We sum up five of the most spectacular, craziest or plain weirdest events of the last week.
Lake superior
Not satisfied with the world record for the most 360-degree flips achieved (120) while paragliding (or ‘infinity tumbling’ as it’s known), Frenchman Antoine Montant (pictured above) headed to Lake Annecy in eastern France this week to go a step further. Having launched himself from the adjacent mountainside and done nine regulation tumbles as normal, the daredevil cut himself loose and fell free towards the lake before opening a parachute and landing safely. “The advantage of having a good level of paragliding is that it facilitates access to other aerial disciplines,” he commented, matter-of-factly. Hear more from Antoine and watch the spectacular video here.
Spider-Man to the rescue
When Australian comic book shop owner Michael Baulderstone dressed up as his favourite Marvel Comics character for a promotional event in his Adelaide store, little did he know that ‘Spidey’ would soon be required to leap into action for real. Baulderstone noticed a ‘customer’ sneaking an expensive X-Men comic into a bag and tackled him in full Spider-Man costume with a move that many attendees throught was a bizarre publicity stunt. A group of ‘Jedi Knights’ then helped prevent the man’s escape until the police arrived.
Jon Whitton
Boy is all ears
Unusual factors came to the rescue of two accidental fallers this week. In China, a six-year-old boy named Ming-Ming from Hubei Province fell from a high building but was saved when his ears caught on metal railings halfway down. His pained cries alerted astonished passers-by who contacted the emergency services, who used hydraulic equipment to open the railings and free the terrified Ming-Ming from his sticking point some 35m up. Meanwhile, a Scottish woman had her boyfriend’s Aston Martin to thank for breaking her fall from an upstairs window at a party. Jade Bates’s boyfriend Jazz Deo had had the luxury sportscar just weeks, and turned down reporters’ requests for interviews later. “As you can see, I’m not in the mood,” he commented as he gave a punchbag hell in his garage…
Dead woman found unharmed
One you’ve passed on, you’d think things would quieten down, but no. In Cleveland, Ohio, USA this week, thieves stole a hearse which inconveniently had a body in it, which they left by the roadside, then dumped the car with a helpful note for cops to reclaim the corpse, which was found ‘unharmed’ and later cremated. Meanwhile, a funeral director in Australia stands accused of using a public carwash to clean a corpse in his care. A respectable rival director in the area, Keith Logue, claimed that the accused man “wasn’t a member of the Funeral Directors Association of New South Wales”, which has a strict code of conduct in such matters. Well, that explains it.
Dispensing with normality
Using a handy machine downstairs to buy something to help cement your love in a hotel suite isn’t new, but doing so to purchase your loved one a gift in gold certainly is. Gold to Go, a German venture, have installed a gold-plated ATM in the Emirates Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi, that, for the going rate on world gold markets, will cough up customised gold coins, 10g gold bars and 318 other gold products at the push of a button. “On the first night, we had a lot of demand,” said Thomas Geissler, Gold to Go entrepreneur. “One customer even bought one item of every product we have.” Gold currently sells at a cool US$1,236 an ounce. That’s $43,600 for 1kg…
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