Every so often, the news cycle serves up a story so perfectly, gloriously stupid that you have to stop what you're doing and marvel at the sheer ingenuity of human nonsense. This week gave us three of them in a single News of the Weird column. I'm not worthy.
Let's start with the one that made me spit out my coffee. In Cartagena, Colombia, a screening of Spider-Man: Brand New Day was interrupted when an audience member unleashed what must be described as a "super-powered fart" — so potent that it cleared the entire theater. Hundreds of moviegoers fled to the hallways, gagging. Some suspected a stink bomb. No. It was just one person, one bad decision, and a level of gastrointestinal authority that I can only respect.
The stinker hasn't come forward. Can you blame them? How do you explain that? "Yes, I'm the one. Please don't ban me. I ate a bad arepa." The movie was, presumably, not great enough to sit through in a biohazard zone. Marvel's release schedule is punishing enough without having to worry about chemical warfare in row G.
Meanwhile, in Wales, a 26-year-old man named Leon Gillespie decided that what the local hospital really needed was a harbinger of death on its roof. Gillespie climbed onto the top of Ysbyty Glan Clwyd hospital in St Asaph, dressed in a black hooded costume, and stood there for nearly an hour, staring at patients, visitors, and staff. Witnesses described him as looking exactly like the Grim Reaper. Gillespie's defence? He claimed he was dressed as a crow.
A crow. On a hospital roof. Staring at sick people. For an hour.
He was fined £200. That's it. Two hundred quid for one of the most unhinged public nuisances in Welsh history. Wales has produced some incredible weirdness — the man who tried to fight a sheep with his fists, the woman who called 999 because her chips were taking too long — but this one might take the cake. Or the crow. Whatever.
And then there's Christopher Phillips, 60, of Porthcawl, Wales. When his 89-year-old mother Sylvia died, Phillips didn't report it. Instead, he placed her body in a chest freezer in their home and continued to collect her pension and state benefits for nearly three years. Total haul: £78,000 (about $105,000). The scheme only unraveled in February 2026 when Sylvia's GP noticed she hadn't been seen in a while and asked police to do a welfare check.
Phillips was jailed for two years. The freezer was seized. The benefits stopped. And somewhere, Sylvia Phillips is probably looking down and thinking, "I raised a man who put me on ice for £78 grand." That's a special kind of filial devotion.
What's remarkable isn't just the crime — it's the logistics. Three years. A freezer in a house in a quiet cul-de-sac. Visitors, presumably. Did nobody ask? Did he just say "Mum's not feeling well" for 36 months straight? Eventually you run out of excuses. "She's chilly." "She's feeling a bit... frozen." "She's gone cold on the idea of visitors."
Three stories. One country that thinks a crow costume is a valid legal defence. One man who weaponized his digestive system against a multiplex. And one son who turned bereavement into a pension plan. Collectively, they remind us that no matter how bad your week is, you are not the person who cleared a Spider-Man screening with a single fart, stood on a hospital roof in a costume, or kept Mom in the freezer for the government cheques.
And if you are — well, you're probably going to end up in next week's column too. I can't wait.