Squatters get free rent

Squatters have been given permission to remain in a £ 9million Hampstead house rent free. The housing association that owns the five-storey Victorian property has agreed to allow up to 20 occupants who illegally took it over three months ago to stay on.

Calling themselves The Collective and hailing from Britain, France, America and Germany, the squatters moved into the empty house in Fitzjohn's Avenue. It is semi-detached and is believed to have 15 bedrooms.

Circle 33 housing association, which bought it for £8,770,000 in June last year, are letting them stay as long as they ensure the security and upkeep of the property. Circle 33 is in talks with Camden council over the long-term redevelopment of the site.

A local estate agent estimated the property could command between £4,500 and £8,000 a week on the open rental market.

Ali Nathan, lettings manager at Hamptons International in Hampstead, said: "In all our time we have never known a single Victorian house on Fitzjohn's Avenue to come onto the market, most are divided into flats. If it did come on the market it would probably be snapped up very quickly."

The new inhabitants, many sporting dreadlocks and tie-dyed clothing, have been welcomed by neighbours. One who has lived in the area for 10 years said: "They dropped leaflets through introducing themselves and giving their telephone numbers if there were any problems.

"They all seem to be friendly, they wave hello when they come and go. They haven't held any noisy parties and we really haven't heard a peep out of them. It's a bit bizarre them being allowed to live here rent free.

"It's not really fair when we pay so much but I feel safer having them here and it improves the condition of the house."

The squatters refused to answer the door but a French woman arriving at the house said she lived there: "We are a collective and we will have to make a decision as a community before we make any statement," she said.

Mobile maps

Students have been offered maps of their campus on mobile phones to stop them getting lost. The service at Dundee University aims to help students get to their classes as well as helping them brush up on academic writing skills.

Students are able to download the maps and navigate through them by using the phone's keypad. Information on student and health services is also available and the move has proved to be popular with students.

Hannah Whaley, who co-ordinated the project, entitled "MobileMap", said: "A joint university and student association survey indicated that students wanted clearer guidance on where to find information about available services.

"The MobileMap project is a response to this, using a novel approach to provide students with easy access to university information. Many students always carry their phone with them, so the MobileMap represents a way of providing students with information, literally at their fingertips."

Almost 1,000 students have already downloaded the maps for free to their phones.

Football nicker

A Derbyshire grandmother was arrested after being accused of stealing a £60 football which, it is claimed, landed in her back garden.

Angela Hickling, 56, from Heanor, was arrested on suspicion of theft over the lost ball. Neighbour Christopher Salisbury had reported her to police, claiming his sons had kicked the into her garden and she refused to return it.

Derbyshire Police said it was looking into a complaint made by Mrs Hickling. The theft case has since been dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Mother-of-three Mrs Hickling told BBC News that, after police arrived at her home in August, she told officers she had looked for the ball but could not find it.

Officers then searched her home and she was then taken into custody, where she underwent a 15-minute interview and had her fingerprints and DNA sample taken, she said.

"It was just incredible, I just said to the police I've done nothing," she said.

"I was taken in an unmarked police car to the divisional headquarters, subject to a photograph with a number on it, DNA, fingerprinting, everything, it's just untrue.

"Nothing came of it, there was nothing to suggest a theft of a football, I wouldn't ever touch a football."

Mr Salisbury said: "A match ball that's worth £60 was kicked over. We went around and they denied having it so we told police and that was it. We have got nothing against Mr and Mrs Hickling. We bear no grudge. We just wanted the ball back. The complaint is between them and the police."

The Crown Prosecution Service has said it is not pursuing the case.

Derbyshire Police said that the complaint, by Mrs Hickling and her husband John, was being investigated and until that inquiry had been completed they would not comment further.

Snake thief

Australian police are on the lookout for an armed snake thief who tied up a family before escaping with reptiles worth more than £40,000 (US$75,000). The thief targeted a house near Adelaide where a family kept 12 green tree pythons - each worth AUS$9,000.

Brandishing a pistol, the man stuffed the 75cm-long non-venomous snakes into a duffel bag, tied up the mother and two children, and vanished. Police say the thief could try to sell the snakes elsewhere in Australia.

Green tree pythons, which are a distinctive bright green with yellow and black speckling, fetch high prices on the black market. They are native to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and northern regions of Australia.

"There is no doubt that the person was aware of exactly what he was after. This was not a random act," Supt Ferdi Pit of Adelaide police told the Sydney Morning Herald.

The black market in valuable reptiles is apparently flourishing in Australia, especially in the eastern states, Supt Pit said.

"You look at the price of these animals, it's like going into a bank or a jewellery store," said Mr Mensforth, a friend of the most recent victims.

But the trade is not without its dangers - quite apart from the ever-present risk of snake bites and possible poisoning.

Trade in reptiles is strictly controlled, and dealers need special licenses.

Any thief aiming to sell on more than A$100,000 worth of snakes would probably have a buyer lined up in advance, one dealer told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Hamsters on a plane

INNSBRUCK, Austria - It wasn't "Snakes on a Plane," but an Austrian Airlines jet made an unscheduled stop Friday after a passenger sneaked a hamster aboard and the rodent escaped. The flight from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to the southern Austrian city of Graz made a stop in Innsbruck so officials could search for the hamster and make sure it didn't gnaw through any wiring, the airline said.

It said the flight was diverted after a passenger notified the crew that he had brought a hamster aboard and had lost track of it. Passengers were ordered off the plane, and some were taken by bus to Graz. It was not immediately clear how many people were aboard.

By midafternoon, a search of the aircraft still had not turned up any sign of the hamster, authorities said.

Austrian Airlines said the jet would remain grounded until the hamster was found "because it can't take off that way for safety reasons."

3.1415926535897932....

TOKYO - A Japanese mental health counsellor recited pi to 100,000 decimal places from memory Wednesday, setting what he claims is a world record.

Akira Haraguchi, 60, needed more than 16 hours to recite the number to 100,000 decimal places, breaking his personal best of 83,431 digits set in 1995, his office said Wednesday. He made the attempt at a public hall in Kisarazu, just east of Tokyo.

Pi is a physical constant defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

It is usually written out to a maximum of three decimal places, as 3.141, in math textbooks. But the number, which has fascinated scientists for centuries, has no theoretical limit to the number of decimal places it can be written to. It is a constant that appears in the proofs of many equations defining the universe.

"What I am aiming at is not just memorizing figures, I am thrilled by seeking a story in pi," Haraguchi said.

The Guinness Book of Records currently lists Hiroyuki Goto, also from Japan, as the official record holder for reciting pi from memory. He recited the ratio out to 42,195 decimal places in 1995.

Guinness never entered Haraguchi's 1995 feat in its record book.

Kate White, a spokeswoman for the London-based Guinness World Records, said Haraguchi would have to make a record claim on their website and supply evidence, including video footage and witness statements to be included in the book.

"We would review if the evidence supports the claim. If he's done it to 100,000, he would be looking at the next world record," White said.

If he can supply evidence of his 1995 claim, that would be listed as well, White said. If he never applied in 1995, they couldn't include him in the book, White said.

Haraguchi, a psychiatric counsellor and business consultant in nearby Mobara city, took a break of about five minutes every one to two hours, going to the restroom and eating rice balls during the attempt, said Naoki Fujii, spokesman of Haraguchi's office.

Fujii said all of Haraguchi's activities during the attempt, including his bathroom breaks, were video taped for evidence that will later be sent for verification by the Guinness Book of Records.

Two local education officials joined 29 conference hall staff who worked in rotation to monitor Haraguchi.

In 2002, University of Tokyo mathematicians, aided by a supercomputer, set the world record for figuring out pi to 1.24 trillion decimal places.

Fugitive caves in

BEIJING - A Chinese man wanted by police on gun charges has given himself up after hiding in a cave constructed at the back of his house for eight years, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The 35-year-old man from the southeastern city of Fuzhou had tunneled the cave out of a hill behind the bedroom of his house and had put a wardrobe in front of the entrance as a disguise, Xinhua said in a report seen on Thursday.

The man, named as Liu Yong, left the cave during the day to read, wash and watch television in the house, but went back into it at night, it said.

He told his wife he was hiding from debt collectors, the report said.

Xinhua said Liu was accused of attacking people with guns, but it didn't give any more details.

Liu gave himself up to police on Tuesday after no longer being able to cope with the "psychological pressure," Xinhua added.

Some of his accomplices have already been sentenced to death, it said.

Mirror , Indicate, Oooh sex

LONDON - Over a million motorists think about sex rather than the road ahead and millions more who don't indulge in intimate thoughts are worrying about work or thinking about their families, a survey said on Thursday.

Research from car insurer More Than found one in five drivers admit to concentrating behind the wheel less than 75 percent of the time, with 1.2 million thinking mostly about sex.

And sex wasn't the only non-traffic thoughts motorists have. For 3.2 million drivers work was the main focus and for 2 million more it was family issues that dominated.

"Unsafe habits can be unlearned just as easily as they can be learned, but first, drivers must recognize the risk they face by not concentrating on their driving," said Lisa Dorn, director of Driver Research at Cranfield University of the findings.

