Downtown London residences are known to be staggeringly expensive, but media blogger Sam Cookney calculated in October just how much. Cookney said he can live in an upscale apartment in Barcelona, Spain, and commute almost every workday to London (700 miles away) for less money than a modest central London rental. (Sixteen commuter days over four weeks a month would run, in pound-dollar equivalents: $2,420 for a West Hampstead rental, $121 council tax, and $188 transit travel card, totaling $2,730. Barcelona, in euro-dollar equivalents: $938 for a three-bedroom flat with three balconies near transit, no tax, $47 daily round-trip on Ryanair, $32 a day in airport transportation, totaling $2,202 -- a savings of $528 a month.) Plus, he said, sunny Barcelona is on the Mediterranean. (On the other hand, Cookney luckily can work on the plane, for each flight is two hours long.) [Yahoo Finance, 10-28-2013]

-- Lawyers for Radu Dogaru, who is on trial in Romania for stealing masterpieces last year from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, said the heist was also the museum's fault -- for having such unimaginably lax security -- and that if the museum did not admit that, Dogaru would sue. Museum officials said they had tracked some of the works to Dogaru's mother, who is claiming ignorance, and the son's lawyers hope to discount any insurance-company judgments against her by spreading the blame. [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 10-22-2013]

-- The online retailer Amazon.com maintains a side business of operating massive Internet-capacity "cloud" farms and contracts out space to some of the world's largest entities, including U.S. government agencies. In a case brought to light in October by a U.S. Court of Claims ruling, Amazon had won its bid against IBM for a cloud contract with the CIA, but had gone a step further by actually improving the CIA's system and implementing a better plan. In the bizarre world of government contracts, that created a "fairness" problem, as IBM argued that its rights were violated because the specified contract work was no longer exactly what was being done (i.e., the client's work was being done better). IBM lodged a time-consuming protest, but later dropped the suit. [Wall Street Journal, 10-16-2013]

-- Update: Perhaps thousands of Baghdad residents have been killed by bomb couriers who had passed through supposedly secure checkpoints that were "equipped" with useless ADE-651 bomb "detectors," but the devices were surely to be history following the April fraud conviction of the British scam artist who made $75 million selling them. (American officials had warned Iraqis for years that the ADE-651 was basically a novelty golf-ball finder.) However, despite the debunking evidence brought out at trial, Iraqi police continue to use them, according to an October dispatch in London's The Independent, with the September death toll at nearly 1,000 from bombers who passed through checkpoints, past silent ADE-651s. Even Prime Minister al-Maliki vouches that the ADE works "up to 60 percent" of the time. [The Independent (London), 10-3-2013]

-- In September, San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cookson, perhaps sensing an autumnal whiff of romance in the courthouse, agreed to perform the wedding ceremony, in her courtroom, of Mr. Danne Desbrow and his fiancee, Destiny -- and even to serve the lucky couple homemade cake afterward. However, Judge Cookson did all of this immediately after sentencing Desbrow to a 53-year-to-life term for first-degree murder and for threatening a witness. [Associated Press via KOVR-TV (Sacramento), 10-1-2013]

-- Many parents long for armed protection for their kids at school, but a few parents at Entz Elementary in Mesa, Ariz., have the opposite concern -- and demanded that local cop (and parent) Scott Urkov not wear his service weapon, or uniform, when he drops his child off in the morning. The principal sided with the complaining parents (although at least one mother defended Urkov, albeit defining the issue primarily as "his right" to be in uniform as he heads off to work). [KSAZ-TV (Phoenix), 10-3-2013]

-- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has been delaying a decision for months about whether to punish the Apache ASL Trails housing complex in Tempe, Ariz., for the sin of renting 85 percent of its units to the hearing-impaired -- for whom the facility was actually designed (equipped with comfort and safety features to serve the deaf). However, HUD has threatened to withhold federal funding because Apache is suspected of illegally discriminating against the non-hearing-impaired (who under guidelines should, HUD believes, occupy three-fourths of Apache's units). State officials and Arizona's congressional delegation have voiced pride in Apache's mission, but the HUD secretary's indecisiveness has left Apache tenants in limbo, according to a September Arizona Republic report. [Arizona Republic, 9-28-2013]

-- This year, the Florida legislature passed the Timely Justice Act to cut short the legal dawdling that allows death row inmates to postpone their execution -- sometimes for more than 25 years. Among the first "victims" of the act was to be Marshall Gore, set to be executed in September for two 1988 murders. However, his date was once again postponed -- because Florida's tough-on-crime attorney general had scheduled a re-election campaign fundraiser that conflicted with her presence at the execution. (Gore will instead die in January.) [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9-12-2013]

