"When Harold Carr's nephews and nieces inherited a dusty old lock-up garage from their eccentric uncle their expectations were low. But when they opened the doors of the car collector's Tyneside [England] garage they discovered what may prove to be a life-changing inheritance."
* Inside they found a rare 1937
Bugatti Type 57S Atalante. Having sat hidden, gathering dust for over 50 years, the classic car -- of which only 17 were built -- goes up for
auction by
Bonhams at the
Retromobile auto show in Paris on February 7, 2009.
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Jan 2, 2009 -
44 comments
Mole Man to pay £300,000 for burrowing under home. A retired engineer nicknamed “Mole Man”, because of his fondness for burrowing tunnels under his home
(video), has been ordered to pay almost £300,000 to the local council (he lives in London) after his hobby nearly caused his house to collapse
(article with a few photos). William Lyttle, 77, spent 40 years excavating a maze of tunnels beneath his
20-room Victorian property in
Hackney, East London, before the council intervened.
"I often used to joke that I expect him to come tunnelling up through the kitchen floor," said Marc Beishon, who lives a few yards from William Lyttle's house,
in 2006, when the Mole Man was first ordered to stop.
[more inside]
posted by KokuRyu
on Apr 18, 2008 -
31 comments
POSSESSED is a short documentary film that 'enters the complicated worlds of four hoarders; people whose lives are dominated by their relationship to possessions'.
posted by jack_mo
on Mar 7, 2008 -
44 comments
He added to Rock, Paper, Scissors and came up with RPS-15 (with 15 signs) and then RPS-25 (yep, 25 signs). Then he added on to
those games and made something "so complex, I highly doubt anyone will actually even want to attempt to play it."
Dear lord, it's
RPS-101. (
Previously)
posted by 23skidoo
on Oct 27, 2006 -
25 comments
'The
Helmet Project web site is an attempt by its creator, a completely amateur graphic artist and a long-time fan of football at all levels, to create and maintain an on-line "catalog" or "atlas" of uniform-sized, accurate, and up-to-date images representing the football helmets worn by college football teams and teams from a few professional leagues in the United States and Canada.'
posted by T.D. Strange
on Jun 5, 2006 -
15 comments
Sarah Elizabeth Witt struggles to convey a
word game [direct to quicktime] that caused her doctor to diagnose her as obsessive-compulsive.
"When I hear a word that starts with the letter U, I immediately gain access to the letter Y!"
posted by odinsdream
on Nov 24, 2005 -
16 comments
What I Have Read well not me personally, but some guy has a bunch of stats/info on every book he has read since 1974, all 2031 of em..
posted by zeoslap
on Mar 18, 2003 -
18 comments
I couldn't find Kevin Bacon anywhere on this list. I guess this guy prescribes to the "idle hands are the devil's workshop" world view. This bloke has apparently gone to great pains to list everyone he has ever known on his website. What a massive undertaking, as well as a complete waste of time.
posted by psmealey
on Jan 7, 2003 -
22 comments
The strange range of human behavior continues to draw us like moths to a flame. Consider
Amanda Fielding who continually performed self-surgery on her braincase,
Catharina Geisslerin,
the woman who vomited frogs, and the
Collyer brothers,
who collected so much junk that it crushed them in their own home.
Samuel Johnson, compiler of the first dictionary of the English language, was compelled to whirl, twist, and make highly ritualized hand motions when going through doors. When he went for a walk, he touched every post he passed. If he missed one, he went back to touch it.
Recent research suggests that
obsessive-compulsive child behaviors can be caused by strep infection.
Who do you think are the most interesting, eccentric, and
compulsive personalities?
posted by Morphic
on Oct 23, 2002 -
31 comments
