Good Week, Bad Week

Good week for:

Keeping your sanity, after the company that provides the feed for World Cup broadcasts announced that it would filter out the constant, irritating drone of the vuvuzelas, the South African plastic horns that sound like a swarm of angry bees.

Understanding plumbing, after Waterford Township, Mich., plumber Brian Hines successfully delivered his baby in the bathroom when his wife went into labor. “I enjoy the irony—plumber and bathroom floor,” said Hines. “It’s where I do my best work.”

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Going to the zoo, after a study at Australia’s Melbourne Zoo found that orangutans enjoy watching people as much as people enjoy watching them. When given a choice to hide or view human visitors at a window, the orangutans chose the window.

Bad week for:

Tall French bodyguards, after 5-foot-5 French President Nicolas Sarkozy—who is notoriously sensitive about his height—reportedly banned the hiring of imposing men to guard him, because their proximity makes him seem shorter.

Common courtesy, after a British survey found that 84 percent of pregnant women had not been offered a seat on full trains. There are now so many obese women, the survey found, that fellow commuters can’t be sure if the standee is pregnant or just fat.

Brittney Horstman, a Florida lawyer who was prohibited from visiting a client in prison when her underwire bra set off a metal detector. She removed the bra, but guards then refused her entry because her bralessness violated the prison dress code.