Rich Follies

Three stories which caught my eye this week - no doubt because they were all placed on the same page on The Metro in an attempt to convey the message that many rich people are, in fact, capable of stupid acts.

The message clearly got through to me. Here are the stories, all involving cars:

• Ronaldo, aged 23 and earning £120,000 a week, wrote off his brand new Ferrari while driving it for the first time to the Manchester United training ground. He crashed the £200,000 car into a crash barrier.
• Rugby international Mike Tindall was banned from driving for three years and fined £500 for driving while over the legal limit. Tindall was pulled over in March 2008 as his Range Rover Sport was seen swerving on the M4 near Newbury.
  
• Princess Beatrice, fifth in line to the throne, had her £17,000 BMW stolen from central London. Word from the parking space is that the car was left unlocked with the keys in the ignition.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Earth to Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry, recently returned from Africa, has left users of Twitter bemused as his recent entries on the micro-blogging social network site have appeared just a little strange.

Advised by an unnamed technical person that he should use an "oddsox group command", the writer and broadcaster has loaded a string of tweets as follows:

stephenfry Ah, got it now. Will do that in future and refrain from overloading you. But was so impressed by your replies I felt it wrong not to share x about 3 hours ago from web
stephenfry That's it for the mo. Sorry, someone tweeted me that I should've used a #oddsox group command. Unfamiliar with this, will find out how x about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @AxmxZ @stephenfry Well, odd socks can't all go to the same place, otherwise there'd be paired socks there. about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @iamdaffodils @stephenfry They're not odd, they're just different. about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @zenforlunch @stephenfry The spot in my closet where I keep odd socks is the sad, seedy singles bar of the garment underworld about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @pixel8ted @stephenfry leave them for the odd sock fairy who will hopefully leave a nice coin and not an odd sock fairy poo about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @canisrufus I s'pect it shall be found that dark matter really is, at its core, all oddsox. Then two mysteries shall be solved in one go about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @felix42 @stephenfry, I tend to blame the Large Hadron Collider. about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @mkuplens @stephenfry odd socks stuff the left shoe. even ones the right. about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @AxmxZ @stephenfry Step 1: steal odd socks. Step 2: ???? Step 3: PROFIT! (Step 4: get a job with the banking industry.) about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @madlolscientist Socks are coat hanger larvae. They creep into hidden places for metamorphosis. Never before seen on camera= opportunity! about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @hiraabel @stephenfry odd socks go in the dryer to find their mate or disappear, whichever is their fate about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT@ marnanel @stephenfry: I eat them. With fava beans and a nice Chianti. about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @CarrieUff @stephenfry I suspect most are stolen by color-blind gnomes about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @slimejam Wherever they go, I hope they catch whoever is stealing them and lock them up with all the other perpetrators of sox crime about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @jg_rat @stephenfry Your odd socks are in a basket in my spare room. about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @phinnia @stephenfry they are stolen by sock gnomes for their children to live in about 4 hours ago from web
stephenfry RT @matildazq @stephenfry Into my sock drawer, I think. about 4 hours ago from web

	stephenfry RT @DataGoddess @stephenfry depends on how odd the socks are about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT @captainsharmie @stephenfry Space. Odd socks are hanging out near the moon, wondering how the hell they got there. about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT @qheldar @stephenfry the loondry bin. about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT @dragonsinger57 @stephenfry odd socks go into the hozone!! about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT @ CallumDawlings et al isn't there a hole in the back of the washing machine that leads to narnia? i think that's where the odd socks go about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT ClaireFry @stephenfry the lost sock underworld! Didn't you know that? about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT @echoclubhouse if clean, odd socks can be left behind for hotel staff filled with small gifts as though santa had been there.. if dirty.. about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT @TheAngelus @stephenfry Odd socks go on hands as sock puppets! Duh. about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry RT @knackeredwriter @stephenfry I steal your socks and sell them on Ebay. about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry OK: I'll retweet some of the better explanations of odd-sockery. I'll use RT for retweet ....x about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry Retweeting this from @MCBrennan: "Oddsocks was perhaps the least intimidating Bond villain ever, imho." LMAO x about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry Wowzer @nicole tweeted me this: http://icanhaz.com/sox Uses combinatorics to explain sox offenders, Wouldja bleeve it? about 4 hours ago from web
	stephenfry I shall print out this oddsox thread & shove it in the face of anyone who dares suggests twitterers are bird-brained. You're all geniuses x about 5 hours ago from web
	stephenfry Got diverted from packing duties by Gmail's new video chat. Damnably impressed. BTW, where do odd socks go? x about 5 hours ago from web

You get the general idea, anyway.

Stephen Fry's Twitter profile is here. in case you were wondering.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Trouserless Terrorist Causes Toilet Trouble

Humour me and read the story from Singapore please.










If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Space Junk Update

Hot on the vapor trails of my previous post - describing a large piece of rocket casing narrowly avoiding collision with a sheep farmer's outside toilet in central Russia - it has emerged that more space junk has been falling to earth, this time in northern Australia.

Cattle farmer James Stirton (pictured) announced on Friday the discovery of what he believes to be an item from a rocket used to launch a communications satellite.

Discovered in the Australian outback, about 500 miles west of Brisbane, the twisted metal object is described as "hollow" and "covered in carbon-fiber material".

"I know a lot about sheep and cattle but I don't know much about satellites," admitted the self-deprecating farmer, who came across the item on his 40,000 hectre farm, "But I would say it is a fuel cell off some stage of a rocket."

In 1979, large parts of the Skylab space station fell to earth near a tiny outback town in western Australia. A local council sent NASA a ticket for littering and the then US President Jimmy Carter responded with an apology.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Leap Year Trivia

Here are the vital facts you can't do without on February 29th:

• In the English-speaking world, it was the day when women could traditionally propose to men
• In Iran, leaps years are every 4 years - however every 33 years the leap year is five years later rather than four
• The Hindu calendar has thirteen months every three years instead of an extra day every four
• The Coptic and Ethiopian leap year has its extra day added at the end of its year rather than in February
  
• February 29th is also known as bissextile day
  
• February 29th was the birthday of British actor Joss Ackland and footballer Darren Ambrose
  
• The day is statistically more likely to fall on a Monday than a Sunday

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.