This week in our regular update from the outer reaches of the news agenda: the tooth fairy bites back, ketchup compensation, and Tony Blair's mohawk. But first...
Burning issue of the week: In the reality telly battle raging across the nation, surely the contenders are ITV's Survivor and Channel Four's Big Brother?
Answer: Not so, gentle reader. The real dust-up is between rival tabloids laying claim to being the organ of the docu-soaps.
The Sun weighs in with, "official paper of both TV sensations". Not so, says the Mirror. And the Daily Star, no doubt whipped into a frenzy by the towel-dropping and alleged sex-in-a-tent antics, claims an exclusive most every day.
New look, Tony?
No, not even here can you escape election coverage - of a sorts.
Both the Mirror and Sun carry photos of Prime Minister Tony Blair out canvassing in breezy Brighton - and the gentle gusts first whip his greying locks into a fright wig, then a mock Mochian hairdo.
Surely the premier can't be getting the wind up him in the home stretch?
Earlier in the week, the Tory-bashing Mirror appeared - at a quick glance - to have changed it's political colours.
The front page on Bank Holiday Monday simply read "Vote Tory". Inside were six pages of spoof articles on how the paper imagined life would be should the Conservatives pip Labour at the post next Thursday.
Something in the air
Anyone who's seen the hit claymation film Chicken Run knows that hens and roosters can't fly.
Or can they? The Mail proves it in pictures this week, with a full-page spread on "Chucky the cock-a-doodle-flew".
Although chickens and cockerels typically fly - and we use the term advisedly - no more than 10 feet at a time, falconer Sarah Pike has taught 11-week-old Chucky to take flight.
But as his wing muscles developed, so too did his vocal chords - something of a drawback, given that Sarah has taken Chucky under her wing and lets the plucky clucker sleep on her bed.
A lot of bottle
Imagine the consternation and distress experienced by an American couple who found themselves short-changed when it came to ketchup.
The eagle-eyed pair discovered that their ketchup bottle had been underfilled by a teaspoonful when they measured out the red gloop for a meatloaf recipe.
After weights and measures officials confirmed that the bottle was indeed short of sauce, ketchup manufacturer Heinz agreed to pay the couple £130,000 compensation.
On finding that millions of other bottles were slightly underfilled, the company agreed to overfill its products for a year.
Bite me
When it comes time to lose those milkteeth, kids may well need a bit of a helping hand to loosen those troublesome molars.
But the Sun reports that schoolboy Rory O'Shea had to be rushed to hospital for an emergency extraction - from his ear.
The lad had put his last baby tooth under his pillow, rolled around a bit in the night, and woke up with it lodged in his shell-like.
His father said they never thought Rory would
be put in hospital by the tooth fairy.
-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001