10 Most Weird And Crazy Dresses

With fashion, the sky is the limit. A design or concept is only unusual or weird till it catches on and becomes part of the ongoing fashion. Still, some designs are made for the sole purpose of proving a point – the following dresses for instance. Now, these dresses may be outrageous but they are works of art nonetheless. One has to appreciate the ideas behind each of these dresses and the finesse behind the subsequent implementation.
Cream Puff Dress

 Ukrainian Chef Valentyn Shtefano created this 20-pound sweet (literally) dress for his fiancé. The dress took 1,500 cream puffs and 2 months to put together.
Hamburger Dress

This scrumptious looking dress is the work of artist Joy Kampia. The dress might not be one to be worn to a thanksgiving dinner but it can definitely serve as the attire fast food restaurant waitresses.

Wooden Dress

Winner of the Uncommon Threads Wearable Art Fashion Show in Baton Rouge, Grace Johnston’s Wooden Dress has a corset made from laminated wood and a skirt made out of bent wood. But that’s not all. The dress can curtsy. Rings on either side of the dress can be pulled to make the skirt rise.

Paper Dresses

Designed by Alexandra Zaharova and Ilya Plotnikov, these dresses are made entirely out of paper. When wearing these on a cloudy day, don’t forget to take an umbrella along! 

Ms. Homeland Security: Illegal Entry Dress Tent

 This combination of wit and art is the work of Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao.
Vertical Garden Dress

 Designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, this exotic dress transforms the wearer into a walking vertical garden.
The Bubelle Dress (Emotion-sensing Dress)

 Even clothes are slowly succumbing to the technology craze. Philips’ emotion-sensing dress comprises two layers, the inner one of which serves to sense the mood of the wearer via various physical changes while the outer one changes its color in accordance.
Video Dress

 Presented at the Milan Design Fair, Turkish designer Hussein Cahalayan’s video dress, courtesy of 15,000 blinking LEDs, presents an attractive light show with the image of a flower opening and closing in the foreground.
Birdcage Dress

The Birdcage Dress by Kasey McMahon is a “a flattering and practical dress that doubles as a functional bird cage”. The cage itself is made out of wrangled brass.

Skittles Wrapper Dress

Designed by Li Xiaofeng, this unusual dress has been made from several pieces of blue and white porcelain from the Ming and Qing Dynasty sewn together using silver thread.

The 10 Best Ways To Approach Women

1. Be Eye-Catchingly Honest
Remember George Costanza’s approach in Seinfeld: “My name is George. I’m unemployed and live with my parents.” Hey, it worked for him. So why not try being straight with women? Tell them you’re not much of a player. David Wells, 31, confirms, “When I was younger, I made the mistake of thinking I had to act suave,” he says. But since then, he’s upfront about the fact that he’s shy. “A lot of women think it’s charming!” he says.

 As a guy, you’ve probably heard more than an earful of advice on how to bust out of your timid shell and engage women in witty repartee. Sure, these gregarious mentors may mean well, but they often forget that it’s not easy to change who you are. Think of it in basketball terms. If your team lacks height, you don’t repeatedly try to go inside. No, you use your speed, passing and outside shooting to beat the competition. Same goes with dating: play up your strengths, and you’ll improve your odds of romantic success. Here’s how to do just that.



2. Ask for Help
Damsels in distress have been doing this for years; there’s no reason guys can’t take advantage of women’s desire to swoop in and save the day, too. Just be sure to pick a topic on which women will feel they can offer some assistance. You’ll rarely go wrong seeking style advice (“Excuse me, but I need a woman’s opinion on this jacket. Is it a keeper, or should it never leave my closet again?”) or relationships (“Hey, my pal and I need a woman’s perspective on how long a guy should wait before calling after a date. What’s your opinion?”). Asking for advice will ease the pressure of it feeling like a pick-up line.

3. Choose Your Venue Wisely

It’s much easier to meet and talk to women in places where there’s something to talk about. That’s why shy guys may be better off skipping your typical nightclub or café and attending a place with conversation-worthy 

surroundings, like an art gallery or charity function. “Did you enter the silent auction?” “What do you think about that painting?” Your icebreakers are already built-in by the scenario. Plus, you’re not some random guy. You’re “a guy at this event,” which will allay her defenses and work in your favor.

