A reader of consumer protection issues blog Tékozló Homár chanced upon the above advertisement in his local rag. They are rightfully confused as to what unbelievably ugly women have to do with roof insulation, but there can be little doubt the ad found an audience.

Not to be confused with Pécs's mildly gaga mayor of exactly the same name, infamous criminal and wannabe nut-job Péter Tasnádi - suspected of plotting to have two people murdered and then paying Ft 3 million to be diagnosed criminally insane - has sent his IQ test results to the United States for a second opinion. Three sets of experts have already examined Tasnádi in Hungary, writes index.hu, the first concluding that his "illness" hindered him in judging the danger of his actions, a story confirmed by the second set of experts, who diagnosed frontal lobe degeneration after performing an MRI scan. This opinion resulted in a reduction of Tasnádi's sentence, but the third examination concluded that he knew exactly what he was doing, and that it was really bad. What's more, he has an "exceptionally high IQ". Now, we're not intelligent, or indeed insane, enough to understand how a set of abstract questions filled in by an intelligent man attempting to prove he is dumb can be used as evidence for anything - but we'll leave that to our lawyers.

In what we can only assume is a remarkable administrative blunder - rather than a remarkable example of an official organization in Hungary playing by its own rules - the Pécs government is threatening to fine itself millions of forints for failing to scythe down the deadly, triffid-like plants of the genus Ambrosia artemisiifolia on several plots it owns, reports Hírszerző. The local government will have to destroy the ragweed - generally believed to be the greatest threat to Hungary's national security - at a former barracks in Pécs, or pay a fine issued by a department of the local government. The city gave itself a short deadline to do this at the beginning of last month. "I can promise one thing, even companies or institutions of the local government will not be subject to different proceedings than a private individual or any other company in the city," Mayor Péter Tasnádi lied to news agency Független Hírügynökség, barely suppressing a sneeze. UPDATE: Eagle-eyed reader (and onetime near-fatal ragweed victim) D.A. informs us that the plant in our pic was the wrong weed. It's been replaced. Sniff.

A 26-year-old girl has filed a rather long report (complete with bikini pic above) with people's champion Index.hu after being allegedly beaten by ticket inspectors, and insulted by police and a doctor at this year's Sziget festival, just for being there with expired day passes and a contempt for authority. Admittedly, we've come back from Sziget with much worse, but its worth hitting continue for the complete sob story. So here goes: Andrea (not her real name) was drinking water at a fountain at 9 a.m. on August 15 when a ticket inspector told her she had to buy a new day pass if she wanted to stay, because the old one had expired at 8. (In earlier years, day passes were valid until 10 a.m. the following day to accommodate people partying the night away or falling asleep in the bushes.) Andrea and her friend Eszter (also not her real name) told security they were leaving and had no money - but wanted to finish a conversation with someone first. A few minutes later, a group of ticket inspectors approached them and told them to leave immediately. The girls started walking out, but the inspectors followed them, one pulling Andrea by the arm. The girl insisted this was not necessary, because they were leaving, to which the inspectors responded that they were only doing their jobs.

On Sunday, the Hungarian competition was held to see who would represent the country at this year's World Cyber Games, index.hu wrote. This year's attendance was double the previous year's, and saw competitions in the diverse fields of Starcraft, Command & Conquer 3, Warcraft 3, FIFA 08, and Guitar Hero III, which was won by a seventh grader. The winners will go on to the international event and hopefully do Hungary proud. We here at Pestiside are a bit suspicious, however, that the whole event was just a ruse to hold a "World Cyber Girl" competition consisting of girls who are also gamers, strutting about in bikinis after they've gone head-to-head on Guitar Hero III and answered gaming trivia questions. Considering Index.hu's photo gallery of the event focused quite a bit on the gamer girl competition, we can easily see what they really cared about.

