So what's been happening while I've been away?
Three Spanish TV channels in the US are no longer hiring actors with moustaches for their soap operas. Scorchio! The Chief Constable of North Yorkshire police, Della Cannings, had to take off part of her uniform to buy wine at a supermarket. A man said to be 130 years old and who once killed a tiger has died in Saudi Arabia. Michael and Janet Jackson have been named the most foolish Americans of 2004. A hospital patient in England was told he'd have to wait 192 years for an operation. Those insufferable falsetto rockers The Darkness are to have a street named after them in their home town, with no lighting presumably, and lead singer Justin Hawkins has had a giraffe named after him. That, at least, makes some sense to me. An Australian man has broken the world record for performing tricks with a yo-yo in one minute. Super-pneumatic model Jordan launched her tell-all autobiography with copies full of blank pages. The Czech Republic won the team gold medal at the 21st world Pooh-sticks race. Sex stimulates the brain and makes people more intelligent, according to a brainy German researcher. Baywatch star Carmen Electra says she thinks about sex every 20 seconds. Don't we all? A policeman playing football in an amateur cup final was sent off for tackling a streaker. A German man who tried to give his Rottweiler fresher breath by brushing its teeth is recovering in hospital. A man has become a tourist attraction in the Dominican Republic after admitting himself to hospital with an erection that had lasted six days. A bull that pined for its owner has been led away from his grave after a vigil of several days. A German artist has written to the country's zoos to ask if they would feed his body to piranhas once he's dead. George Bush marked International Women's Week by accidentally paying tribute to a man. A Pennsylvania clothes shop has caused outrage by selling Magnetic Jesus Dress Up! novelty toys. Police in Germany are hunting thieves who stole two teeth from the skull of a caveman on display in a museum. A London man has found an 82-year-old bag of crisps. German council employees mistakenly felled a 500-year-old oak tree instead of the five-year-old ash tree growing beside it. To encourage tidiness Berlin's rubbish bins are to be fitted with devices which will say 'danke' or 'hallo sweetie' when something is thrown into them. A woman who has sold over 500 litres of her breast milk since last May has bought a car with the income.