Promotion Fail

You make it all the way through Friday the 13th and then this crap happens.

"Mailorama va distribuer des dizaines de milliers d'Euros en cash dans les rues de Paris," claims the Mailorama.fr website - at least for the moment. For the monolithically English speaking, that roughly translates to "Mailorama will distribute tens of thousands of euros in cash in the streets of Paris." Didn't work out that way.

Mailorama, an email marketing website in France, set out to promote their service by having a drive-by-giveaway, tossing envelopes of cash to people from a van as it passed the Eiffel Tower. However when an unexpectedly large crowd estimated at 5000 showed up, blocking traffic and causing safety concerns, police and  Mailorama agreed to call off the publicity stunt.

The disappointed crowd overturned a car. At least 10 people were arrested.

The Mailorama fiasco is right up there with other great promotional disasters. My favorites are the (real) Disco Demolition night and the (fake) WKRP Thanksgiving Giveaway.

Disco Demolition night took place in Chicago in 1979. Disco music, the signature music of the 70's, had divided the nation into those who could do The Hustle and those who couldn't. A growing rejection of what had become the Disco norm was spawning the New Wave and Punk movements, and in Chicago a disc jockey expressed his disdain for Disco by destroying Disco records by any means possible. His claim to fame came when he was scheduled to blow up boxes of LPs between games of a Chicago White Sox double-header.

The White Sox were owned by Bill Veeck, a shameless promoter who had once sent midget Eddie Gaedel up to bat in a major league baseball game. For him the Disco Demolition night was a no-brainer.

The demolition took place, but then, as with the Mailorama crowd, the scene turned ugly with hundreds of people coming onto the field and starting a bonfire in center field. The second game of the double header was cancelled (the White Sox ultimately forfeited the game - the last time an American League game was forfeited).

Still, IMHO, the best promotion failure was from the fictional WKRP radio station from the TV series of the same name. If you know the story it needs no explanation, and if you haven't, well, I won't spoil it for you, just watch the clip (sorry, can't find an embeddable version).

Sources:
CBS News
Mailorama

Not What They Seem

Austrian Times
Police close down the Alesso family bakery in Turin, Italy.

Two bakers in Turin, Italy have been arrested for selling cocaine hidden inside loaves of bread. Michelangelo Alesso, 51 and Alessandro Mancino, 22, have been arrested and their family bakery shut down. Alesso blamed the economy for their desperate measure: "I had no choice. No-one was buying special bread or cakes any more so we had to find something they would buy or we would be out of business."

Police became suspicious when the bakery line began to reach around the corner.

---

Austrian Times

Confiscated cigarettes with (bonus!) rabbit droppings in the Canary Islands.

Also, counterfeit cigarettes confiscated in the Canary Islands have been found to contain not only tobacco, but also rabbit feces.

Police and customs officials have arrested at least 12 people on Tenerife, the largest of the Canary islands with a population roughly the size of Oahu, Hawaii.  The rabbit feces were used to save on tobacco content. The police seized 1.5 million packs of cigarettes and over a million Euros in cash.

According to one customs official, "They stunk. They smell just as you'd imagine burning shit to smell."

Sources:
Austrian Times (and again)
Memo
Daily Express
Tenerife Forum
Island Connections
Wikipedia

Anteaters Ain't Aardvarks

Aardvarks never killed anybody. - The Goon Show

The aardvark is not the same animal as the anteater. - Sid

Anteater! Run for your lives! - Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief

Zoo de Florencio Varela
The Florencio Varela Zoo runs a conservation project for the giant anteater.

Schadenfreude reared its ugly head (and I believe "ugly head" is truly accurate here), when an Argentine zookeeper at the Zoo de Florencio Varela was killed by a giant anteater.

Related to the sloth (but not to the aardvark), the giant anteater is an endangered species native to South America. The Florencio Varela Zoo, located outside of Buenos Aires, is a part of an international cooperative conservation and breeding effort to save the animals.

