Random News Stories

[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/weird/two-mis...9-c328883b60a2

Two Mississippi men take ‘free car,’ find body in trunk

A free car came with a dead body – at least that was the case for two men in Mississippi on Sunday morning.

Two men in Byram, Miss., must have thought it was their lucky day when they came across a vehicle with a sign on it that read “free car.”

And no hot-wiring required; the keys of the Acura were inside.

“There was a sign across the front of it that said, ‘free car,’” Copiah County Coroner Ellis Stuart told People. “They decided to give it a try.”

The men got into the car, said Stuart, and drove about 45 kilometres south to a property owned by a family member.

They reportedly started looking in and around the car and found the dead, naked body of a man “that had been there for at least 24 hours,” according to the coroner.

The two men immediately called 911 and remained at the scene until police showed up, he added.

The victim was identified as Anthony McCrillis, 34, who is the registered owner of the car.

McCrillis was last seen in the Byram area on Friday night around 9 p.m., said police.

The body has been sent to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy to determine cause of death.

“There are no visible signs of trauma as far as a gunshot or a stabbing,” explained Stuart, who added that the man was not bound.

“We are waiting to see what [the autopsy] tells us.”

[Leo Enticknap]

Here's another potential Darwin Award nominee, though this time, for the rarer category (someone who renders himself unable to reproduce by accidentally making himself infertile, as distinct from by killing himself):

Teen gets USB cable stuck in penis in backfired attempt to measure length

He backed up his hard drive — and his penis.

A UK teen had to undergo emergency surgery after a bananas attempt to measure his manhood resulted in him getting a USB cable lodged in his urethra.

The phallic fiasco reportedly began after an unnamed 15-year-old boy was “triggered by sexual curiosity” and inserted a USB wire into his urethra, per a wince-worthy study published in the medical journal Urology Case Reports.

The sexperiment backfired when the cable became lodged in the curious teen’s scrotum like an electronic catheter. Despite attempts to extract it himself, the USB cord became tangled so terribly that both ends were left hanging out of his wired willy.

The plugged-up boy’s family transported him to the hospital after he began urinating blood. After initial attempts to remove the wire failed, the teen was transferred to University College Hospital London to see if they could extricate the intra-penile measuring tape.

Per the report, the embarrassed boy asked to speak to doctors without his mother present, whereupon he “confessed” to his frightening escapade.

Subsequent X-rays revealed that there was a veritable Gordian Knot of USB wire inside the teenager, which required surgeons to make an incision in the region between his genitals and anus to yank it out. They pulled the spooled end through the hole first, cutting it free from the rest of the wire before removing the remaining bits — literally pulling the plug.

Thankfully, the boy recovered without incident and was discharged from the hospital the following day. However, he did have to undergo a follow-up scan two weeks later and will require monitoring in the future.

He should thank his lucky stars. Inserting foreign objects in one’s private parts can lead to a host of complications, from urinary tract infections to urethral injuries, London andrologist Amr Raheem told the Daily Mail.

It’s unclear why someone would engage in this type of invasive member-measuring method, but experts say it often stems from “sexual curiosity, sexual practice after intoxication, and mental disorders such as borderline, schizoaffective and bipolar personality disorders,” per the study, which noted that “the patient was an otherwise fit and healthy adolescent with no history of mental health disorders.”

Experts have also blamed “sounding,” a strange proclivity defined by inserting foreign bodies in one’s urethra. Last month, a randy Michigan man was left struggling to pee after he got six kidney beans lodged in his urethra during a bizarre attempt at sexual gratification.

Unfortunately, Raheem said phallus-filling maneuvers are “becoming more common as everything is thanks to social media and in general the easier ways that misinformation can be spread.”

USB_Xray.JPG
He should have used a USB-C cable rather than plain old Micro USB - it would have given him more bandwidth!

[Leo Enticknap]

I think this guy is trying to nominate himself for a Darwin Award.

