Hero
A sexy Italian statue, which was unveiled this week in Campania to honour a 19th-century socialist uprising. The sculpture of a female labourer in the town of Sapri “possesses some very particular, ah, assets”, says The Cut. She looks “extremely hot” in her “sheer and very clingy dress”. Not everyone is impressed: one female politician has called it an “offence to women” and there have been calls for it to be knocked down.
Villain
Booking.com, which left a family in tears after messing up their reservation at a five-star watersports resort in Cornwall and offering them a “similar alternative” in the west London suburb of Uxbridge, 250 miles away. Their original choice of hotel has an aqua park, a floating volleyball court, a wave pool and wakeboarding. Uxbridge, said the father, is “not a place anyone would choose to have a holiday”.
Villains
The Union Jack-patterned tail lights of some Mini Coopers, which light up as arrows when used as indicator lights. Unfortunately the arrows point in the wrong direction. Mini could have had full Union Jacks on both sides, meaning the indicators would have pointed the right way, says Jason Torchinsky in the US motoring blog Jalopnik. “Instead they chose chaos.”
Heroes
Mice, which are compassionate creatures. Researchers in Tokyo have found that when the rodents witness their peers getting bullied, they develop depressive symptoms. After 10 days of this second-hand stress, the mice become “almost like hikikomori”: a Japanese phenomenon where young adults become recluses.
Villain
A church in Co Durham, which has angered residents by hosting a beer festival in the local graveyard. The vicar organised the four-day event to pay for repairs to the church’s clock, but it quickly descended into chaos, with revellers using headstones as seats and graves as tables. On the neighbourhood Facebook group, one member suggested the village green “would have been a more fitting location”.
Villains
Glastonbury hippies, whose urine contaminates nearby rivers with such high levels of illegal drugs that rare European eels are becoming hyperactive and suffering from impaired gills and hormonal changes. After the 2019 festival, MDMA levels in River Whitelake were 104 times higher than normal and cocaine levels 40 times higher.