FAINITES

Earthquake turns sleepers to stone

2012-01-09T13:05:00.004Z

Rumours force people to flee homes

KANPUR: Rumours on Monday night that a major earthquake may occur and those sleeping would be transformed into stones, besides several villages in bordering district of Unnao caving in, forced the people to run out on the streets.

Panic prevailed all over the city with people receiving phone calls that earthquake will occur. The near and dear ones advising each other to avoid sleep as it would transformed them into stone, besides people should be alert as several villages in Unnao had caved in.

People came out of on streets at around 2am and spent several hours in the open.

Ratnesh, a local of Khapra Mohal, said: "I received a call from a friend who stays in Lucknow on Monday night. He said that a strong earthquake would soon cause destruction, so get up and pray to God."

"I received frantic calls from my friends saying that an earthquake will strike. They warned me not to sleep otherwise I would be transformed into a stone," said Saif, a resident of Jajmau. It seems as it was all a game plan of telecom companies as mostly people remained glued to cell phone, he added.

Despite cold, many residents sat on the roads and in open grounds and returned home only in the morning.

"Rumours spread like wildfire between 2 and 3am and without bothering about chilly weather, the people came rushing out of homes in open areas," said Vishwas, a resident of P Road.

"My cousin alerted me and I ran out of my house with my wife and children," said Farhan, a resident of Chamanganj. It only revived us memories of a strong earthquake in Gujarat on January 26, that killed thousands of people and left lakhs homeless and the recent earthquake which had hit Japan, he added.

DIG Rajesh Rai clarified that they have not received any information about any such incidents, it was rumours spread by miscreants. He warned of stringent action against those found spreading such rumours.

"I have already advised my subordinates to intensify patrolling in the localities during late at night and identify mischief mongers involved in spreading such rumours," he added.

Source: Times of India, 4 January 2012

Further reports on the same story: Hindustan Times, 3 January 2012; The Pioneer, 4 January 2012; Times of India, 4 January 2012

The Malaysian oily man

2012-01-09T12:54:00.004Z

The 'oily man' strikes fear

While most people would be in deep slumber at 2am, residents of Kampung Laksamana in Gombak were wide awake, roaming up and down Jalan Laksamana 1 in Gombak, Selangor.

Around 40 residents all divided into groups of about five to 10 people each and fully equipped with spotlights and wooden sticks were on patrol in the village located about 2km from Batu Caves that Thursday morning. Although they were joking with one another, you could feel the tension in the air.

An outsider might think that a gang rumble was on the cards. But what the residents of this village were worried about were not humans, instead they were keeping an eye out for not one, but two, supernatural beings. They are under attack from a couple of orang minyak (oily man), they claim. This village has been buzzing with sightings of the two paranormal creatures for the last 10 days.

Many residents claim to have seen and heard the orang minyak around the vicinity of the Pangsapuri Laksamana and Jalan Laksamana 1. And they all say the same thing the orang minyak are clad only in their underwear and drenched in black shiny oil. They can jump from one roof to another with ease, and vanish into thin air within seconds.

It's definitely no laughing matter, stresses Aslam Khan, 33, one of the villagers "lucky" enough to have seen them.

As he describes them, one is tall, stocky and bald while the other is thin and curly haired.

"I saw the bald orang minyak hiding behind the water tank of a house at about two in the morning. It was breathing really loudly, like a cow.

"It was black and shiny. When I shone my light on it, the thing stuck out its head to look back at me. Before I could do anything, it climbed up the roof and disappeared," says Aslam.

He says they also found the possible spot where the orang minyak conducts its ritual of reciting jampi (mantra) and having an oil bath. The villagers stumbled across the spot after chasing the orang minyak into some bushes next to the flat.

"There was a large oil patch there," he says, pointing to the ground.

Adds Aslam, the next night, they found a packet of fried rice and noodles at the very same spot. After returning about an hour later, the food was gone, believed to be eaten by the orang minyak.

Supernatural or real?

According to popular legend, the orang minyak is a person who has undertaken the study of black magic and as a rite of passage, has to rape a certain number of anak dara (virgins) to pass that course.

The villagers are worried because almost every house in the neighbourhood houses a young girl.

One, they said, has already had a nasty encounter with the orang minyak.

As reported by a local Malay daily, the 17-year-old girl did not only see the orang minyak a few times, but also felt "someone" caressing her and calling her to go out of the house.

It reportedly also locked the family members outside the house on Christmas eve, forcing the girl's brother-in-law Kamal Bahari Satar, 36, to break down the door.

"We saw a black heap underneath the kitchen table. When other residents poked it with a bamboo stick, we could see blood stains," he was quoted as saying. It then fled to a neighbour's house.

After being "disturbed" for five days, Kamal decided to move his family out of their house, and out of the neighbourhood.

Unfortunately, all attempts by Sunday Star to contact him were unsuccessful.

Although some of these stories sound incredible and illogical, it is hard to find any Kampung Laksamana resident who doesn't believe in it, even those who haven't seen it.

The residents have been carrying out patrols from midnight to dawn. Every now and then, a team of youngsters can be seen riding their motorbikes in a convoy around the neighbourhood.

During the Christmas weekend, some 200 people patrolled the street, waiting for the orang minyak to appear and many carried parangs (machetes) and axes, says Aslam.

"Until we manage to catch this thing, we are going to carry on with our patrols. I don't feel calm although I don't have a wife or younger sister," he vows.

Muaz Amran, 21, another resident who has been patrolling the area every night says he did not believe in such a thing before this.

"I thought the thing existed only in the movies but it seems to be happening in real life," says the fresh graduate, referring to the 1956 P. Ramlee hit movie Sumpah Orang Minyak. He says that although he hasn't seen the orang minyak for himself, he believes his neighbours.

Another resident who only wants to be known as Man says he did not believe his neighbours at first.

Then, on Christmas day, he was woken up at 3am by a commotion outside his house.

"Apparently, the orang minyak had run into the next door neighbour's house but I just brushed aside the incident," admits the bank officer.

The next night, his niece, who is a university student, saw the orang minyak sitting on the wall of his house.

"She woke up when she heard something. When she peeked out of the window, she saw a black figure sitting on the wall with its back facing her," he says.

P. Mohan, 48, also claims to have seen the orang minyak at a house opposite his flat at about 12.30am.

"It was crawling up the stairs of the house, just like Spiderman. When it reached the top it suddenly jumped onto the roof. I don't think a human could do that. It then just disappeared," he says, adding with a slight shudder, "The hair on my hands just stood up. We can laugh and joke about it, but this is serious. All the families here have young girls."

K. Chandran, 49, has yet to see the orang minyak but he too is afraid that it will harm his 14 year-old daughter after hearing stories of how it appeared in an abandoned house next to his.

"I feel very scared now. All of us sleep in the hall with the lights on," says the scrap metal dealer, whose lack of sleep is evident around his eyes.

Chandran shares that he has even installed two additional lights in his house, each costing RM500.

"Ever since these sightings, we have been feeling uneasy. I even dreamt about one of them recently," he says.

Zaki Zainudin, 42, agrees that it has been difficult to get any peace of mind these past few days now they are startled by the slightest sound and get suspicious of every little happening.

"Last time a broken plate was just a broken plate. Now, we wonder why it has broken," he says, before checking to see why a dog was howling nearby.
Zaki then takes out his phone to show photographs as proof of the existence of the orang minyak oil stains and footprint of the orang minyak in Kamal's house. He has also taken a picture of a banana tree leaf with an unusual tear. It has been said that the orang minyak is attracted to the banana bud (jantung pisang).

What is clear is that this stress has caused residents to lose sleep. Those on patrol only manage to catch a few hours of sleep before heading off to work in the morning. All the residents also sleep with all their lights on these days.

Almost at their wits end, the residents have made a police report as well as getting help from a few alternative healers, including a bomoh. They have also been holding prayers almost every night to ask for protection from the evil "spirits".

Their frustration at the menace, and exhaustion, however, is growing by the day.

"I dare it to come and confront me now," says office worker K. Paramasivam, his exasperation evident, echoing the feeling of every Kampung Laksamana resident.

He claims to have seen the bald orang minyak in an abandoned house, before it climbed up to the roof.

His main concern is for everyone in the neighbourhood, especially the young girls.

"I also have a younger sister in my house. We can't be sleeping two or three hours every day. We are not robots."

But in a way this orang minyak episode has been a blessing in disguise for the residents of Kampung Laksamana.

Man observes that the slight "tension" between the supporters of the different political parties has disappeared in the past few days.

"Everybody is helping one another out. Everyone is together as one," he says.

The residents also agree that they are friendlier with their neighbours now.

Paramasivam admits that he never really spoke to his neighbours and got to know them before.

"At the most, I would just acknowledge them. Now I actually talk and get to know them. The neighbourly spirit has been enhanced by these happenings," he says.

Source: AsiaOne, 1 January 2012

Tales from the Philippines

2011-12-19T19:00:00.002Z

It was believed by the folk that when a mermaid is captured (and held captive), it results in a big flood. After “Ondoy,” it is said that more people went to the Manila Aquarium than usual to check whether a mermaid was, indeed, in one of the display tanks.

Two friends who regularly go to Dumaguete, and one who lives there, also relate that when the seaside city went underwater from heavy rains four years ago, fishermen up and down the coast marched angrily to the Silliman Marine Science lab armed with oars. They were soon joined by farmers carrying pitchforks, whose farms had been inundated. They demanded the release of the mermaid that the marine biologists had purportedly been keeping in a tank (for study?).

Poor director Alcala of the marine science department had to rush to the scene in his pajamas to open the tank area! Only then would the folk believe that there was no mermaid imprisoned there.

In Dagupan, Pangasinan, a mermaid statue with a fountain used to be in front of the old City Hall until it was torn down during a remodeling.

“Mermaids were part of our childhood and our history,” says Norma Liongoren. “The rivers criss-crossing Dagupan were said to be her tears. The sirena was the bogey we were frightened with to make us obey.”

One of the Hundred Islands of Alaminos was the location of the first “Jezebel” movie (which has had many incarnations). A mermaid statue still exists there.

Legends about mermaids are prevalent all over the Philippines. As in Angono, sightings are still reported—of a mermaid with long hair, perched on a rock, luring sailors and swimmers with her singing, then drowning them. (The dugong, says John I. Teodoro, with its hairy body, looks very much like a fat mermaid.) A science (?) education (?) building under construction had a glass dome, it was rumored, to become the tank for a sirena.

