One man, one room, 40 venomous snakes for 121 days

DAMDORYN, South Africa – The most common question David Jones gets asked is: "Are you completely mad?"
It's not hard to understand why, since the 44-year-old British carpenter is currently trying to break a world record by sharing a room for four months with 40 of the world's most venomous snakes.


"It's a challenge," he told me. "People die all the time when they climb Mount Everest. But that doesn't put them off. This, if you like, is my Mount Everest. I've always wanted to come and sit here with snakes."
We'd come across Jones while traveling back from Rustenburg to Johannesburg, after watching Ghana defeat the U.S. in the World Cup. You couldn't miss the signs by the roadside: "World Record Attempt in Progress!"
Jones's sparsely-furnished room was at the back of a snake farm, part of the Chameleon Cultural Village.
We found him sitting in front of a laptop computer, updating his website (www.snakeman.co.za) and contemplating making a cup of tea, though that would require some care, since a cobra had taken up residence in the cupboard with his tea bags.
"I had a cobra try to strike at me the other day, while I was making a cup of tea."
He has a bed and small bathroom. The room has windows on three sides to afford a better view to visitors.
His roommates include puff adders, snouted cobras, boomslangs and green and black mambas. "Collectively they are very, very dangerous. They would all put you in hospital. And untreated most of them will kill you," he said.
What intrigued me most, though, was the television, tuned in to World Cup soccer. Two snakes were lying on top of the satellite and another on top of the TV appeared to be watching the game.
"They seem to watch the movement," Jones said. "But snakes are deaf, so they can't hear the vuvuzelas, which is just as well. I wouldn't want the snakes driven insane by that constant sound."
David Jones takes a photo of one of his venomous roommates.
Jones has to contain his own excitement, since any sudden movement would attract his housemates.
He’s been a snake enthusiast since he was a boy. "I do remember finding my first snake when I was ten, and taking it to my house. I was delighted. I kept that snake until it died three or four years later."
He says he has to be extra careful of the puff adders. "They move around slowly on the floor. The real danger is treading on them. It's a nasty, nasty venom…They do like my shoes. It’s a nice dark hole."
The current snake-room sharing record is held by South African Martin Smith, also known as Mad Martin, who spent 113 days sharing a room with snakes. Another attempt to break the record failed last year; the challenger was hospitalized twice after being bitten by a puff adder and them a cobra.
Jones does have a nighttime "minder" who sits in the room and keeps the snakes away from his bed while he sleeps.
"Providing I keep my wits about me, providing I do the basics, move around slowly and do look before I move my feet, there's no reason in the world why anything should happen to me," he said.
Assuming he makes it through to August, the target, his wife and young son will travel to Johannesburg for the final days.
A cheer went up from the television, nearly a goal. A long green snake was looking intently at the screen. Jones resisted any attempt to applaud. "I'm not such a soccer man, really." Which is probably a good thing given the circumstances.

the Rat Cave

Watch Tinkerbell, the bath-loving rat, build herself a rat cave in her own cage out of paper. Tinkerbell becomes an architect at night when she finds some newspaper pieces around her cage. There was a newspaper laying beside her cage one night and she built a little igloo-house out of scraps. This is a time-lapse video of her working on taking the paper scraps down and folding them in her own special way. There is a cameo appearance by a cat called Tootsie, who loves Tinkerbell and was watching the whole building process throughout the night.

Mini-moo: 33-inch English cow world's smallest

This is an undated Guinness World Records handout photo made available Thursday Sept. 16, 2010 of Swallow, right, an 11-year-old cow from Yorkshire posing next to Freddie the bull. The minuscule cow with a taste for contemporary music has been named the world's smallest by the Guinness World Records book. Guinness says the sheep-sized bovine from the West Yorkshire region of northern England measures roughly 33 inches (84 centimeters) from hind to foot. At 33 inches she has been named the world's smallest cow.

JOKE: the Diamond Ring

An older, white haired man walked into a jewelry store this past Friday evening with a beautiful much younger gal at his side. He told the jeweler he was looking for a special ring for his girlfriend. The jeweler looked through his stock and brought out a $5,000 ring.
The old man said, "No, I'd like to see something more special."
At that statement, the jeweler went to his special stock and brought another ring over. "Here's a stunning ring at only $40,000," the jeweler said. The lady's eyes sparkled and her whole body trembled with excitement. The old man seeing this said, "We'll take it."
The jeweler asked how payment would be made and the old man stated, "by check. I know you need to make sure my check is good, so I'll write it now and you can call the bank Monday to verify the funds and I'll pick the ring up Monday afternoon."
On Monday morning, the jeweler angrily phoned the old man and said "There's no money in that account."
"I know," said the old man, "But let me tell you about MY GREAT WEEKEND!"

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Louisiana woman jailed over naked joyride in taxi

A St. Clair Shores resident is sitting in a Louisiana jail this week after taking off her clothes and stealing a taxi cab, according to authorities.