British student stuck in Kabul after ‘danger tourism’ stunt backfires

A British student stuck in Afghanistan after embarking on an ill-advised holiday boasted to thousands of online followers about how he had researched the “most dangerous countries in the world”.

Miles Routledge, a 21-year-old physics undergraduate at Loughborough University, flew into Kabul on Friday as the Taliban prepared to seize control of the capital.

He chronicled his journey on the online forum 4chan, joking that he would be “goofing off and soaking in the sun”. At first, he appeared to dismiss the security threat posed by the advancing Taliban insurgents.

“The reason I came is because of the news,” he said in one post.

Mr Routledge, from Birmingham, claimed to have researched the 10 most dangerous countries in the world when planning the trip earlier this year. He has previously visited Chernobyl, the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

By Sunday, it had become clear his five-day trip was set to encounter significant complications as the city fell to the Taliban. By that point, he had already garnered a major internet following.

Mr Routledge posted several live videos from Kabul on video streaming site Twitch, including one in which he told viewers he had narrowly escaped unscathed from an encounter with the Taliban.

He also posted pictures of himself posing next to weapons at what he claimed was a military checkpoint.

“I kind of just thought, I’m going to be killed by the Taliban, fair enough,” he said.

An acquaintance of Mr Routledge from university, who asked not to be named, described him as a “massive attention-seeker” who had gained notoriety on campus for an anonymous confession page he founded on Facebook.

They told The Telegraph: “I don’t think he ever expected this much attention, more like something that he could tell friends about down the line and post a couple of pics.”

The acquaintance recalled hearing Mr Routledge first mention his travel plans in March before he bought his tickets in May, adding: “I think he genuinely just got incredibly unlucky with the date of the flight he booked.”

Mr Routledge posted other updates on his Facebook page where he spoke more candidly about the “anarchy” unfolding in Kabul and the psychological toll it had taken on him. He said he was in a “bit of a pickle” after flights were cancelled.

He also claimed his tour guide was “fearing for his family”, adding: “His only crime is going the extra mile and saving my life.”

On Monday, he indicated he would be part of an “emergency evacuation” after apparently finding refuge with Western forces. A since-deleted picture showed him posing in a flak jacket with a British flag on it while holding a rifle.

A Foreign office spokesman said: "We are aware of this case and are attempting to reach the individual to offer assistance. We are working hard to contact all the British nationals we are aware of who remain in Afghanistan, to help them leave the country."

No ... really?

[Leo Enticknap]

From The Daily Telegraph:

Ron Popeil, businessman who founded Ronco and claimed to be the greatest salesman of the 20th century – obituary

Ron Popeil, the self-styled “Greatest salesman of the [20th] Century”, who has died aged 86, was the founder of Ronco, purveyor of products with brand names often ending in “O-Matic”, that you never knew you needed – and probably discovered, too late, that you did not need.

His career began working for his father Samuel, a Chicago-based manufacturer of run-of-the-mill kitchen devices who had developed a sideline as an inventor of gadgets such as the Citrex juice extractor, the Toastette sandwich-pie maker and the Slice-a-Way cutting board.

Samuel also created the Chop-O-Matic, an onion-chopper employing a rotating, spring-loaded steel blade. At first, the Popeils sold the Chop-O-Matic through live demonstrations at flea markets, dime stores and at Woolworth’s. But in 1958 Ron began selling the gadget on television.

He made a five-minute commercial, reprising his sing-song street-vendor pitch: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to show you the greatest kitchen appliance ever made … If you order right now, the price is not $5.98, but $3.98. That’s right, $3.98. As a special bonus, you will receive with your Chop-O-Matic at no additional charge a valuable recipe book: 50 Secret Recipes by World Famous Chefs.”

Sales boomed and the O-Matic range grew to include the Dial-O-Matic slicer, the Whip-O-Matic frothy drink mixer and the Mince-O-Matic grinder.

