Silly News Items Not Covered In The Shoutbox That Don't Warrant Individual Threads

Voodoo Child, by Jimi Hendrix has been named the greatest guitar riff of all time, more than 40 years after he first recorded the classic jam.

Late guitar guru Hendrix, who topped the singles chart with the track in 1970, triumphed in a poll of musicians. The track - full title Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - edged past Guns N'Roses song Sweet Child O'Mine which finished second in the poll by musicians' website MusicRadar.com. When the site's sister magazine Total Guitar last conducted the survey five years ago, the list was headed by the G N'R song.

The list shows that the older riffs are the best. Just two from the past decade make it into the top 20 - Muse's Plug In Baby at 11 and The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army at 15. Michael Jackson's Beat It, with its Eddie Van Halen guitar part, props up the top 20. Voodoo Child - with its distinctive 'wah-wah' opening - was first released on Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album and led on from an earlier track, Voodoo Chile, which was a 15-minute blues jam. Confusingly, by the time it was released as a single in 1970 it too had been named Voodoo Chile. MusicRadar.com's editor-in-chief Mike Goldsmith said: ''Nearly 40 years after his untimely death, Jimi Hendrix is still the undisputed heavyweight champion of rock guitar. ''Of the current generation of six-string stars, only Jack White of The White Stripes and Muse frontman Matt Bellamy feature in the higher echelons of our list. No surprise given both Bellamy and White share - or have inherited - Hendrix's unique blend of experimental instincts and white-knuckle showmanship. ''Above all though, our poll seems to indicate one thing - in 2009, classic rock still rules.'' More than 5,000 MusicRadar users took part in the poll.

The top 20:

1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

2. Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

3. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love

4. Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water

5. Derek and the Dominos - Layla

6. AC/DC - Back In Black

7. Metallica - Enter Sandman

8. The Beatles - Day Tripper

9. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

10. The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

11. Black Sabbath - Paranoid

12. Muse - Plug In Baby

13. Eddie Van Halen - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love

14. The Kinks - You Really Got Me

15. The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

16. AC/DC - Highway to Hell

17. Led Zeppelin - Heartbreaker

18. Black Sabbath - Iron Man

19. Led Zeppelin - Black Dog

20. Michael Jackson - Beat It

They are celebrated as great vocalists, but can the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits really sing?

Bob Dylan: “A voice like sand and glue” in Bowie’s memorable phrase. Contrary to what many of his critics would assert, Dylan actually sings in tune but his harsh, barbed-wire timbre & attacking delivery has been inspiration for every tone deaf poet with a guitar. But with songs like these, who cares whether he can really sing or not?

Lou Reed: His half talking, half singing drawl with the Velvet Underground created a new rock template

Tom Waits: Started out gruff and soulful but deliberately ravaged his vocal chords with whiskey & cigarettes to sound older & more lived in. In the history of vocals, I am not sure anyone has ever done more with less.

Johnny Cash: Even as a youngster, his voice was shaky & low, but he sang in time and in tune and like he had lived every word.

John Lydon: His ranting style, high and tuneless, led the attack of the Sex Pistols then took us on dub metal journeys with PIL

Ian Dury: Unrepentantly cockney speak-singing, frequently completely flat but utterly alive in the playful lyrics.

Leonard Cohen: A low, shaky monotone that has, somehow, grown in authority even as it reduces in range

Nick Cave: A stiff baritone beset by tuning problems, Cave invests his apocalyptic blues with spine chilling conviction

Siouxsie Sioux: A lone female entrant on our chart of errant singing stars, Siouxsie’s limited range and gravelly tone only added to her lustre as the grand dame of punk & goth

Jarvis Cocker: OK when he keeps it to a whisper but as soon as he sings out he turns into some tuneless geek in a karaoke bar. Which perfectly suits his vignettes of ordinary life.

When the Italian police unveiled their state-of-the-art Lamborghini patrol cars, they cannot have been short of volunteers itching to take the supercars in pursuit of speeding criminals.

A team of elite drivers was trained to chase down speeding motorists and deliver urgently-needed transplant organs in the futuristic vehicles, capable of reaching more than 200mph.

What they apparently were not prepared for was a distracted motorist who pulled out of a petrol station without looking.

Today, a bandaged and bruised police driver may have had a tough time explaining how he managed to write off one of the force's prized Lamborghinis when he rammed it so hard into a line of parked cars that one of the stationary vehicles ended up on the police car's roof.

According to the police, the crash was caused by the driver of a slow-moving Seat Ibiza who emerged without looking from a service station, clipping the Lamborghini and sending the vehicle swerving into the parked cars.

The front end of the Lamborghini was crushed in the accident, near Cremona, and the driver and a passenger were injured, although not seriously.

The Lamborghini Gallardo, worth £130,000 and capable of reaching 62mph in four seconds, was one of a pair donated by the Italian manufacturer to the police to do battle on Italy's roads, where 1 million motorists are injured annually and 4,731 died last year.



