Today's Metro paper has
shown me what a strange place the world can be. It's not just the
things people do, it's the way we talk about them afterwards that
make me laugh. And yes, I know this basically means I'm laughing at
people's sufferings or tragic mistakes, but sometimes you have to
laugh; otherwise you might take life seriously and get very
depressed, very quick. Besides, all laughter is about suffering to
some extent, isn't it?
Here, in no particular
order, are a few of my highlights from today's news.
# An Israeli newspaper,
for very Orthodox Jews, has printed a report on the Unity rally held
in Paris. Loads of world leaders, linking arms to demonstrate their
solidarity with victims of last week's terror attacks – including,
of course, several French Jews deliberately targeted for being
Jewish. The rally has been widely-reported, along with variations of
photos of world leaders clunking awkwardly down the street,
arm-in-arm. It looks a bit like how I imagine Last Orders at the
United Nations Saloon Bar.
But when this Orthodox
Jewish paper printed the picture, something was missing; they
airbrushed all the women out. So, President Hollande (France) and
President Abbas (Palestine) look pretty cosy, because they've been
squeezed together to cover up the absence of Chancellor Merkel
(Germany). The paper's reasoning? Not, as we might suspect, their
belief that woman have no space in public life, but reasons of
'modesty'.
These women, trust me,
were hardly caught accidentally posing in their underwear, or
stretched across the bonnet of a convertible with
strategically-placed soap suds. Merkel was very much wearing a coat.
Mayor Hidalgo (Paris) was tucked away inside a long coat and a scarf,
with her hands in gloves. So it can only have been their exposed
faces that Orthodox Jews might find offensive...now, I know Merkel's
not aged well, but that's a bit harsh.
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| Helpful highlighting of the new intimacies between leaders - notice Mali's President Keita trying to keep Hollande and Prime Minister Netanyahu from running away... |
# A father has been sent
down for four years after mixing up his son's lunchbox with his own
drug-dealer's kit. Yep, sent the kid to nursery with a set of scales,
two knives, a spoon and a tupperware box of cocaine and mephedrone.
We've all been there. I bet lunchtime must have been a blast.
My favourite part is
that the father, having realised the mistake (imagine how
disappointed his drug ring must have been with their lunches) turned
up at the nursery, demanding the drug-sack back. Do you remember Tots
TV and their sac magique?
 |
| Tots TV - off their squidgy faces |
But the best story of
the day has to be the cuckolded Chinese wife who cut off her
husband's penis...twice.
The husband sent a
'saucy email' to the woman he was having an affair with, and
obviously thought he was being dead clever by not sending it from his
own phone. Except the other person whose phone he used was, of
course, his wife. And he forgot to log out of his account afterwards.
Unsurprisingly, his wife discovered the email pretty quickly - and
took a pair of scissors into the bedroom, where he was asleep and
naked.
She snips off his penis
and presumably disappears, leaving him to it. He's rushed to
hospital, where hospital staff stitch the member back on – no
comment on how much of it was removed, or how useful it was to him
after the stitching.
The wife, enraged to
hear that her good work has been undone, sneaks into the hospital
with her scissors and, er, snips her snip all over again. This time,
she throws the offending member out of the window before running off.
Her husband – naked, spraying blood everywhere, and presumably in a
bit of pain – chases after her. The Police are called, after
witnesses describe a naked, bloodstained man beating a woman in the
street. So, she's taken back into the hospital as a patient along
with her newly re-mutilated husband. It's not a happy reunion –
especially as she's been charged with GBH.
Metro reports that the
chopped member wasn't found, probably having been 'stolen by a stray
dog or cat'.
Oh, and don't forget
the mistress. She's not worried about her 23-year old married lover
losing his fertility; not when he has five kids already.
Meanwhile, in
Cambodia...
An office boss, keen to
show off his martial arts skills, boasts about his strength, inviting
staff to hit him. He presumably hasn't heard of Houdini, but I bet he
has now. One worker took his request to heart and beat him senseless
with a stick. He was so into it that staff had to pin him down to
'stop him doing real damage' – in Cambodia, you have to do more
than send someone to hospital with concussion to cause 'real damage'.
The guy only got a caution from the Police, possibly helped by the
large number of witnesses claiming the manager had literally been
asking for it. My favourite part is that one co-worker told
reporters: We don't know if he didn't understand the rules or if he
was just fed up.
There's also East 17's
Brian Harvey tidying up after his smash-up protest, and Woody Allen's
TV series, for which he claims to have 'no ideas'. After a quick
browse of Metro's website, I worry that every day might be like this.