The Popeils hit the jackpot with the Veg-O-Matic, launched in 1963, “The only appliance worldwide that can slice whole, firm tomatoes in one stroke, with every seed in place”, for which Ron coined what became his catchphrase: “But wait, there’s more!!!”.

The following year he founded Ronco, which went on to market hundreds of “amazing” gadgets to television audiences around the world, pioneering what became known as “infomercials” and, on packaging and in the print media, puffs featuring the phrase “As seen on TV”.

The Veg-O-Matic’s closest rival in fame was the Ronco Pocket Fisherman of 1972 (“the biggest fishing invention since the hook … and still only $19.95!”) – a spin-casting rod that folded down to pocket size.

Other Ronco products included an Inside-the-Shell Electric Egg Scrambler (“Gets rid of those slimy egg whites in your scrambled eggs”); GLH-9 [Great Looking Hair], spray-on hair-in-a-can, guaranteed to get rid of bald spots; the Ronco Rhinestone Stud Setter (“changes everyday clothing into exciting fashions”); the Buttoneer, which fixed buttons to clothes with plastic staples; Mr Microphone, a wireless mic that played through your radio; and the Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ, which, though marketed under the catchphrase “Set it and forget it”, came with an instruction book advising users to do no such thing.

The rotisserie was said to have racked up sales worth more than $1 billion, and Popeil claimed to have achieved a world record in 2000 by selling more than $1 million-worth during a one-hour live demonstration on the QVC channel.

In Britain, for more than a decade, Ronco was a leading purveyor of compilation pop albums, consisting of licenced hits from major record companies crammed on to 10-tracks-a-side LPs in cheap jackets. Sound reproduction was what one critic called “public convenience standard”, and songs often had to be faded out early to fit.

For those who bought them Ronco also sold a record vacuum which claimed to clean LPs, but became known as the “Ronco Record Ruiner” for its habit of scraping bits of grit across the vinyl.

Ronco ads were so successful they were frequently spoofed by comedians, most famously by Dan Aykroyd on Saturday Night Live, promoting what he called the “Bass-O-Matic”, a blender that could turn a whole fish into a revolting brown sludge.

But to Popeil any publicity was good publicity and he played along with the jokes.

The younger of two brothers, Ronald Martin Popeil was born on May 3 1935 in the New York Bronx, and by his own account had a miserable childhood. After his parents divorced when he was three, he and his brother were shunted between foster homes and his constantly quarrelling paternal grandparents in Miami.

When he was 13 he moved to Chicago to work at Popeil Brothers, the factory founded by his father and an uncle in 1939, and found he had flair as a salesman. Aged 16 he began working the fair circuit and later peddled wares in Woolworth’s.

While his father was said to be willing to lend his son money, once Ron went into business on his own, he reportedly cut off all contact.

A recession in the early 1980s affected Ronco sales and the company went into liquidation in 1984. But Popeil bounced back and in 2005 he sold Ronco for $55 million. He continued to develop and market inventions through a successor company, Ron’s Enterprises, later creations including Popeil’s 5-in-1 Turkey Fryer (“It boils eggs! It steams clams and lobsters! It bakes bread! And best of all, it can fry a 15-pound turkey in 46 minutes!”).

In 1995 he published his autobiography, The Salesman of the Century.

Ron Popeil is survived by his fourth wife, Robin, and by four daughters.

Ron Popeil, born May 3 1935, died July 28, 2021

I remember the record cleaners being relentlessly advertised on TV in the late '70s and early '80s, but had no idea about their destructive flaw, though.

