TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES

[AussieMark]

New record for most Valentines sent to guinea pig

LONDON (Reuters) - Sooty has set a new world record for the most valentine cards sent to a guinea pig.

The three-year-old guinea pig from Wales received 206 cards from as far away as New Zealand to gain a bizarre entry in the latest edition of Guinness World Records published Thursday.

Sooty was joined in the ranks of the world's weirdest and wackiest achievers by Briton Paul Hunn who took the record for the world's largest burp. Louder than a pile driver, his burps can be heard from a distance of 30 yards.

Not to be outdone, Canadian Christa Rasanayagam set a new record when accompanied up the aisle by no less than 79 bridesmaids aged from one to 79.

American Ashrita Furman found yet more Guinness immortality by pushing an orange one mile with his nose in 24 minutes and 36 seconds.

Furman is no stranger to Guinness, laying claim to 94 official records with such bizarre feats as climbing Mount Fuji on a pogo stick, underwater rope jumping and lighting 27,000 candles on a birthday cake in New York.

[AussieMark]

Hungary drivers to get lemons and apples

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Bad drivers in eastern Hungary will be left with a sour taste in their mouths next month when school students will accompany traffic police and hand out pieces of lemon along with a fine.

Good drivers will be rewarded with an apple during the month-long campaign in Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg county, state news agency MTI reported Thursday.

"A penalty coming from a kid for breaking rules generates a stronger feeling of guilt among adults than a simple fine," county police spokesman Gergely Fulop said.

Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg, about 200 km (125 miles) from Budapest, is the center of Hungary's fruit industry.

[AussieMark]

Doctor sues over sex charges involving his twin

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. doctor has sued a Seattle-area newspaper for defamation after it reported he posed as his twin, a gynecologist, to have sex with his brother's patients.

Dennis Momah said the King County Journal defamed him in 2003 when it published an article that said: "Two twin brothers were taking turns having sex with patients on a regular basis without the patients' knowledge that they were two different people."

Momah, who filed the lawsuit in King County Superior Court this week, also sued Harish Bharti, an attorney quoted in the paper who represents six female patients of Charles Momah, Dennis Momah's twin and a gynecologist.

Charles Momah is being sued by some of his former patients, who say that he switched places with Dennis, giving him access to his gynecological patients.

In February, six patients said in a lawsuit that they were sometimes deceived into being seen, examined, operated on and sexually fondled by Dennis Momah, a general practitioner who is not certified in obstetrics and gynecology.

Charles Momah, who had medical practices in two suburbs south of Seattle, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of rape, indecent liberties and insurance fraud. That trial is scheduled for October 4.

Dennis Momah, who has not been charged with any crime, said in his lawsuit that the article was "published negligently and with reckless disregard for the truth."

Barbara Morgan, executive editor of the King County Journal, said the newspaper had not been served and did not know the details of Momah's lawsuit.

Dennis Momah's lawyer, Timothy Ford, said the media coverage had ruined his Nigeria-born client's career.

"Right now he's looking for work," Ford said.

Bharti was not immediately available for comment, and phones to Charles Momah's practices were disconnected.

[AussieMark]

British Labor Party lord jailed for starting blaze

LONDON (Reuters) - A British lord was sentenced to 16 months in jail on Thursday for deliberately starting a blaze in a hotel and endangering lives after a boozy awards dinner in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.

Mike Watson, who represented Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party in the House of Lords and the Scottish parliament, pleaded guilty to setting light to a curtain in the hotel following a Scottish Politician of the Year awards ceremony on November 12 last year.

During his trial, the court was shown closed circuit television footage of a figure dressed in a kilt, crouching at the base of the curtain which moments later burst into flames.

The figure was shown placing something in his sporran, the pouch which Scots traditionally wear over their kilts. The prosecution alleged it was a box of matches.

Watson's lawyer accepted his client had drunk "more than was wise" on the evening in question.

Experts told the court the blaze caused 4,500 pounds of damage and had endangered lives.

Watson, 56, has since resigned his seat in the Scottish parliament and his post as director of Scottish football club Dundee United.

After he left court in hand-cuffs, the Scottish Labor Party said it had expelled him.

"He has lost his seat in the Scottish parliament, his career and his reputation and now having already paid a heavy price, he has been jailed," the party said in a statement.

