IT MUST BE TRUE…

I read it in the tabloids

A Thai man was recovering in hospital this week after a 10ft python emerged from his squat toilet and sank its teeth into his penis. Attaporn Boonmakchuay said the snake was “yanking very hard”, but that he eventually managed to prise its jaws apart while his wife pulled it away. The snake, which had slithered in through the plumbing, was later found and released back into the wild. Mr Boonmakchuay, 38, says he now plans to replace his squat toilet with a sitting one.

An Italian baker who paid his child support in pizza has been told he won’t be prosecuted. Nicola Toso, 50, from a village outside Padua, agreed to pay w400 a month in his divorce settlement, but when he fell on hard times, began sending pizza, calzone and other foods from his workplace instead. His wife filed a criminal complaint, but a judge said the food counted as payments “in kind”. A Russian couple have spent the last two decades sharing their home with a brown bear. Svetlana and Yuriy Panteleenko adopted Stepan when he was three months old, after hunters found him abandoned in a wood. They nursed him back to health, and grew so fond of him, they decided to keep him. Now 23, he stands more than 7ft tall, and weighs 21st, but his “parents” insist he’s a gentle soul, who enjoys watering the plants in the garden, playing football and cuddling up on the sofa to watch TV. The only downside is the amount of food he gets through: 25kg of fish, vegetables and eggs a day. “It’s a wonder he doesn’t eat us out of house and home,” Svetlana said.