Continuing with their new plan of not getting you where you want to go, Budapest public transport operator BKV has not only changed routes and line numbers, but now may not even get you there provided you find the vehicle you want, reports tabloid of record blikk.hu. New BKV big cheese István Kocsis admitted that the BKV is keeping operations going by a shoestring, and that they don't have extra buses or trollybuses to throw into action should one break down, which is more likely to happen in the wintertime. In terms of the company, Kocsis stated that he wants to break down the services so that bus, tram, metro etc. all function as separate companies within a company, as well as introducing a more "pay-as-you-go" type of monthly pass. He added that he hopes that in about 2-3 years, the BKV will be passenger-friendly. Good to see a public transport service finally figured that part out.

A driver who must have been in a real hurry somewhere set a new record for speeding on the M7 in Fejér County over the weekend, fn.hu reports. Driving in a 130 kph zone, the Hungarian-plated vehicle hit 234 kph (145 mph), setting a new record in the process. In recognition of their achievement, the Fejér County Police will award the driver with a check for Ft 150,000. Just don't forget that in Hungary, a csekk is actually a bill.

It's a story that's basically just sad, but in a recent Division III football match between Tura VSK and Balmazújváros, neither of whom we're guessing you've heard of, the Balmazújváros locker room was robbed during the match, reports hirszerzo.hu. Upon discovering the incident after the first half, the players from Balmazújváros refused to continue playing, a decision probably aided by the fact that they were already down 3-1. A spokeswoman for the home team said that the visiting team probably didn't lock the door properly when leaving the room. Police are, as expected, investigating the incident, which just reaffirms to the players how bad it is to be playing in the 3rd division.

Self-confessed tipsy TV presenter and our nominee for minister of something Linda Zimány (right, tasting her armpit) took her clothes off for the new issue of Hungarian Playboy, and managed to disappoint the nation, our non-family-friendly nor work-safe sister-site sexiside.hu reports. Apparently the pictorial was billed as her going totally naked, only to be totally naked without baring anything more than her breasts. So great was the disappointment expressed by many members of celebrity forum sztar.com hoping to see a bit more of Linda, that she wrote in to the forum herself stating that these were the kinds of pictures she was willing to pose for, (as in she won't show more), and that she doesn't understand men with a vagina fixation, never mind that men without a vagina fixation read Playgirl instead of Playboy.

Those of you with an axe to grind with Budapest's ambulance services can take heart that a tram driver, fed up with how the ambulance services think they can park anywhere they want, (no, that's these guys), started punching an ambulance driver who stopped on the service tram tracks in front of the McDonald's at Blaha Lujza tér last week, reports hirszerzo.hu. The tram driver, upset that the ambulance, which responded to someone being struck by a vehicle blocked his way, exchanged words with the ambulance driver before trying to punch him. Police have launched an investigation into the incident, and have yet to find the driver, whom we're guessing wasn't exactly able to cover his tracks during his getaway.

