Charivari March 1997

Cinema managers in Siberia, who took eggs as payment for tickets because people had no cash to spare, are now charging customers in empty bottles because of an egg shortage. A cinema in Russia's Altai region hit a problem in winter because hens lay fewer eggs and audiences dwindled. Cinemas can return the bottles to manufacturers for money.	An American company was left red-faced after a shipment of steel huts ended up in the wrong Aberdeen - 4,000 miles across the Atlantic. The consignment of 33 storage buildings should have been taken from the US city of Baltimore to nearby Aberdeen, six miles up the Maryland coast. But instead the cargo was shipped 4,000 miles to Aberdeen, Scotland.
A dog whose master died seven years ago is still waiting for him outside the hospital where he passed away in Spain. The guide dog used to go to the hospital in Cadiz regularly with his master, who was blind and had diabetes. When the man died of a heart attack, the dog remained in front of the hospital. It is fed by local people, who also pay for it to be vaccinated.	A pregnant woman who walked underneath an elephant, in a superstitious bid for an easy birth, had her leg pierced by its tusk when a dog frightened it. Vien Pluemsud, 25, eight months' pregnant, was practising a common Thai belief that walking three times under an elephant ensures a safe delivery. She was on her last one when a barking dog made the elephant fall to its knees
A sculptor reportedly outwitted security guards and art-lovers when he fulfilled a lifetime's ambition by exhibiting his work at the Tate Gallery Calvin Russell sneaked his piece, entitled Iron Man, into the London gallery, put it on a home-made plinth and watched as visitors admired it. The artist then took photographs of people stopping to enjoy his sculpture.	With a resolve that was a lot stronger than the ice, a man sank four vehicles trying to cross a frozen Danish fjord. After his car went through the ice he fetched a four-wheel-drive vehicle to pull it out but it also fell in. He returned with a tractor, which sank, as did a second. Eventually, he called a rescue service which recovered all four vehicles in a seven-hour operation
A Buenos Aires housewife's plan to tried to frighten her husband out of a fit of hiccups went horribly awry. Nestor Lutz, 48, was so shocked when he opened his eyes from a nap to see someone standing over him wearing a spooky mask that he grabbed a knife and stabbed his 47-year-old wife to death. A remorseful Lutz turned himself in to police.	A Cincinnati grandmother was found guilty of obstructing official business by putting coins in expired parking meters in a random act of kindness. "I'm disappointed," Sylvia Stayton, 63, said. "I feel we're here to help one another. That's why God put us here." Stayton put 15 cents into two meters to save the car owners, whom she did not know, from getting tickets.

Plagiarism Note: The stories on this page appeared originally on ITV Teletext or in Private Eye and are reproduced due to the kind ignorance of the original authors.