26-year-old Lawrence Edmonds is a man with a taste for religion. In the last 13 months he has traveled 5,000 around England, licking 42 Anglican Cathedrals.

I know what you’re thinking, but Lawrence isn’t mad, at least not officially. This bizarre journey of his is the result of a bet two of his friends made at a pub, one night. Adam challenged Dan to lick every Anglican cathedral in the UK. If he agreed and failed to perform the task, Dan would have to run naked around the York Minster, but if he did do it in time, Adam would have to perform the streak. After talking with Dan and learning he had only licked Exeter Cathedral, he asked Adam if he could take the bet in Dan’s place. His friend accepted so he started traveling around England, taking photos of himself licking various holy cathedrals, and posting them all on a blog. So far he has put his tongue on 42 edifices, but recently discovered he has 20 more to go in order to win the bet.

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Philippa Garfield, from London, England, loves mayonnaise so much she will eat it with pretty much anything, and even wash her hair with it.

We’ve featured some pretty weird addictions here on Oddity Central, from the guy addicted to sausages, to the woman who loved drinking her own urine, but Philippa Garfield takes things to a whole other level. While mayo might not be the strangest thing a person can become addicted to, it’s the way she uses it that makes her story really bizarre. Although she loves eating mayo and pours it over anything she eats, and even in her morning coffee, Philippa also uses the fatty condiment as a cheap moisturizer and conditioner for her hair. She also sees it as the perfect alternative to shaving cream.

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UK-based restaurant Housebites decided to help people who can’t cook but want to impress their guests by offering them the dirty dishes alongside the food, so they can be more convincing.

Not everyone likes to cook, but lost of people love to pretend they can cook, so British takeaway restaurant Housebites, decided to give them a hand by launching the “pretend you can cook” service. According to the official press release, this ” allows customers to pretend they have slaved away at a hot stove more convincingly by delivering dirty pans alongside the food. Cooked by a professional chef and delivered to your door, Housebites main courses cost on average between £10($16) and £12($19), and now for an additional £5($8), customers can request the pans used to cook them for added authenticity. Collection of the pans is then arranged as easily as the original delivery slot.”

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Legend has it that in China there is an ice-cream that simply doesn’t melt even when left at room temperature for hours. So the guys at RocketNews24 sent a report to investigate on this myth.

Now, we’ve posted about some pretty special ice-cream treats, like the sinful Vice Lolly and the ice cream made from breast milk, but an ice-cream that doesn’t melt? That was unheard of, so a reporter from the Japanese wacky news site journeyed to China to uncover the truth about this legendary frozen dessert. He picked up one of these special lollies generically called “Banana” from a 7-11 but learned that the popsicle made by Nestle China can be found in pretty much any shop around the country. While you might expect a treat called Banana to actually taste like the world’s most popular fruit, this particular lolly has a plain vanilla ice-cream core encased in a sort of yellow gelatin, which the consumer can peel in order to reveal the vanilla center.

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Trisha Paytas is a blonde lingerie model from Los Angeles who has recently made headlines after being featured on TLC’s show My Strange Addiction for her unhealthy obsession with tanning.

Lots of girls out there put their health on the line every time they lay on a tanning bed, but Trisha Paytas takes artificial tanning to a whole other level. She’s been visiting tanning salons almost every day, sometimes twice a day, ever since she was 14 years old. The bubbly blonde, 24, says she has so far spent over $52,000 on keeping her skin tone dark, and doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. She is fully aware of the risks she takes every time she goes into a tanning salon, but says she’d rather look good dead and tanned than pale and alive. Way to think positive…

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Sue Warren decided she wasn’t going to sit around and wait for clients to call her house cleaning business. Instead, she took the initiative and started breaking into people’s houses, cleaning them and leaving the bill. You have to admit, it’s a pretty bold business plan.

According to the Westlake Police Department, the 53-year-old woman from Elyria, Ohio, was apprehended last week, after she broke into a house on Dover Center Road, did some light cleaning and left a bill for $75, on a napkin. Mallory Bush, 18, was actually asleep in her bedroom the whole time, and when she woke up and saw the place slightly cleaner and the bill on the table, she thought her parents had hired a cleaning person.  She called her mom, Sherri, to tell her the hired help did their job, but the woman had no idea what she was talking about, so they decided to give Sue a call, thinking she cleaned the wrong house. When they heard her answer, the Bushes’ jaws dropped to the ground.

