The Parrot [Ghana], June 1998
"It was the most awful thing I've ever seen," circus performer Nicolae Antosu told reporters outside The Big Top in Bucharest. "Vlad was such a graceful artist, and the whole audience was applauding his act. The he belched, there was a flash of light and, pay to God, he was blown to bits. We found his head in the popcorn machine."
Antosu was describing the death of Vlad Cazacu, the circus's forty-three-year-old fire-eater, who exploded during a matinee performance on January 23rd. "I've seen him do this trick hundreds of times but, pray to God, something went so badly wrong this afternoon. In the first part of his performance, Vlad would always hold a flammable cocktail in his mouth, so he could spit fire at a burning torch. He called it 'eating the fire', and it always got a big round of applause. But this time I heard a distinct burping noise, and I noticed him making a sour face just before placing the torch in his mouth. Somehow, he must have swallowed some of the liquid, and when he burped it triggered an explosion."
An official source later stated that "the explosion was so catastrophic that much of Mr Cazacu's body was vaporised, making a post mortem impossible. We did retrieve his head, but that had been badly burned by a cooker. It appears that he accidentally swallowed a volatile liquid, then burped up flammable vapours as he brought the burning torch towards his mouth, with disastrous consequences. This has all been most unfortunate. As a mark of respect, this evening's performance has been cancelled."
Sunday Independent - S Africa
According to Dr Menzeleli Msauli, head of the circumcision sepsis-prevention and intervention-programme unit at East London's Cecilia Makiwane hospital, it is women who are at the forefront of this movement, and who are insisting that boys be given medical examinations before they go into the bush.
Bristol Evening Post, 18/3/94
"I have promised to keep his identity confidential," said Jane Setherton, a spokesman for the Marriot Hotel, Bristol, "but I can confirm that he is no longer in our employment.
"We asked him to clean one lift, and he spent four days on the job. When I asked him why, he replied: 'Well, there are twelve of them, one on each floor, and sometimes some of them aren't there.' Eventually, we realised that he thought each floor had a different lift, and he'd cleaned the same one twelve times.
"We had to let him go. It seemed best all round. I understand he is now working for Woolworths."
Boston Globe, 16/7/97
"I was blowing my nose yesterday morning when I felt something peculiar," Goeran Rudolfsson told reporters in Stockholm. "At first, I thought it was a dried bogey, so I tried to pull it out, but it just kept coming. After a few inches, I realised it was a piece of cloth, so I kept pulling, and eventually all thirty-one inches came out. My wife thought I was doing a magic trick and was laughing uncontrollably throughout. I wasn't laughing though. I had an operation for a brain tumour in June, and ever since I'd been bothered by congestion in my head and a stuffed-up nose. This must have been the cause.
"Even so, I won't sue the hospital. I've been breathing much more easily ever since I pulled it out. I'm delighted, so why should I sue?"
The Times of Swaziland, 4/12/93
"There's no doubt about it, it was another case of likhubalo," Inspector Mdluli of the Simunye police force informed reporters. "They looked like a three-headed octopus. I have never seen anything like it."
He explained what he had discovered after being called to a house in Lusoti on Monday morning. "The unnamed threesome were locked together in coitus, and unable to move. The woman confessed to me that, when her husband had gone away on business on Friday, she had invited her lover and his friend into the house. But, after simultaneous vaginal and anal penetration, they found themselves locked together in what is called a 'double dog's knot', with both men quite unable to withdraw. For three days they lay there helplessly, until a neighbour heard their cries for help and entered the room. She laughed so much it took her an hour to collect herself and phone for help. I immediately realised the husband must have been to a witch doctor and given likhubalo root to his wife. Men often do this if they think their wives are unfaithful, and it's very effective, because any man other than her husband gets stuck fast.
"When the husband returned, he eventually agreed to release the two men in the traditional way, by making them all beg for mercy, ritually forgiving them, and then showing his wife a padlock and key. When the padlock opened up, so did she. It's basic science, really."
The Voice (St Lucia) 14/6/97
"Yes, the veterinarian told me to be careful with the drug," Stephen Charles admitted to nurses at Georgetown City Hospital, Guyana. "He told me that when he gives Cantarden to stud horses to improve their mating prowess, he only puts a single drop into a bucket of water mixed with molasses. But I wanted quick results, so I drank the entire bottle, and this is the consequence.
Charles, 42, was explaining the circumstances that had led to his medical difficulties. "A month ago, I became friendly with a seventeen-year-old girl from Essiquibo Island, but every time we made love the freshie complained that I was ejaculating too quick and that she didn't 'want a marshmallow stuck in her coin slot'. I tried everything - Stone, Brush, Supersex - without success. But then a friend told me that they use Cantarden in his stable, and arranged for me to get a bottle.
"The good news was that the drug worked, and I got a dongle so huge you wanted to salute it. The bad news was that the girl didn't turn up for our meeting that night. And the really bad news was that my erection wouldn't go down. It ached, it got sore, and I couldn't piss. Relaxing the man's way made no difference. After three days, I realised I might get gangrene, so I came to the hospital. They packed it with ice, but I've been here for almost three weeks, and it still hasn't gone down. The worst thing is when I'm sleeping. Female nurses come and lift my bedsheets, then run away giggling. I know they're calling me 'the staff sergeant' but it's no laughing matter."
