IT MUST BE TRUE…

I read it in the tabloids

A Japanese civil servant has been reprimanded and fined for leaving his desk three minutes early for lunch. The 64-year-old official, who works at the waterworks bureau in the city of Kobe, went on his designated lunch break three minutes too early on 26 occasions over a period of seven months, according to a city spokesperson. Senior officials at the bureau called a televised news conference to apologise. They described the worker’s conduct as “deeply regrettable” and bowed in apology. The man, who was docked half a day’s pay, said that he had left his desk early to get a bento box because he needed a “change of pace”.

A 10ft wooden statue of a grizzly bear has been removed from its position outside the town of Llanwrtyd Wells, in Powys, because a passing driver mistook it for the real thing and swerved into a signpost. “Apparently she had been on holiday in Canada, or was from Canada, so was used to seeing bears,” said one local. The grizzly was taken from its position by the A483 on Monday on the orders of the Welsh government and will be placed in a less threatening location.

A New York designer has built a wooden stool from scratch, using only his own body. Nikolas Bentel felled a tree with his bare hands, then used his teeth and nails to whittle the wood into shapes that would fit together without glue or screws, before banging it all together with his fists. Three days later, with splintered fingertips and bleeding gums, he had a basic stool. “Obviously in no way would anyone ever have this in their house,” he conceded.