Man loses wife at poker

A Russian man lost his wife in a game of cards after putting her up as a stake instead of cash.

Andrei Karpov, from Murmansk, had run out of money in a game of poker and offered his opponent his wife instead of cash to stay in the game.

When he lost the game and his opponent Sergey Brodov turned up to claim his winnings his wife Tatiana was so angry she decided to divorce her husband and started a relationship with Brodov.

She has since married Brodov, and said she does not regret leaving her first husband.

She said: "It was humiliating and I was utterly ashamed. But as soon as my ex-husband did that I knew I had to leave him.

"Sergey was a very handsome, charming man and I am very happy with him, even if he did 'win' me in a poker game."

Man marries himself

A Chinese man has married himself to express his "dissatisfaction with reality".

Liu Ye, 39, from Zhuhai city, married a life sized foam cut-out of himself wearing a woman's bridal dress.

"There are many reasons for marrying myself, but mainly to express my dissatisfaction with reality," he said. "This marriage makes me whole again. My definition of marriage is different from others."

The ceremony was held at a traditional courtyard packed with more than 100 guests.The 'couple' were led out by a bridesmaid and a groomsman and bowed to ancestors and senior guests for blessings.

Liu says he is not gay, but admits he's "maybe a bit narcissistic", reports New Express.

Pupils allowed to smoke - in a cage

A Belgian school is to let pupils smoke - but only if they stand in a cage and wear a graphic badge.

The badge shows an x-ray image of a pair of lungs, blackened by smoking, reports De Morgen. The new rule will be introduced for pupils over the age of 16 at the Vesalius Institute in Ostende in February.

Assistant-director Claudine Lesaffre said: "We do a lot to promote a healthy lifestyle in our school.

"One third of our 600 students smoke. We've been trying to motivate the youngsters over the years, encouraged teachers to attend smoke free courses. But nothing seems to help. "By wearing the badge, students expresses it is by their own free will they are damaging their health. If this won't help, I don't know what to do anymore."

But the students seem more concerned about having to smoke in a cage than wearing the badge. One is quoted as saying: "It's like putting us in a cage in the zoo."

The Belgian Commissioner For Children's Rights, Ankie Vandekerckhove, criticised the move. She said: "It's stigmatising for the students, because they will be looked at by the whole school. They can take measures that are far better than that badge or that cage."

Queuing for success in Kazakhstan

A new company in Kazakhstan charges customers to take their places in the country's notorious queues.

For a small hourly fee, it provides people to stand in line for clients and then phone them when they are nearly at the front. It also offers a more expensive service where the client gives the company power of attorney to take care of everything.

The company was set by two entrepreneurs in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, reports the Express-K newspaper.Queues to see state officials for personal business, such as applying for ID papers and driving licenses and registering property, are notorious in Kazakhstan.

"We can stand any kind of a queue," says Ruslan Akkuzhin, deputy director of the company. "As a rule, the worst queues are related to real estate issues.". The two directors currently do all of the work themselves but say they may soon have to expand.

Woman gets 75,000 bank statements

A woman who asked for her bank statement was sent financial details of 75,000 other customers too.

Stephanie McLaughlan, 22, received five packages from Halifax Bank of Scotland, each containing 500 sheets crammed with confidential information. Each page details 30 customers' names, their account and sort code numbers and how much they have paid in and out.

According to the Mirror, Stephanie from Aberdeen said: "I did not expect them to be so lax with security as to be sending out private and confidential information of so many of their customers.

"In the wrong hands these documents would allow criminals to run amok through people's personal and financial lives." The bank has apologised and is launching an immediate inquiry.

Patient nips to loo and loses bed

A hospital patient went to the loo and returned to find staff had given her bed to another woman.

Pat Roberts, 68, was away from her bed for less than 20 minutes, reports the Sun.

Staff at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital told her she would have to wait for another bed. Husband Ron said: "I was with my wife and helped her to the bathroom. When we returned it was not a case of them making up the bed, it was already full.  "We were only away from the bed for the time it took me to push her through the ward to the toilet and back again."

A spokeswoman for the hospital said they would investigate the incident.

Dumped bride uses dog as groom

A dumped bride went ahead with her wedding reception - using her dog to replace the groom.

