Bad week for:

Gateshead Council, after it was forced to deny that its new LED street lights caused cancer, miscarriages and nosebleeds. Online conspiracy theories had claimed that the lights were fitted with 5G technology as part of a government trial, and that this had sinister health effects on wildlife and people. In a Facebook statement, the council assured citizens that there was no basis to any of the scare stories. Hot pepper-eating contests, after a nameless competitor in New York who ate the world’s hottest chilli developed an excruciating headache and had to receive emergency medical care. The offending chilli, the Carolina Reaper, rates about 1.6 million on the Scoville heat scale; a jalapeño, by comparison, comes in at between 2,500 and 8,000 on the same scale. Terry Gilliam, whose movie about Don Quixote, often cited as the most ill-fated production in cinema history, was delayed for release yet again. A legal battle over who owns the director’s rights to the film, which has been 20 years in the making, is responsible.