SIDELINES...

STUDENT SHARK

Shark researchers in Australia were baffled when the tag they were using to track a 1.95m (6ft) bull shark showed it was roaming the grounds of the University of Wollagong, even visiting one of the dorm rooms. Fish Thinkers Research, the organisation tracking the animal, traced it to a student who had picked it up on the beach after it had parted company with its shark but wasn’t sure what to do with it, so kept carrying it around. www.news.com.au, 8 May 2021.

COLLARED

Equally puzzled was cat owner Andy Kindell who was trying to find the £130 GPS tracking device lost from his cat’s collar. Visiting locations shown on the tracker app, Andy could find nothing but kept following the trace as it zig-zagged invisibly across the local area. He eventually twigged the tracker was underground, having probably been swallowed by a rat, as the tracks on the map were following the sewers. Sun, 21 Mar 2021.

GONE ASHTRAY

A passer-by in Ketelbey Rise, Basingstoke, was surprised to find an abandoned cremation urn containing ashes sitting on the pavement and handed it in to police. On investigation, they found the ashes were of those of someone named Paul Ash. They are trying to find a family member to return them to. D.Mirror, 19 June 2021.

CHEESY DOWNFALL

Carl Stewart, 39, who used an encrypted messaging service to arrange drug deals under the pseudonym “Toffeeforce”, also posted a message about his love of stilton with a close-up of his hand holding a chunk of the cheese. Police, who had cracked the encryption, identified Stewart from his fingerprints in the picture and arrested him. BBC News, 25 May 2021.