The toothless animals grow to as much as 9 feet long and can weigh in excess of 100 pounds. Though generally not a danger to humans, when threatened or protecting their young they can attack with their large front claws.

The zookeeper, 19 year old Melissa Casco, died post-operatively after sustaining wounds to her legs and abdomen.

Sources:
All Voices
Courier Mail
Zoo Chat
Zoo de Florencio Varela

Pole in the Highway

There is a utility pole in the middle of a six-lane highway in Zhengzhou, China.

Looking like something out of Brazil or The Hitchhiker's Guide, the utility pole used to stand by the side of the road, but sits in the middle of the recently widened thoroughfare.

Unfortunately, there is not enough money to bury the power lines, so the pole cannot be moved.

The pole remains unmarked, but there was enough money for road signs directing traffic forward (into the pole) at 50 mph.

Source:
Ananova

Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear

The children's rhyme has come true for a pair of spectacled bears at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany. The rhyme was big when I used to watch Captain Kangaroo back in the day, but if you've forgotten, it goes something like this:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. 
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

Zookeepers are at a loss as to why Dolores (pictured right) and the other female spectacled bears, have lost all their hair. Normally the South American bears should be growing a thick coat of fur for the winter.

Zoo attendance has swelled like alums at a ten year high school reunion; apparently naked female bears attract as much attention as their human counterparts.

This animal nudity hearkens back to Ralph the penguin from the very second story on this blog. What are they doing to the animals on the right side of the Atlantic?

But really, how great is a story when you get to cite The Hair Centre: Hair Loss and Scalp Treatments as a source?

Sources:
News.com.au
Daily Mail (photos)
The Hair Centre

The McFarthest Spot part 2

If you're in the United States it's pretty tough to get away from a McDonald's, but in Iceland it is the opposite problem, with all three of the country's McDonald's slated to close this weekend.

Iceland has suffered more than most countries from the financial crapout of the last couple of years with its three largest banks collapsing during the crisis. Iceland's external debt stands at about €50 billion, which is about six times the county's 2007 GDP.

Needless to say the banking failures have had an impact on prices. McDonald's requires that all the supplies (packaging, frozen burger patties, etc.) be imported to Iceland from Germany. The fall of the Icelandic krónur against the euro has made this arrangement financially untenable with costs doubling over the past year. A Big Mac in Reykjavik already sells for the equivalent of US$5.29, but Lyst Hr., the Icelandic franchise owner was looking at having to raise the price to the equivalent of $6.36. Switzerland and Norway currently share the dubious honor of having the highest priced Big Mac at $5.75.

For those of you who think that avoiding the Golden Arches is a good thing there are other countries that do not have any McDonald's, including Barbados and Bolivia.

Source:
MSNBC
Wikipedia (photo)

The Most Unproductive Day of the Year

The Daily Telegraph reports that today will be the most unproductive day of the year. Citing the British daylight savings change and the general dreariness of this time of year, an obviously scientific and statistically significant survey (where is the sarcasm tag when you need it?) of 2,000 workers taken by the Canary Islands tourism board said that 52% of those surveyed will struggle with their workload today, and 8% will call in sick to avoid the issue. Taken together these effects will result in a mind-numbing 50% drop in productivity this week.

In other news there are unsubstantiated and highly questionable rumors coming out of the southern hemisphere where the opposite effect is occurring, but with the same dire consequences. Reports out of Rio de Jeneiro indicate that people have suddenly increased their productivity. This has brought partying to a complete standstill, threatening to destroy the local economy. Said one club owner, "Everyone is working. No one is drinking. I will be ruined," adding, "The girl from Ipanema walked by but no one even noticed."

Sources:
Telegraph (via Ananova)
Islas Canarias

Bamboozled

Two Japanese executives have been arrested for claiming their Chinese bamboo shoots were Japanese.

