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DANGEROUS CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
Five thousand people joined a town's Christmas lights countdown but there were no lights to switch on. They were taken down for safety reasons a week previously after one string of bulbs fell into the street but the organisers had the bright idea of going ahead with the switch-on anyway. The event in Colchester, Essex, had been billed as the "biggest-ever parade and town light switch-on". It included children marching through the streets with Father Christmas, the chance to meet Colchester United players and youngsters decorating a tree. But as the countdown reached zero, the only lights that flickered into action were in shop windows and on a Christmas tree. Chris Rawlinson, of the Colchester Town Partnership, said, "Two of the cross-street features fell but nobody was injured. We took them all down for safety reasons." (Source: Daily Mirror, Nov/06)

UNIFORMS BANNED IN HARRODS
A serving Army officer was banned from entering Harrods on Remembrance Day in case his uniform upset other shoppers. Lieutenant Daniel Lenherr had just taken part in a parade honouring Britain's war dead when the London department store turned him away at the door. The security guard told him other customers might be intimidated by the uniform.

The store stood by their dress policy, saying, "There is a long-standing tradition at Harrods that would normally preclude customers who are wearing non-civilian attire from entering the store. A lot of people assume that somebody in uniform is either there on official duty, which could cause them alarm, or they assume they're a member of staff and ask them where the lavatories are and so on." (Source: Mail on Sunday, Nov/06)

SELF-DEFENCE US STYLE
A gunmen broke in to Guillermo Tovar's Memphis house in the small hours of the morning. They kicked down his front door, pointed a gun at his son's head and demanded cash and jewellery. Tovar grabbed a sword from underneath the couch, described as a cavalry-type sabre, which the household used for cutting vegetation in the garden, and confronted the burglars.

With a gun pointed at him and the intruder's finger already on the trigger, Tovar swung the sword, cutting the man's trigger finger off. The armed robbers fled, forgetting to pick up the missing bit of finger. Police were able to take a usable print from the finger, and match it to a man who already had a criminal record. Lt. Mickey Williams noted, "I would think he'd have a hard time explaining how his finger got left in this home." (Source: Metro, Nov/06)

DEAD ON TOILET FOR TWO DAYS
A 57-year-old man was dead on a hospital toilet for one and a half days before being discovered by staff. The man had been admitted to Södersjukhuset's casualty department in Stockholm suffering from pains in the chest and abdomen. Doctors took samples from him, and decided to keep him in overnight but when a nurse went to his bed to give him his test results, his bed was empty and the patient had disappeared.

Nurses assumed that the man had left the hospital, so they discharged him. It was only nearly two days later that the man was found in a toilet in the adjacent x-ray department. He appeared to have gone there on his own, locked himself in the toilet and died. Hospital spokeswoman Ulrica Franzén said that a more thorough search of the hospital for the man had not been judged necessary. (Source: Daves Daily, Nov/06)

CHIP SHOP SMELLS LIKE A CHIP SHOP
The boss of a chip shop is being probed by town hall officials because his shop smells of fish and chips. Environmental health staff wrote to Steve Morton to say they were investigating an “odour from the extract ventilation system”. He was told, “We are investigating a smell of fish and chips.” The council is monitoring the odours and told Steve he could be banned from having fish and chip smells in his chippy, which has been operating without a problem for 40 years. A council spokesman said, “We have a duty to investigate complaints.” (Source: The Sun, Nov/06)

NUDE MAN CONCEALED A WEAPON
A naked man arrested for indecent exposure in California was held at gunpoint on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon. Where would a naked man conceal a weapon? He had a screwdriver hidden up his arse! The police were first called in El Cerrito, California, after reports that a naked man was masturbating in public, lying against a tree stump. After arresting the man, Sergeant Paul Keith was about to put him in the back of his car, but first, he asked him if there was anything the police should know about.

The man responded that he was concealing a screwdriver in his anal cavity. Understandably, the police were unsure what to do about this situation so they called the fire brigade. Firefighters decided it was a job best left to a hospital who would probably be the best place to extract the item. At this point, the man offered to take out the screwdriver himself. So, held at gunpoint in case he tried any funny business, he removed a six-inch long metal screwdriver wrapped in electrical tape. He was subsequently taken to jail without explaining what the screwdriver had been doing up there in the first place. (Source: Metro, Nov/06)

SMOKE BREAK BETWEEN LESSONS
Freebrough Community College has designated a special courtyard where teenagers as young as 14 can smoke in the hope of encouraging them to turn up to more classes. In an experimental scheme, the youngsters are allowed to follow relaxed school rules at the unit including less formal dress code. They learn job skills and vocational trades such as joinery because they are considered disaffected or ill-suited to academic study. Those on the 'alternative education' course are allowed smoking breaks as long as they have a note from their parents. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Nov/06)

CHARGED WITH ASSAULT
A dad who dragged his teenage son out of bed to get him to college has been charged with assault. He grabbed the 16-year-old by the arm and hauled him up when he ignored his mum’s calls at 8.15am. The angry teenager rang police and two officers raced to his home. They arrested the dad, locked him in a cell for six hours then charged him with common assault and obstructing police. Later the boy asked police to drop the case but the Crown Prosecution Service is pressing ahead and the father has already appeared in court. (Source: The Sun, Nov/06)

WORSE THAN HITTING YOUR THUMB WITH A HAMMER....
August Voegl, from Jennersdorf, Austria, slipped while working on a house and shot a four-inch nail into his left testicle with a compressed air gun. He was unable to extract it or pull himself away from the roof. Emergency medics were called in to separate the man from the roof after which he was airlifted to a nearby hospital where he is reportedly recovering well after surgery. (Source: Ananova, Oct/06)