From the Bizarre Files

Courtesy of commenter and editor extraordinaire, Kate, here are some crime stories from the Odd Spot in The Age:

A man dressed as a woman escaped on rollerblades after holding up the National Australia Bank's Bayswater branch yesterday, witnesses told police. Wearing a skirt and a wig, he escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Because nobody would suspect a woman?

An Austrian pensioner faked heart attacks at more than 100 hospitals so he could steal from unconscious roommates. A nurse caught the 61-year-old, from Muerzzuschlag, going through patients' pockets. He was charged with fraud and theft.

That’s just low.

A Canadian woman in her 20s, who went out dancing in Oshawa, Ontario, did not notice she had been shot in the chest until she was back home in bed and having trouble sleeping.

Well, the party must go on…

Here's a new excuse. Police in Elk River, Minnesota, caught a driver following a high-speed chase when he crashed into several vehicles. Once resuscitated, the clearly drunken man told them he thought he had been playing a video game.

Yeah, the kind that involves getting into a vehicle, inserting a key, putting the vehicle into drive…

A couple kept apart - literally - by a Yorkshire terrier have been helped by a TV dog trainer. The pup had laid down the law to Phil Woodlock, preventing him sharing a bed with his partner of six years.
They had resorted to staying in hotels to spend an evening together.

Puts a different spin on being in the dog house, doesn’t it? Please, don’t groan – you knew that was coming.

Juan Espinosa and Irma Contreras are recovering separately in Mexico - he in police detention, she in hospital with third-degree burns – after a marital spat got out of hand. The couple fired guns and threw knives until a home-made petrol bomb blew up their house in the south-eastern state of Yucatan.

Talk about a heated argument.

Firemen in Manchester, England, had to rescue 21 health and safety officers after an office floor collapsed during a safety meeting. One health and safety officer broke her ankle, while others had bumps and bruises.

Think they learned anything?

The Bookseller magazine's Diagram Prize for oddest book title of the year has gone to People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It. A previous winner was Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers.

This whole people who don’t know they’re dead thing is really bothering me. I mean, what if I’m dead and I’ve attached myself to a bystander and I don’t even know? I mean, if I don’t know I’m dead, I could’ve done this? Really, it’s just so frightening. Am I alive? Am I detached? Dear God, the agony, the horror, the sheer terror at the possibilities…

And in other news, people keep reading this blog.

Now that’s amazing.