Another interesting urban myth that has been around since the ’80s is that of Robina (Gokongwei)’s snake twin. That this snake likes to eat people who go into a fitting room of the department store. A trapdoor allegedly opens and the girl disappears forever. That the snake watches when the elevator door opens to observe where the feet of the person it desires are going, and follows.

An earlier story has it that the Gokongwei son it was who had a snake twin. The obsidian, the legend goes, likes beautiful young women whom it captures through the same dressing-room trapdoor. This snake apparently travels because the same legend follows it in every branch of the department store.

At one time it is said that the pretty actress, Alice Dixson, had been captured by the snake but released. And that, to quell the rumor, the family had to pay her to leave for Canada and stay there. The lawyer allegedly hired to settle the affair was Solicitor Frank Chavez!

Scales

I thought the myth had died down. But just the other day, someone who was supposed to have a meeting with Mr. Lance Gokongwei was advised to “look closely and tell me if his arms, under his long sleeves, have scales”!

The legend that still persists in Ilocos Norte is that Marcos is alive. That he is kept living by embryonic fluid in some secret facility. That his skin is nice and fresh and that he walks among us but does not look at all like the original Marcos. That the “corpse” in Paoay is really just wax. That his gold certificates are still being encashed, etc., etc.

Myths or legends are usually pegged on an event that took place, like the “Ondoy” flood and the flooding of the Dumaguete coastline. The Marcos “corpse” is still viewable in his mausoleum in the north. The belief in a snake twin has been around in the islands at least since the 17th century, as reported in Fray Ignacio Francisco Alzina’s 1668 “History of the Bisayan Islands” (basis of current telenovela “Amaya”).

Chinese are also known to regard snakes as good luck for business, which is allegedly why some Chinese keep snakes in their bodega. (And animals have to be fed don’t they?) Someone posited, though, that the snake myth came up when malls were just being introduced in the Philippines. They were huge, frigid structures then, unfamiliar to the folk. Could it have been a manifestation of that fear? Could it have been a rumor begun by a competing mall? Legends or myths make no distinction between truth and fiction—but how in heavens’ name did Frank Chavez get in there?

Older urban legends are the White Lady of Balete Drive who hitches a ride or boards a taxi but disappears. She comes in many variations and can apparently bilocate. She has been seen in Baguio and other places not named Balete, nor is she always in white.

Then there is the cat in the siopao of a mami joint. This urban legend began way back during the Japanese time when there was a scarcity of meat and lots of cats on the street. The fact that the mami joint and the department store are more popular than ever proves that urban legends are either not believed, or if they are, merely add delicious spice to the merchandise. Cars still go through Balete Drive, which is one of the shadiest streets around. And of course, everyone just loves preternaturals!

Source: Inquirer "Forever 18" column, 18 December 2011

London riots rumour round-up

2011-12-11T18:38:00.005Z

An analysis of Twitter rumours spread during the London riots in a recent issue of The Guardian included the following beautiful stories:

The London Eye was on fire
Rioters had released a tiger from London Zoo and it was no on the loose on Primrose Hill
Rioters had broken into McDonalds and were cooking their own food

Judex lives!

2011-12-11T18:28:00.002Z

'Sleeping gas' thieves target super-rich at Italian billionaires' resort

Police in the billionaires' retreat of Porto Cervo on Sardinia's Costa Smeralda believe thieves who made off with €315,000 (£280,000) in cash and jewels used sleeping gas on their victims to ensure they were not disturbed during the break-in.

Similar robberies have been reported this summer in France and Spain.

The burglaries in Porto Cervo, which took place last week, were only disclosed by police on Tuesday. The thieves sneaked into the rented holiday villa of a Milanese pharmaceuticals tycoon and left with a haul worth around €300,000. The businessman's 42-year-old wife, her mother and their daughter were all in the house, along with a servant, but no one heard the burglars, even though they took the windows off their hinges to get in.

At the villa next door, two holidaymakers found a watch and €15,000 in cash missing. They told police they had woken up feeling weak and dazed.

In July, "gassing gangs" were reported to be targeting caravans and camper vans in France. Thieves sprayed sleeping gas in through air vents before breaking in.

Earlier this month, at least six houses on an estate at Rincón de la Victoria on Spain's Costa del Sol were burgled by thieves thought to have used sleeping gas. One of the residents, José Luis Gómez, was quoted as saying the victims had woken "dizzy, with headaches, vomiting and stinging throats".

Porto Cervo was built in the 1960s by Prince Karim Aga Khan and it has long been a playground for the super-rich. Earlier this month,the sign at the entrance to the Costa Smeralda was altered, apparently by an insufficiently prosperous holidaymaker armed with a spray can. The "Smeralda" was deleted and replaced with the word "troppo", so it now reads in Italian: "Costs too much."

Source: The Guardian, 30 August 2011
More on the same story appears in The Telegraph, 4 September 2011

The (long overdue) return of Arsène Lupin

2011-12-11T18:22:00.002Z

Restaurant couple do cigarette break runner leaving £570 bill unpaid

They seemed like any other well-off young London couple dining out last Wednesday. The man and woman, both smartly dressed, arrived for their booked table for two at the Michelin-starred restaurant L'Autre Pied in Marylebone, before each ordering three courses from the menu, along with a bottle of pink Larmandier champagne at £124 and another of 1997 Bollinger that cost £285.

But after helping them on with their coats to nip outside for a cigarette, the waiting staff soon discovered that they were no ordinary diners. Some minutes later, with a plum tart and millefeuille uneaten at the table, it became clear the couple had no intention of returning – or of paying a bill totalling £572.74.

What may make the case more intriguing is that the name in which the pair booked the table, Lupin, echoes that of the fictional Arsene Lupin – a stylish Gallic gentleman thief whose adversaries, in a series of novels by Maurice LeBlanc, are invariably portrayed as rather worse villains than him. The Metropolitan police confirmed they were investigating.

"In two decades we have never had anything like this," Leonora Popaj, the restaurant's general manager, told the Guardian. The couple had not seemed unusual or suspicious, she said, and the bill was not particularly lavish by the restaurant's standards – the Bollinger is not, for instance, the most expensive champagne on the menu. "They looked like a very genuine, very lovely couple. Their bill was an average spend. Nothing was out of place or unusual."

CCTV footage of the pair, indeed, showed nothing peculiar: both are believed to be in their 30s; the man, described by the restaurant as about 6ft tall, had a light beard and was wearing blue jeans and a jumper; his companion, wearing a black sleeveless dress with a scarf, had long dark hair and is seen in the snatched image flashing an engaging smile at a staff-member.

It was only while viewing the footage, said Popaj, that she noticed the woman wasn't carrying a handbag – not in itself damning, perhaps, but which certainly facilitated their speedy departure.

It is understood that similar incidents involving other top restaurants are being looked at by police, raising the possibility that the pair are serial thieves. But Popaj denied suggestions that L'Autre Pied will now demand that diners wishing to step outside for a cigarette surrender their credit cards. "We are totally against that. That would only punish our very honest clientele."

As for the suggestion that "Lupin" may have been chosen as some kind of joke, Popaj said: "It makes me very angry. What upsets me most is that they have this mentality that this [amount] is nothing for this level of restaurant.

"They are forgetting that they are really attacking the waiters, who don't have an enormous income."

Source: The Guardian, 15 November 2010

Bad political magic in the Democratic Republic of Congo

2011-12-07T11:44:00.003Z

Satan, exorcism and magic T-shirts - our favourite rumours from DRC presidential poll

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa is a rumour mill. No more so that during the country’s 2011 presidential elections. The Congolese are sometimes superstitious, at times moralistic and always feverish in their chatter about the latest rumour. This has only been amplified by the country’s polls. Here’s a collection of RFI’s favourite election rumours.

The magic pen: Bring your own pen to mark the election ballot paper. The pens handed out by the electoral commission use invisible ink. Once you mark your vote and post it in the ballot box the ink will disappear in 10 minutes, making your choice useless. 
Mysterious candidate photos: Don’t look at the first candidate’s photo on the presidential ballot paper. It has special powers given to it by Satan. If you look at the photo it will force you to vote for it. 
Special campaign materials: Don’t accept campaign materials from anyone, including leaflets or T-shirts. If you accept campaign materials it will enable the candidate to possess your body. You will only be exorcised once the elections have finished and the candidate has forced you to vote for them. 
Deadly money: Don’t accept money from election candidates. If you accept their money you will die. 
Election premonition: The events of the elections correspond to the Bible’s Book of Revelations. UDPS party leader Etienne Tshisekedi is Satan while the unrest before the election and airport standoff are birth pangs leading to the end of the world.

Source: RFI English, 1 December 2011
NB Reports of disappearing ink in election booth pens also appeared in relation to this week's elections in Russia.

Children's decapitated heads used as dishes for spirits

2011-11-26T17:20:00.004Z

Headhunting rumour spreads fear among children

LIMBANG: Although there is no evidence of its existence, the public especially school children are haunted by the rumour of alleged headhunters actively seeking for prey during this school holidays.

The rumour is spreading fast among the people here and is a hot topic at coffee shops.

The often-repeated story tells of headhunters targeting children for their heads, to be kept inside bridge pillars under construction to strengthen its structure.

The rumour says the process is conducted by a shaman who performs certain rites to ensure the bridge be structurally strong where the decapitated head serves as a ‘dish’ to compensate the spiritual being said to haunt the bridge.

Acting District Police chief Superintendent Bukhori Saffai has advised the public not to believe the spreading rumour.

“The bridge is made by well-trained and qualified engineers and experts and they do not employ diviners.

“Do not listen to this nonsense about ‘pengait’ (the local term for such hunters) looking for heads to be used to reinforce and strengthen a bridge that is being built,” he said when asked to on the hot topic that has caused much fear among the public here.

Moreover, he said it was possible that the issue was deliberately raised during the school holidays so that the children would not wander out of the house.

“Perhaps there is wisdom behind this story so that the children would not leave the house during the school holidays.

“Instead, parents should be more vigilant so that their children do not get involved in criminal activities and immoral acts,” Bukhori said adding that no report has been received on the issue so far.

