Snow joke, say police

A pensioner has been snapped driving her car while peeping through a tiny hole in her snow-covered windscreen.



Devon and Cornwall Police released the picture as a warning to other motorists, reports Sky News.

The force is asking drivers to use common sense after a member of the public photographed the "extreme example" in Tiverton, Devon.

The elderly woman, who is not being identified by the force, was driving along Lea Road to pick up food and medication.

She was spoken to by officers who also provided her with an ice-scraper. They then spoke to her neighbours and asked them to look out for her in future.

Inspector Matt Lawler said: "This is an extreme example, but shows how important it is for drivers to listen to the warnings and advice that police and other agencies are offering.

"I don't think we are asking a lot - just for some common sense to avoid unnecessary accidents."

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Simpsons' fan in TV record bid

A Simpsons fan is to attempt a world record by watching all 451 episodes of the television show back to back.


It would take Glyn Stott, 34, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, six days without sleep, reports the Daily Telegraph.

He said: "I'm a huge fan of the show and I've seen every episode but watching them continuously for almost a week will be a feat of endurance.

"The judges have to make sure my eyes are firmly fixed on the screen - I have to be seen to be concentrating all the way through."

The current record for non-stop television watching is four days, set by an American viewer.

Mr Stott, a shop manager, will get a 20-minute break at the end of every three episodes and he must stick to the strict rules laid down by Guinness.

He said: "If I have a meal during the world record attempt I'm not allowed to look down at the plate - my eyes must be on the TV all the time.

"I will be allowed to use an exercise bike to keep my circulation going but even then I can't avert my eyes from the Simpsons.

"I will be watching 20 years of TV compressed into six-and-a-half days - it will be amazing to see how the show has changed over the years."

A spokesman for Fox said: "Nearly a week without sleep watching TV - Homer would be proud of him."

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Hotel employs human bed warmers

A hotel chain is employing human bed warmers to help guests get a good night's sleep.


The walking electric blankets are dressed in special all-in-one sleeper suits and are sent to warm the beds of guests staying at the Holiday Inn before they get under the covers.

Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall said the idea was "like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed".

The five minute free bed warming sessions are being tried out in London and Manchester at the end of January.

Dr Chris Idzikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, said the idea could help people get off to sleep.

He said: "There's plenty of scientific evidence to show that sleep starts at the beginning of the night when body temperature starts to drop.

"The decline occurs partly because the blood vessels of the hands, face and feet open up and release heat.

"A warm bed - approximately 20 to 24 degrees Celsius - is a good way to start this process whereas a cold bed would inhibit sleep.

"Holiday Inn's new bed warmers service should help people achieve a good night's sleep especially as it's taking much longer for them to warm up when they come in from the snow."

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Prostitute fined $820,000 for unpaid tax

WARSAW – Poland's tax office has levied a fine of 2.3 million zlotys ($820,000) on an unemployed woman for failing to pay tax on income worth at least 13.7 million zlotys she said she had earned as a prostitute.



The woman told the tax office in the southern city of Katowice that she had very "generous" customers, the website gazeta.pl, which is linked to leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, reported Tuesday.

One of her clients paid the woman 5 million zlotys during the 1997-2002 period, she was quoted as saying.

The website gave no further details.

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Blind golfer hits hole-in-one

A 92-year-old blind golfer has hit a hole-in-one in Florida.

Leo Fiyalko was playing a 110-yard, par-3 hole in Clearwater, reports the St Petersburg Times.

"It was my first hole-in-one, and I never saw it," he said. "I was just trying to put the ball on the green."

Mr Fiyalko once played to a seven handicap but he began suffering macular degeneration 10 years ago.

He is now legally blind and needs help lining up his shots and finding his golf balls.

Mr Fiyalko was playing with a group-of-friends when he hit his hole-in-one but they were all looking for a lost ball as he prepared to tee off.

One player Jean Gehring said: "I looked up and Leo was about to hit. I said, 'Hey, somebody has to watch Leo.'

"So I went up there and saw him hit and it was a pretty good shot. I could tell it went on the green, so when we got up there I didn't see it. I looked in the hole and there it was."

When told of his achievement, he reportedly said only: "How about that." His friends in the Twilighters Club golf group presented him with a plaque to commemorate the feat.

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Human tongue served up in hospital

Authorities in Slovenia are investigating after a piece of human tongue was served up in a hospital canteen.

