`Britain’s worst driver was [behind] bars last night after being banned from the roads for nine lifetimes plus 109 years.
John Williamson, 40, was locked up for 14 months yesterday after he admitted defying eight previous life bans for drinking and driving.
In 2000, Williamson was branded the worst driver “in Scotland, if not the UK”, after earning his sixth life ban.
At the time, he claimed he only got behind the wheel when he was drunk.
He also claimed he had never caused an accident – shortly before smashing into a police car.
At Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, Williamson was banned for life for the ninth time after he admitted driving while disqualified and with no insurance.’
`A Glens Falls man was charged with burglary early Saturday after he allegedly walked into another man’s home, started cooking pork chops and used the bathroom, police said.
Michael E. Dunlay, 37, of 39D Cherry St. faces a felony charge of second-degree burglary and misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief and petit larceny, Glens Falls Police Capt. Kevin Conine said.
The resident of the Pine Street apartment building arrived home about 12:15 a.m. Saturday to find a man he knew only by a first name in his bathroom with food cooking on the stove, Conine said. Dunlay apparently lived in the same building at one time, he said.’
`A drunk driver just 100 yards from Australia’s iconic giant monolith once known as Ayers Rock stopped police to ask the way to the 1,100-foot-high rock.
The headlights of the man’s car were actually shining on Uluru, which has a 5.8-mile circumference, Northern Territory police said.
The 44-year-old man, whose car was also towing an aluminum boat, has been charged with drunk driving and unlicensed driving.’
`Young adolescents who wear T-shirts and hats packing an alcohol brand name are more likely to start drinking, a new study finds.
The study was based on a survey of more than 2,000 students age 10-14 in New England. Surveys were done in 1999 and again one or two years later. The results were announced today.
Rate of drinking among those who owned a branded item was 25.5 percent, compared to 13.1 percent of those who did not own a branded item. After controlling for other risk factors for drinking, students who owned alcohol-branded merchandise were 1.5 times more likely to initiate drinking during the study period than those who did not.’
`Mike Herchenbach was sure he would get a fine. He’d pay a couple hundred dollars, like his roommates, and go on with his life, even though he wasn’t at the party that got out of hand at his rental house. After all, his name was on the lease.
But what he didn’t expect, and hardly believed, was what Lancaster County Court Judge Gale Pokorny had in mind as his punishment for maintaining a disorderly house last Oct. 2.’
`The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has taken its fight against drunken driving to a new level. TABC agents, along with Irving police, targeted 36 bars and clubs Friday, arresting some allegedly intoxicated patrons before they departed the businesses.
The officers and agents also kept watch on bartenders who might have over-served patrons.
Agents arrested 30 people Friday night. Most of the suspects now face charges of public intoxication.’
`Drinkers are being forced to hand over their names and addresses before even entering a pub.
The draconian hotel security measures have arrived in New South Wales in the form of a device that scans patrons’ licences and stores their details.
The New Brighton Hotel, in the Sydney northern beach tourist drawcard of Manly, has become the first pub to install the device, has made it compulsory for patrons to have their licences scanned before entering the premises.
Anyone refusing to have their licence scanned is denied entry.’
`The zig-zagging car gave them away.
When Italian police pulled over the vehicle, they found a completely naked 70-year-old woman who had been trying to have sex with the driver – 11 years her junior.
After demanding the joy-riding couple get dressed, the police tested the semi-nude male motorist for drink driving.
“He was three times over the legal (blood-alcohol) limit,” said police commander Angelo D’Anardo in the city of Cologno al Serio, northeast of Milan.’
`It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer.
Two flights down, employees and customers at the Big Tower Bar were horrified when water poured out of the beer taps.
By an improbable feat of clumsy plumbing, someone at the bar in Kristiandsund, western Norway, had accidentally hooked the beer hoses to the water pipes for Gundersen’s apartment.’
`A granny has been told to take off her hat in a pub – because it posed a security risk.
Betty Willbraham, 82, was told to take off her hat if she wanted to be served at the Hereward pub in Ely, Cambs.
Staff insisted everyone in the pub is asked to remove their hats so their faces are visible to CCTV cameras in the event of trouble.’
