Chris Eubank has issued a statement to deny that he is eccentric. The former boxer, pictured right looking his usual down-to-earth self, took action after he came second — behind Bjork — to find the country’s greatest oddball. His management company told The Independent: “Mr Eubank would like to make clear that: ‘I do not consider myself an eccentric. Just because I have a sense of style, because I try to protect my dignity and have tried to earn the respect of my peers, that should not make me an eccentric’. He adds that he is very grateful for the accolade.”
Devoted son of the week
A French court has ordered a man to defrost his parents and give them a proper burial. Rémy Martinot has kept his mother and father in freezers cooled to –65C in the cellar of his home in the Loire valley. He was following the example of his father Raymond, a doctor and supporter of cryogenic theory, who hoped that one day he and his wife Monique could be brought back to life. When Monique died in 1984 at the age of 49, Raymond kept her body deep-frozen and charged tourists to visit the crypt. On Raymond’s death in 2002, Rémy applied to the courts to keep them deep frozen. But the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest court, has now rejected the request.
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Vengeance of the week
When Luciano Mares caught a mouse at his home, he tried to kill it by tossing it on a pile of burning leaves outside. But the mouse wreaked a terrible revenge. Still on fire, it ran for shelter to Luciano’s house and burnt it down. The house, at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, was completely destroyed. “I’ve seen numerous house fires,” said fire department spokesman Jim Lyssy, “but nothing as unique as this one.”
Red face of the week
Firemen had to rescue a father when he hid in a washing machine during a game of hide and seek. Robin Toom, 38, waited for an hour with his knees pressed to his chest after his foot became wedged, the Sydney Daily Telegraph reports. It wasn’t even a very good hiding place. “I just hopped in there and couldn’t even get the lid down before the kids came in and said Ha! Ha! we found you,” he admitted.
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Fan of the week
An Elvis Presley fan was stabbed six times with a pair of scissors after he wouldn’t stop playing Burning Love on the King’s birthday. He was attacked after a furious row with his girlfriend. A police spokesman in Northam, Western Australia, explained: “Police will allege that the 30-year-old woman stabbed the man with a pair of scissors during an argument over him playing the same Elvis Presley song again and again.”