Observation made by The Borneo Post revealed that the story began to spread since the construction of the Pandaruan Bridge.

A similar story also haunted the people of Limbang in the early 90s during the construction of the Batu Danau Bridge.

Source: The Borneo Post Online, 22 November 2011

Grease devils

2011-08-14T17:47:00.005+01:00

Six youths dressed in black posing off as ‘grease devils’ are alleged to have entered the Uduwara Tea estate in Badulla and after forcing the female tea pluckers to kneel had performed a devil dance. Estate labourers who were alerted by all the commotion had rushed to the scene had caught the youth who were believed to have been from Halpe and after giving them a sound thrashing had handed them over to the Ella police.Police said a three wheeler used by the youth had been taken into custody. They said some women were injured when fleeing from the grease devils who had also attempted to harm a school girl.The Ella police under the direction of OIC Bandara Ratnayake are investigating the incident.

Source: Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka), 11 August 2011
Photo from the Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka), 11 August 2011

Reports on the Grease Devil story have been numerous: for examples of other accounts, see the Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka), Daily News, Reuters and the Sunday Times (Sri Lanka).

An excellent overview of this long-running and complex phenomenon also recently appeared in The Fortean Times (no.281, November 2011).

Railroad therapy

2011-08-14T17:39:00.000+01:00

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Ignoring the red-and-white danger sign, Sri Mulyati walks slowly to the train tracks outside Indonesia's bustling capital, lies down and stretches her body across the rails.

Like the nearly dozen others lined up along the track, the 50-year-old diabetes patient has all but given up on doctors and can't afford the expensive medicines they prescribe.

In her mind, she has only one option left: electric therapy.

"I'll keep doing this until I'm completely cured," said Mulyati, twitching visibly as an oncoming passenger train sends an extra rush of current racing through her body.

She leaps from tracks as it approaches and then, after the last carriage rattles slowly by, climbs back into position.

Pseudo-medical treatments are wildly popular in many parts of Asia — where rumours about those miraculously cured after touching a magic stone or eating dung from sacred cows can attract hundreds, sometimes thousands.

That may be especially true in Indonesia, where chronic funding shortages and chaotic decentralisation efforts since the 1998 ouster of longtime dictator Suharto have left many disillusioned with the state-sponsored health system, said Marius Widjajarta, chairman of the Indonesian Health Consumers Empowerment Foundation.

Medical experts say there is no evidence lying on the rails does any good.

But Mulyati insists it provides more relief for her symptoms — high-blood pressure, sleeplessness and high cholesterol — than any doctor has since she was first diagnosed with diabetes 13 years ago.

She turned to train track therapy last year after hearing a rumour about an ethnic Chinese man who was partially paralysed by a stroke going to the tracks to kill himself, but instead finding himself cured.

It's a story that's been told and retold in Indonesia.

Until recently, more than 50 people would show up at the Rawa Buaya tracks every day. But the numbers have dropped since police and the state-run railroad company erected a warning sign and threatened penalties of up to three months in prison or fines of $1,800.

No one has been arrested yet, and none of the participants in train track therapy has died.

But the dedicated dozen a day who still come say they have no plans to stop.

"They told us not to do it anymore, but what else can I do," said Hadi Winoto, a 50-year-old stroke victim who has trouble walking.

"I want to be cured, so I have to come back."

Source: Associated Press, 2 August 2011

Georgian portents

2011-08-14T17:33:00.002+01:00

Out of a swelter come apocalyptic visions

TBILISI, Georgia — Word that scorpions had been sighted on her street clinched it, as far as Nana Beniashvili was concerned.

In the asphalt-melting, earth-parching, brain-scrambling heat of midsummer, residents of Tbilisi need something to talk about.

The giant locusts had been bad enough, and the snakes, which are known in Georgian as “that which cannot be mentioned.” She actually hadn’t seen any scorpions herself, but she believed that one of her neighbours had, and in the asphalt-melting, earth-parching, brain-scrambling heat of midsummer, she was not in the mood to be fastidious about evidence.

“This means the apocalypse is coming,” said Ms Beniashvili, 72, who was leaning out of a window. “I cannot tell you exactly when, because I am not very knowledgeable about this. But it is clear that the apocalypse is coming. The world has gone crazy.

“Anyway, I hope we will survive,” she sighed, and went inside to look for lemonade.

There were theories being propagated in Ms Beniashvili’s neighbourhood: that the locusts were mutants caused by the meltdown at Chernobyl; that the snakes had been imported in train cars by some shadowy enemy; that all these natural phenomena were the result of certain explosions that happened 11 years ago on the surface of the sun.

But the most incisive commentary belonged to Tamar Khardziani, an entomologist at the Tbilisi zoo, who has spent much of this unusually hot summer attempting to soothe her excitable countrymen.

“It’s Georgia,” she said. “There has to be something to talk about.”
There is something biblical about Tbilisi under any circumstances.

It proved immune to the poured concrete that homogenised the great cities of the Soviet empire. Here, narrow cobblestone streets cut into the side of a mountain, and wooden balconies hang out over the sidewalks. In the heat, which last week was recorded at 106 degrees, fruit sellers stack watermelons into pyramids and then vanish into the high-ceilinged shadows. Real life begins after dark, when people gather under grape arbors smelling of roses, pour glasses of chilled wine, and talk.

Every summer there is something to talk about. Last year, it was people trying to kill themselves by jumping off bridges into the mud-coloured Mtkvari River. This summer, television news has reported on pestilence, starting with snakes, followed by a swarm of unusually large locusts that were migrating through the city. Guram Tsiklauri, a herpetologist who responds to calls from citizens, is exasperated by the topic, saying that in 30 years he has observed no variation in the prevalence of snakes, and that none of the local species are poisonous anyway.

“I’m just fed up with seeing this on television,” said Mr Tsiklauri, who heads the zoo’s reptile house. If there is one natural anomaly he has recorded, it is the extravagant emotions that serpents arouse in Georgians. Occasionally, he said, he will arrive at an address where there has been a complaint about snakes to discover that the house has been locked and the family is standing in the street, vowing to sell the property.

At a recent call he located a snake under the floorboards, and though he assured the family it was harmless, they were so distraught that he offered to pry up the floor to retrieve it. By the time he left, he said, “we had basically destroyed the whole house.” The family was so grateful, he said, that “they were almost carrying us around on their shoulders.”

Asked to explain this, Mr Tsiklauri looked thoughtful.

“Georgians are very emotional people,” he said. “They want to have this emotion of fear. They like the feeling of threat.” They are also capable of calming down very quickly, he added.

Passion seems built into the foundations of Georgia, one of the first countries to accept Christianity.

A cathedral outside Tbilisi commemorates Sidonia, a first-century Christian convert said to have died from the emotion that surged through her when she held the robe of Christ, gripping the fabric so fiercely that it had to be buried with her. The name of a church on Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare can be translated as “a stone was born,” after an unpleasant tale from the sixth century: when a Christian ascetic was accused by a nun of impregnating her, he became so incensed that he wished that, if she was lying, the baby would be born a stone.

By those standards, this summer’s plagues are nothing special. Small, harmless scorpions have always sheltered in the dark corners of Tbilisi’s old wooden houses, along with what Ms Khardziani described as “a lot of other very interesting invertebrates,” occasionally appearing in public and producing a brief panic. (A visit to a neighbourhood where an infestation had been reported found not a single resident who had seen one.)

By mid-August, when the summer heat breaks, all of the creatures will have drawn back from populated areas, where they often go seeking shade or food. But snakes will almost continue to trouble Georgians; in Georgian, the word can also mean Satan. When citizens call Mr Tsiklauri for help, they often try to avoid using the word, telling him only, “I saw that.”

Indeed, inside Ms Beniashvili’s house, a discussion of snakes so unnerved one elderly relative that she felt the need to interrupt.

“Don’t say that word!” the woman called out from the other side of the door. “It means that someone is saying something bad about you.”

Source: The New York Times, 2 August 2011

Lions and tigers in the streets of London

2011-08-08T20:26:00.001+01:00

According to Channel 4 News, Russian TV coverage of the riots in London reported that lions and tigers had escaped from London Zoo and could be heard roaring in the streets.

The devil-worshippers' playground

2011-08-03T19:07:00.000+01:00

Rumors of devil worshipping in Lufkin, many of which take place at Ellen Trout Park, have been circulating at school lunch tables since the 1980s

This week we travel into the dark woods across Ellen Trout Lake to a semi-circle of stone benches rumored to be a devil worshiper’s playground.

“I followed this girl dressed in black across the bridge and then hid behind a tree so she wouldn’t see me,” the teen told his circle of friends who leaned in around the lunch table, listening intently to his tale. “From where I was hiding I watched her and three others take a bunch of candles and light them. Then they stood in a circle around the candles and chanted while she took a rat and a dagger out of her backpack.”

“And then, let me guess,” one girl said huffily rolling her eyes. “She sacrificed the rat to the devil. You really expect us to believe that?”

“Well, she did,” he said firmly, trying to shrug off her doubt.

Stories like this one have been passed across East Texas lunch tables since the ’80s, likely stemming from the “height of the Satan worship movement,” according to a “20/20” expose.

Charlotte Henley, Ellen Trout Zoo director of educational services, has lived in Ellen Trout Park, not far from the stone benches, for the last three decades and had no knowledge of the devil worship rumor until she got a phone call from a Lufkin Daily News reporter last week. She didn’t have to do much asking around before finding a source close to home.

“I talked to both of my kids who are now grown and they had heard the same rumors — rumors of people being over there sacrificing animals and tying rags to trees,” Henley said. “My daughter told me that any tree they tied a rag on was supposed to die.”

Henley’s son, who is now in his 20s, told his mom about seeing something suspicious as a kid while riding his bike in the woods, as he often did.

“He said he rode his bike over there and saw some people sitting around the old fireman building,” she said. “When they saw him, he said one of them stood up. He said he didn’t stick around to find out what they were doing.”

The building Henley is referring to was a concrete structure used by the city for the fire department, she said. The stone semi-circle, Henley said, has been there at least 35 years. She said she believes it was put there as a Scout project.

Lufkin Police Det. JB Smith said he has no knowledge of any calls the department has responded to in regard to witchcraft or devil worship at Ellen Trout Park. He pulled a report that dated back to 1997 and found nothing documented in police record.