Emma Knight, 41, was dumped two weeks before her wedding to Paul Fox, 37. To cheer herself up she decided to go ahead with her wedding reception anyway. She dressed her faithful dog Dennis up as the bridegroom and he was treated to a piece of the four-tier wedding cake.

Emma wore the £1,500 wedding dress she had bought and partied until the small hours with her 100 guests. The next day Emma flew to France with her best pal on a pre-booked honeymoon to St Malo, France. To try and recoup some of her £3,000 losses, Emma, of Portland, Dorset, is selling items bought for the wedding in a local paper.

According to the Sun she said: "It's the best we could make of a bad situation. We had a great time."

Wife goes to court to stop hubby's ghost stories

A Taiwanese woman has taken out an injunction against her husband to stop him telling her ghost stories.

The woman, named only as Mrs Chen, complained he was giving her nightmares, reports the Apple Daily Taiwan newspaper.

She first filed a complaint with police, then applied for a personal protection order which was approved by a district court in Taichung.

The couple have been married for 20 years and have two daughters. They separated a few years ago but never divorced.

Mr Chen found work away from home, at an orchard, but returned every few months to visit his daughters for a few days.

In her complaint, Mrs Chen claimed her estranged husband often returned home in the dead of the night in a drunken stupor.

He would then go on to tell her ghost stories for at least an hour, despite her repeated pleas for him to stop.

He would tell her stories of seeing 'figures clothed in white floating around in the orchard', of people hanging themselves, and of the discovery of human bones near the orchard.

In his defence, Mr Chen claimed he was only sharing work stories with his wife.

But his daughters told the judge their father frequently traumatised their mother with his macabre tales.

Polish worker sleeps at wrong house

A man from Scunthorpe rolled over in his bed to discover a Polish workman in place of his wife.

Graham Handley's wife Linda had gone into their eight-year-old son Adam's room because he was having trouble sleeping. She had nodded off there while Graham slept in their bed.

His sleep was disturbed by the sound of someone getting under the covers and he muttered a greeting to Linda.

But he leapt out of bed when the reply was a deep baritone and in a foreign tongue.

The Polish worker went straight to sleep and would not move even when police arrived.

It is believed the exhausted immigrant worker who lived in a neighbouring street got confused after a late shift.

He walked into the Handley home through an unlocked back door, took off his shoes, ate a large chocolate cake from the kitchen and then went to sleep in Graham's bed.

According to the Mirror, Graham, 45, said: "He wouldn't get up for anyone. He told the police to go away and they were standing there laughing. Then a big burly officer came and took him downstairs."

Linda said: "Graham woke me up and said there was a man in bed with him. I thought he was dreaming and told him not to be stupid."

Police said a 25-year-old man had been cautioned.

Teacher in sticky spot

A Romanian nursery school teacher is in trouble after covering kids' mouths with sticky tape to make them stop talking.

Teacher Cristiana Buruiana, who works at Kindergarten No. 4 in Bucharest, may lose her job after an internal investigation is finished.

After being caught on film with a hidden camera, she admitted using this method on children who were disturbing lessons.

She said: "Those kids just wouldn't stop talking so I had to do something to save the class.

"I understand now it might look a little too tough and I am sorry for what I did."

Kindergarten head Adriana Stefanescu accused the teacher of 'mental mutilation' of the pupils and recommended her for suspension.

Fans make Borat President of Kazakhstan

Borat fans have made the spoof journalist President of Kazakhstan.

Fans logged onto internet site Wikipedia and edited the page for the fictional character's home nation.

The alterations to the site said the country's motto is "High Five" and the national anthem opening line was changed to say: "Kazakhstan greatest country in the world. All other countries are run by little girls."

Wikipedia normally allows free editing of more than five million articles - but they have banned users from contributing to the Kazakhstan page.

According to The Sun, previous entries on pages for President Bush and Tony Blair have also been locked.

Wikipedia said false entries were usually spotted and corrected within minutes by other users.

Horror fans faint at new movie

A UK cinema chain had to call emergency services three times in one night because of people fainting during the new horror film SAW III

Four people passed out in separate incidents while watching slasher movie Saw III at Cineworld complexes in Stevenage and Peterborough.

One woman was taken to hospital and two other adults were treated by medics after fainting in Stevenage, Herts.

And in a separate case, a man collapsed at a cinema in Peterborough, Cambs, "due to the film's content".