China is the largest exporter of bamboo shoots, and production is declining in Japan. However the Japanese shoots command a much higher price. Teruyoshi Kanbara and his brother Yoshiaki of Shinsei Foods in Anan, Tokushima Prefecture, are accused of selling at least 19 tons of falsely labelled shoots for ¥10 million in the second half of 2008. The 19 tons were part of 90 tons sold to two Japanese companies.

Bamboo shoots may either be fresh (pictured) or canned, with the canned being less expensive.The fresh shoots are seasonal, with the Japanese production season limited to March through July.

Bamboo shoots are used in many Asian dishes including chicken, smoky bacon and bamboo shoot stir-fry (mmmm: bacon). Other examples can be seen in the Iron Chef Japan Bamboo Shoot Battle episode.

Sources:
The Japan Times
CQ University Centre for Plant and Water Science
Wikipedia (photo)
Daily Mail

Car Lands on House Roof

In our first alcohol-was-involved story of the week, a "driver" (and we use the term loosely) managed to embed his car in the roof of a a house in Sydney, Australia.

The car left the road traveling at high speed, the vehicle mounted the curb, hit a concrete median strip, hit a traffic light pole, a metal street light, a traffic light box, and after hitting a mound of dirt the car became airborne for 10 to 15 meters before landing on the roof, narrowly missing the three month old child and her parents who were sleeping inside the house. The whole path of the crash covered about 90 meters, and debris was spread out over several houses, including a piece of the traffic light which was found 120 meters away.

The occupants of the car were freed after about an hour, and taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries. The occupants of the house were shaken, but unharmed.

Video news coverage can be found here and here.

Sources:
News.com.au (photo)
Street Corner
Daily Telegraph

Legendary Finnish Bands on Stamps

All right, you philatelists, time to get out your checkbook 'cause there are some hot new stamps coming out in January!

England is issuing a set of stamps based on classic album covers (I would say "rock album covers", but Tubular Bells doesn't really qualify as "rock").

The Royal Mail began with extensive research of existing lists and "greatest album covers" polls, talked to music publications and graphic designers, and culled the list down to the top 10.

The list of legendary bands includes Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.

The set will be issued on January 7, 2010.

But wait, it just gets better!

Finland will also be releasing a set of music-based stamps on January 25th. These stamps celebrate such legendary 80's Finnish bands as Eppu Normaali, Popeda, and Maarit (who may be here, or may not be, it's not clear).

The stamps, designed by Klaus Welp, will be issued in a strict limited edition of 500,000 sheets, unless demand is great and more need to be printed.

Sources:
Wales Online
Norvic Philatelics (photo)
YLE (photo)
Wikipedia

Second Place Gets an AK-47

National Geographic magazine sponsors the National Geographic Bee each year here in the United States. This "entertaining and challenging test of geographic knowledge" is for students in 4th through 8th grade with representatives from each state going to the national competition in Washington, D. C. which is hosted by Jeopardy emcee Alex Trebek (who was, ironically, born in Canada).

My son, Sam, qualified for the Washington state competition in 2007, but had the unfortunate luck to be in the same group with Caitlin Snaring, the eventual national champion (the first female winner, and 5th winner from Washington state since the competition began in 1989 - it's something in the water). For her efforts Snaring was awarded a $25,000 college scholarship and a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society.

This past Ramadan, while the residents of Istanbul, Turkey were celebrating by creating the world's longest Iftar table, folks in Kismayo, Somalia (a country with no functioning centralized government since 1991), had their own bee, a combination of questions about the Koran and Somali geography. However, instead of receiving a college scholarship, the winning team (from the city's Farjano district) was awarded a rifle, two grenades, a landmine and, most importantly, office supplies worth $1,000 (WTF???). The second place team was awarded an AK-47 and some bullets.

Said Sheikh Abdullahi Alhaq of Al-Shabab:

The reason the young men were rewarded with weapons is to encourage them to participate in the ongoing holy war against the enemies of Allah in Somalia.