“I’ve never heard the rumor of witchcraft at the zoo,” Smith said. “But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.”

Lufkin Daily News, 10 July 2011

Capitalist ritual murder and workers' riots

2011-08-03T19:04:00.003+01:00

Sacrifice rumour spurs project ransack

JAMSHEDPUR: A group of villagers ransacked the premises of Abhijeet Group's upcoming integrated steel plant at Seraikela-Kharsawan and assaulted company officials and policemen on Monday following rumours of two children are taken for sacrifice, prompting the law enforcers to lathicharge and fire in the air to disperse the mob.

Police, however, said the suspect might have come to the company with his two children to seek a job.

According to a villager, some people saw 60-year-old Santosh Singh, a resident of Burkundi in Ramgarh, with two children Bulu (3) and Bajrangi (4) near the company gate. Suspecting foul play, a group of local people immediately stopped him at the company gate and inquired his purpose to visit the company with the two children. "When Santosh failed to give a satisfactory reply, the people lost their cool," said the villager.

With rumours of a recent human sacrifice still fresh in people's mind, the villagers not only attacked the suspect but also the security personnel at the company gate and ransacked the company's property. They were so violent that plant head S Ramkrishna and his colleague C S Chandrashekar, too, were beaten up severely. By the time, senior police officers reached the site, much damage was done to the company assets and its officials were assaulted.

Times of India, 18 July 2011
For more reports on this story, click here and here.

Who's the Fool Now?

2011-07-28T19:21:00.002+01:00

Martin said to his man
Fie, man, fie
Martin said to his man
Who's the fool now?
Martin said to his man
Fill thou the cup and I the can
Thou hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?
Thou hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?

I saw the man in the moon
I saw the man in the moon
I saw the man in the moon
Clouting of St Peter's shoon

I saw a hare chase a hound
I saw a hare chase a hound
I saw a hare chase a hound
Twenty miles above the ground

I saw a goose ring a hog
I saw a goose ring a hog
I saw a goose ring a hog
And a snail bite a dog

I saw a mouse catch a cat
I saw a mouse catch a cat
I saw a mouse catch a cat
And the cheese to eat a rat

Foreign workers bathe in water tanks after sex

2011-06-10T22:46:00.003+01:00

Worries about drinking from a tainted water tank in which an Indonesian maid's body was found may have subsided, but some Woodlands residents have now revealed that they believe foreign workers are using the water stored in rooftop water tanks to bathe themselves.

About 150 residents gathered at a dialogue session with the Sembawang Town Council management and representatives from the Public Utilities Board (PUB).

Some residents claimed that they have seen workers emerging from the rooftop water tank room with bathing towels. Residents also believe that the workers have brought women to the water tank room for sexual trysts, and that the men bathe in the tanks after having sex.

Reported by AsiaOne News, 8 June 2011

Steytlerville "monster" strikes again

2011-05-01T12:10:00.004+01:00

Johannesburg - A "monster" plaguing the sleepy Karoo town of Steytlerville struck again over the Easter weekend, Eastern Cape police said on Monday.  

Another two sightings of the "shape-shifting creature" were reported on Sunday evening, said Warrant Officer Zandisile Nelani .  

“Two men were walking near a tavern when they saw another man wearing a black jacket. One of the men, identified only as Nozipho, went up to the stranger and asked him, “What is your problem?” said Nelani.  

A dog or a cow?  

When the stranger did not respond, Nozipho went closer and saw that the man had no head. The man then turned into a dog that was “very angry” and “as big as a cow”, Nelani said.  

He said that as Nozipho and his friend ran away, the monster allegedly turned on another group of people in the same road. “They said it turned into a big monkey, and then it was gone,” Nelani said.

  He said that since the monster was spotted near the tavern, people were afraid to go there at night.  

Last week police were told by residents that the monster changed shape while one looked at it. One man had reported that it changed from a man wearing a suit into a pig and then into a bat.  

There had also been rumours that the monster could fly. Previously, the monster had only been spotted near the church. It had even been seen peering through the windows during a service, but had vanished by the time the congregation came outside.  

Nelani said that the community had dubbed the monster “Bawokozi”, meaning “brother-in-law”.  

Photograph  

Sightings of the monster began over a month ago when it was seen by mourners attending two separate funerals, Nelani said.  

He said that the community requested a meeting with police because they were frightened of it. Police agreed to work with residents, but asked them to try to take a photograph of it as evidence.  

Nelani said that a photograph had since been taken of the monster resting under a tree.  

He said that when the photo was taken the monster had been in human form but when the photo was developed an unknown animal was visible in the picture.  

“It is a very strange thing happening in Steytlerville, but no one has been hurt by it,” Nelani said.   

- SAPA

News24.com, 25 April 2011
For a previous report on the Karoo monster, click here.

May unleashed

2011-05-01T11:45:00.000+01:00

Karoo town plagued by "monster"

2011-04-24T15:06:00.003+01:00

Steytlerville, a small Karoo town, is being plagued by rumours of a shape-shifting monster, Eastern Cape police said on Thursday.

“The community says that the monster changes shape while you are looking at it,” Warrant Officer Zandisile Nelani said.

He said one man had reported it changed from a man wearing a suit into a pig and then into a bat. The creature had been sighted on a number of occasions near a church and only appeared at night, Nelani said.

Local residents met with police last week to discuss the strange phenomenon.

Nelani said he had asked people to take a photograph of the alleged monster. Although some locals were frightened of it, it had not harmed any people or livestock. - Sapa

IOL News, 22 April 2011

Le cambrioleur était nu, une souris dans l'anus

2011-02-10T12:23:00.003Z

Un homme a été interpellé en Caroline du Sud aux Etats-Unis. Il venait de cambrioler une maison de manière très surprenante.

En effet, en arrivant sur les lieux du cambriolage, un agent a découvert le bandit, Noah Smith (31 ans), qui se trouvait toujours dans la maison. L'homme était entièrement nu et une petit queue dépassait de son anus.

Violent, l'individu s'est mis à gifler l'agent avant de lui mener la vie dure allant même jusqu'à le mordre. Noah Smith a finalement été arrêté et après un examen approfondi, on s'est aperçu que la petite queue visible était en fait le reste d'une souris qu'il s'était placé dans le rectum. Smith était complètement drogué au moment des faits, il a été incarcéré. (CB)

- from 7sur7.be, 9 November 2010

Monk nabbed with nun's skeleton at airport

2011-01-21T12:19:00.005Z

Traveler, 56, said he was transporting a saint's remains to his monastery

A Cypriot monk caught at a Greek airport with the skeletal remains of a nun in his baggage told authorities he was taking the relics of a saint back to his monastery.

The 56-year-old Cypriot was detained at Athens airport after security staff discovered a skull wrapped in cloth and skeletal remains in a sheet inside his baggage.

"They maintained it was a woman who was a saint," a Greek police official who declined to be named told Reuters.

He said the monk told authorities he was transferring her remains to a monastery in Cyprus.

The remains were those of a nun who died four years ago. She was not a saint in the Greek or Cypriot Orthodox Churches, but had once been a nun at a Cypriot convent, police said.

Revering the skeletal remains of saints is common in the Greek Orthodox tradition. A sect within the church may have venerated the nun even though she was not an official saint.

In many churches, venerated relics are put on display for the faithful to touch or kiss and a box for collecting donations from the faithful placed nearby.

"It appears to be the work of charlatans with a financial interest that is what I suspect," Cyprus's Archbishop Chrysostomos told journalists when asked about the monk's tale.

The monk was freed after being charged with theft and desecrating the dead, a misdemeanor in Greece. He was also suspended from his monastic duties for three months for going away without leave, Cypriot police said.

Renee Maltezou, Reuters, MSNBC, 18 January 2011

The underwater wax museum

2010-11-30T10:33:00.003Z

Sunny slopes, shady stories

Below this place they call Heavenly, hell awaits those who double-cross the Mob.

Around here, urban legend has lake fishermen reeling in human ears and human hands. They say that far below all that fluffy powder snow and those perfectly spaced pine trees and all that sunshine; and way down below the surface of the huge alpine lake the Indians call Lake of the Sky, lies an underwater wax museum of perfectly preserved Mafia gangsters with bullet holes in the middle of their foreheads.

Locals say it's just part of the charm of South Lake Tahoe and Heavenly Ski Resort. […]

There are apres-ski huts perfect for catching the sunshine and the red and white fir trees give this place its reputation as having the best tree runs in North America. The runs are long and challenging, the snow is deep and dry and the mountain huts are solid log timber.

Then the sun sets and the night turns Heavenly into another kind of place altogether.

There's a gruesome side to Heavenly; it's as I walk by Lake Tahoe in the growing dark that I think of those bodies.

Steve, a ski instructor at Heavenly who shares some local legends with me over a beer, tells me famous marine explorer Jacques Cousteau once tried to bring a submarine into Lake Tahoe but local casino bosses of the day refused to allow it. Then there's the story Cousteau did go down with a film crew but Mob bosses confiscated his footage; and then there's the story that Cousteau decided himself that the world wasn't ready to see what lay beneath the waters of Lake Tahoe.

Geological surveys have so far failed to find any bodies, neither have modern fishermen with advanced fish-finding technology, but still the locals hold on to their legends. "They don't find bodies around here," Steve tells me. "They sink to the bottom; you go in there, you don't come out."

It's the near-freezing water, many say, that prevents the creation of gases that would otherwise bloat and float a corpse to the surface. Locals maintain there are hundreds of bodies down there, perfectly preserved. Fishermen even call an area of it The Grave. That's where, the story goes, a fisherman jagged something huge just offshore but whatever it was broke free. When he reeled in the line, a human ear was still on the hook. Then there's the story of renowned gangster Three-Fingered Tony who met an untimely demise nearby, his hand reeled in later by another unlucky fishermen.

Craig Tansley, Sydney Morning Herald travel section, 21 November 2010

The Gown Man

2010-11-25T12:37:00.002Z

As recalled by Cyril Neville (of the Neville Brothers):

"If our mother wanted to keep us home, she'd tell us about the Gown Man. He was this big white guy in a hospital gown, and he'd snatch you off the street, put you under his arm, and take you over to the dissection room at Tulane University medical school. They'd pull off your skin and you'd get chopped up by medical students, practicing their autopsies."

