So January's over: and here's why it's now OK to feel chipper. Spring is coming. Maybe tonight's the night you'll break a month long detox. It's Friday. And these facts, collected by Ink Tank blog, will (temporarily) make you feel like the world is a brain-meltingly wonderful place (which it might be).

“Now you're not going to believe this,” said Glenn Boylan as he took to the stage at the Santon Bridge Inn in the Lake District valley of Wasdale. But, of course, that was the whole point. Glenn was defending his title of World's Biggest Liar in the competition that is held annually in the pub.

Niger's Hamadou Djibo Issaka received the roar of a home gold medallist from the Eton Dorney crowd as he finished 33rd and last in the men's single sculls.

Caroline Spelman’s proposed badger cull to halt the rise of TB in cattle will in fact spread the disease, campaigners will tell the High Court tomorrow.

Chris Cairns' lawyer has called on the International Cricket Council to censure Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi over "defamatory" comments which he claims have jeopardised Cairns' future earnings.

Discovery on Northumbrian island means animal swam three miles in North Sea, to amazement of naturalists

The villagers were relieved when the protesters moved in. After two futile years of letter-writing and campaigning they see the shock troops of the eco-movement as their final chance.

Otters roam through central Glasgow and have returned to almost all of Scotland, a survey has found. The fish-eating mammal's population north of the border may now be more than 10,000. Rosemary and Jim Green, who have carried out two previous Scottish otter surveys over the past 20 years, checked more than 3,000 riverbank sites throughout the country looking for otter droppings or "spraints".

The International Otter Survival Fund was launched in November to conserve and protect otters, aquatic carnivores of the weasel family. Of the 13 species of otter in the world, the British native species - the Eurasian otter, or Lutra lutra - has fast declined in number during the last 50 years. Some 95 per cent of its traditional territory has been lost and many deaths are caused by cars, nets and illegal trapping. As otters are at the top of the aquatic food chain, they are sensitive to any form of disturbance, pollution or habitat destruction. Such sensitivity makes the otter a good indicator of the status of the environment. The IOSF aims to protect the remaining populations, to support research into otters and their conservation, plan public education programmes and help rehabilitate orphaned or injured animals.

STOCKHOLM (Reuter) - A wolverine which killed more than 60 reindeer in Sweden's frozen north was spared the huntsman's bullet.

Lymington reed-beds in the New Forest, which have been bought for pounds 80,000 by the Hampshire Wildlife Trust. The 80-acre Site of Special Scientific Interest is one of the largest wetlands in southern England and one of the few places where otters still survive. It also serves as a feeding ground for migratory birds.