Gull flies off with man’s tongue
And other stories from the stranger side of life

It all kicked off in Edinburgh when a woman bit off man’s tongue and a seagull swooped down and ate it. James McKenzie spat out a piece of his tongue onto the street after Bethaney Ryan had ripped it off with her teeth during the dramatic difference of opinion. The gull then swept down and grabbed the flesh in its beak before the injured man could retrieve it.
Man takes out ads over slow internet
A Californian man has spent $10,000 on newspaper adverts to complain about his slow internet speed. Aaron M Epstein, who had been an AT&T customer for more than 60 years, took out two adverts in The Wall Street Journal, asking: “Why is AT&T, a leading communications company, treating us so shabbily in North Hollywood?” He then got a phone call from the company’s chief executive and the issue was resolved.
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Humongous hairball found in stomach
A teenage girl who compulsively ate her own hair developed a huge hairball that tore a hole through her stomach wall. The 17-year-old went to the hospital in Tomsk, Russia, after she fainted twice, bruising her face and scalp during the falls. Doctors discovered the oval-shaped hairball, which weighed more than 500g, and operated to remove it.
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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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