Pole-axed

A German man who spent 10 days in a self-made box atop a 22-metre (72 foot) high pole to protest a looming jail term was lured off his perch by his wife -- who sent up a topless picture of herself in his lunch box.

Fred Gregor, 45, was bidding to have his 15-month conviction for fraud overturned by squatting in his tiny 3.25 square metre cubicle atop a converted television mast. He told Reuters in a telephone interview last week that he wanted a new trial.

His wife Susanne, 25, backed his protest until the former stripper and mother of their five children decided she had had enough. Bild newspaper published the topless photo of herself in a wedding dress she sent him. He came right down, she told Bild.