And as recalled by his brother Aaron Neville:

"They had the Needle Man, too. Supposed to shove a six-inch needle in your eye, suck your brain out right from the socket."

Mark Jacobson, The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), p. 209

Snake babies in the Solomon Islands

2010-10-18T12:57:00.005+01:00

Snake Baby Rumours Not True

The National Referral Hospital has denied any knowledge of any baby born at the hospital with parts of it resembling a snake.

Rumours circulating around Honiara in the past week and days were of a local mother who gave birth to a baby with strange features at the National Referral Hospital.

But the Medical Superintendent of the National Referral Hospital Doctor Douglas Pickacha told SIBC this afternoon that he is not aware of any baby being born at the hospital with such features.

He says he has not received any reports of that nature from the Labour ward.

Meanwhile, checks by SIBC News on You-tube revealed that the video-clips and pictures circulated in town were in fact uploaded to the web by someone from Jordan.

The snake baby was said to resemble the picture above,
circulated widely on the web.

Another search on the web has also found that a snake-like baby, similar to the one being circulated in Honiara was born on September 28th, 2010 in Nepal.

Reports say the so-called 'Snake Baby' was born after 14 months in the mother's womb.

It says the mother died when she saw her baby, adding that even a Doctor was unconscious for half an hour.

It says the snake child drank 10 litres of milk as soon as he was fed.

The reports say the baby's body looks like a snake and face of a human, with long hair.

Source: Solomon Times Online, 12th October 2010

Dream porridge from Dalsland (western Sweden)

2010-09-15T15:23:00.002+01:00

If you wanted to know who you were going to marry, you could prepare and eat some dream porridge. The porridge had to be prepared by three girls. It was important that the greatest silence be observed throughout the procedure. When the water began to boil, each girl would throw in a handful of salt and a handful of flour. When the porridge was ready it would be divided into three equal portions, and each girl would eat one portion, without adding any milk. Then they would go to bed, still in total silence, without having anything to drink. The dream porridge would be prepared and eaten three nights in a row, and on the third night the girls would see their future husbands in their dreams. He would be bringing water to quench their thirst.

From the Norwegian foodways website Tradisjoner
Thanks to Emma Lundenmark for drawing it to our attention.

Sex latent in commodities

2010-08-18T14:22:00.004+01:00

The Huli strongly believe that public spaces should not be defiled by polluting substances and words, and pasinja meri [lit. 'passenger woman', a peripatetic woman who engages in multiple-partner, sometimes-paid, sex] often defy this norm. They have their own pseudocode in which the names of desirable consumable commodities are acronyms that stand for something salacious. Fanta, the soft drink, for example, stands for 'Fuck And Never Think Again'; Pepsi, for 'Plis Em Pen, Sutim Isi' (which is Tok Pisin for 'Please that hurts; thrust more gently'); Cambridge, a brand of cigarette, stands for 'Come Along My Boy; Remember, I Don't Get Enough'. Sometimes pasinja meri will simply shout out the names of these items while sitting at market with other people and then burst into laughter, glancing around to see who 'gets it' or not.

- quoted from Holly Wardlow, 'Headless Ghosts and Roving Women: Specters of Modernity in Papua New Guinea', American Ethnologist, 29.1 (2002), 22

Human beings turned into goats (or possibly vice versa) in Nigeria

2010-07-15T15:05:00.004+01:00

Yesterday morning, rumours spread like bush fire in the harmattan in Ojo, and other neighbouring towns in Lagos and Ogun States that seven human beings were turned to goats through esoteric means . The rumour also had it that the goats were detained in Ojo Police station. A motley crowd besieged the police station to witness the bizarre development. Everybody struggled to catch a glimpse of the human beings –turned goats. The police found it difficult to control the crowd.  This led to traffic gridlock on the Ojo Road, leading to the Alaba International Market. The Divisional Police Officer, Isaac Ogbogbo, a Chief Superintendent of Police, brought his experience to bear in controlling the crowd that was desperate to see the goats. After satisfying their curiosity, they dispersed one after the other.

From one source to another, the story kept magnifying. It first started with a human being turning to a goat until it became seven goats turning to seven human beings. It was the subject of discussion at bus stops, inside commercial vehicles and markets with each source presenting different versions of the story. […]  

From the Daily Sun, Nigeria, 7 July 2010

The promised future

2010-06-21T17:09:00.003+01:00

WC2, 31st May 2008

Bosom (or bowel) serpents

2010-05-17T11:57:00.005+01:00

Snake in a Woman's Stomach
New York Times, July 10th 1864

The Lock-port Journal tells the following horrible story: A woman living in Mercer, C.W., the wife of Mr. WM. EVERS, has for four years past been afflicted with a singular difficulty in her stomach. Her complaint has until within a short time past, baffled the skill of physicians. The complaint commenced about four years since, with a tickling and uneasy sensation about the pit of the stomach. The same sensation has continued to increase in severity from that time. A few months since it became the incontrovertible opinion of the most skillful physicians, that the increasing difficulty has been the growth of a snake in the stomach. It has grown so large now that it distends the stomach so as to produce a bunch upon the outside as large as a quart bowl. Upon pressing this bunch with the hand, the reptile recoils and produces great distress in the stomach. When fish or meat is being cooked in the room, if the snake is not satisfied with food, it rises up in the throat producing strangulation. When desiring food it manifests it by rising up in the throat. Physicians can see no way in which the snake can be removed without certain death to the woman. Mrs. EVERS is about 35 years of age. She is, of course, feeble in health now, but is around the house.

From the New York Times online archive

Chef dies after feeling eel
The Sun, 30th April 2010

A CHEF has died after an EEL was put up his bum.

Shocked doctors in Sichuan, China, found the sea creature in the 59-year-old man's rectum after his death, it has been reported.

The 50cm long Asian swamp eel was allegedly inserted into the unnamed man's bottom, after he passed out drunk, by pals playing a prank on him.

Medics said the eel had devoured his bowels.

From the Sun website, 30th April 2010.
There is also a report on the case in Chinese from the China News Agency, 28th April 2010.

Several commentators on the Chinese case have also referred to the short report on "Traumatic rectal perforation by an eel" by Siu Fai Lo et al. of the Department of Surgery at Kwong Wah Hospital (Kowloon, Hong Kong), which appeared in the scholarly journal Surgery in 2004 (135:1, 110-111):

CASE REPORT

A 50-year-old man was seen at the Accident and Emergency Department because of abdominal pain. Physical examination revealed peritonitis. A shadow of an eel was noticed on the abdominal radiograph (Fig 1). On further questioning, the patient admitted an eel was inserted into the rectum in an attempt to relieve constipation. Emergency laparotomy found a 50 cm-long eel biting the splenic flexure of the colon (Fig 2), and a 3-cm perforation was found over the anterior wall of the rectum (Figs 3 and 4). The rectum was divided at the site of perforation, and the proximal end was brought out as colostomy. The postoperative course was uneventful. The patient was discharged home on day 7. [...]

Further evidence that the poetic motif of the internal serpent remains a potent one in popular culture:

Woman-cat

2010-03-07T14:59:00.005Z

Beggars condemn woman-cat rumours

RUMOURS circulating in Dar es Salaam about a woman said to have disappeared mysteriously after giving alms to a beggar at Salender Bridge in the city has brought mayhem to some beggars and the disabled, saying it has robbed them of their daily bread.

The beggars condemned the rumours claiming that they are malicious and intended to starve them. Speaking on behalf of her colleagues who had gathered outside the department of information (MAELEZO) today, Neema Robert claimed that the wicked reports spreading in the city like wildfire were designed to chase them from city streets.

“People in Dar es Salaam now look at us as evil people who are not supposed to live among other human beings. They have made life difficult for us because we are being abandoned,” she complained.

“Since the incident occurred, we have been facing so many difficulties, apart from being abandoned, we are not given any support by the society and some of us have been thrown out of the houses we had rented”, lamented Ms Neema Robert.

She further said that they believe that the rumours were purposely set off because there was no evidence which could prove that the incident really happened.

One week ago it was reported that a beggar at Salender Bridge asked for money from a woman who was in a car and after she gave him money her hands grew hairs like a cat and could not drive her car.

It was further alleged that the beggar asked the woman to step out of his car and kiss him so that her hand could return to normal but immediately after the woman fulfilled what she was asked to do, she and the beggar disappeared into thin air.

Ms Neema Robert urged the people not to believe the story and instead they should accept beggars and people with disabilities who ask for alms and treat them just like human beings.

“We are human beings just like anyone else. I believe if such a thing happened to well-to do person, it could not affect them the way it has affected us,” she said.

From the Daily News, Tanzania, 23rd February 2010
See also the comment piece on this news story in The East African, 1st March 2010

Whittlesea Straw Bear

2010-02-23T16:18:00.001Z

Straw Bear Festival, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire.
The festival is held every January.

A glimpse of your own corpse

2010-02-07T21:09:00.003Z

Carry a candle into every corner of the house, then look into the mirror in the candlelight. You will see what you will look like when you are dead.

Collected from a young Spanish man, recollected from his childhood in Barcelona (2.2.10)

The Maenads come to school

2010-01-30T16:30:00.000Z

"Seeing your item regarding warning notices for ceiling fans reminded me of a time some years ago when my children came home from high school saying a teacher had been decapitated by a ceiling fan. As I knew the teacher in question I thought I'd better call and see if his head was still attached. He was still alive, but he'd had to go to hospital for stitches - obviously he didn't read those directions as he stood on a chair to open a window, not noticing the fan. His blood was sprayed and he received a nasty cut, but the way rumours work it became a decapitation. By the next day the story ran that he was still speaking as his head rolled across the classroom floor."

Full story at Column 8, 25th January 2010.

Dogon funeral dance

2010-01-27T12:59:00.002Z

Bingo calls

2009-12-27T18:41:00.000Z

The set of bingo calls below has been taken from the Let's Go Bingo website. Endless variations exist in bingo halls across the UK, and the calls are constantly changing and being updated. For further examples, see e.g. Charnwood Catalogue, Bingo-UK, Bingo Mad, or Bingo Lingo, or just google the phrase "bingo calls" – or best of all get yourself down to your local bingo hall.

