Patience is a virtue

My housemate played us the clip which had been posted online. It shows the retired soldier breaking through a police cordon, dropping his plastic bag on the ground and clambering onto the bridge in southern China. He shunts up the metal sides and reaches over and shakes the suicidal man's hand. Moments later he pushes him off the bridge. Admittedly the clip was fairly comical - perhaps it was the disbelief that someone would actually do that. Apparently Mr Lai was annoyed by the suicidal man's selfish atttempts to kill himself which had caused a traffic jam. After the push the suicidal man fell 26ft onto a partially inflated air cushion. The suicidal man, who is recovering in hospital, told police he wanted to kill himself because he was heavily in debt following a failed construction project. Mr Lai didn't care. He was being held up. His impatience got the better of him and he finally cracked after being held up several times before by 'selfish jumpers'. I was chatting to the eccentric literary enthusiast, who shares my love of strange artwork, about the Chinese pusher. You see every time there's so much as a near fatal incident it's our job to get to it. We're the ones cursing the traffic, slipping under the police cordon, approaching the emergency services and the family. There's a buzz which comes from a breaking news story, regardless of whether it's fatal, a near miss or a miracle escape. But next time you're caught in traffic on the motorway spare a thought for the suicidal man.

Mind over matter

A woman lost almost four stone in weight after she was hypnotised into believing she had had a gastric band fitted. Thirty five year old Marion Corns spent £780 on five sessions with a specialist hypnotherapist after her weight ballooned to more than 15 stone. The married housewife had been tipped-off by a friend who had been hypnotised and successfully given up smoking. Marion discovered the Spanish clinic also carried out 'gastric mind band' therapy. The mum of three was given a virtual tour through the operation with imagery, hospital aromas and props. She was hypnotised and talked through every step of the medical procedure as if she were in an operating theatre. The 'surgeon' told Marion her stomach was the size of a golf ball. Four months later and cue a slim line Marion. She was splashed about the newspapers, women's magazines and online sites. So it seems losing weight is really just a case of mind over matter.

Dead man's father

He came over and introduced himself. His voice was even and firm despite the tragedy. His houndstooth blazer, gently infused with cigar smoke, strained against his stomach. He reached out his hand and I shook it. He was the dead man's father. "I tried to catch your eye yesterday but you didn't look up," he said. "Do you work at the Herald?" It was half way through the trial and he had listened to the details of his son's death pieced together by legal experts and played out in the court. The woman at the centre of the love triangle had stood in the witness box, but her estranged husband, the man responsible for stabbing this father's son, waited in the dock. "How are you coping with the trial?" I asked him. His movements were slow and racked with grief, but his voice stayed steady, "It's been good to piece together what happened to him on that night. There's a lot we didn't know." He talked about his faith pulling him through and about his son, his eyes welling up but his face displaying little emotion. His openness and honesty disarmed me. Never before had a bereaved relative walked over to introduce themselves and spoken so readily about their feelings. "If it was up to me he would be hanged," the elderly Christian father said. He was concerned the jury wouldn't find the tattooed defendant, whose jealousy and possessiveness led him to kill, guilty of murder. We spoke again after the jury delivered their verdict. Two hours they sat in the room and unanimously decided the killer was not a murderer. Eight years for manslaughter and he'd be out in three. Fighting back the tears the dead man's father took out a cigar and lit it facing away from the wind. Smoke curled up between his yellow finger nails. His thin white hair blew across his face. "He has destroyed nine people's lives and not even got one year in his sentence for each of those lives he has ruined. He will probably be out in three or four years and have his life back. We will never pick up the pieces," he said.

National Escargot Day

In ten days time Cafe Rouge will be serving them up for less than £5 a portion. They'll be 34,000 of them. In Norwich one restaurant is planning a snail hunt to celebrate National Escargot Day. People can hunt for 20 huge cut-out snails around the city with the chance of winning Eurostar tickets to Paris. Heston Blumenthal, the owner of the best restaurant in the world, makes porridge with them. Thankfully vegetarianism creeped up on me ten years ago and the delights of sautéed snails on Parma ham porridge have eluded my taste buds. Instead I have spent the last two weeks rummaging through my flowerbed like a crazed horticulturist lobbing the slimy creatures into the park. I'm hoping it will take them a good few weeks to regain consciousness (having been thrown through the air with vengeance) and even longer for them to crawl back onto my garden. Unfortunately some snails live for up to 15 years. Perhaps I should collect them and sell them on for profit? There are hundreds of forums telling you how to keep pet snails. One such site informs you that snails do react to stimuli and can get bored. It's therefore 'imperative' to keep your snails in a fairly interesting home, with nooks and crannies to hide and compost or peat for them to burrow in. Can you imagine getting up in the morning and stepping over Marjorie the snail on the way to the bathroom after she's left a trail of slime in her wake? The same site also tells prospective snail owners that snails respond well to being handled, and though primarily nocturnal can be encouraged to emerge at other times of the day very easily. Oh great. So they come crawling out of the nooks and crannies in your house and do what exactly? Suddenly having them in the flowerbed seems to be the lesser of two evils.

Cider, kayaks and a canoe

The Sultan spent millions on caviar and the finest champagne. As part of his momentous celebration he flew in Michael Jackson. The total bill for his 50th birthday party topped £18 million. It was one of the most elaborate celebrations and Prince Charles was among the guests. The Sultan's 60th birthday ten years later in 2006 was much less decadent, but it still featured a military parade, a canon salute, foreign dignitaries, a fireworks display and huge posters bearing the monarch's likeness which decorated city buildings. Aside from actual royalty and Hollywood stars, the only folks eligible for extremely lavish birthday celebrations are the ones who can foot the spiralling bill. One American billionaire celebrated his 84th birthday with a 12-hour bash. Musical performances from Christina Aguilera and Bette Midler and a stand-up routine from Robin Williams entertained a crowd of nearly 500 guests. With no gold reserves in the basement or locked in a vault in the big smoke, I opted for a less extravagant birthday party. There was no diamond encrusted fruit cake designed by a Tokyo chef, no electronic invitations, no galloping horses, performances by superstars, lavish cars or jewellery. Instead I opted for a day out on the river at £9 per head. Eight of us paddled along in kayaks and two of my friends, eager to stay dry, opted for a canoe. Thirty minutes later we docked on a grass verge and sat with cider in hand. The return journey was rather more eventful with six light headed twenty somethings ending up in the river after capsizing each others boats. Who needs a performance by the King of Pop when you have cider, kayaks and canoes?

The Gold Digger

"I've just bought two thousand pounds worth of gold. It's about 95 grams." The optometrist had spent a third of his Isa on the so-called financial safe haven upsetting his dad in the process. "How do you know if you've bought it?" I asked, concerned at the ease at which he had parted with so much money over the internet. "You get a certificate and it's held in a vault in London," he replied reassuringly. I couldn't decide if he had completely lost the plot after years of testing children for squinty eyes, or if the optometrist was on to something. Money is losing its' value and worried investors are harking back to Roman times and lining their pockets with the precious yellow metal. One American woman is being accused of lining her handbag with £8million worth of gold - not in one go you understand. This trusted employee of one of America’s biggest jewellers, stole more than 500lbs of gold slipping earrings, bracelets, necklaces and rings into the lining of her black leather bag on a daily basis. Prosecutors allege that the 50 year old vault manager, Teresa Tambunting, repeatedly stole glittering items of gold over five years. When someone at the firm finally cottoned on to the inventive inventory, police searched the gold digger's house. Officers found her haul in 12 big buckets which she kept in the basement of her suburban home like lost treasure.