Question: Q: Arif Ali collapsed as he tried ultimate flaming hot chicken wings at Jimmy's restaurant in London's O2 arena. Sauce contained fiery Naga Jolokia chillis, which are so potent they should only be handled using gloves. Restaurant had planned to challenge boldest customers with concoction.
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A: They say if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen - and that's exactly what happened to one hapless cook who had to be rushed off to hospital after tasting a hot chilli sauce at his restaurant. Arif Ali, 26, suffered a severe reaction as he tried out the concoction, which had been prepared for a Man v Food-style hot wings challenge at Jimmy's restaurant, in London's O2 arena. The sauce contained Naga Jolokia chillis, which measure 250,000 on the Scoville scale of chilli strength - far hotter than pepper spray and so potent that they should only be handled using latex gloves. Hot staff: Jimmy's restaurant in the O2 arena had planned to offer the ultimate flaming hot chicken wings to its customers. According to one onlooker, Mr Ali happily tasted the food as customers cheered him on, but he began sweating. After drinking some milk, he carried on eating two more of the flaming hot chicken wings. 'But then he started gasping. The sweat was pouring off him and he collapsed at the table,' the witness told The Daily Star. 'He was then carried off by a few staff into a car and rushed to hospital. One minute he was fine - the next he passed out and was in real trouble.' Staff drove him to Hillingdon hospital, where he was treated and later discharged, but Mr Ali spent the next week suffering severe stomach cramps and diarrhea. The restaurant had wanted to challenge the boldest among customers with its fiery sauce, in the style of television series, Man v Food, where enthusiast Adam Richman takes on a range of extreme eating challenges. Fiery red: The Naga Jolokia chilli measures 250,000 on the Scoville scale. But the sauce has now been shelved. Restaurant manager Salim Khan said: 'We have now decided in the interests of customer safety not to put this particular item on our menu.' Chilli collapse: Arif Ali was rushed to Hillingdon Hospital, where he was treated following his hot sauce reaction. Richman style: Jimmy's restaurant had tried to challenge customers in the same way Man V Food presenter Adam Richman explores extreme eating in his television series.


Q: Average American eats 8.5 lbs of pickles a year, according to Dept. of Agriculture. Southern state treat: Dill pickles soaked for week in Kool-Aid. Philly Eagles players said pickle juice helped them beat Dallas Cowboys in 2000. Christopher Columbus and Napoleon were fans of pickle power.
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A: People have been eating pickles ever since the Mesopotamians started making them way back in 2400 B.C.E. Here are some even more important things you should know about them. Pickles have gotten credit for health and beauty and winning football games. 1. In the Pacific Islands, natives pickle their foods in holes in the ground lined with banana leaves, and use them as food reserves in case of storms. The pickles are so valuable that they've become part of the courting process, helping a man prove he'll be able to provide for a woman. In Fiji, guys can't get a girl without first showing her parents his pickle pits. 2. Cleopatra claimed pickles made her beautiful. (We guess it had more to do with her genes.) 3. The majority of pickle factories in America ferment their pickles in outdoor vats without lids (leaving them subject to insects and bird droppings). But there's a reason. According to food scientists, the sun's direct rays prevent yeast and mold from growing in the brine. Mental Floss: 8 disastrous product names. 4. In the Delta region of Mississippi, Kool-Aid pickles have become ridiculously popular with kids. The recipe's simple: take some dill pickles, cut them in half, and then soak them in super strong Kool-Aid for more than a week. According to the New York Times, the sweet vinegar snacks are known to sell out at fairs and delicatessens, and generally go for $.50 to a $1. 5. Not everyone loves a sweet pickle. In America, dill pickles are twice as popular as the sweet variety. 6. The Department of Agriculture estimates that the average American eats 8.5 lbs of pickles a year. 7. When the Philadelphia Eagles thrashed the Dallas Cowboys in sweltering heat in September 2000, many of the players attributed their win to one thing: guzzling down immense quantities of ice-cold pickle juice. Mental Floss: 31 unbelievable high school mascots. 8. If it weren't for pickles, Christopher Columbus might never have "discovered" America. In his famous 1492 voyage, Columbus rationed pickles to his sailors to keep them from getting scurvy. He even grew cucumbers during a pit stop in Haiti to restock for the rest of the voyage. 9. Speaking of people who get credit for discovering America, when he wasn't drawing maps and trying to steal Columbus' thunder, Amerigo Vespucci was a well-known pickle-merchant. 10. Napoleon was also a big fan of pickle power. In fact, he put up the equivalent of $250,000 as a prize to whoever could figure out the best way to pickle and preserve foods for his troops. 11. During the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, H. J. Heinz used pick-shaped pins to lure customers to his out of the way booth. By the end of the fair, he'd given out lots of free food, and over 1,000,000 pickle pins. 12. Berrien Springs, Michigan, has dubbed itself the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World. In early December, they host a parade, led by the Grand Dillmeister, who tosses out fresh pickles to parade watchers. Mental Floss: Curious, bizarre and storied state symbols. For more mental_floss articles, visit mentalfloss.com. Entire contents of this article copyright, Mental Floss LLC. All rights reserved.


