Comment: Barometer

Adult interest

If you see Sid, tell him. One of the biggest sex businesses in Europe has just floated on the German stock exchange. You may not have heard - yet - of Frau Beate Uhse, but 98 per cent of Germans have. Here she is, posing with one of her company's sexy share certificates. Frau Uhse, 79, is an ex-Luftwaffe pilot - yes, really - who started her erotic empire after the war when she observed that dozens of women in her town were becoming pregnant because of shyness about contraception. In 1951 she started selling condoms by mail order. She gradually developed a more adventurous repertoire and cashed in on German unification when the East Germans were inducted into a previously forbidden and swinging world of rude underwear, ointments and horse whips. She now wants to address the vast market offered by the Internet. Vorsprung durch Technik, as they say.

Massive mastiff

There are many candidates for the title of fattest dog in the world. Many of them host daytime TV shows. But the Guinness Book of Records official heaviest dog in the world is an Old English mastiff named Kell. This is one big bitch - only two years old but already weighing in at 19st 4lb. Kell may be a bit of a comfort eater. Her owner Tom Scott rescued her from a neglectful past and she wouldn't, at first, eat properly. Now her daily diet consists of 15lb of fresh mince, four pints of goats' milk and six duck eggs. Mr Scott says that "I am planning to use Kell for breeding at some point". Might have to get her figure back first, though.

You must remember...

According to American psychologists, your first romantic kiss is the most unforgettable experience of your life. We remember 90 per cent of the details surrounding our first snog, or "anatomical juxtaposition of two orbiscularis oris muscles in a state of contraction", as the experts call it. Nice to know that a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh and the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.

Image of the week

Fancy a burn-up? Sean Dempsey's snap of easy-riding Chelsea Pensioners Danny Burns, 73, and Ian Hurley, 70, proudly on parade.