That, my friends, is a different world from mine, and I hope it always will be.

Sources:

BBC

National Geographic

SomaliFans

Loudest Snore

Jenny Chapman of Deeping St. James, Lincolnshire, last weekend had her snore measured at 111.6 decibels, the loudest British snorer on record. Let's put some perspective on this number, because the headlines about her being able to drown out an airplane are inaccurate and clearly irresponsible journalism (this coming from the guy who told you werewolf nuns were scaring tourists away from Australia; you can clearly trust me).

First off, let's throw out a few important decibel numbers.

• 0 decibels: the threshold of human hearing; if it's below zero decibels you can't hear it.
• 10 decibels: an increase of 10 decibels is perceived as something being "twice as loud".
• 60-70 decibels: normal human conversation
• 80 decibels: dialtone
• 90 decibels: truck traffic
• 100 decibels: motorcycle
• 110 decibels: chainsaw, 3 feet away
• 111.6 decibels: Jenny Chapman's snore
• 115 decibels: sandblasting
• 140 decibels: jet engine, 100 feet away
• 184 decibels: loudest sound possible

So you see 100 feet away, a jet engine is roughly 8 times louder than her snoring. On the other hand, she IS louder than being three feet away from a chainsaw.

Here is another way to look at it: the OSHA's permissible workplace noise levels are 90 decibels for no more than 8 hours per day, 100 decibels for no more than 2 hours per day, and 110 decibels (about the level of her snoring) for no more than 30 minutes per day. If she fell asleep at her desk her company could get fined for hazardous conditions.

When her snoring starts (usually around 2 or 3 in the morning), her husband, Colin, heads off to the spare bedroom for the rest of the night, closing the door behind him and burying his head under a pillow.

Her snoring was measured at a two day snoring boot-camp sponsored by Helps Stop Snoring. Participants were only allowed alcohol with their first meal on the first night. The next day she and the other camp participants were taught about a healthy diet and participated in pilates classes. The second night her snoring dropped to the level of a motorcycle (99.2 decibels), an improvement to be sure, but still 8 times louder than even a loud conversation.

Says her husband, "It could be worse, she could be a sleepwalker."

Sources:
Daily Mail (photo)
News:Lite (photo)
Orange
The Sun
GC Audio
OSHA

Bunny Biofuel

Stockholm, Sweden is killing wild rabbits and burning their bodies for fuel.

Every year Stockholm culls thousands from its wild rabbit population. Rabbits, of course, breed like drosophila. A breeding doe can produce a litter of 5 or 6 kits every month, and kits born in the spring may be reproducing by fall. Because there are no natural predators in the city, Stockholm ends up with thousands of new rabbits annually, and culls them throughout the year. The problem isn't so much in the summer, when food is plentiful, but in winter when the rabbits gnaw on anything they can find causing large amounts of damage.

The rabbits are killed by lagomorphic hit-men who shoot them at dawn (with silencers, so as not to wake the neighbors). Once killed the rabbits are frozen, and when the have been accumulated in large enough numbers, are shipped off to a biofuel plant in Karlskoga, where they are burned for fuel. They are not skinned for their fur before being burned. In 2008 six thousand rabbits were killed.

The city also ships off carcasses of other animals including cats, deer, horses, and cows.

The rabbits are not native to Sweden; they are descendants of pets that have been released by Stockholm residents.

Animal rights activists are up in arms about the practice, of course, but without natural predators the rabbit population grows to its Malthusian limits, and alternative solutions like spraying the plants are not effective (the rabbits just move to unsprayed locations), and ignore the effects of the pesticides on the city's non-bunny biota.

The residents whose houses are warmed by the rabbits don't seem to complain, but residents of Stockholm are of divided opinions.

This story was first reported in mid-August, but now the pan-European news media has picked up on it, so as you can see from the variety of sources below, it is now a widely discussed ethical issue.

