Express delivery
TWO pigeon racers in China have been charged with fraud after smuggling their birds onto a bullet train to beat the competition. The ruse took place during the Grand Prix of the Shanghai Pigeon Association, a 652-kilometre flight from Shangqiu to Shanghai.
Court statements revealed the pair had secretly trained their birds in Shangqiu as well as Shanghai. When the birds were released by race officials, they quickly returned to their Shangqiu loft. The men then smuggled them onto the high speed train, hidden inside milk cartons, and released them in Shanghai to fly the short distance home.
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Competitors cried foul when the two birds shattered race records, seemingly completing the 8-hour race in half that time. The men fessed up, and were fined $160,000.
Holey grail
we have an appetite for: NBC News reports that cheese and yogurt, as well as protecting against heart disease, 鈥渨ere found to protect against death from any cause鈥�. Feedback plans to keep a few Dairylea triangles in our pocket from now on, to ward off infectious disease, traffic accidents and old age.
鈥淚nstagram channel WeirdWorld claims: 鈥淎pplying a male鈥檚 underarm sweat to a female鈥檚 lips can help women relax and boost their mood.鈥� Citation needed, if anyone lives to tell the tale鈥�
Honey laundering
AN INVESTIGATION by a concerned horticulturist has accused many Australian supermarkets of unwittingly selling fake honey. Robert Costa commissioned an assessment of 28 jars of honey, using nuclear magnetic resonance imaging to untangle the contents.
The results showed that many of the jars labelled 鈥�100% pure honey鈥� actually seemed to have been bulked out with sugar syrup. There is no suggestion the brands knew of the adulteration, which is suspected to have originated in China.
Beekeeper Phil McCabe told ABC News: 鈥淎dulterated honey isn鈥檛 honey at all. By and large [the impurity] is some kind of syrup that鈥檚 been converted to look like honey, it tastes like honey. Everything about it seems to be honey, when in fact it鈥檚 just sugar syrup or something else.鈥� Feedback must wonder, does honey by any other name taste as sweet? Answers on a postcard, please.
A case of the vapours
COMBINING tabloid mainstays of crime, exotic locations and celebrities, several newspapers were powerless to resist claims that former Top Gear star Richard Hammond had been gassed by thieves in his St Tropez villa.
In her Sunday Express column, wife Mindy Hammond described how thieves targeted the home following a raucous cocktail party, taking cash and valuables.
British holiday-makers have been circulating warnings of ether-scented robbers for years. This prompted the UK鈥檚 Royal College of Anaesthetists to issue a dismissing the idea as a myth, citing the pharmacological, logistical, chemical and medical implausibilities of such a scheme.
Those searching for a stupefying agent would do better to look in their cocktail glass. As one commenter put it: 鈥淧erhaps the thieves were just very quiet.鈥�
Insect heist
A MORE unusual theft was seen in Philadelphia, when $40,000 of creepy crawlies were stolen from the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion. Ninety per cent of the museum鈥檚 creatures were snatched overnight, including scorpions, millipedes, and a six-eyed sand spider, said to be one of the most venomous in the world.
Suspicion has fallen on a group of disgruntled ex-employees, inferred from two staff jerseys left pinned to the wall with knives at the scene, as well as security camera footage showing them loading animals into waiting vehicles.
Philadelphians who find themselves offered suspiciously cheap deals on scorpions and spiders are encouraged to notify the relevant authorities.
A sticky situation
ANOTHER victim of the devil鈥檚 weed? A fleeing suspect was captured by police officers in the US after being overcome by an algal bloom. Abraham Duarte fled his vehicle following a traffic stop in Cape Coral, Florida, leaping into a nearby canal to swim away.
But Duarte didn鈥檛 count on the thick layer of swampy green algae coating the water鈥檚 surface, and after swallowing some, returned to waiting cops and requested they take him to hospital.
After being given the all clear by doctors, Duarte was jailed for possession of seven vials of cannabis extract THC, and resisting arrest.
Lost jumper
A STRAY kangaroo is on the loose in Austria 鈥� and that鈥檚 not a typo. The marsupial has been spotted in the forests near the town of Kirchschlag, a mere 14,000 kilometres away from its usual habitat. 鈥淲e have called all the zoos and kangaroo breeders around us, but no one is missing a kangaroo,鈥� a police official told the AFP news agency.
Eye to eye
FISHY business in the Persian Gulf. A fishmonger in Kuwait pushed their luck a little too far by sticking plastic googly eyes on their wares to make them appear fresher. After complaints from customers, the shop was shut down by the Ministry of Commerce, according to a report in Al Bayan newspaper.
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