically induced coma for a good portion of that," he said.

"By the time he woke up I think his hangover would have well and truly gone."

Punctual man wins house

Poor punctuality is such a brake on Ivory Coast's economic development that the West African country has come up with a novel way to combat tardiness: win a house if you demonstrate you can turn up on time.

Backed by President Laurent Gbagbo and devised by a local public relations firm, "Punctuality Night" kicked off at eight o'clock sharp on Saturday night, rewarding business people and civil servants for exceptional timekeeping.

Pitched with the slogan "'African time' is killing Africa, let's fight it," its organisers hope to heighten awareness of how missed appointments, meetings or even late buses cut productivity in a region where languid tardiness is the norm.

Legal adviser Narcisse Aka, winner of what the organisers hope will be an annual event, is so unusually good at being punctual that his colleagues call him "Mr White Man's Time".

"You have the impression of being an extraterrestrial because you are with people who consider that being late is quite normal," said Mr Aka, who clinched the top of the nine prizes awarded, a $60,000 villa.

Cardboard drain cover traps girl

Firefighters drilled through a pavement to free a 10-year-old Liverpool girl trapped in a drain outside her home. Chanelle Edwards fell down the hole as she played in Lavender Way, Walton, yesterday afternoon. She became stuck up to her waist.

When her mother and neighbours failed to haul Chanelle out they called firefighters. The crews used drills to break up the pavement around the grid and remove the cast iron surround. Chanelle, who started to panic during her hour-long ordeal, was eventually lifted to safety.

She suffered cuts and bruises to her side and was treated at the scene by paramedics.
Firefighters said the grid cover was broken some time ago and a piece of cardboard placed over the hole as a temporary measure.

Gary Leith from Merseyside Fire Service’s search and rescue team, said: “It was a small hole but big enough for a small girl to fall down. It was dangerous situation and she was lucky not to escape with more serious injuries. She stayed brave as we worked to help her.”

A neighbour said her daughter was playing with Chanelle when she fell.

She said: “The girls were just outside happily playing in the street as usual when my daughter came knocking on the door in tears saying Chanelle had fallen down the grid. She was quite calm but when we couldn’t get her out she started to get a bit upset. Someone rang 999 and eventually the fire brigade had to come out and drill round the sides of the cover to get her out. Her poor little sides were all scraped.”

Chanelle was today recovering at home.

Price : - Up to you, no really!

Innovative rock band Radiohead has stunned the music world by announcing that its forthcoming album will make its debut as a digital download available for whatever individual consumers want to pay for it.

Guitarist Jonny Greenwood announced on the band's website late Sunday night that the new album In Rainbows has been completed and would be released Oct. 10 online.

When pre-ordering the album through the website, the checkout screen returns the message: "It's up to you."

A subsequent message adds: "No really, it's up to you."

A physical version of the band's seventh album — a special edition featuring two discs as well as lyrics and artwork — will follow in December.

The critically acclaimed band fulfilled its contract with record label EMI with its previous album, 2003's Hail to the Thief.

Fined for not speeding in parked car

In the West Midlands, the owner of The Staffordshire Knot pub was fined even though he could prove himself innocent of speeding. Stephen Gittus, 39, parked his Kia outside of his establishment on the date and time that a notice he received in the mail claimed his car was hurtling through Wolverhampton at 40 MPH in a 30 MPH zone on Willenhall Road. Several witnesses confirmed that Gittus was playing darts in a crowd of thirty patrons at around 10pm on the date in question.

Last Tuesday, however, Wolverhampton Magistrates Court dropped the speeding charge but did not care that Gittus was innocent. Instead, they imposed three license demerit points and a £420 (US $840) fine on him for "failing to supply information to police" regarding the ticket. Section 172 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act requires motorists to identify the driver of a vehicle accused of speeding, even if the vehicle in question was parked at the time.

"I pleaded not guilty because I was not driving the car," Gittus explained to the Express and Star newspaper. "I was in the pub having a drink and playing darts with my mates. I couldn't name the driver on that form because, as far as I'm concerned, no-one was driving the car."

Back to School for Judge

A judge in New Delhi has been ordered to return to law school by the High Court, on the grounds that they say he doesn't understand the law.

In an order issued late on Friday, Judge R. K. Tiwari was told to return for a three-month refresher course after issuing an arrest warrant in defiance of a previous High Court ruling.

'Since Tiwari does not have even elementary knowledge of the criminal law and procedure it would be appropriate that he undergoes a refresher course at Delhi Judicial Academy,' Justice V.B. Gupta wrote.

The move comes after a series of high-profile cases that have been overturned by the High Court or the national Supreme Court, citing lack of legal understanding by lower court judges.

One was a recent arrest warrant issued by a low court judge against Hollywood actor Richard Gere for publicly kissing an actress - allegedly in contravention of India's obscenity laws.

Also, Tiwari had ordered police to detain a landlord in a case where his tenant had failed to pay the power company, despite a previous High Court ruling that the landlord could not be held responsible.

Tiwari could not immediately be reached for comment.

Gupta ordered that the head of the law school personally submit a report on Tiwari's progress after three months. And, to ensure that others in lower courts got the message, Gupta ordered copies of his order sent to all New Delhi judges.

Cow arrested

A Cambodian cow was taken into police custody for causing traffic accidents that resulted in the deaths of at least six people this year, a police official said Tuesday.

The cow's owner could also face a six-month prison term under a new traffic law that holds people responsible for accidents caused by their animals, said Pin Doman, a police chief on the outskirts of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.

The white, 1.5-meter tall cow was standing in the middle of a main road Monday night when a 66-year-old motorcyclist crashed into the animal and died. Most Cambodian roads are dark at night.

Earlier this year, the same cow was responsible for another traffic accident that resulted in the death of five people and several injuries, when a truck veered off the road and crashed as its driver tried to avoid the animal.

Pin Doman said he was holding the cow at his police station.

He said the cow's owner had been warned four times in the past to keep his cattle leashed and could face prison time if relatives of those who died initiate legal proceedings.

Change for a million?

A man who handed over a counterfeit million dollar bill to a cashier at a Pittsburgh supermarket and asked for change has been arrested.

Police told the BBC the man became abusive when a manager at the Giant Eagle store confiscated the fake note.

He broke an electronic funds-transfer machine at the counter and reached for a scanner gun, said police.

There is no real US bill worth $1m (£490,000). Since 1969, the $100 note has been the highest in circulation.

The man walked into the store on the north side of Pittsburgh on Saturday evening.

After refusing to give his name to police, the suspect, who was not carrying identification, was charged with forgery and criminal mischief.

Blue Diamond record

A flawless blue diamond that fetched $7.98m (£3.93m) has set a record as the most expensive gemstone per carat bought at auction. Moussaieff Jewellers of London bought the stone from a private Asian collector at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong.

Bidding for the emerald-cut 6.04 carat diamond lasted eight minutes. The stone sold for $1.32m per carat, easily beating the previous record of $926,000 per carat.That was set by a red diamond sold in New York 20 years ago.

"The bidding was fast and furious and you know it's not as if one could go out and buy another one," said Quek Chin Yeow, head of Jewellery Asia at Sotheby's.

"It's as rare as getting a Renoir or a wonderful Rothko. When you look at the stone, it sings," he said. "The cutting is wonderful."

