Outside Edge (18/07/10)

Given the antics of professional golfers, it's no surprise to learn that playing a round is the third most popular excuse for male love cheats, according to
IllicitEncounters.com, who specialise in arranging extra-marital affairs: 13.8 per cent like a bit of rough because you can play on your own and thus avoid the need to provide an alibi. A story of love and death is emerging in Belo Horizonte, Brazil where Bruno Fernandes, goalkeeper for champions Flamengo, is accused of plotting to murder his girlfriend Eliza Samudio after she had his child against his wishes. His cousin claims he saw her being killed by a former policeman, then her body was fed to rottweilers. Police are looking for leads.

5,000

Litres of water drunk by swimmers in Vienna's 18 public pools each day. Austrian officials also considered banning bermuda shorts, which absorb 2.5l of water. So shut your mouth and put your Speedos on or you're in deep trouble.

Hits and runs of the week

A school American football referee in Springfield, Oregon is suing the local education authority for $264,722.51 in damages after he was hit by a golf cart driven by a two-year-old. School employees are said to have left the keys in the ignition on the edge of the pitch. On the Isle of Wight Neil Cutts abandoned his car in the middle of the pitch at St Helens Cricket Club after five balls had been hit into his garden. And in North Baddesley, Hampshire, Loretta Cole was arrested after refusing to return a cricket ball that her neighbours' children hit into her yard. Police asked her to give the ball back three times, and ended up taking it with them as evidence of theft. They are looking for her fence.

Good week for

Stella McCartney, fashion designer is appointed creative director for London 2012 and will design athletes' kits... England women's hockey team, beat Germany 2-1 in Champions Trophy after a German goal was disallowed using a video referral... and Helen and Carol Galashan, identical twin synchronised divers, both achieve first-class honours degrees in sports science.

Bad week for

Sepp Blatter, Fifa president was called "Joseph Sepp Bellend Blatter" by the South African government when they gave him an award... Iroquois lacrosse team had to forfeit their first game of the World Championships in the UK after the British consulate refused to recognise their Native American passports... and Raymond Mould, racehorse owner had his 1988 Cheltenham Gold Cup stolen in a burglary at his home in Gloucestershire.

Snap decisions of the week

The singer Enrique Iglesias, squeeze of Anna Kournikova, will apparently honour his bet to get drunk and water-ski in the nude across Key Biscayne in Miami if Spain won the World Cup. Let's hope he has more luck than Michael Newman in Broome, Western Australia who, after he was thrown out of the pub for being drunk, decided to try to ride a 16ft crocodile in a local zoo. The 800kg beast, called "Fatso", was groggy because of the cold weather but still mauled his leg. Showing the staying power of a drunk, however, the 36-year-old returned to the boozer "bleeding heavily" and had another beer before he went to hospital. No doubt he was boasting about it. What a big mouth.

a.tong@independent.co.uk