Blind (accurate) Commentator

 A blind cricket commentator in Zimbabwe manages to judge the power and direction of a shot – and rarely makes mistakes
When the ball hits the bat, the radio announcer exclaims that it's sailing far. Dean Du Plessis' acute sense of hearing and his eavesdropping on other commentators helps him overcome the fact that he is blind, producing a delivery so polished that most listeners are unaware that he can't see.

Mr Du Plessis hears the power and direction of the hit. He listens to the speed and spin of the ball, along with the players' exertions and their cries of elation or frustration. He senses the excitement – or otherwise – of the play on the cricket field and collates the scores with a computer-like memory.
In the media area at Harare's Country Club sports field, other journalists see the ball soar skyward after a sharp crack on the bat.
"That's a big one. It's gone for six," said the 33-year-old Mr Du Plessis, his opaque eyes gazing into the distance. It has, flying way out of the field.
Team members and spectators murmur applause as the often sedate game of cricket goes on. In a fast-moving sport like football, Mr De Plessis' feat would likely be impossible. He asks a friend to confirm the score on the board and feeds the latest to state radio.

PlanetSolar

World's biggest solar powered boat sets sail. This sleek catamaran-styled yacht, named the PlanetSolar, measures 102 feet long, almost 50 feet wide and 24-1/2 feet high (31 meters by 15 meters by 7.5 meters), but its most interesting feature is that it’s covered with 5,382 sq ft (500 sq m) of solar panels that gather sunlight and help it sail the sea nice and smooth.
Built by Knierim Yachtbau and designed by PlanetSolar SA of Switzerland, the world’s largest solar boat has a futuristic shape that gets the eye. The vessel has been unveiled for the first time during a press event held at the HDW shipyard in Kiel.

A council in Britain has banned its staff from cracking mother-in-law jokes. Such humor is no longer acceptable, according to officials at the London Borough of Barnet. Daily Telegraph reported Monday that the order was issued in a 12-page booklet called "Cultural awareness: General Problems". "Humor can be incredibly culture-specific, and is very open to misinterpretation or even offense by other cultures. And don't forget when you don't know what people are laughing at, it is very easy to imagine that they are laughing at you.

After rescuing stranded people in mountains and hilly terrain and guiding the blind, dogs are now being used in German schools to boost performance in the classroom. Despite a grainy, gray September morning, the mood is upbeat in a class in Karlsruhe in Germany: and that's largely because Paula, a six year-old Golden Retriever, is here. Some parents were skeptical at the start, said teacher Bettina Brecht who has been bringing her dog to the classroom the past five years. Dogs are being brought into schools since the end of the 1990s and there are about 120 institutions welcoming canines.

Revenge Of The Garbage

Bin-men took their revenge on a driver who had blocked their way by stacking dozens of empty bins round the car.The incident was caught on camera and the footage is now a Youtube Hit.

The 62-second clip shows three men, each of them wearing a high-visibility jacket, dragging bins into the alleyway beside Stephenson Street, Horwich, near Bolton, Greater Manchester.

An accompanying narrative reads: “This shows Horwich Bin Men getting their own back on a car owner who has obstructed a back alley with their car.
“The bin men usually drive their van through this back alley to the next street and they are a bit annoyed they have to drive round via Chorley New Road, which is very busy.”
One local refuse collector claimed to be unaware of the incident but said: “These things do go on, but it is just a big of harmless fun.
“It can be frustrating when cars block the wagons, but the lads will have made sure they didn’t damage the vehicle in question”.
Officials at Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council believe the footage is at least four years old. They said they took such incidents “very seriously”.

Suspended Animation

Chinese artist Li Wei creates images of himself and his friends being thrown off buildings, dangling from bridges and hanging off cars, all in the name of art. Li's photos can take up to six months to set up and involve huge crews organizing props such as smoke, mirrors, wires and cranes. After the photographs are taken the father of one removes traces of the wires with a computer. Li, from Beijing, said: "One of the most difficult and expensive shots was where myself and 12 people were flying behind a car and we had to use a lot of cranes to keep us all suspended" "The images can involve me getting battered around a bit - most times I will pick up an injury from the stunt wires, one time I got my head stuck in a pane of smashed glass"
One of Li Wei's images is shown and it was taken with the help of cranes holding the people in position. 

Cinematic Compensation

A Chinese woman is suing a cinema and a film's distributors for wasting her time by showing 20 minutes of adverts before it started, according to state media.

