And Finally...

The street gained mass attention and even became a landmark after The Beatles named their 1969 album 'Abbey Road', with the album cover featuring the four members crossing the road.

Now, every day, dozens of eager and excited tourists head to the location to recreate the iconic album cover.

However, it seems some of those tourists expect a bit more than just a road when they make the trip to St John's Wood and often end up disappointed.

Many of those tourists have taken to the online review site Tripadvisor to share their upset.

One visitor titled their review "disappointed doesn't cover it..." explaining: "On reflection, I think I may have been expecting too much. My disappointment in not finding street sellers, either side of the road, selling cheap t-shirts and merchandise was a surprise."

They added: "It's just a zebra crossing and you'd save yourself some money by just standing on any of the millions in the UK and just photoshopping the background in."

Another upset Beatles fan shared that there's 'nothing to see': "I am a massive Beatles fan, but there really is nothing to see here.

"It's just an ordinary zebra crossing. It's busy - crowded with fellow tourists trying to work out if they are even at the right place, and with annoyed drivers trying to drive down a busy main road."

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/27813470

In short:

Indian police have arrested an American man who visited a restricted island and left offerings to a tribe not contacted by the modern world.

Mykhailo Polyakov had previously made two unsuccessful attempts to reach North Sentinel Island, home of the Sentinelese people.

What's next?

Local authorities say he has been released on a three-day remand "for further interrogation".

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/27032543

Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle.

This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St. Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It’s the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who says he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience.

Thompson says the outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit naturally with a Christian message.

“Boil it down to the basics, it’s good versus evil,” he said. “When I became Christian, I started seeing the wrestling world through a Christian lens. I started seeing David and Goliath. I started seeing Cain and Abel. I started seeing Esau having his heritage stolen from him. And I’m like, ‘We could tell these stories.’”

...

At a recent Wrestling Church evening, almost 200 people — older couples, teenagers, pierced and tattooed wrestling fans, parents with excited young children — packed into chairs around a ring erected under the vaulted ceiling of the century-old church.

After a short homily and prayer from Thomas, it was time for two hours of smackdowns, body slams and flying headbutts. The atmosphere grew cheerfully raucous, as fans waved giant foam fingers and hollered “knock him out!” at participants.

Some longtime churchgoers have welcomed the infusion of energy.

“I think it’s absolutely wonderful,” said Chris Moss, who married her husband Mike in St. Peter’s almost 50 years ago.

“You can look at some of the wrestlers and think” — she scrunched her face in distaste. But talking to them made her realize “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

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Only a handful of people have gone from watching the wrestling to attending Sunday-morning services at St. Peter’s, but Wrestling Church baptized 30 people in its first year. Thompson, whose brand of born-again Christianity is more muscular than many traditional Anglicans’, plans to expand to other British cities. One day, he says, he may start his own church.

A babysitter in Kansas found a troubling surprise after a child she was watching complained there was a "monster" hiding.

The babysitter found a man hiding under a child's bed after they attempted to show the children there was nothing under there, the Barton County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Wednesday.

"She came face-to-face with a male suspect who was hiding there," the sheriff's office said.

...

The following day, deputies spotted the man while they were in the area looking for the suspect. He ran and after a short pursuit, deputies caught him.

Martin Villalobos Jr., 27, was arrested and booked into the Barton County Jail on multiple charges, including aggravated kidnapping and child endangerment. The sheriff's office said Villalobos is being held on a $500,000 bond.

Villalobos once lived on the property, the sheriff's office said. There was a current protection order issued against him to stay away from the property.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/26826847

Russian media has fallen for an outrageous April Fools joke involving Prince Andrew.

Chanel Tapper, 34, who has held the Guinness World Record for the longest tongue (female) since 2010, said her tongue, which measures 3.8 inches from the tip to her lips, gets her an array of reactions.

"Honestly, the best reaction I could ever get when someone sees my tongue is screaming. I actually do like when people yell or scream in shock, or horror sometimes," she told Guinness World Records. "But that's probably my favorite one because it's funny to me because it's a dramatic response."

Tapper showed off some of the tricks she has learned to perform with her tongue, including removing Jenga blocks, flipping plastic cups and holding a spoon.

"I like little fun, silly things like that. That's what makes my tongue the most fun when I can do things that are outside the box with it," she said.

Video

Ahem, influx of US football (OK, soccer) players in one, two, …

The leader of a small group of self-described satanists and three other people were arrested Friday following a scuffle inside the Kansas Statehouse arising from an effort by the group’s leader to start a Black Mass in the rotunda.

About 30 members of the Kansas City-area Satanic Grotto, led by its president, Michael Stewart, rallied outside the Statehouse for the separation of church and state. The group also protested what members called the state’s favoritism toward Christians in allowing events inside. Gov. Laura Kelly temporarily banned protests inside, just for Friday, weeks after Stewart’s group scheduled its indoor ceremony.

