And now, the news in your part of the world...

Recently, across the muddy waters of the Hudson River, a New Jersey man walked into his bathroom to find a hole in his ceiling and debris scattered across the room. Nestled sweetly in the floor was a golfball sized chunk of, well, something. It turns out that not too many miles away a piece of space debris had narrowly missed my head.

Last Wednesday a large African American lady in Times Square subway station took particular offence to a police dog sniffing another African American. "That dog be racial profilin'!" she shouts, "He's a racist! That cop dog's a racist!"

The Queen was in town last week. Having not been to America for 16 years the locals thought they would keep her waiting a little longer on the plane while they struggled to put the red carpet together on the runway. It was 15ft too short. But later the President made amends when he declared in his speech to our 281 year old monarch, "You helped our nation to celebrate its bicentennial in seventeen-sev- err, 1976." He then gave her a wink. Smooth, George. Smooth.

A few days back a kid in Oregon went to see the family doctor after complaining to his mother that he could hear popping sounds, "like Rice Crispies". They were stunned to find a couple of spiders nesting in his ear canal. The popping sound resulted from the spiders walking around on his eardrum. The boy's mother believes the spiders got into her son's ear when they were weeding the garden together. I weed in the park recently.

A couple of local "inventors" have created a computer mouse... out of a real mouse. They've shared the invaluable instructions on how to create this IT taxidermy crossover here so you too can own this tasteful computer accessory.

Between the tap-dancing spiders, hollering commuters, cosmic projectiles, and tech-savvy rodents I see that I may be living in one of the more - how shall we say - colourful countries on earth.

Still, at least they've got the right man for the job at the helm.