Hospital evacuated over man with WW1 shell stuck in his rear

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A patient in a hospital
(Image credit: 2013 Getty Images)

A French hospital was evacuated after a man in his 80s presented to doctors with a First World War shell stuck inside his rear. “An apple, a mango, or even shaving foam… we’re used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” an unnamed ER staffer told Nice-Matin. “But a shell? Never.” Doctors had to perform abdominal surgery to remove it. “It rarely comes out from where it comes in”, said one.

‘Glitch’ blamed for ‘smoke weed’ road sign

Officials in India have blamed a “technical glitch” after the message “smoke weed every day” was displayed on an LED sign at the side of a road in Mumbai. After a video of the display went viral on Twitter, Pravin Padwal, joint commissioner for traffic with the Mumbai cops, told India Today that L&T, the company responsible for the sign, had blamed “some technical glitch” for the “wrong message”.

Deserted village to hold funeral

A village deserted since 1943 is to host a funeral for one of its last-known residents, reported The Times. Raymond Nash, 87, will posthumously return to the village of Imber, on Salisbury Plain, where he was born before people were evacuated during the war. The funeral, to be held in January by special arrangement with the Ministry of Defence, is believed to be only the second since the evacuation.

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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.