Lighten up!

I’ve already grown weary of hearing of the verdict announced Friday in the Conrad Black trial, and the minutiae that various television media outlets have been serving-up since the verdict was announced.

I’ve also already grown weary of the coverage of David and Victoria (Posh) Beckham and their move to Los Angeles… and the big "Moving to America" special hasn’t even aired yet!

So, for my weekend column, I thought I’d troll a few news sites for some of the more amusing and light-hearted stories.


In Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico a mushroom weighing more than 20 kilograms, measuring 70 cm in height, was picked in a forest in the southernmost state of Chiapas. It is an edible white mushroom (macrocybe titans).

There is no word as to whether a suitably-large egg has been found with which to make an omelet.


Speaking of "giants"… York Regional Police received a 9-1-1 call from a Newmarket resident, claiming that there were two full-grown elephants wandering down the street. The caller had to repeat his claim twice to the astonished call-taker.

It turned out these elephants weren’t the pink variety, either. Two elephants had escaped from the Garden Bros. circus which was in town. Apparently the ‘electronic fence’ had failed, allowing the pachyderms to wander away.

While the elephants snacked on several shrubs and trees, no damage was reported. Police and Circus officials were able to lead the elephants back to their enclosure.



Employees at the Marshall County, Iowa, Courthouse reported seeing a woman taking three rolls of two-ply toilet paper from a storage closet. Staff had noticed that the supply of toilet paper seemed to be dwindling more rapidly than usual.

The woman was apprehended and charged by police. She does not work in the building, and it is unclear why she chose this location to [allegedly] pilfer the paper product.

Charged with misdemeanor theft of three rolls of toilet tissue is Suzanne Marie Butts. (Yes, that is her real name!)


It works in the cartoons, so why not in real life?

Kent Couch, a 47-year-old gas station owner from Bend, Oregon, decided to fly to Idaho last weekend. So he grabbed some snacks, strapped on a parachute, and tied 105 large helium balloons to his lawn chair.

It worked.

He carried an altimeter and a GPS unit, and had about 20 gallons of water for ballast. Unfortunately, before he could reach Idaho he was down to a gallon of water and concerned about the rugged terrain approaching the Hells Canyon region, so he decided he should return to land after covering less than 200 miles.

He released several balloons, allowing the "craft" to descend. After landing he got out of the chair, but the wind grabbed it and swept it away, with his video camera still on board. He's hoping they will be found and returned.

A local pilot witnessed Couch’s flight, and flew a plane nearby while a passenger videotaped the flying lawn chair.


The cupboard under the stairs was Harry Potter’s "bedroom" until his first letter arrived from Hogwarts. Perhaps it was this which inspired Stephen McNally, 30, a British Airways worker who spent nearly eight months living in a storage cupboard at the airport.

It appears he may also have drawn inspiration fropm the Tom Hanks comedy The Terminal, as he obtained his meals from vending machines and would watch tv in the staff room before going to bed.

Unlike Hanks’ character Viktor Navorski, however, McNally did not avail himself of the airports restrooms to attend to his personal hygiene. He was evicted after colleagues noticed he was developing an increasingly strong odour, and security found food in his cupboard.


Police in Manchester, New Hampshire, are looking for a man who robbed a bank while disguised as a tree, last Saturday morning.

The suspect apparently used duct tape to attach tree branches onto his body, and then walked into the Citizens Bank on (no pun intended) Elm Street and demanded money. No one was hurt in the robbery, and no weapons were used. The woody robber escapes with an undisclosed amount of cash.


Horn honking is now banned in Shanghai, China. Even emergency vehicles are subject to the ban, with sirens prohibited except in emergencies.

Resourceful drivers are, however, spending about $100 (Cdn) to convert their honking horns to music or recorded voices.

Police say the new rule covers all kinds of horn honking, no matter what it sounds like.

Street noise is a significant problem in Shanghai, where a majority of the 20 million residents are packed into the old 19th-century tenement housing and narrow streets of the city’s downtown core.

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Have a great weekend!