We start this month off with two stories of how NOT to win the love of your life back...
A man in Sicily asked a friend to shoot him in the groin in the hope
of making his ex-girlfriend feel sorry for him, police said
on Friday.
Police in the central Sicilian city of Piazza Armerina said they
became suspicious when the 27-year-old went to hospital
with wounds from a hunting rifle's pellets in the groin area.
At first he said the wounds had been caused in a hunting accident,
but later admitted he had asked a friend, 16, to shoot him
in an attempt to win back the affection of his girlfriend, who had
apparently left him because of his violent character.
The man's wounds are expected to heal, doctors said.
Police said the man, and the 16-year-old, had been charged in
connection with the shooting. Local reports said the man's
ex-girlfriend had made clear she never wanted to see him again.
****
A Chinese waiter chopped off three of his fingers outside his ex-girlfriend's house in an effort to win her back.
The 21-year-old sliced the fingers off in front of a police officer
to prove his love for Xiao Qian, after she called police to
remove him from outside her home in Sichuan province.
However, the stunt failed to win her sympathy, and Xiao has refused to visit her former lover in hospital.
"Nothing can change my mind," she told the South China Morning Post.
****
A farmer in eastern China didn't realize his bride was really a man until her fake breasts fell off.
The lonely farmer paid £1,300 to marry the woman in China's Fujian province, reports the Fuzhou Evening News.
But she refused to sleep with him after the wedding, complaining she felt unwell.
Six days after the ceremony, she tried to run away but the farmer followed her and tracked her down in a neighboring town.
As they grappled together, the bogus bride's false breasts fell off and the farmer realized he had been tricked.
Police have now arrested the bride on suspicion of obtaining money by deception.
Arranged marriages are common in parts of rural China where men
greatly outnumber women because of the country's
one-child policy.
****
Two 12-year-old girls have been "encouraged" to leave their
school by the headteacher after they were caught charging
boys money for a public kissing session in the school cafeteria.
The schoolgirls, who have not been identified, apparently got the
idea for the kiss after watching Britney Spears and
Madonna kiss during last year's MTV awards.
The Canadian Grade 7 schoolgirls charged boys £2.10 to watch the lunch-hour lesbian-style show late last year.
The father of one of the girls said his daughter was basically expelled for her actions.
"She was thrown out of school," the unidentified man said.
"She wasn't allowed back to school. She was told she had to go to a different school."
The man said the girl's parents agreed to get counselling for their daughter, reports Toronto Star.
Webmaster Note: I can't believe they said Britney was a bad role model.
****
A Croatian man blew up his frozen car after trying to warm it by lighting a fire under the engine.
Zlatko Grden, 52, lit some old newspapers under the engine of his
Opel Kadett after it failed to start in freezing
temperatures.
He told local media: "I couldn't start the engine and realized
it was frozen. I decided to warm it up. Maybe I used too
much paper."
Grden, of Donja Stubica near the Croatian capital Zagreb, added: "My lovely car is now destroyed."
Webmaster note: So apparently inbreeding is big in Croatia
****
An Austrian woman had to be rescued by firefighters after her son handcuffed her while playing cops and robbers.
Four-year-old Julius Benedikt had found the handcuffs while visiting friends with his mother in Linz.
He put the cuffs on her left arm, but no key could be found to take
them off again. Attempts to remove them with a drill
failed, so the family phoned police for help.
When officers failed to unlock the cuffs, they contacted the Linz
fire brigade, which fixed the cuffed arm in a vice and went
to work with an iron saw.
To make sure the woman wasn't injured, they threaded a piece of cloth
between her arm and the cuffs and also cooled
her wrist with water to make sure the heat from the saw didn't cause
any harm.
It took 15 minutes to free the woman, the Kronen Zeitung reports.