Odds & Ends

But can he use it in a sentence?

A 9-year-old boy in New Jersey surprised his teacher by correctly spelling a 310-letter word in class. Aaron Zweig was challenged to learn the word by his teacher Ruth Kalata, but she didn’t expect success. Kalata said she told him to come back to her when he learned the word, not thinking he would, but two weeks later the boy returned and spelled it in front of her class. The 310-letter word, too long to replace here, starts with ornicopy and ends with ulinaniac and originated from medieval scribes to refer to someone who practice divination by means of phenomena, interpretation of acts or various other manifestation. Kalata said the boy paused during the spelling and told his classmates that he was almost done, and that she was amazed that he could pause, comment and finish the spelling without messing up.

Court chaos in Chile

Millions of divorce proceedings are expected now that Chile finally made it legal. Experts fear the country’s legal system could collapse because of the huge demand – thousands of divorce demands were issued within the first few hours of the new law’s introduction. It took 10 years for Chile’s parliament to pass the new law and now Malta and the Philippines are the only two countries where divorce remains illegal.

Luckiest man alive

Austria’s former women’s minister admitted he has a hearing affliction that makes it difficult for him to hear women’s voices. Herbert Haup, Austria’s women’s minister for three years, revealed his weakness during a parliamentary debate after he complained he could not understand a female colleague and she had to repeat herself in a deeper voice. Haup admitted that his impairment means he can’t hear sounds over 3,500 Hertz – the range of many female voices.

Protesting poppas

A disgruntled British father handcuffed himself to a government minister Friday in a bid to draw attention to a campaign for divorce fathers’ rights. Jolly Stanesby pounced on Margaret Hodge, minister for children, at a conference in Manchester and snapped on a set of metal cuffs. The group Fathers 4 Justice claimed responsibility for the act as part of a campaign against what they say is a court bias toward mothers in determining how much access divorcing parents should have to their children. In May they pelted Tony Blair with flour-filled condoms. In September, a member dressed as Batman climbed a ledge on Buckingham Palace and unfurled a campaign banner and last month campaigners dressed as Batman and the Hulk scaled a rollercoaster in the seaside resort Blackpool.

Bored housewives

A mayor in Romania who set up a direct hotline for people to call with civic problems is asking bored housewives to stop inviting him over for sex. Cristian Anghel claimed more than a hundred calls came in a week from women declaring their love for him and that many directly invite him for sex. Anghel said the number was meant for complaints and that he understands the women have desires, but their kind of problems need to be solved somewhere other than the town hall.

Aluminum siding

A Russian man who collects beer cans turned his collection to a practical purpose after his wife threatened that either the cans or she would have to leave their home. Anatoly Tupitsin said his wife came up with the idea of using them for insulation, and at first he thought she was being silly, but now he trawls bars looking for more cans to add to the side of his house. He said the cans insulate the house and keep the draft out and that the aluminum is capable of holding warmth inside even when it is freezing outside.

Mom’s confession leads to dead dad

A mother’s deathbed confession led police to a dead body in a storage locker freezer and officials said the corpse might be that of the woman’s husband whom she claimed to murder more than a decade ago. The woman confessed to her children as she lay dying that their father wasn’t killed in a car crash like they thought, but that she killed him and that his body was in a rental storage facility in the Boston suburb Somerville. Family members then contacted police, who searched the facility and found a large freezer wrapped in duct tape and giving off a strong odor – inside they found the remains of what they think was the husband.