A pig dives during a performance at a zoo in Nanjing, China

(BBC photo)

You may remember from the Fifties the following song by Guy Mitchell:

There's a pawnshop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
And I've just gotta get five or ten
From the pawnshop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Gotta be with my angel again.

But do you know what is special about the spelling of the name of that city?

I will tell you.

In 1894 Pittsburgh refused to comply with an order by the US Board on Geographic names that all -burghs in America should become -burgs and it is one of the few communities in the country whose name ends with -gh.

There are Pittsburgs in California, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Texas, but the city in Pennsylvania is exceptionally and defiantly "Pittsburgh".

A collection of watercolours and drawings attributed to Adolf Hitler sold at auction fetched £118,000 - more than double its estimate of £40,000 to £50,000.

The real thing

GOODBYE EVERYONE

Mr Blair's "farewell tour" includes plans to appear on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and Chris Evans' radio show.

But what then? Will he be able to walk back into Downing Street and carry on as before for another nine months?

A three-year-old boy has used his mother's computer to buy a £9,000 car on the internet.

Jack Neal's parents only discovered their son's successful bid when they received a message from eBay about the Barbie pink Nissan Figaro.

Rachael Neal, 36, said her son was quite good at using the computer.

Mrs Neal, of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, said she had left her eBay password in her computer and her son had used the "buy it now" button.

She said: "Jack's a whizz on the PC and just pressed all the right buttons.

"I was just horrified.

"We now have the parental locks on - and we make sure we sign out of eBay!"

COUP IN THAILAND

A Thai policeman stands next to a tank decorated with flowers near Government House in Bangkok

Chimpanzees' behaviour is remarkably familiar, not least because DNA analysis tells us that there is a 98 per cent match between the genes of humans and chimps

A record 500 fixed penalty fines a week have been issued against parents allowing their children to play truant or taking them on holiday during term time, official figures showed yesterday.

The fines of £50 for each parent were introduced as part of the Government's campaign to reduce truancy, but the statistics show a continuing rise in the number of school days missed over the past year.

Sorry Darling - I forgot!

CONCUSSED GROOM FORGETS HIS BIG DAY

A groom who left his bride stranded at the altar was suffering from concussion, not cold feet.

When the IT worker failed to appear at Skelmorlie Parish Church, Ayrshire, on Saturday, his concerned relatives contacted the police, who launched a manhunt involving the coastguard and a search and rescue helicopter.

Mark Mason, 40, was found on Monday wandering dazed and confused in the village of Strachur, 25 miles from the church.

He had been involved in a car crash the day before he was due to marry 38-year-old Fiona McAskill.

Last night he was still recovering in hospital in Dunoon.

Mr Mason is thought to have suffered memory loss and was unable to tell police or hospital staff his name, far less that he was due to be married at the weekend.

Miss McAskill, a nurse, was too upset to talk about what had happened but her brother Roddy said the family was "very upset".

I was born on 20th September 19**

The Royal Academy in London is staging an exhibition of the works of Rodin from 23 September 2006 to 1 January 2007.

Of course, his most famous sculpture is "The Kiss"

However, I very much prefer his terra cotta bust of a young lady in a floral hat.

I am not sure what will be exhibited in London, but it should be interesting.

The two photos above were taken by me on a vist to the Musee Rodin in Paris last year.

Which savory spread do you prefer?

Are you a Marmite or a Bovril fan?

The difference between the two was always that Marmite had a vegetable base and Bovril contained beef.

However, following the export ban on beef, Bovril was reformulated in 2004 - out with the beef and in with the veggies.

The ban was lifted earlier this year and the product is once again meat-based.

So Beef Up With Bovril!

Spectators watch a match at the Warsteiner Hockey Park stadium in Germany

Labour's civil war reignited yesterday when a minister broke ranks to call openly for Tony Blair to quit well before next May.

Geoff Hoon, the Europe minister and a former Blair loyalist, became the first minister publicly to brand the Prime Minister an electoral liability who must go before the May 3 local elections.

TEENAGE DRINKERS AND SMOKERS

Drastic action to stop the spread of heavy drinking and smoking among young people — including a ban on advertising alcohol on television — is recommended by Government advisers today.

They also propose tougher drink-driving limits for the under-25s and an increase in the legal age for buying tobacco from 16 to 18.

