Tiger, Roger and Thierry in worst ad

What do Tiger Woods, Thierry Henry and Roger Federer have in common? (Apart from winning millions in prize money, that is).

Well, they've picked up the gong for starring in the worst celebrity advert of the year.

Advertising experts described them as 'three black-suited giggling idiots' for their corny Gillette razor commercial.

It cost millions to make but tops the list of Top 10 TV turkeys compiled by industry 'bible' Campaign. 'It deserves to be mocked the most,' said the magazine.

Close behind was the commercial for Country Life butter starring a tweed-wearing John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten from The Sex Pistols.

Campaign said: 'It's just so sad to see someone who was a trailblazer in an anti-establishment movement on his knees for the corporate dollar.' Gong for best celebrity advert went to Nike, with its footballer in a park who ends up playing for Arsenal against Manchester United.

It features Ronaldo who scores a goal then faces the camera to blow a sarcastic kiss at the 'hero'. Campaign said: 'Ronaldo blowing a kiss may make you want to rip his face off – but it shows Nike's true understanding of a football fan.'

Pamela given 'wedgie' by magician

We're debating whether the lovely Pamela Anderson can still pull these swimsuits off?!

The 41-year-old stripped down to a little silver number to assist Dutch illusionist Hans Klok opening night of his magic show " The Million Affair 2008 beurs Amsterdam " in Holland.

The actress gave a new definition to the 'wedgie' as she took to the stage to help out. Tell us, do you think Pammie's still got it?

Santa Clawed as cat attacks Father Christmas

They say you should never work with children or animals - but if you're Santa Claus, that's sort of an occupational hazard. For one store Santa, however, things took a turn for the worse when he posed with an enormous, skittish cat - and now he might need rabies shots.

Jonathan Bebbington was playing the jolly old elf during a 'Santa Paws' photo event at a PetsMart store in New Jersey on Sunday when he was bitten on the wrist and hand. The event was to raise money for Penny Angel's Beagle Rescue group.

The cat and owner disappeared after the incident. At least one person thought it was a bobcat, said Joan Kerr, president of Penny Angel's.

'It had absolutely huge paws, like 3 inches around,' Kerr said.

The cat, named 'Benny,' appeared terrified because dogs were nearby, Bebbington, 47, told The Press of Atlantic City.

'It had very powerful jaws and big teeth,' he said, estimating the cat weighed about 30lb.

The woman who brought it to the store in Hamilton Township told people there she bought the cat from a breeder in Wyoming for $1,500.

'Her last words were, "I have a permit and the cat has all his vaccines,"' Bebbington said.

Unless the owner produces vaccination records, Bebbington will have to receive rabies shots starting Thursday as a precaution. He's already had a tetanus shot.

Cheeky winker trademarks ;-)

You'd better wipe that ;-) off your face - or you might be forced to pay up.

A Russian businessman has trademarked the emoticon - the combination of punctuation marks used to convey a wink in text messages and e-mail.

The man who now own the rights to the typographic wink is Oleg Teterin, president of the mobile ad company Superfone. He said on Thursday he doesn't plan on tracking down individual users, following the decision by the federal patent agency.

'I want to highlight that this is only directed at corporations, companies that are trying to make a profit without the permission of the trademark holder,' he said in comments to NTV.

Companies will be sent legal warnings if they use the symbol without his permission, he said.

'Legal use will be possible after buying an annual license from us,' he was quoted by Kommersant as saying. 'It won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars.' Bargain.

He also said since other similar emoticons - :-) or ;) or :) - resemble the one he has trademarked, use of those symbols could also fall under his ownership.

Other Russian Internet entrepreneurs reacted to the effort predictably, with >:-0 and :-(

'Imagine the next wise-guy who trademarks the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet and then says anyone who uses the Russian alphabet has to send him money. It's absurd,' Alexander Manis, the director of a broadband internet and mobile company, told NTV.

Maksim Mashkov, owner of an Internet cafe and bookstore, said he doubted the trademark's legal basis since the symbol has existed in the public domain for years.

Indeed, Russia media said Teterin wasn't even the first person to try to trademark the symbol in Russia. Kommersant said a St.

Petersburg court in 2005 agreed with an appeal from the German corporation Siemens, which was sued by a Russian man claiming he held the trademark.

Scott Fahlman, a professor at the Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, is widely credited with innovating the three keystrokes - a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis - as a smiley face, 25 years ago. He simultaneously ivented the :-( as well.

Meet the Kung Fu Squirrels

They're mean, moody and know how to fight. Each other, mainly.

With moves straight out of a martial arts movie, they don't hold back when it comes to beating up their mates.

And, being more Squirrel Nutjob then Squirrel Nutkin, they're a family whom Beatrix Potter would have steered well clear of.

The creatures were pictured by British photographer David Slater in Etosha National Park, Namibia.

He describes the vegetarian beasts – Cape Ground squirrels – as 'adorable' despite their behaviour.

'They're very inquisitive animals and I soon discovered that, if I put the camera on the floor, they couldn't resist an inspection,' said Mr Slater, of Coleford, Gloucestershire.