Q: A large raven is stealing golf balls from the course at a club in Northern Ireland. One woman had two balls taken in her round, costing her a competition prize. A man in Denver, Colorado, caught a fox stealing golf balls from his putting green. At one club in Uganda you are permitted a free drop if your ball lands in a hippo's footprints.
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Answer: Birdies are normally seen as a golfer's best friend but at one course in Northern Ireland members are getting increasingly irritated by a certain feathered felon. For the last few months, a large raven has been stalking Greencastle Golf Club in Donegal before swooping and flying off with people's balls. Several players have witnessed the burglar at work while others have struck what they thought was an accurate shot only to arrive on the green to find no sign of their ball. Billy McCaul, the golf club's office manager, says players are reporting stolen balls on a weekly basis. "It started to happen about four months ago, when you had the odd comment about a ball being taken by a bird," McCaul told CNN. "Because we are a seaside course, birds have picked balls up in the air so we took it to be something like that, but then it became consistent and persistent. "At first I took it as a bit of fun, as did most members, but it has got to the extent where it is having an effect on prizes and competitions and various other things." One member, a former ladies' captain, had two balls taken by the pesky bird in the same round, costing her a prize in the ladies' match play competition. "The second time it happened she was walking to the ball with her partners, and the bird came down 15 meters away, looked at them, picked the ball up and flew away," says McCaul. "It's a very brazen bird, it doesn't know any fear. It sees a ball, takes it and away it goes and we have absolutely no idea why it's continuing to do it." Ravens have a wingspan of some 4 ft (1.2m) and have a reputation for picking up shiny objects like pebbles and coins. Some members think the bird is mistaking their balls for eggs. They claim to have beaten the thief by using yellow golf balls because the raven is only interested in snatching white ones. At least six ravens are housed at the Tower of London at the British Government's expense because of the traditional belief that if they are absent the tower will crumble and the Kingdom of England will fall. The birds are a protected species and officials at Greencastle have been warned off trying to catch their raven. "I think it's here to stay," says McCaul. "Most people are just taking it as a bit of a hazard down here. You have bunkers and you have rough and now Greencastle have got the extra hazard of a bird." Ravens are not the only animals to have made enemies of golfers. Last year in Denver, Colorado-based TV station 9News carried a story of a man who had crafted a putting green in his garden only to wake up each morning to find a fox had stolen his golf balls. Tom Houk eventually managed to catch the thief at work, but not before it had taken more than 100 of his balls. At the Players Championship at Sawgrass in 1998, a seagull swooped down and snatched U.S. competitor Steve Lowery's ball off the green at the famous par-three island hole before dropping it into the water. On the European Tour in December, players mingled with crocodiles at the Leopard Creek Golf Club in Mpumalanga, South Africa, for the Alfred Dunhill Championship. At the only golf course on the island of Tonga there's a local rule which states that there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball. And in Uganda, golfers at the Jinga Golf Club are permitted a free drop if their ball lands in the footprints of a hippo.