It’s back. After an elongated holiday, the Weird News Round-Up has returned to Bizarre Towers refreshed, revitalised and inexplicably missing a leg. But it's skill in sniffing out the wackiest and weirdest global news remains undiminished. So feast your brains on these laughable headlines…

First to the story that's gripping our cat-loving nation - the woman with a serious kitty hatred. The unknowingly caught on camera pedestrian stops to stroke a cat. And then decides to throw it in a wheelie bin. The Coventry moggy was rescued 15 hours later by its relieved owners but outrage has led to the now-identified feline assaulter reqiring police protection.

Perhaps that cat lost one of it’s fabled nine lives, but what about the man who has already died 28 times? Motorcyclist Steve Nixon’s heart stopped 28 times when he had a massive heart attack after having a road accident. But the never-say-die attitude of the staff at University Hospital, Coventry, got his heart sufficiently revved at the 29^th attempt.

At least Mr.Nixon knows he's lucky to be alive, which is more than can be said for this bullet-headed Polish man. When entering hospital for a routine cyst removal, both patient and medics were surprised to find a .22 calibre bullet lodged in his head. According to the man, he had been shot five years previous at a New Years Eve party - but had simply forgotten because he was so wasted. Sounds like a recipe for one mighty hangover.

Being London-based, rat racing commuters, the team at Bizarre are no strangers to traffic hell. But this gruesome gridlock, in which Chinese motorists had to endure a nine-day wait in a 60km long tailback, is just ridiculous.

Meanwhile a senior Italian lawyer has accused mafia kingpins of communicating in a most novel way - via secret text messages broadcast on an Italian football program. Enzo Macri, talking to a parliamentary anti-mafia committee, said imprisoned Mafiosi were keeping up-to-date with all the latest on-the-street gangster news by watching Sunday afternoon soccer ball show Quelli che il Calcio. The program features a continual ticker of viewers texts which, according to Macri, are used to transmit coded messages.

Finally Ripley's Beleive It Or Not! have found a winner in their Great Face Off competition: Franklin Hannett, 37, from New Jersey who produced a suitably bug-eyed, freaky deaky face to carry off the crown of craziest mug.