Still Time For Trashy Tales

Despite the sizeable stacks of ever-increasing exercise books and stamps for every eventuality that seem to perpetually surround me, I've still managed to keep up with the news this week. Among the daily headlines detailing horrors in Kenya and Syria, I came across several stories that could easily slip you by and need sharing...

Metro's front page told of a gifted student's attempt to rob a Liverpool branch of Barclays with a BB gun: http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/24/model-pupil-turned-into-police-after-carrying-out-video-game-style-bank-robbery-4104453/ 

Chessington theme park have employed style gurus, threatening the continuation of the leopard print trend: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-24240527 

Villagers in Shantou City in China's Guangdong province have befriended an escaped hippo with the aid of multiple cabbages: http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Escaped_hippo_swam_out_of_flooded_zoo 

Fake penises and urine are apparently easily obtainable online; an Italian long-distance runner attempted to cheat a drugs test by purchasing said items: http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/24/italian-athlete-accused-of-using-fake-penis-to-deceive-doping-testers-4103884/ 

And a survey by Opinium Research has rather tellingly revealed 21% of men and 10% of women haven't read a book in the last year with 49% of those questioned claiming they don't have time to read: http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/25/only-one-in-five-knows-william-shakespeare-wrote-hamlet-4103304/