"If you know you're squeamish, don't go," warned a spokesman for the East of England Ambulance Service.

"This is obviously a blood-thirsty film. Some of the scenes are fairly horrific," Matthew Ware told the BBC News website.

The movie is currently number one in both the UK and North American box office charts.

Cineworld have declined to comment

Dead woman wins election

A dead woman won an election to a rural school board in Alaska - on the toss of a coin.

Katherine Dunton died on the day of the election which left her and challenger Dona Highstone tied.

Even with Dunton's death, state law required a tie vote to be settled by lot after an official recount.

Highstone called heads, but the coin landed on tails. The school board at Adak must now find a replacement.

Elections director Whitney Brewster said nobody in the election office could remember anything like it happening before.

"This is definitely a new one for the division, and it's just, just ... I'm speechless, frankly," she said.

Thai funeral home offers quiet lodging

BANGKOK, Thailand - Cheap and quiet accommodation is available for visitors to Thailand's upcoming international horticultural show, but some may find it too quiet, the lodgings are in the funeral hall of a Buddhist temple.

Three million visitors are expected at the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek 2006 which opens Wednesday in the northern city of Chiang Mai and lasts until Jan. 31, the Bangkok Post reported Saturday.

The yellow, five-petaled Ratchaphruek is Thailand's national flower. The event, being held in honor of the country's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, is expected to strain the capacity of the area's numerous hotels and guest houses, so local temples are also throwing their gates open to visitors, the newspaper reported.

At least one temple, Wat Jet Yod, will allow guests to sleep in its funeral hall, where religious rites for the dead are held before the departed is cremated, also on the temple grounds.

The price is a bargain 20 baht ($0.54) per person per night. No alcohol is allowed on the temple grounds and guests must refrain from making noise, the temple's abbot, Phra Kru Baideeka Prasert Santipalo, was quoted saying.

Woman crashes car after driving test

A US woman completed her driving test - then crashed into the examiners' office.

Jessica Krasek, 20, smashed into the Portage License Bureau office in Indiana, reports the Post-Tribune.

She wasn't hurt when her Ford Taurus car struck the front window of the license branch office.

But a bureau worker suffered a hip injury and was examined by paramedics.

Portage Assistant Fire Chief Mike Bucy said Krasek was pulling into a parking space when she hit the accelerator, instead of the brake.

Susan Williams, manager of the Amazing Travel shop next door, said she thought there had been an explosion.

"We jumped up and we went to the door and saw the car half in and half out of the license bureau," Williams said.

Smile costs family £3,000 holiday

A family had to scrap a £3,000 holiday after their youngest daughter's passport photograph was rejected - because she was smiling.

Gareth and Lesley Edwards saved for months to go to Cyprus with children Megan, ten, and Alys, nine, reports the Sun.

But the night before they were due to fly out, Lesley, 46, realised she was the only one with a valid passport.

Travel agents booked them on to a flight a few days later and the family quickly filled out passport application forms and had photos taken.

But when he reached the Passport Office, in Peterborough, officials said their machine would not accept Alys's photograph.

Lesley said: "They told Gareth that because Alys's teeth were clearly visible the photograph was not acceptable."

Gareth, 47, got another picture of Alys taken and rushed it to Peterborough from their home in Grays, Essex, but got there too late.

A Home Office spokesman said: "The new biometric passports carry a scan of the holder's face. In this instance the machine which takes the biometric image would have rejected the girl's photo because her mouth was open."

Man builds haunted house out of balloons

IRONDEQUOIT, N.Y. - Instead of clay or wood, sculptor Larry Moss prefers a highly malleable but far less durable material: balloons. Moss typically creates air-filled models of humans, animals and monsters, but his latest piece of performance art is even spookier: a 10-room, 10,000-square-foot, walk-through haunted house made out of 130,000 latex balloons covering everything but the floors and ceilings.

The Balloon Manor and its inhabitants - quirky, hilarious and somewhat creepy Halloween creatures - fill a wing of the Medley Centre mall in this Rochester suburb.

Its "boo-loon" show opened Friday and runs through next weekend. That's about as long as the artwork can last - with periodic infusions of air.

