A Norwegian family has received an electricity bill for £680,000.

Siri Hoelland's family moved into a new house in southwestern Norway during the summer and didn't know how much electricity they'd use during the winter.

They had expected a bill of around £600 for a two-month period from November to January, and were even heating the house with wood to keep costs down.

But when the bill from local power company Dalene Energi arrived it showed they had consumed more than 20 million kilowatts of energy, enough to heat 830 houses.

Dalene Energi has traced the error to a computer glitch, and pledged to send them a corrected bill.

Mrs Hoelland plans to keep the original. "We're going to frame it and hang it on the wall," she said.

Ananova

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2003