Meet the weirdos & oddballs of 2007

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-31 08:47

BERLIN: From a Greek nunnery turned into a marijuana farm by two men posing as gardeners to a South African man with a gunshot wound told by a doctor to "walk the pain off", the world was full of weird news in 2007.

A Moscow woman set fire to her ex-husband's penis as he sat naked watching TV and drinking vodka. The couple divorced three years ago but continued to share a small flat. "I was burning like a torch," the wounded ex-husband told Tvoi Den newspaper. "I don't know what I did to deserve this."

In the German town of Kaiserslautern, police broke into a dark flat expecting to find a corpse after neighbors complained of a nasty smell seeping out into the hallway. But instead they found a tenant with very smelly feet asleep in bed next to a pile of extremely foul-smelling laundry.

British artist Mark McGowan ate meatballs made from a dead corgi in a protest against cruelty to animals. He said the dog, which had died of natural causes, tasted terrible.

Criminals filled odd news headlines around the world. In the US, two Colorado men were accused of plotting to kill a man with rattlesnakes in a dispute over a $60,000 poker debt.

It's a story out of the Wild West - there's poker, rattlesnakes and unsavory characters," said a Colorado investigation official.

A Zimbabwe man stole a bus because he needed transport to get his driving license.

A German bus driver threw a 20-year-old off because he said she was too sexy for his bus. "He opened the door and shouted 'Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic'," the woman said.

Climate change also found its way into weird news. A Hummer owner in Russia's St. Petersburg gave activists the green light to pelt his oversized vehicle with rotten eggs and tomatoes.

Every story needs a happy ending and Bangkok delivered this one. A 76-year-old woman from southern Thailand got on the wrong bus 25 years ago and got lost, ending up living as a beggar at the other end of the country. But in 2007 she was finally reunited with her family.

Agencies



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