Self-help manual If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs won this year's oddest book title competition, The Bookseller trade magazine said yesterday. The book took an impressive one-third of the 8,500 votes cast online in The Bookseller's 30th annual competition.
Runner up I Was Tortured By The Pygmy Love Queen, the story of a fictitious World War II pilot forced to bale out over the jungle, polled a distant 20 per cent.
The winner beat stiff competition from other shortlisted titles including the somewhat niche Cheese Problems Solved and How To Write A How To Write Book and the rather provocative Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues.
The annual competition was launched in 1978 at the Frankfurt Book Fair when it was won by the memorably titled Proceedings Of The Second International Workshop On Nude Mice.
Charged over snake vodka
A Texas man is facing charges for selling liquor without a licence after he was found peddling bottles of vodka containing dead baby rattlesnakes. Bob Popplewell, who runs Bayou Bob's Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch tourist attraction west of Fort Worth, was believed to be selling the vodka in the Asian community, where snakes are seen having aphrodisiac properties, state authorities said.
Mr Popplewell faces misdemeanour charges for not having a liquor licence but will not be charged over the 25-centimetre baby snakes in the bottles.
"I've been with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission for 20 years," Sergeant Charlie Cloud said. "This is the most bizarre thing I've been involved in."
Authorities confiscated 411 bottles of the vodka, which Mr Popplewell was selling for $23 each.
Cicciolina sues ex-husband
Italian porn star Ilona Staller, known as La Cicciolina, is suing her ex-husband Jeff Koons, saying he failed to pay about €1.5 million in child support ordered by an Italian court.
Mr Koons, a one-time Wall Street commodities broker who holds the record as the highest-paid living artist, has paid just under €200,000 in child support since 1998, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Court.
The couple divorced in 1994, and Ms Staller took their son to Italy. Four years later, their divorce was confirmed by an Italian court.
Vintage Japanese cartoons
Two early 20th century Japanese animated movies, crafted by pioneers of the "anime" that has since swept the world, have been found in good condition, a researcher at Tokyo's National Film Centre said yesterday.
US and European animated cartoons were introduced in Japan around 1914 and soon inspired works by Japanese cartoonists and artists, including Junichi Kouchi and Seitaro Kitayama, two of whose works were found in an Osaka antique store.
Nakamura Katana, Mr Kouichi's two-minute silent movie that tells the story of a samurai tricked into buying a dull-edged sword, was first released in 1917. Mr Kitayama's "Urashima Taro", based on a folk tale in which a fisherman is transported to a fantastic underwater world on the back of a turtle, came out the following year.
RAF trip for honeymooners
It may be the biggest honeymoon secret ever - from 2011, newlyweds can start their dream trip on a Royal Air Force mid-air refuelling plane, and the chances are they will be blissfully unaware of their luck.
Britain's military is leasing a fleet of aerial tankers from a private consortium led by Airbus parent EADS in a landmark outsourcing deal unveiled yesterday.
The converted A330 passenger jets can carry 60 tonnes of fuel to refuel up to four fighters far away from base or else serve as transporters carrying 300 troops and their equipment.
Officials involved in the project say some of the jets will also double as charter planes for tourists to earn their keep whenever they are not needed to serve the front line.
Waging war with mobiles
For 10 years, Nepal's Maoist guerillas waged a bitter "people's war". Now they are waging an election battle - with mobile phones.
With a peace deal in place and elections planned next month, Maoists say they have started using text messages to win voters after the election commission enforced a ban on putting up posters, banners and slogans in public places.
"A new thinking and leadership for a new Nepal... Give Maoists a chance this time," read a text message bearing the Maoist hammer and sickle sign at the top.
Nepal now has about 2.5 million mobile connections among its 26 million people.