Daft news in lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer B

considered and the top 10 also includes Harry Styles from One Direction. Really?

Others are Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, David Beckham, Will Smith, Idris Elba, Ryan Gosling, Zayn Malik and Jamie Foxx.

There are, of course, blokes around the world even more ACK in the 1960s Blackpool was worried about the growing threat of package holidays to Spain.

I was a reporter on the town’s Evening Gazette newspaper, and we would use any excuse to exhort the attraction of the resort.

During a particularly sizzling summer, an enterprising photographer took a picture of an egg frying on the pavement and the headline boasted we were hotter than the Costas.

It’s actually impossible to do this, and the egg had been cooked in a frying pan before being laid out on the pavement.

This is what happens during the silly season, in those summer months when Parliament is in recess and everybody seems to have gone on holiday.

The shortage of hard news leads to a shift towards stories of daftness to fill column inches.

Crop circles, killer chipmunks and a spoof story about Germany proposing to buy Majorca have all made headlines.

Topless dresses, believe it or not, gained a brief notoriety in the Swinging 60s, and two girls who wore them to a London film premiere were stopped by police who took down their particulars. So to speak.

Victor Meldrew was found in space (well, an outline of his face was) and a likeness of Jesus miraculously appeared on a slice of toast while Elvis popped up on bacon. The Tamworth Two were piglets who were on the run for a week after escaping from an abattoir and found fame as Butch and Sundance. When they were recaptured, The Daily Mail bought their freedom and they lived happily ever after in a Rare Breeds Centre in Kent.

A Mail executive is quoted as saying: “It may seem like a fun animal story, but at the time it was deadly serious. It was the most important story of the week by far.”

Their fame was so great, the BBC made a TV feature film about them.

Which leaves me wondering how to compete in the daftness stakes this summer.

I could inflate my grandchildren’s paddling pool, leave it in the back garden and see how long it takes to fill with rain.

But that’s being pessimistic. I’m hopeful we’ll get a burst of hot weather before the month’s out.

If we do, maybe I’ll attempt to fry an egg on the pavement.

Or form an escape committee for abattoir pigs. George Clooney’s appeal to women can get right up your nose. Amber Heard (inset) is said to have the most perfect face