A CHILD'S nightdress "exploded" while drying before the fire, the Echo took the trouble to report.

A student sat his Leaving Cert exam only eight hours after having his appendix removed, boasted the Argus.

A five year boy went missing in the supermarket while accompanying his mother and was later inexplicably found in the locked boot of her car the Wicklow People reported.

Kris Kristofferson was kick starting his career in the Longford Arms, said the Longford Leader (did no one tell him Alice doesn't live there any more?)

Wicklow county councillor and mother of five Susan Philips blamed the ISPCC's liberal attitudes regarding child rearing for the drugs problem.

Of her own brood, she said, "I smacked them and they turned out great" reported the Wicklow People.

Archbishop Dermot Clifford blamed the declining numbers of vocations on ordinary families for having "lost their nerve" in the face of negative publicity about the church or was that mad cow disease?

"The numerically tiny incidence of the recently discovered disease has led to a slaughter of all the herd policy on the part of some sections of the national and international media," he was quoted as saying in the Tipperary Star.

A most refreshing touch was added by some Swedish journalism students on an exchange programme. Their troubles started when their English wasn't up to ordering a sandwich.

"As a tourist you hold up the queue at rush hour when you are trying to find out what to order. We end up just picking anything as the waitress is getting more and more upset," wrote Anna Svenningsson in the Wexford People.

Next she wanted to clean her dirty clothes and so, sensibly, went to into a shop that said "cleaners", only to be told that she was in need of a laundrette. She soon got lost looking for it, and so asked a passer by who soon "gave up trying to explain the directions and came with us to the laundrette. He realised that there was no point in trying to talk to us in English and kept quiet".

Igela Gustavsson also observed ho the Irish tended to surrender mid explanation and accompany her instead. At Dunnes Stores in Enniscorthy, she got a hankering for meatballs and was helped out by a girl named Lyndsey.

"We were surprised when she showed us meatballs in tins with many different flavours. In Sweden your grandmother makes the most tasty meatballs, but if you have to buy them they are deep frozen in plastic bags. When we realised they were not like ours, we didn't buy any and the girl was not very pleased."

Getting lost isn't just for Swedish exchange students. An elderly man who prompted a major alert when he" went missing from a county home was found safely seated beneath a fairy tree, the Donegal Democrat reported. As an Air Corps helicopter buzzed over head, the man remarked that never in his life had he had such a fuss made over him.

The Nationalist and Leinster Times had a disturbing front page picture which could as easily have been taken in Calcutta as Carlow. In the foreground, a small dog toys with a dead rat. In the background stands a four year old boy, one of a family in which several children picked up infections from a rat which they believed to be "a bunny rabbit".

THE newspaper said that a three year old girl was rushed to hospital after her leg became bloated from a cellulitis infection contracted from playing with the dying "bunny rabbit".

The children's father, Mr Willie O'Reilly, told the newspaper that he had "worn out six terriers" in an effort to control the vermin. Their, mother, Ms Helen O'Reilly, had a letter from the doctor who treated her sick child in which he said that the rats were a "serious health hazard" and urged the council to give the problem their "urgent attention".

A health board representative said he was "surprised" that the entire site where the family lived had not been condemned and he speculated as to the level of legal responsibility the council might have if a child was bitten, especially since the families are paying a weekly rent.

But the council told the newspaper that it would have to "reject any suggestion" that the injuries were caused by unsanitary conditions.

We can not be held responsible for travellers not taking advantage of the refuse collecting facility provided," the council spokesman said.

The vermin on Clare Island are superior to the mainland type, the Western People told us. They are "laid back", "wiser" and have larger feet than normal. The breed of super mice, known either as apodemus or opodemus sylvatkus (the newspaper wasn't sure) appear friendly and do not run away at first when released, according to the Royal Irish Academy. And Co Mayo thinks that its 10 Blue Flag beaches should be its major draw?