Short Stuff

A landmark bridge in Indonesia is in danger of collapse because too many people are urinating on one of its steel pillars. The Ampera bridge has begun to lean at an angle because of corrosion by the acidic fluid.

Campaigners fighting for a ban on blonde jokes turned violent in a protest at a Budapest bar called Blondy, throwing food at the windows and urging blonde women working there to go on strike.

To avoid detection after robbing a jewellery shop, a Taiwanese man hid in an attic with a stock of bread and water. This week, a month after the robbery, he turned himself in to police, saying he could no longer stand his own body odour.

And speaking of stinkers�

Nearly 40 per cent of Germans find smelly co-workers to be the most annoying aspect of their jobs, according to a survey by the business magazine Junge Karriere.

...I'm going to share this with a few people at work!

Short Stuff

A French pensioner with a life-long fear of being buried alive has designed a coffin with a built-in alarm system, water, food, ventilation and a mini-bar containing ouzo.

A Dutch online shop is selling coffee made from cat droppings for $1.20 a gram. Kopi Luwak is produced by Sumatra's civet cat. It eats ripe coffee beans, which are then hand-picked from its droppings.

An ex-gangster in Japan in love with a 15-year-old girl chopped off his little finger and mailed it to her father twice (it was returned to him the first time) in an unsuccessful bid to prove his commitment.

An Israeli man is getting a divorce after his bride smiled at the head waiter at their wedding ball. The new husband, from Haifa, said he had no proof, but his "gut feeling" was seldom wrong.

�what a dick!

Attack of the Short Stuff

A police sniffer dog has died of a suspected overdose while hunting for drugs, British police said. The springer spaniel showed symptoms of amphetamine use and died soon after the search.

The Italian town of Monza has banned people from keeping goldfish in bowls. A council official said fish get a "distorted view of reality" if kept in a bowl instead of a filtered, rectangular tank.

A British man who accidentally shot himself in the testicles after drinking 15 pints of beer has been jailed for five years for possessing an illegal firearm. The man had intended to shoot a friend.

An attempt to set a world record for group fire-walking in Dunedin and raise money for the ambulance service backfired when the cost of treating 28 people for burns exceeded the donations.

Thailand's army is offering a free pilgrimage to Mecca for anyone who helps secure the return of more than 300 assault rifles stolen by suspected Muslim extremists.

Czech composer Vaclav Halek has composed more than 2000 melodies which, he says, come directly from mushrooms. "I record music that mushrooms sing to me," he says. (eating too many of them?)

US scientists have developed a dried food ration that soldiers can hydrate by adding dirty water or urine. The chicken and rice meal comes with a filter that removes 99.9 per cent of bacteria and most toxic chemicals. (how�s your dinner? It tastes like piss!)

A man lit a cigarette while sitting on a portable toilet - and blew it up. The explosion, in Blacksville, West Virginia, resulted from a build-up of methane gas, officials said. The man was not badly hurt. (yea, and he wont need that operation for hemmoroids now)

Short Stuff

A Swiss pensioner lost his false teeth in a fight with a prostitute. The woman hit the man, aged 74, in the face and then kicked him. His teeth fell into a toilet and couldn't be recovered.

Thieves who stole a portable public toilet in Belarus - and loaded it on a trailer - unwittingly kidnapped a man who was sitting on it. The man was injured when he jumped off the moving trailer.

British defence force eyebrows have been raised with the news that of 1669 soldiers "medically downgraded" as a result of service in Iraq last year, 83 were women who were sent home pregnant.

British police are hunting for a man who stole a closed-circuit television camera from a Liverpool shop. To help them, they have an extreme close-up shot of the thief in action.

The US Senate has been told that the Pentagon has wasted $US100 million on airline tickets that were never used, and for which refunds were never sought, since 1997.

Young Norwegians can earn a merit badge in sex this summer. The pin, modeled on a popular summer swimming merit badge, is an offer from Swedish-Norwegian sex education group RFSU. The badge, which displays sperm cells swimming in waves, can be won by correctly answering 10 out of 13 questions about sex.

Chinese Short Stuff

A conman used his resemblance to former Chinese president and national hero Sun Yat-sen to dupe six men, all aged over 80, out of $41,000. Had he been alive, Sun would be more than 130 years old.