The study also revealed drivers' pet hates.

Topping the list were tailgaters (28 percent), lane hoggers (20 percent) and drivers who cut in (11 percent).

Other road users who drove too fast and those who drove too slowly were also rated on 11 percent.

The research carried out by Sky Living for More Than questioned 4,497 adults in June, 2006.

You've been Pringled !

The sneaky makers of Pringles have secretly cut the number of crisps in a tube, a watchdog warns today.

Customers are being charged an average of £1.38 for a pack which used to weigh 200g but has now been cut to 170g.

Which? magazine claims that represents at least 16 fewer of the designer crisps - slogan "once you pop, you can't stop".

Makers Procter & Gamble yesterday defended the hush-hush move to reduce the number of crisps in the tubes which have remained the same size.

A spokesperson said the new Pringles were "an improvement", claiming while they were lighter, each crisp was now thicker.

They admitted the new packs held around five per cent fewer crisps but added: "The improved crunchier texture has been achieved by making the chips thicker and lighter, which means they also weigh less.

"This results in slightly fewer chips per can and around 15 per cent less product by weight."

A shopper spotted the difference and alerted Which? where a spokesperson said: "We reckon there's space for another 16 Pringles in the new packs."

It is not the first time big brands have downsized without telling customers.

There was an outcry in 1995 when Nestle took away the last Rolo and reduced the pack size from 11 chocs to 10. The price stayed the same even though the weight dropped from 57g to 52g.

Two years earlier Heinz was in hot water with consumers after it scaled down its trademark tin of beans from 450g to 420g. Fans noticed that while they were being charged the same for the product, the cans contained 57 fewer beans.

You've bin had !

Winchester binmen are to start work later after angry Chris Perry parked his car in their path when they turned up at dawn. Mr Perry, 60, was so cross at being woken up once again at 5.45am that he decided to stop the bin lorry getting out of his cul-de-sac in protest. He refused to move his Rover until they changed times.

The refuse team called police but were told they were out too early and should leave.

Mr Perry, of Winchester, Hants, said: "I chased them with their tails between their legs. It's absolutely ridiculous that they have the cheek to turn up at the crack of dawn every week and create such a racket. They ought to give these dustmen a Dasbo - a dustcart anti-social behaviour order."

Council contractor Serco apologised. Neighbours think Mr Perry is a hero. Coun Brian Collins said: "It's not reasonable for them to start before 7am. While I can't condone his action, everyone is going to benefit."

I'm a lady ! darts ban

A woman darts player has been thrown out of her ladies’ league — because she used to be a man.
Christine Makin, formerly Clive, had to quit her pub team after 17 out of 25 rival sides protested.

She revealed she was cruelly taunted during games, with opponents shouting: “You can’t play because you’re not womanly enough.”

Christine, 51, was married for 13 years as a man but became a woman through a series of sex-change operations.
Now, just like David Walliams’s Emily Howard character in Little Britain, she insists: “I’m a laydee.”

But Leek Ladies’ Darts League in Staffs disagreed.

Christine was turfed out for the 2006/7 season under Rule 35, which states: “Under no circumstances can any person of any gender play in the league unless that person was born a female.”

She claims the rule was brought in specially to keep her out.

Christine said: “I’m a bit surprised. It’s not the 1920s or 30s, it’s 2006. It’s unfair. I can’t play for a men’s team, I haven’t got the equipment. I’m a fully-fledged female. I play in the women’s pool league and there’s no problem.”

Christine is licensee of the White Lion in Leek but played darts for the nearby Fountain pub.

She added: “I feel I am as much a woman as the ladies I was playing against in the the darts team. It’s terrible to be shunned by people I regard as the same gender. I was a woman trapped inside a man’s body until my surgery put me right. I can’t understand why other women were so upset.”

League chairwoman Thelma Ferns said they were in a “difficult position”.

She added: “We need to seek professional advice before we comment further. There are leagues that cater for both men and women but ours is women only.”

President Gary Shenton said: “It’s something completely new in the league’s long history and an issue we may have to consider discussing in this ever-changing world.”

Pay as you throw

More than 30 councils are fitting microchips in wheelie bins ahead of a threatened “pay as you throw” scheme for households. They are using the bugs to pinpoint areas with low recycling rates to avoid big fines in 2010 for failing to reach a 40 per cent EU target.

The news comes as it was revealed some householders have ripped out the devices and posted them to their town hall. Evidence from chips, which weigh bin contents to within 500 grammes, can’t yet be used to charge householders.

But the Local Government Association wants to give councils the right to bring in a “pay as you throw” scheme. It would mean householders being charged according to the amount of landfill waste they produce.

Paul Bettison, chairman of the environment board of the LGA, said many councils were buying bins with chips as it was cheaper than fitting the technology later.

He said: “If you were going to go to a system of charging it is a fair assumption that you’d need to a way of doing this . . . a chip in the bin would be one way.”

The LGA added the scheme did NOT mean councils would impose extra charges.

A spokesman said: “If a ‘pay as you throw’ scheme were introduced, it would lead to a cut in council tax and a separate charge for waste collection and disposal.” He said such a scheme could not be introduced without a change in legislation, and would not be imposed on councils. He added: “It would be open to councils to decide whether that was the best way for them to deal with the issue in their area.”

Bournemouth Council in Hampshire has already faced a backlash. Of 75,000 chips, a third have been unscrewed by council taxpayers.

The LGA said: “If local authorities introduce chips they need to let local people know, and explain why, if they are going to use them.”

Pumped up prices

HANYU, Saitama -- A Japanese gas station accidentally mixed up its gas tanks, selling high octane fuel as regular and regular as high octane for eight years, it has been learned.

The mix-up occurred at the Hanyu Higashi outlet of Tokyo-based Showa Shell Sekiyu. The company said 1,560 kiloliters of regular fuel had been sold as high octane, and another 1,760 kiloliters of high octane fuel had been sold as regular.

Company officials said a tank at the gas station was replaced following a car accident in December 1998, and when the nozzles were attached, the tanks got mixed up.

Customers paid about 15.6 million yen more than the actual cost for the regular fuel sold as high octane. The price difference for the fuel mistakenly sold as regular was about 17.6 million yen.

The company did not receive any reports of car trouble as a result of the mix-up. The mistake was uncovered after a similar problem was detected at a gas stand in Mie Prefecture and the firm conducted inspections at 1,200 stands nationwide.

Customers who bought fuel with credit cards or through accounts would be refunded the difference if they paid more than they should have, company officials said. The company said a counter would be set up to consult customers who paid cash. Officials said they had already tracked down about 40 percent of the customers.

"We will also conduct inspections at more outlets in the future, and will work to prevent this from happening again," a company official said.

Man for sale

His name is Robb Phen and for ten thousand dollars he could be yours for two months.

Robb is for sale on eBay.

He and his wife Kara decided to try this unusual marketing tactic because he has been searching for a job for about two months using traditional methods without results.

Rob says he's willing to do anything for two months as long as it does not involve anything illegal, immoral, or dishonest. He says he just wants to make a good honest living. To see Phen's eBay listing, click here.

A hole lotta trouble

A pensioner was trapped upside down in a hole for four hours - finally being rescued by a passing postman who saw his feet sticking out.

Albert Hughes, 70, was adjusting the water flow of the sprinklers in his front garden when he fell head first into the hole which houses the water meter.

Passing postwoman Janelle Maury was delivering letters when she saw his boots and heard his muffled cries for help.

"His feet were at ground level but that was all I could see. When I was closer I could see he was down there," said Janelle.

She immediately called the emergency services who rushed to the scene. Initially the fire service tried to pull Albert out by hand, but eventually had to use a tripod.

They attached a rope and straps to his feet and winched him out of the pit at his home in Spokane, Washington state.

American Albert, who was conscious throughout the ordeal, was taken to hospital but released uninjured.

New Beatles album

To purists it is close to sacrilege. But the surviving Beatles have announced their first “new” album in more than 25 years: a remix of some of their best-known songs that was used as the soundtrack to the theatrical show Love.

Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, with Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison representing John Lennon and George Harrison, agreed to the release on EMI under the Beatles banner. Sir George Martin, the octogenarian producer, used original master tapes to create a new musical suite with the opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night merging into Get Back, the Eastern drone of Within You, Without You accompanied by the drums from Tomorrow Never Knows and phrases from Penny Lane weaving in and out of Strawberry Fields Forever.

The soundtrack accompanied spectacular aerial acrobatics by Cirque du Soleil in the stage show at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.

Love will compete for attention with Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart), a choral piece composed by Sir Paul after the death of his first wife, Linda.

Aborigines back to Original

After enduring two centuries of disease, displacement and violent death, Australia's Aboriginal population is back to the level it was when Britain first settled the continent.

A high birth rate and reduced infant mortality have boosted the indigenous population to an estimated 500,000. "This brings us symbolically full circle in terms of original numbers," Dr John Taylor, from the Australian National University's Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, wrote in a paper.

