Jackson inspires some wacko behaviour as cat joins TV debate

THE MAGPIE : MICHAEL JACKSON’S death has led to emotions running high all over the world..

THE MAGPIE: MICHAEL JACKSON'S death has led to emotions running high all over the world . . . and people losing the run of themselves altogether.

For example, residents of the village of Oktyabrskoye, located in the Zaporizhia region of the Ukraine, want to rename the place Jackson.

“There are many fans of Michael Jackson there. They want to immortalise him,” according to Oleg Kislitsyn, a deputy in the regional parliament. “They want to create a house-museum . . . This is a depressed region, all the factories are closed. They hope this will attract tourists.”

When asked what links existed between Oktyabrskoye and Jackson, Kislitsyn, who favours the proposal, said “globalisation”, adding: “I am not a fan but I respect his work. He had an iron-clad will for victory.”

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Oktyabrskoye is currently named after the October Revolution of 1917.

Meanwhile in Florida, a fight broke out on a bus when news of Jackson’s untimely demise sparked debate over whether he should be remembered as a great musical talent. The bus was moving through North Lauderdale when passenger James Kiernan got a text about Jackson’s death and he read it aloud for other passengers.

The driver piped up: “Michael Jackson should have been in jail long ago,” prompting Kiernan (60) to retort “the world just lost a great musical talent”.

That prompted another passenger, Henry Wideman, to start a swearing match with Kiernan, pull a knife and chase him down the aisle.

The driver called his dispatcher and pulled over near a convenience store to wait for the sheriff’s deputies, who arrested Wideman (54). He’s in jail, charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Clearly a guy who’s both Bad and Dangerous, slightly Off The Wall but a bit of a Thriller, no?

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JOHN BOWMAN may have had his last tango on Q&A, but Tango the cat is strutting his stuff on the Beeb's equivalent, Question Time. (Bear with me dear reader . . . it works, I promise.)

Jackie Ellery from Newquay in Cornwall was anxious when Tango, her marmalade pussy, went missing. In town at the same time were David Dimbleby and co doing an edition of Question Time.

Recording was under way in the local community college where Ellery works when Tango crept in through a back door, ducked under a television mixing desk and made his way under the assembled seating.

And so it was that as the politicians and pundits discussed the wearing of burkas, the situation in Iran and MPs’ expenses, Tango tootled around in the background, in full view as the programme went out.

Said Ellery: “My friend phoned me up to say ‘have you seen your cat on the telly’? I’d been doing something else at the time but rewound it and there he was. It’s lovely – he’s a mischievous cat anyway and because we live so close to the school he’s often in school grounds. The sixth-formers know him really well. He must have known something was going on.”

Tango’s views on the burka remain, sadly, a mystery.

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A GROUP of pensioners have been banned from holding a coffee morning at a public library in Eye, Cambridgeshire, in case they spill hot drinks on children.

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FINALLY, for those of you flying off on holliers, Air New Zealand has come up with a novel way to ensure that even the most jaded of frequent flyers is paying close attention to the in-flight safety briefing. A video features crew members wearing only body paint. The 3 minute, 28 second Bare Essentials of Safetyhas attracted more than two million hits on YouTube. Have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Mq9HAE62Y