if it’s news to me, it must be news to you!
Coulrophilia: If you have an overwhelming obsession with clowns, here is the house for you on sale in Canada for just £135,000.
Sing-a-long: The powers that be in China are concerned that the national anthem is ‘casually used and sung in an unsolemn manner’ so they are to introduce new laws that set out when and how it should be sung.
But is it art: A student in Scotland left a £1 pineapple at an art exhibition at his university and when he returned four days later, it had indeed become an exhibit in its own glass case.
Wicked leaks: In the week that the draft Labour manifesto was leaked, the media hushed up the fact that the Tories had also fallen foul of a leak, but it was spotted by Richard Matthew on Twitter.
May the Fourth: A child who dressed up as Darth Vader as part of the annual Star War Day sparked an armed police response when he was mistaken for a potential attacker at a high school in Wisconsin.
Run fat boy, run: Scientists are developing a new drug that could turn the laziest of couch potatoes into a marathon runner. The ‘exercise in a pill’ has dramatically improved the endurance in mice.
Coffee selfie: With so many coffee shops to choose from, the retailers need an edge and the latest is having a selfie from your phone printed on your latte.
But if you can’t wait for a shot of Joe, then try the mobile phone case that can brew you a shot in just eight seconds. Or perhaps a caffeinated bagel would do the trick.
Beep-beep: Vodaphone is closing its pager service because it is now seen as ageing technology. Which is a little worrying because they are still used widely in the health service and I know from experience that they can still be relied upon in a major emergency while other technology crashes under the strain.
Brief lives: Nicholas Sand, the chemist whose brand of LSD fuelled America’s psychedelic counterculture during the late 1960s; test pilot John Cockburn;
Musician and trance DJ Robert Miles; Michael Wearing who produced The Boys from the Black Stuff and; Geoffrey Bayldon who played the much-loved Catweazle right with his ‘telling bone’.