With today being the first day of September, and therefore the first day of meteorological fall, it was time to clean out the bullet bin, even if this week's weather forecast suggests things will be more July-like, than say, this year's July. • Two armed men in need of toupees robbed a post office in Csákberény using huge sunglasses to hide their identities. Aside from this miscarriage of fashion, Pestiside.hu head honcho Erik D'Amato was enjoying a lazy afternoon in the same town, oblivious to all the action happening just a few streets away. [fn.hu] • While airplane noise disturbed the August 20th award ceremony last year, state secretary Gábor Juhász made certain that there were no airplanes making noise around the scenes of the events this year during the award ceremony and the procession of St. Stephen's right hand. He said that he would order any airplane down from the sky, not specifying if that meant asking nicely or shooting on sight. [fn.hu] • The glass ceiling of the Cella Septichora Visiting Center in Pécs was cracked by a motorcycle, no doubt ridden by an asshole in need of a baseball bat to the face, a week or two ago. The 5cm thick glass ceiling of the monument has a 400 kg breaking load. The center, featuring early Christian monuments, was established in March 2007, and this is not the first time that someone tried to damage it. [stop.hu] • Two Csongrád county policemen rescued a man from a burning farmhouse on Thursday near Szentes. They noticed the burning house, rushed in and dragged the injured man out, just reaching their car when the house acted as if it was in a Jerry Bruckheimer film and exploded. [hirtv.hu] • On Tuesday, some youngsters threw stones at a house in Székesfehérvár (Fejér megye). The six vandals were caught due to the cameras installed in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, however, a 12-year-old girl inside the house suffered life-threatening injuries when a stone hit her on the head. Her condition is stable but still critical. The attackers are in preliminary arrest, and hopefully will have some stones thrown at them, or at least the book, and if they're too young to be charged, they can always be deported. [hirtv.hu] • Police found the body of a 70-year-old man, who went missing on Saturday from Pécsdevecser (Baranya county), in the trunk of a car driven by two young men. The man's neighbors reported to the police that they had seen two strangers driving away in his car. The police stopped the car in Szigetvár and after finding the body, the two youngsters admitted that they killed the old man for his money. [hirtv.hu] • A movable metal garage was stolen from a garden in Pécs. The owner of the land has not visited his property for a few months so it cannot be known when the garage was stolen. The thieves probably took it apart into pieces and then took them away one by one. [stop.hu] • A man in Dombóvár (Tolna county) was disturbed by the loud children who used to climb onto a tree next to his house, so he put some screws into the tree thinking that it would prevent the kids from climbing and he could spend his days in quiet solitude. Unsurprisingly, the kids kept climbing onto the tree until the clothes of a seven-year-old girl got caught in a screw, which caused her to fall down and break her arm. If it's proven in a court that his "screw-up" caused the accident, he'll get up to one year of quiet courtesy of the local jail. [stop.hu] • A man attacked his wife for an unknown reason on Monday evening in Komló and hit her several times in the presence of their children. Since the 34-year-old man also cut his own hand with a knife, the paramedics brought him into a hospital but he returned an hour later, and the woman finally called the police who took him away. [atv.hu] • And finally, in bad news for our really mellow friends who just want to eat some nachos while watching the TV, the customs office found a hash plantation of 115 plants, complete with heating, watering and a ventilation system in the house of an Austrian man in Zalatárnok recently. The officers were doing an excise control when they found the plantation in a room. Considering it was an Austrian, it could have been worse. [gondola.hu]

We all know that just a few licks of Viagra ice cream can leave a man feeling unsatisfied and desperate for more (or with a stiff neck, as our helpful fagylalt salesman told us), a fact confirmed by the picture above picture snapped out of view near the strip of bars and restaurants along the Balaton resort town of Keszthely's waterfront. But help is at hand - in the form of Pina Colada (see the Sexiside Guide to Talking Dirty Hungarian to learn that "pina" is Hungarian for "pussy"), with a big dollop of Túró Rudi (which can be translated something like "famer's cheese rod") to finish. Yeah, but make sure you don't ice cream your pants.

We dream of being like Index.hu. Put simply, not only is it one of Hungary's most trusted news sources, it is also the silliest. Today, the front page leads with the results of its Googlewhackblatt contest, a nationwide competition to find Hungarian words that yield just a single search result. The race to make up new Hungarian words during working hours yielded thousands of entries, leading several readers to question its effect on GDP, particularly in view of futility of the "Googlewhackblatt Paradox" - all entries' Googlewhackblatt status has been destroyed since they were posted on the site. Nevertheless, there were some important submissions that might cross over into Hungarian mainstream slang, such as zsírtigris ("lard tiger"), sünfos ("hedgehog diarrhea") and metafing ("meta fart"). Our personal favorite is házibugyi ("house panty"), because - amazingly - the same play on "házibuli"/"house party" works in both languages - which may lead us to launch the First Pestiside International "Punflexation*" Contest. Google that, suckers. * Punflexation: A pun or play on words that can be translated into two or more languages.

