Green Cross Code Man – who featured in child road safety campaigns in the 1970s – is back.

And this time the character, played once again by Star Wars actor Dave Prowse, is appearing in safety videos aimed at adults, launched on YouTube by insurance company More Than. Now 79, Prowse – dressed as Green Cross Code Man – is seen admonishing adults for a lack of awareness of road safety due to concentrating on modern technology rather than keeping an eye out for traffic. He urges them to apply the green cross code: stop, look and listen.

Musical send-off favourite changes

Frank Sinatra’s My Way has been replaced by Monty Python’s Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life as the most popular song played at funerals, research has found.

Traditional hymns, football anthems and classic pop songs top the list of the “funeral music chart”, according to a study by the Co-operative Funeralcare of songs played at 30,000 funerals. The top 10 included Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life, The Lord Is My Shepherd, Abide With Me, Match Of The Day theme, My Way, All Things Bright And Beautiful and Angels by Robbie Williams.

Bit of a do at student house party

Police were called after more than 200 people turned up at an S&M and M&S party held in a terraced student house.

Some revellers at the party – at a house in Jesmond, Newcastle, a popular area for students – paraded in skimpy leather outfits carrying whips, while others wore some of Marks & Spencer’s more traditional lines.According to the Newcastle Tab student newspaper, one of the hosts said afterwards: “First and last time I give a policeman a tour of my house dressed in gimp gear.” Photographs shared on social media included one of a topless man with an oiled chest wearing a leather dog collar and lead.

Moustache ruling for officers

Colombian police no longer have to wait until they reach the top ranks to grow a moustache.

Since 1997, a code of conduct gave only officers above the rank of lieutenant the right to sport a little hair above their top lip. Rather than shave, lower-ranking officers decided to sue and Colombia’s state council sided with them in a ruling. The administrative court said the prohibition violates a constitutional right to develop one’s own personality. The ruling affects tens of thousands of officers.

Hitler painting under the hammer

A 100-year-old watercolour of Munich’s old city hall is expected to fetch at least €50,000 at auction this weekend, not so much for its artistic value as for the signature in the bottom left corner: “A. Hitler.”

Nuremberg’s Weidler auction house said the painting is one of some 2,000 painted by Adolf Hitler and is thought to be from about 1914, when he was struggling to make a living as an artist, almost two decades before rising to power as the Nazi dictator.

It has drawn interest from around the world, with most viewing it as a curiosity or as an investment, said auction house director Kathrin Weidler. It is being sold by a pair of elderly sisters, whose grandfather bought the painting in 1916.

Beach treat for 100-year-old

Ruby Holt spent most of her 100 years on a farm in rural Tennessee, picking cotton and raising four children. She had never been to the beach, until recently.

She visited the Gulf of Mexico thanks to a partnership between the assisted living centre where she lives and an organisation that grants wishes to the elderly. Ms Holt laughed as the Gulf water hit her feet, and she walked across the white sand with the help of aides from the home. The trip was made possible by Brookdale Senior Living Solutions, where Ms Holt lives in Columbia, Tennessee, and the Wish of a Lifetime organisation. She said her farming family was never able to afford a trip to the coast, and she had left Tennessee only once before.

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