Cyprus gets bailed out

People in Cyprus have reacted with utter shock after learning of a one-off levy of up to 10% on savings as part of a €10 billion bailout agreed in Brussels. Queues formed outside savings banks and ATM’s as people desperately tried to withdraw their money, although it had already been arranged that savers could withdraw all their funds EXCEPT for …

Yarn bombing in Leicestershire

Leicestersire Police have been out ‘yarn bombing’, putting hundreds of pom-poms and other knitted items onto trees and lampposts to help reduce the fear of crime in Bede Park and Great Central Way.

In what universe?

RBS made a loss of  £5.2 billion last year, the fifth consecutive loss since being taken over by the state in 2008, yet it paid out bonuses of £607 million (of taxpayer money). Only last month the bank was fined £381 million for rigging Libor rates and has set aside a further £1.1 billion to pay compensation to customers mis-sold payment protection insurance, …

Razzies 2013

Breaking Dawn Part II dominated this years ‘Razzies’, the now well-established spoof awards which name and shame the worst actors and films of the past year. The film and cast walked away with a total of seven Golden Raspberries.

So, assault with a plant is the more serious crime

Paula Hamilton fined £1,000 for assaulting a policeman with a sunflower A policewoman who repeatedly denied that she was talking on her mobile phone when she caused a fatal crash has escaped prosecution. She later said she briefly took a call before admitting she had been on the phone for the entire journey, but had had it on the loudspeaker …

At last!

All hail to the mathematicians at Wolverhampton University for taking the time and using up a bit more taxpayer money to come up with: 100 – [10L – 7F + C(k – C) + T(m – T)]/(S – E). No doubt someone, somewhere has been waiting on tenterhooks for this life-changing formula.

Licence should be revoked immediately

So, a Belgian woman set off on a 38 mile journey to pick up a friend from Brussels railway station and ended up on a two-day journey which took her through six countries before arriving in Zagreb, Croatia. Despite crossing five borders and seeing multiple-language traffic signs, Sabine Moreau did not stop to question her sat-nav until two days later …

Side-saddle to be the order of the day

A city in the Indonesian province of Aceh which follows Sharia law has ordered female passengers not to straddle motorbikes behind male drivers in order to save people’s ‘morals and behaviours’. However, not everyone agrees and even some well-known Muslim activists in the country have criticised the idea, pointing out that how to ride a motorbike is not regulated in …