A young woman nearly bit off a man's ear who was trying to rape her on a train near Újszász last week. The woman was traveling alone in one of the train cars late at night when a middle-aged, homeless man boarded the train. He started kissing her and tried to pull down her pants, but she fought back and bit his ear so severely it later had to be sewn back on. The woman told police in Szolnok that she had been attacked, and the man was found by police in Újszász where he had jumped off the train. [borsonline.hu]

With this year's Sziget Festival over, I'm not going to try to write some epic wrap-up piece, since I wouldn't expect anyone to read it. So instead, here are some of the many photos I took over the previous week.

The barren wasteland of the main stage area.

The oh-so-shocking Dreher experience.

A bit of a heads up to those heading out to the Sziget Festival: expect an unwelcome shock with the first sip of Dreher you get from the tap. I asked a bartender, who said the problem was with the crappy plastic cups that create an unusual amount of static electricity. So, don't be surprised when your beer comes with a little bite.

Some years ago there was the video of the dancing cops, and now we present to you the skater priest, which we think is pretty cool, we just hope he stays away from Erzsébet tér.

And we thought the lives of local corporate-style expatriate ladies were just about bridge, playdates and griping about their cleaning ladies! Meanwhile, note it comes in "normal" or "super" size. Super for us, please! Details here.

While walking in Akácfa utca in District VII earlier this week, we saw this new-looking sign stating that the building it's attached to is listed, which appears to be the only work done on the building for what appears to be decades.

No doubt feeling underexposed, Krisztina Polgár, one of Hungary's many former Miss Hungarys has agreed to participate in a strip poker tournament where the winner will receive a spot in the Budapest Poker Open. The catch (and why she'd be more than willing to participate) is because very lamely, stripping is optional, and only necessary if a competitor wants to get some extra chips. Polgár added, however, that she's not adverse to taking off at least some of her clothes should she need to, and figures that it would throw the men at the table off their game more than it would her. Someone please televise this. [pokermania.hu]

In the ongoing battle between pigs and pig farmers, chalk up a victory for the pigs, as a 150 kg porker recently killed a man in Zala County after biting him in the calf thigh. The murderous mangalica managed to chomp into an artery, and the man died from blood loss. Tests will be conducted to see if the pig had rabies, but either way it will be put down, and will not end up in a supermarket near you, unless you shop at Lidl, in which case we offer no guarantees. [index.hu]

Following raids on DJs at the VOLT festival and other nightlife locations, the Sziget Festival organizers have come to an agreement with MAHASZ, Hungary's music association. The organizers have agreed to pay all licensing fees on the part of DJs, and have therefore agreed to pay out the going rate for the week, which comes out to a whopping grand total of approximately Ft 100,000 (€360), although next year we suspect it will be much higher. [index.hu]

In further proof how much of the local media is just PR bullshit, NATALIE COLE BOUGHT CLOTHES AT MANIER BEFORE HER BUDAPEST CONCERT!!! According to a piece by deluxe.hu, the singer bought eight dresses, totaling Ft 142,000 (€508). OMG, NATALIE COLE BOUGHT €508 WORTH OF CLOTHES AT MANIER BEFORE HER BUDAPEST CONCERT!!!

Following András Stohl's drink-fueled demolition derby this spring, stickers bearing the actor's likeness have begun springing up in small stores. We'll let you decide what's worse, the bad pun using Stohl's name that translates to "beware the drunken driver", or that they exist at all. [hetivalasz.hu]

You can stop sending us emails about the above video now, which we guess was shot while she was in town a few months ago. Incidentally, for the optimal viewing experience, we suggest you turn the sound down and play your own music. Trust us.

Following on the heels of our story about DJ Yoda versus the MAHASZ Empire, we received word from regular tipster J. L. of another such raid, this time in Budapest:

A coupla weeks ago 7(!) police officers raided the sms cafe and confiscated the dj's laptop, "to investigate with regards to illegally downloaded material". The same happened to another bar whose "snitch" asked me not to name it... I don't know if they are isolated incidents, or it's a whole sweeping operation, but thought you might want to know.

