A Victorian postbox sold for £2,500 at an antiques fair yesterday.
The 10-stone square box was one of six being offered at the Westonbirt Antiques and Fine Art Fair, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire.
The heavy boxes have the benefit of being difficult for burglars to steal and make ideal replacements, said event promoter Duncan Phillips.
The collection was being offered by Chiltern Antiques, of Henley- on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Mr Phillips said today: "The square iron boxes date from the Victorian era to the 1950s. They are all recovered from walls and sub post offices.
"They are restored and look lovely. Some people will use them as their own private postboxes, if they have enough room, because they are difficult to steal.
In the picture the Victorian postbox is the one on the right. (PA)
'We have bananas and heroin today'
Spanish police have uncovered at least 25 kilos of heroin hidden in boxes of plantains destined for the shelves of Madrid supermarkets, local media reported yesterday.
A worker at the low-cost Lidl supermarket found a brick of the drug as he unloaded a box of the fruit, which is related to the banana, on Saturday morning, El Mundo newspaper said.
Police were alerted and hunted around all the Lidl branches in the Madrid region as well as the main city market. Sniffer dogs found up to 25 packets of the drug.
Lidl withdrew all the plantains, which had come from Ivory Coast and Ecuador, from its shops, the newspaper said. Lidl representatives could not be reached for comment. (Reuters)
Office bookings
The number of people booking holidays online while at work is on the rise, according to a survey.
As many as 64 per cent of those organising trips online do so from the office - a rise of 11per cent compared with a year ago, the poll by travel company sunshine.co.uk found.
Of the office bookers, a third said they rarely took a lunch break so did not feel guilty about using the working day to organise their holiday.
Of the 2,054 people polled, a total of 302 were in management positions. Of these, 22 per cent had booked holidays while at work and said they had no doubt their staff did the same thing.
Sunshine.co.uk managing director Chris Brown said: "I am not at all surprised about the increase in online booking. Booking while at work is bound to be popular because the 'Monday Blues' kick in and we all need cheering up. Also, with the current financial climate people are working extremely hard and extra long hours, people just need something to look forward too." (PA)
What a buzz!
A top hotel is coping comfortably with half a million extra guests.
The Lancaster London (formerly the Royal Lancaster) has installed beehives on its roof.
The 500,000 bees, which were living in the middle of an estate at Camberwell in south London, are now supplying honey for breakfast and afternoon tea for guests at the hotel.
Pots of honey will also be offered to VIPs and honeymooning guests, while the wax from the hives will be used to create candles for gifts.The hives are protected from the wind and the hotel hopes the bees will produce around 40kg of honey a year. (PA)
No maintenance
Councils spend thousands of pounds on road signs but some authorities rarely clean them, it has been revealed.
In Ross, Skye and Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, about £100,000 is spent on road signs every year, but they are cleaned "very rarely", with only about £3,000 spent on the clean-up.
In contrast, Hertfordshire council cleans signs once a year at a cost of more than £380,000, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and disclosed yesterday by breakdown service Autonational Rescue. (PA)
Auto pilot
Tests will start next year on cars that "drive themselves" in an initiative which could become a reality within 10 years.
Co-ordinated by a UK company, the EU project is called Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) and involves a "carpooling" roadtrain theory for use on motorways.
The roadtrain would consist of six to eight vehicles whose occupants would be able to relax, read the paper or chat on mobile phones while travelling. (PA)