A pair of robbers who killed themselves by overestimating the amount of dynamite they needed to break into a bank have received a posthumous award for their stupidity.

The dumb duo have been named as the winners of the Darwin Awards 2009 - an annual award which each year celebrates people who took themselves out of the gene pool by dying.

Our would-be robbers had been trying to blow their way into a Belgian ATM cashpoint in the city of Dinant, by using dynamite. But they wildly overestimated how much it would take.

The resulting blast was so large that it not only demolished the entire building where the ATM was housed, but also killed the pair instantly.

Police say their death was so quick no-one even got a chance to say to them, "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"

A woman called 999 to tell police that her cat was playing with string and it was annoying her.

The odd call was revealed by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to highlight the problem of nuisance 999 calls, particularly over the holiday period.

The woman called 999 over Christmas to report that her cat was playing with string and it was 'doing her head in.'

It is not known exactly how police responded, but we can guess.

Another caller over the Christmas period phoned police to say he was stuck on a patch of ice in a street in Bolton and was too scared to go forwards or backwards.

A UK town ended up with dim street-lights when drug growers hacked into the electricity supply to power their cannabis farm.

The 200-plant cannabis factory in Lancashire is said to have drained so much power that residents asked the council if they were using low-energy lightbulbs.

But it was only when police noticed the dim lights and launched an investigation they discovered the local electricity network had been tampered with.

It was found that a 19-year-old woman was illegally draining the lighting system to power a £100,000 cannabis factory in her three rooms of her Fleetwood home.

The electricity was powering a sophisticated lighting and watering scheme -- something her neighbours were in the dark about, literally.

A man wearing a Santa suit, false beard and sunglasses has robbed a bank at gunpoint.

The Father Christmas walked into the SunTrust Bank in Nashville and demanded the teller gave him cash -- he then pulled out the gun.

As he stuffed the wads of money into his sack, he told staff he would "kill everyone" if they put dye packs in with the notes or tried and funny stuff.

It is not known why Santa has turned to a life of crime... but some people speculate his elves have demanded a pay increase this year.

Despite being on the run from police after absconding from prison three months ago, Craig Lynch is finding time to update his Facebook page.

The 28-year-old disappeared from Hollesley Bay Prison in Suffolk where he had been serving a seven-year sentence for aggravated burglary.

But since then he is said to have taunted cops by updating his Facebook page - where he has 880 friends - with boasts about what he is doing - and even where he plans to be at certain times.

So if police really wanted to re-capture him, they might consider going to a certain party in Lowestoft on New Year's Eve where he says he will be.

Police are on the look out for an odd criminal who was caught on CCTV repeatedly sniffing the bum of a supermarket worker.

The pervert - who is balding, ginger and about 40-years-old - has been seen smelling the rears of Co-op workers in Plymouth, Devon.

Cops say he has done this at least 20 times and have released the footage of him sniffing peopled bottoms in the hope that someone can identify him.

The clip clearly shows him pretending to pick items from shelves near staff and sniffing their bum.

On one occasion he got so close his nose touched the man... guess he really did get a bum deal from Co-op.

A 1.5 metre tall remote-controlled Dinosaur robot has been stolen from a Walking With Dinosaurs show in Mexico.

Staff of the show - a live action production based on the hit BBC series - say they noticed the robo-dino was missing after their opening day in Guadalajara.

The show features 10 giant robots, some measuring 13m tall and worth £550,000 each. It tells the story of the 200 million-year reign of the dinosaurs.

Luckily for bosses, they say the stolen robot was one of their smallest dinosaurs, though it was still said to be worth £55,000.

It is not known how someone managed to smuggle the 1.5m tall dinosaur out of the venue, or what they plan to do with it -- but there could be one very happy Mexican boy somewhere.

The Iraqi man who threw a shoe at George Bush has seen what it's like when the shoe's on the other foot… well hurling at him to be more precise.

TV journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi was giving a press conference in Paris about his own shoe throwing experience, when another shoe thrower decided to target him with a boot.

Al-Zaidi,much like Bush in December 2008, was easily able to duck and dodge the shoe as his attacker was chased by security.

While the identity of the new shoe-thrower is not known, or the exact reason for his hurl - he is thought to be Iraqi.

Keeping his hero status among many people, Al-Zaidi quipped "He stole my technique" shortly after the shoe zipped past his head.

A man has been arrested after calling emergency services in the US... to ask for a police escort to a Lil Wayne concert.

Michael Kruse said he was dialling cops because he didn't think he was going to make the 350 mile journey to Miami in time, and didn't want to get stopped for speeding.

But the 20-year-old was not even deterred when a remarkably patient operator told him "we
don't do escorts" -- he then asked if they could fly him there in a helicopter.

Other gems in the call - which has been released by police - are the lines "We don't just send helicopters up for rappers" and "We can't give you a police escort to go see a rapper in Miami."

You can hear the guy - who was arrested on a missdemeanor charge for making false emergency calls - in his full idiotic glory after the link.

This may look like the world's worst photo-fit - but Bolivian police say it helped them secure an arrest in a murder case.

Cops claim that soon after they issued this image, people came forward with information allowing them to make an arrest over the case of a stabbed taxi driver.

The drawing - which looks more like the work of a child than a CSI expert - was done by a neighbour who saw the suspect.

It features a narrow face with a lopsided mouth, a thin nose, straight eyebrows and hair that seems to defy physics.

Check out newsreaders revealing the image on Bolivian TV, we don't know what they are saying… but we can guess.