IT MUST BE TRUE… I read it in the tabloids

Japanese engineers have developed a new robotic hand that, say its creators, lets you “experience holding your girlfriend’s hand more easily than finding a girlfriend”. The Osampo Kanojo (“My girlfriend in walk”) device, created at Japan’s Gifu University, is covered with a soft pliable gel which feels like human skin. It responds in kind if you squeeze it, and gives off the fragrance of a woman’s shampoo. It can even sweat, emitting moisture through small pores, while the sounds of your virtual girlfriend’s steps and breathing play through an accompanying smartphone app.

A father of six has paid homage to his children in a uniquely unsavoury way: by tattooing their names and pictures of their faeces down the back of his leg. The unnamed man proudly shared a picture of his new body art – complete with flies and embedded sweetcorn – on Facebook, along with the caption: “I got my little turds tatted on the back of my leg... I ♥ every stinking one of them.”

Corona Newton has long been subjected to beer-based jokes about her unusual name – but the 49-year-old, from Oldham, says things have got out of hand during the pandemic. She has been plagued by cold callers (“Is that the virus?”) and making restaurant bookings is an ordeal. “People have said to me: ‘As if I’m going to listen to somebody named after a virus.’” But the civil servant, who acquired her name because her parents were torn between Catherine and Sarah, is philosophical about her moniker. “At least no one will ever forget me,” she said.