Smash hit

Superstar polar bear Knut turned one at the end of 2007. By early 2008 his initial charm had faded, and he slowly morphed into a yellow-furred snarling man-sized bear-beast who was often kept out of sight of zoo-goers in Berlin. Enter Flocke, a rival polar bear cub born in Nuremburg Zoo. Learning from the mistakes of Knut's keepers, where Knut got attached to his keeper then became grief-stricken at his friend's untimely death, four people look after her so that she doesn't get too attached to any one human. She first drew blood from clawing one of her keepers at at 5 weeks old (but didn't mean it). Flocke is fed on a mix of puppy milk, vitamins and cod-liver oil with a shot of maize syrup to prevent constipation.

6. Lion, Tiger or Guerilla?

Going for Gold is a lunchtime game show on channel Five. During the warm-up of the show, contestants are asked a few questions to stop the nerves and loosen up the braincells. On one show's warm-up a very nervous contestant was asked “Which Andrew Lloyd Webber musical features Che Guevara?” “Er, The Lion King?” she answered hopefully. "

No" replied the quizmaster. "It’s Evita". "Ahhh replied the contestant, "I thought you meant Shere Khan! ”The quizmaster gave her a look for a while before deciding to tell her... “Er, he’s in The Jungle Book...”

7. The most useless sniffer dogs in the world

A customs test at Japan's Narita airport placed a quarter of a pound of cannabis in a randomly chosen suitcase on its way to the baggage hold.

The idea was to to test out the new set of sniffer dogs. However the dogs failed to detect the presence of any cannabis and the officer in charge of the test, for reasons we will presumably never know, suddenly found that he could not remember which bag he had put it in. Anyone finding the package was asked to contact customs officials. Unsurprisingly, the lucky air traveller stayed mute.

8. Australia's phantom quokka shokka.

Two years on from Mark Oaten’s confessions,his fellow Liberal and leader of the opposition in Australia Troy Buswell admitted being a chair-sniffer. A former staffer in Buswell's office said he once started to grab the office chairs going 'aahww, which one did you sit in? I’ll be able to tell'. Buswell was said to be “groaning and making sexually satisfying noises.. It was awful”, continued the staffer, “My colleagues were just stunned into silence.” Suddenly it was open season on Mr Buswell. A sacked ex-colleague claimed there were “more stories” to come about the party leader which resulted in Buswell being forced to deny publicly that “something inappropriate in the past may have happened between himself and a Quokka", a small wallaby-like marsupial native to Rottnest Island off the West coast of Australia.

9. Kangaroo Karma.

Brendon Erhardt, of Northern Territories, Australia, went out driving to shoot at kangaroos, or so he told police a few hours later when he'd been caught speeding. The police found Mr Erhardt masturbating at the wheel of his car - while doing 150km/h. He had two cannabis plants on the back seat and in his boot was another 5kg of cannabis, two drug pipes and a loaded rifle. For some reason he'd been videoing his act of self-love too. When officers stopped Erhardt he tried to reason with them saying that what he'd done was not dangerous and that "the only person he could hurt was himself." When the officers found the drugs Erhardt claimed he had "found'' the drugs at a rest stop, and that he intended to smoke all of it at home. If sold, the street value was estimated at A$136,000 (or twice that in indigenous communities).

10. RIP Nyac, Youtube sensation.

One day in late 2007 a video of a trip to Vancouver Aquarium was posted on Youtube by an aquarium visitor, Cynthia Holmes. It showed two sea otters floating around holding paws. These two otters, Nyac and her companion Milo, became internet sensations, as the video has racked up almost 12 million views so far. Sadly in September Nyac passed away. Nyac had come to the aquarium in 1989, as one of the few marine wildlife survivors of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, just off Prince William Sound, Alaska, which is still considered one of the world's worst ever environmental disasters. Nyac was one of eight rescued otters to find a home in Vancouver and by summer 2008 she was showing all the signs of advanced age - 20 is considered at the upper age limit for female otters. Her condition worsened and she was diagnosed with leukaemia before leaving Milo for that great otter pool in the sky.

Popbitch: Celebrity Excess And Other Monkey Business is published by Century, price £16.99

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