[Frank Cox]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...aguire-funeral

‘The most disturbing liturgy ever’: Irish burglar gets highly charged send-off

A screwdriver and a torch, tools of a nocturnal trade, carried to altar at funeral of Dean Maguire

Father Donal Roche called it the most disturbing funeral he has ever attended, a homage to a life of crime played like a scene from The Sopranos.
Dean Maguire, 29, an Irish burglar with more than 25 convictions, had died in fiery motorway crash and mourners decided to give a memorable farewell.
Some blocked off roads leading to St Mary’s Priory Catholic church in Tallaght, west Dublin, while throngs piled into the church, flouting Ireland’s Covid-19 rules.
A screwdriver and a torch, tools of a nocturnal trade, were carried to the altar.
A poster paid tribute in rhyme. “RIP Dean. You know the score, get on the floor, don’t be funny, give me the money.”
Mourners who made eulogies said Maguire would not be forgotten. “Sorry for the language, Father – rest in peace, you fucking legend,” said one woman.
The atmosphere was highly charged, said Roche, who tried in vain to control the numbers entering the church while a colleague officiated at the mass.
“It was the most disturbing liturgy I have ever been at. There was a sense of restlessness, and the priest officiating was up against it,” he told RTÉ. “I didn’t feel in that much danger … but I did wonder, am I going to get a belt here?”
Since details of the mass last Friday seeped into the media there has been a public outcry at the glorification of criminals during funerals.
Diarmuid Martin, a former archbishop of Dublin, previously vowed that churches would not host such displays. Roche said he had no warning about the tributes to Maguire. When he phoned the police he was told their presence would inflame the situation and that officers would come only if there was a criminal act.
Gardaí are investigating videos that appear to show the hearse and some accompanying cars speeding and jumping traffic lights.
Maguire, who was wanted by British police, died on 7 July along with Graham Taylor and Carl Freeman when the BMW they were travelling in crashed into a truck on the N7, leaving the truck driver injured.
They were driving the wrong way up the motorway after fleeing from police. The trio were reportedly part of the same burglary gang, with more than 200 convictions between them.
Freeman was buried on Monday after a funeral procession with a horse-drawn hearse escorted by scrambler motorbikes.

[Martin McCaffery]

Variety

European Cinema Giant Vue Fined $1 Million For Death of U.K. Film-Goer in 2018
Naman RamachandranJul 20, 2021 8:17am PT

A court in Birmingham, U.K., has fined cinema giant Vue Entertainment £750,000 ($1 million) in the verdict around a 2018 incident where a man was crushed to death under a cinema chair.

In March 2018, 24-year-old Ateeq Rafiq died after his head and neck got crushed under a seat while searching for his keys at Birmingham’s Star City cinema, a Vue property. His wife Ayesha Sardar tried to pull the chair’s motorized footrest off Rafiq’s neck, but did not succeed. He was revived by CPR at the scene but died of brain injuries a week later, on March 16.

At an inquest held in 2019 it was revealed that the force which came down on Rafiq’s head was 3/4th of a ton. The seat was missing a bar which would have allowed Rafiq to be released manually.

In April 2021, Vue Cinemas admitted to two charges under the Health and Safety at Work Act, for “failing to ensure that persons not in their employment are not exposed to risk to their health or safety” and for “failing to make a suitable and sufficient risk assessment.”

Sentencing was deferred to July 20, when the Birmingham Crown Court announced the fine.


“It is obviously positive mitigation on behalf of this company that they have no previous convictions or matters coming before the court,” Judge Heidi Kubik QC said. “They have a very positive health and safety record.”

“It is conceded that clearly a number of members of the public were exposed to the same risk of harm,” the judge added. “The complete lack of a risk assessment was a significant cause of the actual harm that resulted.”

The death was “an accident that never should have happened,” the judge said.

Variety has reached out to the Vue group for comment.

Vue has 91 cinemas across the U.K. and Ireland, with over 870 screens. It is is part of the largest cinema group in Europe, Vue International.

[Leo Enticknap]

From The Independent, emphasis mine:

Popular free audio editing tool Audacity has quietly updated its terms and conditions so that it can sell user data to third-party companies and share it “with our main office in Russia”.

The update, which happened on 2 July 2021, means that Audacity will now collect information about users’ operating system, their country (through their IP address), their CPU, and any other data “necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authorities’ requests”.