"His sentence illustrates that if you commit a serious crime in Scotland, no matter who you are, you must face the consequences. That is right."

[AussieMark]

Flasher shocked by exposure to the law

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German flasher's lewd antics backfired when he leaped naked out of a bush and exposed himself to a woman, only for the off-duty police officer to call for back-up and send him scrambling back into his clothes.

"He'd expected her to go 'Ooh, ooh!' when he jumped out -- not that she would calmly call officers for assistance," said a police spokesman in the western town of Mettmann on Thursday. "He got a big surprise -- he really picked the wrong person."

The 52-year-old man managed to flee in panic from where he had attempted to shock the police woman as she walked her dogs, but was soon apprehended at his home by her colleagues.

[rainstorm]

Doctor sues over sex charges involving his twin

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. doctor has sued a Seattle-area newspaper for defamation after it reported he posed as his twin, a gynecologist, to have sex with his brother's patients.

Dennis Momah said the King County Journal defamed him in 2003 when it published an article that said: "Two twin brothers were taking turns having sex with patients on a regular basis without the patients' knowledge that they were two different people."

Momah, who filed the lawsuit in King County Superior Court this week, also sued Harish Bharti, an attorney quoted in the paper who represents six female patients of Charles Momah, Dennis Momah's twin and a gynecologist.

Charles Momah is being sued by some of his former patients, who say that he switched places with Dennis, giving him access to his gynecological patients.

In February, six patients said in a lawsuit that they were sometimes deceived into being seen, examined, operated on and sexually fondled by Dennis Momah, a general practitioner who is not certified in obstetrics and gynecology.

Charles Momah, who had medical practices in two suburbs south of Seattle, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of rape, indecent liberties and insurance fraud. That trial is scheduled for October 4.

Dennis Momah, who has not been charged with any crime, said in his lawsuit that the article was "published negligently and with reckless disregard for the truth."

Barbara Morgan, executive editor of the King County Journal, said the newspaper had not been served and did not know the details of Momah's lawsuit.

Dennis Momah's lawyer, Timothy Ford, said the media coverage had ruined his Nigeria-born client's career.

"Right now he's looking for work," Ford said.

Bharti was not immediately available for comment, and phones to Charles Momah's practices were disconnected.

its good to have a twin!!

[TexasStooge]

Flasher shocked by exposure to the law

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German flasher's lewd antics backfired when he leaped naked out of a bush and exposed himself to a woman, only for the off-duty police officer to call for back-up and send him scrambling back into his clothes.

"He'd expected her to go 'Ooh, ooh!' when he jumped out -- not that she would calmly call officers for assistance," said a police spokesman in the western town of Mettmann on Thursday. "He got a big surprise -- he really picked the wrong person."

The 52-year-old man managed to flee in panic from where he had attempted to shock the police woman as she walked her dogs, but was soon apprehended at his home by her colleagues.

Oops!!

[rainstorm]

Hungary drivers to get lemons and apples

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Bad drivers in eastern Hungary will be left with a sour taste in their mouths next month when school students will accompany traffic police and hand out pieces of lemon along with a fine.

Good drivers will be rewarded with an apple during the month-long campaign in Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg county, state news agency MTI reported Thursday.

"A penalty coming from a kid for breaking rules generates a stronger feeling of guilt among adults than a simple fine," county police spokesman Gergely Fulop said.

Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg, about 200 km (125 miles) from Budapest, is the center of Hungary's fruit industry.

ill take a pear

[AussieMark]

Jewish mystics to Madonna: Lay off our sage!

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Word that Madonna's upcoming album includes a paean to a 16th-century Jewish mystic has prompted the rabbis who guard his legacy to accuse the pop idol of sacrilege and hint at divine punishment.

The "Confessions on a Dance Floor" collection includes a song titled "Isaac" -- in reference, entertainment media say, to Rabbi Isaac Luria, founder of the Kabbalah school of mysticism which counts Madonna, 47, as one of its devotees.

The custodians of Luria's tomb and seminary in the northern Israeli town of Safed accused her of breaking a taboo.

"There is a prohibition in Jewish law against using the holy name of our master, the Sage Isaac, for profit," the seminary's director, Rabbi Rafael Cohen, told the Israeli newspaper Maariv Sunday.

"This is an inappropriate act, and one can feel only pity at the punishment that she (Madonna) will receive from Heaven. The Sage Isaac is holy and pure, and immodest people cannot sing about him," he said.