Jennifer Gille, 29, faces theft and obscenity charges stemming from a bizarre incident early Sunday morning in the city of Covington, north of New Orleans. Gille called for a taxi and accepted a ride to a city address. After arriving, she refused to leave the cab, police said.

"The driver said, 'Here you are,' but she wouldn't get out of the car," said Covington Police Capt. Jack West. "She said 'I need to go to Michigan' and began taking her clothes off."

The driver responded by driving his cab to the police department. Figuring she was too intoxicated to cause further problems, the driver went inside the station to get help -- leaving the keys inside, police said. When he and officers came back outside, the cab and passenger were gone.

A quick search of the area turned up the taxi cab, roughly a block away from the station in a parking lot.

"She had crawled into the back seat and was still unclothed," West said. "Officers told her to get out of the car and she refused."

Police said officers physically removed Gille from the car and put her clothes back on. According to the incident report, they "realized she was intoxicated on alcohol and possibly on drugs also."

Gille refused to answer questions while she was booked and is at St. Tammany Parish Jail. She faces up to eight years in prison if convicted.

VIDEO: SMALL GUY

Orphaned Otter Learns to Swim in Bath Tub

A three-month-old otter is being taught how to swim and socialise with other animals after he was found alone on a building site in Wales. Staff at Secret World Wildlife Rescue in Highbridge, Somerset, are rehabilitating the orphaned mammal in preparation for his release back into the wild.

The pup, named Garaint, is living at the home of Pauline Kidner, the founder of Secret World, where he has struck up a friendship with her eight-month-old black labrador puppy called Mollie. Pauline Kidner, 60, said the otter's interaction with other animals is be vital to the mammal's rehabilitation.

"Otters are highly sociable animals and I'd much rather Garaint was socialising with a puppy than humans," she said. "Fortunately, we have some older dogs who are a bit too grumpy for fun and games, so they are teaching Garaint that not all dogs are approachable for her future back in the wild.

"As a pup eight-month-old Molly is just as playful as the otter, so it's great that they can both enjoy a bit of rough and tumble together." Ms Kidner has also welcomed six-week-old otter Snuffles to her home, and hopes that she and Garaint will become playmates as the pup gets older.

Newborn foal Joy survives big Australian flood

A newborn foal in Australia is finding her feet after losing her mum and almost her life in the big wet. From nearly dead to pure delight, little Joy shares a cosy couch with a big teddy and a little mutt mate called Manny. Joy owes her life to strangers and Quest Equine Welfare president Rebecca Atkins. When found, she had either never stood or had fallen on trembling legs and was entombed in freezing cold mud, so caked in the quagmire that she couldn't even lift her head.

Wrapped in a blanket and rushed on the back seat of a car to the nearest open fireplace, Joy showed signs she might survive. Still less than a fortnight old and now living with Ms Atkins and daughter Elise at Inglewood, near Bendigo, Joy is getting stronger - and cheekier - by the hour. She shoves her head into the family fridge when it's time for her bottle of milk and frolics with two other dogs, both taller and twice as heavy as she is.She smooches up to cats Miffy and Willy, rubbing her cold nose into their fur.

Joy's right eye is ulcerated as a result of her head being left packed in mud. Time will tell if it heals or not. Dragging the Shetland foal from death's door has been hard work for Ms Atkins. "I reckon I've had about eight hours sleep in total for 10 days," she said. "She needs a bottle of mare's milk formula every 40-45 minutes, then a 30-minute nap then play and prance time, and then we go through it all over again."

At $270 a bucket of formula, the single mum who helped found the Quest horse and donkey rescue organisation is finding her smallest charge the most expensive. "It will be worth it if she survives because we can call her our greatest ever little miracle," Ms Atkins said. "The fact that her mother, who was more than half-starved herself, carried her through to term and gave birth to her before dying is just amazing. Talk about a mother's love."

'I was lovin' it' television ad enrages McDonald's

In a television advert that could kill your appetite, an overweight, middle-aged man is seen lying dead in a morgue holding a half-eaten hamburger as a woman weeps over the linen-clad body. McDonald's ubiquitous golden arches then trace the dead man's feet with the text "I was lovin' it," a stinging pun on the fast-food chain's long-running slogan "I'm lovin' it."

A voiceover says, "high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian." Produced by Washington-based health lobby Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), the commercial is set to be aired in Washington DC during the popular The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Thursday. PCRM says it is also considering running it in Chicago, Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles

The ad "takes aim at McDonald?s high-fat menu, with the goal of drawing Washingtonians' attention to the city?s high rates of heart disease deaths and its high density of fast-food restaurants," PCRM said in a statement. Studies show that people who consume fast food are at a higher risk for obesity, a factor contributing to heart disease, it said.

But the ad enraged McDonald's. "This commercial is outrageous, misleading and unfair to all consumers. McDonald's trusts our customers to put such outlandish propaganda in perspective, and to make food and lifestyle choices that are right for them," spokeswoman Bridget Coffing said. PCRM said its survey showed that Washington has more McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC outlets per square mile than eight other cities with similar population sizes.