Grizzly bear is best man at wedding

Casey Anderson, a modern-day Grizzly Adams, picked a half-ton bear to be best man at his wedding to Hollywood actress, Missi Pyle.

Anderson 33, hand-reared Brutus from a cub after he was born into captivity and faced euthanasia because he couldn’t be released into the wild.

The pair have become so close that the seven-foot eight inch grizzly bear was best man at his wedding to the 36-year-old actress.

Brutus, who weighs 900lbs (0.45 tonnes), stole the show at the marriage in Swan Valley, Montana, where he ate the wedding cake in front of 85 guests.

Naturalist Casey, who lives in Montana, America, even admitted he even owed his “best friend” Brutus for introducing him to his future wife.

He said: “When Brutus was born, it was a dead end street because he couldn’t be released into the wild so had to remain in captivity or be euthanased.

“So I came up with the idea to rescue him and build a home to save other grizzly bears and since then he’s completely changed my life.

“I take him for long walks. I swim with him and I’ve even started teaching him how to fish. I feel like his father in a way – but in reality I’m more of his friend.

“Now I owe him for introducing me to my wife and he was best man at my wedding – he really has changed my life.

“With other bears he plays rough but I’m not scared of him because when I wrestle him he knows he needs to be a lot more gentle.

“He doesn’t want to hurt the people that he loves and I think he does love me after all the years and time we have spent together. He’s my best friend.”

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Villagers use scarecrow policeman to slow traffic

Villagers use scarecrow policeman to slow traffic.

Villagers in Cumbria have set up a scarecrow policeman after becoming fed up with speeding motorists.

The scarecrow is armed with a plastic bottle for a ‘speed camera’ and dressed in policeman’s hat and black suit made to look like a uniform with a flourescent yellow jacket.

The tactic has so far been a success in the village of Crosby-on-Eden, Cumbria.

Sandra McKeane, 43, who made the ‘sleeping policeman’, is worried there will be an accident if cars do not start slowing down.

She said: “Speeding is quite a problem in the village.

“It has been amazing to see them all slowing down thinking it’s a real policeman.

“We’ve lived here 15-years and there are more cars driving through faster than ever.

“We’re worried there could be an accident – it’s busy with the children.”

David Sowden, another resident, added: “Certainly from a distance it looks like a genuine police officer.

“One visitor said it would be a good idea to keep that up for a week and then replace him with a proper physical police officer with a gun for another week and see what happens.

“It has made them nose dive and they said they couldn’t believe the reaction.”

Woman who changed her name to Pudsey

Woman who changed her name to Pudsey Bear refused passport

A mother who raised £4,000 for Children In Need by altering her name to Pudsey Bear has been refused a passport in her new name because the change was considered “frivolous.”

Eileen De Bont, 37, a receptionist, legally adopted the name of the BBC appeal’s mascot and updated her documents.

However, when she sought a new passport in the name of Pudsey Bear her application was turned down.

She said: “I do not know what to do. It is utterly ridiculous. My old passport expired in October.

“They say they will only issue me with one in the name of Eileen De Bont, but that is not my name. I do not have any documents with that name on now.

“If I get a passport in the name of Eileen I am going to have trouble checking into hotels, hiring cars and even changing money.”

Mrs Bear, a mother-of-two daughters aged 10 and 13, changed her name legally through the UK Deed Poll Service and sent off her driver’s licence, bank cards, credit cards and tax forms to have them altered.

Her bank card now reads ‘Mrs P Bear’, and her driving licence ‘Mrs Pudsey Bear’. She is addressed as ‘Ms Pudsey Bear’ on her council tax statements, and the Inland Revenue lists her as ‘Mrs Pudsey Bear’.

The Identity & Passport Service, which addressed her as ‘Mrs Bear’, told her in a letter: “It is deemed to be a frivolous change of name, which would bring IPS into disrepute. It could also pose problems for you at border control in some countries.

“IPS is not questioning the validity of the deed poll, however, it is not prepared to issue a passport in a frivolous name which could compromise our mission statement ‘safeguarding your identity’.”

Mrs Bear said the decision would prevent her from taking holidays abroad.

She said: “I love my new name. It has become part of my life. It is who I am. My girls both call me ‘Mummy Bear’.”

Barclaycard apologises.

Barclaycard apologises after sending widow 317 letters in one day

Sandra Grant, a widow who was sent 317 letters in one day by Barclaycard, has received an apology after the firm admitted that the only correctly addressed letter was for her dead husband.

Sandra Grant, 55, of Erith in Kent, was astonished when the letters came through her letter box and said it took her “all morning” to sort through them.

She said the letters were all addressed to her but that they all contained account details for different customers, including how much they owed.

Mrs Grant, a mother-of-two, said she had already notified Barclaycard of the death of her husband Ben last month.

“It took me all morning to open up every envelope and out of the whole pile only one of them was actually meant for my husband,” she said.

“I’ve sent them his death certificate, so this should not have happened. It is all very distressing, I am trying to grieve for my husband and this is the last thing I need.”

The letters displayed various customer account numbers, names, post codes and the amounts owed.

“If this information had fallen into the wrong hands someone could have had a field day,” Mrs Grant added.

