Fiction will never be able to compete with the bizarre nuggets of truth continually thrown up in the daily news. This bumper collection of the year’s weirder gems, taken from news sources around the world, and organised into thematic chapters (Sex, Animals, Politics, Sport etc.), includes such tales as the chimpanzee who made crank phone calls, the chess game prematurely ended by a flying cow, and the airline pilot who had to borrow money from his passengers to refuel the plane. So forget the endless column inches on economic downturn, this is the real news and it tells you more about life on earth than you’d ever wish to know.