Well, from what we've heard, this is not an isolated incident, and one of us was even caught in something similar a week ago.

In what the deputy commander of the customs and excise office called one of the most significant catches of counterfeit goods in Hungary this year, counterfeit sports shoes worth over €1.8 million were discovered in two Latvian tractor trailers at the Rajka border crossing station on August 5, mno.hu reports. Zsolt Szabó said that while the papers indicated the 26,000 pairs of branded shoes were on their way from Slovakia to Italy and were made in Vietnam, an inspection revealed they were counterfeits. The drivers have not been taken into custody but their role is being investigated.

On Wednesday night I had dinner with a friend who was "celebrating" having just had his bicycle stolen from outside the store he owns in a fashionable part of District V, almost a year to the day after an earlier bringa of his had been filched. Unlike in some of the more creative recent cases of bicycle theft we've seen locally, the perp only had to walk by and quickly swipe the bike, as the thing had been left unlocked, though just for a few seconds. So is my friend stupid, or what?

A Kecskemét man was run over by two cars after he jumped off an overpass above the M5 motorway late last Saturday night. Police are investigating whether the man's death was caused by the fall from the bridge or being squished and then further ground into the asphalt, because if it was the cars that did the trick, one of the motorists could be held responsible. The first car that had hit him did not stop, while the second driver who ran over him was kind enough to called the police. The victim was described as "suicidal." Us too, after reading this. [baon.hu]

While BKV mistranslations are hardly something new, the labels on the No. 9 buses for signaling a stop left us shaking our heads. As a reader to the blog that posted it pointed out, the BKV was the victim of the useful but kind of dangerous SZTAKI dictionary, which translates leszállásjelző as "homing beacon". Thanks to reader P. B. for sending us this bukta. [leiterjakab.blog.hu]

Smoking will be banned in Budapest's underpasses from today, punishable by a Ft 30,000 fine, which sounds great until you realize that now you'll be able to smell all the piss, shit and vomit down there. [nol.hu]

Less than a year ago, following a spat with former Hungarian national football team coach Erwin Koeman, captain Zoltán Gera announced he would temporarily retire from the national team. Since then, the national team has gone 0-3-1, scoring two goals and conceding 13. Gera meanwhile led Fulham to the Europa League final, only being stopped by a last minute Diego Forlán goal. So, following Koeman's sacking last month, new coach Sándor Egervári spoke with Gera, who unsurprisingly said he'd love to return to the team, and he has already been announced to play in Hungary's defeat to England on August 11th. That said, since Egervári has not named the mostly useless Sándor Torghelle for the squad and Gera is back in the fold, we might actually score a goal or two. [nol.hu/skysports.com]

With tourist-fleecing season in full swing, Index sent out two of their reporters posing as naïve tourists to see how easy it is to get ripped off, managing to go through €100 in half a day, and that's even without meeting some of the local ladies.

I'll tell you what kind: The oh-so-sophisticated, latté-sipping Europhile traitors who almost lost us the Cold War back in the 80s by not backing the MX missile, and who now think that the (nationalized) American car industry should be ordered to build cars that run on electricity or leftover cooking oil.

Last Friday Hungary made the pages of super-popular American car blog Jalopnik thanks to a spectacular incident earlier that day in which a crane being used to build the new Metro 4 station stop at Baross tér fell over and almost chopped a parked car in half (above left). It was a great and grizzly item as these things go, especially since the driver of the car had just gotten out. But we've got it beat.

We probably don't even need to tell you that the picture above contains what local media reports are claiming is the world's largest slipper, currently under construction down in Szeged. But what might come as news to you is that in not only Hungarian but at least one other language in the region (Czech), the word "slipper" is used to denote a henpecked husband or someone who is (cover your ears, kiddies) "pussy-whipped."

A Hungarian violinist who recently suffered a bad experience while traveling to the UK is claiming discrimination, and even though you consider yourself a paragon of progressivism you still automatically assume it's about the Gypsies. People! [independent.ie]