Aboriginal people inhabited the continent for 50,000 to 60,000 years before the arrival of the First Fleet of British convicts in 1788.

£1 letter may be worth millions

BIRMINGHAM, England — An amateur historian believes he has unearthed a letter written by the President Lincoln — after buying it for £1 at a car boot sale.

Kenneth Anderson-Jones, 75, found the dusty and dirt-encrusted framed document in a pile of bric-a-brac at the sale near his home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

When he got it home, he cleaned it up to find it was a letter written in 1856 by Lincoln giving Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant total command of the American army, a move that led to victory in the American Civil War.

Yesterday, his nephew took the letter to Sotheby's to have its authenticity checked. The American Library of Congress, which keeps official documents, said it did not hold a copy of the letter and was keen to examine Mr. Anderson-Jones's find.

The document, dated March 10, 1864, commissions Grant as lieutenant general and was presented to him by Lincoln.

Only George Washington and Winfield Scott had held the rank before Grant.

With this appointment, Grant became "general in chief of the Army and answered only to President Lincoln as commander in chief."

The instruction pre-empted the end of the civil war, which ran between 1861 and 1865.

A spokesman at the Library of Congress said: "According to our official collected records of Abraham Lincoln, the original of this letter has never been found.

"Lincoln did write copies of his important letters and speeches, but it would be unlikely he would do this with a military document."

Keeping abreast of theft

A German plastic surgeon cheated out of payment by women has handed pictures of their enlarged breasts to police, in the hope the photos will help trace them.

"The women registered under fake names," Michael Koenig, a surgeon in Cologne, told Bild newspaper.

"After the operations, which lasted about an hour, they just ran away. Tanja' went out for "fresh air" after 8,000-euro ($A13,000) surgery to enlarge her breasts. She never came back and never paid," Dr Koenig said.

He now plans to demand payment in advance.

The newspaper has published a five-column picture of Tanja's naked breasts.

"It's probably the most unusual wanted poster police ever had," the newspaper wrote.

Love is in the air

ROMANTIC Phil Hodson got 200 pupils to stand in the shape of “Marry Me” at his old school — then flew his girlfriend over in a helicopter and proposed.

Phil, 24, told Katie Thornton, 25, he was whisking her up in the air to celebrate ten years together.

But as she looked down on the playing fields, she saw the message, and said “Yes”.

Stunned Katie and electrician Phillip both went to Saddleworth School, Lancs, where the pupils were in on his plot.

Former head girl Katie said: “I saw the words, turned around and Phil was on bended knee with a ring. I burst into tears.”

Phil, of Grotton, Gtr Manchester, said: “I’m relieved it went so perfectly.”

Headteacher Eddie Barton said: “We were happy to oblige.”

Nice neighbours

Austrian authorities have discovered the body of a man who apparently died at home in bed five years ago, a Vienna newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The corpse of Franz Riedl, thought to have been in his late 80s when he died, went undetected for so long because his rent had been paid by automatic order from the bank account into which he received his pension, the daily Kurier said.

Neighbours said there was no strange smell coming from Riedl's apartment and authorities who found the body after a court order was given to enter said his body appeared to have "mummified" and was well preserved.

"He had been frail and a woman had helped him," the husband of the apartment block's caretaker told Kurier, adding that mail had always piled up outside the pensioner's flat. "We thought he had moved in with her or gone to an old people's home."

Police said they were not certain as to exactly when the man had died, but that they had found only schilling notes in the apartment -- the currency used by Austria before the introduction of the euro on January 1, 2002.

One small word for A man

It was the perfect quote to match a momentous occasion. As Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon in 1969, a global audience of 500 million people on Earth watched and listened with bated breath.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” they heard him say as he dropped from the ladder of his spacecraft to make the first human footprint on the lunar surface.

But from the moment he said it, and for 37 years since, debate has raged over whether the Nasa astronaut might have fluffed his lines.

Mr Armstrong has long insisted that he meant to say “one small step for a man . . .” — which would have been a more meaningful and grammatically correct version, free of tautology. But even the astronaut himself could not be sure.

“Damn, I really did it. I blew the first words on the Moon, didn’t I?” he is reported to have asked officials later, amid uncertainty as to whether he had blown the moment or simply been drowned out by static interference as his words were relayed 250,000 miles back to Earth.

Now, after almost four decades, the spaceman has been vindicated. Using high-tech sound analysis techniques, an Australian computer expert has rediscovered the missing “a” in Mr Armstrong’s famous quote. Peter Shann Ford ran the Nasa recording through sound-editing software and clearly picked up an acoustic wave from the word “a”, finding that Mr Armstrong spoke it at a rate of 35 milliseconds — ten times too fast for it to be audible.

Mr Ford’s findings have been presented to Nasa officials in Washington and to a relieved Mr Armstrong, who issued a statement saying: “I find the technology interesting and useful. I also find his conclusion persuasive.”

Squirrel bridge

Councillors are being asked to decide whether a rope bridge can be strung across the A933 Arbroath to Forfar road to help red squirrels cross.

According to the report placed before the committee, a request has been made for the crossing by the Arbroath Red Squirrel Group following the deaths of a number of squirrels run down by traffic near the Rosely Hotel on the outskirts of Arbroath.

The red squirrel is a “UK priority species” whose population is steadily declining and research suggests that if the rate of decline continues the red squirrel could be extinct on mainland Britain within 20 years.

“The number of red squirrels in the vicinity and the casualty rate through road vehicles on the A933 is unknown,” infrastructure services director Eric Lowson said.

“Local residents are aware of small number of deaths amongst the population over the last couple of years but report several other ‘near misses.’

“There are examples of rope bridges elsewhere in Scotland, on the A923 Coupar Angus road and Templeton roads in Dundee, each with spans of approximately 12 metres.

“These were erected and are maintained by Dundee City Council, being part of Camperdown Country Park.”

The proposed rope crossing at Arbroath would span 16 metres between a lime tree and a beech tree to achieve a seven metre minimum clearance above the road.

The landowners on each side of the road have given their permission for the rope bridge.

The council have carried out a risk assessment of the proposal and cite a number of other issues which give rise to concern.

“The significant hazards have been identified as death or serious injury to the public from the rope swinging free and colliding with a pedestrian or causing a vehicle to swerve resulting in an accident,” Mr Lowson continued.

“Arguably the sight of a squirrel crossing the road on such a rope could cause a distraction to a driver as well but the erection of warning signs in advance of the area may serve to mitigate this.

“There are residual concerns over how control can be kept with regard to trees not in the ownership of the council which, as living entities, can change in time with no onus on landowners to report such change which may result from natural phenomenon such as lighting, storm damage, drought or accident damage.”

The estimated cost of the rope is £1000 which is available from the planning and transport budget.

“Examples of squirrel rope bridges exist elsewhere in Scotland and the provision of such might be considered to demonstrate the commitment of the council to the protection and enhancement of the species, although the size of the population at risk here is thought to be small,” Mr Lowson added.

“Balanced against this must be the safety aspect and ongoing maintenance needs of such a structure with public safety of paramount importance, together with the establishment of a precedent.”

Conkers bonkers

Town hall killjoys worried about insurance claims are denying children the fun of knocking down conkers. Worthing Borough Council says it is faced with an annual bill for thousands of pounds from home owners who have projectiles hurled through their windows by children aiming at horse chestnut trees.

Officials are paying contractors £100 a time to strip trees across the town and prevent children from taking part in the traditional conker gathering game.

Ex-European conker champion Liz Gibson, 51, from Hurstpierpoint, said: "It's all part of the fun of playing conkers. But I did know if I hit somebody's house I would get a good clip around the ear. I just hope this isn't political correctness gone mad because there are already far too many rules surrounding conker use now."

Trees in Church Road, Tarring, and others in Lyon's Farm have all been stripped of conkers. The council says its contractors are placing them at the bottom of the trees so children could pick them up.

A spokesman said: "We don't want to spoil anybody's fun but we do want to stop the number of insurance claims against us. We're basically saving the council some money."

It is not just in Worthing that officialdom is going bonkers about conkers.

A group of children in Littlehampton were stopped and searched by police for knocking them out of a tree. Kiya Andrews, seven, and friend Charlie Richardson, 11, were stopped by police who claimed the tree they were hitting had a preservation order on it.

They had their conkers confiscated and were handed stop-and-search forms and a ticking off by the police. Arun District Council later confirmed the tree, while being in a conservation area, was not protected.

Kiya's mother, Diane Jayne, 41, said: "They were just throwing sticks up into the tree to get the conkers down when they were told off by the officer for pulling the branches. Charlie was frightened because the officer said he could have been arrested for it.

As soon as the officer turned up we went over to speak to her and she said there was a conservation order on the tree and that it could not be touched and it was on private property "I think it is ridiculous. I tell them not to vandalise but telling them not to collect conkers is stupid."

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "Stop and search forms were issued and words of advice were given by the officer. We also confiscated a large bag of conkers. The forms are a necessary form of bureaucracy that we have to complete but also a way of ensuring that parents are aware we have spoken to their children."