Catholic-born Madonna, famed for her racy lyrics and on-stage antics, has drawn frequent censure from ultra-Orthodox Jews who say her embrace of Kabbalah debases their religion.

Deemed especially provocative was Madonna's music video for "Die Another Day," in which she wove phylacteries around her arm, a custom usually reserved for Jewish men, before escaping from an electric chair on which Hebrew letters spelling out one of the 72 names of God appeared.

"This kind of woman wreaks an enormous sin upon the Kabbalah," said Rabbi Yisrael Deri, caretaker of Luria's tomb.

[AussieMark]

Tattoo's company as walking works of art hit London

LONDON (Reuters) - Canadian tattooist Rob Thomas believes in suffering for his art -- he has 50 tattoos all over his body to prove it. The only spare space left is his ribs.

"You have to put yourself through what you do to others," he said after flying into London for the International Tattoo Convention that has attracted 180 of the world's finest tattooists from 48 countries.

Tattooing is no longer the preserve of backstreet artists crafting garish dragons and lurid love messages on the backs of bikers and sailors. Tattoos have gone mainstream as pop and fashion icons.

"Today I tattoo politicians and doctors," said Thomas, from Kelowna in British Columbia. "I even tattooed an 84-year-old man with his late wife's name entwined in a rose. I gave him that one for free."

He is a walking art gallery, covered in tattoos by artists he admires from Japan, Germany, the United States and Holland.

"I've just got the ribs to be covered this spring by guys in San Francisco and Chicago," he said.

Londoners lined up to get into the convention in the cavernous halls of a disused brewery where booming rock'n'roll drowned out the hiss of the tattooists' needles.

Each tattooist had to sign an agreement "not to tattoo private parts on either men or women. No one under the age of 18 or under the influence of drugs or alcohol will receive treatment."

SO MUCH TATTOO, SO LITTLE TIME

"This is the A-list of Tattoo World," boasted organizer Marcus Berryman.

"The skin is their canvas. The tattoos are like snowflakes -- no two artists are the same," he said.

Walking canvasses were everywhere. One man proudly drops his trousers to show off his intricate artwork, another offers "Look Busy -- Jesus is Coming" tattoos.

Miki Vialetto, editor of Tattoo Magazine, is enraged by the latest marketing strategy -- people who get brand names engraved on their forehead and act as human advertising hoardings.

"Getting a brand name tattooed on your face is an insult to the values that tattoos really represent," Vialetto said.

But that, as many tattoo artist agreed, is the downside of becoming part of popular culture.

"It's a bit like punk rock. Now that we have gone mainstream it's not got such edge. People used to like it when it was an underground counter-culture," said Horitaka from The State of Grace Tattoo Shop in San Jose, California.

[AussieMark]

Phone hits home as lawmakers fly off the handle

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A scuffle broke out in Taiwan's rowdy parliament over an opposition bill on Tuesday, with lawmakers exchanging punches and a flying mobile phone leaving one with a bloodied eye.

The fight erupted as lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, tried to stop a vote on an opposition bill to create an independent media watchdog.

Chang Sho-wen, a lawmaker from the main opposition Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, was hit in his left eye by a mobile phone, witnesses said. Blood gushed from his face and the lawmaker was rushed to hospital.

"To say who started the fight is meaningless. Both the ruling and opposition parties need to cool down and figure out why we are unable to function normally," Ker Chien-ming, the DPP's legislative caucus whip, told reporters.

Taiwan's parliament is notorious for fights, with many lawmakers enjoying the media attention when punches are thrown. Chairs, shoes and food have also flown across the chamber on occasion.

It was not the first time tempers have flared over the bill to set up a National Communications Commission. The ruling and opposition parties disagree sharply on how the body should be formed.

Last week, two women lawmakers pulled each other's hair as their male colleagues occupied the speaker's podium, pounded tables and shouted "Dissolve the parliament."

[AussieMark]

Literature Nobel due on Thursday as scholars scuffle

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - This year's winner of the Nobel literature prize will be named Thursday, the Swedish Academy announced, as one of its members quit in disgust at last year's choice whose work he termed "violent pornography."

The Swedish Academy keeps the exact date of its literature award secret until just beforehand. Academician Knut Ahnlund's resignation and criticism of the 2004 winner, Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, appeared timed to gain maximum impact.

