Saturday, June 14, 2008

Laughing over comedy show lands man in jail

A man who fell off the sofa while laughing too hard at a comedian on TV had to spend a night naked in a cell.

Chris Cocker from Blackburn, Australia, laughed so hard while watching a BBC TV's Have I Got News For You that he fell off the sofa, but the thud vexed a neighbour, who in turn called the police.

"I fell off the settee in hysterics and hit the floor and got myself up and started carrying on watching the telly and the next thing I know there was a knock on the door," Brisbane Times quoted Cocker, as telling BBC.

It was the police, but Mr Cocker was not happy to see them and refused to co-operate.

"The bit where I lost it the most was when I shut the door and the policeman had stuck his foot in the doorway and was refusing to let me shut my own front door," he added.

The police was forced to pepper-sprayed Cocker, bundled him into a police van and take him to a police station where he said he was stripped naked and made to spend a night in a jail cell

However, Lancashire Police said the officers used the pepper spray after fearing for their safety when Mr Cocker became aggressive.

Friday 13th safer than an average Friday

Unlucky for some?

Dutch statisticians have established that Friday 13th, a date regarded in many countries as inauspicious, is actually safer than an average Friday.

A study published on Thursday by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) showed that fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays. “I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th,” CVS statistician Alex Hoen said.

In the last two years, Dutch insurers received reports of an average 7,800 traffic accidents each Friday, the CVS study said. But the average figure when the 13th fell on a Friday was just 7,500.