Yesterday was a ...

Good Day for classicists, as a scholarly wheeze was discovered as a way to import prohibited items into Sweden. Consignments of coral, whose import is banned, had been sneaked past customs officials by filling out the forms in Latin. The inspectors, fluent only in modern languages, did not recognise the scientific terms and let them through.

Bad Day for Batman, as a Batmobile children's ride was stolen from the foyer of a toy shop in Edinburgh. A police spokesman, calling himself Chief Gordon, said: "We would particularly like to speak to four suspects: one in a penguin suit; one in a green Lycra all-in-one; a man with a fixed smile and a friendly woman who likes to drink milk."

Drowsy Day for Gholam, an Egyptian who has filed for divorce from his wife, Farzaneh, after 40 days of marriage, on the grounds that she has been drugging him with sleeping pills crushed into his food in order to prevent him from discovering that she snores. Only when he went to bed one night without dinner did he learn the disturbing truth.