There is increasing demand for coloured diamonds among jewellery collectors in Europe, the United States and Asia. Blue diamonds are mostly found at the Premier Mine in South Africa.

The Hong Kong sale on Monday raised a total of $40.8m. An emerald owned by the American songwriter and lyricist Irving Berlin sold for $2.64m.

Giant pumpkin smashes bus

Some Oregon residents gathered at Fir Point Farms for a solemn annual rite of Fall recently. They dropped a giant pumpkin weighing nearly 1,000 pounds onto a bus from 100 feet up. The wreckage was then attacked by hordes of children. Fun times at Fir Point Farms!

Thieves flushed

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado -- Thieves who took a truck in Seattle may have looked a little flushed when they found out what was in the back: a 2-meter-high, 2-meter-long soapbox racing car shaped like a toilet.

Five friends built the racer in Colorado Springs for an event in Seattle in late September. It was stolen when the truck it was sitting in was swiped from their hotel parking lot late last month.

Neither the truck nor the toilet-shaped racer have been found.

"We're laughing about it," soapbox driver Tom Valentine said Friday. He just wishes he could've seen the thieves' faces when they opened the back of the truck.

"My guess is (they said), 'Oh, crap, it's a giant toilet."'

The soapbox car did not win any races but was second in the people's choice competition.

Scientist proves he wasn't speeding

Magistrates were stunned when a scientist charged with speeding at 42mph told them: “No I wasn’t . . . I was only doing 29.177196mph.”

Dr Phillip Tann’s lawyer then produced data from a revolutionary device he was testing – showing the exact time, location and speed of his car. Instead of being 12mph over the limit when his Mercedes was zapped by a mobile speed camera, he was actually less than 0.8mph UNDER. The case has now been dropped.

Dr Tann plans to talk to police chiefs about how his invention – built into a mobile phone – could help stop speeders.

The scientist, 45, who runs his own technology firm,Tann Autopoietic Systems, was stunned to get a letter accusing him of speeding in Sunderland because he had seen the police trap.

He checked data on the device and found cops were wrong. His lawyer gave the city’s JPs a CD of his recordings. Dr Tann said yesterday: “They looked flabbergasted. Police cameras are not 100 per cent accurate but my system is.”

He is to release a similar product in December for parents who want to know the location of their child.

Pretty Dumb

A teenage girl racked up a £1,175 phone bill – by voting for HERSELF in an online beauty contest. Wannabe model Chelsea Gledhill, 14, sent nearly 2,000 texts in a month, costing 60p each.

Chelsea sent in a snap of herself to the contest for 13-19-year-olds with her parents’ consent. She was invited to a London photoshoot and her pic was put on a website where people could vote for their favourite by text.

She got to the final five in the heat with 1,972 text votes – mainly from herself. Judges then chose two other girls to go on to the grand final while Chelsea was given a consolation prize of £100 of make-up.

Lisa, a cleaner from Halifax, West Yorks, said: “I’m not angry at Chelsea because I understand why she did it. I’m angry at the exploitation. Girls are vulnerable at that age. The contest favours girls with money rather than those who deserve it. It depends how much you can afford to text.”

She and builder husband Jason, 35, had to use savings to pay the bill.

But Miss Teen Queen UK said Chelsea and her mum were told how the voting worked and what it cost. A spokeswoman said: “Chelsea’s mum knew what she was letting her enter.
In the final round the girls are judged by our judges. It is all above board.”

Giant Pumpkin Disqualified

Buffalo - It was the same sinking feeling you get when you find an ugly gash on the side of your spanking new car. Only this crack appeared one August day on the side of a colossal pumpkin that Karl Haist Sr. had hoped would win him bragging rights among gourd growers.

But the Clarence Center resident knew the rules of the World Pumpkin Confederation Weigh-Off. Any cracks or holes — even small ones — disqualify a pumpkin from winning the annual contest.

“We were just sick over it,” said Beverly Haist, who helps her husband in the family’s pumpkin patch. Still, having nurtured the giant gourd since May, the couple decided to enter it in Saturday’s competition. They plugged the crack with putty and hauled it by truck to the Great Pumpkin Farm on Main Street in Clarence. It weighed in at 1,260.5 pounds, the biggest pumpkin of the bunch — and 52 pounds heavier than last year’s winner.

Of course, the pesky crack that occurred naturally during the growing process doomed its fate.

Despite the setback, there was a happy ending for the Haists. After judges weighed all 16 entries, they proclaimed one pumpkin the firstplace winner of a $1,000 prize. The 896.5-pound fruit belonged to Beverly Haist, who shared her secret for growing her creation during an unusually dry and hot summer.

“A lot of water,” she said. “The Erie County [Water Authority] loves me.” And don’t forget plenty of cow manure, she added.

Mossie bite puts man in coma

A Scottish holidaymaker has been left in a coma after becoming the first suspected European victim of a deadly virus. Michael Nicholson, from Livingston, West Lothian, contracted the little known "Triple E" bug from a mosquito bite in the US, his family said.

It is thought the 35-year-old painter and decorator was bitten while fishing in New Hampshire this summer. Mr Nicholson's relatives said if he lives he is expected to be severely disabled for the rest of his life. He is being treated in Edinburgh's Western General Hospital.

The virus, known as Eastern Equine Encephalitis or Triple E, is regarded as one of the most serious mosquito-borne diseases on the North American continent.

It is found mainly in the eastern regions of the US and has a 35% mortality rate. Symptoms develop after three to 10 days, and include flu-like illness, inflammation of the brain, coma and death.

Michael's sister Sharan McKenzie, also from Livingston, said she wanted to warn other holidaymakers travelling to New England about the dangers of the virus. British tourists heading to the area are given no official warnings about the potential risk, she said.

Mrs McKenzie, 38, said: "There is no cure and there is no vaccine, so all you can do is try and prevent yourself being bitten. You don't think there is going to be a risk if you get bitten by a mosquito in somewhere like the US, or Spain. So we had no idea this would be so devastating. The more people know about this the better."

Mr Nicholson spent six weeks with family and friends in Rhode Island and New Hampshire this summer. He fell ill on 31, August, a day after flying back to Scotland. Within two days he had lost consciousness and was transferred to the intensive care unit at the Western General.

Mrs McKenzie said doctors diagnosed her brother with Triple E on 13 September telling the family his was the first case in Europe. She said Michael is now in the hospital's neurological unit where he remains unconscious and unresponsive.

"He has opened his eyes, but is not aware of anything," Mrs McKenzie said. "Our family has been devastated by this. We have been told he is likely to be severely disabled at best. It seems there is nothing we can do apart from warn people."

US health records reveal 220 confirmed cases of Triple E between 1964 and 2004, an average of five per year.

Shop 'til you drop

Feverish shoppers ripped clothes off shop mannequins during a bargain store sale which ended in trouble and police being called. One man was arrested when trendy fashion retailer Clockwork Orange opened a store at the Junction One retail outlet in Antrim, Northern Ireland.

About 2,000 people arrived for the opening and tempers frayed as people tried to jump the queue. The shop opened at 0500 BST on Saturday for a "beat the clock" sale.

Bargain hunters were lining up for the promotion, where the cost of an item is based on the time of purchase.

Product manager Will McCooke said some people had lost all sense. "We had beautiful girls with designer handbags and designer sunglasses on their hands and knees grabbing clothes," he said.