A fly-hating businessman in China has swatted 8 million flies in a 10-year vendetta. Hu Xilin, from Zhejiang province, began killing flies after one landed in a meal as he dined with a client.

An alternative medicine guru in China is being sued by a man who almost died after he was told to eat six raw frogs a day to cure neck pain. He had munched down 130 frogs before collapsing.

Short Stuff

An Argentinian father of 37 is campaigning for free vasectomies. Cleto Ruiz Diaz, who lives with three partners and all 37 children in a two-bedroom flat, says he doesn't want any more children.

An Isle of Wight councillor, fed up with the exorbitant prices of Britain's dentists, plans to ship people to France for cheap operations on what he is calling The Tooth Ferry.

Giant pandas in Chinese zoos are to be made to exercise because they're too fat to mate. "Their limbs lack strength, and they run out of gas quickly after standing up to have sex," an expert said.

Teddy the hamster sparked a rescue mission in Berlin after he climbed inside a computer printer and got stuck because he was too fat to get out. He was freed by a neighbour of his owner.

A Madrid, Spain taxi driver was taken for a ride by two German teenage girls who got him to drive them to Duisburg, Germany - and then fled without paying the $A3920 fare, police said.

An 86-year-old Swiss man seen driving the wrong way down a freeway stopped when he saw police, to complain that everyone else was going the wrong way. He had even flashed his lights at them.

It's a boy! Ex-lesbian Norwegian handball star Mia Hundvin (27) gave birth to a son yesterday. Snowboard icon Terje H�konsen is the proud father.

Mo Short Stuff

A Welsh firm has come up with a way to get men to do the ironing. It is marketing ironing board covers featuring a picture of British model Jordan in a bikini. The bikini disappears as the cover heats up.

Two robbers of a German post office, distracted when the alarm was raised, grabbed the lunch bag of an employee, which was full of potato salad, instead of the one they had stuffed money into.

A Berlin artist has asked German zoos if they will feed him to piranhas once he's dead. Karl Friedrich Lentze, 56, got the idea after reading about a Dutch man who wanted to be fed to snails.

Two five-year-old Austrian girls escaped from nursery school by scaling a fence, then walked 2 kilometres along a busy main road and train tracks so they wouldn't miss Sesame Street.

A German dog breeder's attempt to brush his prize Rottweiler's teeth ended in a hospital emergency ward when the animal savaged the man, severing arteries in his right arm.

A hungry Dutch burglar was caught after the smell of his cooking woke the householder. The 45-year-old intruder told police he fried a fish and took a cold beer from the fridge to complement his meal.

Short Stuff

In Tanzania, a man cut off his genitals in an attempt to win sympathy from friends and relatives after squandering the money they lent him on prostitutes and alcohol.

A German man who taught his dog Adolf to give a Hitler salute by raising his right paw was charged with violating Germany's anti-Nazi laws.

The Backpacking magazine �Trail� has apologized after its latest issue showed a route that led off a cliff on Britain's highest mountain. Editor Guy Procter said he was gutted by the error made in production.

Russian troops, divers and others using a modified T72 tank are helping retrieve 10 tons of beer trapped under a frozen Siberian river. In minus 27C, a week-long effort to extract the truck carrying the beer has proved fruitless.

A diamond merchant in India, whose cow swallowed a bag of diamonds, has tried for three days to make it pass dung so that he can recover them. Dilubhai Rajput has so far retrieved 310 of the 1722 diamonds.

A bachelor in China, fed up with giving away money at weddings of relatives and friends, hired a prostitute for a bogus marriage to recoup his losses. The man paid the prostitute $93 to pose as his bride and collected $627 in cash gifts at the ceremony.

Short Stuff!

A survey has found that 65 per cent of Britons do not know which US city the hit musical Chicago is set in, 57 per cent do not know where the TV soap opera Dallas was set, and 64 per cent do not know where the French Alps are.

Police in Sweden are confident of catching a burglar who used the toilet but forgot to flush. Officers say they recovered a DNA sample from the toilet bowl after $60,000 worth of computers were stolen from a paper plant.

A flight in the US proved lucky for a British woman who had a heart attack. Fifteen heart specialists bound for a medical conference in Florida stood up to offer help when a flight attendant asked: "Is there a doctor on board?"

