Posted on 12/18/2001 9:06:30 AM PST by TC Rider
LONDON (Reuters) - Sex-starved moose defecates on car in Norway; Iranian groom chokes to death on bride's fingernail;
Filipino cuts off penis in fit of religious fervour; Exploding potato halts London ballet performance -- when it comes to weird and wonderful, 2001 was a vintage year for wacky headlines.
It was difficult to know who raised the most laughs -- humans or animals.
A Norwegian moose mistook a Ford Ka for a would-be partner. He licked and dribbled on the car and when his ardour was not reciprocated, he defecated on it.
An Iranian bridegroom certainly bit off more that he could chew when, according to custom, he licked honey from his bride's finger during the marriage ceremony and choked to death on one of her false nails.
A devout Filipino never got as far as the altar.
Believing his penis was driving him to sin, he sliced it off with a machete in a fit of religious fervour. Doctors stitched him up -- but his penis is now 20 percent shorter.
At London's elegant Royal Opera House, about 2,000 ballet fans had to be evacuated after a baked potato exploded in a backstage microwave and triggered the fire alarm.
To much mockery, the prestigious Turner prize was won by artist Martin Creed with his offbeat creation -- an empty room with a light that switched on and off every five seconds.
But it was not quite so stomach-churning as the performance by Mexican performance artist Israel Mora at an exhibition in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Banff.
Mora ejaculated, in private, into seven glass vials. The vials were then put in a white refrigerated box and strung up for exhibit between two trees.
Mora was lucky he didn't move to Sweden.
A court there ruled that a man who donated his sperm for artificial insemination to two lesbians must now pay child support after the women separated.
In China, the tiger turned to man to get a little magic back in his love life.
A pair of listless male tigers at a zoo in southern China were administered the anti-impotence drug Viagra to get them roaring and raring to go.
For the zoo had already found inspiration in a Chinese research institute which tried to educate impotent pandas about sex by showing them videos of other pandas mating.
Wild life certainly has a wild time in Norway.
A polar bear who is apparently a real health freak stole toothpaste and vitamin pills after breaking into a tourist camp in the Norwegian Arctic.
"Maybe he felt he had bad breath after eating seal all summer," said tour operator Arne Kristoffersen.
Across the globe in 2001, Lady Luck certainly struck in the most unlikely places at the most unexpected times.
An Australian man nursing a broken leg became a millionaire when he picked lottery-winning numbers from his hospital identification bracelet.
A car bomb may not seem to the luckiest omen but it worked wonders for nearly 1,000 war-weary Colombians.
Marxist rebels rigged a Renault with dynamite and the story flashed across the evening news along with the car's licence plate. The numbers proved to be winners in the lottery jackpot.
Worldwide, the course of true love rarely ran smoothly.
A Zambian man divorced his wife after finding a frog in a cup of tea she gave him.
An Italian man was less forgiving -- he admitted killing his 72-year-old wife after she made him a bad cup of coffee.
A Japanese woman beat her husband to death with a frying pan after he confessed to having an affair.
Around the globe, offbeat headlines masterfully told many a strange tale in just one line -- Indian metro to play music for suicidal passengers, German city of Cologne sets up drive-in brothels, Try "Wonderbum" technology for a perter bottom, New Zealand lambs get own websites as cyber pets.
But what reader could possibly resist the clincher from Little Rock -- Dead Deer in Bathroom puzzles Arkansas Police.
Time to bring in the Clintons for questioning.
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