Giant diamond

Johannesburg - A 603-carat white diamond has been found in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, making it the biggest rock of the century and one of the world's largest, it was announced on Wednesday.

"The diamond, named the Lesotho Promise, is the largest reported find this century and ranks as the 15th largest diamond ever found," said the mine's joint owners, South Africa's Gem Diamond Mining and the Lesotho government.

"The stone is an exceptional colour, rated D, the top colour for diamonds. The largest diamond previously found (in Lesotho) was the 601-carat Lesotho Brown recovered in 1967," the statement said.
The Lesotho Promise goes on sale in Antwerp on Wednesday, the day the mountain kingdom marks its 40th anniversary of independence from British rule.

Lesotho's Mining Minister Mamphono Khaketla said: "We are proud that a Lesotho diamond has made history for a second time. The 'Lesotho Promise'... comes at a time when the Kingdom of Lesotho is celebrating 40 years of independence."

Some diamonds from southern Africa are world famous including the 3 106.75-carat Cullinan diamond, which was split in two and forms part of the British crown jewels.

Parents should be spayed !

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- A lawmaker who said he's getting death threats said he's sorry if he upset people with a crime-fighting suggestion he made.

He suggested that sterilizing parents who don't properly care for their children could help reduce crime.

Larry Shirley, a city councilman in Charleston, S.C., raised eyebrows when asked about a store robbery carried out by a group of children. Noting that stray animals are picked up and spayed, he said mothers should also "be spayed" if they can't take care of their children.

Shirley said he realizes that can't be done, but that he only wanted to "start the dialogue." Shirley said he's sorry if anyone was offended by his remarks last week. And, he added, if people don't want a dialogue, he'll keep quiet.

Some black leaders have called for Shirley's resignation. He said he's received several death threats.

He's rejecting calls to quit his council seat in a state that once was among 33 that forced people in prisons and mental institutions to be sterilized.

The original comment came in an interview with a Charleston newspaper in which he reacted to a nighttime video store holdup that authorities said was carried out by a group of children.

The Charleston Post and Courier said it got more than 100 e-mails from across the nation, most supporting Shirley.

Babysitter picks up wrong kid

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- A 5-year-old boy reported missing Monday when a relative tried to pick him up at a Long Beach school turned up several hours later unharmed, in an apparent case of mistaken identity, police said.

A relative went to get the boy about noon, but was told someone else had already picked up the child, police said.

Long Beach police searched the campus of Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, 1175 E. 11th St., and canvassed the neighborhood in search of the child, said Sgt. David Cannan of the Long Beach Police Department.

More than five hours later, the child was found.

It turned out that a babysitter, on her first day on the job, went to the school to get the child, called out his name, and Angel Guerrero, the boy who was later reported missing, smiled and stepped forward, Cannan said.

The babysitter assumed she had the right child and took him to her employers' home, where she and the child spent the afternoon. When the parents arrive home hours later, they told the babysitter that she had the wrong child, Cannan said. At the same time, the parents saw a TV report about the child who was reported missing and realized what had happened.

The child who was supposed to be in the babysitter's care had waited at the school until school authorities called an uncle to pick him up.

The school's principal, Cecilia Camerino, said the policy of how children are picked up will be changed to ensure that such a mix-up does not happen again. She said children will now have to wear cards around their neck with the name of the person designated to pick them up, and that person will have to show identification.

Angel's grandmother said the boy's quiet nature may have contributed to the problem.

When asked Angel why he got in the car with the babysitter, he told said, "Because she pick me up."

School authorities advised all parents to check on the pickup policy at their children's school.

Oh my God, they're voting for Kenny !

A real clown is running for mayor of Alameda, and even his sister won't vote for him.

Kenneth Kahn, 41, a professional joker known as "Kenny the Clown," admits he's running a long-shot campaign for City Hall's top spot. Kahn has not previously run for an elected position and has never sat on a public board.

"People ask me, 'Do we really want to elect a clown for mayor of the city?'" he said. "I say, 'That's an excellent question.'"

Kahn's mother, Barbara, said her son doesn't have a chance, and Sylvia Kahn, a teacher, said her brother's candidacy is a "mockery of our system."

"I don't think it makes any sense, because, to me, running for mayor is not where you start as far as community involvement goes," she said.

In November, the funnyman who graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, faces incumbent Beverly Johnson and City Councilman Doug deHaan.

How not to sell a car

Tyler, Texas --A 73-year-old used car salesman allegedly ended an argument with a customer by pulling out a machete and whacking the man's arm, according to police.

Robert Parker was arrested Monday night on charges of aggravated assault after the incident.

According to police, Gerald Davis had purchased a car from Time Auto Sales and went back to the dealership to pick up his license plates. Police said Davis, 53, and Parker began arguing and eventually Parker produced the machete.

Police said they don't know what the argument was about.

Davis was treated for the wound, but police didn't provide details on the seriousness of the injury.

You picked on the wrong guy

Two home invaders got more than they bargained for when they were confronted by a homeowner trained in martial arts.

The homeowner and his cousin arrived at the Wye Valley Rd. home, in the Birchmount and Ellesmere Rds. area, shortly before midnight Sunday and found two robbers wearing balaclavas and armed with a pistol and a screwdriver, in the bedroom.

The thugs demanded cash, and one was lured from the home with the promise that there was $1,000 in a vehicle. Outside, the martial arts expert elbowed the gunman, knocking his weapon to the ground.

When the other intruder heard his crony shout for help, he rushed outside and picked up the gun and the two started to run away. The homeowner gave chase in his SUV, and one of the bandits fired at the vehicle.

The driver ducked to avoid the shots and hit the robber with the truck. Despite being knocked out of his shoes by the impact, the culprit escaped. One suspect was captured early yesterday morning hiding in a Kennedy Rd. restaurant.

"We heard really loud screams," said a neighbour describing the incident. "I'm scared. It's too close to home," the woman said, declining to give her name. "I lock the doors, I even lock the screen door."

Dashamir Dahri, 29, has been charged with armed robbery, breaking and entering, wearing a disguise, and forcible confinement.

Spanish prank

MADRID - A Spanish official has been disciplined for allowing four pranksters to sneak into parliament and video themselves pretending to steal the prime minister's chair.

Parliament has also contacted state prosecutors about a spoof video posted on the Internet which showed four hooded figures stealing the chair Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero sits on during debates, it said in a news release on Monday.

"The prime minister's chair is still there," the parliament said, adding that it had disciplined one of its own officials for letting in the pranksters, who had been identified..

A group calling itself Four Cats posted the video on the Internet at http://levantetezp.blogspot.com.(which no longer exists !!!!!!!!) It said the video was its contribution to a global campaign against poverty.

And you thought the US had dumb laws ?

SAO PAULO - Brazilian police said on Tuesday they will resume the hunt for a suspected serial killer who was freed due to Brazil's electoral law despite confessing to raping and stoning to death five women.

The law, designed to ensure fair elections, prohibits anyone from being arrested and held by police from five days before an election until 48 hours after polls close, unless they are caught in the act or have already been sentenced.

Brazil held general elections on Sunday. A second-round run-off between the two leading presidential candidates takes place on October 29.

Police said they had uncovered the women's corpses in varying degrees of decay on Friday. Edson Barbosa Alves de Matos, 25, confessed to raping and stoning them to death. Two of the victims have been identified.

"We will begin looking for him again after 5:00 p.m.," spokeswoman for the Sao Paulo security secretariat Camilla Silveira told Reuters. "He had confessed to the killings but Brazilian law required we release him."

Police will also resume the hunt for a 23-year-old law student who had confessed to hiring hitmen who killed his mother but was sprung from police custody. The gunmen are also being sought.

Adriano Saddi Lima Oliveira told police he paid 40,000 reais ($18,433) to hitmen who killed his mother Marisa, a real estate tycoon, several months ago, Silveira said. Oliveira told police his mother was squandering his inheritance going out with her boyfriend.

Brazil's electoral law aims to curb heavy-handed tactics, such as local political chiefs trying to hang onto power by having opponents arrested and locked up until polls close.

Loyalty pays off

ST PETERSBURG: Three Zenit St Petersburg fans, who had driven more than 15,000 kilometres to watch their team play, were given a new car by the Russian premier league club.

The fans ( Evgeny Stepanov, Aleksandr Zaraysky and Veronika Davidova ) drove from St Petersburg to the eastern port city of Vladivostok on the shores of the Sea of Japan in their old Honda to see Zenit taking on local side Luch-Energiya in a league match last month. Zenit won the match 2-0.

However, the trio had to leave their 1986 Honda Civic behind because the car could not make the return trip and instead take a train back to Russia's second city.

Zenit said on their website that the club presented the fans with a new Toyota Corolla at Sunday's home match against Spartak Nalchik.

Coo

A pigeon sits above the public entrance to the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh on Tuesday. Prudence and Polly two pigeons are blissfully unaware that they are at the center of the latest political storm to hit Scotland's Parliament.