4. Just Add a Question Mark

You’re starting to get to know this woman and suddenly you can’t think of what to say. Here’s an easy solution: simply repeat the last notable thing she said and place a question mark after it. “Oh, you work as a female professional wrestler; what’s it like?” Bingo!

5. Bring Your Best Wingman

There are guys who can help you meet women… and there are guys who will do the exact opposite. Go out to the clubs or wherever with the former. If he’s married, that can be even better. Married guys are not competition, and they prove you have responsible friends.

 6. Let Others do Your Dirty Work
Can’t bring yourself to move your feet in her direction, smile, and say hello? Enlist someone else to do the ice-breaking honors for you. Ask a waiter, bartender, or your wingman pal to approach the woman to deliver a drink or a compliment like, “My friend thinks you’re cute. Care to join us?”

 7. Utilize Today’s Technology to Air Your Opinions
If talking face-to-face doesn’t show you at your best, go ahead and lean on all that technology has to offer. A thoughtful, well-crafted email can convince a woman that you have plenty to say even if you didn’t chat non-stop in person. For bonus points, refer to something she mentioned during your last date by saying, “I’ve given more thought to the conversation we had about your sister, and something else came to mind that I thought might be useful…” Then let those typed words weave their magic.

 8. Take an Acting or Improv Class
First encounters are very similar to auditions. She plays her role; you play yours. And the more comfortable and capable you are, the better you’ll be during this encounter. As Alex Fendrich, an actor at Chicago’s Second City, puts it: “Improv helps you get used to making an idiot of yourself.” In other words, it is perfect for practicing your flirting routine.

 9. Listen Attentively
What a novel concept this is! Instead of focusing on “What am I going to say next?” or “How am I going to make her laugh?” just pay attention to what she’s talking about, and chances are good that you’ll come up with a relevant response.

10. Seek out the Yin to Your Yang

If you’re not much of a talker, someone who yaks up a storm may well love spending time with you. You know the old “opposites attract” adage. And how Katy Perry crooned about her “missing puzzle piece.” Be her best audience ever, and trust us, she’ll keep coming back for more.

Top 5 Bizarre Science Experiments

5. Setting a Homosexual Man Straight

 After looking at research done by James Olds and Peter Milner regarding the septal regions of the brain, Robert Heath decided to take the information from the previous experiment and conduct his own by adding his own twist. Olds and Milner discovered that sensations of sexual arousal and pleasure are produced when the septal region of the brain is stimulated. During the 1950’s, Heath decided to try the experiment on men, instead of rats- but most importantly homosexual men. Heath aimed to test to see if he could stimulate these areas of the brain in order to turn a gay man straight. He placed electrodes into the septal region of the homosexual male’s brain and controlled the amount of applied stimulation. He then created a device that allowed the subject to “pleasure” himself, which was known as the “pleasure button.” In one session lasting three hours, the subject pressed the button 1500 times. With his libido skyrocketing, the subject was then introduced to a female prostitute. At first nothing happened, but when the prostitute offered to engage in sexual activity, the subject agreed. Not much is known of the subject after the experiments, except he became active in homosexual prostitution, but also possibly had an affair with a married woman.



What’d We Learn
A little pleasure goes a long way in this experiment. In the end, while the experiment may have been seen as a success, Heath wasn’t fully able to convert the homosexual subject into a heterosexual. I’m not sure the experiment provided a lot of new information to scientists.
4. What Face Would You Make While Decapitating a Rat?

 We all know about facial expressions. A smile usually means one is happy, a frown indicates one is sad, and so on. However, in 1924, Carney Landis wanted to test the theory and find out if there is one special expression that is universal to everyone that is made when one experiences shock or disgust. Because he was fresh out of college with a psychology degree, Landis’ subjects for his experiment were fellow college students that he had known. In order to get accurate readings of the facial expressions, Landis used paint on his subject’s faces. The experiment started off normal; he’d have subjects smell ammonia, put their hand into a bucket of frogs with slime, or flash pornographic pictures at them. While this type of stimuli seems normal for an experiment about shock and disgust, this wasn’t the end of it. To conclude his experiment, Landis would hand his subject a knife and a live rat, and tell them to decapitate it. If the subject refused, Landis would decapitate the rat himself.
What’d We Learn
From his studies, Landis noted that his subjects, when in a hurry or feeling some sort of distress, did a “clumsy” job at decapitating the rat. However, Landis was never able to successfully match a facial expression to an emotion, therefore making his experiment not so successful. However, many look at his experiment and think of Stanley Milgram, as it is very shocking to see how his subjects, at least some of them, were willing to follow out such an absurd act, showing some sort of obedience.
3. Electrifying a Human Corpse

