Sad news of a great smoker

BUCHAREST, Romania: The Romanian Just doesn't get it: The Guinness Book of Records no longer rewards people for trying to kill themselves, reports AP.

Stefan Sigmond reportedly smoked 800 cigarettes in less than six minutes this week. His previous attempts to win immortality via Guinness include eating 29 hard-boiled eggs in four minutes and leaping into a lake from a height ofl35 feet (41 metres).

"We do discourage that sort of thing." said Guinness spokeswoman Carol Jones, speaking from Guinness' London headquarters on Wednesday.

The message hasn't yet reached the Translylvanlan City of Cluj, hometown to 29-year-old Sigmond. He traveled to Bucharest, the Romanian capital, on Tuesday for his latest try to enter the record book.

He assembled a bundle-like contraption in a city square and puffed away through a 2-inch (5 centimetre) tube, the Libertatea newspaper reported. Talk about secondhand smoke: Spectators backed away from flames.

"I am a bit dizzy, and my head hurts." Sigmond told Libertatea afterwards. He stuck to. foreign brands, he said, because the Romanian brands make him choke.

Dollars flying over railway station!

MELBOURNE: Two caches containing banknotes totalling more than 400.000 dollars (290,000 US) have been uncovered near a suburban railway station here, police said Wednesday, reports AFP.

A small black barrel containing about 200.000 dollars was found near Balaclava station last week.

Two sports shoe bags holding more than 200.000 dollars wastelund In the same area Wednesday police said.

It may well be drug money, detective sergeant Malcolm McGuinness said.

Twins' twin hearts!

SOUTHAMPTON. England: A British surgeon has performed the same life-saving heart operation on identical three-year-old twin sisters, hospital officials said here Wednesday, reports AFP.

Rachael ana Laura Boyce, who were born with the same heart murmur caused by a narrow heart valve, were Thursday recovering in hospital in this southern English port after consultant surgeon Robert Lamb's identical three-tour operations.

He performed the delicate open heart surgery on the girls, who were taken into the operating theatre together, one after the other, on Monday last week.

It is thought to be the first time identical twins have had the operation.

The girls were suffering from a condition called supravalve aortic stenosis which causes a narrowing of the aorta.