The Satanic Grotto’s rally outside drew hundreds of Christian counterprotesters because of the Grotto’s satanic imagery, and its indoor ceremony included denouncing Jesus Christ, who Christians believe is the Son of God. About 100 Christians stood against yellow police tape marking the Satanic Grotto’s area. The two groups yelled at each other while the Christians also sang and called on Grotto members to accept Jesus. Several hundred more Christians rallied on the other side of the Grotto’s area, but further away.

Kelly issued her order earlier this month after Roman Catholic groups pushed her to ban any Satanic Grotto event. The state’s Catholic Bishops called what the group planned “a despicable act of anti-Catholic bigotry” mocking the Catholic Mass. Both chambers of the Legislature also approved resolutions condemning it.

...

Satanic Grotto members, who number several dozen, said they hold a variety of beliefs. Some are atheists, some use the group to protest harm they suffered as church members, and others see Satan as a symbol of independence.

...

Video shot by KSNT-TV showed that when Stewart tried to conduct his group’s ceremony in the first-floor rotunda, a young man tried to snatch Stewart’s script from his hands, and Stewart punched him. Several Kansas Highway Patrol troopers wrestled Stewart to the ground and handcuffed him. They led him through hallways on the ground floor below and into a room as he yelled, “Hail, Satan!”

In the small town of Kawara in Fukuoka Prefecture, something unexpected is happening at the Saidosho Community Center. While kids in most parts of Japan are obsessed with Pokémon cards — or perhaps the franchise’s latest smartphone game, Pokémon TCG Pocket — the children of Kawara are clutching to something a little closer to home.

They are playing a trading card game (TCG) where the stars aren’t fantasy creatures, anime heroes or even famous baseball players, but ojisan (middle-aged or older men) from the local community of Saidosho.

On the surface, this Ojisan TCG looks like any other collectible card game. As of March 18, there are 47 different cards in the collection, including 28 featuring local men with stats and special abilities.

...

The creator of the game is Eri Miyahara, the Secretary General of the Saidosho Community Council.

“We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children and the older generations in the community. There are so many amazing people here. I thought it was such a shame that no one knew about them,” she said in an interview with Fuji News Network (FNN). “Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures.”

The plan worked. Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for community activities — just for a chance to meet the ojisan from their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled since the game launched.

Interestingly, Ojisan TCG didn’t start as a competitive game. The first set of cards was designed purely for collecting, but the local children quickly turned it into something more dynamic. They began comparing stats and declaring, “My card is stronger than yours.”

Seeing this, the game’s creator decided to take it to the next level. New rules were introduced, allowing the cards to be used in actual battles. The objective isn’t to defeat the opponent’s card but to outplay it based on the characters’ skills and abilities.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27390737

Passengers heading to China aboard a recent United Airlines flight faced an unexpected travel headache after a pilot’s forgotten passport prompted their return to the United States.

Flight UA198 from Los Angeles to Shanghai was over the Pacific Ocean on Saturday afternoon when it made a U-turn and headed to San Francisco, tracking data showed.

United confirmed on Tuesday to AFP in an email that the plane, a Boeing 787 with 270 people onboard, made a stop in San Francisco “as the pilot did not have their passport onboard”.

Police in South Carolina rounded up an escaped kangaroo, which turned out to have been released by a mischievous goat.

The Horry County Police Department said on social media that the 4th Precinct Patrol Division responded to a neighborhood where a kangaroo was seen on the loose.

The officers "returned this pouch potato pet home," the post said.

The animal's owner, Lindsey Richardson, said she had just woken up when a neighbor alerted her that her exotic pet was loose.

Richardson said she had to go out in her silk, pink pajamas to help police wrangle the loose 'roo.

Richardson later determined the kangaroo had gotten out thanks to her goat unlatching a gate.

The foul stench of penguin poop sets Antarctic krill on edge.

In lab experiments, the mere scent of penguin droppings — or guano — sent krill scrambling for escape, researchers report March 20 in Frontiers in Marine Science. The stink also seemed to suppress krill’s appetites.

...

Krill use their antennae to sniff out food, mates and even pollution. But scientists weren’t sure if they could detect predators by scent. To find out, Hellessey and her colleagues netted krill off the Antarctic Peninsula and transported them to nearby Palmer Station.

In the lab, the team let krill loose in a flume filled with flowing seawater, adding either algae for the krill to eat, a bit of Adélie penguin poop or both. Cameras tracked the krill’s 3-D movement.

Working with the krill was fun, says oceanographer David Fields of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine. “They truly are these cute, charismatic animals.”

Working with penguin poop was another story. “Penguin crap is the most vile thing you can imagine,” Fields says. Just opening guano storage bags “would clear the entire lab space.”

Krill showed a similar reaction to the smell. In algae-only water, they quickly swam toward the food then lingered near the buffet. But in water with algae and guano, the krill zigzagged, Hellessey says. “They’d sort of dart in, eat and dart out.” Krill swam in frantic zigzags in water containing only penguin poop, too.

