Ikea has taken advertising in a whole new direction with its recent print ad for a crib. The ad, which appears in the Swedish magazine Amelia, invites women who think they might be pregnant to urinate on the paper to reveal a discounted price. "Peeing on this ad may change your life," the ad reads at the top of the page. "If you are expecting, you will get a surprise right here in the ad." Adweek reported that the agency behind the gimmick adapted pregnancy test technology to work on a magazine page.
Black pudding to the rescue
Chris McCabe, 70, of Totnes, England, escaped a frigid death thanks to his own quick thinking on Dec. 15. McCabe owns a butcher shop, and he had entered the walk-in freezer behind the shop when the door slammed behind him. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem, as a release button inside the freezer can open the door. But the button was frozen solid. So McCabe looked around the freezer and saw the shop's last "black pudding," or blood sausage, which he used as a battering ram to unstick the button. "They are a big long stick that you can just about get your hand around," McCabe told the Mirror. "I used it like the police use battering rams to break door locks in. Black pudding saved my life, without a doubt." He believes he would have died within a half-hour in the 4-below freezer.
Fire on ice
One of Quebec City's iconic tourist attractions is its ice hotel, the 45-room Hotel de Glace. But on Jan. 9, the hotel's most dreaded disaster, a fire, broke out in one of the guest rooms, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported. Manager Jacques Desbois admitted that "when I received the phone call, they had to repeat twice that there was a fire in the ice hotel." Predictably, the flames did not spread and caused little damage to the structure, although smoke spread throughout the hotel and residents were evacuated. "In a room made out of ice and snow there are few clues to look at," Desbois said, although each room has candles, and the hotel is considering the possibility that one of them caused the fire.
Family values
Alyce H. Davenport, 30, and Diron Conyers, 27, of Southbridge, Mass., couldn't make it to the funeral of Audra Johnson, Davenport's mother, on Jan. 5 because they were busy stealing a safe from Johnson's home. Southbridge police started searching for the pair after Johnson's boyfriend discovered the safe was missing, reported the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. When police stopped Davenport the next day, they found the safe in the trunk of the car she was driving (also registered to Johnson) and seized it. Davenport and Conyers were arrested at a Sturbridge motel, where officers found jewelry, keys, cellphones and other documents, and the two were charged with seven counts related to the theft.
Driven to drink
An unnamed Russian man, apparently desperate for a drink, stole an armored personnel carrier from a secured facility on Jan. 10 and used it to ram a storefront in Apatity, Russia, reported United Press International. Surveillance video showed him climbing out of the tank-like carrier and into the store, where he retrieved a bottle of wine, then returning to the vehicle and ramming the storefront again as several bystanders looked on. He was arrested after leaving the scene.
News of the Weird is compiled by the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication. Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