 As if keeping a head alive wasn’t enough, Aldini Galvini decided to attempt to shock life into a human corpse after he realized that electricity, in high enough volts, was able to cause a dead corpse’s limbs to twitch (thanks to his uncle Luigi Galvini’s studies). Animals weren’t good enough for this experiment, so on January 17, 1803 George Forster was the victim, a recently executed murderer. To begin, the body was laid out and wires were placed on various places of the body, all which transmitted 120-volts of electricity. By placing the wires on the mouth and ears, Galvini noted that the jaw muscles moved and his entire face seemed to be in pain. His left eye is also said to have opened. As if the experiment couldn’t get any worse, Galvini decided to wrap it up by putting a wire on the ear and sticking the other in Forster’s rectum. According to those watching, his body “was on the eve of being restored to life.”
What’d We Learn
While we don’t exactly know how to bring a dead corpse back to live, we did learn that a high amount of voltage introduced to the body will make it move, more so jerk. While the experiment wasn’t the most enlightening, both Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe used the experiment ideas as inspiration for writing.
2. A Remote-Controlled Bull

 We’ve heard of a remote-controlled car, and maybe even a remote-controlled airplane, but a remote-controlled bull? While it seems completely impossible, Jose Delgado was able to entirely control a bull with the press of a button in 1963. In order to control the bull’s actions, a chip, known as a stimpceiver, was implanted into his brain and was controlled by the remote Delgado held. The remote was able to electrically stimulate different parts of the brain, which control different actions and behaviors.  To prove it a success, Delgado stood in a typical bull-fighting ring, and once the bull saw him, it began to charge, but with the press of the button, the bull immediately became uninterested and just walked away. Because of his experiment, scientists all over during the 1970s and even the 1980s did heavy research into electrical stimulation of the brain and attempted to find ways to control a person’s mind.
What’d We Learn
If you really want to control something or someone, just find an ethical way to implant a chip in their brain and voila. While it may seem crazy, there have been many studies recently regarding electrical brain stimulation, and researchers have been able to create remote-controlled anything, including sharks and pigeons.
1. Dying Heartbeat

Sometimes people really make you wonder, and this scientific experiment does just that. On October 31, 1938, John Deering sat down and willingly put his life in the hands of another. He had volunteered to participate in an experiment that would kill him, and seemed to be okay with it due to the fact that he was due to be executed anyhow. The experiment was conducted by Stephen Besley. A prison guard put a black hood on Deering to cover his head and placed a target on his chest. The prison guard would be the one to fire the shot, but beforehand, an electrocardiogram was connected to Deering’s chest in order to read his hearts beats. Before being shot, his heart was racing at 120 beats per minute. Once he heard the okay to fire, his heart raced to 180 beats per minute. He was then shot 4 times, one bullet piercing the right side of his heart. According to the electrocardiogram, his heart went into a spastic rhythm for about 4 seconds and then 15.4 seconds later, his heart stopped.
What’d We Learn
A bullet to the heart kills you. Also that when you’re about to die with a gun aimed at your chest, you’re more than likely to be deathly (no pun intended) afraid. After the experiment, a press was given in which Dr. Besley said, “he put on a good front. The electrocardiograph film shows his bold demeanor hid the actual emotions pounding within him. He was scared to death.”

