What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the odd, interesting,
strange, fun, and weird news that happened this week. Ten stories in 15
minutes!
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Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a look at the
odd, interesting, strange, fun and weird stories that made news this
week. See bottom of shownotes page for a transcript of the podcast
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These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 48 first published Fri Nov 21, 2025.
Thanks for rating and reviewing and also subscribing!
These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 48 first published Fri Nov 21, 2025.
Lion Cub Wake-Up Service Draws Criticism
https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/china-hotel-sparks-outrage-for-offering-lion-cub-wake-up-service-to-guests-9645457
https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/china-hotel-sparks-outrage-for-offering-lion-cub-wake-up-service-to-guests-9645457
Mystery! Intrigue!! Pyramids!!!
Mystery Bubbles in the Ocean #Solved
https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-indian-health-practice-really-can-help-fight-colds-and-allergies
https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-indian-health-practice-really-can-help-fight-colds-and-allergies
Do Not Attempt: New World Record for Cramming Things in the Nostrils.
AI Teddy Bear Seems Like a Bad Idea, Right?
Nightmarish and Enormous Record-Breaking Spiderweb.
Planning a Holiday Turkey? What about coating it in Chocolate?!
Wait, Garlic Can Fight Bad Breath?
https://nypost.com/2025/11/19/lifestyle/garlic-extract-is-a-viable-alternative-to-popular-mouthwashes-study/
https://nypost.com/2025/11/19/lifestyle/garlic-extract-is-a-viable-alternative-to-popular-mouthwashes-study/
Viagra Might Help Reverse a Kind of Hearing Loss.
Neanderkiss?!
Trouser Parakeet.
Transcript below.
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Transcription
00:00
Lion wake-up service and trouser parakeets. What a weird week. Hi friends, I'm Scott and this show is called What a Weird Week. We go back through the news of the week, we pick out the fun, the odd, the interesting stories, we do 10 of them in about 15 minutes.
00:26
And we do a deeper dive on the website where the show notes are. You can go to show notes dot page for everything we talk about in more detail or to learn more about our podcast. This is our episode for Friday, November 21, 2025. 10, controversial one to start the headline from NDTV about the Lion Cub Wake Up Service. China Hotel sparks outrage for offering Lion Cub Wake Up Service to guests. You pay extra money.
00:56
And instead of a normal, I don't know, figuring out the clock radio on the bedside table at your hotel room or setting your cell phone alarm, they wake you up with a lion cub. They come to your room with a lion cub and you get seven minutes with a lion cub in the morning to get your day started right. Animal rights activists not happy with this. It's not nice. It's not the way to treat a lion cub. mean, just imagine the state of your breath, your morning breath.
01:25
How awful that is just that alone and the lion cub would have to deal with that. It ain't right. When I punch it in and calculate it in Canadian dollars, it's about 124 Canadian dollars extra for the lion cub wake up service. If you want to read the whole thing, we will put a link in the show notes. nine is a good old fashioned pyramid mystery story. The headline from science alert is voids detected inside Giza pyramid.
01:54
may be signs of a hidden entrance. I love it that they're still researching, finding out new things about the mysterious pyramids. And I guess this would be a situation where technology gets better and better. You can do more scans, you can run more models. And that is the situation here. This is a fairly credible website, Science Alert, and they link to a paper that was written up. It's not to say that the paper is 100 % right or whatever, more research needed, but they think...
02:22
based on the scans and the modeling they did that they have discovered a secret entrance into the Giza pyramid. It's always nice to have another way in and out of a place. Hey, when there are long lines and you discover a door no one else is using, another way to get to your car faster. I love that. If you're looking for details on how cursed the pyramids are, how haunted they are, or how it's all aliens, this is not that, but...
