IT MUST BE TRUE…

I read it in the tabloids

New Zealand’s “Bird of the Year” contest has been rocked by vote-rigging claims. The annual poll, run by the Forest and Bird organisation, operates a “one person, one vote” rule. But scientist Yvan Richard – using a computer program for analysing elections – spotted that one bird-lover had voted from 112 different email accounts. “I noticed there was a big spike for the white-faced heron at about midnight on the first day of voting,” he said, “so I let Forest and Bird know.” In 2015, two teenagers confessed to voting for the kokako from fake accounts. Forest and Bird says it has taken anti-fraud measures.

An angler in Dorset nearly died when a Dover sole leapt down his throat. Sam Quilliam, 28, was fishing off Boscombe Pier when he caught the 6-inch fish. Before throwing it back, he decided to plant a kiss on it – but the joke backfired. “I squeezed it and, like a bar of soap, it jumped out of my hand and into my mouth... and swam down my throat,” he said. “I ran round the pier like a headless chicken and then passed out.” Paramedic Matt Harrison (above left) raced to the scene, and used forceps to extract the fish from his windpipe. “I have never attended a more bizarre incident,” he said, “and don’t think I ever will.”

A man in a shark costume has been fined for flouting Austria’s burqa ban. The unnamed worker was standing outside the Mcshark computer shop in Vienna, trying to drum up business, when he was apprehended by officers. Under the new law, faces must be visible in public from hairline to chin.