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A terror of frozen peas, a fear of barns and a dread of kneecaps have emerged as some of Britain's most unusual phobias. Britain's weirdest phobias include a fear of peas and kneecaps. While spiders and heights are common sources of anxiety, many people's lives are blighted by phobias of seemingly innocuous objects. David Allison, a therapist based at Addenbrooke's hospital, in Cambridge, was filmed treating some of the worst sufferers in an ITV1 documentary to be shown next week. They included Sue Williams, 37, from Dudley in the West Midlands, who is so terrified of knees that she has...

Why do they call it Hopping John? On New Years Day east Tennesseans, and people here and there all over the South, eat black eyed peas and rice and call the mixture "Hopping John" (often written "Hoppin' John".) Over the years I have eaten hopping John with good friends in the kitchen, been served it from chafing dishes by well-off San Antonio ladies three sheets to the wind, and walked into a roadside restaurant in Maryland with a can of black eyed peas and asked to be indulged. Somebody at the table always asks "Why do they call it hopping...

A teenager had to be rescued from an avalanche of peas after he forced open an industrial container in New Zealand. The 17-year-old, and two friends, used a lighter to burn plastic ties securing the shipping container in Ashburton port, reports Stuff.co.nz. But as the doors opened the teenager became stuck in a chest-high deluge of peas. Police and ambulance were called to the scene and were forced to use a forklift truck to free him. He was sentenced to 200 hours community work and to pay damages of £77, half the value of the peas.

Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr's group has called on Arab governments to intervene.