How the naked lady of the woods stopped the bulldozers in their tracks

Like the hundreds of thousands of other trees being cut down to make way for the £371million road tunnel, the ancient beech was destined for the chop.

That was until foresters pointed out the wartime carving of the naked woman and the inscription etched on the trunk.

Now the Highways Agency has agreed to alter the path of the tunnel to keep the lady in her place.



After discussions with conservationists, they shifted the boundary slightly so the tree remains untouched.

A Highways Agency spokesman said: "It's an interesting little piece of history and we have managed to amend the boundary so that the tree can stay."

Although Forestry Commission rangers had known about the tree for many years, they kept it a secret because they did not want it attacked by vandals.

Florida Preacher Starts "Pull Up Your Pants" Campaign

A Florida preacher has become the self-proclaimed chief of the fashion police to stop young men from wearing baggy pants.

Jacksonville pastor Diane Robinson said every time she sees a young man wearing sagging pants, she is personally offended. So, she started a belt collection for young men called "Pull Up Your Pants!"

Robinson and other organizers said the belts are mostly symbolic, but they are a way to get to something much deeper and more serious.

"We're trying to get these guys to pull up their pants and act like young men. You don't have to curse. The rap music [and] killing everybody and selling drugs, that's not life," said belt campaign organizer Levale Ellis.

The belts will be given away at a Jacksonville high school to all young men who want them.

With news video.

Madonna has bad brush with artist

Do not expect it to grace the walls of Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s Wiltshire mansion or their London townhouse.

A new painting of the couple depicts the singer, grotesquely muscled, lying naked on a bed as her husband paws her thigh. It is a highly unflattering portrait of the couple and it marks the second round in an apparent skirmish between Ritchie and Peter Howson, the artist.



According to Matthew Flowers, Howson’s dealer, Ritchie, who prides himself on his robust “diamond geezer” persona, was unhappy about two earlier paintings, completed four years ago, which also showed the singer nude.

“Peter’s a bit obsessed with Madonna,” said Flowers. “There are strong rumours that Ritchie was very jealous of the earlier pictures and wanted to knock Peter’s block off.” He suspects these rumours reached Howson, who has provoked Ritchie further by returning to the subject.



The second 2002 portrait, in which she is also naked, shows her squatting in a churchyard. “It should remind her of her own mortality,” said Howson at the time. “She could have just risen from the grave or be about to return to it.”

Howson, who was a body-building fanatic, nearly always portrays people in his pictures as highly muscled and almost grotesque. Although Madonna is lean and muscular, the picture exaggerates her bulk.



He admits that in the latest picture he superimposed his own face on the body of the singer. The Ritchie figure has been compared with Shrek, the cartoon ogre. The painting is on sale for £15,000 at an exhibition of Howson’s work at the Gatehouse gallery, Glasgow, which opened last week.

Ritchie may be particularly irritated to hear that Howson’s sole motive for selling the portrait was to raise some quick money to buy a new house.

Ritchie could not be contacted.

Mother gets earful from her car thief

Police said a Jacksonville mother who left her sleeping toddler in the car while ducking into a store came outside after a few minutes to find both gone.

But the thief got more than he bargained for. When he saw the 1-year-old, police said he quickly returned the car and the child before giving the mother a parenting lecture.

"That's what you get for leaving your kid and keys inside of your vehicle! You got what you deserved!" he told the 25-year-old woman outside the auto parts store before running away, according to the Sheriff's Office incident report.

Witnesses described the thief as a black male with gold teeth and braided hair. He was wearing a white tank top, black pants with the word "G-Unit" on the side, and an orange baseball cap turned backward. He had driven away in the woman's bronze 2002 Nissan Altima before coming back.

The woman said that the incident was the first time she ever left her son alone in the car and she will never do it again.

Penguins on treadmills the latest way to save the planet

King penguins struggling on a treadmill could help to save the planet.

Scientists from Birmingham University have fitted 50 of the birds with special heart-rate monitors in an experiment designed to measure global warming.

They will record how much energy the birds are using in order to feed themselves. If the data shows they are making longer trips further into the oceans to find fish, it may prove waters are warming up and climate change is taking place.

The 'guinea pig' penguins live on the Crozet Islands, in the southern Indian Ocean, about 1,500 miles north of the Antarctic.

The monitors record each penguin's heart rate, location, the surrounding pressure and hence water depth, and the temperature at the back of its throat, telling the scientists when it has swallowed a cold fish.



The problem for the scientists was working out the relationship between the penguins' heart rates and how much energy they were expending.

To do this, ten penguins were placed on treadmills so their heart rates could be measured at the same time as breathing rate - calculated by putting the treadmill in a sealed, clear plastic box and monitoring how much oxygen they used.

The treadmill was speeded up and slowed down to find out how the penguin's heart rates changed at different levels of activity.

Then their height, weight and flipper length were compared to the heart rate and energy use.

This can be compared with birds living in the wild to see how much energy they use.

The flying saucer snapped up by US army

The age of the British amateur inventor toiling away in his humble garden shed lives on - and Geoff Hatton is proof of it.

The former hovercraft engineer has designed and patented a flying saucer from his workshop in Peterborough that has grabbed the imagination of the American military establishment.

"My son said it was a bloody silly idea,' said Mr Hatton. "Now I've proved it works, he says sorry, he was wrong."



The 68-year-old has won a contract with the US government for his 3ft-wide contraption, a cross between a hovercraft and a helicopter. It is being considered for surveillance sorties.

"Unlike a helicopter, though, this is aerodynamically neutral and you can bump into walls and not smash the rotor,' said the inventor, and, unlike a hovercraft, you can fly it as high as you want."

