Forget the horrifying clown from "It." The newest inhabitant of your nightmares is a giant "fatberg" in the sewer system beneath the streets of London. A fatberg is created by a buildup of fat and grease combined with used diapers, sanitary napkins and wipes. This one is almost the length of three football fields and weighs more than 140 tons. Matt Rimmer with London's Thames Water said the current glob is "a total monster and is taking a lot of manpower and machinery to remove, as it's set hard." He said it's basically like trying to break up concrete. [Metro News, 9/12/2017]

Wait, What?

Entrepreneur Miki Argawal, 38, of Brooklyn, New York, was a hit at this year's Burning Man gathering in Nevada, where she pumped breast milk and offered it to fellow attendees to help with hangovers or use in lattes. She even tried some herself, saying it tasted a bit like coconut milk. She estimated that 30 to 40 people tried her milk. "The fact that any part of that could be seen as taboo ... it's time that conversation changes," Argawal said. [United Press International, 9/7/2017]

Least Competent Criminals

Terror suspect and Uber driver Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 26, of Luton, England, was detained in London on Aug. 25 after using his navigation program to direct him to Windsor Castle. But the technology led him astray, and he pulled up outside The Windsor Castle pub in Windsor. After realizing his mistake, Chowdhury headed for London, where he parked his car next to a marked police van outside Buckingham Palace, brandished a 4-foot-long sword and yelled "Allahu Akbar." Chowdhury was charged in the Westminster Magistrates Court with one count of preparing to commit an act or acts of terrorism. [The Telegraph, 8/31/2017]

Bright Ideas

An unnamed man in Plymouth, Minnesota, went to extraordinary lengths and wasted two days of police investigators' time just to get a few days away from his wife, police Sgt. Keith Bird said. The woman reported her 34-year-old husband missing on Aug. 28 and showed police a text from him saying he had been kidnapped. The kidnapper demanded a paltry $140 for his return, and the wife agreed, but the kidnapper said she could wait for the husband to receive his paycheck. Eventually police caught up with the husband, who insisted he had indeed been kidnapped but asked officers to stop investigating. "He's fine," said Sgt. Bird. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 9/2/2017]

Life Imitates TV

Paul J. Newman of Rensselaer, New York, was sentenced on Sept. 6 to 2 1/3 to seven years in prison after pretending to be a licensed and registered architect, after an investigation the New York attorney general's office dubbed "Operation Vandelay Industries" in a nod to "Seinfeld." Newman's charges included larceny, forgery, fraud and unlicensed practice of architecture. He will also have to pay more than $115,000 in restitution to his victims. [Albany Business Review, 9/6/2017]

Sweet Revenge

After arguing with a security guard about the high price of parking, a woman in Benxi, Liaoning Province, China, left her car in front of the entrance gate to a housing community on Aug. 22. But people have to get in and out, so a crane was employed to lift the car onto the roof of the security building next to the gate. Onlookers can be heard laughing in a video of the incident. The car was later lowered to the ground using the crane. [United Press International, 8/23/2017]

The Price of Vanity

Neven Ciganovic, 45, of Croatia was undergoing the latest in a series of plastic surgeries (this one a rhinoplasty) in Iran when he "reacted badly" to the general anesthesia and developed a painful, long-lasting erection, known as priapism. As he recovered in a Serbian hospital, Ciganovic was denied painkillers and was only relieved of the condition after another surgery, although he says it will be months before he is fully recovered. The tattoo-covered Ciganovic is hoping his latest nose operation will improve his looks enough to launch him to international stardom. [Metro News, 9/8/2017]

Unusual Hobbies

-- British tree surgeon Gary Blackburn, 53, moved to Germany 32 years ago but holds a soft spot for Britain. So when the Brexit vote passed last year, "I decided to make my own little Britain here in Germany," Blackburn said from his home in Kretzhaus. His exhibition includes a demilitarized Centurion tank (decorated with poppies and white doves, to symbolize peace), red telephone boxes and a life-size model of Queen Elizabeth. Neighbors have complained about the tank parked on his lawn, but so far officials have not demanded that Blackburn remove it. [Reuters, 9/5/2017]

-- Farmer Jeremy Goebel of Evansville, Indiana, has honored the late actress Carrie Fisher with a corn maze planted in the shape of her iconic character, Princess Leia from "Star Wars." He planted the maze last spring using a GPS device, and it was scheduled to open in early September. "I've always been a 'Star Wars' fan and I just wanted to pay tribute to Carrie Fisher," Goebel said. [Evansville Courier & Press, 9/6/2017]

Why Not?