Chen Xiaomei claims the Polybona International Cinema in the northern city of Xian and film distributors Huayi Brothers Media Corporation should have told her how long the advertisements for the film Aftershock lasted, Xinhua news agency said.

Ms Chen, who is a lawyer, has accused Polybona and Huayi Brothers of wasting her time and violating her freedom of choice.
The case has been accepted by the People's Court in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, Xinhua said, citing a statement from the court.
Ms Chen is demanding the companies refund her 35-yuan ticket (£3.30), pay her 35 yuan in compensation and one yuan (10p) for emotional damages and write her an apology, the report said.
She has also advised the cinema to publish the advertisement times on its website, in the lobby or on its customer hotline and asked Huayi Brothers to cut the length of commercials to less than five minutes.

Candid Bomb

An Iraqi prank television show has taken the 'candid camera' format to a new level after planting fake bombs under celebrities' cars.The programme, “Put Him In Bucca”, also threatens high-profile contests with jail in a maximum-security prison despite their protests of innocence.
The show, broadcast on the Al-Baghdadia Network , targets famous Iraqi singers, comedians and artists. 
It is named after the US military’s Camp Bucca high security prison that held thousands of Iraqi detainees before being closed in 2009.
Participants are invited to the station’s studios for an interview but as they arrive are subjected to a checkpoint complete actors posing as police and security personnel.
As they wait outside the building a fake improvised explosive device (IED) is then planted in the car before they are accused of being suicide bombers and threatened with prison.
But the programme has attracted criticism as being in bad taste, in a country where suicide bombings remain frequent.
The show has continued to be broadcast throughout the fasting month of Ramadan despite numerous protests being held objecting to its making fun of a serious issue.
Despite celebrities later giving permission for the show to air, some appeared to be have been shocked by the experience.
"I expected it to be a candid camera show but didn't expect all the army facilities and this level of acting," said actress Asia Kamal, who was targeted by the pranksters.

Sandwich Misslies

Lawyers, reporters and visitors have been banned from taking sandwiches into a court building to prevent them being used as missiles.Bottles of water and crisps are also prohibited at High Wycombe Magistrates' Court, in England, because they pose a "health and safety hazard." 

Visitors to all courts around the country are searched by security staff for knives and weapons as they enter. 
But staff at the court in High Wycombe have also been told to seize packed lunches.
Grieving families attending inquests into the deaths of loved ones were even told they could not bring in bottled water.
An official at the court said: "The concern is that people are going to use their food as a missile and fling it down the stairs at people.
"Apparently there have been incidents of lunches being thrown around in the past - so we have had to introduce these rules for everyone regardless of who they are or why they are here."

Ghostly Reality

A man searching for a legendary “ghost train” was killed when a real locomotive came down the tracks and hit him.Christopher Kaiser, 29, had gathered with around 12 others on the anniversary of a crash that happened near Statesville, North Carolina at 3am on Aug 27, 1891.
The crash 119 years ago saw seven carriages fall off a rail bridge into a ravine and 30 people died. 

According to local legend the sounds of the accident, including the whistle of the train and the screams of passengers, can be heard again on the anniversary and each year people go to listen. On the centenary of the crash in 1991 more than 150 people turned up.
Mr Kaiser was waiting on a trestle at 2.45am when the real train, which consisted of three locomotives, came round a bend.
The ghost hunters began running back along the trestle and most of them made it the 150ft to safety.
According to witnesses Mr Kaiser pushed a woman with him to safety.
She fell at least 30ft from the trestle and was being treated for injuries. Another person was also injured.
A police spokesman said: “During the investigation, witnesses told deputies they were at the site in hopes of seeing a 'ghost train.’ “Twelve people, who were amateur ghost hunters, were caught on the trestle when the train rounded the bend. All indications at this point are this is an accident.”

Dangerous Spider

A man suffered flash burns after he accidentally blew himself up trying to kill a spider.

The 28 year-old suffered severe burns after attacking the arachnid with an aerosol can at his home in Clacton in Essex.

The man was summoned by his wife to deal with a spider she had seen scuttling behind the lavatory on Monday. Not being able to reach it, the man decided to kill it by spraying it with the can. 
However he was unable to see whether it was dead because the bulb in the bathroom light had blown. At this point he turned to a cigarette lighter to illuminate the room, but in the process ignited the gas fumes and caused an explosion.
The blast was so strong it blew the man off his feet and lifted the loft door off its hinges.
He suffered flash burns to his head, legs and torso and was rushed by ambulance to hospital after dousing himself in cold water.