The birds go about their business in their nest in the canopy above the main entrance of the iconic building in Scotland's capital. Inside, lawmakers are locked in a wrangle over plans to spend £250 to evict them from their home and into a bird sanctuary 100 miles away

Proud to be British

Britain is to get its first school of excellence in darts as part of an effort to achieve Olympic status for the game.

Students will be coached in Hull from the age of seven in a scheme modelled on a Dutch project whose graduates include the world darts champion Jelle Klaasen, 21.

The school's director, John Gibbs, said: "The days are gone when darts players had a fag in their mouth, a pint of beer in their hand and a big belly. We have cleaned up our image and it's a proper sport." Olympic officials attended this year's world darts championships and the Europe Cup last month.

Stand up and pee attention !!!

It's an entirely new definition of "Standing Room Only." Or perhaps a new measure of "equality" has arrived. Whatever it is, it has sparked a huge political debate at a school in Kristiansand, Norway, according to the Norwegian paper F'drelandsvennen.

The trigger for the explosion of opinion? A decision in the local district that schoolboys must sit on toilet seats when urinating, not stand.

According to the news report, the rule was announced for boys at Dvergsnes School, prompting outrage from Vidar Kleppe, the chief of The Democrats Party.

He's accusing the school of "fiddling with God's work," and now he wants the issue discussed at the executive committee level of the area council, according to the newspaper "Dagbladet."

"When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God's work," Kleppe, whose group is a splinter group of former Progress Party hardliners, said in the newspaper.

"It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl," he said.

On Kleppe's contentious "stand" on making political waves, no comment was the response from school principal Lise Gjul.

But she did tell Norwegian Broadcasting NRK that the restrooms are used by both boys and girls, and the young boys are not "good enough at aiming" in order to have "a pleasant toilet."

You've bin had

A policeman was sent 20 miles to tell a woman to move her dustbin. Debbie Allen put the bin outside her house to keep a parking space while she went shopping.

She moved it when she returned and parked her car in the spot reports The Sun.

Later a policeman called at her house in response to a complaint from a neighbour. He explained he had made a 20-mile round trip from Newquay to St Agnes in Cornwall to deal with the problem.

He warned Debbie that she would be fined if she carried on leaving her bin in the roadway.

Debbie said: "You can never get the police when you need them - yet they sent someone all that way just because of my bin. I put it out because we live on an estate and a lot of people park opposite our house. When I go shopping with the kids it's difficult to unload the car and keep an eye on them so I try to keep the spot free. I've probably only done it on a dozen occasions but obviously someone didn't like it and reported me. To be fair to the policeman he seemed to be embarrassed at having to come all this way just for a bin. But he warned me I could be done for obstructing the highway, even though my Vauxhall was parked between two other cars. It wasn't even blocking the roadway."

Tightrope record

A tightrope walker has broken a world record by balancing on a cable car wire 1,300ft above an Alpine valley.

German Falko Traber, 46, walked 500ft on the 1.6ins thick cable car wire above the Saukaser valley in Austria.

Traber, of the Traber tightrope-walking dynasty which has been performing since the 14th century, already holds a number of tightrope world records.

Earlier this year, his nephew Johann, 22, hit the headlines when he fell during a balancing act on a high mast in Hamburg. After months in a coma he is now starting to recover.

Polish fart alert

Police in Poland have launched a nationwide hunt for a man who farted loudly when asked what he thought of the president.

Hubert Hoffman, 45, was charged with "contempt for the office of the head of state" for his actions after he was stopped by police in a routine check at a Warsaw railway station.

He complained that under President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw, the country was returning to a Communist style dictatorship.

When told to show more respect for the country's rulers, he farted loudly and was promptly arrested.

Hoffmann was arrested and released on bail but failed to turn up at a Warsaw court early this week to be tried, and the judge in the case rejected an appeal by defence lawyers to throw the charges out.

A court spokesman said: "Such a case of disrespect is taken very seriously."

Instead the court ordered the police to start a nationwide hunt for the man, and interpol have been alerted.

A horse walks into a bar, the Landlady asks "Why the long face"

The new landlady of a Tyneside pub has spoken of her surprise at discovering that one of the regulars is a horse.

Jackie Gray recently took over the Alexandra Hotel in Jarrow and said she was shocked when carthorse Peggy joined owner Peter Dolan for a pint.

The 12-year-old female, which has a taste for John Smiths and pickled onion crisps, has apparently been visiting the pub for several years. Mrs Gray was taken aback at first but says Peggy is no bother at all.

She said: "When I bought the pub a few weeks ago I heard rumours that one of the regulars was a horse but I didn't quite believe them. It was a hot day when the horse came in and I was shocked at first because I have never run a pub before."

Retired oil rigger Mr Dolan, 61, from Jarrow, bought Peggy six years ago and discovered her fondness for the pub when she followed him inside.

She had been tied up, but the rope was so long she was able to follow Mr Dolan right up to the bar.

He said: "Peggy's no bother at all. Most of the regulars know her as she's been coming in here for years and for them Peggy's a bit of a novelty. She's a proper lady."

Pear warning

A council has cordoned off pear trees in a public park over fears falling fruit could land on someone's head.

Two black pear trees in Cripplegate Park in Worcester have been sealed off with a safety barrier and tape and a sign warns people of falling fruit.

A city council spokesman said the precaution was cheaper than the potential legal cost if someone was hit on the head with a pear and sued. The cordon will be removed when all the fruit has fallen to the ground.

Worcester is famed for its black pears and the fruit is part of the city coat of arms.
Alan Stuttard, from the city council, said: "We had a complaint from a member of the public that one of these Worcester super pears fell on them and they felt it was dangerous."

He said the pears could weigh up to 1lb (454g) and were much harder many other types of pears.

"What we are interested in is to make sure young kids don't get frightened or hurt," he added.

The trees in question were planted by Edward VIII when he was Prince of Wales.

Shearing record

A South Australian shearer has set an unofficial world record by shearing 1,054 merino lambs in 40 hours.

Gary Hebberman from Jamestown, in the state's mid-north, used the marathon to raise money for his local sporting complex and a childhood cancer charity.

While previous record attempts have featured cross bred lambs, he chose merinos, because that is what he is used to shearing.

"I was brought up on merinos, so it makes it a bit easier for me," he said.

"It is harder, never ever been done in merino lambs before, it's been done in cross breds, so we just went with it, run with it and see how we went. I didn't look back."

The record is unofficial because the money raised will be donated to charity, instead of being used to pay for officials from the Guinness Book of Records to witness the attempt.

Pipes of vodka

Creative local residents from Buholovo village passed a 1.5 km ( One mile)– long alcohol conductor into Latvia all the way through a border territory that includes a river. Priceless deposit was accidentally discovered by the Latvian hunters who raised an alarm while planting tress in the area.

Smart Russian villagers passed an alcohol tube into LatviaLast week shouts of the Letts from the other side of the Utroya River surprised the Russian border patrol. One of the shouters was waving his arms and pointing at a strange discovery. Apparently these hunters came across a tube of 2.5 cm (One inch)in diameter reaching across the river from the Russian territory and emitting a firm odor.

According to the Sergey Nitsenko, the head of Pytalovskiy border unit, detailed investigation is led on both sides but so far it has brought no results. Russian policemen complain blame the Letts’ hasty actions for the lack of evidence. Police officer Yakov Kabanov explained that if they had waited for some time in ambush they would have caught the perpetrators red-handed.

In order to lay down the alcohol conductor, resourceful Russian villagers stretched the tube across the river bottom and then buried it 20-25 cm (8-10 inches) underground. “Even though I have been suspecting that they had something of this sort here I still had a really hard time finding it,” Kabanov says, “If it weren’t for the accident the pipe would have stayed here for another 20 years.”

Top ten funeral songs

James Blunt's "Goodbye My Lover" is the song most requested at British funerals and remembrance services, closely followed by Robbie Williams's "Angels," according to a survey released on Monday.

Research for the Bereavement Register found just over a half (51 percent) of people ask for a specific song be played at their funeral and 79 percent have talked with family and friends about possible song choices. The survey of 5,000 people also uncovered some unusual final choices for the final goodbye with rock songs like "I'll Sleep When I am Dead" by Bon Jovi, competing with classical tracks and soul.

"The top 20 really shows how far we have come in terms of saying goodbye. Gone are the days dirges of yore, instead we are seeing contemporary music that is easier to relate to," said Mark Roy, founder of the Bereavement Register, which removes the names and addresses of people who have died from databases to reduce junk mail.

"Everyone has a favorite song that means something very special to them, often connected to a particular time and place. When the song is played this can be a very emotive reminder of that person," he said in a statement.

Although fashions change there have been some consistent favorites over recent years like "Wind Beneath My Wings" at number four and "Candle In The Wind" -- a reworked version of which played at Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 -- which was at number six.

Many of the songs represented the different ages of the deceased.

Songs like "Danny Boy" (number 11 in the list) tended to be played at the funerals of the elderly while S Club 7's "Reach For The Stars" (number 20) was more usual at children's funerals, the survey showed.

