SIDELINES...

SQUID STATUE

The coastal town of Noto in Japan decided to spend 25 million yen (£164,700) of the 800m yen (£5.3m) in government covid relief it received on building a 13m (43ft) long bright pink statue of a squid instead of medical staff or longterm care facilities. A spokesman for the town was unrepentant and told Fuji News Network that it was part of a strategy to celebrate flying squid, a local delicacy, to attract tourists after the epidemic was over. BBC News, 4 May 2021.

ASBO SWAN

An antisocial swan has been tormenting a Northampton neighbourhood for the past five years by hammering on doors and rattling letterboxes with his beak. Nobody is quite sure why ‘Cedric the Asbo Swan’ has been behaving in this way, sometimes for up to three hours. “It’s a flipping nuisance,” says local councillor Stephen Legg. D.Mirror, 25 Mar 2021.

WINDFALL FROM SPACE

Treasure hunters were searching for a meteorite thought to have landed somewhere on the Dorset-Hampshire border after streaking across the sky on 20 March. It could be worth thousands of pounds. Sun, 8 April 2021.

KITCHEN BLAST

Irritated by a fly and unaware that a gas cylinder was leaking in his kitchen, a Frenchman in his 80s grabbed an electric fly-swatting rocket, swung at the insect, and caused an explosion that brought down the ceiling and rendered his home uninhabitable in Parcoul-Chenaud, Dordogne. The fly’s fate was unknown. D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 8 Sept 2020.