Matched Pair: Prominent Los Angeles cosmetic surgeon David Matlock is himself a finely chiseled specimen of muscle and zero body fat, but he said that when patient "Veronica" came to him in 2007 for "vaginal rejuvenation" surgery, he instantly fell in love despite her somewhat-pudgy figure. He proposed marriage, she accepted, and with her consent, Dr. Matlock set out not only on the requested procedure but on what he called the "Wonder Woman Makeover" -- diet, exercise, surgeries, suctions and injections, and by August 2013, reported Huffington Post, the sculpted couple were competing in matching bodybuilding contests. (However, Veronica's daughter Isabella, 9, is not on board, remarking, "Healthy food doesn't taste good.") [Huffington Post, 8-29-2013]

Recurring Theme: Joshua Goverman, 29, was arrested in Glendale, Ariz., in October for allegedly stealing copper wiring from the back of an air-conditioner truck in a driveway. The thief apparently had trouble pulling on the wires, and police found a human finger at the scene. Despite Goverman's excuse (that he cut his finger during a "car repair"), the crime-scene finger's print matched Goverman's other fingers' prints. [Arizona Republic, 10-31-2013]

In July, several foreign news sites publicized the current Guinness Book record held by Jemal Tkeshelashvili of the Republic of Georgia, who blew up ordinary drugstore hot water bottles to the point where they would explode -- using only air from his nose. His record was three within one minute, but perhaps equally impressive, he subsequently dazzled Discovery Channel viewers by reportedly partially nose-inflating a hot water bottle being held down by a small car.) [Oddity Central, 7-12-2013]

(1) Researchers from Georgia Tech, working at the Atlanta Zoo recording various mammals' urination habits (rats, dogs, goats, cows and elephants), have concluded that, regardless of size, each takes about 21 seconds to empty a full bladder. (Technically, reported New Scientist, the evacuation time is proportional to the animal's mass, raised to the power of one-sixth.) (2) Her family wanted U.S. Army Sgt. Kimberly Walker (who was killed in a suspected domestic violence incident in February) to have a burial reflecting her delight at SpongeBob SquarePants and installed a 4-foot-high marker on her grave in the character's likeness (at a cost of $13,000). However, the Spring Grove Cemetery in the family's hometown of Cincinnati ordered it removed in October as inappropriate, and despite family and community pressure, is unyielding. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10-18-2013] [CNN, 10-22-2013]

French Surrealism: According to the Palais de Justice in Paris, a recent (2008) preliminary hearing marked the first time in France, and perhaps in the world, in which a dog had been called as a formal witness in a murder case. "Scooby Doo" was brought into the courtroom so that a judge could watch how he reacted when he approached the defendant, who was accused of killing Scooby's master, and according to a dispatch in London's Daily Telegraph, the dog "barked furiously," helping convince the judge in the Paris suburb of Nanterre to set the case for trial. [Daily Telegraph, 9-10-2008]

Thanks This Week to Kelly Egnitz and Steve Dunn, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

"Fantasy sports" are hugely popular, but when fans "draft" players for their teams, they "own" only the players' statistics. Recently, Wall Street and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs created Fantex Holdings, which will allow investors to buy actual pieces of real players -- namely, rights to 20 percent of the player's lifetime earnings (including licensing and product endorsement deals). The firm told The New York Times in October that it will soon stage an "IPO" for budding NFL star Arian Foster and hopes to sign up many more athletes, plus singers and actors similarly early in their careers. (On the other hand, Fantex's lawyers drew up a 37-page list of potential investment risks, such as injuries, slumps and scandals -- and the fact that the stock will trade only on Fantex's private exchange.) [New York Times, 10-18-2013]

-- "For Japanese boys, the train driver sits alongside footballer, doctor and policeman as a dream job," according to a September Agence France-Presse dispatch, and consequently, the system for the Tokyo metro area (covering 35 million people) runs with the "precision of a finely crafted Swiss watch," where delays, even for as long as a minute, seldom occur. (When they do occur, operators repeatedly apologize and hand out "notes from home" to commuters to present to their bosses to excuse the tardiness.) Among the system's drawbacks is the still-irksome groping of females on packed rush-hour trains, when operators routinely shove as many as 300 riders into cars designed for 150. [Agence France-Presse, 9-23-2013]