The entrance is a dragon's mouth, complete with a giant uvula that tickles visitors' heads. There's a motorized carousel of galloping insects, dragons and vultures, all ridden by undersized skeletons, and a Model T Ford that looks like it has long ghostly white arms.

In a nearby "beastro," two vampires hang upside down eating off an upturned table, and a ghostly chicken plays the role of "poultry-geist." In the kennel room, cages full of critters are trying to lock horns, claws and fangs through the bars. The crystal ballroom features both flying and disco-dancing skeletons.

The front end of Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis has crashed through one of the walls - interlocking gray and black balloons that make the brightly colored characters stand out even more.

More than 50 balloon artists from across the country and as far away as Japan and Israel helped build the manor, all employing their own styles. A little ventriloquism adds a dash of devilry to the odd-looking crow with the quivering lips being carried around on the arm of Sheree Brown-Rosner, a Long Island photographer whose side job is making "magical balloons."

The tour is expected to draw up to 15,000 people and raise as much as $50,000 for a hospital cancer center and the Teens Living with Cancer support group. Moss' wife, Judy Mathers, was left physically disabled by treatments for Hodgkin's disease after their daughter was born three years ago.

Moss, a 36-year-old New York native, is renowned for his large and technically challenging sculptures. He earned an entry in the Guinness Book of Records when he and fellow artist Ryan Sorell constructed two 40-foot-tall soccer players out of 40,781 balloons in Mol, Belgium, in 2000.

"When you say balloon art, so many people think of dogs and cats," Moss said. "I want to see more people learn how to do this and to build an appreciation for what we do. I want them to know a balloon is my paint brush. If I can visualize it, I can create it."

Because the air eventually seeps out, balloon art has an ephemeral ingredient.

"When this is all over, what's left is a memory, a picture in everybody's minds. Usually when I talk to people later, they talk so expressively about what they saw - different things than I did.

"My background is as a stage entertainer. I like entertaining the audience and creating something for them that they can't necessarily hold in their hands and take away."

Tree limbs form cross on Jesus statue

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Last week's snowstorm in Buffalo brought down countless tree limbs, causing widespread damage to homes and other property. But two large limbs that fell on a statue of Jesus Christ landed in such a way that they formed a cross.

The statue is located behind a former Catholic school in Buffalo.

After the worst of the storm subsided last Friday, neighbor Georgianna Verrastro says she looked out the window and was amazed at what she saw.

Two tree limbs had landed on the right shoulder of the statue, which depicts Jesus with his arms upraised. The limbs caused only minor damage, knocking off the fingers on the statue's right hand.

Video shows the branches leaning against the statue in such a way that it appears Jesus is carrying a wooden cross.

Verrastro told a TV station that her home didn't suffer any damage or lose power during the storm, and she believes the nearby Jesus statue is proof that a higher power was watching over her family last week.

Postcard arrvives after 40 years

A postcard sent in 1966 by a student to his parents on the other side of Poland has finally arrived after 40 years.

Zygmunt Kubiczak, the author of the postcard, said: "Since 1966 Poland has gone through martial law and thrown off the communist system, Jan Pawel II has been elected Pope, served his term and passed away.

"I've managed to get married, bring up two children, sail round the world on a boat, survive a serious heart operation and to retire. And all the time, that card was travelling on it's way."

Mr Kubiczak's parents are no longer alive and the postcard was only recovered thanks to helpful neighbours, who sent it on when it arrived at his parent's old address.

Drunk Norwegian breaks into prison

OSLO, Norway - In a different kind of jail break, a very drunk young man surprised prison guards by breaking into their northern Norway jail. "You might say we were a bit perturbed to find this person on our turf," prison warden Geir Broen said on the state radio network NRK on Monday.

Broen said the district prison in the Arctic town of Bodoe is rebuilding its outer fence, and that the man broke through a section of temporary fencing.

The weak fence is of no help to real prisoners seeking a way out, since they are confined within the walls of the jail compound.

The Norwegian, identified only as being in his 20s, was apparently was trying to find his way home after a Friday night party.

"I don't think this guy knew where he was, and he was pretty well under the influence," Broen said on the radio.

When police came to pick up the man to take him home, he told them he thought he was in Moerkved, a neighborhood about 6 miles east of the prison.

"I guess you could say this was notable day in the history of the Bodoe Jail," Broen said. "But I hope we don't have many similar incidents in the future."