if it’s news to me, it must be news to you!
Advocats: The Citizens’ Advertising Takeover Service raised £23,000 to replace every advertising poster at Clapham Common tube station with pictures of cats to ‘inspire people to think differently about the world and realise they have the power to change it’.
And tv goes to the dogs: Our dog, Dottie, is a big fan of Countryfile and any wildlife programmes and the reason is that she can see the images on the screen which she couldn’t have done on an old analogue set, according to Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas of the University of Central Lancashire.
Conspiracy theory of the week: The Bank of America has warned that there is a 20-50% chance that we are already living in a Matrix-style virtual reality world.
A taste of Asia: Apart from nuclear bombs, North Korea also produces a fine line in superior beers, at least according to state-controlled television. And oddly enough, the brewery is British.
Fidget gadget: If you’re the sort of person who can’t sit still, annoying everyone in the process, what you need is the Fidget Cube which has six different clickable, spinnable and flickable sides, developed from $3.4m from crowdfunding investors.
Grin and bear it: A group of Russian arctic scientists are being besieged by ten polar bears and face a month-long wait for rescue.
Mind your grammar: As Theresa May tries to realise her ambition to turn every school into a grammar school, can you work out which of these celebs went comprehensive, grammar or private? The results might surprise you.
Birthday of the week: On 15th September 1916, tanks made their first operational debut during the Battle of the Somme and a replica was on show this week in Trafalgar Square. Learn more about tanks here.
Flatpack of the week: McLaren F1 designer Gordon Murray’s proudest achievement is an affordable flatpack truck that can carry one tonne of material over 1,000km of the toughest terrain in Africa and Asia on a tank of fuel.
Brief lives: Daredevil pilot Hannes Arch; US anti-feminist campaigner Phyllis Schlafly (thank you Roger); Tango the tiger who starred in Esso tv commercials in the 1990s; punk rocker Alan Vega; seam bowler Ken Higgs; Philip Kingsley, celebrity trichologist who coined the phrase ‘bad hair day’; playwright Edward Albee, author of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf; Sylvia Gore, scorer of the first goal for England’s women;
Eric Tovey, aka Lord Littlebrook the midget wrestler and; Greta Zimmer, the 21-year-old dental assistant pictured above in an embrace with a sailor in Times Square on V-J Day which became an iconic image of World War Two.