yesterday was...

a good day for:

Peru, with the discovery of 144 sacks of mail destined for that country in a container in Miami. The sacks have been there since 1990, when the shipping company went into liquidation. The undelivered letters include many from Europe, including one from the Netherlands, addressed to President Alan Garcia, who left office five years ago.

a bad day for:

Magpies, who are being bullied by cuckoos, according to research conducted by Danish scientists in Spain. Anders Moller, of Copenhagen University, says Spanish cuckoos are using "Mafia style assassination techniques" to terrorise magpies into raising their young. In Andalusia, 60 per cent of magpie nests were found to contain cuckoo eggs.