"It was completely primeval - it was like hunter-gatherers. Within half an hour of the store opening the windows had been ransacked by people coming in and ripping the clothes off the mannequins and just leaving the mannequins on the ground. They were literally tearing the mannequins apart to get the clothes."

He said that if you were in at 0500 BST, everything in the store would be £5 - from a £30 T-shirt to the £300 leather jacket.

"We actually had to close the fitting rooms because of the volume of people coming through - people were not trying things on, they were just grabbing handfuls of clothes and running to the cash desk."

One man was arrested for disorderly behaviour, the PSNI said.

Pub team name changes

With the likes of Kaka, Ronaldinho and Rooney their team sheet reads like a Champions League dream team. But the players of lowly Lynam Athletic actually play in the Birmingham Coronation League Alliance Division 3, and last season finished bottom.

The team needed an inspirational way to strike fear into their opposition - so they ALL officially changed their names by deed poll to professional footballers for the start of this season. With Peter Cech in goal and a back four of Paulo Maldini, Cafu, John Terry and Fabio Cannavaro - their defence sounds like a force to be reckoned with.

And the appetising prospects of a midfield of Steven Gerrard, Ronaldinho, Kaka and Christiano Ronaldo would have any manager licking his lips. Thierry Henry and Ruud van Nistelrooy make up the front line but unfortunately, all are merely a bunch of IT workers from the West Midlands.

And now the squad of 17 players - who have even had their new names printed on their shirts - are looking a better prospect this year and are sitting in 5th place after four games. Top goalscorer Thierry Henry, 39, formerly Darren Yeomans, said: "We wanted to strike fear into the opposition and we certainly weren't going to do that with our football skills.

The zany idea was the brainchild of player manager Dan Branch, 29, now Cafu, over a pint in their local pub. "We hope that the name change will give us a bit of inspiration to go on and improve this season and so far we haven't done too badly. That's the confidence you get from actually being John Terry or Ronaldinho. Who ever thought you would see Henry, Messi and Gerrard playing together on a Birmingham park on a wet and windy Sunday."

Lynam are sitting 5th in in the league at the moment after finishing bottom last season so the team hope their new alter ego's will inspire them to change their season around.

Captain John Terry, 29, said: "We're not in the best shape anyway as both Thierry and Ruud smoke about twenty a day and Gerrard is always half cut on a Sunday - nothing like their namesakes."

Squad

• Player-coach Cafu
  aka Daniel Branch
  
• Player Iker Casillas
  aka Pete Hall
  
• Player Petr Cech
  aka John Robins
  
• Player Daniel Alves
  aka Paul Blears
  
• Player Fabio Cannavaro
  aka Neil Kimpton
  
• Player Jamie Carragher
  aka Jon Barber
  
• Player John Terry
  aka Ian Flatt
  
• Player Hernan Crespo
  aka Andrew Mullan
  
• Player Michael Essien
  aka Darryl Brown
  
• Player Steven Gerrard
  aka Connor Edgcumbe
  
• Player Kaka
  aka Nick Hall
  
• Player Ronaldinho
  aka Majid Ali
  
• Player Wayne Rooney
  aka Ben White
  
• Player Thierry Henry
  aka Darren Yeomans
  
• Player Lionel Messi
  aka Chris Gray

Bricked-in prank

When Laura Bain tried to leave her house to take her four-year-old daughter to school, she literally came up against a brick wall. Practical jokers had struck at the home she shares with boyfriend David Devanna, bricking up and cementing the front door from the outside.

Mr Devanna's friends carried out the handiwork to mark his 24th birthday - as a way of getting him back for his pranks. As well as wallpapering the front window with a huge birthday message, his friends also set to work on his beloved Golf GTI. They covered the inside of the car with balloons and string, then tightly wrapped strips of Cellophane around its doors so Mr Devanna could not get in. The jokers sprayed it with foam and attached the body of a toy rabbit to its bonnet, with fake blood scattered around.

Posters of Mr Devanna, a self-employed mechanic, were put on lampposts throughout Sighthill View, where he lives. The shock - and with the lack of transport - forced the birthday boy to call off jobs he had scheduled for that day.

The father-of-three said he suspected his friends would mark his birthday in some way. He said: "My oldest daughter came running, saying: 'We can't get out the front door.' I was half asleep at the time and didn't know what she was talking about. I had to go out of the back door, then I saw my car had been done. I thought they'd do something, but I never expected my door to be bricked up. I take it that's my birthday present."

Mr Devanna added that he had his suspicions about who the main prankster was, and has pointed the finger at his friend Gregor Todd, whose car he "decorated" for his birthday. The guess was proved correct when Mr Todd admitted that he was indeed the mastermind behind the practical joke.

The 22-year-old, from Balerno, said: "I might have had something to do with it. He got shaving foam and cling film and did my car on my birthday, so this is payback. I did it at 4.30am. I had an accomplice but I'm not saying who. I thought he might take it a bit to heart, but he has not at all. It's brilliant."

But Mr Devanna is already planning his friend's next birthday surprise. He said: "I will need to go one better next time."

Miss Bain said that although she was shocked when she couldn't leave the house, she found the prank "hilarious". She said: "His friends had been talking about doing something, but I didn't think they would do anything like this. He loves that car, this is actually the longest it has sat in the drive."

The couple's neighbour Paul Stokes - who put up posters of Mr Devanna but denied any further involvement - said: "This is the most ridiculous prank I have ever seen in my life. Everybody walking past has stopped and stared, and they all think it's hilarious. Somebody went to a lot of effort to do this."

Bugged game

CLEVELAND - This will forever be known as the Bug Game. A swarm of insects descended on Jacobs Field in the eighth inning of the Cleveland Indians' 2-1 playoff victory over the New York Yankees on Friday night, leading to a bizarre scene featuring players waving their arms and gloves in an attempt to keep the pesky bugs away.

The teams kept playing into extra innings as millions of bugs nagged players on the field and in the dugouts.

"Every time you tried to focus on something, they're flying in your nose and your hair and your face," said Yankees first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was batting in the top of the eighth when the swarm invaded.

Ron Harrison, an entomologist who works for Orkin Inc., an Atlanta-based pest control company, said the annoying bugs were a type of midge, an insect related to mosquitoes. While some speculated they were Canadian Soldiers, they were much smaller than that type.

Get on the bus kids!

PORT HURON, Michigan - A big brood needs a big bus - a really big bus. A 15-bed bus once used to transport the now-defunct Port Huron Flags minor league hockey team has been sold to an Arkansas couple with 17 children.

When the team folded in May, Fred Minnie posted an ad trying to sell the bus in an auto magazine. He was contacted by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, whose 17th child, Jennifer Danielle, was born Aug. 2.

"There's not too many of those buses with 15 beds in it," Minnie said.

Minnie did not disclose the purchase price.

The family's 650-square-metre home is in the northwest Arkansas town of Tontitown, and Jim Bob Duggar said the family hopes to make a road trip to visit relatives in Ohio.

"We've done a limited amount of travel in it so far," he said. "It will be something we'll use hopefully in the years to come."

Rubik championships

BUDAPEST, Hungary - A 16-year-old from Japan took the top prize at the Rubik's Cube world championship Sunday, solving the puzzle five times in an average of 12.46 seconds.

But the fastest single attempt was a cool 10.88 seconds by an American, just off the world record of 9.86 seconds.