In a signed newspaper article, Ahnlund said giving the prize to Jelinek -- which surprised even Austria -- "caused irreparable harm to the value of the award for the foreseeable future."

He called Jelinek's writing "whingeing, unenjoyable, violent pornography."

Ahnlund did not explain why he had waited a year after the prize went to Jelinek to quit, but Academy head Horace Engdahl suggested it was timed to spoil this year's announcement.

"This very possibly has something to do with the fact that this week the Academy will announce this year's winner," Engdahl told TT news agency.

There was no immediate response from Jelinek.

The world's top literary award, worth 10 million crowns and given by the king in December, is usually announced on one of the first two Thursdays in October.

Unlike the Nobels for peace, medicine, physics, chemistry and economics, the literature prize date is only announced two days beforehand. The Web site http://www.nobelprize.org said Tuesday it was scheduled for Thursday after 1 p.m. (1100 GMT).

But the lack of news last week gave rise to speculation the 18 Academy members were split, with a British paper reporting that the divisive choice was Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes makes Syrian poet Adonis the 2-to-1 favorite followed by U.S. novelist Joyce Carol Oates and poets Tomas Transtromer of Sweden and South Korean Ko Un.

Belgian poet Hugo Claus, American novelist Philip Roth, Italians Claudio Magris and Antonio Tabucchi, Czech novelist Milan Kundera, Indonesian novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Dutch poet and novelist Cees Nooteboom are also tipped.

SCANDAL

The Academy, which has awarded the prize founded by dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel since 1901, never leaks its shortlist.

A rare indication of scandal inside the ivory tower of the Academy -- motto "genius and taste" -- came with the news of Ahnlund's resignation. "After this I cannot even formally remain in the Swedish Academy," he wrote.

Engdahl said Ahnlund had not been active in the Academy for nearly 10 years and was not privy to the Jelinek prize debate.

"He knows nothing about the discussion that led to the choice of Elfriede Jelinek so what he says in this article of his must be seen as empty speculation," Engdahl told TT.

The choice of Nobel laureates is often dismissed as obscure when the winner comes from outside the publishing mainstream of Anglophone authors translated into dozens of languages.

South African J.M. Coetzee -- whose novels written in English are widely read -- was a popular choice in 2003.

[AussieMark]

More bones of hobbit-sized humans discovered

LONDON (Reuters) - Australian scientists said on Tuesday they have discovered more remains of hobbit-sized humans which belong to a previously unknown species that lived at the end of the last Ice Age.

Professor Mike Morwood, of the University of New England, in Armidale, Australia, stunned the science world last year when he and his team announced the discovery of 18,000-year-old remains of a new human species called Homo floresiensis.

The partial skeleton discovered in a limestone cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 was of a tiny adult hominid, or early human, only one meter (3 feet tall), that would have walked upright and had a chimpanzee-sized brain.

Morwood and his team said it represented a unique species of early humans that evolved to a naturally small size because of environmental conditions and the isolation of the island, which was also home to exotic creatures such as miniature elephants and Komodo dragons.

But critics suggested the small hominid was not a new species and was more likely a pygmy human or a creature that suffered from a form of microcephaly, a condition that causes an unusually small brain.

"The finds further demonstrate ...(it) is not just an aberrant or pathological individual but is representative of a long-term population," Morwood and his team said in a report in the science journal Nature.

CHINLESS WONDERS

The newly found remains, dug up in 2004, consist of a jaw, as well as arm and other bones which the researchers believe were from at least nine individuals.

A jaw bone reported last year and the latest one were probably from the same species, according to the scientists. Both share similar dental features and lacked chins.

The new species, dubbed "Flores man," is thought to be a descendent of Homo erectus, which had a large brain, was full-sized and spread from Africa to Asia about 2 million years ago.

"Although the original skeleton is estimated to be 18,000 years old, a child's radius (arm bone) was found in deposits estimated to be 12,000 years old," Daniel Lieberman, of Harvard University in Massachusetts, said in a commentary in the journal.

He added that if the remains were from a population of short microcephalic humans they would have had to survive a long time or been susceptible to a high frequency of dwarfism.

"Such possibilities strain credulity," Lieberman added.

CAT scans of the inside of the skull found in 2003 suggested it was a normal adult and not a diseased or mutant species. The brain could have been advanced enough for tool-making.

