July's Loser of the Month

July's Candidates for Loser of the Month

• Man survives an incredibly silly act
• Wanted - A Baker
• Army Goat Busted
• Unlucky Swimmer
• Loser of the week
• Could be the Loser of the Month?
• Finally - A Winner

July's winner in the Will and Guy 'Loser Competition'

This month's best loser has to be Mr Joshua Mullen from Mobile, Alabama, USA.  Finding that his shed had a nest of bees living in it you will find it hard to believe how he attempted to get rid of them.

Mr Mullen soaked some towels in gasoline [petrol] and placed them carefully in the shed in order to remove the bees. However, the shed erupted in flames with a loud 'whoosh'. It appears that the fire started when the pilot light of a hot-water heater in the shed ignited fumes from the petrol.

This picture is not of the actual blaze in Mobile:
The fire caused some $80,000 [almost £41,000] worth of damage but luckily nobody was hurt in the conflagration. We have heard that Mr Mullen told reporters, 'Looking at all this, there might have been a better way. It was a mistake. I wish I hadn't done it, but I did.'

However, we can report that it did rid the shed of the bees!

Man survives an incredibly silly act

The expressions, 'I don't believe it,' and 'You cannot be serious,' came to mind when Will and Guy discovered this story about an elderly Polish gentleman.  We think it has to be runner up in the loser of the month competition.

Having been driven quite mad by an invasion of ants into his apartment which is in a block of flats in Lublin, eastern Poland, Mr Marcin Bartosz, aged 74, poured gallons of insecticide into a ventilation shaft in order to rid the condominium of the pests. When this had no effect whatsoever on the ants, the senior citizen decided to throw a burning towel after them and into the shaft.

The explosion that followed left Mr Bartosz with third degree burns and a stay in the local hospital. Incredibly, we have found out that none of his neighbours was in any way hurt.

Wanted - A Baker

An unidentified English woman, according to the Sunday Express was climbing into the bathtub one afternoon when she remembered she had left some crumpets in the oven. Naked, she dashed downstairs and was removing the crumpets when she heard a noise at the door. Thinking it was the baker, and knowing he would come in and leave a loaf of bread on the kitchen table if she didn't answer his knock, the woman darted into the broom cupboard.

A few moments later she heard the back door open and, to her eternal mortification, the sound of footsteps coming toward the cupboard. It was the man from the gas company, come to read the meter.' Oh, 'stammered the woman, 'I was expecting the baker.' The gas man blinked, excused himself and departed.

Army Goat Busted

In the UK goats are often paraded by Army regiments and they appear on official occasions. The goat is always a billy-goat and is not a mascot but a member of the regiment. Honorary Lance Corporal William Windsor,1st Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers, is such a goat. However, he has been demoted since he misbehaved whilst on parade in Episkopi garrison, Cyprus, last month.

This regimental goat attempted to poke his horns into the drummer's bottom while on parade; he then refused to march or stay in line and has suffered the consequences: he has been busted down to Private.

Goat promoted - update October 2006

A disgraced British army goat has been reinstated to his rank of lance-corporal after shining on parade last week. Billy Windsor, mascot of the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, was demoted to fusilier - equivalent of private soldier - last June after ruining a parade for the Queen's birthday at a military base in Cyprus, when he ran amok.

In his first public appearance since his demotion, Billy, seven, performed exceptionally and he was reinstated by his commanding officer.

Unlucky Swimmer

Response to a woodland fire in the south of France's Cote d' Azur was billed as a marvel of modern fire-fighting technology in the newspaper Le Monde. Two specially-built flying boats zoomed in, skimmed the waters of the Mediterranean, scooping vast amounts of water into their belly tanks, and then dropped the water on the hillside fire extinguishing all the flames.

All was jolly and the wine flowed freely until a body was found in the ashes of the fire.' The coroner found that the gentleman had apparently fallen from a great height, suffering serious injuries before being burned to death. The report further noted that the victim was wearing a bathing suit, snorkel, and flippers.'

See more heroic failures and losers

Loser of the week

A burglar was caught after he fell down a chimney while escaping over the roof of a house he had just broken into. Police in Maastricht, Holland, arrested the 33-year-old after being called out by the house owners who heard his calls for help. The man had tried to flee out of a roof window with his booty of cash and jewellery, but tumbled in the dark and got stuck inside the chimney.

Could be the Loser of the Month?

A thief caught shoplifting a packet of cheese from a supermarket in Germany tried to make his getaway in a cement mixer, but he was quickly apprehended by police.

'He was out on the job and suddenly got hungry, as honest workers sometimes do,' said police spokesman in the eastern city of Chemnitz. When a store detective in the town of Limbach-Oberfrohna caught the man stealing a £1.94 [$4USD] packet of processed cheese, the 55-year-old broke free and leaped into his cement mixing truck outside, police said. The shop alerted police, who arrested the man when he stopped his getaway vehicle at a red light a few hundred yards away.

Finally - A Winner

A German man returned home from a weekend break to find his flat had been 'broken into' and completely refurbished. Gunther Hagler, 45, called the police after arriving at his flat in Frankfurt to find it had been renovated; his fridge had been replaced, the walls given a fresh coat of paint, windows cleaned and new furniture installed. Nothing had been stolen, even the food from the old fridge had been placed in the new one. Gunther, naturally was astonished and mystified.

Police solved the mystery when they called the landlord to find out if anyone else had access to a key. They discovered he had ordered a complete renovation of the flat next door - but had handed over the wrong key.

• P.S. Please send us your candidates for Loser of the Month.
• More clean and funny jokes for July

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