Global Oddities

Whitney ...disappointed fans

Fans at London’s O2 were left disappointed at Whitney Houston’s concert on Sunday night, as the star was forced to apologise for her singing.
The 46-year-old, who is on her first tour of Britain in a decade, struggled through some of her best known hits.
“She doesn’t want to come, my soprano friend,” said the star, explaining her voice.
“Sometimes the old girl sings, but not tonight,” Whitney told the crowd. “I want to do it, but she doesn’t want to … She’s getting a little temperamental,” she added.
The diva also had another excuse for her performance. “Turn the air-con off,” she asked organisers, from the stage. “I can feel it. It takes away my soprano.”
It is claimed some fans were so unimpressed by the star’s comeback gig, they walked out.
But those who attended the star’s Monday night show, also at the O2, had a different tale to tell. Many concert-goers said they thoroughly enjoyed it.
The first three dates of Whitney’s UK tour in Manchester and Glasgow had to be postponed as she was suffering from a respiratory disorder. Whitney is due to perform again on May 1 in Glasgow and in Manchester on June 16 and 17.
Source: ITN news online, April 27, 2010

Roche...suspicious of her daughters

A millionaire socialite has left her daughters less than a pound each because she believed they conspired in her mother’s death.
Australian Valmai Roche, who died last year aged 81, bequeathed her children and ex-husband $1.5 AUD “blood money” – worth 90p – from her estate, which is reported to be worth around £2.1m.
But two of her daughters have claimed their mother was “delusional” and are challenging her will in the South Australian Supreme Court.
The former mayoress of Adelaide left “30 pieces of silver of the lowest denomination of currency” to her family – which translates as 30 five cent coins each – claiming it was “blood money due to Judas”.
The rest of her fortune was left to the Catholic men’s charity Southern Cross, according to Australian newspaper reports.
Her mother Dorothy Maude Haber was cared for in a nursing home before her death, but documents do not say how or when she died.
Ms Roche’s daughters – Deborah Hamilton, Fiona Roche and Shauna Roche – can also claim equal shares in their mother’s jewellery.
However they must correctly answer questions about her personal diaries which were kept from January 1974 until October 1981, the date her will was written.
But Ms Hamilton has accused her mother of “fixed, false and incorrigible views” over the death of Ms Haber and alleges her “delusions” meant she was incapable of “making a reasonable and proper disposition of her estate”.
Along with her sisters she has taken the case to court claiming they should be “entitled to inherit” their mother’s fortune.
Ms Roche went as far as to “specifically exclude” her children and ex-husband “from any further benefits” claiming they “have been adequately provided for” during the later years of her life.
Mr Roche, who was Adelaide City Council Lord Mayor from 1975 until 1977, was also excluded from further benefit due to the “irretrievable breakdown” of their marriage in 1983.
Only one change was made to her will in 1987 to bequeath a French Empire style desk to her daughter Fiona, who now heads the family’s Roche Group which is regularly listed among the top 200 rich companies in Australia.
Court documents reveal Ms Roche enquired about changing her will in 2007, but no new will could be found.
Lawyers for the family have refused to comment on the case, which returns to court next month.

Source: Skynews online, April 26, 2010

The biweekly water aerobics class at a holiday park in northern Australia was postponed Tuesday when an unwanted guest entered the pool — a 5-foot-long (1.5-meter) crocodile.

Workers at the Howard Springs Holiday Park on the outskirts of the tropical northern city of Darwin went to the pool to scoop out leaves and otherwise prepare it for the class when they were surprised to find the croc, which had apparently crawled under a fence from a nearby swamp.

“We went down like normal to check the pool out because Tuesdays and Thursdays the local ladies of Howard Springs do their water aerobics,” park manager Geoff Thompson was quoted as saying on the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s website.

A government ranger was summoned to remove the visitor, which was identified as a freshwater crocodile — generally considered to be capable of giving a nasty bite but rarely fatal to humans.

“They were all there waiting for the ranger to collect it and once he got it out of the water they started their aerobics,” Thompson said.

The crocodile was likely to be handed to a local wildlife park.

Crocodile numbers have burgeoned in northern Australia since hunting that pushed the animal almost to extinction was banned in 1971. Attacks on humans have increased, with four people killed by crocodiles in seven months from 2008 to early 2009.