But Robert Martin, provost and vice president of academic affairs at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois is unconvinced.

"Whatever else is true, that brain is simply too small for an 18,000 year-old hominid," he told Reuters.

[AussieMark]

Boy, 9, swims from Alcatraz to aid Katrina victims

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A 9-year-old California boy swam to San Francisco from Alcatraz Island on Monday, becoming the youngest person to complete the 1.4-mile swim in San Francisco Bay.

Johnny Wilson of Hillsborough, California, raised about $30,000 for victims of Hurricane Katrina with his grueling swim. He had trained for it in San Francisco Bay's chilly waters but faced rough winds and choppy waters on Monday.

"It was a lot harder," Wilson said. "It was a lot wavier."

The youngest person before Wilson to have completed the swim to San Francisco from Alcatraz Island, once home to one of the most notorious U.S. prisons, was a 10-year-old girl, who accomplished the feat a few weeks ago.

The prison was built on the island because the strong currents and cold waters made escapes risky. Two prisoners drowned in escape attempts and five other escapees were unaccounted for before the facility was closed in 1963.

[AussieMark]

China bear bile farmer eaten by own animals

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man who raised bears to tap them for their bile, prized as a traditional medicine in Asia, has been killed and eaten by his animals, Xinhua news agency said Tuesday.

Six black bears attacked keeper Han Shigen as he was cleaning their pen in the northeastern province of Jilin on Monday, Xinhua said.

"The ill-fated man died on the spot and was eaten up by the ferocious bears," it said, citing a report in the Beijing News.

In practices decried by animal rights groups, bile is extracted through surgically implanted catheters in the bear's gall bladders, or by a "free-dripping" technique by which bile drips out through holes opened in the animals' abdomens.

More than 200 farms in China keep about 7,000 bears to tap their bile, which traditional Chinese medicine holds can cure fever, liver illness and sore eyes.

Bear farming was far more widespread before the cruelty involved came to light and Beijing introduced regulations to control the industry in 1993.

Animal welfare groups have called on China to completely ban bear farming, arguing that traditional herbal medicines can serve the same purposes as bear bile.

Xinhua said police sent to the scene of Monday's killing injected one of the bears with tranquilizers "but failed to tame the mad animal."

Police then threw meat into the bears' pen to distract them so they could recover Han's remains, it said without elaborating.

[AussieMark]

'Brilliant' killer of old ladies stalks city

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Long used to kidnappers and drug hitmen, Mexico's capital is now in fear of another type of criminal: a serial killer in women's clothes who strangles and batters old ladies in their homes.

Police believe a single murderer is responsible for the unusual killings of four elderly women in the city so far this year and may have committed some of 37 others since 2003.

Bizarrely, three of the four victims had prints of the painting "Boy in Red Waistcoat" by 18th century French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze hanging on their walls, but prosecutors say that might just be a coincidence.

The murderer, dubbed the "Mataviejitas," or "Little Old Lady Killer," is either a tall, powerfully built woman or a man who dresses in female clothes, talks their way into the victims' houses and kills them with household objects.

"It is a criminal acting alone, who is very careful, is brilliantly clever and acts with a lot of skill, winning the confidence of old people," the city's chief prosecutor, Bernardo Batiz, told reporters on Monday.

The killer takes trophies from the crime scenes.

"One of the reasons we know it is a serial killer is that they took totemic items, like a ring or a religious statue from the victims' homes as a trophy," said criminologist Miguel Ontiveros, who is involved in the investigation.

In the four cases that police say are definitely linked, the victims were strangled by women's tights, a curtain cord or a phone cable after they opened their doors to the killer. Detectives think the murderer may have posed as a doctor or nurse.

Investigators suspect the killer might have murdered up to 15 old women but a lack of clues and a slow-moving justice system in a teeming city with a high crime rate has made it difficult to link the murders.

"We are looking for a needle in a giant haystack but we are going to find it," said Batiz.

The killer may be getting careless and police believe they now have his or her fingerprints.

Witnesses spotted a large woman in a red blouse, or a man dressed as a woman, leaving the apartment of widow Guadalupe Oliveira, 85, around the time she was strangled and beaten to death in the Tlatelolco neighborhood on September 26.