A second set of experiments placed krill in seawater buckets with either algae or algae plus guano. Over 22 hours, krill in the algae-only buckets ate about 67 percent of the food. Krill in buckets with penguin poop ate only about 25 percent.

Plans for the installation of a Tardis-style police box in Watford town centre have been submitted.

The planning application the temporary structure has been added to the Watford Borough Council planning portal this week.

If approved, it would be installed between Metro Bank and the entrance to atria Watford at the High Street/Queen’s Road junction.

The area has apparently been identified as a “hotspot” for crime and anti-social behaviour, with regular reports of thefts and violent crime.

“The temporary installation of the police box is a part of a pilot project initiated by Hertfordshire Constabulary to reduce crime in hotspot areas,” the planning statement added.

“If proven successful, installation in additional locations and ‘permanent’ structures may be further explored.”

...

Documents added that a 35 per cent reduction in crime and anti-social behaviour in the immediate area has been attributed to “a similar police box”, installed in Boscombe, Dorset.

Offenders apparently “would not know if there was a police officer inside the box and therefore would be less likely to carry out a crime”.

A mum from Prestatyn claims she's been denied a passport by the Home Office after changing her name to Pudsey Bear for charity 16 years ago. Eileen De Bont, 53, became 'Mrs P Bear' in honour of the Children In Need mascot having raised £4,000 at an online eBay auction for the cause back in 2009.

The Welsh mum-of-two, now affectionately known as 'Mama Bear' by her daughters, successfully changed her name when the UK Deed Poll Service secured the highest bid. She had given a list of 50 options stating that she would change her name to the one chosen by whoever bid the most.

Her driver's licence and bank card both bear the names 'Mrs P Bear' and 'Mrs Pudsey Bear' respectively while council tax communications address her as 'Ms Pudsey Bear' and Inland Revenue calls her 'Mrs Pudsey Bear'.

Despite being recognised by various government agencies under her chosen moniker she has struggled with the Passport Office which has repeatedly refused to issue her a passport, calling her name change "frivolous". Mrs Bear recently faced another setback when warned that her renewed attempt at acquiring a passport could be thwarted due to potential copyright infringement issues.

She told MailOnline: "All my bills, my bank details, the GP, my local health trust – verywhere else has accepted my new name. Everywhere except the Passport Office. When I applied back in 2009 their reasoning was that it was a frivolous name and therefore the answer was no."

She continued: "I thought that after 16 years the passport agency can hardly call my name 'frivolous'. It is my name, and has been for 16 years, so I would like it on the front page of my passport next to my photograph."

Mrs Bear has previously been asked if she'd revert to her birth name but she's fond of her current name and doesn't want to change it. Her tarot reading business, Northern Light Tarot, which boasts 32,000 subscribers on YouTube, is even registered under Mrs Pudsey Bear at Companies House.

She was advised to seek permission from the copyright owner, the BBC, before proceeding with her application. Having given up driving due to medical reasons she now finds herself without any valid form of photographic ID.

And previously:

• Game of Thrones name sparks passport mix-up for family
• Family’s ordeal after son, whose name is inspired by Star Wars, refused passport due to copyright issues
• Paddington Bear given UK passport by Home Office

A Melbourne mother who put a dead man’s toes in a jar to sell them on the black market had a treasure trove of other “oddities” in her house.

Lilydale woman Joanna Kathlyn Kinman, 48, appeared in Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on Monday to plead guilty to a single charge of offensive conduct involving human remains.

The court heard Kinman worked as a ranger at an animal shelter, where her job involved after-hours collection of stray and seized animals. Leading Senior Constable Melissa Sambrooks said on February 19 last year, two dogs who had partially consumed the toes after their owner died from natural causes were seized and taken for an assessment.

While at the facility where Kinman worked, the dogs became ill and vomited up the remains. Sambrooks said shelter staff cleaned up the vomit and placed it and the remains, which included two human toes, in a general waste bin.

When a distressed staff member left work early, Kinman remained behind to lock up, taking the opportunity to search the wheelie bins. “She located two human toes and took them home and placed them in a jar containing formaldehyde,” Sambrooks said.

The following day, Kinman called her daughter and told her about the toes, saying she had researched selling them on the internet and believed she could get $400 for them.

...

“The jar was positioned among other oddity items, including a guinea pig trotter, an alligator claw, a bird skull and baby teeth belonging to the accused’s children,” Sambrooks said.

The court heard further inquiries found Kinman was a member of Bone Buddies Australia, an online group for “skull and bone enthusiasts” to swap and sell specimens or share their finds with others.

Sambrooks said Kinman was an avid contributor to the site and used it to sell a wet still-born kitten and puppy and a book titled the History of Punishment and Torture.

Kinman had also taken part in discussions about dead road kill and a television show focused on the trade of human remains, the police prosecutor said.

The 48-year-old mother of five made full admissions to police about the toes, telling them she was “curious” and was known to collect weird things.

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cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/134426