Top 5 Most Important UFO Incidents In History

5. Barney and Betty Hill Abduction, 1961

 In the first of the abduction incidents (but definitely not the last) on the evening of September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill spotted what they believed was a UFO while they drove down a lonely stretch of road near Groveton, New Hampshire. Though they couldn’t consciously recall what happened after that (and were missing several hours, for which they couldn’t account) for weeks afterwards they each complained of having frightening dreams about being prodded and poked by “grey aliens” as part of some sort of bizarre medical examination before being released. The nightmares became so acute they eventually sought help and were eventually hypnotized and interviewed by a Doctor Benjamin Simon of Boston, who concluded the couple may have been significantly influenced by a television episode featuring humanoid aliens they saw a few weeks before their “encounter” and were innocently fantasizing the event, though he also admitted that did not satisfactorily explain every aspect of their case. Whether the victims of an overactive imagination (the couple were noted for their eccentricities) or genuine abductees, the case remains a source of considerable debate to this day, and probably laid the groundwork for the more spectacular Travis Walton and Pascagoula, Mississippi abduction cases in the 1970’s.



4. JAL Flight 1628, 1986

 On November 16, 1986 a UFO described as being “three times larger than an aircraft carrier” flew alongside Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 for 50 minutes as it flew over northeastern Alaska, with the objects even being intermittently picked up by both civilian and military ground radar. What makes this incident so impressive was the amount of time the object was seen, the credibility and sheer number of witnesses (the crew and all the passengers) and the fact that it was also picked up on radar, instantly rendering it one of the most impressive UFO sightings on record and one that remains inexplicable to this day. What’s even more remarkable is that it is one of the few cases in which the crew of a civilian airliner was willing to discuss the incident in public, making it even more extraordinary.
3. (Tie) Belgium Incident, 1990

 In an incident remarkably similar to the Tehran case in 1976, NATO jets were again scrambled on the evening of March 30, 1990 to pursue a series of dark, triangular-shaped UFOs over the Belgian countryside. What was especially impressive about this sighting were the speeds and capabilities of the craft, which appeared capable of making maneuvers that would have killed a human pilot. Also like the Tehran incident, not only were the craft seen by numerous ground witnesses, but they were also picked up by ground controllers and the aircraft’s onboard weapons radars and even photographed, making it hands down the best documented UFO sighting on record.
2. Kenneth Arnold’s Mount Rainier, Washington Sighting, 1947

 In what is considered the true start of the modern UFO era, Seattle pilot and businessman Kevin Arnold spotted a number of “undulating” shapes flying over Mount Rainier one afternoon in May, 1947, moving at speeds many times faster that the best aircraft of the day could achieve. Somehow he got the media’s attention after he landed and, upon declaring that the objects seemed to “skip like saucers across a pond”, the term “flying saucer” was born, thus starting a new chapter in the world of aerial phenomena. Skeptics today continue to challenge Arnold’s assessment of the craft’s actual speed and distance or claim they were merely light reflections off his own cockpit window, but it can’t be denied that whatever it was Mr. Arnold saw that day, his curious encounter in the skies over the Pacific Northwest had a greater effect on our culture than even he could have imagined.
1. Roswell, New Mexico Crash and Recovery, 1947

\No single incident did more to put allegedly crashed saucers and little green men into the public consciousness than what took place in July of 1947 some fifty miles north of the New Mexico city of Roswell when an unassuming farmer named Matt Brazell discovered a debris field strewn with tiny metallic strips and wooden sticks near his farm. Having heard about “flying disks” in the papers (the Arnold sighting having made national headlines two months earlier), Matt wondered if he hadn’t stumbled across his very own crashed flying saucer and immediately contacted local military authorities. Curiously, at first they agreed with the farmer’s assessment and declared that a “crashed disk” had been recovered, only to recant hours later and claim the debris was part of a crashed weather balloon all along. That seemed to put an end the story and it was quickly relegated to the dustbin of UFO folklore until the late seventies when the Army Air Force intelligence officer who had been sent to pick the stuff up (which he stuffed into the trunk of his car)—one Jesse Marcel—claimed the material he recovered was extraterrestrial after all, creating a conspiracy theory of epic proportions that refuses to die to this day. So ingrained in the popular culture did the Roswell “crash” eventually become, that even when the Air Force came clean in 1995 by declassifying its up-to-then top secret Mogul project and admitting they had made the whole crash disk part up in an attempt to divert attention from Mogul’s true mission (high altitude balloons carrying long arrays of instruments designed to detect evidence of Soviet atomic blasts in the upper atmosphere), most ufologists refused to accept it. Since then, the story has diverged from its original account of a single debris field into stories of multiple crashes, loads of dead aliens, and charges that the technology recovered from it and a half dozen other crashes since (apparently UFOs crash with some regularity) is behind most of the great technological advances of the last fifty years. It also turned the formerly sleepy little enclave of Roswell into a Mecca for UFO buffs and created a cottage industry that will probably stand longer than the Roman Empire did.

