‘War on wee’ at Cheltenham Festival

As the Cheltenham Festival begins a “war on wee” is also underway, said The Times. Councillors in the Gloucestershire town are “girding themselves” for the “more unsavoury aspects of the sport of kings”, said the paper, with a poster depicting a man and a woman urinating against a tree, alongside the slogan: “Have fun this race week but remember our town isn’t your toilet.” Splash-back paint will mean public urinaters risk “wet trousers”, added the paper.

Gorillas spin ‘to get high’

Gorillas and other apes spin themselves around in circles to “get high”, scientists said. Inspired by a viral video of a gorilla spinning around in a pool, researchers discovered it to be a common behaviour with using ropes or vines to rotate more than five times at a speed of 1.5 revolutions per second. The method is also likely to be the first kind of altering one’s mental state that ancient human ancestors ever came up with, Dr Adriano Lameira, associate professor of psychology at the University of Warwick, told The Telegraph.

‘Trapped bird’ was Harry Potter toy

A bird believed to be trapped inside the wall of a home was a Harry Potter toy, reported UPI. Volunteers from Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue were dispatched when a resident in Lincolnshire reported bird sounds coming from inside a wall at their home. The volunteers were still on their way to the home when the resident called a second time to fess up that the cause of the bird sounds that appeared to be coming from inside the wall was a stuffed Hedwig, the pet owl from the Harry Potter series.

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