Watercooler Stories

English twins just won't live apart

MAIDSTONE, England, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Two 51-year-old twin sisters in England say their non-related police officer husbands have almost grown as close as twins in the house all four of them share.

Regardless of their age, Jo Hatfield and Diane Howell still borrow each other's clothes, finish each other's sentences and often stay up late giggling and exchanging confidences, the Daily Mail reports.

"One day Dad joked that it'd save a fortune in phone bills if we just moved in together, and it was like a light-bulb went on in our heads," Howell said.

So in 1989, they did, and their four children also grew up together.

Both husbands claim not to have worried by the delicate issue of sexual attraction, the newspaper said.

"If you think about it logically, the only safe woman to live with is your wife's identical twin," said Graham Hatfield. "Why on Earth would you have an affair with a woman who's actually the same as your wife?"

Math whiz shuns prestigious $1M prize

MADRID, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A reclusive Russian mathematician refused to accept a prestigious Fields Medal, akin to a Nobel Prize, in Madrid Tuesday, and chose to remain at home.

Despite receiving a personal invitation to attend the International Mathematical Union's conference from King Juan Carlos of Spain, Grigory Perelman, 40, remained in St. Petersburg, The Times of London reported.

As well as rejecting the medal and acclaim, Perelman apparently is not interested in the $1 million prize that accompanies it, the report said.

Perelman started working on the Poincare Conjecture, the math formula he is credited with proving, in 1992. He proved a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space that has stumped mathematicians and scientists for 100 years and helped define the shape of the universe.

At the age 16, he won the top prize at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Budapest in 1982 with the top score, the newspaper said.

Ashamed cop pleads guilty to TV heist

OAK PARK, Ill., Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A former Chicago-area police officer has pleaded guilty to stealing a truckload of televisions in a plot that went wrong because of the stolen trailer's size.

Mani Adams admitted in court in Oak Park, Ill, the theft began in December 2004 when he and two other men allegedly stole a parked tractor-trailer containing $80,000 worth of flat-screen TVs from a distribution facility.

The plan was to hide the tractor-trailer behind the house of one of the accomplices, the Chicago Tribune reported. However, the trailer struck and knocked down a utility pole as it was being backed in. Adams said he was one of the police officers who responded to the call.

His accomplices also each pleaded guilty.

Adams' lawyer said the theft was "the only offense" of Adams life, and that he could face as many as five years in prison at sentencing, the report said.

Woman sues agency over lousy dates

GLOUCESTER, England, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A woman in Gloucester, England, is suing a dating agency for sending her on eight dates with men who were the exact opposite of what she requested.

Janet Forse, 49, is suing the New Horizons agency, run by Mike Lavender, a former car salesman, the Daily Mail reported.

Forse told the newspaper she specifically told Lavender in January she wanted a rugged professional man who owned his own home and did not smoke. She then paid him $470 for a year's membership.

So far, he's sent her out with a chain-smoking truck driver who lived in a trailer, a nervous unshaven carpenter, a married engineer who wanted secrecy and one man who sounded quite promising during their first phone conversation. However, he allegedly phoned her twice before the date, both times very drunk, she said. Forse said when she complained about him to Lavender, he told her the man had a speech impediment.

Now, she is suing Lavender under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 for "failing to use reasonable care and skill" when matching her with dates, the report said.