It would appear that someone gave Kata Sarka and Péter Hajdú, Hungary's most recently married attention-whore newlyweds the gift the rest of us wish we could have, reports tabloid of record blikk.hu. According to the tab, the couple received for their wedding a cabinet that is one half of canoe-like boat from Bali, which is used when people set their dead off to sea, kind of like how the Vikings do it, but we're guessing without all the booze and cool pyrotechnics. According to Blikk, three cars had to transport the cabinet because they each broke down in succession while carrying it, leading to speculation that the thing is cursed. Hajd&uacte; says he's not superstitious, but that the gift immediately made him a bit queasy, which, wouldn't you know it, is more or less how they make the rest of us feel.

Never mind that until they open their mouths, you can't tell the difference between a Scotsman and his equally pasty English neighbor to the South, our sister site Caboodle.hu ran an MTI piece about how the international burger chain's Hungarian subsidiaries are stereotyping the Scottish people with their Scottish Value Meals, according to Hungary's Albannach Scottish Cultural Association. Tamás Lajos Szalay, the suspiciously Hungarian-sounding president of the organization said that Burger King was promoting the false stereotype of Scots being mean. Of course, there are other stereotypes that could be attributed to them: kilt-wearing, incoherent, drunk, heroin-addicted or gingers, but the stereotype being leveled isn't any of those, nor the one the Albannach Scottish Cultural Association says Burger King is guilty of. The stereotype Burger King runs with is that the Scots are cheap. And while we'd certainly never stereotype the Scots with being dumb, we can't exactly say the same for their Hungarian representatives.

A man who robbed a convenience store in Budapest's District XXII last week made a getaway despite the best attempt of a house to block his escape, report hirtv.hu. According to the piece, after robbing the store where the clerk at first resisted, but probably realized "I'm just an employee and hate my boss, take their money," the man drove off before apparently having a house unexpectedly jump out in front of him. Despite some contact, the man was able to continue driving, and has yet to be apprehended, perhaps because he didn't fire into the sky for no reason.

One of the stranger stories recently involves a man who after filling his gas tank shot an air rifle into the air, before then driving off, reports fn.hu. Police soon apprehended the man, and discovered that his passenger had a warrant out for his arrest, stemming from charges of forgery. The article did not specify if the man paid before firing his air rifle into the air, nor why the fuck he fired an air rifle into the air after filling his gas tank.

If state secretary Ferenc Kondorosi has his way, psychological evaluations will become a part of getting your driver's license in Hungary, reports Kossuth Rádió. According to him, traffic safety professionals have been wondering for years about how too keep dangerous drivers off the roads, and this apparently, is the method they decided was the best, as opposed to just enforcing the laws which we're guessing are already on the books and then taking said book, and throwing it at those who drive like fucking maniacs. Kondorosi added that if this is in fact brought as part of the new requirements, it would only apply to new drivers, not those who already have their licenses, meaning you and your buddies can keep driving just as badly as the locals.

With Hungary putting in its most dismal appearance at the Olympics in terms of gold medals since the 1924 games in Paris, it was reassuring to at least see the two-time defending Olympic champion water polo team cruise to victory on Sunday for the first three-peat in the sport at the Olympics since Britain pulled it off back when they still had an empire. The Hungarian men's team, although having some rougher patches earlier this year, went into the tournament as heavy favorites, and defeated the Americans 14-10 in the final. Unlike in that other sport where we were once the most feared in the world and now can't even scare the bugs crawling on the pitch, the Hungarians at least here lived up to expectations. Plus, it helped make sure we would finish with more total medals than those Romanians to our east. Nice one boys!

In two separate cases, watermelons have been involved in incidents with Hungarian trains near Zalaegerszeg in southwestern Hungary, reports index.hu. In one case, a shopping cart loaded with melons was left on a track, while in another case, a shopping bag containing a watermelon was hung off a road overpass onto the tracks. In both cases, the train struck the watermelon, although no one was injured. Police are now looking for the watermelon fiend, who is no doubt taking advantage of this year's cheap melons. And no, the prime minister has not been blamed for this. Yet.