Global Oddities

A set of dentures made for Britain’s war-time prime minister Winston Churchill went under the hammer Thursday as auctioneers expected to fetch up to £5,000 for “the teeth that saved the world”.

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The false teeth were specially designed to preserve Churchill’s natural lisp which can still be heard on the morale-boosting radio broadcasts he made to the nation during World War II.

Churchill also used them to vent his frustration when the 1939-45 conflict was not going well by dramatically flicking them out of his mouth, according to Nigel Cudlipp, whose father made the dentures and who is now selling them.

“My father recounted many stories of Churchill putting his thumb behind the front of the teeth and just flicking them,” Cudlipp told BBC radio.

“My father used to say he could tell that he could tell how well the war effort was going by how far they went across the room and whether they hit the opposite wall.

“Churchill was not a man who was renowned for his patience.”

It is thought that only four sets of the teeth were made. One is thought to have gone to the grave with him, another is in a London museum labelled “the teeth that saved the world” and a third was melted down.

The dentures are going on sale at auctioneers Keys in Aylsham, Norfolk, eastern England, who have issued a guide price of between £4,000 and 5,000 (6,000 euros, 7,800 dollars).

The Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip have ordered lingerie shops to display more modesty.

A week after banning women from smoking water pipes in public places, the Hamas-run police force has told stores selling women’s underwear to remove scantily-clad mannequins and any posters of racy undergarments.
“These measures have stemmed from complaints and pressure by ordinary people. They have to do with upholding our traditions,” police spokesman Ayman Al-Batniji said Wednesday.
Hamas leaders have repeatedly denied any intention to impose Islamic law on the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians.
But Hamas police have broken up a hip-hop concert in the territory and tried — unsuccessfully — to force women lawyers in court and female school students to wear traditional Muslim clothing, a step that drew a public backlash.
Hamas’s modesty moves were widely seen by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as attempts to mollify more conservative Islamic factions that have accused the movement of failing to uphold Islamic Sharia law.
Source: Reuters, July 26, 2010

Authorities say a man robbed a bank wearing a woman’s blond wig, fake breasts under a sweater and clown pants.

Swissvale police say 48-year-old Dennis Hawkins was sitting in a parked car covered in red dye from an exploding packet in a bag of money when he was arrested Saturday.

Police Chief Greg Geppert says Hawkins robbed the bank at gunpoint, using a toy BB gun he had shoplifted from a store.

Geppert says Hawkins then entered a woman’s car. She got out, took her keys and alerted police. Hawkins was found sitting in the car.

He is being held on $230,000 bail. It’s not clear whether he has an attorney.

Source: AP, July 26, 2010

A priest in Canada has apologised after giving Holy Communion to a dog.
Reverend Marguerite Rea of St Peter’s Anglican Church, in Toronto, received complaints from Christians all over Canada after she fed communion bread to a German Shepherd cross named Trapper.
Area Bishop Patrick Yu said the priest had contravened church policy with her “strange and shocking” actions.
Ms Rea said it had been a “simple church act of reaching out” to a new congregation member and his pet.
“If I have hurt, upset or embarrassed anyone, I apologise,” she told her congregation on Sunday morning, the Toronto Star reports.
The canine controversy began last month when four-year-old Trapper and his owner, Donald Keith, 56, attended the church in Toronto’s downtown area for the first time.
I don’t recall anything from the scripture about Jesus dying for the salvation of our pets”
End Quote Cheryl Chang Anglican Network in Canada
“The minister welcomed me and said come up and take communion, and Trapper came up with me and the minister gave him communion as well,” Mr Keith told the Toronto Star.
“I thought it was a nice way to welcome me into the church. I thought it was acceptable. There was an old lady in the front just beaming when she saw this.”
But not all parishioners at the service were quite so charmed by the sight of the priest leaning down and placing a wafer on the wagging tongue of Trapper, a German Shepherd-Rhodesian ridgeback cross.
Communion bread is considered by Anglicans to represent the body of Jesus Christ.
One onlooker filed a complaint with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto about the incident and has since left the church.
When news spread of the canine communion, St Peter’s Church began receiving e-mails from angry Christians all over the country.
“Communion is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus’ body; he died for all of us. But I don’t recall anything from the scripture about Jesus dying for the salvation of our pets,” said Cheryl Chang, director of the Anglican Network in Canada, the National Post newspaper reports.
“I can see why people would be offended,” said Bishop Yu.
“I have never heard of it happening before. I think the reverend was overcome by what I consider a misguided gesture of welcoming.”
Mr Keith has since been told that he and his dog are most welcome at the church, but Trapper can no longer receive communion.
“This has blown me away. The church is even getting e-mails from Catholics,” said the truck driver.
“Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of the people in the church love Trapper and the kids play with him. It was just one person who got his nose out of joint.
“Holy smokes. We are living in the downtown core. This is small stuff. I thought it was innocent and it made me think of the Blessing of the Animals.”
Source: BBC news online, July 27, 2010

