A fistfight at an American station at the South Pole which erupted over a woman resulted to the sacking of an Antarctic base worker on top of $90,000 medical bill. According to reports by the Daily Telegraph, the fracas, which happened at America's Amundsen-Scott station, may been caused by a heated discussion over a woman although authorities were not discounting the fact it might have also been caused by alcohol and cabin fever resulting from Antarctica's biting cold.

Britain's Duchess of Cornwall has been blamed for "cursing" a luxury cruise liner. Cunard's Ł300 million MS Queen Victoria - which was officially launched by Camilla in Southampton three weeks ago when she failed to successfully smash the champagne bottle on its side - has been struck by a potentially fatal stomach bug.

On its second voyage a virus outbreak struck passengers on the Queen Victoria. Blame it on bad luck, which is exactly what crew members of the $602 million 90,000 ton vessel, the Queen Victoria, are doing after 78 of their 3,000 passengers were infected by a highly contagious stomach known as norovirus. According to the crew members, during its naming ceremony, the champagne bottle swung by the Duchess of Cornwall against the hull of the Queen Victoria failed to break, which is considered a sign of bad luck in the seafaring world.

Thieves in Hungary have made off with an entire riverside artificial beach that had 6,000 cubic meters of sand, beach huts, shops and furniture. Cross-border thieves are to be suspected because at part of the Schengen zone there is no border controls between Hungary and other EU states. Hungarian authorities also believe that the stolen material has been shipped across the border to be sold. Land-locked Hungary doesn't have beaches; hence tons of sand were used to make the riverside as real as possible. But managers who cleaned up and covered the leisure park for winter were taken aback to discover that thieves had carted off 6,000 cubic meters of sand and playground rides, huts and even the wooden shops.

A North Dakota farmer has a unique way of forecasting the weather - using pig spleens. Paul Smokov swears his method is 85 percent accurate, insisting the weathermen - with their state-of-the-art radar and other scientific equipment - "aren't any better. "