Top 5 Unbelievable Prison Breaks

5. Pascal Payet: escaped from jail using a helicopter three times!

 Pascal Payet, AKA Kalashnikov Pat, was originally jailed for a murder occurred during a botched robbery on a security van, and was sentenced in 2001 to thirty years, yet managed to escape three times by helicopter! The last time, in July 2007, a hijacked Squirrel helicopter –along with its pilot, from the glamorous resort of Cannes half an hour earlier– landed on the penitentiary’s roof, from where three heavily armed men set off in search of Payet. He was lifted off the roof by the masked accomplices. After landing near the Mediterranean Sea, the pilot was released, and Payet and his accomplices have since disappeared.



4. John Dillinger: escaped from jail using a fake gun made of wood and shoe polish

 A bank robber in America’s Midwest during the early 1930s, John Dillinger, had robbed at least two dozen banks and four police stations and escaped from jail twice. He served for some time at the Indiana State Penitentiary at Michigan City, until 1933, when he was paroled. Within four months, he was back in jail in Lima, Ohio, but the gang sprang him, killing the jailer, Sheriff Jessie Sarber. Most of the gang was captured again by the end of the year in Tucson, Arizona, due to a fire at the Historic Hotel Congress. Dillinger alone was sent to the Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana. He was to face trial for the suspected killing of police officer William O’Malley during a bank shootout in East Chicago, Indiana, some time after his escape from jail.
On March 3, 1934, Dillinger escaped from the “escape-proof” (as it was dubbed by local authorities at the time) Crown Point, Indiana county jail, which was guarded by many police officers and national guardsmen. Newspapers reported that Dillinger had escaped using a fake gun made out of wood blackened with shoe polish. With his fake gun he was able to trick a guard into opening his cell. He then took two men hostages, rounded up all the guards in jail, locked them in his cell, and fled.
3. Alfie Hinds: escaped from jail three times, one of them by locking the guards in the bathroom

 Alfie Hinds was a British man who managed to escape the law over and over again – a total of three escapes. Four if you count his final, legal escape. Hinds came by his thievery honestly – his dad actually died while being punished for armed robbery. In 1953, he was arrested for a major jewelry robbery – $90,000 worth of which was never recovered. Although pleading not guilty, he was convicted and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Somehow he escaped through locked doors and over a 20-foot prison wall. The public started calling him “Houdini” Hinds.
He made an honest living as a builder and decorator across Europe until 1956, when Scotland Yard detectives tracked him down and arrested him again after 248 days as a fugitive. After his arrest, Hinds brought a lawsuit against authorities charging the prison commissioners with illegal arrest and successfully used the incident as a means to plan his next escape at the Law Court. When two guards escorted him to the bathroom and removed his handcuffs so he could take care of business, Alfie shoved them into the stall and locked them with a padlock (accomplices had installed screw eyes onto the door so he could do this). He was captured at the airport only a few hours later.
His third escape was from his Chelmsford Prison. He then returned to Ireland where he lived and worked as a used car dealer for two years. His downfall came once again when he was pulled over for being in an unregistered car. This time, he used his smarts to find a loophole in the law – at the time, prison escapes were not considered misdemeanors, so no time was added onto his original sentence. He finished out the six years from his jewelry theft sentence in 1953, won a libel suit against the arresting officer, and spent the rest of his life as a minor celebrity after selling his life story to the News of the World for a reported $40,000.
2. Julien Chautard: escaped from prison by clinging to the underside of the van that had just brought him there