Others in the top 20 included "Knocking On Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan and, perhaps unexpectedly, Fame's "I Want To Live Forever." The top 10 requested songs were:

• 1 - "Goodbye My Lover" - James Blunt
  
• 2 - "Angels" - Robbie Williams
  
• 3 - "I've Had The Time Of My Life" - Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley.
• 4 - "Wind Beneath My Wings" - Bette Midler
  
• 5 - "Pie Jesu" - Requiem
  
• 6 - "Candle In The Wind" - Elton John
  
• 7 - "With Or Without You" - U2
  
• 8 - "Tears In Heaven" - Eric Clapton
  
• 9 - "Every Breath You Take - The Police
  
• 10 -"Unchained Melody" - Righteous Brothers.
  

Fake tit airbags

SOFIA - A woman in the northern Bulgarian town of Ruse has survived a car crash thanks to her silicone breasts which acted as an airbag, a newspaper has reported.

The 24-year-old ran through a red light and crashed her car into another vehicle at a busy crossroad in the middle of town Saturday, the daily Standart said Monday.

"The two cars were crumpled past recognition in the crash but the woman's silicone breasts acted as airbags and saved her life," Standart wrote, citing eyewitness reports.

But survival as well as beauty comes at a price as the woman burst her silicon implants in the crash.

That F King place

Sea Point residents are seeing red over a new bar in Main Road called "That F King Place" and have demanded the name be changed to something less offensive. But Irishman Barry Woods, who opened the bar next to Adult World, says he has no intention of changing it.

Indeed, he told Weekend Argus he intends opening more bars with the same name elsewhere in Cape Town.

Woods said he had consulted solicitors before registering his company TFP Co (That F King Place Company) to ensure it wasn't offensive.
"So far I've heard nothing from the council and have had no letters of complaint from anyone."

But the city's legal department has confirmed that it intends serving notice on the bar's owners and will call for the removal of the signs which are illegal because no permission has been granted.

AG van der Westhuizen, chairperson of the London Road Owners' Association in Sea Point, said he had received a number of complaints about the obnoxious name.

"We feel this is not an appropriate or acceptable name for an establishment near schools, a residential family area and in a section of Main Road that still looks like a slum."

He said tourists were about to arrive for season and would think they were in the middle of a red light district.
JP Smith, city councillor for Sea Point, said the whole area around That F King Place was the heart of crime, grime and sleaze - with drugs, crack houses and prostitution flourishing.

Finally buried after 63 years

Sixty-three years after his death, one Fort Wayne World War II veteran finally got a military funeral.

Bernard Stoeckley's plane disappeared over the Atlantic on a practice bombing run in 1943.

"The family kind of figured eventually he'd be found and they would do something at that time, but it just never happened," said Stoeckley's nephew James Zuber. "It's been 63 years and he's had no marking anywhere."

Zuber never met his uncle, but he didn't want his memory to fade away. Instead, he arranged for a headstone and a full military funeral.

"Being a military person myself, my cousin and I said it's about time he got his dues of a military funeral," said Zuber. "He gave his life, we definitely don't want to forget him."

In the 63 years Bernard Stoeckley has been gone, his family said he's never been forgotten, but they said a headstone is now a physical reminder of the honor he deserves.

"You never forget people, especially family. You never forget," said Bernard's younger brother Robert Stoeckley. We felt it was a little closure, final closure," said brother Tom Stoeckley.

While his family understands his body may never be returned home, there is still hope his plane will someday be recovered.

"I still wish they'd find the airplane. I really do. They do it all the time," said Robert Stoeckley.

Until then, a headstone will forever mark his memory.

Bernard Stoeckley was a radio operator in the Army Air Corps. He was 20 when he died.

Out of the dog kennel

A woman who spent 30 days in a dog kennel is home tonight. Cheryl Walker emerged from her temporary home at the Grant County Humane Society Sunday afternoon.

Walker moved into the shelter to raise awareness about adopting animals. She also wanted to draw attention to the kennel's need for funding a renovation.

In the end, she says her stay was worth it. "It had a huge impact. We got people to the shelter who'd never been here before and we got everybody talking about the ‘crazy woman in the kennel', and that's what I wanted," Walker says.

She continues to say that it was exciting to come of the shelter and talk to people, instead of just hearing dogs barking.

During her 30-day stay, the shelter raised $8,000 and was able to find homes for 110 animals.

Baby wigs

Get your baby hairpieces here

Cheeky blighters

A driver has had his parking ticket quashed after he discovered workmen had painted the single-yellow line underneath his car. Nasser Khan returned to his car to find the line had been painted while he was away - and a ticket issued.

The incident in Salford was caught on camera by an office worker.

Mr Khan also says that the painting equipment damaged his tyres. Salford City Council said it would look into Mr Khan's claims.

The gap in the line had been left after recent roadworks, and had not initially been painted because a car was parked there overnight.

Mr Khan, 28, a marketing consultant, said: "I thought I was lucky to get the space but I didn't think I would get a ticket because it was a legitimate parking area. I couldn't believe they painted the line underneath my vehicle. Luckily I had a note on my windscreen from the guys in the nearby office which explained what had happened, otherwise I would have driven off unaware."

He added: "I took the car to a garage and I was told the tyres were unroadworthy. I could have had a blow-out at any time."

Design engineer Geoff Blackburn watched the incident from his office.

Mr Blackburn said: "We saw a group of workmen and two traffic wardens surround the car for several minutes. One of the workmen came back and crouched under the car to paint the yellow line, and then the traffic warden issued the ticket."

Mr Khan said the parking ticket had since been quashed by Salford City Council.

A council spokesman said: "This ticket was cancelled promptly as soon as the driver made us fully aware of the circumstances in which it was issued. If he feels he has a further complaint to make then he will have to produce evidence so we can investigate his claims."

Genesis to reform

Eighties pop band Genesis are reforming a decade after lead singer Phil Collins left the group to focus on a solo career. Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks will reunite next year to embark on a tour of the US and Europe.

In their heyday, the group sold more than 130 million records worldwide with hits such as Land of Confusion, I Can't Dance and Invisible Touch, and are still one of the top 30 biggest-selling music acts of all time.

A spokesman for the group said: "Genesis were huge in Britain and America and there remains a lot of affection for them. And the tour is likely to make them millions."

A friend of Collins said:" The band really want to get it on again, They always remained friends and just thought it was time to begin again, especially since Phil's break-up with (third wife) Orianne has left him with time on his hands."

Deep sea diva

Singer Katie Melua has entered the record books by playing the world's deepest underwater concert. Melua and her band performed for workers on a gas rig 303 metres below sea level on the Statoil Troll oil rig in the North Sea.

"This was definitely the most surreal gig I have ever done," Melua said.

The 22-year-old singer underwent extensive medical tests and survival training in Norway before flying by helicopter to the rig.

"It took nine minutes to go from the main part of the gas platform down to the bottom of the shaft in a lift," said Melua. "Giving a concert to the workers there was something really extraordinary and an occasion that I will remember all my life."

The songs Melua performed included Closest Thing To Crazy and Debbie's favourite song Nine Million Bicycles.

Guinness World Records has confirmed the gig sets a new record.

The concert was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Statoil and was filmed for Norwegian TV channel NRK.

Melua is currently the UK's biggest-selling female artist.

3 week pothole course

Blackburn,England -- The spiritual home of potholes, immortalized by the Beatles song , has been chosen for a pioneering new 3 week course in Highway Maintenance and Inspection. After all, the town's reputation for rutty roads is global: Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, professed she had always been intrigued by the lyrics before she visited Lancashire earlier this year.

So have others, if the number of people interested in the course is anything to go by. "The response has been fantastic," says Ian Bowden of Blackburn College, which is running the course in partnership with engineering firm Capita Symonds.

Thanks to incessant digging by telecom and utility companies, ever- heavier traffic and a road maintenance backlog from underfunding in the 70s and 80s, the demand for highway inspectors - the "eyes and ears" of highway authorities, according to course leader Michael White - is higher than ever in the UK.

But at the same time, many modern- day inspectors don't have the qualifications of their forebears. The three-week course, therefore, will teach types of road construction and methods of repair, as well as inspection regimes and highway law.

"We are now living in a climate of compensation culture, no-win no-fee litigation and the legal aspects of the job are becoming more and more important," says White.

Lancashire's only female highways inspector, Ruth Smith, 26 (who - coincidentally or otherwise - hails from Blackburn), agrees. "It's not just about crumbling roads and potholes. When you are asked to give an expert testimony in court it is all about being more knowledgeable and understanding the subject and therefore feeling more confident in your own abilities. We are often in the frontline."

Key coursework includes the study of chunks of asphalt from famous Lancashire routes such as the M6 and the A66 and field trips along one of Blackburn's notorious streets where students are required to point out all the defects and potential hazards.

The ultimate test for any inspector, however, remains the same after all these years: how many holes does it take to fill the Albert Hall? "I haven't a clue," says White. "How can holes fill something?"