Sunday Star-Times [New Zealand] 24/8/97
"We hold the view that George Steven Cook is not a fit and proper person to hold firearms," Detective Rob Nicholl told the Greymouth District Court. "But it's not his claim that he comes from outer space that really concerns us. It's more his boast that he'll 'shoot it out' with the police if we ever come near his house."
Earlier, Cook, a 79-year-old farmer from Hokitka, had explained to Judge Stephen Erber why he wanted a firearms licence. "My grandmother was part aborigine and she was impregnated by aliens who arrived in the Australian outback from space in the last century. It happened to a lot of aboriginal women in those days. When I was 22, a doctor examined me and said where are you from? You're not one of us' so it must be true. Recently, another doctor said I was only twelve, so there's got to be something in it. Yes, I told the police that we should have guns on our hips and shoot it out like they did in the old west, but I only said it because I'd run out of swear words.
"I am a kind man. I have raped in the past, but that's all behind me now. I need the guns to shoot rabbits."
Cook was granted a firearms licence.
The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) 1/11/97
"The problem was that we couldn't handcuff Mr Shallo because he didn't have any hands," Plainfield Police Chief Edward Santiago told reporters in New Jersey, "so we just put him on the back seat of the car and hoped he wouldn't be able to get out. The incident has certainly shown us that officers shouldn't underestimate handicapped people, because they can be far more resourceful than you'd ever suspect."
Ernest Vincent Shallo, a thirty-year-old multiple amputee from Piscataway, escaped from an unmarked police car after being arrested for drug possession. "He has no hands or forearms, and only one leg, so we couldn't restrain him in the normal way. We thought he was helpless, but when our backs were turned, he slid over to the passenger door, used his appendages to open it, and hopped away real fast. We pursued him but he hopped over several fences and somehow escaped on a bicycle. We couldn't believe it. He can pedal with only one foot, and without touching the handlebars. I think the guy must have worked for a circus at some time."
Shallo's neighbours confirmed this story. "Ernie rides a bike every day, though he can't use the brakes. I've even seen him carry washing machines on his back while on the bike. He fixed my lawnmower once. They say he can set his farts alight. I wouldn't put anything past him."
India Today, 15/2/94
"Curiosity? Bugger curiosity," an irate Ravishankar Raval told reporters in his home town of Jotana. "It may be a curiosity to you, but it's terrifying if you live here. Let me tell you, if it wasn't sacred, we'd slit its throat tomorrow."
Rival was complaining about the huge black goat which has menaced the inhabitants of Jotana, north Gujurat, for the past three years. "At first, it just used to sidle up to anyone with a cigarette, stand next to them and sniff their smoke. We thought it was funny to begin with, but then it started sucking them itself. Not just bidis either, it prefers Marlboro when it can get them, and it butts us until we light one and hand it over. I've got bruises up and down my back. I reckon it's stealing about twenty a day now, all over town, and you tourists keep encouraging it. Only last week, it scared the living daylights out of a camel-cart driver. He thought it was a panther. It's getting out of control. It tried to smoke a baby's head last week, and it has to be stopped. But we're Hindus, so we can't kill it because it's holy. However, if any of you are atheists, we'd pay handsomely. I have a gun."
The Sydney Morning Herald, 5/4/94
"These stories fly in the face of common sense," Phra Dharmamatanobhas told a press conference in Bangkok. "How could anyone have sex on the deck of a ferry in Scandinavia in winter? It would be too cold to get an erection."
Phra Dharmamatanobhas was defending a fellow Buddhist monk, Phra Yantra Amaro Bikhu, against accusations of repeatedly breaking his vow of celibacy: "There has been a misunderstanding. Pha Yantra is innocent. He only lets men near him, and always keeps women at a distance. True, there are pictures of him getting into the back of a van with a woman harpist, but he merely did this to demonstrate advance Tantric positions for her. Furthermore, the DNA test demanded by the Belgrade woman in the paternity suit was obviously faulty, and the Stavanger ferry incident only took place in the fevered, opium-inspired imagination of a Cambodian nun, Kaewta Monchinda, who deserves to be punished in the deepest hell.
"But people should understand the temptations we monks must endure in the modern world. As soon as we look heavenwards in prayer, we see advertisements for women's undergarments. Many of us use rotting corpse contemplation to surmount lust, and I agree with the prosecution that the monk who was caught having sex with a corpse during funeral rites did wrong. But do not tar us all with the same brush."
Entrepreneur [Ethiopia], 23/4/97
"Correction. In our last week's issue (16 April 1997), in the story entitled 'Kebour Ghenna starts to get tough', we erroneously quoted Ato Kebour as saying 'there is nothing new in hanging secretary generals at the end of his or her term'. We left out the letter 'C' from the word changing for it to come out 'hanging'. Therefore we would like the sentence to be corrected to read 'there is nothing new in changing secretary generals..' We regret the distress this error has caused the family of Ato Kebour. The Editor."
