strangedays

IN YOUR DREAMS: A lottery ticket seller in Las Heras, Argentina, became embroiled in a row with a fortune teller, who accused him of stealing her dreams. Silvia Ines Umile said Angel Fernández "came into her dreams" and robbed her of powers to predict winning lottery numbers. She in turn was being prosecuted for allegedly threatening to burn his house down. Her neighbours said she had never correctly guessed the winning numbers. Scotsman, 9 Mar 2002.

BEATING THE DEVIL: Samantha McShane, 25, was driving down the A701 from Edingburgh to Moffat, when her van plunged 500ft (150m) over a cliff into a gully known as the Devil's Beeftub. She survived the fall with a gash to her arm, and climbed back up to the gully to get help from a passing driver. Edingburgh Eve. News, D.Mail, 13 Feb 2002.

NUT BURIAL: Floyd Goodman Jr, 50, survived being buried under 12ft (3.6m) of unshelled peanuts for 90 minutes in Norfolk, Virginia. He wound up in a squatting position, protected by the goggles and paper dust mask he was wearing. He had fallen off a beam at the warehouse he worked. He was flown to hospital complaining of pain in his right shoulder and arm. [AP] Daily Press, 13 Feb 2002.

ACQUIRED TASTE: An Indonesian man installed CCTV in his kitchen and dicovered that his maid had been cooking soup by boiling her underwear in water from the lavatory. "My mother, my wife, my son and I had been drinking the soup for two days," he said. The maid said she did it to put her employer under a spell. Metro, 18 Dec 2001.

TAKE THAT, SATAN! Laurence Vanderbeek accidentally burnt down his house in Bisbee, Arizona, while trying to exorcise Satan from the building. He put fire-resistant materials on a table and then piled it with books and artwork, which he set alight. At some point, he added paint thinner and petrol, "because the devil kept stomping it out". Fire swiftly spread throughout the house. Bisbee (AZ) Observer, 14 Mar 2002.

VULTURES IN THE UK

How a trio of unlikely avian escapees darkened the skies of Britain

Three vultures were on the loose in Britain last summer. Foster, a Ruppell's griffon vulture (Gyps rueppellii) with a 8ft (2.4m) wingspan, absconded from Banham Zoo near Diss, Norfolk, when he hit a thermal during a flying display on 18 June. "As he is a domesticated bird," said his handler, "I do not think he really knew how to get down." Ruppell's vultures are the highest flying birds in the world - one collided with a commercial aircraft at 37,000ft (11,300m). Foster turned up in Happisburgh 50 miles (80km) away on the Norfolk coast, and then flew to Reydon, near Southwold in Suffolk, on 22 June. He was finally coaxed down and captured in the vicarage garden two days later.

The second bird, an African white-backed vulture called Sydney, escaped during a flying display at the English School of Falconry at Shuttleworth Manor in Warden, Bedfordshire, on 8 July and turned up a week later in the Lexden suburb of Colchester in Essex. On 1 October, the Colchester Evening Gazette told FT that Sydney was still at large.

The third bird, another African white-back, known as Bert, escaped from Whipsnade Wildlife Park in September. He dived on the pitch at Eaton Bray, Bedfordshire, where Old Dunstablians reserves were playing a practice match. Some players fled to the changing rooms while others cowered in their cars as the 7ft (2m) wingspan bird targeted the ball. Whipsnade keepers eventually recaptured him. D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 22+23 June; Irish Times, 25 June; Mirror, Ananova, Colchester Eve. Gazette, 16 July; Eve. Standard, 18 July 2001.