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, tens of thousands of people gathered at a city park on the evening of Sept. 1 to revel in the burning of the effigy Zozobra, a six-story monkey puppet filled with handwritten notes about anxieties and problems they hoped to send up in smoke. Locals dropped their notes in a "gloom box" at a shopping center, with subjects ranging from an ill family member to hurricane victims to government corruption. The tradition began in 1924 and was named for the Spanish word for upset or worry. [Associated Press, 9/1/2017]

Errant Butt-Dials

The New York court system's former spokesman David Bookstaver, 59, is under investigation after accidentally admitting to a New York Post reporter in August that he "barely shows up to work." The incident happened after Bookstaver had talked with the reporter on his cell phone. Without realizing it, Bookstaver redialed the reporter's number, and the reporter listened in as Bookstaver talked with two other people about how little he works. The court system's inspector general is working with the district attorney's office on an inquiry, and two county officials are calling for Bookstaver to repay $149,900 of the "ill-gotten" taxpayer money. [New York Post, 9/7/2017]

Dumb Luck

Forklift driver Arron Hughes, 28, of Ruthin, Wales, England, has claimed the distinction of being the first person to successfully swim across the Hoover Dam reservoir on the border between Nevada and Arizona. The dam, which provides electricity and water to Las Vegas, has sucked in and killed 275 other swimmers. But Hughes, on a 37-hour bender during a bachelor party with 10 friends on Aug. 10, jumped in on a day when nine of the 10 hydroelectric turbines were not operating. "I just thought, let's do it ... so told the lads I was off. Got sucked in, well pushed by, the flow of the dam, so had to swim hard," Hughes noted. "It's a hell of a sight to see the dam from underneath." He credits his fearlessness to his Welsh upbringing. "I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie really," he said. Still, he couldn't escape the police waiting on the other side when he pulled himself out of the water. They fined him and sent him on his way. [Daily Post, 9/11/2017]

Guests at Scotland's Macdonald Loch Rannoch hotel were terrorized by Robert Fergus, 72, and his wife, Ruth, 69, in February when the Troon couple rampaged through the lobby with scissors and threatened to shoot other guests. The incident apparently began when Mrs. Fergus pounded on a hotel room door at 1:45 a.m., leading the guest within to call front desk staff, who Mrs. Fergus told her husband treated her "with hostility." That's when Mr. Fergus "reacted disproportionately" by running naked into the lobby with scissors, cutting communications cables and shouting that he would "slit" and "kill" onlookers. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fergus told staff she was going to "get a gun and shoot you," according to prosecutor Michael Sweeney. Staff and guests ran out of the hotel, while Mr. and Mrs. Fergus returned to their room to pack and took off in their BMW. They were apprehended when they flagged down a police car to accuse the hotel staff of abusing them, and Mr. Fergus could not pass a breath test. At their sentencing on Sept. 1, their attorneys blamed overconsumption of alcohol for their behavior, noting that Robert Fergus "had previously been of good character." Nonetheless, they were fined 4,100 pounds and ordered to pay 800 pounds to cover the cost of damage to the hotel. [The Guardian, 9/1/2017]

Criminal's Remorse

An anonymous Australian tourist mailed back a small stone he lifted from the Cwmhir Abbey in Wales, a Cistercian monastery founded in 1176, in August. The thief included a note explaining his remorse: "I have been an avid follower of the Welsh kings and their history, and so I took this rock. Ever since, I have had the most awful luck as if Llewellyn (sic) himself was angry with me." Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native prince of Wales, was beheaded and buried at the abbey in 1282, and legend says his ghost haunts the abbey. The trust that manages the abbey put the returned stone and the note on display, presumably to deter future sticky-fingered visitors. [Metro News UK, 9/1/2017]

