For the past couple of years, the people of Bexhill-on-Sea, in the UK, have had to put up with the antics of an “evil” paraglider who likes nothing more than to intimidate them by flying super low over their heads and shouting all kinds of obscenities.

Last week, Sussex Police and the Civil Aviation Authority launched a joint investigation into the behavior of the so-called “Bexhill Birdman”, who many have described as a social nuisance. Police have received more than a dozen complaints regarding his behavior in the past two years, and have urged the public to come forth with any information they may have on this issue. The paragliding man is suspected of acting hostile to members of the public, flying really low over their heads to intimidate them and shouting insults and obscenities from the air. Some locals have become so wary of him that they avoid going up Galley Hill, where he usually takes off from.

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The Russian branch of Domino’s Pizza was curious to know just how much people love their pies, so they came up with a promotion that challenged fans to get a tattoo of the Domino’s logo in a visible spot on their bodies, for the chance to win 100 free pizzas per year, for 100 years. The response was overwhelming.

When Domino’s launched their unusual promotion, on August 31st, they probably expected just a few die-hard pizza fans to take them up on their offer, but they were inundated by hundreds of photos of fresh tattoos on social media, in the first couple of days. In an attempt to stave off the wave of tattoos and requests for free pizzas, the company had to clarify that only the first 350 people to get the tattoo – which had to be at least 2 cm (0.79 inches) in length – and post it on social media would get the 10,000 free pizzas. They also released an image clarifying the visible parts of the body where candidates could get the tattoo, but that didn’t help things too much.

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The principal of a kindergarten in Shenzen, China, was recently axed after videos of children as young as three being welcomed back by scantly-dressed pole dancers went viral online.

The first Monday in September marks the start of a new school year in China, and many learning institutions host special celebrations to mark the event. The Xinshahui kindergarten in Shenzhen was no different, but the parents of the roughly 500 children – aged three to six – enrolled there did not expect the ceremony to include pole dancers winding and spinning provocatively on a metal pole with a Chinese flag flying on top.

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A Chinese man who checked himself in the hospital because the pounding sound in his left ear wouldn’t go away, was shocked to discover that the noise was being caused by a spider spinning webs deep inside his ear canal.

Doctor Cui Shulin, deputy chief physician at the department of otolaryngology at the Dalian Central Hospital, in Dalian, China’s Liaoning province, recently told reporters that the unnamed patient, a man in his 60s, had come to the hospital to complain about a drum like sound and a tingling sensation in his left ear. After listening to the patient, doctors decided to investigate, but already suspected that a cricket or flying insect had somehow become stuck in the man’s ear. They didn’t expect to find a spider weaving cobwebs.

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Members of the religious community in the municipality of Soledad, Colombia, have been voicing their dissatisfaction with the results of restoration work that left a statue of San Antonio de Padua looking “like a homosexual”.

The wooden statue of San Antonio de Padua, patron of Soledad, dated from the 17th century and was located din the town’s main church. It had recently been badly damaged by termites, so the church commissioned an artist to have it fixed and repainted. Unfortunately, the results of the restoration didn’t please parishioners, many of whom took to social media to complain that the statue looked too effeminate. Some even called it “a saint of modern times, a transexual saint”, because of all the makeup applied by the artist.

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A 29-year-old love-struck man from Kolkata, India, recently made international headlines for his efforts to get in touch with a woman he exchanged glances with on a train. He made a short film that he then posted on YouTube, plastered several neighborhoods with around 4,000 posters, and has been wearing the exact same clothes he did when he saw her, in the hopes that she will see and recognize him.

Biswajit Podder, a government from Behala, claims to have “fallen in love” with a woman he only locked eyes with on a train ride home from work, on July 23rd. The girl and her parents boarded the same train and took the seats opposite Biswajit. The man instantly mesmerized by the girl’s beauty, but she caught him looking at her and didn’t appear to like it, so he didn’t bother anymore on that train. But it just so happened that they both got off at the next station, boarded another train, and she and her parents once again took the seats opposite Biswajit.

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A high-school in the Chinese city of Shangqiu, Henan Province, recently attracted criticism for removing cafeteria chairs to motivate student to eat faster and dedicate more time to their studies.

Students returning from their summer break were shocked to learn that they would have to start eating standing up after their school’s administrators decided to remove the chairs and benches to deter students from lingering around after finishing their meal. A spokesperson for the Shangqiu school told reporters that management also plans to implement assigned spots for each student to stand in, to further discourage them from wasting time instead of studying.

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A Canadian woman known only as “Canadian Susan” recently got her five minutes of online fame after revealing that she had to cancel her dream wedding just 4 days before it was scheduled to take place, because guests refused to pay a $CAD 1,500 “cash gift” required to attend.

The unnamed bride and her fiancee only had a budget of $CAD $15,000 for their wedding, but after visiting a psychic who told them to go with the most expensive option available, they apparently decided to have an extravagant ceremony, which they figured would cost them around $CAD $60,000. All they needed now was a bit of financial assistance to make their dream wedding happen, and who better to ask than their family and friends? After doing the math, they found that if every guest pitched in $CAD 1,500 ($1,150), they’d have enough to cover the costs. Apparently, the idea of paying a hefty feed just to attend the weeding didn’t really appeal to a lot of people.