Andrew Kang of the United States, who came in second for the main event, set the best time for a single attempt at the championship. The world record has been held by Thibaut Jacquinot of France since May.

The five-attempt event garners the top award of US$7,000, prizing consistency over of a single - possibly lucky - win.

More than 250 competitors from 33 countries took part in the event, the first to be held in Hungary - where the game was invented by Erno Rubik in 1974 - since competition began in 1982.

Golden Spurtle winner

A guesthouse owner from Argyll has taken the honours in the annual world porridge-making championships. A dozen cooks from across the UK had gathered in Carrbridge, in Strathspey, for the contest to see who can make the finest bowl of the oatmeal dish.

Judges marked the entrants on their porridge's appearance, consistency and taste, before deciding on a champion.

The winner of the coveted Golden Spurtle, or stirrer, was Maria Soep from Kilchrenan.

Ms Soep, who reached the final last year, came out victorious after a three-way cook-off. She said her secret was a special batch of pinhead oats bought from Oban, on Scotland's west coast.

"I buy my pinhead oatmeal from a health food shop - it is the best that money can buy," she said. I soaked them overnight, added a bit of salt and some good water. But it's the oatmeal that counts." Mrs Soep added: "It feels great to have won - I am delighted."

100mph 11 year old

An 11-year-old boy and his parents have been arrested after he fled Louisiana police in a car chase at speeds of more than 100mph, it is reported. The child's mother and father have been accused of letting him drive for about six months, the Associated Press said.

The pursuit began when a patrol car spotted the boy's car speeding on Interstate 310 near New Orleans. Police gave chase but the car sped away, only stopping at a Burger King restaurant where his mother worked.

The boy had been driving home from a hospital where he had dropped off his disabled father for an appointment when the chase began, police said.

His parents have been charged with the improper supervision of a minor and allowing an unlicensed minor to drive - something authorities said had been going on for six months.

The boy was reportedly released to the custody of an aunt after being arrested for fleeing from an officer, reckless driving, speeding, passing on the shoulder, improper lane usage and having no driver's licence.

Pedalling round the world

When Jason Lewis set off on his record-breaking round-the-world expedition 13 years ago, the Millennium Dome was not even built. Yesterday he pedalled past it in Moksha, his 26ft wooden boat, on the way to completing the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.

During his 46,000-mile journey, the 40-year-old from Dorset hit a reef in the Caribbean, was chased by a giant crocodile in Australia and arrested as a spy by the Egyptian military after kayaking into their waters from Sudan.

Travelling only under human power – and without sails – he pedalled across the Atlantic and the Pacific, Rollerbladed across the United States and cycled across Australia.

As he took his final steps into the history books, Lewis said: “It’s been my life for 13 years, I’ve put everything into this. To be honest, I never thought it was going to happen . . . there were times when it shouldn’t have happened.”

After 13 years away, apart from one visit when his father became ill, Lewis said of Britain in the third millennium: “It doesn’t seem too different. I’ve had my first greasy spoon breakfast and the fried eggs taste the same . . . the weather hasn’t changed and there are more speed cameras.”

Asked what he had missed most about Britain, Lewis said: “I’ve seen enough deserts. I’ve missed green rolling hills and cosy pubs – sitting by the fire drinking a pint of warm beer – and I do miss British humour. It’s nice to be with people who take the mickey out of each other.”

He added: “I’m torn, I’m very happy to be finishing it. It’s taken so much longer than originally expected, but at the same time I’m sad that it’s coming to a close. I’m very emotional.”

When the 26-year-old Lewis set off from Greenwich on July 12, 1994, John Major was prime minister and Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around was at number one in the singles charts.

In achieving his feat, Lewis was robbed and beaten several times, run over by a drunk driver in Colorado – who broke both his legs – and suffered malaria, altitude sickness and a potentially fatal case of blood poisoning contracted 1,300 miles from land while pedalling in the Pacific.

Three kids - same birthday

MARYSVILLE, Ohio -- It won't take much for Jenna and William Cotton to remember the birthday of the newest member of their family. Daughter Kayla was born Tuesday, which was Oct. 2 -- the same date her brothers were born on.

Ayden Cotton arrived on Oct. 2, 2003; Logan was born Oct. 2, 2006.

The parents said they had a feeling their baby daughter might come a couple of days past her Sept. 30 due date. Sure enough, Jenna Cotton, 23, began having contractions early Tuesday, hours before a planned birthday party for the boys.

She had a doctor's appointment scheduled later in the day and hung in for the party. Ayden, the 4-year-old, wanted to know if his new baby sister would make the festivities, Jenna Cotton said.

Kayla, at 7-pounds, 8-ounces, was born at 7:07 p.m. Tuesday.

The odds of a family having three children born on the same date in different years are about 7.5 in 1 million, said Bill Notz, a statistics professor at Ohio State University.

Man, 72, donates sperm to father his own grandchild

A 72-year-old man is to donate sperm to attempt to help his daughter-in-law to conceive his grandchild.

A fertility clinic has agreed to allow the man to donate to his son and daughter-in-law, the husband being infertile. If the procedure at the London Women’s Clinic succeeds, the donor will be the child’s genetic father, as well as being its grandfather in legal terms.

The case has caused controversy among fertility specialists, not because of the family relationships but because, as men age, their sperm accumulates genetic damage, raising the risk of health problems. Raised paternal age is a risk factor for autism, schizophrenia, achondroplasia (dwarfism), Down’s syndrome, and congenital defects.

The national sperm donation programme accepts only men aged under 45. Allan Pacey, of the British Fertility Society, said: “I am sure the couple will have been apprised of the risks, but in my view this is unwise. There is a very real possibility that this will not work, and the chances of miscarriage are also raised. The chances of a genetic defect or illness become greater too. You could say that if everybody is happy they should go ahead, but God forbid if there if there’s a child born with a problem. It would be delicate to explain to that child that it might be the result of its grandfather’s 72-year-old sperm.”

Tax fugitives arrested

A US couple in their 60s who had barricaded themselves in their house for several months armed with guns and explosives to avoid being jailed for tax evasion have been arrested, officials said.

New Hampshire couple Ed and Elaine Brown, who reportedly stopped paying tax in 1996 and rejected the Government's right to collect taxes, were convicted in January and shortly afterwards locked themselves in their rural home.

The stand-off began in earnest in April, when they were sentenced in absentia to more than five years in jail and they threatened that there would be a bloody outcome if law enforcement officers tried to enter their home.

In the end, two US marshals managed to sneak into the home through the front door, posing as supporters who have been providing the elderly couple with weapons, food and supplies since the stand-off began.

"They invited us in and we escorted them out," marshal Stephen Monier told reporters in New Hampshire, explaining how officials first arrested the pair and then swept the property for guns and explosives.

"During that sweep we discovered a large number of improvised explosive devices both inside the residence and out," Mr Monier told reporters, adding that authorities also found a large number of weapons and ammunition.

The couple were believed to have avoided paying some $US1.9 million in taxes owed mostly through Elaine Brown's dental practice.

"We will not be arrested. We will not volunteer to go into their prison for a non-crime. We have committed no crimes. We either walk out of here free or we die," Elaine Brown had told reporters earlier in the stand-off.

79yo finally gets a license

A New Zealand motorist has finally got around to getting a driver's license after 50 years behind the wheel. Authorities caught up with her last month.

