MAGPIE:IN A case of life imitating the 1976 Johnny Cash song One Piece at a Time, a Chinese man has been arrested for stealing a motorcycle – part by part over five years from the factory where he worked.
Zhang, an assembly line worker in a motorcycle factory in Chongqing, had always wanted his own motorbike but could never afford one. So he started pinching parts from the factory warehouse and assembling them at home in 2003. “I don’t have that much money, so I came up with the idea of taking the parts home and assembling them on my own,” said Zhang.
After five years, he had finally built himself a brand new motorcycle and proudly started driving it on the road. But, almost immediately, he was pulled up by police who discovered that he had no driving licence or paperwork for the bike. Zhang admitted theft and was fined the equivalent of €500, put on probation for a year, and ordered to return the motorcycle to the factory.
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A FURIOUS customer had to be dragged off her hairdresser by police after her perm went wrong at a salon in Serbia. Terrified Nevena Zivkovic called the police when hysterical Ruzica Radovic saw her bubble perm in a mirror after the treatment at a beauty parlour in the city of Novi Sad.
Ruzica insisted she hadn’t asked for curly hair. A police spokesman said: “When we got a call from the shop we thought that there was a criminal in there attacking the staff. But instead what we found when we got there was an extremely angry lady who was unhappy with her hairdo. Our officers have had to deal with some very strange situations before but none of us can remember anything like this.”
Shop owner Zivkovic said: “I am still in shock. She just went wild. If she was that unhappy she could have just said and we would have refunded her money.”
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A POSITIVE initiative intended to cheer up pedestrians on the streets of London has internet provider TalkTalk funding former pickpockets to return money to pockets and handbags.
Some 20 former pickpockets have become “putpockets” by slipping amounts from £5 to £20 into unsuspecting pockets and will distribute £100,000 by the end of August in Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and other busy spots.
“It feels good to give something back for a change – and Britons certainly need it in the current economic climate,” said Chris Fitch, a former pickpocket who now heads TalkTalk’s putpocketing initiative. “Every time I put money back in someone’s pocket, I feel less guilty about the fact I spent many years taking it out.”
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MEANWHILE, A hapless Dutchman and his 15-year-old grandson boarded a flight to Sydney intending to visiting sunny Australia, but ended up in chilly Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Joannes Rutten and Nick Rutten of Amsterdam booked a two-day flight through a Dutch travel agency to visit family in Australia. On Saturday last, as the pair landed in Halifax, they realised their flight had taken them to the wrong Sydney.
The elder Rutten, who speaks German, Dutch and some English, said they didn’t know there was another Sydney.
“We had 24 hours with no sleep,” he said, sitting at the Delta Sydney hotel. “It’s not good.”
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FINALLY, AND sticking with holiday jollity, a theme park in Surrey is to ban rollercoaster riders from raising their arms in the air while riding following hot weather complaints about body odour.
A new rule will apply when the temperature goes above 25 degrees at the Thorpe Park in Chertsey, where “Say no to BO” signs will tell visitors to keep their arms down.
Mike Vallis, a director at Thorpe Park, said: “We’ve found that when the temperature tops [25 degrees] the level of unpleasant smells can become unacceptable and we do receive complaints. Our rides are really scary and people tend to sweat more than normal due to the fear and anticipation they experience while queuing up, so it can get really pongy.
“Therefore, we felt a ban in temperatures of 25 degrees plus would be the best way to ensure our guests have the most enjoyable experience and aren’t exposed to any unsavoury armpits.”
Brendan Walker, an aeronautical engineer and theme park “thrillologist”, said people queuing for rides designed to release adrenaline would inevitably sweat more than usual.
“When people are scared they produce more sweat, due to the sympathetic nervous system kicking in,” he said.