A Singular Obsession

-- In Wenzhou City, China, an 11-year-old boy underwent surgery in August to remove 26 magnetic Buckyballs from his penis. The balls caused a blockage in the boy's urethra, which caused bleeding and swelling. He told pediatrician Wang Yongbiao that he put the toys in his penis because he was "curious." (Bonus: The boy was identified in news reports as "Pi Pi.") [Metro News UK, 8/30/2017]

-- An unnamed 35-year-old man in Liaoning Province in China was rushed to the hospital with intense pain and bloody urine in June, after having inserted sewing needles into his penis over the past year. It took doctors at the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region only an hour and a half to remove 15 needles, measuring from about 2 to 4 inches long. The urologist, Dr. Cao Zhiqiang, said patients who engage in this type of behavior "are looking for excitement through unusual ways." He suggested caution for those who "fascinate about peculiar sex." [Daily Mail, 6/23/2017]

Ironies

A Turkish homeless man who was sentenced to house arrest in June has had his sentence altered to better reflect his circumstances. Baris Alkan, 31, had been confined to a specific area, an empty spot enclosed by metal plates, near a bus station after being detained for using and selling drugs. "I don't have a home address, so I have to stay here," he said. "Even though I don't have a house, I'm under house arrest." The court subsequently lifted the house arrest order and now requires Alkan to sign in at a nearby police station once a month. [Hurriyet Daily News, 6/23/2017]

People Different From Us

Emily Mueller, 33, of Ohio asked a photographer friend, Kendrah Damis, to take pictures of her pregnant with her fourth child -- and covered in 20,000 bees. Mueller, who is a beekeeper, checked with her doctor before the photo session and was stung three times during the shoot. She said she associates bees with life and death: "Bees came into my life in a time that we had just suffered a miscarriage," Mueller said. "That's where everything fell into place for me -- when honeybees entered my life." She hopes the maternity photos will highlight the importance of bees. [United Press International, 9/1/2017]

Least Competent Criminals

Steven Gomez-Maya, 20, handed tellers at the TD Bank North in Seymour, Connecticut, a note on Aug. 19, demanding money. He apparently failed to notice that his note was written on the back of his girlfriend's pay stub, and when he tried to return to the bank (presumably to retrieve the note), the doors were locked. Seymour police tracked down the owner of the pay stub, and when they arrived at the girlfriend's home, they caught Gomez-Maya as he was driving away. The hat he wore during the robbery and "a large amount of $10 bills" were found in the car, and he was charged with first-degree robbery. [Valley Independent Sentinel, 8/31/2017]

Animals Run Amok

A swan on the grounds of Blarney Castle in Ireland suffered a harrowing experience on Aug. 31 when it landed in a field where cattle were grazing. At first, the cattle just looked the swan over, but when the bird hissed at them, they took off after it. The swan tried to fly away, but the cows butted and stamped on it. Garden manager at the castle Adam Whitbourn was finally able to lean over a fence and drag the swan out of harm's way. "It was an aggressive attack," Whitbourn said. "I put (the swan) back in the lake and have checked on him twice. He's sitting there looking bedraggled so I'm hoping it's a happy ending." Rather than a swan song. [Irish Examiner, 9/1/2017]

The Classic Middle Name

Anthony Wayne Sandusky, 26, of Mascotte, Florida, was welcomed into the home of a Groveland woman on Aug. 22 because he had nowhere else to go. She went to sleep, and when she woke up, her mother said Sandusky had closed all the blinds, locked the doors and was carrying their possessions out the back door. She found two bags of items in a nearby field, including a stamp collection valued at $250,000. When confronted by police, Sandusky said he took the items because the woman was "being mean to him." [NEWS 13, [8/25/2017]

Compelling Explanation

Andrew Shaw, 44, of Lancashire, England, appeared before the Blackpool Magistrates Court on Aug. 29, facing three counts of possessing obscene images of children on his computer. Shaw and his wife arrived at the court with their guide dogs, as both are legally blind (Shaw has a small amount of sight in one eye). His attorney explained: "It may be argued that difficulty with his vision makes it difficult to put an age to images he downloads. He may think he is looking at 16-year-olds." Shaw was granted bail. [The Telegraph, 8/29/2017]

Oops!