-- Among the surprising legacies of the oppressions of communist East Germany is modern-day Germany's commonplace "clothing-optional" lifestyle (FKK, or "Freikoerperkultur" -- free body culture). A September Global Post dispatch counted "hundreds" of FKK beaches across the country and referenced a turned-up snapshot (not yet authenticated) of a young Angela Merkel frolicking nude in the 1960s or 1970s. Foreigners occasionally undergo culture shock at German hotels' saunas and swimming pools, at which swimsuits are discouraged (as "unhygienic"). [Global Post via Salon, 9-22-2013]

-- In December China joined only a handful of countries (and 29 U.S. states) by strengthening the rights of elderly parents to demand support from their adult children -- not only financially (which has been the law for more than a decade) but now allowing lawsuits by parents who feel emotionally ignored, as well. An October Associated Press feature on one rural extended family dramatized China's cultural shift away from its proverbial "first virtue" of family honor. Zhang Zefang, 94, said she did not even understand the concept of "lawsuit" when a local official explained it, but only that she deserved better from the children she had raised and who now allegedly resent her neediness. (A village court promptly ordered several family members to contribute support for Zhang.) [Associated Press via Star Tribune (Minneapolis), 10-22-2013]

-- Recent separate testings in 21 springs in Austria and 18 fonts in Vienna yielded a conclusion that 86 percent of the holy water in the country's churches was not safe to drink -- most commonly infected with diarrhea-causing E.coli and Campylobacter. University of Vienna researchers found samples with up to 62 million bacteria per milliliter of water, and the busier the church, the higher the count. [ABC News via Yahoo News, 9-14-2013]

-- Various studies show "churchgoers" to be happier, more optimistic and healthier than other people, leading some atheists and agnostics to wonder whether the church experience could be fruitfully replicated but minus the belief in God. Hence, the "Sunday Assembly" was created in London, and has now spread to New York City and Melbourne, Australia, with 18 other hoped-for openings by year's end, according to a September report in The Week. Founders seek such benefits as "a sense of community," "a thought-provoking (secular) sermon," "group singing" and an "ethos of self-improvement," exemplified by the motto "live better, help often, wonder more," and they hope that eventually Sunday Assembly will organize Sunday school, weddings, funerals and "non-religious baptisms." [The Week, 9-23-2013]

-- First Things First: An alleged drug ring in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay was busted in September after police cracked a stream of Internet messages offering heroin (called "DOB") and cocaine ("white girl"). Among the messages was one sent at 6:45 one Friday evening advising customers that they had "45 minutes" to get their orders in for the weekend because the sellers would obediently shut down at 7:30 (i.e., sundown) for the Jewish sabbath. [Associated Press via Brooklyn Eagle, 9-11-2013]

-- Los Angeles Animal Services has proposed that the city be established as a Sanctuary City of Feral Cats and that cats should be an exception to property owners' right to evict animals causing damage. Under the L.A. City Feral Cat Program, reported OpposingViews.com, felines "will gain an inherent right" to be on residential or commercial property. Animal Services believes that an enhanced spaying program will eliminate most feral-cat problems, including somehow their toileting excesses and their killing of neighborhood songbirds. [OpposingViews.com, 10-16-2013]

-- "You hired a convicted prostitute and thief to handle state money?" asked an incredulous Connecticut state legislator in September when he learned that Suki Handly had been employed from 2008 to 2012 passing out welfare benefits in the state's Manchester distribution center and that $44,000 was missing. Furthermore, Handly and two others had been found guilty of theft in Connecticut in 2010, yet word of her prostitution and 2010 convictions were not known to state investigators until a chance audit in 2012. (State hiring offices of course promised to strengthen background checks.) [Hartford Courant, 9-15-2013]

(1) Optometrist Robert Deck III, 48, was arraigned in Oakland County, Mich., in October on an indecent exposure charge after an August incident in which he allegedly began to masturbate in his office while fitting a female patient with contact lenses. (2) Edward Falcone, 57, a retired woodshop teacher at Brooklyn High School of the Arts, was arrested for public lewdness in October after students on a school bus reported a motorist masturbating as he followed the bus. (3) Leslie Bailey, 28, was convicted of misdemeanor lewd conduct in San Francisco in October after being spotted by a BART train operator on separate occasions, incompletely clothed, thrusting his hips against an empty seat. [Detroit Free Press, 10-3-2013] [New York Daily News, 10-19-2013] [SF Weekly, 10-21-2013]

Ariel Sinclair, 23, an assistant manager at a Rite Aid drugstore in Virginia Beach, Va., was charged in October with stealing $6,000 from the store's Virginia State Lottery machine. According to police, access to the machine requires an authorized fingerprint, which she supplied, apparently failing to think ahead that this would eventually be difficult to explain. "We work a lot of different cases," said a police spokesman, and "some are (easier) than others." [WTKR-TV (Hampton Roads, Va., 10-18-2013]

