This week’s weird news include over-careful City councils (no hot drinks for grannies), outrageous claims by criminals, a widower selling her husband’s final resting place and someone who is serious about the weather.

Government in action

In June the Peterborough City Council ordered retirees who come together for weekly coffee at the public library to give up hot drinks, in case one accidentally spilled on a child.

In July the Dagenham Pool in Essex, citing (according to the manager) drowning risks, banned swimmers from doing “lengths” and forced them instead to swim “widths.”

In June the Brighton and Hove City Council ordered nature-lover Hilaire Purbrick, 45, out of the cave that has been his residence for 16 years, citing its lack of a “fire exit.”

No way!

In August, Jorge Iglesias petitioned a judge in Madison, Wis., to regain custody of his 66 roosters and hens that police confiscated in a suspected cockfighting raid. Iglesias said he feared that the Dane County Humane Society, temporarily holding the animals, was treating them with “cruel and barbaric” abuse.

Afghan refugee Fridoon Sadiqi filed a lawsuit against Britain’s Home secretary in August after being turned down for political asylum because he had presented a forged passport to enter the U.K. According to Sadiqi, the rejection made him clinically depressed.

Crypt sold

Elsie Poncher decided reluctantly in August to go back on a promise she had made to her late husband. Richard Poncher had purchased a crypt (for himself) just above the one in which the body of Marilyn Monroe rests in a Los Angeles memorial park, but Elsie now needs money and thus offered the crypt for sale in August, planning to move Richard to a less prominent place. Richard had been assured by Elsie that he could spend eternity lying face down “over Marilyn.” [Los Angeles Times, 8-14-09]

People Different From Us

Geography professor Melanie Patton Renfrew, 54, was convicted in Burbank, Calif., in August of violating a judge’s order to stop stalking KNBC-TV weatherman Fritz Coleman. Renfrew had badgered Coleman for two years, via e-mail and telephone calls, about his “error” in terminology, confusing “onshore” winds with “offshore” winds. Coleman, she insisted, needed to apologise. “Offshore” winds blow out to sea; “onshore” winds blow in.

Source: newsoftheweird.com