02:50
I'll put a link in the show notes or you can click show notes dot page. Number eight, the headline from United Press International, mysterious bubbling off California coast tied to construction project. This is courtesy Ben Hoops Hooper at UPI. And this has to do with people in the area of Hermosa beach, California. They started noticing the water was bubbling and then the theories, you know, well, obviously it's
03:18
flatulence from whales. No, no, it's obvious the aliens are there. But it turns out it was a company installing fiber op. So they're putting cables in under the water. And one of the things they do to test the lines is blow air through them. I think they use some sort of compressor for that, but maybe it's a person. The article doesn't get into where does the air come from? Maybe there's somebody on one end of the line and they're just, their whole job is blowing into that tube.
03:47
Maybe writer Ben Hooper could do a follow-up. Anyway, mystery solved and I love it when mysteries get solved. Number seven is a world record that I would say, please do not attempt. Sometimes I'm like, Hey, you should try this. This weekend, you could set this world record, but please don't try this one. A Swedish man inspired by his children stuck 81 matches in his nose. If you don't have a chance to click the photo, his nostrils are flared. There are a whole bunch of matches based down.
04:16
stuck in his nostrils. He says, according to the article we link to, this is United Press International as well, he says his children said it would be so cool if he broke a world record. It is kind of inspiring because he's like, I'm not good at anything. What record could I break? And then he found something he was good at, sticking things in his nostrils. Everybody has something. Congratulations, Martin. It sounds like Martin has a wonderful sense of humor as well.
04:43
If you want to read the article, can click the show notes. Number six is as we head into the holiday season for many and gift giving season for many, this with reporting from CNN about the teddy bear that was enabled with AI, one of the open AI products, chat GPT 4002. don't, whatever. You can see where this is going. Can't you? They made a toy for children that has an AI chat bot. Essentially. That's how I would describe it.
05:12
And so people started asking the teddy bear, like one of the pieces of advice was how to find knives just in case I need to find a knife. Where could I find that teddy bear? And then some other stuff, some dirty stuff. And so it's been pulled off the shelves and they are doing the article says conducting an internal safety audit after it was marketed to children. So number one, I'm not smart. I've said that many times, but number one, maybe do the internal safety audit before it gets sold to children.
05:42
Number two, so nice to have an AI story back in the news. It's been so long. number five, number five from the Associated Press, their headline, I should say trigger warning. This involves spiders and good, good Lord. Here's the headline. Arachnid super web reveals the surprising constant party life of cohabiting spiders. Well, number one, I'm glad spiders know how to party. I would hate to think they were just evil and creepy looking.
06:12
Maybe you love spiders. So let me just say one of my many fears, spiders. So some of what I say comes from that place. The photo that accompanies this article is what appears to be a spelunker, a person who is in a cave. They're wearing the cave attire, some sort of jumpsuit or whatever in the helmet with the light on it. And they're standing beside a spider web that towers over them and will give you nightmares.
06:40
I guarantee it, even if you love spiders, I think this will still give you nightmares. They believe it is the largest spider web in the world with tens of thousands of spiders discovered in a cave on the Albanian Greek border. And besides it being enormous and terrifying, one of the most unusual things is they say spiders don't usually get along that great that you would get tens of thousands of spiders.
07:09
living in one giant creepy spider web. Here's a quote from the article, one of the spider experts. I find it extremely exciting. I'm going to stop there and I'm going to encourage you to either avoid the photos, try to put it out of your mind or maybe face your fears and click the show notes and have a look at the giant freaky spider web. four is delicious Dubai chocolate turkey. And this is from our friends at Reynolds Wrap. If they don't have that where you are.
07:37
You know, when I think Reynolds wrap, think aluminum foil. I think they have some other products as well, but they cut through the noise of their competitors by publishing a recipe ahead of Thanksgiving in the United States. The recipe is for a turkey inspired by Dubai chocolate, the Dubai chocolate trend with pistachio and stuff. It's basically a turkey rub. It's coating your turkey and chocolate the way I'm not very handy in the kitchen, but
08:06
I think you coat your turkey in their Dubai chocolate inspired turkey rub. And then you have Dubai chocolate turkey this holiday season. That's kind of the whole story. The recipe is online. I'll link to it. Sometimes you can like one thing very much and another thing very much like delicious turkey during the holidays and delicious chocolate during all of the times. But when you take those two things you love very much and put them together,
08:35
It doesn't always make each of them better. Sometimes separation is important. I mean, I'm just scared you're going to ruin turkey and chocolate in one fell swoop. three. Number three is garlic mouthwash, which is supposed to be pretty good for fighting bad breath. According to the study, we linked to an article in the New York Post, but there's a study where they stack up garlic, some sort of garlic rinse against traditional mouthwash.