Half of British children drink at least once a week

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs reports that Britain's children have some of the worst alcohol and tobacco problems in Europe.

It estimates that up to one in four 15-year-olds is a regular smoker, with girls outnumbering boys. Half are drinking alcohol at least once a week and up to a quarter have used other drugs, mainly cannabis, in the past month.

Britain has higher rates of regular drinking and drunkenness among this age group than any other European and North American country except Denmark and Ireland.

"Top Gear" Magazine has just published a list of the ten most sexy cars.

Which do you think headed the list?

Was it this Aston Martin DBS ?

No - that came second.

The sexiest automobile of all time was judged to be:

The humble Fiat 500.

Record computer technology investment in schools has failed

Record investment in education and computer technology in the classroom has failed to deliver more graduates and better qualified school leavers, an international study said yesterday.

Britain came top of 30 countries for increased spending but has slipped down the graduate league table because schools are not producing enough suitable candidates for university, it said.

The damning verdict on the Government's record in education came from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which compared Britain with 29 countries.

The report showed a steep fall in participation rates in higher education compared to other countries, as Britain was overtaken by nations such as Poland, Iceland and Australia.

In terms of the proportion of graduates, Britain dropped from second place in 2000 to ninth in 2004.

It is now one per cent below the OECD average for participation in higher education, compared to eight per cent above the average in 1998.

The decline comes despite Government efforts to reach its target of 50 per cent of young people going to university by 2010 and record levels of money going into schools, much of it spent on computers, the report said.

It warned that Britain could not afford to have so many teenagers leaving school without five good GCSEs. "The challenge lies in ensuring that young people leave school with strong baseline qualifications," it said.

Despite its above average spending on primary pupils, Britain has 24.3 students per class, one of the largest average class sizes, surpassed only by Japan, Korea and Turkey.

Tony Blair embarked on the longest farewell in modern politics yesterday with a defiant and emotional defence of his record as Prime Minister to a sullen Trades Union Congress in Brighton.

He faced a walk-out by delegates from the Left-wing RMT transport union - who held up placards denouncing his policies on public services and Iraq -and was greeted in silence by many others.

Some waved banners in protest at the involvement of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, while his comments about schools brought shouts of "rubbish".

The battle for the leadership of the Labour Party continues.

"Give me a contest, not coronation says Brown".

Gordon Brown has vowed to take on any challenger for the Labour leadership and said he "welcomes" a contest to replace Tony Blair.

The Chancellor will today launch his fightback against a campaign inside the Government designed to scupper his chances of succeeding the Prime Minister.

He will use a television interview to declare for the first time that he would "welcome" a contest rather than a coronation.

. . . . and I haven't yet found out how to use it properly

(Turn it round Dearie!)

Free condoms should be handed to children — possibly as young as 12 — in sports halls, shops and swimming baths, Government advisers suggested yesterday.

"They should be easily accessible to young people" and "new and creative approaches of getting condoms into the community would be the next logical step".

Critics have said that the Government's strategy has clearly failed, with an increse in sexually transmitted infections and the teenage pregnancy rate becoming the highest in western Europe.

Education and example is surely the answer?

Not giving away condoms like free milk.

The Gas Board Virus
It won't do anything now, but will send two viruses round next week.

Prozac virus
Screws up your RAM but your processor doesn't care.

The Irish Virus
Deletes itself.

The Dyslexia Virus
Messes about with your flies.

The Star Trek Virus
Boldly goes where no virus has gone before.

The Prison Breakout Virus
Hides your files in a cake.

The Ayrton Senna Virus
Crashes any high speed hard disk.

The Nat West ATM Virus
Removes 200 bytes from each of your files and then claims that that sort of thing simply isn't possible.

The Volvo Virus
Enables disks to survive severe head crashes, but slows processor, impossible to get rid of, and goes on forever.

The Kylie Minogue Virus
Infects all your files for a period of time, then disappears completely without trace.

Monica Lewinsky virus
Sucks all the memory out of your computer.

Titanic virus
Makes your whole computer go down.

Disney virus
Everything in the computer goes Goofy.

Lorena Bobbit virus
Turns your hard disk into a 3.5 inch floppy.

Spice Girl virus
Has no real function, but makes a pretty desktop.

Ronald Reagan virus
Saves your data, but forgets where it is stored.