Fat Solution

The Japan Sumo Association is distributing about 60 iPads among all the 51 training stables and top association officials from this week to help improve communication.

"It seems rather easy to use," association chief Hanaregoma. "Sending emails was very easy." 

The 62-year-old former wrestler admitted that while he can read incoming text messages on his mobile phone, he does not know how to write replies and does not usually use a computer.
But "time flies if you play with this", he said of the Apple gadget.
The iPad was chosen because the sumo association believed the device was big enough to cater to wrestler's fat fingers, unlike the smaller keys on mobile phones, according to reports.
Sumo officials decided to go digital and buy iPads as the ancient sport attempts to mend its ways after scandals over wrestlers' ties with gangsters and illegal gambling, match-fixing and brutal hazing of apprentices.
The sport's authorities faced loud public criticism for their clumsy efforts to investigate the scandals, in part due to insufficient sharing of information among sumo leaders.
With a reliance on faxes and phone calls, the sumo association has occasionally failed to distribute urgent messages to its officers and stable masters.
"If we place this (iPad) in all the stables, we should be able to contact them anytime," the association's spokesman Nishonoseki has said.

Dancing digger

What started as a trick at a school fete has turned into a festival favourite for farmer Wilf Bown and his dancing JCB digger, as he manoeouvres it at gravity-defying angles to a soaring rock n'roll soundtrack.

"I've driven tractors and diggers for some 40 years and at the weekends I do this for a hobby because I enjoy going to shows, talking to lots of different people and giving people pleasure."

It all started about twenty years ago when Wilf took his JCB along to a summer fete at the school attended by his three young children.
"I pinned a balloon to the floor and the kids tried to burst it using the back bucket" he said.
"Then I tipped it over a bit and lifted it up a bit and they all loved it". A few local shows followed but then in 2004 Wilf was invited to the popular Elvaston Steam Rally in Derby.

Unlucky 13

Friday the 13th is often thought of as an unlucky day - and it lived up to its reputation for one youngster. 

At precisely 13:13, a boy aged 13 was seen by the St John Ambulance team at Lowestoft Seafront Air Festival in Suffolk, England, after he was struck by lightning, a spokesman said.

The boy suffered a minor burn and was taken to James Paget Hospital, where he is expected to make a full recovery.
Jason Gillingham, county ambulance officer and on scene at the show, said: ''This was a very minor burn to the boy's shoulder, but he was conveyed to hospital and is recovering well."
A second teenager and a woman were also struck by lightning but did not need hospital treatment.

 

The Bible, Sumarized

A devout Christian has pledged to spread the word of the Lord - by telling every chapter of the Bible on Twitter.Chris Juby, 30, plans to condense one chapter a day into less than 140 characters - the maximum allowed for a single entry on the website. 

Mr Juby, director of worship at King's Church, Durham City, began with the first chapter of Genesis on Sunday and intends to work his way through all 1,189 chapters. 
His task of truly Biblical proportions will take more than three years to complete, with the last entry due on November 8, 2013. He is working on the twitter account biblesummary
His first entry on Twitter read: "God created the heavens, the earth and everything that lives. He made humankind in his image, and gave them charge over the earth."
Mr Juby said: "It is my normal habit to read a chapter of the Bible each morning and I always read through from Genesis to Revelation.
"As I was coming to the end last time, I thought I needed a way of focussing my mind a little bit more on what I was reading. I thought a summary would be a good way of doing this. I already use Twitter, so I thought I'd share my summaries."
Mr Juby's Twitter Bible follows the publication of versions such as the 100 minute Bible, the SMS text message Bible and the Geordie Bible.

Garden of Poison Arrows

A tropical hallucinogenic plant used to make poisonous Amazonian arrowheads has been found in an English garden. 
Sharon Nowell, 36, thought the green shoots appearing in her parents' garden were the beginnings of a marrow or possibly a common weed at first.

But after a bit of research she soon discovered that the plant – which has grown by four feet in a month – was something far more exotic.
Internet searches showed that the plant was actually a rare datura stramonium – commonly known as the Devil's Trumpet for its distinctive horn-shaped flowers.
The green plant, which resembles a large rhubarb, is more commonly found in hotter climates and has been used by American Indians for centuries in traditional ceremonies.
Despite being highly toxic and potentially lethal if ingested, the seeds in the plant's pods are often used as a mind-bending drug sold as jimson weed on-line for as little as £6.
Experts believe its appearance in the garden in Coventry, West Midlands, originated from the droppings of migrating birds flying from the Atlantic.

