Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Battery

Make Way for the Q Wii N

The gadget-loving Queen has become HOOKED on Prince William's new Nintendo Wii games console.

Comment: Yes, girls just wanna have fun - even if the castle is on fire...

But for a moment, let's forget all that and have a look at the appropriately measured lighter side of Queen Elizabeth II.


Bizarro Earth

Poland: Man spots his wife during visit to brothel

A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.

Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

Smiley

Satire: Bush Begins Preparations For Nation's Final Year

WASHINGTON - As his last term in office winds to a close, President Bush has directed White House aids and Cabinet staff to begin preparing for 2008, the nation's 232nd and final year in existence.

Alarm Clock

Boy glues himself to bed to avoid school

A 10-year-old Mexican boy was so determined not to return to school after the Christmas holiday that he glued his hand to his bed.

Sandra Palacios spent nearly two hours on Monday morning trying to free her son Diego's hand with water, oil and nail polish remover before calling the authorities in the northern city of Monterrey, said police chief Jorge Camacho.

"I didn't want to go to school because vacation was so much fun," Reforma newspaper quoted the boy as saying. However, paramedics managed to release him in time for class.

Life Preserver

Czechs trapped by billiard table call rescue squad

Two Czechs stuck in a billiard table while searching for a ball had to call the fire squad and were freed only when rescuers took the table apart, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

People

UK: Brace yourself for Manic Monday when everyone wants a fresh start

So that was Christmas, then, and today is Manic Monday - the day of dread reckoning when we count the terrible toll the festive season has taken on our wallets and our lives, and perhaps do something about it.

As humdrum reality returns, we will be shuffling off the last fortnight's lethargy in a big way, taking our life in our hands and giving it a good shake. It's the day for grasping the nettle of a failed marriage, booking a holiday or starting the search for a new job.

Divorce lawyers are braced for the busiest day of the year, when the strains of Yuletide prove too much for thousands of couples. They call the first Monday after the break D-Day, and expect a deluge of calls from people desperate to untie the knot.

Relate, the relationship support service, receives 50 per cent more calls during the festive period.

Smiley

Colombia: Bogota museum celebrates laziness

People in the Colombian capital, Bogota, have been able to be lazy over the past week, and not feel guilty.

An event organised by the Museum of Bogota had sofas, televisions, hammocks and beds - anything associated with the avoidance of work.

The idea was to get people during the holiday season to think about laziness and its opposite, extreme work, and perhaps reach some balanced conclusion.

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Visitors had to be a bit active to see the show though as it closed on Sunday.

Smiley

Flashback Satire: Image of a piece of toast seen on face of the Virgin Mary

Pilgrims were flocking to the Hampshire town of Basingstoke today after a local woman claimed to have seen a vision of a piece of toast on a picture of the Virgin Mary at her local church. Betty Tilley, 42, was praying silently at the Sacred Heart Catholic church when she looked up to see a ray of light slanting in through the window, illuminating a reproduction painting of the Virgin Mary and as she moved closer she was amazed by what she saw.

©Unknown

Smiley

Tough street-racing law nabs 85-year-old

Toronto - A new law meant to help crack down on young Canadian street racers in their souped up cars has nabbed an octogenarian in his Oldsmobile.

The 85-year-old man is one of 2,300 drivers across Ontario to be charged under new legislation, designed to combat "street racing, stunts and contests", since it came into effect three months ago -- and he's the oldest.

Star

Pope tells astronomers to pack up their telescopes

The Pope has given the Vatican's Jesuit astronomers their marching orders, banishing them and their infernal instruments from his summer palace and billeting them in a disused convent instead.