No one could see me right but Mama tried

Criminals, like the rest of us, love their mothers. However, one’s devotion to his may prove to be his Achilles heel.

Police in the US state of Georgia say they identified a man accused of breaking into an elementary school in the town of Athens by calling “Ma” from the contact list of a cellphone he dropped as he fled. The woman who answered obligingly gave them her son’s name.

Beijing's monster 9-day traffic jam

Nairobians are wont to complain about endless traffic jams on the city roads. However, spare a thought for their counterparts in China who were caught up in a massive traffic jam that slowed vehicles to a crawl for nine days.

Vehicles, mostly lorries bound for the capital, Beijing, formed a queue that stretched for about 100km because of heavy traffic, road works and breakdowns. The captive motorists complained that they were being ripped off by locals who were quick to profit from their misery by selling them food and drink.

There has been a boom in road building in China in recent years but vehicle use has soared at the same time. According to a the state-run newspaper, motorists will have to put up with the situation for a bit longer as the road works,, are not expected to be finished until mid-September.

Blood's thinner than booze

Blood may be thicker than water, but it is apparently thinner than booze. The parents of a 6-year-old boy in Ocala, Florida have been arrested and charged with child neglect after their son found them passed out in their home and called police for help.

Authorities say the father, Michael Dean Patrick, was found lying in bed. Officials were able to wake him up, but say he had slurred speech and difficulty standing.

The boy’s mother was covered in a blanket and lying on the kitchen floor in a puddle of milk that her son had poured on her to try and wake her up.

And booze is bulletproof too?

A hangover sometimes feels like a hole in the head. For one Polish man, this was lierally the case. Doctors discovered a bullet had been lodged in the back of his head for five years because he was too drunk to realise he had been shot at a New Year’s party.

The 35-year-old, who lives in Germany, was at a street party when he was hit by a .22-calibre bullet in the western town of Herne.

He told police he remembered taking a blow to the head “in 2004 or 2005” but did not get medical help and forgot about the incident because he had been “very drunk.”

The bullet did not penetrate his skull and was only found when he went to hospital complaining about a lump in the back of his head.