Strange news from around the world

Garfield phone mystery solved in Brittany - 35 years later

For 35 years, fragments of novelty Garfield telephones have washed up on the picturesque Iroise coast of Brittany almost every day.




Nobody has known why or where they come from; day after day, locals clearing up litter along the Atlantic beaches of the Finistère region, have stumbled across bright orange pieces of feline-shaped plastic.

Sometimes it was just the grinning face or the eyes – designed to open when anyone picked up the receiver. Other times, a headless orange fat torso complete with curly wire, dialpad and plug.

Now the mystery of les téléphones Garfield has been solved by volunteers from the environmental group Ar Viltansou.

As many suspected, the telephones come from a lost container reportedly swept off a cargo ship in 1983. After a local farmer remembered the first Garfield phone appearing after storm that year, he showed the group’s president, Claire Simonin-Le Meur, where they were appearing: a secluded coastal cave deep in the cliffs at Plouarzel accessible only at low tide, but which spat out the telephones at high tide.

“We found this incredible cave, that was 30 metres deep and right at the end the remains of the container,” Simonin-Le Meur, told Euronews. “At the cave opening there was a Garfield lodged in the roof, so we knew we weren’t mistaken and this was where they were.”

Fabien Boileau, the director of the Natural Sea Park of Iroise, also visited the cave, but said the mystery was only partly solved. “We have no idea what happened at the time, where it came from, what ship it was or if one or several containers fell in the sea,” Boileau said.

The lazy and lasagne-loving cartoon cat Garfield was created in 1978 by American Jim Davis for a comic-strip. It has since featured in films and TV series.

Unfortunately, the container remains partly buried and inaccessible so nobody knows how many telephones it still contains. However, it is unlikely the beach cleaners of Iroise have seen the last of Garfield.

Unfortunately, the container remains partly buried and inaccessible so nobody knows how many telephones it still contains.

Burglary suspect caught ‘pretending to be solar panel’ on Wandsworth roof



A suspected burglar was arrested after thermal cameras quickly saw through his bungling attempt to camouflage himself as a solar panel.

The hapless suspect was quickly caught by a National Police Air Service (NPAS) helicopter’s thermal imaging camera lying completely still on a solar panel atop of a row of shops in Upper Tooting Road, Wandsworth on April 14.

Sunderland man ‘watched p*rn as he m*sturbated over captured seagull’

David Lee, 40, from Roker Avenue, Sunderland, admitted causing unnecessary suffering to a herring gull at 1am last August 17.

A man has admitted performing a s*x act while kneeling over a captured seagull and watching p*rnography on his mobile phone.

David Lee, 40, from Roker Avenue, Sunderland, admitted causing unnecessary suffering to the bird at 1am last August 17.

[Lesley Burgess, prosecuting] will ask for an order preventing Lee from owning animals.

Man who stole 200,000 Cadbury Creme Eggs jailed for 18 months.

Joby Pool, 32, stole more than £31,000 worth of the chocolate eggs when he broke into an industrial unit in Telford on 11 February and made off with the haul in a stolen lorry cab.

Beale said Pool was stopped by police as he was travelling northbound on the M42 in a vehicle that had been stolen from the Yorkshire area in October. He walked towards police “with his hands up” near junction 11.

Shortly after his arrest, West Mercia police described the incident in a series of tweets as an “eggs-travagant theft.”

Officials at a Chinese zoo denied that a sun bear seen in a viral video filmed at the facility is a human wearing a costume