Category: weird

The greatest “order pizza to a stranger’s house” prank in history

Richard

… Occurred nearly 200 years ago, in London. From Wikipedia:

The Berners Street Hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London, in 1810.

On 27 November, at five o’clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to
sweep the chimneys of 54 Berners Street, the home of Mrs Tottenham. The
maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been
requested, and that his services were not required, and the disappointed
tradesman went on his way. A few moments later another sweep presented
himself at the door, then another, and another, 12 in all. After the
last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large
deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers
delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and
priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told
was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over a dozen pianos were among
the next to appear, along with “six stout men bearing an organ”.
Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of the City of London
also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with
disgruntled tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued
until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a
standstill.[1]

Hook had bet his friend Samuel Beazley
that he could transform any house in London into the most talked-about
address in a week. To achieve his goal he had sent out 4,000 letters
purporting to be Mrs Tottenham, requesting deliveries, visitors, and
assistance. Hook had stationed himself in the house directly opposite
54 Berners Street, and he and his friend had spent an amusing day
watching the chaos unfold.[1]

You really can’t top that.

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The world’s smallest skyscraper

Richard

I’m all about the bizarre and the forgotten/off-the-beaten bath, and this lilliputian tower certainly smallestskyscraper.jpgseems to fit that description, although perhaps “1920s urban Americana” might also apply. It seems that during the Texas oil boom of the Roaring Twenties, a traveling con man fooled investors into constructing a 4-story “skyscraper”:

No one noticed that all the plans, promotional literature, etc. had
tiny decimal points in all the crucial figures. i.e. 4.0 stories was
taken as 40 stories. The project was oversubscribed by quite a bit and
the project built to completion, upon which the promoter skipped town.


The investors started trying to sue or arrest him when the swindle
became evident during construction, but were unable to since the
contract was followed to the
letter. They did recover a few dollars from the elevator company (who
refused to honor their contract after they discovered the decimal
points). Unable to get the crook, the investors funded
a team which followed him around the country breaking up any deals he
tried to put together.

You can read more here.

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“Ant mills” – where lost ants go to die

Richard

This is a bizarre, perhaps slightly surreal spectacle – the ant vortex, also known as an ant mill. Apparently, according to Wikipedia,

An ant mill is a phenomenon where a group of army ants separated from the main foraging party lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants will eventually die of exhaustion. This has been reproduced in laboratories and the behaviour has also been produced in ant colony simulations. This phenomenon is a side effect of the self-organizing structure of ant colonies. Each ant follows the ant in front of it, and this will work until something goes wrong and an ant mill forms. An ant mill was first described by William Beebe who observed a mill 1,200 feet (365 m) in circumference. It took each ant 2.5 hours to make one revolution. Similar phenomena have been noted in processionary caterpillars and fish.

Check out footage below:

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Children under four and children with autism don’t yawn contagiously

Richard

Researchers at the University of Connecticut have conducted a study which may yield new clues about that ever-mysterious phenomenon, yawning. From ScienceDaily:

If someone near you yawns, do you yawn, too? About half of adults yawn
after someone else does in a phenomenon called contagious yawning. Now a
new study has found that most children aren’t susceptible to contagious
yawning until they’re about 4 years old — and that children with
autism are less likely to yawn contagiously than others.

“Given that contagious yawning may be a sign of empathy, this study
suggests that empathy — and the mimicry that may underlie it —
develops slowly over the first few years of life, and that children with
ASD may miss subtle cues that tie them emotionally to others,”
according to the researchers. This study may provide guidance for
approaches to working with children with ASD so that they focus more on
such cues.

There seems to be something to this argument. Many animals yawn, but most don’t yawn contagiously – those that do tend to be social mammals like chimpanzees.

You can read more here.

(Did reading this make you yawn? If not, you’ll probably yawn now.)

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Staring badger holds family hostage

Richard

Straight from the Beeb:
badgerscary.jpg

A family in
Worcestershire were trapped inside their house for two hours after a
scary, staring badger left them too frightened to leave.

Dad Michael Youngs tried to scare the badger away by banging a spade on the ground, but it didn’t move.

Mr Youngs told a newspaper: “The badger was very spooky.

“It was the stare that really gave me the creeps,” he added.

This sounds a bit silly, but I think it’s understandable. Badgers are well known for their intimidating stares; this is related, in part, to the etymology of the term “badger” (as in, “to harass or urge persistently; pester; nag”). Note, of course, that common synonyms for “badger” include “vex,” “bedevil,” “plague,” “worry,” “disturb,” and “bait,” all words that this story brings to mind.

You can read the original article in its entirety here. 

