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Weird Tech: Internet bride dead in suitcase

Turns out the new husband of James Blunt's sister, millionaire Guy Harrison, is also a Fathers4Justice campaigner. Just in case the story needed to be any weirder

It's not everyday you see gadgets, death, Fathers 4 Justice and tech-savvy owls all in one place. But it's standard fare for Weird Tech, a breeding ground for tales of the weird, wonderful and just plain odd...

An American man is being held by police after his internet bride, who had been reported missing in Peru, turned up dead in a suitcase. Police in the area are considering William Trickett Smith Jr. to be a suspect - and with a name like that, why wouldn't they? - after the luggage was fished out of the sea. The blue case, which was tied with ropes and weighted down, only surfaced after the area was hit by an earthquake.

Thanks to a new discovery, Scientists are now able to talk to owls using mobile phones. "Apparently the birds do not give much of a conversation," the Register reported, "and are fairly useless at sending texts". Nevertheless, the birds seem enthusiastic about the breakthrough and have been using the phones to screech back responses to hoots from the scientists.

And apparently social networking websites like Facebook are costing UK firms a whopping £130 million per day in lost man hours. But that's nothing - if you want to see some extreme procrastination in action, check out what firemen get up to instead of saving lives. Now that's cool.

Technology mash-up

Don't have a car but find the weekly shop too heavy to carry by bike? Enter: The Shopping Bike Cart. Half bike, half trolley, it's the answer to your food-transportation prayers.

Which is more than can be said for Cooltone's ' Mini-Fridge, CD-player, iPod/MP3 Digital Radio' (it's all in the name) atrocity. Or for Dr. Whippy, an ice cream machine that measures your portion depending on your level of sadness: the more unhappy you are, the more ice cream you need. Hmmm, so you get to be miserable and fat. Great idea.

Here's a good one though - no, really - The Wall-Mounted Digital Scale And Clock. Not only is it a wall-mounted clock (how good is that) - it also functions as removable kitchen scales thereby saving you valuable kitchen storage space. And did we mention it tells the temperature as well? Marvellous.

And finally

It was with the usual disdain that we read James Blunt's latest ploy to claw his way back into the public eye. After admitting to a "mild addiction" to eBay in the past, he told this month's GQ: "The stupidest thing I've ever sold is my sister". That crazy kid.

Apparently, after learning his sister couldn't get back to Ireland in time for a funeral, he "whacked" her up on eBay with a request for help to get her to Ireland. The guy who won had a helicopter (rather fortunately) and flew her to the funeral. Now, three years on, they're getting married. Doesn't it just warm the cockles of your heart.