Monday 4/28/08

Human Interest News   —   Posted on April 28, 2008

by The Editors of WorldMag.com

Wild diet
A small-town Brit has a challenge for himself: Eat nothing but what he can forage for a year. Fergus Drennan, 36, says he’ll still live at his Broad Oak home near Canterbury but will each day collect nuts and wild fruit in a 10-mile radius from his home. The wild foods chef has been using things like bark, wild herbs, and even non-poisonous flowers to create dishes with rice and pasta for years. But for the next year, he says he’ll eat only what he collects by hand. “When you are hungry, you look harder and always find something to eat,” he told the Daily Mail, noting he’s not above using road kill for extra protein.

Lovebirds, jailbirds
It’s not the honeymoon they planned. California newlyweds had their wedding reception crashed by cops when the Vallejo house party in their honor got out of hand. Police arrived to try to quiet down the party. When they came a second time, officers tasered and arrested the groom and his cousin who had become aggressive. The bride was also taken into custody on suspicion of public intoxication. Both spent their wedding night in jail.

Turkeys gone wild
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night: But what does the U.S. Postal Service’s unofficial motto have to say about wild turkeys? Mail carriers in one Madison, Wis., neighborhood are facing off against wild turkeys who are pecking and scratching at postal workers making their appointed rounds. Post Office manager Mara Wilhite says carriers have been attacked by the birds, including one that blitzed through an open door of a mail truck with talons cocked. Initially, squirts from water guns seemed to dissuade the big birds. But now the turkeys seem accustomed to even that. Eric Lobner with the state’s Department of Natural Resources speculated the mating birds are attracted by the trucks’ red, white, and blue coloring.

Britain’s kaiser?
If British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gets his way, Parliament may well repeal the 307-year-old law that prohibits Catholics from inheriting the crown. Considered antiquated, the kingdom’s ban on Catholic monarchs has lost popularity, but some scholars say its repeal may unleash unintended consequences. Among them: Franz Herzog von Bayern, a 74-year-old German aristocrat, could lay claim to the English crown. As a blood descendant of Charles I, the Duke of Bavaria, as Franz is known, is the rightful heir of the Stuart line should he seek the throne-something in which his friends say he has little interest.