Official News page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: UNUSUAL PROPOSAL GOES HORRIBLY WRONG

by Hazed

There are lots of stories about men who choose to propose to their loves by unusual means - flashing the message on the screen during a movie showing, putting the proposal on an advertizing hoarding, proposing live on TV or even hiring a plane to tow a banner behind it asking for her hand in marriage.

There's even websites devoted to giving men who want to do the romantic thing but are bereft of ideas some hints about how to craft a truly novel proposal.

But sometimes, these unusual methods to ask someone to marry you do not go as planned. Pity poor James Ng, a 27 year old vicar, who planned something very special. He took his beloved up in a hot air balloon, intending to pop the question at 500 feet. The ring was hidden in his camera bag, but AS they floated above Ohio a few months ago, the case slipped from his hand.

There went all his grand romantic plans!

Still, this story does end happily, for two reasons. First, he went ahead with the proposal anyway: "My first thought was don't tell her, and buy another ring - but it took me forever to afford the one I had," he said. So he dropped to one knee and proposed using a plastic tie twist instead of the ring. She said yes. Awwwww.

Then after he was back on terra firma, he started mapping the coordinates of the balloon's journey, and over the following week he and a friend, armed with machetes, started to search the area, cutting through brambles, hoping to find the lost camera bag. "We had maps and a very clear plan of all the ground we needed to cover," said Mr Ng.

It took seven days of searching the three-mile-square area, but it resulted in success. They found the camera bag, and the ring was still inside. Phew!

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