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| - Our weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world: With bars closed and curfews in force around the world, where's a person to go these days, to find that special someone? "Howzabout the supermarket?" -- said no one ever until a store in Hungary started handing out shopping baskets labelling their bearers as single and looking. "Let's see what comes up, and give it a try!" 25-year-old Tamas told AFP as he wheeled his basket into a store in Csomor, Hungary, adding "we don't skip opportunities". And you thought zoning out in the cereal aisle was fun. With names like "Gritney Spears" and "Spready Mercury", snow ploughs in Scotland are clearing the roads and breaking the internet. Traffic Scotland saw a surge in clicks on its "Trunk Road Gritter Tracker" site where users can follow the progress of snow removal ploughs with whimsical names. One snowy day, "Sir Andy Flurry" was plying a route from the city of Perth to Dunblane -- home of the British tennis star surnamed Murray. Over the hills and far away, "Sled Zeppelin" was making the roads safe around Loch Lomond, while "Sir Salter Scott" was trundling around the Edinburgh suburbs. "Snowcially distanced", meanwhile, was parked up in Glasgow. Not everyone thinks snow-removal is funny, however, with one Ukranian man so enraged by the fluffy drifts blocking his road that he was pushed to commit (fake) murder. Figuring "Come plough my road" was unlikely to get a timely response from local authorities, a man from the village of Grybova Rudnya opted for the more attention-grabbing claim that he had killed his mother's partner by stabbing him in the chest. "But at the same time," police spokeswoman Yulia Kovtun told AFP, "he immediately warned the police that they should come to him along with a snow plough." Unfortunately for the would-be homicidal maniac, officers were able to get to his house in an SUV. Frosted highlights at Latvian salons will give you chills -- and so will any of their other services. That's because hairdressers across the country, where salons have been closed since December, are doing hair in snowy woods or on frozen lakes as they protest Covid restrictions. "We cannot work otherwise," hairdresser Diana Silina told AFP as she prepared her equipment on the icy surface of a lake outside the capital Riga. Health Minister Daniels Pavluts reportedly signalled his tacit support for the initiative, saying: "Getting your hair done in the forest is absolutely OK!" "They last forever, just like our love," says a satisfied customer who on Valentine's Day splurged on a tribute to her beloved by naming one of the Bronx Zoo's Madagascan hissing cockroaches after her sweetheart. For $15, smitten customers can name one of the notoriously hearty creepy crawlers for the object of their affection -- and get the digital certificate to prove it. A sampling of Instagram posts celebrating the 10-year tradition reveals critters named "Shana" or the less-traditional "Celery Peppermint Cashmere Cheese Panda Roberts". "Well what do you know, romance ISN'T dead!", said one lucky roach recipient on adding, "Thanks Babe". For those put in a darker mood by the holiday, Texas's San Antonio Zoo offers to name a roach for an ex-lover and subsequently feed it to another animal -- all for just five bucks. burs-nrh/eab/jv
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