A doctor at the town hospital in Izola in southern Slovenia complained about the strange looking piece of meat in his meal after he ordered a chicken risotto in the hospital canteen.

The doctor insisted it was not chicken, and after a row with staff the piece of meat was sent for tests - which later showed it was part of a human tongue.

Health inspectors have closed the restaurant and are reviewing hygiene standards.

Managers said the small piece of tongue could have been accidentally dropped into the food by a doctor who had come into the canteen straight after treating a patient.

They also said that it could have been added to the food supplies before they were delivered to the hospital.

The spokesman told the main Slovenian daily paper Delo: "I can say clearly that we have never used patients parts in any of our dishes."

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Chinese couple tried to name baby "@"

Chinese couple tried to name their baby "@", claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said on Thursday.

The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words.
"The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means 'love him'," the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming.



While the "@" simple is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word "at" to sound it out -- which with a drawn out "T" sounds something like "ai ta", or "love him", to Mandarin speakers.
Li told a news conference on the state of the language that the name was an extreme example of people's increasingly adventurous approach to Chinese, as commercialisation and the Internet break down conventions.

Another couple tried to give their child a name that rendered into English sounds like "King Osrina."
Li did not say if officials accepted the "@" name. But earlier this year the government announced a ban on names using Arabic numerals, foreign languages and symbols that do not belong to Chinese minority languages.

Sixty million Chinese faced the problem that their names use ancient characters so obscure that computers cannot recognise them and even fluent speakers were left scratching their heads, said Li, according to a transcript of the briefing on the government Web site.
One of them was the former Premier Zhu Rongji, whose name had a rare "rong" character that gave newspaper editors headaches.

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Duct tape bandit comes unstuck

US robber has been dubbed the Duct Tape Bandit after trying to raid an off licence with his head wrapped in sticky tape.



He came unstuck when the owner showed him some tape of his own, which was wrapped around a wooden bat, reports Sky News.

Bill Steele, owner of the store in Huntington, West Virginia, said: "Duct tape? It's just unbelievable, people don't think this really happened.
"He probably had every opportunity to put a bag over his head and poke holes in it."

Store employee Craig Miller chased the man to the parking lot, tackled him and held him in a choke hold until police arrived.
Kasey G Kazee, 24, was charged with first-degree robbery, according to Ashland Police Sergeant Mark McDowell.

Photos of Kazee, taken by police at the scene, show the suspect with his duct tape askew, his lip bloody and his eye swollen. Miller said Kazee sustained the injuries when his face hit the ground.
However, in a TV interview, he denied being the person who took two rolls of change.

He said: "Look, do I look like the duct tape bandit baby? I'm not no duct tape bandit baby.
"You are hearing me live one-on-one in Ashland, Kentucky. You know this is not me. Now look, do the math, do the homework man."

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Kindergarten's not for squares

An elite kindergarten in China says it will take only 'round-headed' students as they make the cleverest pupils.



Li Junjie Educational Kindergarten, in Zhengzhou city, checks the shape of would-be pupils' heads as part of admission tests.
Owner Li Junjie insisted: "A round head indicates cleverness; a student with a flat head can never be outstanding no matter how hard he works."

The school charges tuition fees of nearly £7,000 a year, possibly the highest in China, and guarantees that pupils will prosper, reports China News Network.
Li Junjie added: "Every student in my school will become talented. They will be able to read at age three, and enter middle school at seven and university at 15.
"We now have 21 students with 13 teachers. We make sure they have the best resources."

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Thai cops punished by Hello Kitty

Police chiefs in Bangkok have come up with a new way of punishing officers who break the rules - an eye-catching Hello Kitty armband.
The armband is large, bright pink and has a Hello Kitty motif with two hearts embroidered on it.



From today, officers who are late, park in the wrong place or commit other minor transgressions will have to wear it for several days, reports the BBC.

The armband is designed to shame the wearer, police officials said.
"This is to help build discipline. We should not let small offences go unnoticed," Police Colonel Pongpat Chayapan said.

"Guilty officers will be made to wear the armbands in the office for a few days, with instructions not to disclose their offences. Let people guess what they have done," he said.

Further offences would be dealt with using a more traditional disciplinary panel, he said.
The cartoon character Hello Kitty was first introduced by Japanese company Sanrio in 1974.

The cute round-faced cat has become an Asia-wide marketing phenomenon, with Hello Kitty products such as stationery, hair accessories and kitchen appliances available across the region.

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