Cannabis users ‘can wake up during surgery’

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A man smokes a joint
(Image credit: Dan Callister/Liaison/Getty Images )

Doctors are warning that cannabis users could wake up in the middle of surgery, and that anaesthetists need to administer higher doses to regular users to keep them asleep. The American Society of Regional Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine said that medics should ask patients about their marijuana use before they go under the knife and “be prepared to possibly change the anaesthesia plan or delay the procedure in certain situations”, said The Times.

Magistrate ‘runs screaming from owl’

A court session in South Africa was disrupted when an owl swooped into the chamber through a hole in the ceiling. The Owl Rescue Centre in Hartbeespoort said that it was contacted for help rescuing a barn owl from a magistrate’s courtroom in Brakpan. “The owl actually flew in through a hole in the ceiling which had the magistrate and the entire room full of people running out screaming,” it said in a post on Facebook. The owl was eventually removed from the courtroom, said UPI.

Woman sells home after 102 years

A 104-year-old woman is selling the house she has lived in since she was two years old. Nancy “Joan” Gifford spent 102 years living in a three-bedroom house in the Somerset village of Street, which her family had bought for £200. She is now putting it on the market, “having lived in it through the Second World War, the invention of television and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb”, said Sky News. The house is priced at £169,950.

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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.