Most news items about sinkholes highlight the large size of the hole. But a man in Brooklyn, New York, was trapped by a sinkhole in the middle of the street that was just big enough to swallow his leg. Steven Suarez, 33, was making a delivery with a hand truck on Myrtle Avenue on Aug. 29 when his foot disappeared into the pavement. "I was scared," Suarez said. "It was my whole entire right leg, up until my tailbone basically." Suarez was trapped for nearly an hour as bystanders directed traffic around him and rescue workers tried to free him. Co-worker Joe Grunbaum, 32, said Suarez seemed to be in a lot of pain, but the only casualty of the incident turned out to be Suarez's right sneaker. [NY Daily News, 8/29/2017]

What's in a Name?

The state administration for industry and commerce in China has had to put its foot down about long, ridiculous names for companies. New guidelines prohibit long-winded names, such as There Is a Group of Young People With Dreams, Who Believe They Can Make the Wonders of Life Under the Leadership of Uncle Niu Internet Technology Co. Ltd. This northern China company, which makes condoms, will now be known as just Uncle Niu. The new restrictions also prohibit words that are overtly religious or political or company names that claim to be the "best." We can only guess what Beijing Under My Wife's Thumb Technology Co. Ltd. will use as its new, shorter name. [Sixth Tone, 8/14/2017]

The People's Liberation Army Daily, a Chinese state-run military newspaper, has declared on its WeChat account that fewer Chinese youth are passing fitness tests to join the army because they are too fat and masturbate too much, resulting in abnormally large testicular veins. The web article cited one town's statistics, where 56.9 percent of candidates were rejected for failing to meet physical requirements. China's military quickly beat down the article's assertion, saying: "The quality of our recruits is guaranteed, and the headwaters of our military will flow long and strong." [Shanghaiist, 8/24/2017]

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Police in Osnabruck, Germany, stopped a vehicle on Aug. 19 and found an unusual trove of drugs inside: Plastic bags filled with about 5,000 ecstasy pills, with a street value of about $46,000 -- all in the shape of Donald Trump's head. The orange tablets depicted Trump's signature sweep of hair and his rosebud mouth. An unnamed 51-year-old man and his son, 17, also had a large sum of cash and were taken into custody. [NPR, 8/22/2017]

Cultural Diversity

-- The Japanese funeral industry demonstrated its forward thinking on Aug. 23 when practitioners gathered for the Life Ending Industry Expo in Tokyo. Among the displays was a humanoid robot named Pepper who can conduct a Buddhist funeral, complete with chanting and tapping a drum. Pepper is a collaboration between SoftBank and Nissei Eco Co., which wrote the chanting software. Michio Inamura, Nissei's executive adviser, said the robot could step in when priests are not available. [Reuters, 8/23/2017]

-- Also at the Life Ending Industry Expo in Tokyo, four undertakers competed on stage as funeral music played to see who could best display the ancient skills of ritually dressing the dead. The Shinto religion in Japan believes that the dead are impure just after death and that dressing the body purifies the spirit. The contestants dressed live human volunteers and were observed by three judges. Rino Terai, who won the contest, said, "I practiced every day to prepare for this competition." [Reuters, 8/24/207]

-- In Iran, the education department has banned people who are considered "ugly" from being teachers. The list of conditions and features that prevent one from being a teacher includes facial moles, acne, eczema, scars and crossed eyes. Also on the list of unsavory conditions are cancer, bladder stones or color-blindness, none of which can be observed by others. [Metro News, 8/25/2017]

FAN-antic

Jeffrey Riegel, 56, of Port Republic, New Jersey, left 'em laughing with his obituary's parting shot at the Philadelphia Eagles. In it, Riegel asked that eight Eagles players act as pallbearers, "so the Eagles can let me down one last time." Riegel owned season tickets for 30 years, during which the Eagles never won a Super Bowl. [Associated Press, 8/24/2017]

Inexplicable

An Arkansas Highway Patrol officer spotted "an unusual sight" on Aug. 23 on I-30: a black Hummer with a casket strapped to the top of it. When the officer pulled over Kevin M. Cholousky, 39, of Van Buren, Arkansas, he took off and led police on a chase along I-530, where his vehicle was eventually stopped by road spikes. Although the casket was empty, Cholousky was charged in Pulaski County with fictitious tags, reckless driving and fleeing. [Arkansas Online, 8/24/2017]

