Friday’s Odds and Ends

Well, actually, just odds. These are some unusual news items I found on the Web.

A McDonald’s in the United Kingdom is refusing to serve teens who are wearing sports gear after 7pm. According to the manager, the restaurant has experienced a lot of anti-social behavior from groups of youths. “It’s almost gang-style fighting at the weekend.  My staff have been threatened and been told they will be stabbed when they finish work. The local police are working with us at the moment and their advice is to take a zero tolerance approach.”

A man known as ‘Spider Dan’ has been convicted for climbing San Francisco’s 60-story Millennium Tower. Daniel Goodwin spent about four hours  in September  scaling the residential high-rise, aided by suction cups. He ignored authorities’ repeated commands to come down. Goodwin testified that he wanted to call attention to what he sees as a national lack of preparedness to fight skyscraper fires.

Research suggests that the terrifying visions that haunted composer Chopin and convinced him that strange creatures were crawling out of his piano were caused by epilepsy.

Sheffield University PhD students Alex Baker and Chris Rose launched a video camera into space for less than the price of a second hand car.

Juan Manuel Barrientos, a  young chef from Colombia, has created two fully edible wedding gowns and showcased them during the Colombiatex fashion show in Medellin. Wedding dresses are usually just something pretty for people to look at, so Juan Manuel Barrieto decided  to give them a whole new purpose. Instead of just eye-candy for the wedding guests, his beautiful creations are real candy for the groom to enjoy on his wedding night. The original wedding dresses are made of 2,000 sugar-glazed rose petals and champagne clothe and come with edible accessories such as bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings made of candy, and a bouquet made of edible flowers.