Horrified children were stunned to witness their teacher apparently shot dead in a playground yesterday – and even more stunned when he appeared unharmed in the school hall minutes later. Pupils as young as ten watched after science teacher Richard Kent was ‘gunned down’ only to find it was a violent role playing stunt designed to teach kids about criminal acts. Kent used a clapper board to simulate the sound of a gun-shot before falling to the ground where colleagues pretended to resuscitate him. The children are suitably traumatised and parents are naturally furious. If only teachers applied half of this innovation to actual subjects. Like teaching geography by tunnelling to the centre of the earth, maybe, or religious education by being crucified.

Got wood? An anonymous bidder does after buying two ancient wooden sex toys for £3,600. The primeval phalluses fetched the stuff sum at an auction at Brentwood, Kent and are thought to be French, dating back to the late 1700’s.

Prison guards in Sweden are furious about being odour-rawed by the powerful bum-bombs being dropped by an inmate. The guards have accused the unnamed prisoner of deliberately farting near the guards as a protest to his incarceration.

Finally the Diagram Prize, designed to celebrate the world’s oddest book titles, has announced the winner – ‘Crocheting Adventures With Hyberbolic Planes’ by Daina Taimina. The book, which explores complex geometry via crochet, beat off competition from ‘Collectable Spoons of the Third Reich’ and ‘Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter.’