Amelia Morrison of Rotorua has been driving illegally since 1957 when her husband taught her to drive a truck. The 79-year-old told the police that stopped her that she literally only drove to church, to the doctor and to the local shops, and had never had an accident.

Mrs Morrison said she had never felt confident enough to actually sit the drivers' test. Authorities took away her car for 28 days and suggested she undertake driver training through a special course aimed at encouraging Maori driving illegally to do the right thing.

Mrs Morrison has now got her learner's permit and is back on the road.

Doh!Nut snatcher jailed

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - A 39-year-old woman was arrested outside an East Lampeter Township grocery store Wednesday and charged with having a stolen doughnut in the back of her pants, investigators said.

Police allege Lynn K. Dailey, of 244 W. Lemon St., stole a single 44-cent doughnut and walked out of Weis Market at 1603 Lincoln Highway East. Police were tipped off to the theft by witnesses at the store, and within minutes they found the woman hiding across the street at a nearby business, they said.

Dailey was wanted for an outstanding bench warrant and spent the night in Lancaster County Prison Wednesday, East Lampeter Township police Sgt. James McElheny said.

"A 44-cent doughnut resulted in her being turned over to (the) Lancaster city prison, where she is waiting to see a county judge," McElheny said.

Dailey's warrant was issued for a parole violation. Police said Dailey walked into the store about 2:30 p.m. and concealed the doughnut in the back of her pants. Dailey then ran out of the store and crossed Pitney Road while witnesses called 911, police said. Police arrested her outside Gilbert's Automotive, 32 Pitney Road.

She was charged with retail theft for allegedly taking the doughnut, McElheny said.

Asked what type of doughnut police recovered from the woman, McElheny said, "smushed."

Clotted cream crisis

Fearing that the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the U.K. may carry over to our shores, the U.S. government has apparently put the kibosh on imports of the English necessity clotted cream.

And that has English specialty stores, restaurants and tea houses in a tizzy, saying their newfound clotted-cream circumstances are as desperate as London's during the Blitz.

Take Nicky Perry, mother hen to New York City's British expats at Tea & Sympathy, which she says buys up more clotted cream in a week than everyone else in the U.S. put together buys in a year. When she tried to put in her regular order of clotted cream this afternoon and heard about the ban for the first time, she had to scramble to fill her stores. Even after making calls to stores as far away as California, she estimates she has only enough clotted cream to last T&S another 10 days.

"It's really a desperate situation, because whipping heavy cream just doesn't cut the mustard, so to speak," she says. "I've already told all the staff, 'You have to cut it back. If they ask for more, give them more, but we have to make it last.' It's really like wartime rations."

Indeed, an unofficial rationing system may already be forming among Perry and her fellow British restaurateurs, with everyone across the country who's been affected getting a much-reduced piece of the clotted-cream action.

Perry's distributor, New Jersey-based Epicure Foods Corp., is less dramatic, calmly saying that a similar ban a couple years back was probably more serious (but then again, co-owner Jennifer Drezga's a Yank). The hold-up, as Drezga explains it, is that the British government isn't providing the very rigorous certification that the U.S. Customs Service and the FDA are now requiring for U.K. dairy products. Still, she says, it could be a month, six months or a year or more before British expats and American Anglophiles get their clotted cream again.

"Word of mouth is there maybe something in November, but you just don't know," Drezga says.

It sounds like Perry might not be able to last even that long without her clotted cream.

"People in the store are looking at me like, 'Is that woman mad?'" she says. "There are going to be a lot of very disappointed cream lovers very soon."

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Another beetle bites the dust

Efforts are being made this week to prevent Britain's first species extinction in the new millennium – of a beetle that was discovered only two years ago.

The streaked bombardier beetle is officially the UK's rarest insect, known from only one colony, on a brownfield site on the Thames estuary in east London. However, the site is about to be redeveloped for housing, and the rubble-strewn habitat it has found congenial is to be obliterated.

In an attempt to save the beetle, the developers have created an alternative site on the edge of the housing area, and this week volunteers from the London Wildlife Trust have tried to relocate the insects. Otherwise, disappearance looms for Brachinus sclopeta, which only a month ago was added to the UK's list of priority endangered species.

"This isn't an extinction in a remote rainforest on the other side of the world," said Jamie Roberts of Buglife, the invertebrate conservation charity. "It's happening right here on our doorstep, and could have been avoided if the site had been protected. It's very sad that a deliberate choice has been made to plough on with this development, regardless of the consequences to wildlife."

Bombardier beetles are among the insect world's more remarkable creatures. They possess an effective defence mechanism, which comprises their ability to fire a boiling chemical spray from the tip of the abdomen. This is fatal to other insects and discouraging to larger potential enemies, including humans.

Arse- Painter sues

A high school art teacher fired after officials learned he moonlighted by creating paintings using his bare buttocks and other body parts sued his former employers on Thursday.

Stephen Murmer was fired in January after Chesterfield County Public Schools officials saw a YouTube video of Murmer wearing a swim thong and a Groucho Marx mask, demonstrating how he applies paint to his backside, then presses it onto a canvas.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond by the American Civil Liberties Union, said Murmer's firing violates his First Amendment rights. It also alleges that after he was suspended from teaching in December, school officials ordered him not to discuss his suspension even as they commented on it in news interviews.

The complaint seeks unspecified damages and legal fees from the county school board, a school district personnel official and the principal at Monacan High School, where he taught.

School officials had not seen the lawsuit early Thursday afternoon and do not comment on litigation, said spokeswoman Debra Marlow.

Murmer, said in a telephone interview from Alabama, where he now lives, that the school district deprived him not only of his right to free expression but his rights to due process.

"This lawsuit is about a corrupt little county in Virginia and making sure they can't do this to anyone else ever again," he said.

Murmer paints under the pseudonym "Stan Murmur," and displays some of his work on his Web site, www.buttprintart.com.

Overloaded thief

A Burglar who stole more than £150,000 worth of nickel and copper was caught when his getaway truck's suspension collapsed under the weight of his haul. Career criminal Clive Halford took 18 pallets of the metals from Columbia Metals, on Manners Industrial Estate, Ilkeston, in July this year.

Halford, of Wolverhampton, broke into the warehouse by removing bricks from around the security shutters and forcing them open. He then used a 7.5-tonne tipper truck, which had been stolen from Wolverhampton earlier, to take away the heavy pallets.

Halford, 39, who is married with three children, pleaded guilty to one count of receiving stolen property, the lorry, and one count of burglary, stealing the metal.

David Outterside, prosecuting, told Derby Crown Court yesterday that police stopped Halford in Heanor Road, Ilkeston, because the tipper truck was so overloaded that its suspension had collapsed and the vehicle was dragging on the ground.

The metal was found in the back of the lorry and Halford was arrested.

Mr Outterside said: "At first the warehouse manager estimated the pallets contained about £55,000 worth of metal but on further inspection it was more like three times that amount - £155,000." The metal was recovered but £10,000 worth of damage was caused to the building.

Mr Outterside said that during the burglary Halford had also tried to steal a Nissan van from the warehouse, but overloaded that as well, breaking the suspension and causing £700 worth of damage. The court heard that Halford's offending had begun in 1981 and included burglaries at commercial premises, robbery, driving offences and dishonesty.