Put your thinking caps on

Isle of Wight -- Nearly £1,750 was spent by County Hall on its efforts to encourage staff to find money-saving solutions by giving them "Thinking Caps" and foam jigsaw puzzles.
The council confirmed this week it had paid £1,155 for 3,000 puzzles, to be re-arranged into a cube bearing the work Think.
County Hall also said it paid a further £587.50 for 250 baseball caps bearing the words "Thinking".
The council said the sums were small compared to the efficiency savings that could be made from ideas suggested as part of the initiative.
The best idea will earn the team that devised it a £1,000 prize.
"Already we have had some very good suggestions and the project only started on Monday," a council spokesman said.
But news of the cost of the gimmicks has brought further criticism from Labour group leader Cllr Deborah Gardiner, who last week said the caps made those who wore them look like "bloody idiots".
"At a time when the council is freezing posts and making other cutbacks, spending nearly £2,000 on things that have been thrown quickly into the bin is a bit rash to say the least," she said.
"I've not seen anyone wearing a cap. They seem to be largely a source of amusement, rather than being taken seriously."
Mark Chiverton, secretary of County Hall union Unison, said staff felt the credibility of the authority, and the work being undertaken there to deliver services in the face of cut-backs, would be undermined by the "gimmick" hats and puzzles.
"Another worrying thing is the very people brought in to improve the public perception of the council feel that aim is served by getting staff to wear baseball caps."

Evil cat "Softclawed"

Maureen Truscott splashed out on her first set of fake fingernails last month, but her cat has donned hot pink claw extensions for years.

Tandy, a stylish puss with a nasty temper, had a penchant for attacking humans and furniture, which sorely tested Truscott's patience.

The 14-year-old British tortoiseshell with a "dangerous cat" label on her vet file was banned by several vets and a pet groomer after they were on the receiving end of her ferocity.

"And we've had one lounge suite trashed by her," Truscott says.

Three years ago, the Canterbury woman stumbled on the fake pet claw concept, called Soft Claws, on the internet. She imported some from the United States because they were unavailable in New Zealand.

The vinyl claw caps are glued on to a cat's or dog's clipped nails, covering the sharp tips and making them useless as weapons of destruction. The cat's ability to climb is unaffected and they last about three months, shedding as nails grow.

"They are just fantastic," raves Truscott. "The vet is very happy that she's got paw covers. And we can now groom her without being torn to pieces."

She has chosen bright pink for Tandy and her tabby housemate, "because they're girls" but many colours are available, even Halloween and Christmas-theme claws for the discerning pet owner.

The eye-catching additions have prompted interest from friends and family.

"Most people think they've got painted toenails."

She began importing them to sell by word-of-mouth several years ago but recently stopped when Christchurch-based Crown Dental and Medical Ltd became the country's sole distributor.

"They're not just pretty additions," says Truscott. "They save cats' lives."

One of her clients planned to put his cat down because it kept jumping on his boat cover and damaging it with its sharp claws. Soft Claws staved off the lethal injection.

As for the much-loved but feared Tandy, her claws may be harmless but given half a chance "she'll still take your arm off at the elbow".

Naked spier fined

Des Moines, Iowa: A man has been ordered to pay more than $13,000 to former neighbours he spied upon while sitting naked in his house.

A jury on Thursday ordered William Andrianse, 59, to pay damages to Julie Weissinger, 40, who said she and her family were so upset they had to move away.

Andrianse pleaded guilty in 2004 to harassment and public exposure. After the Weissingers filed their lawsuit, he countersued, claiming his neighbours violated his privacy by videotaping him with a night-vision camera they borrowed from police.

Reunited after 400 years

A husband, wife and their children, separated for more than 400 years, have been reunited for a spectacular exhibition on the art and culture of domestic life in Renaissance Italy.

Paulo Veronese, one of 16th century Venice's greatest artists, painted a pair of double portraits of the wealthy da Porte Thiene family, of nearby Vicenza, in 1551. They were to hang in the hallway of their new palazzo, built for them by Andrea Palladio to demonstrate their importance.


The young Veronese, a contemporary of Tintoretto, divided the family along gender lines in his portraits.

In one, he showed Count Iseppo da Porto, a knight of the Holy Roman Empire, with his eight-year-old son, Leonida.

The other was of his wife, Livia Thiene, wearing a marten's pelt with a jewelled head and gazing devoutly at her husband, standing with their daughter, Porzia, aged about four.

Though the Palazzo Iseppo da Porto still stands, the portraits disappeared from it by the end of the 16th century and scholars did not hear of them again until the early 20th century. Then one, father and son, surfaced in the collection of Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi. It now belongs to the Uffizi gallery in Florence.

The other appeared in the shop of a Florentine antiquarian and was bought by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

They go on show, side by side as Veronese intended, for the first time in four centuries at the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington, west London, from Thursday.

£1,400 bill for stolen phone

A student has been told that he must pay Orange more than £1,400 after thieves are believed to have stolen his mobile phone and made more than 1,000 calls to premium rate numbers. In the space of 19 hours, Jonathan Barnes's phone was used to make 1,385 calls to television quiz channels charging 90p a time. The phone also sent 261 premium text messages.

Because the 20-year-old business student took nearly a day to report his phone missing, Orange has told him that he has to pay for the calls.Despite protests from Mr Barnes and his father, an Anglican vicar, and the peculiar pattern of calls, the company says it has no evidence that the phone was stolen.

Mr Barnes, in his third year at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, said he was sickened by Orange's attitude: "I'm pretty angry with them. Given that these calls were so unusual, why didn't it trigger an alarm?"

He said his phone was lost or taken on June 8 after he finished a late shift at Tesco. He said he realised that the phone was missing the following morning but did not ring Orange to cancel the phone until later that evening.

A few days later a bill for £1,438 arrived from Orange. It showed that the first calls to television quiz stations began at 3.53am on June 8.

"They were ringing these numbers all day, four or five times a minute," Mr Barnes said. "I was working at Tesco for nine of those hours and there are witnesses who will say I was there. But Orange say they are not liable and have told me to pay it off in instalments."

His appeal to Orange has been backed by his mother, Elwyn, and father, the Rev Christopher Barnes, the rector of Burton and Rosemarket, Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire. "Jonathan's usual bill would average £30 to £40," said Mrs Barnes.

The calls included 278 to the digital channel ITV Play. Tapes released by the channel show that the caller gave his name as "Michael from Cardiff" and failed to get any answers right.

In a letter to Mr Barnes, Orange pointed out that he had phoned ITV Play 10 times in the past – eight times on a Sunday in May, once in December and once in January.

Parents get detention

NEW YORK -- A public school is requiring detention for parents who get their kids to school late.

Under the new rule at the Manhattan School for Children, parents who don't drop off their children by 8:25 a.m. have to pick up late slips from the principal's office and go to the auditorium to serve 20 minutes of detention with them.

"The parents need to make the breakfast, get the children dressed and get them to school on time," principal Susan Rappaport told the New York Post for Sunday's editions.

Some tardy parents at the school, which has 660 pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade, complained the detention made them late for work. But others approved, saying they felt humiliated and won't show up late again.

Tajiks ban gold teeth

Dushanbe, Tajikistan - In a country where most of the people are living below the poverty line, gold teeth is certainly a no-no among government personnel. Tajikistani president Emomali Rakhmonov is set to ban state employees from wearing gold teeth to improve his country's image.

Rakhmonov announced his decision after meeting a teacher with a mouth full of gold teeth during a visit to a school in Dushanbe.

"Teachers complain about small salaries, but still wear golden teeth," he said, "How can international organizations believe in your poverty, when the mouth of a teacher is full of gold? This is not due to our culture and traditions."

Sources said that should Rakhmonov implement the new ruling an estimated 50% of state officials will have to resign or have their teeth replaced.

Gold and silver are traditionally considered a sign of affluence in Central Asian countries.

Don't scrub the graffiti

When a train driver saw fresh graffiti at a station he passes through daily, he called the police. To his astonishment he was told that his employers — who spend £250,000 a year fighting vandalism — had sanctioned the “art”.

The paintings, at the entrance to Jesmond Metro station, in Newcastle upon Tyne, are by urban artists exhibiting in the Baltic arts centre in Gateshead.

Huw Lewis, of the train operator Nexus, believes that the artwork at Jesmond will help to fight vandalism by letting people present their art in a controlled way. “What we are doing here is consistent with that,” he said.

Woman almost overcomes lachanophobia

A woman who claims to have been terrified of vegetables for more than 40 years declared herself on the way to being cured yesterday.

Krissie Palmer-Howarth, 61, a cabaret singer from Newhaven, East Sussex, has not been able to handle vegetables or even say their names since developing her phobia at the age of 17. Just their smell made her feel sick.

Now, after a session of hypnotherapy, Miss Palmer-Howarth says that she can stand to be close to vegetables, even broccoli, which she detests most of all, though she is not yet at the stage where she can handle them.

Fear of vegetables is not unknown to the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the condition is called lachanophobia.

Miss Palmer-Howarth puts her condition down to the awful smells in her uncle's "dark, dingy and dirty" greengrocer's shop when she was a child. "It's a stupid thing to be scared of," she said.

Google garage

Google has added a landmark to its empire by buying the house and garage where founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched their fledgling company.