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The world’s most unusual dining experience

Richard

If you’re interested in a unique dining experience, look no farther than DinnerInTheSky.com, dinnerinthesky.jpgwhich is more or less exactly what it sounds like: patrons dine on a platform suspended 50 meters (that’s 164 feet, for those of you unfamiliar with the metric system) in the air. For comparison, that’s almost equal to the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa or Niagara Falls (.91 Pisas and .98 Niagaras, too be exact; also, incidentally, the exact length of an Olympic-sized swimming pool).

According to the website,

Dinner in the Sky is available for a session of 8 hours. It can be divided or personalised according to the client’s wishes.

Dinner in the Sky accomodates 22 people
around the table at every session with three staff in the middle (chef,
waiter, entertainer…). Just to give you an example: this means that, at a
rate of 2 sessions per hour, more than 350 people could have access to
this exceptional platform, or only 22 if you want an exclusive VIP
event.

Dinner in the Sky is an event that can be
held anywhere (golf course, public place, race track, castle, vineyard,
historical site…) as long as there is a surface of approximately 500 m²
that can be secured. Of course, authorisation by the owner is required.

Of course, it’s pricey – $289.00 per person in the United States. Other services offered include “Meeting in the Sky,” “Showbiz in the Sky,” and – my favorite – “Wedding in the Sky.”

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Dining with Hitler, in Asia.

Richard

This is certainly a strange trend. Apparently, Hitler-themed bars and restaurants are a thing in parts of Asia. See: the following article (which was helpfully found by Pamela and forwarded to me by Olivia).

Adolf Hitler? In most western countries he is viewed as history’s
most evil man, and almost all are aware of the horrific genocide he was
responsible for, with many having had family fight and/or die in the war
against Nazi Germany.

However, in Asia, Hitler is a far more distant figure. This distance
might be an explanation for the bizarre case of Hitler restaurants and
bars that can be found throughout Asia.

Here are some photos of these strange Hitler-themed
establishments:

hitl2.jpghitl1.jpg

You can view more here.

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British grandmother takes the European nightclub scene by storm

Richard

This just came in over the Atlantic wires via ABC News (and was helpfully spotted by Olivia):

Ruth Flowers is certainly not your typical grandmother. At 69, Flowers is a real phenomenon and the latest sensation on the European nightclub scene.

69-year-old Ruth Flowers is a big deal on the European nightclub scene.


Wearing large black sunglasses (a fashion statement, there is nothing
wrong with her eyesight), flashy clothes, bling jewelry, fake
diamond-incrusted DJ headphones on her white hair, the British granny
makes crowds go wild, spinning records behind the decks of the most prestigious nightclubs in Paris, Cannes and other European cities.

DJ Ruth Flowers, a.k.a Mamy Rock, began her new career when, four years ago, she attended her grandson’s birthday party. “Kids don’t play games anymore. They have discos after they eat,” she told ABC News.

You can see some YouTube clips of her below. She does indeed rock.

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Continents of floating garbage

Richard

Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how large of an impact mankind has on the earth – all the garbage.jpgmore so when we’re talking about the ocean.But we do have an effect. Take, for instance, the massive patches of floating garbage that are drifting in the oceans, trapped in ocean conveyors and vortexes (we’re talking hundreds of millions of tons of trash). Via The Daily Galaxy:

Ocean currents have collected massive amounts of garbage into a sort of
plastic “soup” where countless bits of discarded plastic float
intertwined just beneath the surface. Indeed, the human race has really
made its mark. One enormous plastic patch is estimated to weigh over 3
million tons altogether and cover an area roughly twice the size of
Texas.
[…]

The trash collects in this remote area, known as the North Pacific
Gyre, due to a clockwise trade wind that encircles the Pacific Rim.
According to Moore the trash accumulates the same way bubbles clump at
the center of hot tub.

Ian Kiernan, the Australian founder of Clean Up the World, started
his environmental campaign two decades ago after being shocked by the
incredible amount of rubbish he saw on an around-the-world solo yacht
race. He’ll says he’ll never be able the wipe the atrocious site from
his memory.

“It was just filled with things like furniture, fridges, plastic
containers, cigarette lighters, plastic bottles, light globes,
televisions and fishing nets,” Kiernan says. “It’s all so durable it
floats. It’s just a major problem.”

Read more here.

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One island, one hundred million crabs.

Richard

Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. It’s pretty small (52 square miles, or about three-quarters of the size of Washington, D.C.), sparsely populated (it’s home to only 1,402 people), and relatively distant from Australia itself (1,600 miles, or 3,000 kilometers, northwest of the Western Australian City of Perth).

Christmas Island is a very special, interesting place, though (and not just because of its name – which it got because it was discovered on Christmas Day, 1643). Every November, something amazing happens. More than 100 million red crabs migrate to and through Christmas Island to spawn. Words don’t do this phenomenon justice. For the full effect, see the video below:

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