A maintenance man who went missing weeks ago has been found crushed to death in a rubbish compactor while at work near Niagara Falls in the US.
Police examining surveillance video spotted John Adams falling into the machine and later discovered the mechanism had prevented him from being able to escape.
Mr Adams, 67, had last been seen picking up litter on the night of July 4, American Independence Day.
Owners of the building offered a £1,000 reward to find him and his family put up signs around the area seeking information.
His sister, Evie Shepherd, said building officials told her he slipped into the compactor while trying to retrieve a fallen rubbish bin.
She questioned why police apparently had not looked at the footage earlier in the search.
“He wouldn’t have been (found) living, but it would have been a lot easier on the family,” she said.
Building president Tony Farina told a local newspaper that building officials did not examine the video until Friday night because an initial police search of the compactor turned nothing up.
“It was a very startling and tragic discovery,” said Mr Farina.
“We had always held out hope that somehow John would turn up okay, and this is a terrible way for things to end.”
Mr Adams, who had five grown-up children, had worked at the building for about five years.
Source: Skynews online, July 26, 2010

Lettuce lady on the street of Jordan

An animal rights activist has caused a stir in Jordan’s capital by covering herself in lettuce in a quirky attempt to persuade Middle Eastern meat lovers to go vegetarian.

Crowds quickly gathered to gawk at the lettuce lady, but police were not amused.

Officers briefly arrested the Jordanian activist, Amina Tarek, and a colleague from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The pair stood in a square along one of Amman’s trendiest streets and held a placard reading “Let vegetarianism grow on you.”

Tarek says she wanted Jordanians “to turn over a new leaf.”

Police held them for three hours, saying they had not obtained permission for Sunday’s protest. The activists say they had approval.

Source: AP, July 25, 2010

British Prime Minister David Cameron has said prisoners will not be allowed to hold parties behind bars after a minister proposed lifting a ban on arts events for inmates introduced by the previous administration.

“Number 10 has instructed the Ministry of Justice to make it very clear that there will be no prison parties,” a spokeswoman for the prime minister told reporters Friday.
Justice Minister Crispin Blunt had suggested allowing prisoners to hold fancy dress parties and stage comedy workshops in a speech to a crime reduction charity Thursday, prompting howls of outrage from newspapers.
Cameron still had confidence in Blunt, the spokeswoman said, adding however that policy needed to be discussed “in the round” before it was announced.
“We recognize that arts activities can play a valuable role in helping offenders to address issues such as communication problems and low self-esteem,” Blunt said in his speech.
The previous Labor government announced a ban in 2008 after women prisoners at Holloway in north London staged a horror-themed fancy dress event. Blunt had accused the previous government of pandering to the press.
“At the slightest whiff of criticism from the popular press, policy tended to get changed and the consequence of an absurd overreaction to offenders being exposed to comedy in prison was this deleterious, damaging and daft instruction,” Blunt said.
Source: Reuters, July 23, 2010

A devoted Filipina maid inherited six million Singapore dollars (more than four million US) from her late employer after more than 20 years of service, a newspaper report said Wednesday.