09:05
And the garlic mouthwash does great. That's kind of the whole story. There are reasons why maybe garlic mouthwash would be a better option or suitable alternative. You can get into all of that if you want to read the article. I've said before how I love it when there's something we think we know everything about, such as garlic. And then new research into that thing discovers a new use. Garlic delicious for pasta sauce and also can fight bad breath.
09:33
Who knew? Number two is Viagra, the medicine which is used to certain things. Now there's research into how it might help fight a certain kind of hearing loss. The research seems to indicate that Viagra perhaps can reverse a frequently permanent type of inherited hearing loss. It just occurred to me as we were all gathered around with friends and family this holiday season, and maybe there's someone in your family, extended family who
10:01
used to have trouble hearing and they were always saying, speak up, what? And now they hear just fine. Well, maybe you've learned something about that person. I don't want to make light of any of this because that medicine has helped a lot of people and now may help even more people. Honorable Mention. This honorable mention is about Neanderthals, Neanderthals, however you say it. Research seems to indicate they kissed. The research says the probability that Neanderthals kissed
10:31
is about 84%. They're very confident there was kissing among the Neanderthals. I'll just say what we're all thinking. That is pretty romantic. Way to go, science. If you want to learn how they came to conclude this, I will link to the article in study finds. You can go to the show notes or click show notes dot page. one, number one might be an ear muff situation. If the kids are listening ear muffs, kids PG 13. This is from Metro UK.
11:01
And written up by Molly Lee and Molly, I'm going to read your headline because it got my attention. Here we go. Man who claimed bulge was all him faces prison after parakeets found in his pants. I'm going to read a couple. Usually I don't read the articles verbatim, but Molly Lee, you put the work in. This is a great written article, a great read. A man insisted that the suspicious bulge in his pants was simply the handiwork of God.
11:29
The man was stopped at the Mexico US border and asked what the hard to miss bulge in the certain area of his trousers was. He confidently claimed it was all him. It turns out it was trouser parakeets. Parakeets in the trousers. I'm going to stop there, I guess, and thank you for listening to our program this week. Every Friday we drop an episode with 10 weird news items or
11:56
Odd, fun, interesting stories from the past week's news. can get everything we talk about if you go to our show notes page, is show notes dot page. Back here again next week with more fun stories from the news on what a weird week.
Lion wake-up service and trouser parakeets. What a weird week. Hi friends, I'm Scott and this show is called What a Weird Week. We go back through the news of the week, we pick out the fun, the odd, the interesting stories, we do 10 of them in about 15 minutes.
00:26
And we do a deeper dive on the website where the show notes are. You can go to show notes dot page for everything we talk about in more detail or to learn more about our podcast. This is our episode for Friday, November 21, 2025. 10, controversial one to start the headline from NDTV about the Lion Cub Wake Up Service. China Hotel sparks outrage for offering Lion Cub Wake Up Service to guests. You pay extra money.
00:56
And instead of a normal, I don't know, figuring out the clock radio on the bedside table at your hotel room or setting your cell phone alarm, they wake you up with a lion cub. They come to your room with a lion cub and you get seven minutes with a lion cub in the morning to get your day started right. Animal rights activists not happy with this. It's not nice. It's not the way to treat a lion cub. mean, just imagine the state of your breath, your morning breath.
