It must be true ... I read it in the tabloids

last updated 8 January 2015

A British man was found alive after his mother thought she’d had him cremated. Gina Partington, 58, was told by police that they’d found the body of her missing son, Thomas Dennison. When she viewed the young man’s body, she agreed it was him. I held his hand and kissed his head, she said. After a tearfilled funeral, she had him cremated. The next day, police called to say there had been a mistake. They then put Dennison on the line. I told him what had happened, and he said, ‘Mam! You’ve buried me!’ recalled Partington. I said, ‘No, I’ve cremated you.’

Sculptors at Britain’s legendary Madame Tussauds wax museum are busy repairing the statues of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, which were badly damaged by sex-crazed female gropers on their first day on display. Clooney’s cheeks were marred with lipstick, whereas Pitt’s double had suffered serious pinching damage to the buttocks. To say they were popular with women is an understatement, said a spokesman for Tussauds. Brad’s bum in particular was in a bad way.

City officials in Hanover, Germany, are defending their decision to include an image of an ax-wielding psychopath in this year’s Advent calendar for children. The calendar contains a collage of local landmarks and folklore, which is why, officials say, the cackling figure of Fritz the Butcher of Hanover Haarmann can be found peeking from behind a tree while brandishing an ax. Haarmann, who dismembered 24 victims in the 1920s before being caught and beheaded, is part of the city’s history, explained a spokesman