Around the Globe

October 6, 1995

Around the Globe

Car thief steals dad Hank Bulla learned two important lessons after his car broke down on New Year's day. Bulla was forced to take his 1986 Oldsmobile to a garage in Polk City, Fla., 50 miles from his home. Lesson One: Never take your car to an unfamiliar mechanic. When Bulla returned to pick it up, a mechanic told him that he had fixed the car and lent it to a woman named "Barbara" who wanted to go to the grocery store. Barbara never returned. According to Bulla, "There's 60,000 miles on the car. Brand-new tires. A $2,000 st ereo system...and poor old Dad in the back." Lesson Two: Never leave Dad in the backseat. Bulla said that he kept his dead father's ashes in a tacklebox in the car with his father's favorite fishing lures. (It's a shame that he cremated his father because decomposing flesh really gets the fish biting.) Bulla's father is more valuable to him than the car: "I just want my father back," he said. Interior Minister not immune from car thief Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Bulgaria has experienced a rash of car thefts (and, presumably missing fathers...) According to police, dozens of cars are stolen each day by thieves who grow increasingly brazen. According to the Trud newspaper, Inter ior Minister Lyubomir Nachev's Mercedes limousine was stolen last month. To avoid embarrassment (his ministry is in charge of the police), the theft was never announced. Ministry spokesman Vassil Lambev has denied that any theft occured. Yet the publicati on sticks to its story, citing a letter from Nachev thanking police for recovering the allegedly non-stolen limo. Beer and taxes Britain's revenue service is worried about increasing numbers of people avoiding hefty alcohol taxes by taking advantage of a tax loophole. According to Britain's tax code, beer brewed for personal consumption is tax-free. Mark Maley set up a do-it-yourse lf brewery in an old supermarket to allow Brits to quickly and easily brew their own beer, conforming to the regulation without personal investment. Tax officers cannot rely on police to uphold the spirit of the law, as Maley's best customers have been fr om the police station across the street. Sometimes it's better to drown... Italian police rescued a Sicilian fisherman in December, only to turn around and arrest him. Francesco Pizzimenti gave police a false date of birth when they plucked him and four others from a lifeboat after their fishing boat sank in stormy seas. The pol ice records of Pizzimenti's companions drew police suspicions, which were confirmed when a hospital guard overheard Pizzimenti tell his wife on the telephone, "The guards haven't noticed anything yet." Pizzimenti was wanted for allegedly smuggling five to ns of hashish from Morocco to Italy. - Compiled by Michael Rubin from The Philadelphia Inquirer

-- Compiled by Evan K. Farber

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