For “a calendar day”, IP addresses will be “stored in an identifiable way” before being hashed or made anonymous; however, an unencrypted address could be a pathway to finding a users’ name, phone number, and address, the geolocation of the computer, and in some cases further personal characteristics including “political inclinations, state of health, sexuality, [and] religious sentiments”, according to a study conducted in 2013 by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Audacity will share this personal data with its staff and law enforcement and government agents, or “other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary” as well as “potential buyer[s] … in connection with any proposed purchase, merger, or acquisition”.

Users’ personal data is stored on servers in the European Economic Area, but Audacity says that it is “occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external counsel in the USA”. It says that personal data “receives an adequate level of protection in accordance with the GDPR.”

Audacity also forbids users under the age of 13 from using it. “If you are under 13 years old, please do not use the App”, the new terms and conditions state; however, this appears to be in conflict with its GPL license, which states that software must be available for free to all users.

Muse Group, which purchased Audacity in May 2021, did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent before time of publication.

“It is no wonder that the latest update is being likened to spyware with the volume of data being acquired from customers. The recent sale of the software highlights how customer data is increasingly more important to software owners and it reflects the true business model of many companies”, Jake Moore, Cybersecurity Specialist at global cybersecurity company ESET, told The Independent.

“When they share, analyse and profit from personal data collection, companies take a gamble that they will only lose a small number of accounts owned by privacy conscious users. The more people realise how important it is to keep limit the sharing of their sensitive information, the more companies will be forced into thinking twice when taking such data.”

I used an older version for capturing and doing light touch processing (mainly applying historic EQ curves) of 78 RPM records, until I decided to invest in Diamond Cut a couple of years ago. I'll definitely steer clear of Audacity now.

[Frank Cox]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...life-1.6085993

grey-buffalo.jpg

A Saskatchewan drumming group helped save a man's life Saturday evening.

Jared Bird was in Saskatoon's Kiwanis Park, drumming live on TikTok with his group Grey Buffalo, when police approached with an unusual request about a man in distress on the nearby Broadway Bridge.

"We were wondering if you would walk that way, and play a little bit louder for him so we can talk him off the ledge," a police officer can be heard saying during the recording of the TikTok live.

"Because that's the only thing that's making him happy right now is your music."

The drummers agreed and walked closer to play for the man. In the end, the man stepped away from the bridge.

"It was just very emotional that day. We sang him a prayer song twice," Bird said in an interview. "It feels really amazing to be honest."

Bird said he was nervous in the beginning, but seeing the man walk away from the edge as they sang and drummed for him was so relieving.

"I'm so grateful that I was there that day at that time," he said.

Jeff Longman, Bird's dad, was drumming with the group too. He said he was also in shock when the police came over.

"It means a lot to us to save somebody's life or just to help out somebody," he said. "It was a great honour to help a young man that way. Hopefully he gets the help he needs."

[Leo Enticknap]

I can't find the video online, so this written description will have to do.

I'm currently on an out-of-town job. Got back from the theater where I was working at about 6pm yesterday evening, pulled my shoes off and stuck the TV on for a few minutes to unwind. No sooner had the screen lit up than the news anchor introduced a report, as follows: "The condo collapse in Miami has focused attention on high rises closer to home, here in Honolulu. So are any of the city's towers in danger of going down? Our reporter investigates..." There then followed 3-4 minutes of various experts opining that Honolulu has a very similar climate and environmental challenges for tall buildings to Miami, and that the city's skyscrapers should all be inspected immediately.

I was watching this in a 38th floor hotel room in downtown Honolulu, about 150 yards from the ocean. So much for unwinding...

[Frank Cox]

I was standing in line at the bank here one day several years ago when an old guy walked up to the counter and ordered ice cream.

