IT MUST BE TRUE… I read it in the tabloids

An easyJet customer escaped excess baggage charges by putting on an extra 8kg of clothes. John Irvine was returning to Edinburgh from Nice, where the temperature was 30°C, when his bag turned out to be overweight. “The lassie at the counter asked us if we wanted to pay extra,” said his son Josh, “but my dad just looked at her and said, ‘Hen, watch this’, and zipped open the suitcase and flung on about 15 jumpers. Getting through security was a struggle, because they thought he was trying to smuggle something under all his clothes.” Thousands of people, including newlyweds, have been flocking to a lake in Siberia to take Instagram pictures of themselves beside its azure waters – ignoring the fact that it’s actually a chemical waste dump. Nicknamed “the Siberian Maldives”, the lake near Novosibirsk owes its brilliant colour to toxic ash from a local power station. The company responsible has warned selfie-takers to stay clear of the water, which can cause allergic reactions and chemical burns, adding that the bottom of the lake is extremely muddy and getting out is “almost impossible”. A Wisconsin man has been jailed for 150 days for deliberately blocking women’s toilets with plastic bottles. Police caught up with Patrick D. Beeman after investigating around a dozen incidents at places where he had worked over the last two years. Beeman has apologised, confessing that he experiences urges to do strange things. “I need to make things right and pray forgiveness every day.”