Three oddballs are in the news today:
1) The BBC provides this excellent headline and amazing story: “Fasting fakir flummoxes physicians: Doctors and experts are baffled by an Indian hermit who claims not to have eaten or drunk anything for several decades – but is still in perfect health.”
2) Another BBC report says “Stroke gives woman British accent: An American woman has been left with a British accent after having a stroke. This is despite the fact that Tiffany Roberts, 61, has never been to Britain. Her accent is a mixture of English cockney and West Country. Doctors say Mrs Roberts, who was born and bred in Indiana, has a condition called foreign accent syndrome.”
Foreign accent syndrome?!?! Yes, foreign accent syndrome.
3) Irving Tobin, an obsessive 79-year-old, “reads the (New York) Times every day, struggling to find the two and a half hours necessary to get through it. He keeps stacks of newspapers in the front seat of his car and in spare cupboards, in case he finds himself without a paper in hand.
Tobin is behind in his Times reading. One year, five months, and four days behind, which places him in late June, 2002. In his daily paper, the United States has not yet invaded Iraq, the D.C. sniper hasn�t fired a shot, and Gray Davis is secure in Sacramento.”