SEVERAL hundred bees shut down shops in New York yesterday forcing workers to stay inside for three hours before they were dispersed.

The bees amassed in front of the GameStop store at 14th Street and Fourth Avenue.

"Everybody outside was standing really still," said a GameStop employee, who called emergency services for help.

Before professional help arrived a courageous passer-by flew into action.

At first he took photos of the pests, hoping the flash would scare them off.

But when that didn't work, Edward Alvers, 54, who had no prior experience handling bees, went into a UPS store, bought a packing box and a plastic bag and began corralling the bees, the New York Post reports.

"I've seen people handle bees before and if they're calm, the bees won't sting," he told the Post. "I just decided that with all the strollers and kids around, it could have been a bad afternoon."

Police quickly secured the area, closing off the pavement, until a professional beekeeper arrived about three hours later.

Bee specialist Tony Planakis arrived in protective gear and used the scent of a queen bee to collect the rest of them.

IN A country where ghosts are traditionally believed to hide in the loo, a Japanese company is advertising a new literary experience - a horror story printed on toilet paper.

Each roll carries several copies of a new nine-chapter novella written by Koji Suzuki, the Japanese author of the horror story "Ring," which has been made into movies in both Japan and Hollywood.

"Drop," set in a public restroom, takes up about 90 centimetres of a roll and can be read in just a few minutes, according to the manufacturer, Hayashi Paper.
Spooky tale ... Japanese author Koji Suzuki with his new horror story / The Daily Telegraph

The company promotes the toilet paper, which will sell for Y210 ($A2.85) a roll, as "a horror experience in the toilet."

Toilets in Japan were traditionally tucked away in a dark corner of the house due to religious beliefs.

Parents would tease children that a hairy hand might pull them down into the dark pool below.

See the picture here.

A MAN became a sitting target for a snake, which bit his penis as sat on the toilet.

"As soon as he sat down, he suddenly felt a knife-like pain and reacted instinctively by standing up," the China Times said. "When he looked down, he saw the big snake."

The 51-year-old Taiwanese man, from Nantou County, Tapei, was under medical care with minor injuries, a director at Puli Christian Hospital said.

"As soon as he has passed the risk of infection, he can go," the director, who declined to be named, said.

"A snake's mouth isn't always clean."

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,24353334-5012895,00.html

A 2cm long fish apparently found it's way into the penis of a 14-year-old boy from India in a bizarre medical case.

The patient was admitted to hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling urine and acute urinary retention spanning a 24-hour period. According to the boy, the fish slipped into his penis while he was cleaning his aquarium at home.

Professor Vezhaventhan and Professor Jeyaraman, who treated the boy and later wrote a paper on the case, explained: "While he was cleaning the fish tank in his house, he was holding a fish in his hand and went to the toilet for passing urine. When he was passing urine, the fish slipped from his hand and entered his urethra and then he developed all these symptoms."

Any guys reading, cross your legs... now. Doctors first tried to extract the fish, measuring in at an eye-watering 2cm long and 1.5cm wide, with some special forceps but it was too slippery to grip. In the end they had to resort to using a rigid ureteroscope with a tool attached that is normally used for removing bladder stones.

Apparently the kid was later admitted into counseling to help him overcome any trauma. What about the rest of us who had to read about this?