Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

A Lincolnshire pensioner was fined £75 for putting a bag of rubbish - in a bin.

John Richards, 84, left a neatly parcelled carrier bag in a lamp-post bin rather than wait ten days for his fortnightly waste collection.

But council officials tracked him down and accused him of fly-tipping, reports The Sun.

They said he faced a fine of up to £2,500 if he went to court so Mr Richards, of Boston, handed over nearly three-quarters of his weekly pension to pay the £75 penalty.

He said: "It's just ludicrous. I've never thrown litter in my life. It's only a small house and it would be intolerable to keep rotting food waste indoors until the next collection."

A council spokesman said: "Public bins are there for everyone to use. If one is repeatedly filled by an individual it creates a problem."

I've done this myself a few times when my bin's been getting filled up due to the fortnightly collections. There is no way I'd be paying the £75 on the spot fine, or any subsequent fine imposed by the court. A few weeks' away in prison at the state's expense would be a good experience.

Maybe some of them are just a waste
of licence payers' money.

News story on the popularity of rabbits as pets, which, according to the Scottish Rabbit Club, is growing. The claim came as rabbit fanciers in Scotland prepared to celebrate National Rabbit Week.

Gorilla at Jersey Zoo 'recovering' after an operation to remove one of its testicles.

A page offering alternatives to ashtrays

Horse whispering meets corporate management - meet the man behind 'Equine Guided Leadership Training'.

The chance to download a virtual garden, if you think it is too wet to attempt the real thing.

A short film about 'a wild and vigorous shrub', set in a militant plant nursery.

Southampton student Hannah Green tells why she likes Southampton Common so much.

Animation about how girls cope with the onset of spots with the catchline 'Yup, it's the Spots Episode. Prepare for pus, people...'

Animation about how boys can deal with erection problems with the catchline 'Our hero suffers strange stiffies...'

Type a name in each box and hit the 'Go' button to see how much two people love each other

A chance to hear a Totnes woman's song about supermarket packing.

Which is the best beach to eat a Cornish pasty on in Cornwall?

The Swindon Advertiser may have caused concern among readers when it carried the headline: "Houses damaged as parts of UK struck by volcanoes".

The headline wasn't quite right – and a 250-word explanation/apology appeared a couple of days later.

It said: "We would like to clarify that the headline above Tuesday's story was the result of a headline-writer having the word 'volcanoes' pop into their mind when they meant to write 'tornadoes'.

"We realise that the headline we printed might have given the impression that Swindon and the rest of the country were in the process of being consumed in a maelstrom of superheated doom.

"We apologise for any distress or confusion this may have caused."

The misunderstanding was compounded when the correction referred to the original piece being in Tuesday's paper, while a picture caption mentioned Wednesday's paper.