Offbeat: Choczilla!

World’s oldest groom ties the knot at 120

What man doesn’t want to marry a woman half his age?

Hazi Abdul Noor, a 120-year-old widower in India, made history when he married 60-year-old Samoi Bibi.

More than 500 guests attended the wedding in Satghori, a remote village in the state of Assam. More than 100 of them were the groom’s immediate family members — two sons, four daughters, their spouses and their many children.

“It was not an easy job to find a bride for a 100-year-old,” said son Hazi Azir Uddin. “However, we have found a new mother, though she’s half his age.”

Noor is thought to be the world’s oldest groom.

SOURCE: torontosun.com

Lennon’s tooth goes under the hammer

One of John Lennon’s teeth is expected to make £10,000 (Rs1,370,400) when it goes under the hammer.

The Beatle gave the tooth to his housekeeper Dorothy Jarlett during her employment at his Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey between 1964 and 1968.

He had given her the tooth after returning from the dentist having had it removed.

They were in the kitchen chatting when John handed her the tooth and suggested that she give it to her daughter as a ‘souvenir’ as he knew that she was a huge fan.

Karen Fairweather, from Omega Auctions, said: “It is a truly unique piece of memorabilia and it is really difficult to put a value on it.”

“We are expecting it to achieve at least £10,000(Rs1,370,400) but it is not unknown for items as rare as this to reach six figures.”

A warm relationship developed between Lennon and Mrs Jarlett during her time working for the Beatle.

Lennon referred to her as ‘Aunty Dot’ and even named his dog Bernard after Dot’s husband.

Source: web.orange.co.uk

Till death do us part

A Colombian woman kept her dead husband’s body hidden in her house for a month in the hope he would resurrect himself.

Alba Yacue kept the corpse of her spouse, Lucio Chacue, in her home because he had told her that he would “come back to life”.

So when he died of unknown causes, aged 61, she hid the corpse in their house and waited for him to wake up again.

But officials grew suspicious after neighbours wondered where Mr Chacue had gone and alerted soldiers.

When investigators arrived at the home, they found the body of the late Chacue in the master bedroom.

“What was left of his body a month after his death was wrapped in a sheet,” reported a local newspaper.

“It was in a state of decomposition and gave off a nauseating odour that Alba Yacue endured in hopes of the possible resurrection of her companion, as he had promised her in life.”

Mrs Yacue reportedly asked the La Paz Funeral Home to fix up the body, but then return it to her so that she could bury it in her backyard.

Funeral director Evangelista Ome said: “In over 40 years of funerals, I have never seen anything of this magnitude. It has left us perplexed.”

The couple come from the village of La Umbria in a rural area of Huila, in southwest Colombia.

Source: web.orange.co.uk

Choczilla!

Weighing almost six tonnes and measuring 13 feet square, the world’s biggest bar of chocolate has been made in Derbyshire.

The giant bar, weighing almost six tonnes, was created by confectionery firm Thorntons to mark its centenary.

Guinness World Records confirmed the huge bar had beaten the previous record set by a Chicago chocolate maker in September.

More than 50 staff helped construct the massive bar at Thorntons’ factory in Somercotes.

A giant mould, placed inside an inflatable tent in the factory’s car park, was filled with chocolate over 10 hours by bucket-carrying volunteers.

Its final weight was 5,827kg (12,846lb) — beating the previous record of 5,529kg (12,190lb) set by World’s Finest Chocolate.

The record attempt was the idea of Paul Bell, who works in the factory’s toffee department.

He said: “My favourite childhood film was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There was a scene in it where a massive chocolate bar comes in and gets shrunken”.

“I thought it would be great if we could do the reverse. It’s been a really great success.”

The company said the giant bar would be smashed up and sold in stores to raise money for charity.

Source: web.orange.co.uk

Hard labour

A West Lothian woman passed her driving test while in labour — and then drove herself to a hospital to give birth.

Emma French, 20, from Livingston, had four contractions during the test but managed to carry on and pass.

And then she drove herself to St John’s Hospital, in Livingston, where she became a mum for the first time.