Source: AP, April 22, 2010

Cameron takes an "egg shower" from a student

Britain’s main opposition leader David Cameron laughed off being hit by an egg thrown by a student while campaigning for the general election on Wednesday.
The Conservative leader said the egg incident was the “first of the campaign” after he was ambushed following a question-and-answer session with students at a college in Cornwall.
TV pictures showed a young man in a grey sweatshirt hurling an egg from inside the building as Cameron walked out, although they did not show the moment of impact.
The egg glanced off Cameron’s shoulder and splattered on the jacket of a police officer beside him, although the yolk did stain Cameron’s white shirt.
Eyewitnesses said a 16-year-old man, reportedly a construction student, who threw the egg was immediately led away.
A Conservative Party aide said he was arrested and then quickly released after police established he did not have any more missiles with him.
Cameron, who has been followed on his campaign for the May 6 elections by a newspaper reporter dressed as a chicken, joked: “Now I know which came first — the chicken not the egg.”
His response was calmer than that of former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who punched a protester who threw an egg at him from close range during the 2001 election campaign.
Source: AFP, April 21, 2010

A British woman has suddenly started speaking with a Chinese accent after suffering a severe migraine, she said in comments quoted by British media Tuesday.

Sarah Colwill believes she has Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) which has caused her distinctive West Country drawl to be replaced with a Chinese twang, even though she has never even visited the country.
The 35-year-old from Plymouth, southwest England, is now undergoing speech therapy following an acute form of migraine last month which reportedly left her with a form of brain damage.
“I moved to Plymouth when I was 18 months old so I have always spoken like a local. But following one attack, an ambulance crew arrived and they said I definitely sounded Chinese,” she said.
“I spoke to my stepdaughter on the phone from hospital and she didn’t recognise who I was. She said I sounded Chinese. Since then, I have had my friends hanging up on me because they think I’m a hoax caller.”
Colwill added: “The first few weeks of the accent was quite funny but to think I am stuck with this Chinese accent is getting me down. My voice has started to annoy me now. It is not my voice.”
FAS has been documented around the world and is usually linked to a stroke or traumatic brain injury. It was first recorded in the early 20th century and there are thought to be only a couple of dozen sufferers around the world.
Source: AFP April 20, 2010

A bright schoolboy shot himself at home after leaving a Facebook message saying “My life is pathetic.”
Ross Langmead, 18, of Larch Drive, Llantrisant, south Wales, was found dead at home at the weekend after posting the chilling message.
Police confirmed that an investigation is on-going but that his death is not being treated as suspicious.
The teenager, a pupil at Y Pant Comprehensive School, lived at home with his parents Marc and Lisa and younger brother Jack.
Neighbours of the family spoke of their shock today after hearing of the tragic death.
One, who did not want to be named, said: “It is so tragic for someone to apparently take their life like this so young.
“They seem to be in communication with people all over the place on the phone and the internet but sometimes they are also very isolated.”
Family and friends wrote of their grief on a series of tribute pages set up on Facebook.
Nathalie Hill, the teenager’s cousin, said: “My darling cousin ross, My eyes filled with tears as i was told the news, it never occurred to me that day as a family what we would lose .i finding my self wishing with all my heart that it wasn’t real .tears fall from eyes i can barely see. But my heart tells me that you always be with us . i lie in bed and cry at night and nothing is made better by the morning light.”

Source: Press Association, April 14, 2010

A dead man was elected mayor of a small Tennessee town eager to oust a woman who’d been appointed to the job after the previous mayor died, local media reports.

