Monday 4 November 2013

You couldn't make it up

I love to trawl the web for things to brighten my day.  I mean, who wants to hear all the time about spying, the economy - improving or not improving - and the bad weather?   It's much more exciting to browse websites which give me a chuckle and restore my faith in the eccentricity of human beings.

I am indebted to France24's English website for the pain au chocolat story.  Pain au chocolat is a chocolatey bread and delicious, let me tell you.  Anyone who has stayed in France will have tried this French breakfast favourite at some stage, it beats marmalade on toast if you dip in in your milky coffee while lounging on the terrace of a fashionable eatery and admiring the sunshine falling on those beautiful Paris buildings.   But I digress.  This story broke because the two bodyguards assigned to a former government aide complained that he had created a scene because they had not bought his pain au chocolat.  They complained to their union and then the story came out that this guy was given a less than prestigious position (in his own opinion) and which did not include a chauffeur.  He claimed he was receiving death threats and was duly given two bodyguards who acted as drivers, which encouraged him to think that he could use them as a form of servant.  Currently France is having a laugh at this.You can check out the story in English here http://www.france24.com/en/20131101-mediawatch-cope-pain-au-chocolat-french-politics-scandal-pastries?page=117

Then there was the drunken man who was staggering around in Landsberg Germany and decided to spend the night in a stables - on a horses's back. A horsewoman arriving for an early morning ride found him and alerted the police.  No comment!!  I haven't included a link here but you can find it on YouTube by keying in the appropriate search words.

Four schools in Southern Zimbwawbe have been closed following complaints that children were being attacked by goblins according to the Bulawayo Chronicle.  I wonder what constitutes a "goblin"?   I wish there had been some mention of this when I was going to school.
I found the report on the Sunday Times Weird but wonderful section, page 10 of News Review.

And lastly I have to thank one of my favourite websites http:www.messynessychic.com for this most spooky story, it's worthy checking out:
For all those living in the whereabouts of the New Hamburg train station in New York, a strange spectacle piques the interest. This mystery involves a porch occupied by a changing number of life-size female dolls dressed in different trends from the twentieth century, whose number, position, and theme, vary from day to day.  A number of quirky (creepy) objects accompany the dolls on the porch. 

Neighbours don’t seem to know anything about the current owners of the house, built in 1845. The Greek Revival wood frame structure is one of the only surviving structures on the block from an 1877 fire. At night, a kitchen light can be seen through the drape covering the front door. A vegetable garden is kept in the backyard. On many rainy days, the dolls disappear into the quarters of the paint-pealed home. In 1871, a train wreck occurred amidst a two-week record-breaking cold wave in which 22 people were killed less than two hundred feet away from the house.
More about this spooky mystery found on Atlas Obscura