Man disappointed by reward for finding £4m cheque

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A sad man
(Image credit: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

A man who discovered a lost cheque worth £4m to Haribo was given “just six packets of gummies as a reward”, reported Metro. The man, from Frankfurt, Germany, spotted the cheque on a train platform and was stunned when he realised it was worth €4,631,538.80. “There was such a large sum on it that I couldn’t even pronounce it,” he told local media. But he was not blown away by his paltry reward, saying: “I thought that was a bit cheap.” Haribo said: “It was our standard package that we send as a thank you.”

Underpass for otters during rocket launches

Soundproof holes will be dug for otters on the Shetland Islands and launches will be paused during nesting season for seabirds when rockets start blasting off from Britain’s first “vertical” spaceport next year. The SaxaVord Spaceport team has promised “to avoid disturbing birds during the critical incubation and early brooding period”. It has already built an underpass for otters. There are plans for “up to 30 launches per year”, said The Times.

Fake airport sign brought down after 20 years

A prankster who spent £25,000 on a fake airport sign in Wales is bringing the joke to an end after 20 side-splitting years. The billboard for the non-existent Llandegley International has been a landmark near the Powys village for two decades but the owner has decided it's time to take it down. “Loads of people love it, some people might not get it,” Nicholas Whitehead told the BBC. “But as far as I know, nobody is upset or angry about it. That's a first for me.”

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.