Not many hoaxes are as purely bizarre, or as purely disgusting, as that of Mary Toft, an English peasant who convinced many members of the medical and scientific community that she give birth to rabbit-like creatures in 1726.  Although no one would believe such a claim in this day and age, at the time, the idea of maternal impression- in which pregnancy and the developing baby could be affected by anything the mother saw, heard, dreamed or experienced- was quite popular.  After an investigation, her husband was found to have been buying young rabbits and the “fetuses” were examined  and found to be pieces of rabbits, cats, and sheep bladders cut up with man-made instruments such as knives.  There were also grains and animal droppings found in the objects.  Upon being pressed, Mary admitted it was a hoax and she had inserted the objects into her uterus when her cervix was still open due to a miscarriage.  She then “delivered” them later in front of doctors and surgeons. 

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Maria Monk

Claiming to be a runaway nun, this Canadian woman along with various ghost writers, wrote a supposedly true tale of abuse in a Montreal convent.  She claimed her and the other nuns were basically sex slaves to the priests who fornicated day and night like an 80s hair band.  If a nun protested, they would disappear mafioso-style never to be seen again.  If a child was conceived through these affairs, the baby was baptized, strangled and thrown into a lime pit in the convent basement.  Later, investigators discovered that Monk had spent the years she claimed to have been partying with the priests, in the Magdalen Asylum for Wayward Girls, and had never  been a nun.  Monk was left destitute while the individuals who really penned the tale- who also happened to be anti-Catholic activists- sued each other over the book’s proceeds.  By most accounts Maria Monk turned to prostitution and died in an almshouse in 1839.

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Cottingley Fairies

In 1917, cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, living in Cottingley, England stunned the world with photographic evidence of fairies.  Among those taken in, was Sherlock Holmes-creator Arthur Conan Doyle.  The girls maintained that the photographs were real until they were quite elderly, when in 1981 they finally admitted they were faked using cardboard cutouts held up by hatpins.  Frances still claimed they had seen fairies, but never captured them on film.

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Satanic Ritual Abuse

  Known by many to be the modern equivalent of seeing witches and demons, there have been many claims of childhood abuse at the hands of secret cults, but no real evidence.  Many allegations center around shady psychiatric theories and practices such as repressed memories, multiple personality disorders, and hypnosis.

One of the most influential cases is that of Michelle Smith, a woman who came to believe she was tortured, caged, sexually abused, and had the blood of murdered babies rubbed on her body as a child after therapy sessions with a man who would later become her husband.  Since it was published in 1980, her story has been thoroughly debunked.  No evidence has ever been found to corroborate her version of events, something that should have been easy to do since she claims members of the cult that abused her cut off their middle fingers, murdered people on a regular basis and at one point held her captive for over 80 days, but no missing fingered town folk, unsolved murders, or school absences of that length have been uncovered.  Although, Smith’s case is now considered a hoax, it led to many prosecutions of falsely accused individuals from alleged child abuse and molestation around the US due to “repressed memories”.

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Blame the Black Guy

A common hoax is to blame the crime on some anonymous minority figure.  I suppose if these are the type of people to commit murder, easing race relations isn’t a big concern of theirs.

Susan Smith is probably the most famous and hated of the perpetrators of this hoax.  After drowning her children because her boyfriend wasn’t interested in being a father, she claimed she was carjacked and a black man drove off with her two children.  She is currently serving life in prison.  The big question, why she just didn’t give up custody of the kids to her ex-husband, has never been answered.

In 1989, popular CBS reality show Rescue 911 was riding along with emergency personnel when a call came in that a man and pregnant woman had been shot.  Charles Stuart said a black man carjacked him and his wife after childbirth, forced them to drive to a different neighborhood and than shot them both.  A man named Willie Bennett was suspected and Stuart picked him out of a line-up.  He may have eventually been convicted of the crime if Stuart’s brother hadn’t confessed that Stuart had planned the whole thing for insurance fraud and that he had helped by taking the gun and valuables and tossing them into a river.  Stuart later committed suicide.

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People don’t get much crazier than Ashley Todd, the McCain supporter who claimed she was assaulted and had a letter “b” carved into her face by a giant black man for not supporting Barack Obama.  The biggest tip off this was hoax- before security camera footage showed the incident never happened?  The B was backwards, you know, like someone using a mirror to write. 

