On Wednesday, France Press summed up the year 2005 in terms of the funniest events. They feature “talking” elephants, panties crawling out from under their pants, and twins who fooled the police.

For example, Norwegian scientists last year made an extraordinary discovery about the life of elephants. They proved that they, like parrots, can imitate sounds. As an example, the researchers refer to a young elephant from a zoo located near the railway. According to the Norwegians, it very similarly reproduces the sound of wheels.

And in Britain, the council of the resort town of Blackpool protected the rights of donkeys that carry tourists to the city beach. Since this year, at the legislative level, a certain number of working hours and one day off per week have been established for them.

The Legislative Assembly of the State of Virginia (USA), in turn, adopted a special law banning the youth fashion for wide, falling pants. “That’s what underwear is for, so as not to put it on public display,” legislators say.

In Denmark, a 43-year-old man, for a small fee, agreed to serve one night in prison instead of a wealthy violator of public order sent there for this period. The substitution was discovered - and the enterprising Dane paid for it with two months in prison, to which he was personally sentenced.

In Scotland, two twin brothers went to prison, one of them was there for the cause, and the other by mistake. Then the innocent man was released, but his brother was released instead, taking advantage of the similarity. When this became clear, the jailers had to release him again.

And the police in Zurich (Switzerland) decided to halve the fine for parking in unauthorized places for small cars. As the police reasonably reasoned, not one, but two such cars can squeeze into each parking space. However, when a certain married couple, having met in the center, parked their cars in the wrong place, both were fined, in fact receiving a total fine for a full-fledged car.

Related to the automotive theme is the unconventional move taken by the mayor of Prague, who fought for a long time and unsuccessfully against taxi drivers inflating prices for visitors. Dressed as an Italian, the mayor got into a taxi, the driver of which, naturally, demanded from him a fee that was more than several times higher than expected. Then, to the driver’s horror, the mayor revealed his incognito identity. Now, they hope in the capital, drivers will be careful not to offend customers.

Elephants are almost like locomotives