Clive Stockwell, for Halford, said his client would not have known the metal was worth so much money. Mr Stockwell said: "He does have a terrible record, something the defendant would admit himself. His one mitigating point is that he pleaded guilty to this offence and I ask your honour to take that into consideration."

Recorder Martin Butterworth sentenced Halford to two years in prison for the burglary. He is already serving three years for a similar offence committed in Sheffield.

Recorder Butterworth said: "You are obviously a career criminal. It has been mainly offences of stealing vehicles and using them to carry out potentially rewarding burglaries."

Beer roller

A steam roller destroys bottles of alcohol, during a ceremony in Jakarta, 04 October 2007. Jakarta authorities destroyed some 35,065 bottles of alcohol seized by police in the capital from illegal alcohol vendors, during [the] Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, when practicing devotees abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and any sexual activity from dawn to dusk.

Vatican Footy club

The Vatican is to offer its backing to an Italian third-division football team in a move it says will promote sportsmanship in the professional game. A sports club affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church is to sponsor AC Ancona, which last played in the top division, Serie A, four years ago.

The Church hopes its venture will highlight ethical conduct in a game many fans feel is dominated by money. Its plans include cutting ticket prices and providing more seats for families.

Ancona players are also scheduled to meet the Pope later in October.

Details of the deal have yet to be finalised, but the Church says it hopes to purge racist behaviour from the stadiums and to penalise fans who taunt or unfurl abusive banners.

The BBC's Rome correspondent, Christian Fraser, says the Church hopes to put some love and fairness into the game and make AC Ancona a global example of sportsmanship.

Players at the club say they do not know how unsportsmanlike behaviour will be penalised.

While the Vatican will sponsor the club, it will not be classed as a shareholder. Some of the money generated may be reinvested in projects in the developing world, our correspondent says.

Mr POT-ato head

SYDNEY, Australia - Customs officers discovered nearly 10.5 ounces of ecstasy tablets hidden inside a Mr. Potato Head toy sent to Australia from Ireland, the agency said Thursday.

Upon opening the parcel, the officers were greeted with the smiling face of the popular children's toy, which features a potato-like head and removable facial features. But when they removed a panel from the back of the toy, the officers found 10.34 ounces of ecstasy in a plastic bag.

The Australian Customs Service referred the matter to federal police, but no arrests were immediately made, the agency said. The maximum penalty for importing drugs to Australia is life imprisonment.

"Whilst this is one of the more unusual concealments that we have seen in recent times, people need to be aware that Customs officers are alert to unusual and often outlandish methods of concealment," Customs Director Post Karen Williams said.

Britain's tallest man looks for stardom

Britain's tallest man has revealed plans to reach for acting stardom. Record-breaker Neil Fingleton, from Gilesgate in County Durham, wants to capitalise on his height and talent to become a Hollywood actor.

The 26-year-old has already spent some time playing basketball in America, and is now awaiting a work permit. He says he has received a number of offers, and is hoping he will be able to use his 7ft 7ins (2.31m) height to his advantage.

Mr Fingleton said: "There are tens of millions of people in this country, and I'm the tallest, which is a very special thing. "So why not use it to my advantage and be recognised, not just for being tall but for being a talented actor."

He admitted that he had always been fascinated with Jaws in the James Bond films, who was obviously very tall.

"I had the privilege to meet him and did a little bit of acting work with him and it was nice to get advice from him. It's nice to know there are specialised roles for people like me because the strong thing about being tall and having acting ability is that when these parts come along you've got a very strong chance of getting them."

Housewives joke = Filipino fury

US network ABC has apologised for a scene in the new series of Desperate Housewives which pokes fun at medical education in the Philippines. In Sunday's US episode, Susan, played by Teri Hatcher, went for a check-up and was shocked when the doctor said she may be going through menopause.

She asked to see his diplomas, "just to make sure they aren't from some school in the Philippines".

The apology came after the country's health minister said he would complain.

Nearly 53,000 names have been attached to an online petition calling for an apology.

"A statement that devalues Filipinos in healthcare is extremely unfounded, considering the overwhelming presence of Filipinos and Filipino Americans in the medical field," the petition read.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said he would write to the producers, noting the country's "vehement protest".

Randy Peacock trashes car

Visitors to a Somerset stately home have been warned to keep away from a peacock - after he seriously damaged a luxury car he mistook for a mate. The amorous bird caused £4,000 worth of damage to an employee's Lexus in the grounds of Sir Benjamin Slade's country manor, Maunsel House, near Bridgwater.

Warning signs have now been put up in the car park.

"It started when he fell in love with a Lexus, which was in a very distinct peacock blue," said Sir Benjamin. "He attacked the panels so hard that the car needs a total respray. The insurers are not very happy about it. They've had claims for all sorts of things like lions biting people, but never have they heard of a peacock sexually attacking a car before," he added.

Sir Benjamin has offered to give away his 13th Century ancestral home to anyone distantly related to him.

The final Leg ( update)

MAIDEN, N.C. -- A South Carolina man who mistakenly lost his amputated leg when it was sold in a barbecue smoker at a public auction will get the appendage back, authorities said Wednesday.

John Wood, of Simpsonville, S.C., had been battling to regain custody of the leg from Shannon Whisnant, who found the leg in the smoker he purchased at an auction of Wood's belongings last week, WXII-TV in Greenville, N.C., reported

Whisnant had said he wanted to keep the leg if Wood wasn't willing to pay to get it back. The leg was being kept at a funeral home. Whisnant said he previously charged people to look at the severed leg.

"It's mine, I want it back, I have a receipt," Whisnant said Tuesday.

He said that if Wood cared about the leg, it wouldn't have been left behind in the smoker.

Wood's leg was amputated three years ago after an airplane crash. He had been keeping the leg so it could be cremated with him when he dies.

17 across

DUNLAP, Tennessee - A crossword puzzle assigned as a homework lesson for some Sequatchie County fifth-graders studying a book about the 19th century South asked them to use the n-word as an answer.

At least one parent complained and the teacher has apologized. Sequatchie County Middle School principal Donald Johnson says the teacher obtained the crossword from a subscription Web site, EdHelper.com.

A parent, Clifford Branan, told WTVC-TV in Chattanooga that his son's teacher assigned the homework Friday as a supplement to "Sounder," a book his class is reading.

The book is commonly used in classrooms nationwide to illustrate racial bigotry and sharecropping hardships through the eyes of a young black boy.

Branan said he cannot believe the puzzle with words like cabin, smokehouse and lantern also included the N-word along with its clue, "An insulting way to label a black person."

The principal says a mistake was made, and the word should have never come up on a worksheet. Johnson said the puzzle answers were words associated with the book. He declined to identify the teacher.

Nod your head

from Sir Paul McCartney

Chili terror fear

A pot of burning chilli sparked fears of a biological terror attack in central London. Firefighters wearing protective breathing apparatus were called to D'Arblay Street, Soho, after reports of noxious smoke filling the air.

Police closed off three roads and evacuated homes following the alert.

Specialist crews broke down the door to the Thai Cottage restaurant at 1900 BST on Monday where they discovered the source - a 9lb pot of chillies. The restaurant had been preparing Nam Prik Pao, a red-hot Thai dip which uses extra-hot chillies which are deliberately burnt.

But the smell prompted several members of the public to call the emergency services.