Both cars include transmitters to send images back to HQ, a defibrillator for accidents and a fridge for transporting donor organs. The two officers were returning from a convention in Cremona, where they had been addressed a student audience on road safety.

Google has added Pompeii to its Street View application, allowing internet users to take a 360-degree virtual tour of the ancient Roman city.

Italy's culture ministry says it hopes the move will boost tourism to the site, state news agency Ansa reports.

Among the ruins visible on the search engine's free mapping service are the town's statues, temples and theatres.

The city was buried in ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 and was not discovered until the 18th Century.

The volcanic debris preserved many of the city's buildings, frescos, silverware, mosaics and other artefacts.

"Giving people a chance to take a virtual stroll through Pompeii will give an extraordinary boost to Italian tourism," Ansa quoted Mario Resca of the culture ministry's heritage promotion department as saying.

The Google Maps service, launched in 2007, provides panoramic street-level views of more than 100 cities around the world.

It also includes the ancient heritage site of Stonehenge.

A man who has been described as Britain's most prolific shoplifter was jailed for one day yesterday after committing his 321st offence.

David Archer, 54, from Rhyl, north Wales, has served the equivalent of two life sentences as a result of his addiction to petty crime. He has been unable to spend 14 out of the past 15 Christmases with his daughter because he has been behind bars.

Yesterday, Archer admitted in court to stealing two bottles of whisky from a store at Abergele. David Mainstone, prosecuting, said Archer had a "quite horrendous" list of previous offences and 155 court appearances.

Archer even went through a spell of stealing charity boxes, for which he was given an Asbo. In October, he had been jailed for 12 weeks for trying to steal a collection box, his 317th offence. Two years earlier he had been jailed only days after being released from prison after taking a Cancer Research Fund charity box from a Woolworths store in Rhyl.

In January, when Archer was jailed for 28 days for his 299th offence, David Davies, the court chairman, said: "Because of your appalling previous record, we are imposing a custodial sentence. It is a shame you are abusing the care that the agencies are trying to give you. Probation and other services are trying to do their best for you."

Archer also made the headlines in Christmas 1999: minutes after finishing a five-day sentence, he had stolen a £1.50 can of lager from a Llandudno off-licence, a court in the town heard. Then 44, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a fortnight in jail, but served just half and – unusually – was out in time for Christmas.

Yesterday, Andrew Hutchinson, who was defending Archer, said: "What can I say about David Archer that many of my colleagues haven't said previously?"

Archer was let out yesterday as he had already spent three days in jail, including Christmas Day – but he must pay £85 in costs.

A DISABLED man has been arrested for 'drink-driving' while giving a lift home to his friend on the back of his MOBILTY SCOOTER.
Nigel Lee Drummond was caught on CCTV cameras careering through Darlington at speeds of 8mph with a pal on the back.

The 37-year-old, who walks with the help of crutches but uses the scooter for long distances, was three times over the limit when police finally caught up with him following a night out in the Route 66 bar.

Normal drink driving rules do not apply to mobility scooters but he was prosecuted under an obscure law dating from Victorian times of being drunk in charge of a carriage.

PC Kevin Salter, from Darlington Police, said: "Although mobility scooters do not travel at great speed, they can still be very dangerous.

"They can pose risks to the user and other members of the public when they are not being used correctly.

"We urge that anyone wanting to consume alcohol seeks alternative transport."


Footage captured by camera operators shows Drummond and his friend struggling to get on the scooter as they leave the club.

After rummaging in his pocket for his keys, the pair get on board and set off, swerving quickly into the road and narrowly missing a group of revellers going into the club.

The scooter then draws up to the kerb as the men start to chat with a group of women.

They appear to offer them a lift, but move on again when their advances are rebuffed.

The scooter then disappears into an underpass, before it emerges in a nearby street, as Drummond swerves across the middle of the road to avoid speed bumps.

He was given a six-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £65 costs.

PC Salter said: "He was very drunk. A number of people use these scooters and it can be a problem, especially at this time of year."

A repentant Drummond backed the police's campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of driving a mobility scooter after drinking.

He said: "My scooter only goes at 8mph, but if I had hit somebody with it, it would have hurt. When I saw the CCTV footage in court, I felt about an inch big."

Civic leaders in Wolverhampton rejected the findings of a Lonely Planet survey which ranked the city as the fifth worst place on earth. Skip related content

The list, topped by the US city of Detroit and based on traveller feedback, saw the West Midlands city deemed to be less attractive than the capital of El Salvador, as well as other "hated" cities in India, Tanzania and Mexico.

Wolverhampton was placed fifth on a revised Lonely Planet list of nine most hated cities following "swift and fierce" reaction to an initial request for travellers' least favourite destinations.

On its website, Lonely Planet gave reasons for the selection of the cities other than Wolverhampton, describing Seoul in South Korea as having no heart or spirit.