In these cases, the truth came to light, but you have to wonder how many times similar situations were used by smarter hoaxers who got away with it.

Rosie Ruiz 

In 1980, Ruiz was the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon.  The truth?  She showed up late and jumped in at the last mile. After video shot at the beginning of the race proved she hadn’t been present, it came to light that she probably did the same thing at the earlier New York City Marathon since a freelance photographer remembered riding the subway with her as the race was going on.

Yes, a student, or Student X, from the east of England (Giles School, Boston), lost almost all of her fingers in an art lesson when she was only sixteen in 2007. The student was using plaster of Paris to make a cast of her hands and as a result, the cast stuck to her hands rendering them trapped within the cast. Despite immediate attention from the school medical staff and other teaching staff, nothing could get the cast off. High temperatures up to 60C can be generated within a plaster and the student was left with severe burns.

The girl was supposedly told by the teacher to use her hands in the clay to make a mould after which the liquid plaster was meant to be poured into the clay mould. Instead, she put her hand (up to wrist) into a container full of plaster of Paris which caused the mixture to begin hardening round her hands in about 10 minutes and she couldn’t rescue it.

After a complex set of nearly 12 operations, plastic surgeons weren’t able to rescue her hand and left one hand with no fingers and the other hand with only two fingers.

This breaching of the Health and Safety regulations and not informing the Health & Safety Executive of this horrific incident has resulted in landing the school with a £16,500 fine with £2500 in costs.  The incident was only discovered 6 weeks after, by the plastic surgeon in charge of the girl.

Now 18 and after multiple skin grafts, Student X’s hands are still badly disfigured but her lawyer Stephen Hill says she is doing “remarkably well”. Student X has 3 A levels now after returning back to school after the incident. The school now claims that the school is safe from any further disasters and the health and safety regulations are now a lot more stringent which the school has decided to adhere to.

I imagine, in many ways, being a scientist is a little bit like being a writer, there is a creative process involved in developing new projects. Personally, I sit out on my patio, smoke a cigarette, and just let my mind wander until a thought pops into my head. Sometimes it’s a good idea, sometimes not so much. There are times when I’m forced to take an idea that seems unworkable and try to make it into something unique. That’s actually how I ended writing The Magic Table, which is a short story that has gotten some attention and with any luck, will soon appear in your favorite magazine.

Every year since 1991, the Annuals of Improbable Research give out ten Ig Nobel Awards for achievement. The Ig Nobel award winner is defined as “an experiment that first makes people laugh and then makes them think.” In layman terms, I guess that means … things that make you go hmmm.

The awards are given out in categories, much like the more prestigious Nobel Prizes, which include Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Education, Literature, Medicine, and Peace. What does it take to get an Ig Nobel in Literature? The winner in 1994 was L. Ron Hubbard, ardent author of science fiction and founding father of Scientology, for his crackling good book, Dianetics.

As I was doing research for this column, I was amazed at the level of creativity involved in some these experiments. For instances in 1996, a group was honored for their work studying the effect of Ale, Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches. I’m thinking they may have been smoking something other than a cigarette.

Biology is by far the funniest category to read. In 1998, a man named, Peter Fong, prevented depression in clams by giving them Prozac. In 1999, Dr. Paul Bosland created the spiceless chili pepper. My favorite award winner, however, is Buck Weimer. His claim to fame is as the inventor of Under-Ease. A garment whose tag line reads “an airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter, designed to remove bad-smelling gases before they have a chance to escape.” I understand the concept but I have to ask, first, what type of fabric can create airtight underwear and second, what kind of food does Buck eat?

A close second for favorite received the Ig Nobel in 2002, category Interdisciplinary Research, whatever that means. It was presented to Karl Kruszelnicki of Sydney Australia. He preformed a comprehensive research study of human belly button fluff, who gets it, when, what color and how much. Outies need not apply.

We won’t know the 2009 winners until after the ceremony this week but if, you would like to get a giggle, go to Wikipedia and look up List of Ig Nobel Prize Winners. It’s worth it. This is the last column for the week but I will see you bright and early on Monday. Be sure to check out my website for a new installment of Anecdotes from 435 sometime this weekend. Find out what the madcap crew of Red Lobster is up to at darlaferrara.com.