Alpaslan Duven, a Turkish journalist based in the restaurant's building, said: "I was sitting in the office when me and my chief start coughing and I said this was something really dodgy. "I looked out of the window and saw people rushing and then we heard the sirens."

Supranee Yodmuang, the restaurant supervisor, was above the restaurant when she received a phone call from her boss.

"It was about 4pm when I saw the police who were closing off the roads but I didn't know why. My boss rang me and said I had to get out of the building because of a chemical attack." She added: "Because we're Thai, we're used to the smell of chillies."

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The street was closed off for three hours while we were trying to discover the source of the odour."

Off for a shot

Orlando - Rachel's Gentlemen's Club opened its doors on Tuesday to older residents of Casselberry to give free flu shots.

The club is known for the scantily women who dance there, and it gives out the shots every year as a way of giving back to the community.

The shots were free for anyone over 55, and if you were 65 and older, you got a free shot and a free lunch.

There was no free entertainment.

Giant Spider in London

A giant spider took up residence on the banks of the River Thames on Wednesday, but Arachnophobes can relax -- it doesn't bite or even move.

The nine metre (30 feet) high and wide creature is made of bronze, stainless steel and marble and is the creation of renowned artist Louise Bourgeois.

Created in 1999 and named Maman in tribute to the artist's mother, its appearance outside the Tate Modern art gallery is the first time it has been on display outdoors in Britain.

"The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver," the 95-year-old Bourgeois said in a statement. "Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother," she added.

French-born Bourgeois is regarded by many as one of the most important artists working today.

She has always been at the forefront of new developments in art, exploring her ideas in painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation and performance, using varied media, from wood and stone to latex and rubber.

Sculptor leaves heads on doorsteps

WAKEFIELD, West Yorkshire - A reclusive sculptor said to shun publicity was revealed yesterday as the man behind the 19 mysterious carved stone heads on doorsteps across northern England.

Billy Johnson, who does not own a telephone or a television, is thought to be unaware that he has been identified as the source of the works, left at night in villages throughout North, West and South Yorkshire.

Bemused recipients have found at least 19 heads, each bearing a cryptic symbol spelling out the word “paradox” and a rhyming couplet, usually “Twinkle, twinkle like a star. Does love flourish from afar?” Mr Johnson, 43, from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, is said to have delivered as many as 57 heads, beginning in late August, to a series of apparently random addresses including private homes, a post office and a hotel.

A friend, Judy Alston, said the artist was curious to see the reactions of those who received his art works.

“He is not interested in publicity and he’ll be shocked that this has generated so much interest,” she said.

50 year old prank confessional

The prank took two months to plan, 10 people to orchestrate and 50 years to confess.

Three weeks before his 50th reunion at Palo Alto High School this weekend, Charles Monsalve sent a $500 check and a note to Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Kevin Skelly divulging his involvement in a "dastardly deed" that went unpunished.

"In 1957, 50 years ago, a most nefarious plot was undertaken by 10 Palo Alto seniors, and instigated at the end of the school year," Monsalve wrote. "This plot was a culmination of two months of meticulous planning by these evil doers. I know because I was one of them."

The prank? Dumping two years' worth of "various" beverage cans into the Palo Alto High School pool.

"The fun was in the planning," Monsalve, now 68, said Tuesday. "We spent two months planning - we could've been doing a bank robbery."

The 10 seniors divvied up their responsibilities. One student watched for police officers from an oak tree while two couples pretending to make out guarded both school entrances.

"Everybody had a designated escape route," Monsalve said.

Meanwhile, a member of the school's swimming and water polo team secured the combination to the swimming pool gate locks, enabling two cars loaded with cans to enter. The next morning, seniors arriving for their final day of school in 1957 were welcomed by "floating debris," Monsalve wrote.

And for 50 years, the culprits were never apprehended.

"The trick in doing a prank is not going around bragging about it," said Monsalve, who is still keeping his pledge to not reveal the identity of his co-conspirators. "I don't think they'll be too concerned that I revealed the plot," he said. In part, his confession was to memorialize four of his fellow pranksters who have since died.

The approaching 50th reunion prompted some "sentimental thinking about the number of friends I've lost," Monsalve said. Besides, he added, "I'm not doing any jail time over this now."

The inflation-adjusted $500 check is meant to cover the nearly 16 hours that maintenance workers spent cleaning up the pool, roughly $50 worth of labor in 1957 dollars, Monsalve estimated.

Mayor injures tomato

The Lord Mayor of Belfast has apologized to a council worker left with back injuries after he tried to leapfrog her during a photo-shoot.

Lorraine Mallon suffered a slipped disc when Jim Rodgers' knee accidentally hit her head as he attempted to vault her. Ms Mallon had been dressed as a tomato to launch a gourmet garden event in Botanic Gardens last month.

The Ulster Unionist councillor said he attempted the act of athleticism at the request of photographers.

"I have been absolutely devastated over what has happened," he said. "There had been three false runs and I think Lorraine thought this was just another one. I just caught the top of her head and unfortunately I injured her."

Mr Rodgers said he was confident he could have made the vault. He said: "I'm very fit and look after myself, but it was just one of those unfortunate things. I have kept in regular contact with her and my thoughts and prayers are with her. I just hope now that she makes a speedy and full recovery."

Ms Mallon, who works for the arts section of Belfast City Council's development department, has been unable to return to work since the accident happened on 4 September.

Fruity Buddha turned around

The owner of an art gallery has been asked to turn around a sculpture of Buddha with comical genitalia after complaints from people passing by.

The bronze statue is on display in the window of the St Giles Street Gallery, Norwich, and has testicles and a penis in the shape of eggs and a banana.

Gallery owner David Koppel has agreed to turn Colin Self's £125,000 sculpture, so the front is not on view.

Buddhists said the statue was in poor taste, but welcomed the compromise.

Norfolk Police's hate crime unit has looked into the complaints, and suggested the sculpture was turned so its back was on view from the outside of the gallery's front window.

Burning wasps = burning house

North Carolina - A Triad man who was trying to rid his home of yellow jackets is now looking for a new place to live.

Authorities said Hugh Williams first sprayed insecticide in a hole next to the house, but that didn't kill the bugs.

He then stuck paper in the hole and lit it, but the fire spread into the house and the attic. "We certainly do not advocate the burning out of these insects, although it may work," said assistant Greensboro Fire Chief David Douglas.

The family is safe, and no injuries were reported, but about $80,000 worth of damage was done to the home.

Fire officials said the house has been condemned until repairs can be made.

Banned from bus "top-decks"

A Teenager has been banned from travelling on the top deck of any public transport bus in England and Wales because of his persistent vandalism.

Billy Murrell, aged 17, of Bannockburn Road, Plumstead, became the first youth to be served with an anti-social behaviour order asked for by Transport for London, since it was given the power to apply for Asbos in September last year.

He was tracked down and identified by Bexley police after his tag "raider" and "raidar" began appearing on buses all over the borough. Murrell was caught through Operation BusTag, which targets bus vandals though the use of CCTV. The order was granted by Greenwich magistrates on September 12 and will last for three years.

It also bans Murrell from entering any parts of London Underground or other railway property in England and Wales, not open to the public; carrying any pens, paint, paint stripper or etching equipment in a public place in England and Wales or encouraging anyone else to damage property in England and Wales.

