MAGPIE:A CALIFORNIAN man has trained his pet goldfish to play football, basketball and even limbo dance under a bar. Comet the goldfish can also play fetch with a hoop, slalom around a series of poles and push a rugby ball over a set of posts.
"There is mounting evidence that fish are more intelligent than people give them credit for," declared Dr Dean Pomerleau (41) from Los Angeles. He used a training technique called positive reinforcement to train two-year-old Comet to carry out the tricks.
"With the correct tools and the basic promise of a food reward, fish can very quickly learn complex tricks - like the limbo, slalom or playing fetch. People in the market for a dog might want to consider a fish instead."
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A German tourist had a shock when his caravan rolled 200 yards down a hill - while he was on the toilet. Juergen Winkler (48) was left with just cuts and bruises after the caravan crashed into a lamppost and then into a ditch in an orchard in the upper Austria region where he was on holiday.
He was still sitting on the loo when the fire brigade arrived to pull his caravan out of the ditch. "He has only a few very slight injuries but he was as white as a sheet and still sitting there on the toilet," said a spokesman for the fire service.
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A French doctor is urging his countrymen to take a more relaxed view of bodily functions for the good of their health. Frédéric Saldmann says they should give free rein to farting, burping and sweating to reduce the risk of cancer.
In his book, Le Grand Ménage, Dr Saldmann invites people to embrace the stereotypical foreign view of the French. His countrymen, he says, should "dare to fart". Getting rid of the two litres of gas produced each day is a natural process and retaining it can be harmful to the intestines.
Similarly, he says his countrymen should feel free to belch at will and certainly after each meal. This, he says, is the best way to reduce the risk of getting a hiatal hernia, an ailment which affects almost a third of French people.
Keeping air in the stomach leads to more heartburn, which increases the risk of cancer of the oesophagus. The rise of this disease in France, he says, is due to "the burp we no longer do".
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Some computer keyboards carry more harmful bacteria than a toilet seat, according to new research. Consumer group Which? said tests at its London offices found bugs that could cause food poisoning.
Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office's toilet seats.
Dr Wilson, a consultant microbiologist at University College London Hospital, said sharing a keyboard could be passing on illnesses among office workers. "If you look at what grows on computer keyboards, and hospitals are worse, believe it or not, it's more or less a reflection of what's in your nose and in your gut," he said.
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An Indian man is planning to take to the air by hanging from a helicopter by his ponytail. Shailendra Roy made the pledge after pulling the famous Darjeeling toy train with his ponytail.
One end of an iron chain was tied to his foot-long ponytail, and the other to the train engine and three coaches, weighing some 35 tonnes. He says he keeps the hair strong by rubbing it with mustard oil and pulling cars and other heavy objects.
"I am planning to dangle myself from a helicopter," Mr Roy said after pulling the train for 10 metres. "It is a dream come true for me. I had planned to pull the train for at least 300 metres, but railway officials did not allow it."
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A cat missing for seven months in Cornwall has been spotted - by a US woman watching a webcam. Abbi Rendell (30) lost Jerry in October after moving to the village of Polperro. She stuck posters around the area and appealed on local website www.polperro.org but to no avail.
She had lost hope, until Deb Wilgus, from Indiana, emailed her last month after watching a webcam of the village and spotting Jerry several times sleeping on a hotel doormat.
"I couldn't believe it," said Abbi, staking out the hotel in the hope of finding Jerry.
