Britain’s female beach volleyball champions are renting out their bikinis in an advertising deal that encourages spectators to photograph their bottoms.

Shauna Mullin, 26, and Zara Dampney, 24, have signed a deal to advertise a Quick Response (QR) code on the back of their bikini bottoms, reports the Daily Telegraph.

It is a matrix barcode which when photographed on a smartphone takes the user to a specific website – which will be printed on the back of their bikini bottoms to ensure it catches the eye of spectators.

It is part of a sponsorship deal struck by Dampney and Mullin, ranked 26th in the world and aiming for London 2012, with the betting firm Betfair.

It is set to be trailed at the London 2012 beach volleyball tournament at Horse Guards Parade from August 9 to 14.

Betfair’s Andy Lulham said: "There is huge interest in beach volleyball and we want to ensure that our advertising campaign is seen and remembered by as many sports fans as possible.

"As far as we’re aware this is the first time QR codes have been used in in-play sports advertising and what better way to test its effectiveness than by putting them on one of the places that is likely to get photographed the most." (Orange News)

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Forget booking a Rolls Royce limousine or a horse drawn carriage for your wedding ride – it’s now all about the forklift cavalcade.

That’s what one couple in China opted for in a bid to celebrate their shared love for each other and the humble warehouse workhorse.

Newlyweds Kong Qingyang and Shen Likun first met when when groom Kong was working as a forklift driver and bride Shen was working as a forklift salesperson.

To commemorate their special connection they chose to commandeer a forklift parade in their home town of Xintai, Hebei Province.

Starting at 8am the brightly decorated forklifts motored from the groom’s house and then broke with tradition to pick up the bride-to-be.

While en-route to the wedding the pair also stood in the front basket and threw lollies to thrilled onlookers.

Naturally it took a while for them to arrive at the church, with a top speed of eight miles per hour limiting progress, but the vows were exchanged just after the couple arrived at 11:30am.

Following her unusual entrance, the blushing bride Shen said: ‘I love him (Kong) as a person. No matter what vehicle he picks me up in I would marry him. I will remember this parade forever.’ (Metro)

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Who said it’s a dog’s life? After being carried around in handbags as a fashion accessory to minor celebrities, miniature canines are now lining up for even more humiliation.

For the poor pooches are being ordered to pose for the camera dressed in skimpy bikinis – with the embarrassing evidence then posted on websites for the whole world to see.

As our gallery of examples shows, taking part in the latest internet craze has left some of its models feeling a little ruff. (Mail Online)

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At the local firing range, in a sandwich, stuck to a wall with tape… these are not the kinds of places you’d expect to find a baby.

But as the incredible – and disturbing – photos below show, some parents think nothing of popping their loved one in the microwave or giving them a Hitler doll to play with.

Guaranteed to give social workers nightmares, the images are taken from new website ParentFails.com, which aims to chronicle ‘all the funny moments when parenting goes horribly, and hilariously, wrong’.

One worryingly common theme sees babies snapped in the place of food: whether nestling in an enormous sandwich or providing the centrepiece to a traditional Indian meal.

And babies are also shown getting up close and personal with the family pets – even when that pet is an enormous snake.

The photos evoke memories of celebrity parenting blunders, like Britney Spears driving with her son on her lap, or Michael Jackson dangling his daughter over a hotel balcony.

But these parents probably see the funny side: photos are submitted by the public, and most were probably sent in by the parents themselves.

Whether the children will find it quite so amusing when they stumble across old photo albums in years to come is another matter. (Daily Mail)

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A Chinese bus driver who was pushing his pink pride and joy to the limit during peak hour traffic didn’t even realise the rear wheels had rolled away.

Thinking that it was just a pot hole that had damaged the buses suspension, 48-year-old driver Shi Shao continued puttering along until worried passengers rang the bell and notified him that the entire back end was scraping along the ground.

With sparks flying from the undercarriage Mr Shi immediately stopped in the middle of a busy road to wait for a tow truck. However, as a result the bus brought rush hour traffic in the city of Shaoyang to a standstill.

When police arrived at the scene naturally they couldn’t believe their eyes and found the two detached wheels a considerable distance behind the brightly coloured bus.

Luckily no one was hurt in the accident, but there may have been some pride lost by the driver and the mechanics located back at the depot.

It hasn’t yet been confirmed, but there are local reports suggesting the wheels were successfully re-attached with extra sticky sticky-tape. (wrapup)

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When it came to choosing a pet, one family went the whole hog.

The Squicciarini family from Lecco, Italy adopted piglet Cesira she was just two months old and the smallest piglet of the litter.

But after a diet of pigging out on biscuits, ice cream and sweets Cesira has ballooned to just over 14 stone (89kg).

Father Ali, wife Marina and their children, Joel, 13 and Rebecca, 17, saved Cesira from the chop.

She was one of 20 pigs bred for meat, but the family fell in love with the little piglet and bought her home.

