The Runaway Bride

A kid just can't be a kid in Romania any more, I guess. And it's no use running to dad for help either, evidently, as Romanian Roma (gypsy) king Florin Cioaba has defied a state investigation into whether he forced his 12-year-old daughter to marry against her will. He then paraded her on TV to say the wedding was her choice.

12 year-old Ana Maria and her groom Birita, 15.

What 12-year old wants to get married? Not this one either, apparently, as hundreds of guests and a throng of reporters watched as Gypsy princess Ana Maria tried but fail to escape her lavish wedding last Saturday in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu. Ana Maria had made it clear she opposed the wedding when she stormed out of the church but was escorted back by her family.

Everyone knows what a teen-queen stomping her foot in anger and denial looks like, and it was all too evident this princess was not looking forward to a lifetime with her Prince Charming as she stomped her way down the aisle and away to a neighboring building.

But later, after being coerced back into the building by her family and made to follow through with her wedding, Ana Maria denied she had ever run. "The dress was heavy and I went to my cousin's to arrange my dress and use the bathroom," Ana Maria told reporters.

Later that night guests were shown a bloodied sheet to prove the marriage was consummated. What a charming ritual. The girl's older brother, Dorin, defended Roma customs and told Romanian television that his little sister's wedding night was "normal". "There was no rape," he said. Not the best note to start a marriage with.

That's one way to get out of paying for braces.

A rose by any other name…

This takes the cake - international news site Ananova tells us of a Dutch man who is obsessed with women's urine and inserted bags in public toilets to collect it. Of course the authorities frown on such things, and he was given a two week suspended sentence, for collecting the urine at toilets in Rotterdam airport.

Now, how could this intrepid thief ever get nabbed? He was caught when he slipped and fell while he was inspecting a bag full or freshly pilfered pee-juice. A woman in an adjoining cubicle alerted police. I would have paid to be a fly on the wall to hear that confession.

The suspended part of the sentence seems suspect to me, but now he said he has given up his passion and watches pornographic films instead. You would think this would insure he lived a long lonely life with just his collections - of porn and pee. But we're told he is currently involved. With a lady. And she told the courts Nicholas G didn't want a sexual relationship, because he was scared of HIV and AIDS.

But he wanted contact with women and was sexually excited by female urine, she said. When making his courthouse appearance, the defendant said: "Normally I wouldn't have the nerve to walk in the ladies' lavatories and insert the bags. But after a few beers, I could. When I was sober again, I realized what I had done and felt guilty."

Not guilty enough to stop. A new case for pay toilets and lower alcohol proofs.

Fuck-a-duck

I know it's the goofiest of curses, but I once adored a boy who shouted this when he dropped a hammer on his bare foot. Now, this lame epithet takes on new meaning as we hear of scientific observation of homosexual necrophilia in a duck.

Stop laughing, and read on. Apparently, a gentleman who works at the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam (Rotterdam Nature Museum) heard a loud "bang" on the window and assumed that the fowl department had just collected another specimen for their collection. He went outside and witnessed - well, something never before seen in nature.

According to the NMR website, "On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the [Rotterdam Nature Museum] and died. Another drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an 'Attempted Rape Flight' that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard."

And I get pissed when my boyfriend poops out after half an hour?

News Briefs - by Alexia O’Neil

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