(1) Among the things responders mentioned in Public Policy Polling's October release as being viewed more favorably than the U.S. Congress were hermorrhoids, the DMV and toenail fungus. The same firm's polling earlier in the year showed Congress less likable than root canals, head lice, colonoscopies and Donald Trump, but back then, Congress did beat out telemarketers, ebola virus and meth labs. (2) Among the reported personal-residence expenditures provoking Pope Francis in October to remove Limburg, Germany, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst: his bathtub (equivalent of about $20,000), cupboards and carpentry ($550,000) and artwork ($690,000). (Days later, the Vatican announced that the church would open a soup kitchen at the bishop's mansion.) [Public Policy Polling via USA Today, 10-8-2013; Public Policy Polling, 1-8-2013] [Gawker.com, 10-24-2013; The Independent (London), 10-27-2013]

People With Too Much Money: In April (2008) the Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome (which the year before created a watch made from remnants of the Titanic) introduced the "Day&Night" watch, which unfortunately does not provide a reading of the hour or the minute. Though it retails for about $300,000, it only tells whether it is "day" or "night" (using a complex measurement of the Earth's gravity). CEO Yvan Arpa said studies show that two-thirds of rich people "don't (use) their watch to tell what time it is," anyway. Anyone can buy a watch that tells time, he told a Reuters reporter, but only a "truly discerning customer" will buy one that doesn't. [Wall Street Journal, 4-25-2008]

Thanks This Week to Roy Henock and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

"Fantasy sports" are hugely popular, but when fans "draft" players for their teams, they "own" only the players' statistics. Recently, Wall Street and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs created Fantex Holdings, which will allow investors to buy actual pieces of real players -- namely, rights to 20 percent of the player's lifetime earnings (including licensing and product endorsement deals). The firm told The New York Times in October that it will soon stage an "IPO" for budding NFL star Arian Foster and hopes to sign up many more athletes, plus singers and actors similarly early in their careers. (On the other hand, Fantex's lawyers drew up a 37-page list of potential investment risks, such as injuries, slumps and scandals -- and the fact that the stock will trade only on Fantex's private exchange.) [New York Times, 10-18-2013]

-- "For Japanese boys, the train driver sits alongside footballer, doctor and policeman as a dream job," according to a September Agence France-Presse dispatch, and consequently, the system for the Tokyo metro area (covering 35 million people) runs with the "precision of a finely crafted Swiss watch," where delays, even for as long as a minute, seldom occur. (When they do occur, operators repeatedly apologize and hand out "notes from home" to commuters to present to their bosses to excuse the tardiness.) Among the system's drawbacks is the still-irksome groping of females on packed rush-hour trains, when operators routinely shove as many as 300 riders into cars designed for 150. [Agence France-Presse, 9-23-2013]

-- Among the surprising legacies of the oppressions of communist East Germany is modern-day Germany's commonplace "clothing-optional" lifestyle (FKK, or "Freikoerperkultur" -- free body culture). A September Global Post dispatch counted "hundreds" of FKK beaches across the country and referenced a turned-up snapshot (not yet authenticated) of a young Angela Merkel frolicking nude in the 1960s or 1970s. Foreigners occasionally undergo culture shock at German hotels' saunas and swimming pools, at which swimsuits are discouraged (as "unhygienic"). [Global Post via Salon, 9-22-2013]

-- In December China joined only a handful of countries (and 29 U.S. states) by strengthening the rights of elderly parents to demand support from their adult children -- not only financially (which has been the law for more than a decade) but now allowing lawsuits by parents who feel emotionally ignored, as well. An October Associated Press feature on one rural extended family dramatized China's cultural shift away from its proverbial "first virtue" of family honor. Zhang Zefang, 94, said she did not even understand the concept of "lawsuit" when a local official explained it, but only that she deserved better from the children she had raised and who now allegedly resent her neediness. (A village court promptly ordered several family members to contribute support for Zhang.) [Associated Press via Star Tribune (Minneapolis), 10-22-2013]

-- Recent separate testings in 21 springs in Austria and 18 fonts in Vienna yielded a conclusion that 86 percent of the holy water in the country's churches was not safe to drink -- most commonly infected with diarrhea-causing E.coli and Campylobacter. University of Vienna researchers found samples with up to 62 million bacteria per milliliter of water, and the busier the church, the higher the count. [ABC News via Yahoo News, 9-14-2013]

