[Cyclefrance]

Must be the sap rising and spring and all that - some good ones this week in the normally reliable Sunday Times:

1. It's magic!

A gang of steet robbers just learned the hard way: never try to steal from a magician. Four teenagers attacked David Copperfield and his two female assistants last week after a show in West Palm Beach, Florida. They took money, passports and plane tickets from the women, but Copperfield said he had nothing. He even turned out his pockets for the attackers, but managed to conceal his passport, mobile phone and wallet. The gang were arrested as they escaped by car after Copperfield used the phone to alert police.

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2. That takes guts

Three sports fans have invented the ultimate drinking accessory: a strap-on beer gut. The £20 Beerbelly is a container that allows users to sneak beer into events where drink is banned. 'Most men find that people barely give them a second glance while wearing it,' says Brooks lambert, one of the belly's inventors. But a reporter who tried it in New York discovered a drawback. A street trader called out to him: 'Would it kill you to do a few sit-ups?'

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3. Spooky loos

Publican Roger Froggatt is calling in an exorcist after confronting an apparition in the ladies lavatory. Frogatt, 49, was investigating an early morning alarm in his pub, the Low valley Arms, near Barnsley, Yorkshire, and found three televisions switched on. So he went to see if anyone was hiding in the lavatories.

'When I went into the ladies,' he told the Yorkshire Post, 'there was a figure of what I believe was a woman with no face and silvery grey hair, dressed in a white gown. I was that shaken I couldn't even speak to the police when they arrived. My wife took two officers into the toilets and they saw them flushing by themselves.' A police spokesman confirmed: 'On entereing the toilet area, the toilets in the cubicles began to flush themselves. We are still investigating.'

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4. Sweeping entrance

Police raced to a house expecting to catch burglars, but instead found a naked man stuck in the chimney. Michael Urbano, 23, had locked himself out of the house and decided to strip off and try his luck down the chimney, say police in Hayward, California. Urbano, who was firmly wedged for four hours was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs.

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