`Even as Congolese villagers devise novel ways to snare the fast-disappearing bonobo, scientists are racing to save the gentle “hippie chimp” from extinction.
The bonobo, or pan paniscus, is closely related to man and known for resolving squabbles through sex rather than violence. It’s also prized by some Congolese for its tasty meat. The wiry, wizened-faced chimps are being killed in treetop nests in Congo’s vast rain forest, their only natural habitat in the world, by villagers who do not seem to know how fast their prey is disappearing. [..]
Bonobos are most easily captured when asleep drunk, say poachers in Congo’s Equator province who intoxicate the chimps with bottled beer and palm wine before tying them into bags for local meat markets.’
`The Bruichladdich distillery on the Isle of Islay, off Scotland’s west coast, is producing the quadruple-distilled 184-proof – or 92 percent alcohol – spirit “purely for fun,” managing director Mark Reynier said. [..]
n 1695, travel writer Martin Martin described it as powerful enough to affect “all members of the body.”
“Two spoonfuls of this last liquor is a sufficient dose; if any man should exceed this, it would presently stop his breath, and endanger his life,” Martin wrote.
Reynier put Martin’s test to the claim and consumed three spoonfuls.
“I can tell you, I had some and it indeed did take my breath away,” Reynier said.’
`A heavyweight couple caused a pub ceiling to collapse by frolicking together in a shower.
The pair checked in to the The Black Horse Inn in Taunton, Somerset, and spent an afternoon drinking in the bar.
They then went upstairs and got in to the shower together.
Their amorous behaviour caused some damage and water started to pour down into the bar below.
The couple left early the next morning, but not long afterwards the ceiling collapsed, leaving landlord Steve Ball with a £5,000 repair bill.’
`Officials said Leland E. “Leef” Holly IV, 23, of Wexford, fell down a flight of steps Friday night, during a birthday party in Greenfield.
He was put on a couch by his friends, who continued to celebrate.
They did not realize he was dead until Saturday afternoon.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the student died from blunt force trauma to the head.’
`A port Lincoln man was in hospital after crashing his car into the town’s police station causing several thousand dollars worth of damage, police said today.
A police spokesman said the vehicle smashed through a fence and hit the front wall of the station about 2am (CST) today. [..]
He has been charged and will appear in Port Lincoln court for driving without due care and on licence and drink-drive offences.’
`The alcohol that got Julia Zukerman into trouble with the law wasn’t in her hand or in the front seat of her car. In fact, she wasn’t drinking or driving — just walking — when a police officer told her to “blow a kiss in my face” and smelled her breath for booze.
“I thought I was fine, because I didn’t have anything on me,” said Zukerman, 19, waiting for her case to be called one recent morning in the courthouse of this college town. “Apparently not.”‘
`Australians are among the booziest daters in the world and least likely to say intelligence turns them on, an international survey has found.
Eighty per cent of Australian men and 70 per cent of women admitted to drinking too much to try to impress possible partners, according to the annual “Romance Report” by publisher Harlequin.
The survey of 1,500 men and women on the dating scene in 16 countries, including Australia, was released today in the lead up to Valentine’s Day on February 14.’
`Deputies say a 16-year-old has been arrested for beating his grandmother with a two-by-four for refusing to give him $100 for beer. [..]
Investigators say Cass went into his 60-year-old grandmother’s bedroom Thursday and asked her for $100 for beer. When she refused, he allegedly placed a razor blade on her throat and demanded she take him to the bank to get the money, deputies said.
“When the victim arrived back home she locked all of the doors,” deputies reported. “The defendant arrived back home and kicked the front door in. [..]’
`Nicky Taylor, 39, is stumbling around a nightclub dance floor in the early hours of the morning, clutching a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.
In five hours, she has drunk equal to four bottles of wine in a potentially fatal mix of cocktails, spirits and beers. [..]
This ugly scene is not a typical night for Nicky. In an experiment for a British TV documentary, the single mother spent a month matching the bingers drink-for-drink to see what it did to her body and mind.
Over 30 days, going out five nights a week, Nicky consumed a staggering 516 units of alcohol — 17.2 units a day. Guidelines say women should drink no more than two or three units a day, and a maximum of 14 a week.’
with pre- and post-binge photos.
