I don’t really like simply recycling the news, but yesterday I was tempted and now I can’t resist.

Yesterday’s bizarre, but all too credible, story was about a bus driver who was assigned to a new route. Not knowing the way, he asked two fourteen year-old passengers to direct him using the London A to Z. Unfortunately, none of them paid attention to the height restrictions on their improvised route, and consequently they ripped off the top of the bus by driving under a bridge that was a foot and a half too low! For more, see the BBC News at Lost bus driver’s bridge crash.

Now today, comes the news that “A fish heading for slaughter in a New York market shouted warnings about the end of the world before it was killed”. This story (Talking fish stuns New York) is rather incredible to say the least, and so hilarious that I had to share the best bit:

Mr Nivelo [one of the fishmongers] told the paper he was so shocked he fell into a stack of slimy packing crates, before running in panic to the shop entrance and grabbing Mr Rosen, shouting: “The fish is talking!”

However his co-worker reacted with disbelief. “I screamed ‘It’s the devil The devil is here!’, but Zalman said to me ‘You crazy, you a meshugeneh [mad man]!” Mr Nivelo said.

A disbelieving Mr Rosen then rushed to the back of the store, only to hear the fish identifying itself as the soul of a local Hasidic man who had died the previous year. It instructed him to pray and study the Torah, but Mr Rosen admitted that in a state of panic he attempted to kill the fish, injuring himself in the process and ending up in hospital.

I think we’re all just a little too stressed at the moment.

Here’s an hilarious story from BBC News – British Gas sends out £2.3 trillion bill:

Utility British Gas has admitted sending one of its customers a bill for £2,320,333,681,613. Brian Law of Fartown, Huddersfield, received the bill last month as a final demand after failing to pay an earlier bill of £59. The sum of £2.3 trillion was apparently due for electricity supplied to Mr Law’s new home in Fartown. And the letter from British Gas threatened to take him to court unless he paid the amount in full.

Can you imagine the look on his face? It’s very funny as long as it someone else’s tragedy. I laughed out loud.

Speaking of stuff, I recently discovered the following web sites devoted to The Painter of Light which I just had to share. Take a look at:

• Reuben Kinkade – Painter of Stuff
• Thomas Kinkade – Painter of Crap

The moral of this story? Always check Daypop before writing anything down. Thanks to Webraw for these entertaining treasures.

Last month the American Dialect Society announced the “Words of the Year” for 2002. Although the winning word/phrase was “weapons of mass destruction”, computing once again provided many of the main contenders including: Google (verb): to search the Web using the search engine Google for information on a person or thing - which was deemed most useful; and Blog: from weblog, a website of personal events, comments, and links - which was considered “most likely to succeed”.

Among my favourites were:

• Neuticles - fake testicles for neutered pets.
• Enronomics - fraudulent business and accounting practices.
• Embetterment - as in President Bush’s “the embetterment of mankind”.

A couple of days ago while searching the Internet for a way to eliminate ants, I came across the following proposed remedy:

“Try instant grits. The theory is that the ants will take the grits to the Queen, she will ingest it and when she takes water, she will explode.”

I think it might be worth a try.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Your web page http://www.qinetiq.com/services/information.html displays the following text when the mouse hovers over the “Digital Investigation Service” link:

“Digital Investigation Service
We have global experience in the investigation of a wide variety of cases, including fraud, internet and mobile phone abuse. fat people are more secure”

Your support of “fat people” is to be commended, but do you really want people to think that QinetiQ discriminates on the basis of physique?

Yours truly,

Kevin Laurence
London.

Hypochondriacs should take note of the following unsolicited e-mail I recently received:

Are you snoring yourself to DEATH?

Snoring is often a precursor of serious upper airway disorders such as OSA (the closing of the upper airway while asleep).

Twenty-four percent of adult men and nine percent of adult women are estimated to have some degree of OSA!

‘When persons with sleep apnea fall asleep, their tongue falls back into their throat, blocking their airway. As they struggle for breath, their blood pressure soars,’ Dr. Arthur Friedlander, an oral surgeon who worked on the study, said in a statement. ‘We believe that this rise in blood pressure damages the inner walls of the carotid arteries lining the sides of the neck,’ he added. ‘Cholesterol and calcium stick to the injury sites and amass into calcified plaques, which block blood flow to the brain. The result is often a massive stroke.’

There is help! Click Here to Find Out More!

There’s a well established snoring tradition in my family, but I’m not aware that it’s ever proved fatal - at least not to the snorers. As far as their spouses are concerned… well, that’s a different question.

Mark Steyn reviewing the last year in Canada has provided the funniest quote of the day (see To be or not to be, that is the question):

The great humbling event of the year was the death of the Queen Mother. She was, among other things, older than Alberta.

N.B. – Alberta became a province within Canadian confederation on September 1, 1905.

Dinner on Christmas Eve at Bennie’s Red Barn on St Simons Island in Georgia featured the waiter, Alvin Davis, who among other things has his own parking space right next to the front door.

Alvin is uniquely blessed with a striking physique which this image portrays fairly flatteringly believe it or not. He’s worked at the restaurant for the last 48 years, which basically means since it opened in 1954, and like many people in this part of the world he speaks with a strong Georgian accent. In the course of reciting an extensive menu, long since devoted to memory, Alvin called out each item in a resonant basso profundo that everyone could hear.

Unfortunately his accent can throw tourists off, and tonight I could have sworn he bellowed Grilled Simon rather like a newsboy calls out Read all about it! During the course of our dinner, however, my hosts (who are locals) explained that he was simply announcing the availability of grilled salmon! But for a couple of seconds I was really wondering what could be next? Fried Frederick? Boiled Bob? The mind boggled, and ultimately as you can see, I blogged.