Scottish singer James McElvar was recently in the news not for his vocal prowess, but for fainting on a flight! The teenager was so desperate to avoid paying excess baggage fee that he put on 12 layers of clothing. his overheated body didn’t really like the idea and he ended up passing out at 37,000 ft, on the way from London to Glasgow.

James, 19, is a member of a Scottish boyband called Rewind. When the band arrived at Stansted Airport last Wednesday, James was told by EasyJet staff that he would have to pay £45 for the excess weight he had packed into his suitcase and rucksack. “The woman told me either one of my bags went in the hold or we weren’t getting on,” he later told the media. “The rest of the band had gone through so I couldn’t give them any of my clothes.”

Unwilling to cough up the cash, James did the first thing that occurred to him – he unpacked his bag and started to put on all his clothes. He didn’t stop until he had about 12 layers of clothing on! “I felt it was the only option, to put everything on,” the singer explained. He ended up dressing himself in six t-shirts, four jumpers, three pairs of jeans, two pairs of jogging bottoms, a pair of jackets, and two hats.

Read More »

Pamela Jacobs, a dusky beauty from the UK, doesn’t look a day over 25. But you’ll be shocked to learn that the woman is actually 52, and has a 21 year old son! In fact, she appears so young that she is often offered student rail fares and no one believes her when she reveals her real age.

“Men do comment on my looks and say things like ‘I don’t believe you’ or ‘You must be lying,’” she said. “ I always say, what woman would actually add years on?” Her son is mortified with all the attention she receives though, because people often think she’s his girlfriend. “A while ago, someone my son knows thought I was his girlfriend,” Jacobs laughed. “And some people I know have thought the same in reverse.”

“It’s flattering, but I prefer men of a similar age to me,” she quickly added.

Read More »

Brazilian model Mauricio Galdi is the newest addition to the growing band of surgically-enhanced men branded ‘Human Ken Dolls’. After a total of eight procedures in the past decade, his face now looks like that of the popular plastic doll.

Mauricio, 27, claims that he wasn’t actually aiming for the ‘Ken’ look, but now that the media’s given him the title, he doesn’t mind cashing in on the publicity. “I never sought out to be the Brazilian human Ken,” he said. “It was something that came to me, television sought to give me that title.”

We find that kind of hard to believe though, given the fact that he’s been obsessed with dolls since childhood. Growing up in a middle class household in Sao Paulo, Mauricio confessed that he often felt jealous of little girls because it was socially acceptable for them to play with Barbie and Ken. “I saw them playing with dolls and I wanted to do the same,” he admitted, “but I never did for fear of prejudice.”

Read More »

Natalia Trukhina is a professional powerlifter from Russia. At just 23-years of age, she has already accomplished more than other athletes do in their entire careers, setting multiple bench press and armlifting world records as well as earning several world champion titles.

Natalia discovered her passion for powerlifting when she was 14 years old. She had always liked power and combat sports and was a very active child. However, she weighed only 40 kilograms at the time and started hitting the gym in order to gain a few extra pounds. The rest, as they say, is history. Now 23, Natalia Trukhina has grown from a scrawny girl into one of the most muscular women in the world. Her impressive figure and strength put most men to shame.

Read More »

Rajendra Singh is considered a hero in the state of Rajasthan, in India, for single handedly reviving five rivers that had been dried up for decades. His exceptional work and dedication have earned him the nickname ‘Waterman of India’.

Singh, who studied Ayurvedic medicine at college, had always dreamed of becoming a farmer. So when he moved to Rajasthan’s Alwar district after graduating in 1985, he was interested in healing not just his people, but also the semi-arid region’s ailing ecosystem.

Singh noticed that the district’s population was dwindling – most villagers had left their homes after the local Arvari River had dried up in the ’40s, and the only people who remained were either too old or too poor to move elsewhere. Singh, driven by a strong desire to help the villagers, took on the task of bringing water back to those lands.

Read More »

Meet Li Li Juan, a former millionaire whose benevolent spirit led her to bankruptcy. The 47-year-old, from northern China’s Hebei Province, has adopted 72 abandoned children over the course of 19 years. She spent all her money caring for them, and is now facing a huge debt of over two million yuan.

Li became rich during the 1980s, earning huge profits from her garments business and her investments in iron ore mining. It was around this time that she started taking in sick and disabled children who were abandoned by their parents, and orphaned children whose parents had died in coal mine disasters. She used her two sources of income to provide for all her adopted children.

It was all smooth sailing for a few years, but as luck would have it, hard times fell upon Li in 2008. Her mine was shut down due to urban developments, cutting down a major source of her income. But she continued to care for the children by selling off all her properties and valuables, one at a time.

Read More »

The parents of an African American civil rights leader in Eastern Washington state have shocked the nation by declaring that their daughter isn’t black, as she has claimed to be for the last 10 years. In several recent interviews with the media, Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal revealed that their daughter Rachel is actually caucasian.

“She’s our birth daughter and we’re both of European descent,” Larry told news reporters. “We’re very puzzled and it’s very sad.”

Since January, Rachel has been the president of the Spokane County chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). She is also chair of the city’s police oversight commission, and an adjunct professor of African studies at Eastern Washington University. Rachel is currently estranged from her parents – they claim that they only found out about her disguise when they read about her in a newspaper a few years ago.

Read More »

You’re going to have a hard time convincing yourself that the woman in these photos isn’t Britney Spears. In fact, it isn’t a woman at all! It’s actually a man named Derrick Barry, who’s making a living out of impersonating the world-famous celebrity.