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“The Lord of the Rings” is widely regarded as one of the most influential intellectual properties of all time. The fantasy genre as we know it today was almost single-handedly inspired by Tolkien’s epic novels, and has generated many fans across the globe. But Kimberel Eventide of Illinois has taken her love of Tolkien’s fantasy world to a whole new level.

After reading and watching “The Lord of the Rings”, Kimberel began to identify as an elf. She is part of a growing community that describes themselves as “Otherkin”, or people who identify as something other than human. She also refers to herself as a Pleiadian Starseed. Not only does she believe she is an elf, but Kimberel also believes that she was sent to the earth to act as a “spiritual guide” for humans. Because she lacks elven features, Kimberel makes up for it with clothing and prosthetics:

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The owner of a restaurant in Binz, Germany, has come under fire for banning children aged 14 and younger from entering his establishment after 5 pm.

Rudolf Markl, the owner of “Oma’s Küche” (Grandma’s Kitchen), a traditional restaurant in Binz, on the German island of  Rügen got so fed up with children’s tantrums and unruly behavior that he recently made the extreme decision to ban them from his restaurant after 5 pm. He even put up a sign near the entrance letting patrons know that in the evening, Oma’s Küche is an adult-only restaurant. Despite being accused of discrimination, Markl said that this measure was a long time coming and that he plans to enforce it going forward.

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Staff at a second-hand bookstore in Badajoz, western Spain, were terrified to discover that one of the books in their collection had had its pages removed and replaced with a complex mechanism that closely resembled a bomb.

The book in question, a copy of “The King of Beggars” by French writer Jean Larteguy attracted the attention of staff at the Hundred Cannons bookstore in the town of Badajoz, due to its unusually hefty weight. Upon opening it to inspect the contents, they were shocked to find that all the pages had been cut out and replaced with a mechanism that included several stopwatches, capacitors, and loads of electrical wires. The first thing that went through their minds was that this was a bomb-book, so they immediately evacuated the place and called the police.

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“When you see me, cry”. This is just one of the ominous messages carved into the medieval ‘hunger stones’ that have been revealed by sever drought in the Elbe River, near the northern Czech town of Decin.

Hunger stones, or ‘hungersteine’ as the Germans call them, are carved boulders or river plates that only become visible in severe droughts, when water levels drop particularly low. The inscriptions chiselled into them are believed to have once been used to warn people that hard times and famine were coming. The Elbe river, which starts in the Czech Republic and flows into Germany features dozens of hunger stones with inscriptions dating back to the 17th century, but other European rivers feature such ominous stones with carvings from as early as 1417.

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A 21-year-old woman from Hong Kong who though she was undergoing a ‘mock wedding test’ to secure a job as a wedding planner ended up officially married to a total stranger from mainland China.

The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told authorities that her ordeal began in May of this year, when she saw a social media posting about a job as a make-up artist apprentice. It offered a monthly salary of HK$14,000 (US$1,800) as well as free training, and required no previous work experience at all. Most people would call that “too good to be true”, but the young woman decided it was the opportunity of a lifetime. Turns out she was wrong.

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In 1980, Portugal was shocked by the story of Maria Isabel Quaresma Dos Santos, a 9-year-old girl who had spent her entire childhood in a chicken coop, deprived of any human interaction and affection. Because of the effects growing up with chickens had on her behavior, Isabel became known as “Chicken Girl”.

According to an article published by the Diário de Notícias newspapers in 1980, Maria Isabel Quaresma Dos Santos was born on July 6, 1970, on a farm in Tábua, in Portugal’s district of Coimbra. When she was only one year old, her mother, who doctors would later diagnose with severe mental problems, locked her away in the chicken coop, because she didn’t consider her as part of the family. Maria Isabel would spent the next 8 years of her life in this place, surrounded only by chickens and surviving on the same food as the birds – grains, cabbage leaves and whatever leftovers the family would feed them.

Interestingly, Maria Isabel’s older brothers did not share her fate. They lived normal lives, slept in the family home, went to school and interacted with other children from the local community. It was later revealed that everyone in Tábua knew about the girl growing up in the Dos Santos’ chicken coop, but no one ever denounced the family to the authorities or try to help her in any way. Tábua was a small rural community in those times, and people focused on working in the fields instead of getting mixed up in the affairs of their neighbors.

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Do you buy too many clothes? Or do you often buy new garments only to wear them once before throwing them away? Research shows that you are not alone; a recent YouGov survey in Australia has shown that roughly a quarter of Australians have thrown away an article of clothing after wearing it just once.

Entrepreneur Sarah Freeman was so shocked by these findings that she decided to do something about it. She has founded a “clothes library” in Sydney, where customers can rent clothing instead of purchasing it; this way, you can still only wear it once, but without being wasteful.

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