An odd court case has arose in Stuttgart, Germany, where a judge must decide on a case of honorable intentions in a situation where a man hired his neighbor to get his wife pregnant. “Employers” Demetrius Soupolos (29) and his wife Traute, wanted a child badly but Demetrius was informed by a doctor that he is sterile. 

Demetrius consequently paid his neighbor, Frank Maus (34), $2,500 for the job as he was already married and the father of two children, as well as bearing a resemblance to Demetrius. Maus tried to impregnate Traute three evenings a week for 6 months, a total of 72 different times, although it never worked. 

When Maus’s wife objected, he explained, “I don’t like this anymore than you, I’m simply doing it for the money. Try and understand.” After the 6 months, Demetrius insisted that Maus have a medical examination. Upon consulting a doctor it was found that Maus too, was sterile, which shocked everyone bar his wife, who had to confess that Maus was not the real father of their two children.

Now Soupolos is suing Maus for breach of contract in an effort to get his money back, but Maus refuses to give it up because he said he did not guarantee conception, but only that he would give an honest effort. Irony. 

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

Global superstar David Beckham has decided to sell his limited edition black Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe on the internet bidding site eBay for 250,000. He bought the stylish car in 2008 for £350,000 and spent thousands more having it customised to his preferences. He personally oversaw every additional design to the car and asked for it to be blacked out with tinted windows, a black Spirit of Ecstasy, and huge black 24-inch alloys were also added, giving the luxury car an all black look. 

The car has been on eBay since Friday, and was one of the infamous cars in Beckham’s extensive all-black air-conditioned garage, which also included a specially built Range Rover, Porsche 911 and a Jeep Wrangler. The Rolls can do 0 to 62 miles per hour in 5.9 seconds and has an overall top speed of 150mph. Towbin Cars, in Las Vegas, is advertising the car for $390,000 and offer a full service history for the 6.75-litre V12 engine which develops 450bhp and enables the smoothest acceleration of all cars. 

Beckham has not parted with the British brand of luxury cars however, as he is apparently on a waiting list for a new Rolls-Royce Ghost. 

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

Cherry Tree Primary School, in Basildon Essex, has become one of the first primary schools in the country to offer its pupils elocution lessons. The movement started after the Essex accent grew to nationwide, and even international, as reality show The Only Way Is Essex grows in popularity. 

Cherry Tree Primary schoolchildren has been taught over the past year to ditch their Essex accents and use “posh voices” during weekly lessons from a private tutor. TOWIE has even brought new words into the English vocabulary, such as reem (cool) and jel (jealous), which are being used nationwide. Teachers state that it is not about losing their Essex accents, it is more about learning to use proper English, therefore aiding reading and writing skills. One was quoted as saying “We had lots of youngsters writing ‘sbort’ instead of ‘sport’ and ‘wellw’ instead of ‘well’. 

Each elocution lesson lasts 30 minutes, and involve exercises and feedback from the tutor.  Elocution lessons have tremendously grown in popularity after the success of OScar-winning film The King’s Speech, where King George VI overcomes the burden of a stutter with therapy sessions. 

Essex without an Essex accent? “shuutup!”

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

Reverend Jesse Jackson, a leading civil rights activist and president and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, has spoken out on the Occupy movement, and why more people should support it. On Wall Street, young students have created a free democratic place they call Liberty Square. They protest that that Wall Street has been rescued, but there is no help the most Americans, who are the 99%. 

Jackson says that credit has to be given where credit it due, and the 99% has not been violent, despite the use of pepper spray by police. He stated that “Occupy is a spirit whose time has come, capturing the people and the world’s imagination with a keen focus on the gaps of inequality, unfairness and corruption.” 

Rev. Jackson went on to make historical examples of people who “occupied”:

“Jesus was an occupier. Born under occupation, facing a death warrant on his life, he fled to Egypt an immigrant, a political refugee. He represented hope for the oppressed; his mission was to serve the poor.”

“Gandhi was an occupier. He marched to the sea protesting colonialism and British occupation. He prevailed.”

“Mandela was an occupier, his country occupied by the ruthlessness of apartheid. But Mandela occupoed his jail cell on Robben Island, turning it into a library, a center for peaceful, non-violent revolution. He Prevailed.”

“Dr. Martin Luther King was an occupier, our country occupied by the vicious and divisive legal segregation. His last great campaign was the Poor People’s Campaign, aimed at occupying the Mall in the nation’s Capitol to address abounding poverty, the demands for a job or an income for all, health care for all. When Dr. King was shot down on April 4, the campaign moved on to Washington DC, setting up Resurrection City and occupying the nation’s Capitol in tents. It was the precursor to today’s Occupy movement. We prevailed”

So when criticizing all of these left wing movements wanting change, wonder why a significant percentage of the population doesn’t want change when these examples show how occupy movements have changed our world for the better. 

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

A 15 year old girl from Panama City, Florida, called 911 at 4AM last night and asked to be placed in a Christian children’s shelter after she heard her mother and boyfriend having sex. The girl told police that she felt “disrespected”. Her mother’s boyfriend mentioned to police that “their bedrooms are next to each other and she didn’t intend to wake her daughter up. 

The 15 year old said “there was no form of abuse or neglect in the house” but was upset by what she heard. A domestic rights brochure was left at the home for the family while the Salvation Army was informed of the incident by police, according to a report filed. No further action was taken. 

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

If the 21st century has taught us anything, it is that social networking sites are extremely dangerous. McDonalds can now testify to this. McDonalds recently started a twitter campaign, using the hashtag #MeetTheFarmers, meant to promote the corporation’s guarantee of fresh produce, concentrated on wholesome stories about farmers. The company added the hashtag to #McDStories shortly after. The campaign features paid-for tweets, which appear at the top of search results. 