01:25
How awful that is just that alone and the lion cub would have to deal with that. It ain't right. When I punch it in and calculate it in Canadian dollars, it's about 124 Canadian dollars extra for the lion cub wake up service. If you want to read the whole thing, we will put a link in the show notes. nine is a good old fashioned pyramid mystery story. The headline from science alert is voids detected inside Giza pyramid.
01:54
may be signs of a hidden entrance. I love it that they're still researching, finding out new things about the mysterious pyramids. And I guess this would be a situation where technology gets better and better. You can do more scans, you can run more models. And that is the situation here. This is a fairly credible website, Science Alert, and they link to a paper that was written up. It's not to say that the paper is 100 % right or whatever, more research needed, but they think...
02:22
based on the scans and the modeling they did that they have discovered a secret entrance into the Giza pyramid. It's always nice to have another way in and out of a place. Hey, when there are long lines and you discover a door no one else is using, another way to get to your car faster. I love that. If you're looking for details on how cursed the pyramids are, how haunted they are, or how it's all aliens, this is not that, but...
02:50
I'll put a link in the show notes or you can click show notes dot page. Number eight, the headline from United Press International, mysterious bubbling off California coast tied to construction project. This is courtesy Ben Hoops Hooper at UPI. And this has to do with people in the area of Hermosa beach, California. They started noticing the water was bubbling and then the theories, you know, well, obviously it's
03:18
flatulence from whales. No, no, it's obvious the aliens are there. But it turns out it was a company installing fiber op. So they're putting cables in under the water. And one of the things they do to test the lines is blow air through them. I think they use some sort of compressor for that, but maybe it's a person. The article doesn't get into where does the air come from? Maybe there's somebody on one end of the line and they're just, their whole job is blowing into that tube.
03:47
Maybe writer Ben Hooper could do a follow-up. Anyway, mystery solved and I love it when mysteries get solved. Number seven is a world record that I would say, please do not attempt. Sometimes I'm like, Hey, you should try this. This weekend, you could set this world record, but please don't try this one. A Swedish man inspired by his children stuck 81 matches in his nose. If you don't have a chance to click the photo, his nostrils are flared. There are a whole bunch of matches based down.
04:16
stuck in his nostrils. He says, according to the article we link to, this is United Press International as well, he says his children said it would be so cool if he broke a world record. It is kind of inspiring because he's like, I'm not good at anything. What record could I break? And then he found something he was good at, sticking things in his nostrils. Everybody has something. Congratulations, Martin. It sounds like Martin has a wonderful sense of humor as well.
04:43
If you want to read the article, can click the show notes. Number six is as we head into the holiday season for many and gift giving season for many, this with reporting from CNN about the teddy bear that was enabled with AI, one of the open AI products, chat GPT 4002. don't, whatever. You can see where this is going. Can't you? They made a toy for children that has an AI chat bot. Essentially. That's how I would describe it.
05:12
And so people started asking the teddy bear, like one of the pieces of advice was how to find knives just in case I need to find a knife. Where could I find that teddy bear? And then some other stuff, some dirty stuff. And so it's been pulled off the shelves and they are doing the article says conducting an internal safety audit after it was marketed to children. So number one, I'm not smart. I've said that many times, but number one, maybe do the internal safety audit before it gets sold to children.
05:42
Number two, so nice to have an AI story back in the news. It's been so long. number five, number five from the Associated Press, their headline, I should say trigger warning. This involves spiders and good, good Lord. Here's the headline. Arachnid super web reveals the surprising constant party life of cohabiting spiders. Well, number one, I'm glad spiders know how to party. I would hate to think they were just evil and creepy looking.
06:12
Maybe you love spiders. So let me just say one of my many fears, spiders. So some of what I say comes from that place. The photo that accompanies this article is what appears to be a spelunker, a person who is in a cave. They're wearing the cave attire, some sort of jumpsuit or whatever in the helmet with the light on it. And they're standing beside a spider web that towers over them and will give you nightmares.
06:40
I guarantee it, even if you love spiders, I think this will still give you nightmares. They believe it is the largest spider web in the world with tens of thousands of spiders discovered in a cave on the Albanian Greek border. And besides it being enormous and terrifying, one of the most unusual things is they say spiders don't usually get along that great that you would get tens of thousands of spiders.
