Stranger than any fiction I would dare to write

The BBC news website has been running a rather fun series based on strange and unlikely stories culled from Victorian newspapers. Today’s contribution is the case of the pig singing contest – not a singing pig contest, but one in which the competitors had to belt out a tune on stage while holding a pig.

Then there was the case of the lawyer who shot himself in an attempt to prove a client’s innocence. While it’s always sad to read of someone’s death, the chap himself should be in line for a Darwin award – after conducting some experiments with a pistol at the scene of the crime, he returned to his hotel, with some bullets still in the chamber of the pistol. On reaching his hotel, he was handed the suspect’s unloaded gun for examination. Apparently he then went to his room and laid both pistols down side by side. It seems somehow inevitable that in an attempt to prove his theory to a visitor, he picked up the wrong gun with which to shoot himself.

And then there was the balloon riot in Leicester, resulting in residents of Leicester being known for a while as Balloonatics.

If you want to explore further (and they really are fun), links to these and other stories are on the pig singing contest page.