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Paulo Henrique dos Santos, a pool attendant from Brazil, wanted so much to impersonate the Incredible Hulk for a local running event that he painted himself with green industrial paint. He later found out the paint won’t come off no matter how hard he scrubbed.

I always thought becoming a superhero was hard, but a young Brazilian Hulk fan proves it’s returning to human form that’s really tricky. According to Brazilian news site Globo Extra, 35-year-old Paulo Henrique dos Santos achieved celebrity status in the Villa Cruzeiro favela of Rio Janeiro, after he covered himself in green industrial paint, only to realize it won’t wash off. His intention was to dress up as the popular superhero for a running event, but since shops didn’t have the brand of paint he normally used, this “genius” decided to go with industrial paint normally used for ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines.

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Aherk! is an ingenious online service that allows people to blackmail themselves in order to achieve their personal goals, through pressure.

If you’ve had trouble dealing with personal goals, but always manage to do good in school or at work, you probably already know it has something to do with feeling under pressure. Some people see it as a bad thing, but for most of us it’s the engine that drives us in our everyday lives. Just think about it for a second, you’re always trying to meet your deadlines and be productive, because you know otherwise you’ll be faced with immediate bad consequences, like getting a pay cut or worse, being fired. But we never really face that kind of pressure in our personal lives, so simple goals like losing weight, quitting smoking or saving money are really harder to reach. That’s where Aherk! comes in…

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He may look like one, but Dominic Deville is not some escaped lunatic out to hurt your kids. He’s an evil clown for hire who stalks young victims for a week, sending them scary texts, making prank phone calls, stalking them from a distance, and ultimately attacks them with a pie to the face. And yes, he expects to get paid for it.

If you’ve ever seen Stephen King’s “It”, you know clowns can be very scary. I myself am terrified of them, to be honest, and I’ve never even seen that movie, just some quick scenes of it. But horror films like this are exactly what inspired Dominic Deville to start up his lucrative business, Evil Clown, in Lucerne, Switzerland. His service requires him to put on an evil clown outfit and scaring a child senseless for a week. During this time, he stalks his “prey” from a distance, sending them creepy messages, making prank calls and warning them they are being watched and that they’ll soon be attacked. “The child feels more and more that it is being pursued,” Deville told Metro, but “the clown’s one and only aim is to smash a cake into the face of his victim, when they least expect it, during the course of seven days.” And if they manage to avoid the hit, they are given the cake as a present.

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Scientist David Edwards teamed up with French Designer Philippe Starck to create the WA|HH mouth spray that gets you drunk instantly, but only for a few seconds. And the best part is you won’t have to deal with and splitting headaches when you wake up the following day.

Ever wish you could feel what it’s like to be drunk without actually drinking anything? I have a few girl friends who have never drunk more than a few sips of beer, but have always been curious to know what it’s like to feel intoxicated. Thanks to the innovative WA|HH Quantum Sensations spray presented during a Paris exhibition, now everyone can experience being drunk for just a few seconds, and without any of the nasty side-effects. According to its creators, the spray produces an immediate shock, like a sensorial alarm, but only lasts a few seconds. Each puff equals 0.075 milliliters of alcohol, so it would take about 1,000 to equal a real drink. ‘We asked ourselves whether we might provide the same agreeable sensation as comes with a sip of alcohol without running the risk of drunkenness,’ Starck said about the spray.

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The Apple MacBook Pro is definitely not the most affordable laptop on the market right now, but thanks to custom scent developer, Air Aroma, you can now close your eyes, take a sniff of hour old machine and imagine you actually own one of Apple’s expensive devices.

This may very well be the weirdest perfume ever created… Oh, who am I kidding, we’ve had real fragrances synthesized from urine and excrements, but this one is pretty strange too. Apparently, the guys at Air Aroma have been working around the clock to make a perfume that combines the unique aroma of cardboard, printed ink, plastic wrap and a brand new aluminum laptop. The formula was commissioned by by Melbourne based artists Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer and Simon McGlinn, for their exhibition on the digital age and the rise of new technology, entitled “De Facto Standard”

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I don’t think there are any rules against men becoming cheerleaders. But even if there was one, it wouldn’t stop Sacha Heppel, from Colorado, whose dream is to join the ranks of professional NFL cheerleaders. His current mission, to become the first male cheerleader for the Denver Broncos, however, fizzled out when he was rejected by the judges. Heppel competed with 200 other women at the first round of the 2012 Denver Broncos Cheerleader tryouts last Sunday, dressed in a turquoise shirt and tight fitting black pants.