Oprah Winfrey virus
Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands to 300MB.

Arnold Schwarzenegger virus
Terminates and stays resident...It'll be back.

Viagra virus
Expands your hard drive while putting too much pressure on your zip drive.

The British Rail Virus
90% of all files loaded from disk arrive 20 minutes late due to reformat of hard disk at 11.17 but is delayed due to wrong kind of interleave. The computers refuse to access the modem due to leaves on the line. Disables carriage return.

The BNFL Virus (British Nuclear Fuels Limited)
When you delete a file it remains on your hard disk for 24000 years, by which time it has shrunk to half its original size.

The AA Virus
It doesn't do any harm itself, but it knows a virus that can.

The Traffic Cone Virus
Slows down the bus and other traffic, and has a tendency to occur on bank holidays

New Competition for Virgin Airlines: Slut Airlines

NEW YORK — A new airline has entered the highly competitive travel industry this week.

Super Luxury Utopian Transport or SLUT airlines as it's referred to in the company brochures, is offering a unique service to the weary traveller.

A spokesman said the fledgling airline will be offering many amenities that the other airlines do not offer.

"Take check-in for example - Instead of all those impersonal x-ray machines and waving wands, all our customers will be personally hand searched by a bevy of beautiful models, and all our seats transform into private beds where our world class beautiful stewardesses will be offering memberships in our special ‘Mile High Club’."

The company motto is "Why fly a Virgin when you can take a ride on a Slut.”

"I'm perfectly safe on the roads", says blind driver

A police officer described yesterday how he pulled over a motorist who was veering across the road and found that he had no eyes.

Omed Aziz, who lost both his eyes in a bomb blast and is also deaf, was caught behind the wheel with a friend sitting in the passenger seat giving him instructions on when to steer and brake

Pc Glyn Austin told magistrates that he saw Aziz's white Peugeot 405 move from one side of the ring road in Oldbury, West Midlands, to the other, crossing a white hazard line, before turning left.

He and a colleague had already seen him successfully negotiate two roundabouts and a corner.

Pc Austin said that when he pulled over the car, Aziz, who wore dark glasses, was fumbling with the controls. When asked if he noticed anything about Aziz he replied: "I did — he didn't have any eyes."

He said: "I attempted to speak to the driver. At that point the passenger leaned across and said 'He's blind'."

Aziz, 31, and his passenger, who was banned from driving at the time, were arrested and taken to Smethwick police station, where Aziz confirmed that he was totally blind and had impaired hearing in his left ear as a result of injuries from an explosion in Iraq before he moved to Britain.

Magistrates heard that he also lost a thumb and two fingers in the blast.

Timothy Gascoyne, defending, said Aziz, who did not give evidence, should be cleared because "the question is not whether his driving was dangerous, but whether being blind makes it dangerous".

He said: "If my client hadn't been blind he wouldn't have been arrested for dangerous driving, so it doesn't fall far below what is expected from a careful and competent driver."

Aziz, from Darlaston, Staffs, who was followed by police driving at 35mph for half a mile before he was stopped at 11pm in April, was led into court by an interpreter. He previously admitted driving with no tax, insurance or MOT.

He was found guilty of dangerous drving and will be sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court next week.

I am indebted to Terry Wogan for the following

A listener tells me that some time ago the local council erected a bus stop near her home, which she found a little strange, since she doesn't live on a bus route.

Since then, they've cleaned it every month.

She recently rang the council and asked if there was going to be a new route. The answer was No.

Since then a notice has been added to the bus stop. It reads "Not Operational".

It is a tradition (duty?) that the Prime Minister and his wife should visit the Royal Family each year during their summer vacation in Balmoral.

But Cherie Blair, an ardent republican, has never bothered to conceal her boredom.

Here she is with her husband and the Queen and Prince Philip at the Braemar Highland Games in 2003.

None of them look very happy do they?

The Blairs flew up to Scotland on Friday on what may be their last visit.

Next year it may be Mr Brown!

SAD LETTER ROM A CHILD WHO HAS LOST A TOOTH

DEAR TOOTH FAIRY . . . .

TWO CONTRASTING IMAGES FROM THIS WEEK'S NEWS

A bomb attack victim receives treatment at a hospital in Baghdad

A reveller is covered in tomato pulp during the annual tomato fight in Bunol, Spain