 

Wine from Water

Divers have found bottles of champagne some 230 years old on the bottom of the Baltic which a wine expert described on Saturday as tasting “fabulous”.

Thought to be premium brand Veuve Clicquot, the 30 bottles discovered perfectly preserved at a depth of 180 feet could have been in a consignment sent by France’s King Louis XVI to the Russian Imperial Court.

If confirmed, it would be by far the oldest champagne still drinkable in the world, thanks to the ideal conditions of cold and darkness. “We have contacted (makers) Moet & Chandon and they are 98 per cent certain it is Veuve Clicquot,” Christian Ekstroem, the head of the div

ing team, told AFP. "There is an anchor on the cork and they told me they are the only ones to have used this sign," he added.

The group of seven Swedish divers made their find on July 6 off the Finnish Aaland island, mid-way between Sweden and Finland, near the remains of a sailing vessel.

"Visibility was very bad, hardly a metre," Ekstroem said. "We couldn't find the name of the ship, or the bell, so I brought a bottle up to try to date it." The hand-made bottle bore no label, while the cork was marked Juclar, from its origin in Andorra.

According to records, Veuve Clicquot was first produced in 1772, but the first bottles were laid down for ten years. "So it can't be before 1782, and it can't be after 1788-89, when the French Revolution disrupted production," Ekstroem said.

The 230-year-old bottles of Veuve Clicquot (seen here in modern form) could fetch an auction price of "several million" dollars if proven to be King Louis XVI's wine.

Dog Gone Madness

A New Zealand man is recovering from surgery after being shot in the buttock by his dog.
Police believe the animal stood on the trigger of a .22 bolt-action rifle (pictured) in a freak accident.The dog's 40-year-old owner was getting into the rear seat of a four-wheel drive vehicle with the rifle next to him when the animal jumped in.
He was among a group of four people who had slaughtered a pig at Te Kopuru, 90 miles northwest of Auckland on New Zealand's North Island.
The group told police they had thought the gun, which in fact contained five shells, was unloaded.
Mark Going, a St John Ambulance manager, said paramedics who attended were told the rifle had been fired through the seat, lodging a bullet in the man's left buttock.
The victim, who was in extreme pain, was airlifted by rescue helicopter to Whangarei Hospital where surgeons removed the bullet.
He was in a stable condition in hospital on Tuesday.
The owner has not been named, neither has the breed of dog.
Senior Constable Ian Anderson, of nearby Dargaville, said the victim was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt.

Swallowing Money

A budget-conscious council in Austria has requested that swimmers stop swallowing water in a bid to save money.  
According to a survey carried out by managers at Vienna's 18 public swimming pools bathers are drinking 5,000 litres of chlorinated pool water a day.

Official Martin Kotinsky said: "A lot of water gets taken out in the material every time a swimmer uses the pool and it has to be replaced."

He pointed out that, as well as replacing water, authorities had to spend £20 on chlorine - £1.11 per pool.
The council is also targeting people who wear Bermuda shorts to go bathing.
Tests revealed that the average wearer takes 2.5 litres of water with them trapped in their swimwear every time they get out of the pool.
Mr Kotinsky said: "A lot of water gets taken out in the material every time a swimmer climbs in and out. That means that for every 1,000 visits to the pool we lose 2,500 litres of water."
Complaints about shrinking pools come amid heatwave in Austria that has boosted the number of swimmers.

Irish Penguin

A penguin was found waddling the streets of Dublin after a gang of pranksters stole her from the city's zoo.
Ten-year-old Kelli was said to be distressed by her kidnap ordeal after three men climbed perimeter fences and snatched her from her mate Mick. Furious zookeepers condemned those responsible, saying that the delicate birds could have died from the trauma. 
Eddie O'Brien, team leader in the zoo's east section, said the penguin was obviously traumatized when rescued but quickly settled back into her routine.
"These birds get stressed very easily when taken out of their environment. They don't react well to and it and it could have caused a heart attack," he said.
Gardai said three men broke into the Phoenix Park zoo at about 8am on Thursday and climbed into the enclosure.
The thieves snatched the Humboldt – native to parts of South America, including Chile – stuffed it in a sports bag, hailed a taxi outside the zoo and fled.
Gardai believe they told the taxi driver they had a rabbit in the holdall.