Sources:
The Local and again (photo)
Yahoo News Canada
Der Spiegel
BBC
Telegraph
Wikipedia

Belgium Crowns Miss Homeless

Therese Van Belle, 58, of Schaarbeek, Brussels, has won the first Miss Homeless Beligium contest, entitling her to live in an apartment rent-free for a year.

The main purpose of the competition was to hilight the plight of the estimated 17,000 living in Belgium sans domicile fixe (SDF), one third of whom are women.

The competition was organized by Matilde Pelsers and Aline Duportail. Matilde, who runs Petit Le Portail, an organization that runs five shelters, came up with the idea of a homeless beauty pageant when Aline, her daughter, registered for the Miss Belgium competition.

Although the teenage Aline is a writer and was first-runner up in the East Flanders section of Miss Belgium, she is no stranger to the streets, having spent some time as a drug runner. Her most recent work, De Lijn Is Waar De Liefde Stopt, is a book of philosophical poems. Says Aline about turning her life around, "You do not realize what a comeback it was for me. A beauty pageant can be a tremendous boost."

Competitors were judged on inner beauty and strength, motivation, backstory, solidarity, and their commitment to making a new life off the streets.

Clearly this is a bit of a spectacle, and intentionally so. It does raise awareness, but the outlandishness of the concept walks a fine line - I can't help but think of the Derelicte campaign in Zoolander. It is easy for me to mock the Miss Plastic contestants, but I find it more difficult to do make fun here, and I think I'm not alone. Below is a video from Phara from last year where they cover the competition. It's a serious issue, and the laughter seems more nervous than anything else. What do you think? Is this funny? Touching? Sad? Pathetic?What is your mix of emotions?

Sources:
Daily Express
Miss SDF Belgium (photos)
Expatica
Nieuwsblad and again and again
Aline Duportail
De Pers
Wikipedia
Google Translate (becuase, frankly, my Dutch is pretty weak)

Free Second Honeymoon

You too can qualify for a free second honeymoon if your marriage is on the brink of divorce and you have been through marriage counseling. Oh, and you also have to live in the Malaysian state of Terrengganu.

To combat a soaring divorce rate not only among newlyweds but also among couples married 20 years or more, the Malaysian state recently ran a pilot program with 25 couples on the verge of divorce. The couples were given three days and two nights at one of the states island or beach resorts to give them one more opportunity to patch things up. The program was effective enough that it will be deployed state wide by the end of the year.

The program costs about RM1500 per couple.

Malaysia is a primarily Muslim country. Divorce is legal, but frowned upon; Prophet Mohammed said that divorce was, in the eyes of God, the most distasteful lawful act.

Said Ashaari Idris, the State Welfare, Community Development and Women Affairs committee chairman: "We hope through this package couples will treasure their marital ties and avoid separation or divorce."

Sources:
The Star
World News Australia (photo)
Herald Sun
Malaysian Insider

American Wins Golden Spurtle!

As shocking as it is to you (and probably more shocking to the Scots), American Matthew Cox has taken the 2009 Golden Spurtle, indicative of the finest porridge in the world.

A spurtle is a wooden spatchula-ish utensil used in the making of porridge. Porridge is, uh, oatmeal.

Cox, a member of Team Bob's Red Mill out of Milwaukie, Oregon, was a decided underdog before beating out such pre-competition favorites as Addy Deggert, Barry Gauld, Lee Barclay, and, of course, defending champion Ian Bishop to win the 16th annual edition of the event in  Carrbridge, Inverness-shire, Scotland.

Cox won in the traditional oats category, for which he was awarded a £350 hotel voucher and £250 cash (somewhat less than the take from the Miss Plastic Competition held simultaneously in Budapest). He is pictured (right) with Anna Louise Batchelor, an environmental researcher and marathon runner out of Reading, Birkshire, who won the specialty category with her recipe for Steamed Porridge Spotted Dick with Custard.

