First up:
I know the American Government is a bit short of cash but:
Smoking makes you bankrupt
A New Hampshire man has said he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over $23 quadrillion (£14 quadrillion).
Josh Muszynski checked his account online a few hours after the purchase and saw the 17-digit number – a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars).
Mr Muszynski told WMUR-TV that he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers – and the $15 overdraft fee.
Now that is a credit limit.
God’s Sneeze
Something big and strange is floating on the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow.
Hunters from Wainwright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It's thick and dark and "gooey" and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough's Planning and Community Services Department.
Brower and other borough officials, joined by the U.S. Coast Guard, flew out to Wainwright to investigate. The agencies found "globs" of the stuff floating miles offshore Friday and collected samples for testing.
Later, Brower said, the North Slope team in a borough helicopter spotted a long strand of the stuff and followed it for about 15 miles, shooting video from the air.
Nobody knows for sure what the gunk is, but Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer says the Coast Guard is sure what it is not.
"It's certainly biological," Hasenauer said. "It's definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter.
"It's definitely, by the smell and the makeup of it, it's some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism."
Meanwhile, the brownish-blackish gunk is drifting along the coast to the northeast, Brower said.
"This stuff is moving with the current," he said. "It's now on beyond Barrow and probably going north at this point. And people are still encountering it out here off Barrow."
As the sub title suggests, I think God has sneezed because he has swine flu.
How many Chips would you need?
Schoolgirl angler Jessica Wanstall netted a record when she hooked this monster fish that was more than twice her size.
The plucky youngster spent 20 minutes fighting the beast and needed a helping hand from dad Mark to heave it out of the water.
Jessica was nearly dragged into the water when the catfish weighing nearly 200lbs took her bait.
At nearly 9ft long and weighing 13.7 stones, the impressive specimen dwarfed 11-year-old Jessica, who stands at 4ft 10ins and weighs 5.7 stones.
She is now broken the record for the biggest freshwater fish caught by a child in Europe.
Jessica, from Sittingbourne, Kent, hooked the fish during a trip to Spain's River Ebro.
That’s what you call a big pussy (fish)
Why DIY?
A German who tried to fix his leaky air mattress blew up his apartment instead, the fire brigade in the western city of Düsseldorf said on Wednesday.
The 45-year-old man used tyre repair solvent to plug a hole in his aired and left it overnight.
But it blew up when he went to inflate it the next day.
"A spark from the electric air pump ignited it," a fire brigade spokesman said.
The blast pushed his living room wall into the building's stairwell and caused extensive damage to walls, windows and furniture.
Fire fighters evacuated the 12-apartment building and a neighbouring housing block while they checked for structural damage.
One born every minute.
And finally:
They are all at it!
The owner of a 17th Century manor house called the police after an upper-class masked ball turned into an orgy.
Halswell House in Somerset was hired for £9,000 by a group of 350 revellers who arrived a fleet of Porsches, BMWs and Aston Martins.
They were all wearing long cloaks and masks and the party continued normally until midnight - when they stripped down to leather pants, corsets and suspenders.
The guests then started kissing and a mass orgy ensued with couples having sex "everywhere".
Halswell House owner Grahame Bond, a multi-millionaire estate agent, was forced to send some of his teenage staff home because of the explicit activities.
He called the police but was told officers were powerless to intervene because it was on a private dwelling between consenting adults.
It later emerged that the party had been organised by a Dutch events company which specialises in sexy 'adults-only' parties.
Mr Bond, 45, who brought the property for £1.94 million in 2004, said the evening suddenly turned into an orgy "as if a switch had been flicked on".
He said: "The party started normally and it all seemed pretty harmless - people were drinking but everyone was very well behaved and pleasant.
"The whole group were dressed in these great costumes and it looked exactly like something out of Eyes Wide Shut.
"But then one of the organisers announced: 'The moment has come. The spell has begun' and everyone began kissing and having sex.
"The guests were all public-school types and I jokingly said to one: 'I suppose you are a High Court judge.' He replied: 'You're not far off the mark'."
The revellers arrived at Halswell House at 9pm on Saturday and partied to music provided by a DJ until the orgy began at midnight.
Well I never saw the advert (I could have watched).
Angus
Angus Dei politico
Angus Dei-NHS-THE OTHER SIDE