A second 17-year-old, from Bexley, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was given a six-month supervision order and ordered to pay £500 to train company Southeastern, after admitting causing £13,000 worth of damage to trains.

|Flight to nowhere

An Indian entrepreneur has given a new twist to the concept of low-cost airlines. The passengers boarding his Airbus 300 in Delhi do not expect to go anywhere because it never takes off.

All they want is the chance to know what it is like to sit on a plane, listen to announcements and be waited on by stewardesses bustling up and down the aisle.

In a country where 99% of the population have never experienced air travel, the “virtual journeys” of Bahadur Chand Gupta, a retired Indian Airlines engineer, have proved a roaring success.

“Some of my passengers have crossed the country to get on this plane,” says Gupta, who charges about £2 each for passengers taking the “journey”.

The plane has no lighting and the lavatories are out of order. The air-conditioning is powered by a generator. Even so, about 40 passengers turn up each Saturday to queue for boarding cards.

Passengers are looked after by a crew of six, including Gupta’s wife, who goes up and down the aisle with her drinks trolley, serving meals in airline trays. Some of the stewardesses hope to get jobs on proper planes one day and regard it as useful practice.

Can I share your leg?

A US man who stored his amputated leg in a barbecue smoker that was later auctioned off is locked in a custody dispute with the man who bought it. John Wood's smoker was sold to Shannon Whisnant last week after he fell behind on payments at the storage facility in North Carolina where it was kept.

He wants his leg back but Mr Whisnant says he has a receipt for the smoker's contents and wants to share ownership. Mr Wood's leg was amputated above the knee after a plane crash in 2004.

He asked to keep the leg so he could be buried as a whole man when he died, and stored it at the facility in Maiden after losing his home.

But when Mr Wood failed to pay the necessary rental fees, the storage company auctioned the smoker and all its contents.
After buying the smoker last Tuesday, Mr Whisnant looked inside and found a man's leg wrapped in a wire screen. He initially gave the leg to the police, who concluded it had not been removed as a result of a crime and sent it to a funeral home until Mr Wood could pick it up.

But after making money by charging adults $3 (£1.47) and children $1 (49p) to look inside the empty smoker, Mr Whisnant asked for it back.

His request was refused by the funeral home, so he decided to try to persuade Mr Wood to share custody and profits. "I told him I'd share custody of it..." Mr Whisnant said. "It's a strange incident and Halloween's just around the corner. The price will go up if I get the leg."

Mr Wood, who now lives in Greenville, South Carolina, has insisted he is not interested in using the leg to make money and plans to travel to Maiden as soon as possible to reclaim it.

"I just think it's despicable," he said. "I don't mind having the 15 minutes of fame, but I'm not looking to really profit off this thing. He's making a freak show out of it."

Having had his offer rejected, Mr Whisnant has threatened to begin legal action if the leg is not returned to him by next week. He says he has a receipt showing he bought both the smoker and its contents at the auction.

"Everybody knows it's mine, period," he said. "And if anyone tries to take it, I want everything they got."

French embarrassment

French government ministers faced embarrassment yesterday from their own children whose entries on Facebook, were aired to the public.

French prime minister, François Fillon will be interested know that his son, Antoine, 22, is a member of several “high-brow” chat groups.

One, entitled “I am too proud of my poo,” boasts 93 members who spend entire nights digressing about the “16 different types of turd.”
Antoine Fillon, an economics student whose mother Penny is Welsh, is also part of the “legless friendship circle,” which includes 650 fellow binge drinkers.

Financial weekly magazine Capital, released photos of Antoine’s Facebook page in this week’s edition, including one of the young man snuggling up to two young ladies, and looking the worse for wear.

"Luckily the prime minister doesn’t have time to surf the web!” quipped Capital.

His “friends” - people authorised to converse with him via a secure network - include two brothers and a sister but also Alain Juppé, the former prime minister who resigned from Mr Fillon’s government after losing his parliamentary seat.

Facebook was founded three years ago by Mark Zuckerberg, 24, a Harvard college student looking for a better way for colleagues to communicate over the campus. The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks depicting American colleges members.

Today there are 39 million “facebookers” worldwide, including 155,000 in the France network, where the country’s “jeuness dorée (golden youth) swap stories and snaps from parties in Saint Tropez and luxury foreign trips.

Culture Fraud

The Culture Secretary faced a call to resign yesterday after it emerged that a hospital publicity photograph was digitally altered to insert his picture.

James Purnell found himself in an embarrassing situation over the disclosure just two weeks after he warned broadcasters of the danger of losing the trust of viewers.

The controversy centred on a photocall at Tameside general hospital, Greater Manchester, to mark the start of work on a new unit. Mr Purnell was among four local MPs invited to the event, but he arrived after the photograph been taken and the other MPs had left.

He was photographed in the same position and his image was added into the earlier shot. The picture was then distributed to the local press. The hospital said the minister had agreed to photographs being "merged", but he said it was an innocent "misunderstanding". In a statement to BBC North West, the hospital said: "As we would not be able to stage a repeat of this historic day for the hospital, we decided to take a photograph of Mr Purnell in the same spot very shortly after, and merge it with the earlier photograph, to which Mr Purnell kindly consented.''

A spokeswoman for Mr Purnell denied he agreed to the picture being doctored. "He was assured they would show the three MPs in one picture and have him separately in the corner."

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow Culture Secretary, said Mr Purnell's position looked "completely untenable" and demanded a "public apology at the least".

Beware of fake Chinamen

A Chinese man is accused of conning people out of thousands of dollars by cloning the official Beijing Olympics website and running fake prize draws. Liao Peigui, 20, a computer engineer from Danzhou city, Hainan, made around 400,000 yuan ($53,000, £25,000) from his fake website, state media said.

He confessed to police after being arrested for fraud, Xinhua news agency reported. The official 2008 Olympics website has proved extremely popular. The site, www.beijing2008.cn, attracts more than one million hits per day, organisers say.

Xinhua said Mr Liao had cloned the website, which is run by the Beijing Organizing Committee, to create a similar-looking site from which he lured people into entering fake prize draws.

Victims were reportedly asked to send between 10% and 20% of the value of the prize to his bank account. Wu Yangkang, a local security official, said some people lost as much as 10,000 yuan on the fake site.

His arrest comes after China launched a major crackdown not only on internet crimes, but also on the sale of counterfeit Olympic goods.

World Skimming record

An American man has been named the new official world stone-skimming champion after casting a stone that skipped on water an astonishing 51 times.

Russell Byars, a 43-year-old engineer from Pennsylvania, shattered the previous world record of 40 skims on July 19 but it took officials from the prestigious Guinness Book of Records until this weekend to declare him the new record holder.

Mr Byars, known as "Rock Bottom" by his fellow stone-throwing aficionados, smashed the record at French Creek on the Allegheny River, about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, with a prodigious effort which he estimated travelled 250 feet (76 metres).

Before his new record of 51 skims could be made official, experts from the Guinness Book of Records had to analyse film replays of Byars' toss, painstakingly checking the concentric circles in the water made by each skip.

"I actually threw 40 stones that day, but that was the first skip that I threw," a delighted Mr Byars told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which confirmed the record with Guinness officials.

The comparatively tame old record of 40 skims, set in 2002 at the Pennsylvannia Qualifying Stone Skipping Tournament, was held by Kurt "Mountain Man" Steiner, 42, of Emporium.