Pet fish run up bill on computer game

And other stories from the stranger side of life

Nintendo Switch

Pet fish playing a video game logged on to the Nintendo Switch store, changed their owner’s avatar, set up a Pay Pal account and ran up a credit card bill. YouTuber Mutekimaru runs a channel that features his Siamese fighting fish playing Pokémon video games on a Nintendo Switch console. However, said the New York Post, a malfunction returned the device to its home screen and movements made by the fish opened the Nintendo eShop on the screen and saw them spend $4 of his money to purchase points.

Painting bought for $600 goes for £3m

A rediscovered Anthony van Dyck painting bought for just $600 has sold for over $3m at auction, reported CNN. The piece, a study for a later painting produced by the Flemish master called St Jerome, was only recently identified as a work of Van Dyck, said Sotheby’s. It was discovered in the late 20th century in a farm shed in Kinderhook, New York. The man who found it describes his collection as “an orphanage for lost art that had suffered from neglect”.

‘Oldest living mouse’ in San Diego zoo

A zoo in the US said it is seeking Guinness World Records recognition for a mouse believed to be the oldest in the world at the age of nine. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said a Pacific pocket mouse named Pat - in honour of Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart - is due the official honour. The oldest mouse ever recorded by Guinness World Records was named Fritzy and died in 1985 at the age of seven years and seven months, noted UPI.

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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.