DEATH BY CHOCOLATE AND A RANSOM FOR NORMAN

That's right, it's left .......
Council workers in Swindon have baffled members of the public for the past three years with a pedestrian crossing that says 'look left' but points to the right. More

Bizarre story of the week ...... 

A historic letter indicates the Nazis planned to assassinate Sir Winston Churchill, the British wartime prime minister, with a bar of exploding chocolate.

Giving a new meaning to the dessert name “death by chocolate”, Adolf Hitler’s bomb makers coated explosive devices with a thin layer of rich dark chocolate, then packaged it in expensive-looking black and gold paper. More


More housework and less hunting?
Neanderthal man may have spent more time doing chores than out hunting.
Archaeologists at the University of Cambridge studying the distinctive skeletal features of Neanderthal remains say they have debunked the traditional image of our extinct prehistoric cousins.
They found that compared to modern and most prehistoric homo sapiens, Neanderthals had significantly overdeveloped right arms - in some cases 50% stronger than their left.
In the past this has been interpreted as a sign they carried spears in their right hands, but now researchers say the asymmetry was probably the result of less glamorous subsistence tasks. More

Fighting crime with FidoCam.
Jerry Lee the police sniffer dog might have kept James Belushi's police detective character out of trouble in the action comedy K-9, but dogs at Staffordshire Police are using digital cameras to keep their officers safe.
The Staffordshire police dogs are the first in the UK to be equipped with the new FidoCam, a digital camera unit fitted on their heads to fight crime. More


My two favourite stories of the week ....... 

1,000p or the gnome gets it. Kidnappers leave home owner, Lorraine Dearing, chilling ransom note and photograph of stolen garden ornament being held at knife point.
Mrs Dearing paid £5 for Norman the gnome two years ago but insisted she would not bow to the kidnapper's demands adding that she hoped 'nothing awful' would happen to Norman. More

It comes to something when the rescue vessel sent to rescue you needs rescuing!
The sailors - from the North Star Shipping company which provides maritime support to UK offshore businesses - were on a rescue rib conducting a training exercise when the engine cut out leaving them helplessly drifting in Aberdeen Bay. The company dispatched a fast rescue vessel to help the stranded vessel but then became caught up in the rapidly receding tide - leaving both boats stuck on the rocks near Torry lighthouse. More


Whoops - or words to that effect ......
Judges from Guinness World Records were due to witness bartender Salvatore make his “Old and Wise” cocktail at the exclusive Playboy Club in Mayfair, West London, when the plan to mix the world's most expensive cocktail had to be scrapped after a clumsy drinker smashed a 234-year-old £50,000 bottle of cognac. More