On Golden Pond and Brown Irishmen

Enniskillen, Ireland — Think again about biting down on gold nuggets to test authenticity -- especially if traveling through Ireland.

Paul Moran, of Enniskillen, created a new enterprise, and has been using his own feces to strike it rich. He's trying to fashion poo into gold.

And as bizarre as that sounds, the 30-year old genius only drew attention to his plot when he set fire to his apartment in July — after placing his little brown nuggets/fertilizer on top of an electric heater,
reported The Belfast Telegraph.

That resulted in $4,700 in damages, burning the block of apartments at Derrin Park in Cornagrade, for which he later pled guilty for endangerment and arson. No report on the smells.

Moran — who is, noticeably, just one letter off from Moron — was charged with arson and endangering the lives of others. He received three months in jail, then will have a year of supervision. It was also reported that he earned a concurrent one-month sentence for flinging his poo around his holding cell.

Pass the bananas?

HH Judge McFarland stated, "Rather bizarrely you were attempting to make gold from human feces and waste products. It was an interesting experiment to fulfill the alchemist's dream, but wasn't going to succeed."

Apparently, he didn’t suffer from constipation — but he should have.

Moran's lawyer, Des Fahy, reportedly stated that his client is a smart man who has suffered from a drug problem. With Moran now on anti-psychotic medication, Judge McFarland agreed with the findings of a pre-sentence report saying that he did not pose "a significant risk of serious harm."

Unless, of course, others are wearing their Sunday best.

 

A 44-year-old Brit claims he has lived off road-kill for 30 years, according to the Daily Mail.

Professional taxidermist Jonathan McGowan first began eating road-kill at 14 when he discovered a dead adder beside the road. Although he now admits it wasn’t very tasty, he was, nevertheless intrigued.

As he aged, McGowan decided it was more ecological to only eat dead meat from the road, although he continued to enjoy fruits, vegetables, grains and other staples.

He shared his philosophy during an essay printed in The Guardian. “Rabbits, badgers and pheasants are my most common finds. Rabbit is actually quite bland. Fox is far tastier; there's never any fat on it, and it's subtle, with a lovely texture, firm but soft. It's much more versatile than beef, and has a salty, mineral taste, rather like gammon. Frogs and toads taste like chicken and are great in stir-fries. Rat, which is nice and salty like pork, is good in a stir-fry, too – I'll throw in celery, onion, peppers and, in autumn, wild mushrooms I've collected. Badger is not nice and hedgehog is hideous.”

His exploits have been compared to those of Rene Redzepi, Fergus Henderson and Gio Andollo.

Redzepi is a master Danish chef who’s a proponent of using local ingredients, while Henderson campaigns for oft-unused parts of animals in culinary needs. Self-described “freegan” Andollo lives a minimalist life, performing music in subways and barely eating at all unless venturing out to dumpster dive.