'Such close encounters with wildlife are what I really enjoy.

'I've often watched them from the car when in a game park and discovered a small family that had residence in a distant corner of a campsite.

Unlike their British cousins, these squirrels are poor climbers and so live on or under the ground.

And, when not attacking one another, they like nothing better than using their tails as sun umbrellas or sunbathing with legs outstretched.

Miracle as boy survives after arrow shot through his skull

A schoolboy archer had a narrow escape after being shot through the eye with an arrow.

It went through 11-year-old Liu Cheong's eye socket, completely through his head and was only stopped by the back of his skull.

"If the arrow had been shot with just a bit more force, it would have come out the back of his head," said doctors at Jida Hospital in Changchun, eastern China.

The boy only survived because the arrow had miraculously missed his brain.

Surgeons spent four hours removing the 16 inch arrow which had sunk more than four inches into the boy's head. They had to cut away part of it just to get him in the CT scanner.

After brain scans and x-rays, doctors began to cut away parts of his skull to remove the arrow without damaging optic nerves or brain tissue.

His parents have been warned he still faces a risk of infection and may need further ops. The teammate who shot him - a 13-year-old girl called Yan Shin - is being treated for shock.

"It is a miracle he survived the accident," said one medic.

Teachers at Jiutai City school believe the youngsters were practicing on their own when the accident happened.

Man jailed for buying rocket launchers

An Australian man who bought stolen military rocket launchers has been sentenced to more than three years in prison after a judge determined he was aware that reselling the weapons might put them into the hands of terrorists.

Taha Abdul Rahman, 30, of Sydney, pleaded guilty in New South Wales District Court to buying prohibited weapons without authority and receiving stolen defense force goods.

Abdul Rahman bought seven rocket launchers from an associate of former Australian army captain Shane Della-Vedova in 2003. Della-Vedova was sentenced to 10 years in prison in May for stealing the M-72 shoulder-fired weapons from the military and selling them.

Judge Mark Marien described Abdul Rahman as a "middle man," and said the father of two sold one of the weapons to a gang leader with terrorist links.

The rest of the rocket launchers are still missing.

Marien told the court there was no evidence Abdul Rahman was aware of the gang leader's intentions but said he "would have clearly been aware that the rocket launchers would have likely ended up in the hands of criminals and possible terrorist offenders."

He called the offenses "a grave threat to public order and safety."
Abdul Rahman will be eligible for release in one year because of time served since his 2007 arrest. He had faced life in prison if convicted of all 17 offenses with which he was originally charged.

Plastic surgery for the dead

It was only a matter of time. You can get plastic surgery when you're a spoilt teen, an image conscious middle ager and a shrivelled old hag.

So why not have some when you're dead?

Undertakers say more and more people are asking to be tucked and smoothed out for their funeral to look good for their friends and family.

"People used to say, 'Just throw me in a pine box and bury me in the back yard'," said Mark Duffey, head of Everest Funeral in the US.

"But that's all changing. Now people want to be remembered. A funeral is their last major event and they want to look good for it.

"I've even had people say, 'I want you to get rid of my wrinkles and make me look younger'."


Undertakers use a similar technique to Botox to smooth out wrinkles, and lips are plumped and cheeks are filled out.

Man caught with case full of crabs

Ever on the lookout for drugs, guns and money, customs agents at a South Texas international bridge crossing busted 191 units of an unusual sort of contraband - hermit crabs.

A 49-year-old Mexican citizen from McKinney, Texas, was crossing back into the United States at the Hidalgo Port of Entry when U.S.

Customs and Border Protection officers found a box full of live hermit crabs inside his vehicle and another bag of the crabs in the boot.

The 191 crabs taken in the Nov. 30 bust were given to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the man was issued a $1,910 fine for not declaring the crabs

Deer crashes into classroom

A fourth-grade class in Michigan learned firsthand about animal behavior when a deer crashed through a window and into its classroom.

The six-point buck sent chairs, desks, books and shards of glass flying. A boy suffered a small cut to his head, but there were no serious injuries.

Marty Alexander, the principal of Coopersville East Elementary School, says the unexpected guest dropped by Monday afternoon.

He says the teacher stayed cool, instructing her 23 startled students to drop to the floor as the deer bounded across the room.

She then led the children into the hallway.

After a twitchy, 30 -second visit, the buck jumped back through the window and ran away.

Boy stuck inside arcade game

An Australian boy caused a bit of a furore when he got himself stuck inside a toy-grabbing claw game in a shopping centre.

The two-year-old climbed through the prize chute to join the toys, where he stayed until firefighters managed to open the glass door.

The incident happened at the Oasis Shopping Village in the Northern Territory.

Firefighters used a hacksaw to set the boy loose. One onlooker said it was "extremely amusing", adding: "His parents looked more embarrassed than anything."

The stunt paid off for the toddler, however, when he was allowed to walk off with one of the toys. The little brat.

Nagging wife earns lotto jackpot

A "nagging" wife who pushed her husband to buy a lottery ticket helped scoop the $4.2 million (£2.8m) first prize - with only minutes to spare.
The man from New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, bought his ticket just two minutes before ticket sales closed Saturday night.