07:09
living in one giant creepy spider web. Here's a quote from the article, one of the spider experts. I find it extremely exciting. I'm going to stop there and I'm going to encourage you to either avoid the photos, try to put it out of your mind or maybe face your fears and click the show notes and have a look at the giant freaky spider web. four is delicious Dubai chocolate turkey. And this is from our friends at Reynolds Wrap. If they don't have that where you are.
07:37
You know, when I think Reynolds wrap, think aluminum foil. I think they have some other products as well, but they cut through the noise of their competitors by publishing a recipe ahead of Thanksgiving in the United States. The recipe is for a turkey inspired by Dubai chocolate, the Dubai chocolate trend with pistachio and stuff. It's basically a turkey rub. It's coating your turkey and chocolate the way I'm not very handy in the kitchen, but
08:06
I think you coat your turkey in their Dubai chocolate inspired turkey rub. And then you have Dubai chocolate turkey this holiday season. That's kind of the whole story. The recipe is online. I'll link to it. Sometimes you can like one thing very much and another thing very much like delicious turkey during the holidays and delicious chocolate during all of the times. But when you take those two things you love very much and put them together,
08:35
It doesn't always make each of them better. Sometimes separation is important. I mean, I'm just scared you're going to ruin turkey and chocolate in one fell swoop. three. Number three is garlic mouthwash, which is supposed to be pretty good for fighting bad breath. According to the study, we linked to an article in the New York Post, but there's a study where they stack up garlic, some sort of garlic rinse against traditional mouthwash.
09:05
And the garlic mouthwash does great. That's kind of the whole story. There are reasons why maybe garlic mouthwash would be a better option or suitable alternative. You can get into all of that if you want to read the article. I've said before how I love it when there's something we think we know everything about, such as garlic. And then new research into that thing discovers a new use. Garlic delicious for pasta sauce and also can fight bad breath.
09:33
Who knew? Number two is Viagra, the medicine which is used to certain things. Now there's research into how it might help fight a certain kind of hearing loss. The research seems to indicate that Viagra perhaps can reverse a frequently permanent type of inherited hearing loss. It just occurred to me as we were all gathered around with friends and family this holiday season, and maybe there's someone in your family, extended family who
10:01
used to have trouble hearing and they were always saying, speak up, what? And now they hear just fine. Well, maybe you've learned something about that person. I don't want to make light of any of this because that medicine has helped a lot of people and now may help even more people. Honorable Mention. This honorable mention is about Neanderthals, Neanderthals, however you say it. Research seems to indicate they kissed. The research says the probability that Neanderthals kissed
10:31
is about 84%. They're very confident there was kissing among the Neanderthals. I'll just say what we're all thinking. That is pretty romantic. Way to go, science. If you want to learn how they came to conclude this, I will link to the article in study finds. You can go to the show notes or click show notes dot page. one, number one might be an ear muff situation. If the kids are listening ear muffs, kids PG 13. This is from Metro UK.
11:01
And written up by Molly Lee and Molly, I'm going to read your headline because it got my attention. Here we go. Man who claimed bulge was all him faces prison after parakeets found in his pants. I'm going to read a couple. Usually I don't read the articles verbatim, but Molly Lee, you put the work in. This is a great written article, a great read. A man insisted that the suspicious bulge in his pants was simply the handiwork of God.
11:29
The man was stopped at the Mexico US border and asked what the hard to miss bulge in the certain area of his trousers was. He confidently claimed it was all him. It turns out it was trouser parakeets. Parakeets in the trousers. I'm going to stop there, I guess, and thank you for listening to our program this week. Every Friday we drop an episode with 10 weird news items or
11:56
Odd, fun, interesting stories from the past week's news. can get everything we talk about if you go to our show notes page, is show notes dot page. Back here again next week with more fun stories from the news on what a weird week.
