From DIY submarines to diets of 20,000 calories... Here's this week’s collection of weird, true and funny news.
1) This man is a true champion of beards
The World Beard and Moustache Championships just ended place in Portland, Oregon, - and as a result, we now know who officially has the greatest beard in the world.
And it is... Grand Prize winner Madison Rowley, who himself hails from Portland, and sports this incredible facial hair. Rowley beat 300 other contestants to win the award.
2) The woman with a 16-inch waist
Most women dream of an hourglass figure - but for Kelly Lee Dekay sculpting her waist has become an obsession. Inspired by her favourite comic book characters, Kelly, a fetish model, has shrunk her waist to a minuscule 16 inches using a steel boned tight-laced corset.
The 27-year-old, from New York, started ‘waist training’ seven years ago after being inspired by the extreme shapes of voluptuous Jessica Rabbit and Marvel super-heroine ‘Storm’. Growing up, Kelly was a tomboy, and says that corset training has helped her to overcome childhood shyness.
3) Farmer builds himself a submarine
A Chinese farmer has achieved his lifetime’s ambition of building himself a fully working submarine. Tan Yong, 44, from the city of Danjiangkou in Hubei province, always wanted to see what life looked like underwater with his own eyes. Welding sheets of scrap metal together and using bits and pieces from old cars, Tan put together the DIY sub in five months and called it the 'Xiyangyang'.
After a failed debut in August this year, he was forced to go back to the drawing table. But he fixed navigation and lighting problems and has finally given the one tonne sub its maiden voyage in nearby NV’er Lake where it dived to a depth of 10 metres.
4) You can now buy an Ebola plush toy
An Ebola cuddly toy has sold out at an online store despite the World Health Organisation declaring the killer outbreak a public health emergency. US toy company Giant Microbes specialises in cute versions of killer bugs -- and retails the Ebola toy at $29.95 in the US.
The UK branch of the company, based in Devon said they no longer have a “single one” of the toys left - adding they believe students are snapping up most of them.
5) Man puts up his unlucky-in-love sister for sale online
Unlucky-in-love Sammy Maalem has been put up for ‘sale’ on eBay -- in a bid to find her a steady boyfriend. Sammy, 27, who has been single for a year has been dumped, messed around and even cheated on so her brother Kyle, 28, decided to get involved to find her the perfect man. Now she is being marketed on the internet auction site under the heading: ‘Date my sister 27’ - with a starting bid of £50.
6) Japanese firm offers women solo weddings
Do you dream of having a white wedding, but despair at the lack of a man in your life to share the big day with? You’re not alone - a new trend is cropping up in the Far East for solo weddings.
As women become financially independent, they are putting off settling down with partners until later on in life.
But they still want the all-about-me no-expense-spared party that comes with getting hitched, without actually having to tie the knot. Travel company Cera Travel in Kyoto, a city in southern Japan, has started a new service called ‘Solo Wedding’.
It lets single women enjoy all the fun and glamour of the day, including spending the honeymoon night in a fancy hotel. The two-day trip sees the clients get dress fittings, choose their own bouquets, get their hair and make-up done and even choose a man to accompany them for a photo shoot.
7) Hungry kya! Man chomps 20,000-calories daily
“My body is a machine. It’s a vessel for work. If you want your car to run well, you put good fuel in it. Same with your body.”
Those are the wise words of American strongman Robert Oberst, the 2.03 m, 180 kg mountain who is no stranger to $450 (Rs 27,000) weekly grocery bills — just to feed himself. “I have six meals a day. If I don’t eat enough, I get shaky, I get headaches,” Oberst said.
Across those six meals a day, Oberst consumes 15,000 to 20,000 calories — at least five times the recommended daily intake for Australian males. He eats directly before going to the gym because it enables him to workout harder for longer.
Oberst’s diet consists of largely of eggs, meat, pasta and rice. For breakfast, he’ll eat 8-10 eggs and then snack on whole boiled eggs throughout the day. For lunch, he’ll often have two large steaks. Dinner is a pasta meal, which also includes meat.
And in between it’s more meat and more eggs, plus he finds room for six cups of rice.
8) Man arrested for ‘mopping floor’
Police in Bristol, Conneticut have apprehended a man who took a cleaner’s mop at a hotel and began “aggressively mopping” the floor despite pleas for him to stop. The incident took place at the Double Tree hotel, when 30-year-old John Thornton spotted a hotel employee doing a bad job of cleaning, police claim. He took it upon himself to grab the cleaner’s mop and started “becoming aggressive”, it is alleged.
9) Lovelorn Chinese woman lived at KFC for a week
A woman getting over a breakup in China nursed her broken heart by spending a week eating chicken and sleeping at a 24-hour KFC near her home. Tan Shen, 26, of Chengdu, said she decided to stop into the KFC at the train station near her home shortly after she and her boyfriend broke up and she ended up staying at the fast food restaurant for a week.
Tan said she decided to end her weeklong stay at the eatery and catch the next train toward her parents’ house when she started attracting attention from local media.
“And I was getting sick of the taste of chicken so there was no point in staying there anymore,” she said.
10) Selfies ‘give you head lice’, warn Russian authorities
Young people should stop taking selfies together in order to avoid catching head lice, a Russian government agency has advised.
Selfies, in which several people often cram together to get into an arms-length photo, allows lice to jump from one head to another, said Rospotrebnadzor, a government body which advises on well-being.
While they are not the first group to suggest that selfies cause the spread of head lice, Rospotrebnadzor has a reputation for making controversial suggestions.
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