[Jim Cassedy]

When I first moved to San Francisco in the early 1980's, there was a big Irish pub downtown known as "The Bank Of Ireland". It had been there for years, but at some point apparently a big-wig on the Executive Board of Directors from the actual Bank Of Ireland saw the place while visiting The City, and he filed some sort of a trade-name lawsuit, which claimed, in part, that the use of the name and similar signage "might cause confusion for Bank Of Ireland depositors, and investors." The pub was eventually forced to change their name to "The Irish Bank". I remember a local TV station interviewing one of the bartenders around the time of the lawsuit, and the guy said something like "I've been working here for 15 years, and not ONCE has anybody come in here looking to make a deposit"

[Leo Enticknap]

Looks like it's in an upscale part of town!

There is a plumbing/rooter business called Purple Drain around these parts, with logos their vans that mimic the style of the title in the movie posters. I'm guessing that they must have done a deal with Prince's estate to use the trademark. Either that or they'll be hit with a similar lawsuit if the estate's attorneys ever find out about it.

[Frank Cox]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...abis-1.6066640

Cannabis dispensary Budway must pay $40K after Subway sues over trademark

No one ever accused Budway cannabis dispensary of being subtle.

The Vancouver store's logo features light and dark green letters with arrows on them set against an oval background — a nod to the Subway sandwich chain that a Federal Court judge has found too overt.

Budway's mascot is a seemingly stoned, joint-smoking, marijuana-filled submarine sandwich whose motto reads: "It's the way, bud."

But Justice Nicholas McHaffie says there's no way Budway can continue infringing on Subway's trademark.

The decision is a primer on trademark law and a reminder that a friendly homage to a well known brand can lead into dangerous legal territory.

The judge ordered Budway's owner to pay the chain $40,000 this week and to destroy any signs, goods, packages and labels marked with the cannabis dispensary's not-so-distinctive logo.

Although there was no evidence the tiny company actually ate into Subway's annual $1.8 billion Cdn sales in this country, McHaffie found Budway had effectively tried to borrow on Subway's reputation to sell its products.

His analysis of the case began with the resemblance between the two logos.

"In each case, the word element of the mark is similar, with the similarities in letters and pronunciation between SUBWAY and BUDWAY being self-evident," McHaffie wrote.

"The fact that 'budway' is not itself a word means that it would tend to be read in a manner to connote the common word 'subway.'"

budway.jpgbudway-cannabis.jpg

[Leo Enticknap]

Even the Soviets, it seemed, had a sense of humor. From The Daily Telegraph (my emphasis):

Vladimir Shatalov, hero of Soviet cosmonauts who beat the Americans to the first manned docking in space – obituary

After two further missions, at the Cosmonaut Training Centre from the 1970s he became a guiding figure for later Russian cosmonauts

Vladimir Shatalov, who has died aged 93, the Russian new agency Tass reports, was a pioneering Soviet cosmonaut who flew three dramatic missions during the early years of the Space Race, and performed the first docking of two crewed spaceships in orbit. He later oversaw the training programme for new cosmonauts, and was appointed a deputy to the Supreme Soviet.

Shatalov’s first space assignment was to fly solo into orbit aboard Soyuz 4, which he did in January 1969. With a thick layer of snow covering the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and the temperature at minus 22 C, he sat through his countdown as gusts of wind shook the rocket. When asked by controllers how these disconcerting tremors felt in the craft, Shatalov coolly replied: “It quivers like a spirited horse ready for a race.”

Once in orbit, he was to await the arrival of the second manned ship. This double mission aimed to overcome the disaster of the first Soyuz flight, whose docking plans had been abandoned after Vladimir Komarov lost control and plunged to his death in the Ural Mountains, becoming the first in-flight space casualty. It would also redress the embarrassment of Soyuz 3, which closed in on Soyuz 2 in orbit, but could not dock because it was upside down.

Soyuz 5 was duly launched the next day, this time carrying three cosmonauts – Boris Volynov, Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov. The two craft rendezvoused, and Shatalov edged his vehicle forward for docking, gently inserting the metal probe of Soyuz 4 into the corresponding receptacle on Soyuz 5.