 In 2009 French-born arsonist Julien Chautard pulled an audacious escape in which he succeeded in slipping away from a group of new arrivals at Pentonville prison in north London. As the other prisoners were being marched inside, Chautard managed to duck behind the prison van that had just brought them there from Snaresbrook crown court (where ¬Chautard, 39, had been sent down for seven years). Chautard then succeeded in leaving the jail a few minutes later clinging to the underside of the same van. He later handed himself into police.
1. Frank Morris and Clarence and John Anglin: the only prisoners who may have escaped from Alcatraz

Top 5 Strangest Canned Foods

5. Canned Cheeseburger

 This delicious cheeseburger originates from Sweden. It is strange simply because of the pieces used to make the cheeseburger. I would be worried about the quality of the bread, cheese, and meat after getting this shipped across seas. For the price of $6 you can get a cheeseburger in a can, or you can head over to McDonalds and get 6 of them for the same price.
NOTE: one reader explains “those canned cheesburgers are not from Sweden, but from Switzerland. They’re made from katadyngroup, a Swiss company.”



4. Canned Whole Chicken

Canned meats generally don’t put a rumbly in our tumbly, but in a pinch, perhaps in the event of a major cataclysm, we’d throw down with some Vienna Sausages. However, this canned chicken takes the canned-meat cake. The impossibly tiny chicken crammed into this 50-ounce can slides out with a generous portion of gelatinous goop, or rather, “delicious gravy.”

3. Canned Scorpion

 Scorpions are a delicacy in most of Thailand. These are already cooked and they can be eaten whole without risk of poison from their venom.
2. Canned Reindeer

 This delicacy is actually very healthy for you compared to other red meats. Since reindeer are raised on a farm on diets of moss and lichen these animals have only a 2 percent fat content. Due to the time and costs in farming these animals you will have to dish out close to $30 for a can of this arctic delicacy. (Link)
1. Canned Silkworm Pupae

Literally meaning pupa or chrysalis, beondegi are popular Korean street snacks, often dished out by the cupful to eager passers-by. The stewed and seasoned silkworm treats come highly recommended as bar bites. Next time you crave a quick mouthful on the go, grab a can of these crunchy chrysalises.

Top 5 Accidental Deaths You Won’t Believe

5. Woman gets smashed by huge Taco Bell sign

Diana Durre, of Chambers, Nebraska, died after a 75-foot (23 m) Taco Bell sign fell on top of the truck cab she was in. The pole broke at a welded joint about 15 feet (4.5 m) above the ground owing to strong winds. The sign fell right on top of the quad-cab pickup. Diana was meeting a Wyoming couple to sell them some dogs. They had agreed to meet in North Platte, Nebraska, at about 1 p.m., “right underneath the big Taco Bell sign.” North Platte’s Animal Control Division took two Yorkie dogs to the shelter. The Wyoming couple showed up after the accident.

4. Man dies crushed by a suicidal woman

A suicidal woman who jumped from an eighth floor window crushed a passer-by to death in a horrific accident. The woman hurled herself from the balcony in Viladecans, near Barcelona, and landed on top of a 50-year-old pedestrian who was walking below. The jumper died instantly, and the man, from the Ukraine, died in hospital shortly afterwards from his injuries. His wife, who was walking with him at the time, escaped with minor injuries in the incident, which happened at 5.45 on a Monday evening.

3. A lawyer, demonstrating the safety of windows in a skyscraper, crashed through a pane and plunged to his death

Garry Hoy, a 38-year old lawyer and a senior partner at the Holden Day Wilson Law firm in Toronto, Canada, fell to his death on July 9, 1993, after he threw himself against a window on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre, in an attempt to prove that the glass was “unbreakable” to a group of visiting law students. He had apparently attempted this stunt many times in the past, having previously bounced harmlessly off the glass. His first attempt failed to damage the glass at all. On his second attempt the glass still didn’t break but instead actually popped out of the window frame, and he fell over 300 feet to his death.

2. Man dies after falling into vat of Hershey’s chocolate

In a scene straight out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with grim real life consequences, Vincent Smith II, an employee at the Cocoa Services Inc. chocolate factory in Camden, New Jersey, had a fatal accident. He was loading chunks of raw chocolate, when he slipped and fell into a large melting tank filled with 50°C (120°F) Hershey’s chocolate, and was knocked out by one of the mixing paddles. Smith was trapped in the melting tank for 10 minutes before rescuers were able to extract him. He was declared dead a short time later.