-- Various studies show "churchgoers" to be happier, more optimistic and healthier than other people, leading some atheists and agnostics to wonder whether the church experience could be fruitfully replicated but minus the belief in God. Hence, the "Sunday Assembly" was created in London, and has now spread to New York City and Melbourne, Australia, with 18 other hoped-for openings by year's end, according to a September report in The Week. Founders seek such benefits as "a sense of community," "a thought-provoking (secular) sermon," "group singing" and an "ethos of self-improvement," exemplified by the motto "live better, help often, wonder more," and they hope that eventually Sunday Assembly will organize Sunday school, weddings, funerals and "non-religious baptisms." [The Week, 9-23-2013]

-- First Things First: An alleged drug ring in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay was busted in September after police cracked a stream of Internet messages offering heroin (called "DOB") and cocaine ("white girl"). Among the messages was one sent at 6:45 one Friday evening advising customers that they had "45 minutes" to get their orders in for the weekend because the sellers would obediently shut down at 7:30 (i.e., sundown) for the Jewish sabbath. [Associated Press via Brooklyn Eagle, 9-11-2013]

-- Los Angeles Animal Services has proposed that the city be established as a Sanctuary City of Feral Cats and that cats should be an exception to property owners' right to evict animals causing damage. Under the L.A. City Feral Cat Program, reported OpposingViews.com, felines "will gain an inherent right" to be on residential or commercial property. Animal Services believes that an enhanced spaying program will eliminate most feral-cat problems, including somehow their toileting excesses and their killing of neighborhood songbirds. [OpposingViews.com, 10-16-2013]

-- "You hired a convicted prostitute and thief to handle state money?" asked an incredulous Connecticut state legislator in September when he learned that Suki Handly had been employed from 2008 to 2012 passing out welfare benefits in the state's Manchester distribution center and that $44,000 was missing. Furthermore, Handly and two others had been found guilty of theft in Connecticut in 2010, yet word of her prostitution and 2010 convictions were not known to state investigators until a chance audit in 2012. (State hiring offices of course promised to strengthen background checks.) [Hartford Courant, 9-15-2013]

(1) Optometrist Robert Deck III, 48, was arraigned in Oakland County, Mich., in October on an indecent exposure charge after an August incident in which he allegedly began to masturbate in his office while fitting a female patient with contact lenses. (2) Edward Falcone, 57, a retired woodshop teacher at Brooklyn High School of the Arts, was arrested for public lewdness in October after students on a school bus reported a motorist masturbating as he followed the bus. (3) Leslie Bailey, 28, was convicted of misdemeanor lewd conduct in San Francisco in October after being spotted by a BART train operator on separate occasions, incompletely clothed, thrusting his hips against an empty seat. [Detroit Free Press, 10-3-2013] [New York Daily News, 10-19-2013] [SF Weekly, 10-21-2013]

Ariel Sinclair, 23, an assistant manager at a Rite Aid drugstore in Virginia Beach, Va., was charged in October with stealing $6,000 from the store's Virginia State Lottery machine. According to police, access to the machine requires an authorized fingerprint, which she supplied, apparently failing to think ahead that this would eventually be difficult to explain. "We work a lot of different cases," said a police spokesman, and "some are (easier) than others." [WTKR-TV (Hampton Roads, Va., 10-18-2013]

(1) Among the things responders mentioned in Public Policy Polling's October release as being viewed more favorably than the U.S. Congress were hermorrhoids, the DMV and toenail fungus. The same firm's polling earlier in the year showed Congress less likable than root canals, head lice, colonoscopies and Donald Trump, but back then, Congress did beat out telemarketers, ebola virus and meth labs. (2) Among the reported personal-residence expenditures provoking Pope Francis in October to remove Limburg, Germany, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst: his bathtub (equivalent of about $20,000), cupboards and carpentry ($550,000) and artwork ($690,000). (Days later, the Vatican announced that the church would open a soup kitchen at the bishop's mansion.) [Public Policy Polling via USA Today, 10-8-2013; Public Policy Polling, 1-8-2013] [Gawker.com, 10-24-2013; The Independent (London), 10-27-2013]

People With Too Much Money: In April (2008) the Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome (which the year before created a watch made from remnants of the Titanic) introduced the "Day&Night" watch, which unfortunately does not provide a reading of the hour or the minute. Though it retails for about $300,000, it only tells whether it is "day" or "night" (using a complex measurement of the Earth's gravity). CEO Yvan Arpa said studies show that two-thirds of rich people "don't (use) their watch to tell what time it is," anyway. Anyone can buy a watch that tells time, he told a Reuters reporter, but only a "truly discerning customer" will buy one that doesn't. [Wall Street Journal, 4-25-2008]

Thanks This Week to Roy Henock and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.