The week in weird news: Dog pilot | Optimus Prime

A round-up of the stranger stories hitting the news this week including Optimus Prime made entirely out of balloons; a dog with a pilot licence and a 30,000 calorie burger.
Poptastic: John Reid poses with 'Poptimus Prime', left, and the sculpture in all its glory, right. Pictures: SubmittedPoptastic: John Reid poses with 'Poptimus Prime', left, and the sculpture in all its glory, right. Pictures: Submitted
Poptastic: John Reid poses with 'Poptimus Prime', left, and the sculpture in all its glory, right. Pictures: Submitted

Woof-hansa? Labrador receives ‘pilot’ licence

THIS is your captain barking? Callie the Labrador has become the first dog to be issued with her own crew card after clocking up a remarkable 250 hours of flight time.

The pooch has been accompanying owner Graham Mountford on flights since she was 12 weeks old and now, age three, has flown over 50,000 miles.

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She has flown to and from airports as far apart as Cornwall and remote Scottish islands, and has a special harness to buckle her into the co-pilot’s seat in Graham’s Cessna 210 Centurion plane.

And the best bit? She’s rewarded with a sausage each time they land. Could be a lot wurst, eh? (Sorry)

Optimus Prime transformed into balloon figure

IF you’re stuck for what to do with a few thousands balloons and two days, why not create a sculpture of Autobots chief Optimus Prime?

That’s what New York-based magician and artist John Reid did at the 2014 Salt Lake Comic Con held in Utah in April. (Presumably he’s fed up making balloon dogs at kids’ parties).

John used 4,302 balloons to create ‘Poptimus Prime’ at the event last month, with officials declaring it the largest balloon sculpture ever made by an individual.

But John is keen for someone else to snatch his record, adding: “I hope that somebody else decides to try to take this art a little further and crush me. Trounce me. Wipe the floor with me.”

‘Wipe the floor with me’? We can’t imagine Prime ever advocating that sort of defeatism.

Do you want pies with that 5ft-tall burger?

TAKEAWAY owner John Clarkson laughs in the face of healthy eating - or at least, his creation of a 30,000-calorie burger standing at 5ft 4in would suggest he does.

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John has created ‘the Pie-scraper’, comprising ten three-quarter-pound burgers, and 11-and-a-half pounds of beef encasing other food including spaghetti bolognese, a bacon roll and spam.

That’s a whopping 8.5kg of beef, and a likely trip to A&E if any individual attempted to eat it themselves.

The Preston-based cook is claiming a world record, after he and wife Corinne spent 90 minutes assembling the artery-blocking feast.

Mrs Clarkson was happy to endorse the monster burger, adding: ‘It’s a bit of fun. And it’s not just the gimmick, I can honestly say the pizza burger is delicious.”

The Clarksons previously hit the headlines after creating, frying and battering a giant Ferrero Rocher.

Thankfully though, the burger comes with a side of lettuce.

Woman faces jail after burying dog in human cemetery

WE reckon a fair number of our ‘weird week’ stories relate to, or involve dogs in some way.

Last week we had the beekeeping dog, this week we were made aware of Callie the flying Labrador.

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And to up our dogs quota, here’s a tale about a Russian woman who faces jail after burying her beloved Yorkshire Terrier in a human graveyard.

Ludmilla Yelsukova conducted a full burial ceremony for ‘Ursu’ the dog in the village of Chesnokovka, in Bashkortostan in south-western Russia.

But people with relatives in the graveyard uncovered the doggy tomb and hit out at the 47-year-old woman, who claims ‘no-one ever treated me as well as Ursu’.

Rector of the village cathedral, Vyacheslav Archangelskyy, agreed with the furious relatives, and has ordered a probe into the village priest to ascertain his level of knowledge about the burial, while prosecutors are determining if Ms Yelsukova has broken any laws.

Please sir, I want my stickers back

FOOTBALL reared its ugly head again this week after it emerged a Colombian teacher had stolen Panini World Cup 2014 stickers from a pupil - and pasted them into their own album.

The 13-year-old pupil was exchanging ‘doublers’ with classmates in the school in Colombia, when the stickers were confiscated by the teacher.

However, the student later saw the same teacher putting the confiscated stickers into their own Panini album in the school’s staff room.

Sticker-collecting is massively popular in South America, but this goes beyond the pale.

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