Latest Religious Messages

Sonogram photos are notoriously difficult to decipher, but one couple in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, are sure theirs shows a man watching over their unborn daughter. "When they gave it to us … Umm, to me, it's Jesus. And it looks like Jesus," said mom Alicia Zeek. She and father Zac Smith have two older children, both born with birth defects, and the image is putting them at ease about their third child. "Once ... we looked at the picture, I was like -- look, babe, we have nothing to worry about," Smith said. [FOX43, 8/22/2017]

Least Competent Criminals

-- Jocsan Feliciano Rosado, 22, was driving a stolen car on Monday, Aug. 21, when he stopped off at a Harbor Freight store in Kissimmee, Florida, to pick up a welder's helmet for viewing the solar eclipse. As he dawdled next to the vehicle, looking up at the sun with his helmet on, members of the Orange County Sheriff's Office Auto Theft Unit interrupted his reverie and arrested him. [United Press International, 8/22/2017]

-- Adam Darrough, 29, of Little Rock, Arkansas, tried to elude officers who had arrived at his girlfriend's house to arrest him by climbing out a back window. But when that didn't work, he hid in her attic. Meanwhile, Erinique Hill, 20, held police at bay outside her home. Things went south for Darrough when he fell through the attic floor, and Little Rock police officers arrested him for a number of felonies, including hindering arrest. [Arkansas Online, 8/24/2017]

Bright Ideas

Tuffy Tuffington, 45, of San Francisco was walking his dogs, Bob and Chuck, when he came up with a way to respond non-violently to a right-wing rally at Crissy Field on Aug. 26. So he launched a Facebook page asking San Franciscans to bring dog poop to spread in the park in advance of the event. "It seemed like a little bit of civil disobedience where we didn't have to engage with them face to face," Tuffington said. Contributors to the project also planned to show up on Aug. 27 to "clean up the mess and hug each other." [The Guardian, 8/24/2017]

Court Report

Jordan Wills, 22, of Dover, England, provoked the ire of Judge Simon James of the Canterbury Crown Court in Kent when he appeared before the court. Wills called the judge a prick, and when James asked him to refrain from using obscene language, Wills said, "Who are you to tell me what to do?" James replied: "Well, I am the judge ... and I need to make it clear to you and others that such behavior is not going to be tolerated." Wills was found in contempt of court and sentenced to two weeks in jail. [Metro News, 8/24/2017]

Your Cold, Cold Heart

A police officer on maternity leave was ticketed and fined 110 pounds after she pulled her car into a bus stop in west London to help her newborn baby, who was choking in the back seat. Rebecca Moore, 31, of Aylesbury, said her son, Riley, was "going a deep shade of red in the face, his eyes were bulging and watering, and he was trying to cough but was struggling." Moore appealed the fine, but the Harrow Council rejected her appeal, as did the London Tribunals. "The law about stopping in bus stops is exactly the same everywhere in London," a council spokeswoman said. "You can't do it." [Metro News, 8/25/2017]

News That Sounds Like a Joke

One reveler at an Aug. 19 street festival in Worcester, Massachusetts, caused a dust-up when he aggressively confronted a police horse. Donald Pagan, 59, was cutting through a column of mounted police when an officer asked him to stop. Instead, Pagan raised his fist "in an attempt to punch the horse in the face," a police statement said. The horse jumped backward, away from Pagan, which officers noted could have injured Pagan, the horse or the mounted officer. Pagan was charged with assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest and interfering with a police horse. [Reuters, 8/22/2017]

Social Media to the Rescue!

Epping, New Hampshire, resident Leslie Kahn, 61, found herself trapped in her swimming pool on Aug. 11 after the ladder broke. She was not strong enough to pull herself out of the pool, so she used a pool pole to drag a nearby chair, with her iPad on it, closer. On a community Facebook page, Kahn posted her desperate situation under the heading "911," and soon police and neighbors showed up to rescue her. [Associated Press, 8/19/2017]