Until next time … Peace
Darla

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The mine itself is situated just outside Victoria, in Gauteng. It is a very large mine which is known for producing many of the world’s largest diamonds. 

The company, called Petra Diamonds, calculate that this one diamond will pay all their running costs for the next two years, or more. The diamond is, they say, at first glance, an unusual and amazing colour and has an exceptional clarity to it, so it is likely to be classified as a Type1 diamond.  You can’t get more perfect than that.

At the same time several other white diamonds were found but these were considerably smaller at a hundred and sixty eight carats, fifty eight point five and fifty three point three.  The smaller ones would certainly make startling engagement rings, or wedding rings. Just imagine how that much diamond would look in a setting, or you could build (design) your own diamond ring with it. Of course, you would have to be able to afford it first.

The diamond has yet to be examined by experts and details of colour and clarity grading will be released later. In common with all large diamonds, this fantastic find will be given a name, but that has yet to be decided on.

The Cullinan Mine is famous for very large diamonds and has the record for the largest ever diamond found in a mine. On January 26th 1905, a stone weighing in at 3106 carats was found here by miner, Fredrick Wells. It was cut down into several smaller stones.

The sparkle from a small diamonds set into a pair of diamond stud earrings is quite dazzling, so imagine the brilliance of a diamond of this size.

Diamonds have always held a fascination for mankind and there are a lot of stories linked to them. Whether they are huge like the latest Cullinan Mine diamond, or the smaller type that we see in local jewellery shops, they have always been greatly prized.

Poets and artists, sculptors and songwriters have long revered and praised the diamond as a symbol of love, among other things. It has been said that the diamond is the opposite of the pearl in the same way that the moon is opposite to the sun. The diamond appears to have a brilliance of its own as light refracts and bounces around its facets. It is a symbol of courage, infallibility and energy, while the pearl is more sedate like an older lady, soft to look at. Plays have been written; poetry and songs composed, extolling the virtue and beauty of this gem stone.

Diamonds are mentioned by Elizabethan play write William Shakespeare in his play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and he says that a diamond costs two thousand ducats which is about $5000 dollars. (This was a small fortune in those days.) He spoke of diamonds being so precious that they should be set in gold and guarded in palaces. So, even five hundred years ago the diamond was revered as a precious stone with amazing powers.

When made up into decorative items, diamonds are often set with pearls to make jewellery and as well as being pleasing to the eye, the effect is symbolic and gives a stark contrast between the softness of the pearl and the lively sparkle of the diamond.

Diamonds have, historically been embedded in breastplates and shields to bring the warrior supernatural strength, stamina and bravery in battle. During the fifteen hundreds in Europe a diamond was said to banish ghosts and ghouls and things that wandered in the night, but it needed to be set into a gold amulet which was worn on the left arm.

The Hindus used to put diamonds into four different classes, or castes. Brahmin was the diamond that energised the wearer and gave power and strength, friends, wealth and good fortune. The Kshatriya kept a person young and slowed down the onset of old age. Vaisha stones were for achievement and Sundra for luck in all things.  However, if a diamond had even the tiniest speck of red in it, the wearer would soon die.

In Arabia, Persia and modern Egypt, diamonds are thought to be very lucky and to give the wearer protection. In ancient times, the diamond was even said to make the wearer totally invisible. So, there is a lot of folklore and legend surrounding this rare and beautiful gem stone.

Diamonds have traditionally been worn in diamond engagement rings, wedding rings, and in diamond studded earrings for hundreds of years. This is the same tradition and folklore being carried over to modern times. We no longer say that we wear these precious stones in engagement rings and necklaces for protection from the unseen, but that is undoubtedly where the practise came from.

A Western Australian man, Dean Robbins, 27, leapt out of his chair when he realised his labelling had been chosen from thousands of entries. Mr Robbins is reported as saying he would be pleased to go down in history as the person that named the new product, however his dreams took a turn for the worse.

The new snack was to be named iSnack 2.0, until today. Kraft have reacted quickly to damning responses from the public and social networking sites which clearly indicate the name is not a popular choice.

Facebook polls have overwhelmingly canned the name and groups have been established to lampoon it.

Vegemite is an Australian icon dating back to 1923 when the first competition was run to name the original product. Marmite, Promite and other forms of ‘mites’ have not been able to approach the popularity of Vegemite in Australia. Vegemite has a staunch and committed loyal following.