The device, which was rejected by the Ministry of Defence, was funded partly by a £43,000 development grant from the Department of Trade and Industry five years ago.

You can see a demonstration video here.

Spamalot bids to 'clip-clop' into the record books

The cast and creators of Monty Python musical Spamalot are hoping to set a new record for the world's largest coconut orchestra.

The Guinness World Record attempt will take place in London's Trafalgar Square on St George's Day, 23 April.

The public will be given a pair of coconuts to "clip-clop" in time to the Python classic Always Look On The Bright Side of Life.

The current record of 1,789 was set in March last year, in New York.

Here is Michael Palin demonstrating the fun you can have with a coconut.

Easter is cancelled

Click for bigger.

Hip-hop beat-box Easter Bunny

By Jeremy Harper.

Using a digger to row a boat

Genius.

Peculiar Insect

I don't know what this is, but I wouldn't like to wake up with one on the end of my nose.

Monster the Singing Cat

Monster has a vocal chord condition that makes it sound like he's singing when he yawns.

Cave Bookcase

A Cave bookcase provides a private reading space within its form.



Books can be stored on both sides. It can also be used as a room partition.

Bury your dead marriage

A New York divorcee has come up with a solution for failed marriages - a miniature coffin to lay those unwanted wedding rings to rest.

"Give a dead marriage its proper, final resting place,'' the company offering the miniature caskets says on its website.

"The Wedding Ring Coffin is the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one for bringing closure after a divorce. It's time to bury the past and move on to a new tomorrow,'' it says.



The 5cm by 15cm solid wood coffin has a black velvet ring insert, a choice of six brass plaques inscribed with messages including "I do NOT!'' and "Six feet isn't deep enough,'' and costs $US30.

"It's a way to acknowledge the death of a marriage and to physically and symbolically close the lid on that chapter of your life,'' said Jill Testa, who came up with the idea.

"Most people just stick their rings in the bottom of their jewellery box, in a corner of a sock or underwear drawer,'' said Ms Testa, who surprisingly describes her own divorce after 20 years of marriage as amicable.

Her company, Wedding Ring Coffin, even offers cards inviting people to join in your marriage wake, featuring the slogan: "You're invited to my divorce party. Join me as I close the lid on my marriage.''

Making art out of geometry

A piece of public art called 3 Ellipses for 3 Locks has been created by a Swiss artist on one of the locks of Cardiff Bay barrage.

It was created by Felice Varini and is one of several pieces scattered around Europe.

If you stand in one particular spot on the barrage, all of the lines join up to form a set of concentric circles.



Felice Varini is known for his geometric perspective paintings of rooms and other spaces, using projector-stencil techniques.

His work consists of unconnected lines which form shapes if viewed from a particular angle. From other points, the marks look like splashes of colour.

According to art critic Joël Koskas: "A work of Varini is an anti-Mona Lisa."

There's a bigger photo here.

Attempted murder charge over frying pan attack

A man has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing a man, attacking him with a frying pan and hitting him with his car in western Queensland.

Police said two men, aged 26 and 27, got into a fight on the side of the Barkly Highway at Mount Isa about 6pm (AEST) yesterday.

The 26-year-old man allegedly stabbed the other man, hit him with the pan and attempted to run him over with his car.

The victim, who knows his alleged attacker, was treated at Mount Isa Base Hospital and has since been released.

The 26-year-old Mount Isa man will appear at Mount Isa Magistrates Court tomorrow on a string of charges including attempted murder.

Rare striped rabbit spotted in Sumatra

One of the rarest species of rabbit in the world has been spotted for only the third time in the last 35 years.

The Sumatran striped rabbit was photographed in late January on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the Wildlife Conservation Society said.



The species is listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union, due to loss of habitat.

The rabbit was previously photographed in 2000, with the last sighting by a scientist back in 1972.

Airline Blames Diet for Pilot Breath Test Failure

A pilot arrested on suspicion of being over the alcohol limit has been cleared after tests found heavy dieting had caused his breath to smell like drink.

The Virgin Atlantic employee - held at Heathrow on 31 March before a flight to New York - had failed a breathalyser.

But samples taken from the 47-year-old prove his blood-alcohol level was consistent with a non-drinker.

Scientists say low-carbohydrate diets can produce acetone in the body, which may fool breath test equipment.

The long-serving pilot was said to have been on a heavy diet for a long period.

Filipinos crucify and whip themselves to mark the death of Jesus Christ

More than a dozen Filipinos were nailed to crosses and scores more whipped their backs into a bloody pulp on Friday in a gory ritual to mark the death of Jesus Christ.

The voluntary crucifixions in the northern Philippines were the most extreme displays of religious devotion in this mainly Catholic country, where millions are praying and fasting ahead of the Easter weekend.



In the small village of Cutud, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Manila, seven men cried out as nails the size of pencils were driven into their hands and feet before they were hoisted up in the scorching heat.

Up to 20,000 people watched the spectacle, which has grown from a village production started in 1962 to a media and tourist attraction copied in other parts of the country.

The atmosphere was festive, with hawkers selling beer, ice-cream and souvenir whips. Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" blared out from speakers before the penitents approached the crosses.

Dead man found with shoes missing

Police have named a man whose body was found on a footpath in Shropshire.

Neil Williams, 41, from Telford, was found on a housing estate in nearby Stirchley on Friday. His shoes, watch, belt, and money were missing.

Detectives said he may either have been the victim of a robbery or he collapsed for some medical reason and had items taken from him as he lay on the ground.

Police are keeping an open mind but have launched a major investigation, a spokesman said.

"Stealing a person's shoes is a particularly appalling and degrading thing to do and it seems all the more so when it happens over the Easter holiday period, when most people are trying to enjoy the long weekend."