Funny old world: The week's offbeat news

From making children cry to the person you don't want sitting next to you on a plane.... Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

- Having a bawl -
 

Japanese babies have been spared "crying sumo" contests at religious shrines for four years thanks to the pandemic, but they now have come screaming back.

Toddlers are paired against each other in sumo ring and the first one to bawl after being frightened by a man in a demon mask wins.

"I want to hear healthy crying," Hisae Watanabe, the mother of one eight-month-old, told AFP at a Tokyo temple.

Tourist official Shigemi Fuji said some people might think it's terrible to make babies cry.

"But in Japan, we believe babies who cry powerfully grow up healthy."

- Police give dealer drugs -
 

Undercover cops in California have some explaining to do after they sold 27 kilos (nearly 60 pounds) of meth to a suspected trafficker in a sting operation, only to watch the man drive away with the drugs.

Sheriff's deputies in Riverside County near Los Angeles were left trailing in the man's wake after he jumped into his car.

"Why would you let someone get in their vehicle," said Michael Lujan, a former captain in the police department.

"Now we have more narcotics out on the street.... It is pretty embarrassing."

- One for the team -
 

But not quite as embarrassing as the Sparta Rotterdam football coach who sneaked onto the pitch in the last seconds of his team's 3-3 draw with FC Twente to trip an opposing player rushing towards goal.

Jeroen Rijsdijk was sent off though -- in true football fashion -- proclaimed his innocence. His timely intervention means his team stay one point ahead of Twente with four games to go in the Dutch season.

- Vibrator tax -
 

And you have to admire the shameless chutzpah of Thailand's usually stuffy Democrat Party which, mired in a sex scandal over one of its leaders, is trying to woo voters in next month's election by legalising sex toys.

The conservative royalists hope their flagging fortunes will be perked up by lifting the ban on vibrators.

Legal love toys could have major fiscal as well as frisky benefits, they argue -- from a vibrator tax.

"Sex toys could lead to a decrease in prostitution as well as divorce due to a mismatch of sexual libido, and sex-related crimes," insisted party chief Ratchada Thanadirek gamely.

Thailand is deeply conflicted about vibrators. Although some get worked up about them -- and you can be jailed for three years for selling them -- they can be bought freely from street stalls in some of Bangkok's less salubrious districts.

- Just a little sip -
 

An American traveller was arrested after trying to take a "vampire straw" onto a flight from Boston. The titanium straw with a very sharp end can be used to sip milkshakes or -- if there's a full moon -- drink the blood of the passenger in the next seat.

- Small toreros see red -
 

Bad news for bullfighting dwarves. Spain has banned comic shows before bullfights by performers with dwarfism saying they are degrading in a move cheered by disability rights groups.

But the "dwarf toreros" themselves are not happy and protested outside parliament, saying they were being put out of a job.

"We are bullfighters and artists," one said, insisting they never felt mocked.