Martin World News round two

ITEM:   First up for day two of "These guys just ain't that bright"...

This is the moment a heavy metal rocker took the old adage 'the show must go on' to a new level - by finishing a gig despite suffering a ruptured testicle.

Dutch rockers Delain were performing a show at the 02 Academy Birmingham last week when bassist Otto Schimmelpenninck suffered the unfortunate injury.

He was hit in the back of the genitals by a streamer cannon, causing his scrotum to grow to "the size of a grapefruit".

After the gig ended, he was taken to hospital where he had 500ml of blood removed from his scrotum and his ruptured testicle stitched up.

Luckily, he seems to be on the mend and may not lose his testicle as first feared.

ITEM:  In a similar vein...

World Superbike champion Carl “Foggy” Fogarty chomped on Ostrich testicles and a Camel penis before being crowned king of the Jungle on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! Fogarty, 49, beat former X Factor contestant Jake Quickenden and TV presenter Melanie Sykes to the title in tonight’s final of the ITV show. He endured three weeks in the Australian jungle braving grim bushtucker trials to beat 11 other celebrities. The motorcyclist broke down in tears as he took his place on the throne in front of his fellow camp-mates before wrapping his arms around his wife. He told presenters Ant and Dec: “I just think it’s all a dream, someone’s playing a trick on me. This is the best thing that has ever happened. It’s absolutely mental. I don’t know what, but I must have done something right.” His final gruesome task saw him determinedly tackle an unappetising meal of testicles, ostrich anus and camel penis.

C'mon, love, give daddy some sugar...

After eating ostrich anus?  I've heard of being hungry enough "to eat the butthole outta a dead rhino,"  but eat them for a TV show?


ITEM:  A little tamer was an article I read on Gizmodo where they speculated, "Could you shoot someone from a gun into the sun?"  Why exactly you would wonder that IDK (Unless you were in a political discussion with The Party Of Scrooge), but nonetheless, they tackled the problem.


To launch a person with a mass of 70 kilograms from Earth into the sun without any protective gear (I assume you don't value their survival if you're launching them into the sun), it requires a minimum of kinetic energy of 33.6 gigajoules, or the equivalent of about 8 tons of TNT. By comparison, a 16-inch naval gun can launch a 1,225 kilograms projectile to a speed of 762 meters per second, giving it 359 megajoules, or the equivalent of 85 kilograms of TNT. You need at least about 100 times the muzzle energy of a 16-inch gun to launch a person into the sun.

The Schwerer Gustav, the most powerful gun ever built, could launch a 7200 kg projectile to a speed of 720 meters per second, still giving it a kinetic energy equal to barely half a ton of TNT. The Gustav had a mass of 1350 tons while the 16-inch gun has a mass of 121 tons. I don't know what scaling law guns follow, but I can safely guess that such a gun would be at least a few times as massive as the Gustav gun. 

Note the little man under the barrel for scale.


So after looking over stress tolerances both in the barrel and out, they came to an inescapable conclusion:

So, in summary, you've embarked on one of the largest engineering projects in history and found a way to pulverize and incinerate a human being in less than three thousandths of a second. 


They go on to discuss other possibilities for getting the payload to the sun, none so entertaining as firing them, and finally closed with the sage comment:

In other words, yep, you can definitely probably launch someone into the sun. They'll just be dead by the time they get there.

ITEM:The online version of the Oxford Dictionary, as you may have heard, recently announced the joining of their acceptable word list.  What surprised me was not so much the words I'd never heard before, but the words I'd been using for years:

Cool Beans, a term I have been using since my late teens (which would be.. um... GEEZ...);

The Five Second Rule, which has allowed me to fight several generations of dogs and toddlers for food on the floor;

Secret Santa, something that has been around for a verrrrrry long time;

Man-crush (Since at least the birth of ESPN);

Obamacare (SERIOUSLY??!!?)

Digital footprint (please).

About the only one on their list I hadn't heard was "al desko", obviously eating at one's workdesk.

Oxford might want to come out and mingle with the common herd a bit more...

ITEM:  Speaking of words, I just saw on Dose.com a set of photos of apparently random words in English that are finding their way onto Japanese clothing for no particular reason.  Here are some examples:

Okay, then, Milky...

ITEM:  Apparently the UK government also has a petition website, and the Mirror recently shared some of the more bizarre petition subjects, such as:


Mandatory and automatic whole life sentences for racist twitters

Make the Tote Boost Horsercing
   "We don't know what this means.  Probably why it only got one signature."

Ban condom machines (promotes promiscuity).

Legalize the use of marijuana in cakes, specifically chocolate brownies
       (Well, duh)


Stop Liverpool and Manchester from merging and becoming Manpool
      (Dose advised not to Google "manpool".  I believe 'em.)

Build police boxes
         "This was almost certainly started by a Doctor Who fan."


ITEM:  Finally, a little good innocent fun from Minnesota:



Downtown Red Wing was a scene of udder gridlock this week as a small herd of cows escaped their trailer to roam the streets.

Red Wing police responded to a report of stray livestock on Main Street around 10:45 p.m. Wednesday. Sure enough, officers found half a dozen Holsteins wandering aimlessly around the intersection of Highway 61 and Plum Street. One of the dairy cows ambled toward the High Bridge and the pastures of Wisconsin on the other side of the river.

“The cows just kind of stood around on Highway 61,” said Red Wing Police Chief Roger Pohlman. Three officers parked their cars around the cows in an impromptu corral and coaxed the herd out of traffic and into the safety of a nearby parking lot. A little later, a farmer called, looking for his cows.

And now you see why I had to split the post!