“I am the luckiest maid in Singapore, with or without the money,” the 47-year-old single woman — identified only by the pseudonym “Christine” — told the Straits Times in an interview.
The maid refused to be named in public for fear of possible threats to her life in the impoverished Philippines, where wealthy people have been kidnapped for ransom and some killed by their abductors.
The windfall, including cash and a luxury apartment near the Orchard Road shopping belt, came from the estate of her employer Quek Kai Miew, a medical doctor and philanthropist who died last year at 66.
The maid had also taken care of the doctor’s late mother, and was told that she would be a beneficiary of her employer’s will when it was drawn up in 2008.
“There were no secrets between us. I was not surprised at all when she told me how much I was going to get,” the maid recalled.
“Christine” was devastated when Quek died a year ago, as the two were inseparable, and temporarily moved in with the doctor’s nephew for solace.
“It was heartbreaking for me as I saw more years with Doctor Quek than with my own mother. I would break down every time I thought about her. I could not be by myself,” she said.
“I was always beside her. Wherever she went, I was with her.”
The maid, who is now applying for permanent residency in Singapore, said her newfound wealth had not changed her lifestyle.
“I do not really think much about the money I got. I just live my life as I did before, and not as a rich person,” the maid, dressed simply in a blouse and slacks with short-cropped hair, was quoted as saying.
“I am still who I was before. I cannot behave differently because I have money now. Even my Filipino maid friends here still treat me the same.”
Nearly 200,000 foreign maids, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, work in affluent Singapore, which has a population of five million.
Source: AFP, July 21, 2010

Pakistani honour guards (black uniforms) and Indian rangers take part in the daily flag-lowering ceremony at the Wagah border post, some 30km from Lahore. The exaggerated boot-stomping display of choreographed aggression by the soldiers has had to be toned down because of knee injuries.

Source: AFP, July 21, 2010

Pakistani censors have banned an Indian comedy film featuring a lookalike of al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, the film’s distributor said on Wednesday.

The ban had been anticipated on grounds that Islamist extremists could use it as a pretext for attacks.

“They have banned it in Pakistan,” Nadeem Mandviwall told Reuters. “We have moved an appeal against the board decision but there’s little chance we will get relief.”

Mandviwall had earlier said censors had found no fault with the film itself.

“It’s because they think somebody might do something. They’re not saying there’s something wrong in the film or the picture is against Osama bin Laden or maligning him,” he said.

Walwater Media’s production, “Tere Bin Laden” (”Without You, Bin Laden”), revolves around a television journalist whose sole ambition is to gain residency in the United States.

The journalist, played by Pakistani pop star Ali Zafar, films a video with the lookalike, which quickly goes viral online, and attempts to migrate to the United States.

“Our full board have watched the movie and the majority has decided it’s not suitable for exhibition,” Masood Elahi, vice chairman of the Censor Board of Pakistan (CBP), told Reuters before the ban was imposed. He gave no reasons for the ban.

The 57-member board is made up of members from the media and public representatives and religious clerics.

Mandviwali said a ban would prompt a variety of interest groups to seek similar bars on any film they found objectionable.

Plans had called for the movie, had it escaped a ban, to be shown with the amended title “Tere Bin,” (”Without You”), because of sensitivity surrounding the name of the al Qaeda chief.

Militants linked to al Qaeda are trying to topple the civilian democratic government in conservative, Muslim Pakistan and enforce harsh Taliban-style rule. They have killed thousands in bomb and suicide attacks on minorities, markets, mosques, security forces and western targets.

Al Qaeda and Taliban militants have taken refuge in Pakistan’s border regions after U.S.-led forces ousted the radical Taliban regime in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Source: Reuters, July 15, 2010