This year the event was held in conjunction with World Porridge Day, a fund raising day for Mary's Meals a charity which provides daily meals for 375,000 children around the globe.

Golden Spurtle souveniers (including specially inscribed spurtles) are available at their Golden Spurtle EBay store.

Sources:
Metro
Thaindian News
Telegraph
Los Angeles Times
Bob's Red Mill (photo)
The Golden Spurtle (photo)
Rocket News
The Press and Journal
World Porridge Day
Mary's Meals

Carpe Feetum

New York appears to be ready to join at least 14 other states in banning fish pedicures. State Senate bill 6205 introduced by Jeff Klein says:

USE  OF LIVE FISH IN PEDICURE PROCEDURES PROHIBITED. 1.  NO OWNER OR OPERATOR OF AN APPEARANCE ENHANCEMENT BUSINESS SHALL KNOWINGLY:

A. PERFORM A PEDICURE PROCEDURE THAT INVOLVES THE USE OF LIVE FISH  IN ANY MANNER, OR

B.  DIRECT AN AGENT OR EMPLOYEE OF SUCH BUSINESS TO PERFORM A PEDICURE PROCEDURE THAT INVOLVES THE USE OF LIVE FISH IN ANY MANNER.

All bills are written in all-caps, but I thought I'd leave it that way to wake you up this morning.

The bill does make me wonder 1) if there are Appearance Dehancement businesses and 2) is it possible to unknowingly perform a fish pedicure?

The saga of the fish pedicure has been going on in the United States for about a year now. Originating in Turkey and popular in Asia, the procedure involves sticking your feet into a tub filled with small, toothless carp that eat away the dead skin. It's not exactly using leeches (which is FDA approved, BTW), but several states are up in arms about it.

The first known use of fish for pedicures in the US was by John Ho of Alexandria, Virgina. After a vacation to China where he and his wife experienced not just a pedicure but a full-body carp exfoliation (picture below), he invested $40,000 for ten thousand fish. The novel procedure was an instant hit, but state regulators quickly shut him down because for his 15 minute procedure the clients would put their feet into a communal tub - this ran afoul of the Farifax County Health Department who decided the communal foot tub was a swimming pool. Ho sidestepped the swimming pool problem by switching over to individual tubs for each client, and, because Virginia's Board of Cosmetology only has jurisdiction over facial skin, Ho was free to perform the fish exfoliations unhindered.

Ho has franchised his operation, but is having difficulty in several states, including here in Washington state, where the state banned the procedure and shut down the procedure at Peridot Nails in Kent. Although not banned in Nevada (is anything banned in Nevada?), the procedure is also not approved, which makes it risky for a salon owner to make the mult-thousand dollar investment because they may later be shut down; last spring Assemblyman Tick Segerblom (D-Las Vegas), introduced a bill that would explicitly approve the procedure, but it doesn't appear to have gotten out of committee.

The general issue is one of cleanliness. Cosmetology regulations generally say that any tool used in a procedure must be sterilized afterwards. The fish are considered tools, but sterilizing a fish makes that fish pretty useless for anything but a snack. Rather ironically, Ho was searching for an alternative to pedicure razors (which have also been banned many places for sanitary reasons) when he ran across the fish pedicure idea.

In Ohio, however, the procedure has been approved after review. Marilyn Huheey, an opthamologist and member of the state Board of Cosmetology tried out the procedure herself and afterwards recommended approval to the board. As she put it:

It seemed to me it was very sanitary, not sterile of course. Sanitation is what we've got to live with in this world, not sterility.

Sources:
New York State Assembly
Seattle Times (photo)
The Medical News
Luxist
USA Today
Wall Street Journal
book of joe (photo)
Las Vegas Sun
Times Union

Miss Plastic Competition Results

The results of the Miss Plastic 2009 beauty pageant are in, and the winner is Urbán Réka, who wears size 37 shoes, and whose breast surgery was performed by the justifiably proud Dr. Mary Czeglédi.

