Russians are no strangers to vodka, but a binge by one laid-off factory worker who consumed an estimated eight bottles in a session had even seasoned doctors gasping in astonishment.

Sergei Kondratyev, from Yekaterinburg city, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper he had just been laid off and, feeling "awfully disappointed", headed to a grocery store for a bottle of vodka and two lumps of cream cheese.

A friend soon joined the 32-year-old - whom the newspaper noted was of large stature and thus presumably able to take his drink - and after that, his recollection of events became hazy.

"We did the analysis and gasped.... According to the most modest estimate, this man drank no less than eight bottles," said the chief neurosurgeon at Yekaterinburg's hospital number 23, Stanislav Chursin, commenting as his patient recovered from a coma. (AFP)

Doctor held over secret filming

Police in southern Spain yesterday said they have arrested a doctor they suspect of using a pen camera to secretly film his female colleagues as they were undressing.

He would place the pen in the pocket of his white coat which he would then strategically place in a locker room of the clinic just before female employees came in to change, a police spokesman in the city of Seville said.

The 25-year-old doctor was discovered by a colleague who noticed the unusual pen and who then watched the images on it of women undressing. The colleague then informed the police, who arrested him on charges of invasion of privacy. The spokesman said the man was "a bit obsessed with a woman who worked at the clinic," located in the town of Utrera, outside Seville. (AFP)

Schoolgirls vie for NZ amateur title

Cecilia Cho and Lydia Ko had a good reason to miss the second day of the new school term yesterday - the pair were battling for the New Zealand women's amateur golf championship over 36-holes in west Auckland.

Both bespectacled and wearing pink tops, the 14-year-old Miss Cho beat Miss Ko, who only turned 12 last Friday, four and three after establishing a four-hole lead through the first 18 holes.

The pair were the youngest finalists in the 115-year history of the amateur championship while Miss Cho was the second-youngest to win the title, at three weeks and three days older than Larissa Eruera was when she won in 2006.

Miss Cho had established a six-hole lead by the 26th, then held off a spirited fightback from Ko, who won the next three holes before Miss Cho's approach on the 33rd set up a birdie to win.

Coach Guy Wilson predicted a promising future for Miss Ko.

"The sky's the limit really for Lydia," he told Television New Zealand. "As long as (her) interest remains and she can keep developing, then she has a huge future in the game." (Reuters)

Bowlers skittled by excess baggage fees

Malaysia's elite bowlers were left skittled at Kuala Lumpur airport when officials demanded excess baggage fees before allowing the national team to fly to the World Ranking Masters in Italy.

The team's weighty equipment - specially drilled bowling balls - tipped the scales at the airport leaving the five competitors rattled, team manager Cheah Ban Cheng said.

"It was an ordeal for the bowlers... having to negotiate with the officers of the Malaysian Airlines to reduce the charges for the excess baggage," Mr Cheng told Malaysia's newspaper.

"Finally, our extra load was reduced from 70kg to 15kg."

The team eventually settled a bill of 2,600 Ringgit (€554), Mr Cheng said.

Tenpin Bowling is a hugely popular mass-participation sport in Malaysia. (Reuters)

Perfume thugs sentenced to jail

Life stopped smelling rosy for a New York gang sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for hijacking trucks loaded with perfumes and cosmetics.

A court in White Plains, New York, sentenced the three men to 55, 37 and 26 years on Monday for a series of armed hijackings in the New York region between September 2006 and January 2007, prosecutors said.

In one hit the gang stormed a truck carrying more than $500,000 worth of perfume, pistol-whipped the drivers, then drove the truck to New Jersey for unloading.

In another attack, two of the convicted men took part in the hijacking of a tractor-trailer containing more than 150,000 dollars worth of Elizabeth Arden cosmetics in Pennsylvania. (AFP)

Thieves hide behind flu masks

Three armed thieves wore the blue surgical masks now ubiquitous in flu-hit Mexico City to hide their faces as they robbed watches from a department store, Mexican media said yesterday.

Employees and security guards at a branch of the Sanborns department store told the Daily Excelsior the thieves were able to slip through the shop on Sunday without attracting attention as they blended into a sea of masked shoppers.

One of the robbers threatened store assistants with a gun while another guarded the door and the third helped himself to watches from the jewelery department.

Mexico is in the grip of a new strain of flu that has killed up to 149 people and set off a major global health scare after infecting people in the United States, Canada and Europe, raising fears of a flu pandemic.

Banks in the Mexican capital have been forced to abandon normal rules over not letting in customers wearing face coverings as the government took emergency measures over the weekend and advised residents in the crowded city to wear face masks at all times outside their homes. (Reuters)