Why Dutch people put pancakes on their heads today
And other stories from the stranger side of life
![Pancakes being cooked](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/HNsEYCSpmC5TkkxMdPP6NN-415-80.jpg)
Dutch people will be putting pancakes on their heads today, said Sky News. Each year, on 29 November, Netherlands residents put pancakes on their heads and say: "We wish you a happy and blessed Saint Pancake (Sint Pannekoek)!" The tradition began in 1986, thanks to a cartoon by the artist Jan Kruis, in which a father comes home in the evening to find his family wearing pancakes on their heads.
Spider eggs toe story 'implausible'
A man's story that a wolf spider laid eggs in his toe while he was on holiday has been questioned by experts. Colin Blake was marking his 35th wedding anniversary in France when his toe turned purple overnight. The ship's doctor told him that the swelling had been caused by a wolf spider but an arachnologist has said wolf spiders were incapable of laying their eggs inside humans. The British Arachnological Society also called the story "implausible", noted the BBC.
Two-hour waste search for lost ring
Sanitation workers in the US dug through 20 tons of waste to locate a resident's lost wedding ring, reported UPI. Windham General Services received a call from a town selectman, who put him in touch with a resident whose wedding ring had accidentally been put out with the rubbish. A spokesman said his colleagues had to dig through 12 feet of rubbish bags for two hours to reach the right bag.
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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
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