But Wolverhampton, which can trace its history back to 985 AD, was described as being "so bad that we don't even have it on this site!"

In a statement, the leader of Wolverhampton City Council, Neville Patten, said it was "quite obvious" that representatives of the respected travel guide publisher had failed to visit the city.

Mr Patten said: "The picture they paint of Wolverhampton is not an accurate one.

"If they had come here, they would have seen that Wolverhampton is one of the most progressive cities in Britain. Wolverhampton is such a friendly, open place which is why so many people want to come and live and work here.

"We have first class facilities for residents and visitors and this is certainly not a downtrodden or Third World city.

"I would like to invite Lonely Planet to actually come here and take a tour so they can see for themselves what a vibrant place it is."

A Swiss millionaire has been handed down a record speeding fine of $290,000 (£180,000) by a court.

The man was reportedly caught driving a red Ferrari Testarossa at 137km/h (85mph) through a village.

The penalty was calculated based on the unnamed motorist's wealth - assessed by the court as $22.7m (£14.1m) - and because he was a repeat offender.

It is more than double Switzerland's previous record speeding fine - handed to a Porsche driver in Zurich in 2008.

In the latest case, the motorist was clocked speeding 57km/h (35mph) faster than the limit, according to the cantonal court in St Gallen, eastern Switzerland.

"The accused ignored elementary traffic rules with a powerful vehicle out of a pure desire for speed," the court said in its judgement.

Swiss media reported that the man owns a villa with five luxury cars, including the Ferrari.

A dog had a lucky escape when a Polish boat rescued him from an ice floe that had carried him more than 100 km (70 miles) up a river and out onto the icy waters of the Baltic Sea.

"My crew saw... a shape moving on the water and we immediately decided to get closer to check if it was a dog or maybe a seal relaxing on the ice," Jan Joachim, senior officer aboard the Baltica, told Reuters Television.

"As we got closer to the ice floe we saw that it was a dog struggling not to fall into the water."

Ship engineer Adam Buczynski managed to scoop the dog off the floe onto an inflatable dinghy and wrapped him in a blanket.

"He didn't even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes," said Buczynski.

The dog was first seen on the ice floe some 100 km (70 miles) inland to the south on the Vistula river but firemen were unable to rescue him. When the Baltica crew found him, he had already drifted some 24 km (18 miles) out to sea.

"We were in the right place at the right time," said Joachim, noting that they rescued him shortly before night fall.

The crew are now trying to locate the dog's owner.

Poland is in the grip of bitterly cold weather, with night temperatures in some areas falling as low as -34 Celsius (-31 Fahrenheit).

An Indonesian man has won compensation after a cigarette he was smoking exploded in his mouth.

Security guard Andi Susanto lost six teeth in the explosion, which happened while he was riding a motorcycle.

After hearing of his ordeal, cigarette producer PT Nojorono Tobacco Indonesia agreed to pay for his medical costs, the 31-year-old told local press.

'The company's officials have talked to my family and we agreed to settle it amicably, as an out-of-court settlement. They will pay all the medical expenses,' Susanto said from his hospital bed.

The pay-out amounts to 5m Indonesian rupiah, the equivalent of £335.
The cause of the explosion remains a mystery, and Susanto says he didn't notice anything strange about its taste.

A spokesman for the cigarette company which makes the Clas Mild brand said: 'We do not put any strange materials in the cigarettes, so we think that this is a weird case. This is the first time for us.'

The company is not planning a recall of the brand, but is awaiting results of tests.
Indonesia has one of the highest smoking rates in the world. Nearly two-thirds of Indonesian men are regular smokers.

Susanto, who has been smoking since he was a boy, told the Jakarta Post he would now be giving up after undergoing treatment which left him with 51 stitches in his mouth.

Armed robbers stormed a poker tournament in the German capital Berlin and made off with the 800,000 euro jackpot.
Dramatic video footage shows panic in the hotel as the robbery took place.
Several people were hurt, although there were no reports of serious injuries. A security guard who tried to stop the robbers is said to be among those hurt.
Police spokeswoman Heidi Vogt told the press: 'Several masked, armed individuals entered the Grand Hyatt Hotel and fled with a haul of money'.
During the confusion, the attackers left behind a bag containing part of their haul, police said.
Some 1,000 poker players, including tennis star Boris Becker, were taking part in the five day event when the raid happened, said to have been the work of between four and six men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades.
The European Poker Tour made an appeal for eyewitnesses and video recordings which might be used to capture the raiders.
Press photographer Olaf Wager said: 'I was at the entrance to the poker hall when they stormed in. I saw three masked men struggling with security personnel in the room where cash is exchanged for chips.
'As they ran one of the security men pulled a robber to the ground. I couldn't decide if this was all a PR stunt or not.'
The tournament resumed four hours after the robbery.