It all started a few years ago, when Derrick dressed up as Britney for Halloween. The resemblance was so striking that his friends and family were stupefied. They later told him that he should consider a career as her professional lookalike. And that’s exactly what he did..

The 31-year-old says that he finds it “amazing” to pay tribute to someone he’s idolized since the beginning of her career. “I think even if I wasn’t impersonating her I would still be such a huge fan,” he told Las Vegas Weekly. “I really have the most amazing job in the world. To be a fan of hers and then get to impersonate her around the world is such an honor.”

Read More »

Saying 50-year-old armwrestler Jeff Dabe has big hands would be a huge understatement! Dabe’s bear paws are so big that he has been compared to cartoon characters like Popeye and Wreck-It Ralph.

A year and a half ago, we introduced you to Denis Cyplenkov, a Ukrainian strongman and professional armwrestler, who at the time we thought had the world’s largest hands. We still think they’re huge for a human, but they pale in comparison to Jeff Dabe’s. His forearms are 49 cm in circumference and his palms look like they could crush a man’s skull like a watermelon. Luckily, Jeff only uses his enormous guns for arm wrestling and operating heavy equipment.

Read More »

Superglue can fix a lot of things, but teeth are not one of them. That’s obviously common sense, but this British woman was so afraid of the dentist that she actually superglued her broken teeth to her gums. Needless to say, she ended up damaging her gums and spending nearly all her life savings on corrective surgery.

Angie Barlow, who works as a professional dog walker in Greater Manchester, England, said: “I’ve always been scared of the dentist because my mum died at 34 from throat cancer. She had a tooth out, and that’s how they found she had cancer. That fear has always been in the back of my mind. You just get your mindset and you think, ‘don’t go, don’t make that phone call.’”

But, at one point, her smoking had damaged her teeth so badly that Barlow began to lose her teeth. And instead of going to the dentist, she just used superglue to reattach them. “When the tooth comes out, I just put a little bit of glue and try and hold it in place to keep it, so I don’t have a gap in my teeth,” she explained in a video. “I use glue on the top of the tooth, and then I put it back in place until the glue is set.”

Read More »

For most of us a cruise around the world aboard a luxury ship is nothing but a fantasy, but for Lee Wachtstetter it’s everyday life. The 86-year-old has been living on the Crystal Serenity cruise ship for the last seven years, hardly ever setting foot on dry land.

The Florida woman sold her five-bedroom home in Fort Lauderdale shortly after she lost her husband ,Guy Mason Wachtstetter, to cancer, and moved into the stateroom of a Holland America Line ship. When that ship discontinued its dance host program, she moved to the 1,070-passenger Crystal Serenity, where she has been living for the past seven years!

Read More »

The curious case of the bizarre facekini strikes again! In case you don’t remember, it’s a nylon mask that covers the entire head, leaving holes only for the eyes, nostrils and mouth. The Chinese invention is meant to be used as beachwear, protecting wearers (mostly women) from sunburns and jellyfish stings. It first made an appearance in 2006, and the present “fourth-generation” avatar has managed to enter new levels of weirdness!

Read More »

11-year-old child prodigy Tanishq Abraham is in the news for graduating from college with not one, not two, but three different degrees. The talented kid from California made headlines last year as well, for completing high school at the age of ten and earning a congratulatory letter from President Barack Obama. And now, just a year later, he’s finished college with three associate degrees.

Last week’s graduation ceremony at the American River College in Sacramento was attended by Tanishq’s parents – his mother Taji, a vet, and his father Bijou, a software engineer. His sister Tiara, also a child prodigy, was present as well. They cheered for Tanishq as he was awarded associate degrees in math and physical sciences, general science, and language studies. He wore a rainbow colored scarf that his grandmother had knit specially for the occasion, and a cap with his favorite Toy Story-quote: ‘To Infinity and Beyond.”

Read More »

If you think about it, logos are works of art too – they’re clever, well designed and come in a variety of colors. But are they appealing enough to tattoo on to your body? Well, for 23-year-old Indian tattoo artist Jason George, they are. The self-confessed ‘human billboard’, sports hundreds of tattooed logos of international companies that have impacted his life in some way.

“I know it seems insane but these tattoos are my way of giving thanks to the brands that have made an impact on my life,” said Jason, a college-dropout and founder of 21 Tattoo Studio in Mumbai. The logos inked all over his body include those of his favorite TV channel, mobile phone networks, fast food chains, and social networking sites. “All the logos that you will find on my body have a special place in my heart. They are related to my life in some way and I have memories and stories attached to these brands.”

Read More »

Meet James Wannerton, an Englishman with an incredibly rare ability to taste sound. That might seem absurd, but it is very much a reality for people with a condition called synaesthesia, which causes senses that are usually separate to intermingle.

Even as a young boy, James always experienced an involuntary taste on his tongue every time he heard a sound. Hearing the name Anne Boleyn in History class, for example, gave him a strong flavor of pear drops. He associated most of the British monarchs with a specific taste, making it easy for him to remember facts and events. His word-taste associations always helped him do better in school.

As he grew older, James found that his unique ability helped him in other aspects of life too. His relationships were all too delicious – he chose his companions not because of their looks or personality, but based on how their names felt on his taste buds. His schoolmates often had a strong essence of sliced potatoes and strawberry jam, while his dates’ names tasted like slices of rhubarb and melted wine gums.

Read More »