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One way an Australian expat values the quality of grocery shopping in a new country is to see whether Vegemite is on the shelves at the supermarket. It seems an Aussie is a ‘Happy little Vegemite’ when they can secure the dark, salty, yeasty spread. In Australia most children would be raised knowing the words to the song “We’re Happy Little Vegemites”. It has become an Australian nursery rhyme, sometimes being taught in schools and used for concerts and performances for primary aged children.

It was always going to be a tough gig to name the new product. Maybe “iSnack” would have not ellicited such a response, but with the “2.0″ added it becomes dated, marginalised and has obviously raised the ire of the voting public.

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I was interested to read this news article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8262393.stm

It seems that alcohol can help relieve the symptoms of head trauma.  It’s wonderful to know that there is a natural aid rather than an ‘artificial’ one but now this info has leaked out, there seems to be no excuse for binge drinkers over here in the UK to stop their Saturday night benders!  They can now drink heavily safe in the knowledge that if they get hit by a double decker bus on their journey home, they’re less likely to end up in a coma (other than an alcohol induced one of course!).

It’s been a well known fact to me that booze can soften the impact of major injury.  A friend of mine was waiting for a bus under a fly-over in Norwich UK.  But it was with some surprise that, while she waited, a man landed at her feet from the sky above.  My friend, assuming the man had somehow fallen over the barrier, immediately dug out her mobile phone ready to contact the ambulance service.  She was certain the he was badly injured, if not dead, so you can imagine her amazement when she ran across to check for a pulse.

The man pushed her aside, stood up and, swearing at her loudly, staggered away to the nearest bench still clutching his bottle of cider before stretching himself out and falling asleep!  My friend, being the good samaritan, still phoned the ambulance service who came to check the guy out.  After much struggling between paramedics and down and out, they loaded him into the ambulance and told my friend that the guy was a ‘regular’ of theirs.  He enjoyed flying it seemed as they were often called out because he’d taken a ‘leap of faith’ but even they had to admit he’d never leapt off anything quite as high as the fly-over which, of necessity, was about twice the height of a double decker bus!!

Maybe in a previous life he’d been a member of the Mile High Club??!!  And I still wonder where his next spectacular freefall had taken place.  We’re not known for our skyscrapers in Norwich so maybe he moved on to pastures new – the London Eye perhaps?

The Georgia drought is finely over. Georgia has been under drought conditions for the past four years. We have had water rationed, yards and garden have dried up, and we have looked forward to the day when the rains would come. That day came about 5 days ago. It has rained continually with few let ups for the past five days. Rivers and creeks are out of their banks and people are being rescued from flooded homes by boat. Cars have been washed away and at least three people drowned. Pictures we see on TV are horrendous with people wading away from their homes in chest deep water unable to save any belongings. Some areas reported 15 inches of rain in less than 24 hours.

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All my sons have called to see if we are all right. We are. We live on the second story of a three story apartment building. Sope creek is about a 1000 feet away and it runs through lower ground so there is little chance of us being flooded. We expect the power to go off at any time, though. I cooked a good hot meal this evening in case we have no more cooked food for awhile. I also made a bunch of chocolate cookies. Yummy, we haven’t started on those yet. Atlanta already has many power outages with trees falling on power lines. We have been lucky so far.

Today the rain stopped a little so we took our umbrella and walked around the complex. Three large trees had fallen down. The ground is so full of water the roots have nothing to hold onto. While we were out we walked to the creek and it has never been so full these seven years we have been here. The water is completely over the banks and if anyone should fall in they would be drowned for sure. I think the rush of all that water would wash a car away. I made pictures so you can see for yourself.

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My partner’s son called saying he had a leak in his garage roof so at least the inside of the house isn’t getting wet. When I spoke to my daughter in law she had checked over her house about the middle of the day and found a leak over granddaughter’s bed. My son and grandson were on top of the house patching their roof the last I heard. Our maintenance man said some leaks have been reported in these apartments but since apartments are over our heads we hope we won’t get wet.

http://newsflavor.com/politics/white-house-visitor-logs-released/

http://newsflavor.com/world/usa-canada/a-freezer-full-of-cash/

http://newsflavor.com/assisted-suicide/

“It was hilarious” one resident exclaimed, “there will be no cover up on this one!” 