"My wife had been nagging me all week to get a ticket, so I when saw the Lotto sign ... I sprinted in to get the ticket before they closed," said the man, who asked not to be identified - normal practice among lottery winners in New Zealand .

"I must have been their last customer of the night," he said, adding that the young married couple had had a "rough" couple of years, reduced to one income after having children.

"I have never been so glad to listen to my wife's nagging," the man said on Tuesday.

He discovered their newly won fortune Sunday thanks to his wife's request for a barbecued sausage.

Out shopping for bargains, the man said he didn't have enough money to buy his wife the sausage she'd asked him for. So he decided to check his Saturday lottery ticket in case he'd won a small prize.

"I could not believe it when they said I was actually the big winner," he said.

"When she realised how much it really was, she fell to the floor, and then said: 'but all I wanted was a sausage."'

Suspect flees to police academy

When a crime has been committed, where do you go? To a police station, of course, or if there's none around, a police training centre.

However, that is only if you have witnessed a crime. If you may have committed the crime, then going to these places may not be the best idea.

In Dumb Criminal world though, anything is possible.

A man suspected of robbing a petrol station in the US was arrested when he ran into the Ohio State Highway Patrol training centre.

Police said two men robbed the petrol station, before fleeing the scene in a pickup truck.

When an officer spotted the vehicle later, he pulled it over, only for the passenger to make a break for it. The driver surrendered to police.

The passenger ended up running into the police training academy, where he was arrested.

"That is a little comical," said Columbus police Sgt. Greg Bodker.

"One of the officers was directly behind the suspect who fled on foot so I don't believe he would have gotten in there, but he did get to the porch and attempt to open the doors."

Man blames sheep for devastating fire

A mechanic has blamed sheep for causing a fire that wiped out his £275,000 workshop.

Keith Ellet said sheep in a nearby paddock broke a waterline to a pressure pump in his workshop in Greerton, causing the pump to run dry, overheat and catch fire.

Mr Ellet, who rebuilds trucks for a living, told the Bay of Plenty Times his business lay in ruins and he was facing a bill of $750,000 (about £275,000) because he was not insured.

He told the paper: "My whole life is tied up in this business, not only my ability to earn a living. It's left a huge hole which is indescribable."

Planes are too quiet, moan pilots

Dozy pilots are grumbling that a new plane is so quiet they can't get any sleep.

They have complained that the A380 super jumbo jet from Airbus is too serene when in motion, which makes it difficult for them to catch forty winks during breaks.

Pilots at airline Emirates claim the four engines propelling the long-haul jets are so quiet they can hear everything - crying babies and sweet paper rustling included - making it impossible to sleep during rest periods.

The A380 is quieter than any other plane, according to Airbus.

"We're getting lots of complaints," Capt. Ed Davidson, the airline's senior vice president for fleets, said.

"On our other aircraft, the engines drown out the cabin noise. [On the A380] the pilots sleep with earplugs, but the cabin noise goes straight through them."

Unfortunately, passengers are also mistaking the pilots' sleeping quarters for the toilets.

Charred monkey meat found in man's luggage

A passenger has been caught with three charred monkeys in his luggage as he passed through customs.

The man had flown into Washington from the African country of Bangui when he was stopped at Dulles International Airport after a sniffer dog alerted customs officials.

After admitting he was carrying the meat the man was allowed to enter the US without penalty.

He was also found to be carrying deer meat and dried beef.

Primates are a common food source in Central Africa. Monkeys are often smoked and used for stew - which would have given the meat its charred appearance.

The monkey carcasses were confiscated however and are being inspected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the Washington Post.

Hotels reveal strangest requests

Sandwiches made from a mixture of Spam and marmalade and a wedding breakfast of cream cheese and chips are just some of the strange things ordered at hotels, it has been revealed.

False teeth, breast milk and incontinence pads have also been requested, a survey by Best Western Hotels found.

One manager was asked to measure the size of the hotel's carpet pattern before a guest would book accommodation.

And the manager of a hotel in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was asked to give a guest a salt rubdown to get rid of a botched fake tan.

The Spam-and-marmalade sandwich request came from an enthusiastic walker at a hotel in the Highlands, while one hotel reported being asked to prepare a three-course meal at 4am.

The strange wedding breakfast fare of cream cheese, crackers and chips was ordered at a hotel in Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands.

Best Western concierge Ray Mortlock said: "There are few demands that are too much for us and we like to think we can handle anything - so long as it's legal."

Woman loses hearing after sloppy kiss

A young woman in southern China has partially lost her hearing after her boyfriend ruptured her eardrum during an excessively passionate kiss.

The 20-something girl from Zhuhai, in southern Guangdong province, went to hospital completely deaf in her left ear, the China Daily said, citing a report in a local newspaper.

"The kiss reduced pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear," the paper quoted a doctor surnamed Li from the hospital as saying.

The woman's hearing would likely return to normal after about two months, Li said.

"While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution," the paper said.