But the pet porker has now grown into a 14-stone hog, she sleeps in her own kennel of the balcony of the family’s flat.

She enjoys daily walks, pigs out on around 3kg of fruit and vegetables a day and enjoys treats of biscuits, sweets and ice-cream.

Cesira is even house trained, uses a litter tray, has learnt to wake Marina and Ali each morning by pulling at their duvet and enjoys watching TV with the family in the evening.

The Squicciarini family even take Cesira on holiday with them and said she enjoys nothing more than to roll around in the sand, while the family relax on the beach. (Mail Online)

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Everyone struggles with parking sometimes, but these drivers’ motoring mishaps are as bad as it gets.

Proving that bad drivers can come from anywhere across the globe, these images include a driver who managed to pass through a brick wall and one who reversed his car into a swimming pool.

The hilarious pictures – featured on the comedy website Heavy – also show a driver who managed to wedge her Ford between a quayside and boat and two others who both misjudged a gap, wedging their cars between two others in separate incidents.

Another car can be seen poking bonnet first over a wall and four-wheel drive vehicle sits inconveniently on top of a boulder. (Mail Online)

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A skydiver thought he had seen the last of his iPhone 4 when it plummeted 13,500ft to the ground during a recent tandem jump.

But Jarrod McKinney was amazed to not only find his Apple device, but that it was also intact and still worked.

While the glass exterior was cracked to pieces, the 37-year-old from Minnesota was still able to make a call.

He told CNN: ‘As unbelievable as it sounds, my phone had fallen 13,500ft, and was still sending out a signal.’

Mr McKinney had placed his iPhone in a pocket which had a Velcro zip shortly before he jumped out of a plane in a tandem jump with his wife in Winsted, Minnesota.

When he landed on the ground, he reached for his device and realised it was no longer in his pocket.

An upset Mr McKinney assumed that was the end of his iPhone, especially as the screen cracked when his two-year-old recently knocked if off a shelf in the bathroom.

But, with nothing to lose, he went to the iPad in his truck and ran the ‘Find My iPhone’ app.
To his surprise, Mr McKinney was directed to look for his phone less than a quarter of a mile away on a nearby factory rooftop.

A short while later, the astonished skydiver found the phone, its glass surfaces shattered.

It was then that his friend Joe Johnson, a skydiving instructor, jokingly dialled Mr McKinney’s number – and the iPhone rang.

‘They were all like, "It works! It works!"‘ he said.

The news that an iPhone 4 could survive a 13,500ft fall is especially surprising considering the problems the model had with its antenna reception upon its release last year.

Complaints about the iPhone 4 surfaced soon after its June 2010 release, with users saying its wireless signal weakens drastically when the device is held in a certain way.

Apple boss Steve Jobs was forced to hold an emergency press conference to defend the device and promised to ship out a free plastic case for each customer. (Daily Mail)

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Straight-laced Swiss officials have finished work on a series of drive-in sex boxes where hookers can entertain their randy punters – without disturbing the peace.

The raunchy lay-bys were knocked up by council staff after thousands of complaints by householders whose homes overlook the thriving red light district in Zurich.

"They get up to all sorts in broad daylight – and we’re sick to death of looking at it," said one.

Police spokesman Reto Casanova said: "We can’t get rid of prostitution so have to learn how to control it." (Orange News)

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A vet has been hailed as a hero after performing ‘mouth to beak’ resuscitation on an injured bald eagle when it stopped breathing.

Jeff Cooney clamped his lips onto the stricken bird’s beak and repeatedly blew air into his mouth until his chest puffed up and down.

Minutes later the eagle – nicknamed Patriot – came to life and suddenly began breathing on his own.

The bird had been brought in to see Mr Cooney by two concerned members of the public who found him by the road side after having apparently been hit by a car.

The eagle had suffered, among other injuries, a dislocated shoulder and paralysed right leg.

But two days after being admitted to the surgery in Bend, Oregon, his condition suddenly worsened whilst under anaesthesia so Mr Cooney was forced to improvise with the ‘mouth to beak’ resuscitation.

A video taken by a colleague shows the vet bending down so he is level with the bird before putting his lips over its beak.

He then holds a tube with oxygen up to Patriot’s mouth so that he gets a steady stream of air.

When word of the eagle’s recovery spread, locals in Bend held a competition to decide on a name and Patriot was the winner.

The bird’s condition has started to improve and will hopefully recover now, said Mr Cooney.

‘He has gained 10 per cent of his body weight and is eating fish like crazy.

‘His attitude is greatly improved, and he’s starting to act like a normal, rambunctious bald eagle.’

He added however that Patriot was still was not out of the woods, as it were – and could yet be put down.

‘The dislocated shoulder and his paralysed right leg are his major problems right now.

‘His shoulder is really badly damaged. It’s not a surgical repair, so if he was going to live forever in pain from the shoulder injury, I’d have to euthanise him,’ he said. (Mail Online)

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