1. Kelly's Eye
2. One Little Duck
3. Cup of tea
4. Knock at the Door
5. Man Alive
6. Tom Nix
7. God's in Heaven
8. Garden Gate
9. Doctor's Orders
10. Gordon's Den
11. Legs Eleven
12. One Dozen
13. Unlucky for Some
14. Valentines Day
15. Young and keen
16. Sweet Sixteen
17. Dancing Queen
18. Coming of Age
19. Goodbye Teens
20. One Score
21. Key of the Door
22. Two Little Ducks
23. Thee and Me
24. Two dozen
25. Duck and Dive
26. Pick and Mix
27. Gateway to Heaven
28. Over Weight
29. Rise and Shine
30. Burlington Bertie
31. Get up and Run
32. Buckle my Shoe
33. Dirty
34. Ask for More
35. Jump and Jive
36. Three Dozen
37. A Flea in Heaven
38. Christmas Cake
39. Those Famous Steps
40. Naughty Forty
41. Time for Fun
42. Winnie the Pooh
43. Down on your Knees
44. Droopy Drawers
45. Halfway There
46. Up to Tricks
47. Four and Seven
48. Four Dozen
49. P.C. Copper
50. Half a Century
51. Tweak of the Thumb
52. Danny La Rue
53. Stuck in the Tree
54. Clean the Floor
55. Snakes Alive
56. Was she worth it?
57. Heinz Varieties
58. Make them Wait
59. Brighton Line
60. Five Dozen
61. Bakers Bun
62. Turn on the Screw
63. Tickle Me
64. Red Raw
65. Old Age Pension
66. Clickety Click
67. Made in Heaven
68. Saving Grace
69. Meal for Two
70. Three Score and Ten
71. Bang on the Drum
72. Six Dozen
73. Queen Bee
74. Candy Store
75. Strive and Strive
76. Was She Worth It
77. All the Sevens
78. Heavens Gate
79. One More Time
80. Eight and Blank
81. Stop and Run
82. Straight on Through
83. Time for Tea
84. Seven Dozen
85. Staying Alive
86. Between the Sticks
87. Torquay in Devon
88. Two fat ladies
89. Nearly there
90. Top of the Shop

Tommy on the Tubs

2009-11-30T20:36:00.003Z

Passing through Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in May, 1894, some children asked me to give some money for the grave of Tommy on the Tubs. The grave was a design worked in grass upon the pavement. I asked the meaning of it, the children only smiled; I asked who was Tommy on the Tubs, and they said he was a man who used to work in the Covent Garden Market, and was drowned on the Embankment.

Recorded by John Philipps Emslie, published in Folklore, 26.2 (1915)

Cannibal beast on the rampage in South Africa

2009-11-02T12:44:00.005Z

'Cannibals' rumour sparks fear in Durbs

Hundreds of concerned Phoenix, Verulam and Inanda residents were conned this week by a hoax e-mail and reports of a "black magic cannibal".

News of a "half-human, half-animal thing" circulated in schools, shops and businesses after hundreds of people descended on the Amaoti police station in Inanda last Sunday to enquire about two alleged cannibals.

SAPS spokesman Vincent Mdunge said concerned community members stormed the police station. He was not sure where they had heard that police had arrested cannibals.

Among the variations of the urban legend is that a truck containing the cannibals was hijacked and they "ate the driver, a few children, including one from Brookdale".

The e-mail also contained a photograph of the supposed cannibals preparing to eat a victim.

A local security company spokesman, Prem Balram, said the company had been "inundated with calls from residents who were afraid of being eaten".

"We've received an average of 30 calls a day. We have also been fielding about 30 e-mail queries a day since Sunday regarding the cannibals. Our callouts have increased drastically owing directly to the story in circulation."

Balram said he believed that the rumours had been fuelled by the discovery of four bodies in the north Durban area over the past two months.

One of the four was found in Dawncrest, Phoenix, in August with no internal organs. Another mutilated body was found soon afterwards in the same vicinity.

A third badly burned body was found last Wednesday near the new La Mercy airport, and the fourth body was found in a swampy area in Verulam.

In China, four men were arrested by police in August for circulating a bizarre hoax e-mail claiming that cannibals were responsible for the disappearance of 10 people.

According to international media reports, the bloggers faked photos showing the cannibals preparing to eat a human body. It is believed the same picture was used in the local e-mail.

Times Live, 24th October 2009
See also report in The Witness on the same date

La Tarasque

2009-10-26T19:22:00.001Z

La Tarasque was a local dragon, 'part land animal and part fish', in Tarascon, Provence. The wood and canvas representation was carried by 5 men, and accompanied by an escort of 'Tarascaires' in cocked hats, sashes, and knee breeches, during processions on Whit Monday and St Martha's Day. Local legend has it that St Martha defeated this dragon when she arrived in Tarascon, but La Tarasque is a proud and living mascot and emblem. This picture dates from the 1920s.

Chako Paul City

2009-10-13T11:39:00.003+01:00

Chinese media tempted by fantasy of women-only Swedish town

The town, supposedly founded in 1820 in the northern Swedish woods by a wealthy widow, boasts 25,000 residents and a medieval castle, according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua.

A pair of blonde female sentries stand guard at the unnamed town, referred to in reports as "Shakebao" or “Chako Paul City”, and men wishing to enter risk being “beaten half to death” by police.

In addition, many of the town’s female residents turn to homosexuality “because they could not suppress their sexual needs”, the Chinese news service Harbin News reports. The story also formed the basis of a Shanghai Media Group television report.

But Claes Bertilson, a spokesperson for Sweden’s Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR), is doubtful about the claims made by the Chinese media about Sweden’s supposed “women-only” town.

“I’ve never heard anything about it,” he told The Local.

“At 25,000 residents, the town would be one of the largest in northern Sweden, and I find it hard to believe that you could keep something like that a secret for more than 150 years.”

Bertilson was also at a loss as to where the fictitious account could have originated.

“I have no idea where something like this could have come from,” he said.

Accuracy aside, the Chinese press reports provide a plethora of titillating details about life in the mythical Swedish town.

Most of the town’s all-female population is employed in the forestry industry, with many sporting a “thick waist belt full of woodworking equipment”, according to Xinhua.

And women who decide to leave the town to fulfill their carnal desires are only allowed to re-enter Chako Paul City if they agree to bathe and undertake several other measures designed to ensure that their out-of-town trysts don’t negatively affect the mental state of other women in the town.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Xinhua adds that “Chako Paul's tourism industry is increasingly prosperous”.

“Hotels and restaurants are everywhere, to receive women from around the world,” the agency reports.

Although Per Wilhelmsson of the tourist office in Umeå in northern Sweden said he had never heard of Chako Paul City, he did confirm that tourism in the area is bustling.

“Our tourism industry is doing quite well, among the best in northern Sweden,” he said.

He was fairly certain no “women-only” city existed in northern Sweden, adding that the story reminded him of a stunt carried out in the 1980s by Pajala, a northern Swedish town suffering from a different problem.

“They arranged for bus loads of women to come up to this town because there weren't enough of them,” he explained.

When asked what else might be drawing tourists to northern Sweden besides the chance to visit an isolated town filled with sexually frustrated females, Wilhelmsson had a theory of his own.

“It’s hard to say for sure, but I think part of it might be increased interest following our designation as Europe’s Cultural Capital for 2014,” he said.

The Local, 5th October 2009

La Smorfia

2009-10-07T12:58:00.009+01:00

La Smorfia is an Italian system, originally based in Naples, which assigns numbers to images or experiences encountered in dreams or waking life. The numbers can then be used to play the lottery, or for other divinatory purposes. The system comprises both primary and more elaborate secondary tables, the latter being sold in cheap books on the streets. The data below are from the primary tables. The numbers run up to 90 because that is the highest number played in the Italian lottery.

1: L'ITALIA – Italy
2: 'A PICCERELLA – young girl
3: 'A GATTA – cat
4: 'O PUORCO – pig
5: 'A MANO – hand
6: CHELLA C GUARDA 'NTERRA – that which looks at the ground (i.e. vagina)
7: VASE – vase
8: A' MADONNA – the Virgin Mary
9: 'A FIGLIATA – baby girl
10: 'E FASULE – beans
11: 'E SURICILLE – the rats
12: 'O SURDATE – the soldier
13: SANT' ANTONIO – Saint Anthony
14: 'O MBRIACO – the drunk
15: 'O GUAGLIONE – boy
16: 'O CULO – the arse
17: 'A DISGRAZZIA – misfortune/shame
18: 'O SANGHE– blood
19: 'A RESATA – laugh
20: 'A FESTA – celebration/dinner/party
21: 'A FEMMENA ANNURA – nude woman
22: 'O PAZZO – madman
23: 'O SCEMO – fool
24: 'E GGUARDIE – police
25: NATALE – Christmas
26: NANINELLA – Little Anna
27: 'O CANTERO – chamber pot
28: 'E ZZIZZE – breasts
29: 'O PATE D'E CCRIATURE – penis
30: LE PALLE D' 'O TENENTE – the lieutenant's balls
31: 'O PADRONE 'E CASA – landlord
32: O CAPITONE – big-head
33: IL'ANNE'E CRISTO – the time of Christ
34: 'A CAPA – head
35: L'AUCELLUZZ – bird
36: E CCASTAGNELLE – castanets
37: 'O MONACO – monk
38: 'E MMAZZATE – blows
39: ' FUNA N'GANNA – at gun-point
40: 'A PAPOSCIA – hernia
41: 'O CURTIELLO – knife
42: IL CAFFE – coffee
43: 'ONNA PERETA 'O BARCONE – woman at balcony
44: 'A CCANCELLE – jail
45: 'O VINO BBUONO – good wine

46: 'E DENARE – money
47: 'O MUORTO – dead man
48: 'O MUORTO CHE PPARLA – dead man talking
49: 'O PIEZZO 'E CARNE – meat
50: 'O PPANE – bread
51: 'O CIARDINO – garden
52: 'A MAMMA – mother
53: 'O VIECCHIO – old man
54: 'O CAPPIELLO – hat
55: 'A MUSECA – music
56: 'A CARUTA – fall
57: 'O SCARTELLATO – hunchback
58: 'O PACCOTTO – bundle
59: 'E PILE – hair
60: SE LAMENTA – complainer
61: 'O CACCIATORE – hunter
62: 'O MUORTO ACCISO – murdered man
63: 'A SPOSA – bride
64: 'A SCIAMMERIA – dress-coat
65: 'O CHIANTO – weeping
66: 'E DDOIE ZETELLE – two "old maids"
67: 'O TOTARO INT'A CHITARRA – squid in a guitar
68: 'A ZUPPA COTTA – soup
69: SOTT'E 'NCOPPA – upside-down
70: 'O PALAZZO – apartment building
71: L'OMMO 'E MERDA – man of shit
72: 'A MARAVIGLIA – astonishment
73: 'O SPITALE – hospital
74: 'A ROTTA – cave
75: PULCINELLA – Mr Punch
76: 'A FUNTANA – fountain
77: 'E RIAVULILLE – the Devil
78: 'A BELLA FIGLIOLA – prostitute
79: 'O MARIUOLO – thief
80: 'A VOCCA – mouth
81: 'E SCIURE – flowers
82: 'A TAVULA 'MBANDITA – a laid table
83: 'O MALE TIEMPO – bad weather
84: 'A CCHIESA – church
85: 'LL ANEME 'O PRIATORIO – souls in Purgatory
86: 'A PUTECA – shop
87: 'E PERUCCHIE – lice
88: 'E CASECAVALLE – cheeses
89: 'A VECCHIA – old woman
90: FEAR

Green grow the rushes-o

2009-09-15T14:50:00.002+01:00

There are different versions of these song lyrics around the internet, but this is the version I remember from my childhood. The obscure words and unexplained symbolism always seemed mysterious and dream-like to me.