In fact it is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald  http://www.smh.com.au/national/officers-jump-from-police-bus-and-do-nudie-run-at-traffic-lights-20090921-fy41.html that there was a van full of naked cops, all off duty it would seem, except one. Let’s assume the onduty officer still had his clothes on and was in charge of the vehicle.

It appears the cops were using police vehicles to ferry them to and from a bucks party. One must wonder whether everyone at the bucks party was required to turn up in the bollicky. In fact how many police vehicles full of constables in their birthday suits were on the road this afternoon? What would have happened if there had been a bingle between the bollicky bongos? 

Assistant Commissioner Alan Davey is reported as saying “They were not exposed to the public”. Well perhaps not now commish, but at about 4 o’clock this afternoon can you be sure somebody’s maiden aunt wasn’t out enjoying their afternoon stroll and copped an eyefull of Queensland’s finest. The nursing home is probably administering salts to the poor old dear right now!

Commissioners in Queensland will be doing their fair share of overtime on this one. The Queensland public will laugh all the way to the courthouse. I wonder what the judges face will be like when these cute constables turn up to face the music.

I love nothing more on a Sunday morning than getting my honey nut cornflakes and a cup of tea and spending an hour or two upstairs at my PC trawling the online newspapers and the BBC News website.  A headline on the BBC this morning particularly caught my eye.  Being a lover of history I was immediately drawn to an item that indicated some correspondence had been released into the public domain which took place between the Queen Mother and her mother-in-law Queen Mary during WW2.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8252978.stm

So many people, certainly here in England, say that the Royal Family can’t have no inkling how the common people live, but this letter from the Queen Mother shows that she was very much in touch with her neighbours in London. 

I know that, when the war began in 1939, the government suggested that King George and his family should move out of London for their own safety, but they refused to go.  It was their opinion that the majority of people in London had no option but to stay and face the music (or bombings!) so they wouldn’t abandon them.  They were often seen speaking to people who had been caught up in the blitz and the pessimists amongst us thought it was just, what we would call today, good PR.  However, having spoken myself to several people who were ‘blitzed’, they have said how wonderfully kind the Royal Family had been in their hour of need and how much it boosted their morale when they’d lost their homes. their belongings and in many cases, members of their families.

And now this letter has come to light it shows me that it hadn’t just been a gimmick to gain brownie points with the people, but they cared very much what was happening to the common man. 

Our current Queen was brought up in a similar vein and again, despite what many people think, I’m sure she’s well aware of what’s happening in her country but, as one would expect of Her Royal Highness, she must be seen to be slightly aloof.  I suspect if she and the Duke of Edinburgh were seen regularly in the Queen Vic downing a pint of ale and eating pie and mash they’d somehow lose some of their respect and charm!

To begin to consider what you want to search. This may be a Big Duh! “But it’s worth thinking about the keywords that you will use. Suppose you are looking for news of his grandfather. If your name was “Jedibiah Utzenpfeffer”, you are lucky may be very good, only users in his name only. But if the name of his grandfather was Robert Smith, will have some additional information – such as humans have lived, if reducing the great work of his life, the spouse’s name – the number of search results.

The next step is the head of the archives of Go-ogle News and start the search. Go-ogle has put together an incredible source of newspapers and magazines … Believe it or not; your  collection includes more than four centuries. It is the fastest and easiest way to get an overview of the information from there to the archives of historical information.

Now comes the best part. Go-ogle files give you a good idea of how many objects exist and what they cover. But many of the results of the services can be expensive to access. Instead, head of the web site where you will find an excellent collection of links (Go Ahead, I suppose) the archives of newspapers. Use them to refine your search and get what you want.

 Answers also pages of international collections of files from free newspapers, the magazine of historical archives (including Time Magazine … a great resource), and even devoted a special page for the university press. Finally  Answers also access to free magazine subscriptions, which is well worth a visit. These are not the current (historically), magazines, but hey! Are free. I mean weekly edition of PC Magazine for FREE with these guys.

If the combination of Google News search and XooxleAnswers not just the historical and genealogical information you want, then take a look at an article on the research of old newspaper files, you should receive them best, that you start looking.
And one final note. I should mention as a source web site absolutely the best advertisement of historical newspaper articles. It is a free service, but it is a very reasonable price (although I’m greedy, I have been paid for years are). And they offer free content. Worth seeing.
Good research worldwide.