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Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like venezuela.caracas, usa.mn.minneapolis and uber.eats. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was nosy.
But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!
Interesting travel story I read this past year, a work stoppage story from our friends in Mexico! Hell, even the French must be impressed - Viva May 5th or something! Apparently the pilot had not been paid in 5 months, so he decided to make his stance in no less Christmas break. Here is the video, in Spanish but ok. I love where it cuts, where the guy says, "Why did you let us board!" Story of my Christmas travels this past year! The horror. Didn't want to, I counsel against it but NO!!! I was overruled and what should have been a 5 hour flight turned into a 24 plus hour travel on the way to, and another 18 hours on the way back! Happy 2026 to you all! If we don't like this year, we have an opportunity to change it.
Yikes on a bike
Yeah, aside from the inconvenience, one should wonder how many other corners they've cut for safety if they don't even pay their pilot. A less obviously evil airline would just steal from money flight crew by not paying them before takeoff and after landing, effectively extracting free labour, but if they're willing to do it to a pilot....phew.
Craig the beer-ambassador elephant dies aged 54
BBC News – Natasha Booty & Richard Kagoe – 3rd January 2026
That's sad. It's too bad he wasn't a free range animal but it seems at least he was cared for and loved.
Awww goodbye Craig.
While it's sad to see an animal in captivity for that long, it's good that he was loved and cared for and safe from poachers. It's also positive that within Craig's lifetime, the role of wildlife has drastically changed from circus style performers to respectfully observed in their habitat or at least a naturalistic, humane, and enriched habitat where natural behaviours are not only allowed but desired. Craig belonged to a sort of last generation of ambassadors, sort of like remaining cetaceans in captivity.
Late, but definitely offbeat:
British museum seeks treasure hunter to recover 900 missing artifacts
Another creepy bone collector and human remains seller... who's clearly playing to type.
List of license plates that Florida deems obscene.
I'm not seeing a problem here. Who doesn't like pizza? Like, a lot?
Aussieman became Floridaman.