‘2. Don’t ask, “What’s cheap?” [..]
9. DO NOT SMELL THE CORK! – When I see someone do this I know I’m dealing with a complete amateur. Guess what you’re gonna smell? Cork! [..]
10. DON�T SMELL THE PLASTIC CORK EITHER!- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people do this. Lots of wine makers are moving away from natural cork to synthetics. Sniffing a plastic cork tells the world you’re a moron. [..]
15. The Big Glasses — At my bistro we have very serviceable red and white wine glasses. However, some yuppies have a wine glass fetish and insist on sipping $6 Chianti out of a $50 Riedel balloon glass. Stop whining. [..]’
`[..] “We were just being, well, college students, and they used it against us,” says Mr. Stoneman, a senior at George Washington University in Washington. He is convinced that the campus security force got wind of a party he and some buddies were planning last year by monitoring Facebook.com, the phenomenally popular college networking site. The officers waited till the shindig was in full swing, Mr. Stoneman grouses, then shut it down on discovering under-age drinking.
Mr. Stoneman and his friends decided to fight back. Their weapon of choice? Facebook, of course.’
`A mother in New York is suing an Applebee’s restaurant after her 5-year-old son was allegedly served a Long Island Iced Tea instead of apple juice. [..]
Pereles said she did not realize her son was drinking a concoction of white rum, gin, vodka, triple sec, Coke and sweet-and-sour mix until it was too late. The boy’s eyes became glazed and he began to laugh uncontrollably, according to a report.
“When you’re looking at your 5-year-old and you’re asking him, quiet down Seth, sit still and you see that mentally and physically he cannot comply with what you’re asking him to do because he is under the influence,” Pereles said.’
`Dutch troops helping earthquake survivors in Pakistan have complained that while they are subject to an alcohol ban, Spanish and British soldiers laugh at their austerity and turn up drunk at their campfire.
“We were told before we arrived that alcohol was banned in this country or else very difficult to get hold of and we accepted this,” one soldier told the Dutch daily De Telegraaf.
“The Spanish drive around with cars full of Heineken … and the English laugh at us when they show up at our campfire drunk,” another Dutch soldier said.’
`A drunken holidaymaker has been dumped on a desert island after launching a foul-mouthed tirade at the crew of a passenger jet.
The unwilling Robinson Crusoe will only be able to leave Porto Santo, a tiny patch of land off the North African coast, if he books a two-and-a-half hour ferry trip to Madeira. He will then have to book a flight to his intended destination, Tenerife, or return to Britain. [..]
Rather than continue for a further 45 minutes to Tenerife he diverted his Airbus A321 to Porto Santo. Within moments of the plane touching down the passenger was escorted to the terminal. Last night he remained a castaway on the Portuguese-controlled island. His New Year home is a mere 10 miles long by three miles wide with a population of 4,000. There is little entertainment apart from walking on the sand dunes.’
`A wonderous Office Christmas party last night and I woke up with these on me. My work collegues tell me Sam, the office token Aussie, bought them for me as a secret santa present, but I cannot confirm this. By all accounts I wore these all night, while various members of staff nibbled at them. As you can see from the photos, there are lots of sweeties left. They are in perfect working order and I have them on now.’
`A 38-year-old suburban man allegedly admitted to police he drank 10 beers before lighting a commercial firework inside his home, blowing up the house and seriously burning himself and a female companion.
“When you see these in public settings, they’re 30, 40, 50 feet across at the top,” Pat Barry, spokesman for the Will County sheriff’s department, said of the firework the man allegedly set off. “Imagine this going off in a room that’s about 8 by 8,” Barry said.’
`A Welsh rugby fan has reportedly cut off his own testicles to celebrate Wales beating England at rugby.
Geoff Huish, 26, was so convinced England would win Saturday’s match he told fellow drinkers at a social club, “If Wales win I’ll cut my balls off”, the Daily Mirror reported today.
Friends at the club in Caerphilly, south Wales, thought he was joking.
But after the game Huish went home, severed his testicles with a knife, and walked 200 metres back to the bar with the testicles to show the shocked drinkers what he had done.’
`A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.
Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.’
