Last week was ...

a Good Week for a stale biscuit, which turned up in a cupboard at a house in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The biscuit had a George V one-penny stamp on it and had been sent to an address in Lancashire from somewhere in the trenches during the First World War. It contained no message but was signed "Stan". The biscuit is now at the Durham Light Infantry Museum.

a Bad Week for ties, as the Board of Aldermen of South Padre Island in the Gulf of Mexico passed a resolution making it illegal to wear them. The announcement stated: "The very appearance of a tie causes a discordant note for our visitors, sometimes causing serious regression back to their humdrum and ordinary business lives." The mayor's own tie was cut off after the proclamation was ratified.

a Perilous Week for a cat, in East Corinth, Maine, which was trapped in thunderstorms for three days on a utility pole, then struck by a 7,500 volt power line. The cat plummeted to the ground in flames, where it was found, meowing loudly but apparently uninjured apart from a singed tail, by emergency crews. The cat has now been adopted by a firefighter and named "Sparky".