Heppel’s love for dance is what compelled him to try cheerleading. He is not a professional dancer, although he enjoys it very much. “When I dance, I lose myself,” he says. His previous job involved standing at a street corner with a sign where would do several dance routines to keep people entertained. He was disappointed when he didn’t make the cut, but he says he will try hard again next year.

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‘Fake’ just keeps growing to epic proportions in China. The latest to join the bandwagon is a fake police academy that was allegedly duping students into believing they would receive a real degree. The Jiamusi People’s Police Academy in the Shandong Province offered three-year courses on law enforcement studies, at the end of which students would receive a degree and also employment with crime-fighting police teams. The £2,000 ($3,200) course was supposed to be taught by veteran officers. It was all the doing of Wei Zhenhai, the president of the fake academy.

Everything was going according to plan for Mr. Zhenhai and the Jiamusi Academy, until a suspicious parent tipped off the real police in September of last year. A couple of police constables then paid a visit to the academy undercover, dressed as students. During the interview, Mr. Zhenhai couldn’t help himself and ended up boasting about his contacts in high places that would help him secure employment for his students. The constables saw through his flimsy lies and immediately pounced on the ‘president’ and his staff. They were arrested and the academy closed down.

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Now you can sin all you like in Las Vegas because not only can you go to heaven, but redemption will cost you just $130 and salvation, only $200. No, you won’t be released from the bonds of worldly life, but you sure will be cured of that nasty headache after a night of binge-drinking. Yes, the place we’re talking of is Hangover Heaven, the bus that exists “to resolve your post-partying ills, no matter what you were doing last night.” The unique service started by board-certified anesthesiologist, Dr. Jason Burke, specializes mainly in the treatment of alcohol induced hangovers. But they do have solutions for other problems too, so it doesn’t really matter what kind of mess you got into the previous night.

The Hangover Heaven is a blue bus with pickup points at major Las Vegas hotels. With a front lounge, a mid-section with bunks, a rear lounge, bathroom and relaxing interiors, the bus promises an ultra-smooth ride that will see the end of your hangover in just 45 minutes. Now I’ve only just had a bad hangover once in my life, but the experience was enough for me to know that 45 minutes to get rid of the horrible feeling is simply awesome. I do wish I could have had the option of taking this bus back then.

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Adults have always been talking about great parenting skills, but hardly anyone’s ever stopped to ask the kids what they have to say about the matter. 17-year-olds Megan Lovegrove and Louise Bedwell decided not to wait until they were asked. They just went right ahead and wrote a book about how to raise teenagers. The two girls have written the 200 plus-page guidebook based on their own experiences and interviews with 100 other teens. “Teenagers Explained: A Manual for Parents by Teenagers” provides advice for parents on handling teenagers and tackles issues ranging from cleaning up a bedroom to drugs and sex.

I personally would love to get my hand on this book, although I do not have the responsibility of raising teenagers. I’m quite curious to find out just what the book has to say on the subject, given that the authors are so young. It’s surely bound to be an interesting read. It is available for purchase on Amazon, in case you’re interested too. The back cover of the book supposedly has this to say: “The authors of other parenting books are practically ANCIENT. If you really want to know what your teenager is thinking and doing, who better to turn to than teenagers themselves?” And as proof of what they’re talking about, Louise is quoted, “Recently, I told my mum how someone had ‘parred’ me at a party; my mum thought I was swearing at her.”

Through their book, Megan and Louise offer help to clueless parents on things like ‘How to lure your teen from their room and actually get them out with the family’. There are also some useful tips in there. According to the girls, parents need to give their kids at least 3 hours to clean their room, and not check on them until the time is up. Also, house party gatecrashers can be avoided, they say, by making sure that Facebook-organized party events are visible only to friends, and the address is not disclosed. And to reduce phone bills, the advice is simple – encourage your teenager to use more smartphone apps. I’m sure a lot of teenagers won’t be complaining about that, if it means they would get new smartphones.

Megan and Louise attend Nonsuch High School for Girls in Cheam, South London. They were chosen to write the book after they took part in a creative writing contest organized by a publisher for 50 schools in the area. Louise says, “We wanted it to be a real ‘tell it like it is’ manual from the teenagers’ perspective.” Megan adds, “But we’ve also learnt a lot more about how adults think, so we also know how to keep the upper hand.” The book certainly does seem to offer a lot of practical advice. I especially like this one: ‘Do not fuss too much about your own appearance as this can rub off on your teenager and make them sensitive about their looks’. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

via The Telegraph