Villain
The British weather. The position of the jet stream is to blame, says the Met Office’s Oli Claydon. At this time of year it’s normally north of us, but at the moment it’s “slightly south of us, allowing in colder air from the north”. It’s set to remain there for the next few days.
Hero
Juan Francisco Valle, who rescued a baby from freezing waters near the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. The Civil Guard officer spent two days in the water saving migrants who attempted to swim to the city from Morocco on Monday and Tuesday. Valle said his team are “trained to face almost any situation at sea”, but had never encountered a “human tide like this one”.
Villain
Wally the walrus, which blocked the launch of a lifeboat during a test rescue mission in Pembrokeshire. The one-tonne walrus has taken to lounging on a slipway at a lifeboat station and refused to move for 20 minutes, even after volunteers deployed an air horn and a hosepipe.
Hero
An elderly Japanese man, who gave his life’s savings to a city outside Tokyo. The man, who did not identify himself, appeared at the city hall in Yokosuka on Monday and asked that a backpack be given to the mayor. Inside was 60 million yen in cash (£390,000) and a letter that read: “This is the money I’ve been saving since the first grade. Please make use of it. It’s a donation”.
Villain
Pip, a Welsh dog that, according to a letter in the Telegraph, would board the bus near Mumbles, Swansea, travel five miles into the city centre, kill a couple of hours in a park, then catch the bus home. Passengers weren’t best pleased. Not only was Pip not paying a fare, he always nabbed the best seat on the bus – on the front row of the upper deck.
Villain
Visitors to the Honest Gallery in Soho, who proved to be anything but. Artist Andrew Brown hung four works there, each worth £1,000, and left a donation box for would-be buyers. A sign in the room said donations would go towards underprivileged families. Instead, £4,000 worth of art – along with the signs – was stolen within hours. “It was an experiment in human nature to see if we could expect people to do the right thing,” says Brown. “It was a dismal failure.”