I'll sing you one song
Green grow the rushes-o
What is your one song?
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you two songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your two songs?
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you three songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your three songs?
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you four songs
Green grow the rushes-0
What are your four songs?
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you five songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your five songs?
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you six songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your six songs?
Six for the six proud walkers
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you seven songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your seven songs?
Seven for the seven stars in the sky
Six for the six proud walkers
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you eight songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your eight songs?
Eight for the April rainers
Seven for the seven stars in the sky
Six for the six proud walkers
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you nine songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your nine songs?
Nine for the nine bright shiners
Eight for the April rainers
Seven for the seven stars in the sky
Six for the six proud walkers
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you ten songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your ten songs?
Ten for the ten commandments
Nine for the nine bright shiners
Eight for the April rainers
Seven for the seven stars in the sky
Six for the six proud walkers
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you eleven songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your eleven songs?
Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven
Ten for the ten commandments
Nine for the nine bright shiners
Eight for the April rainers
Seven for the seven stars in the sky
Six for the six proud walkers
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

I'll sing you twelve songs
Green grow the rushes-o
What are your twelve songs?
Twelve for the twelve disciples
Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven
Ten for the ten commandments
Nine for the nine bright shiners
Eight for the April rainers
Seven for the seven stars in the sky
Six for the six proud walkers
Five for the symbols at your door
Four for the gospel makers
Three, three the rivals
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Dress them all in corduroys
One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so

Witch human beings turn to animals

2009-08-24T19:08:00.001+01:00

from Ghana
published in Fortean Times no. 252, August 2009

Cypriot love potion

2009-08-17T11:55:00.002+01:00

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Unhappy lovers in Cyprus have been taking so much stone from the tomb of Saint Agapitikos to use in love potions that soon there won't be anything left.

Dust from the grave in the courtyard of the church in the village of Arodes in Paphos district has been used for centuries by the lovelorn, who are supposed to slip it into the drink of their objet d'amour.

But in recent years so many have been filching shards of stone that a quarter of the tomb has disappeared.

Mayor of Arodes Matthaios Stefanou is unclear whether Cypriots' love lives are becoming more troubled.

"A lot of people have said it works," he said. "In the last few years I don't know what's come over people, but they are flocking to the tomb for the stuff.

"Just the other day locals saw some people visiting the tomb, and they were there for a very long time, in the end they walked off with a huge chunk of stone, maybe even half a kilo of it!"

The island's antiquities department has been called in to help. "The only thing we can do is examine the damage and try to prevent any further damage," said Maria Hadjicosti, the acting director. Saint Agapitikos -- whose name means "lover" -- is believed to have served in the German army of the Crusaders before settling as a hermit in the area.

"You're very welcome to come and see the tomb, but please don't go taking any of it with you now," Stefanou said.

Reuters India, 8th August 2009

Herm

2009-08-15T19:14:00.004+01:00

Vårberg, Stockholm, Sunday 26th July 2009

Antlers

2009-07-08T16:20:00.000+01:00

Ventnor, Isle of Wight
10th August 2005

Woman turn's to cat and attack son

2009-07-06T15:06:00.004+01:00

from Ghana
published in Fortean Times no.251, July 2009

(Click on the image to enlarge it and read the expository text)

Hermetic birds

2009-07-01T10:44:00.000+01:00

Graffito, Manor Park, London E12
May 2006

Gleaming one way eyes

2009-06-22T16:11:00.000+01:00

graffiti
Bethnal Green, London E2
14th May 2005

A Vampire Cat

2009-06-20T13:41:00.005+01:00

One of the strangest incidents that has ever fallen under our reportorial observation, transpired at the Virginia hotel in this city last night. Mr. French, a member of the Thorne dramatic troupe, playing an engagement in this city, was the victim. He retired to rest at an early hour last night and soon fell in to a deep slumber. After the lapse of an hour or two he was aroused by a feeling of overpowering oppressiveness and suffocation, and was horrified to find that a huge cat was sitting on his breast and had its head inserted in his mouth sucking away his breath. He found himself in an almost exhausted condition; so much so that he was unable to shake off the vampire fiend attacking him. Struggle as he would, the cat only fastened its claws the deeper in his chest and went on at its horrible feast. His groans and cries of agony, however, fortunately brought some neighboring lodgers to his relief, and he was rescued from his frightful position. Even then they were compelled to turn him out of bed and roll him over and over on the floor before the cat could be made to release its hold and abandon its purpose. Mr. French's face and chest this morning bear frightful evidences of his terrible battle with the monster, and he will probably hereafter make special inquiry at his hotels as to the character of the cats belonging to the establishment.

Chicago Tribune, 2nd July 1876
Clipping available on the Hope Chest blog

True life story

2009-06-15T14:00:00.006+01:00

Ghanaian Christian poster
published in Fortean Times no.250, June 2009

(Click on the image to enlarge it and read the expository text)

The pandits of Manor Park

2009-06-13T16:57:00.001+01:00

Both on High Street North, London E12, this afternoon

More red mercury

2009-06-09T14:00:00.005+01:00

KUWAIT CITY : In an incident which is believed to be the first of its kind in the Gulf region, police have reportedly arrested four men — a Kuwaiti, a Syrian and two Egyptians — for attempting to sell two grams of ‘Red Mercury’, worth $42 million, reports Al-Qabas daily.

The arrest came following information received by police that a Syrian man had smuggled the rare substance into the country.

Investigations conducted by securitymen revealed the Syrian was the boss of the gang and that he smuggled the substance into the country from Syria.

Acting on information police put the Syrian under surveillance and caught him red-handed while making a deal with the Kuwaiti man to sell him the substance for $21 million. He also reportedly agreed to sell the mercury on condition $50,000 was paid in advance to view the rare substance before the transaction was completed.

Police reportedly raided a house in Salwa and arrested the members of the gang and the two grams of the red mercury.

During interrogation the Syrian is said to have admitted to the charge and said the substance was stolen from an Egyptian mummy by his partner in Syria.

The four men have been referred to the concerned authorities.

Red mercury is a substance purportedly used in the creation of nuclear bombs as well as a variety of unrelated weapons systems. The substance is also believed to boost the sexual potency of elderly men.

Arab Times, 2nd June 2009

See also Kuwait Times report on the same day.

Click here for previous reports on red mercury.

Gifted from Birth

2009-06-01T17:38:00.005+01:00

"Professor Sahib" and "Mr Mandiba" both collected on High Street North, London E6, Saturday 30th May
"Prof Sidat", date and place of collection unrecorded

The world's most beautiful joke

2009-06-01T17:25:00.002+01:00

The inflatable boy at the inflatable school is sent to see the inflatable headmaster.

The headmaster tells him, "You've let me down, you've let the school down, and worst of all you've let yourself down."

The Burry Man

2009-05-21T13:25:00.003+01:00

The mask awaiting

The mask possessing

South Queensferry, Scotland, every August

Complete solution to all your problems

2009-05-12T14:29:00.004+01:00

All collected on High Street North, London E6, on Sunday 10th May, from individuals handing them out on the street.

The Good Ship Venus

2009-05-10T18:48:00.003+01:00

'Twas on the good ship Venus,
By Christ you should have seen us,
The figurehead was a whore in bed,
And the mast was the Captain's penis.

CHORUS:
Frigging in the rigging,
Wanking on the planking,
Masturbating on the grating,
There's fuck all else to do.

The Captain's wife was Mabel,
Whenever she was able,
She gave the crew their daily screw,
Upon the galley table,

The cabin boy's name was Kipper,
A cunning little nipper,
He lined his arse with broken glass,
And circumcised the skipper.

The ladies of the nation
Arose in indignation,
They stuffed his bum with chewing gum,
A smart retaliation.

The ship's dog's name was Rover,
We fairly bowled him over,
We ground and ground that faithful hound,
From Singapore to Dover.

The First Mate's name was Hopper,
By Christ, he had a whopper,
Twice round his neck, once round the deck,
And up his arse for a stopper.

The Captain's randy daughter,
She fell into the water,
Delighted squeals revealed that eels,
Had found her sexual quarter.

'Twas on the China Station,
To roars of approbation,
We sunk a junk with a load of spunk,
By mutual masturbation.

The Second Mate's name was Carter,
By God, he was a farter,
When the wind wouldn't blow and the ship wouldn't go,
We'd get Carter the farter to start her.

The cook whose name was Freeman,
He was a dirty demon,
He served the crew with menstrual stew,
And foreskins fried in semen.

The Captain of that lugger,
By Christ, he was a bugger,
He wasn't fit to shovel shit,
From one ship to another.

The Third Mate's name was Wiggun,
By God, he had a big 'un,
We bashed that cock with lump of rock
For frigging in the rigging.

The next Mate's name was Andy,
By God, that man was randy,
We boiled his bum in red-hot rum,
For coming in the brandy.