A Colombian tried to burgle the house of a rich man by hiding inside a box and posting himself to it. But the owners of the house got suspicious when the big package arrived and called the bomb squad.

Zimbabwe's soccer friendly match with El Salvador in Harare was cancelled after the visitors proved to be fake. The bogus team was a squad of club players put together by a sportswear company.

The car of two Belgian rabbit poachers had been fitted with tyre spikes to slow pursuers, shields on the number plates and a device to eject old bicycles on to the road. Police nabbed them with 14 rabbits.

Northern India police are being paid 30 rupees (65 cents) extra a month to grow a moustache to give them more authority because research has shown they will be taken more seriously.

Doctors in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha have performed an operation on a 54-year-old man who accidentally swallowed a toothbrush. Marijan Saleh was brushing his teeth on Tuesday when the brush accidentally slid down his throat and ended up in his stomach. "He was operated on and the toothbrush removed from the intestines," said the spokesman from the Selian Hospital in Arusha.

New Years Short Bits

A former Miss Venezuela was released by kidnappers after they got her to autograph 15 calendars featuring nude pictures of her. Veruska Ramirez was kidnapped in her car in Valencia for three hours, but was released after the thieves found the calendars in the car.

About 400 Spaniards have snapped up half the tickets for a week's nudist cruise around the Mediterranean on the Flamenco in June. Tickets cost up to $2600. Nudity will be banned in the ship's restaurant, and the crew will have to be dressed at all times.

A middle-aged transvestite has been arrested after he was caught trying to steal a nurse's uniform from a hospital staff changing room, police said. Fumio Suzuki, 47, was arrested for theft after he eluded the first hospital official who spotted him, but was unable to get away from another employee who chased him down in the hospital parking lot, as he was clad in high-heels and a miniskirt.

An Indian taxi driver and his wife have gained fame by driving everywhere in reverse. Harpreet Devi started driving backwards when his car got stuck in reverse and he had to drive 55 kilometres home. He and his wife, Krishna, now drive in reverse at up to 40km/h.

The chief vegetable taster of a British supermarket chain has become a pariah among his colleagues. Tesco's Tony Vaughan says they have insisted he sit near an open window while he is on his current diet of five kilograms of Brussels sprouts a week.

I bet he thinks his job is �a gas�

Short Bits

A Kansas woman was arrested after allegedly biting off part of her boyfriend's tongue when he tried to kiss her to make up after a fight.

Burglar Patrick Corby was jailed by a court in Exeter, Devon, after stealing an entire kitchen from an unoccupied house and installing it in his own home. He used power tools to strip �30,000 worth of property from the house over a number of days.

Germany's confessed cannibal killer Armin Meiwes has been sent a vegetarian cookbook and a Christmas hamper full of vegie burgers and tofu. An animals rights group is behind the stunt and says it would be a major coup if it could convert Meiwes to vegetarianism.

A man who robbed a Salvation Army collector was hit by a car as he tried to get away. Edward Sanders was hit as he ran away with Patricia Parra's collection tin in Tucson, Arizona. Police Sergeant Dan Snyder said: "I think God has a poetic sense of justice."

More Short Stuff!

A German man who survived five days in the Alps in freezing temperatures by eating snow has been fired because he missed work. The company said: "We hired him as a consultant for a one-year project and he is already behind deadline."

An underwear company has made a bra that it says will help women quit smoking due to perfumed capsules that ease withdrawal symptoms. The capsules contain lavender, which has sedative properties, and jasmine, which alters the taste of cigarettes.

A supermarket in southern China has required its workers to each kill at least five flies every day, forbidding them to go home until the quota is met, a news report said today. The rule has been introduced to improve hygiene at the supermarket in Guangzhou's Baiyun district, according to the South China Morning Post.

Short Stuff

Police in Yalta, Ukraine, have arrested a man caught with a gun and a cabbage he intended to use as a silencer. "Our officers just shrugged their shoulders, smiling, as they've never seen cabbage used as a silencer before," a police spokeswoman said.

A disabled man on his honeymoon was not allowed on a flight in Chile because the pilot thought his artificial hand could be used as a weapon. The man offered to leave the offending hand behind, but was still not allowed to board.

A Romanian man who spent 11 years in his basement trying to avoid an eight-year jail sentence has been arrested. The man, 31, was sentenced for trying to kill one of his neighbours. "I hid under the house and went out only a few times for food supplies," he said.

A Missouri motorist stopped by police threatened to sue them under copyright laws if they wrote down his name. Daniel Smith said his name was copyrighted, and every time it appeared on a document he would launch a $US300,000 lawsuit.

Short Stuff

Romanian customs officers caught a French woman trying to smuggle her Turkish husband into Hungary in a suitcase. The husband did not have a visa. Officials became suspicious when they saw the woman acting nervously as the bag went through the x-ray machine. The husband is reported fine but they now think he may have gall stones.

Portuguese have been stripping off after a Lisbon store offered free designer wear for naked shoppers. The mostly male shoppers got a towel for cover while queuing in the street, but had to bare all and dash in when a whistle blew to get the free clothes.

Four friends who spend their weekends sampling pubs in Britain have visited their 11,000th bar. The Black Country Ale Tasters, who began their marathon pub-crawl almost 20 years ago, reached the landmark when they visited Bennett's in Birmingham.

Can you spell� A l c o h o l i c ?

True Short Bits

A Scottish woman whose husband left her for her mother was a bridesmaid at their wedding. Alison Smith, 20, divorced George Greenhowe, 21, after she found him in bed with her mum. "I may have lost a husband but I've gained a father," she said.

A 28-year-old man in Chengdu, China, is making a living as a "human punching bag", charging stressed-out people $9 to beat him up for two minutes. The man says he provides a valuable service to people suffering from tension and work-related pressure.

Two girls aged 15 and 17 were arrested after mistakenly phoning a Minnesota police station looking to buy drugs. But even after police identified themselves, the girls rang back, again asked for drugs and arranged to meet at a shop to buy marijuana.

A Brazilian waiter was arrested after he was recognized when he tried to rob his own restaurant. The manager tackled the man. "The manager said knowing who he was gave him confidence to fight him because he knew he was a coward," a police officer said.

A tribunal has awarded Swedish bank worker Goran Andervass almost $100,000 for unfair dismissal after he was sacked for telling off a colleague for farting. "My colleague was absolutely aware of the awful smell. It was pure provocation," he said.

Struggling English artist Mark McGowan is trying to get British Prime Minister Tony Blair to wipe out his $36,000 student debts if he succeeds in pushing a monkey nut 11 kilometers from south-east London to Downing Street using only his nose.

So what is a MONKEY NUT? Pronunciation: 'mungkee nut' Definition: [n] pod of the peanut vine containing usually 2 nuts or seeds; `groundnut' and `monkey nut' are British terms. Synonyms: earthnut, goober, goober pea, groundnut, peanut.

Short Stuff!

A funeral company in Brazil has caused outrage with two TV ads: "Our clients have never come back to complain" and (selling life insurance), "With our life insurance you will be so happy you will thank God for it, personally." The firm's earnings are up 35 per cent.

Bangladesh's currency notes have become so dirty that even fishmongers think they stink too much to use. Fish-market traders say that their customers are demanding coins as change because the notes are so badly soiled.

An American mother caught breastfeeding, talking on her mobile phone and taking notes while driving her car has lost her fight for vindication. A judge pronounced Catherine Dunkers, 29, guilty of offences including driving without a license.

A Russian man is selling what he claims is Adolf Hitler's mummified penis. Ivan Zudropov says his father was one of the first Red Army soldiers into the Nazi command bunker, where he found Hitler's body. He said the item was just 6.3 centimeters long.

Short stuff

A 75-year-old Chinese woman has upset neighbors by cooking topless on her apartment balcony. They complained to authorities about the woman, who cooks topless even in icy weather, but she said it was "nobody's business" how she dressed at home.

A Beijing school has banned pupils from farting. Children caught breaking wind at Hu Zhuang Elementary School will be fined about $1. "We use the regulation to help students get rid of their bad habits. And nobody has been fined so far," a teacher said.

A Bahraini man who broke off his engagement three days before the wedding day found a replacement bride rather than waste money and effort. The man, 23, had decided his original bride was too "domineering, talkative and had high expectations".

A Finn unknowingly dialed home while he made love in his car, just in time for his wife to hear him moan, "I love you," to his mistress. The wife, who heard the voice of her friend in the background, later attacked her husband with an axe. He was not injured.