Wide World of Weird

A weekly roundup of unusual news stories from around the globe, compiled from Times wire services:

Crabby Contestants: A hermit crab named Crabopatra has clawed its way to the title of Miss Crustacean 1998 in Ocean City, N.J. Crabopatra wowed the judges and won the right to crawl down a flower-bedecked runway as more than 100 people sang “Here it comes, Miss Crustacean.”

The pageant, a shameless publicity stunt staged on the beach for 23 years in a row, had 39 entrants, most of which were dressed by young children and bought from boardwalk shops for $2.

Losing contestants included Leonardo DiCrabrio, a crab with a puffy white shirt, brown trousers and a bunch of cotton balls masquerading as an iceberg, and Tara Crabinski, who scurried around on tiny paper skates in a shoe box decorated with aluminum foil to look like an ice rink.

X-Ray Vision Camera?: Sony Corp. has halted shipments of some video cameras after finding they could be used to film more of their subjects than meets the eye. The infrared technology on some Handycams is intended to let users shoot in darkness, but magazine reports say that when the special feature is used in daylight with a special filter it can “see through” clothing. Underwear shows up, especially on those who are lightly dressed, and people in swimsuits look almost naked. Worried about less-innocent users taking advantage of the technology, Sony is modifying the camera so the “night shot” mode works only in the dark.

Tongue Trouble: Dozens of Thai men were ordered to stick out their tongues last week after an attempted rape in a remote village. Police said an unidentified man tried to rape a 17-year-old girl but was scared away when the victim managed to bite off part of his tongue in the struggle.

The girl then wrapped the tongue in a plastic bag and handed it over to police as evidence. “About 50 men in the village turned up to prove that their tongues had not been bitten off,” a police spokesman said. “Only one man in the village failed to turn up. He is now a suspect.”

The Ultimate in Protective Footwear: A Chinese soldier was thrown high in the air when he stepped on a land mine near China’s border with Vietnam and survived unscathed thanks to his boots, the People’s Daily said.

A Chinese military university is testing out special protective footwear for mine clearers in its southwestern province of Yunnan, the site of thousands of mines left over from a 1979 border war with Vietnam.

Cow-vin Klein Perfume: Farmers could soon be using naturally derived perfumes on cows to keep flies at bay, reducing the need for insecticides, British researchers say.

Stupid Human Tricks: John Kamakaze, Scotland’s self-styled “Prince of Pain,” set a stomach-churning world record when he spent 15 minutes suspended in midair by meat hooks embedded in his back. A smiling Kamakaze, with eight meat hooks stuck in his back and one in each leg, said pain was all in the mind.

News McNuggets:

* Iranian women will be permitted to attend a men’s wrestling competition for the first time in nearly 20 years, the vice president of Iran’s wrestling federation said.

* A Bangkok restaurateur made what she claimed was the world’s biggest Chinese dumpling--1,700 pounds--and gave it to the poor to celebrate the 67th birthday of Queen Sirikit.

* British Airways refuses to carry author Salman Rushdie aboard its planes, the airline’s manager for Iran has announced.

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Wide World of Weird is published every Friday. Off-Kilter appears Monday through Thursday.