1. Naked man dies suffocated in condom

A thrill-seeker trying to give himself a sexual high killed himself by pulling a condom over his head, an inquest has heard. Gary Ashbrook, 31, was discovered naked on his bed alongside three empty cans of nitrous oxide he used to blow up the contraceptive. A post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Ashbrook, who had been HIV positive for seven years, died from asphyxiation.

Top 5 Of The World’s Greatest Jobs

5 .Paradise island caretaker

Ben Southall, 34, of Petersfield, beat out nearly 35,000 applicants from around the world for the dream assignment to swim, explore and relax on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef, while writing a blog to promote the area. He was selected for the $111,000 gig – a six-month contract to serve as caretaker of a tropical Australian island. He now has to live rent-free in a three-bedroom villa, complete with pool.

Before getting the job he had to spend four days on the island for an extended interview process, which required applicants to snorkel through crystalline waters, gorge themselves at a beachside barbecue and relax at a spa. He also had to demonstrate his blogging abilities, take swimming tests and sit through in-person interviews.

4. Luxury bed tester

 A student from Birmingham City University has landed her dream job…literally! Sleeping on the job and having a lie-in will no longer be a problem for a girl, who has been selected to test out luxury beds for a month and get paid for it.
Roisin Madigan, 22, is earning £1,000 to sleep in designer beds every day for a month. The student is helping with a “sleep survey” carried out by luxury bed specialists Simon Horn Ltd. The company sells luxury Savoir Beds, originally made for the Savoy Hotel. General manager Craig Roylance said Roisin will not only provide an objective view of the beds on sale, but will also be part of a look into what brings a good night’s sleep. She will spend 10am to 6pm in beds in the company’s showroom in Edgbaston, and then will blog about her experiences.
3. Resort waterslide tester

 Surely the envy of any desk-bound office worker, Tommy Lynch has travelled over 27,000 miles this year for his job, testing holiday resort waterslides. Mr Lynch, 29, works for holiday giant First Choice, checking the height, speed, water quantity and landing of the flumes, as well as all safety aspects. In 2008 Mr Lynch tested waterslides at holiday villages in Lanzarote, Majorca, Egypt, Turkey, Costa Del Sol, Cyprus, Algarve, Dominican Republic and Mexico. This year he will quality control First Choice’s new splash resorts in Greece, Turkey, Florida, Jamaica and Ibiza.
Liverpool-born Mr Lynch, whose job title is lifestyle product development manager, was recruited to identify the very best pools to be featured in First Choice’s new Splash Resort collection. He also ensures potential new resorts are up to the company’s standard.
2. Professional prostitute tester

 Jaime Rascone is no different than the rest of us in that the erstwhile DJ needs to grab the occasional odd job to make ends meet. But the Chilean lothario has beat all of us by holding the type of fantasy job that just sounds too good to be true: Quality Control in a brothel.
Rascone, an occasional male model and DJ, first happened upon Fiorella Companions in Santiago, Chile while working on a story about the country’s sexual revolution. He was offered the gig by Madam Fiorella, who needed somebody to provide that final “interview” in her hiring process. It goes like this: girls who are interested in working as VIP escorts for Fiorella have to undergo interviews, psychological testing, and a photo session. The applicants are whittled down to a final six, who are then fucked one after the other in a single day by Jaime. He takes diligent notes on, say, how they moved their hips and whether their groans were adequate, and makes recommendations to the madam. There is even paperwork involved. The strain of the job is actually such that he can only do it once a month, testing around seventy girls or so a year.
1. Wine tester and blogger

Imagine moving to the heart of Sonoma County, where every day you’ll come home to more than 450 wineries along the beautiful northern coast of California. Picture living rent free, learning the intricacies of making the perfect wine, and capturing and sharing the entire experience for your network of Twitter followers. Now imagine getting paid $10,000 a month to do it. Listening? Hardy Wallace of Atlanta, the first person to submit his application, was the winner for the position at Murphy-Goode Winery— a $10,000 p/mo for six months, rent-free job updating Twitter and Facebook with his winery lifestream. The interview process was simple: submit a YouTube video explaining why you would be good for the job and wait to see what happens.