Shocked Australian families have told of their disgust after children were handed explicit novelty chocolates at a school Mother’s Day function.
The chocolates were shaped like penises, breasts and buttocks – as well as others depicting couples having sex. They were passed out in see-through bags at a P&C function held at Woodberry Public School in the Hunter Valley last Friday.
Cassandra Lacey, who has two sons at the school, said she was horrified to be handed a bag of the treats as she walked through the door.
“As soon as I opened mine, my son said, ‘Ah, Mum’ and I had to do a double-take,” Ms Lacey said. “Every single chocolate was to do with sex. This was in the school hall, on the school grounds and in school time.”
Another woman who attended Friday’s function said she watched on, “absolutely disgusted”, as children were given the chocolates.
“My nine-year-old grandson gave this zip-lock bag to me, put it in my lap and said to me, ‘You’ve got a willy in there Nanny’,” she said.
“Then I had a three-year-old sit down next to me and she said, ‘Hey, what’s this?’ She had this brown chocolate shaped like a penis and was about to eat the top off it. I told her she had better go and talk to her mother.”
It is believed the chocolates were left over from last year’s P&C Mother’s Day fundraiser, held as an adults-only girls’ night at a local venue.
P&C spokeswoman and school council president Jenny Gray said she was not at Friday’s function but intended to meet principal Josie Bailey to discuss the issue.
“All I can tell you is that it has come to my attention and yes, I have spoken to the principal and we’ll be having a meeting on Monday,” Ms Gray said.
She insisted the issue would not be “swept under the carpet”.
An airline executive says that a pilot on a cargo run discovered a snake loose in his light plane. He then turned back to his north Australian base.
Pilot Braden Blennerhassett saw the snake’s head pop out from under the dashboard of his twin-engine Beechcraft Baron G58 shortly after takeoff from Darwin airport on Tuesday.
Air Frontier director Geoff Hunt said that his employee was a “cool character” who told air traffic control: “I’m going to have to return to Darwin. I’ve got a snake on board the plane.”
The reptile started moving around the cockpit and at one point it slithered down his leg before escaping back under the console.
A snake handler spotted the snake but was later unable to find it. It is speculated that it might have escaped after the plane landed.
The snake’s description seems to point to it being a Golden Tree Snake.
An anti-animal-testing billboard has been taken down after the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau declared it “depicts violence that is unjustified”.
The billboard has been displayed in numerous sites around Tasmania over the past year.
It shows a woman’s face that has been made up to look as though she has been subjected to tests that animals endure in laboratories worldwide.
The image is part of an awareness-raising campaign by the groups Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania and Choose Cruelty Free about the horrors of animal testing.
“People think that animal testing is a thing of the past. We want everyone to know exactly what they are buying,” said CCF spokeswoman Cherie Wilson.
AACT spokesman Chris Simcox said many people would be horrified to learn that they may be buying products from companies that use these tests.
“Use of powerful images such as this one … have great impact and are justified,” he said. AACT plans to create a new billboard, to continue the cruelty message.
Belly-flopping enthusiasts from Australia and New Zealand battled it out in an intense, splash-inducing water competition – the Belly Flop Championships.
The heats had the Aussie Dugongs and the New Zealand Puku Plungers, crashing into the a pool in a tense competition.
One of New Zealand’s candidates, Carl Jackson, flops in with a mammoth starfish. The commentator calls the 21-year-old swimmer’s flop “beautiful, high trajectory, flat at the point of impact”.
Next up for the Australians is “Migaloo” Straughair, also known as the Mayor of Manboobs. He hesitates at the start, but the 130kg guy dives in and comes out “a little bit red” after what the commentator calls a “quality slap”.
The last competitor for New Zealand, Bronson Steele, who says getting in the competition is the biggest achievement of his life, struts up and executes a well-honed backflip before splashing into the pool to be met with impressed cheers.
The winner in Australia’s Moomba Birdman Rally for homemade flying machines was strapped to aluminum wings — and landed in a river on Sunday in front of thousands of spectators.
Mr Paul, who has now won six Birdman titles in seven attempts, “flew” 25 meters before dunking into the Yarra River.
Paul, like most contestants, landed in the Yarra River.
He also raised the most cash for charity by getting pledges totaling more than $5,000 for Water Aid.
Other attempted flyers at the event included Aaron Eidelson, who attempted to take flight in a homemade pink plane while dressed in a bridal gown, and Veronika Dragon, who jumped unaided into the water, saying she wanted “to taste the river.”
A council in eastern Victoria, Australia, has issued a warning about potentially dangerous pine cones falling from a tree in the town of Warragul.
The 120-year-old heritage-listed bunya pine in the grounds of the Courthouse Hotel has been dropping huge pine cones.
The Baw Baw Council says they weigh up to 10 kilograms each. Mayor Diane Blackwood says the cones are potentially lethal. These things are enormous,” she said.
“They are the size of a watermelon, falling literally out of the sky from potentially 20 metres high. So you wouldn’t want to be under one, I tell you.” The area was cordoned off while council workers removed the remaining pine cones.