At the moment of link-up, an unidentified crew member on Soyuz 5 radioed a crude message over to Shatalov: “We’ve been raped! We’ve been raped!”. The remark slipped past the Soviet censors, but was edited out of subsequent television broadcasts.

Soyuz means “union”, an allusion both to the spacecraft’s purpose in docking, and to the country which launched it.

The Russians claimed the combined craft to be the first experimental space station. The mission then achieved another space “first” when Yeliseyev and Khrunov donned spacesuits, crawled out into open space, and floated along handrails to enter Soyuz 4.

Shatalov was “pleased beyond words” to see his new crewmates, who brought letters, gifts and newspapers with reports of Shatalov’s earlier launch. He helped them to remove their space suits, whereupon they hugged and kissed each other, he recalled, “talking excitedly and not making much sense”.

This first-ever crew transfer meant that the spacewalking pair returned to Earth in a different craft from the one in which they had launched. Unknown to the West at the time, it was also a rehearsal for a technique intended to be used on the USSR’s own secret Moon flight programme, which was later quietly abandoned.

Soyuz 4 landed safely in Kazakhstan after dawn during a violent blizzard at minus 37 C. Shatalov and his crew, dressed in flimsy flight suits, were given fur hats and were quickly recovered by helicopter.

A few days later, the crew were to be entertained by the Russian leader Leonid Brezhnev at a celebratory reception in the Kremlin.

The motorcade to the event was interrupted, however, by an assassination attempt on the Soviet leader, the work of a disgruntled soldier who disapproved of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the previous autumn. Ignoring the open-topped car carrying the cheerfully waving Shatalov and his crew, lieutenant Viktor Ilyin, disguised as a policeman, fired into a Zil limousine, expecting it to contain Brezhnev.

In fact, the Zil was carrying other Soviet space heroes, some of whom were wounded; the driver was killed. Brezhnev survived unscathed and all future motorcades for returning space cosmonauts were cancelled.

The joint flight and docking of two manned craft was a notable public relations success for the Soviet Union in the frantic period when the USA was preparing for its first attempt to land on the Moon. The US astronaut David Scott, who performed the same docking role as Shatalov on the first link-up of two manned American spacecraft two months later, would subsequently acknowledge that the Russians had beaten them to it.

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Shatalov was born on December 8 1927 in Petropavlovsk, northern Kazakhstan, which was then part of the USSR. His father Alexander, a railway engineer, soon moved the family to Leningrad. There, Alexander helped build the “Road of Life” across the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga, the only access to the besieged city during the Second World War.

Known familiarly as Volodya, the young Shatalov’s hero was the Soviet aerobatic pilot Valeri Chkalov, whose newspaper cuttings he collected. He first flew at the Kachinsky Air Force School, where he graduated in 1949 and served in the Soviet Air Force. He married Muza Andreyevna Ionova, an agricultural scientist, and their son Igor was born in 1952, followed by daughter Yelena in 1958.

Joining the Communist Party in 1953 eased Shatalov’s subsequent career progress and he was recruited to the cosmonaut team in 1963 (two years after the inaugural manned spaceflight of Yuri Gagarin) acting first as a ground communicator with space crews in orbit, then training as a back-up crew member.

After his docking flight on Soyuz 4, Shatalov returned to space aboard Soyuz 8 in October 1969. By this time, Neil Armstrong had achieved the first lunar landing, and the Russians were denying that they ever intended to fly there. To prove their ambitions in Earth’s orbit, they planned a triple spacecraft flight, which would involve two craft docking while a third filmed the event.

Soyuz 6 and 7 were already in orbit when Shatalov and his old crewmate Yeliseyev launched once again from Kazakhstan. Now, for the first time, there were three manned spacecraft together in orbit, and the formation flight was named the “troika” after the iconic symbol of Russia, a sled drawn by three horses.

