It wasn’t all bad

A university student in Auckland and a chef in southern Spain have created the first sliced bread “Earth sandwich”. Etienne Naude, 19, from New Zealand, recruited his collaborator in Spain online, then worked out the latitude and longtitude of two precisely opposite points on the planet. This week, he and 34-year-old Angel Sierra put slices of bread on these points, to make a sandwich filled with 12,724km of Earth. The first Earth sarnie, made in 2006, was a baguette.

A 75-year-old man who took up ballet four years ago in memory of his late wife has passed his grade one exam. Bernard Bibby, who was married to Celia for 55 years, said dancing had brought them together because he was “the only boy at the youth club who could jive”. Following her death in 2015, he decided to sell his TV to force himself to go out and find new ways to entertain himself. After trying ballroom and Latin dancing, as well as tap, he settled on ballet. He took his exam in November at the Bridge Academy of Performing Arts in Rochester, and received the result last week.

Bundles of cash found around Blackhall Colliery, a former pit village in Co Durham, were left by two benefactors who prefer to remain anonymous, police said. Since 2014, 13 bundles amounting to £26,000 have been found and handed to police (who gave each back when it was not claimed). The donors, who’d responded to a police appeal for information, said they’d had a windfall, and wanted to share it; one said she felt an “emotional connection” to the village, because of a kindness once shown to her by one of its residents.