For her work, Ms. Réka was awarded a Budapest apartment. First runner-up Kulcsár Edina received a Citroen C1, Second runner up and winner of a diamond necklace worth 2 million forints, was none other than the wheelchair-bound subject of our previous story, Alexandra Horvath.

I, for one, cannot wait to see what drama and heartbreak next year's competition will bring.

Sources:
Celebgalz
Miss Plastic Hungary
Citroen

Wedged Hedgehog

Jim Collins advocates finding your own personal hedgehog, but to him I say this:

If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves. - Douglas Adams

These are not stories of people masquerading as some giant pantomime hedgehog*. These are stories of real, manly hedgehogs, hedgehogs who don't curl up into a ball until the second or even the third sign of danger.

First we have the case of the hedgehog who, in Pooh-like fashion, became a wedged hedgehog in great tightness, his head (right) and tail (left) separated by a garden wall in Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, England. Linda Spearman was stopping by her mother's on her way to work when she noticed the south end of a northbound hedgehog sticking out of the wall. When they realized that it was stuck they thought to themselves WWCRD, (What Would Christopher Robin Do?), then decided to do the exact opposite**, giving it more food before calling the RSPCA. Jason Finch of the RSPCA was called in and spent an hour chipping away at the wall before the animal could be pried loose. The hedgehog was freed without injury and the hole in the garden wall has been filled.

Then we have Ashleigh Hunt who, sadly, appears to be well on her way to being a Crazy Cat Lady, but with hedgehogs. Given a prickle*** of three only 18 months ago, she now has 24 pygmy hedgehogs, and is expecting three more any day now.

Pygmy hedgehogs, which at £200 are the poor man's choice after the £700 micro-pigs of celebrities like Paris Hilton, are about 1/4 the size of your typical stuck-in-the-wall hedgehog, only 5 to 8 inches long and weighing around a pound when fully grown. Wild hedgehogs typically live on a diet of slugs and insects, but Ashleigh's animals live on cat food although it must be noted that they are lactose intolerant (which is slightly ironic given the cat food thing and how cats like milk - just sayin').

No word on whether Archie McPhee will be coming out with a Crazy Hedgehog Lady action figure any time soon.

*In fact, a failed Google search implies that there are no stories of people masquerading as a giant pantomime hedgehog.

** Christopher Robin decided they should NOT feed Pooh so that he could become un-wedged, don't you remember? What kind of books do you guys read, anyway?

*** "Prickle" is the collective noun for hedgehogs. You can also call them an array, but that's just not funny.

Sources:
Jim Collins
Brainy Quote
Mail Online and again (photos)
Metro and again
Archie McPhee
Collective Nouns

Tragedy Strikes Miss Plastic Competition

She's too sexy for her shoes, too sexy for her shoes, her boobs will make her lose her balance. (With apologies to Right Said Fred.)

Alexandra Horvath, still not used to the weight distribution of her implants, fell off of her high heels at the Miss Plastic Hungary competition and is now wheelchair bound after tearing a ligament in her foot.

Hungary is becoming a major player in the European plastic surgery scene due to the quality of workmanship and the low cost (less than half that of Britain). The Miss Plastic Hungary competition is to promote artificially enhanced beauty. Unlike other beauty contests which prohibit surgery, Miss Plastic Hungary requires "a surgical procedure done under general or local anesthesia."

Horvath, one of 20 finalists, had just completed the breast examination stage - her surgeon had just been congratulated on the lack of scars - when she fell while strutting her stuff on the catwalk.

The plucky blonde isn't ready to give up, though, saying "I don't see why they can't admire my beauty in a wheelchair as well?" You've got to be impressed with her gumption, don't you? Perhaps the judges will consider her wheelchair just another artificial beauty enhancement.

UPDATE: the results are in.

Sources:
Metro (photo)
Austrian Times (photo)
Miss Plastic Hungary
Reuters