Firefighters called after Brummie climbs lamppost

In about 250 BC, Archimedes of Syracuse realised he could determine the volume of an irregularly shaped object merely by placing it in a full vessel of water and measuring the spillage.

His idea was so great he took to the streets completely naked shouting "Eureka!"

There's nothing quite as good as realising you've had a fantastic idea.

On the flipside, there's nothing quite as bad as realising the idea you've had is actually terrible.

Which brings us to the Birmingham suburb of Handsworth, where a guy thought he had a great idea, then changed his mind once he'd done it.

The idea was to shimmy up to the top of a 10m lamppost and sit atop the overhanging light.

He had the cajones to get up there, but lost the nerve once he had straddled the light and looked down.

In short, this was the worst decision made by a Brummie since everything Ozzy Osbourne did in the 1980s.

And we checked. It wasn't Ozzy Osbourne atop this lamppost.

Firefighters had to employ a hydraulic ladder to get him down.

The fire department said the man had taken an "illegal high", which is vague given it's probably not legal to climb lampposts anyway.

This happened before 10pm on Saturday night, which is pretty stunning given these sorts of decisions are normally saved for the wee small hours.