Earlier in the week Littlewoods Personal Finance Ltd had made the same mistake, sending Mrs Grant 10 letters which were addressed to her but detailing the repayments on other customer accounts.

“It’s very strange how the same thing happened twice in one week,” she said. “The only thing I can think is there has been some kind of computer error.”

Littlewoods Personal Finance Ltd is a joint venture between Barclaycard and Littlewoods, which provides credit cards and personal loans.

Mrs Grant said that her husband also had a credit card with the company, but they had also been notified of his death.

“I won’t be sending any of the letters back, they will have to come and pick them up themselves. If they continue I will go to Watchdog, this sort of thing shouldn’t be happening in the current climate.”

A spokesman for Barclaycard said: “We would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress caused to Mrs Grant by this unacceptable mistake.“We are currently investigating how these letters were printed and sent to Mrs Grant’s address and will be contacting her personally to apologise.”

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Moustachioed horse evades barbers

Alfie, a 10-year-old Shire-cross, is said to flee if he thinks he is in danger of getting even a trim.

The horse also refuses to let staff at the stables in Bitton, Gloucestershire, into his stall there for fear that they will remove his whiskers.

The moustache may look somewhat incongruous given its fair colour compared to his black and white colouring and well-meaning staff thought he would rather be without it.

However Alfie clearly enjoys the look and groom Justine Greenslade said all efforts to clip it had been in vain.

“He’s obviously rather proud of his facial hair,” she said.

“He runs a mile if he thinks we’re going to trim it.”

Moustaches are relatively rare on horses although they are noted among Friesians, which are said to be able to grow ones to rival surrealist painter Salvador Dali’s.

Earlier this month, photographer Wolkenstein unveiled a series of pictures of horses with different hairstyles by a professional hairdresser. Each equine styling session took about four hours and extensions were used to give a “big hair” look.

It is not known whether the photograpther was inspired by Alfie, but he said at the time he was planning another project, this time on facial hair.

Sheep stuns experts by giving birth to six healthy lambs.

The sextuplets were born to two-year-old Dolly, a pedigree Lleyn ewe on April 3 at Crookham Westfield farm, on the Pallinsburn Estate in Cornhill on Tweed, Northumberland.

Estate owner George Farr’s sons Ollie, 11, and Jamie, 10, have named the three-week-olds Valerie, Harriet, Scrappy, Rosie, Chunky, and Slim.

The boys are helping Dolly feed her flock.

Farm worker Mark Richardson, 30, said he’d never seen so many lambs from a single ewe.

He said: “I just went out one morning and there she was with the six lambs.

“I looked round the shed and none of the others had lambed, she was the only one, so they all came from her.

“It was a big surprise. Lleyns usually have two or three lambs, so to have six is very unusual. I have never seen it before.”

Ollie said: “We have to hand feed them because Dolly has not enough teats for all six of them.

“Some of them take the bottles more easily than others, so we are feeding three out of the six; the three most tame.”

Jamie said: “They are always hungry.

“We feed them in the morning at eight, at 12, four, then eight in the evening.

“They get through a lot of milk.”

It was Dolly’s second crop of lambs and they are all organically fed. The ram is a Texel tup and the shepherd is Anthony King.

A toddler who got her foot stuck

Kevin Rogers called the fire service after failing to free his daughter Rebecca from the potty A toddler who got her foot stuck in a potty had to be rescued by a team of firefighters with specialist cutting equipment. Three-year-old Rebecca Rogers from Chirk, near Wrexham, became stuck in the handle of the potty after playing with her sister. Using cutting equipment usually required for road crash victims, the crew freed Rebecca after 15 minutes. Her father Kevin Rogers said: “It was really embarrassing.” He had only brought the potty on Wednesday to start taking his daughter through the early stages of toilet training. But the following day, as he left Rebecca and her two-year-old sister Daniella with the potty as he washed some dishes, the accident happened. “I heard this horrible scream but thought the girls were just playing Kevin said.

Auroras

Another of Sylvain’s pictures, taken the same night. Auroras are most often seen around the spring and autumn equinox.

 

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Aurora Borealis.

 

These spectacular photographs,taken from Spaceweather.com, capture the beauty of the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis.

Sylvain Serre took this picture in Salluit, Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, on March 25 2009

Man bites python in epic struggle

A Kenyan man bit a python during a fierce three-hour struggle after the snake wrapped him in its coils and hauled him up a tree.

 

Man bites python in epic struggle

Ben Nyaumbe stepped on the serpent in the Malindi area of Kenya’s Indian Ocean Coast when it was apparently hunting for livestock.

Mr Nyaumbe said: “I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python.”

It dragged the farm manager up a tree, but when it eased its grip, Mr Nyaumbe said he was able to take a mobile phone out of his pocket and phone for help.

When his supervisor came with a policeman, Mr Nyaumbe smothered the snake’s head with his shirt to prevent it from swallowing him, while the rescuers tied it with a rope and pulled.

“We both came down, landing with a thud,” said Mr Nyaumbe, who survived with damaged lips and bruising after being forced to bite the snake on the tip of its sharp tail.

The snake was later taken to an animal shelter.