Dear all,

Some more stories culled from around the world which just goes to show how truly daft people can be and how odd the world really is. I hope you enjoy the latest round-up of stories from around the world.

In Texas, a pleasure boat was sunk yesterday when it happened to be passing a nudist beach. On being told that the two decker boat was approaching the nudist beach on the starboard side, passengers immediately rushed to the upper deck with their cameras. The captain suddenly realised what would happen and beseeched them to return to their seats. They refused, and the boat slowly but surely tilted and then capsized.

A Brazilian clairvoyant is claiming the $25m prize for the capture of Saddam. He wrote a letter to Bush saying that the dictator was hiding in a hole 1.8m long at Ad Dawr, near Tikrit, covered in rubble to disguise the entrance. The letter was sent on the 16th December 2001 and lodged with a notary. The Bush administration has yet to pay out.

The German government is to introduce legislation forcing all companies to employ one supervised trainee for every fifteen paid workers. The legal, licensed, heterosexual and gay brothels are concerned that their clients may object to a trainee being present learning the trade and possibly taking notes while they indulge their lusts with a more experienced practitioner of the art.

Meanwhile, still in Germany a driver was fined 30$ because his dog was not wearing a seatbelt.

The gross prize of the week goes to a US retailer that has just this week launched a range of raunchy thongs - for size 26 women.

From our South American desk we hear that a Chilean company has launched a range of coffins that come complete with a panic button. It is there presumably for the spirit of the interred to press in case it gets claustrophobic

And finally, in Eastern Europe two Ukranian soldiers copping a crafty fag while on duty, accidentally set off an entire munitions dump. More than 5,000 seperate explosions were recorded after one of the soldiers absently tossed his fag butt over his shoulder.

The blasts are said to have cost over 25 million worth of damage, and left up to 7,000 evacuees homeless for several days.

Whether to ban smoking in public in the Ukraine and follow the lead of Ireland, Norway and Sweden who have already introduced such legislationin public places is clearly a burning and potentially explosive issue.

yechydda,