She said: “Everyone was telling me to go to the hospital but I had waited so long for my driving test that I was determined to do it.”

“I didn’t dare tell the examiner I was in labour in case he made me cancel the test.”

“The nurses in the hospital were very confused because I was getting congratulations cards for both my baby and my driving test.”

“When I told them, they were all in shock, they couldn’t believe it. I am really happy I passed, it’s something I wanted to do before I had my daughter to make it easier for me when she was born.”

Miss French woke up at 4am on the morning of her driving test to find her water had broken.

But when the baby didn’t arrive she decided to sit her test, which was booked for 8.40am.

Miss French’s labour lasted another six hours and baby Eva MacFarlane was born.

She added: “One good thing about being in labour was that it killed any pre-test nerves.”

Source: web.orange.co.uk

Armed robbers took meatball sub

Police in Pennsylvania said they arrested a group of armed robbers accused of stealing a 13-year-old’s $5.50(Rs473) meatball sub.

Investigators said the teenager was walking home from the deli with his sandwich in Yeadon when two men, identified as Rashawn Mallory, 21, and Ernest Barnett, 22, exited a black Ford Expedition, brandished a black revolver and ordered the victim not to move.

Police said the two men searched the boy and left with his sandwich when they found nothing of value. However, they left the teenager’s cell phone, which he used to call the police and give descriptions of the suspects and their vehicle. The police located the vehicle, where the sandwich was found still in the wrapper. Mallory and Barnett were charged with robbery, theft, receiving stolen property, recklessly endangering another person and simple assault.

SOURCE: upi.com/Odd_News

“Bar” — ly escaped

 

A Chinese driver escaped with barely a scratch after hundreds of steel bars crashed through the windscreen of his car.

Yang Junsheng, 24, ducked as the bars shot towards him and incredibly, they all missed him.

He was left in shock — but with only a few scratches to his left cheek, following the accident in Taizhou, Zhejianag Province.

Yang admitted that the accident happened as he was trying to drive away from a police officer as the car was unregistered.

He smashed into a pick-up truck carrying a load of steel bars which were sent flying through his windscreen.

“My mind was very clear at that second, and I immediately dived down onto the passenger seat,” Yang said.

“I heard an explosion and when the car stopped I couldn’t move because the car was full of metal bars. They were everywhere.”

He went to a hospital for a check up but doctors said he had no injuries at all, apart from his scratches.

“It’s pure magic that he could survive this,” said one police officer. “When I saw the car I thought the driver had to be dead.”

Source: web.orange.co.uk

Priests bless manhole covers

 

Town Hall officials have asked priests to bless all the manhole covers in their town to stop them being stolen by scrap metal thieves.

Councillors in Lodz, Poland, replaced all 4,000 of the town’s manhole covers after the new ones had been blessed at a church service to keep them safe.

Town sewage department president Wlodzmierz Tomaszewski explained: “Lodz’s holy patron is Saint Faustina who walked the streets helping the poor and underprivileged.”

“By blessing the manhole covers, we are blessing the streets and spreading her goodness,” he added.

But locals think the project is money down the drain.

“If they think a few prayers will keep all those new manhole covers safe from thieves, they need to think again. There won’t be one left within a month,” said one.

Source: web.orange.co.uk

Three-eyed monster

 

Well, this is unsettling. The fish you’re looking at was recently caught in an Argentinian reservoir lake. The thing is, it’s a reservoir lake that a nearby nuclear facility just happens to pump water into on a regular basis, meaning this is one of those rare examples where a three-eyed animal isn’t cool.

“We were fishing and we got the surprise of getting this rare specimen,” said Julián Zmutt, one of the fishermen who caught the fish. “As it was dark at that time we did not notice, but then we looked at him with a flashlight and saw that he had a third eye.”

But is the fish a nuclear mutant? We certainly hope not, though the conclusion is a tempting one to make. According to inhabitants, the fishermen have handed their catch over to local scientists, who hopefully can shed some light on whether or not the nuclear plant has anything to do with its extra eye.

SOURCE: io9.com

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th,  2011.