Carl Robin Geary Sr., a local alderman known for “straight-talk” and always wearing overalls, was a candidate for mayor when he died of a heart attack on March 10.
He defeated incumbent Barbara Brock 268 votes to 85 in the town of Tracy City’s election on Tuesday, the Chattanooga Times reported Friday.
“If he were to run again next week I’d vote for him again,” Chris Rogers, owner of the town’s Lunch Box restaurant, told the paper.
“I knew he was deceased. I know that sounds stupid, but we wanted someone other than her.”
Elections officials said the seat would be declared vacant and the city’s four aldermen would select a new mayor.
Brock, who was appointed in 2008 after the previous mayor died of a heart attack, campaigned on her efforts to beautify the town of 1,652 people.
She told the paper that she’d been defeated by a bunch of “good old boys” who didn’t like the changes she’d made in town.
When asked how she felt about losing to a dead man, Brock said “I’ll live.”
Source: AFP, April 15, 2010

Laura Hall...no more booze

A woman has become the first person to be barred from buying or drinking alcohol anywhere in England and Wales.
Laura Hall has been banned from all pubs and nightclubs as well as all off-licences for the next two years in a bid to curb her loutish behaviour.
Police pleaded for the ban after losing patience with the 20-year-old’s persistent drunken escapades in the Bromsgrove area of Worcestershire.
Magistrates in Kidderminster agreed and slapped her with the first nationwide drinking banning order (DBO) under powers introduced in September.
Hall, formerly from the Stoke Heath area of Bromsgrove, had already been barred from local pubs for her boozy antics.
But now she is not allowed to enter any licensed premises – and is also banned from opening any alcohol in public.
Sergeant David Roberts, from Bromsgrove police, said: “While there have already been some DBOs, this is the first to be issued on a nationwide basis.
“It effectively bans Laura Hall from drinking or buying alcohol in any licensed premises across the whole of England and Wales.”
The order could be lifted after a year if she sticks to its rules and completes an alcohol misuse course.
DBOs were brought in by the Home Office in an effort to stop people causing alcohol-related disorder from entering named licensed premises.
Sgt Roberts added: “We chose to use this new legislation as a way of helping address Laura’s offending behaviour.
“We hope that rather than seeing it as a punishment, she will use it to get her life back on track.”
Source: Skynews online, April 16, 2010

Plans to have the Pope arrested when he visits the UK will succeed because he is not a head of state, a solicitor has said.
Atheist authors Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens proposed the action against the Pontiff for his handling of child abuse scandals in the Catholic church.
The writers’ solicitor Mark Stephens said applications will be made to courts in the UK and the International Criminal Court for a warrant for Pope Benedict XVI’s arrest.
His likely defence would be be that he is immune from prosecution during his visit to Britain in September, according to the lawyer.
Mr Stephens said: “The courts will examine the claim of immunity. I believe that an English court would reject it. If the Pope was here on a state visit, ordinarily a head of state would have sovereign immunity. What I believe is that because he’s not a sovereign, not a head of state, he’s not entitled to the defence.”
He said that the Vatican was declared to be a state by Benito Mussolini, but this had no standing in international law.
The Pope faced criticism after it emerged that he signed a letter which delayed the punishment of a paedophile priest in the US for the “good of the universal church”.
Writing in 1985, the future Pontiff said that he needed more time to consider the case.
Mr Stephens, who has represented abuse victims in the past said: “This will require the Pope to deal with the way in which he appears to have prioritised the reputation of the Catholic church over the welfare of children.”
Potential charges against the Pope would be crimes against humanity.
Source: Press Association, April 11, 2010

Two Chinese singers have become the first people in the country to fall foul of new rules banning lip-synching nearly two years after widespread criticism of miming at the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony.

Oddly Enough

The two young female singers were spotted lip-synching during a concert in southwestern China’s Chengdu city last year, the official Xinhua news agency said on its website (www.xinhuanet.com).

“No signals were received from their microphones while the show was on,” it quoted an official with the local government’s cultural affairs office as saying.

The two have been fined 50,000 yuan ($7,329) each, Xinhua added.

China’s feisty internet users frequently blame famous singers of short-selling their fans by lip-synching on stage.

But some have also wondered why these first fines were leveled against two almost unknown singers rather than more famous stars.

“Why do they choose to keep their eyes closed when it’s a famous singer miming?” one commentator wrote on the website of the Beijing Daily.

Lip-synching, known as “fake singing” in Chinese, burst into the open during 2008’s Beijing Olympics.

China’s Olympic organizers were lambasted by Internet users and in the media after they admitted a nine-year-old girl lip-synched during the opening ceremony, in place of the real singer who was rejected because of her appearance.

The Culture Ministry then issued an edict formally banning lip-synching and threatened to revoke the performance licenses of repeat offenders

Source, Reuters, April 12, 2010