Criminologist Ontiveros said the killer may have a disturbed family history and kills as a warped way of taking revenge on a mother or grandmother.

A government body that aids the elderly is distributing 500,000 leaflets to warn of the danger.

"The elderly need to be more cautious and not open their doors to people they don't know or who come up to them in the market or outside the church offering to take them home or help them," said Laura Perez, spokeswoman for the National Institute for the Elderly.

[AussieMark]

Burglar, scared by corpse, phones police

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch burglar phoned police after fleeing in panic when he found the corpse of an 89-year-old woman in a house he broke into in The Hague.

Police said they were still searching for the burglar who "got the fright of his life."

"He said he was the burglar and that he found a corpse," a police spokesman said. "He found the mortal remains in one of the rooms and left the home to call emergency number 112."

Police were investigating if anything was stolen and believed the woman may have been dead for some time.

[AussieMark]

Shepherds wanted -- accountancy skills preferred

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Do you have an accountancy qualification and are you familiar with the bureaucracy of the European Union? Perhaps a career as a shepherd on the plains of southern Hungary beckons.

The "puszta" flatland, traditional home to more than a million sheep, is running out of qualified shepherds and is now importing them from neighboring Romania.

Not only are herd numbers growing, but shepherds must have accountancy skills and, since the country joined the EU last year, be capable of applying for grants, the newspaper Nepszabadsag reported Tuesday.

Ference Silay, who trained as an architect, is an ethnic Hungarian from Romania who now earns a living from the award-winning herd he owns in Domaszek, southern Hungary.

"Being a shepherd isn't just sitting next to your dog on the field all day, smoking a pipe," he told the paper.

[AussieMark]

Fly me to the mooncakes

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two Chinese astronauts rocketed into orbit Wednesday and promptly helped themselves to pineapple-filled mooncakes for breakfast, state television said.

The traditional heavy pastries should be to the liking of Fei Junlong, who was said to have a sweet tooth, while his partner, Nie Haisheng, apparently preferred spicier fare.

The astronauts' Shenzhou VI spacecraft has been packed with a wide range of rations, from green vegetables and braised bamboo shoots to rice and bean congee, that can be easily rehydrated and then heated in a machine that looks more like a toaster.

Food-filled cans and plastic containers have been designed to fit snugly into segmented, cafeteria-style trays that have quaint pictures of fruit in one corner and adjustable belts underneath for easy use in zero gravity.

Another machine resembling a hair dryer has been installed to suck up any uneaten food morsels from containers to eliminate the possibility of them floating loose about the capsule, state television said.

The astronauts would wash down their meals with extremely pure water taken from 1,700 metres (5,577 feet) underground, Xinhua news agency said.

And an "excrement-collecting device" will also be used for the first time, it added.

[AussieMark]

"Ruined" couple get $350,000 compensation

LONDON (Reuters) - A local authority and the Department of Transport (DoT) have been ordered to pay 200,000 pounds compensation to an elderly British couple whose lives were devastated by a plan to build a new road by their home.

Joint reports by the Local Government Ombudsman and the Parliamentary Ombudsman Wednesday said the decision not to buy Maurice and Audrey Balchin's home before a bypass was built led to the couple's lives and health being "ruined."

Norwich County Council had refused to buy the couple's former home, Swans Harbour, in advance of an intended bypass scheme near Wroxham announced in the 1980s but later dropped.

The proposed road would have run just metres from their home, which consequently plummeted in value.

The reports said Mr Balchin had lost an established profitable business, his home and his assets, and that both he and his wife suffered from stress, worry, anxiety and ill health as a result.

"I was terribly bitter at the beginning, but the bitterness goes and other things take precedence and my wife has always taken precedence over everything," Balchin told the BBC.

"The last 20 years have been hell -- I am just so glad that we have won."

The two ombudsmen concluded there had been maladministration both at the council and the DoT and said both should take "an equal share in the responsibility for the hardship caused."

"I conclude that the council could not reasonably have refused to buy Swans Harbour had the matter been considered properly -- as it should have been -- in October 1992," said Jerry White, the local government ombudsman.

The watchdogs said both parties should pay 100,000 each in compensation to the couple, who are in their early seventies.

"The department should have given clearer guidance to the council about their new power to purchase properties which would be badly affected but not technically blighted by the proposed new road," said Ann Abraham, the parliamentary ombudsman.