Offbeat: Flag wearing mechanics and lolly licking tigers

A collec­tion of the odd, the crazy and the curiou­s from across the world.


May 05, 2011



Mapped & flagged

A 70-year-old Indian businessman, Har Prakash has been carrying the flags of 305 countries on his body to promote amity among nations.

Re-inventing himself as Guinness Rishi, auto parts manufacturer has two passions — tattoos and Guinness world records. His 22 records include such singular feats as making the longest will in the world — a whopping 489 pages, delivering a pizza from New Delhi to San Francisco and, of course, carrying the highest number of tattoos on his body. These include 305 flags of different countries, 185 country maps, 165 mini flags and 2,985 characters.

He is now in Nepal, vying for the latest world record and hoping to add more flags and more records. “People call me a joker, a mad man,” says the world record aspirant from New Delhi who arrived in Kathmandu to attend the first International Tattoo Conference. He promptly stole the limelight from other younger participants from different countries with more exotic tattoos. “It doesn’t bother me,” he says.

“My dream is to go around the world several times, and want the children of those countries to ask me, where is the flag of our country, spot it and then, in the process, become aware of my country and other countries as well,” he adds.

His family is however not quite happy about it. “My wife and sons told me they would never go to the market with me or family weddings,” he says unrepentant. “But my customers loved the tattoos — because they got a chance to laugh at me.”

Rishi is now seeking to add a new tattoo record: have the maximum number of tattoo artists work on him. While his forehead, head, arms, legs and chest are covered with tattoos, his back remains clear. “I am saving that for a dream project,” he says proudly. “It’s going to be the Hall of Fame for World Record holding tattoo artists. I will have all their names and achievements tattooed on my back.”

SOURCE: EMIRATES247.COM



Dead alien or stale bread

A video supposedly showing an alien’s mangled body frozen in snow in Irkutsk, Siberia, recently, became a world-wide sensation after appearing on YouTube.

However, Timur Hilall, 18, and Kirill Vlasov, 19, the students behind the discovery have admitted it was a hoax  — made out of stale bread. The duo has admitted it was a prank after being quizzed by police over the stunt. A Russian interior ministry spokesman said: “We found the alien in one of the student’s homes. It was lying under his bed and an examination of it revealed it had been made of bread crumbs, which were then covered in chicken skin.”

Now police and prosecutors are considering whether the pair has committed any crime. “What are we going to do with them? We have not yet decided.”

Alex Komanov, UFO expert from the Russian UFO Research Centre immediately dismissed the find saying: “The body is interesting. The texture is similar to a real biological entity. However, the creature has no clothes and I am sure that intelligent beings would be dressed in something like a space suit or coveralls.”

But UFO fans are already accusing the Russian government of staging a cover up. “We know what we saw. Powerful people in the military just don’t want us to see this,” said one.

SOURCE: EMIRATES247.COM



Painted and tainted noodles

Next time you go to a Chinese restaurant or buy a packet of Chinese noodles make sure it isn’t made of ink, dye and wax.

Seventeen starch noodle manufacturers in China were ordered to stop production last week after claims emerged that they had been using illegal additives. More than 5.5 tonnes of starch noodles that were suspected of being tainted were confiscated and their producers were put under investigation for allegedly having used black ink, industrial dye and paraffin wax.

Workers from that company claimed that tainted starch noodles had been produced by the firm and had entered the market since it started business in February. They said the unusual ingredients were used in an attempt to lower production costs and create fake noodles that appeared to be made of sweet potato, the report said.

The detained executives from one of the companies reportedly told investigators that they learned how to make the fake sweet potato noodles from counterparts in Dongguan. The claim led provincial quality authorities to send the teams to inspect the starch noodle producers in Dongguan, where they turned up evidence to support the claims.

SOURCE: EMIRATES247.COM



Bank bitten

Police in India are investigating claims by bank staff that termites had ‘eaten’ more than £130,000 (Rs18.3m) in rupee notes from a steel chest in a State Bank of India branch.

Local officials initially sought to cover up the loss, but the disappearance of more than ten million rupees — was discovered following the arrival of a new manager.

The notes had been kept in a ‘currency chest’ at the branch in Barabanki district, Uttar Pradesh, and officials were reported to be ‘horrified’ to have found most of them reduced to dust by termites when they inspected the contents.

Senior officials from the state headquarters and local detectives were called in to investigate the claims. Police officers, however, said they have not yet ruled out ‘foul play’ in the disappearance.  Geeta Tripathi of the State Bank of India said it did appear that the notes had been eaten by termites.