Despite some success with a space welding experiment, the expected docking failed to materialise. As the craft returned safely to Earth on three successive days, the claims in the Soviet press that the mission had achieved all of its objectives sounded hollow.

Shatalov’s third spaceflight saw him command a three-man ferry mission to the newly launched Salyut, the world’s first fully fledged space station. On Soyuz 10 he was once again partnered by Yeliseyev, with newcomer Nikolai Rukavishnikov completing the crew.

His experience in space rendezvous served him well, and Shatalov was soon edging his craft in to dock with Salyut. They loosely connected, but serious technical problems immediately arose to prevent them entering the station, and Shatalov was ordered back to Earth.

After his space missions, he assumed control of the Cosmonaut Training Centre in 1971, where he worked for 20 years, becoming a guiding figure for subsequent generations of Russian cosmonauts. Retaining the rank of Lieutenant-General, he lived in Star City outside Moscow in retirement.

Vladimir Shatalov, born December 8 1927, died June 15 2021

[Leo Enticknap]

I can't claim credit for discovering this one - somebody posted it on LinkedIn. It appears that in New Zealand, flamethrowers are considered an acceptable method of pest control. This from stuff.co.nz:

DIY flamethrower wasp nest removal tactic not reckless, insurer says

OPINION: Got a wasp nest in the roof?

No problem, create yourself a mini flamethrower and burn the little blighters out.

Now, I reckon you might just pause at that sentence, and think there might be better ways to deal with a highly flammable nest of wasp-made paper, filled with soon-too-be angry stinging insects.

Wimp that I am, I would probably call in a pest control company.

But the chap in question went ahead with his plan, accidentally setting his house on fire, resulting in a $100,000 claim to AA Insurance, which has been using it in its advertising.

As advertising, it worked well. It caught my attention.

But what I was curious about was why AA Insurance paid the claim, because I always understood that insurers looked frowningly on ill-advised antics that lead to big claims.

I thought I knew a bit about the duty of “reasonable care” that policyholders have to their insurers not to do things that create losses for their insurers.

“The duty of reasonable care will be breached where the insured disregarded a significant risk, which would have been obvious to the reasonable person,” says insurance ombudsman Karen Stevens.

To decline a claim, an insurer must prove the insured’s conduct was grossly careless, grossly negligent, or reckless, she says.

Cases where insurers have turned down claims include when people have left windows open, or doors unlocked, while they were out and been burgled.

They have also included cases of people leaving keys in an unlocked car, or valuables visible on the seat, tempting thieves.

Was the chap with his improvised flamethrower reckless, or grossly careless?

I went to the insurer and asked what had happened, and why it paid.

“It is unlikely the average person could know that lighting bug spray would lead to a house catching on fire,” was the reply. “The outcome was an unexpected consequence of our customer trying to get rid of a wasp nest, and so we covered the claim.”

Okay, it’s the insurer. It’s entitled to make that call.

Ironically, now you know that mini-flamethrowers can start roof fires, you also know it’s reckless to use one on a wasp nest in the roof.

I can’t help feeling an insurer might have been entitled to say the man had been reckless, leading at the very least to a complaint to the ombudsman, and maybe even the courts.

Obviously, we all have different levels of in-built caution. Me, cautious wimp. Man with match and bug spray, far less so. But what are the things most likely to result in a declined claim?

Based on ombudsman cases, and the wording of insurance policies, here are a few of the biggies.

House and contents policies: Leaving houses unlocked, or with accessible windows open, while you are out. Failing to maintain your place, leading to a claim.

Car policies: Driving recklessly, driving on balding tyres, speeding, driving while the brakes aren’t working as they should, failing to maintain your vehicle leading to a claim.

Car and contents policies: Leaving the keys in the ignition, leaving valuables in sight on the seats while it’s parked.

Travel: Leaving items unattended on beaches. Doing risky things while drunk. Actually, there are so many “exclusions” in travel policies, it’s hard to know where to begin.