The campaign has been hijacks by tweeters, who have used the hashtag to share McDonald’s horror stories. Some tweeters accused the multi-million pound franchise of making customers vomit, serving pig meat from gestation crates and dishing up a burger containing a finger nail. One passionate protester claimed he would rather eat his own diarrhea than visit his local McDonalds (@MuzzaFuzza). One has to wonder if someone got that in writing.

 A certain @nelo_taylor wrote “These #McDStories never get old, kind like a box of McDonald’s 10 piece”. Social media director Rick Wion told paidcontent.org: “Within an hour, we saw it wasn’t going as planned, it was negative enough that we set about a change of course”. McDonalds have consequently removed the #McDStories hashtag, although the #MeetTheFarmers one has stayed as it received a mostly positive reception.

It can be seen that much of the general public aren’t lovin’ it... in fact they are hatin’ it. 

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA, is relatively new sport which is greatly on the rise. It is a full-contact sport that combines numerous martial arts, such as boxing, kickboxing, karate, muay thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, judo,and wrestling (the first 4 being striking, the last 3 being grappling. Despite the vast amounts of negative publicity the sport has attracted it is not as brutal as it may seem. 

The grappling techniques can be considered an art, with the average Brazilian Jiu-jitsu black belt requiring over 10 years of practice to reach the prestigious grade. Grappling is as skillful as Lionel Messi is with a football, it is simply that no one notices it. It would be the equivalent of someone saying that Messi is simply kicking a football, something anyone can do. The other criticism of the sport that can be seen as quite comical is “They’re just rolling around hugging each other”. This is actually the act of grappling, attempting to outmaneuver the opponent, and gaining a superior position in order to utilize a chokehold or limb lock. 

Despite the constant blood of the sport, and don’t get me wrong it takes guts to step in the cage, it is not significantly more violent than other sports. Professional boxing is certainly more dangerous than MMA, as although MMA witnesses limbs snapping and people losing consciousness, professional boxing is more dangerous as it consists of continuous blows to the head, resulting in concussions, brain bruising and brain trauma. One may argue that it is only professional boxing that causes these injuries although one could say the same for MMA, as amateur MMA does not allow blows to the head, and MMA in general puts restrictions on what holds can be used, so as to not place practitioners in grave danger. 

MMA is on the rise, as can be seen with the great increase in MMA viewing, with the Ultimate Fighting Challenge monopolizing the sport, recruiting fighters from all over the world, including Brazil, Japan, and England. 

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli is facing a four-math ban by the Football Association after being charged with violent conduct following his side’s 3-2 win against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. Whilst stumbling backwards, Balotelli stamped on Scott Parker with excessive force, although referee Howard Webb did not see the stamping. 

Ballotelli went on to score the injury-time penalty that gave City their win, only further angering the Tottenham fans, players and staff. Redknapp commented after the game “I don’t like people kicking other people in the head on a football pitch. It is not something I understand. Why should he go and back-heel someone in the head when he is on the floor?” Balotelli has had a long line of disciplinary issues since his move to City from Inter Milan, including lighting off fireworks inside his house. 

On Sky on Sunday, pundit Graeme Souness described Balotelli as “a car crash waiting to happen”, indicating the 21-year-old could cost City the title. He has been sent off three times in his City career, and has turned into a love/hate celebrity. His talent cannot be questioned although his temperament certainly leaves something to be desired. 

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

A completely healthy 45 year-old British woman, Cheryl Fairbrother, died after collapsing next to her 19 year-old daughter whilst enjoying a skiing holiday in the Alps. She was collapsed on the ski lift whilst making the ascent up Monetier’s L-Yret at Serre Chevalier, the resort in south-east France where her daughter was working. 

All attempts to resuscitate her in the chair lift and at the summit failed, and she died on her way to hospital. Fairbrother was out there for a week’s skiing with her partner of more than 25 years, Stephen Ramsden, who was on a more advanced slope when the tragedy occurred. The couple also have an 18 year old son named Matt who was not with the rest of the family and is currently in England. 

Cheryl’s parents have stated that “We are not aware of any health problems. She was fit, did a lot of walking and running and ate healthily.” This makes the incident even more of a tragedy as there doesn’t seem to be a cause of death as of yet. Reports state that Cheryl went dizzy prior to collapsing, and the altitude certainly wouldn’t have helped the resuscitation attempts, with the air getting thinner. 

Thoughts and prayers are with Cheryl’s family and friends

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk

On Friday, Californian authorities identified the severed limbs found throughout the Hollywood hills as 66-year-old Harvey Medellin. The search started due to a dog-walker’s golden retriever, one of the eight dogs, finding the head under the Hollywood sign on Tuesday. They stated that they believed it to be a prop as it is a popular filming spot in movies, but upon getting closer they discovered it was a freshly severed human head. 

Authorities believe the dismemberment occurred in a place other than the park, although they’ve only found Medellin’s head, hands and feet so far, despite having 120 investigators scouring the seven acres of land. On Friday they reopened Bronson Canyon Park beneath the Hollywood sign and urged all visitors and nature enthusiasts to no walk alone and be careful. 

Officers, coroner’s investigators, helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, a SWAT team trained in climbing skills and mounted officers searched the area. Detectives also asked Brad Pitt’s bodyguard if he saw anything that could be useful, as the body parts happened to be located near Pitt’s home. The bodyguard saw nothing unusual. 

Authorities believe the human remains were placed in one spot and then were spread by wild animals, and that they were all initially hidden which is why the torso and limbs cannot be located. The Wednesday search located the first hand only 50 yards from where the head was found, showing how this theory may be valid. 

Police don’t have a theory on what happened to Mr Medellin, and detectives estimated that the many had been dead since Sunday.

http://www.lowryllp.com

http://www.notaryengland.co.uk