Darwin

The chances are that you've heard of the Darwin Awards. One of the cruellest and yet funniest corners of the Internet, the Darwin Awards are given to people who have done the world a service by removing themselves from the gene pool. It's a celebration of the many pointless, stupid and utterly dumb ways in which people choose to die. And it's very funny indeed.

The most wonderful thing about the Darwins is that they're real. Each award is sourced and must be backed up by a 'proper' print reference from a known medium. A couple of examples from this month's batch for you follow. And yes, I did say this month's. You can subscribe to the Darwin Awards newsletter (as I, in fact, do) and get a monthly update of clownish carnage. The fact that there enough utterly stupid deaths going on to keep this thing going on a monthly basis is in itself something of a worry.

I do hope you enjoy these. You can go to the website here.

NEW YORK: Joe, 20, was drunkenly driving through Wayne County farmland in upstate New York. With the utmost of inebriated care, he steered his car directly into a ditch and knocked over a powerline. Oops! How could he rescue his car from the ditch without getting a DUI?

The only way out was to steal a nearby farm tractor, and winch the car out himself. So he aproached the nearest farmhouse, managed to start a tractor, and motored over to the scene of the accident. He then proceeded to drive several tons of metal into the downed power lines.

Goodbye Joe. Hello Darwin Award.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Steel is valuable, especially the high grade alloy used in steel cable. Scrap metal dealers do not ask questions. They pay in cash. And a good supply of cables can be found in elevator shafts.

This particular goldmine was a towering shaft inside an empty grainery near Zatec, 40 miles northwest of Prague. The cable was tightly fastened, and the far end of it disappeared into the shadowy distance above.

After substantial wear and tear on a hacksaw, our man finally cut through the strong steel cable. At that instant, the counterbalance, no longer held in check, started to move silently downwards, accelerating until it reached the bottom of the shaft.

Result: one proud winner of a "terminal velocity" Darwin Award.

VIETNAM: A rolling stone is not all that gathers no moss. Three Vietnam men scavenging for scrap metal found an unexploded 500-pound bomb perched atop a hill near Hanoi, and decided to retrieve it with a little help from Sir Isaac Newton. After all, gravity is free. As they rolled the bomb down the hillside, it detonated, blasting a four-meter crater and sending all three entrepreneurs to a face to face meeting with their deceased hero.