Since July 1999, I’ve been finding and posting quirky stories from around the web. (Sadly, the oldest link, to the Woodstock Platinum MasterCard, is no longer current, though happily you can see it courtesy of Archive.org.)

But this is the last News You Had To Have. It’s going on indefinite hiatus. Sorry, I know some people enjoy it (and I have an ever-loyal small crowd of people who regularly send in stories). But this isn’t anything you can’t read on any number of “Strange news” sections of web sites all over the place, and it’s taking me too much time to sort through it all. Time I don’t have at the moment.

So, one last time for now…

Real estate agent looking through home for sale finds owner dead, hanged in wardrobe.

William Shatner says he never watched Star Trek. (Thanks Nancy)

A woman weighing 215 kilograms dies after emergency workers try to move her from the couch she’d been sitting on for six years. I guess they should have left her there? (Thanks Dan)

Assault charge over a rough handshake.

Red roses banned in Saudi Arabia.

Thank you to all the contributors over the years. Maybe I’ll resume at some stage in the future… time will tell.

Finally, here are some other places you can get strange news stories:

• The Age Oddspot
• CNN Offbeat
• This Is True has been put out weekly since 1994
• Groxx — associated with This Is True, is a Digg-like place for weird news