Meanwhile...

Neglected news items from the past week.

Neglected news items from the past week.

Discordant choir

The 64 members of the Municipal Choir in Inchon, Korea, have been sacked together with their conductor, after an anniversary concert ended in discord. After ignoring the conductor's baton, the choir first sang too softly to be heard, then, when the conductor walked off the stage, they sang a traditional song very well without him. The audience booed and threw fire extinguishers at the stage, while the singers cursed and shook their fists.

Lucrative hump

There were more than 1900 entrants for the "Miss Dromedary" event in Umm Raqiba, the first beauty contest for camels ever held in Saudi Arabia. Fifty winners shared $500,000 in prizes.

Eight wrong digits

Zhang Zhuo, 12, set a new world record by reciting the value of the mathematical constant pi to 4,000 decimal places in 25 minutes, 30 seconds with an error rate assessed at 0.2 per cent.

Mac McDonald's

Fort William, Scotland, is to have Britain's first McDonald's restaurant with the menus in Gaelic. Macan Hor is the Gaelic for Big Macs.

Police in Abu Dhabi have arrested five Pakistanis accused of trying to smuggle 100kg (220lbs) of hashish inside ketchup bottles from McDonald's.

Fruit foils ape rape

In Kuwait, a sexually frustrated ape, attempting to force his attentions on a Filipino maid, was pacified when neighbours threw it a banana. According to the daily al-Watan, the ape's desire vanished as soon as he got the banana. The ape was kept as a pet by neighbours.

Pub grub

The RSPCA has condemned a live worm and maggot eating contest that was held at a pub in Swansea. "I know they are only worms, but they are living creatures," a spokesman said. "I am sure there are other ways to attract business."