Sunil Dwivedi, the branch manager, said the branch had been infested with termites. “We have been trying our best to keep currency notes safe but the termite problem here is so enormous that it would be better to move the branch elsewhere,” he said.

“I am not sure where the termites came from, but as you can see this building is quite old. Anti-termite treatment is now underway.”

SOURCE: TELEGRAPH.CO.UK



Bus drivers sought, no men need apply

A town near Buenos Aires, Argentina, wary of the screeching stops and careening turns it says typifies male drivers, has hired exclusively women to shuttle its passengers around.

With women driving, the bus line is more family- oriented, more friendly,” said Rafaela Nuyl, 34, one of the 28 newly hired drivers for the new bus service in Vicente Lopez. The bus line in the town of 270,000 people, which has been operating since the beginning of the month, makes frequent stops at local primary schools, elder daycare centres and a maternity hospital, said officials in Vicente Lopez.

“As a bus line that transports children and elderly people, we wanted to have drivers who drive in a gentle manner,” said Luis Fusco, the town’s top transportation official.

Officials in Vicente Lopez said there is no fare to ride the bus, which was conceived as ‘a public service’ for residents.

It is relatively rare in Argentina to see any female bus drivers, let alone a town where women exclusively drive a city’s buses, but Nuyl said her customers don’t appear to have any objections. “So far, I have not been on the receiving end of any macho behaviour,” she said.

SOURCE: TELEGRAPH.CO.UK



An unwelcome guest

House guests are always a bit of pain, especially when they are uninvited. But it becomes more painful when they are not willing to leave!

For Alex Dunbar from Florida, USA, this uninvited guest was a six-foot alligator. Dunbar was shocked to find the unwelcome guest in one of her bedrooms. Recalling the moment she said, “I look to the right, and there’s an alligator in my guest bedroom.”

The deadly animal found its way from a nearby pond into the empty house in Palmetto, Florida, through a doggie door and left its mark with the floors covered in blood.

Dunbar managed to get out of the house but was certain that the gator devoured one of her beloved pets.”I thought my cat was eaten,” she said. “There was blood everywhere.”

Fortunately, the cats were later safely recovered, and it was determined that the blood was seeping from the gator. Wildlife crews later trapped the animal in a bathroom and released it back into the wild.

SOURCE: MYFOXPHILLY.COM

Puzzling proposal



Getting down on one knee during a romantic meal or at the top of the Eiffel Tower was obviously not original enough for Corey Newman, who instead proposed to his girlfriend Marlowe Epstein using a crossword puzzle.

Newman, 28, arranged with the Washington Post to pop the question to Epstein, 31, via the newspaper’s brainteaser. The clue for 51 across read: “Words with a certain ring to them.” When Epstein came up with the right answer (“Will you marry me”), Newman got down on one knee, whipped out a diamond ring and repeated the question back to her.

Epstein — whose name was given by the clues asking for the name of a role in ‘Shakespeare in Love’ role and the name of a ‘Casablanca’ screenwriter — said yes!

The Washington Post, naturally, saw that this was a pretty good story — and so they filmed the whole thing, including the moment Epstein solved the final clue and Newman got down on one knee, and posted it on their website.

SOURCE: EMIRATES247.COM

Blood lollies for tigers

With temperature rising, London Zoo is giving homemade ice lollies to tigers made with real blood while the gorillas have been given frozen blocks with sunflower seeds. It is being done in an attempt to keep animals cool and active.  As well as keeping them cool, the lollies act as part of the animals ‘enrichment’, a special programme of activity designed to encourage their natural behaviour and curiosity.

SOURCE: TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

The world’s smallest caravan

Designed to be towed by a mobility scooter, the battery powered caravan features a full-sized bed, 19-inch television, a drinks cabinet and boasts tea-making facilities.

The tiny caravan measures two metre by 75cm and retails at a price of £5,500. It is so compact that it can be towed inside a supermarket at a top speed of five miles per hour.

Developed by Environmental Transport Agency (ETA), the caravan is called the QTvan, because it caters to three very British obsessions: queuing, tea and caravans.  But the caravan is best-suited to local trips. A trip from London to a popular caravanning destination the New Forest would take two days, while a journey to Whitby would take a week.

SOURCE: TELEGRAPH.CO.UK



Published in The Express Tribune, April 30th, 2011.

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siddiqui | 12 years ago | Reply gross picture...
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