Pony spit helps your rose bushes ‘go crazy’

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 2 June 2023

Pony spit is the key to “sprucing up your garden”, an expert has told The Times. Isabella Tree, who runs the Knepp estate in West Sussex, said that animal saliva was the secret to growing fuller rose bushes. “If you collect some animal saliva, even if it’s pony spit or something, and anoint that little bit that you cut with your secateurs, the enzyme in the spit, the plant can read it and it goes even crazier,” she said. Tree added that “it gets bushier and throws out even more flowers”.

Sausage roll coffins ‘break taboo’

A funeral company wants to “break the taboo” of talking about death by offering custom-made coffins, including a casket designed like a Greggs sausage roll. The bosses at Go As You Please said other casket concepts include the Doctor Who Tardis, a pint of Tennent’s Lager and a bottle of Bell’s whisky. “Most of our coffin designs come from having honest conversations with the person when they are still alive,” a boss told Sky News. “We’re not dealing with novelty, we’re dealing with individuality,” he added.

Crocodile-headed dinosaurs roamed East Sussex

“Fish-eating dinosaurs with crocodile heads roamed southern England 125 million years ago”, said The Telegraph. After re-examining a tooth that was found in the early 1900s, palaeontologists at the University of Southampton found it is a species belonging to the spinosaur family which lived in East Sussex. “It’s quite possible that Britain may have once teemed with a diverse range of these semi-aquatic, fish-eating dinosaurs,” said Dr Neil Gostling, the project supervisor.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

For more odd news stories, sign up to the weekly Tall Tales newsletter

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.