The Mongolian Death Worm’s end may be near as four British scientists embark on an epic journey to the Gobi Desert to hunt down the five-feet killer worm.  This worm can kill because it has a vicious spit and can electrocute people.  Not unlike t

Scientists have discovered why people have different requirements for sleep.  It’s in their jeans. (I think I heard that right.)All of us have chemicals inside us which determine how much sleep we need – from Mrs Thatcher to Sleeping Beauty via

I was skimming through the Daily Mail today (I read it to see which furry animal is endangered this week) and read in one article that today is “VE-Day - It’s all over.”  I therefore, removed myself from my desk and headed outside to swing on

I shall be voting by post – alongside the 13 other people living in my slum tenement hastily-erected on Epsom Downs where I live.  I shall be out of the country on election day (provided the Police give me my passport back) and so need to be able

One of these is the odd one out. To give you a clue it was taken when I did work experience going back and forth to the Cemetery Gates.

School meals are healthier as sales of frozen chips, turkeys and chocolate plummet.  This has come about from several angles, one being, “Jamie’s School Dinners.”  This highlighted the plight of the poor school children unable to go home for

Yesterday at Kew Gardens possibly the biggest lily in the world came into flower.  One not-so-charming factor about this flower is that it smells of rotting flesh.  I’ve have never smelled rotting flesh as I spurned the opportunity of workin

American researchers have found that by artificially inducing hibernation people can sustain longer periods under the surgeon’s knife - thus stopping bleeding.  The downside of this is when the patient comes round there is no longer the overwhelmi

An elephant broke into a South Korean restaurant earlier in the week.  This throws up all manner of decision dilemmas.  Apart from thinking, do I want “Smoking” or “No Smoking?  Do I want a seat near the window?  Do I want my usual seat? 

The first fan club websites for the new Pope, Benedict XVI, have already been launched into hyperspace. Already, T-shirts, baseball hats, Steins and other memorabilia are now available.  I shall wait for Saturday for the next Bayern home game before

Black Smoke emerging from the Sistine Chapel does not necessarily mean the 117 Cardinals have failed to elect a new Pope.  It could mean, as it’s a nice day in Rome, that they were having a barbeque.  It could have been that two-thirds of them ha

“Don’t use any strange toilets – you’ll get VD,” my mother used to intone if ever I was allowed off my reins to go to a friend’s house.  So, in the unlikely event that I would ever run the marathon like our Paula yesterday, I could not h

Mobile phone ringtones are costing innocent children vast amounts of money, the papers reported today.  Children subscribe to novelty ringtones – usually involving a duck on LSD or a frog with laryngitis – and are being charged unsuspectingly up

Britain’s first rabbit has been discovered in Norfolk.  It is believed to be over 2,000 years old.  It’s not still, alive, though, so don’t go running to the RSPCA, PDSA or SAS complaining that it’s cruel to keep a rabbit that long.  It is

Childrens’ parties have taken on grotesque proportions over the years.  Children nowadays vie for the best party bag ingredients, best event, best entertainers.  When I was a kid, shortly after rationing had stopped and decades before the likes o

“Desk skiving” is the new intra-office fashion.  80% of office employees spend about half-an-hour a day on personal emails, phone calls and Web use.  The Web is mostly used for news and recruitment sites.  Does this mean Jenna Jameson will soo

“Ask the Family” is to come back onto our screens but in a much dumbed- down format.  No longer will we have the respectable, if a little patronising Robert Robinson (oh that it were) but Dick and Dom.  I am not 6 so I am unaware of who Dick an

On the dust-gathering shelves of BBC Wiltshire lost recordings of The Archers have been found.  These recordings date back to 1977.  The Archers, great exponents of social comment since 1951, was still hitting the topical mark in 1977.  The lost s

Homoeopathy was born 250 years ago with the birth of Samuel Hahemann in Saxony.  His mother had eaten a lot of twigs during labour as the local chemist had run out of Pethedene. This science was discovered amidst times when blood-letting, purging an

Sex, cryptic crosswords and a long run can ward off dementia, says an Australian doctor. (As the “Flying Doctors” is no longer running on TV they have obviously found other things to do. Although I didn’t realise they were actual doctors.  Pos

I watched the Pope’s funeral this morning on BBC where they had a Welsh news reader and three “experts”.  It reminded me of the studio set-ups for the inter-game chats on “Match of the Day.”  I was almost expecting to hear Alan Hansen’s

The remains of a thylacoleo carnifex (beef in rosemary & thyme) has been discovered - an animal which roamed Australia tens of thousands of years ago.  Obviously it wasn’t called Australia then, as Captain Cook was still a sea-faring twinkle i

Butterflies can spot food at a distance of over 200 feet.  Will they be the new hawks?  Will we be able to attend country fairs and see, in the middle of an ostensibly empty field, a man (protected only with an elbow-length leather gauntlet) holdin

There are now 2,000 mint condition tea towels with the wrong Royal Wedding date on in circulation.  Might these be worth even more money in years to come as some famous flawed stamps are?  I don’t do a lot of washing up but I am sorely tempted to

The Japanese have started “Who wants to be a millionaire?” to huge ratings.  The difference to what we have here or the Germans who have “Wer wird ein Millionär?” is that all the contestants are heavily in debt and filmed the day before the