Hero
Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist who tried to use his tricks of the trade to secure a bumper payday. Haaning was commissioned by a gallery in northern Denmark to recreate two of his earlier pieces, which used banknotes to represent average incomes. But after sending him about £60,000 in notes, they only got back empty frames, which Haaning had titled Take the Money and Run. “The work is that I have taken their money,” he explained on Danish radio. “It’s not theft.” This week, a court rejected his foolproof theoretical reasoning and ordered him to repay the cash.
Hero
Rob Byrne, a 61-year-old grandfather from Hampshire, who fought off an 11ft python that came though his conservatory window. The rampaging reptile bit Byrne’s arm, but he managed to break free and send it slithering back into the garden, after which it was eventually captured. The snake’s owner hasn’t yet come forward, but Byrne says he wants tighter controls on snake ownership. “I did not expect to be attacked by a giant python in my own home.”
Villain
Boris Johnson, according to Boris Johnson. My dog Dilyn “is a total sweetie”, the former PM writes in the Daily Mail, but one day, when I was running around Buckingham Palace Gardens, his lead slipped from my hand and – “pow!” – he launched himself, “a lethal missile of fur, fang and nail”, at a nearby gosling. The poor bird died at the scene, but Dilyn was just doing what was in his nature. “I was the culprit.”
Villain
Greggs, for mixing up its Richmonds. Observant pastry-lovers recently noticed that a branch of the bakery in the North Yorkshire market town of Richmond was decorated with tasteful, black-and-white photos of Richmond-upon-Thames – a suburb in south-west London more than 240 miles away. Not a good look for a brand which bigs up its northern English identity.
Villain
Extinction Rebellion, which might have killed off marine wildlife in a stunt it pulled in the French town of Colmar. Eco activists dyed the local river bright green to protest a newly approved toxic waste dump nearby. Though they say they used fluorescein, a harmless organic dye, Colmar’s mayor claims that dozens of dead fish were later found floating on the water’s surface.