Susan Wojcicki agreed to lease her garage to the young entrepreneurs for for $1700 (£900) per month because she wanted some help paying the mortgage. She is now Google's vice president of product management.

During Google's five-month history there, the garage became like a second home for Page and Brin. According to Wojcicki the pair were either working on their search engine or soaking in the hot tub that still sits on the property. They also had a penchant for raiding Wojcicki's refrigerator - a habit that may have inspired Google to give free food to the 8000 employees on its payroll.

Google declined to reveal how much it paid for its original home, but similar houses in the same neighbourhood have been selling for more than $1.1million - a fraction of the $319million that Google paid for its current 92,903-square-metre headquarters.

Although the Google garage isn't considered a historic site quite yet, it already has turned into a tourist attraction. The busloads of people that show up to take pictures of the house and garage have become such an annoyance that Google asked the media not to publish the property's address.

Unfortunately if you search hard enough on Google, you can find the address.

Google may use the home as a guest house, but nothing definitive has been worked out. "We plan to preserve the property as a part of our living legacy," said Google spokesman Jon Murchinson.

Animal Olympics , Roo gotta be kidding !

Creatures great and small have displayed some unusual talents at the 2006 Animal Olympics in China.

The Shanghai Wild Animal Park has hosted the event, featuring an elephant carrying an "Olympic" torch and animals such as zebras and mountain goats in events including hurdles and races.

Bears and monkeys rode bicycles around a large arena, and a kangaroo boxed with a man in a clown suit.
Animal rights campaigners say the Chinese have an appalling poor record for animal rights protection and have no laws to protect them.

In the fight, the Australian kangaroo appears to reel backwards after receiving a right hook from its garishly attired opponent.

But the 'roo, which was wearing boxing gloves on its front paws, fought back, grappling with the clown who was forced back towards the ropes by its onslaught.

The kangaroo is just one of 300 'athletes' taking part in the annual event, now in its fourth year, at the Shanghai Wild Animal Park.

Record breaking PRATS Stars

Madonna's pay packet, Janet Jackson's malfunctioning wardrobe, Hillary Clinton's memoirs and Sigourney Weaver's height all have one thing in common - they are world record breakers.

Veteran pop singer Madonna supplants younger rival Britney Spears in the latest edition of Guinness World Records, winning the title of highest annual earnings by a female singer after she took home an estimated $US50 million ($A66 million) in 2004.

Despite the relentless media coverage of her personal life, Spears is also unseated by another 40-something as the world's most searched-for person and most searched-for news item on the Internet.

She loses those top spots to pop diva Janet Jackson, who also gets credit for the largest ever fine imposed on a broadcaster after one of her breasts was exposed live on air.

The most wanted man on Internet search engine Google in 2005 was Hollywood heart-throb Brad Pitt, according to the star-studded 2007 version of the Guinness World Records book.

In the world of publishing, US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton holds the title for fastest-selling non-fiction book after her memoirs sold 200,000 copies on day one.

Not to be outdone, her husband, former US President Bill Clinton, also clinches a place for the largest advance for a work of non-fiction.

Oscar winning movie star Nicole Kidman is another top earner, holding the record for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she earned a reported $US3.71 million ($A4.95 million) for a four-minute commercial for Chanel No.5 perfume.

Elsewhere, chat show host Oprah Winfrey is the highest paid person on television, Cher's 2005 "Farewell Tour" was the highest grossing music tour by a female artist and Irish rock band U2 were the biggest earning act in the world last year.

As for the downsides of stardom, modern celebrities have yet to match Errol Flynn's real-life courtroom performances which saw him jailed a record four times.

And if you have ever wondered who are the biggest people strutting Hollywood's sidewalks, Clint Eastwood, Vince Vaughn and British horror actor Christopher Lee are its tallest leading men at 1.94 metres.

At 1.82 metres, Hollywood's tallest leading women are Alien star Sigourney Weaver, Brigitte Neilsen and Oscar-winner Geena Davis, who also starred in the world's biggest ever box-office flop, Cutthroat Island.

There's a kind of hush ....

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Officials of a Pennsylvania youth soccer league have a message for parents: Shhh!

This weekend, parents are being asked to be quiet when they watch their kids play.

Central Pennsylvania Youth Soccer League president Sharon Bolognese said the games should be about the kids. So, she asked parents and coaches to forget about the yelling, cheering and dissing the refs.

Bolognese said the league had 80 reports of parents behaving badly during the opening weekend alone. She noted that refs have been shoved, yelled at, forced off the road after games and even threatened with lawsuits.

Twitcher killers

Birdwatchers have been blamed for hounding a rare starling to death. The rose-coloured starling, originally from Central Asia, had been blown thousands of miles off-course and landed near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, and its repeated attempts to evade dozens of camera-wielding birdwatchers left it exhausted.

An estimated 80 twitchers descended on the Norfolk village of Winterton-on-Sea in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the bird.

According to Carole Barnes, a villager and member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the persistent attentions of the birdwatchers, who pursued it from garden to garden, finally led to the five-month-old bird dying of exhaustion.

Barnes said: "Twitchers hounded this bird to its death. It was tired and desperate to feed but they wouldn't leave it alone. They were running up and down like lunatics and weren't interested in its welfare at all.

"They kept following it around and pointing their long lenses at it. They just wanted to get its picture so that they could cross it off their list and say they had seen it."

Barnes, a nursing sister, said she first realised something was happening when birdwatchers started flocking into her street a week ago.

She said: "They all had zoom lenses and tripods and were rushing down the path that leads to our home. I told them it was private, but they took no notice. They went to the back of our garden and started following it around.

"The bird was so tired it could only flutter a little way and couldn't get away from them. When I pointed out that it was exhausted, they insisted that they only wanted to take its picture so they could say they had seen it."

Last Tuesday, Barnes and her husband, Peter, found the bird dead in their garden after being attacked by the cat.

She said: "Even after it died we still had twitchers turning up. We've never seen such thoughtless behaviour."

A spokesman for the RSPB said: "The bird was already looking poorly and it had two big ticks on its head. We have a code of conduct stating birds should not be disturbed and their interests should always come first. All birdwatchers are supposed to abide by it.

World Oyster Opening Championship

GALWAY - Ireland was the proud winner on Saturday of the 2006 World Oyster Opening Championship, beating off competition from 17 other countries to open 30 oysters in the fastest time.

At 2 minutes 35 seconds, Irish restaurateur Michael Moran was five seconds ahead of Sweden's Hasse Johannesson and 46 seconds faster than Britain's Frederick Lindford.

"It's just great to bring it home for Ireland," said Moran, whose father Willie took the title twice in the 1970s and whose time of 1 minute 31 seconds is unbeaten. "I put in a big effort and it paid off -- I can't believe it," Moran, 23, said.

The secret, he said, was a steady hand with the oyster knife.

"It has to be a smooth movement or you risk crunching the shell and then you get points taken off for grit," he said.

It was the first win for Ireland in 10 years but the country's 15th overall in the four-decade history of the competition, which has long been a major feature of the Galway Oyster Festival, now in its 52nd year.

"He was a bold man that first ate an oyster," observed 18th century Irish writer Jonathan Swift, and by that measure there were a lot of bold men -- and women -- gathered in the mediaeval "City of the Tribes" on Ireland's rugged west coast on Saturday.

"We reckon there are around 12,000 people here this year and they'll scoff somewhere in the region of 100,000 oysters in the four days of the festival," said organiser John Rabbitt.

The festival draws visitors from around the world, as much for the Irish "craic" -- dancing and drinking -- as for the oysters, which mollusc aficionados say derive a distinctive sweetness from Ireland's Atlantic waters.

"I've had more oysters than I've eaten in my life," said first-time British visitor Michael Codrington.

"At least 50 -- all washed down with a lot of Guinness."

The festival, dreamt up by a Galway hotelier to mark the start of the oyster season -- and drum up post-summer business -- has seen its share of famous visitors over the years.

In 1960, U.S. film director John Huston dropped by and in 1993 comedian Bob Hope delighted the crowd with a rendition of "Thanks for the Memories" in the city's main square.

This year the event is expected to generate around 7 million euros (4.7 million pounds) for the local economy.

Chess cheat ?

ELISTA, Russia -- The future of the world chess championship was in question Friday when a player did not show up for the fifth game and threatened to withdraw from the match after he was accused of cheating and locked out of his private bathroom.

Vladimir Kramnik, a Russian, was accused by the manager for his opponent, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, of taking too many bathroom breaks - an apparent suggestion that he was secretly using a technical device or a computer program to help him with his moves.

Kramnik, the Classical World Champion, had been leading Topalov, the World Chess Champion, 3-1 after four games in the 12-game match - the sixth attempt to reunify the chess world since then-world champion Garry Kasparov broke away from the FIDE chess governing body in 1993.

But Kramnik boycotted game five Friday, angered by an Appeals Committee decision to lock the private bathrooms for both players and insist that each use a common bathroom for the rest of the match. Topalov was also unhappy with the decision; his manager said it would not prevent Kramnik from cheating since he would still be alone in the lavatory.