The Fourth Mate's name was Morgan,
A homosexual Gorgon,
A dozen crow in rows could pose,
Upon his sexual organ,

On the trip to Buenos Aires,
We rogered all the fairies,
We got the syph at Tennerife,
And a dose of clap in the Canaries.

Another cook was O'Malley,
He didn't dilly dally,
He shot his bolt with a hell of a jolt,
And whitewashed half the galley.

The Captain was elated,
The Crew investigated,
The found some sand in his prostate gland,
He had to be castrated.

Another Mate's name was Paul,
He only had one ball,
But with that cracker he'd roll terbaccer,
Around the cabin wall.

The Boatswain's name was Lester,
He was a hymen tester,
Through hymens thick he'd shove his prick
And leave it there to fester.

The engineer was McTavish,
And young girls he did ravish,
His missing tool's at Istanbul,
He was a trifle lavish.

A homo was the Purser,
He couldn't have been worser,
With all the crew he had a screw,
Until they yelled, "Oh, no sir."

'Twas in the Adriatic,
Where the water's almost static,
The rise and fall of arse and ball,
Was almost automatic.

The ship's cat's name was Hippy,
His hole was black and shitty,
But shit or not it had a twat,
The Captain showed no pity.

So now we end this serial,
Through sheer lack of material,
We wish you luck and freedom from
Diseases venereal.

Cry of Marvin 69

2009-05-08T13:51:00.001+01:00

My name is Marvin dale Molamba, I am young boy of 17yrs old. I lost my parents and my only sister to the war in my country which my father Abbas Sula Molamba owned a diamond/gold mine. I am lucky that I was able to flee to this place here in Cote d'Ivoire by the good grace that spared my life.

I am presently staying in a residence lodging apartment here in Cote d'Ivoire. I would like to appeal to you confidentialy to assist me concerning my late father's Fund which he deposited in a financial firm, he has the sum of nine million, two hundred and ten thousand Euro (9.210,000) and some treasure in

vault company here in Cote d'Ivoire. I want to move out from here because of the my wicked stepmother who plotted with the rebels that killed my father and will stop at nothing to hunt my life except if i flee since my father own a diamond/gold mine. So please i want to know you better.

I am willing to offer you 921,000euro for your assistance after the successful transfer of this money for investment; I have plans to do investment in your country, like real estate, industrial production or any other lucrative investment you bring to my notice in your country.

If you are willing to help me please indicate in your next mail and let me know so that I can mail to you. Let me have your private telephone number & address so that i can communicate with you at any time for more details.

Thanks, Marvin dale

E-mail received 29th March 2009

Bows of London

2009-05-06T13:09:00.003+01:00

There were two little sisters a-walking alone
Hey the gay and the grinding
Two little sisters a-walking alone
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And the eldest pushed her sister in
Hey the gay and the grinding
Pushed her sister into the stream
By the bonny bonny bows of London

Oh she pushed her in and she watched her drown
Hey the gay and the grinding
Watched her body floating down
By the bonny bonny bows of London

Oh she floated up and she floated down
Hey the gay and the grinding
Floats till she come to the miller's dam
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And out and come the miller's son
Hey the gay and the grinding
Father dear here swims a swan
By the bonny bonny bows of London

Oh they laid her out on the bank to die
Hey the gay and the grinding
Fool with a fiddle come a-riding by
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And he took some strands of her long yellow hair
Hey the gay and the grinding
Took some strands of her long yellow hair
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And he made some strings from this yellow hair
Hey the gay and the grinding
Made some strings from this yellow hair
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And he made fiddle pegs from her long fingerbone
Hey the gay and the grinding
Made fiddle pegs from her long fingerbone
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And he made a fiddle out of her breastbone
Hey the gay and the grinding
Sound would pierce the heart of a stone
By the bonny bonny bows of London

But the only tune that the fiddle would play
Was Oh the bows of London
The only tune the fiddle would play
Was the bonny bonny bows of London

So the fool's gone away to the king's high hall
Hey the gay and the grinding
There was music dancing and all
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And he laid this fiddle all down on a stone
Hey the gay and the grinding
Played so loud it played all alone
By the bonny bonny bows of London

It sang yonder sits my father the king
Hey the gay and the grinding
Yonder sits my father the king
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And yonder sits my mother the queen
Hey the gay and the grinding
How she'll grieve at my burying
By the bonny bonny bows of London

And yonder she sits my sister Anne
Hey the gay and the grinding
She who drownded me in the stream
By the bonny bonny bows of London

Shamanic Vision

2009-05-02T16:34:00.002+01:00

Hooden Horse

2009-04-30T18:35:00.001+01:00

St Nicholas at Wade Hooden Horse, photographed out of season, 29/3/08, Frittenden

How to catch a murderer

2009-04-21T19:02:00.001+01:00

An English photographer lately took a photograph of the eye of an ox a few hours after death; and on examining the impression through the microscope distinctly perceived depicted on the retina the exact delineation of the stones with which the slaughter-house was paved, being the last object which affected the vision of the animal on bending down its head to receive the fatal blow. The consequence deduced from this somewhat apocryphal story is, that if the eyes of a murdered man be photographed a few hours after death the likeness of the murderer will be found on his retina, that being the last object he can have seen during the death struggle.

West Australian Times, 12th November 1863

How domestic workers can improve their working conditions

2009-04-21T18:49:00.003+01:00

A domestic helper has appeared in court accused of trying to injure her employer by mixing her menstrual blood in a pot of vegetables she was cooking.

Kwun Tong Magistrates' Court heard that Indra Ningsih, 26, admitted to police she had done so in the belief that it would improve her relationship with her employer. She entered no plea yesterday and was remanded in custody until the next hearing on May 13.

Prosecutor Vincent Lee gave a statement to the court in which the Indonesian maid admitted under caution to mixing the blood with the vegetables in the belief that it would make her employer, surnamed Mok, "more amicable and less picky." [...]

Last year, a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced two Asian domestic helpers to four months in prison and 250 lashes each for contaminating the tea of their employer with urine and menstrual blood.

One of them was from Indonesia and the other from the Philippines.

In December 2007, another Indonesian domestic helper in Hong Kong added urine to the drinking water of her employer and his family.

She believed it would make the family treat her better. It was discovered after the family noticed a difference in the taste of the water. The maid was jailed for three months on a charge of "administering poison or other destructive or noxious things with intent to injure."

In some Southeast Asian cultures menstrual blood is thought to have special magical powers.

The Standard (Hong Kong), 16th April 2009

Red mercury

2009-04-21T18:35:00.003+01:00

JEDDAH: The feverish search for Singer sewing machines driven by a superstitious notion that they possessed mysterious powers to fulfill every human wish has lost its tempo as the common man is slowly realizing that it is another ploy to dupe the naive public, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Nobody has yet been arrested on the charge of launching the hoax claiming that red mercury inside the machines can capture a wish-granting genii and convert its owner to an Aladdin with the Magic Lamp, a fantasy almost every child in the Middle East knows.

However, it is yet a mystery how the sewing machine has been elevated to the status of the magic lamp.

Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Al-Turki described the rumors “as false and deceptive” in a recent statement.

Following the rumor, the price of a Singer machine reportedly catapulted last week.

“There is no such thing as red mercury except in the world of superstition and magic,” said Khaled Kamakhi, former rector of the Institute of Research and Consultancy at Taiba University in Madinah.

According to rumors going around on the Internet, a sewing machine can be proved to contain red mercury if a phone signal cuts off when held close by. Buyers from street stalls were using their mobile phones to test the machines, Al-Watan newspaper reported yesterday.

Commenting on the rumor Kamakhi said, a strong static electricity field could be the cause of disruption in the mobile line.

According to conspiracy theorists, red mercury was developed by Soviet scientists in the 1980s, but its existence has since been covered up by US military because of its potential use as a weapon of mass destruction.

Ahmad Bushaala, a teacher of inorganic chemistry at Taiba University, said the rumors about red mercury were circulated by Russian scientists in the early 1980s after developing a smart nuclear bomb that could kill people without harming the buildings and streets.

According to an article in the Russian newspaper Pravda in 1993, red mercury was a superconductive material used for producing high-precision conventional and nuclear explosives.

It was also reported that Russian businessmen offered red mercury for sale throughout Europe and the Middle East and found many buyers who would pay almost anything for the substance even though they had no idea what it was all about.

The tendency of easily being carried away by rumors has been lampooned by messages appearing on mobile phones and websites, such as “I adore you more than red mercury” or “I love you more than an old Singer machine.” Another message suggested the name Singer for a new baby.

"Source of Singer hoax remains a mystery", Arab News 17th April 2009

Other reports in the press this week:

Sewing machine frenzy in red mercury hoax

Saudi Arabia gripped by "red mercury" hoax

Man cuts losses in Singer scam

Paying the price for red mercury mania

"Red mercury" rumors gain ground

The breeding-ground

2009-04-07T15:25:00.002+01:00

A young girl ate frog-spawn while on a visit to the sea-side, and an octopus has grown inside her. Its 'fangs' (tentacles) have spread into every part of her body, and one is wrapped round her heart: if it gives a pull 'her heart will come away' ... They have taken the girl to Kingston Infirmary, but they can't do anything for her; and now they're just waiting for the King's consent to smother her.

Folklore, April 1926

Fainites

2009-03-30T23:00:00.004+01:00

Were-dog

2009-03-13T18:25:00.002Z

Washington DC, June 2007

A Greek calendar custom

2009-03-10T12:45:00.008Z

On Friday 27/2, pupils from the state schools of Philothei and Palaeo Psichico, Athens richest suburbs, attacked the exclusive private school "Athens College", cradle of the country's ruling class, under the pretext of the traditional orange war between local schools at the end of the Carnival. The pupils broke the back entrance of the school smashed the guard post spraying anarchist slogans and signs on the walls. Then they fired firecrackers and piled school buses with oranges. In their effort to storm the main building they were confronted by strong police forces. The cops attacked the pupils and arrested a 13 year old boy and a 12 year old girl who was dragged on the ground. The police had to release them both when the pupils counterattacked surrounding the officers with the help of teaching staff who accused them of brutality.

Source

Sister Winchester

2009-03-06T14:12:00.002Z

Found in East London, February 2008

Big Rock Candy Mountain

2009-03-03T16:01:00.000Z

One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains