There was a bit of a mutiny, everybody shouting for the captain. But he never appeared and then they decided to give us all a free drink

A relaxing cruise ship dream vacation was headed toward becoming a nightmare for nearly 1,700 passengers.

The passengers onboard the MSC Opera, sailing in the Baltic Sea, nearly staged a mutiny when the luxury liner broke down, according to the Daily Mail.

The trouble began Saturday when the cruise ship's electricity went down, causing the engines to fail.

It went from bad to worse as the ship began running out of food and the toilets became backed up.

"The toilets were unusable and then they got them working and then they didn't work again. There was no water. Food-wise, we've just been on rolls," passenger Mary Birch told the Daily Mail.

The near-mutiny began Sunday night, after the cruise ship was on life support for 24 hours.

"There was a bit of a mutiny, everybody shouting for the captain. But he never appeared and then they decided to give us all a free drink," Birch told the paper.

One passenger on the ship called her daughter to tell her how scary the ordeal was.

"For 24 hours, they were told nothing. They had no water, no electricity, no food, no sanitation. All they had to eat all day was a dry biscuit," Jo Orchard told the paper.

Passengers were finally towed back to Sweden by tug boats Monday.

An MSC Cruises spokesman tells the paper that all passengers would receive a voucher for another ten-day cruise.

the Silver Wizard battered by the Invisible King

His assailant was a headless king. Both were street performers who earn their living standing still. Instead, tourists on London's Southbank watched as one "living statue" launched a frenzied attack on the other, battering him to within an inch of his life.
Dechko Ivanov, 37, who regularly performed as the Invisible King in the same lucrative spot in the shadow of the London Eye, was furious that the Silver Wizard had stolen his patch.
Dressed that day in a similar silver outfit with a crown and a staff, Ivanov accused Rumen Nedelchev, 45, of stealing his audience, then clubbed him with the concrete block he used to weigh down his plinth before kicking him and then "calmly" leaving the scene on his bicycle.
Mr Nedelchev, from Brest, Belarus, was so badly injured that he spent more than three months in hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery to remove pieces of bone from his brain. His skull had to be partly rebuilt and he was left with a 14–inch scar.
Ivanov, a father of one from Bulgaria, admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm but was found guilty of the more serious charge of GBH with intent at Inner London Crown Court.

 

Blogger denies links to Twitter superinjunction claims

The man, who describes himself as a musician based in Liverpool, moved to distance himself from a series of messages on the social networking site which name public figures alleged to have obtained draconian gagging orders.
He also publicly sought legal advice over his own postings about celebrities’ private lives, which date back to mid-March, amid fears he could be prosecuted personally.
A self-confessed “insomniac”, he had been attracting a small following on the site for his messages – often written late at night – openly speculating about the identities of people at the centre of lurid allegations.
He was among several Twitter users who regularly posted alleged clues to the identities of public figures they claimed were the subject of gagging orders to protect their private lives.
When a separate site began posting messages on Sunday afternoon naming several celebrities, rapidly attracting tens of thousands of followers, he was widely suspected of being the originator or close to whoever was.

He had not only forwarded the Tweets to his own readers but the author of the new site listed themselves as “following” the musician’s postings, making him the only identifiable figure linked to the new site.
When Jemima Khan, the free speech campaigner, posted messages denying claims that she had taken out an injunction banning publication of pictures of herself and Jeremy Clarkson, the blogger apologised to her directly and promised to contact the author of the new site directly.
But challenged about his links to the new site, he later said that, although he was on contact with them through Twitter, he did not know who their true identity.
“To clarify, I am NOT [the author], he wrote after a series of inquiries.
"I don’t know who he is, have no connection, have been trying to tell him his page is inaccurate.”
At one point he posted a message to Mark Stephens, the prominent media lawyer who had earlier challenged him to remove his own Tweets about Miss Khan, admitting that he had openly discussed celebrities’ identities online and asking: “Think I’m all right?”
But Mr Stephens warned last night that several Twitter users who had circulated the information could potentially face prosecution.
“They are all in similar jeopardy,” he said.
“They are clearly in contempt of court, clearly these celebrities are not going to take this lying down and as a result of that I would expect that as we speak their lawyers running a trace on the people in contempt of court.”
Referring to the author of the posts on Sunday, he warned: “The individual behind this is clearly going to be tracked, his electronic fingerprints are all over it and when he gets the knock on the door I would very strongly advise that he takes a toothbrush with him.”